About the Tarot

Tarot's origins are perhaps as misunderstood as the mystical symbols on the cards themselves. The earliest deck of
tarot cards was a hand-painted set created around 1440 for the Duke of Milan. They were used for a game similar to
bridge and to create amusing poetry. The promotional images and text on some of the early divination decks claim
ancient origins or gypsy ancestry, but most serious sources say the roots of these symbolic cards can be traced
originally to traditional playing type cards.

Divination using playing cards is in evidence as early as 1540 in a book entitled The Oracles of Francesco Marcolino
da Forli which allows a simple method of divination, though the cards are used only to select a random oracle and
have no meaning in themselves. Manuscripts from 1735 (The Square of Sevens) and 1750 (Pratesi Cartomancer) do
document simple divinatory meanings, as well as a system for laying out the cards. Giacomo Casanova wrote in his
diary that in 1765 that his Russian mistress frequently used a deck of playing cards for divination.

Yet, it wasn't until the late 1700s that tarot cards became strongly connected to fortune telling or the occult. The
writings of Antoine Court de Gebelin in 1781 were also hugely influential on the image of the tarot deck. An amateur
scholar, Gebelin suggested that the pictures on the tarot deck were related to occult Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Tarot divination gained in popularity during the 19th century, spurred on by a growing interest in spiritualism. The
Waite-Smith tarot deck, created in 1909, is now often considered the "standard" deck, although the symbols are more
a product of the late Victorian age rather than the Italian Renaissance period that they seem to reflect (and much less
ancient Egypt). Wherever they claim to come from, these days you can find a tarot deck in any style or theme
conceivable. I'll leave the mystical interpretation of its origins up to you!