Italian playing cards

Playing cards (in Italian: carte da gioco) have been in Italy since the late 14th century.

Popular games include Scopa, Briscola, Tressette, Bestia, and Sette e mezzo.

Southern Italy was under strong Spanish influence so their cards closely resemble the ones in Spain.

Northern Italian suits used curved swords instead of straight ones and their clubs are ceremonial batons instead of cudgels.

Tarot cards were invented during the early 15th century in northern Italy as a permanent suit of trumps (trionfi).

The Venetian game of Trappola also spread northwards to Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Poland until dying out in the mid-20th century.

From the second half of the twentieth century, some Italian manufacturers have added a pair of Jokers but not to stripped decks.

Until 1972, all decks of playing cards sold in Italy had to bear a stamp showing that the manufacturer had paid the appropriate amount of tax.

[2] The (northern) Italian traditional card designs are closely related to the Spanish, sharing the same suits of cups, coins, swords and clubs.

However, there are notable visual differences, including that the clubs are drawn as straight ceremonial batons, rather than as rough cudgels (or tree branches) as in a Spanish-suited deck, and that the swords are curved like a scimitar as opposed to a European sword like in the Spanish-suited deck.

[4] The smaller set is missing ranks 8 through 10 while the larger often includes two Jokers to bump it up to 54 cards.

This pattern is also found on Croatia's coast, corresponding with the Venetian Republic's Stato da Màr.

They differ from French or international standard decks in that they generally lack numbered side pips, and have characteristic court card designs for the King (re or regio), Queen (donna) and Knave (Gobbo or Fante).

There was an old Toscane pattern which was distinguished by its uncrowned Queens, less ornate clothing on the courts and Kings holding short sceptres or batons.

It was designed initially as an export version of the standard French pattern in the Spanish Netherlands.

Industrie und Glück is a deck used in Trieste and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol for tarot card games.

Spanish suits are used for the Napoletane, Sarde, Romagnole and Siciliane card patterns, which cover the southern half of the Italian peninsula and the islands of Sardinia and Sicily, and also the Piacentine deck from the northern city of Piacenza.

Spanish-suited cards differ from the Italian-suited northern decks in that clubs (bastoni) are depicted as cudgels, and the swords (spade) are straight longswords rather than curved scimitars.

It has a number of unique and characteristic cards, including the 3 of Clubs which features a grotesque mask with a large moustache, silhouettes of farming activities on the 5 of Swords, and the Horse/Cavalier (Cavallo) of Swords being portrayed as a Moor, wearing a turban and holding a scimitar.

Similarly, the Knave is called Sutta (Sota in Spanish), as opposed to Italian Fante.

The Tarocco Siciliano is a deck used for playing Tarot card games, being unique in that is retains the otherwise extinct Portuguese variant of the Spanish suits.

This has since been increased to 40 cards as per most other Italian decks, by adding a 6 and 5 to each suit, with the Weli doubling as the 6 of Bells.