Knave of Cups

In the 1440s a new card game was going round the courts of northern Italy. It was called trionfi, after the extra run of trump cards that were added to the ordinary four suits, and Milan and Ferrara were where it caught on first. This page with his cup is a piece of that equipment. There is no number and no letter anywhere on it, because a player knew the card by the figure. Most decks of the time were printed from woodblocks and cost very little. This one was painted by hand, in a workshop that also gilded altarpieces, which is how a pack of cards ends up in a gallery of paintings. The fortune-telling that everyone now attaches to tarot came later, in Paris in the 1780s, more than three centuries after this page was painted. The card is about 18 centimetres tall, made to sit in a hand.