930 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



cards are designated as i?e, Begina, Cavallo, aud Fante. The attuti are 

 uuiiibered and bear the following names: 



I. IlBagattella. IX. L' Eremita. XVII. Le Stelle. 



II. La Papessa. X, Rout. Dellafor. XVIIl. La Luna. 



Ill L' Imperatrice. XL La Forza. XIX. II Sole. 



IV. L' Iniperatoie. XII. L' Appose. XX. II Giudizio. 



V. II Papa. XIII. XXL II Moudo 



VI. GliAmanti. XIV. LaTemperau. II Matto 



VII. II Carro. XV. IlDiavolo. 



VIII. La Giustizia. XVI. La Torre. 



The thirteenth card with the picture of "death" bears no name,' and 

 the matto is not numbered. 



The origin of European playing-cards is extremely obscure. They 

 are variously regarded as having been invented in Europe, aud to have 

 been introduced from the East. Willshire''^ favors the former view, and 

 assigns the earliest European cards to Italy, while others believe them 

 to have been derived from China, or to have been introduced by the 

 Arabs or Gypsies.'' 



There are two principal kinds of European cards; one consisting of 

 from thirty-two to fifty-six cards, comprised in four suits, each com- 

 l^osed of a series of numeral cards and court or coate-cards, or hon- 

 ours; and another, called Tarois (France) or Tarocchi (Italy), in which 

 the preceding pack is supplemented with twenty-two or more cards 

 called atouts (France) or atutti (Italy), bearing emblematic devices of 

 a mythological or historic character. The earliest, or what are believed 

 to be th(} earliest, Italian cards are of the latter kind. 



There are three varieties of Italian Tarots, according to Willshire: 

 the Tarots of Venice or Lombardy, regarded by him as the parent 

 game; the Mincliiate of Florence, and the Tarocchino of Bologna. 



The source of the allegorical designs on the cards of the emblematic 

 sequence has been referred to a series of early Italian prints bearing 

 full-length figures illustrating the various conditions of life — the Muses, 

 Arts, Sciences, etc. — which are regarded as having been intended for 

 puriDoses of instruction rather than for play. These prints, known as 

 the Tarocchi di Ilanterpia or the Carte di Baldiniy exist in several 

 European collections, and are fifty in number, arranged in five series, 

 consecutively numbered (No. 86). Mr. W. H. Wilkinson, in a paper 

 on the Chinese Origin of Playing-Cards,'' in which he i^resents a strong 



'In a similar pack from Piacenza (Gius Beghi), the thirteenth card is labeled 

 Lo Speechio. 



-A Descriptive Cataloguo of Playing and Other Cards in the British Museum, 1876. 



^For a discussion of the relations of European and Oriental playing-cards see: 

 Karl Himly, Morgenliiudisch oder abcudliiudisch? Forschungen nach gewissen 

 Spielausdriicken, Zeitschrift d. deutschen morgeuliindischen Gesellscbaft, XLIII, 

 l»p. 415, 555. For a list of books ou playing-cards, consult A Bibliography of Card- 

 Games aud of the History of Playiug-Cards, compiled by Norton T. Horr, Cleveland, 

 Ohio, 1892. 



■'American Anthroi)ologist, January, 1895. 



