CARDONA (perhaps the anc. Udura), a town of north-eastern Spain, in the province of Barcelona; about 55 m. N.W. of Barcelona, on a hill almost surrounded by the river Cardoner, a branch of the Llobregat. Pop. (1900) 3855. Cardona is a picturesque and old-fashioned town, with Moorish walls and citadel, and a 14th-century church. It is celebrated for the extensive deposit of rock salt in its vicinity. The salt forms a mountain mass about 300 ft. high and 3 m. in circumference, covered by a thick bed of a reddish-brown clay, and apparently resting on a yellowish-grey sandstone. It is generally more or less translucent, and large masses of it are quite transparent. The hill is worked like a mine; pieces cut from it are carved by artists in Cardona into images, crucifixes and many articles of an ornamental kind.
CARDOON, Cynara cardunculus (natural order Compositae), a perennial plant from the south of Europe and Barbary, a near relation of the artichoke. The edible part, called the chard, is composed of the blanched and crisp stalks of the inner leaves. Cardoons are found to prosper on light deep soils. The seed is sown annually about the middle of May, in shallow trenches, like those for celery, and the plants are thinned out to 10 or 12 in. from each other in the lines. In Scotland it is preferable to sow the seed singly in small plots, placing them in a mild temperature, and transplanting them into the trenches after they have attained a height of 8 or 10 in. Water must be copiously supplied in dry weather, both to prevent the formation of flower-stalks and to increase the succulence of the leaves. In autumn the leaf-stalks are applied close to each other, and wrapped round with bands of hay or straw, only the points being left free. Earth is then drawn up around them to the height of 15 or 18 in. Sometimes cardoons are blanched by a more thorough earthing up, in the manner of celery, but in this case the operation must be carried on from the end of summer. During severe frost the tops of the leaves should be defended with straw or litter. Besides the common and Spanish cardoons, there are the prickly-leaved Tours cardoon, the red-stemmed cardoon and the Paris cardoon, all of superior quality, the Paris being the largest and most tender. The common artichoke is also used for the production of chard.
CARDS, PLAYING. As is the case with all very ancient pastimes, the origin of playing-cards is obscure, many nations having been credited with the invention, but the generally accepted view is that they come from Asia. In the Chinese dictionary, Ching-tsze-tung (1678), it is said that cards were invented in the reign of Sèun-ho, 1120 a.d., for the amusement of his concubines. There is a tradition that cards have existed in India from time immemorial—very ancient ones, round in form, are preserved in museums—and that they were invented by the Brahmans. Their invention has also been assigned to the Egyptians, with whom they were said to have had a religious meaning, and to the Arabs. A very ingenious theory, founded on numerous singular resemblances to the ancient game of chess (chaturanga, the four angas or members of an army), has been advanced that they were suggested by chess (see “Essay on the Indian Game of Chess,” by Sir William Jones, in his Asiatic Researches, vol. ii.).
The time and manner of the introduction of cards into Europe are matters of dispute. The 38th canon of the council of Worcester (1240) is often quoted as evidence of cards having been known in England in the middle of the 13th century; but the games de rege et regina there mentioned are now thought to have been a kind of mumming exhibition (Strutt says chess). No queen is found in the earliest European cards. In the wardrobe accounts of Edward I. (1278), Walter Stourton is paid 8s. 3d. ad opus regis ad ludendum ad quatuor reges, a passage which has been thought to refer to cards, but it is now supposed to mean chess, which may have been called the “game of four kings,” as was the case in India (chaturaji). If cards were generally known in Europe as early as 1278, it is very remarkable that Petrarch, in his dialogue that treats of gaming, never once mentions them; and that, though Boccaccio, Chaucer and other writers of that time notice various games, there is not a single passage in them that can be fairly construed to refer to cards. Passages have been quoted from various works, of or relative to this period, but modern research leads to the supposition that the word rendered cards has often been mistranslated or interpolated. An early mention of a distinct series of playing cards is the entry of Charles or Charbot Poupart, treasurer of the household of Charles VI. of France, in his book of accounts for 1392 or 1393, which runs thus: Donné à Jacquemin Gringonneur, peintre, pour trois jeux de cartes, à or et à diverses couleurs, ornés de plusieurs devises, pour porter devers le Seigneur Roi, pour son êbatement, cinquante-six sols parisis. This, of course, refers only to the painting of a set or pack of cards, which were evidently already well known. But, according to various conjectural interpretations of documents, the earliest date of the mention of cards has been pushed farther back by different authorities. For instance, in the account-books of Johanna, duchess of Brabant, and her husband, Wenceslaus of Luxemburg, there is an entry, under date of the 14th of May 1379, as follows: “Given to Monsieur and Madame four peters, two florins, value eight and a half moutons, wherewith to buy a pack of cards” (Quartspel met te copen). This proves their introduction into the Netherlands at least as early as 1379. In a British Museum MS. (Egerton, 2, 419) mention is made of a game of cards (qui ludus cartarum appellatur) in Germany in 1377. The safe conclusion with regard to their introduction is that, though they may possibly have been known to a few persons in Europe about the middle of the 14th century, they did not come into general use until about a half-century later. Whence they came is another question that has not yet been answered satisfactorily. If we may believe the evidence of Covelluzzo of Viterbo (15th century) cards were introduced into Italy from Arabia. On the authority of a chronicle of one of his ancestors he writes: “In the year 1379 was brought into Viterbo the game of cards, which comes from the country of the Saracens, and is with them called naib.” The Crusaders, who were inveterate gamblers, may have been the instruments of their introduction (see Istoria della città di Viterbo, by F. Bussi, Rome, 1743). According to other authorities, cards came first to Spain from Africa with the Moors, and it is significant that, to this day, playing cards are called in Spain naipes (probably a corruption of the Arabic Nabi, prophet). Taken in connexion with the statement of Covelluzzo, this fact would seem to prove the wide popularity of the game of naib, or cards, among the Arab tribes. The meaning of the word (prophet) has been suggested to refer to the fortune-telling function of cards, and the theory has been advanced that they were used by the Moorish gypsies for that purpose. Gypsies are, however, not known to have appeared in Spain before the 15th century, at a time when cards were already well known. In regard to the word naib, the Italian language still preserves the name naibi, playing cards.
Towards the end of the 14th century cards seem to have become common, for in an edict of the provost of Paris, 1397, working-people are forbidden to play at tennis, bowls, dice, cards or nine-pins on working days. From an omission of any mention of cards in an ordonnance of Charles V. in 1369, forbidding certain other games, it may be reasonably concluded that cards became popular in France between that date and the end of the century. In Italy it is possible that they were generally known at a somewhat earlier date. In the 15th century they were often the object of the attacks of the clergy. In 1423 St Bernardino of Siena preached a celebrated sermon against them at Bologna, in which, like the English Puritans after him, he attributed their invention to the devil. Cards in Germany are referred to in a manuscript of Nuremberg about 1384, which illustrates the rapid spread of the new game throughout Europe. In form the earliest cards were generally rectangular or square, though sometimes circular.
Not long after their introduction, cards began to be used for other purposes than gaming. In 1509 a Franciscan friar, Thomas Murner, published an exposition of logic in the form of a pack of cards, and a pack invented in 1651 by Baptist Pendleton purported to convey a knowledge of grammar. These were soon followed by packs teaching geography and heraldry, the whole class being called “scientiall cards.” Politics followed, and in England satirical and historical sets appeared, one of them designed to reveal the plots of the Popish agitators. The first mention of cards in the New World is found in the letters of Herrera, a companion of Cortes, who describes the interest manifested by the Aztecs in the card games of the Spanish soldiers.
Early in the 15th century the making of cards had become a regular trade in Germany, whence they were sent to other countries. Cards were also manufactured in Italy at least as early as 1425, and in England before 1463; for by an act of parliament of 3 Edw. IV. the importation of playing cards is forbidden, in consequence, it is said, of the complaints of manufacturers that importation obstructed their business. No cards of undoubted English manufacture of so early a date have been discovered; and there is reason to believe, notwithstanding the act of Edward IV., that the chief supplies came from France or the Netherlands. In the reign of Elizabeth the importation of cards was a monopoly; but from the time of James I. most of the cards used in this country were of home manufacture. A duty was first levied on cards in the reign of James I.; since when they have always been taxed.