The History of Tarot: Six Hundred Years of Cards

A Deck of Cards Was Originally a Game

Tarot first appeared not in Egypt or Atlantis, but 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 the Italian of the time, a term referring to the triumphal processions of Renaissance festivals. Today's 'Major Arcana' is a renamed version of that.

One of the oldest surviving decks is the Visconti-Sforza deck, created 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: One Essay Turned a Game into an Oracle

The shift from game to divination was both late and surprisingly simple. In 1781, French pastor and scholar Antoine Court de Gébelin published an essay in his book *Le Monde primitif* claiming that tarot was the 'Book of Thoth,' compressing the secret wisdom of ancient Egypt.

There was no evidence for this, but it was also hard to refute. Egyptian hieroglyphs were not deciphered until Champollion's work in 1822. An argument based on an unreadable script gained strength for a long time without verification.

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 recognize as 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 it, and Pamela Colman Smith illustrated it, for Rider & Company. It is known as the Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) deck.

The decisive change was adding scenes to all 56 Minor Arcana cards for the first time. Before this, number cards repeated only symbols, and interpretations had to rely on numbers and suits. With pictures, reading the images 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 contribution only found their rightful place much later.

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

The Connection to Kabbalah Is a Nineteenth-Century Invention

The formula linking the 22 Major Arcana to the 22 Hebrew letters was popularized by Éliphas Lévi in the mid-nineteenth century. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in 1888, systematized it, 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 Took the Cards Further

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

In 1969, Italo Calvino used tarot arrangements as the very structure of narrative in *The Castle of Crossed Destinies*. Laying out cards generates different stories, and the characters, having lost their speech, converse only through the cards.

In the late twentieth century, tarot merged with Jungian archetypes and became a tool for self-reflection. Instead of predicting the future, it helps you see your current questions from a different angle.

1980: What History Has Clarified

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

Thus, tarot's history is not an unbroken line of ancient mystery 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 terrifying imagery was added by twentieth-century popular culture.

Knowing this does not make reading meaningless. On the contrary, it clarifies what the cards 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). They are illustrations, not made from physical materials. Najeonchilgi is a craft of slicing abalone shell thinly and inlaying it onto lacquered surfaces; it reached its peak during the Goryeo period and continues today, centered in Tongyeong and Wonju.

Dancheong is the coloring applied to protect and embellish 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 the choice of colors were made 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 card symbolism and layout structures. They are not individually authored by a human.

Before publication, code checks length, paragraph structure, banned 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 judgment in medicine, law, or investment. If you are struggling emotionally, we encourage you to talk to a professional or someone you trust.