CASE IX.
TAROTS, TAROCCHINO, AND MINCHIATE. TYPES OF ITALIAN CARDS. MANUFACTURE OF PLAYING CARDS.
The question of the origin of playing cards in Europe, whether they were introduced from the East, or an independent invention in France, Italy, or Germany, has been the object of much discussion. It may be regarded as conclusively settled that playing cards were invented in China in the twelfth century, and in view of the remarkable similarities between the card and card games of China and those of Europe which have been brought to light by Mr. Wilkinson, it may be profitable to suspend further consideration of the matter until the results of his studies are made public. Italy appears to be the oldest home of the playing card in Europe, and the earliest Italian packs are said to be those which the Italians call Tarocchi. Several types of these cards are found in Italy. According to Willshire these games are known as the Tarots of Venice or Lombardy, the Tarocchino of Bologna, and the Minchiate of Florence. The first of these, the old Venetian Tarot, he regards as the parent of all. The sequence consists of 78 cards, i. e., of 22 emblematic cards of Tarots proper, and 56 numeral cards made up of 16 figures or court cards, and 40 pip cards. The 22 Tarot cards bear emblematic designs which appear to be borrowed from a series of prints which are known to collectors as the Tarocchi of Mantegna or the Carte di Baldini. The emblematic cards in the Venetian series usually bear the following inscriptions: 1. La Bagattel. 2. La Papessa. 3. L’Imperatrice. 4. L’Imperatore. 5. Il Papa. 6. Gli Amanti. 7. Il Carro. 8. La Guistizia. 9. L’Eremita. 10. Ruot. della For. 11. La Forza. 12. L’Appeso. 13. . 14. La Temperan. 15. Il Diavolo. 16. La Torre. 17. Le Stelle. 18. La Luna. 19. Il Sole. 20. Il Giudizio. 21. Il Mondo. 22. Il Matto.
No name is placed upon the 13th, which usually bears a skeleton with a scythe, representing “death.”
The second game, the Tarocchino of Bologna, though a direct descendant of the ancient Venetian tarots, is not so old as the third game, or Minchiate of Florence. The chief characteristic of the Tarocchino, its name a diminutive of tarocchi, is the suppression in it of the 2, 3, 4, and 5 of each numeral suit, thus reducing the numeral cards from 56 to 40. This modification of the tarot game was invented in Bologna, early in the fifteenth century, by Francesco Fibbia, Prince of Pisa, an exile in that city, dying there in 1419.
The third game is the Minchiate of Florence. It is more complicated than the Venetian game, twenty additional cards being added to the emblematic series. A pack of modern Venetian tarot made in Milan, which are remarkable for their beautifully engraved and painted designs, a pack of modern Tarocchino from Bologna, and a pack of seventeenth century Minchiate, are displayed in the south side of this case. All of these cards are in current use in different parts of Italy.
The suit marks of Italian cards consist of money, cups, swords, and clubs, called danari, coppe, spade, and bastoni. The four court cards of the numeral suits are known respectively as Re, King, Regina or Reina, Queen, Cavallo, Knight, and Fante, Knave. The regular cards, as opposed to those which include the emblematic series, are distinguished by certain peculiarities in the designs of the court cards in different parts of Italy. The distinctive cards of Florence, Milan, and Naples are exhibited in this case, together with several interesting packs upon which all the designs, except an indication of the value at the top, have given place to texts designed to afford instruction in history, geography, etc. A remarkable pack of this character, exhibited by Dr. G. Brown Goode, of Washington, is in manuscript and is intended to teach geography.
According to Chatto, on the earliest cards he had ever seen the figures had been executed by means of stencils, this being the case both in the cards of 1440 and those known as the Stukely cards. There are exhibited in this case the stencils, brush, and unfinished card sheets from a card maker in Florence, who still practises this ancient method of manufacture. The cards on the south side of this case, which in common with all others not specially mentioned are exhibited by the University of Pennsylvania, represent the cards made at the present day in no less than eighteen Italian cities by some twenty-nine makers. They were collected for the University Museum by Mr. Francis C. Macauley of Florence. The cards of Florence, Bologna, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Ferrara, Padua, Treviso, Udine, Novara, Turin, Sesia, Bergamo, Brescia, Genoa, Perugia, Naples, and Bari are included in the collection, in which an opportunity is afforded to observe the peculiarities of the cards of the different Italian cities. A distinctive character of the marks of the numeral suits of spade and bastoni is the mode in which they are interlaced or connected together in place of standing separately or apart. It is interesting to note that in the cards made in and for southern Italy this peculiarity does not exist, they being almost identical with the cards made in Spain.
The cards of Austria succeed those of Italy. The pack exhibited from Trent is like those of Italy, but the distinctively German cards predominate among those made in Vienna and the northern cities.
The suit marks of old German cards consist of hearts, bells, leaves, and acorns, which they call respectively Herzen (roth), Schellen, Laub (grün), and Eicheln. The court cards of the German pack are usually three in number, the peculiarity of the true German pack being that the queen is omitted and an upper valet or Obermann put in her place. They consist of the König or “King,” the Obermann, and the Untermann.
Tarocchi cards are found in Germany under the name of Taroks, and a number of Tarok packs manufactured in Austria appear in this collection. Special names appear on their labels, as Trieste Tarok, Kaffee Tarok, etc., and the tarots proper bear a variety of emblems and designs different from those of Italy. They are usually numbered at top and bottom with Roman numerals from I. to XXI.