Tarot cards are a set of cards used in tarot games and fortune-telling. They were invented in Italy in the 1430s by adding to the existing four decks. The French game of triomphe and its English equivalent, triumph or trump, was played in ancient China around the 9th century. The first known card game was called “sheet-dice” and later spread to Europe.
The origin of tarot cards is uncertain, with some placing it in ancient Egypt and others in Kabbalistic traditions. The first known tarot-like cards were created in Italy and used to play a game called tarocchi, similar to bridge. Jean-Baptiste Alliette, a French occultist, created the first deck of tarot cards in 1791, treating its designs with the symbolism of divinity.
Tarot cards gradually transformed into a tool for divination, spiritual exploration, and self-reflection. The first known tarot decks were produced in Italy during the early Renaissance, and they were used primarily for playing card games. These early decks had only 16 trump cards, along with the standard four.
Tarot cards were invented in northern Italy around 1420 for the purpose of playing cards, leading to the first of two great innovations in trick-taking. The first deck of cards with an extra trump suit was commissioned by Duke Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan no later than 1425. The earliest tarot cards come from mid-15th-century Italy, but at the time were called cartes de trionfi, or “cards with triumphs”.
📹 The Little Known History of Tarot
Throughout its history, tarot has has been associated with various ancient mystery schools and esoteric ideologies. However …
Do tarot cards predict the future?
Tarot can help make big decisions, but it cannot predict the future. Michelle Tea suggests beginners start with a three-card reading from the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck. Growing up, her family often relied on tarot for tough decisions, such as discussing a brother’s breakup or deciding whether to drop out of school. The deck’s iconic Rider-Waite-Smith cards can be used to guide readers through these situations.
What was the original tarot game?
Tarot cards, originally known as tarocchi, were first introduced in northern Italy in the mid-15th century. They were used to play card games such as Tarocchini and later expanded to include German Grosstarok and modern games like French Tarot and Austrian Königrufen. In the late 18th century, French occultists made claims about their history and meaning, leading to the emergence of custom decks for divination via tarot card reading and cartomancy.
Tarot has four suits that vary by region: French suits are used in western, central, and eastern Europe, and Latin suits in southern Europe. Each suit has 14 cards, including ten pip cards and four face cards. The tarot also has a separate 21-card trump suit and a single card known as the Fool. The Fool may act as the top trump or be played to avoid following suit.
The use of tarot playing cards was once widespread across Europe except the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula. However, they experienced a renaissance in some countries and regions, such as France, where French Tarot became the second most popular card game in France in 1973. Tarock games like Königrufen have experienced significant growth in Austria, where international tournaments are held with other nations, especially those from eastern Europe.
Denmark is the only Scandinavian country that still plays tarot games, with Danish Tarok being a derivative of historical German Grosstarock. The game of Cego has grown in popularity again in the south German region of Baden. Italy continues to play regionally popular games with their distinctive Tarot packs, such as Ottocento in Bologna and Sicilian Tarocchi in parts of Sicily. Troccas and Troggu are still played locally in parts of Switzerland.
Is tarot ok for Christians?
The notion that tarot cards can exert control over one’s life is a pervasive one, yet there is a paucity of empirical evidence to substantiate this claim.
Is tarot card reading true?
Early French occultists claimed that tarot cards had esoteric links to ancient Egypt, the Kabbalah, Indic Tantra, or the I Ching. However, scholarly research reveals that tarot cards were invented in Italy in the early 15th century for playing games, and there is no evidence of significant use of them for divination until the late 18th century. The belief in the divinatory meaning of the cards is closely associated with a belief in their occult properties, which was propagated by prominent Protestant Christian clerics and Freemasons.
From its uptake as an instrument of divination in 18th-century France, the tarot went on to be used in hermeneutic, magical, mystical, semiotic, and psychological practices. It was used by Romani people when telling fortunes and as a Jungian psychological apparatus for tapping into “absolute knowledge in the unconscious”, a tool for archetypal analysis, and even a tool for facilitating the Jungian process of individuation.
Who invented card games?
The earliest known examples of playing cards were created in China prior to 1000 A. D. and subsequently introduced to Europe around 1360. This was not a direct transmission from China to Europe, but rather via the Mamluk Empire in Egypt.
Who first read tarot cards?
Tarot card reading is a form of cartomancy where practitioners use tarot cards to gain insight into the past, present, or future. The first to assign divinatory meanings to tarot cards was cartomancer Jean-Baptiste Alliette (also known as Etteilla) in 1783. A traditional tarot deck consists of 78 cards, divided into the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana. French-suited playing cards can also be used. The first written references to tarot packs occurred between 1440 and 1450 in northern Italy, where additional cards with allegorical illustrations were added to the common four-suit pack.
These new packs were called carte da trionfi, triumph packs, and the additional cards known simply as trionfi, which became “trumps” in English. One of the earliest references to tarot triumphs is given c. 1450–1470 by a Dominican preacher in a sermon against dice, playing cards, and ‘triumphs’. References to the tarot as a social plague or exempt from bans that affected other games continue throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, but there are no indications that the cards were used for anything but games.
When was the tarot invented?
Tarot decks were invented in Italy in the 1430s, adding a fifth suit of 21 specially illustrated cards called trionfi (“triumphs”) and an odd card called il matto (“the fool”). These cards bore Italian suitmarks and belonged to an experimental period of card design when queens were often added to the series of court cards previously consisting of only a king and two male figures. In standard cards, the four figures were subsequently reduced to three again by suppressing the queen, except in French cards, which suppressed the cavalier (knight).
The trionfi each bore a different allegorical illustration instead of a common suitmark, possibly representing characters in medieval reenactments of Roman triumphal processions. They were originally unnumbered, so it was necessary to remember their order. When added to the pack, trionfi functioned as a suit superior in power to the other four, acting as a suit of triumphs or “trumps”.
Where did playing cards originate?
It is believed that China invented playing cards prior to 1000 AD, with evidence indicating that they reached Europe around 1360. The suit marks, which originated in the Mamluk Empire of Egypt, exemplify the intricate interrelationship between words, shapes, and concepts.
What is the oldest card game?
Karniffel, a descendant of the original Karnöffel, is the oldest European card game with a continuous tradition of play. It is one of only two variants known to use German-suited cards, the other being the Austro-Bavarian game of Watten. The rules of Karniffel are recorded earlier than any other members of the family, and it was popular in German-speaking central Europe from around 1425. The earliest detailed description of a set of rules comes from an article in the periodical, Teutsche Merkur, dated 1783.
Karniffel was a derivative of 15th-century Karnöffel that became popular in Thuringia and featured a highly unusual hierarchy and cards with special properties. It also used a 36-card pack and had two chosen suits. Each side had a “director” who instructed his partner on the cards to play. Relatives of Karniffel that are still played today include Swedish Bräus, German Knüffeln, and Faroese Stýrivolt.
What came first, playing cards or tarot?
In 1938, George Coffin wrote an article in Games Digest titled “Taro: Ancestor of Whist”, explaining the struggle he faced while researching divination cards, which were originally used for games. He found someone from Italy to talk to and learned not only about il tarocchi cards still used for games but how to play a game with them that was not too different from Whist.
Playing cards have four suits: Spades, Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, each made up of numbers 1 (ace) to 10, then the “Court” cards of the Jack, Queen, and King. Tarot cards in the Minor Arcana also have their four suits with ace to ten as well, then the Page, the Cavalier, the Queen, and the King. S. R. Kaplan in Tarot Cards for Fun and Fortune Telling states that the ordinary pack of playing cards is a direct descendent from the fourteenth century tarot deck.
The exact origin of tarot cards is often debated, but there is plenty of written evidence dating the use of tarot cards from well before the 15th century. Historians generally refer to the 1440s and the Italian cities of Venice, Milan, Florence, and Urbino when providing a starting point. The Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards, believed to be the earliest surviving tarot cards, date back around 1442 and are believed to be the strongest historical analytical evidence.
The original game, now usually referred to as ill tarocchi, involved bidding, melding of points, and taking of tricks. Although tarot games have varied through the centuries and are still played in some parts of Europe, the rules always vary depending on who is playing.
What religion do tarot cards come from?
This literature review examines the relationship between Tarot cards and New Age religion, emphasizing their function in the contemporary study of the New Age movement.
📹 History of TAROT.From Game to Divination
Tarot #history #divination Academic overview of the origin of the Tarot, from the Arabic origin and first emergence in Italy in the …
Thanks for another nicely done informative article, Angela. Btw, I’ve read that Pamela Colman Smith did draw the major arcana from the descriptions of Arthur Edward Waite and the minor arcana was almost entirely of her doing (she only used three images found in the older decks or something like that). And it’s kinda sad that her name wasn’t even included for quite some time when they started selling the deck.
A wonderful presentation covering the main points, given that the Tarot has a complex history. I was hoping that the Sola-Busca may also have been mentioned, given that it is one of the earliest historical decks, but perhaps this will be covered in one of your future presentations. Great summary, thank you.
Are Tarot used for divination in Italian Signatura? Because what I understood, it had other purpose in Italy. For esoteric use it started abroad. I was using deck of the golden dawn. Their cards are really speaking to my conciousnes, but what was strange, I was not able to use it for myself, only for others, preferably strangers. Didn’t heard about tree of Life connection. Will read on. Best regards and thanks for interesting input. Keep on your opus magnum! 🙂
Hi, I appreciate that you can only convey so much in a short format article essay, and I don’t want to discourage you at all from continuing to produce content (exactly the opposite in fact). However, I’ve watched a couple of your articles now (the others being the ones about the Leviathan and Sufism), and I just feel like there’s nothing in any of them that I couldn’t have gotten from scanning a wikipedia article. I know why your articles were recommended to me by the Algorithm, since you’ve mentioned websites whose articles I’ve also watched (Let’s Talk Religion and Esoterica) but I feel like your articles generally end right when theirs would be getting into the meat of a subject, when they would start presenting some original scholarship and/or synthesis. Have you considered longer form articles, or perhaps two part articles (e.g. “intro to” for part 1, and a “deeper dive” for part 2)? You’re tackling subjects that I really want to learn more about, and your presentation and delivery are awesome. And, yes, I know, I’m getting it for free so I’m really in no place to ask for anything else. Just some feedback for you to consider. Thanks.
Awesome research content. Always a thumbs up ! The Tarot would seem like a natural progression from a set of runes. If not for Waite, symbolism would still be chaotic and individualistic of the cards. While not a bad thing, its much easier to grasp at intuition with an underlying connotation. Thanks for that 🙂
The Rider-Waite deck has its place in history for sure, but I’m sure if time weren’t such an issue when shooting these, you would have brought it back to Crowley and the Thoth deck he designed and commissioned Lady Frieda Harris painted. Esoterically speaking, that is arguably THE deck to check out. Although it’s fair of some to disagree with the whole “tzadi is not The Star,” thing. Just in terms of the richness of the illustrations – the boatload of symbols they squeezed into each card, somehow without cluttering them and keeping them all super balanced and so, so pretty – they’re wonderful. Draw a big picture of the Tree of Life and arrange a deck of those around it, you know, where they all belong, the paths from this to that. Well, I did anyway, and couldn’t stop staring at the finished thing, letting stories jump out of that nameless, intangible place behind my eyes in the middle of this thing that’s typing now. What a cool deck. Wow.
what people have to understand is that gambling was not considered secular, Christians were very fatalistic, they didnt believe in chance, and so gambling is heretical, and sinful… not to mention the Goddess Fortuna, who also figures in Arthurian legends, and superstitions of knights etc…. then there is the other occult symbolism which was on the playing cards, which could be used for divination right from the beginning. Dice and even the roulette wheel had occult meaning, as the latter is the “wheel of fortune” and has 36 divisions, as like the decans of the zodiac
Hey my elder sister, according to your article there is no consensus among the pundits regarding the origin of this game, your research displayed conflicting opinions in this regard. I would like to know the most likely origin of this game from your perspective my elder sister ❤. (Your little brother Juad who belongs to your feet).