Baraja (playing cards)

The Cartas ("cards"), also known as Baraja Española ("Spanish "), are the playing cards associated with Spain. They have four suits and a deck is usually made up of 40 or 48 cards.

It is categorized as a Latin deck and has strong similarities with the Italian deck and less to the French deck. Spanish-suited cards are used in Spain, southern Italy, parts of France, Hispanic America, North Africa, and the Philippines.

Playing cards, originally of Chinese origin, were adopted in Mamluk Egypt by the 14th century if not earlier, and from there spread to the Iberian peninsula in the latter half of the 14th century. The Spanish word naipes is loaned from nā'ib, ranks of face cards found in the Mamluk deck. The earliest record of naip comes from a Catalan rhyming dictionary by Jaume March II in 1371. "Moorish-styled" cards were once produced in Catalonia during the late 14th or early 15th century. Unlike modern Spanish decks, there was a rank consisting of 10 pips suggesting that the earliest Spanish packs consisted of 52 cards. The removal of one rank shortened the deck to 48 which made card production simpler: a whole deck could be made with just two uncut sheets.

The suits closely resemble those of northern Italian cards and Italian tarot decks. In fact, the Baraja, like the tarot, are used for both game playing and cartomancy. The Baraja have been widely considered to be part of the occult in many Latin American countries, yet they continue to be used widely for card games and gambling, especially in Spain. Among other places, the Baraja have appeared in One Hundred Years of Solitude and other Spanish and Latin American literature (e.g., Viaje a la Alcarria by Camilo José Cela).

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