The title is 'Instruzione Sul Giuoco Del Piccolo denominato Gile Alla Grega ossia Trionfetti della Greca Nazione' It seems to have been edited by and printed under a pseudonym of D.R. Dalmata.
It took some while to translate this document because the text is written in a rather decorative and antiquated form of literary Venetian Italian with unexpected and inconsistent spellings and contractions, and the pamphlet had also been typeset and proof-read in an erratic and highly error prone way. The printer had frequently confounded both the letters 'b' and 'h', and the letters 'm' and 'n'; and towards the end of the text had taken to adding an entirely spurious lettter 'n' into a number of polysyllabic words where it didn't belong. A significant portion of the pamphlet is devoted to a lengthy and uninformative discussion of of laws and points of etiquette in the game.
Historical Precis
The author says that the game was of Levantine origin by which he means that it came from countries on the Eastern side of the Mediterranean sea, away from Italy. He says it came to Italy in the final days of the Venetian Republic shortly before its collapse around 1796. According to the author the game was orginally called Mikro which is the Greek equivalent of the Italian word Piccolo meaning 'small' which is one of the names given to it in Italy. The author says the game was first discovered by Venetian soldiers and sailors who were stationed on the Ionian islands when the Venetian Republic controlled that part of the eastern Mediterranean, and had extensive garrisons on the islands (between 1238 and 1797). He says the game was especially popular in the Venetian colony of Dalmatia (on the coast of modern Croatia) and that the form of the game popular in Venice most likely came from there. The association with the game of Trionfetti seems to be largely a figure of speech, the author was trying to say that the game had been as popular in the Ionian Greek islands as Trionfetti once was in Italy.
Precis of Playing Rules
Pack - The 52 card Italian suited Trevigiane pack of Venice - King (re), Cavalier (cavallo), Knave (fante),10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,A (asso)
Players - Four in two partnerships - (A two handed variant also exists)
Preliminaries
Six cards are dealt face down on the table.The players draw and turn up one at a time. The first two players to draw cards of the same suit become partners. against the other two.
Alternative method - deal one card face up to each player and keep dealing until two players hold a pair of an agreed card. These two become partners against the other two.
If five players wish to play then one must be eliminated by a double draw for partners. If six players are at the table then two must be eliminated by a double draw, but these two form a partnership in a reserve team that replaces whichever pair of players lose the game. The reserve pair are know as battifondo (the shoals)
Scoring
The game is played for points that may be recorded with pencil and paper, chalk marks on a table, or by counters. (or coffee grounds ! )
The game is normally played to 77 points up, but is sometimes limited to 41 or 51 points.
Deal
The players cut for deal, King high, Ace low.The dealer deals three cards face down to each player and turns up one more on top of the stock.
Piccolo
The first round of competition is for the best pair of matching cards of the same rank known as as gile or piccolo. King is highest card, Ace is lowest.
A player makes a claim for best pair by saying 'piccolo'
A rival may contest by saying 'un altro' (another) or pass by saying 'Buono' (good) or 'Buono il suo piccolo' (good it is your piccolo)
If there is a contest, the first player must now bet a certain number of points of his chosing as a vada e.g. 'dieci vada' (I go for ten points)
If the other player wishes to challenge (accuso), then they must concede a gain of 10 points to the opponents if they cannot beat their pair.
If two equal pairs are shown, then the elder hand wins.
Gilon
A Gilon is a pair-royal, three cards of the same rank. Rather oddly it has no special status in Gile Alla Greca. The pamphlet advises a player to bet a gilon of aces as a piccolo or pair because if you bet it as a punto it will be worth only 11 points, the value of a single ace.
Punto
The next competiiton is for the best flush point up to a limit of 21 points
Ace counts 11 points
Court Cards and Twos count 10 points
All other cards count their pip value
The punto cannot exceed 21 points made up of cards of the same colour and suit.
The compettion for punto is done exactly like that for the piccolo.
If two players wish to compete then one wagers a vada of so many points, and if the other challenges, they show down.
Baratto (Barter)
At either the piccolo or the punto a player may offer a baratto (barter) for a specified number of points by placing their cards face down on the table
This means they are offering a wager to win the bet after exchanging their three cards with those of their opponent.
If the opponent accepts, the two players exchange hands face down on the table then expose to see who has won.
Resto
At any point a player may make a bet for the rest of the points needed to win the game by saying either:
resto della partita vada ad accusar (the rest of the game goes on a challenge)
resto della partita vada a baratto (the rest of the game goes on a barter)
e.g if they are on 60 pts in a 77 pt target game, then the wager is for the balance of 17 pts needed to close out the game.
The first statement is a simple showdown challenge.
The second is the offer of a barter and a showdown after a mutual exchange of cards with the opposing player.
Keeping cards
when each round is completed, the players keep the cards of their previous hand together face up on the table (like open tricks), and three more cards are dealt face down to each player for the next round of betting. As the deal progresses, more and more cards from previous hands will be in view, and it will become easier to calculate which cards are left undealt in stock.
Inspecting the Stock
Players are not allowed to touch or inspect the undealt stock until the fourth and final round of betting when only four undealt cards will be left in stock. At this point players may by agreement turn the last four cards over for all to see.
Passemo
If all players agree to do so, then a round can be passed out immediately after the deal.
One player says passemo (let us pass ?) or andemo a monte (shall we go to the stock?)
If the others agree, all cards are returned to stock, then shuffled, and a new deal is made.
Footnotes
The two-handed variant is almost identical, except that the final four cards are dealt and played out as a hand of just two cards apiece.
The game is effectively one where all the counters start in a central pool, and a team draws the appropriate number of counters won by each succesful wager at each turn into a side pool of their own, until the specified target number is reached.
Turning the top card of the stock at each deal seems to have no other purpose other than to expose a card to view. Players are not allowed to peek at the bottom card of the stock. A recut or a reshuffle can be asked for if peeking is suspected.
The pedantic attention to correct pronunciation of technical terms in the game found in the pamphlet reflects the differences between the distinctive Venetian dialect which was a lingua franca throughout the Venetian Stato da Mar for many centuries, and the Tuscan dialect of Dante which became the standard form of mainland Italian. The game evolved in the Greek speaking part of the Venetian sea-borne empire where Veneto was the administrative colonial language, and traveled across the Adriatic from the Venetian colony in Dalmatia where a variety of other Romance languages were also in use.
* http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vCdXAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false
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