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The four suits, the court cards, the ace, the joker and the corner index. Almost everything popularly said about where the suits came from is invented — the four classes of medieval society, the seasons, the weeks of the year — and the documented answer is narrower and more interesting: the French suits are a printing economy of about 1480, four flat silhouettes in two colours that could be stencilled where the German and Italian suits they replaced had to be engraved. The names and the shapes descend from different traditions, which is why a spade is a leaf and a club is an acorn. The corner index is the most consequential design change in the deck's history and the least noticed: it is why a hand can be fanned in one hand.
The four marks that divide a deck, and where they actually came from.
A pointed black leaf on a short stem, ranking highest in most games.
A red rounded form, the one suit that survived every regional redesign.
A red lozenge standing on one point.
A black cloverleaf on a stem — three lobes, not a weapon.
King, queen and jack — and why the jack is marked J rather than Kn.
The single large suit mark, ranking either lowest or highest.
The extra card, and an American invention rather than a medieval one.
The rank and suit repeated small in two corners, so a fanned hand can be read.
A lattice of small repeating curves and circles whose real job is to give nothing away.
A number and a suit — the level, and what would be trumps.
The twenty-two trump cards of the tarot pack, designed for a trick-taking game.