ARHIVSKI VJESNIK 36. (ZAGREB, 1993.)

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J. Ilić-Dreven, »Ozaljske« igraće karte. Arh. vjesn., god. 36 (1993) str. 171-180 William Hughes Wiltshire, »A Descriptive Catalogue of Playing and Other Cards in the British Museum«, S. Emmering, Amsterdam 1975 (Prvo izdanje 1876). Summary PLAYING CARDS FROM OZALJ In the graphic collection of the Archives of Croatia, under the number 1845, are kept four fragments of the playing cards found in Ozalj in 1929. They are the oldest known fragments found in Croatia. In the light of the most recent researches in the field of playing cards, the author hes undertaken manysided analysis of these fragments and has compared them to the other well-known playing cards. He has succeeded, step by step, to identify them, to determine their origin and to correct wrong date. Ozalj'

s playing cards belong to Lombard type of »Tarot de Marseille«. The pack consists of 78 cards. 56 »standard« cards are divided equally into four Italian suits. Within each suit are ten numerical cards from ace (1) to 10, and four court cards: jack, knight, queen and king. The rest of the pack is made up of twenty-two trump cards (tarocks I-XXII). The cards were produced in »Italian way« in Trieste, between 1740. and 1753. The most probably, they came in Ozalj together with the construction masters from Istra whose task was to rebuild the town. At that time (tarot) playing cards were used only for playing, not for fortune-telling which became popular only after 1781. 180