Giovanni di Domenico, supplier of Trionfi cards for silk dealers
composed by Lothar Teikemeier, last updated 06.12.2012,
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First recorded activity for Silk dealers: 1449-12-09 Last recorded activity for Silk dealers: 1453-06-28 Activities for Filippo di Marco: September 1455 Father of artist Francesco Botticini (* 1446) Oldest known producer of "cheap" Trionfi decks for 11/9 Soldi, after Michelino da Besozza (painted the Michelino deck, which was called by Marcello a "new ludus triumphorum") and Jacopo Sagramoro (was paid for the 4 Trionfi decks for Leonello in Februar 1442) the third known Trionfi card painter (and the first known from Florence). |
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Sources
Sources are mainly taken from Franco Pratesi's new article series written from November 2011 till now, published here at Trionfi.com. Further there are the Esch report and my own considerations to the persons Domenico di Giovanni, Filippo di Marco and Bartalomeo Seragli.| SOURCE 1: Silk dealer aquire decks |
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Quote from Franco Pratesi: "1431-1460: NAIBI ACQUIRED BY SILK-DEALERS", 20.04.2012 |
c. Giovanni di DomenicoWe only meet Giovanni di Domenico at the end of 1449 and he enters the records in an interesting way. He is at once indicated as dipintore, a painter, and his first supply contains both six packs of trionfi and eight packs of naibi doppi. At least one pack of trionfi had already been sold by the silk-dealers (January 1445)(1), but these seem to be the first packs recorded as acquired. The total price is 4L.18s. and if we assume that the naibi were priced at 4s. as those acquired a few days later, a unit cost of 11s. can be deduced for trionfi, a relatively low price, very similar to the 9s.6d. cost of naibi made by Antonio di Simone.It seems that the production of Giovanni could substitute, trionfi apart, that of Antonio di Dino, at a similar level of overall quality, but he did not become a frequent supplier, except for a few trionfi. In alternative to Antonio di Dino, whom we find also later on, Matteo Ballerini was apparently preferred, for unknown reasons (maybe just more purchases of silks).  |
| SOURCE 2: Giovanni di Domenicho helps Filippo di Marco |
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Quote from Franco Pratesi: "1453-1458 Florentine triumphs by Filippo di Marco", 12.01.2012 |
From the Production List of Filippo di Marco
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| SOURCE 3: A trader "Johanni de Domenico merciaio" imports cards to Rome |
Giovanni di Domenico appears as first trionfi card painter in 1449. Then he is active as supplier till 1453 Johanni de Domenico is also the first named playing card trader in Rome - fol. 26 of 1452 knows the import of Johanni Tornieri f. 78 / 137, Giovanni da Pistoia 91 / 178 AND Johanni de Domenico 37 / 171, each appears twice in the text - so only six recorded imports in the year. ). Johanni di Domenico folio. 37 is first. In 1453 he has two further visits.And that's all. Johanni di Domenico active 1452-53 (with treunfi) Giovanni di Domenico active 1449-1453 (silk-traders, trionfi) 1453 ... first Trionfi decks in Rome Bartolomeo Seragli f.54 ... 2 Trionfi decks Johanni de Domenico f. 76 .... "8 carte cio è treunfi da jocare" Giovanni da Pistoia f. 100 ... "8 para trionfi" In this category Johanni de Domenico is only second, after Bartolomeo Seragli. Likely we know the "2 Trionfi decks", it should be those, which he produced with Filippo di Marco in March/April 1453 (recorded in 3 documents). A [3]. Estranei 264, c. 226, left side Bartolommeo di Paholo Seragli de’ dare... E adì 10 di marzo [1452/53] f. otto, per lui a Pipo di Marcho portò contanti, sono per uno paio di trionfi richi ebe da lui. f. 8. .... likely money paid before production B [5] Estranei 264, c. 241, left side Bartolomeo di Pagholo Seragli de’ dare... E adì 21 di marzo f. uno largo, per lui a Filipo di Marcho dipintore, portò contanti, sono per parte di lavoro gli à fato. f.1 s.4. .... likely money paid to finish the production C [6]. Estranei 265, c. 27, left side Bartolomeo di Pagholo Serragli de’ dare… E adì 31 di marzo [1453] f. 5 larghi, per lui a Filippo di Marcho dipintore, portò e’ detto contanti, sono per resto di 2 paia di trio[n]fi fatogli, come dise Ghaspare da Ghiaceto. f. 5 s. 18 d. 4. .... rest of the money In 1455 we meet the same 3 men in an action together: Bartolomeo Seragli, Filippo di Marco and Giovanni di Domenicho (in your Filippo di Marco report) E [15]. Estranei 267, c. 98, left side 1455 Bartolomeo di Pagholo Seragli de’ dare… E adì 6 di settembre f. due, per lui a Pipo dipintore, portò Giovanni di Domenicho contanti, per trionfi. f. 2. …. E adì 20 detto f. uno, per lui a Pipo dipintore, portò Giovanni di Domenicho contanti, per trionfi. f. 1. … E adì 27 detto f. dua larghi, per lui a Pipo di Marcho dipintore, portò Giovanni di Domenicho contanti. f.2 s.6 d.7. E adì 10 d’otobre f. uno largho, per lui a Filipo di Marcho dipintore, portò contanti, per un paio di trionfi operati. f.2 s.6 d.7. …. E adì 21 detto, L. trenta, per lui a Filipo di Marcho dipintore, portò contanti: sono per resto di trionfi auti da lui insino a questo dì. f. 7 s.- d.8. I think, that this is only one commission for a larger project, aiming to produce a series of Trionfi decks Too much accidents. It's the same man. We know, that this same Bartolomeo Seragli gave a commission in March/April to Filippo di Marco, 3 documents, but they seem to be connected. This are likely 1 or 2 decks, possibly the both, that Seragli imported to Rome. Likely the same deck.
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Repeated Note: When Ross Caldwell and me in 2003 started to collect Trionfi notes between 1442-1463, we had about 27/28 entries (which I nowadays would count as 31). The major part were the documents of Ferrara, which were collected by Gherardo Ortalli and Adriano Franceschini in the "Prince and the Playing Cards" (1996), after the base laying works of Michael Dummett and Stuart Kaplan around 1980. This collection included 2 notes about Trionfi cards in Florence, found by Franco Pratesi in his earlier work (allowances of the Trionfi game in 1450 and 1463). A graphical representation of this time (with 27 entries) shows the dominance of Ferrarese documents (in black) with a few notes only from other locations (in red; see picture to the right) In the period 2004 till October 2011 it was possible to add 4 further notes (Siena 1452, Padova 1455, Ancona c. 1460 and Valerio Marcello c. 1460), mainly thanks to information given by Thierry Depaulis. Franco Pratesi started his new article series in November 2011. Since then the list has gotten 67 new documents till September 2012 (65 of them found by Franco Pratesi, one, now the oldest of September 1440, by Thierry Depaulis, and another one by Veber Gulinelli, who controlled the earlier work of Franceschini and found an overlooked document) and nearly all are related to Florence or its surrounding. A small book (118 pages) was published around Christmas 2012, Franco Pratesi: "Playing Card Trade in 15th Century Florence" as IPCS Paper No. 7 (ISSN 0305-2133). It contains some of the articles, which before had appeared at this website, those, which treat the early time of 15th century. Thierry Depaulis commented in his foreword: "This book is a landmark in the history of early playing cards in Italy". Well, maybe not the book, but the research is clearly a landmark in various interests. For the collection of early Trionfi notes it somehow means, that we have within the year 2012 about 200 % more data for the period 1440-1462 than mankind had collected in the 200 years before. Added later: In August 2013 the new report of Arnold und Doris Esch: "Aus der Frühgeschichte der Spielkarte. Der Import von carte da giocare und trionfi nach Rom." in Gutenberg Jahrbuch 2013, 88. Jahrgang, p. 41-53, arrived in our redaction. It contains 106 new references to Trionfi decks, which all were found in the customs registers of the city Rome for the period 1453-1465. With this the number of all earlier Trionfi cards records has been doubled and should have reached then c. 210 (from which a few are only considered to be "Trionfi card notes" and don't contain the word "Trionfi" or something similar). *********** I'd started to sort the new Trionfi card documents overview in October 2012. Articles will be possibly changed according improvements in research. |
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