Cups, coins, swords and clubs (Spanish and Italian suits)

How to read it

These are the Latin suits. A Spanish pack has 48 or 40 cards and an Italian one 40, and the court cards are a king, a mounted knight and a servant or footsoldier: rey, caballo and sota in Spain, re, cavallo and fante in Italy, in the International Playing-Card Society’s table. The Italian club is a straight ceremonial baton and the Spanish one a knobbly cudgel. The English names of Spades (♠) and Clubs (♣) come from the Italian spade, swords, and bastoni.

Also searched as: baraja española, copas oros espadas bastos, coppe denari spade bastoni, italian card suits, latin suits, spanish card suits, spanish deck suits.

How the suits reached Europe

Cards are first mentioned in Spain in 1371, the International Playing-Card Society says, and it traces them to the cards of the Mamluks of Egypt, whose reconstructed pack had swords, polo sticks, cups and coins. Polo was unknown in Europe, so the Italians straightened the polo sticks into batons. Britannica (1911) found these suits most common on Italian cards of the late 15th century, used in both Italy and Spain.

Which suits came first

Willshire’s 1876 catalogue of the British Museum’s cards says the earliest cards had cups, money, clubs and swords. Britannica (1911) gives first place to the German suits and puts the Latin ones next.

Counting backwards

In hombre, which Merlin called the national game of the Spaniards (in a passage Willshire’s catalogue quotes), the suits fell into two pairs: in cups and coins a card with fewer pips was worth more, while in swords and clubs more pips meant more value.

In tarot packs

Until the 18th century tarot packs used the Latin suits, the IPCS says, and Willshire found them kept in tarot packs in his day. The tarot’s cups are the same suit.