The History of Tarot: A Six-Hundred-Year-Old Deck of Cards

A Deck of Cards Was Originally a Game

Tarot did not first appear in Egypt or Atlantis. It emerged in the courts of northern Italy in the fifteenth century. In cities like Milan and Ferrara, a card game called 'tarocchi' became popular, and the 78-card structure we use today was established then.

The 78 cards consist of four suits of 14 cards each (56 cards) plus 22 trump cards. These trumps were called 'trionfi' in Italian at the time, a term referring to the triumphal processions of Renaissance festivals. Today's 'Major Arcana' is a renamed version of that concept.

One of the oldest surviving decks is the Visconti-Sforza deck, made in Milan in the 1440s. These cards, painted with gold leaf and lapis lazuli pigment, were actually owned by nobility. The key point is that these cards were for play, not divination.

Tarot as a game is still alive today. France's 'Jeu de Tarot,' Austria and Germany's 'Tarock,' and Bologna's 'Tarocchini' are card games that use the same structure.

1781: A Single Essay Turned a Game into an Oracle

The shift from game to divination came surprisingly late and for a surprisingly simple reason. In 1781, Antoine Court de Gébelin, a French pastor and scholar, published an essay in his book 'Le Monde primitif' claiming that tarot was the 'Book of Thoth,' a compendium of ancient Egyptian esoteric wisdom.

There was no evidence for this claim. But it was also hard to refute. Egyptian hieroglyphs were not deciphered until Champollion's work in 1822. Since no one could read the script, the argument gained strength without ever being verified.

Later in the same century, Jean-Baptiste Alliette (Étteilla) created the first deck and interpretive system designed specifically for divination. Most of the formats we associate with tarot reading today were established around this time and in the nineteenth century.

1909: Pictures Changed How We Read

The most widely used format today emerged in London in 1909. Arthur Edward Waite conceived the deck, and Pamela Colman Smith illustrated it, published by Rider & Company. It is known as the 'Rider-Waite-Smith' (RWS) deck, named after all three.

The decisive innovation of this deck was adding scenes to the 56 Minor Arcana cards for the first time. Previously, number cards only repeated suit symbols, and interpretations had to rely on numbers and suits. With pictures, reading by imagery became possible.

Smith's name was omitted for a long time. For decades, the deck was called only 'Rider-Waite,' and her 78 illustrations and contributions only found proper recognition much later.

This was not entirely new. The Sola Busca deck, created in 1491, had already depicted figures and scenes on the Minor Arcana, and Waite and Smith were aware of that precedent.

The Kabbalah Connection Is a Nineteenth-Century Invention

The system linking the 22 Major Arcana cards to the 22 Hebrew letters was popularized in the mid-nineteenth century by Éliphas Lévi. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in 1888, systematized this correspondence, and most modern tarot-Kabbalah interpretations derive from this lineage.

There is no historical basis for it. No records from fifteenth-century Italy, where the cards were created, support such a correspondence. However, it remains useful as a language for connecting symbols. It is safer to distinguish between evidence and interpretation.

Literature and Psychology Adopted the Cards

In 1922, T.S. Eliot included 'Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante' in 'The Waste Land,' and she deals 'a wicked pack of cards.' This marked tarot's full entry into literature.

In 1969, Italo Calvino used tarot layouts as the very structure of narrative in 'The Castle of Crossed Destinies.' Arranging cards generates different stories, and the characters, having lost their speech, communicate only through cards.

In the late twentieth century, tarot became a tool for self-reflection, overlapping with Jungian archetypes. Instead of predicting the future, it serves to view current questions from different angles.

1980: What History Has Clarified

Philosopher and card scholar Michael Dummett, in his 1980 book 'The Game of Tarot,' systematically documented the origins and early records of tarot. After this book, the Egyptian origin theory is no longer treated as fact in academic circles.

Thus, tarot's history is not a continuation of ancient mysteries but a cultural history built on accumulated misunderstandings. The same applies to reading the 13th card as a death omen. This card was originally a trump indicating change and closure; the frightening imagery was added by twentieth-century popular culture.

Knowing this does not make reading meaningless. On the contrary, it clarifies what the cards actually contain. On this blog, we read symbols but do not claim that cards determine the future.

Where This Deck Comes From

The 78 cards on this site draw colors and patterns from Korean mother-of-pearl lacquerware (najeonchilgi) and dancheong (traditional decorative painting on wooden buildings). These are illustrations, not physical objects made from those materials. Najeonchilgi is a craft in which thin slices of abalone shell are inlaid into lacquered surfaces; it reached its peak during the Goryeo dynasty and continues today, centered in Tongyeong and Wonju.

Dancheong is the coloring applied to protect and adorn wooden structures. The five colors—blue, red, yellow, white, and black—were used as symbols of directions and seasons. The border patterns and colors of the cards follow that grammar.

The images were created with an image generation model, while the composition of scenes and choice of colors were directed by the operator. Even for the same card, this deck reimagines it with the colors and light of mother-of-pearl and dancheong. They are illustrations, not physical objects made from those materials.

How This Blog's Articles Are Written

Card interpretations are written by an AI (a large language model) based on traditional symbolism and card layout structures. They are not authored by a human for each entry.

Before publication, code checks length, paragraph structure, prohibited words, and links. If errors are reported, the operator verifies and corrects them, and cross-checks verifiable information.

Readings and this blog's articles are for entertainment and self-reflection. They do not replace professional advice in medicine, law, or investment. If you are struggling emotionally, we encourage you to talk to a professional or someone you trust.