Andy's Playing Cards - Uncut Sheets of Playing Cards

This page illustrates two sheets by Edoardo Pignalosa featuring Lombarde cards, a French-suited pattern also known as Milanesi, used in Milan and in some surrounding areas, up to the Swiss border.
French suits are typical of north-western Italy, where during the past centuries the influence of French culture penetrated more deeply than elsewhere in the country.

The two sheets measure 55 x 40 cm (21¾ x 15¾ in); they include a full run of subjects for each suit, i.e. 1 (ace) to 7 and three courts. The design is exactly the same, but the two bottom rows (red suits) are in reversed order. They are both slightly miscut along the bottom edge, which does not follow a horizontal line, and one of them also contains in the bottom right corner the top part of two cards that belonged to an adjacent sheet.

While the pip cards of this pattern are rather plain, the double-ended courts have an attractive look due to their rich colourful garments in Renaissance style. The knave of Clubs wears a waistcoat decorated with a winding serpent that devours a child: since the early 1200s this device belongs to the coat of arms of the Visconti family, and in more recent times it was adopted for Milan's city crest.

The ace of Hearts, which in all Italian French-suited patterns is the card that bears the manufacturer's name, and up to 1972 used to carry the tax stamp, as well, in Pignalosa's edition also shows his address:

E.^DO PIGNALOSA
· NAPOLI ·
RAMPE BRANCACCIO 76

The two sheets have different backs (pictures below). One of them features a white/black pattern, more elaborate than the standard criss-cross texture which often appear in other sheets by Pignalosa. The other one has an advertisement printed in blue of a liquor produced in a small town near Milan, Cernusco, whose label says:

Millefiori Cucchi
MILANO - CERNUSCO 45

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INTRODUCTION
AND HISTORY

MULTI-LANGUAGE
GLOSSARY
THE FOOL &
THE JOKER
INDEX
TABLE
REGIONAL
GAMES
PLAYING CARD
LINKS

This page illustrates two sheets by Edoardo Pignalosa featuring Lombarde cards, a French-suited pattern also known as Milanesi, used in Milan and in some surrounding areas, up to the Swiss border. French suits are typical of north-western Italy, where during the past centuries the influence of French culture penetrated more deeply than elsewhere in the country.

		The two sheets measure 55 x 40 cm (21¾ x 15¾ in); they include a full run of subjects for each suit, i.e. 1 (ace) to 7 and three courts. The design is exactly the same, but the two bottom rows (red suits) are in reversed order. They are both slightly miscut along the bottom edge, which does not follow a horizontal line, and one of them also contains in the bottom right corner the top part of two cards that belonged to an adjacent sheet.

		While the pip cards of this pattern are rather plain, the double-ended courts have an attractive look due to their rich colourful garments in Renaissance style. The knave of Clubs wears a waistcoat decorated with a winding serpent that devours a child: since the early 1200s this device belongs to the coat of arms of the Visconti family, and in more recent times it was adopted for Milan's city crest.