in black on a thin cardboard. The backs are sometimes bright crimson
and sometimes black or yellow, and they are the shape and size of a
finger. Some of them are little more than half an inch broad by three
inches long, and others are an inch wide by three and a half long. The
pips and court cards are always printed in black on a white background,
and on the face of some of them are stamped Chinese characters printed
in red. In some packs the cards have animals, such as horses and deer,
represented upon them; while in others characters which may mean the
names only of the animals are written above the pips. The cards are
rounded at the top and bottom, and at the upper end a small portion is
left blank, as if to hold them conveniently and allow of their being
spread or “fanned” out, showing the whole of the pictured surface, the
blank space being held under the thumb and fingers. Strangely enough,
this blank space being at the top instead of at the bottom of the card,
it would seem that they should be held by the top and spread out in
exactly the reverse way customary among Europeans. The tiny cards are
so narrow and so small that they might well be held concealed by the
palm of the hand, which could effectually cover them and prevent the
shape of the pips being seen through the thin cardboard or the number
of the cards being counted by the opponent.
The Chinese have another name for their cards, and this is _Wat-pi_;
but it seems to be the name given to different games, as they also call
queer-looking tablets on which round dots are placed in regular order
and which resemble our dominos, by the same name.
Mr. Singer gives an account of some Chinese cards an inch and a half
long and a little more than two inches broad. Each suit consists of
nine cards with black backs. They are printed with Chinese characters,
and not with emblems like those in other packs.
Some authors state that cards are played by the lower orders only, and
that people of distinction play at Chess; and that among the Chinese it
is considered undignified to play cards, and many of them pretend they
have no idea of their use or the meaning or value of the characters on
them.
It is also asserted that a game analogous to the old one of Tarots has
been found in China, which contains seventy-seven tablets.
There is a tradition that a Venetian carried cards from China to his
native city, which was the first place in Europe where they were known.
This traveller was probably Niccolo Polo, who with his brother Matteo
returned from China about 1269; or it may have been the celebrated
Marco Polo, son of the above Niccolo, who accompanied his father and
uncle on their second voyage to that great empire.
EGYPT.
An attempt has been made to prove that a kind of card was in use among
the Egyptians in the seventh century before our present era; but this
has been hotly disputed if not disproved. That there were games which
were known to the early Egyptians has been shown by the inscriptions on
their monuments, and the representations of figures playing jack-stones
or knuckle-bones and dice. Some kind of game resembling Chess may also
have been played, but upon this subject authorities do not agree.
INDIA.
If India was not the birthplace of Cards, as it probably was of Chess,
it is certain that they were known in that country at a very early
date; and beautiful specimens of ancient as well as modern packs are
prized in many European collections.
A pack of Hindoo cards is fully described in Mr. Singer’s book, and
many of them are handsomely reproduced. They are painted on ivory,
the backs are gilded, and they number the same as the Tarot cards.
This pack contains seven suits, which are _Suns_, _Moons_, _Crowns_,
_Cushions_, _Harps_, _Letters_, and _Swords_. Of each of these suits
there are ten numeral and two court cards, which appear to represent
a Sovereign and a General. Besides these there are twelve cards
apparently of no suit, on which are groups of figures, some male and
some female.
Mr. Chatto describes several packs of Hindostanee cards, among others
some owned by the Royal Asiatic Society and preserved in their Museum.
One of these packs consists of ten and others of eight suits. “In each
suit, when complete, the number of cards is twelve; that is, two coat
cards, or honours, and ten others whose numerical value is expressed by
the number of marks upon them. The cards of all the packs are circular;
the diameter of the largest is two and three quarter inches, and of the
smallest about two and an eighth inches.” The material of which they
are formed is supposed to be canvas, and indeed it is expressly stated
in a memorandum that accompanies them that such is the case, but they
appear to be made of thin veneers of wood. One of these packs formerly
belonged to Capt. D. Cromline Smith, to whom they were presented about
1815 by a high-caste Brahmin, who considered them a great curiosity,
and supposed that they were a thousand years old. These cards resemble
a pack now owned by Mr. de Forest that he bought in Cashmere within a
few years, and that have been reproduced for this work. The Brahmin’s
pack, says Mr. Chatto, “consists of eight suits, each suit containing
two honours and ten common cards,—in all ninety-six cards. In all the
suits the King is mounted on an elephant, and in six the Vizir, or
second honour, is on horseback; but in the blue suit, the emblem or
mark of which is a red spot with a yellow centre, he rides a tiger;
and in the white suit, the mark of which appears like a grotesque or
fiendish head, he is mounted on a bull. The backs of all the cards
are green. The following are the colours of the _ground_ on which the
figures are painted in the several suits, together with the different
marks by which the suits and the respective value of the common cards
were also distinguished:—
COLOURS. MARKS.
1. FAWN. Something like a pineapple in a shallow cup.
2. BLACK. A red spot with a white centre.
3. BROWN. A “tulwar,” or sword.
4. WHITE. A grotesque kind of head.
5. GREEN. Something like a parasol without a handle, and
with two broken ribs sticking through the top.
6. BLUE. A red spot with a yellow centre.
7. RED. A parallelogram with dots on it as if to represent
writing.
8. YELLOW. An oval.”
[Illustration: Plate 5.]
Mr. Chatto mentions other packs with red backs, one of them containing
ten suits, and all seemingly distinguished more by the coloured
background than the emblem of the suit, which is sometimes entirely
omitted, particularly in the court cards. The games to be played are
complicated and difficult to understand, although one of them is
said to resemble l’Ombre, the favourite game in Spain. The tradition
regarding the origin of Hindostanee cards, as given by Mr. Chatto, is
“that they were invented by a favourite Sultana or Queen to wean her
husband from a bad habit he had acquired of pulling or eradicating
his beard.” The game of cards is not mentioned in the Arabian Nights,
remarks Mr. Chatto, “and from this silence it may be concluded that at
the time when those tales were compiled card-playing was not a popular
pastime in Arabia. The compilation of these tales, it is believed, is
not earlier than about the end of the fifteenth century, although some
of them are of a much higher antiquity.”
CASHMERE.
The cards from Cashmere, which belong to Mr. de Forest and are
reproduced for this work, differ but slightly from those described
by Mr. Chatto. The Cashmere cards are circular in shape, as well as
the Hindostanee, and are of about the same size, being two inches in
diameter. The emblems on the Cashmere cards differ considerably from
those described by Mr. Chatto, and only the court or figure cards bear
a general resemblance to those that formerly belonged to Capt. D.
Cromline Smith.
The Cashmere cards seem to be made of thin slices of wood, overlaid
with a composition of some sort, and so thickly covered with paint
and varnish that the original material is entirely concealed. This
pack contains thirty-six cards of three suits; namely, ten pip and two
court cards in each suit. A large purple flower on a red ground, placed
within circles of yellow, ornaments the backs, which are probably
intended to be precisely the same; but to an experienced gamester there
would be no difficulty in distinguishing one card from another, even
with the face of it concealed, as the design, though uniform, differs
slightly on each card.
The three suits are not only marked by the emblems of pips, but, like
the Hindostanee cards, the backgrounds are vividly painted in some
uniform colour upon which the design is displayed, and this colour
marks the suits distinctly even when the emblem is omitted, which in
some cases is done either by design or accident. The white suit is
headed by a King mounted on an elephant, and a Vizir on a bull. There
are no emblems on these two cards by which to distinguish the suit.
The ten pip cards show tiny figures of men clothed in loosely fitting
red garments and wearing red turbans on their heads. These figures
are represented kneeling, with their hands clasped in the attitude of
prayer. They are dotted over the surface of the cards and grouped as
the corresponding pips are in the other suits, and generally face each
other, except in number eight, in which all the figures look the same
way and to the left side. Another suit is distinguished by a dark-blue
ground, on which small yellow disks, surrounded by circles of red, are
painted. This suit may correspond with a “moon” suit mentioned by Mr.
Chatto among the Hindostanee cards, and it is also noticeable as it
closely resembles the “money” used as an emblem on Italian and Spanish
cards. The court cards of this suit show a man mounted on a tiger and
bearing the distinctive emblem uplifted in his right hand. The position
of this man is closely copied on the Spanish cards, although in them he
is represented on horseback. The second honour shows two tigers seated
on a cross-legged bench gazing over their shoulders at two attendants,
who wave what appear to be staves or fans. Between these tigers is a
large “moon-face,” which seems to mark the suit. If this be the case,
it would point to the origin of the money emblem. The pips on the rest
of the suit are carelessly executed circles, and the features, which
would show it to be intended for the moon, are omitted. The outline
of this mark may have been followed on the cards that were first
introduced into Europe, and may readily have become changed during the
lapse of years. The “moon” mark on the Hindostanee cards has gradually
extended both East and West, one that closely resembles it being found
on the Chinese cards, and partly followed on the wooden cubes of the
Alaska Indians.
[Illustration: Plate 6.]
The green suit bears emblems which recall the _carreaux_ of the French
cards, and are even more like one of the marks used by the Apache
tribe of North American Indians by which to distinguish one of their
suits. The diamond-shaped pip on the Cashmere cards is painted red
and ornamented with stripes and dots of pink. The court cards show a
Vizir on a white horse, bearing the pip in his right hand, and a Sultan
attended by two slaves, who also carries the emblem of the suit.
These cards show little marks of use, and their surface is slightly
sticky, so that they could not be conveniently either shuffled or
dealt. It is probable that the pack is not complete, and that there
should be more than the three suits that now compose it.
PERSIA.
Six tablets brought from Persia by a recent traveller form an
interesting addition to the cards used by different nations. These tiny
cards appear to be the three honours of two different packs. They are
made of layers of pasteboard, some of them as thick as two ordinary
playing-cards. The others are nearly double that thickness; and
although they are all of the same size (namely, an inch and an eighth
wide by two inches long), there are many marks on them to show that
they never all belonged to the same pack. Although made of pasteboard,
they are covered so thickly with paint and varnish that they might
easily be supposed to have been cut out of wood. The backs of these
cards are all alike, and are painted black. They are remarkable for
the female figure that they bear as a court card, as in this respect
they are not only unlike all other Eastern cards, but in it differ from
those of every Western nation, with the exception of the French and
those other countries where the French cards have been adopted. This
female figure is by some called a Courtesan, but it could as well be
named a Queen. She is seated on a chair of state, that is ornamented
with a design which closely resembles one of the emblems used on a
Hindostanee pack of cards, and which is called a crown by Mr. Chatto.
This may, however, be a purely accidental resemblance. A young child
is placed in the lap of this Queen, but she bears no particularly
distinctive emblems either on her dress or on any part of the card
which might serve to mark the suit. The background of one of these
Queens is yellow, and that of the other one is red, and there are two
Queens in this pack of six cards. There are two cards which appear to
belong to the “Yellow Queen.” One of them shows a Hunter on a golden
background drawing his knife across the throat of some animal; and
the other card bears a Cavalier mounted on a white horse, on the back
of which is perched a tiger. This card has a black background. A sun
placed at the top may be intended for the distinguishing emblem. These
three cards undoubtedly belong to the same pack, and are considerably
thicker than the others, which are much more highly ornamented and
better finished than those already described. The Queen is handsomely
dressed; her hair is covered, and she wears large ear-rings, from
which depend a necklace. The child is dressed in a loosely fitting
garment, and its head is covered with a jewelled cap. The background
of this card is a beautiful red, and the corners are ornamented with
fine arabesques of flowers and fruit. The King which belongs to
this set is accompanied by a female figure, and they are placed on
a yellow background, but they bear no emblem by which they might be
distinguished. The third card has a very richly ornamented golden
background, and shows two figures, one of them carrying what appears to
be a drum. All these cards have beautifully ornamented corners, and are
painted like a miniature.
ITALY.
The first European document known that mentions cards is the
manuscript already referred to, written by Nicolas de Covellezzo, about
the end of the thirteenth century, is preserved among the archives of
Viterbo, and contains the earliest written account yet discovered of
cards, not only among the Italians but also in Europe, if we except the
much disputed passage in the Wardrobe Rolls of Edward the First, King
of England, which will hereafter be mentioned. This document refers to
cards by the name of _Carte_, as well as by that of _Naïbi_.
[Illustration: Plate 7.]
Mr. Singer says that “the first game played in Italy was without
question Trappola. This had been introduced from Arabia, and is
mentioned by many early Italian authors, one of whom writing in 1393
calls cards _Naïbi_, and speaks contemptuously of them as a childish
game. Another writer, Tenanza, declares that in 1441 the Venetian
Maître-cartiers, who formed a large guild, remonstrated with the Senate
of that city on the injury done to their trade by the importation of
large quantities of playing-cards with printed as well as painted
figures within their gates, which had been manufactured elsewhere; and
this remonstrance shows that the card-makers of the day were already
numerous, and seems to point to the fact that the use of cards was
well established, and that considerable numbers were called for and
manufactured.”
Lorenzo de’ Medici mentions the games of La Bassetta and Il Frusso
in some of his “Canzoni,” printed before 1492; and there are Italian
writers who point to him as the inventor of some games of cards.
In Italy the suits were called _Coppe_ (Cups), _Spadi_ (Swords),
_Denari_ (Money), _Bastoni_ (Maces). These continued to be the commonly
used marks on the Italian cards from the sixteenth century to a much
later period; and the same suits and pips have been used in Spain
from the time of their first history to the present day. An Italian
writer claims that a native of Bologna invented Tarots or Tarocchino
before the year 1419, and says that “there is preserved in the Fibbia
family, which was one of the most illustrious and ancient of that
city, a portrait of Francis Fibbia, Prince of Pisa, who sought refuge
at Bologna about the commencement of the fifteenth century, in which
he is represented holding in his right hand a parcel of cards, while
others appear lying at his feet. Among the latter are seen the Queen
of _Batons_ and the Queen of _Denari_; the one bearing the arms of
the Bentivoglio family, and the other the arms of the Fibbia. An
inscription at the bottom of the picture states that Francis Fibbia,
who died in 1419, had obtained as the inventor of Tarocchino, from the
_Reformers_ of the city, the privilege of placing his own arms on the
Queen of _Batons_, and that of his wife, who was one of the Bentivoglio
family, on the Queen of _Denari_.” Writers disagree as to whether
Fibbia invented the emblems of the cards or joined two packs of cards
which already had their appropriate emblems into one, or whether he
invented a new game to be played with the already well known Tarocchino
cards.
Notice should be taken of the fact that printed as well as painted
cards are mentioned in the petition of the card-makers of Venice, as
it was from this date that each village in Italy manufactured its own
cards. After the invention of wood-engraving, Germany and Holland
exported cards in large quantities, and this may have called for the
protective decree. There was also a difference, which was mentioned in
the documents of the period, between the primitive _Naïbi_ and cards
proper. As these documents do not define the difference between the
packs, we can form no idea of what it was.
GERMANY.
In a German book printed at Augsburg in 1472, called “Gülden Spiel,”
or “The Golden Game,” written by a Dominican friar of the name of
Ingold, it is stated that cards had been known in Germany since 1300.
As this is by no means contemporaneous testimony, it is probable
that the German vanity which claims the honor of inventing the art
of printing wishes, with no more reason on its side, to appropriate
to itself the invention of playing-cards, which in plain words is
laying claim to the invention of wood-engraving, as many of the
early German packs are engraved and not stencilled or painted. This
rather suspicious assertion may therefore well be ignored, and we may
only credit the one made by the Italian author of Viterbo, which is
apparently more authentic. Unfortunately, the latter gives no details
about the kind of cards which he mentions. He only states that cards
made their appearance in 1379 in Europe, and came from Arabia under
their original name.
In the “Livre d’Or” of Ulm, which is a manuscript preserved in that
city, there is an ordinance, dated 1397, forbidding all card-playing.
These are the only authentic witnesses that can be brought forward by
which the approximate time of the introduction of playing-cards into
Europe may be fixed.
[Illustration: Plate 8.]
A German author by the name of Heniken claims for his country the
birthplace of cards, and brings forward many ingenious but hardly
satisfactory deductions in support of his pretensions. He says that
_Briefe_, which is the name that cards bear in his country, means
“letters,” and that the common people do not say, “Give me a pack of
cards,” but “Give me a _Spiel-briefe_” (a pack of letters), and they do
not say, “I want a _card_,” but “I want a _Brief_” (letter). “We should
at least have preserved the name _carte_,” he says, “if they had come
to us from France; for the common people always preserve the names of
all games that come to them from other countries.”
Unfortunately for this argument, it has been discovered that cards
were called _Karten_ in Germany before they were called _Briefe_. It
may be claimed that cards were carried into Germany by the Crusaders,
who had learned their use during the wars with the Saracens. They might
also have made an ingenious use of the cards during their long absences
in the East, and diverted them from their original purposes, writing
letters to mothers, wives, or sweethearts on them, or chosen them to
send to the young folk at home to serve for their amusement, as the
pictures of the Kings, Knights, etc., rude though they probably were,
would have undoubtedly proved both novel and entertaining; and from
this fact the name of _Briefe_ may have been given to the _Naïbi_ of
the Orient. The Eastern origin of the cards is plainly pointed to, as
there are no Queens in ancient packs of German cards.
In many parts of Germany the court and pip cards which are usually
used resemble most closely those which are represented in the packs of
the early part of the fifteenth century. The cards which are at the
present time (1890) manufactured at Frankfort in Germany are copies
of the French packs of the fifteenth century, with the modifications
which have crept in during the lapse of over three hundred years; and
they display the modern Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades, and these
cards are generally used in the German Empire. But the same factory
turns out cards which are suited to the more conservative portions of
the country, where the ancient _Schellen_ (Bells), _Hertzen_ (Hearts),
_Grün_ (Green), and _Eicheln_ (Acorns) are still preferred.
In the modern German cards each Ace bears the attributes of the
wine-cellar or the _biergarten_. In the ancient cards the Ace was
always draped with a flag. The modern _Hearts_ are surrounded with
champagne bottles. _Acorns_ carry a loving-cup; _Bells_, a steaming
punch-bowl; and _Leaves_, beer-glasses and goblets. There are no
Queens in this pack, their place being taken by Knights on horseback
dressed in beautiful uniforms; and beside their heads is the word
_Ober_, signifying the position they hold over the Knaves, which are
represented as working-men. There are only five pip cards in this
pack, numbered from five to ten; and the emblems are arranged in
a symmetrical and fanciful way, quite unlike the cards which were
adapted by the French from the original Tarots and adopted by all
English-speaking nations. The backs of these cards bear a plaid or
checkered pattern, recalling to mind those of the original Tarots.
To a German is due the adaptation of cards to the instruction of
children; and this idea, which was promulgated soon after the first
introduction of these packs into Germany, has been developed steadily
through successive years, until now it is possible to study history,
geography, and other sciences by these means, and babies still in the
nursery learn to spell and to read after a fashion by playing the
various games which are strewn before their unappreciative eyes. The
name of this ingenious inventor was Thomas Murer, a Franciscan friar,
who in 1507 arranged a game in which various branches of education
were taught. Each card was covered with so many symbols that M. la
Croix declares that “their description alone resembles the most gloomy
rebus;” but the German universities, undaunted by difficulties, enjoyed
the study of logic and other sciences under the guise of amusement, and
Murer’s game was imitated and continues to be so to the present time.
SPAIN.
The Spaniards base their claim of having been the first to use, if
they were not the inventors of, playing-cards to the fact that _Naïbi_,
the name by which cards were known among the Italians about the year
1393, is very nearly similar to the name by which they are known in
Spain to-day. As it was about that time that Italy was invaded by the
Spaniards, they declare that they, as the conquerors, imposed cards
upon that country and taught their use, under the name they bore in
their own homes.