The Library's old book collections can sometimes surprise us. Now and again bookmarks, pressed flowers, small water colour paintings and engravings turn up, or the cover of a book can be fascinating in itself. An example of this is the book whose cover had been strengthened with uncut playing cards.

Playing cards, recto

Detail

Playing cards, verso

The book, the cover of which had been strengthened with an uncut sheets of playing cards, is called Consilia sive responsa juris, written by the French Professor of Law, Petrus Rebuffus, and printed in Venice in 1588 [Obr. 77:14 fol.]. It came to Sweden as war booty and was part of Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie's library.

The sheets were made with woodcuts and both measure 35 x 24.5 cm, which is the size of the book cover. Both sheets include the words [...] FORSTER KARTEN MAC[H]ER ZU WIEN and the same illustrations. One of them however has been cut at the bottom and the other at the top, which explains why the illustrations appear differently on the page. The backs are decorated with flowers in a checked pattern of diamonds. The reason the playing cards printed in Vienna landed up in a book printed in Venice is probably because they were there when the book was being bound. 

So far we have not found any other examples in the Uppsala University Library of book covers being strengthened with sheets of playing cards but it is not unusual for this kind of material to be used for bookbinding. Both of the sheets used in Rebuffus' work were removed from the book at some time during the 20th century and are now kept with foreign items of historical cultural interest.