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30-474: The earliest mention of tarocchi in connection to Bologna was in 1442 when a Bolognese merchant sold two decks of trionfi in the city of Ferrara . The earliest known mention of trionfi in Bologna itself dates to 1459. Local tradition dating from at least the 17th century, ascribes the invention of tarot to Prince Francesco Antelminelli Castracani Fibbia (1360-1419), great-grandson of Castruccio Castracani . This

60-408: A commentary of Boiardo's poem as well as rules. He likely commissioned the production of these decks of which two incomplete packs have survived. Both the rules and the deck were likely conscious departures from common trionfi decks. The order of the trumps varied by region, perhaps as early as the 1440s. Michael Dummett placed them into three categories. In Bologna and Florence, the highest trump

90-824: A council here in 1438. And in 1471 the lord Borso d'Este , who from 1452 was already duke of Modena and Reggio, obtained from Pope Paul II the ducal title also for Ferrara, shortly before his death. Ercole I d'Este was one of the most important patrons of the arts in late 15th- and early 16th-century Italy, along the Medicis and Pope Julius II . During his reign, Ferrara grew into an international cultural centre, renowned for its architecture, music, literature and visual arts. Ferraranese painters established links with Flemish artists and their techniques, exchanging influences in colours and composition choices. Composers came to Ferrara from many parts of Europe, especially France and Flanders . Josquin des Prez worked for Duke Ercole for

120-620: A document of the Lombard king Desiderius of 753 AD, as a city forming part of the Exarchate of Ravenna . Desiderius pledged a Lombard ducatus ferrariae ("Duchy of Ferrara") in 757 to Pope Stephen II . The Marquis Tedald of Canossa obtained (about 984) from the Church the possession for himself and his heirs, upon payment of a tribute. The decline of the House of Canossa was consumed with

150-408: A poem called I Trionfi which may have served as inspiration. The earliest known use of the name "Trionfi" in relation to cards can be dated to 16 September 1440 in the records of a Florentine notary, Giusto Giusti. He recorded a transaction where he transferred two expensive personalized decks to Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta . In a letter from 11 November 1449, Antonio Jacopo Marcello used

180-647: A quasi-sovereign state until 1597, when it came under direct papal rule. The origin of Ferrara is uncertain. It was probably settled by the inhabitants of the lagoons at the mouth of the Po. There are two early centres of settlement: one around the cathedral, the other, the castrum bizantino , being the San Pietro district, on the opposite shore, where the Primaro empties into the Volano channel. Ferrara appears first in

210-517: A time (producing the Missa Hercules dux Ferrariæ , which he wrote for him). Jacob Obrecht came to Ferrara twice (and died during an outbreak of plague there in 1505). Antoine Brumel served as principal court musician from 1505. Alfonso I , son of Ercole, was also an important patron; his preference for instrumental music resulted in Ferrara becoming an important centre of composition for

240-461: Is also the earliest tarot deck to be used in cartomancy , predating de Gébelin and Etteilla by at least thirty years. Due to similarities in Bolognese cartomancy and Etteilla's system, it is possible the latter learned it from some Italian source (he claimed to have been taught by a Piedmontese man named Alexis ). Unlike cartomantic traditions elsewhere, Bolognese practitioners have always used

270-632: Is one of the oldest decks in continual use, dating back to at least the 15th century. The oldest surviving uncut sheets, dating from the late 15th or early 16th century, are held in the Rothschild Collection in the Louvre and in the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts . It is an expansion of the pre-existing Bolognese deck by adding queens , the Fool , and an extra suit of 21 trumps . The regular and tarot decks began to diverge during

300-667: Is played. It likely had a total of 60 cards (four kings , forty pip cards and sixteen trumps ). The forty-four plain-suited cards used birds as suit signs ("of virtues, the Eagle ; of riches, the Phoenix ; of continence, the Turtledove ; of pleasure, the Dove ") and the trumps presented sixteen Roman or Greek gods (in ascending order): Jove , Juno , Pallas , Venus , Apollo , Neptune , Diana , Bacchus , Mercury , Mars , Vesta

330-780: Is the Angel , followed by the World . This group spread mainly southward through the Papal States , the Kingdom of Naples , and finally down to the Kingdom of Sicily but was also known in the Savoyard states . In Ferrara, the World was the highest, followed by Justice and the Angel. This group spread mainly to the northeast to Venice and Trento where it was only a passing fad. By the end of

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360-671: The Duke of Mantua . He raised the glory of Ferrara to its highest point, and was the patron of Tasso , Guarini , and Cremonini – favouring, as the princes of his house had always done, the arts and sciences. During the reign of Alfonso II, Ferrara once again developed an opulent court with an impressive musical establishment, rivaled in Italy only by the adjacent city of Venice, and the traditional musical centres such as Rome, Florence , and Milan . Composers such as Luzzasco Luzzaschi , Lodovico Agostini , and later Carlo Gesualdo , represented

390-577: The avant-garde tendency of the composers there, writing for gifted virtuoso performers, including the famous concerto di donne — the three virtuoso female singers Laura Peverara , Anna Guarini , and Livia d'Arco . Vincenzo Galilei praised the work of Luzzaschi, and Girolamo Frescobaldi studied with him. The city was much affected by the 1570 Ferrara earthquake . When Alfonso died in 1597, he had no legitimate male heir. The Este lands were inherited by Alfonso's cousin Cesare d'Este . However,

420-531: The face cards and trumps became reversible and most trumps added Arabic numerals. None of the cards are labelled and only trumps 5 to 16 are numbered. Historically, this deck and its games have been confined to the city of Bologna yet there are decks in France and Belgium that show traces of designs borrowed from the Tarocco Bolognese. There are also tarot games played in present-day Piedmont that show

450-424: The lute . The architecture of Ferrara benefitted from the genius of Biagio Rossetti , who was asked in 1484 by Ercole I to redesign the plan of the city. The resulting " Addizione Erculea " is one of the most important and beautiful examples of Renaissance city planning and contributed to the selection of Ferrara as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO . Alfonso married the notorious Lucrezia Borgia , and continued

480-609: The 16th century, this order became extinct. In Milan, the World was the highest, followed by the Angel. This spread to Switzerland and France during the Italian Wars , becoming famous as the " Tarot of Marseilles ". The earliest known appearance of the word "Tarocho" as the new name for the game is in Brescia around 1502. "Tarochi" was used in June 1505 in Ferrara. In December 1505, "Taraux" decks are mentioned as being produced in

510-545: The 16th century. The Tarocco set removed ranks 2 to 5 bringing down the number of cards from 78 to the present 62 perhaps to simplify the game. The regular set removed ranks 8, 9, and 10 to create the 40-card pack as they are not needed to play Primiera . All ranks that they share in common appear very similar but are not identical. The tarocco deck then underwent a few more modifications. The imperial and papal trumps, having been of equal rank, were converted to four moors, two of which are identical, in 1725. Later in that century

540-661: The German "trumpfen" (in card games) have developed from the Italian "Trionfi". Most cards feature the personification of a place or abstraction. Many of the motifs found in trionfi are found in trionfo , theatrical processions that were popular in the Italian Renaissance . The Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara , once owned by the ducal House of Este , contains many murals depicting these floats . Petrarch wrote

570-458: The Virgin , Ceres , Hercules , Aeolus , Daphne , and Cupid ). In two suits (Phoenices and Doves), the pip cards are in reverse order as in many of the oldest card games. The suits do not have any "right over another," but each trump is associated with a suit in alternating descending order of Eagle, Phoenix, Turtledove, Dove. For example, Jove, Apollo, Mercury, and Hercules are associated with

600-510: The death of the great countess Matilda of Canossa in 1115, just as the municipal institute was born and consolidated in Ferrara, which put an end to the ancient ducatus . The free municipality of Ferrara survived for about 150 years. From 1208, with Azzo VI d'Este , the lordship of the family was established, on the Guelph side. From this moment, the Este family also extended their dominion over

630-417: The expression triumphorum genus for a deck that was produced sometime between 1418 and 1425. It was commissioned by the duke of Milan , Filippo Maria Visconti , painted by Michelino da Besozzo and described in an accompanying text by Martiano da Tortona. The deck itself is lost, but Marcello provided a copy of da Tortona's description which offers details about the deck and a cursory explanation of how it

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660-572: The influence of tarocchini. In most games played with the Tarocco Piemontese , players treat trump 20 higher than 21 reflecting that the Angel outranks the World in Bolognese games. There are also regional games in Piedmont where pip cards are removed and the imperial and papal trumps are treated equally. The only surviving record of a tarot game being played in Ferrara showed it to be a three-player tarocchini game. The Tarocco Bolognese

690-590: The lands of Modena and Reggio. Ferrara and its domains were formally part of the State of the Church , while Modena and Reggio of the Holy Roman Empire , therefore the lords of Este were feudal lords of the Pope for the territory of Ferrara, and of the emperor for the territories of Modena and Reggio. Niccolò III (1393–1441) received several popes with great magnificence, especially Eugene IV , who held

720-481: The modern Tarot deck typically has 78. The first attestation of a deck with 78 cards was in a poem by Matteo Maria Boiardo of Ferrara written between 1461–1494. The deck was structured like modern tarots, but the motifs and suits signs of the Boiardo deck are totally different. He used classical figures for the face cards and trumps. Pier Antonio Viti of Urbino ( c. 1470-1500), brother of Timoteo Viti , provided

750-424: The papal enclave of Avignon in France. Around this time, the word Trionfi seems to modify its character in a playing card context; it appears as a game of its own ( Rabelais knows a "Tarau" and a "Triumphe" game) and seems no longer connected to the specific allegorical cards. This is most likely due to the popularity of Trionfa which usurped the old name. The word taroch was used as a synonym for foolishness in

780-667: The same deck as local players instead of inventing dedicated decks and do not make a pretense of a mystical origin of their pack. The hierarchy of cards in the long suits (swords and batons) goes from King (highest), Queen, Knight, Knave, 10 to 6, and Ace (lowest). For the round suits of cups and coins it is King (highest), Queen, Knight, Knave, Ace, and 6 to 10 (lowest). The trump cards are as follows: Trionfi (cards) Trionfi ( Italian: [triˈoɱfi] , ' triumphs ') are 15th-century Italian playing card trumps with allegorical content related to those used in tarocchi games . The general English expression " trump card " and

810-653: The same period. Expensive hand-painted, and usually gilded, decks custom-made for powerful clients have been preserved in greater numbers than mass-produced decks. More cards from the 15th and early 16th centuries have survived than those from the late 16th or 17th century. There are around 15 Visconti-Sforza tarot decks made for the rulers of Milan. These are the best preserved: The following decks were made in Florence: Duchy of Ferrara The Duchy of Ferrara ( Latin : Ducatus Ferrariensis ; Italian : Ducato di Ferrara ; Emilian : Ducà ad Frara )

840-513: The suit of Eagles. Marziano da Tortona's account is the second earliest description of the configuration of a pack of cards in Europe, after John of Rheinfelden 's report in 1377 of a four-suited, 52-card pack. Two decks from June 1457 seem to relate to a visit at Ferrara of the young Milanese heir of the dukedom Galeazzo Maria Sforza in July/August 1457. Each deck consisted of 70 cards —

870-734: The war with Venice with success. In 1509 he was excommunicated by Pope Julius II , and he overcame the pontifical army in 1512 defending Ravenna . ( Gaston de Foix fell in this battle, as an ally of Alfonso.) Lucrezia, together with other members of the Este house, is buried in the convent of Corpus Domini. Alfonso made peace with the succeeding popes. He was the patron of Ariosto from 1518 onwards. His son Ercole II married Renée of France , daughter of Louis XII of France ; he too embellished Ferrara during his reign (1534–1559). His son Alfonso II married Lucrezia, daughter of grand-duke Cosimo I of Tuscany , then Barbara, sister of Emperor Maximilian II and finally Margherita Gonzaga , daughter of

900-510: Was a state in what is now northern Italy . It consisted of about 1,100 km south of the lower Po River , stretching to the valley of the lower Reno River , including the city of Ferrara . The territory that was part of the Duchy was ruled by the House of Este from 1146 to 1597. Borso d'Este , already Duke of Modena and Reggio , and lord of Ferrara, was raised to Duke of Ferrara by Pope Paul II . Borso and his successors ruled Ferrara as

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