Wednesday 21 September 2016

A Bit of an Old Card

We were at the Château de Langeais (more about that later) and I discovered something that is quite interesting: the face cards in a pack of French playing cards (and therefore British and US cards too) are based on historical characters.

Caesar as the King of Diamonds.


Who knew? This is one of a set of seven tapestries hanging in Langeais. They were created in 1530 as a set "The Nine Worthies" for the chateau at Chauray (nope, me neither). The others will follow in due course.

2 comments:

Le Pré de la Forge said...

Take your word for it that it IS Caesar!!
Duzzent look Roman to me!!

The Beaver said...

At first glance, I thought it was a tapestry wrt François 1er and Suleyman the Magnificent but then I saw the Wiki reference you had highlighted.

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