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What if I told you one of the world's most famous mystical tool was originally invented for wealthy Italian Nobles to play a renaissance version of bridge? Yes, I'm talking about Tarot.
Tarot has always had this sort of mysterious reputation.
You see a deck of tarot cards & immediately think of fortune telling, spiritually, witches, the occult, predicting the future, maybe even something darker depending on who you ask. But here's the interesting part - That actually isn't where it began.
The Origin
The history of tarot is much stranger & honestly, much more interesting than the stories we usually hear. So the big question is... Where did tarot actually come from?
Despite the stories that tarot originated in ancient Egypt, was created by the Romani people, or contains secret teachings passed down from ancient civilizations, there isn't historical evidence supporting those origins or claims.
The earliest documented reference of tarot to appear is in 15th-century Italy, more specifically, Milan, Florence, Venice, & Urbino. It wasn't originally created to tell anyone's future. It was a card game. Yes, tarot started as a game.
The cards were originally similar to the playing cards we know today, with suits & numbered cards, but with an additional group of illustrated cards called trionfi, or triumphs. These special cards acted as trump cards during the game. Eventually, the Italian term tarocchi became associated with the deck.
The earliest reference we have date to the 1440s & 1450s, & some of the oldest surviving decks were incredibly elaborate pieces of Renaissance artwork. One of the most famous decks is the Visconti-Sforza Tarot, created in Milan around 1450. These weren't cheap little decks made for someone sitting at a kitchen table. Some were luxury object, hand-painted & decorated with gold, made for wealthy & aristocratic families.
Looking at some of these early cards is fascinating because you can already recognize pieces of the tarot we know today: the fool, the Emperor, the Pope, Death, the Wheel of Fortune, the Sun, the Moon, the World, & others.
But they weren't being used as a mystical guidebook. They were being played.
The Game Era
Tarot was a trick-taking game, meaning the goal wasn't simply to get the "best" cards in your hand. Players played cards against one another, & each round - or trick - was won by the card that ranked highest according to the rues.
The ordinary cards followed by the four Italian suits: Cards, Swords, Batons, & coins, but then there was an entirely separate set of cards: the trumps.
The 21 trump cards weren't just decorative additions to an ordinary deck. They formed a hierarchy of their own. If you played a regular suit card, another player could beat it by playing a trump. So, suddenly the strange illustrated cards weren't mystical symbols waiting to reveal your destiny.
The trump cards were generally ranked against once another, meaning a higher trump card could beat a lower one. The exact ranking wasn't identical everywhere, though, early decks weren't completely standardized. In some surviving early decks, the order & even the selection of trump images differed.
That meant knowing when to play a powerful trump & when to save it, it was a strategy style game.
& then there was the Fool. The Fool or matto, had a particularly interesting role. Rather than simply being the lowest trump, the Fool functioned as a wild card. It had a special relationship to the trick-taking rules & could be used differently from the numbered or trump cards.
The card that we now associate with beginnings, spontaneity, & stepping into the unknown was originally, essentially the weird little wildcard of the deck.
The Occult Pivot
When did tarot become associated with fortune telling? This is where the story gets really interesting.
The idea of using tarot cards for divination came centuries after the cards themselves appeared. The connection between tart & fortune-telling began gaining popularity in the 18th-century & became much more established through the occult movements of the 19th century. In other words, the mystical meaning we associate with tarot today was layered onto a much older card game.
This is also where some of the elaborate origin stories began to develop. Tarot started being connected with Egypt, secret Egyptian wisdom, Kabbalah, astrology, & other esoteric traditions. These ideas became hugely influential in occult tarot, but that doesn't mean they were original purpose of the cards.
A tradition can become meaningful without being the original history.
The Modern Pop-Culture Birth
& then came the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. If you've ever seen a modern tarot deck, there's a good chance
you've seen imagery influenced by the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
Published in 1909, the deck was illustrated by artist Pamela Colman Smith under direction of occultist A.E. Waite. Its detailed illustrations, particularly on the numbered Minor Arcana cards, helped establish much of the visual language people recognize as "tarot" today.
& here is where tarot starts to look much more like the tarot sitting on someone's bookshelf today. The imagery became symbolic. The cards became associated with specific meanings, & tarot transformed from a Renaissance card game into something people used for reflection, spiritual practice, divination, & storytelling.
So, What Do I Make Of Tarot?
After digging through the history of tarot, I think the biggest takeaway for me is that the cards are so much more complicated than the way we usually talk about them. They weren't born as a fortune-telling tool. They weren't created in ancient Egypt. They weren't originally meant to predict your future. They were playing cards.
& yet, over the hundred of years, people continued to add meaning to them. Renaissance artist filled them with allegorical imagery. Occultists later connected them to astrology, Kabbalah, mysticism, & dicination. Eventually, those ideas became so intertwined with the cards that it's almost impossible to separate modern tart from its mystical reputation; But, knowing where that reputation came from doesn't necessarily make tarot less interesting. If anything, I think it makes it more fascinating.
A deck that started as a game somehow became an entire language of symbols that people have used for centuries to explore spiritually, intuition, storytelling, & themselves.
Whether you see tarot as divination, spirituality, psychology, art, history, entertainment, or just pretty cards, the history behind it is worth knowing.
⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊⊱·✶·⊰₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊⊱·✶·⊰₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊⊱·✶·⊰₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹
What do you make of Tarot? What are your thoughts on the history, beginnings, & current status of the cards? Leave them in the comments & lets yap!
What if I told you one of the world's most famous mystical tool was originally invented for wealthy Italian Nobles to play a renaissance version of bridge? Yes, I'm talking about Tarot.
Tarot has always had this sort of mysterious reputation.
You see a deck of tarot cards & immediately think of fortune telling, spiritually, witches, the occult, predicting the future, maybe even something darker depending on who you ask. But here's the interesting part - That actually isn't where it began.
The Origin
The history of tarot is much stranger & honestly, much more interesting than the stories we usually hear. So the big question is... Where did tarot actually come from?
Despite the stories that tarot originated in ancient Egypt, was created by the Romani people, or contains secret teachings passed down from ancient civilizations, there isn't historical evidence supporting those origins or claims.
The earliest documented reference of tarot to appear is in 15th-century Italy, more specifically, Milan, Florence, Venice, & Urbino. It wasn't originally created to tell anyone's future. It was a card game. Yes, tarot started as a game.
The cards were originally similar to the playing cards we know today, with suits & numbered cards, but with an additional group of illustrated cards called trionfi, or triumphs. These special cards acted as trump cards during the game. Eventually, the Italian term tarocchi became associated with the deck.
The earliest reference we have date to the 1440s & 1450s, & some of the oldest surviving decks were incredibly elaborate pieces of Renaissance artwork. One of the most famous decks is the Visconti-Sforza Tarot, created in Milan around 1450. These weren't cheap little decks made for someone sitting at a kitchen table. Some were luxury object, hand-painted & decorated with gold, made for wealthy & aristocratic families.
Looking at some of these early cards is fascinating because you can already recognize pieces of the tarot we know today: the fool, the Emperor, the Pope, Death, the Wheel of Fortune, the Sun, the Moon, the World, & others.
But they weren't being used as a mystical guidebook. They were being played.
The Game Era
Tarot was a trick-taking game, meaning the goal wasn't simply to get the "best" cards in your hand. Players played cards against one another, & each round - or trick - was won by the card that ranked highest according to the rues.
The ordinary cards followed by the four Italian suits: Cards, Swords, Batons, & coins, but then there was an entirely separate set of cards: the trumps.
The 21 trump cards weren't just decorative additions to an ordinary deck. They formed a hierarchy of their own. If you played a regular suit card, another player could beat it by playing a trump. So, suddenly the strange illustrated cards weren't mystical symbols waiting to reveal your destiny.
The trump cards were generally ranked against once another, meaning a higher trump card could beat a lower one. The exact ranking wasn't identical everywhere, though, early decks weren't completely standardized. In some surviving early decks, the order & even the selection of trump images differed.
That meant knowing when to play a powerful trump & when to save it, it was a strategy style game.
& then there was the Fool. The Fool or matto, had a particularly interesting role. Rather than simply being the lowest trump, the Fool functioned as a wild card. It had a special relationship to the trick-taking rules & could be used differently from the numbered or trump cards.
The card that we now associate with beginnings, spontaneity, & stepping into the unknown was originally, essentially the weird little wildcard of the deck.
The Occult Pivot
When did tarot become associated with fortune telling? This is where the story gets really interesting.
The idea of using tarot cards for divination came centuries after the cards themselves appeared. The connection between tart & fortune-telling began gaining popularity in the 18th-century & became much more established through the occult movements of the 19th century. In other words, the mystical meaning we associate with tarot today was layered onto a much older card game.
This is also where some of the elaborate origin stories began to develop. Tarot started being connected with Egypt, secret Egyptian wisdom, Kabbalah, astrology, & other esoteric traditions. These ideas became hugely influential in occult tarot, but that doesn't mean they were original purpose of the cards.
A tradition can become meaningful without being the original history.
The Modern Pop-Culture Birth
& then came the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. If you've ever seen a modern tarot deck, there's a good chance
you've seen imagery influenced by the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
Published in 1909, the deck was illustrated by artist Pamela Colman Smith under direction of occultist A.E. Waite. Its detailed illustrations, particularly on the numbered Minor Arcana cards, helped establish much of the visual language people recognize as "tarot" today.
& here is where tarot starts to look much more like the tarot sitting on someone's bookshelf today. The imagery became symbolic. The cards became associated with specific meanings, & tarot transformed from a Renaissance card game into something people used for reflection, spiritual practice, divination, & storytelling.
So, What Do I Make Of Tarot?
After digging through the history of tarot, I think the biggest takeaway for me is that the cards are so much more complicated than the way we usually talk about them. They weren't born as a fortune-telling tool. They weren't created in ancient Egypt. They weren't originally meant to predict your future. They were playing cards.
& yet, over the hundred of years, people continued to add meaning to them. Renaissance artist filled them with allegorical imagery. Occultists later connected them to astrology, Kabbalah, mysticism, & dicination. Eventually, those ideas became so intertwined with the cards that it's almost impossible to separate modern tart from its mystical reputation; But, knowing where that reputation came from doesn't necessarily make tarot less interesting. If anything, I think it makes it more fascinating.
A deck that started as a game somehow became an entire language of symbols that people have used for centuries to explore spiritually, intuition, storytelling, & themselves.
Whether you see tarot as divination, spirituality, psychology, art, history, entertainment, or just pretty cards, the history behind it is worth knowing.
⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊⊱·✶·⊰₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊⊱·✶·⊰₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊⊱·✶·⊰₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹
What do you make of Tarot? What are your thoughts on the history, beginnings, & current status of the cards? Leave them in the comments & lets yap!
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