Italian Playing Cards

The first reliable evidence that playing cards were being used in Italy is from Florence in 1376, when a game called 'naibbe' is forbidden in a decree, with the implication that the game had only recently been introduced there. This is followed in 1379 by another reference from Viterbo (in the vicinity of Rome) in which it is claimed that a new game called 'nayb' was introduced by a 'Saracen' (= Oriental, Arab or Muslim). From these examples we can infer that the game was still a novelty, perhaps only hearsay, and that it's name was still something of a mystery. However, quite soon playing cards did not meet with cordial approval from the church authorities, and they were demonised by preachers who urged that they be destroyed.

It is now generally accepted that the Arabs introduced their playing cards to Europe, via both the Iberian and Italian peninsulas, in the second half of the fourteenth century, and that European cards evolved from the suit system and composition of these cards. The famous Topkapi Museum pack, made from several incomplete Mamluk packs, clearly shows four suits of 13 cards including 3 court cards. Through a process of assimilation and adaptation the original Arabic suit symbols, and even the name na'ib, became Westernised. The typical Italian suit system uses the same symbolic objects as the Spanish (cups, coins, swords and clubs), with some differences of style dating back to an early stage in their history.

A specimen of XV century Italian cards survives (left), preserved in the Museo "Fournier" de Naipes de Alava, which shows that the suit symbols and court hierarchy were indeed very close to the Mamluk set, and have not changed much since then. One characteristic of early Italian cards is that the edges of the back paper, which had a pattern or design printed on it, were wrapped around to the front of the card thereby providing a border around the front of the card (see illustration right). This artesanal method of production is more time-consuming but produces stiff and robust cards which handle and shuffle particularly well. Some early Spanish cards were manufactured using this technique, but it is primarily an Italian way.

It is probably the case that Italian-suited cards from the Venice area were the first ones to cross the Alps and Italian-suited trappola cards survived for some time in Austria, Silesia (Poland, Czech Republic and Germany) and the Balkans. The cards from Southern Italy, including Sicily, are closer in design to Spanish cards. It is here that the Spaniards had come to Italy bringing with them their beloved playing cards and gambling habits.

Italy has also produced a number of variant types of extended packs. The hand-painted tarot cards, which date probably from the first half of the fifteenth century, contain 78 cards. In this game, apart from the four Italian/Latin suits, which could be said to derive from the Arabic 'Mamluk' suit symbols, there are also 22 trump cards; and there are 4 court cards per suit, including a king, queen, cavalier and page plus numeral cards 1-10, making a total of 78 cards. A variant called "Bologna Tarocchino" has only 62 cards (omitting numerals 2-5). Florentine Minchiate has a total of 97 cards.

From the present-day collector's point of view Italy is divided roughly into three parts: the north and north-east where Italian suit signs are used; the southern two-thirds of the peninsula where Italo-Spanish suit signs prevail; and the north-west using French suit signs. The cards with the earliest origins come in the first category.

Antonio Monasta Archaic North Italian Brescian Type Florentine Type Genoese Type Lamperti (Milan), c.1820 Lombardy Type Mamluk Cards Minchiate "Moorish" Playing Cards Napolitan Type Piedmont Type Romagnole Type Sardinia Sicilian Type Spain Tarocchi di Mantegna Tarocco Bolognese Tarocco Piemontese Tuscan Type Venetian Type Visconti Tarot

Early documentary evidence suggests that the game of cards reached Italy by around 1375, from the Muslim world, and that it was soon afterwards prohibited.

Italy is also the birthplace of the tarot, originally a card game. Early sets may have had instructional value for educated people. In the 18th century the trump cards became the focus of mystification and since then the tarot has become a sort of popular religion.

Italy today enjoys reasonable political unity, but this has not always been the case. The fourteen different regional types of playing cards found in Italy reflect the influx of French, Spanish and Imperial influences in the past, and the ensuing identity struggles.

Italian suit signs were known north of the Alps as early as the 15th century. The area south of the River Po down to Sicily used to be occupied by the Spaniards who influenced the types of cards used there.