Through the depictions in the art gallery and Mazzetti’s historical rooms, we can trace an interesting picture of 18th century hobbies.
BOCCHERINI AND THE MINUET
Among the noble classes, they used to organise dance parties accompanied by musicians (especially string quintets) who positioned themselves on the wrought iron balcony of the Hall of Honour, while a small sitting room with excellent acoustics, decorated with stuccoes representing Pan’s flute and musical scores held by cherubs, was used for private listening. The composer Luigi Boccherini was in vogue at the time, and the minuet or pas menu (small step) was the dance of the moment.
HOUSEKEEPERS AND CHILDREN’S GAMES
At the time, housekeepers entertained children with games to be played indoors or outdoors, including dolls and writing automatons, soap bubbles, badminton, and blind man’s buff. Snakes and ladders, probably of Egyptian origin and very popular in the 18th century, had an educational purpose and represented a sort of metaphor for existence with penalties and unexpected events; there are indeed similarities with the game of Mehen, whose name derives from an Egyptian god and whose structure consisted of a base with the shape of a snake coiled around itself, similar to the alchemical symbol of the ouroboros representing the cyclical nature of the universe.
CARNIVAL TRADITIONS BETWEEN COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE AND GAMBLING
In Mazzetti’s Gallery, commedia dell’arte is commemorated through the gilded stucco decorations by Marsilio Roncati of Meride, featuring characters consisting of fixed and codified types, while the plot was improvised and based on a simple outline.
During Carnival, gambling became a real passion, as described by Carlo Goldoni in his plays. Luck plays a decisive role compared to the skill of the player in biribiss or biribisso, the ancestor of roulette, which was very widespread in Venice, being a close relative of the lottery. In this regard, Casanova mentions 22 different games from the 18th century and manages the Lottery of the military school in Paris, where lottery means the Genoese lottery.
In the play ‘Una delle ultime sere di Carnovale’ (One of the Last Nights of Carnival), Goldoni describes in detail the Venetian game of meneghella (menega in Venetian means Sunday and meneghella is the diminutive form. The card called meneghella is the two of swords), while for sbaraglino, called backgammon or tric trac elsewhere, good luck counted more than the player’s skill.
ZODIAC HALL: ALCHEMY, HOROSCOPE AND TAROT CARDS
The Zodiac Hall shows allegorical decorations depicting the four seasons and the signs of the zodiac alongside the lunettes. The influence of the planets was considered fundamental for studying the birth charts of noblewomen or for predicting important events.
Salvatore Bianchi’s frescoes include alchemical and esoteric references and symbols, among which the rod of Asclepius and depictions of the sun and moon.
In this regard, the 18th century marked the crucial transformation of tarot cards from a board game to an esoteric and divinatory tool.
QUARREL BETWEEN CARD PLAYERS: FARAONE AND BASSETTA
Evidence of the popularity of various card games in the 18th century can be found on the overdoor panel painted by Giovanni Michele Graneri in 1754-56, which depicts a “Quarrel between card players”.
Among the games that were most popular in Venice there was Il Faraone (Pharaoh), a true cultural phenomenon, such that those who did not know how to play it could consider themselves excluded from high society. Similar to bassetta, its ancestor, but with one important difference: in faraone , which was played with two decks, the players (whose number was unlimited) decided the size of the stakes instead of the dealer.
ORIENTAL GAMES
Chess was also particularly popular among adults, and the folding lacquered chessboard from the Ching period with white ivory and red-painted ivory pieces is of considerable value.
In the East, the game of go, similar to draughts, with black and white pieces, was very well known.
Finally, the Oriental collection at Mazzetti’s includes the highly cultured Japanese game from the Edo period, Kōdō or incense game. Consisting of a set with incense burners and a box with a pear skin motif, tessen flowers and an eagle feather crest. It contained nine other small boxes with 12 tiles with symbols. The aim of the game was to link the fragrance to a sentence from Japanese literature evoking it.
