Trappola is an early 16th-century Venetian trick-taking card game which spread to most parts of Central Europe and survived, in various forms and under various names like Trapulka, Bulka and Hundertspiel until perhaps the middle of the 20th century.
The original Venetian version described by Girolamo Cardano was for only two players and played without trumps or bidding. It is also the earliest known trick-taking game where the ace has been promoted above the king and played with a stripped deck.
Trappola is likely to be the first card game encountered by Greeks as the Greek word for a deck of playing cards is "Τράπουλα", a transliteration of Trappola. It may have entered Greek from the Venetian-occupied Ionian Islands during the 16th century. In Corfu, Aspioti-ELKA produced Venetian pattern cards until 1940. Trappola card production ceased in 1944, the last packs being produced in Prague. In 1988, Piatnik restarted production of a 36-card pack using a design of Trappola cards made in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1875. A genuine Trappola game, perhaps the only known survivor of the Trappola group is the game Stovkahra, also known as Brčko, played by the Czechs of Romania in the village of Șumița, situated in the Banat region of Romania.
Trappola in a 17th-century painting by Almanach
The book on games of chance (Liber de ludo aleae)
by Cardano, Girolamo, 1501-1576