There is a legend that a Venetian brought a card back to his hometown from China, so Venice was the first place in Europe to have a card. The Venetian traveler may be nicolo Poirot, who returned to Venice from China with his younger brother Madiot around 1269, or the famous Kyle Poirot, the son of nicolo, who went with his father and uncle on his second trip to China.
Some authorities believe that India is more likely to be the birthplace of cards than China. It has been suggested that the early cards (Tarot cards) in Europe have a certain connection with Ardhanari, the goddess in Hindu mythology. The image of the goddess has four hands, each holding a wand, a cup, a sword and a ring (representing money). Similar design symbols were printed on some early European cards. There is a saying that cards were introduced to Europe by Gypsies, who may be an Indian nation. They crossed Persia and Arabia into Egypt, and from Egypt into Europe. Some of them, about 100 people, entered Paris on 1427. Note: Ardhanari should refer to the goddess Kali, the wife of Shiva. There are many descriptions in Indian mythology: Carly "creates blood vessels with water, life with fire, flesh with soil and breath with wind".
As early as14th century or earlier, playing cards had been produced in many places in Europe, such as Nuremberg, augsburg and Ulm. Italian tarot cards may have appeared earlier than German cards: Tarot cards have been mentioned in an Italian document dated 1299. Johanna, Duchess of Brabant, 1379 teaches cards in Holland, and has at least 137 1 year in Spain. Perhaps the Moors or Saracens brought the card from Spain to Italy, but the similarity between naipes in Spain and nabi in Arabia, which tried to explain the word card, was unsuccessful.
1392, French king charles vi ordered Jacqueline Gringoire to draw a deck of cards by hand. This historical fact led to the emergence of the statement that cards originated in France. But it is obvious that the deck ordered by the French king is just a deck similar to other cards that have been used for a long time. The royal treasurer, who was in charge of payment at that time, once said that there were three decks of cards printed with "gold and various colors, with many decorations for our king's entertainment." Among them, the 17 card was exhibited in the National Library of France.
The card was introduced to Britain later than to other European countries. Josie died on 1400. Although he detailed all kinds of entertainment activities at that time, he never mentioned cards: "They danced, they played chess and ate." The information about Edward I of England playing the game of Four Kings (K) in flanged clothes almost certainly refers to some other game, perhaps some form of chess game. 1465 is the earliest explicit reference to English playing cards. This year, British playing card manufacturers applied to Edward IV of England, England to ban the import of foreign-made playing cards, which was supported by an appropriate law.
C.P. Hagravi wrote in his book The History of Poker: "There is a legendary story about Columbus and his sailors, saying that these sailors love gambling. When they were caught in a storm in the vast and mysterious sea, they threw all their playing cards into the sea because of the horror caused by superstition. Later, when they landed on land, they regretted this reckless action, so they made some playing cards from a leaf of this new country, which aroused great interest from Indians. " According to the materials given by Gasselo de Na Vega (Florida history), Spanish soldiers played cards with leather cards during the expedition of 1534. This statement seems to be more than just a legend. Mexicans have been playing card games for a long time. At that time, Mexicans called it (amapa-tolli), in which amapa means paper and tolli means game.
Introduction of Europe and America and Evolution of Playing Cards
The early playing cards were probably introduced to Europe from Egypt in the second half of the14th century, when the form of playing cards was very close to the present. Headboards appeared in the first half of the 15th century, and developed from France to four popular colors around 1480.
In the15th century, K was usually considered as the biggest card, while Ace was the smallest card. The way to regard Ace as the largest and 2 as the smallest now may have started after the French Revolution at the end of18th century.
JOKER was invented by Americans and later sent back to Europe with poker.
、? 、? 、? Pattern origin
54 cards, two kings are the sun and the moon, and the remaining 52 cards are 52 weeks of the year. Spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds represent spring, summer, autumn and winter. Every quarter 13 card, representing every quarter 13 weeks. The dots of each pattern (13- 13) add up to 9 1, and each season is also 9 1 day. When the four seasons are added together, adding Xiao Wang is 365 days, which is the normal number of days in a year, and adding Wang is 366 days, which means leap year. In addition, the whole card has only two colors, red during the day and black at night.
Playing cards are divided into four colors: spades, diamonds, clubs and hearts. People all over the world give different cultural explanations to the four colors with their own national cultures. The French understand the four colors as spear, square, clove leaf and red heart; Germans understand the four colors as leaves, bells, acorns and hearts. Italians understand the four colors as sword, coin, scepter and wine glass (the same as the four colors of Tarot small secret instrument); The Swiss understand the four colors as acorns, bells, flowers and shields; The British understand the four colors as shovel, diamond, clover and red heart.
Why use these four modes? There has been a lot of debate. There are two kinds of centralized views: one is that these four colors represent the four major industries of society at that time, among which spades represent spears and symbolize soldiers; Plum blossoms represent clover flowers and symbolize agriculture; Square represents bricks used by craftsmen; The heart represents the heart and symbolizes the priest. On the other hand, these four colors come from the patterns of ancient European divination tools, in which spades represent olive leaves and symbolize peace; Plum blossom is a four-leaf clover, which means good luck; The square is a diamond, symbolizing wealth; The heart shape symbolizes wisdom and love.
Characters in playing cards
At present, the most popular French poker characters in the world are as follows:
The four kings represent four kings respectively: David (spades K); Charlemagne or Charles VII (red heart K); Alexander the Great (K of Clubs); Caesar (box k).
Spades K is David, the father of King Solomon of Israel in the 10 century BC. He is good at playing the harp and has written many hymns in the Bible. Therefore, King K cards often have the pattern of the harp, and his hair curls outward.
K of hearts is the king of the Frankish kingdom of Charlemagne. His name is Charlemagne. He was the first employee to carve his image on the board with a chisel. He shaved off the beard on his upper lip because he accidentally slipped the chisel. Since then, the king of hearts has been printed with this painting as a specimen. Therefore, only in the heart will there be a king card with no beard, hair curled inward and sword behind the head.
Box k is Caesar, a famous Roman politician, who became the dictator of the Roman Empire after unifying Rome. His portrait on the Roman Empire coin is a profile. After that, among the four king K cards, only the red king was silhouette, with his hair curled inward and holding a tomahawk.
The king of clubs is Alexander the Great. He always wears jewels with crosses on his clothes, which is the characteristic of King K of Clubs. His hair curls outward.
Four Qs represent two queens, a goddess and a virtual character: Pallas Athena (Q of Spades); Youdide (red heart q); Argine (Queen Regina, Q of Clubs); Rachel or Agnes Soleil (box Q).
Four jacks represent four knights: Hogill (J of spades); Lacher (J of hearts); Lancelot (J of Clubs); Hector (box j).