In the notice of the life of St. Bernardin, in the Acta Sanctorum, cited by Peiguot, he is said to have required that cards [naibes], dice, and other instruments of gaming should be given up to the magistrates to be burnt. The anecdote of the card-painter is given in Bernini's Histoire des Hérésies, tom. iv, p. 157. Venise, 1784. Thiers, in his Traité des Jeux, pp. 159-161, gives an extract from a sermon of St. Bernardin against gaming: his reference to the works of St. Bernardin is "Serm. 33, in Dominic. 5, Quadrag. 1 part. princ." but he does not mention the edition.
It may here be observed that the opinion of Dr. Jeremy Taylor on this subject is opposed to that of St. Bernardin. See his discussion of the Question on Gaming: "Whether or no the making and providing such instruments which usually minister to it, is by interpretation such an aid to the sin as to involve us in the guilt?"
[108] Geschichte der Holzschneidekunst von den ältesten bis auf die neuesten Zeiten, nebst zwei Beilagen enthaltend den Ursprung der Spielkarten und ein Verzeichniss der sämmt xylographischen Werke, von Joseph Haller, s. 313. 8vo, Bamberg, 1823.
CHAPTER III.
THE PROGRESS OF CARD-PLAYING.
Having now shown at what period cards were certainly well known in Europe, and at what period card-making was a regular business in Italy and Germany, I shall proceed to lay before the reader a series of facts showing the prevalence of the game in various countries, both among great and little people.
From the repeated municipal regulations forbidding card-playing, to be found in the Burgher-books of several cities of Germany, between 1400 and 1450, it would seem that the game was extremely popular in that country in the earlier part of the fifteenth century; and that it continued to gain ground, notwithstanding the prohibitions of men in office. There are orders forbidding it in the council-books of Augsburg, dated 1400, 1403, and 1406; though in the latter year there is an exception which permits card-playing at the meeting-houses of the trades. It was forbidden at Nordlingen in 1426, 1436, and 1439; but in 1440 the magistrates, in their great wisdom, thought proper to relax in some degree the stringency of their orders by allowing the game to be played in public-houses. In the town-books of the same city there are entries, in the years 1456 and 1461, of money paid for cards at the magistrates' annual goose-feast or corporation dinner. In the books of the company of "Schuflikker"—cobblers—of Bamberg, there is a bye-law agreed to in 1491, which imposes a fine of half a pound of wax—not shoemakers', but bees' wax for the company's holy candle, to burn at the altar of the patron saint,—upon any brother who should throw the backgammon pieces, cards, or dice out of the window. [109] From this it may be concluded that the "Schuflikker" of Bamberg in 1491 were accustomed, like gamesters of a more recent period, to vent their rage, when losers, on the cards and dice.
Baptista Platina, in his treatise 'De Honesta Voluptate'—which is neither more nor less than an antique "School of Good Living," teaching how creature comforts may be best enjoyed—mentions cards as a game at which gentlemen may play, after dinner or supper, to divert their minds, as deep thinking after a hearty meal impedes digestion. There was, however, to be no cheating nor desire of gain—which is as much as to say that the stakes were to be merely nominal—lest bad passions should be excited, and the process of healthy concoction disturbed. [110]
Galeottus Martius, a contemporary of Platina, is perhaps the earliest writer who "speculated," or at least published his speculations, on the allegorical meaning of the marks of the four suits of cards. I shall give a translation of the passage, which occurs in chapter xxxvi of his treatise 'De Doctrina promiscua,' written, according to Tiraboschi, between 1488 and 1490. I leave others to divine the author's precise meaning, referring them to the original text which is given below. The topics of this chapter are: "The greater and lesser Dog Star, Orion, the Evening Star, the Pleiades, the Hyades, Bootes, the Kids, the planet Venus, and the game of Cards." Towards the conclusion, after having exhausted his astronomical topics, he thus proceeds, apropos of the benign influence of Venus.