Playthings in Early Modernity
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Playthings in Early Modernity FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY Ludic Cultures, 1100–1700 SERIES EDITORS: Bret Rothstein (Chair) Indiana University Alessandro Arcangeli University of Verona Christina Normore Northwestern University See our website for further information on this series and its publications. Medieval Institute Publications is a program of The Medieval Institute, College of Arts and Sciences FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY Playthings in Early Modernity Party Games, Word Games, Mind Games Edited by Allison Levy Ludic Cultures, 1100–1700 MEDIEVAL INSTITUTE PUBLICATIONS Western Michigan University Kalamazoo FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY Copyright © 2017 by the Board of Trustees of Western Michigan University Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data are available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-580442-60-2 e-ISBN 978-1-580442-61-9 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY Contents List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgements xv Introduction: Playing the Field 1 Allison Levy Performing Pictures: Parlor Games and Visual Engagement in Ascanio de’ Mori’s Giuoco piacevole 9 Kelli Wood “Mixt” and Matched: Dance Games in Late Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century Europe 29 Emily F. Winerock Ludic Intermingling/Ludic Discrimination: Women’s Card Playing and Visual Proscriptions in Early Modern Europe 49 Antonella Fenech Kroke Leonardo da Vinci, Parody, and Pictorial Magic 73 Chriscinda Henry Letter Games: Machiavelli and Guicciardini in Carnivalesque Correspondence 97 Sergius Kodera The Rules of Passion and Pastime: The Game of Lurch in a Late Renaissance Poem 117 Manfred Zollinger “Sportes and Pastimes, done by Number”: Mathematical Games in Early Modern England 131 Jessica Marie Otis FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY vi CONTENTS Predictive Play: Wheels of Fortune in the Early Modern Lottery Book 145 Jessen Kelly Virtuous Vices: Giuseppe Maria Mitelli’s Gambling Prints and the Social Mapping of Leisure and Gender in Post-Tridentine Bologna 167 Patricia Rocco Trading and Trick Taking in the Dutch Republic: Pasquin’s Wind Cards and the South Sea Bubble 191 Joyce Goggin The Problem of Excessive Play: Renaissance Strategies of Ludic Governmentality 205 Andreas Hermann Fischer Imaginary Cartographies and Commercial Commodities: Geography and Playing Cards in Early Modern England 219 Serina Patterson Land of Elusion: Portuguese Perceptions and the Matter of Play and Gaming in Vijayanagara 239 Elke Rogersdotter Visual Frames and Breaking the Rules of the Reconquista: Chess and Alfonso X, el Sabio’s Libro de ajedrez, dados y tablas 261 Nhora Lucía Serrano The Prisoners’ Dilemma: Strategies and Ruses in the Inquisitorial Jails of Early Modern Cuenca 277 Patrick J. O’Banion Bibliography 291 Notes on Contributors 321 Index 325 FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY List of Illustrations Kelli Wood Figure 1.1. Antonio Tempesta, January, from a series of etchings of the months, published by Giovanni Antonio de Paoli in Rome, 1599, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence. 10 Figure 1.2. Antonio Tempesta, January, detail, from a series of etchings of the months, published by Giovanni Antonio de Paoli in Rome, 1599, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence. 11 Figure 1.3. Detail from Il Piacevole gioco dell’oca, woodcut, seventeenth century, British Museum, London. 14 Figure 1.4. Elevation of the Arch of Trajan, Ancona from Sebastiano Serlio, Libro d’architettura. Il terzo libro (Venice: Gio. Battista et Marchio Sessa, 1559–62). Photo: author. 17 Figure 1.5. Ignazio Danti, View of Ancona, fresco, 1581–82. Galleria delle Carte Geografiche, Vatican City. Scala/Art Resource, NY. 18 Figure 1.6. Giuseppe Maria Mitelli, Il giuoco del blasone, etching, 1714–18, British Museum, London. 21 Emily F. Winerock Figure 2.1. Pieter Aertsen, The Egg Dance, 84 × 172 cm, oil on panel, 1552, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 33 Figure 2.2. After Maerten de Vos, published by Johannes Baptista Vrints, The Egg Dance, 23.2 × 29.7 cm, engraving, late sixteenth century, Elisha Whittelsey Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 34 Figure 2.3. Attributed to Daniel Vinckenboom, detail from The Thames at Richmond, with the Old Royal Palace, 152.1 × 304.2 cm, oil on canvas, ca. 1620. © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. 35 FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY viii List OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 2.4. Emblem IV, Johannis de Brunes, Emblemata of Zinne-werck (Amsterdam, 1624), p. 23. 44 Antonella Fenech Kroke Figure 3.1. Unknown artist, Allegory of the Plague, Biccherna book cover, 1437. © Kunstgewerbemuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. 50 Figure 3.2. Hans Holbein the Younger (after), Wenceslaus Hollar (primer), Death and the Devil Strike a Player (Antwerp, ca. 1680), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 51 Figure 3.3. Monogrammist SH, Giovanni da Capistrano Preaching against Games, frontispiece of the Vita Iohannis Capistrani. Sermones eiusdem (Augsburg, 1519). 52 Figure 3.4. Woodcut illustration from chapter 77, “On Gamblers,” from Sebastian Brant, Das Narrenschiff (Basel, 1494). 54 Figure 3.5. Niklas Stör (or Erhard Schön), Couple Playing Cards, from H. Sachs, Welcher ein schon weyb pulen zvil. Der musz auch von yhr leyden vil. Das lie der untrew mit im spil (Nuremberg, ca. 1530), Schlossmuseum, Gotha. http://www.zeno.org – Contumax GmbH & Co. KG. 56 Figure 3.6. Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, Card Players, end of the fifteenth century, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 58 Figure 3.7. After Lucas van Leyden,The Card Players, oil on panel, probably ca. 1550/1599, Samuel H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington. 59 Figure 3.8. Quentin Massys, The Ill-Matched Lovers, oil on panel, ca. 1520–25, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, National Gallery of Art, Washington. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington. 60 Figure 3.9. Jacob Matham, A Man and Woman Playing Backgammon, engraving from the series The Consequences of Alcoholism, ca. 1600, British Museum, London. Courtesy © Trustees of the British Museum. 61 FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY List OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix Figure 3.10. Jacob Matham, Two Men Argue and Fight over a Game of Cards, engraving from the series The Consequences of Alcoholism, ca. 1600, British Museum, London. Courtesy © Trustees of the British Museum. 62 Figure 3.11. Girolamo Romanino, Tarot Card Players, detached fresco, mid sixteenth century, originally part of the decoration of the Sala del Capitano in the Broletto, Brescia. Private collection. 64 Figure 3.12. Niccolò dell’Abate, Tarot Card Players, fresco, 1548–50, Museo di Palazzo Poggi, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna. 65 Figure 3.13. Giovanni Antonio Fasolo, Card Players, fresco, ca. 1570, Villa Caldogno, Vicenza. De Agostini Picture Library/Bridgeman Images. 66 Chriscinda Henry Figure 4.1. Leonardo da Vinci, Phyllis (or Campaspe) Riding Aristotle (recto), 9.6 × 13.5 cm, pen and ink over metalpoint on paper, ca. 1475–80, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg. 74 Figure 4.2. Leonardo da Vinci, A Satire on Aged Lovers (Grotesque Couple), 26.2 × 12.3 cm, pen and ink over black chalk on paper, ca. 1489–90, Royal Library, Windsor Castle. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016. 75 Figure 4.3. Leonardo da Vinci, A Man Tricked by Gypsies (Five Grotesque Heads) (recto), 26.0 × 20.5 cm, pen and brown ink on paper, ca. 1493, Royal Library, Windsor Castle. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016. 76 Figure 4.4. Florentine (circle of Baccio Baldini?), Phyllis and Aristotle, Surrounded by a Young Man and Woman with Eros, and a Reclining Nude Woman with Two Children, 16 cm diameter, engraving (Otto print), ca. 1465–80, private collection. Photo © Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Images. 79 Figure 4.5. Baccio Baldini (or workshop), Death and the Lovers (Allegory of Love and Death), 25.4 × 20.4 cm, engraving, ca. 1465–70, British Museum, London. Courtesy © Trustees of the British Museum. 82 FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY x List OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 4.6. Baccio Baldini (or workshop), Garden of Love, 19 cm diameter, engraving (Otto print), ca. 1465–80, Kupfertstichkabinett, Berlin. 83 Figure 4.7. Tuscan marriage box, 18 × 27.5 cm, beech with tempera and gilded decoration over a gesso ground, ca. 1400–25, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photograph © 2017, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 84 Figure 4.8. Copy after Agostino Veneziano,A Grotesque Seduction, 15.2 × 12.1 cm, engraving, ca. 1516–30, British Museum, London. Courtesy © Trustees of the British Museum. 85 Manfred Zollinger Figure 6.1. Wolf (Protestant) Playing against a Cow (Catholic), exterior wall painting, early sixteenth century, Vienna. Photo: author. 120 Jessica Marie Otis Figure 7.1. Teaching a Child to Use a Counting Board, from Robert Recorde’s The Ground of Artes (1615), The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford, Bodl., Douce R 466, f. 1v. 133 Figure 7.2. A Divination Game Explained, in Robert Recorde’s The Ground of Artes (1615), The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford, Bodl., Douce R 466, p. 554. 135 Jessen Kelly Figure 8.1. The Wheel of Fortune, late fourteenth century, The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford, MS Douce 332, fol. 58r. 146 Figure 8.2. The Sign of the Dragon, from Lorenzo Spirito, Libro de la ventura (Venice, 1547), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Res/4 A.lat.a. 445, fol. 13r. 148 FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY List OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi Figure 8.3. The Wheel of Fortune, from Lorenzo Spirito, Le livre de passe te[m]ps de la fortune des dez (Paris, 1528), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Res/4 Astr.p.