The emergence of cards. Playing cards - European history of playing cards. How playing cards appeared in Europe

First map, which is mentioned, was created on a piece clay.

What are the cards for?

Imagine how difficult it would be to describe in words all the buildings in your city. It is easier to depict or their position.

Here is the map!

The first map that is mentioned was created on a piece of clay, which was then fired. It was in Egypt over 4000 years ago.

How were the cards used?

In ancient times, landowners depicted on the maps of their possessions, kings - the lands of their kingdom.

But when a person tried to depict the location of distant objects on a map, he encountered.

This is due to the fact that the Earth is round, so measuring large ones is enough.

And stronomers helped in creating maps

Astronomers were of great help to the first cartographers, as their studies were related to the size and shape of the Earth.

Eratosthenes, who was born in 276 BC in Greece, determined the diameter of the Earth. His data was close to real.

His technique for the first time made it possible to correctly calculate the distance to the north and south.

Parallels and meridians

Around the same time, Hipparchus proposed dividing the world map into equal parts along parallels and meridians.

The exact position of these imaginary lines, he believed, would be based on study.

Ptolemy in the second century AD, using this idea, created a corrected map, divided into equal parts by parallels and meridians.

His textbook on geography was the main one in this subject even after the discovery. Discoveries and other travelers have expanded interest in maps and diagrams.

When was the first collection of maps published?

In 1570, Abraham Ortelius published the first collection of maps in Antwerp. The founder of modern cartography is Geradus Mercator.

On his maps, straight lines corresponded to curved lines on a globe. This made it possible to draw a straight line between two points on the map, as well as to determine by the compass.

Such a map is called a "projection", it "projects", or translates the surface of the Earth onto a map.

Why are maps also called an atlas?

On the title page of the book (collection of maps) by Abraham Ortelius, the giant Atlas was depicted.

That is why a collection of maps today we call an "atlas".

The invention of the English cartographer

The world's first jigsaw puzzle was invented by the English cartographer John Spilsbury around 1760. But it was intended not for entertainment, but for educational purposes, as it was a map of Europe cut into states. This teaching method was very visual and the children really liked it, and only many years later other people came up with the idea of ​​releasing game puzzles.

Versions of the origin of the cards

The modern deck of cards is the result of a complex development of this ancient game.

The time of the exact origin of the cards is not known, and the place of their invention is also not clear. Ching Tse Tung's old Chinese dictionary, which became famous in Europe in 1678, says that cards were invented in China in 1120, and in 1132 they became widespread there. But in general, there are several versions of the appearance of cards. In addition to Chinese, consider also Indian and Egyptian.

Chinese and Japanese maps are too unusual for us and appearance, and by the nature of the game, which is more like dominoes. However, there is no doubt that already in the 8th century in China, sticks were used for games, and then strips of paper with symbols for various symbols. These distant ancestors of cards were also used instead of money, so they had three suits: a coin, two coins and many coins. Then the Japanese had four suits of cards: they symbolized the seasons, and 52 cards in a deck meant the number of weeks in a year.

There is also evidence that the Chinese and Japanese, even before the appearance of paper playing cards, were already playing with cards, like cards, made of ivory or wood with painted figures, and in medieval Japan there were original playing cards from mussel shells. They were decorated with drawings depicting flowers, landscapes, everyday scenes. With the help of such cards, it was possible to lay out "solitaire" - the shells were laid out on the table and searched for "doubles" among them. In the 13th century, maps became known in India and Egypt.

And in India, playing cards depicted the figure of the four-armed Shiva, who held a goblet, a sword, a coin and a wand. Some believe that these symbols of the four Indian estates gave rise to modern card suits.

But much more popular is the Egyptian version of the origin of the cards, replicated by the latest occultists. They claimed that in ancient times the Egyptian priests wrote down all the wisdom of the world on 78 golden tablets, which were also depicted in the symbolic form of cards. 56 of them - "Junior Arcana", became ordinary playing cards, and the remaining 22 "Senior Arcana" became part of the mysterious Tarot deck used for divination.

This version was first published in 1785 by the French occultist Etteila, and his successors the French Eliphas Levy and Dr. Papus and the English Mathers and Crowley created their own systems for interpreting Tarot cards. This name allegedly comes from the Egyptian “ta rosh” (“the way of the kings”), and the cards themselves were brought to Europe either by Arabs or by gypsies, who were often considered to come from Egypt.

True, scientists have not been able to find any evidence of such an early existence of the Tarot deck.

Emergence of maps in Europe

There are several versions about the appearance of maps in Europe. According to one of them, the beginning of playing cards dates back to the 15th century and coincides with the appearance of gypsies in European territory. According to another, the general popularity of the cards, according to the testimony of the Jesuit Menestrier, is attributed to the 14th century, when a little-known painter named Zhikomin Gringoner invented cards for the entertainment of the insane King of France Charles VI (1368-1422), who went down in history under the name of Charles the Mad. The cards were allegedly the only means that calmed the royal patient between bouts of insanity. And during the reign of Charles VII (1422-1461) they were improved and at the same time received their present name.

The long held belief that cards were invented in France for the entertainment of the mentally ill King Charles VI the Mad is just a legend. Already in ancient Egypt they played with cuttings with numbers marked on them, in India - with ivory plates or shells; in China, maps similar to modern ones have been known since the 12th century.

The first documentary news about cards dates back to 1379, when an entry appeared in the chronicle of one of the Italian cities: “A game of cards was introduced, originating from the country of the Saracens and called by them“ naib ”.

The game was apparently of a military nature, since "naib" in Arabic means "captain", "chief". On Arabic maps, only numbers were indicated for the reason that the Mohammedan law forbade the depiction of human figures. Therefore, we can rather talk not about the invention of maps by the French, but about decorating existing maps with figures.

AT card suits there was no uniformity. In early Italian decks, they were called "swords", "cups", "denarii" (coins) and "wands". It seems, as in India, it was associated with the estates: the nobility, the clergy and the merchant class, while the wand symbolized the royal power standing above them. In the French version, swords became spades, cups became hearts, denarii became diamonds, and wands became crosses or clubs (the latter word in French means clover leaf) . In different languages, these names still sound differently; for example, in England and Germany these are "shovels", "hearts", "diamonds" and "clubs", and in Italy - "spears", "hearts", "squares" and "flowers". On German cards, you can still find the old names of suits: "acorns", "hearts", "bells" and "leaves". As for the Russian word “worms”, it comes from the word “chervonny” (“red”): it is clear that “hearts” originally referred to the red suit.

Cards quickly spread in all European countries, gambling appeared on their basis, and therefore strict measures were soon taken by the authorities to prohibit them. Despite this, more and more new card games. In Germany, handicraft workshops engaged in the manufacture of cards appeared, and the methods for making them improved.

In the 15th century, France established the type of map that still exists today. It is believed that the card suits symbolize the four main items of knightly use: clubs - a sword, spades - spears, tambourines - a banner and coat of arms, hearts - a shield.

There is an assumption that the deck is not a random collection of cards. 52 cards correspond to the number of weeks in a year; 4 suits are the four seasons; there are 13 cards in each suit, the same number of weeks in each season; the sum of all points of 52 cards is 364, that is, the number of days in a year without one.

The early card games were quite complex, because in addition to 56 standard cards they used 22 "Senior Arcana" plus 20 more trump cards, named after the signs of the Zodiac and the elements. In different countries, these cards were called differently and the rules were so confused that it became simply impossible to play. In addition, the cards were painted by hand and were so expensive that only the rich could buy them. In the 16th century, the cards were radically simplified - almost all the pictures disappeared from them, with the exception of the four “highest suits” and the jester (joker). Interestingly, all card images had real or legendary prototypes.

For example, the four kings are the greatest monarchs of antiquity: Charlemagne (hearts), the biblical king David (spades), Julius Caesar (diamonds) and Alexander the Great (clubs). With regard to the ladies, there was no such unanimity - for example, the lady of worms was either Judith, then Helen of Troy, then Dido. The Queen of Spades has traditionally been depicted as a goddess of war - Athena, Minerva and even Joan of Arc. In the role of the Queen of Spades, after much debate, they began to portray the biblical Rachel: she was ideally suited for the role of the “queen of money”, since she robbed her own father. Finally, the lady of clubs, on early Italian cards acting as the virtuous Lucretia, turned into Argina - an allegory of vanity and vanity.

The most complex figure of the card pantheon is the jack, or, in English terminology, the squire. The very word "jack" at first meant a servant or even a jester, but later its other meaning was established - not quite honest, albeit a brave adventurer. That's what they were all real prototypes jacks - the French knight La Hire, nicknamed Satan (worms), as well as the heroes of the epic Ogier the Dane (spades), Roland (tambourines) and Lancelot of the Lake (clubs).

The first cards played in Europe were very expensive. There was no lithographic printing then, they were drawn by hand. Cards were brought to France from Italy, there is historical evidence of this - the decree of the counting chamber of 1390, which reflects the cost of buying cards to amuse the king. The cards at that time were 22 centimeters long, which made them extremely inconvenient to play.

Maps in Russia

Maps appeared in our country a long time ago, during the time of Ivan the Terrible. Already under the son of the Terrible, Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, playing cards came to Russia in significant quantities among other European goods. The cards were expensive and easily perishable goods, so they were transported in strong oak barrels. Already from the beginning of the 16th century, cards became a common subject of bargaining throughout Russia, and the card game began to bring significant harm to morality and law and order. In 1649, the Code of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich qualifies the card game as a serious crime. Until the time of Peter the Great, cards in Russia were imported.

The great innovator Peter the Great adopted many European customs, but he did not like go-karts and played them very rarely. But it was under him that the domestic production of playing cards first arose at two small manufactories in Moscow. Personal attention and all-round support of card manufactories by Peter were explained by completely prosaic reasons - the state, exhausted by the Northern War, needed money, which was brought by the trade in playing cards.

Throughout the 17th century, playing cards were produced by small workshops in the capitals and even in provincial cities. Some workshops even had a certain assortment of types of cards produced, however, very modest. The drawing of the maps was uncomplicated and practically did not change for decades.

In the reign of Catherine the Second, the good idea of ​​a state monopoly on the production of playing cards was born, and under Alexander the First, the good idea was put into practice. The income from the production of cards went to a charity - it supported the Office of Empress Maria, who took care of orphans. Direct production of cards was launched in the suburbs of St. Petersburg, at the state-owned Alexander Manufactory, in which the Imperial Card Factory began to operate in 1819.

For more than 20 years, the formation of a new production went on, until Russian cards began to be issued on Russian paper and mainly by Russian masters. The director of the Card Factory, A. Ya. Wilson, sought to improve the appearance of the cards to some extent; new drawings were developed. Emperor Nicholas I was presented with a corresponding report, on which, however, he wrote with his own hand: "I see no reason to change the previous drawings."

After the abolition of serfdom, significant changes began at the Card Factory. Director A. Ya. Wilson, who had held this position for more than 40 years, stepped down from the management of the factory. Free laborers were hired to replace the serfs, more than 60 new machines were purchased, and an experienced master Winkelman became the head of production. Along with the update technical side cases, it became necessary to change and decorate the cards.

Satin cards

The well-known Satin playing cards are so familiar to our eyes that any other cards seem unusual to us and certainly some kind of “non-Russian”. Indeed, Satin cards have been the most common and popular playing cards in Russia for many decades. It seems that they exist from the very beginning, like Russian folk songs or Russian fairy tales. But this is not so - these maps have an author, and they appeared in Russia in the middle of the 19th century.

The solution to the issue of changing and decorating maps was taken quite seriously. The development of new drawings of playing cards was entrusted to the academicians of painting Adolf Iosifovich Charlemagne (Bode-Charlemagne) and Alexander Egorovich Beideman. The artists created several sketches, which still, after a century and a half, are wonderful examples of card graphics and adorn the collection of the State Russian Museum and the Peterhof Card Museum. However, fairly simple and artistically concise drawings by Academician Charlemagne were put into production, which we now know as Atlas Maps.

Adolf Iosifovich Charlemagne came from a family of Russified Frenchmen. His father Joseph Ivanovich Charlemagne (1782-1861) and brother Joseph Iosifovich Charlemagne (1824-1870) were famous architects. The future academician of painting studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts in the class of historical and battle painting. In 1855, Adolphe Charlemagne was awarded a large gold academic medal for the painting Suvorov on St. Gotthard. Together with the medal, he received the right to a six-year trip abroad, which he went on in 1856. In 1859, Charlemagne paints the painting Suvorov's Last Night in Switzerland, for which he was awarded the title of Academician of Painting.

Returning to St. Petersburg after an internship abroad, Charlemagne works a lot as an illustrator in magazines, collaborates in the State Expedition for the Procurement of Securities, paints temples, and even participates in the preparation of costumes for the Historical Ball with Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich. Work for the card factory was one of those orders. Who knew that this creation of the artist would become immortal!

You can explain why this particular playing card project was so successful. The drawings of Academician Beideman, like other sketches by Charlemagne, were very artistically attractive, but they turned out to be not quite suitable for such mass production as printing playing cards. The sketch of the Satin Maps was made for printing in four colors - black, yellow, blue and red. However, not only "manufacturability" played a role in success. The drawing of card figures turned out to be so concise, so devoid of unnecessary details and complex angles, that success was simply inevitable.

AI Charlemagne did not create a fundamentally new card style. Satin cards were the result of exclusively masterful processing of already existing card drawings, which were used as early as the 17th and early 18th centuries at Moscow card factories maintained by tax farmers. However, these, as one might call them, "old" drawings had as their fundamental principle the so-called "North German picture", which also came from a completely ancient folk French card deck.

A rare artist, poet, writer creates a work that after some time loses its authorship and becomes just a folk song, a folk tale. Such creative success fell to Adolf Iosifovich Charlemagne, whose drawings in the form of playing cards are in every home.

Modernity

Gradually, card games were divided into commercial, based on a clear mathematical calculation, and gambling, where chance ruled everything. If the first ones (screw, whist, preference, bridge, poker) established themselves among educated people, then the second ones (seka, “point”, shtoss and hundreds of others, up to the harmless “thrown fool”) reigned supreme among the common people.

In the West, "mental" card games that train logical thinking have even been included in the school curriculum. However, the cards began to serve for very non-intellectual activities. If they show naked girls, it's not up to the bridge. But it's a completely different game...

Description

Card decks are complete and abbreviated. Separate plastic and satin (high quality paper).

full deck

A full deck consists of 54 cards: aces, twos, threes, fours, fives, sixes, sevens, eights, nines, tens, jacks, queens, kings and two jokers.

A full deck is suitable for all card games.

Reduced deck

The reduced deck has 36 cards. The minimum card is a six. There are no jokers in the short deck.

The reduced deck is suitable for most card games.

Standard deck options

A standard deck consists of 54 cards:

• 52 main cards are characterized by one of four suits(two colors) and one of 13 virtues.
• 2 special cards, the so-called jokers, usually distinguished by their pattern.

Card deck:

• 54 cards (maximum deck, starts from Aces to Joker)
• 52 cards (deck, starts from deuces to ace),
• 48 cards (deck, starts from threes to ace),
• 44 cards (medium deck, starts from fours to ace),
• 40 cards (deck, starts from fives to ace),
• 36 cards (deck, starts from sixes to ace),
• 32 cards (minimum deck, starts from sevens to ace).

a deck of 24 cards is used to play a thousand http://www.casinoobzor.ru/html/rules/pravila_igry_tysyacha_1000.php

Other types of decks

Different countries use different decks. The most famous:

• Standard deck

Suits

Names of suits (only the first indicated is literary):

• ♠ - spades (guilt, blame)
• ♣ - clubs (crosses, crosses, acorns, fat)
• - worms (worms, fats, love)
• ♦ - tambourines (tambourines, tambourines, calls).

The cards of spades and clubs are called black, and the cards of hearts and diamonds are called red.

In other languages

English names of cards and suits

• Clubs - clubs
• Diamonds - diamonds
• Hearts - hearts
• Peaks - spades

Advantages:

• "B" = "J" - Jack
• "D" = "Q" - Queen
• "K" = "K" - King
• "T" = "A" - Ace

Cards under ten are named by numerical designation (two, three, .. ten), as well as by nicknames: two - "deuce", three - "trey".

French names of cards and suits

• Clubs - trefles
• Tambourines - carreaux
• Hearts - cœurs
• Peaks - piques

Advantages:

• "B" \u003d "V" - Valet
• "D" \u003d "D" - Dame
• "K" = "R" - Roi
• "T" = "A" - As

Polish names of cards and suits

• Clubs - trefl, żołądź [trefl, zhondzh]
• Tambourines - karo, dzwonek [karo, dzwonek]
• Hearts - czerwień, kier [cherven, ker]
• Peaks - pik, wino [peak, wine]

Advantages:

• "B" \u003d "J" - walet, Jopek [jack, jopek]
• "D" \u003d "Q" - dama [lady]
• "K" \u003d "K" - król [krul]
• "T" \u003d "A" - As [ac]

Values

All Maps

• Numeric ( foxes) (9): two (notation 2 ), three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
• Pictures, Broadway cards ( figures or oneers, from English. honor - honor) (3): jack (designation AT or J- English. Jack), lady (designation D or Q- English. Queen), king (notation To or K- English. King), ace (notation T or A- English. Ace).

The accepted order (seniority, sequence) of cards: ace (the lowest card), two, three, ..., king, joker. In many games, the ace is the highest card. In some games, the seniority of the cards is different. For example, in the German deck and the Italo-Spanish deck, ladies are completely absent, their place is taken by "high jacks" or horsemen. In the card game "Small Tarots" there is a deck that is, in fact, a complete set of the Small Arcana Tarot, but with a European designation of suits. Almost every year, new decks of cards appear on the market, differing in small details from the classic ones, both in the number of honors and in the suit designation, the number of suits can also be different. The shape of the cards themselves can also be very diverse: no one will be surprised by round and oval playing cards! The shape is most often just close to symmetrical, from an equilateral triangle to an amoeba.

high cards

№	ill.	Name	Description and meaning
1		Joker	The jester is depicted on the card - color or black and white. The most powerful card in the deck.
2		Ace	The card shows one suit symbol and two letters "T"
3		King (playing) card	King of Hearts - depicted in a red robe, with a sword and a symbol of royalty in his hand King of Diamonds - depicted in a turban and Arabic attire. Holding a scepter with a crescent King of Spades - depicted in a red robe and a Chinese crown. Holds a scepter in his hands. The Cross King is depicted wearing a blue robe and holding a scepter.
4		Lady	Each of the ladies is depicted in a red dress and shawl. They have a flower in their hands, and a crown is put on their heads.
5		Jack	Each of the jacks is wearing a shirt and a hat. They hold halberds in their hands.

Links

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See what a "Deck of Playing Cards" is in other dictionaries:

This term has other meanings, see Playing Card Museum. Coordinates: 59°52′57.32″ s. sh. 29°54′39.44″ E  / 59.882589° N sh ... Wikipedia

Main article: Tarot cards Cards of a typical tarot deck ... Wikipedia

DECK, decks, for women. 1. Short thick log, log stump. || The same as adaptation to various industries and economic purposes (special). Deck for leather business. The deck is part of a carpentry workbench. Ceiling deck above the door. 2.… … Dictionary Ushakov

1. DECK, s; and. 1. Short thick log; thick trunk of a fallen tree. Only rotten decks remained instead of the forest. Stop lying like k. 2. A stump of such a log, adapted for what l. needs. Chop the meat on the deck. Chopping wood for ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

KOLODA, s, wives. 1. Short thick log. Oak k. 2. A kind of wooden trough with a hollowed out middle. Drinking place 3. transl. About a fat, clumsy person (simple neod.). Through a stump a deck (to bring down) (colloquial) to do something. somehow... Explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov

Playing cards are rectangular sheets of cardboard or thin plastic used for playing card games. A complete set of playing cards to play is called a deck of cards. The cards are also used for tricks and divination. On one side of the map (open), ... ... Wikipedia

deck- DECK, s, f. A set of playing cards. ◘ A poet who describes a deck of cards better than another tree is not always superior to his opponent. K.F. Ryleev. Letter to A.S. Pushkin, 1825. ◘ Seriously, indifferently // The obedient villain exchanged the decks //… ... Card terminology and jargon of the 19th century

deck- I s; and. see also deck 1) Short thick log; thick trunk of a fallen tree. Only rotten decks remained instead of the forest. Stop lying like a colo / yes. 2) A stump of such a log, adapted for what l. needs. Chop meat on a deck. ... ... Dictionary of many expressions

Playing cards are known all over the world. But where and when they appeared, no one knows. Some medieval theologians considered them "devil's fiction" that Satan invented to multiply people's sins. More sensible people argued that this could not be, because the cards were originally used for divination and other magical rituals, that is, for knowing the will of God.

Very curious evidence was cited as evidence, which will certainly be of interest to everyone who has ever picked up a satin deck. According to one version, the invention of cards was attributed to the ancient Egyptian god Thoth, the founder of writing, counting and calendar. With the help of cards, he told people about the four components of the universe fire, water, air and earth, which personify the four card suits. Much later, already in the Middle Ages, Jewish Kabbalists concretized this ancient message. According to them, the suits embody four classes of elemental spirits: tambourines fire spirits of the salamanders, worms the lords of the air elements of the sylphs, clubs of the water spirits of the undines and spades of the lords underworld gnomes.

Other medieval mystics believed that the cards symbolized the four "main aspects of human nature": the suit of hearts represents love; clubs desire for knowledge; tambourines are a passion for money, and peaks warn of death. The extraordinary variety of card games, the complex logic of relationships and subordination, the alternation of ups and downs, sudden failures and amazing luck reflects our life in all its complexity and unpredictability. From here comes the bewitching power of excitement, lurking in them to the great indignation of the puritans and hypocrites of all times and peoples, in this sense, neither chess, nor dominoes, and indeed no other games can be compared with cards.

However, no less curious is the version according to which the cards allegedly reflect ... time. In fact, red and black colors are consonant with ideas about day and night. 52 leaves correspond to the number of weeks in a year, and not everyone understands the joker also symbolizes a leap year. The four suits are fully correlated with spring, summer, autumn and winter. If each jack is valued at 11 points (it comes immediately after the ten), the queen at 12, the king at 13, and the ace is taken as a unit, then the total points in the deck will be 364. Adding a “single” joker, we get the number of days in a year . Well, the number of lunar months 13 corresponds to the number of cards of each suit.

If we descend from the cloudy-foggy heights of mysticism to the soil of reality, then two versions of the origin of the cards seem to be the most probable. According to the first, they were created by Indian Brahmins around 800 AD. Another version says that the cards appeared in China in the 8th century during the reign of the Tang dynasty. The fact is that paper money served the subjects of the Celestial Empire not only for settlements, but also for gambling. In addition to digital nominations, the banknotes depicted emperors, their wives, and provincial governors, which denoted the value of a particular banknote. And since the players did not always have enough banknotes, they used duplicates drawn on pieces of paper instead, which eventually forced real money out of the games.

The timing of the appearance of maps in Europe is equally uncertain, although most historians agree that the participants most likely brought them with them. crusades in the 11th-13th centuries. True, it is possible that this subject of excitement appeared on our continent as a result of the invasion of Italy in the 10th century by the Saracens, as the Arabs were then called, from whom the locals borrowed cards. In any case, in 1254 Saint Louis issued an edict banning card games in France under pain of whipping.

In Europe, the Arabic original has undergone significant revision, since the Koran forbade the faithful to draw images of people. Presumably, the birthplace of cards with figures of kings, ladies and squiresjacks was France, where at the turn of the 13th-14th centuries the artist Gregonner painted cardboard sheets for Charles VI.

The earliest known European Tarot deck (sometimes called Tarot or Tarok ed. note) was made in the 14th century in Lombardy. It had four suits, depicted in the form of bowls, swords, money and wands or clubs. Each suit consisted of ten cards with numbers and four pictures: a king, a queen, a knight and a squire. In addition to these 56 cards, it included 22 more trump cards with numbers from 0 to 21, bearing the following names: jester, magician, nun, empress, emperor, monk, lover, chariot, justice, hermit, fate, strength, executioner, death, temperance, devil, inn, star, moon, sun, peace and judgment.

As the popularity of card games in Europe grew throughout the 14th century, all trump cards and the four knights gradually disappeared from the Tarot deck. True, the jester remained, already renamed in our days as the "joker". Full decks are preserved only for divination.

There were several reasons for this. First the desire to separate the world of excitement from the mysteries of the occult and magic. Then, the rules of games with so many cards were too hard to remember. And finally, the fact that before the invention of the printing press, maps were marked and colored by hand, and therefore they were very expensive. Therefore, in order to save money, the deck has "lost weight" to the current 52 cards.

As for the designation of suits, from the original Italian system with its swords an analogue of future spades, maces clubs, goblets worms and coins boo-bay, three later stood out: Swiss with acorns, roses, leaves and armorial shields; German with acorns, leaves, hearts and bells, and French with clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds. The French system of depicting suits turned out to be the most stable, which, after the Thirty Years' War (1618 - 1648), replaced the rest of the symbolism and is now used almost everywhere.

Over the next 300 years, more than one artist tried to introduce new card symbols into use. From time to time, decks appeared in which the four suits appeared in the form of animals, plants, birds, fish, household items, dishes. At the very beginning of this process in Germany, the suits were depicted in the form of caskets for church donations, a comb, bellows and a crown. Allegorical figures of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity and Health appeared in France. Later, adherents of socialism even tried to issue cards with images of presidents, commissars, industrialists and workers. However, all these "inventions" turned out to be too artificial and therefore never took root. But with picture cards, things turned out differently.

Today, few players are interested in the biographies of long-disappeared characters of card figures, and the drawings on picture cards in modern decks bear little resemblance to real-life personalities. It is nothing but a stylization of stylizations, infinitely far removed from the original originals. Meanwhile, initially, for example, the four kings symbolized the legendary heroes-rulers of antiquity, whom Europeans could admire in the Middle Ages: Charlemagne, king of the Franks, led the red suit, the shepherd and singer David of spades, because thanks to his exploits he became the legendary Hebrew king; Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great were given the suits of diamonds and clubs respectively.

True, in some decks, the red king was alternately depicted either in the form of a hairy Esau, then Constantine, then Charles I, then Victor Hugo, then the French general Boulanger. And yet in the dispute for possession of the crown, Charlemagne won a bloodless victory. Modern cards lovingly, almost unchanged, store the heroic features of this illustrious husband in the form of a wise old man, wrapped in an ermine mantle, a symbol of wealth. In his left hand he has a sword, a symbol of courage and power.

The image of David was originally decorated with a harp as a reminder of the musical talent of the legendary king of Judah. During Napoleonic Wars the King of Spades was briefly portrayed as Napoleon Bonaparte in France and the Duke of Wellington in Prussia. But then justice prevailed and David again took his rightful place among the card royalty.

Although Julius Caesar was never a king, he also entered the crowned Areopagus. He was usually drawn in profile, and on some old French and Italian maps Caesar was depicted with his arm outstretched, as if he was about to grab something. This was supposed to indicate that the diamond suit was traditionally identified with money and wealth.

Alexander the Great is the only one of the card kings, in whose hand the orb, the symbol of the monarchy, was invested. True, on modern maps it is often replaced by a sword as evidence of his military talents. Unfortunately, the appearance of the king of clubs fell victim to a ruthless fashion and from a courageous hero with a fierce look, he turned into a pampered courtier with a dandy beard and elegant mustache.

The first lady of worms was Helena of Troy. In addition to her, Elissa, the founder of Carthage, in Roman mythology Dido, Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I of England, Roxanne, Rachel and Fausta acted as contenders for this throne. decks to deck.

As for the lady of spades, it was customary to depict her in the form of the Greek goddess of wisdom and war, Pallas Athena. True, the Teutons and Scandinavians preferred their own mythological characters who personified the war.

In the XIV-XV centuries, artists could not agree on who to choose as the prototype of the lady of the tambourine. The only exception was France, where they became the queen of the Amazons, in Greek mythology Panfiselia. In the 16th century, someone gave the lady of the tambourine the features of Rachel, the heroine of the biblical legend about the life of Jacob. Since, according to legend, she was a greedy woman, her role as the "queen of money" was to the taste of the general public, and she established herself on this throne.

For a long time, none of the mythological or historical heroines claimed to be the lady of clubs. Sometimes the figures of the ruler of Troy, Hecuba or Florimela, personified the feminine charm created by the talent of the English poet Spencer, flashed in the decks. But they failed to establish themselves in this role. In the end, the French came up with the idea to depict the lady of clubs in the form of what they now say is a sex bomb and call her Argina (from the Latin word "regina" "royal"). The idea turned out to be so successful that it took root and became a tradition. Moreover, all the queens, regular favorites and mistresses of the French monarchs, the heroines of evil lampoons and frivolous witticisms, began to bear the name of Argin.

Initially, four nameless knights acted as jacks. Although the name of this card is more likely to be translated as “servant, lackey”, and among the players this figure has traditionally been identified with an adventurer who does not always respect the law, but is alien to low deceit. Such an interpretation of the word "jack" perfectly matches the image of the jack of hearts. Trying to find a worthy image for him, the French chose the famous historical character Etienne de Vignel, who served in the troops of Charles VII. He was a valiant warrior, brave, generous, ruthless and caustic. For some time he was an adviser to Joan of Arc and was preserved in the memory of posterity as a hero of folklore, like Til Ulenspiegel, William Tell and Robin Hood. Perhaps that is why, without any objections from other nations, Etienne de Vignel firmly took the place of the jack of hearts.

The prototype of the jack of spades was Ogier of Denmark. According to historical chronicles in numerous battles, his weapons were two blades of Toledo steel, which were usually drawn on this map. In numerous legends, this hero performed numerous feats: he defeated the giants, returned their possessions to the bewitched princes, and he himself enjoyed the patronage of the fairy Morgana, the sister of the fairy-tale king Arthur, who, having become engaged to Gier, gave him eternal youth.

The first jack of diamonds was Roland, the legendary nephew of Charlemagne. However, later, for no apparent reason, he was replaced by Hector de Marais, one of the Knights of the Round Table and half-brother of Sir Lancelot. At least, it is this hero that is today associated with the jack of diamonds, although the famous nobility of the knight de Marais does not fit well with the notoriety attributed to this jack.

With the jack of clubs, the masters chose Sir Lancelot himself, the eldest of the Knights of the Round Table. Initially, it was the brightest of the jacks. But gradually the manner of drawing changed, and the jack of clubs lost its luxurious camisole, although in his hands he still had a bow, a symbol of his unsurpassed skill as an archer. However, in the modern jack of clubs it is difficult to recognize that mighty warrior who, being wounded in the thigh by an arrow, nevertheless managed to defeat thirty knights ...
Such is the gallery of family portraits, which none of the players suspect when picking up a satin deck.

A rare modern man did not hold playing cards in his hands.

There are several versions of their appearance, and researchers have not yet come to a consensus on this matter.
The cards have an ancient and very dramatic history. It has long been believed that the cards were invented in France for the entertainment of the mentally ill King Charles VI the Mad, but this is just a legend. After all, already in ancient Egypt they played with cuttings with numbers marked on them, in India - with ivory plates or shells; in China, maps similar to modern ones have been known since the 12th century.

There are several versions of the origin of the cards:

The first is Chinese, although many still do not want to believe in it.
Chinese and Japanese cards are too unusual for us both in appearance and in the nature of the game, which is more like dominoes.
However, there is no doubt that already in the 8th century in China, sticks were used for games, and then strips of paper with symbols for various symbols.
These distant ancestors of cards were also used instead of money, so they had three suits: a coin, two coins and many coins.
And in India, playing cards depicted the figure of the four-armed Shiva, who held a goblet, a sword, a coin and a wand.
Some believe that these symbols of the four Indian estates gave rise to modern card suits.

But much more popular is the Egyptian version of the origin of the cards, replicated by the latest occultists.
They claimed that in ancient times the Egyptian priests wrote down all the wisdom of the world on 78 golden tablets, which were also depicted in the symbolic form of cards. 56 of them - "Minor Arcana" - became ordinary playing cards, and the remaining 22 "Senior Arcana" became part of the mysterious Tarot deck used for divination.
This version was first published in 1785 by the French occultist Etteila, and his successors the French Eliphas Levy and Dr. Papus and the English Mathers and Crowley created their own systems for interpreting Tarot cards.
This name allegedly comes from the Egyptian "ta rosh" ("the way of the kings"), and the cards themselves were brought to Europe either by Arabs or by gypsies, who were often considered to come from Egypt.
True, scientists have not been able to find any evidence of such an early existence of the Tarot deck.

According to the third version (European version), regular cards appeared on the European continent no later than the 14th century.
Back in 1367, the card game was banned in the city of Bern, and ten years later, a shocked papal envoy watched with horror as the monks enthusiastically cut into cards near the walls of their monastery.
In 1392, Jacquemain Gringonner, the jester of the mentally ill French King Charles VI, drew a deck of cards for the amusement of his master.
The then deck differed from the current one in one detail: it had only 32 cards.
There were not enough four ladies, whose presence seemed then superfluous.
Only in the next century, Italian artists began to depict Madonnas not only in paintings, but also on maps.

There is an assumption that the deck is not a random collection of cards.
52 cards are the number of weeks in a year, four suits are the four seasons.
The green suit is a symbol of energy and vitality, spring, west, water.
In medieval cards, the sign of the suit was depicted with the help of a wand, a staff, a stick with green leaves, which, when printed, were simplified to black peaks.
The red suit symbolized beauty, the north, spirituality. Cups, bowls, hearts, books were depicted on the card of this suit.
The yellow suit is a symbol of intelligence, fire, south, business success.
The playing card depicted a coin, a rhombus, a lit torch, the sun, fire, a golden bell. The blue suit is a symbol of simplicity, decency. The sign of this suit was an acorn, crossed swords, swords. The cards at that time were 22 centimeters long, which made them extremely inconvenient to play.

There was no uniformity in card suits.
In early Italian decks, they were called "swords", "cups", "denarii" (coins) and "wands".
It seems, as in India, it was associated with the estates: the nobility, the clergy and the merchant class, while the wand symbolized the royal power standing above them.
In the French version, swords became spades, cups became hearts, denarii became diamonds, and wands became crosses or clubs (the latter word in French means clover leaf) . In different languages, these names still sound differently; for example, in England and Germany these are "shovels", "hearts", "diamonds" and "clubs", and in Italy - "spears", "hearts", "squares" and "flowers".
On German cards, you can still find the old names of suits: "acorns", "hearts", "bells" and "leaves".
As for the Russian word "worms", it comes from the word "red" ("red"): it is clear that "hearts" originally referred to the red suit.

The early card games were quite complex, because in addition to the 56 standard cards, they used 22 "Major Arcana" plus 20 more trump cards, named after the signs of the Zodiac and the elements.
In different countries, these cards were called differently and the rules were so confused that it became simply impossible to play.
In addition, the cards were painted by hand and were so expensive that only the rich could buy them. In the 16th century, the cards were radically simplified - almost all the pictures disappeared from them, with the exception of the four "highest suits" and the jester (joker).

Interestingly, all card images had real or legendary prototypes. For example, the four kings are the greatest monarchs of antiquity: Charlemagne (hearts), the biblical king David (spades), Julius Caesar (diamonds) and Alexander the Great (clubs).
With regard to the ladies, there was no such unanimity - for example, the lady of worms was either Judith, then Helen of Troy, then Dido.
The Queen of Spades has traditionally been portrayed as the goddess of war - Athena, Minerva and even Joan of Arc.
In the role of the Queen of Spades, after long disputes, they began to portray the biblical Rachel: she was ideally suited for the role of the "queen of money", since she robbed her own father.
Finally, the lady of clubs, on early Italian cards acting as the virtuous Lucretia, turned into Argina, an allegory of vanity and vanity.

By the 13th century, cards were already known and popular throughout Europe.
From this point on, the history of the development of cards becomes clearer, but rather monotonous. In the Middle Ages, both fortune-telling and gambling were considered sinful.
In addition, the cards have become the most popular game during the working day - a terrible sin, according to employers of all times and peoples.
Therefore, from the middle of the XIII century, the history of the development of maps turns into a history of prohibitions associated with them.
For example, in France in the 17th century, householders in whose apartments gambling card games were played were fined, disenfranchised, and expelled from the city.
Card debts were not recognized by law, and parents could recover a large amount from a person who won money from their child.
After the French Revolution, indirect taxes on the game were abolished, which stimulated its development.
The "pictures" themselves have also changed - since the kings were in disgrace, it was customary to draw geniuses instead, ladies now symbolized virtues - in other words, a new social structure came to card symbolism.
True, already in 1813 jacks, queens and kings returned to the cards.
The indirect tax on playing cards was only abolished in France in 1945.

Maps appeared in Russia at the beginning of the 17th century.
By the middle of this century, they had already gained popularity as a "path" to crimes and incitement of passions. In the "Regulations" of 1649, under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, it was instructed to act with the players "as it is written about taty", that is, to beat them with a whip and deprive fingers and hands by cutting off.
A decree of 1696 under Peter I ordered to search all those suspected of wanting to play cards, "... and whoever had the cards taken out, beat with a whip." These punitive sanctions and similar subsequent ones were due to the costs associated with the spread of gambling card games.
Along with them, there were so-called commercial card games, as well as the use of cards to show tricks and play solitaire.
The development of "innocent" forms of using cards was facilitated by the decree of Elizabeth Petrovna of 1761 on the division of the use of cards into those prohibited for gambling and permitted for commercial games.
It is not entirely clear how the maps penetrated into Russia.
Most likely, they became widespread in connection with the Polish-Swedish intervention during the Time of Troubles at the beginning of the 18th century.
In the 19th century the development of new drawings of playing cards began.
Academicians of painting Adolf Iosifovich Charleman and Alexander Egorovich Beideman were engaged in it.
It is worth noting that at present their sketches are kept in the State Russian Museum and in the Peterhof Card Museum.
However, the drawings of Academician Adolf Iosifovich Charleman, which we now know as Atlas Maps, were put into production.
AI Charleman did not create a fundamentally new card style.
The drawings on the Atlas cards had as their fundamental principle the so-called "North German picture", which also came from a completely ancient folk French card deck.
The new map sketches created did not have their own name.
The concept of "satin" in the middle of the 19th century referred to the technology of their manufacture.
Satin is a special kind of smooth, glossy, lustrous silk fabric.
The paper on which they were printed was previously rubbed with talc on special wheeled machines.
In 1855, a dozen decks of satin cards cost 5 rubles 40 kopecks.

With late XVIII century, a real card boom began, engulfing the entire Russian culture.
For example, in his youth Derzhavin lived mainly on money won in cards, and Pushkin was listed in police reports not as a poet, but as "a well-known banker in Moscow."
Gambling Nekrasov and Dostoevsky often lost their last pennies, while the cautious Turgenev preferred to play for fun.
In the then secular society, especially provincial, almost the only entertainment was cards and the scandals associated with them.
Gradually, card games were divided into commercial, based on a clear mathematical calculation, and gambling, where chance ruled everything.
If the first (screw, whist, preference, bridge, poker) established themselves among educated people, then the second (seka, "point", shtoss and hundreds of others, up to the harmless "thrown fool") reigned supreme among the common people.
In the West, "mental" card games that train logical thinking have even been included in the school curriculum.
However, the cards began to serve for very non-intellectual activities.
If they show naked girls, it's not up to the bridge.
But this is a completely different game.
It must be said that over the centuries there have appeared many who wished to modernize card images, replacing them with animals, birds, and household items.
For political purposes, decks were produced, where Napoleon or the German emperor Wilhelm acted as kings.
And in the USSR, during the NEP years, there were attempts to depict workers with peasants on the cards and even introduce new suits - "sickles", "hammers" and "stars".
True, such amateur activity was quickly suppressed, and the cards were stopped for a long time to be printed as "attributes of bourgeois decay."