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 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, 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 came surprisingly late and for a surprisingly simple reason. In 1781, a French pastor and scholar named Antoine Court de Gébelin published an essay in his book *Le Monde primitif* claiming that tarot was the 'Book of Thoth,' a compressed repository of ancient Egyptian secrets.

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

Later that century, Jean-Baptiste Alliette (Étteilla) created the first deck and interpretive system designed specifically for divination. Most of the tarot reading formats we know 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 design, and Pamela Colman Smith illustrated it, published by Rider & Company. It is known as the Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) deck, named after the three contributors.

This deck's decisive innovation 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 long omitted. For decades, the deck was called only 'Rider-Waite,' and her 78 illustrations and contribution 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 Minor Arcana cards, and Waite and Smith were aware of that precedent.

The Kabbalah Connection 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 this, 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, as a language for connecting symbols, it remains useful. 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*, where she deals 'the wicked pack of cards.' This marked tarot's serious entry into literature.

In 1969, Italo Calvino used tarot card 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 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 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 work, the Egyptian origin theory is no longer treated as fact in academic circles.

Thus, tarot's history is not a lineage of ancient mystery but a cultural history built on accumulated misconceptions. The same applies to reading the 13th card as a death omen. This card was originally a trump indicating change and conclusion; the fearful imagery was a twentieth-century popular culture overlay.

Knowing these facts does not render reading meaningless. Rather, 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). They are illustrations, not made from physical materials. Najeonchilgi is a craft of cutting 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 protect and embellish wooden structures. The five colors—blue, red, yellow, white, and black—were used as symbols of directions and seasons. The card borders' patterns and colors follow that grammar.

The images were generated with an image model, while the operator selected the scene composition and colors. Even for the same card, this deck reinterprets it with the colors and light of mother-of-pearl and dancheong. They are pictures, 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 card symbolism and layout structures. They are not individually authored 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 medicine, law, or investment. If you are struggling emotionally, we encourage you to talk to a professional or someone you trust.