Cuccù

Cuccù, also spelled Cucù and meaning cuckoo, is an Italian card game more than three hundred years old that anywhere from two to twenty people can play with a special forty card pack. It is a comparing game with a single winner, and it is unusual because each player receives only one card. The game descends from the French game Mécontent, also called Hère and later Coucou, whose first references date to the early sixteenth century. It reached Italy, where the earliest mention of Malcontento dates to 1547, and dedicated Cuccù packs of 38 cards appeared in the early eighteenth century, with numeral cards from 0 to X, picture cards and an unranked Fool. The oldest known rules, published by the Al Mondo company and included in a Bologna pack made by Giulio Borzaghi, date to 1717. Sailors and mercenaries carried the game abroad, where it became Hexenspiel and Vogelspiel in Germany and Austria, Gnav in Denmark-Norway, Slabberjan in the Netherlands and Cambio and Kille in Sweden. Today Masenghini is the only maker of Cuccù cards.