[107] Father Tommaso Buoninsegni, in his 'Discorso del Giuoco,' p. 27, Florence, 1585, thus refers to the opinion of St. Bernardin and others on the subject of gaming. "Sono stati alcuni tanto scrupolosi e severi, i quali hanno detto, che non solo quegli che giuocano à restituire tenuti sono, ma di più li heredi, e quei che prestano dadi, tavole, carte, e chi vende, e compera baratterie e bische, ed inoltre li artefici, i quali fanno e vendono carte, e dadi, ed altri strumenti da giuocare; e di più li Ufficiali, Rettori, Magistrati e Signori, i quali potendo prohibire cotali giuochi, non li proibiscono."
In the notice of the life of St. Bernardin, in the Acta Sanctorum, cited by Peiguot, he is said to have required that cards [_naibes_], dice, and other instruments of gaming should be given up to the magistrates to be burnt. The anecdote of the card-painter is given in Bernini's Histoire des Hérésies, tom. iv, p. 157. Venise, 1784. Thiers, in his Traité des Jeux, pp. 159-161, gives an extract from a sermon of St. Bernardin against gaming: his reference to the works of St. Bernardin is "_Serm. 33, in Dominic._ 5, _Quadrag_. 1 _part. princ_." but he does not mention the edition.
It may here be observed that the opinion of Dr. Jeremy Taylor on this subject is opposed to that of St. Bernardin. See his discussion of the Question on Gaming: "Whether or no the making and providing such instruments which usually minister to it, is by interpretation such an aid to the sin as to involve us in the guilt?"
[108] Geschichte der Holzschneidekunst von den ältesten bis auf die neuesten Zeiten, nebst zwei Beilagen enthaltend den Ursprung der Spielkarten und ein Verzeichniss der sämmt xylographischen Werke, von Joseph Haller, s. 313. 8vo, Bamberg, 1823.
Having now shown at what period cards were certainly well known in Europe, and at what period card-making was a regular business in Italy and Germany, I shall proceed to lay before the reader a series of facts showing the prevalence of the game in various countries, both among great and little people.
From the repeated municipal regulations forbidding card-playing, to be found in the Burgher-books of several cities of Germany, between 1400 and 1450, it would seem that the game was extremely popular in that country in the earlier part of the fifteenth century; and that it continued to gain ground, notwithstanding the prohibitions of men in office. There are orders forbidding it in the council-books of Augsburg, dated 1400, 1403, and 1406; though in the latter year there is an exception which permits card-playing at the meeting-houses of the trades. It was forbidden at Nordlingen in 1426, 1436, and 1439; but in 1440 the magistrates, in their great wisdom, thought proper to relax in some degree the stringency of their orders by allowing the game to be played in public-houses. In the town-books of the same city there are entries, in the years 1456 and 1461, of money paid for cards at the magistrates' annual goose-feast or corporation dinner. In the books of the company of "Schuflikker"--cobblers--of Bamberg, there is a bye-law agreed to in 1491, which imposes a fine of half a pound of wax--not shoemakers', but bees' wax for the company's holy candle, to burn at the altar of the patron saint,--upon any brother who should throw the backgammon pieces, cards, or dice out of the window.[109] From this it may be concluded that the "Schuflikker" of Bamberg in 1491 were accustomed, like gamesters of a more recent period, to vent their rage, when losers, on the cards and dice.