The Jean Noblet Tarot - 1650, restored by Jean-Claude Flornoy
I’ve loved the history of tarot cards ever since I discovered that they were over 500 years old and that there is some mystery surrounding their creation and development. We know that tarot was created as a card game, and that a whole family of modern card games (like Bridge) are descendants of tarot. Historical evidence points to the first decks being created sometime in the early 1400s, probably in Italy, and probably in the royal courts of Milan, Florence, Bologna, or some other Italian city.
See, we’re not sure exactly who created the cards, and we’re not sure of when, or even exactly where, but we do know the why… they were used for hundreds of years to play a common and popular card game called tarot. Tarot is a “trump taking” game, and the word “trump” is connected to the earlier word for the game “Triumph” (or Trionfi in Italian), where one card would triumph over another just like in the triumphal parades of the period (both real and literary), where certain allegorical figures would triumph over the ones that came before it.
In tarot, instead of one of the four suits being used as the trump suit (like in other games at the time, and now.. such as “Hearts”), a whole new “fifth suit” was added to the game whose purpose was to trump the other suits. The regular four suits are the ancient card suits of Batons, Coins, Cups and Swords which were popular at the time and were latter changed by the French to Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts and Spades. The allegories in the fifth suit build up from a lowly man, to popes and emperors, to concepts of love and death, to the stars, moon and sun, to Judgement Day and finally a representation of the entire world. The most famous set of triumphs from the period is by Francesco Petrarch, a beloved and famous humanitarian from the 14th century, his trionfi poetry can be seen here. In his most famous set, Love triumphs over man, Chastity triumphs over Love, Death triumphs over Chastity, Fame triumphs over Death, Time triumphs over Fame, and finally… Eternity triumphs over Time. Many, if not all of these allegories exist in the the traditional pack of tarot cards. Here are a few cards from a royal deck from Milan created in the mid-fifteenth century illustrating a few of these trumps:
The Triumph of Love:
The Triumph of Love - 15th century tarot card
The Triumph of Death:
The Triumph of Death - 15th century tarot card
The Triumph of Time:
The Triumph of Time - 15th century tarot card
Over the centuries, probably millions of packs of cards were created as the game spread through Europe. France, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and many other countries all adopted the game and created their own styles of cards. Tracing the styles as they evolved and modified is one of the most enjoyable parts of studying tarot history. Another aspect that I love is exploring all of the connected art and history that appears in or influences that artwork, ( degree course could be offered on just this aspect alone!). I also love the mysteries, there are some cards that are rather strange, at least to modern eyes, and the sequence doesn’t make as much sense as some other more straight-forward related works. I continually come back to the same questions: Who made them? Why did they choose these allegories? Why did they choose 22 of them rather than some other number? If there was a “story” that they intended to tell with the sequence, what was it? Tarot is a wonderful mix of history, mystery, and art. It’s a real-life “Divinci code” with hundreds of participants each coming to their own conclusions to solve the mysteries. I’ve heard theories of Gnostics, and Cathers, and Knights Templar, and Bards, and Elusian Mysteries and just about every other connection imaginable. Many people try to connect the tarot cards to the Jewish or Hermetic Kabbalah, or to Astrology, alchemy, or many, many other forms of esoterica. Others point to some of the obviously Christian imagery and associations, and look at tarot as an example of a traditional moral allegory.
Most of us are familiar with tarot card readers, a practice that probably existed from the start of the cards invention (just as people used dice, pages from the bible, and many other forms of divination at the time… if there is a element of chance involved, humans tend to use it for luck and fortune telling). The earliest documented use of tarot cards for divination that I know of is from Bologna in the mid-seventeenth century. By the late eighteenth century, tarot cards were popularised by several French occultists (some of who claimed they were actually Egyptian hieroglyphs) and their popularity as such has grown in that area ever since. Over the past 200 years, new decks were developed based on the historical decks, but with new imagery, names, and sometimes even structure. Today there are literally thousands of decks available with artwork focused on everything from Mermaids and Pirates to Druidry, Native Americans or Victorian Romance. For me, it’s the old decks that are the real treasures. Thankfully, there are a few publishers who produce reproductions or restorations of many of the old decks, so we have access to them and can own copies of them. The image at the top of this post is of a reproduction of a deck created in Paris in the 1650s, this contemporary version was created by master cardmaker Jean-Claude Flornoy and is available on his website. This special edition is handcoloured using stencils, just as the deck would have been made over 350 years ago. He also offers a mass-produced version using traditional printing methods.
I’ve owned TarotHistory.com for four years, and I never seem to spend enough time developing it. A year ago I switched it to a blog format, but when I moved to England I just let it go as I have been preoccupied by other things. I also have a Tarot History forum set up to discuss the history and development of tarot cards. I’ve finally spent some time updating the weblog software, changing the art a bit, and starting the weblog and forum up again.
Visit the Tarot History Weblog.
Visit the Tarot History Forum.
