Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Introduction

 

Last modified Feb. 4, 2024

Franco Pratesi has an impressive list of publications on the history of the tarot and playing cards generally that goes back to 1986, both in print publications and on various websites, including his own at http://www.naibi.net/. However many of the most important, especially in the last ten years or so, are in Italian only. In an effort to make his research more widely available, I have been translating selected essays and notes into English, essentially using Google Translate and then correcting it by my understanding of Italian grammar and reference to online dictionaries for the word that fits the context best. Even then, I have sometimes gone to Franco himself for advice on certain passages, especially in translating old documents, the proportion of which increased dramatically in 2023 and after. I have tried to make the English conform as closely as possible to the original Italian, sometimes resulting in awkward transitions in English but which in the development of ideas follow the Italian.

In each translation, there are occasionally comments in brackets for the sake of clarification. These are by me unless indicated otherwise (as Franco himself sometimes uses brackets for comments). The numbers by themselves on the left margins are page numbers in Franco's pdf, for those who would like to consult the Italian original or quote it. For safety sake, any quotations by others of my translations should probably include the original Italian, since I do not guarantee the accuracy of my admittedly amateur work.

At the right of this introduction is a list of months. These are the months I posted a particular essay. But the essays themselves are arranged in the order in which Franco published them, on the internet or elsewhere, going down from later to earlier. So for essays dated earlier than those in a given month (when I posted the translation), it is necessary to click on an earlier month, until the desired note is found.

I have written introductions to each translation, in most cases rather short. In one case, where I myself am quoted in the note, my introduction is longer, explaining how Franco and I got to that point. In many of the blog-posts, after the translation in the same post, I have put my own reflections on Franco's note, or posts I have written relating to the same theme. Both the translation and my comments originally appeared on Tarot History Forum, to which I give the relevant links in my introductions to the essays; but in some cases there are small revisions. 

You will notice that some essays belong to a series of such essays. One is on the "Books of the Lily" (Florence's emblematic flower) and other arrest records for card-playing retained in the archives. Another "Playing cards in Europe before 1377?"; another is on the minor arts in relation to triumphal motifs on the cards, i.e. birth trays, marriage chests, Petrarch manuscripts, and civic processions, all beginning "Ca. 1450:...". A fourth type is that of tarot origins, including two in early 2016 on Milan and Florence and then another in Oct. 2016, reviewing a wide range of proposals.''

I have resisted the temptation to put these groups together in the blog,  instead arranging them in order of publication, similar to Franco's own site at http://naibi.net/p/index.html, but without his divisions into different print and on online places. However, for those interested in particular topics, here is a list of the five main topics. To get to the translation, click on the link after the title in English. To get to the original Italian, click on the title in Italian.

  • Playing card documentation, Tuscany (16 entries)

"Florence 1743-1778: Licenses for games" (Jan. 20, 2024), https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2024/02/jan-20-2024.html, Franco's original is at Firenze 1743-1778. Le licenze sui giochi (20.01.2024)).

"Florence 1843-1845. Foreign cards and bureaucracy" (Jan. 2, 2024) https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2024/01/. Franco's original is at Firenze 1843-1845. Carte forestiere e burocrazia (02.01.2024)

"Florence 1814: Restoration, also for playing cards" (Jan. 2, 2024), https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2024/01/jan-2-2024-florence-1814-restoration.html, Franco's original is at Firenze 1814: Restaurazione, anche per le carte da gioco (02.01.2024)

"Florence 1462: Playing Cards in a Dry Goods Store" (Dec. 2, 2023), https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2023/12/florence-1462-playing-cards-in-dry.html. Franco's original is at "Firenze 1462: carte da gioco in una merceria" (02.12.2023)

"1700s in Florence: Conversations in the Casino of St. Trinita" (Dec. 2, 2023), https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2023/12/1700s-in-florence-conversations-in.html. Franco's original is at Settecento a Firenze: Conversazione del Casino di Santa Trinita (02.12.2023).

"Florence 1766 - Domenico Aldini under investigation (November 21, 2023), at https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2023/12/november-21-2023-florence-1766.html. Franco's original is at  Firenze 1766 - Domenico Aldini sotto inchiesta (21.11.2023).

"Reform of the stamp duty on cards (October 31, 2023), at  https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2023/12/october-31-2023-reform-of-bolo-on-cards.html. Franco's original is at Firenze 1781: riforma del bollo sulle carte (31.10.2023).

"Cortona 1767-1781 - Playing Cards in Customs" (October 25, 2023), at https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2023/12/october-25-2023-cortona-1767-1781.html. Franco's original is at at  Cortona 1767-1781 – Carte da gioco in Dogana (25.10.2023).

"Florence - Three Account Books of the 1400s" (October 18, 2023), at https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2023/12/october-18-2023-florence-three-account.html. Franco's original is at Firenze – Tre libri di conti del Quattrocento (18.10.2023).

"1377: Florence: sentenced as players of naibi" (Jan-March 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/02/blank_62.html (1377: Firenze - Condanne ai giocatori di naibi." The Playing-Card , Vol. 44, No. 3 (2016), 156-163. 

"1426-1440 Florence: Convictions for card games in the Books of the Lily" (Nov. 26, 2016)  http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/11/nov-26-2016-1426-1440-florence.html (1426-1440: Firenze - Condanne per giochi di carte nei Libri del Giglio. (26.11.2016))

"1440-1450: Florence - Convictions for card games in the Books of the Lily" (Oct. 12, 2015) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/02/oct-12-2015-1440-1450-florence.html. (1440-1450: Firenze - Condanne per giochi di carte nei Libri del Giglio. (12.10.2015))

"1450, 1473, 1477: Florence: Laws on games" (Nov. 7, 2015) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/02/nov-7-2015-1450-1472-1477-florence-laws.html (1450, 1473, 1477: Firenze - Leggi sui giochi. (07.11.2015)

"1451: Siena - New law on games" (Oct. 31, 2015) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/02/essay-2.html (1451: Siena - Nuova legge sui giochi. (31.10.2015))

"1499-1506: New information on Florentine cards" (April, 2015) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/02/april-2015-new-information-on.html  (1499-1506: Firenze - Nuove informazioni sulle carte fiorentine. The Playing-Card, Vol. 44, No. 1 (2015) 61-71)

"1514: Florence: Law on games" (synopsis) (Nov. 21, 2015) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/02/nov-21-2015-1514-florence-law-on-games.html (11514: Firenze - Legge sui giochi. (21.11.2015))

  • Playing card documentation, outside Tuscany (6 entries) 

"Brescia 1786 - almanac on the tarot" (Aug. 20, 2023), at https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2023/09/1.html. Franco's original is at Brescia 1786 – Almanacco sul tarocco (20.08.2023).

"1477 Bologna: Arithmetic for cards and triumphs" (June 9, 2014) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/02/blank.html (Carte da gioco a Firenze: il primo secolo (1377-1477). The Playing-Card , 19 No. 1 (1990) 7-17.))

"Comments on Islamic cards" (Feb. 8, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/02/feb-8-2015-comments-on-islamic-cards.html (Commenti sulle carte islamiche. (08.02.2016))

"The 3rd Rosenwald Sheet" (June 27, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/11/june-27-2016-3rd-rosenwald-sheet.html (Il terzo foglio Rosenwald. (27.06.2016))

"Assisi c. 1510: Complete deck of 48 cards" (Dec. 22, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/11/dec-22-2016-assisi-c-1510-complete-deck.html (1510 ca: Assisi - Mazzo completo di 48 carte. (21.12.2016))

"1501-1521: cards from Perugia and nearby cities" (Jan. 5, 2017) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2017/02/jan-5-2017-1501-1521-cards-from-perugia.html (1501-1521: Carte da Perugia e città vicine. (05.01.2017))

  • Triumphs and the minor arts (5 entries)

"ca 1450: Triumphs and birthtrays," (May 13, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/11/may-13-21016-ca-1450-florence-triumphs.html (1450ca: Firenze - Trionfi e deschi da parto. (13.05.2016))

"ca 1450: Triumphs and marriage chests," (Aug. 31, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/11/aug-31-2016-triumphs-and-marriage-chests.html (1450ca: Firenze - Trionfi e cassoni nuziali. (31.08.2016)) 

"ca 1450: Triumphs and Civic Processions" (Oct. 11, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/11/nov-10-2016-ca-1450-civic-processions.html (1450ca: Firenze - Trionfi e cortei cittadini. (10.11.2016))

 "ca 1450: Triumphs and Triumphi" [i.e. illuminated manuscripts], (Oct. 15, 2016)  http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/11/oct-15-2016-triumphs-and-triumphi.html (1450ca: Trionfi e Triumphi. (15.10.2016))

"Siena 1438: From Angels to Love" (Dec. 7, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/11/dec-7-2015-siena-1438-from-angels-to.html  (1438: Siena - Dagli Angeli all'Amore. (07.12.2016))

Earliest playing cards, by place (8 entries)

"Playing Cards in Europe Before 1377? Aragon" (June 21, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/11/translators-introduction-by-michael-s_6.html (Carte da gioco in Europa prima del 1377 ? Aragona. (21.06.2016))

"Various cards at Basel in 1377 or 1429" (April 26, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/11/april-26-2016-various-cards-at-basel-in.html (Carte varie a Basilea nel 1377 o nel 1429. (26.04.2016))

"Playing Cards in Europe Before 1377? Berne" (April 26, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/11/sept-24-2016-before-1377-berne.html (Carte varie a Basilea nel 1377 o nel 1429. (26.04.2016))

"Playing Cards in Europe Before 1377? Bohemia" (June 7, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/11/june-7-2016-before-1377-bohemia.html (Carte da gioco in Europa prima del 1377 ? Boemia. (07.06.2016)) 

"Playing Cards in Europe Before 1377? Buja" (June 15, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/11/translators-introduction-by-michael-s.html (Carte da gioco in Europa prima del 1377 ? Buja. (15.06.2016))

"Playing Cards in Europe Before 1377? Holland" (Jan. 18, 2017 and March 9, 2017) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2017/02/jan-18-2017-playing-cards-in-europe.html (Carte da gioco in Europa prima del 1377 ? Olanda. (18.01.2017) and Carte da gioco in Europa prima del 1377 ? Olanda. Addendum. (09.03.2017))

"Playing Cards in Europe Before 1377? Italy" (May 5, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/02/feb-8-2015-comments-on-islamic-cards.html (Carte da gioco in Europa prima del 1377 ? Italia. (05.05.2016))

"Playing Cards in Europe Before 1377? Poland" (June 2, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/11/june-2-2016-before-1377-poland.html (Carte da gioco in Europa prima del 1377 ? Polonia. (02.06.2016)

  • Poems, magic tricks, cartomancy, and other entertainment with cards  (3 entries)

 "Games played with tarocchi in the 1600s," at https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2023/12/october-16-2023-games-played-with.html. Franco's original in Italian is at Giuochi che si fanno con le carte ‒ nel Seicento (16.10.2023).

"More Lombard editions from Court de Gébelin" (Aug. 3, 2023), https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2023/09/v-behaviorurldefaultvml-o_15.html. Franco's original in Italian is at Più edizioni lombarde da Court de Gébelin (03.08.2023).

"Ideas of an Egyptian - Cremona 1795" (July 5, 2023), https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2023/07/. Franco's original in Italian is at Idee di un egiziano. Cremona 1795 (05.07.2023)

  • General reflections, mostly on trionfi (5 entries)

 "Minchiate, Reflections on Design" (Dec. 2, 2023), at https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2023/12/december-12-2023-minchiate-reflections.html. Franco's original is at Minchiate. Riflessioni sul design (02.12.2023).

"Other comments on the triumphs" (Jan. 11, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/02/jan-11-2015-other-comments-qabout.html (Altri commenti sui trionfi. (11.01.2016))

"Cremona 1441? Ruminations on the Visconti-Madrone" (Jan. 17, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/02/jan-17-2016-ruminations-on-visconti-di.html (Cremona 1441? - Elucubrazioni sui tarocchi Visconti di Modrone o Cary-Yale. (17.01.2016))

"Milanese and Florentine Triumphs" (Feb. 12, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/02/blank_22.html (Trionfi milanesi e fiorentini - ipotesi e commenti. (12.02.2016))

"Earliest Triumphs: Contrasting Proposals and Outlooks" (Oct. 4, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/11/oct-4-2016-earliest-triumphs_7.html (Primi trionfi, proposte contrastanti e prospettive. (04.10.2016))

"Imaginary origins of triumphs and minchiate" (Nov. 19, 2016) http://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/11/nov-12-2016-imaginary-origins-of.html (Genesi favolosa di trionfi e minchiate. (19.11.2016)

For another list of the translations through 2017, this time to their appearance on Tarot History Forum, sometimes with discussion by others, see http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1100, graciously maintained by "Huck." Please let me know if links don't work or there are other errors. In most cases I can fix them.  

A complete list of Franco's essays on playing cards, with links to their texts in the original language, is at http://naibi.net/p/index.html. Those originally published at trionfi.com, all but one originally in English, are online at that site. The one essay there in Italian only, "Atlante tascabile e minchiate" (Pocket atlas and minchiate) can be read in English via Google Translate, by entering the page's url (http://trionfi.com/minchiate-atalante-1779) into Google's search engine for websites and then clicking on "translate this page." The result is adequate English; just remember that the word referring to the manure of bulls when it appears in the translation is Google's translation for the Italian minchiate, of course referring to the game and not the product produced by bulls, commentators on tarot, etc. All of Franco's essays in the list on naibi.net indicated as "first published at trionfi.com" can be read in languages other than English by the same procedure, depending on the location of one's computer and its language setting. The essays on Franco's own site should be amenable to the same procedure, but all I have been able to do is download them to my computer and then have Google translate them as a "document" rather than a "website."

Sunday, February 4, 2024

Feb. 2, 2024: Ponsacco 1421. Naibi for sale among much crockery

Dated Feb. 2, 2024, the original by Franco is at Ponsacco 1421. Naibi in vendita fra molte stoviglie (02.02.2024). This translation also appears at https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=26473#p26473.

Comments in brackets are mine. Franco was a big help, but any errors are also mine. The page numbers in Franco's original are in the left margin, and the notes are at the bottom of each. The title explains what it is about very well. I would add only that the essay is also of interest for what he did not find in these inheritance registers. However, this result is already somewhat superseded by a subsequent discovery, not yet, at this writing, on naibi.net. So stay tuned.



Ponsacco 1421. Naibi for sale among much crockery

Franco Pratesi

1. Introduction

Finally, a kind of event happened to me that can be explained by the saying that "The mountain gave birth to a mouse." In this case the mountains are in the State Archives of Florence: the registers of the section Magistrato dei pupilli avanti il principato, and in particular No. 152, at ff. 213v-217v.

This magistrature had been established in 1393 with the aim of protecting minors whose fathers had died without appointing a guardian, by assisting them with the administration of inherited assets. Usually a trusted person was found who followed the practice by administering the assets locally under the final control of the magistrates of minors. After the initial inventory of immovable and movable assets, and the long lists of current debits and credits, the economic situation was often updated taking into account the changes that had occurred in the meantime.
My research had as its main objective the discovery of evidence on naibi and trionfi in Florence in the first half of the fifteenth century, and here I report on the first of these discoveries: two packs of small naibi in a shop selling various goods, especially hardware and crockery. However, I also have the intention of continuing the discussion with the possible implications of what I have not found - in this and other registers of the same series - because I believe that useful indications can be drawn from them.

2. The general context of the discovery

In the registers in question, the locations encountered are within Florence or in the Florentine countryside. In this specific case, the places of interest are Morrona and Ponsacco, not only very far from the Florentine center but also in a rather unexpected direction, right on the border between the Florentine and Pisan territories, practically halfway between Volterra and Pisa. The notable proximity to Pisa explains that during those years there were several skirmishes and battles in the area due to the expansion of Florence and the Pisan counterattacks. Our German shopkeeper had a house and a shop in both places, about a dozen kilometers apart; in Morrona he also had land and animals. Evidently, the shopkeeper had settled in the area for some time with his family.

Morrona today is a Pisan village in the municipality of Terricciola, but it is located on a hill in a dominant position (even if the relief is not high, less than 200m above sea level), and this explains its history which dates back to the Etruscans. In the Middle Ages, it was a fortified town, and its castle was at the center of battles between Pisans and Luccans, between Ghibellines and Guelphs, and therefore, understandably, with the Florentines.

Ponsacco, a larger plain town but also fortified with walls and castle. Even around the castle of Ponsacco, there were repeated skirmishes with assaults and sieges by the Florentines, who managed to gain control of it from 1406 to 1494 and therefore practically for the entire fifteenth century. The year that appears in the inheritance registration in question is 1421.

3. The inventory of the shop

Upon the death of the shopkeeper Currado di Giovanni della Magna [of Alemagna, i.e. Germany], the magistrates of minors took care of the inheritance, according to their office to protect heirs with insufficient protection. The procedure involves initially drawing up an inventory of all movable and immovable assets, as well as all current debits and credits. The household goods present in the two houses and two shops are also listed. For our purpose, only the inventory of the Ponsacco workshop (then Ponte di Sacco) is of interest, and I transcribe it below. [For the transcription, see Franco s Italian original, online. Instead, here is our attempt at translation, which, however, is sure not to be right all the time.]

In the shop behind said house
4 oil jars with 6 or so small jars of oil inside. (The oil was sold to Mona Nobile)
19 empty oil jars with 1/2 jar of slurry (?) inside

2
2 barrels for containing fodder.
22 spade poles.
1 seat pad.
1 chiavarina [iron stake?].
2 basins full of zolfanelli [a primitive form of matches].
1 lib. [a kind of container?] for oil, broken.
1 earthen kind of funnel for barrels
1 grain shovel.
1 dining table with feet.
1 female donkey.
1 marrone [extra-large hoe].
1 ax with handle.
1 botticiello [small barrel] holding 4 barili [barrels, also a measure of volume] of barili inside [?]
1 old and ragged mule strap.
2 tunela [?] jugs, 1 broken.
1 basket with 30 lib. [unit of weight similar to the pound] inside of old iron.
10 loads of firewood.
1 empty basket for oranges
1 small basket with handle, broken.
1 shoe bench.

In the shop in front
1 old chest with 1 lock.
1 old table with feet.
1 old eating table with trestles.
More pieces of table hanging around the shop
1 empty basket.
9 spade poles.
2 cane sieves [?] to sift grain.
1 spade with handle.
4 containers [?] of tuna and sardines.
1 flax-crushing machine.
1 grain shovel.
1 packsaddle and 1 old and wrecked saddle.
1 bridle with foal crownpiece.
1 pair [paio] of half-sized scales.
12 cane ox cages.
10 hoops for small barrels
5 bushels of flax seed in 2 bags.
1 pair [paio] of children's clogs.
1 old reaping sickle.
72 black and white earthen pots.
24 strainers for tano [?] and small basins.
3 large basins.
29 wooden spoons and ladles.
18 earthen containers or small basins.
90 white painted earthen bowls.
5 earthen basins with grime [?] inside.
20 small earthen bowls.
12 earthen cutting boards.
2 packs [paia] of small naibi.
9 large painted low basins.
3
2 large earthenware basins.
40 large and small pans.
2 empty small baskets
1 broken earthen funnel.
24 large and small earthen jars.
2 majolica jars with butter and turpentine inside
1 pot full of spindles.
2 large basins for gelatin.
11 wrecked spindles for spinning.
More wood for the shop.
5 rows of glass cups.
77 pounds of thick and thin new rope.
4 black earthen trays.
13 black earthen lids

I transcribed the final j with i. I've hesitated about dividing words, especially when it's just moving a space like dami etere / da mietere, cho lmanicho / chol manicho, dassedere / da sedere, essottile / e ssottile, daffanciulli / da ffanciulli, and similar. In the inventory, you come across words that are not read, others that are read but not understood, objects of forgotten use; in short, there are several uncertain points.

Zolfanelli were a primitive type of matches formed, according to the Crusca [in that academy's Vocabulario], from a hemp stalk "dipped in sulfur from both ends." The marrone was a large hoe used to remove deep soil. Guncho today would be written giunco [cane, reeds], etc. Finding a donkey, if it existed, among these goods in a shop (in any case in this specific case better compatible with a warehouse) would be a strange but not rare event.

Aside from the uncertainties of reading and interpretation, all things that can be considered secondary for us, there is a very important fixed point to highlight. Today we wouldn't even know what to call this shop, because it combined goods that would be found in different shops, hardware, ceramics, tools, crockery and kitchen objects, tools for country work, and others. The fundamental fact for us is that precisely in this kind of bazaar we find the two packs of small naibi.

It is not at all the same as if we had found playing cards in a dry goods shop (like those of the silk weavers of Florence [note 1] or even in a private home. These decks were put there to be sold if a buyer appeared, and their position among various crockery items demonstrates exactly their rather low value, less than what we could have expected in such an early era for their diffusion.

In a subsequent register of the same archive, No. 154, we find an update of the same inheritance, at ff. 170v-177r. We are now in 1423, and the related inventory still includes long lists of debtors, but only a part of the household goods from the previous register (the naibi are also absent). The heirs are specified as the two-year-old son Lorenzo and "Mona Nobile, mother of said child and now wife of Antonio di Michele da Morrona and now living in Ponte di Sacho." The parish priest and another inhabitant of Morrona are still managing the assets on behalf of the magistrates.

4. The sources studied

Following what has been communicated so far, I felt the usefulness of continuing to illustrate this same research, broadening the overview to also include the cases in which it was unsuccessful, that is, practically all except the one presented above. In fact, even the absence of testimonies can provide useful information on the diffusion of playing cards at the time.

The research is based almost exclusively on inventories of household goods found in the homes and shops of deceased people who left children in need of the assistance of the magistrates of
__________________
1. F. Pratesi, Playing-Card Trade in 15th-Century Florence. IPCS Papers No. 7, 2012.

4
minors. In this research, I examined the following registers, as indicated in the ASFi Inventory N/60.
151 Sample inventories and reasons revised, 1 Oct. 1413 ? 20 Mar. 1417
152 As above for the neighborhoods of Santo Spirito and Santa Croce, 1 Oct. 1418 ? 20 Mar. 1422
153 As above for the neighborhoods of Santa Maria Novella and San Giovanni, 1 Oct. 1418 ? 20 Mar. 1422
154 As above for the neighborhoods of Santo Spirito and Santa Croce, 1 Oct. 1421 - 20 Mar. 1425
168 Sample of inventories and revised reasons for the Santo Spirito and Santa Croce neighborhoods, 1432 - 1439
169 As above for the Santo Spirito neighborhood, 1439 - 1454
170 As above for the Santa Croce district, 1439 - 1454
171 As above for the Santa Maria Novella district, 1439 - 1454
173 As above for the Santa Maria Novella and San Giovanni neighborhoods, 1467 - 1475
186 Inventory list, 1464 - 1510
The registers in question are large format books, folios measuring 41x29 cm, thickness from 8 to 15 cm, in short, double the size, in all three dimensions, compared to a thick book today. The number of folios varies, usually around three hundred, but they reach five hundred and correspond to twice that number of pages. In reality, the thickness would also suggest a higher number of pages, but it must be taken into account that each of these sheets had a decidedly greater thickness than what we are used to.

For each inheritance registration, several pages are reserved, some filled immediately, others gradually later, others left blank. In the end, there are just under a hundred files contained in one of these registers. As mentioned, in these inheritance practices, the pages with the inventory of household goods (which are not always present) represent the part of almost exclusive interest to us, which significantly reduces the pages to be examined carefully. Sometimes we encounter homes with few rooms and furnishings, but there are also large buildings, with several pages dedicated only to household goods. However, one should not think that this is little data, because all the objects, even the smallest, present in the home and possibly in the shops of the deceased are examined room by room.

In the end, it must be clear that searching these very long lists for any gaming implement is equivalent to looking, as they say, for a needle in a haystack and really requires the patience of a Carthusian, or at least of a pensioner. What made the insistence on continuing the research possible in the face of practically non-existent results was the importance of the issues at stake; here I am only considering card games, but there is also a further interest in board games, for which contemporary evidence is similarly incomplete.

5. Questions opened

Before discussing which games we were likely to find evidence of, a digression on terminology may be in order. In any case, the context remains that of the implements necessary for the game, because only of such objects is it possible to identify some traces.

For card games, there are no complex problems. It is certainly not a problem to eventually encounter naibi written as naibj, or replaced during the fifteenth century by the corresponding term for playing cards in use to this day. The problem can only arise in the corresponding attributes, if present, because in other documents naibi are found as small [piccoli], large [grandi], middle-sized [mezzani], halved [scempi], doubled [doppi], classy [fini], folded-back [rimboccati], favored [avvantaggiati], and second-rate [dozzinali], terms some of which have a meaning that is difficult or impossible to reconstruct. [note 2]

We know that we shouldn't look for a pack [mazzo] of naibi, but a pair [paio]. This determination is not of much help, because there are many objects registered with the premise of one or more pairs, and not only of the "normal" type such as scissors, socks, gloves, or boots, but also of the most diverse kinds, such as springs, andirons, sheets, and so on, including terms for tools for particular techniques whose use and meaning have been lost. If you then move from naibi to triumphs (and you could encounter some results of
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2. http://trionfi.com/naibi-doppi-scempi.

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much interest, especially for early times), the context will be enough to determine their use for the game.

However, it remains to be clarified what can be expected from the research. Above all, it remains to be understood how widespread the naibi and, later, triumphs, were, and for the latter if there remain traces of a use prior to the first date known so far of 1440, found by Thierry Depaulis. Already encountering its frequent distribution, even in the poorest homes, would be a sure indication. Furthermore, the commercial value of playing cards at the time is also not clear, because very different prices were encountered.

Findings of writings that expose the details of the games that were in vogue at the time, and, with a few exceptions, even their names themselves, are to be excluded here. We therefore only search for any objects related to the game, namely playing cards. This is where the specific type of game comes into play. If it was children who played, then such players could be found in every home. In other words, if naibi were educational decks, we can expect examples of them in almost every home; if, however, they were only used for gambling, we expect to find specimens only in houses and shops that could organize gambling dens, possibly clandestine ones.

Predicting the possible house-to-house distribution therefore requires that the playing cards be associated with one of several possible types of games, and it may then be useful to dedicate a parenthesis to a summary review of the various possible uses.

6. Parentheses on the different card games

Educational games. In many histories of games there is a quote from Morelli [note 3] in which the recently introduced naibi are appreciated as useful teaching tools for children. Such testimony is very rare, because more often one finds condemnations of games, and their negative aspects are highlighted, but it is widely understandable. A first "instructive" application can in fact be that of adding small integers, as are present in playing cards and necessary to count in many common games. Or even, without a specific game, using the cards directly as numbers. Another important application is one that still has a large following - so much so that entire original decks designed just for this game are sold, Memory Game Cards - in which the aim is to associate identical cards face down in a group, revealing them in pairs and winning them when they discover two alike.

Houses of cards. Again in a predominantly children's context, cards can be used to form houses of various sizes. I have in mind an entire book dedicated to this topic, [note 4] which as a rule is not found in current manuals on card games. The advantage of such a game is that it adapts to every age of the child, from minimal houses to constructions that require skill and a steady hand.

Pastime card games. This has been the most widespread application over the centuries. It is an opportunity to meet up with some friends and spend a few hours together, forgetting the worries of everyday life. They can typically be played at the tavern with a drink at stake, or even with the family. Any objective of the game can, if desired, be made to transform an innocent game into gambling, but in this sector these are rather exceptions.

Gambling games with cards. In every era cards have been used for gambling. What varied, depending on the times and places, was above all the control by the government, sometimes tolerant (also in view of the possible revenue into the public coffers), sometimes very rigid. In the early fifteenth century, there were certainly no places like modern gaming establishments, but if we find traces of this use of cards it is above all among convictions for prohibited gaming.

Magic tricks. This is a separate sector that has always had some followers. For a couple of centuries, starting from the sixteenth century, if in a library catalog we find a book with the title Card Games it was in practice "explanations" of magic tricks. In this case, the players
_____________________
3. Istoria fiorentina di Ricordano Malespini coll aggiunta di Giachetto Malespini e la Cronica di Giovanni Morelli, Florence 1718, p. 270.
4. U. Niedhardt, Kartenhäuser einstürzende Neubauten, Reinbeck in Hamburg 1993.

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are reduced to one, who performs in front of the spectators in a living room or a booth. The spectators are shocked not only because they couldn't do the same, but also because they don't even understand how that trick is possible. For these games, special or rigged decks are often required, which can be expected to have limited diffusion.

7. Answers not found

Based on the previous considerations, I expected to find playing cards in different types of homes and to be able to deduce some concrete hypotheses on the use of the cards and the type of games. Instead I found, after a long time, only one answer, and I communicated it above. Aside from what can be deduced from that finding, and that's no small thing, it also served me as "authorization" to now also comment on the absent results, i.e. the largely unexpected negative outcome of the research.

Sometimes, in research, it happens that an experiment that has a negative outcome ends up proving very useful, to the point of causing one to change the theories that had given rise to the experiment. In our case, we are not in those conditions, and the lack of results does not provide us with precise information, but only bases for further discussions which still remain rather uncertain. However, I see a big difference between playing cards not found and the same ones not searched for: if I look for them and don't find them where they could or should be, this is already a result worth discussing.

For example, in almost every house there were children and teenagers; if the naibi were used by them, I should have met a few "pairs" in so many such homes researched. If, however, the naibi were used in gambling dens, to encounter them it would have been necessary to have an inventory of one of those gambling dens. The ideal would have been to find the inventory of the shop of a playing card manufacturer, but I haven't found one yet; I only found dealers like the silk weavers already mentioned, with account books in the Ospedale degl'Innocenti, or this German shopkeeper from Ponsacco.

A possible explanation for the absence of the naibi, and then of the triumphs, from the inventories was suggested to me by an expert scholar of the period. According to him, if they really were valuable objects (and at least for the first examples of naibi and triumphs this would seem quite probable), the residents could have moved them before the magistrates arrived to have the inventories compiled. In fact, this explanation is not convincing to me, because there are many homes in which objects of gold and precious stones are recorded, which certainly had a much greater value than any deck of cards and which would also have been easier to make disappear within a suitable time.

Considering the systematic absence of playing cards in the household inventories, the opposite hypothesis appears more plausible, that is, that they were considered of no value. With some exceptions, this could be understood, because everything leads to the conclusion that a deck of cards has a short life: the nature of the material, the dimensions of the object, the extreme ease with which a card can be torn or lost in the game (and you usually can't find games to play with an incomplete deck).

In the absence of specific indications, we can think of various intermediate cases of the value of playing cards between very high and practically zero. From other sources, we know that the cards could be produced at different levels of quality and prices, even significantly different, starting from the extraordinary specimens produced for the great lords. It is not certain that decks of medium-high level cards were not present in the homes of several Florentine citizens. But if we don't find them registered, the conclusion seems to me to be that, once used, they thereby lost all their commercial value.

If we are not convinced by the hypothesis of playing cards that are present but remain absent in the registers, we must reach a different conclusion. Perhaps then playing cards didn't really exist in the private homes of Florentines, either in the city or in the countryside. To find them, you should then simply look for them in taverns where any local group or traveler could find decks of cards available, new as well as used, or in the inventories of specialized shops, obviously starting from those of the playing card manufacturers, or at least of retailers. Why then did we find the two decks from Ponsacco's workshop mentioned above recorded? Because that was merchandise for sale, new decks, with a commercial value to them, even if very small.

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8. Conclusion

After long research, I happened to find the presence in 1421 of two packs of small naibi in the middle of a shop where the most varied goods were on sale: hardware, pottery, kitchen and work objects, for both home and business, etc. The locality, Ponsacco, was in a territory that was then Florentine but long disputed with Pisa, a much closer city. Already this unpredictable group of goods, together with the unexpected location, can serve to reconstruct some routes in the diffusion of playing cards in the first half of the fifteenth century. However, it must be considered equally important that no other registrations of playing cards were found in the numerous inventories examined. Possible reconstructions on the distribution of playing cards in various homes and shops have been discussed, but other findings are needed for decisive confirmation in one direction or the other.

Florence, 02.02.2024

Jan. 20, 2024: 1743-1778: Licenses for Games

 This is another essay pertaining to playing card production in Tuscany, focusing this time on the places where card games of various sorts were allowed to be played. The original, in Italian, is at https://www.naibi.net/A/LICENZE.pdf. The parts in brackets are mine, either after consultation with Franco or in relation to this blog format.  This essay is also posted at https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=26432#p26432.

Florence 1743-1778: Licenses for games


Franco Pratesi

Introduction

In past years I had the opportunity to study various registers of the Camera e Auditore fiscale (Chamber and Fiscal Auditor) collection of the State Archives of Florence (ASFi) and obtained quite interesting information from them. However, there were two in the series of registers that I was unable to use, also because the data seemed too confusing and irregular. These are registers No. 3017 and 3018 relating exclusively to the registration of revenues for the granting of licenses for the playing of games The first (A) concerns the years 1743-1763, the second (B) the years 1763-1778.

Now I have resumed my study, in particular because I found information about it in an important book on games in Tuscany in the eighteenth century. [note 1] In this academic monograph, Addobbati delves into the whole topic in a decidedly above-average manner, also based on ASFi documents, including the two registers that I am examining here. Indeed, Addobbati dedicates an entire chapter of his book to licenses for games, pp. 165-194. Anyone with an interest in deepening their knowledge of the topic will be able to find in that discussion a valid reconstruction of the environment, both in general and with some in-depth analysis of particular events and personages.

In my study, I have limited myself to examining the records relating to card games and reproducing a part of them at the end in the form of tables.


Innovations of the Habsburg-Lorraines


The Habsburg-Lorraine dukes found in Florence a state that had remained centuries behind. By now entrepreneurial activity, which centuries earlier had made Florence a world-class capital, had been replaced mainly by conservative agricultural ownership, in the hands of the main families and the clergy.

As regards the limited sector of our interest, games, the Medici had already tried on several occasions to put a stop to gambling, but in the eighteenth century the situation was getting out of control. Many people complained about dangerous losses of money, with understandable negative consequences, and alongside the usual reprimands from the clergy there were even pleas from entrepreneurs who witnessed the serious losses, if not downright ruin, of their employees, especially in the frequent case of young people, beginners with work and wages.

The traditional system of the Medici dynasty of granting exemptions and privileges in a chaotic manner in response to individual requests received, without precise rules and in any case without the concrete possibility of obtaining rigorous compliance with any rule, contributed to making the situation uncontrollable.

The Lorraine grand dukes committed themselves for several generations to reforming the entire administration until the famous Leopoldine reforms, which finally gave new life to the Tuscan state; in particular, they immediately set out to combat gambling, trying to set precise rules and limits. Only indicated games could be played and only in places with a new license, granted upon payment of the relevant fee.

The process of combating gambling occurred in several stages and ended, at least formally, with the law of 1773, which prohibited card games everywhere, with rare exceptions, such as the Casini dei Nobili, which were formed in Florence and in the main Tuscan cities (those so-called nobili, noble cities - in which alone some of the main local families could obtain recognition of nobility).
___________________
1. A. Addobbati, La festa e il gioco nella Toscana del Settecento, Pisa 2002.

2
The contrast on the part of the revenue offices

All state administration offices were required, one might say by definition, to follow any direction of the grand dukes. A nod, a barely perceptible indication, was enough for the whole machine to start spinning at full speed. Maybe this was indeed the rule, but not for card games.

In recent centuries the money in the coffers of the Tuscan Grand Duchy available for administration was increasingly reduced. In the specific case of the department of playing cards, revenue from taxes on games was an indispensable source for the very life of the office. Thus, in the official correspondence studied by Addobbati, we encounter unexpected clashes between the rigor proposed from above and the more permissive attitude of the offices, which would have looked favorably on the authorization of games such as the infamous bambara, for the evident reason that the related tax brought much more money into the office s coffers. Naturally, the result of the prolonged consultations could not end otherwise than with a decision dictated by the Grand Duke, but this only happened after an initial restraining action on the part of the offices.


The accounting units used


In examining these registers, an initial difficulty we encounter is that all taxes are indicated with a more extensive accounting system than usual: we were used to the LSd system with 1 lira equal to twenty soldi and one soldo equal to twelve denari. This system is also preserved here, but with a larger preceding unit, the scudo (sometimes also called ducat), worth seven lire.

I don't know the origin of this system, but at least two advantages can be seen to compensate for the greater complexity: the first is to reduce the size of the calculation, in the sense that 6 scudi are expressed with fewer numerals than 42 lire, and this can be useful to facilitate calculations in the case of large amounts. Even more useful is the fact that so expanded this system can facilitate the divisibility of the total amounts calculated into equal parts. The decimal system, for example, involves digits that are not divisible into exactly three parts, a drawback already overcome in the LSd system, but with scudi, perfect divisibility extends even with a divisor of 7; I don't know of any accounting system more "suitable" for this purpose.

The variety of taxes paid is quite surprising. The figures that are most often encountered, especially within Florence, are 6 scudi for minchiate and 17.3.10.- for low cards [ordinary 40 card decks]. The frequent appearance of a complex figure like the last one already seems a bit strange, and in fact the annual fee for low cards was double, precisely 35 scudi, a round figure like the others. In some cases, the annual tax was simply paid in two installments, but Addobbati suggests that many shopkeepers paid only one semester [six-month period], when there was more crowding at the tables, and in the other they did not hold games, or held them secretly.

Furthermore, especially when leaving the city of Florence, taxes were reduced in several ways. This occurred partly due to a generalized reduction and partly due to the maintenance of ancient privileges which were left to the negotiation of individual cases.


The changes over the years


Leafing through the registers we find unexpected differences from one year to the next. Especially at the beginning, the procedure was clearly being fine-tuned and the problem of the game of bambara had not yet been resolved. In fact, there were two different fees for the low card game license, one with bambara and one without. A few months later, bambara was included among the prohibited games and for a while, again in the license for low card games, it was specified that it was not included.

Next, for the permitted low card games, is the general formula of "deal games" [games in which all or most of the cards are dealt out -given to the players, mostly of the trick-taking variety]. For the territories of Livorno and Pisa, it is preferable to introduce a contract with concession holders who, for an agreed annual sum, deal with the granting and control of licenses and collect the amounts. Indeed, at a certain point this system ended up being extended to the whole of Tuscany, typically in the year 1751 (see relevant table at the end), but the result was not encouraging, and the traditional system was soon resumed.

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For the Tuscan bureaucracy, 1750 is a very important year, involving all the registers and account books of the administration. In fact, in Tuscany the law changes the beginning of the year to "our" January 1st instead of the traditional March 25th. In these registers, we thus also witness clear innovations. The first months of the year, from January 1st to March 25th, now have the same year number as the following months and no longer that of the previous ones. However, for several years, the final annual balance sheet continues to be set at the end of February.

Of all the variations that we encounter from one year to the next, the most impressive is the one that we read in the second of the two registers, the one marked B. In fact, inside it, we go through the "revolution" with the victory of the rigorous approach towards games of cards, as commented below.


Annual budgets

These books are kept as revenue journals, and hence the taxes collected are recorded on the same day of payment. (For simplicity, in the tables added at the end I limit myself to transcribing only the month.) However, each year the final account is entered for the entire previous year. This happens with a few summary lines after the income for the month of February, and this continues until 1776, despite the fact that from 1750, the new year begins as today, from the first of January. In 1776 the budget relating only to the last ten months was reported, in order to match the new limit of the year. The last entry is from March 1778 and is calculated only for the first three months of that year.

We have glimpsed that there were notable changes in the laws on games during that period; correspondingly, it is natural to expect a clear change in revenue corresponding to the taxes for the related licenses. However, if you look at the following table and graph, compiled with data from the registers, the conclusion is rather unexpected. The dotted line in the graph interpolates the data and actually indicates a general decrease, but a small one, much less than we would have expected. In the following data, no sudden changes, and in particular no permanent decreases, are observed either; at most there were individual deviations from the average values which were then quickly reduced in subsequent years. Perhaps there was also some compensation between the increasing number of licenses and the decreasing individual tax. [For a larger and clearer version of this and other tables here, click on the link below them.]



 https://forum.tarothistory.com/download/file.php?id=3042

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Information on games

We need to reflect for a moment on the games and players of the time. On the games that were played, we actually don't get much from the licenses. There were games of chance that were always prohibited - already in the time of the Medici - such as bassetta, pharaoh, and thirty-one, but these, too, were probably widespread because many game rooms were in practice inaccessible to controls. The extreme case, however, at that time was that of bambara, a game that derived from primiera (and which can roughly be considered an ancestor of poker), which created problems because it was the favorite game in every club, or at least it would have been if they had allowed it.

From what we can glean from various testimonies, we could immediately conclude that playing cards were preferentially used for games of chance. The complaints were especially against young gamblers who preferred fast games of chance. Bambara was understandably the most popular game; when it was decided to ban it, buia [current meaning = dark] was introduced, a variant that was only different enough so that its name was not present among those of the prohibited games.

It was not easy to distinguish between pastime games and gambling, especially when using low cards. Could you play pastime games of the minchiate type also with low cards? Certainly yes, and in fact in the early years, deal games were spoken of, and among these, tressette explicitly appeared, albeit rarely.

However, making sure that players used low cards only for permitted games and not for prohibited ones would have required control that was impossible due to the limited number of agents and the frequent possibility of bribing them so as not to be reported.

Minchiate

The oldest and most traditional game was naturally that of minchiate, which was played in cafes, but also in barber shops, and specialty shops [apothecaries, spices sellers], and private homes. In itself, it is a game very suitable for spending an afternoon or evening in the company of friends and acquaintances. The game is slow, requires reflection and patience, and is therefore suitable for older people with sufficient free time available. These characteristics merited the recognition of a considerably lower license fee, typically only six scudi instead of thirty-five, and even less if the venue was located outside the city.

However, we have a sort of demonstration of the preference of the Tuscans of the time for games of chance, starting from the same minchiate. Why did minchiate have preferential taxation? Because it was the most traditional deal game : this typology could also be present when playing with low cards, but in contrast to all the others, minchiate had the advantage of a single deck associated with that traditional game and not those of games of chance. With all those cards, you couldn't play basset or pharaoh!

However, the situation was not that simple. In particular, it can be assumed that gambling was also done with minchiate; indeed one can even think that at the time minchiate was used preferably to save on the license fee, while still allowing players to practice some new games of chance to their taste. No agent could claim to find players engaged in a game of chance if they had the typical minchiate cards in his hand.

There may have been many cases, but a precise testimony was preserved for us by Biscioni who in the additions to Minucci's notes to the Malmantile Reacquired [note 2] even gives us the rules of a couple of games of chance played with minchiate. Michael Dummett includes them among the games of his monumental book,[note 3] while they are judged to be so extraneous to the general characteristics of tarot games that in the re-edition with John McLeod they are only present in an Appendix to the second volume. [note 4]
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2. (L. Lippi) Il Malmantile racquistato di Perlone Zipoli colle note di Puccio Lamoni e d’altri, Firenze 1731.
3. M. Dummett, The Game of Tarot, London 1980, pp. 353-354.
4. M. Dummett, J. McLeod, A History of Games Played with the Tarot Pack, Lewiston 2004, vol. 2, pp. 848-850.

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The inventiveness and cunning of Florentine players were truly uncontrollable. How could any tax or police officer have recognized, for example, a sequence counted again for the score at the end of a traditional game from an identical sequence used as a combination in a poker-like gambling game? Not only the same unique cards, but even the same combination. So you could gamble in complete safety.


Other games

Probably in each individual license the various permitted games were listed; in the register in question, reference is always made to the license for the details, necessarily omitted from the summary registration of the day.

For example, the game of chess is perhaps only written on one occasion, but we certainly cannot consider it a forbidden game. Among the games of this genre, checkers never appears, although it must have had a certain following (at least in barber shops, and I am old enough to have a personal memory of this from the mid-twentieth century, when minchiate had been forgotten, even the name).

At the other extreme, among the games of chance, a sideshow game also appears. The case is very unusual, because it does not involve a cafe or similar establishment, but a type of traveling attraction which had previously required special authorization from the Fiscal Auditor himself. On 9 August 1847, Mr. Domenico Cocchi paid 100 L (14.2.-.- scudi) to allow the public to play Girello, also called Alla bianca e alla rossa - To the white and to the red - "but outside this city of Florence". Without knowing it in detail, I imagine that it was a primitive kind of roulette, which could be transported from one fair to another.


The places of games

The first substantial distinction between the places where the license for games was granted is between the premises within the Florentine walls and other locations. Inside the city, the rates were relatively uniform with few exceptions to the usual rates of 6 scudi for minchiate and 35 for low cards. The higher fee appears almost exclusively as a half-payment, whether the entire fee was paid in two parts or only the part relating to one six-month period. Leaving Florence, the fees usually appear lower and less regular, with fluctuations that are difficult to understand. Each license contained the precise terms of the concession, and therefore it is possible that there were also differences in the games allowed or otherwise, but in the registers, only "according to the license" is regularly seen, and no additional conditions are reported.

Various licenses were granted for nearby locations, such as Peretola, Campi, Settignano, Baccano (a miniscule village just above Fiesole). It is easy to imagine that in such places local players gathered with some stranger, such as a city-dweller on holiday or a professional in full "working" activity, with the intention of making large profits at the expense of people less expert in the tricks of the trade.

In the smaller Tuscan towns, compared to what we might suppose, some appear and others do not, without an apparent criterion of regular geographical distribution, up to the Tuscan Romagna, almost touching the Adriatic. Then arriving at the larger cities, we can notice the absence of Siena, but we know that in that area, control over games was reserved by ancient tradition to the local Casino dei Nobili. However, for Pisa, and especially for Livorno, we find few licenses registered because in those two territories, there were contractors who paid an annual fee to the tax authorities and directly collected the fees for the licenses they had the right to grant. This delegation of the granting of licenses was sometimes also present in occasional cases, as happened in 1761 for the Prato Academy when, as a counterpart to the fee paid, it was in turn able to grant two minchiate game licenses.


The second register, No. 3018 or B

At the beginning of the second register, there are situations quite similar to those of the first for a few years; however, shortly after, the situation changes profoundly: card games appear only as

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very rare exceptions, while now the rule is to grant licenses for billiards, trucco, and other similar games, among which the spinning top is sometimes found mentioned. At the end, I have only reported the year 1774 in table form, but it can be considered representative of a situation that also occurred in a similar way in nearby years.

We have a lot of information about the technique and diffusion of billiards, but trucco has been completely forgotten for many decades. It was a kind of billiards in which, however, the balls were pushed by long mallets along certain paths on the table, with rings to cross and obstacles to overcome, which could recall similar games played on a larger scale on the ground, outdoors. The spinning top, on the other hand, is better known as an outdoor game for children. I don't know how it was played inside. The potential game possibilities vary between wide limits. At one extreme, a game of skill: two players compete to see who can make the rotation of their top last the longest. At the other extreme, one uses a multifaceted spinning top with its facets marked with numbers or colors and bets which one will land on at the end. The second type would seem to be the one favored by Tuscan gamblers of the time, but as a game of chance, it would have been prohibited.

Since there is almost no more information on playing cards, from our point of view this data could be completely overlooked. In addition to the rare cases of card game licenses, however, there is other useful information. Meanwhile, it can be verified that those who ask for the license are often the same cafes and various venues that requested it for card games. But there are some necessarily different aspects, including one of some interest, already indicated by Addobbati in his book. Mainly, it is not possible that all players who usually played cards would find the same possibility with the "new" games. If previously twenty people played cards on multiple tables in a room, now only two or four typically play billiards. What do the other sixteen-eighteen do? Are they just watching? Certainly not: they bet on the outcome of the current match, and they even commit large sums to this. So it was always gambling that won.

Florence, 01.20.2024

TABLES

Introduction

In selecting the years to summarize in the final tables, I based myself on a few series of subsequent years and chose other single years that seemed more representative to me. I have always set the limits from January to December, and until 1750 I did not respect the old numbering of the years (for the months from January to March). Instead, I have kept the spelling of the names of the places, even when they appear unusual today, such as reading, for example, Ponteadera or Pontadera for Pontedera. In some cases, we come across slightly curious spellings, but closer to popular pronunciation, such as Domo next to Duomo, and similar. With rare exceptions, I have not written down the name of the person who obtains the license, nor that of whoever eventually goes to make the payment on his behalf.

When I report the numerical data of the amounts paid, if it is a whole number of scudi I do not usually indicate the following zeros, i.e., I write for example 6 instead of 6.0.0.0, or, as more usual , 6.-.-. -. The tendency for these taxes is precisely to be based on whole numbers of scudi. When non-integer values are encountered, an explanation is usually also found: either it is half the tax, typically 17.3.10.-, half of 35, or it is a balance after a fractional down payment, or it is for other reasons that usually are reported explicitly in the register. Often these are adjustments (and therefore I add "adjustment" in the tables), such as the payment of a higher tax deducting what has already been paid for the lower tax. In 1747, there are figures that must be calculated differently from day to day, depending on the time remaining before the deadline, and in this regard it is easy to imagine that the assistance of an expert accountant was indispensable.

When only the address or name of the shop is found without indicating the city, it always means that it is Florence, in the registers tacitly understood. [Here m means month or months; dd - originally gg - means days, the time remaining for which the license is valid.]

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[For a clearer view of this table, go to https://forum.tarothistory.com/download/file.php?id=3043. Similar links are provided for the other tables here.]

8

https://forum.tarothistory.com/download/file.php?id=3044

9

https://forum.tarothistory.com/download/file.php?id=3045

10

https://forum.tarothistory.com/download/file.php?id=3047

11

https://forum.tarothistory.com/download/file.php?id=3046

12

https://forum.tarothistory.com/download/file.php?id=3048

13

https://forum.tarothistory.com/download/file.php?id=3055

14

https://forum.tarothistory.com/download/file.php?id=3059

 15

https://forum.tarothistory.com/download/file.php?id=3058

16

https://forum.tarothistory.com/download/file.php?id=3052

17

 https://forum.tarothistory.com/download/file.php?id=3057

18

 

https://forum.tarothistory.com/download/file.php?id=3054

 

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Jan. 2, 2024: Florence 1843-1845: Foreign cards and bureaucracy

Below is my translation, assisted by Google Translate (but requiring extensive corrections!) and Franco, of the last - at least for now - of a series of reports on playing card regulations and state bureaucracy in the Grand Duchy in the period after 1750, posted in Italian at https://www.naibi.net/A/FI1843.pdf. The previous one reported various control measures to "reduce fraud, searches, and trials" while at the same time bringing in tax revenue from playing cards. However, at least one of them seems to have resulted in many more, at least of fines and trials, against travelers who wanted to bring a deck or two of cards into the Grand Duchy for personal use. Officials' conscientious efforts to correct the matter, moreover, seem to have produced a bureaucratic tangle.

 I have combined Franco's one footnote and with his twelve endnotes and put them all at the bottom of the corresponding pages of his pdf (the numbers in the left margin). My translator's notes are in brackets. This translation also appears at https://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=26416#p26416.

Florence 1843-1845. Foreign cards and bureaucracy

Franco Pratesi

1. Introduction
    Years ago, I searched various collections of the State Archives of Florence, looking for documents on playing cards in Tuscany, and especially in Florence. For the Grand Ducal and post-unification periods, I then collected the main results in two books.[note 1] I recently identified other collections with useful documents. In this study, the material under examination is No. 89 of the collection Capirotti di Finanza – Finance Accounts. In particular, I studied two files concerning the control of foreign cards in the years 1843-1845.

    The interest of these documents is that they deal with difficult-to-resolve questions on alternative interpretations of the relevant law, dating back to 1816. In combating the smuggling of playing cards, the law did not differ much from those which tended to prosecute the smuggling of salt and tobacco. First, the law prescribed a penalty of 25 lire for each deck of foreign cards discovered in the luggage of a traveler within the grand duchy. This provoked considerable protests from foreigners in transit who owned their own deck of cards and used it as a pastime. Therefore, the need was emerging on the part of customs officers to distinguish cases by number of decks, and above all between new and used cards, in order to be able to adapt the punishment for smaller cases.

    The problem, as usual, is that reasonable solutions to the problems of interpretation of the law require the approval of several higher bodies, up to and including the opinion and pronouncement of the Grand Duke himself. So we are witnessing an exchange of correspondence between different offices, among which it is not even easy for us to understand the hierarchical relationships, largely clouded in the written testimony by the formulas of deference that abound both up and down.

I considered it useful to transcribe the documentation preserved in this regard in the first file, precisely to provide an overview of the environment from an internal point of view.

    But the matter does not end here, because there is a second file that completes the observation of the environment. Also in this case, there is an exchange of correspondence between the various directors of the offices interested in the same problem of control over foreign playing cards. However, in this case the approach is practically the opposite. In the first case, the Florentine central offices had to examine a proposal from an office in Livorno to lighten the sentences. In this second case, the proposal, again put into practice in Livorno, tended instead to aggravate the same penalties.

   There was in fact a substantial difference between the penalties on playing cards and those on salt and tobacco. In other cases, the offender who did not have the necessary amount of money to deposit as security (or who, despite having the money, did not intend to deposit it) was arrested and brought to trial. This procedure was not foreseen for playing cards, and in this case it was possible for the offender not to pay, and only be deprived of the playing cards, to the detriment of the treasury. Then, in a manner deemed arbitrary by other offices, the director of the Livorno office gave instructions to the customs guards and the other employees involved to deal with cards as with salt and tobacco.

    We thus witness the request for opinions from multiple offices, with the typical response that the proposal could also be accepted if, and only if, validated by a specific amendment to the law being approved by the Grand Duke. For this second case, I do not transcribe all the correspondence preserved because that of the first case is already sufficient to convey the idea of the formal system of the search for a convergence of opinions; that is, I limit myself to the selection of a few letters.
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1. Card games in the Florentine republic. Ariccia 2016; Playing-Card Production in Florence. Tricase 2018.

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2. Proposal for lesser penalties

    The topic has already been indicated in the Introduction. I transcribe the correspondence directly below, inserting some comments at the end.
Commendatore Administrator General of the Royal [RR = plural] Revenues
Give your opinion The 23rd [note 2] Sept. 1843. Pelli Fabbroni [note 3]

To His Excellency Signore Cavaliere Gran Croce
Francesco Cempini
Current Intimate Advisor on State, Finance, and War
Director of the Royal Finances and the Royal General Depository
Excellency
    The systematic Law for the Playing Card Enterprise issued on the 25th August 1816 subjects any Violator to a fine of Twenty-five Lire for each deck, as prescribed by the same Law in relation to the prohibition on introducing Foreign Cards into Tuscany even for simple transit.
    Experience has justified that while it is important for the prosperity of the same Enterprise that the provisions of the specified Law are kept in strict observance whenever it involves a real transgression, which is aimed at causing fraud and prejudice to the Royal [R = singular] Finance, there are however cases in which the excessively rigorous application of the same Law could take on the appearance of harassment, especially in the face of foreigners who keep only one or two decks of Playing Cards, and those they introduce to use for their pastime and entertainment and to deceive, as people say, the boredom of travel. More especially, it occurs when people of some distinction, free from the suspicion of wanting to dedicate themselves to the petty trafficking of said playing cards, keep one or two decks already used without having been warned when entering Tuscany that they [note 4] cannot make any use of them. Therefore, to obviate any idea of harassment in this regard, and to moderate the penalty of the fine where there can be no doubt of malicious intent on the part of the Violator, I have taken the liberty of compiling the following detailed instructions, which I submit to the superior wisdom of Your Excellency, so that if you deem it appropriate, you may deign to invoke the eminent Sovereign approval, or be pleased to descend to me in this connection those orders which may appear most appropriate to you for this purpose. [note 5]
    And with deep respect I come to confirm myself
    Of Your Excellency
    Most Devoted Most Obliged Servant Tommasi [note 6]
    From the General Office of the Registry and United Enterprises
    The 22nd September 1843.

Signore Cavaliere Commendatore
Administrator General of the Royal Revenues
Illustrious Signore Pro. [?] Most Respected Signore
    I have gone through the attached Draft Instructions concerning the execution of the Law of the 25th August 1816 on foreign playing cards, which I received with the precious letter of your Excellency from day last.
    In my opinion, honest Passengers can only appreciate the questioning by Employees of the Health and Customs Office as to whether or not they keep foreign playing cards and to be informed by them that their use, retention, and free transport are prohibited in Tuscany.
    It is well understood that the benefit of transit is preserved with the precautions established by the Orders for those who want to take advantage of it and that the denunciation for those who have refused only subjects them to the abandonment which I would believe could convert into demotion.
It also seems to me to be wise advice to promise a different treatment to passengers who, when questioned, do not report their playing cards to Customs, and who are found by the Guards to retain one or two used decks (probably to divert the boredom of the journey), from those who would have more abundance, and much more if the decks were new.
    Having left it to your superior determinations, I have the honor of signing myself with the greatest respect
    Of Your Most Illustrious Lordship
    Most Devoted Most Obliged Servant
    Giuseppe Casanuova Director
    Livorno, from the Directorate of Customs
    The 25 September 1843

Instructions
concerning the execution of the Law of 25 August 1816 on Playing Cards.
    Article 1. The Ministers of Health at the Office of the Mouth for the Port of Livorno, and the Customs Agents and Ministers at each State Border, upon the arrival of any Vessel, and respectively of any
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2. The period after the numbers was usually inserted at the time and I respect it in the transcription. [Trans. note: for the translation, the periods have been replaced with “th,” “st,” “nd,” or “rd.”]
3. This is a note added, on the fly, on the upper margin of the letter, without particular attention to spelling. The office is perhaps the Finance Secretariat, but the higher hierarchical level is evident.
4. In various subsequent comments and proposals it will be asked that travelers always be warned about this law, directly upon first entry into the Grand Duchy.
5. The proposer does not intend to commit an abuse: either his proposal is approved from above and made legally valid, or he is given instructions in this regard. In the second case, it is understood that a response of respecting the old law to the letter would be inconvenient.
6. I moved this line here. However, in all these official letters, the final formula with the signature is inserted in the lower right margin of the page, detached from the rest.


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Vehicle, Coach, and Carriage that serves for the transport of Passengers or Goods, will question the Owners or Captains of the Vessel, and in the case of Vehicles, the Drivers or Owners thereof, whether or not they, as well as the travelers, Crewmen, or Foreign Passengers, have Playing Cards, warning them of their introduction into Tuscany being prohibited even for simple transit. If the answer is affirmative, they will be asked either to carry out the exact declaration in Art. VIII of the aforementioned Law of the 25 August 1816, if they wish to pass the aforementioned Playing Cards through the Tuscan Territory, or to deliver and release the same Playing Cards which, as above, are found among them.
    2nd. In case they choose to make the aforementioned declaration, in consequence the Games or Decks of Cards will be directed, with the precautions and systems indicated by the Law, to that Border Customs by which they will have to exit from the Territory of the State.[note 7]
    3rd. If the Foreign Playing Cards are then delivered and released, after having been wrapped and after said bundle has been well sealed and provided with the Stamp of the Office, the aforementioned Cards will be returned, if in Livorno to the Extraordinary Stamp Office existing there, if elsewhere, to the nearest Registry Office, accompanied in any case with a relevant report that makes known their origin and anything else that affects their delivery and release. The aforementioned offices to which the parcels mentioned have been sent, together with the related reports, will have to send both to the General Directorate of the Registry and Joint Enterprises in Florence through the respective Departmental Registry Directorates on which the offices themselves immediately depend.
    4th. Verifying that despite the diligence to be carried out as above at the Office of the Mouth of the Port of Livorno and at the Customs Offices of the Borders, there were found by the Royal Guards of Finance or by Customs Agents and Ministers at the City Gates or elsewhere within the State, Decks or Games of Foreign Cards, provided that it involves no more than one or two Decks or Games of said Cards, and especially if they are used ones, so that there is reason to believe that they are transported by the Carriers or Passengers solely to make use of them during the journey rather than with the idea of becoming an object of smuggling and trafficking, in this case subject to the arrest and confiscation of said Cards which with a similar report will be submitted to the Head of the nearby Customs Office, and from this to the General Directorate of the Registry and United Enterprises, it will be up to the Director General of the Administration of the Registry and United Enterprises to propose, according to the character and nature of the circumstances that have accompanied the Transgressions, regarding the fines incurred for the same Transgressions to His Excellency the Counselor Director of the Imperial and Royal Secretariat of Finance, or the plenary condonation of the same fines, or those reductions which according to the circumstances of the cases appear appropriate, always considering that for the aforementioned cases [note 8] the Customs Agents or Ministers are very discreetly mollified, and also considering that to ensure the payment of what may be due for these securities by the aforementioned Violators, they must deposit at the Customs Office to which the Agents and Ministers are assigned, or the Royal Finance Guards who carried out the procurement in question, Ten Lire if there is only one Deck or Game, and Twenty Lire if two are the Games or Decks of Foreign Cards that have been found. [note 9] According to what has been approved by His Excellency the Counselor Director of the Imperial and Royal Secretariat of Finance in relation to the proposed condonations, or the aforementioned reductions, the relevant pending matters will remain settled and adjusted long before said transgressions have been brought to the knowledge of the competent Courts, as well as after the relevant Judgment has been entered on the same; and by said Courts, once the approval of the aforementioned Excellency has occurred, and the conditions prescribed by the defendant have been fulfilled, the case will not be further proceeded with, thus giving rise to the restitution of the Ten or Twenty Lire as deposited above, deducting what is necessary to satisfy the conditions on which the aforementioned Superior Resolution is based; and without prejudice to the provisions of the Supervisory Laws regarding the allocation of how much with the Resolution itself was ordered to be collected as a Fine.
    5th. When the Foreign Games or Decks of Cards found at the City Gates or elsewhere within the State are such in quantity and quality as to lead one to believe that those in the same State were intended to be trafficked in fraud of the now valid Law, and generally whenever said Games or Decks of Foreign Cards are found within the State in quantities greater than two Decks or Games, especially if they are Games that do not appear obviously used, in this case it will be the responsibility of the Royal Finance Guards and Customs Agents and Ministers to proceed in this regard with all rigor against Violators, in the usual ways and by the Supervisory Laws prescribed.

Signore Cavaliere Commendatore
Giovanni Baldasseroni
Administrator General of the Royal Revenues
Most Illustrious Signore Pro. [?] Most Respected Signore
    The aim that motivated the General Directorate of the Registry certainly deserves applause in having formed the Draft Instructions forwarded to me by your Most Illustrious Lordship with your Revered Letter of the 26th of this month and which, together with the other papers, I have the honor of returning to You.
    Reading that Draft would have called me to make the following observations.
To Art. 1. The task that you want to give to the Ministers of the Livorno Health Office alone. Could it not perhaps be extended with advantage to those of the other Offices on the coast?
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7. A single deck of cards, brought back to today, would suggest a nuclear warhead.
8. Agents risk making mistakes, however they behave, if they are not reassured from above.
9. A new and more useful progression is introduced. However, the jump from 20 lire for two decks to 75 for three remains high, but in other cases the possession of three decks is already considered an indication of fraud.


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I would believe that the Owners of the Playing Cards could not be denied the right to release them on board the Ship, or to send them back in the foreign State. [note 10]
    Art. 2. If the playing cards are wished to be destined for transit, the Ministers of the Border Customs through which they would be introduced must not accompany them with a Manifesto to another similar one from which it is preferred to export them, but rather to a Principal Customs, in which alone the Expediting Pass can be created.
    Art. 3. It would seem just as simple, equally as regular, that the documents delivered to the Border Customs Employees be sent by them to the respective Directorates on which they depend and from these to the General Directorate of the Registry.
    Art. 4 and 5. The Ministers of Customs attend the inspections but do not inspect or make complaints. Therefore the name of Customs Ministers should be eliminated from the proposed Articles.
    Art. 4. I would doubt that the Resolution of His Excellency the Counselor Director of the Royal Finances to withhold the procedure once the complaint was filed was valid, unless a similar Sovereign Disposition was published, or with Special Motu Proprio [Latin for “own initiative”], as was practiced in the year 1768. when the Administrators General of the Royal Revenues were created, or in similarity to what was ordered by the Royal Council with the Circular of 8 April 1839.
    Your Most Illustrious Lordship will give to these observations the weight of which in his wisdom he deems them worthy.
    I have the honor to declare myself with the most distinguished respect
    Of Your Illustrious Lordship
    Most Devoted Most Obliged Servant
    G. O. Forni
    From the Customs Directorate of Florence
    The 28 September 1843

His Excellency Signore Cavaliere Gran Croce
Counselor of State & &
Director of the Imperial and Royal Department of Finance
Excellency
    I have the honor of returning to Your Excellency the Draft Instructions concerning the execution of the Law on Playing Cards, dated the 25th August 1816, drawn up by Sig. Cav. Director General of the Administrative Office of the Registry, regarding which I have been ordered to express what my feelings may be.
    The aforementioned Law, by prohibiting the introduction of Foreign Cards into Tuscany, even for simple transit, imposed a fine of L. 25 for each deck on the Violator.
    This precise and exhaustive provision excludes in its application any exemption: [note 11] at once, even the introduction of a single deck is, by express will of the law, subject to a fine. I do not deny that the prescription is rather severe, as indeed are all the laws that protect royal property rights, [note 12] but I only highlight it to deduce that in the state and terms resulting from the Law of 1816, arrests, from even a single Deck of Cards, were sometimes carried out by Customs Agents, a regular and not vexatious activity.
    The Draft Instructions compiled by Sig. Cav. Tommasi essentially modifies that rigor, nor would I be able to make any objection to it, as it deals with something extraneous to this Administrative Office, but which only concerns the one which is deservedly presided over by the aforecommended Director.
    No less for the relationships that in their practical execution the same Instructions could have with the Customs Service, I took it upon myself to have them examined by the Signori Directors of the Customs of Florence and Livorno.
    The latter has fully agreed upon them, while Cav. Forni, also agreeing with them in principle, has suggested in the Letter attached, here in the Copy, some few interesting warnings regarding the ways and forms of the [Instructional] Draft imagined. These warnings seeming to me to have made all the wise and appropriate connections, I would be of the reverent opinion that the few additions that result from them be inserted into the Draft in question, which I also would consider in need of Sovereign Rectification, so that in its practical application it does not encounter difficulties in the Courts.
    I have the honor of recalling with respectful consideration
    Of Your Excellency
    Most Humble Most Devoted Servant
    G. Baldasseroni
    From the General Department of the Royal Revenues
    The 2nd October 1843
3. Proposal for greater penalties
    The file under review contains a dozen letters, often copies, under the common title of Transgressions of the Playing Cards Law. 7 December 1844 - 29 May 1845. This is a selection in which we can follow, with some exceptions, the chronological order, but where we find neither the initial nor the final documents in the case in question. I therefore allow myself to make a further selection
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10. This suggestion seems logical, but is only encountered here.
11. Outside the office, epicheia would be called exemption.
12. This appears to be the most solid argument. The severity is directly justifiable: long and expensive life for the Grand Duke.

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of the letters by copying some of them here, in a sufficient number to make the exchange of correspondence between the various offices involved clear. The functioning of the administration presents an unexpected contrast between very rapid exchanges of official correspondence, right from one day to the next, alongside delays of months.
Signore Cavaliere Royal Prosecutor-General
Florence
Most Illustrious Signore Po. [?] Most Respected Signore
    The Law of the 25 August 1816 on Playing Cards does not order the deposit against unknown offenders, and in the absence of which their arrest, as it is prescribed with regard to offenders of Salt and Tobacco. Now I am informed that the Director General of the Registry has circulated an instructional letter of 8 August, 1843, which contains the following paragraph.
    “That whenever it is impossible to obtain from the aforementioned Violators (of Playing Cards) the aforementioned deposit, either due to the alleged lack of means, or because they do not want to lend themselves to carrying it out, in this case the Royal Guard of Finance will be ordered to translate said Violators before the competent local Authority, which will be responsible for issuing the appropriate orders and measures to be adopted in order to guarantee as much as possible the interest of the Royal Finance, and of those who are justified in relation to the fines incurred."
    This order aggravates the condition of the Violators beyond what is prescribed by the Law and compromises the responsibility of the Royal Guards of Finance, who by carrying it out would be exposed either to having to answer for abuse of power, or to compromising the dignity of the Law and of the Authority by alleging their own exemption from their Superior's command.
    It is therefore of the utmost interest that this inconvenience and danger be remedied.
    And to this effect, I believed it was my duty to engage your authority so that the order is either revoked or converted into law.
    And with the most distinct respect I have the honor of recalling myself
    Of Your Most Illustrious Lordship
    Most Devoted Most Obliged Servant
    Signature
    Livorno, from the Office of the Prosecutor
    The 7th October 1844

Imperial and Royal Highness
    As Your Imperial and Royal Highness may deign to observe from the attached official communication from the Cavaliere Royal Prosecutor General, the Cavaliere Director General of the Registry has circulated to his Employees an instructional letter, which, with a view to guaranteeing the Royal Finance, and depending on the transgressions of the Laws on Playing Cards, would lead to the liability of Violators who are not indeed unknown, as the Royal Prosecutor of Livorno has perhaps not exactly expressed, but rather of unknown solvency, for those rigorous and serious precautions that Art. 46 of the Law of 2 Sept. 1819 on transgressions in matters of salt prescribes, and which are not commanded by the Law of the 25th August 1816 on Playing Cards.
    With this the same Cavaliere Director General of the Registry having certainly transcended the limits of his mission, in order to avoid the possible inconveniences feared by the same Royal Prosecutor of Livorno, we would implore that the previously praised public Functionary be invited to withdraw the Instructional Letter of which he is the author.
    With profound veneration we have the glory of being
    Of Your Imperial and Royal Highness
    Most humble Servants and Subjects
    Giovanni Battista Burchi
    Vincenzio Giacomini
    Cosimo Buonarruoti
    Primo Magini
    From the Royal Council
    The 23rd December 1844
With this opinion of the members of the Royal Council, it would seem that the bureaucratic process had come to an end. Instead, the practice restarted the year, because evidently the right solution to the problem had not been found.
Report of the Brigade Chief of the Royal Finance Guards
For the Most Illustrious
Sig. Cav. Director of the Royal Customs of Livorno
Most Illustrious Signore

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    The Law on Playing Cards does not authorize the arrest of the foreign Violator, and much less the collection of the deposit for the amount of the penalty incurred, as has been pointed out on another occasion. It follows that since it is not possible to prosecute said Foreign Violators who have not wanted to leave the aforementioned deposit, the Procedures remain fruitless, and the related Expenses are borne by the Tax Fund. So the undersigned would propose to avoid said Procedures in this case, and to deliver the apprehended cards to the Registry Office, especially when it concerns a Transgression of one or two decks of them, and when it does not please to provide for the aforementioned void in said Law.
    This is all
    Livorno, the 27th May 1845
Betti

Signore Cavaliere Commendatore
Administrator General
of the Royal Revenues
Florence
Most Illustrious Signore
    On 10 December last year following a first report from the Brigade Chief Signore Botti, I had to point out to Your Most Illustrious Lordship the need to fill the gap in the Law of the 25 August 1816 on foreign cards not prescribing the 'Arrest of the holder of the same, when he is without the means to pay, or guarantee the fine incurred, or even refuses to pay it, even if he wanted to ensure the fulfillment of the requirements of the General Directorate of the Registry articulated in the Revered [Communication] of Your Most Illustrious Lordship of the 9 August 1843.
    Now with a 2nd specific Report attached here, the same aforementioned Brigade Chief returns to demonstrate that either it is better to fill the void in the Law, or to abstain from initiating useless Procedures, the results of which can only be borne by the Tax Fund, if one is limited to delivery of the apprehended cards to the Registry Office.
    And while waiting for the Superior Determinations, I pass to the honor of recalling myself with the most distinct respect
    Of Your Most Illustrious Lordship
    Most Devoted Most Obliged Servant
    Giuseppe Casanuova
    Livorno Customs Directorate
    The 27th May 1845.

Signore Cavaliere Director
of the Administration of the Registry and United Enterprises
Florence
Most Illustrious Signore Pro. [?] Most Respected Signore
   The attached documents, sent to me by the Customs Directorate of Livorno, tend to highlight the need to fill the void found in the Law of the 25th August 1816 on foreign playing cards, since it does not prescribe the arrest of their Holder in the event that he is without the means to guarantee satisfaction of the penalties that may be owed by him,
    I take them to the revered hands of Your Excellency, but since the knowledge of the relevant Affair is within the competence of the Department over which you deservedly preside, only permitting me to ask you to favor me to provide me with any response that can appear appropriate to you [note 13] according to my rule, in the Instructions to be given to the Financial Force for the contingencies spoken of in the documents themselves.
    I have the honor to sign myself with the most distinguished esteem and respect.
    Of your Most Illustrious Lordship
    G. Baldasseroni
    From the General Department of the Royal Revenues, the 28 May 1845

His Excellency Signore Gran Croce
Francesco Cempini
Counselor of State, Finance, and War
Director of the Imperial and Royal Secretariat
of Finance, and of the Royal General Depository
Excellency
    With my respectful participation on the 12th December 1844, I took the liberty of pointing out to Your Excellency the need to bring about a Sovereign Resolution regarding the arrest of transgressors of the current Law on Playing Cards, which by the Chancellor of the Court of Livorno and by that Royal Prosecutor was considered to be arbitrary, when the same violators did not want or were unable to deposit the relevant fines imposed by the aforementioned law.
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13. The sequence of six verbs in the sentence is a record for polite formulas.


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   And since the Commendatore Administrator General of the Royal Revenues forwards me the attached documents with which the Royal Finance Guard and the Director of the Royal Customs of Livorno are once again making every effort to take the appropriate measures in this regard, I cannot help but urgently pray to Your Excellency to deign to solicit, as far as it can depend on you, that Sovereign Resolution which will be considered the most suitable to repress the transgressions of this type and to protect the interests of the Royal Finance.

    In the meantime, it would appear to my tenuity useful and appropriate that the aforementioned Commendatore Administrator General of the Royal Revenues be exhorted to send down the appropriate orders to the Royal Finance Guard so that they refrain from proceeding with any arrest or coercive action against the holders of Playing Cards of foreign manufacture until the aforementioned Sovereign Resolution is issued, limiting themselves only to the relevant reports, even when it is not possible to persuade the Violators to deposit the Fines they have incurred. Since it is in the expectation of those Orders that it could please the Imperial and Royal Government in this regard to issue on this report I have made it lawful to exhort the aforementioned Signore Commendatore Administrator General to communicate to the Royal Finance Guard that they wish to abstain from carrying out the abovementioned arrests to avoid any related inconvenience.
    And with the highest consideration and respect, I have the honor to confirm myself
    Of Your Excellency
    Most Devoted Most Obedient Servant
    Tommasi
    From the General Registry Office and United Enterprises
    The 29th May 1845
After two years of exchanges of correspondence between the offices concerned, the necessary provisions have still not arrived. For now, an official change to the law is missing, and even the exhortation from the higher offices not to follow up on the Instructions to the Livorno customs employees is missing.

4. Conclusion
    On the control of foreign cards within the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, two bureaucratic problems to be resolved have been encountered, which appear not only different but with opposite deviations from the norm: in one case the penalties are lightened, in the other they are aggravated. Both cases encounter similar bureaucratic delays, even if forms of courtesy and respect, if not downright veneration, are used to the highest degree in correspondence between offices. Sooner or later a solution will have been found, but it seems clear that the Tuscan bureaucracy had not reached a level of agile functioning in those years, despite the Leopoldian reforms first and those introduced by the French afterwards.

Florence, 02.01.2024