Catalogue of the collection of playing cards bequeathed to the Trustees of the British museum by the late Lady Charlotte Schreiber.

4

CATALOGUE OF CARDS.
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ITALIAN.
The suits used in Italian cards are Coppe (cups), Spade (swords),
Danari (coins), and Bastoni (clubs), and these have a traditional type
which has seldom been departed from. The cups are ecclesiastical chalices;
the coins are decorated with rosettes; the swords are long curved blades
arranged in two sheaves which interlace at top and bottom; and the clubs
straight thin staves similarly arranged but interlacing in the centre. The
court cards are Be (king), Cavallo (knight), Fante (knave), and (in the
Tarot pack) Regina (queen).
The Tarot sequence has been used in Italy for three classes of games,
the Tarocchi of Venice, the Tarocchino of Bologna, and the Minchiate of
Florence. For the first a pack of 78 cards is used, composed of 22 atutti
and the 56 numeral cards. The atutti and court cards have their names
in the lower margin, either in Italian or (as is frequently the case) in
French, and the former are numbered with Roman figures.
Tarocchino, which is traditionally stated to have been invented by
Prince Fibbia at Bologna early in the 15th century, but is probably much
more modern, is a modification of Tarocchi, its distinctive features being
the reduction of the pack to 62 pieces by the omission from the numeral
suits of all the twos, threes, fours and fives, and the substitution of Moors
or " satraps " for the figures on the four papal and imperial atutti. The
atutti and court cards are without titles, and of the former only twelve
(5-16) are numbered.
The Florentine game of Minchiate, which is played with a pack of 97
cards, bears a general resemblance to the Tarocchi of Venice, but the
subjects and arrangements of the atutti are slightly varied and their
number increased to 41 by the addition of the three Theological Virtues,
one of the Cardinal Virtues (Prudence), the 4 Elements, and the 12 signs
of the Zodiac. The subjects of the last 8 are relieved on a red ground.
In the numeral suits the Cavalli are monsters with human heads, and of
the four Fanti two are warriors and two servants. Also the Spade and
Bastoni suitmarks differ in form from those of the Tarocchi pack, the
former being weapons of the conventional military pattern, crossed diagonally; and the latter short batons.
[For a description of the rules of these tarot games see Singer
p. 236.]