Medieval images of top play

[casalino]

This is one of the oldest:

[casalino]

Here is another beautiful old engraving:

[casalino]

Another beautiful image:

[casalino]

Beautiful Italian painting:

[casalino]

Beautiful pictures:

[casalino]

Another important ancient print:

[ta0]

Great pictures from medieval times, Gianni!
They are whip tops, so I split them from the Indian throw tops topic.
But this one has me scratching my head:



The top is been played like a whip top but it has the modern shape of a throw top. That shape and specially the tip are bad for use as a whip top. Very strange. If it's really from that time, it could be a missing link between whip tops and throw tops, in which a throw top was still thrown with a whip!
Or the image could have been made at a later date trying to imitate the art from that time (a fake).

[casalino]

The photo caption reports that date

[ta0]

The photo caption reports that date

Yes, your are right, and I checked the information on the manuscript section of the French National Library website and the date is well documented.
The archive entry for this book of psalms is in fact extensive: book card.
The book started to be illustrated in Canterbury, England around 1200 and it was finished in Barcelona, Spain, in the 1300s, including this image. In fact, a certain "Mr. Meiss of the Master of San Marco" who was active in Barcelona towards the middle of the century contacted an atelier of Catalan artists. So we can say this is an early baldufa
The whole book of psalms is available digitally. It's full of colorful illustrations. Here it is open on that page: # 161r.



So we have a well dated illustration from the second half of the XIV century that has a top with the shape of a modern throw top, more specifically a baldufa from the region where the artist lived. It appears to be played as a whip top, although it's a bad shape for that. Unless the whip is only used for throwing it . . . Perhaps kids started to play battles with whip tops in which they just threw the tops like in modern battle and the shape evolved for that, but it took a while to get rid of the whip . . . Could this the missing link between whip tops and throw tops?

[jim in paris]

ciao Gianni

ma que bella pittura !
thanx for the research

about "the missing link" , it is a matter of interpretation

good day, thanx

jim

[ta0]

Is this the oldest spintop trick ever recorded?



The image is in the British Museum and this is the library card.
This woodcut print was made in Germany (probably Augsburg) and it's dated to 1482 (the date is written on the drawing).

Is the top spinning on the ground or the foot? To me it's pretty clear that it spins on the foot. The artist was too good to have made the error of having a top spinning on the ground and touch the foot like that.

Spinning a top on the foot is a proper trick. I didn't expect the oldest image of a trick to be from Germany.

To stay on the foot, the tip must have been somewhat pointy.
Unfortunately the edge of the image is damaged and we cannot see what he is holding on the right hand.
Is that a rope or whip on the ground between his legs or just a print artifact? It looks to me like a real drawing trace.
If he was holding a whip, the only natural hold of the shaft would have it going up. But the shaft and the flexible end (e.g. leather) of a whip for top playing are almost always about the same length. That tells me that he doesn't have a whip, but just the end of the rope. So this would be a trick done with a throw top in Germany in the XV century!

[casalino]

New image 1300-1340

[casalino]

[Ketzaltlipoka]

wow! What so nice images and illustrations! Thanks a lot by sharing Casalino!

Tutte queste imagini del giouco dellla trottola nel Medioevo, sono cosí di magiche e ci trasportano a quelli tempi ´ove non c´era eletricittá, la vita era totalemente diferente, e la gente utizazba il tempo libero per sviluppare le loro creativitá e abilitá colle cose piú semplici, má, allo stesso tempo, piú complicate nel suo vero senso di approfittare il tempo libero e i tempi d'ozio. Pure, mi piace moltissimo il vedere la trttola nel piede, a maniera di trucco. Come giocatore di trottola, ho dedicato molto tempo a scoprire e sviluppare trucchi piú complicati coi piedi.
¿hai giá leggiuto il livro "Petite Metaphysique des Jouets? dobvrebi acquistarlo e leggerlo. É in francese, má é facile di capire.
Giusto adesso ho troppa fretta. Dopo devo darmi un tempo per scrivere piú su questo tema.

Salutti a tutti!

[Ketzaltlipoka]

The book started to be illustrated in Canterbury, England around 1200 and it was finished in Barcelona, Spain, in the 1300s, including this image. In fact, a certain "Mr. Meiss of the Master of San Marco" who was active in Barcelona towards the middle of the century contacted an atelier of Catalan artists. So we can say this is an early baldufa
The whole book of psalms is available digitally. It's full of colorful illustrations. Here it is open on that page: # 161r.

I used to have a book (in spanish, the text9,)"The Tales of Canterbury´´of Geoffrey Chaucer. I dont´k know if I still have it, but in the frontpage of the book, it has some illustrations, almost the same, to these. Refereng to jobs, employments and activities of that age. This one is a book I would like to read some day in the original version in ancient english.