Tarot

The tarot (/ˈtæroʊ/; first known as trionfi and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others)
is a pack of playing cards, used from the mid-15th century in various parts ofEurope
to play games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot. In the late 18th century, it
began to be used for divination in the form of tarotology and cartomancy.

Like common playing cards, the tarot has four suits (which vary by region: French
suits in Northern Europe, Latin suits in Southern Europe, and German suits in
Central Europe). Each suit has 14 cards, ten pip cards numbering from one (or Ace)
Three cards from a Visconti-Sforza
to ten and four face cards (King, Queen, Knight, and Jack/Knave). In addition, the
tarot deck
tarot has a separate 21-card trump suit and a single card known as the Fool.
Depending on the game, the Fool may act as the top trump or may be played to
avoid following suit.[1]

Tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe to play card games. In English-speaking countries, where these games are not
played, tarot cards are used primarily for divinatory purposes.[1] The Trump cards and the Fool are sometimes called the Major
Arcana, while the ten pip and four court cards in each suit are called Minor Arcana. The cards are traced by some occult writers to
ancient Egypt or the Kabbalah but there is no documented evidence of such origins or of the usage of tarot for divination before the
18th century.[1]

Contents
Etymology
History
Tarot gaming decks
Italian-suited tarot decks
Italo-Portuguese-suited tarot deck
French-suited tarot decks
German-suited tarot decks
Divinatory, esoteric, and occult tarot
Occult tarot decks
Cultural references
Notes

Etymology
The word tarot and German Tarock derive from the Italian tarocchi, the origin of which is uncertain but taroch was used as a
synonym for foolishness in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.[2][3] The decks were known exclusively as trionfi during the
fifteenth century. The new name first appeared in Brescia around 1502 as tarocho.[4] During the 16th century, a new game played
with a standard deck but sharing a very similar name (trionfa) was quickly becoming popular. This coincided with the older game
being renamed tarocchi.[1] In modern Italian, the singular term istarocco, which means a type ofblood orange.

History
Playing cards first enteredEurope in the late 14th century, most likely from Mamluk
Egypt, with suits of Batons or Polo sticks (commonly known as Wands by those
practicing occult or divinatory tarot), Coins (commonly known as disks, or pentacles
in occult or divinatory tarot), Swords, and Cups. These suits were very similar to
modern tarot divination decks and are still used in traditional Italian, Spanish and
Portuguese playing card decks.[5]

The first documented tarot packs were recorded between 1440 and 1450 in Milan,
Ferrara, Florence and Bologna when additional trump cards with allegorical
illustrations were added to the common four-suit pack. These new decks were called
carte da trionfi, triumph cards, and the additional cards known simply as trionfi,
which became "trumps" in English. The earliest documentation of trionfi is found in
a written statement in the court records of Florence, in 1440, regarding the transfer
of two decks to Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta.[6][7]

The oldest surviving tarot cards are the 15 or so Visconti-Sforza tarot decks painted
in the mid-15th century for the rulers of theDuchy of Milan.[8] A lost tarot-like pack Milanese tarocchi, c. 1500.
was commissioned by Duke Filippo Maria Visconti and described by Martiano da
Tortona probably between 1418 and 1425, since the painter he mentions, Michelino
da Besozzo, returned to Milan in 1418, while Martiano himself died in 1425. He described a 60-card deck with 16 cards having
images of the Greek gods and suits depicting four kinds of birds. The 16 cards were regarded as "trumps" since in 1449 Jacopo
Antonio Marcello recalled that the now deceased duke had invented a novum quoddam et exquisitum triumphorum genus, or "a new
and exquisite kind of triumphs".[9] Other early decks that also showcased classical motifs include the Sola-Busca and Boiardo-Viti
decks of the 1490s.[1]

In Florence, an expanded deck calledMinchiate was used. This deck of 97 cards includes astrological symbols and the four elements,
as well as traditional tarot motifs.[1]

Although a Dominican preacher inveighed against the evil inherent in cards (chiefly owing to their use in gambling) in a sermon in
the 15th century,[10] no routine condemnations of tarot were found during its early history
.[1]

Because the earliest tarot cards were hand-painted, the number of the decks produced is thought to have been small. It was only after
the invention of the printing press that mass production of cards became possible. The expansion of tarot outside of Italy, first to
France and Switzerland, occurred during the Italian Wars. The most important tarot pattern used in these two countries was the Tarot
of Marseilles of Milanese origin.[1]

Tarot gaming decks

The original purpose of tarot cards was to play games, a very cursory explanation of
rules for a tarot-like deck is given in a manuscript by Martiano da Tortona before 1425.
Vague descriptions of game play or game terminology follow for the next two centuries
until the earliest known complete description of rules for a French variant in 1637.[11]
The game of tarot has many regional variations. Tarocchini has survived in Bologna and
there are still others played in Piedmont and Sicily
, but in Italy the game is generally less
popular than elsewhere.

The 18th century saw tarot's greatest revival, during which it became one of the most A French tarot game in session
popular card games in Europe, played everywhere exceptIreland and Britain, the Iberian
peninsula, and the Ottoman Balkans.[12] French tarot experienced a revival beginning in
the 1970s and France has the strongest tarot gaming community. Regional tarot games—often known as tarock, tarok, or tarokk are
widely played in central Europe within the borders of the formerAustro-Hungarian empire.
Italian-suited tarot decks
These were the oldest form of tarot deck to be made, being first devised in the 15th century in northern
Italy. The occult tarot decks are based on decks of this type. Three decks of this category are still used
to play certain games:

The Tarocco Piemontese consists of the four suits of swords, batons, cups and coins,
each headed by a king, queen, cavalier and jack, followed by thepip cards for a total of
78 cards. Trump 20 outranks 21 in most games and the Fool is numbered 0 despite not
being a trump.
The Swiss 1JJ Tarot is similar, but replaces the Pope with Jupiter, the Popess with Juno,
and the Angel with the Judgement. The trumps rank in numerical order and theower T is
known as the House of God. The cards are not reversible like the arocco
T Piemontese.
The Tarocco Bolognese omits numeral cards two to five in plain suits, leaving it with 62
cards, and has somewhat different trumps, not all of which are numbered and four of
which are equal in rank. It has a different graphical design than the two above as it was Tarocco
not derived from the Tarot of Marseilles. Piemontese: the
Fool.

Italo-Portuguese-suited tarot deck

The Tarocco Siciliano is the only deck to use the so-called Portuguese suit system which uses Spanish pips but intersects them like
Italian pips.[13] Some of the trumps are different such as the lowest trump, Miseria (destitution). It omits the Two and Three of coins,
and numerals one to four in clubs, swords and cups: it thus has 64 cards but the ace of coins is not used, being the bearer of the
former stamp tax. The cards are quite small and not reversible.[9]

French-suited tarot decks

The illustrations of French-suited tarot trumps depart considerably from the older Italian-suited design, abandoning the Renaissance
allegorical motifs. With the exception of novelty decks, French-suited tarot cards are almost exclusively used for card games. The
first generation of French-suited tarots depicted scenes of animals on the trumps and were thus called "Tiertarock" ('Tier' being
German for 'animal') appeared around 1740. Around 1800, a greater variety of decks were produced, mostly with genre art or veduta.
Current French-suited tarot decks come in these patterns:

The Industrie und Glück (Industry and Luck) genre art tarock deck of Central Europe uses Roman numerals for the
trumps. It is sold with 54 cards; the 5 to 10 of the red suits and the 1 to 6 of the black suits are removed.
The Adler-Cego animal tarot is used in Germany'sBlack Forest and has 54 cards organized in the same fashion as
the Industrie und Glück. Its trumps use Arabic numerals but within centered indices.
The Tarot Nouveau has 78 cards and is commonly played in France. Its genre art trumps use Arabic numerals in
corner indices.
 Example of 18th century Salzburg veduta trumps, Industrie und Glück Cego trumps
"Tiertarock" circa 1840 Tarock trumps

Tarot Nouveau trumps

circa 1910

German-suited tarot decks

German-suited decks for Bauerntarock, Württembergischer tarock, and Bavarian tarock are different. They have 36 cards, ranging
from 6 to 10, Under Knave (Unter), Over Knave (Ober), King, and Ace. These use Ace-Ten ranking, like Klaverjas, where Ace is the
highest followed by 10, King, Ober, Unter, then 9 to 6. The heart suit is the default trump suit.[1] The Bavarian deck is also used to
play Schafkopf by excluding the sixes.

Württembergischer Bavarian
tarock Schafkopf/Tarock deck

Divinatory, esoteric, and occult tarot

Divination using playing cards, specificallytrappola cards, is recorded as early as 1540. The earliest evidence of a tarot deck used for
cartomancy comes from an anonymous manuscript from around 1750 which documents rudimentary divinatory meanings for the
cards of the Tarocco Bolognese.[14][15] The popularization of esoteric tarot started with Antoine Court and Jean-Baptiste Alliette
(Etteilla) in Paris during the 1780s, using the Tarot of Marseilles.[16] After French tarot players abandoned the Marseilles tarot in
favor of the Tarot Nouveau around 1900, the Marseilles pattern is now used mostly by cartomancers. Some current editions go back
to a particular Marseilles design that was printed by Nicolas Conver in 1760.
Occult tarot decks
Etteilla was the first to issue a tarot deck specifically designed for occult purposes around 1789. In
keeping with the misplaced belief that such cards were derived from the Book of Thoth, Etteilla's
tarot contained themes related toancient Egypt.

The 78-card tarot deck used by esotericists has two distinct parts:

The Major Arcana (greater secrets), or trump cards, consists of 22 cards without
suits: The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The
Hierophant, The Lovers, The Chariot, Strength, The Hermit, Wheel of Fortune,
Justice, The Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, The Devil, The Tower, The Star, The
Moon, The Sun, Judgement, The World, and The Fool. Cards from The Magician to
The World are numbered in Roman numerals from I to XXI, while The Fool is the
only unnumbered card, sometimes placed at the beginning of the deck as 0, or at
the end as XXII.
The Minor Arcana (lesser secrets) consists of 56 cards, divided into four suits of 14
cards each; ten numbered cards and four court cards. The court cards are the King,
Queen, Knight and Page/Jack, in each of the four tarot suits. The traditional Italian
tarot suits are swords, batons/wands, coins and cups; in modern tarot decks, Prototype for Etteilla's
however, the batons suit is often called wands, rods or staves, while the coins suit is tarot (1785).
often called pentacles or disks.
The terms "major arcana" and "minor arcana" were first used by Jean-Baptiste Pitois (also known
as Paul Christian) and are never used in relation to Tarot card games. Some decks exist primarily as artwork; and such art decks
sometimes contain only the 22 major arcana.

The three most common decks used in esoteric tarot are the Tarot of Marseilles, the Rider-Waite tarot deck, and the Thoth tarot
deck.[16]

Cultural references
François Rabelais mentions tarau as one of the games played by Gargantua in his Gargantua and Pantagruel.[17]

The composer Carl Orff was influenced by tarot in his choral and orchestral work,Carmina Burana,[18] part of his Trionfi trilogy.

The French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle spent over two decades building her Tarot Garden in Italy. The 22 major sculptures
T [19]
of the garden were based on and named after the Major Arcana of the arot.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure written by Hirohiko Araki (Anime adaptation produced by David Productions) uses tarot cards as a
reference/inspiration forStands (Ex. Star Platinum, Hermit Purple) in part 3, Stardust Crusaders.

Tarot cards play a key role inTerrence Malick's Knight of Cups (film) and are the reasons behind the title and the eight sections of the
film.

The James Bond movie Live and Let Die (film) refers to the villain's belief in the accuracy of tarot-card prediction by a young
woman in his employ.

Rock band Rainbow released a song called "Tarot Woman", released in 1976 on theirRising album.

The Tarot deck and arcana play a major role invideo game series Persona.

The Tarot Café is a manhwa by Park Sang-sun (박 상선) published by Tokyopop in the United States. Seven volumes have been
published and each chapter starts or ends with a modified tarot card often relating to the story
.

The French philosopher Vincent Cespedes had created in 2011 a philosophical tarot,Le Jeu du Phénix (″The Phoenix Game″).[20]

The Fool's Errand, a 1987 computer game by Cliff Johnson, features several tarot card-themed puzzles.[21]
Notes
1. Dummett, Michael A. E; Mann, Sylvia (1980).The game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt LakeCity (https://books.googl
e.co.uk/books?id=qqm1AAAAIAAJ). ISBN 9780715610145.
2. Vitali, Andrea. About the etymology of Tarocco (http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=220)at Le Tarot Cultural
Association. Retrieved 4 February 2018.
3. Vitali, Andrea. Taroch - 1494 (http://www.letarot.it/page.aspx?id=264)at Le Tarot Cultural Association. Retrieved 4
February 2018.
4. Depaulis, Thierry (2008). "Entrefarsa et barzelletta: jeux de cartes italiens autours de 1500".The Playing-Card. 37
(2): 89–102.
5. Donald Laycock in Skeptical—a Handbook of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal , ed Donald Laycock, David
Vernon, Colin Groves, Simon Brown, Imagecraft, Canberra, 1989,ISBN 0-7316-5794-2, p. 67
6. Pratesi, Franco (2012). "In Search of T
arot Sources". The Playing-Card. 41 (2): 100.
7. Pratesi, Franco. Studies on Giusto Giusti(http://trionfi.com/giusto-giusti)at trionfi.com. Retrieved 4 February 2018.
8. Dummett, Michael (1996).A Wicked Pack Of Cards. p. 25. ISBN 9780312162948.
9. Pratesi, Franco (1989). "Italian Cards - New Discoveries".The Playing-Card. 18 (1, 2): 28–32, 33–38.
10. Robert Steele. A Notice of the Ludus Triumphorum and some Early Italian Card Games; With Some Remarks on the
Origin of the Playing Cards."Archaeologia, vol LVII, 1900: pp 185-200.
11. Dummett, Michael; McLeod, John (2004).A History of Games Played with the T
arot Pack. Lewiston: The Edwin
Mellen Press. pp. 17–21.
12. Parlett, David (1990). The Oxford Guide to Card Games(1 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.ISBN 0-19-
214165-1.
13. Tarocco Siciliano, early form(http://i-p-c-s.org/pattern/ps-12.html)at the International Playing-Card Societywebsite.
Retrieved 26 July 2015.
14. Pratesi, Franco (1989). "Italian Cards: New Discoveries, no. 9".The Playing-Card. 17 (4): 136–145.
15. Dummett, Michael (2003). "Tarot Cartomancy in Bologna". The Playing-Card. 32 (2): 79–88.
16. Jensen, K. Frank (2010). "A Century with the W
aite-Smith Tarot (and all the others...)".The Playing-Card. 38 (3):
217–222.
17. François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, ch. 22, "Les Jeux de Gargantua"
18. Jeanmonnot, Jean. "Carl ORFF, compositeur de la Tradition, musique et ésotérisme"(http://www.nouvelle-acropole.f
r/ressources/articles/70-articles-thematiques/art-et-musique/736-carl-orf
f-compositeur-de-la-tradition-musique-et-eso
terisme). www.nouvelle-acropole.fr (in French). Retrieved 2017-04-23.
19. Levy, Ariel (18 April 2016). "Beautiful Monsters" (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/18/niki-de-saint-phall
es-tarot-garden). The New Yorker. Retrieved 2017-03-28.
20. Vincent Cespedes, ″Philosopher est-il jouer ?″ (″Philosophy
, is it playing?″) (http://next.liberation.fr/vous/2011/11/02/p
hilosopher-est-il-jouer_771821), Libération, Nov. 2011.
21. "Fool's Gold: Cliff Johnson Puts His Money Where His Mouth Is" (https://www.wired.com/2012/10/fools-gold-cliff-john
son-puts-his-money-where-his-mouth-is/). wired.com. Retrieved 24 January 2018.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=T

arot&oldid=824358384"

This page was last edited on 6 February 2018, at 21:40.

Text is available under theCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this
site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of theWikimedia
Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.