variantventures
There are at least two examples of Italian playing cards that have been recovered in Egypt. One is the card in the collection of the Benaki Museum in Athens. This card matches a 15th-16th Century sheet in the collection of the Museum of Fine Art in Budapest. The other is what appears to be (to me) a 16th Century card in the private collection of Richard Ettinghausen.
Ettinghausen speculates that the availability of mass-produced Italian cards killed off the local manufacture of playing cards. This suggests the existence of a trade in playing cards and there might be some evidence of this to be found. Franco Pratesi has done some excellent work tracking accounts of the internal trade in playing cards. You can see several articles on his Trionfi site and they're important to my eventual point.
I checked around for records of Italian trade to the Mamluks and found that Venice was the primary trading partner in goods other than slaves. This appears to be in accord with the playing card from the Benaki connection. Their are some records of trade between Venice and the Mamluks. A good summary can be found here: http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/MSR_VIII-2_2004-Arbel.pdf
There are several mentions of carta or carte within the cargo lists and lists of items being exported to the Mamluks. I believe, however, that these are references to paper rather than to playing cards. The internal documents investigated by Franco Pratesi make use of the term naibbes or trionfi (or one of the many variants). Further, the cargo lists track the items in units of bales rather than counting individual decks as the internal trade documents. Carta da scrivere (writing paper), again tracked in bales, appears in cargo lists. The lists of items being imported into Mamluk ports almost always include a listing for carta but do not include listings for different types of carta or for playing cards using Italian (or Arabic) terms. Given that the paper trade between Italy and the Middle East/North Africa is well established it seems logical to conclude that bulk paper, not playing cards are being referred to.
Given the position occupied by games of chance in the Mamluk Sultanate it's possible such trade was conducted beneath the table in order to avoid the scrutiny of authorities. If playing cards were not outright banned, and the evidence seems to indicate that they were not banned at least some of the time, then such trade would not be illegal, just discreet. The presence of paper and not cards on Italian cargo lists, which would not come to the attention of Mamluk authorities, suggests that cards were not being traded in any significant quantities. This further suggests the Italian cards so far recovered in Egypt were likely taken to Egypt by Italians for their own personal use.
Of course, I'm extrapolating quite a bit from a very small data set. Someone could open an Italian accounts book tomorrow and find records of significant trade. Too, my data set is confined to one side of the trade. I have been unable to find Mamluk records detailing the trade between the Sultanate and Italy.
Ettinghausen speculates that the availability of mass-produced Italian cards killed off the local manufacture of playing cards. This suggests the existence of a trade in playing cards and there might be some evidence of this to be found. Franco Pratesi has done some excellent work tracking accounts of the internal trade in playing cards. You can see several articles on his Trionfi site and they're important to my eventual point.
I checked around for records of Italian trade to the Mamluks and found that Venice was the primary trading partner in goods other than slaves. This appears to be in accord with the playing card from the Benaki connection. Their are some records of trade between Venice and the Mamluks. A good summary can be found here: http://mamluk.uchicago.edu/MSR_VIII-2_2004-Arbel.pdf
There are several mentions of carta or carte within the cargo lists and lists of items being exported to the Mamluks. I believe, however, that these are references to paper rather than to playing cards. The internal documents investigated by Franco Pratesi make use of the term naibbes or trionfi (or one of the many variants). Further, the cargo lists track the items in units of bales rather than counting individual decks as the internal trade documents. Carta da scrivere (writing paper), again tracked in bales, appears in cargo lists. The lists of items being imported into Mamluk ports almost always include a listing for carta but do not include listings for different types of carta or for playing cards using Italian (or Arabic) terms. Given that the paper trade between Italy and the Middle East/North Africa is well established it seems logical to conclude that bulk paper, not playing cards are being referred to.
Given the position occupied by games of chance in the Mamluk Sultanate it's possible such trade was conducted beneath the table in order to avoid the scrutiny of authorities. If playing cards were not outright banned, and the evidence seems to indicate that they were not banned at least some of the time, then such trade would not be illegal, just discreet. The presence of paper and not cards on Italian cargo lists, which would not come to the attention of Mamluk authorities, suggests that cards were not being traded in any significant quantities. This further suggests the Italian cards so far recovered in Egypt were likely taken to Egypt by Italians for their own personal use.
Of course, I'm extrapolating quite a bit from a very small data set. Someone could open an Italian accounts book tomorrow and find records of significant trade. Too, my data set is confined to one side of the trade. I have been unable to find Mamluk records detailing the trade between the Sultanate and Italy.