The First Card Trick in Print?

[Mariano Tomatis]

On 23 June 2021 Bill Kalush has announced the discovery by Professor Angela Nuovo of the University of Milan of a book by Giovanbattista Verini Fioretino (probably "from Florence"), printed in Milan in 1542:
https://conjuringarts.org/2021/06/the-f ... -in-print/
For those interested in the history of card magic, the book presents two tricks in the last four pages:
- a mathematical card stack involving 52 cards (from Ace to 10 + Fante, Cavallo and Re) with a step of 6 (51 years before Galasso's stack) and this sequence of suits: Coppe > Spade > Denari > Bastoni.
- a version of the 21-Cards Trick involving all the deck (52 cards) and 3 distributions in 4 piles

On 21 June 2020 Mauro Ballesio had announced his discovery of an undated Italian manuscript about chess, presenting several tricks on four pages, one of which describing a mathematical card stack involving 48 cards (from Ace to 9 + Fante, Cavallo and Re) with a step of 5 and this sequence of suits: Spade > Bastoni > Coppe > Denari.
The manuscript is thoroughly analysed (in Italian) in my booklet "Stack, conte e scambi oculati":
http://www.marianotomatis.it/index.php? ... rclass2020

[For a further comparison, Horatio Galasso's mathematical stack (1593) is based on 48 cards, a third, different sequence of suits (Bastoni > Spade > Denari > Coppe) and an irregular step between cards (mostly 4 but also 5 and 1).]

The comparison between Verini's printed book (1542) and Florence manuscript (~1545) doesn't support the hypotesis of a reciprocal influence: the only element in common is a mathematical card stack.

[Mariano Tomatis]

The fourth 16th century mathematical card stack to consider is Francesco Travaglia's, who published in Turin a stack involving 52 cards with a step of 5 and this sequence of suits: Clubs > Spades > Hearts > Diamonds (French cards has always been used in Turin). The book is "Secreti di natura meravigliosi del Sig. Geronimo Scotto Piacentino..." (1575-1587?) translated as "Marvelous Secrets of Nature" in Gibecière 15.1

[Bob Farmer]

What about the 1541 manuscript, Tecnica Rivoluzionaria Delle Carte di Eduardo Marlolini? That would be earlier.

[Richard Kaufman]

Bob, you are insane. I supposed Eduardo Marlolini was the cardicianini?

[Bob Farmer]

Il Cardinale (correct spelling) came much later during Eduardo Marlolini's time working behind the counter at the Baule del Tesoro in Milan's Piazza del Duomo.

[Leo Garet]

John King's 1215 opus Magna Carta beats the sources mentioned hands down.

Magna Carta, translated from the Latin is Magnum Cards, with a subtitle "Everything Ever Invented Previously And In the Future".

Copies are very rare.

[EdwinCorrie]

On 23 June 2021 Bill Kalush has announced the discovery by Professor Angela Nuovo of the University of Milan of a book by Giovanbattista Verini Fioretino (probably "from Florence"), printed in Milan in 1542:
https://conjuringarts.org/2021/06/the-f ... -in-print/
For those interested in the history of card magic, the book presents two tricks in the last four pages:
- a mathematical card stack involving 52 cards (from Ace to 10 + Fante, Cavallo and Re) with a step of 6 (51 years before Galasso's stack) and this sequence of suits: Coppe > Spade > Denari > Bastoni.
- a version of the 21-Cards Trick involving all the deck (52 cards) and 3 distributions in 4 piles

On 21 June 2020 Mauro Ballesio had announced his discovery of an undated Italian manuscript about chess, presenting several tricks on four pages, one of which describing a mathematical card stack involving 48 cards (from Ace to 9 + Fante, Cavallo and Re) with a step of 5 and this sequence of suits: Spade > Bastoni > Coppe > Denari.
The manuscript is thoroughly analysed (in Italian) in my booklet "Stack, conte e scambi oculati":
http://www.marianotomatis.it/index.php? ... rclass2020

[For a further comparison, Horatio Galasso's mathematical stack (1593) is based on 48 cards, a third, different sequence of suits (Bastoni > Spade > Denari > Coppe) and an irregular step between cards (mostly 4 but also 5 and 1).]

The comparison between Verini's printed book (1542) and Florence manuscript (~1545) doesn't support the hypotesis of a reciprocal influence: the only element in common is a mathematical card stack.

Hi Mariano,

Thanks for posting this information!

Unfortunately I had to stop getting Gibecière, but maybe I will try to buy the issue you mention (15.1).

Your link to Bill Kalush's article prompted me to look for the card trick in Pacioli, which I found after some googling which led to a discussion at the Magic Cafe:

https://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=76014&forum=2

In it Craig Matsuoka quotes from Pacioli's Item XXX, which I also found discussed in Vanni Bossi's book "Mate-Magica" (with a reference to one of your books).

I'm not an expert on maths or stacked decks at all, but I do find it interesting to see these early descriptions of magic tricks.

[Mariano Tomatis]

A few years before "De Viribus Quantitatis", a fewer set of tricks were released by Luca Pacioli in a manuscript now known as Codice Vaticano Latino 3129. Leonardo was Pacioli's friend, but there is no strong evidence of him as a co-author of the two works by Pacioli.

The principle of "edge counting", behind several modern magic tricks, can be found in Leonardo's Codex Atlanticus, f. 958r:
http://codex-atlanticus.it/#/Detail?detail=958
Check the top right corner of the page (to be mirrored): three 3x3 matrices show a adding and removing procedure, mantaining 9 as a sum on the four sides. The text does not refer to any object but deals with abstract digits.

Michael Weber uses the principle in "To Feed Many" (1990), Rick Lax (17 march 2020) calls it "Einstein Rock Paradox", but the earliest version of the principle is in the Arab Manuscript about chess "Kitab anmudhaj al-qital fi la’b ashshatrang" (1375).
I perform Leonardo's version (in Italian) here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjVYxtQzXVE
enhancing the original text from the Codex.
Some centuries later, Ozanam describes a version of the trick with nuns in a 4-sides convent (see it in the following episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k6tvIetZhE ). I show the Arab manuscript here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zjdhr5f9uo

[Edwin Corrie]

I didn't know about the Codice Vaticano Latino 3129. So that's what the footnote in Bill Kalush's article is referring to! But some more googling revealed an article on your blog (http://www.marianotomatis.it/blog.php?post=blog/20110322), which explains a lot. I bought "I giochi matematici" years ago when I started to get interested in Luca Pacioli, but I never really read it properly and was puzzled because I thought it was going to be about "De viribus quantitatis". So now I know that I actually already have the the Codice Vaticano Latino 3129, with a full description of the first card trick ever published (and it wasn't by Marlo).

Your videos were also very interesting. As I mentioned, I'm not a mathematician or puzzle expert, and although I've seen this "edge counting" thing in various old books I didn't pay much attention to it because I was always more interested in the card tricks. In "Life Savers" Michael Weber refers to Lereuchon/Van Etten, but I couldn't find the edge counting trick in there (maybe I didn't look closely enough). But there are a couple of versions in Daniel Schwenter's "Deliciae" Vol. 1, pages 102-105, Aufgaben LXXII, LXXIII and LXXIV (https://www.google.fr/books/edition/Deliciae_Physico_Mathematicae_Oder_Mathe/h1U_AAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1). They're a bit different, and two of them involve subtracting instead of adding, which you mentioned in one of your videos. The story in LXXII is about a blind abbot counting monks in a monastery, with the monks sneaking out and then coming back with some nuns. LXXIV is about a line of coins or nuts which you rearrange so that they always add up to 13 in various ways.

In the 1778 edition of Ozanam, where Montucla says that Ozanam didn't go far enough, and he mentions a possible extension to the problem. There's an article which discusses precisely this (https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00590000/file/Recreations-mathematiques-d-Ozanam.pdf), and which also says that the problem was previously described by Bachet (with a story about a servant stealing wine from his master's wine cellar).

But none of these sources are as old as your Arabic manuscript! Many thanks for stirring my interest in this old puzzle.

[Richard Kaufman]

The first modern version of this effect came from Doug Henning seeing a child do it in India. He came back and showed it to Jim Steinmeyer, who turned it into a triangle and created "Bermuda Triangle." All other modern variations followed from this.

[Paco Nagata]

"Clocking the Deck" is probably the oldest Card Trick ever in print in the "Perugia" manuscript by Luca Pacioli from 1478 (whereas "De Viribus Quantitatis" by the same author is from 1493):

https://www.conjuringcredits.com/doku.p ... g_the_deck

[Edwin Corrie]

"Clocking the Deck" is probably the oldest Card Trick ever in print in the "Perugia" manuscript by Luca Pacioli from 1478 (whereas "De Viribus Quantitatis" by the same author is from 1493):

https://www.conjuringcredits.com/doku.p ... g_the_deck

Thank you for this Paco. I just checked "I giochi matematici" (the modern annotated reprint of the Perugia manuscript - see above) and there are actually at least TWO card tricks in it - "Clocking the deck" as mentioned in the Conjuring Archive, and a matrix-type card divination (Problem 20) using the "redistribution" principle. Bill Kalush's article cited by Mariano refers to the Perugia manuscript (Codice Vaticano Latino 3129), so probably he was referring to both tricks.

And so these seem to be the first WRITTEN descriptions (in a manuscript, not a published book) of card tricks, at least in Europe.

[Paco Nagata]

... at least in Europe.

Good remark Edwing!
Who knows what will be found one day in the Middle-East, China or Egipt...

[Philippe Billot]

Sic ista sine noxa decipiunt quomodo praestigiatorum acetabula et calculi, in quibus me fallacia ipsa delectat.

Sénèque le jeune. Lettres à Lucilius. Environ 50 après JC. (Seneca the Younger. Letters to Lucilius. Around 50 AD.)

"These subtleties deceive without harming; they deceive, like the trick of the goblets and stones of the conjurers, whose illusion makes all the charm; the secret discovered, no more pleasure."

Ideally, it would be nice to find a manuscript explaining how this trick was performed.