The History of Tarot: Six Hundred Years of Cards

A Deck Originally Meant for Play

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' gained popularity, 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 twenty-two trump cards. These trumps were called 'trionfi' in the Italian of the time, a word 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 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 Turns a Game into an Oracle

The shift from game to divination happened surprisingly late and for surprisingly simple reasons. 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 verification for a long time.

Later in the same century, Jean-Baptiste Alliette (known as Etteilla) created the first deck and interpretive system designed specifically for divination. Most of the forms of tarot reading we recognize today were established around this period and in 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 it, resulting in the Rider deck. It is now known as the Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) deck, named after the three contributors.

The decisive innovation of this deck was depicting scenes on all 56 Minor Arcana cards for the first time. Previously, number cards showed only repeated 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 contributions only received 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 tarot's 22 trumps and 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 system, and most modern 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 relationship. However, as a language for linking symbols, it remains useful. It is safer to distinguish between evidence and interpretation.

Literature and Psychology Adopt the Cards

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

In the late twentieth century, tarot became intertwined with Jungian archetypes and established itself as a tool for self-reflection. Instead of predicting the future, it serves to view present 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 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 mysteries but a cultural history built on accumulated misunderstandings. The same applies to reading card 13 as a death omen. This card was originally a trump indicating change and conclusion; the fearful 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 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 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 colors—blue, red, yellow, white, and black—were used as symbols of directions and seasons. The patterns and colors on the card borders follow that grammar.

The images are created with an image generation model, while the composition of scenes and the choice of colors are determined by the operator. Even for the same card, this deck reinterprets it through 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 layout structures. This is not a process of individual human authorship.

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 articles on this blog 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.