Trionfi (cards) which offers details about the deck and a cursory explanation of how it is played. It likely had a total of 60 cards (four kings, forty pip cards and sixteen trumps). The forty-four plain-suited cards used birds as suit signs and the trumps presented sixteen Roman gods. In two suits, the pip cards are in reverse order as in many of the oldest card games. Two decks from June 1457 seem to relate to a visit at Ferrara of the young Milanese heir of the dukedom Galeazzo Maria Sforza in July/August 1457. Each deck consisted of 70 cards — the
A Gamut of Games Abbott expanded his game Crossings, published here, into the more-refined title Epaminondas. Many of the games covered in the book were creations of Sid Sackson himself, who was a prolific game designer. The sections of the book and the games covered therein are as follows: "All of the games in this section use a standard pack of cards." "All of the games in this section use a checkerboard." "All of the games in this section are meant to be played with pencil and paper." A second edition of the book was published in 1982; Dover Publications released an unabridged reprint,