The XVI Century card game was part of a series of educational games covering the XVI, XVII, XVIII & XIX centuries published by Jaques during the 1870s. This set contains portraits of 50 celebrated characters of the 16th century – composers, statesmen, poets, monarchs, explorers, artists, soldiers, novelists, engineers and geniuses from around the world, along with short biographies and historical events. The cards with biographies are scattered on the table, face down, while the other cards with pictures are dealt out to each player. The starting player picks a biography card at random and reads aloud the information it contains and others must match their pictorial card to the information. Once matched a player sets the two cards aside as a trick and the game continues. When a player has paired all of his cards then they are the winner of the game. An incorrect claim means the player forfeits counters to the pool. Given that there are 50 characters then either a level of extreme general knowledge was required or the ability to memorise information about the personalities was necessary. In this version of the game there is also no corresponding number on the cards so knowledge alone must inform the choices of the players. As this was one of a series of games, players would be happy to have a new century published to expand their knowledge and raise the stakes of the game. This game is complete with 100 cards.