The Birth of Cards

Playing cards were born in China, with the earliest confirmed mention in a text from 1120. What is interesting is how they arrived in Europe — the records appear all at once in the 1370s. A Catalan document from 1371 uses the word naips (cards); in 1377 the Swiss monk Johannes von Rheinfelden wrote a detailed account of a structure with four suits and number and face cards, almost exactly the same as today. Italy follows in 1379. By 1380 they had reached Florence, Basel, Paris, and Barcelona — spread across the continent in just a few years. Paper is light, easy to load onto a ship, and easy to copy by printing. This is the first moment a game became something that spreads fast.