Minchiate
Trump VII, Fortitude
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| Origin | Florence |
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| Alternative names | Germini, Gallerini, Ganellini |
| Type | Trick-taking |
| Players | 2-4 |
| Skills required | Tactics, Strategy, Cooperation |
| Cards | 97 |
| Play | Counter-clockwise |
| Card rank (highest to lowest) | Trump suit 40-1 Long suits: K Q C J 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Round suits: K Q C J 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 |
| Playing time | 30 min. |
| Random chance | Moderate |
| Related games | |
| Tarocchini | |
Minchiate is an early 16th century card game, originating in Florence, Italy. It is no longer widely played. Minchiate can also refer to the special deck of 97 playing cards used in the game. The deck is closely related to the 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.
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.
The word minchiate comes from a dialect word meaning "nonsense" or "trifle". 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. However, 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. 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.
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