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SECTION II - 1500-1600. THE ORIGINS OF THE "PORTUGUESE" SUIT SYSTEM FOR PLAYING CARDS AND TAROTS IN SICILY

INTRODUCTION TO THE SECTION II (english version)

by Salvatore Bonaccorsi, Nicola De Giorgio, Emilia Maggio

preview dal libro

   As we shall detail in the next section, the Sicilian Tarot deck is today the only survivor, in Europe, of the so-called "Portuguese" system. As it is widely known, traditional European cards conform to a few  conventional design types, usually referred to as "standard patterns"; the various manufacturers tend to reproduce them in a faithful manner, in the interests of immediate recognizability. In Italy, this is the case with the different regional decks (Neapolitan, Trevisan, Piacentini, Sicilian, etc.). But the earliest distinction is that among suit systems. Globally the most widespread today is the one defined as "French" (or, more correctly, Anglo-French, as its court cards carry indices with English initials), featuring

Spades, Clubs, Hearts and Diamonds. This is actually a relatively recent invention, compared to the Latin, German and Swiss systems still in use (see Table 1).

   The Latin suit system was born in Italy as the initial adaptation of the earliest playing cards come to Europe around 1370: Swords, Clubs, Cups and Coins. This is, in fact, a family of systems, since it has come in at least three variants throughout history, displaying distinctive details and being conveniently named after the area to which it was, or still is, mainly connected: Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. (Table 2).

 


 These are practical labels that do not actually mark clear boundaries as to the simultaneous diffusion, or presence at different times of the above variants, in these three areas and elsewhere in Europe (e.g., France). Some instances of the Italian system still in use are the Piedmontese and Bolognese Tarots, as well as the standard decks from Treviso, Trentino, Bergamo, Brescia and Trieste; to the Spanish system belong the decks used in the central and southern Italian regions: Piacentini, Romagnole, Neapolitan, Trevisan, Sicilian and Sardinian.

    Given the analogy of the four suits within the Latin system, the most obvious differences are about the shape of the pips, particularly Swords and Clubs, and the way in which they are arranged on the card (see Fig. 1).* The other features are described in Fig. 2.**

The Portuguese system coexisted with other systems in Spain until 1550, when its variants seem to have become the standard model used for both ordinary (see Fig. 4) and tarot cards (see Fig. 3) in Rome and in the Papal States, with the neighbouring Ronciglione as a production center for the most popular (ordinary) cards, in southern Italy, in the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, and in Malta. Subsequently, in Spain the Spanish system took over; the Portuguese system remained in Portugal only until 1825-1850, then definitively supplanted by the French one. Instead it achieved his greatest success in the Portuguese domains in Brazil but also in Asia, in India, Indonesia and Japan, where often the reference

system was applied to the subsequent variations and adaptations to local artistic forms.

Within this framework, the section opens with a series of 10 woodcut, hand-coloured cards, with a female portrait indicated as "Faustina" on the back, from the collection of the Museo Civico di Castello Ursino. The 8 numeral cards include an Ace in the form of a dragon, typical of the so-called "Portuguese" system; also the 2 court cards (Lady of Swords and King of Cups) follow the iconographic models for this type. However, the absence of indices (namely, the monograms indicating the number and initial of the suit, placed on the upper part of the card), the heraldic elements and a greater control of the drawing compared to the other "Portuguese" decks known so far, suggest that this one is, if not

the prototype, at least as the oldest known specimen. The Faustina cards may have been made in Naples or Palermo, at the end of the 15th century, and then reaching Catania (like the Tarocchi di Alessandro Sforza) through the antiquarian market. As in the case of the illuminated tarot series, two Faustina cards missing from the Catania deck were found in Palermo, although the brown rather than blue ink suggests a different impression from the same matrix.

   Before the discovery of the Faustina deck (2014), the oldest known documentation of Portuguese-type cards in Italy were the uncut sheets by Pietro Ciliberto reported by S. Mann, dated 1597. The mention of dragons on the aces of the different suits, together with confirmation of the use of playing cards with this design in the Kingdom of Naples some fifty years earlier than the date of the same cards, is found in a literary work by Luigi Tansillo, who, in the "Chapter in Praise of the Game of Malcontento" of 1547, writes as follows: "When a man notices an ace he holds,/as if it were a snake, or burning coals,/he hurries to hand it to his companion./And I believe this to have been the reason/ why card painters,

who have some education,/gave the ace the shape and features of a dragon."

On the regional use of this typology there are two hypotheses: the first, that it was introduced in the Kingdom of Naples, or of Sicily, from Spain as a pattern reserved for export; the second, that its origin is, in one of the aforementioned cities, or in Rome. The introduction of the indices, instead, pre-dates 1585; according to Dummett, it might be a Sicilian invention later adopted by Rome and Ronciglione manufacturers.

 

   In the exhibition, this section also features some playing cards from the “G. Pitrè” Ethnographic Museum of Palermo, the oldest of Sicilian production to date, as well as reproductions of some similar Roman, Maltese and Spanish decks, so as to allow a comparison of the different variants, as well as the subsequent contextualization of the Sicilian Tarot within the same suit system.

FIGURA 1

7 of Swords: Piedmontese tarot Swords - 7 of Sicilian Swords - 7 of Swords Infirrera BN
7 of Clubs: Piedmontese tarot - 7 of Sicilian Clubs - 7 of Clubs Infirrera BN

Swords

 - Italian: curve, crescent-shaped, interwoven, occupying the entire card 

- Spanish: straight, short and arranged separately, without interweaving

- ancient Portuguese: straight, more similar to the Spanish ones, but extended throughout the card and interwoven like the Italian ones

Clubs

- Italians: straight, thin and smooth

- Spanish: clubs or cudgels with a massive swelling, sometimes with gnarled knobs or buds, short and separated

- ancient Portuguese: straight and elongated, interwoven like the Italian ones, but in the shape of rough cudgels swollen at one end, like the Spanish ones

FIGURA 2

Infirrera dragon Ace, Lady, King, Coins card, with indices

Other distinctive features of the Portuguese system:

- the presence of "dragons" or large snakes on the aces, so that this type of cards is often called "Dragons"

- the gender of the lowest-value court card: male in the Italian and Spanish systems, (with some exceptions, such as the "Women" of Sicilian cards), female in the Portuguese, formerly called "Fantesca" or "Fantina" and, in Sicily, "Donna" ("Sota" in Portugal);

- the position of the King: standing in the Italian and Spanish system, sitting in the Portuguese one

- the presence of alphanumeric indices to help identify the cards (from around 1585)

Clicca l'immagine per accedere alla Scheda del Registro delle Eredità Immateriali:

Link al Documento prodotto dal Comune di Tortorici per la richiesta di iscrizione al REIS regionale, purtroppo prodotto 'depredando' da parte della curatrice del testo intere pagine del nostro sito e del libro 'I Tarocchi Siciliani di Mineo" anche senza alcuna rielaborazione, evitando di citare gli autori (Salvatore Bonaccorsi e, per il Glossario del Gioco dei Tarocchi Siciliani, insieme a me il Dott.Marcello Gennaro) ed il sito almeno quale fonte delle informazioni. Non si tratta di una pubblicazione quindi l'amarezza per la cosa non avrà ricadute legali ma siamo almeno lieti di essere stati utili, benché non riconosciuti, alla documentazione dell'importanza della valorizzazione del gioco.

ARCHIVIO EVENTI

Piccola "galleria" degli eventi organizzati a partire dalla fondazione del marzo 2014.

 

11-18-25-31 Maggio 2014

CORSO DI TAROCCHI SICILIANI - Mineo - Centro Culturale Permanente Paulu Maura

 

27 Luglio 2014

UN MARE DI TRUNFI..DAL SOLE ALLE STELLE - Giornata divulgativa, minicorsi e Torneo - Augusta - Az. Agrituristica Primo Passo

 

11-12-18-19 Ottobre 2014

TRIONFO BAROCCO-IL GIOCO DEI TAROCCHI SICILIANI -
Militello Val di Catania, Biblioteca e Archivio Storico Palazzo Laganà-Campisi - Mostra, laboratorio bambini, presentazione libro, reading poesie

 

15 Novembre 2014

PRESENTAZIONE DEL LIBRO: I TAROCCHI SICILIANI DI MINEO, di Salvatore Bonaccorsi
- Ragusa, Caffè letterario "Le Fate", a cura di carlo Blangiforti

 

5 Dicembre 2014

Condivisione demo VIDEO "LA BALLATA DI LU FUJUTU", inno sperimentale dell'Associazione

 

11 Gennaio 2015

Presenza come relatore ed esposizione tavole mostra e carte da gioco alla PRESENTAZIONE DEL LIBRO "I TAROCCHI SICILIANI" , di Simone Cardullo - Barcellona P.G. Auditorium S.Vito

 

28 Giugno 2015

3° TORNEO NAZIONALE TAROCCHI SICILIANI - OPEN 2015 - Plaza Hotel - Catania

 

30 Agosto 2015

II TORNEO "PRIMO PASSO"

Augusta - Az. Agrituristica Primo Passo

 

18-20 Settembre 2015

TOCATI' - FESTIVAL INTERNAZIONALE DEI GIOCHI IN STRADA - Verona

 

29 Gennaio 2016

I TORNEO "DEL BORGHETTO"

Borhetto Europa, Catania

 

29 Aprile 2016

II TORNEO "DEL BORGHETTO"

Borhetto Europa, Catania

 

11 Agosto 2016

NTE I VANEDDI I TURTURICI..E' ARTE

 

28 Agosto 2016

III TORNEO "PRIMO PASSO"

Augusta - Az. Agrituristica Primo Passo

 

31 Marzo 2017

III TORNEO "DEL BORGHETTO"

Borhetto Europa, Catania

 

15 Ottobre 2017

STAND SPIEGAZIONE ALLA 27° SAGRA DELLA MOSTARDA E DEL FICO D'INDIA

Militello in Val Catania

 

Febbraio-Marzo 2018

CORSO DI TAROCCHI SICILIANI

Catania

 

6 Aprile 2018

IV TORNEO "DEL BORGHETTO"

(Ia Giornata del I Campionato Annuale di Tarocchi Siciliani)

Sede Via Papale - Catania

15 Dicembre 2018

I Torneo di Natale

Sede Via Papale - Catania