In order to read, predict and understand with tarot cards we first need to understand the history and meaning of the Tarot. 

Let us first look to the history and discuss the meaning of each card in a other post.

The Tarot (first known as tarocchi also tarock and similar names), is a deck of seventy-eight cards, that from the middle of the fifteenth century in different parts of Europe was played. In Italy, for example Tarocchini and in France as French tarot. It has four colors corresponding to the four colors of the modern 52-card deck, although the symbols of the strengths and the number of court cards vary.
It distinguishes itself in particular through a separate asset known as the Fool or the Fool.

In some versions of the game as the highest trump card may be played.

Rabelais gives tarau as the name of one of the games played by Gargantua in his Gargantua and Pantagruel. This is probably the first mention of the French form of the name. Tarot cards are a large part of Europe as a form of card game, so just as entertainment. In English this kind of games are largely unknown. Tarot cards are there mainly used for divination and other esoteric applications.

Occultists call the assets (along with the Fool) “Major Arcana”;

While the ten numbered cards and court cards of each color the “Minor Arcana” are mentioned. The cards are used by some occult writers traced back to ancient Egypt or the Kabbalah but this origin is no evidence so the speculation continues. Nor can it be proven before the 18th century tarot already been used for prediction, although it seems likely that the strong should have inspired so appealing scenes.

The English and French word tarot is derived from the Italian tarocchi which no etymological origin is known.

One theory links the name “tarot” with the Taro River in northern Italy, near Parma, which sounds plausible given the game seems to have originated in northern Italy, in Milan or Bologna. Other writers believe that it is derived from the Arabic word turuq, which is related to “Tariq” that “way” means. Another possibility is the Arabic tarach, “reject”. According to etymologists, the French Italian Tarocco derived from Tara. “Reduction of merchandise; deduction, the act of deduction.”

Card games were common in Europe in the late 14th century;

Probably it is the Mamlukkaarten out from Egypt, with colors that resemble the colors of the Tarot: Swords, Rods, Cups and Coins (also known as disks or pentacles). These cards are still used in traditional Italian, Spanish and Portuguese decks. The first proof of the existence of the tarot is a ban on its use in 1367, in Bern, Switzerland. Wide use of playing cards in Europe can with any certainty traced from 1377 onwards.

The first known Tarot cards were created between 1430 and 1450 in Milan, Ferrara and Bologna in northern Italy.

When additional trump cards with allegorical illustrations were added to the usual card game with 4 colors. This new tarot decks were originally called carte da trionfi, triumph cards, and the additional cards known as trionfi that “trumps” in Dutch. The first documented evidence of the existence of carte da trionfi is a written statement in 1442 in the archives of the court of Ferrara. The oldest surviving Tarot cards are from fifteen fragmented decks painted in the mid 15th century.

Painted for the Visconti-Sforza family, the rulers of Milan.

For divination using playing cards in 1540 is evidence found in a book entitled The Oracles of Francesco Marcolino da Forli which simple oracles by means of drawing a map will be described, although the card itself has no predictive significance. But manuscripts from 1735 (The Square of Sevens) and 1750 dated document (Pratesi Cartomancer) already provide rudimentary meanings and systems for laying the cards for divination. Giacomo Casanova wrote in his diary in 1765 that his Russian mistress frequently used a deck of cards for divination.

Cards with images of characters and scenes were first mentioned by Martiano da Tortona probably between 1418 and 1425.

For the painter he calls Michelino da Besozzo, returned in 1418 returned to Milan, while Martiano himself died in 1425. He describes a tarot deck with 16 cards illustrated with images of Greek gods and map colors represent the four species of birds instead of the usual spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds. It is clear that he sixteen cards as “trumps” looked just like twenty five years later, Jacopo Antonio Marcello it Ludus triumphorum, or “game assets” would call.
The special images that were added to the maps show philosophical, social, poetical, astronomical, and heraldic motifs such as Roman / Greek / Babylonian heroes.

Such is the case with the Sola-Busca-Tarocchi (1491) and the Boiardo Tarocchi poem (made at an unknown date between 1461 and 1494).

Le Bateleur from the Tarot of Marseilles; Power, a trump card from the Tarot Minchiate. 18th century ‘Tiertarock’ (animals tarot), Two Tarots from Milan, the Brera Brambrilla and Cary-Yale-Tarocchi – incomplete narrated – were made around 1440. Three documents dating from 1 January 1441 to July 1442, making use of the term trionfi. The document from January 1441 is considered an unreliable reference, but the same painter, Sagramoro worked for the same patron, Leonello d’Este, as in the February 1442 document stated.

The game seemed to gain in importance in the year 1450, a jubilee year in Italy, with many festivities that attracted many pilgrims.

Three mid-15th century sets were created for the members of the Visconti family. The first deck is the Cary-Yale Tarot (or Visconti-Modrone Tarot), due to an anonymous painter for Filippo Maria Visconti between 1442 and 1447. The cards (only 66) are now in the Library of Yale University New Haven. The most famous version was painted in the mid 15th century in honor of Francesco Sforza and his wife Bianca Maria Visconti, daughter of the duke Filippo Maria.

Probably these cards painted by Bonifacio Bembo.

Of the original thirty-five cards are in the Pierpont Morgan Library, twenty-six at the Accademia Carrara thirteen are located in the Casa Colleoni and two, ‘The Devil’ and ‘The Tower’, are lost or never made. This “Visconti-Sforza ‘tarot, which is reproduced fairly large scale, reflects the traditional iconography of the time significantly. Hand-painted tarot cards remained a privilege of the upper classes and, despite the inevitable sermons from the 14th century against the evil that cards might cause was the use of these early tarot games are not really persecuted by the government.

In some jurisdictions, tarot cards for even an exception to the prohibition of cards to play.

As the earliest tarot cards were hand painted, was the production of these Tarots relatively modest. Only after the introduction of the printing press mid-15th century mass production possible. Tarot Games from this period were found in several French cities, most notably that of Marseilles, whose name Tarot de Marseille come from the same southern French port city. Around the same time the name appeared on tarocchi. The original goal was simple card game of tarot cards, the first lines in the script of Martiano da Tortona before 1425 were formulated.

There are many possible variations of the known tarot deck.

The first basic rules for Tarocco appear before 1425 on the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona. The following are from the year 1637. In Italy the game loses popularity. A version named Tarocco Bolognese: Ottocento is still played and still others are in Piemond played outside Italy but it is considerably larger number of decks. The French tarot is most popular in his own country and there are regional games known as Tarot tarock, Tarok or tarokk which is widely played in Central Europe.

Tarot cards would later be associated with mysticism and magic.

Tarot only became widely by mystics, occultists and secret societies adopted from the 18th and 19th centuries. The tradition began in 1781, when Antoine Court de Gébelin, a Swiss mental and Mason, Primitif Le Monde, published a speculative study on religious symbolism and its survivals in the modern world. The Gébelin first that the symbolism of the Tarot de Marseille, the mysteries of Isis and Thoth represented. Gébelin further claimed that the name “tarot” came from the Egyptian words tar, meaning “royal”, and ro, that “road” means that the Tarot therefore represented a “royal road” to wisdom would show.

The Gébelin also stated that the Gypsies, who were the first to use the cards for divination.

And the descendants of the ancient Egyptians and as nomadic people living in Europe had introduced the cards. The Gébelin wrote this treatise before Jean-François Champollion had deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs, or indeed before the Rosetta Stone was discovered. Later Egyptologists found nothing in the Egyptian language that could support Gebelins fanciful etymology. Nevertheless, the identification of the Tarot cards with the Egyptian “Book of Thoth” was already firmly established in occult societies and to this day remains the legend of a surviving Egyptian secret doctrine particularly popular.

Historically one of the major Tarots is the version known as the Tarot of Marseilles.

This was following the leading standard deck designs. It was also the version that the Court Gébelin studied and he illustrated his Monde Primitif with images from the Tarot. The Tarot of Marseilles was also popular in the 20th century by Paul Marteau version, which itself was based on the design of Nicolas Conver in 1760. This Tarot de Marseille was ultimately clear the 15th-century Italian designs from Milan. Other variations include the “Swiss” Tarot, which Papesse La and Le Pape for obvious reasons (pressure from the Roman Catholic Church) replaced by the images of Jupiter and Juno.

In Florence, a suit with more cards, the tarot Minchiate.

The game had 96 cards that astrological symbols and the four elements added to the traditional tarot motifs. Tarot cards in the French style (like the French tarot with ordinary colors) began to appear in Germany during the 18th century. The first generations of these cards depict scenes of animals off the assets and were therefore “Tiertarock” decks mentioned. Göbl a cartier from Munich, is often mentioned as the designer of this innovation. Tarot cards in the French style are still used for tarot / tarock card games, as played in France and Central Europe. The symbolism of their assets differs considerably from the old Italian design.

With the exception of some recent models such as the Tarocchi di Alan, Tarot of reincarnation and the Tarot de la Nature.

French style tarot cards are actually used exclusively for card games and rarely for prediction. Etteilla (1738 – 1791) was the first to a specially designed tarot divination referred. Because he was convinced that tarot was based on the Egyptian Book of Thoth, he incorporated into his version themes from ancient Egypt. Tarots by esotericists used consist of 78 cards that can be divided into two distinct parts: The Major Arcana (greater secrets) or the trump cards consists of 22 cards: The Fool I The Magician, II The High Priestess, III The Empress IV The Emperor V The Hierophant, VI The Lovers, VII The Chariot, VIII Justice, IX The Hermit X Wheel of Fortune, XI Strength, XII Moderation · XIII Death XIV The Hanged Man, XV The Devil XVI The Tower, The Star XVII, XVIII The Moon XIX The Sun XX and XXI The World The Verdict.

The Minor Arcana (smaller secrets) consists of 56 cards divided into 4 groups of 14 cards each with its own color.

This contains the cards numbered 1-10, and the 4 “court cards”. That court cards are King, Queen, Knight and Page. The traditional Italian “colors” are Swords, Rods (also “Sticks”), does Cups and Coins (also ‘Pentacles’ called). The terms “major arcana” and “minor arcana” were first used by Jean Baptiste Pitois, also known as Paul Christian, but never used the terms in connection with tarot cards.
The tarot of A.E. A.E. Waite (1857 – 1942) and artist Pamela Coleman Smith (1878 – 1951) differs in some respects from earlier versions tarot. Thus, the Waite cards ‘Strength’ and ‘Justice’ in the Major Arcana changed places.

But the most striking feature are the illustrations of the regular numbered cards, called the Minor Arcana;

Who now portray vivid scenes rather than a sober figure with some ornament as in the Tarot of Marseilles or tarot of the Golden Dawn was usual. The occultist Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) made this tarot version in collaboration with artist and Golden Dawn member Lady Frieda Harris (1877 – 1962). Each tarot card from Crow Leys shows a wealth of symbols from astrology, alchemy and Kabbalah. Even the colors are symbolic, for example to show the relationship with the elements earth, fire, water and air. Crowley also wrote a book with this tarot which he called The Book of Thoth.

It was a name that Etteilla 150 years previously had been used.

He retained it the traditional organization of the trump cards, but gives each card of the major and minor arcana itself a distinctive name. The card of Judgment he replaced by ‘The Aeon’, probably because he was disturbed at the Christian symbolism of the traditional map. When you like to recieve a Tarot reading i advice you my consult page where Peter-Paul Slurink or Tassanee Ruenphan offering a 98% clear Tarot reading. Since a 100% never possible due a individual human makes live misstake sometimes things could change; but the most possible outcome most definally can be read within the tarot.

To go to the consult page click here!

 

Author: Peter-Paul Slurink