Playing cards (carte da gioco) have been in Italy since the late 14th century. Until the mid 19th century, Italy was composed of many smaller independent states which led to the development of various regional patterns of playing cards; "Italian suited cards" normally only refer to cards originating from northeastern Italy around the former Republic of Venice, which are largely confined to northern Italy, parts of Switzerland, Dalmatia and southern Montenegro. Other parts of Italy traditionally use traditional local variants of Spanish suits, French suits or German suits. As Latin-suited cards, Italian and Spanish suited cards use swords (spade), cups (coppe), coins (denari), and clubs (bastoni). All Italian suited decks have three face cards per suit: the fante (Knave), cavallo (Knight), and re (King), unless it is a tarocchi deck in which case a donna or regina (Queen) is inserted between the cavallo and re. Popular games include Scopa, Briscola, Tressette, Bestia, and Sette e mezzo. History Playing cards arrived from Mamluk Egypt during the 1370s. Mamluk cards used suits of cups, coins, swords, and polo-sticks. As polo was an obscure sport, Italians changed them into batons. Italy was a collection of small states so each region developed its own variations. Southern Italy was under strong Spanish influence so their cards closely resemble the ones in Spain. Northern Italian suits used curved swords instead of straight ones and their clubs are ceremonial batons instead of cudgels. Swords and clubs also intersect unlike their Spanish counterparts. Tarot cards were invented during the early 15th century in northern Italy as a permanent suit of trumps (trionfi). Italian-suited cards are rarely found outside of Northern Italy. In the past, however, tarot cards based on those from Milan, the Tarot of Marseilles, spread to France and Switzerland in the 16th century and later to Austria and parts of Western Germany in the 18th century before being replaced by French-suited tarots during the 18th and 19th centuries. In a few places in Switzerland, the Italian-suited Swiss 1JJ Tarot is still used for games. The Venetian game of Trappola also spread northwards to Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Poland until dying out in the mid-20th century. The Greek word for playing card, "Τράπουλα", is a transliteration of Trappola. It may have entered into the Greek language from the Venetian-occupied Ionian Islands during the 16th century. In Corfu, Aspioti-ELKA produced Venetian pattern cards until the Greco-Italian War. 40-card stripped