Scarce Italian playing card depicting the rivers of South Europe

A playing card representing the rivers that discharge into the Mediterranean Sea, with Neptune and six allegorical figures of rivers: the Rhône, Tiber, Ebro, Arno, Danube and Po. This was one of 78 cards in a geographical game played following the same rules as tarocchi (tarot). It was the first of the 21 map trump cards ('The Magician' in a tarot pack). In this version the suits were North, South, Central and Islands, each with ten letterpress descriptions of counties in those regions and four court cards with a woodcut armorial and a letterpress text. The woodcut pattern on the back of the card is a red flower design with the address 'Alla Colomba' (At the Dove). This was the address of Tipografia de' Franceschi in Bologna from the 1790s until at least 1860.