Marziano da Tortona and the Courtly Game as an Intellectual Project

This working paper forms part of an ongoing research project on early fifteenth-century Milanese visual and court culture. The article analyzes Marziano da Tortona’s De ludo cum aliis as a humanist court text rather than as an early form of tarot. The study focuses on structure, hierarchy, and the absence of linear development within the game. By rejecting teleological and symbolic interpretations, the paper situates Marziano’s project within the intellectual environment of the Visconti court and examines it as a model of ranked distinction and regulated comparison. The article may be read independently and does not presuppose later tarot historiography.