Card player with Austrian tarot cards (Industrie und Glück pattern)Trumps of theTarot de Marseilles, a standard 18th-century playing card pack, later also used for divination
Tarot (/ˈtæroʊ/, first known astrionfi and later astarocchi ortarocks) is a pack ofplaying cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to playcard games such asTarocchini. From theirItalian roots, tarot-playing cards spread to most of Europe, evolving into a family of games that includes GermanGrosstarok and modern games such asFrench Tarot and AustrianKönigrufen.
In the late 18th century Frenchoccultists made elaborate, but unsubstantiated, claims about their history and meaning, leading to the emergence of custom decks for use indivination viatarot card reading andcartomancy.[1] Thus, there are two distinct types of tarot packs in circulation: those used for card games and those used for divination. However, some older patterns, such as theTarot de Marseille, originally intended for playing card games, are also used for cartomancy.[2]
Like the common playing cards, tarot has foursuits that vary by region: French suits are used in western, central and eastern Europe, and Latin suits in southern Europe. Each suit has 14 cards: tenpip cards numbering from one (orAce) to ten; and fourface cards:King,Queen,Knight, andJack/Knave/Page. In addition, and unlike standard packs, the tarot also has a separate 21-cardtrump suit and a single card known asthe Fool. Depending on the game, the Fool may act as the top trump or may be played to avoid following suit.[3] These tarot cards are still used throughout much of Europe to play conventionalcard games.
The use of tarot playing cards was at one time widespread across the whole of Europe except the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula.[citation needed] Having fallen into decline by the 20th century, they later experienced a renaissance in some countries and regions. For example,French Tarot was largely confined toProvence in the 18th century, but took off in the 1950s to such an extent that, in 1973, the French Tarot Association (Fédération Française de Tarot) was formed and French Tarot itself is now the second most popular card game in France.[4] Tarock games likeKönigrufen have experienced significant growth in Austria where international tournaments are held with other nations, especially those from eastern Europe that still play such games, including Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.[5]
Denmark appears to be the only Scandinavian country that still plays tarot games,[5]Danish Tarok being a derivative of historical GermanGrosstarock. The game ofCego has grown in popularity again in the south German region of Baden.[5] Italy continues to play regionally popular games with their distinctive Tarot packs. These include:Ottocento inBologna and Sicilian Tarocchi in parts ofSicily.[5] MeanwhileTroccas andTroggu are still played locally in parts of Switzerland.[5]
Tarot cards, then known astarocchi, first appeared inFerrara andMilan in northern Italy, with the Fool and 21 trumps (then calledtrionfi) being added to the standard Italian pack of four suits:batons,coins,cups andswords.[6] Scholarship has established that the early European cards were probably based on theEgyptian Mamluk deck invented in or before the 14th century, which followed the introduction of paper from Asia into Western Europe.[7] By the late 1300s, Europeans were producing their own cards, the earliest patterns being based on the Mamluk deck but with variations to thesuit symbols andcourt cards.[7]
The first records of playing cards in Europe date to 1367 inBern and they appear to have spread very rapidly across the whole of Europe, as may be seen from the records, mainly of card games being banned.[8][9][10] Little is known about the appearance and number of these cards, the only significant information being provided by a text byJohn of Rheinfelden in 1377 fromFreiburg im Breisgau, who, in addition to other versions, describes the basic pack as containing the still-current 4 suits of 13 cards, the courts usually being the King, Ober and Unter ("marshals"), although Dames and Queens were already known by then.
An early pattern of playing cards used the suits of batons or clubs, coins, swords, and cups. These suits are still used in traditionalItalian,Spanish and Portuguese playing card decks, and are also used in modern (occult) tarot divination cards that first appeared in the late 18th century.[11]
A lost tarot-like pack was commissioned by DukeFilippo 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 theRoman 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 anovum quoddam et exquisitum triumphorum genus, or "a new and exquisite kind of triumphs."[12] Other early decks that also showcased classical motifs include theSola-Busca and Boiardo-Viti decks of the 1490s.[3]
The magician from the Pierpont Morgan Bergamo Visconti-Sforza pack
The first documented tarot decks were recorded between 1440 and 1450 inMilan,Ferrara,Florence andBologna, when additional trump cards withallegoricalillustrations were added to the common four-suit pack. These new decks were calledcarte da trionfi, triumph cards, and the additional cards known simply astrionfi, which became "trumps" in English. The earliest documentation oftrionfi is found in a written statement in the court records ofFlorence, in 1440, regarding the transfer of two decks toSigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta.[13][14]
The oldest surviving tarot cards are the 15 or so decks of theVisconti-Sforza Tarot painted in the mid-15th century for the rulers of theDuchy of Milan.[15] In 15th century Italy, the set of cards that was included in tarot packs, including trumps, seems to have been consistent, even if naming and ordering varied. There are two main exceptions:[16]
Some late 15th-century decks like theSola Busca tarot and the Boiardo deck had four suits, a fool, and 21 trumps, but none of the trumps match tarot ones. They seem to have been made on the model of tarot decks, but were voluntary departures from an established standard.
The Visconti di Mondrone pack, one of the Visconti-Sforza decks, originally had a Dame and a Maid in each suit, in addition to the standard King, Queen, Knight, and Jack. Additionally, the pack includes three trump cards which represent thetheological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and are not present in any other tarot deck of that era.
Although aDominican preacher inveighed against the evil inherent in playing cards, chiefly because of their use in gambling, in a sermon in the 15th century,[17] no routine condemnations of tarot were found during its early history.[3]
TheCary sheet, a partial uncut sheet of Milanesetarocchi,c. 1500
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 theprinting press that mass production of cards became possible. The expansion of tarot outside of Italy, first to France and Switzerland, occurred during theItalian Wars. The most prominent tarot deck version used in these two countries was theTarot of Marseilles, of Milanese origin.[3]
While the set of trumps was generally consistent, their order varied by region, perhaps as early as the 1440s.Michael Dummett placed them into three categories. InBologna andFlorence, the highest trump is theAngel, followed by theWorld. This group spread mainly southward through thePapal States, theKingdom of Naples, and finally down to theKingdom of Sicily but was also known in theSavoyard states. In Ferrara, the World was the highest, followed byJustice and the Angel. This group spread mainly to the northeast to Venice andTrento where it was only a passing fad. By the end of the 16th century, this order became extinct. InMilan, the World was highest, followed by the Angel; this ordering is used in theTarot of Marseilles. Dummett also wrote about a possible fourth lineage that may have existed along the Franco-Italian border. It spread north through France until its last descendant, the Belgian Tarot, went extinct around 1800.[18][19]
In Florence, an expanded deck calledMinchiate was later used. This deck of 97 cards includesastrological symbols and the four elements, as well as traditional tarot motifs.[3] The earliest known mention of this game, under the name ofgermini, dates to 1506.[20]
Three cards from aVisconti-Sforza tarot deck: Ace of cups, Queen of coins and the Knight of batons
The word "tarot"[21] and GermanTarock derive from the ItalianTarocchi, the origin of which is uncertain, althoughtaroch was used as a synonym for foolishness in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.[22][23] The decks were known exclusively asTrionfi during the fifteenth century. The new name first appeared inBrescia around 1502 asTarocho.[24] 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 renamedtarocchi.[3] In modern Italian, the singular term isTarocco, which, as a noun, is a cultivar ofblood orange. The attributeTarocco and the verbTaroccare are used regionally to indicate that something is fake or forged. This meaning is directly derived from the tarocchi game as played in Italy, in whichtarocco indicates a card that can be played in place of another card.[25][26]
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.[27] 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 popular card games in Europe, played everywhere except Ireland and Britain, the Iberian peninsula, and theOttoman Balkans.[28]French tarot experienced another revival, beginning in the 1970s, and France has the strongest tarot gaming community. Regional tarot games—often known astarock,tarok, ortarokk—are widely played in central Europe within the borders of the formerAustro-Hungarian empire.
Italian-suited decks were first devised in the 15th century in northern Italy. Three decks of this category are still used to play certain games:
TheTarocco 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.
TheSwiss 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 the Tower is known as the House of God. The cards are not reversible like the Tarocco Piemontese.
TheTarocco 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 not derived from theTarot of Marseilles.
TheTarocco Siciliano is the only deck to use the so-calledPortuguese suit system, which uses Spanish pips but intersects them like Italian pips.[29] 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 formerstamp tax. The cards are quite small and not reversible.[9][broken anchor]
The sole surviving example of aSpanish-suited deck was produced around 1820 by Giacomo Recchi ofOneglia,Liguria and destined forSardinia. The plain suit cards are copied from the Sardinian pattern designed just ten years earlier by José Martinez de Castro for Clemente Roxas inMadrid but with the addition of 10s and queens. The trumps are largely copied from an early version of theTarocco Piemontese. At that time, Liguria, Sardinia, andPiedmont were all territories of theSavoyard state.[30][31][32]
French-suited tarot decks are known as the oldest decks used for the Tarot. With the exception of novelty decks, French-suited tarot cards are almost exclusively used forcard games. The earliest French-suited tarot decks were made by the de Poilly family of engravers, beginning with aMinchiate deck byFrançois de Poilly in the late 1650s. Aside from these early outliers, 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 withgenre art orveduta. The German states used to produce a variety of 78-card tarot packs using Italian suits, but later switching to French suited cards; some were imported to France. There remain only two French-suited patterns ofCego packs - the Cego Adler pack manufactured byASS Altenburger and one with genre scenes byF.X. Schmid, which may reflect the mainstream German cards of the 19th century. Current French-suited tarot decks come in these patterns:
Industrie und Glück – theIndustrie und Glück ("Diligence and Fortune"[a]) 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. There are 3 patterns – Types A, B and C – of which Type C has become the standard, whereas Types A and B appear in limited editions or specials.
Tarot Nouveau – also called theTarot Bourgeois – has a 78-card pack. It is commonly used for tarot games in France and forDanish Tarok in Denmark. It is also sometimes used in Germany to playCego. Its genre art trumps use Arabic numerals in corner indices.
Adler-Cego – this is an animal tarot that is used in theUpper Rhine valley and neighbouring mountain regions such as theBlack Forest or theVosges It has 54 cards organized in the same fashion as theIndustrie und Glück packs. Its trumps use Arabic numerals but within centered indices.
From the late 18th century, in addition to producing their own true Tarot packs, the south German states manufactured German-suited packs labeled "Taroc", "Tarock" or "Deutsch-Tarok". These survive as "Schafkopf/Tarock" packs of theBavarian andFranconian pattern. These are not true tarot packs, but standard 36-cardGerman-suited decks for games likeGerman Tarok,Bauerntarock,Württemberg Tarock andBavarian Tarock. Until the 1980s there were also Tarock packs in theWürttemberg pattern. There are 36 cards; thepip cards ranging from 6 to 10, Under Knave (Unter), Over Knave (Ober), King, and Ace. These useace–ten ranking, likeklaverjas, where ace is the highest followed by 10, king, Ober, Unter, then 9 to 6. The heart suit is the default trump suit.[3] The Bavarian pack is also used to playSchafkopf by excluding the Sixes.
Deck of the 22Major Arcana cards inspired by the Tarot of Marseilles, but with the author's graphic style
In English-speaking countries where these games are not widely played, only specially designed cartomantic tarot cards, used primarily for novelty anddivination, are readily available.[3] The early French occultists claimed that tarot cards had esoteric links toancient Egypt,Kabbalah, the IndicTantra, orI Ching, claims that have been frequently repeated by authors on card divination. However, scholarly research demonstrated that tarot cards were invented in northern Italy in the mid-15th century and confirmed that there is no historical evidence of any significant use of tarot cards for divination until the late 18th century.[3][33] Historians have described western views of the Tarot pack as "the subject of the most successful propaganda campaign ever launched [...] An entire false history and false interpretation of the Tarot pack was concocted by the occultists and it is all but universally believed."[34]
The earliest evidence of a tarot deck used forcartomancy comes from an anonymous manuscript from around 1750 which documents rudimentary divinatory meanings for the cards of theTarocco Bolognese.[35][36] The popularization of esoteric tarot started withAntoine Court andJean-Baptiste Alliette (Etteilla) in Paris during the 1780s, using theTarot of Marseilles.[37]French tarot players abandoned the Marseilles tarot in favor of theTarot Nouveau around 1900, with the result that the Marseilles pattern is now used mostly by cartomancers.
Etteilla was the first to produce a bespoke tarot deck specifically designed for occult purposes around 1789. In keeping with the unsubstantiated belief that such cards were derived from theBook of Thoth, Etteilla's tarot contained themes related toancient Egypt.[37]
In the occult tradition, tarot cards are referred to as "arcana", with the Fool and 21 trumps being termed theMajor Arcana and the suit cards theMinor Arcana,[38] terms not used by players oftarot card games.
The 78-card tarot deck used by esotericists has two distinct parts:
TheMajor Arcana (greater secrets) consists of 22 cards withoutsuits. Their names and numbers vary, but in a typical scheme, the names are:
TheMinor 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, coins and cups; however, in modern occult tarot decks, the suit of batons is often called wands, rods or staves; the suit of coins is often called pentacles or disks and the suit of cups is often referred to as goblets.
The terms "Major Arcana" and "Minor Arcana" were first used byJean-Baptiste Pitois (also known as Paul Christian) and are never used in relation to tarot card games.[39] Some decks exist primarily as artwork, and such art decks sometimes contain only the 22 Major Arcana.
Aleister Crowley, who devised the Thoth deck along withLady Frieda Harris, stated of the tarot: "The origin of this pack of cards is very obscure. Some authorities seek to put it back as far as the ancient Egyptian Mysteries; others try to bring it forward as late as the fifteenth or even the sixteenth century ... [but] The only theory of ultimate interest about the tarot is that it is an admirable symbolic picture of the Universe, based on the data of the HolyQabalah."[40]
^"Diligence and Fortune" is the contemporary meaning of the phraseIndustrie und Glück. See, for example, Placardi, Carl (1766).Das Kaiserliche Sprach- und Wörterbuch, Cölln am Rhein: Metternich, pp. 72 and 83.
^Peter F. Kopp: Die frühesten Spielkarten in der Schweiz. In: Zeitschrift für schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte 30 (1973), pp. 130–145, here 130.
^Hellmut Rosenfeld: Zu den frühesten Spielkarten in der Schweiz. Eine Entgegnung. In: Zeitschrift für schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte 32 (1975), pp. 179–180.
^Detlef Hoffmann: Kultur- und Kunstgeschichte der Spielkarte. Marburg: Jonas Verlag 1995, p. 43.
^Semetsky, Inna (2011).Re-Symbolization of the Self: Human Development and Tarot Hermeneutic. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. p. 33.ISBN978-94-6091-421-8.
Kaplan, Stuart R. (2003) [1978].The Encyclopedia of Tarot. Vol. 2: Tarot Cards for Fun and Fortune Telling (3rd ed.). New York: U.S. Games Systems.ISBN978-0-913866-36-8.
.jpg)
.jpg)
