Scopone scientifico
Like the other famous italian card game Tresette, it's an ancient card game, that was already known in all of Italy (and in Swiss, too) already in the latter 18th century.
There's an ancient manuscript &ndsh; dated 1750 and attributed to the Dominican friar Chitarrella – that apart from listing the Scopone rules testify to its propagation among the low people. This fact bring some people to theorize that the italian card game Scopone Scientifico, and its litle brother Scopa, has ancient origins for sure, as it must have taken quite a lot oftime for such a complex card game to be widely spread from the noble, hig-class to the common people.
The name of the italian card games "Scopone" and "Scopa" (even online), stems from the fact that when aplayer win the trick and collect the cards on the table, it seems just like sweeping the floor with a broom (broom is English for the Italian "Scopa").
The difference between Scopa and Scopone scientifico online (and not) is that the first is played with three card in hand (when you play the last of the cards, three new cards are dealt), while Scopone is played with 9 or 10 cards ("Scopone" means something like Big broom). Obviously, when comapred to Scopa, the italian card game Scopone online is more difficult and requires the players to hav very good memory and concentration (more than, say, Buraco or Kalooki 40), especially in the 10 cards variant of the game, which is therefore called "Scopone scientifico" (that means that its complexity elevates it from the rank of a mere card game to the rank of science).
Their ancient origins notwhitstanding, today Scopone scientifico and Scopa are stll largely played in Italy and in other countries like Swiss or other countries in South America (where Italians exported the game in the first decades of XX century), and are gaining a new diffusion thanks to the new technologies: Scopa and Scopone scientifico online are played by a large number of users, which appreciate the strategy hidden behind every card played.