- The Knights of Malta, a religious military order, were prohibited from card playing and gambling. Gambling, however, was still widespread during the period of the knights (1530–1798) despite severe penalties. It may be that some of the Vittoriosa cards, and others, were made illegally for, or even by, knights in the eighteenth century when printing had been suppressed
- Denning , T. 1996 . The Playing-Cards of Spain 27 – 33 . London : Cygnus Arts . 34–46
- Beal , G. 1975 . Playing-Cards and their Story 25 London : David & Charles .
- Osborne , H. , ed. 1999 . The Oxford Companion to Art 326 Oxford : Clarendon Press .
- Denning 32
- Denning , T. 1988 . “ '16th century card-backs in Seville’ ” . In The Journal of the International Playing Card Society 14.4 – 108 . 103
- 1979 . The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary London : Book Club . Or friction printed. Frotton printing is defined as a method of taking an impression from type (or a block) by rubbing the verso of a leaf laid on it
- 2001 . Personal communication with T. Denning, 22 Mar
- 1987 . see: J.M. Hermans ‘Playing cards, their historical production and conservation’ . The Conservator , 11 : 51 – 56 . On the conservation of playing cards,. We are grateful to Marcel Ciantar for supplying us with a copy of the article
- A similar watermark with the same initials PF together with the eight-pointed Maltese cross is shown on Gravell Watermarks Database at: <http://www.ada.cath.vt.edu:591/dbs/gravell/img/initials/init.078.1.ipg>
- Grima , J. F. 1991 . Printing and Censorship in Malta 1642–1839 15 – 24 . Malta : Valletta Publishing .
- A pack of 48 cards consists of nine numeral cards plus the jack, dame and king for each suit
- On one card there was what is probably a tax stamp with the coat of arms of Grand Master De Rohan which could be interpreted as his seal of approval. The cards are for this reason known as the De Rohan pack
The Paper Conservator
Volume 27, 2003 - Issue 1