Introduction

 This blog is a supplement to "Translations of Franco Pratesi tarot writings in Italian," at http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/.  Eventually, I will transfer the ones here to there. Besides the two posted here today (Dec. 25), there are six more I intend to add. Currently, they can be accessed at https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2743.

Nov. 12, 2024: Information about Antonio di Luca (Florence 1385-1428)

 

Now comes one more discovery of Franco's, another Florentine inventory, this time one which Thierry Depaulis, in correspondence with Franco, has declared to be "the oldest detailed postmortem inventory of a card maker with his tools." Franco has recorded the inventory verbatim in its original language at https://naibi.net/A/8-37-ANTONIO.pdf, in his note "Notizie su Antonio di Luca (Firenze 1385-1428)." Franco and I have tried to translate all its items into modern English. Of the Italian original, I have reproduced only the items pertaining to the card maker's trade.

Comments in brackets are mine in consultation with Franco, for explanatory purposes, except for an Appendix added here (originally in Italian) by Thierry Depaulis. In this translation, footnotes 1-9 are as in Franco's Italian pdf. Footnotes A-D are in reference to Thierry's comments about the inventory and specific items within it, which form an Appendix that we have added after Franco's own presentation. Numbers by themselves in the left margin are those of Franco's Italian pdf. 

 Probably this essay and its Appendix will be published sometime in the future in The Playing-Card, but meanwhile, here it is for readers of this blog.

Information about Antonio di Luca (Florence 1385-1428)

Franco Pratesi

1. Introduction.

There is little information about the artisans who produced naibi in Florence in the first decades after the introduction of playing cards, documented only from 1377 (which is one of the oldest dates known for Europe). Werner Jacobsen's book on the painters of the time can be cited, [note 1] as well as some details that I reported years ago; [note 2] this information has recently been re-discussed and better inserted into the Florentine context by Ada Labriola. [note 3]

Here I intend to add some information about Antonio di Luca: in particular, in the first section I expand on what is already known from the Catasto of 1427, and in the second I report the data resulting from an inventory, also kept in the State Archives of Florence (ASFi), of everything found in the house after his death.

Contrary to the usual, I did not locate the inventory in question personally; in this case, the collection is the Notarile antecosimiano [pre-Cosimo Notarial Archive], which for my non-professional level is too vast and usually impossible to read. As has already happened in a couple of previous cases, the discovery is due to a friend who knows my research sector, and who, for his studies, can read these papers with ease.

2. Information from the Catasto

If you search for Antonio di Luca on the Tarot History Forum site, you will find a notice by Ross Caldwell. [note 4] The reference is to an old publication by Ludovico Zdekauer, republished by Gherardo Ortalli, [note 5] based on the Florentine Catasto [Property Tax Register] of 1427.

In addition to the internal catalogues of the ASFi, a detailed inventory is also available for the Catasto by Brown University, which can be consulted online; [note 6] our Antonio di Luca can be identified among a few namesakes. What immediately distinguishes him is above all his surname: Fainarbi. In fact, the Florentines who had a family name already at the time were a small minority; typically, the patronymic was used, often with the addition of the paternal grandfather's first name.

This surname of Fainarbi is not familiar in Florence, but it is immediately understandable for those who know that “narbi” was an incorrect transcription of naibi, also documented in printed texts. Then two important things are understood.

The first is that it is not the surname Fainarbi, but the profession "fa i naibi" [makes the naibi]. The second is that serious scholars, of academic level, do not know enough about either the narbi or the naibi and can therefore fall into the trap. This also means that there may be a lot of information about our naibi that has escaped the attention of the few users of the archive able to read even the most difficult writing.

Zdekauer confirms only the gonfalone [subdistrict] of the Golden Lion in the quarter of San Giovanni and the 42 years of Antonio di Luca who, correctly in that case, “fa i naibi”. The online inventory adds other data, in addition to the fact that in 1427 Antonio was 42 years old: in particular, that he was the head of a family of three, that he lived in a rented house, and that he did not have a taxable income; enough, in short, to understand that he was not the master of a flourishing workshop, but a poor craftsman.

I wanted to check the Catasto better; it can be consulted in the internal photo library of the ASFi. The data I can add is not much, but it is quite indicative.
___________________
1. W. Jacobsen, Die Maler von Florenz zu Beginn der Renaissance. Munich 2001.
2. For example, Playing-Card Trade in 15th-Century Florence. IPCS Papers No. 7. North Walsham 2012.
3. In: Tarots enluminés. Paris 2021, pp. 113-121.
4. viewtopic.php?f=12&t=334&p=5526&hilit=a ... luca#p5526
5. L. Zdekauer, Il gioco d’azzardo nel Medioevo italiano. Florence 1993.
6. https://cds.library.brown.edu/projects/ ... d=50006649


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The three members of the family were Antonio, 42 years old, his wife Sandra, only 21, and a Luca, 12. The wife Sandra was evidently too young to be Luca's mother, but that Luca was Antonio's son is also suggested by the fact that, as often happened, he was baptized with the name of his paternal grandfather. So, it must be assumed that Antonio had remained a widower with little Luca before marrying this Sandra as a second wife.

ASFi, Catasto, 78, f. 214v

It appears from several examples that the profession of naibi painter was usually passed down from father to son, but in the family under examination it appears evident that there could not have been a proliferation of craftsmen specialized in that production. Limiting our attention to Antonio, we can still recognize, also using Jacobsen's list, that he was one of the first to practice that profession. From the Catasto we obtain other data of a certain interest. In particular, we read that the house that the family lived rented ‒ for seven florins a year ‒ was located in Campo Corbolini, at the beginning of the current Via Faenza, a location distant from the one around Borgo Santi Apostoli where several painters' workshops were concentrated. On the other hand, in the case of Antonio di Luca, his production could have been carried out within the same family home.

The essential part of the Catasto is the economic balance sheet determining the tax to be paid to the Commune [i.e. the Republic of Florence]. The sum of the debts is thus recorded (to an apothecary, a grain seller, a stationer, a dyer, and four haberdashers [merciai, American English: dry goods merchants]), the amount owed for the house and for the three "mouths" of the family. Usually, the painters sold groups of packs of cards to the haberdashers, who resold them at retail at increased prices; therefore, the fact that our Antonio found himself in debt with the haberdashers presents itself as a further demonstration of the poor economic performance of his business.

In the end, the balance sheet is completely in the red and Antonio only has to pay the minimum tax of 3 soldi.

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3. Information from the notarial deed of 14 September 1428

The document in question is preserved in a manuscript with the protocols of the Florentine notary Lodovico di Antonio. [note 7] Fortunately, the inventory that interests us is compiled in Italian, as is the rule, also using a handwriting that is easier to read than the remaining part of the text of the deed, written in Latin and with frequent abbreviations. After the initial part of two pages, the inventory occupies a page and a half (the first in two columns); immediately after the line of greatest interest to us, the last of the actual inventory, the difficult-to-decipher Latin writing begins again, which continues for another two pages. [note A]

ASFi, Notarile Antecosimiano, 11848, f. 134v-135r

At the beginning, we read the personal details of Donna Sandra: daughter of the late Lapo di Nicola, a shoemaker, and widow of Antonio di Luca, a painter of the parish of San Lorenzo. In the notarial deed, we read, repeated several times, the reference to the dowry of seventy gold florins (a below-average amount). In a deed from 1421, cited with the references, six artisans from the neighbourhood [note 8] had been reported as guarantors of the bride and her dowry; now the widow does not become the deceased's heir but has the right to the return of the dowry. In this notarial deed, Donna Sandra declares herself satisfied with maintaining possession of the goods present inside the house as equivalent to the dowry and therefore forever frees the six artisans from their guarantee on the dowry itself.

As has been found in other cases, it is not this most relevant part of the deed that interests us, but practically only the detail of the inventory of the household goods in Italian, and indeed even of that especially a minority part.

I propose, however, to transcribe the entire inventory, in which we find all the objects present in the home, both for domestic use and for work, as follows.

_________________
7. ASFi, Notarile antecosimiano, 11848, ff. 133-136.
[A. See point A of the Appendix.]
8. Giovanni, son of Paolo, was a barber; Dato di Cristofano Pucci was a wool worker; Mirco, son of Matteo, was a carpenter; Corsino di Ventura was a shoemaker; Giovanni, son of Simone, was a blacksmith; Sandro, son of Giovanni, was a shearer.

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Five wine barrels / Twenty bottles [with straw covers] / One bucket with pulley /
(f. 134v first column) Two trestles [table-legs and supports] with broken tabletop /
One chicken coop / Two crates for goods / One small basket /
Two small [dining?] tables and a cooking pan /
One small frame and one small plate of majolica / 1 colander /
Four arm-lengths of large boards /
Two trestles with the old table /
One chest for [making] bread /
1 Chest ["Chest" crossed out] wooden tub for flour /
One bowl and two trays
     of earthenware / 1 oil jar /
One barrel /
Two [copper] cauldrons / 1 copper jug
     and 1 pair of tongs /
One overused double-locked chest /
Two overused chests /
One overused chest / 1 terracotta measuring cup /
One half quarter [measuring bottle for liquids] /
four bushel containers for milling [of grain] /
One basket and 1 bench /
One commode chair /
One cheese cage / two
     Earthen basins / 1 Mattress
One bag mattress [2 sheets sewn together and stuffed] / 1 Quilt /
Two feather mattresses / 1 vermilion cloth /
One white blanket /
Two cane chairs /
One standard bench / 1
     Shelf with bowls and
     cutting boards
Two grain barrels with
     1 bushel container of grain
Two iron andirons / two tripods
     of iron /
(f. 134v second column) Two pans /
One hatrack / 1 iron candleholder /
One bed frame/ two chests nearby /
One chest of 3 arm-lengths / 1 women’s undergarment /
Two pillows with mesh pillowcases
     hemmed with cloth / 1 men’s garment with
     black sleeves with 3 buttons
     of gilded silver /
One old doublet /
One cap / 1 small jar /
One women’s board [or painting of Madonna] /
One pillow with pillowcase /
Three hats / 4 pairs of breeches /
One tablecloth / two belts /
Two belts / 1 with black band [?] with
     buckle and tongue and six belt loops, the other 

 

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on band [?] with flower decoration with buckle and one tongue
     and four gilded belt loops
Two rows of black amber rosaries /
Three brass candleholders /
One used light grey cloak /
One used women’s dark brown robe /
One used black cloak
One double coarse grey cloth robe / 1
     women’s Romagna skirt / 1 Double
     dark brown robe of smooth cotton fabric /
One women’s red dress with 52 buttons
     of gilded silver / 1 used pink hood /
One boys’ double tunic of pink fabric
     with two silver buttons and one cast
One boys’ grey tunic with twelve
     silver eyelets / 1 doublet of
     good white cotton blend / One boys’
     little striped double cloak in wool
     with two silver buttons
(f. 135r) Three pairs of shears / 1 flat brass basin /
Three tin plates and one small plate /
VII supper plates / 1 tablecloth / 1 towel [or other cloth] /
Two towels / 1 napkin / two shirts, 1 men's
     and 1 women’s / one cap of velvet and pink fabric
     with silver cups in stitching / three handkerchiefs
One used double light grey robe [or tunic] of smooth cotton fabric /
One used hood of pink fabric / One used men's simple
     white tunic / Five used men’s stockings / Two
     yarn towels / Five used children’s towels /
Two caps and one with cups on the seam /
Four hundred and forty painted cards of the Virgin Mary
     stories and saints / One small Marble with two grinders /
Two pairs of used sheets / 157 pounds of low-quality paper,
     new / forty-six pounds of fine paper [or: cards of the fine type] /
One hundred pounds of royal[-sized] sheets written and unwritten / 72 woodblocks
     for naibi and saints both small and large 

[Here is the Italian original for the last six lines of the inventory, which relate his activity as a card maker:

 Quatrocento quaranta carte dipinte di vergine maria
     storie e santi / Uno Marmo piccholo con due macinatoi /
Due paia di lençuola usate / libre 157 di carte da straccii
     nuove / libre quarantasei di carte fini nuove / libri
Cento di fogli reali iscripti e non scripti / 72 forme
----da naybi e santi tra piccholi e grandi] 

The information that can be obtained from this notarial inventory is decidedly detailed, and we are especially interested in the products and work tools. The few objects of clothing and household use, often overused, are consistent with what could be expected from the data in the Catasto: he was truly a poor craftsman. [note B]

More indicative are the few objects of work and what was being worked on at the time of the craftsman's death. It can be said in this regard that at the very least, a line of information on the work of Antonio di Luca has been added: "72 woodblocks [forme] of naibi and saints both small and large."

This simple element already contains several useful pieces of information. The initial number of 72 is much higher than we could have expected. The forme at this time could only have been the woodblocks used for xylography [woodcut printing]: this technique for paper is not documented from much earlier, but it seems that it had been used on fabrics for centuries. For playing cards, considering their typical dimensions, it is unthinkable to use a woodblock for less than a number of cards close to ten.
________________
[B. See point B of the Appendix.]

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Finding naibi together with saints is not unexpected news, because we know that sacred images, such as those on playing cards, were among the first to be reproduced in series. However, finding them mixed together like this creates some problems for a plausible reconstruction. Certainly, this promiscuity makes us understand how easy it was to move from a pack of naibi to one of triumphs: it was enough to combine the naibi with prints of equal size available to the card maker with other subjects ‒ sacred or profane ‒ present together.

Even the attributes of small and large are not precisely definable. On the one hand, we know that naibi were produced in different sizes; there was not, nor could there be, a standardization of sizes as was achieved later, so that at most each card maker could produce his packs of cards in a size of his choice, depending on the sheets he used and the number of cards he obtained from each woodblock. For the sheets, there could have been some standardization, but for the woodblocks I believe there could only have been approximation.

Since the same naibi painter could produce packs of cards of different sizes, we arrive at a multiplication of the forms by a factor of two or even three. Furthermore, it is probable that new or nearly new woodblocks coexisted alongside others that had been used for a long time, perhaps considering different qualities of workmanship. In this way, the number of woodblocks whose presence would be foreseeable can be multiplied; but even so, arriving at 72 is not possible.

It would then be concluded that it was above all the sacred images that required more woodblocks for production: for example, it is clear that a playing card cannot reach the size of a sheet of paper similar to our A4 to A3 format [210 mm x 297 mm to 297 mm x 420 mm], while this is possible, if desired, for a sacred image of the type of the painted cards with the Madonna present in the workshop.

For the images of saints, there is also a peculiarity different from that of playing cards. For the different saints, it would not have been easy to consider them of equal importance, as happens for the individual playing cards, of which equal numbers must be produced to use the available paper without waste. The saints are appreciated and sought after in very different ways, from the patron saint of the city to saints considered protectors of individual villages, parishes, or families. In this case, a diversification of the number of specimens is as important as that of the differentiation of dimensions.

There is one last factor to consider. In the line under consideration, only naibi and saints are mentioned, but in the sheets with the Madonnas, in addition to the saints, there are also stories. Images with chronological episodes would require woodblocks other than those already considered, and in quantities that are difficult to predict. This has the consequence that the number of woodblocks necessary increases significantly.

Although the added details allow us to get a little closer to the starting number 72, I still cannot explain so many woodblocks at the painter's disposal. In particular, this overabundance of woodblocks also appears to be in contrast with the scarcity of all the other objects of use. I had encountered one case, for example, in which seven woodblocks were in question, of which only four seemed essential to produce a pack of cards. [note 9]

Some comments can be made on other entries in the inventory. Thus, the one hundred pounds of royal sheets written and unwritten [fogli reali iscripti e non scripti] appear to be directly linked to the craftsman's production. It would seem that for printing, the large royal sheets were especially used, which had a size similar to our A2 format [420 mm x 594 mm, double the size of A3, which is double the size of A4], with one sheet corresponding to four A4 sheets placed side by side.

The unwritten sheets were those on which the images would be printed and then painted. With the written royal sheets, we encounter another problem of interpretation. We can think of the participle “written” as meaning “already printed”, with the images ‒ perhaps still to be painted or perhaps already painted ‒ present on the sheet, certainly still to be cut. The alternative of considering them as royal sheets written by others and then discarded seems unlikely because these large sheets, folded in two, were used only for writings of great importance, to be preserved for a long time. We also encounter sheets of other types of paper, which were evidently also necessary for production. [note C]
______________________
9. http://trionfi.com/cardmakers-woodblock-trial
[C. See point C in the Appendix.]

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Among the products, the high number of 440 Madonnas, saints, and stories stands out. In this case, however, it must be kept in mind that paintings or bas-reliefs of Madonnas were hung in several rooms of each house, and this type of image was probably the cheapest.

Among the other objects, the presence of the three pairs of shears is well understood, considering the need to cut out the individual playing cards from the group printed and painted together. The marble with grinder could be a mortar, [note D] necessary to reduce the dyes used to paint the images into a very fine powder.

It is not certain, but it seems likely, that the 46 pounds of new carte fine [fine, i.e. good quality, paper, or: cards of the fine type] are in fact new playing cards of the fine type, ready for sale. In those years, using the names of naibi or carte for the same objects is already documented. If so, a little more detail would have been useful.


4. Conclusion

That the painter Antonio di Luca produced naibi was already known by the nineteenth century, but the source of the information, present in the Florentine Catasto of 1427, had been used only to a minimal extent. The re-examination of that source has allowed us to obtain further information on the family’s economic situation when Antonio was 42 years old.

Even more important was the discovery of the inventory of what was present in the house of Antonio di Luca the following year, immediately after his death. The objects of clothing and household use confirm the indigent state of the family, while we obtain other important information from the presence of work objects.

In particular, the sheets of paper used for production are documented, as well as the associated woodblocks. Production was mainly aimed at two parallel sectors, sacred images and naibi. In both cases, the outlines of the images were printed on the sheets, which were then painted and cut to size.

The number of woodblocks present for the production of sacred images and playing cards is 72, so large as to create problems of interpretation. Other more convincing hypotheses will be possible in this regard, or perhaps further data will be found, in order to obtain the desired precision.

However, the information that has been added in this study to the little that we knew about the personage and his production is already of considerable interest, also because it informs us, albeit indirectly, about the production of his fellow painters specialized in the production of sacred images and playing cards, about whom we know even less.

Florence, 12.11.2024
________________
[D. See point D in the Appendix.]


[APPENDIX

Thierry Depaulis has shared with me [Franco] the following comments regarding this study.

A. This is the oldest detailed postmortem inventory of a card maker with his tools. It is the 3rd oldest written, dated reference to woodcuts, and here again for playing cards (and saints). (The 1st in Palermo in 1418, the 2nd also in Palermo, in 1422.)
B. I am not sure Antonio is that poor, with 72 woodblocks and some expensive garments, as well as a commode chair, a clear element of snug comfort.
C. Antonio has: 1) fine paper, which he probably uses for the front and back of his cards; and 2) 157 pounds of “carte da straccii nuove”. The latter is what until the late 19th century was called littress by English and American card makers, derived from the French l’étresse; it was similar to what is now called “kraft paper”. Also called main-brune [brown-hand] in the 18th century, it is the middle paper, grey or brown, made with little glue, that forms the core of the card.
We may add that straccio (plural straccii) or straccia is the same as Provençal estrasse (probably through Piedmontese strassa), and estrasse became estresse (later étresse) in French.
D. The “Marmo piccholo con due macinatoi” is a grinding stone (or grinding marble), as found in later French inventories. The grinder is generally called a “molette”. For me, it is not a mortar. {For more on molette, see French Wikipédia, which has a picture. The term translates roughly as “serrated wheel”.}]

Dec. 6, 2024: Pairs of cards in the 16th century and beyond

 Below is a translation of Franco's original, "Paia di carte nel Cinquecento e oltre," originally in Italian at https://naibi.net/A/8-38-PAIACARTE.pdf. The translation is done, as usual, with considerable consultation from Franco on the wording. Comments in brackets are mine, for clarification purposes. It also appears at https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=26661#p26661, where some discussion of "paio/paia" occurs both before and after that post.

Pairs of cards in the 16th century and beyond

Franco Pratesi

1. Introduction

At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the fourteenth-century paio di naibi [“pair, i.e. pack/deck, of naibi”, cards] changed to paio di carte, but the current expression of mazzo di carte [pack/deck of cards] began to be found only from the mid-sixteenth century. We encounter four nouns ‒ paio, naibi, carte, mazzo ‒ each of which requires clarification and commentary. As associations of these words, I do not believe that we will ever encounter a mazzo di naibi [deck/pack of naibi], because from paio di naibi we soon changed to paio di carte and much later to mazzo di carte. I intend to examine here one by one those terms and the changes in use that occurred over time.

Finally, I add three examples, well into the seventeenth century, of the expression paio di carte still used.

2. The meaning and use of the four nouns

As I said, I intend to first examine the four nouns under consideration, one at a time.

2a – PAIO/PAIR. The fact that paio and the plural paia are also written as paro and para does not create any problems for us (except perhaps for the related change of gender, of which other examples can also be found such as uovo and uova); in fact, there are many Italian words for which, in different times and places, the final -io or the final -ro prevails; it will be enough to cite the example of notaio [notary].

Let's take a closer look at the uses of the term paio by taking examples from clothing and its accessories. The situation is rather complex because two different categories of application are encountered: cases in which the objects are truly two, and cases in which the two parts (necessarily present!) end up forming a single object.

Many examples of the first type are used for the feet: shoes, clogs, boots, slippers, stockings and socks; for hands there are gloves; for ears earrings, and other objects could be added to this already long series. More intriguing is the second type [of application], used to say a pair of trousers, underwear, and also glasses.

We can also encounter a third type, in which the use of the term paio does not correspond to any pair of elements present, in whole or in part, at the origin. These are potential pairs [paia], so to speak. Remaining in the field of clothing, we can think for example of handkerchiefs. Is there a pair [paio] of handkerchiefs? More likely, there is a dozen. But we can always ask the shopkeeper to sell us “a pair [paio] of handkerchiefs”; this pair of objects exists as such when it is purchased, but did not previously exist as a pair in the group in which it was found. The same can be true for any other object, such as a pair of oranges, a pair of books, a pair of jars, a pair of anything, in short. The meaning of paio in these cases is always equivalent to the number two.

The dictionaries also list further secondary meanings, such as the case of “a couple of hours” [un paio d’ore] or “a couple of kilos” [un paio di chili], which obviously means two hours or two kilos, but only approximately, and therefore is indefinite and no longer has a precise “pair” as a reference. However, whether you find an exact or approximate two, it is always a two, even if in this case it could be, if verified precisely, any number typically between 1.5 and 2.5.

When thinking of a paio di carte [pack/deck of cards], one cannot even begin to see a paio of the first type, and even recognizing a paio of the second type requires some help from the imagination; the third type is out of the question; the fourth would be fine for cards if instead of a paio one said about forty [una quarantina].

However, that the attempt should be made is strongly suggested by the fact that one cannot suppose a use of the term paio without some specific motivation, that is, without recognizing any binary character, even partial, in the object to which it is applied.

A very special case is that of a paio di scacchi [scacchi = chess, chess pieces, chess set]. Michael Howard has drawn attention to the expression un paio di scacchi included in dictionaries as an example of cases in which the term paio could also be applied to objects composed of a number of parts that is not only different from two, but

2
also not precisely defined. [note 1] In fact, the parts of a chess set [gioco di scacchi] can be one if we mean the chessboard [scacchiera] (possibly with the pieces on it) or thirty-two if we mean the chess pieces [pezzi degli scacchi].

I have searched for decades in books and manuscripts for references to chess in Italian literature, even before researching card games, and to tell the truth, I have never encountered a paio di scacchi. Yet, if you search today for that expression on Google Books you will find 63 citations, deriving mainly from the many digitized editions of dictionaries. [note 2]

Checking further, one finds that all those definitions in the dictionaries date back to the first edition of the Crusca dictionary: “Sometimes paio is said of a single body of a thing, even if it is divided into many parts, like a paio of playing cards, a paio of chess” [Talora si dice paio a un corpo solo d’una cosa, ancorché si divida di molte parti, come un paio di carte da giucare, un paio di scacchi]. [note 3]

But the most significant fact is that in that same dictionary, the origin of all subsequent entries, the compiler does not report any quotation taken from Italian literature, but indicates the expression "paio di scacchi" only as an example proposed by himself.

One might then suppose that perhaps the expression does not exist and that it is only due to a proposal of the compiler, presumably erroneous. In fact, introducing the “many parts”, without limitations, seems to me at least rash. However, I want to assign to that compiler a certain reliability, and that is, I want to admit that in fact one can say “un paio di scacchi”. However, the discussion must continue: if we maintain that that expression can really be used, a justification must also be found for it.

There is one game, one board, 32 pieces, and where is the two? Upon reflection, there is a justification, however, and it is the usual one for the pair [paio] of scissors: a single object made up of two parts. In chess, the two is found, and very clearly, in correspondence with black and white: there are two armies taking part in the battle.

In the end, if a citation is not found in the literature, it is also true that it could have been found; perhaps it will be found soon, perhaps in some manuscript not yet digitized. If it is found, the meaning will still be the one indicated above.

We can then return to the paio di naibi. That particular paio has always given me food for thought. [note 4] In my opinion, the term paio could not be used at random, not even in that example; somewhere the binary character had to be present. So the conclusion at this point becomes easy.

I admit that between the situation of chess, which is entirely hypothesized, and that of naibi or cards ‒ only partly hypothesized because the expression is actually found several times ‒ there is a substantial difference, because in chess there are two armies, while, usually, in cards there are four suits, thanks to which the division of the deck into four is evident, while a division into two seems rather forced. True. In my opinion, however, the use of the term paio forces us to give a meaning to the two pairs [coppie - another word for "pairs"] of suits much greater than the one with which we are used to seeing them today.

Just as in chess one can assume that it is the white field against the black field, so in playing cards one must give prominence to the presence in the four suits of the game of two pairs [coppie], those which centuries later would become the red pair [coppia] and the black pair [coppia] and which at that time could be recognized as the pair [coppia] of suits with the round signs [segni tondi: coins and cups] and the pair with the long signs [segni lunghi: swords and batons], even with associations of the two pairs of suits with, respectively, feminine and masculine characteristics.

We then encounter a consequence. If what has been said is convincing, we must continue with another related hypothesis. To give so much importance to the division between round and long suits, there must have been a different role for them in the game in which the naibi were used. In short, in the rules of the first or main game of the time, the difference within the pairs [coppie] of short [corte] and long [lunghi] suits must have been of little importance, while the difference between the two pairs [coppie] must have been large.

In this regard, the rule sometimes preserved of the descending or ascending value of the cards of the two pairs [coppie] could be at least a secondary clue.
_______________________
1. viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2683&start=85
2. https://www.google.it/search?hl=it&tbo= ... 22&num=100
3. Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca. Venice 1612, p. 585.
4. http://trionfi.com/paro-paio-para

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2b – NAIBI. The term naibi, whatever its exact origin and meaning, is certainly foreign to the Italian lexicon. The unfamiliarity with this term is demonstrated by several coincidences. One is that it is found documented only in a few areas and in short intervals of time. Another is that the word is sometimes found distorted, mainly as narbi, and not only in manuscripts but also in printed works.

There are studies on the origin and meaning of the term with several reconstructions and proposals, which can be considered as known, because here we are interested in the next phase, the transition to the term carte.

2c – CARTE/CARDS. 

 Paper [carta] is a commonly used material; however, speaking of “una carta” is not sufficiently defined; it is sometimes used to indicate a sheet [foglio], or a sheet of paper [foglio di carta], when one means an element of a group that contains, or could contain, many of them.

Simply speaking of “una carta” implies that one is using technical language, such that it is not necessary to add the specification, that is, whether it is a geographical map [carta geografica], or a playing card [carta da gioco], or a sheet [carta] such as a manuscript page, or baking paper [carta da forno], or sandpaper [carta vetrata], or tin foil [carta stagnola], or other cases.

We are only interested in playing cards, and in particular the transition from the name naibi. The change of name is very simple: once the emphasis is placed on the material, that is, naibi are objects made of paper [carta], and therefore cards [carte], they only need to be specified as “playing cards” [carte da gioco] whenever their use is not made clear by the context. That change is also facilitated by the fact that the original term was a name completely foreign to common vocabulary.

It remains to be seen, however, whether together with the change of name, and as a further motivation for the change itself, there was also some change in the cards that accompanied the change of their name, and which could consist, for example, in a different number of cards in the deck, or in modified figures (for example, it is not easy to imagine naibi with women among the court cards, as is instead found later).

However, it is known that the transition from naibi to carte occurred early, and the old name was preserved for a longer time, often together with the new one, only in a few areas, such as in the Florentine territory where the naibi had spread earlier.

2d – MAZZO/DECK [OR PACK].  

While the name change from naibi to carte typically occurred a few decades after the introduction of playing cards, that from paio to mazzo took several centuries. I am still unable to determine a precise date for this name change. The Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana cites a passage by Tasso as the oldest occurrence, [note 5] but it cannot be ruled out that earlier ones may be found. However, it is certain that the term paio is still encountered in the sixteenth century and beyond, as in the examples given below.

Today the term mazzo, in addition to playing cards, is used especially for bunches of flowers, bunches of keys and the like, but the term mazzo has, and has had, more than one meaning; moreover, it was encountered a long time before it took on the meaning that interests us here.

A curious thing about this is that in the old manuscripts that I have studied for decades, I have sometimes found the term mazzo associated precisely with sheets of paper [fogli di carta]. For example, one inventory entry that remained in my mind was “A bunch [mazzo] of Sangiovanni” which was meant to be read as a group, or bundle [fascio], of images on paper of St. John the Evangelist, patron saint of Florence. This meaning of the term is also listed as entry 3 in the Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana, with citations from the Middle Ages. [note 6]

The circumstance is truly singular: the term existed centuries before, it was even used for generic “bunches of cards” [mazzi di carte], but it could not yet be applied to the particular decks of playing cards. Why? In my opinion because at that time it indicated any group of elements, without their being present in a predetermined number.

The mazzo of playing cards is a special case, in which the number of cards is instead fixed; only after a long time did the same word, already in use, also take on this “new” meaning of mazzo [as pack, deck] understood as complete, and only as complete.
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5. https://www.gdli.it/pdf_viewer/Scripts/ ... df&parola= Item 4, p. 984.
6. https://www.gdli.it/pdf_viewer/Scripts/ ... df&parola= Item 3, p. 984.

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3. Examples of “pairs of cards” [paia di carte] in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

3a – From the Magistracy of Minors

An example of the use of “a pair of cards [un paio di carte]” at the beginning of the sixteenth century is one that I have found in one of the voluminous registers of the Magistracy of Minors prior to the Principality, in the State Archives of Florence. It is the same No. 182 from which I had already obtained the information on a rich deck of triumphs [mazzo di trionfi]. 

The deceased was named Mariotto di Piero di Nicholo Neli. On May 14, 1505, the same date as the inventory, the officials of the magistracy of the Commune of Florence [i.e., the Florentine Republic] accepted the guardianship of the orphan son, Francesco, about thirteen years old.

ASFi, Magistracy of Minors prior to the Principality, 182, f. 156v, detail (Reproduction prohibited)

This note is about some terms in 14th-17th century Italian that do not translate well into modern English and are even puzzling in modern Italian: certain uses of "paio" and derived terms, "carte," and "mazzo": pair, cards, and pack (of cards). I have kept the Italian terms as much as possible as in the original, except in the title, where the expression "Pairs of cards" seemed appropriate, since the expression "paia di carte" is as obsolete in current Italian as "pairs of cards" is in current English, and hence paradoxical in both.

Unfortunately, in this case the information on the person and the environment is very meager; neither the profession of the deceased (even if from some objects present in the inventory it would seem that he was a goldsmith) nor the location can be read.

The inventory transcribed is simply that compiled by the administrator of the estate on behalf of the magistracy of minors. Afterwards, we read annotations for the "revised justifications", that is, citing accounting updates with a new balance as of 31 May 1508. The 1505 inventory appears transcribed in the register only in 1508 because from the initial sheet, it continues in the blank space under the note of 1508 and also occupies page 159v, left empty after the insertion of another inheritance, again in 1508. I consider the part of interest.

The inventory follows from there [i.e. from the previous page]

1 brush and 1 head of St. John in earthen
     relief and 1 jug of iron and 1 jug
     of copper and 1 book of epistles and gospels

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7. ASFi, Magistrato dei Pupilli avanti il Principato, 182, ff. 155-159.
8. https://www.naibi.net/A/GINEVRA.pdf

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1 bound French booklet for women
1 booklet made of good paper with seven psalms
1 booket by Fra Girolamo and 1 Giovanni / <Gresoie
     mei?> [parts of words not read] and 1 miracles of Our Lady in
     parchment and 1 shelf for said books
1 lute with a case and 1 box full of
     goldsmith’s tools above the coat rack
1 box with a Saint Jerome inside
1 ball for canopy 2 armets 1 of iron
     and 1 of brass
II tin cups and 1 small basket, within it several
     writings and 1 deck of cards [paio di carte]
V balls for lamp, that is, three together
1 tin container with antidote to poison

3b – In a sacred representation

Among the many sacred representations, that of Santa Uliva had several printed editions already in the sixteenth century in Florence, and even more in the following century. I have not examined those editions in detail, but the reference I was looking for is present in at least some; [note 9] I take it from the critical edition edited in the nineteenth century by Alessandro D'Ancona. [note 10]

And while he is confessing, bring out a woman dressed in cloth, on top colored and beautiful, and below an old, dark brown dress, with chamois shoes on her feet, and a pair of very beautiful slippers; have her have four faces, all different and of a woman, that is, an old mask on one side, very old on the other, and behind ordinary, or rather less old, and in front the face without a mask, and on her head a diadem that covers all four foreheads and is of various colors; have her have a lighted fire in her right hand, in her left a knife with a cord around it. You will dress likewise a young man, dressed in cloth, adorned as much as possible, with a sword at his side, and have said young man have in his right hand a paio of cards [carte], and under his left arm a board, and in his left hand a purse. Third, you shall bring forth a man with a long, dark robe, half-dressed and barefoot, with a large mask and a long white beard, with similar hair, with his right hand on his cheek; and with him come forth another man, dressed in a long black leather robe with fur outside, and on his feet a pair of felt socks, with leather gloves in his hand, with a finger to his mouth signaling silence, and on his head a fur hat, with a black mask and a long beard. Dress likewise a man in bad disarray, with old and torn clothes, with a twirled beard full of feathers, and likewise the head and the clothes; and besides, another, dressed in stained and dirty clothes, and with a fat red face, with nothing on his head, and in his hand some birds and chickens, and on his shoulder a spear [or roasting spit]; and after this, dress a man with two faces, one in front and the other behind, and let his clothes appear of clean and neat cloth in front, and of bad and torn cloth behind, and let some daggers and knives also appear behind, with a hat on his head; and let said persons be kept in the middle on every side, as if they wanted to look at the woman with the four faces.

This paio of cards can only be a deck of playing-cards, as also confirmed by the association with the game-board in the other hand. In short, in the sixteenth century in Florence the deck of cards was not yet called that.
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9. For example: LA RAPPRESETATIONE DI SANTA VLIVA, nuouamente mandata in Luce. Florence, 1568.
10. A. D'Ancona (ed.), La rappresentazione di Santa Uliva riprodotta sulle antiche stampe. Pisa 1863.

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3c – In Florence at the Pitti Palace

Finding playing cards [carte da gioco], already called so or still naibi, in inventories is a very rare occasion. In the case in question, their presence is justified by the richness of the specific set, and also of the other objects with which it is inventoried. [note 11]

ASFi, Miscellanea Medicea, 31/10, f. 57v.

The setting is the famous Pitti Palace in Florence, which was the residence of the grand ducal court ‒ first Medici and then Lorena ‒ later became for a few years the royal palace of Vittorio Emanuele II of Savoy and is now home to several national museums.

The inventory under examination concerns the objects found in the apartment of the Pitti Palace occupied by Cardinal Giovan Carlo de' Medici, immediately after his death (Villa medicea di Castello, 23 January 1663). I have also recently had the opportunity to present something about the cardinal's interest in gambling. [note 12]

I studied this inventory already years ago for its interest in chess and board games, [note 13] reporting these playing cards [carte da gioco] already then. I can repeat what is read about it in that case.

--– A book with black leather cover lined with gold, and inside a box with two decks [para] of Cards for playing games, and three dice made of rock crystal marked with gold (f. 57).
The documentation on playing cards is unusual. It is not a fundamental piece of information, nor early, given that cards had been used for three centuries. The fact is that playing cards do not usually appear in these inventories of various household goods, probably because they were considered consumer goods of short duration. Here, too, it is very likely that cards are spoken of only thanks to the valuable container: a system of preservation that can also be found later and also for chess. That the prince cardinal liked to play various card games is confirmed by various testimonies.

It won't seem strange if I agree with the author of the comment.
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11. ASFi, Miscellanea Medicea, 31/10.
12. https://www.naibi.net/A/8-33-GRANDUCA.pdf
13. “I giochi del principe cardinale”, Informazione Scacchi, 8 N. 4/5 (1998) 111-113. https://naibi.net/b/138.pdf

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4. Conclusion

The transition from the expression paio di naibi to that of mazzo di carte via the intermediate expression paio di carte has been discussed. Examples are known for each of these expressions, but it seems rather surprising that the term mazzo, which had been used for centuries for similar objects, when applied to playing cards appears so far first documented from the second half of the sixteenth century.

As special cases, two Florentine examples with “paio di carte” still present in the sixteenth century were presented and commented on, and one with “para di carte” in the second half of the following century.

Florence, 06.12.2024 

 

COMMENTS, FOLLOWED BY FRANCO'S REPLY 

"SteveM" (Steve Mangan), at https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=26657#p26657, offered the example of a wedding, citing the Treccani online dictionary's 4th meaning of the term "paio" (https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/paio/):

 Paio di nozze, espressione pleonastica per il semplice nozze, cerimonia o festa nuziale: si scontrarono in una brigata di belle giovani donne e ornate, che da un p. di nozze venieno (Boccaccio).

 The Boccaccio text, from La Novella delle Papere, is at https://letteritaliana.weebly.com/la-novella-delle-papere.html. Steve explains:

A boy raised by his Hermit father is taken into Florence for the first time and is asking questions after questions - they see a group of women coming from a wedding [or wedding party] and the boy having never seen a woman before asks what they are, his father, not wanting to arouse sinful thoughts in his son, says they are ducks, and the boy asks that they take one home and give it something to peck at. [see 35, note 9]

I followed this one up with the example of "paio di paternostri" for a rosary, i.e. a set of rosary beads. which I find at https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/14205/1/503303_vol1.pdf, p. 53, n. 35 (original in English, with quotations in Italian):

An unmarried woman was allowed '[ ... ] un paio di Pater'nostri d'oro o di granati senza smalto, non passando con la fattura di scudi 6 [... ]" while a 'donna contadina' was restricted to '[ ... ] una corona di pater nostri, che non passi la valuta d'un mezzo scudo.'

The first quotation, translated, is 'a [i]paio[/i] of gold or garnet Pater'nostri without enamel, not passing with the value of 6 scudi [... ]'. The second, for a peasant woman: "a crown of Pater Nostri, not passing the value of half a scudo.'

I also found I find "paio di cornamusa", bagpipes, in the "comments" section of at least one web-page:
 https://www.reddit.com/r/bagpipes/comments/zansj4/it_would_be_really_nice_if_the_you_want_to_learn/?tl=it:

Non ha senso fornire un muro di testo, perché nessuno lo legge, come dimostra il flusso costante di post qui che dicono "hey guyz ho appena pagato $ 200 per un paio di cornamuse, sono così emozionato di iniziare".

(There's no point in providing a wall of text, because no one reads it, as evidenced by the constant stream of posts here saying "hey guys I just paid $200 for a pair of bagpipes, I'm so excited to get started.")

But I don't know if this is originally in Italian or a Google translation from English.

I also found "paio di cassetti" with pictures of cabinets with drawers, some with three or four drawers, but on a website in Spanish, at https://depositphotos.com/es/vectors/paio-di-cassetti.html?offset=700. But again, I don't know if this is a translation from something in another language.

 When I first brought up the Grande Dizionario della Lingua Italiana's definition 4 of "paio" at https://www.gdli.it/pdf_viewer/Scripts/ ... arola=paio, it was in the context of an inventory with "paio di trionfi In charta pechora di messer franc° petrarcha" (charta pechora = sheep paper = parchment) at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2683&p=26502&hilit=paio#p26502, one which also, in its second part, viewtopic.php?p=26503#p26503, brought up for comparison the famous Rosselli inventory with its item "1° giuocho del trionfo del petrarcha in 3 pez" - 1 game of the triumph of Petrarch in 3 pieces - (the Italian original of this inventory is on p. 5 of https://naibi.net/A/TRIOPETR.pdf). "Giuocho" here, however, refers not to a game or deck of trionfi, but to a set of three metal plates with a pair of illustrations of Petrarch's six Trionfi poems on each, on the two sides of each sheet, which would produce 6 in all. Ross, too, made the connection, raising the issue at viewtopic.php?p=26504#p26504:

Franco's remarks about "giuocho" meaning something besides a literal "game" are correct in the case of Rosselli, at least as art historians understand it. But his new discovery of a "paio" of Petrarch's Trionfi adds another wrinkle to the question, then. Could paio have the same range of meaning as giuocho?

And I replied (viewtopic.php?p=26508#p26508):

Well, that was my thought, about "paio". I confronted him with the GDLI, p. 381, the fourth definition.
https://www.gdli.it/pdf_viewer/Scripts/ ... arola=paio. This is the continuation of the definitions of "paio", which started on the previous page.

So Franco's note can be seen as Franco's reply to both of us.

He dealt again with "paio", this time in the context of weddings and rosaries, and "gioco" in an email to me whose content I posted, with his permission, at  https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=26670#p26670. He wanted to emphasize that the explanation is speculative.

 Franco, private communication, offers a speculative but seemingly possible explanation for "paio di paternostri" as follows:

With rosaries I have a possible explanation why the beads can be called a paio. You state that the prayer goes by repeating the pater noster. Actually it does not work so here. As far as I remember, there is something similar to a week: a series of working days separated by Sundays. Rosary is essentially dedicated to Madonna with many sets of Ave Maria prayers, separated by special/different and normally larger beads for Pater noster prayers. A paio of beads is a complete set formed both by Ave and Pater beads.

A paio di nozze (never found myself, but understandable) is equally made by two companies. It is not a usual dining of a company of many fellows; in this special event there are two distinct companies of fellows, the relatives and friends of the wife together with the relatives and friends of the husband – two different sets that will not meet otherwise.

And for the word "gioco" applied to a set

As for the word gioco it is rather often found with the meaning of a set, but not for any set. This special set is such as to represent a series of items which can be used separately and can became a gioco whenever the set is complete. Typical examples are measuring items, unit weights for a scale, different bottles for liquids.

I myself am not convinced of these explanations for "paio," even for a pack of cards. See my post at https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=26663#p26663.

Another explanation, which Steve found, is offered by a nineteenth century French philologist for a similar phenomenon in French. He gives many examples in that language that do not suggest twoness. These examples also exist in English: the Biblical book of Provers is "une paire de proverbes". The Italian philologist Alessandro Parenti, in Un Paio di nozze", 2015, gives the same explanation (it has to do with nouns in meanings that lack singulars, or else plurals) with similar examples in Italian (and their equivalents in medieval Latin): an organ is "uno paro d’orghani"; a priest's outfit is "un paio di vesti";  alternatively, three sets of vestments are "tre para di vestimenti"; a suit of armor is "uno pero d’arme."  Two deeds are "Due para di decretali"; a flight of stairs is "un par de scali"; a set of keys is "un paio di chiavi"; two letters (missives, as opposed to letters of the alphabet) are "due paia di letere." 

I suppose we can ask, why should these nouns, in the desired meaning, have this property of lacking one of either a singular or a plural? Could it be that at some time in the distant past a suit of armor had two pieces, vestments two pieces, etc., steps came in pairs, and so did keys and the pipes of an organ, etc. The linguists do not delve into this area.