XV Century Venetian Playing Cards/ Fantasia di Italia

 

court cards and aces for Venetian pack

Late XV century Venetian style, fragments housed in Budapest.
Crude xylograph, but fanciful knights and knaves. The “king” and “jack” of cups are women. Suit sign arrangements (Latin/Italian suits) reflect relation to Portuguese and Mamluk cards.

There several manufacturers represented by the fragments, and the style can vary dramatically between them. This gives me some liberties when filling in missing information, but also makes for confusion. Some elements of this pack came out effortlessly. Others I fought with for days.
For my own concentration,  my sheets  are placed differently than the fragments.

King of cups for Venetian playing cards

most colors applied to Venetian playing cards

The dimensions of the fragments with fanciful court cards are used (note the sheet with coins and cups is elongated).

Beautiful museum fragments here
http://www.printsanddrawings.hu/search/prints/5055

http://www.wopc.co.uk/italy/italia
http://cards.old.no/irwpc/e1/
https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/renaissance-playing-cards-an-uncut-4005711-details.aspx
http://cards.old.no/irwpc/r1/

on the female figures
http://cards.old.no/irwpc/females/

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