The history of tarot

TAROT

Tarot was born in northern Italy in the first half of the fifteenth century as a deck for playing games. It was only more than three hundred years later, near the end of the eighteenth century, that people began to use it for divination. The story that tarot came from ancient Egypt is well known, but there is no evidence for it.

Timeline

1370sPlaying cards, ancestors of today's decks, reach Europe from the Islamic world
c. 1418–1425Records say Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, had a special deck painted with gods (the cards are lost)
1440A Florentine record names trionfi cards for the first time
1440s–1460sHand-painted decks are made for the Visconti and Sforza families of Milan
c. 1500The name tarocco comes into use
17th–18th centuryWoodblock decks are mass-produced in France, and the pattern later called the Tarot of Marseille takes shape
1781Court de Gébelin writes that tarot is an ancient Egyptian book
1780sEtteilla publishes a book on reading tarot and a deck designed for divination
1850sÉliphas Lévi links the 22 major arcana with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet
1888The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn is founded in London and ties tarot to astrology and Kabbalah
1909The Rider–Waite–Smith deck is published
1969The Thoth deck is published
1970sReprints of the Rider–Waite–Smith deck circulate widely, and tarot becomes known in Japan as a deck for divination

Born as a card game

In the late fourteenth century, playing cards reached Europe from the Islamic world. They had four suits, each with number cards and court cards, much like the playing cards we know.

In the first half of the fifteenth century, at the courts of northern Italy, a set of picture cards was added to this deck. These extra cards were called trionfi, "triumphs," and they beat every other card in play. The English word "trump" comes from this "triumph."

The oldest record that names them comes from Florence in 1440. Earlier still, around 1418–1425, a letter tells of Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, commissioning a special deck painted with gods. Those cards are lost, however, and we cannot tell whether they took the same form as tarot.

The Visconti–Sforza decks

The oldest tarot cards that survive are hand-painted cards made for the Visconti and Sforza families, the rulers of Milan. They are luxurious, with gold leaf, and about fifteen sets survive, most of them only in part. They are held by the Morgan Library in New York, the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, Yale University's Beinecke Library and other collections.

These cards belonged to nobles and were used not for divination but for a game in which players scored points for the tricks they won with trumps.

The card Hope. On a gold ground, a woman in a dark robe kneels with her hands joined, an anchor at her feet — Hope. The Cary–Yale deck (a Visconti tarot), c. 1428–1447, attributed to Bonifacio Bembo, Beinecke Library, Yale University. It also included cards for Faith, Hope and Charity, which later tarot decks do not have.

The card Strength. A young man in blue raises a club to strike the lion at his feet — Strength. The Visconti–Sforza deck (Pierpont Morgan–Bergamo), a card thought to have been added around 1480 by Antonio Cicognara, Morgan Library.

The name “tarocco”

From around 1500 the name tarocco (plural tarocchi) began to replace trionfi. In French this became tarot. Where the word comes from is unknown.

Spread by woodblock printing

In the sixteenth century, cards began to be printed from woodblocks, and they became something townspeople could play with, not just nobles.

In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, many cardmakers produced tarot decks from almost the same pattern. Well-known examples include the cards of Jean Noblet of Paris (around 1650), Jean Dodal of Lyon (around 1700) and Nicolas Conver of Marseille (1760). This pattern later came to be called the Tarot of Marseille.

The card the Fool. A man in a red cap carries a bundle on a stick over his shoulder and walks with a staff, an animal at his leg. “LE FOL” is written below. — The Fool. The Tarot of Marseille by Jean Dodal, 1701–1715, Lyon. The card is titled “LE FOL” and has no number.

Games played with tarot are still alive today. In France, jeu de tarot is widely played; in Austria and elsewhere in central Europe the game is known as Tarock; and in Bologna in Italy, tarocchino is still played.

Becoming a deck for divination

The Egyptian theory (1781)

In 1781 the French scholar Antoine Court de Gébelin wrote, in his work Le Monde primitif (The Primeval World), that tarot was what remained of the "Book of Thoth," in which the priests of ancient Egypt had recorded their wisdom. The same volume contains an essay by the Comte de Mellet on how to use tarot for divination.

At the time, nobody could yet read hieroglyphs, so there was no way to test the claim. Even after hieroglyphs were deciphered, nothing linking them to tarot was found. Still, the theory made people see tarot as "mystical cards."

A line drawing of the Hanged Man. A man hangs by one foot from a wooden frame, with the numeral XII upside down at the bottom. — The Hanged Man. A plate from Court de Gébelin’s Le Monde primitif, volume 8 (1781). Turn it so the numeral XII is at the top and the man stands on one foot. Gébelin believed this was the true picture, of Prudence, and that the cardmakers had printed it upside down.

Etteilla (1780s)

The Parisian fortune-teller Etteilla (real name Jean-Baptiste Alliette) published books on divination with tarot in the 1780s, and later made a deck designed for divination. He is said to be the first person on record to use tarot for fortune-telling as a profession.

Linked with esotericism (19th century)

In nineteenth-century France, Éliphas Lévi, in works of the 1850s, linked the 22 major arcana with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. This idea of overlaying Kabbalah (Jewish mystical thought) on tarot became the basis for many later interpretations.

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in London in 1888, built on this and set out detailed correspondences between the cards, astrology, the Hebrew letters and Kabbalah. It was this order that swapped Justice (8) and Strength (11), so that Strength, linked with Leo, and Justice, linked with Libra, would follow the order of the zodiac.

Around the same time, the theory spread that tarot had been brought to Europe by the "Gypsies" (the Romani people). But tarot was in use at the Italian courts before the Romani were known in Europe, and this theory has no basis either.

The Rider–Waite–Smith deck (1909)

In 1909 the London publisher Rider issued a deck designed by Arthur Edward Waite, a member of the Golden Dawn, and painted by the artist Pamela Colman Smith. The following year Waite published a guide to it, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot.

What was new about this deck was that all 56 number cards of the minor arcana showed people and scenes. Cards that had shown only symbols, such as "three swords," now showed, for example, a heart pierced by three swords, so that you could guess the meaning from the picture.

The card Three of Swords. Before rain clouds, three swords pierce a red heart. — Three of Swords. The first edition of the Rider–Waite–Smith deck (known as Pam-A), drawn by Pamela Colman Smith, 1909–1910, London.

This way of putting scenes on the number cards is thought to owe something to a fifteenth-century Italian tarot called the Sola Busca deck. The Sola Busca deck was unusual for its time in having pictures on all 78 cards, and in 1907 photographs of all its cards were given to the British Museum. The Sola Busca Ten of Swords and the Rider–Waite–Smith Ten of Wands, for example, both show a figure carrying a bundle, in very similar poses.

The card Ten of Swords. A man in purple, seen from behind, carries a bundle of swords in red scabbards — Ten of Swords. The Sola Busca deck, c. 1491, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan.

The card Ten of Wands. A man in red walks carrying a bundle of ten staffs — Ten of Wands. The Rider–Waite–Smith deck, drawn by Pamela Colman Smith, 1909–1910.

In the 1970s the Rider–Waite–Smith deck was reprinted in the United States and circulated widely, and most decks on sale today are based on its images.

The Thoth deck and the twentieth century

The English occultist Aleister Crowley worked with the painter Frieda Harris to create a new deck between 1938 and 1943. This is the Thoth deck, published in 1969, after both had died.

In the second half of the twentieth century, a view of the cards as mirrors of the mind, drawing on the ideas of the psychologist C. G. Jung, also spread.

In Japan, tarot is said to have become widely known as a deck for divination from around the 1970s, through books and magazines. Most Japanese books and decks today, too, follow the Rider–Waite–Smith tradition.

Common misconceptions

It came from ancient Egypt: a theory put forward by Court de Gébelin in 1781, with no evidence behind it. The oldest tarot cards are from fifteenth-century Italy.
The "Gypsies" (Romani people) brought it: a nineteenth-century theory that also has no basis.
It was a tool for divination from the start: for more than three hundred years tarot was mainly a deck for games. It was only from the end of the eighteenth century that it came to be used for divination.

Image sources

The illustration at the top was made for this site. The card images all show originals in the public domain and come from Wikimedia Commons.

Hope, Cary–Yale deck: Wikimedia Commons (public domain; photographed by the Beinecke Library, Yale University)
Strength, Visconti–Sforza deck: Wikimedia Commons (public domain; scanned from the Dal Negro reproduction deck I Tarocchi dei Visconti)
Three of Swords, Rider–Waite–Smith deck (first edition, Pam-A): Wikimedia Commons (public domain; published before 1931, and the copyright holder Waite died in 1942; scan provided by muzendo.jp)
The Fool, Jean Dodal's Tarot of Marseille: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
The Hanged Man, Court de Gébelin's Le Monde primitif: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Ten of Swords, Sola Busca deck: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Ten of Wands, Rider–Waite–Smith deck: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)