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Playing Card Suits
In Italy and Spain, the card suits are coins, cups,
swords & clubs
(similar to Tarot cards). In Germany, they are leaves, acorns, hearts & bells.
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Playing Card History
Origins
Many theories abound, but written references to playing cards in Europe begin
in the 1390s. Playing cards were probably introduced to Europe via Crusaders
returning from the Middle East.
French and English suits were set by the early 15th century (heart, spades,
diamond and clubs).
French Playing Cards
French manufacturers started naming court cards in the late 16th century
(like those in our French Playing Card Collage Sheets), with names from Medieval
epics,
the classics and the Bible. By the 17th century a definitive set of names was
established:
- Kings, representing the empires of Jews, Greeks, Franks and Romans:
- David (spades)
- Alexander (clubs)
- Charlemagne (hearts)
- Caesar (diamonds)
- Queens (not related to the historical Queens of the Kings, above):
- Pallas Athena (spades) — goddess of wisdom
- Argine (clubs) — an anagram of Regina — perhaps
for Juno or to lampoon an unnamed king’s current mistress
- Judith (hearts — heart for bravery, not for “hearts and
flowers”) — probably for the Apocryphal heroine who imperilled her life and chastity in the tent of Holofernes and escaped with his head
- Rachel (diamonds) — Jacob’s wife
- Knaves:
- Ogier (spades) — a Danish hero who is legend married Morgan le Fay
- Lancelot (clubs) — a knight of the Round Table
- La Hire (hearts) — a swashbuckling commander during French fight against
English during time of Joan of Arc
- Hector (diamonds) — possibly Hector de Maris of the Round Table,
or Hector de Galard, a captian in the service of Charles V
Tarot cards developed as a gambling deck in Northern Italy in the early 15th
century (the fortune-telling attributes were added much later in the 18th-19th
centuries). The number of cards has varied but have standardized into 22 trumps
(or triumphs) plus 56 cards broken into 4 suits (coins, cups, swords, batons).
The symbolic images of the trump
cards developed in part as a result of the rediscovery of classic Greek texts
in the late
Middle Ages/early Renaissance (reintroducing the Neoplatonist concept of
the universe as organized in increasing levels of vicinity to God).
The subjects (and order) of the 22 trumps have changed over the centuries,
but are generally:
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 Renaissance Tarot of Andrea Mantegna
An interesting deck engraved circa 1460-70, which has 50 cards (five groups
of 10). There is disagreement regarding the meaning and purpose of this deck,
but one
theory proposes the deck was made in Mantua during the council in 1459-60 as
a pastime for Pope Pius II.
The groups are ordered “E” to “A”:
E — conditions of man (beggar to pope)
D — Apollo and the nine muses
C — 10 sciences (seven liberat arts + Astrology, Philosophy and Theology)
B — seven virtues + light, time and earth
A — firmaments (seven planets + promo mobile, prima causa and the
cosmos)
Our Muses collage sheets use cards from group D (muses and Apollo), group B (virtues) and group C (liberal arts).
 Rubber Stamps based on these cards.
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