Italian renaissance woodcut playing cards

Block R1

The fragments come from at least five different imprints, probably more, of which all but one are coloured.

All cards are fairly well preserved. Still, the suit designation of two of the knights can only be ascertained indirectly with the use of two of the other closely related packs! While the knights of swords and coins have clear suit symbols, the remaining two do not. Of these, one is unique in the entire material, while the other is a mirror-image equivalent of a poorly preserved card in the crude pack. Unfortunately, that pack too also lack clear suit symbols on the knight cards in these two suits. However, the other of those two is again a copy of one of the tarot pack knights. In that pack the three others are clearly marked as swords, cups, and coins, leaving the mystery knight as the knight of batons, which by a chain reaction of similar eliminations firmly establishes that the unique knight in the present block is also the knight of batons.

Note that both the knave and king of cups are both female, but that this does not affect their rank.

The Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) fragment consists of two overlapping fragments from different imprints with unequal secondary distortion causing them to match up imperfectly.

The Christie’s fragment was once in the collection of Theodore B. Donson, New York, but sold at an auction by Christie’s in 2002.