Minchiate, also known as Germini, is a 500-year-old game played with a 97-card modified Tarot deck. The definitive resource for all things Minchiate/Germini is Accademici de’ Germini, an Italian organization whose dedicated founders are responsible for people around the world like this page’s author finding out about this excellent game and being able to learn how to play. Their website, linked above and below, renders nicely into English with Google Translate.
The Deck
Four suits of 14 cards each – The Cartiglie
These are the standard Latin suits: Denari (coins, gold), Cups, Bastoni (batons, clubs), and Swords (spade {spah-day}).
The cards in each suit are: 1-10, Fante (infantry-man/woman, Jack), Cavallo (knight), Queen, King.
Note that in Minchiate, the Cavallo is always depicted as a centaur-like creature.
40 trump or tarot cards
One card that falls into none of the other suits – The Fool (Il Matto)
The Game
For a comprehensive guide to the rules of the game Minchiate, please see
Accademici de’ Germini. My own poor attempt at a translation of their rules can be found below, along with a cheat sheet and scoring sheet, both created by this page’s author for convenience.
The Noble Game of the Florentine Minchiate PDF – English translation – history and rules of the game
Minchiate Scoring Google Spreadsheet – recommended for virtual games. Make a copy and share it with the players.
Resources
Accademici de’ Germini – In 2019 when there was very little information available on Minchiate, this was the source for all knowledge found on this site.
Card images come from The World Web Playing Card Museum. These particular images come from a 1986 reproduction deck by Il Meneghello recreating a deck from 1850.