Origine des Cartes a Jouer, Recherches Nouvelles sur les Naïbis, les Tarots et sur les Autres Espèces de Cartes 

A Rare Large Paper Copy, half title, 73 plates (complete with no plate 58 as always due to misnumbering error), 23 double page, 1 folding and 4 illuminated chromolithograph plates (2 double page) which are exclusive to this Large Paper edition, occasional minor offsetting, original printed blue wrappers bound in, untrimmed, early 20th century green half morocco over marbled boards, slightly rubbed, 4to, Paris, chez l’auteur, [1869]

Scarce as a Large Paper edition, but also as complete with the colour and gilt plates 8 and 9, and 60 and 61 missing from most other copies.

In 1869, bookseller and Bibliophile, Romain Merlin (1793-1876) brought together a collection of nearly 170 card games in this, his major work. There are over 600 representations of playing cards across the 73 plates, with the final six dedicated to ‘cartes orientales’, i.e. Persian and Indian cards.

Merlin was also the first to give descriptive titles to all the Minchiate cards. Minchiate is an early sixteenth century card game that is closely related to tarot, and like tarot it also originates from Florence, Italy.

In 1871 Merlin donated his collection to the Cabinet des Estampes, this was the first time a collection composed exclusively of playing cards was bequeathed to a public institution. Merlin invented the titles “Grand Duke”, “Western Emperor” and “Eastern Emperor”. In all previous sources about Minchiate, these cards are just Papa II, Papa III, and Papa IIII.