Minchiate, also known as Germini or Tarocchi fiorentini (Florentine tarot), is an early 16th-century card game, originating in Florence, Italy. It is no longer widely played. The term can also refer to the special deck of 97 playing cards used in the game. The deck is similar to the conventional tarot cards, but contains an expanded suit of trumps. The game was similar to but more complex than tarocchi. The minchiate represents a Florentine variant on the original game.
History Florence is one of the contenders for the birthplace of tarot. The earliest reference to tarot cards, then known as trionfi, is dated to 1440 when a notary in Florence recorded the transfer of two decks to Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta.Pratesi, Franco. Studies on Giusto Giusti at trionfi.com. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
The word minchiate comes from a dialect word meaning "nonsense" or "trifle", derived from mencla, the vulgar form of mentula, a Latin word for "phallus". The word minchione is attested in Italian as meaning "fool", and minchionare means "to laugh at" someone. The intended meaning may be "the game of the fool", considering that the card "The Fool", also called "The Excuse", features prominently in the game play of all tarot games. In tarocchini, sminchiate is a signal used to communicate to a teammate.
The earliest reference to minchiate is found in a 1466 letter by Luigi Pulci to Lorenzo de' Medici. This game was believed to be played by a 78-card deck as evidenced by the Rosenwald sheets, uncut sheets of Florentine tarots dated from 1480 to 1500.Rosenwald sheets at the National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 13 October 2017. There are two other differences from 97-card minchiate. First, in 97-card minchiate the sequence for some of the lower trumps goes from lowest to highest: Fortitude, Justice, Wheel, and Chariot. In the Rosenwald ordering it is Justice, Fortitude, Chariot, and Wheel.
Second, the Rosenwald sheets contains the Popess as the second trump, which is not found in the 97-card deck. In a Florentine song written around 1500, the trumps in a tarot deck were listed as almost exactly as the Rosenwald sheets, with the exception of the missing Popess which likely means that this card was dropped from the deck by that time. The song also ranks the other trumps as Fortitude, Justice, Chariot, and Wheel, which suggests it is a transitional stage from the Rosenwald sheets to the 97-card deck's order.
97-card minchiate was first known as germini, after the Gemini (XXXV) card, the highest of the newly introduced trumps. The earliest record of germini dates to 1506. This deck was created by inserting the 20 new trumps as a single block between trump 15 and The Star, which is now trump 36. The new deck proved so much more popular, that the 77-card deck ceased production and the older name of minchiate was transferred over to the larger deck during the 17th century.
The game spread from Florence to the rest of Italy and France during the 1600s. In Sicily, it was called gallerini. In Liguria it was known as ganellini. The rules used in these regions are lost, except for cryptic references that they were quite different from the Florentine game. All surviving rules are derived from the type played in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Papal States.
By the 18th century, minchiate had overtaken the original game of tarot in popularity in Italy. Paolo Minucci published a commentary on the game in 1676. The game is described in detail by Romain Merlin in Origine des cartes à jouer, published in Paris in 1869. It was also known in Germany during the late 18th century. The game was still played in Genoa in the 1930s, but its popularity declined in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Deck
The minchiate deck differs from other tarot decks in several features. The first and most obvious difference is that the trumps have almost doubled in number; there are 40 trumps in the minchiate, in addition to the unnumbered card the Madman, The Fool or the excuse. Minchiate uses Roman numerals for its trumps. Due to the large number of trumps, players generally called them by their number with the exception of the arie.
Suits
+ Suit MinchiateSuitSwordsCupsCoinsClubsSpadeCoppeDenariBastoniEspadasCopasOrosBastos Minchiate decks come in two standard patterns, earlier and later, which coexisted for almost two centuries. Earlier Minchiate dates from the early 16th century or even the late 15th century.Earlier Minchiate pattern at the International Playing-Card Society. Retrieved 2 March 2016.Wintle, Simon. Minchiate Fiorentine, 17th C. at the World of Playing Cards. Retrieved 2 March 2016.65 of 97 Minchiate cards c. 1675 at the British Museum. Retrieved 6 March 2016.19 of 97 Minchiate cards c. 1675 at the British Museum. Retrieved 6 March 2016.Florence Minchiate c. 1700 at the World Web Playing Card Museum. Retrieved 2 March 2016.Minchiate Fiorentine c. 1790 at the World Web Playing Card Museum. Retrieved 2 March 2016.Enderbrock, Peter. Minchiate 'Carte Fine' at Peter Endebrock's Playing-card Pages. Retrieved 2 March 2016. As seen in the table below, there are the four standard Latin suits of swords, clubs, coins, and cups. These contain pip cards from ace to ten, and four face cards: a jack, a knight, a queen, and a king.
In the minchiate deck, in the suits of cups and coins, the "knaves" or "pages" (Italian fanti) have been replaced by "maids" (fantine). The knights, mounted figures in the tarot of Marseilles and similar designs, are centaurs or sphinxes in many minchiate decks. The suits follow the Portuguese pattern, with the exception of the clubs which are depicted as batons which follows from the northern Italian suit-system. This pattern died out around 1900.
+ Minchiate card deck (1860-1890) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Jack Knight Queen King Clubs Coins Cups Swords
The Republic of Lucca produced their own version of Minchiate decks which were very similar to the ones used in nearby Florence but with several graphical differences. Kings are seated under arches, knights are humans riding horses, all knaves are male, and the Fool is playing with a dog. This pattern died out in the eighteenth century.
Trumps The Later Minchiate pattern appeared around the early 18th century as a luxury edition.Later Minchiate pattern at the International Playing-Card Society. Retrieved 2 March 2016.Wintle, Simon. Minchiate Etruria at the World of Playing Cards. Retrieved 2 March 2016.Jeu de Minchiate 1712-16 at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved 7 March 2016.Carte di Etruria c. 1725 at the World Web Playing Card Museum. Retrieved 2 March 2016. In this version, the eight highest trumps lose their red backgrounds. Around 1820, this pattern was redesigned to give it a flatter, plainer appearance with changes to a quarter of the trump and court cards while restoring the red background to the high trumps.Wintle, Adam. Minchiate Fiorentine at the World of Playing Cards. Retrieved 2 March 2016.Minchiate Fiorentine at the World Web Playing Card Museum. Retrieved 2 March 2016. This pattern survived in Liguria until the 1930s.
The trumps of the minchiate deck, and their corresponding Tarot of Marseilles and the de Poilly cards are: +The trumps of the minchiate deckNo.ImageLabelTranslationCorrespondingde Poilly cardJeu de Minchiate de fantaisie à enseignes françaises at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved 2 March 2016.CorrespondingMarseilles card (0) Il MattoThe MadmanMomusLe Mat The Five PopesI Papa UnoL'UnoIl PapinoGanellinoPope One(1. Mercure)I. Le BateleurThe TrivialPerformerII Papa DueL'ImperatricePope TwoThe EmpressIII. L'ImpératriceIII Papa TreL'ImperatorePope ThreeThe EmperorIIII. L'EmpereurIIII Papa QuattroIl PapaPope FourThe Pope(4. Bacchus)V. Le PapeV Papa CinqueL'AmorePope FiveLove2. L'Amour(3. Venus Naiſſante)VI. L'AmoureuxThe Lover The Three Cardinal VirtuesVI La TemperanzaTemperanceXIIII. TemperanceVII La FortezzaFortitude9. La ForceXI. La ForceVIII La GiustiziaJustice7. La JusticeVIII. La Justice The MidsectionIX La Ruotadella FortunaThe Wheelof Fortune10. La FortuneX. La Rouede FortuneX Il CarroThe ChariotVII. Le ChariotXI Il GobboIl TempoThe HunchbackTime11. Les Ages, la Vieillesse(12. Age Viril)(13. Age Adolescences)(14. Ages l'Enfence)VIIII. L'ErmiteThe HermitXII L'ImpiccatoIl TraditoreThe Hanged ManThe TraitorXII. Le PenduXIII La MorteDeathXIII. (unlabelled)XIV Il DiavoloIl DemonioThe DevilXV. Le DiableXV La Casadel DiavoloThe Houseof the Devil(15. Les Sens, le Gout)(16. Les Sens, le Toucher)(17. Les Sens, l'Odorat)(18. Les Sens, l'Ouye)(19. Les Sens, la Veue)XVI. La Maison DieuThe House of God The Four Missing VirtuesXVI La SperanzaHope8. L'EsperenceXVII La PrudenzaPrudence5. La PrudenceXVIII La FedeFaithXVIIII La CaritàCharity6. La Charité The Four Classical ElementsXX Il FuocoFire20. Element le FeuXXI L'AcquaWater22. Element l'EauXXII La TerraEarth21. Element TerreXXIII L'AriaAir23. Element l'Aire The Twelve Zodiac SignsXXIIII La BilanciaLibra26. SeptembreXXV La VergineVirgo28. AoustXXVI Lo ScorpioneScorpio27. OctobreXXVII L'ArieteAries33. MarsXXVIII Il CapricornoCapricorn24. DecembreXXVIIII Il SagittarioSagittarius25. NovembreXXX Il CancroCancer30. JuinXXXI I PesciPisces34. FevrierXXXII L'AcquarioAquarius35. JanvierXXXIII Il LeoneLeo29. JuilletXXXIIII Il ToroTaurus32. AvrilXXXV I GemelliGemini31. May The Five Unnumbered Arie(XXXVI) La StellaThe Star36. Les EtoilesXVII. L'Étoile(XXXVII) La LunaThe Moon37. La LuneXVIII. La Lune(XXXVIII) Il SoleThe Sun38. Le SoleilXVIIII. Le Soleil(XXXVIIII) Il MondoThe World39. Le MondeXXI. Le Monde(XL) Le TrombeThe Trumpets40. Le RenomméXX. Le Jugement
By comparing the Rosenwald sheet with 16th century trump lists, the Popess (II) was likely dropped in the late 15th century which shifted every trump above the first down one rank. The Empress, Emperor, and Pope became the new II, III, and IIII respectively, the latter now wearing a secular crown as opposed to a papal tiara.
Since the five lowest trumps were collectively known as the papi (popes), Love was added to this group after its demotion. The identification of middle papi was largely forgotten for centuries as players generally called cards by their number (pope 2, pope 3, etc.) French writer Romain Merlin (1869) is the only source that called trumps II, III, and IIII the Grand Duke, Western Emperor, and Eastern Emperor.
Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance were three classical "cardinal virtues" depicted in the more familiar tarot trumps. The minchiate supplies the remaining cardinal virtue — Prudence — and inserts them with the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity. The only other deck to have the theological virtues was the Cary-Yale deck. This is the only deck to include all seven virtues.
Minchiate is a southern tarot pattern so it shares many qualities with the Bolognese and Sicilian tarots as opposed to the western patterns like the tarot of Marseilles. While the Tower is called The House of God in the Marseilles tarot, it is called the House of the Devil or Hellmouth in the minchiate deck and it depicts a nude woman fleeing a burning building. The Moon depicts an astrologer studying the moon instead of the tarot of Marseilles howling dogs and lobster.
The card corresponding to the Hermit is often called Time, or the Hunchback. It depicts an elderly man on crutches with an hourglass in the background. Like other southern decks, the final card in the series is not the World, but Judgement. The minchiate completes the series by adding all the zodiac signs, in random order, and the four classical elements.