RARE AND INTRIGUING BOOK ON THE USEFULNESS AND FUNCTION OF CARD GAMES, especially Trionfo/Ombre.


It is believed that the origin of the triumph is Italian; however, the game is also present in other geographical areas. The triumph is known throughout Italy in its regional variants: Marafone, Beccaccino, Terziglio, Calabresella. The denomination of "triumph" for trumps comes from the fifteenth-century pack of tarots, then called trionfi, where the fifth suit of the trumps cut the cards of the ordinary suits. At the beginning of the sixteenth century again in Italy, but also in Spain, a game was developed played with the ordinary deck with the trump suit varying with each deal. The trump suit was referred to as a "trump" and its single cards "trumps". The popularity of the new game changed the name of the deck of trumps to the tarot deck. The game of Triumph, also known as Trionfino, dei Trionfetti, etc., experienced many variations both in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Triumph became the word that identified trumps in Italy, Spain, Germany (trumpf), later England (trump). Cardinal Giovan Battista De Luca, in his Del giuoco dell'Ombre of 1688, pp. 23-25, gives us a version of the development of the game of the Spanish and Italian Trionfetti in a game for three, four and five players which seems to be the ancestor of games born in the 19th century such as Whist and in the 20th century such as today's Bridge.< /p>