History of games and toys | Fattoria Didattica biologica

History of games: laboratory study

In his work “Homo Ludens” (1938), the Dutch essayist Johan Huizinga maintained that the four most important characteristics of games were:

The freedom of the subject that is put into the game. A game is a free act and is only played for a sense of joy. | The game does not represent true life. The subject plays a game to have fun, or to pretend, but the game is usually completed with a sense of seriousness. | The game is limited in time and space. | The game brings another dimension out from deep inside of the subject.

Games don’t represent a purely infantile activity, but an inherent necessity in an adult of any age, who feels the need to commit themselves to a particular exercise congenial to their own personality. That permits satisfaction of certain competitive demands and cohesion of their own psychological and physical equilibrium. Children dedicate the greater part of their time towards play. In games children can release energy, make friends, freely express their creativity, and remove themselves from the world of “grown-ups”.

Since antiquity children have had numerous opportunities at their disposal to play games bound to outdoors life using of materials easy to find in the environment (rocks, pieces of wood, fabric remnants, et cetera). It is interesting to note how the world’s most elementary games have many similarities to one another and accommodate children of diverse languages and ethnicities.

Archaeological findings have provided evidence that the first true toys were actually reproductions of arms and plows. This symbolized the two principle activities of ancient populations (war and agriculture). These toys were made from everyday objects, realized in miniature, and were in rudimentary form. The doll could also be considered one of the first infantile toys. Initially it symbolized more than only a play thing. It was tied to primitive religion and feminine fertility. The doll is agreed have originated in Egypt around 2,000 B.C. and was made with diverse materials such as ivory, wood, and terracotta.

In every ancient civilization, the same types of toys constantly recur: beasts of burden, bells, jars, hoops, and marionettes. Toys can be given as gifts to children on various occasions: at birth, when the name of the child is given (as was the custom in the roman world), during religious festivals, or as reward for success in school. Both in Greece and in Rome special commerce existed for the construction of toys such as balls and spinning tops, which were sold at the Agora or at Roman fairs. Persians, such as the mathematician Archimedes or the Pythagorean philosopher Archites, concentrated themselves on the creation of various devices for play. Archites, for example, invented the “crepitacula”- the equivalence of the modern whistle.

Toys can have another important value: teaching males and females to know their proper roles. There are games that males and females play together, like playing ball, but there were also other games that divided the two sexes. Girls were given kitchen utensils, dolls with clothes, and furniture as gifts. Boys received toy arms and wooden soldiers (universally known from the Romans, Etruscans, Greeks, and Egyptians).

Not much has changed in this period with respect to past centuries. Children have always had such toys as marbles, hoops, balls, swords, and clubs. In the first century of the dark ages toys and dolls underwent an uncertain period. Archaeological records and literary sources from this period are scarce. The blankness of this century can be explained by a long period of barbaric invasion, which deconstructed and subordinated the life of the populations, the misery and poverty that followed great effected commerce. Luckily most toys were made at home. However, their coarse forms and perishable materials did not leave traces of their use. Our first record of medieval dolls appears around 1200-1300. The toys of the successive periods reflect the technical knowledge of their eras(such as windmills, water-driven mills, river locks, and ovens). Artisans created many objects for children, but they were reserved for the upper classes. Children of the lower classes usually constructed their own toys using pebbles, shells, pieces of wood or fabric.

The toys of antiquity differentiated from those of the dark ages. Since boys also played with dolls, the distinction between masculine and feminine toys became unclear. The game, however, had a new function that would influence the destiny, and social position of the child. To the future priest went a miniature altar or liturgical objects. To the militaristic were given toy soldiers of lead or terracotta with little cannons, wood swords, and bows. Girls, who had to prepare for a conjugal life, were gifted yarn for spinning, stoves and tools for cooking, and above all dolls for practicing the role of a mother. For those who were to prepare for the way of the convent, dolls were dressed in an adequate fashion.

In medieval society, according to the French historian Ariès, there was not a rigorous separation between games and toys reserved for children from those for adults. The same games were common to both. In the 15th century, such multi-function tended to disappear. This helped resurrect of the first game scenarios in which appeared wooden horses, windmills, and birds kept on a string, though rarely did this also apply to the doll.

The Renaissance symbolized a true jump in quality regarding the toy. The first doll factory noted in history appeared in the 15th century in Nuremberg, Germany. Corporations of specialized woodworking artisans had already formed there by the end of the 14th century. Following the 1500’s, the Netherlands began to produce wooden dolls. Soon after the French were making dolls out of gesso and papier mâché. Their specialty was a costly and refined model dressed in a fashionably. Called the Parisian, since it was manufactured in Paris, it was created solely for the royals and aristocrats. The dolls (together with their wardrobes) began to be produced along with accessory objects and other elaborate equipment.

The importance of the psychological and physical development of children was already noted by that time, and the more innovative thinkers had affirmed the educational role of games. Montaigne (1533-92) maintained that “children’s’ games are not only games and they must emphasize their more serious elements”.

Between the 16th and 17th centuries a significant innovation occurred, which according to history, was the single most important stage in the early identification of infantile personality. They began to create for babies, at least for the upper classes of society; special clothing that was distinguishable from that of adults. These particular clothes, especially for males, attested to the changes happening within a society where exterior forms were very important.

In the 1600’s, the philosopher and pedagogist John Locke (1632-1704) affirmed that “all children’s games need to have the intention of being habit-forming… each thing that a child does at that tender age leaves some impression, and imparts either a good or bad tendency…”. In his 1693 book Thoughts on Education, Locke was the first to encourage children’s curiosity. He considered it an important source of learning.

Less than a century later, in 1762, J.J. Rousseau published L’Emile, in which he emphasized games as a source of joy and as the best stimulant for the activity of children. Contradicting these sentiments were the ideas of Methodism and Evangelic Anglicism. These belief systems were spreading the idea that the will of a child must be checked. This especially true in English society, and consequently there came to be fewer games and no toys in this culture.

Despite these radical convictions, the greater part of pedagogy retained that movement and physical activity is necessary for a harmonious development of the body. For this reason, outdoor games such as jump rope, blind man’s bluff, hide-and-seek, tag, and capture the flag were favoured.

A curious aspect of the doll during this period was that it became a messenger of Parisian fashion within the royal courts and high society. The latest novelties in dolls clothing came as a realization of this trend.

In the second half of the 18th century, changes took place that directed a major expansion towards the fabrication of toys. Distribution methods gave advantage to walking vendors at fairs, rather than specialized stores, which beyond the traditional toys, began to sell card games, board games, school books, bingo, and stamps. This signified a greater attention invested in the world of the children in a fashion more conspicuous with didactic materials. On the other hand, the 1700’s saw the appearance of games that were derived from the dominant inventions of the century such as the magic lantern, which used optic technology to project images, and the ingenious animated toys. In England in 1701, a doll was sold that could blink its eyes and let out cries, while the next century would bring dolls that could walk and talk.

18th century pedagogy exhorted games. The German pedagogist F. Frobel (1782-1852) affirmed that the game is the true natural activity of children and that the game gives the child its future relations. Between 1800 and 1900 the thoughts of Dewey, Montessori, and Piaget signalled the definite affirmation of play activity as a fundamental component to the development of the child.

The toy became ever more important in 18th century society, especially in France, England, and Germany where toys were made in factories, according to class, age, and sex. By 1793 one vendor in Nuremburg already had a catalogue with more than 1,200 articles (dolls, soldiers, animals, et cetera) in every possible dimension and price.

The toy industry had their golden age between 1850 and 1914. Toys made out of tin had particular success, and grand mechanical inventions were created that furthered the precision manufacturing and searched for elegant forms. Toys of the day included trains, cars, ships, and even clowns and animals capable of simple movement.

The toy industry had a significant impact on the economies of industrialized nations, but Italy was late in their production; for wooden toys first seem to have been born in Asiago in 1885. The first toy and doll industry in Italy was the Furga di Canneto sull’Oglio (Mantova) in 1872, which had its own town attend to the production of exemplary dolls destined to be the European market for America. This met a need to satisfy a clientele that was increasingly vast and demanding. The 30’s and 40’s saw the initiation and development of industrial sectors that were at the apex of quantity production between the two wars, especially in Germany. The Second World War then devastated everything and caused the destruction of or closing of factories. Raw materials were exhausted. In the fatigued phase of reconstruction something had already changed: new materials were being used for the first time, this brought a revolution in the production of dolls and toys.

Time and time again the pedagogic theory affirmed the role of the game in the process of learning and formation of the child. In 1899 Brooklyn gave birth to the first children’s’ museum, in which departed the presumption that the child has different learning mechanisms from those of adults and that they learn more easily by playing and experimenting in another reality, a reality that gives continuous stimulation to creativity and imagination.

Today there are more than 300 children’s’ museums in the U.S. alone, all aimed at three learning activities: learning by doing, learning by exploring, and learning by touching. Museums aimed at children began to open up in Europe in the 1970’s, but only in 1998 did the first Italian Children’s’ Museum open in Genova.

In recent years there has been a progressive interest in the history of games and toys. An increasing number of shows and expositions, with the active participation of children, are used to understand how children of the same age played games at different times in history (such as the one at the Centro per la Cultur aLudica [centre for play] in Torino or at l’Accademia del Gioco Dimenticato [academy of the forgotten game] in Milan).

Toy museums with diverse specializations have been opened. The Municipal Toy Museum at Nuremburg is one of the most important in the world in this regard and is visited by people from around the globe. It houses a collection that comprises mostly of dolls. The Museum of Childhood, founded in 1957 in Edinburgh, was the first to utilize toys as keys to retelling history. The museum L’Art de L’Enfance at Rumilly in France has 10,000 toys. In Italy there is il Museo della Bambola (the museum of dolls) at Angera in Varese. Then there is il Museo Storico del Soldatino (the historic museum of toy soldiers) in Bologna, a toy Museum at Furga a Canneto sull’Oglio, and also il Museo Rivarossi in Como with thousands of electric model trains and related items. And finally, il Museo Internazionale delle Marionette (the international museum of marionettes) in Milan, founded in 1989.

In the medieval and renaissance times, lower-class children who were home schooled and helped their parents with various activities had a good amount of time to dedicate to games. Easily acquired materials such as sticks, rope, and nuts or fruits could surely be recycled just like true toys. With a little help from parents and cheap materials it would have been easy to construct dolls (from wood, fabric, or papier mâché), whistles from hollow canes, fabric balls and other items at little cost. In the case of the nobles, toys were aimed towards education. A child in a well-off family would receive chess, checkers, and tic-tac-toe, which helped them to invent elaborate strategies that would serve them later in military camp. Toys were almost always objects of luxury, made of fine wood, embellished with inlaid mother-of-pearl and ivory, often of oriental origin. Also children could arrange figurines of wood, lead, or ceramic like cavaliers and infantry men.

The education of girls at that time involved learning the ceremonies of high society and the administration of a large house. Free time was spent sewing and embroidering, and the only objects of distraction permitted were dolls (often richly dressed in pearls and jewels), musical instruments, and some utensils for feminine work.

Few examples of ancient toys have survived to our time, due to the fact that they were generally constructed from materials that easily decay. However, we do have an ample panorama of practical toys from the renaissance, in addition to written testimonials, and the painting “Children’s Games” by Pieter Brueghel which now rests at the Kunst Historisches Museum in Vienna. This painting will be referenced in the descriptions to come.

This game consists of throwing a certain number of astragals from a lamb’s hind legs (or of another similar animal) and betting on how they land, or, (when they are numbered) the predicted sum. Indeed a very ancient pastime, this game was mentioned by Homer. The instruments of the game were so diffused that they have been reproduced in gold, ivory, bronze, marble, and terracotta. The astragal was a symbol of youth, contrary to dice which were reserved for adults. In child and infant tombs in Rome large quantities of astragals are often found. Greeks practiced a version of the game by putting five astragals or pebbles (from which comes the name pentalith) in the palm of the hand and launching them upwards, and with a rapid rotation. All five must be caught on the back. If one of them falls, the player must pick them up by hand without dropping the pieces already caught. Boys and girls alike had to have a large amount of astragals since the places in which the game was played had many of the same bones. They would have needed a sack with which to carry them or instead they could be pierced and worn on a necklace tied to them.

Astragals have four faces, and each face had a value. The convex part was worth three. The concave part was worth four. The most unstable part was worth six, and the remaining part was worth only one. Played with four astragals, the game was not based on algebraic sums of the numbers indicated on the faces, but rather on the combination of each face of the four fallen pieces. For example, the winning hand was accomplished when each astragal landed in different positions (the Venus). The losing hand was then four number ones (the dog). There are 35 algebraic combinations of this game and each one has a name.

Astragals were also used for divinations, as Pliny confirmed when talking about the magic of the lepers. They could serve as amulets and could also be used to settle an argument.

In Brueghel’s painting it is possible to see an elder person who seems to be telling the future for a child by interpreting the position of some bones (in this case they seem to be vertebrae) thrown to the ground.

The term “aliossi” could be a portmanteau, or rather a union of an entire phrase into one word, of the Italian “[giocare] a-li-ossi” meaning “to play with bones”, played by literally throwing bones.

Near the top of Brueghel’s painting there is a boy who is aiming to splash water on people below from a second story window. He is holding in his right hand a wooden tube and with the left hand a bladder that would presumably have to serve as not only a container but also an expulsion device for the water.

The Odyssey hints at people playing the game of ball when it awakens Ulysses (700 B.C.). In Greece there was also a rhythmic dance from song. During Roman times the game of ball was habitually practiced by children and adults alike, both in the street or in bath courts, where they could heat the body before the bath. The Roman ball was tiny, stuffed with wool or horse hair, and painted in vivid colours.

Our ancestors had constructed an incredible number of different ball types using extremely varied materials: leather, fabric, paper, woven willow branches; and even some made of Indian rubber and plastic have both been found.

Brueghel’s painting shows a four or five year old child holding a small ball in hand. The most expensive balls were perhaps made of goat skin and stuffed with feathers, but they also came in felt, wood, or put together from old rags.

Air ball: the ball has to be thrown as high as possible while the contenders have to try to catch it before it hits the ground.

Kidnap ball: one or more players in the centre have to try to intercept the ball that the other players on opposite extremities try to launch through them.

Aporraxis: this game was played between two contenders using a tiny ball: one of them, rolling the ball across the playing field while bouncing it as much as possible; the companion has to send the ball back in the same manner using the palm of the hand. Another variant is played by bouncing the ball against a wall and can be played with one or two people.

Episciro: this game can consist of many players, divided evenly into two teams. Three lines made up the playing field, one in the middle point and one at the back of each end, this delineates the game area of the two teams. The field has to be very long in extent. The game begins by bringing the ball as far away as possible from the adversaries, which have to take it in turn, at the point which they have the ball, they send it back from where they took the ball without advancing. The players can move in their own area when it is their turn to take the ball. The scope of the game is to eliminate the opponents when the ball goes out of the lines or when the opponents do not have the ability to take it.

Harpaston or Lupereraptim: the ball is brought across a line dividing two teams (according to some authors, this game coincides also with another game called feninda). The players of one team can enter into the area of the adversary, while passing the ball back and forth and changing direction to create deception. This resembles the modern game of rugby.

Ludereexpulsim: was a type of tennis without rackets or the net, in which the two opponents send the ball back and forth by strong hits with the palm of the hand.

Trigon or Ball for three: three players are placed inside of a triangle that has been drawn on the ground where they must remain without moving. Multiple balls can be used. They can be launched or caught together or with the help of other companions: the skill is in catching and throwing the balls. In this game the adults used slaves for collecting the balls and counting the points.

The winners of ball games were called donkeys and they made their exit from the game by saying “sit, donkey”.

Young adults played ball in bath house courts. These were present at the larger springs and also at various vacation destinations.

The exterior of a game ball was made from pieces of fabric or leather. These materials were sewn together and coloured with red, green, or gold. These colours sometimes represented geometric designs. The balls interior would contain wool or feathers. The more common versions were those stuffed with horse hair. The Latin term for this is pilus, from which derives the name pila or sphere given to the ball.

This game comes from the Greeks; they used a blindfold on one player who makes a prediction of the name of a companion which they must manage to catch. The player has to say “I’m gonna hunt the bronze fly” while the others push him around in circles to create disorientation responding with “you can look but you won’t find it”. They then hit the player with pieces of leather until he can find and take one of them. This game is also called “bronze fly”. Another version of the game was played like this: a child with eyes held shut has to follow that which another child asks until he cannot manage; if the eyes are opened the game must start anew.

Some studies attribute this game to remote ritual origins. Other theories define it as an infantile imitation of a mystic drama representing how the devil tries to catch souls.

In medieval Anglo-Saxon times, children played by covering the face with a hood (as would wear the condemned on the gallows), and the game is called the “game of the hood”.

Bowling has enjoyed very ancient testimonies, coming out of Egypt in the fourth millennium B.C., playing involves pins of stone, spherical balls, and a bridge under which the ball must pass before going to strike the pins.

The competitors start from a certain distance, and using balls made of wood, aim to knock down the pins which are stylized human figures also made from wood(worked on a lathe and then painted various colours). In general there are nine pins, of which eight are of the same height and are called soldiers. The ninth is the biggest, painted in various styles, and is called the “king”. The soldiers are placed vertically and on the half of one side of an imaginary quadrilateral. The king is placed at the centre of the formation where it is well protected. The player who collects the most points is the winner. Consider each pin to be worth one point with a higher value always attributed to the king. Often, instead of wooden pins, they used objects more poor in nature: in Brueghel’s painting there are three children intent on launching bowls (which could perhaps be of bone origin) against animal bones, presumably which are lined up against a wall.

To make soap bubbles a straw is used to put air into a kind of cylindrical container probably full of soap. From the cylinder, out of a hole punched at the top, come the bubbles that can grow and stack up on each other. And full of air, the bubbles can fly away and pick up speed with the wind. Such a sophisticated apparatus was probably not possessed by all, and most children could have used perhaps a piece of cane and a cup containing water and soap. This could provide just as much fun at a moderate price.

The oldest depiction of this game goes to the ancient Egyptians. It was a game considered very healthy by the ancients, recommended in any case for which it would be useful to sweat abundantly (according to the prescriptions of Hyppocrates). The primitive form of the game is the trochus (from the verb trocho, to move oneself on impulse). The game trochus consists generally of one simple hoop of bronze, about as tall as the hip of the child, which is rotated in the centre by a bent bar. It is probable that athletic races were staged at gyms with trochus courses. The circles were also used by Greek dancers during performances of other games to which they gave a symbolic value; the circle symbolized matrimony and conjugal love. Mystic Dionysian frequently used the circle as a symbol as well. As with the spinning top, the circle could become an instrument for use in magic arts.

In Brueghel’s painting, there are two children who run pushing their circle, one of which, perhaps to render the game more festive, seems to have applied bells. The painter wants the viewer to notice that the toys are made crudely. With the presence in the painting of casks, the staves(which are held together by reedy hoops very similar to those used by the two boys), creates the illusion that the boys had taken them from a cask of some bottler. However, these objects are far from the perfect round circles that appeared in successive centuries.

The game is practiced by two players. One player hits with a club one of the ends of a piece of wood sharpened in the form of a spindle (called the “ciri”). This “ciri” is tossed up into the air and then hit as far as possible before it comes down. A player can succeed in the game only if they can catch by hand a flying spindle sent from the base of the adversary, or by placing a well-aimed strike of the club into the same base (also called “home”) after having passed through the guard of the adversary. The winner is naturally the one who covers the most total distance with the ciri over the course of the game. For certain affinities this game could be considered a precursor to baseball.

In the discussed painting it is possible to see two players with clubs in hand, and at the feet of one there is an object that seems to be a ciri.

The corrector was an agricultural tool that served to beat grain in a way that would separate the wheat from the chaff. It took the form of two robust staffs, the longer one serving as a handle and the other shorter and fatter staff (joined by a strip of leather) represented the hitting end. This can be traced back to a pastime of farmhand origin. It was brought to the city by the urban influx that happened in the central century of the medieval period.

Brueghel’s painting shows a boy seated with a long whip in hand, aiming to strike his companions if they are close enough to touch or slap. Still more crude is the game practiced by another group of children: one of them, with his entire face blindfolded, brandishes a type of short corrector with which he would strike blindly aiming to hit the other players.

This game consists of making the player’s own wooden ball follow a preordained course with a certain number of rings staked vertically into the ground. To reaching the other end of the course before the adversary, the player must shoot their ball as far as possible while still making passage through the holes. The instrument that serves to hit the ball was originally a ladle in the form of a giant spoon. This was later substituted by a club with a curved extremity, similar enough to the modern golf club.

In the Brueghel painting there is a boy who holds in his hand a club with the terminal part in the form of a spoon bent 90°.

In 1800 the game of croquet became codified in England and adopted an oversized wooden hammer called a mallet. The game has been very well received in Anglo-Saxon countries and well enough in France, though less so in Italy.

Dolls symbolized the infancy of babies in ancient times. The acts of abandonment, or donating them to divinity, were synonymous with the abandonment of infancy to begin adult life(which coincided with a precocious matrimonial life).

Through playing, the children learn to dress the doll and thus the same for themselves. Some dolls were very simple, available at larger markets, or from walking vendors at fairs. Common children played with little baby dolls made from rags, made by their mothers. More refined dolls destined for nobility, often were made by commission and supplied with rich clothing corresponding to the fashion of the moment. Generally, the head and the bust were carved wood painted simply, and hairstyles were of natural fibres or true hair applied to the head. The arms could detach to facilitate dressing, while the legs were often non-existent. They were replaced by a conical cage made from hoops of wood that would support the rich dresses.

In Brueghel’s painting it is possible to see two women who are sewing fabric dolls, thanks to their long dresses and veiled heads, according to the Flemish style of the 16th century.

Dressing up is definitely a fascinating game for a child. It is the camouflaging the self and inventing it anew to realize the child’s fantasy in a constructive way. To this is added, with the clever utilization of hand-me-down garments from parents or older siblings, a taste of the prohibited and the possibility to pose as an adult.

In the Brueghel painting you can see a girl hiding behind a cask trying not to be seen. It was important not only to find one of the players, but those staying hidden must go and occupy the same place the seeker was at the start of the game before they return.

The painting shows many kids involved in movement with such games: somersaults, jumping over obstacles, wrestling with their friends, and running through open spaces having fun as they would today.

This game consisted of a head of a horse rider modelled in wood or papier mâché and mounted on a long pole. The boy, holding the pole between the legs, galloping and duelling, gets the exciting impression of a tournament. This game remained in use for many centuries, until the advent of the rocking horse.

Two teams are formed and players are paired up. The stronger member of the first team places their back against a wall or a tree. The second hides their head under the other’s arm and pulls hard on the belt of the first person who remains in rigid position. And, the third person attaches to the second in the same way following so on and so forth for every player. When one team is systemized, the players of the other team go one at a time, with adequate running speed, jumping on the backs of the adversaries (paying attention to stay in close succession). When the action has begun it is forbidden to move oneself, and the team roles are reversed if a member of the jumping team moves or falls, or if the team doesn’t stay synchronized on the backs of those below. If a member of the team on the bottom gives in to the weight on their back or detaches from their teammates, the entire team must stay below for one more round.

Another way of playing is: one boy stands arched with knees flexed and hands braced on the thighs, and another jumps over him with legs apart after a brief running start, making a pivot on the back of the standing boy with his hands. After each person is passed the jumper must stop and assume the same squatting position while a third player jumps them both. This is repeated in this manner as a continuous chain of actions.

The Greeks played marbles using small bones, chestnuts, and even olives. The Romans preferred walnuts and hazelnuts. Many games associate the nut with infancy. To leave infancy they said, “nuces reliquere”, then leaving nuts. One way of playing with the nuts was the ludus castellorum, which consisted of placing three nuts on the ground in the approximate form of a triangle. A fourth is dropped softly and with precision. It must fall within equilibrium of the three. Another game was the little pyramid of walnuts, in which the player tosses the nuts from a certain distance while attempting to land them in an abutting fashion. A variant to render the game more difficult consists of the take a steep surface. Lean the nuts on an outside wall and letting one fall to the ground. The aim is to strike others (and then earn as winnings) those nuts knocked away. Another variant of the game is with walnuts, called orca. This consists of tossing the nuts from a certain distance aiming for the neck of an amphora. A similar game could be played without the amphora called hole in the ground. A target was made for the nuts to enter into (the Greeks called this variant of the game tropa). The nuts were conserved in baskets or purses, or at times in a corner of one's tunic.

It was only at the beginning of the 19th century that marbles became perfectly spherical. They were made of earth (less costly), of stone, of glass, and even from agate and marble. Usually children kept separated the more common game materials for playing the game from those materials more precious to be used as stakes.

Brueghel’s painting shows seven children intently playing a game of marbles, one of them right about to launch his marble. They are using terracotta balls of small dimension (10-20 millimetres in diameter), with which many games can be played. The most typical gamed “buchetta” (meaning little holes or pockets) consisted of throwing the players marble into a small hole, made into the earth, while containing a certain number of balls put in by the other players also. Another very popular game involved drawing a circle about 30 centimetres in diameter into the earth. A player then places in the centre a common number of marbles. Another circle is drawn around the first with a 2 meter diameter. Each player, standing outside the larger circle, tosses a marble aiming to strike one of the interior pieces in the smaller circle. If the marbles roll out of the circle, they are kept as winnings; otherwise the turn passes to another player.

In Brueghel’s painting, a boy with a large mask made of papier mâché in hand observes from a window the events that are happening in the piazza. Masks appeared during Carnival and particular festivals (for example, in northern countries, the return of spring) and were made from fabric and papier mâché. They were worn by adults and children who would run through the streets making jokes. They were modelled after negative elements like the devil or the witch, but also ridiculous images such as obese or extremely skinny people, and even animalistic stylizations. The fun of the game was to lower oneself to the level of the persona in the semblance of the mask, mimicking in grotesque movements, words, and cackles.

In antiquity, no such thing as ‘Play-Doh’ existed. But, they were not without clay and wax. Objects and little animals or people (more or less realistic) were a major pastime plaything for children of antiquity. This game probably shows, to a child, preparatory exercises for a future activity at the age of adulthood.

The rules of this game remain the same today as they were the time of the ancient Egyptians.

Two people stand facing one another and simultaneously indicate with their fingers a number from 0 (fist closed) to 5 (open hand). The two players have to indicate the sum total of the numbers of the fingers held up on both their hands simultaneously.

The painting shows two children, certainly of modest extraction, who are playing the flute and the tambourine. Also if they didn’t have these instruments in wood or in ceramic, often flutes were hollowed out of animal bones, of modest dimensions, always somewhere between 10 and 14 centimetres. Osteological analyses has revealed that they came from generally goat or pig bones, that is, those animals principally cooked as meat for food during that time.

The ancients, instead of betting on the openness of the fingers, hid a certain number of nuts, shells, or pebbles inside of a closed fist and a companion had to guess if the number was odd or even. Often they would hide astragals in hand and he who guessed correctly would take them as winnings.

The Greek poet Callimaco cited how antiquated this game was even 500 years before Christ. The origin was lost even at the eve of their time.

The paleo was a type of spinning top but taller and slimmer, almost like a little pointed pole. The player, with the crack of a whip, must extend the duration of the rotation as much as possible. This requires a certain ability to maintain the piece in stable movement while continuing to add new energy in a way that keeps it from falling. This innocent game was also granted to ecclesiastics, as can be seen in the painting.

Paleo and such spinning tops were constructed with easily workable, and readily available types of wood such as olive. Dimensions varied, and they were made by placing a roughed out piece of wood on its point in a lathe and rotating while cutting by scalpel and referring to a sketch to confirm the volumetric form. At the end, in the hole where the counterpoint of the lathe enters, an iron nail is inserted to form a solid rotation point.

Brueghel’s painting shows some people intently playing the game pallottole using large wooden balls. It was a game for adults and children, and rather simple. Four balls were stacked into a pyramid or a little castle (with three on the ground and one placed on top) and the players, from a certain distance, aim to strike them with another ball. The winner knocks down the most pieces. At times the distance from the throwing line can be significant and the game can take on some aspects of the game of bocce ball. And, the game is practiced with those types of balls.

This was a Greek game originally called kutrinda. One of the players, called the “pot” or “muffler” sits in the middle of the other players who hit him on the back or head. They revolve around him until he can’t stand it, then suddenly stopping. Identifying which player has hit the ‘pot’ then appoints that player as the next ‘pot’. There was also another variation to lend the game more difficulty. He who sits in the centre has to hold a pot above his head with his left hand. One of the players asks “who has the pot?”, he turns and has to identify the player and say, “I, Midas” or “It is I who has the eyes of a donkey” alluding to the legend of king Midas, at the same time touching the player with a foot.

Roman children practiced a version even more elaborate. They drew a huge square on the ground and the player who had the pot had to stay in the middle. Four companions are posted one each at one corner, and they scramble to change places while Midas tries to occupy one of the free corners. If he succeeds, the player who remains without a place becomes the new Midas.

There is a group of children on the right of Brueghel’s painting that are running around one player in their centre. They are perhaps playing this game or a similar game.

In the painting two types of stilts are reproduced. One model places the feet about 50 centimetres off the ground, and the other would permit jumps of even two meters. A man could rise to the height of the second floor of a building. Naturally stilts, next to the utilitarian uses (they were used to move on marshy terrain and in the pastures where flat terrain gave no vantage point to check on the herds, and in some places they were reserved to priests for ritual use), also provide use for playtime.

A curiosity: in 1851, a baker from Heath traversed the entire distance from Paris to Moscow on stilts in only 58 days.

The top represents our most ancient game. Already known and widely used as early as 6,000 years ago, archaeological excavations have attested to its invention in Ur, Mesopotamia. Several tops and stems have been found there that still function today.

In15th century England each Parrish had their own, and for Mardi Gras, they played games and races with tops on the streets.

In medieval France, they organized memorable top races between citizens. The top (called “sabot” by the French since they were fabricated with heels from old animal hooves) served also to forecast the outcomes of agricultural years.

In antiquity they used diverse materials for the construction of tops, sometimes terracotta, bronze, iron, and also gold. Not always, but rather recently, the top has taken on a role of a profane toy. Its initial uses had been for ritual functions. The most common material used in a tops construction was and still is wood taken from the trunk of the oak tree. The wood is extremely hard and does not break easily. Virgil used the term “buxom” to indicate the top.

The top consists of a wood object in a bi-conical form. It has a precise profile of rotation obtained by turning. The shape is terminated in an iron point. A top can be made to spin by pulling a wrapped string and then letting it fall to the ground. The string was typically around 120 centimetres in length. The rotational energy of the top was only given at the moment in which the string is pulled, after which the top rotates following the given inertia until exhaustion. The best players are those that could make the top spin the longest.

The use of the top has many forms in many places. Today the toy industry produces mechanical tops that do not require the manual dexterity necessary to spin a true top. In contrast to the type that traces back to the medieval and perhaps also the classical world.

A distant parent to the top is the whisk, which is also extremely ancient. To make it rotate on its pivot, a snap of the middle finger and the thumb was needed. Another type of top known since antiquity was a single piece in the shape of a disk and terminating with a point in the centre of both faces.

The windmill was made of two feathers put together in a cross forming an invisible square. This was mounted on the end of a small stick and connected at the top with a long axle rod, in this fashion it is free to rotate. Children would run with the windmill in hand, keeping the axle horizontal and the wind and slightly inclined with respect to the frontal plane, this caused the feathers to rotate.

The Brueghal painting shows two little children with their windmills in hand. This toy was elementary enough that it can probably be attributed to an ingenious father, who could have constructed it with some agility. Sometimes the windmill was attached to a sculpted bird, or even made of paper, so that rotation of the feathers gliding in the air would give the illusion of wings in flight.

The spinning pole was made of figurines existing on cards (crosses, stars, coloured disks) incised into a vertical bar made to rotate by pulling the end of string wrapped around the pole. It is evident that together with the pole all of the figures are put in movement. Since, in inertia, they had a method for automatic rewind, the game could go on forever.

This game goes back at least to the time of the pharaoh Ramses I. It was then taken to Spain by the Arabs, testimony of which dates back to the 10th century B.C.

The game represents the spirit of our game of checkers. From that which we know, it was played upon one board of nine lines by nine lines. The “checker” as a design element did not exist at the time and the twelve game pieces were place on the table at the intersection point of the lines (the above figure indicates the initial setup of the white and black pieces). The game pieces can be moved only following the segments between adjacent junctions of the various points. Thusly, the game of alquerque presents 81 points versus the 32 points of the game checkers and as such the players are obligated to plan out their future moves with much anticipation. It is thought that reverse moves could not be made and that the capture of the adversarial pieces was obligatory. To capture a piece the player would have to jump over it (if and only if), by following the segment, the next point after was empty. A player could then capture more than one piece in one single move. The first one to capture all of the opponent’s pieces is the winner.

This game was played with four overturned cups. An object was probably hidden underneath one of the cups, and the adversary had to guess under which cup they would find it.

This was predominantly a game for adults, but in Brueghel’s painting several groups of children are throwing to the ground things that could include dice.

Authors on the subject of antiquity do not agree upon exactly who invented this game. Platos attributed the game to the god Thot, Erodotes attributed it to Lidi, (when it was played to distract the mind from hunger during a period of terrible famine) and some claim it was invented by Palamedes (who seems also to have invented numbers as well as introduced the use of weights and measures).

Greeks called dice kubos, and their eight angles were called tessares (from which is derived the Latin word tessera which commonly refers to dice). Ancient dice were numbered progressively from one to six by tiny incised rings with a central concave point. These were arranged in a fashion so that the sum of opposite faces was always seven. Each face had a different name according to its number.

Dice were fabricated from available material such as; common terracotta, lead, bronze, bone, glass (quartz), or the more precious materials such as amber, ivory, and gold. Archaeological excavations around the world have brought various curiosities to light, such as dice with twenty faces, and polyhydric dice carved from cubes into cones and sticks. There were dice containing only codes, some containing codes and letters, and still many more figures.

In Rome they often played with three dice at a time. As with astragals, the various combinations of dice had names. Three sixes was called “the Venus” while the one was called “the dog”. This gave rise to the Italian saying “giocare da cani” (dog’s game).

A dice shaker was usually found on the playing table. This served to shoot out the dice as would be done with astragals, and also contained circular protuberances on the inside that caused the dice to rotate before making their exit. This was as a mechanism against swindling. The Romans also invented a type of tower (turricula) that contained several plates inside against which the dice would tumble before exiting the bottom through a segment of wall that lifted away.

Naturally there were also cheats. One trick was to insert a weight into the inside of the dice that would always lead it to easily fall to the position of the desired number.

This game can be compared to one found in Egyptian tombs predating 2,000 B.C. One example, an elaborate game board was found with a playing surface similar to the illustration and having four legs like a table and ten slender game pegs topped with carved animal heads was, kept in perfect condition in the tomb of Amenenhet IV of Tebes (1801-1792 B.C.).

This simple game is very much likened to the game of the duck which is played by moving pegs through a sequence of holes on the game board. Played as a competition between two people, each has five pieces: one of which is the dog and the rest jackals.

Each player has to complete their own course through the holes, making the journey on their own side of the board where they follow the numerals culminating at the top of the board (as shown in the figure). The number of holes moved across at departure is established by the launch of the little clubs or astragals. There are two lucky holes: the six, which sends a piece directly to the 20 hole, and the 8, which sends to the ten. The 20 is then bad luck as it sends the piece back to the six. The 15th hole is even unluckier since it incurs a penalty which could be either the payment of a place or the return to point of departure.

The winner is the first to bring all of their pegs to the central hole at the top with a toss corresponding to the exact number of holes left. Obviously a peg cannot be inserted into a hole which is already occupied. This allows the player to choose which peg to move or whether or not to enter a new peg into the game.

If a player cannot move any of their pegs, they can choose a peg to take away. In this case, that peg is started again at the next turn.

Traditionally a game for girls, it seems to have Babylonian origins. According to some the numbers drawn into the ground were an imitation of ancient astrological practices contained inside the tiles. One would hop, entering with the symbol of the sun and exiting through the constellations. The signs of one type of hopscotch were incised into the paving of a house in Pompeii. One of the more ancient designs is traced into the pavement of the Foro Romano in Rome. During the Imperial period, the Roman legions constructed huge stone paved roads to connect the northern European countries with those of the Mediterranean and those of the Middle East. The smoothed surface of these roads represented an ideal place to play this game.

With various interpretations, hopscotch is a game practiced in the most diverse list of countries, from England to Tunisia, from India to China, and from Russia to Peru. Burmese children play the game by jumping from a crouched position so that they can also use their hands. Variations exist not only between the various countries but also in the same countries and even the same cities: for example, in San Francisco there are 19 different officially registered ways of playing the game. The name of the game in Italian is “campana”.

The order of the game is established by tracing the drawing on the ground with whitewash. The player stands a couple of meters from the drawing and tosses a stone into compartment one. If the stone goes to a sign, the player enters in on one foot, picking up the tile and always returning with a foot only on the line of departure. The same goes if the tile pulls in compartment two. The player errs if she steps on a line, if she forgets to rest on the appropriate compartment, if she puts her foot down, or if she throws the tile wrongly. As shown in the figure, there are many variations of playing boards from around the world which only a few of are shown.

This “game of the soldiers” (from latro which meant soldier or mercenary) could be classified as a game of war.

It is played on a table, called the tabula latruncolaria, subdivided into a grid in which the individual squares are called “case”. On the steps of the basilica Giulia in the Roman forum it is possible to see an incised grid with 64 squares, eight per side. The game pieces were called latrones and were differentiated by colour.

To play the game one would need the square table marked with grid containing eight squares per side and 16 pieces per competitor. Each set of pieces was composed of three categories and were differentiated by colour and perhaps also by form:

Bellator, the commander. This piece can move forward or backward and probably also in any other direction to adjacent squares without limit to how many.

It is hypothesized that the battle could be disputed by one bellator, seven vagi, and eight ordinari per each player. They draw straws to see who begins, the player draws up his exercise, and they begin. To capture an opponent’s piece correctly, the adversary must encircle the piece with two pieces of his own. He who has the blocked in piece loses; and to win could be by merely having one piece more than the opponent. The winner was proclaimed imperator.

This game was practiced by all ages and both sexes; champions were praised regardless.

This game was played on a table comprised three embedding and progressively smaller squares, with two central vertical and two horizontal lines segmenting the squares on each side. The points range from nine to 24 and the game pieces could be from three to nine.

This is probably a variant on the game of the pot, with the difference that the child in the centre who attempts to grab a companion cannot let go of a length or rope or string which is fixed into the ground by a nail.

The Athenians used fragments of crockery for voting or in some cases to exile citizens suspected of tyrannical intentions, by writing the name and charge: from this practice which was known as ostracism seems to have come the game called earthenware or shells.

The players are divided into two teams, and the playing field is divided by a line traced into the earth. One team is positioned on the side on which the sun rises (day) and the other team on the other side (night). One team launches a shell or a potsherd that has been tinted black with tar on one side (called the nux) and white on the other (called emera) while yelling out, “day or night?”. If the piece falls on the white side, those following the adversaries don’t have to take it. The player who gets the piece and brings it back to their own camp is called the donkey, and as penalty must carry the player who has the piece upon their back.

During 1926 and 1927, in the royal tombs of Ur in southern Iraq, four game tables were found dating back to around 2,500 B.C. The tables were covered with a thin surface of bitumen into which was laid shell fragments forming three rows of square compartments totalling eight in number. Two of the lateral rows were missing two compartments each as shown in the figure. Six pyramidal dice, three of lapis lazzuli and three of ivory (some of which had points intact) were also found along with seven white pieces and seven black pieces. It was a game course, in which the winner makes a course through the entire game board with their game pieces before they exit the table.

The most credible hypothesis on the playing of this game is as follows: The pieces are diversely coloured to distinguish the two players and are introduced one at a time from the first compartment at the moment chosen by each respective player. Each compartment may contain one more pieces of the same player. The compartments decorated with the rosette are lucky as they allow one extra roll of the dice which the player may use to move the same piece.

After departure from the 13th square, the players must turn their pieces upside down to distinguish which are ascending and which are descending the board.

The square compartments are used by both players, all of them from five up to ten and the 13 and 14. When a game piece falls into one of these squares, and that square happens to be occupied by the piece of the opponent, the opponents’ piece must be returned to square one. If the number from the dice prevents any movement of the pieces of one player, then the turn is forfeited.

For a game piece to exit the playing board the exact number corresponding to the number of squares left plus one must be attained by the roll of the dice.

If the eight square (with the rosette) contains more than one piece traversing toward the exit(and if a four is rolled) they may all exit at the same time.

Also called mehen (coiled snake), the game of the serpent is perhaps the oldest game in Egypt; the serpent was a mythological animal and the game could have had a religious significance.

Various materials were used: limestone, green schist, or lapis lazzuli. Dimensions were also varying but a median was about 30 centimetres in diameter. In relation to the size, the quantity of coils depended also on the number of compartments: 72, 80, or 90. The pawn pieces were in the forms of crouching lions and lionesses, in addition to numerous marbles of various materials.

While the rules are not quite clear, they could be assimilated from the “hyena’s game” still practiced in Sudan.

Each player moves a pawn, called the “mother”, away from the village on its way to wash clothes in the well (the central compartment) called the “day’s voyage”. Once arriving at the well, the mother can return to the village. When a mother gets back to the village she transforms into a new piece called the “hyena” which, taking the day’s voyages two at a time on its way to the well, has the ability to eat the mothers of its adversaries on the return voyage if they are still on their way through the course. Those games found are supposed to be played with 18 marbles and three pawns (dogs or lions) of different colours for each player. Sticks are used in place of dice. There should be at least two or more (changed when the maximum score is reached). These were made of hollowed out wood or bone in a cylindrical form with one side convex and one side concave; some examples have been coloured red on the concave portion, and some others bear richer and more distinct decorations. The points are derived from how many concave parts are found against the other and vice versa: one point for each part against the other, but one point more if all the sticks were in one position. The score would be zero if all sticks land with the convex part down.

This game is played with a bundle of long wooden sticks, much the same as today. The first player, after having gathered all the sticks in one hand, drops the sticks in a pile. The aim of the game is to collect the sticks from the pile one by one without letting any other sticks move.

In antiquity this was probably used more as an instrument of divinatory arts rather than as a game.

In the Chinese version of the game (also called Mikado) they use 50 thin sticks, around 30 cm in length, made of wood, bone, ivory, and today plastic. Certain point values are assigned according to their colour:

Points are tallied up at the end of the game and the winner is the player with the most points.

One child stays planted on all fours upon the ground. Two others strike this one on the back with closed fists, and they must guess which one is striking at a certain moment. If the guess is correct then the turn passes for the striker to be on the bottom.

Of Roman origins, this is probably the most simple of the table games. The first structure consists of a square divided vertically and horizontally with two intersecting lines which forms a grid of nine intersecting meeting points. Each player has three pieces and the one wins is the first to line up their pieces in a row along the same line.

If the player does not go fast enough there will never be a victory, since only one wrong move made in hurry can allow the adversary to win. The speed of the game, and the fact that it could be practiced by anyone, could be the reason that tables fortris were found drawn on inconceivable places, or incised into the pavement of public monuments in all various cities of the empire.

The tables could be square or circular with three, four, or more rays. Tris could also be played on a table with three rows of three compartments each.

This toy was composed of two flat discs united at the centre by a tiny cylindrical rod. A string was fixed to this and then wound all the way around the space in between the discs and held in hand at the very extremity. The string is left to unwind as the discs fall and a swift yank must be administered just before the string reaches its full length, at which point the toy will begin to wind itself back up again in a motion opposite the original fall. Once it climbs all the way back up the string, the process begins again. These toys had probably been made of non-fragile materials such as wood.

This game has been practiced until only a few decades ago. It was played almost exclusively by children, but now it has fallen into disuse. The origins were Latin. It was introduced to the Roman military at Carnia with their domination of the Celtic population living in the land at that time.

The stakes are established at each round. One person is decided to be “it” to establish the order of departure. A small cube of wood used as a dice is incised on lateral sides with four letters:

Most adults in the renaissance times had good amounts of money and free time to dedicate towards recreational activities, most of all on festival days and holidays. Between the most practiced games of these occasions, we have found the tauromachia, which has been kept alive for some years at the carnival in St. Peter’s piazza in Rome.

Discourse was very different for the nobles and upper classes, who took to only those games that were in vogue for high society, some of which at times went for ridiculous amounts of money.

games typical of the courts such as riddles, word games, amorous doubts, et cetera.

Many court games were played and quit. At times some of them would trickle down to other classes of the population. In games of sportive characters, which were lacking the element of the race, the competitive aspect was not important. The rediscovery of Greek texts brings new value to athletic competition, in which above all counted the elegance of form and comportment. Some exercises including horseback riding, fencing, and boxing were considered indispensible for the education and behaviour of the people of the courts. The one true antagonistic practice of the time could be considered the tournament. Other games were open to the plebeians as well. Pretend battles and races, with warlike characteristics, finalized the formation of soldiers. The culture of the courts then produced a series of games of ingenuity and words. Used as conversation starters; among these were the love vendors. Here, one of two contenders launches the other the name of a flower or an object and the adversary has to make a response in verse. The first word must rhyme with the indicated object. Another gentile pastime was the game of amorous doubts, in which one person offers an amorous argument and their sentence. The contenders have to resolve it with an argument for the prospective case. They then played with mysteries and enigmas, the creation of enterprises, and short story telling, which required a very cultured mythology (or at least the knowledge of the canons around which these games rotated). These gallant competitions were devoid of all aspects considered rude and vulgar since women were often the judges.

It has been hypothesized that cards have been used for playing games in China since the tenth century A.D., not very long after the invention of cards themselves. The occidental world was introduced to the game of cards some centuries later as a result of cultural exchange going on between Mediterranean populations and Arab civilizations.

Tarot cards use the four suits of Gold, Cups, Swords, and Staffs, derived from those of the Arabs. According to a common hypothesis, the four suits represented the principle social classes of the time: gold = merchant, cups = clerics, swords = military, staffs = farmers.

According to credible literary sources, Italy was the first European country to produce the tarot in the first half of 1400. But, it was in Spain that cards first appeared in the west (after more than 500 years of anticipation).

The ancient Italian decks consisted of 78 cards. They were probably created following a series of cards both oriental and Arabic with a group of 22 cards derived from local origins. This was before names or suits. The oldest deck of playing cards known in existence today is the Stuttgarter Kartenspiel, datable to at least 1430, found in the south east of Germany. They belong to a particular style of cards today called “hunting cards”, of which there are no triumph cards and particular suits are used such as crows, boars, and falcons.

In the XV century playing cards spread to in many royal courts and states. In all of the states, traditional card playing, with the suits of Arabic origin, became preferred over the 22 triumphs. In many cases, the latter were discarded or simply not added to the other cards. Soon many European regions began to develop decks of local composition, utilizing only the 56 cards with suits, and thus, giving birth to the diverse combinations that constitutes the fundamentals of today’s regional decks. For example, in France the suits changed to Diamonds, Hearts, Clubs, and Spades, this spread later to other places in which cards were not yet popular. Only in the northeast of Italy do the symbols remain more or less the same as those of the first tarot cards, explaining the still ancient aspect of today’s deck.

Only in the second half of the XVIII century did tarot cards begin to take on the esoteric air, such as we know today. From this moment, the decks came to be used for clairvoyance. The classic illustrations began to take on other symbols inspired by the mythology of ancient Egypt and of the Jewish Kabala.

Notwithstanding the many varieties, the original tarot was not abandoned and is still commonly produced, even if it is only used for card games of regional variation.

The indications of the value to the cards were on the corners. Borders began to be used only halfway through the XIX century to allow the cards to be held in a fan shape with one hand while showing each and every card value (before this the cards would have had to be distributed and read from two hands). The next innovation was to make every card symmetrical along the two heads. In this fashion the player would not have to turn the cards right side up to be read.

The most beautiful example of playing cards still in existence is the Tarot of Visconti, probably made around the half of the XV century. Often made of a special type of cardboard, the cards measured about 90 cm by 180 cm (dimensions which don’t pair well to us, but probably were only luxury cards). The trumps and the figures were laid onto a gold background, which was even applied behind the illustrations. The coloured portions were painted in brilliant shades of crimson, azure, yellow, and black. Even more, some of the subjects depicted in the deck are true portraits of members of the Visconti and Sforza families. Seeing their high quality, indicates the cards were probably a gift to an important member of the family.

While we do not have a reliable source to the origin and significance of the word tarot, there are two principal routes that scholars follow to explain this name. Its roots are in Egyptian mythology and invoke a magical or esoteric origin for these cards (from the Egyptian tar, “road”, and ro, “royal”). Then there is the more rational theory, which is based on Arabic origins of western cards. In western languages the term tarot has two significances: a deck of 78 cards comprising 22 trumps and 56 suited cards (numbered from one to ten plus jack, horse, queen, and king); but also the name of a variety of Sicilian orange with a treasured scent and valuable bark. Sicily represented the geographical and cultural interface between Arab civilizations and African settlements with the Italian peninsula. A relationship between these two meanings apparently existed. The first Arab cards that appeared in medieval Europe through Sicily probably were coated in thin sheets of gold, finely applied with a relief much like that of an orange peel. The same technique was also used for the manufacture of others between the more ancient exemplary tarots of which there is knowledge, including the famous Tarot of Visconti. And still: the archaic verb “taroccare” indicated the technique with which the goldsmiths decorated the surfaces by covering them with a sheet of hammered gold; the verb “taraqa”, which means to hammer, gives a phonetic impression resembling the western roots, which could then be derived from the Arabic term connected with this ancient type of decorative technique.

The term tarot was perhaps born to distinguish the cards with the suits from the 22 cards with the figures. These were called trumps.

The term trump is perhaps tied to the seventh card, the Cart, which is a reminder of the celebration that awaited the arrival of victorious Roman generals at the eternal city.

In games that are practiced with the tarot, the 22 illustrated cards function like a trump card. In fortune telling practice these cards are instead referred to as the major occult.

The cards were often assigned a number. Though this detail was not present in primitive decks; the 22nd trump(the Madman) was usually privy to a number since it was used as a wild card and was always placed in the bottom of a series.

The 22 trumps evidently refer to the human condition. The first cards represent the diverse levels of power (emperor, pope), then through stages of life and human conditions (love, old age, death), virtue (justice, temperance) ancestral fears (the devil), and finally back up to the stars, the moon, the sun, terminating with the judicator and the end of the world. One interesting theory about the choice of subjects for the trumps is, according to the 22 figurative cards, they may have been an educative instrument in origin.

The source of most of these subjects are attributed to the works of medieval art such as; paintings, frescos, and miniature books. This renewed interest for to countless scholars and artists. The many rules of the game and the refined subjects on the cards had to require ample time for the realization of an ideal combination. In each case the games that are practiced today are still based on those rules coming from the XVII century.

The game of checkers, which we still play today, seems to have been practiced in a truly popular form only after the XV century. The first trace of the game is regarded to have come specifically from 1547 and probably can be traced from a transformation of the game of chess.

The game of chess seems to have origins from an Indian game called chaturanga, a word in Sanskrit which makes reference to the four elements of a procession: elephants, horses, carts, and infantry soldiers. The game arrived in the west via the Arabs during the crusades and immediately became a game in vogue with nobility. Towards the end of the 1200’s the Dominican monarch Jacopo de Cessolis wrote a treatise solely out of passion for the game in which was supplied rich spiritual teachings illustrated with similitudes traced from the game of chess. The pieces, and their movements, are described in the book as if they were people. The King must to be just. The Queen must be chaste in her costume. The Bishops must be good advisers. The Horsemen have to be wise and faithful. The Rooks are the vicars to the king, and have to be strong and solid. Each pawn is a part of the populace and represents a category of worker. The treatise did not contribute much to the diffusion of the game of chess. In the Renaissance chess also saw a golden period. No illustrious court of the time was without players in its protégé. Some of these illustrious aficionados included the Mantuan Marques Isabella d’Este, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Ludovicoil Moro (who often played over bets of incredible monies), and the pope Leone X.

Precious chessboards from the late 1400’s and the 1500’s are still preserved today in Milan.

The word chess is derived from shah, the piece which in the Arabian variant of the game gets its name, what we today call the king. The king is an indispensable figure mostly for the sake of strategy. It is not surprising that the term “check mate”, is the Anglicization of the Persian Arabic shah mat: dead king.

According to ancient tradition, the game could have been invented as an astute pedagogical method of philosophy to set straight the crudeness of Evilmerodach, son of Nebuchadnezzar, without running the risk of killing or harming him.

The game of chess that originated in India in the sixth century spread from there toward the orient, Persia, and toward the west. In the course of this long voyage the game underwent many modifications, some of them quite substantial. Invariably the pieces corresponding to the king, horses, and pawns remained. The Arabic ualfil (elephant) became a man, the bishop; the ruch (camel), translated in the Latin rochus was transformed into the rook; the fers (vizier) was the commander of the orient, and would change sexes becoming the fiers, which is the virgin, or the queen. A collection of pieces most intact and valued for beauty, in the treasure of Saint Denis, were known as the chessboard of Carlus Magnus (in reality they were from the end of the 1100’s). Here we still find the elephant in the place of the bishop. This was probably due to the influx of Arab models, given that these pieces were from southern Italy.

In medieval times the pieces did not have liberty of movement. Neither could they make attacks from a distance. This reflected the ways of battle during the Medieval and the Renaissance periods. Just as today, the game proceeds with short and methodical placements of the pieces.

The origins of this game are obscure, but it is known that the game was popular in France up until the sixteenth century.

The origin of the name is perhaps connected to Bilboa, the Spanish city where a game was practiced that had many similarities to this one. The name is of French origin and is derived from a combination of bille (balls), bois (wood), and boquet (launch point).

Bilboquet is played with a straight mallet. A barely concave extremity is on one end and a point is on the other. A cord is fastened to the middle of a stick, with a pierced ball on the cords’ opposite end. A player holds the stick in one hand and with an abrupt turn of the stick attempts to catch the ball on the pointed end.

Diffused throughout the world, the game piece could be made of wood, ivory, or plastic. It could also consist of a small cup into which the ball is caught. Eskimos constructed a version from animal bones and attributed a magic power to the game that would make the sun return after the winter.

Enrico III of France was famous for his bravado, and for 20 years there was nobody in his courts who didn’t carry their bilboquet for the purpose of racing with the sovereign. In that era, a club was founded in dedication to this game only.

This is an ancient game. According to documents recovered in Egyptian tombs and Chinese records; it has mythological origins. It is said that the game was invented under the walls of Troy. The oldest known game table dates from 1640. It is made of incised wood that seems to be of Venetian origin. At the centre there is a depiction of a family seated around a table containing atop it a roast goose. At the top of the page is written “Il dilettevole gioco di loca” (the enjoyable game of the goose). It is very probable that this is where the name of the game has come to be derived, but according to other scholars it could come from the tendency of the players to use the winnings to buy a goose. According to another interesting hypothesis, the birth of the graphical structure of the game could be derived from a country game, and the denomination “goose” could be suggested from the uncertain gait of a child skipping across tiles.

It is highly probably that this game was born in an Italian environment before 1580 and that Francesco di Medici had it sent to Philip II of Spain. By 1600 the more traditional structure with the empty compartments, fixed symbols, and geese were already in production alongside more refined variations of the game.

The principle piece is the game table, which forms a spiral that winds into the centre. Forming 63 compartments; each compartment has a number and a tiny image. In the ninth compartment is a picture of a goose, which recurs in every ninth compartment until the 63rd. The goose and the classical figures are often substituted with other images tied to diverse subjects such as current events, literature, geography, et cetera. In harmony with the spirit of the times, and with the aristocratic origin, there was a prevalence of game tables decorated with military themes, blazons, dynastic histories, and religious stories.

The spiral form of the labyrinth represents the human imagination’s archetype of the course of one life. Human existence is indeed metaphorically as a winding course slipping from moments of happiness to moments of pain (the prizes and the punishments), with rites of passage, dangers, transitory purposes, and finality. The roll of the dice essentially decides the direction in life.

This game represents the concept of good (the geese that double the points) and of evil (the adversity is the obstacles that make it difficult to traverse the course which grow in frequency near the centre).

Also called pallacorda or tenes, this game was introduced in Italy by French cavaliers chasing after Carlo di Calabria (1327). The game is practiced in an amply large environment where the players, separated by a taut cord, race to return a small ball using wood ladles that in time became rackets with crossing wires similar to those we use now. This game was the antecedent to modern tennis, definitively regulated in England in the XVIII century. The balls were filled with feathers and covered externally with “cardovano” (moroccan cured goat skin leather) tinted red to render high visibility. Such filling gave the ball a certain elasticity that would bounce upon contact with a hardened earth surface. The game entered Florence from France and spread to other regions. It was extremely well received in the courts and was practiced by the nobles and bourgeois citizens, who took it as a form of exercise apt for slimming down and staying in shape as well as to improve the reflexes. It was a game often recommended to children of wealthy families.

This game gets its name from an onomatopoeia that evokes the falling of the dice on the playing surface. From ancient origins, the game was already widely practiced by the renaissance and medieval times. Little tables for this game were even made of ivory and precious wood. The game was played by moving pieces similar to checkers following the arrows and according to the numbers on the dice.

Separate the Minor Occult (the cards with the seeds) from the Major (the Trumps) and choose one of the four suits according to the question. Keep in mind that the suites are as follows; Staff, which indicates work. Gold indicates business. Cups signify love. And Swords, which question legality.

After having formulated a clear question, mix up the cards and cut the deck with the left hand. Then lay out the first three cards on the table which indicate (in order) the past, the present, and the future.

Repeat the same operation with the Major Occult, and lay the first three next to the preceding cards. These will represent influences on the past, present, and future. Interpret the cards according to the following significances.

As we have seen, tarot cards were born in the same way as playing cards have been. Here we present one game, even if it is all but vanished today.

In the sequences of gold and cups, excluding the figures, the minor cards take the major cards. The inverse happens in the sequence of staffs and swords, in both these cases the figures take all the other cards. The king is always the highest card.

The triumphs serve as trump cards and can take any and all of the other cards, including figures. The major triumph takes the minor triumph, except the Judge which takes all. The Madman can be played at any moment, but does not take anything.

Three or four people can play, with slight differences in the rules. For three people there should be 25 cards dealt to each person and 28 to the dealer. 3 cards are discarded and left down (making sure they are neither the king nor triumphs). With four people the hands should be 19 cards. 21 cards go to the dealer, while 2 are discarded.

The player to the right of the dealer begins. It is obligatory to follow the suit lead with, and when not possible, the player can choose to play any of the triumphs. If the game begins with a triumph, each player must respond with a triumph.

At the end of a game played with three people, the dealer has to have at least 27 points, the others 26.

The astragal is a tarsal [of the foot] bone in the approximate form of a cube, convex on the top, which supports the tibia and the fibula.

Moroccan or “Marocchino”: goat skin leather cured with the sumac (a plant with a high content of tannin), produced originally in Morocco; a soft product usually having an intense red colour but able to be tinted in various colours; used for the packing of precious objects.