Trionfi (cards)
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Trionfi, Italian name for playing cards with allegorical content, which were used during the game as trumps in 15th century. One typus of the Trionfi decks developed to the Tarot cards. According to the current state of research the name was first used in February 1442 in Ferrara, when the painter Sagramoro received money for the production of 4 playing card decks ("4 para de chartexele da trionffi"), which contained a series of trumps and the common 4 Italian suits: "le chope e le spade e li dinari e li bastoni e tutte le figure"[1]. In the following years the name appears variously in playing card contexts, the major part of the documents are known from the Ferrarese court [2]. . Parallel to this development are early cards known mainly from Milan (socalled "Visconti-Sforza Tarocchi"), which are identified as forerunners of the later Tarot cards. The earliest cards of this type of deck are:
(all not totally complete)
The names Taraux and Tarocchi appear according current Tarot research for the first time in the year 1505 parallel in Avignon (France) and Ferrara [4]. Around this time (or short later) the name Trionfi seems to modify its character in playing card context, it appears as a game of its own (Rabelais knows a Taraux and a Trionfi game) and seems no longer connected to the specific allegorical cards. The general English expression "trump" and the German "trumpfen" (in card games) have developed from the Italian "Trionfi".
