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 during this period.

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 simply 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 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 all 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, 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,' a compression 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. An argument based on a script no one could read gained strength for a long time without verification.

By the end of the same century, Jean-Baptiste Alliette (Etteilla) created the first deck and interpretive system designed specifically for divination. Most of the tarot reading formats we know today were established during this period and 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 the cards, published by Rider & Company. It is known as the Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) deck, named after all three.

The decisive change in this deck was the addition of scenes to the 56 Minor Arcana cards for the first time. Before this, number cards only repeated suit 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. The deck was called 'Rider-Waite' for decades, 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 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, and most modern tarot-Kabbalah interpretations derive from this lineage.

There is no historical basis for this. No records from fifteenth-century Italy, where the cards were created, support such a correspondence. However, as a symbolic language that connects images, it remains useful. It is safer to keep the distinction between evidence and interpretation.

Literature and Psychology Adopted the Cards

In 1922, T.S. Eliot included 'Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante' in 'The Waste Land,' who deals '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, having lost their speech, communicate only through cards.

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

1980: What History 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 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 image of fear was superimposed by twentieth-century popular culture.

Knowing these facts does not render readings 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). They are illustrations, not made from physical materials. Najeonchilgi is a craft where 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 embellish wooden structures. The five cardinal colors—blue, red, yellow, white, and black—were used as symbols of directions and seasons. The border patterns and colors of the cards follow this grammar.

The images were created using an image generation model, with the composition and color choices 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 AI (a large language model) based on traditional symbolism and card layout structures. They are not individually authored by a human.

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

Readings and blog 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.