Playing cards in the Spanish-suits cards: Portuguese Dragon cards

Case : 068. 

Portugal was called, long before the Romans, Terra de Ofiusa, "Land of the Serpent.". A special group of early Iberian playing cards, with dragons on the Aces, are known as Dragon cards and early examples made in Spain by Francisco Flores survive. These were made using a method which was also used in Italy and the shape and arrangement of the suit symbols is more aligned to Italian rather than Spanish ones. Portugal has also influenced the playing cards in many parts of the world and the so-called dragon cards reached as far as Japan, Java, Indonesia and Brazil. The extinct Portuguese deck featured straight swords and knobbly clubs like the Spanish suits but intersected them like the northern Italian suits. The aces feature sea dragons holding the suit symbol; the courts are a seated king, a horse-man and a female page. Cards of this type spread to many parts of the world: examples have been made in, or associated with Italy, Sicily, Portugal, Malta, Spain, Belgium, Brazil, Japan, India and Indonesia.