The Arts in the Middle Ages and at the Period of the Renaissance — Key Ideas to Explore

Playing Cards as a Test Case for 'Art'

The excerpt on playing cards occupies several pages, describing German lansquenet cards, round cards attributed to Martin Schœngauer, and early English imports. Lacroix treats these objects with the same seriousness he might afford a cathedral or a painting: he notes their material (ivory), their iconography (philosophical devices in Latin), and their social function (moralising games of chance). Yet the catalog subjects—Architecture, Art Renaissance, Art Medieval—nowhere mention gaming or ephemera. The book thus implicitly expands the definition of art to include everyday objects, but the metadata does not reflect this. A reader expecting only architecture or painting will find instead a detailed account of card suits (Hare, Parrot, Carnation, Columbine) and the shapes of German versus French packs.

The Translator's Role in Shaping Evidence

James Dafforne's preface acknowledges that his task was to put a literal translation into 'language somewhat in harmony with the construction of our own' while retaining the 'peculiar—sometimes the quaint—phraseology of the original writing.' This editorial intervention means the English text is not a neutral conduit. For instance, Dafforne notes that some French words have no English equivalent and were left without comment. The card passage includes terms like 'ténébreux logogriphe' (rendered as 'obscure riddle'), which may obscure or clarify depending on the reader. The translator's choices thus affect how evidence about medieval art reaches an English audience, a factor the catalog subjects cannot capture.

What the Excerpts Omit: Architecture and Renaissance

Despite the title's emphasis on the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and the catalog listing Architecture as the primary category, the available excerpts contain no discussion of buildings, sculpture, or Renaissance stylistic developments. The card passage is entirely medieval in focus, with Renaissance mentioned only in the book's title and preface. The preface to the second French edition references a larger work, The Middle Ages and the Renaissance, but the excerpts do not show how this single-volume version handles the transition between periods. A reader relying solely on the catalog subjects might expect architectural analysis; instead, the text offers a microhistory of card games, leaving the promised Renaissance largely absent from the evidence provided.

Readers approaching this work through its catalog subjects should be prepared for a text that ranges far beyond architecture or canonical art. The playing-card passage exemplifies Lacroix's interest in material culture and the translator's mediating hand. To engage fully, one must set aside expectations of a systematic survey and instead follow the author's associative logic, which treats a pack of cards as seriously as a stained-glass window. The book rewards those curious about the edges of medieval artistry, not just its monuments.

The rain drummed against my window as I lingered over Paul Lacroix’s chapter on playing cards, wondering how such fragile things survived centuries. That question about physical remnants led me, almost without thinking, to an architect’s old letters, which feel just as accidental—a quiet record of what endures. I set one down, picked up Letters of an Architect, From France, Italy, and Greece. Volume 2 [of 2] — Story, Setting & Ideas, and the afternoon softened into that same gentle, unhurried wondering.