Carte veneziane - spade - Museo Correr - Cl

The suit of swords is one of the four

card suit In playing cards, a suit is one of the categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several pips (symbols) showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or additionally be indicated ...

s used in Latin-suited

playing card A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a f ...

s alongside

coins A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...

cups CUPS (formerly an acronym for Common UNIX Printing System) is a modular printing system for Unix-like computer operating systems which allows a computer to act as a print server. A computer running CUPS is a host that can accept print jobs ...

and batons. These suits are used in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

and some

tarot Tarot (, first known as ''trionfi (cards), trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a set of playing cards used in tarot games and in fortune-telling or divination. From at least the mid-15th century, the tarot was used to play t ...

card packs. Symbol on Italian pattern cards: Seme spade carte bergamasche

Symbol on Spanish pattern cards: Seme spade carte napoletane

Symbol on French

Aluette Aluette or Vache ("Cow") is an old, plain trick-taking card game that is played on the west coast of France. It is played by two teams, usually of four people, but sometimes also of six. It is unusual in using a unique pack of 48 Spanish playing c ...

Spanish pattern cards: Seme spade carte aluette

Characteristics

The suit of swords is believed to have derived from Chinese money-suited cards' Tens of

Myriad In the context of numeric naming systems for powers of ten, myriad is the quantity ten thousand ( 10,000). Idiomatically, in English, ''myriad'' is an adjective used to mean that a group of things has indefinitely large quantity. ''Myriad ...

s of Strings of cash coins suit. When the cards came into contact with the Islamic world, the Muslims adopted and renamed the suit of tens as swords. This may have been due to the Chinese numeral character for "ten" () being seen with one of its strokes elongated. In

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, the suit of swords is known as ''espadas'' and the

court cards A court is an institution, often a government entity, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and administer justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law. Courts gene ...

are known as the ''rey'' (king), ''caballo'' (knight or cavalier) and ''sota'' (knave or valet). The Spanish play with packs of 40 or 48 cards. There are no tens and, in the shorter pack, the nines and eights are also dropped. Thus the suit of swords ranks: R C S (9 8) 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. In

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

the suit is known as ''spade'' and the corresponding court cards are the ''re'', ''cavallo'' and ''fante''. Either 40 or 52-card packs are used. In the shorter packs, the tens, nines and eights are removed. Card ranking is thus: R C F (10 9 8) 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. The interpretation and arrangement of the pips helps to subdivide the Latin-suit systems: * Italian-suited: Intersecting long and curved swords * Spanish-suited: Non-intersecting short and straight swords * Portuguese-suited: Intersecting long and straight swords * An archaic system: Non-intersecting long and curved swords. Accomplished by having the swords curved inwardGjerde, Tor
Italian renaissance woodcut playing cards
at old.no. Retrieved 26 March 2017.

Portuguese-suited playing cards Portuguese-suited playing cards or Portuguese-suited cards are a nearly extinct playing card suit, suit-system of playing cards that survive in a few towns in Sicily and Japan. Although not of Portugal, Portuguese origin, they were named after th ...

were traded to Japan in the mid-16th century which influenced the development of

Karuta are Culture of Japan, Japanese playing cards. Playing cards were introduced to Japan by Portuguese traders during the mid-16th century. These early decks were used for trick-taking games. The earliest indigenous ''karuta'' was invented in the ...

where the 48-card Komatsufuda and 75-card

Unsun Karuta are Japanese playing cards. Playing cards were introduced to Japan by Portuguese traders during the mid-16th century. These early decks were used for trick-taking games. The earliest indigenous ''karuta'' was invented in the town of Miike in ...

decks still maintain this suit.

Gallery

Spanish pattern

The gallery below shows a suit of swords from a Spanish-suited deck of 48 cards. The pack is of the Castilian pattern: File:Aespadas.png,

Ace An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or a club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the ...

File:2espadas.png, 2 File:3espadas.png, 3 File:4espadas.png, 4 File:5espadas.png, 5 File:6espadas.png, 6 File:7espadas.png, 7 File:8espadas.png, 8 File:9espadas.png, 9 File:Sespadas.png, Sota File:Cespadas.png, Caballo File:Respadas.png, Rey

Italian pattern

The gallery below shows a suit of swords from an Italian-suited deck of 52 cards. The pack is of the Bresciane pattern: File:Asso-Spade.svg,

File:02-Spade.svg, 2 File:03-Spade.svg, 3 File:04-Spade.svg, 4 File:05-Spade.svg, 5 File:06-Spade.svg, 6 File:07-Spade.svg, 7 File:08-Spade.svg, 8 File:09-Spade.svg, 9 File:10-Spade.svg, 10 File:Fante-Spade.svg, Fante File:Cavallo-Spade.svg, Cavallo File:Re-Spade.svg, Re

Komatsufuda pattern

The image below shows a suit of swords from a Komatsufuda deck of 48 cards:

Unsun karuta pattern

The image below shows a suit of swords from an Unsun karuta deck of 75 cards:

Individual cards

* Seven of swords. In

scopa (; ) is an Italian card game, and one of the three major national card games in Italy, the others being and . It is also popular in Argentina and Brazil, brought in by Italian diaspora, Italian immigrants, mostly in the variation. is also p ...

, the seven of swords, along with the other suit sevens, is the highest-scoring card in the bonus of ''primiera''.

Tarot

The

suit of swords The suit of swords is one of the four suits of the Minor Arcana in a 78-card cartomantic tarot deck. It is derived from the suit used in Latin-suited playing cards, such as Spanish, Italian and Latin-suited tarot decks. Like the other tarot sui ...

in some

packs is one of several suits used in cartomancy.

Notes and references

Literature

External links

Card suits {{card-game-stub