Tarot games Divinatory culture Tarot decks

The tarot first referred to as trionfi and then as tarocchi, tarock, and others is really a pack of playing cards most often numbering ), used through the mid-th century in numerous elements of Europe to learn several card games like Italian tarocchini and French tarot. From the late th century before the present time the tarot in addition has found use by mystics and occultists in efforts at divination or as being a map of mental and spiritual pathways.

The tarot has four suits (which vary by region, being the French suits in Northern Europe, the Latin suits in Southern Europe, along with the German suits in Central Europe). Each of the suits has pip cards numbering from ace to ten and four face cards for a total of cards. In addition, the tarot is distinguished with a separate -card trump suit plus a single card known since the Fool. Depending on the game, the Fool may act because the top trump or may be played to stop following suit.

Fran�ois Rabelais gives tarau because name of 1 of the games played by Gargantua in their Gargantua and Pantagruel; this really is likely the earliest attestation from the French form of the name. Tarot cards are employed throughout much of Europe to experience card games. In English-speaking countries, where these games are largely unplayed, tarot cards are now used primarily for divinatory purposes.Occultists call the trump cards and the Fool "the major arcana" as 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 even the Kabbalah but there exists no documented evidence of which origins or of the using tarot for divination prior to the th century.



The English and French word tarot derives through the Italian tarocchi, which does not have access to any known origin or etymology. One theory relates the name "tarot" on the Taro River in northern Italy, near Parma; the action seems to have originated in northern Italy, in Milan or Bologna. Other writers trust it comes from your Arabic word turuq, meaning 'ways'.Alternatively, it could be from your Arabic taraka, 'to leave, abandon, omit, leave behind'. According to your French etymology, the Italian tarocco derived from Arabic ..'rejection; subtraction, deduction, discount'.

There is also the question of whether the term tarot is related to Harut and Marut, who have been mentioned in the short account inside Qur'an. According to this account, several Israelites learned magic, for demonstration and test them, from two angels called Harut and Marut, plus it adds until this knowledge of magic could be passed on others with the devil.9 What might be taken into account here is the phonetic resemblance of tarot to Harut and Marut .
History

Playing cards first entered Europe inside the late th century, probably from Mamluk Egypt, with suits virtually identical on the tarot suits of Swords, Staves, Cups and Coins (also referred to as disks, and pentacles) and those still utilized in traditional Italian, Spanish and Portuguese decks.

The first known documented tarot cards are created between and in Milan, Ferrara and Bologna in northern Italy when additional trump cards with allegorical illustrations were added for the common four-suit pack. These new decks were originally called carte da trionfi, triumph cards, and the additional cards known simply as trionfi, which became "trumps" in English. The first literary evidence in the existence of carte da trionfi can be a written statement inside the court records in Ferrara, in . The oldest surviving tarot cards are from fifteen fragmented decks painted within the mid th century for your Visconti-Sforza family, the rulers of Milan.
Early decks
Le Bateleur: The Juggler through the Tarot of Marseilles. This card is frequently named The Magician in modern English language tarots

Picture-card packs are first mentioned by Martiano da Tortona probably between and , since the painter he mentions, Michelino da Besozzo, returned to Milan in , while Martiano himself died in . He describes a deck with picture cards with images in the Greek gods and suits depicting four types of birds, not the most popular suits. However the cards were obviously viewed as "trumps" as, about years later, Jacopo Antonio Marcello called them a ludus triumphorum, or "game of trumps".

Special motifs on cards added to regular packs show philosophical, social, poetical, astronomical, and heraldic ideas, Roman/Greek/Babylonian heroes, as in the case in the Sola-Busca-Tarocchi (9) along with the Boiardo Tarocchi poem, written at an unknown date between and 9.

Two playing card decks from Milan (the Brera-Brambilla and Cary-Yale-Tarocchi)�extant, but fragmentary�were made circa . Three documents dating from January to July , utilize the term trionfi. The document from January is certainly an unreliable reference; however, a similar painter, Sagramoro, was commissioned through the same patron, Leonello d'Este, as inside February document. The game gave the sense to gain in importance within the year , a Jubilee year in Italy, which saw many festivities and the movement of numerous pilgrims.

Three mid-th century sets were designed for members of the Visconti family. The first deck, and probably the prototype, is called the Cary-Yale Tarot (or Visconti-Modrone Tarot) and was created between and by an anonymous painter for Filippo Maria Visconti. The cards (only ) are today in the Cary collection of the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University, inside U.S. state of Connecticut. The most famous was painted inside mid-th century, to celebrate Francesco Sforza and his awesome wife Bianca Maria Visconti, daughter of the duke Filippo Maria. Probably, prepaid credit cards were painted by Bonifacio Bembo or Francesco Zavattari between and . Of the original cards, have been in The Morgan Library & Museum, are at the Accademia Carrara, are on the Casa Colleoni and four: 'The Devil', 'The Tower here are the findings ', 'Money's Horse (The Chariot)' and ' of Spades', are lost otherwise never made. This "Visconti-Sforza" deck, which may be widely reproduced, reflects conventional iconography from the time as well as to a substantial degree.