Perlaggen (regionally also Perlåggen), formerly Perlagg-Spiel[1] ("game of Perlagg"), is a traditional card game which is mainly played in the regions of South Tyrol in Italy, the Tyrolean Oberland and the Innsbruck areas of Austria.

It is the only card game to have been recognised by UNESCO as an item of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Its inventors were chancery clerks, Alois von Perkhammer and Josef Pfonzelter, and forestry officials, Ferdinand Gile and Johann Sarer.

They created the game at the inn of Zum Pfau in Bozen (now Bolzano), South Tyrol, in the year 1833.

In 1858, the Lemberger allgemeiner Anzeiger records that – The Tyrolese have a strange farmer’s game that doesn't occur anywhere else; it is played by four people with German-suited cards and is called Perlagg.

It requires so much intellect, calculation and tricks that one often marvels how a seemingly simple person can develop so much talent to overcome his opponent.

As inconspicuous as this local custom is, it is proof of how much the name Radezky has passed into flesh and blood in the land of Tyrol.Originally the game had no name.

It was only several years later that the term Perlagg emerged in the region around Salurn, where the devil was referred to as the Berlicche.

Auer, the Austrian card expert, uses "Perlaggen" for the game and "Perlåggen" for the special trump cards to distinguish them, although he says the pronunciation is the same – the "å" sounding halfway between a German "a" and German "o".

The game has four suits: Acorns (Eichel), Leaves (Laub), Hearts (Herz) and Bells (Schellen) – see right.

Each suit consists of eight cards in the usual order: Ace/Deuce/Sow (Ass/Daus/Sau), King (König), Ober, Unter, Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven; plus the Weli, a 6 of Bells.

At the start of the game, the player who cuts the highest card deals.

Once this obligation is fulfilled, the cutter no longer has to inform anyone during the game what was drawn.

If the dealer makes a mistake and, for example, deals two cards in the first packet to the cutter, even though the latter has taken a Perlagg, the opponents may demand that the hand be reshuffled and redealt.

In this case, the person on the right of the dealer has the advantage of being allowed to cut a second time.

The dealer is obliged to show all other players the top and bottom (Luck und Boden) cards once.

An important feature of Perlaggen, allowed under the rules, is deuten, whereby partners may communicate the cards they hold to one another by means of signals, gestures and words.

If these multiple Gleichs consist of aces, they are called "highest triplet" (höchst dritzigen), etc.

If a Perlagg is played or put down during the game, it must be christened immediately by its owner, who must indicate which card it is to be considered as.

[7] The two players who form a team are partners and count as one person to the opposition.

Perlaggen may be played by two people using the same rules as the four-hand game, but without deuten.

In June 2016, this traditional Tyrolean card game was declared by the Austrian UNESCO Commission to be an item of immaterial cultural heritage.

[2] At the same time, in the Tyrolean Folk Art Museum in Innsbruck, a display cabinet was set up which is devoted to Perlaggen.