The History of Tarot: Six Hundred Years of Cards

A Deck Originally Meant for Play

Tarot did not first appear 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 fourteen cards each (56 cards) plus 22 trump cards. These trumps were called 'trionfi' in the Italian of the time, a term that referred 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, created in Milan in the 1440s. These cards, painted with gold leaf and lapis lazuli pigment, were actually owned by nobility. The crucial point is that these cards were intended 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 Turns 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 compressed repository of ancient Egyptian esoteric wisdom.

There was no evidence for this claim, but it was also difficult 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.

By the end of the same century, Jean-Baptiste Alliette (known as Etteilla) created the first deck and interpretive system designed specifically for divination. Most of the formats we recognize in tarot reading today were established around this time and throughout the nineteenth century.

1909: Pictures Change How You Read

The most widely used format today emerged in London in 1909. Arthur Edward Waite conceived the design, and Pamela Colman Smith illustrated the deck, 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 the addition of scenes to all 56 Minor Arcana cards. Previously, number cards only repeated suit symbols, and interpretations had to rely on numbers and suits. With images, reading the pictures became possible.

Smith's name was long omitted. For decades, the deck was called only 'Rider-Waite,' and her 78 illustrations and contributions were only recognized much later.

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

The Kabbalah Connection Is a Nineteenth-Century Invention

The correspondence between the 22 Major Arcana cards and 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 this system, and most contemporary tarot-Kabbalah interpretations derive from this lineage.

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

Literature and Psychology Take the Cards Further

In 1922, T.S. Eliot included 'Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante' in *The Waste Land*, where she lays out 'a wicked pack of cards.' This marked tarot's full emergence as a literary motif.

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 characters, deprived of speech, communicate only through the 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 a different angle.

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 work, the Egyptian origin theory is no longer treated as fact in academic circles.

Thus, the history of tarot is not a lineage 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 terrifying imagery was superimposed by twentieth-century popular culture.

Knowing these facts does not render 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 traditional dancheong painting. They are illustrations, not physical objects made from these materials. Najeonchilgi is a craft of slicing abalone shell thinly and inlaying it into lacquered surfaces; it reached its peak during the Goryeo period and continues today, centered in Tongyeong and Wonju.

Dancheong is the coloring applied to wooden buildings to protect and adorn them. The five directional 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 made by the operator. Even for the same card, this deck reinterprets it with the colors and light of mother-of-pearl and dancheong. They are images, not physical objects made from those materials.

How This Blog's Articles Are Written

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

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 judgment in medical, legal, or investment matters. If you are struggling emotionally, we encourage you to talk to a professional or someone you trust.