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~~ Gallery 19 ~~ Miscellaneous UNCUT SHEETS OF PLAYING CARDS · page 9 · other pages in this gallery: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |

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PRIMIERA BOLOGNESE

This sheet differs from the previous ones, as it comes from a different manufacturer, Viassone of Turin, whose activity was discontinued sometime during the 1980s. The Primiera deck is still played with by a very restricted number of people in the surroundings of Ferrara (but no longer in Bologna, despite the name of the pattern), and is very close to becoming definitively obsolete. One of its peculiarities concerns the fact that the Primiera cards share the same design with the suit cards of the tarot of Bologna. However, the composition of the Primiera deck starts from 1 (ace) and runs through 7, ending with three courts, whereas the aforementioned tarot skips pip cards from 2 to 5, but has also 8s, 9s and 10s, plus a fourth court card: the queen. The sheet measures 42 x 70 cm (16¼ x 27½ in) and, unlike the ones by Pignalosa, its cards are arranged vertically.

The Primiera deck consists of 40 subjects, but the six rows in the sheet have seven cards (i.e. 42 subjects all together), so the top and bottom rows contain one extra subject each. The top one features a series of encircled numbers from 1 to 10; this card is used for counting points during the game; it is more often found in another northern pattern called Bergamasche (see the Italian gallery). Instead the extra subject in the bottom row looks like a colour printing test, as it features a duplicate of the 5 of Batons, without the colour black, i.e. without outlines nor details.

	The arrangement of the four suits within the sheet is irregular: Cups and Swords (third and fourth rows) run from 1 to 7, but their courts are arranged centrally in the second and seventh row. The other two suits are arranged more chaotically, but the three courts always occupy a central position in other rows. The name of the manufacturer appears on the ace of Coins and on the 4 of the same suit.

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