The Boiardo Tarocchi Project
- translation of a poem

In the time of the beginning of Trionfi.com the idea was formed, that studies around the Boiardo Tarocchi were necessary to answer a few questions, which had their reasons in the considerations about the 5x14-theory: How developed the 5x14-card deck called "Trionfi" with 14 allegorical figures to the nowadays well known Tarot with its specific deck structure 4x14 + 22 special cards.At that time the Boiardo Tarocchi poem was considered by us as the first sure sign of the existence of the "21 trumps + Fool" - construction, unluckily with a not solid state considering the date of it: 1461 - 1494, a span of 34 years seemed possible. We builded a group, usually as always an internet group (Jane Cocker, Mari Hoshizaki, Raimondo Luberti, Ross Gregory Caldwell, autorbis participated) ... nearly all of us hadn't the necessary knowledge of Italian language (beside Ray Luberti), each of us only with some rudimentary insights about that, what's inside the poem. However, we collected a few things and made a website to the theme, we were busy with it and not too lazy, although, our attempt to make the translation, stranded. And actually ... there were a lot of holes to fill in our view of the common Trionfi development, so that it seemed advisable to wait a little bit with progress in the Boiardo question. Years passed. The Italian understanding advanced. Trionfi.com developed, much of the riddles of the earlie time before Boiardo was solved, many articles were written, the collection of material took a greater expansion than ever intended before. And we reached some decisive insights, which made us assume, that the deciding jump to 22 trumps + Fool took place in summer 1468 in a deck, which was produced for the wedding of Galeazzo Maria Sforza and Bona of Savoyen, 2nd of June 1468. And likely ... it was not Boiardo, who influenced this decision, although an earlier Boiardo poem cannot excluded with 100% security, of course. Huck Meyer took the initiative and returned to the old object, just recovering our older files to a new form and motivating Ross and Marco ("Dr. Arcanus"), an Italian by birth, to a "rough translation, just that one can understand whats inside". This happened, wonderfully, with thanks to Ross and Marco, in very quick time, and further on Huck took the attempt to analyse it ... well, he found a rich treasure, so much already can be said. All this happened recently (January 2006) and it is still going on ... Just a few of Huck's enthusiastic statements: "the favoured date of production is April 1469, Boiardo had just falling in love to an 18-years girl and wished to impress her" ... "the poem tell an unknown signora (which mentioned in the text), that men are a little stupid, however, women have the complimentary virtues, which the poem illustrates by 10 illustrious men with their faults and by 10 famous women in all their beauty" ... "if it hadn't proven before, that Tarot development was deeply influenced by women, Boiardo would give evidence for it" "Boiardo played a lot of poetical trick in the poem and it's a little unlikely, if one ever can be sure to have detected all subtility" "it can't be exluded, that this kind of Tarot model already was intended to be used in (harmless) divination" (autorbis, 2nd of February 2006)

Huck reads Boiardo