Tarot History: 600 years of history in 78 cards
An informative and welcoming site for Tarot History beginners, enthusiasts and scholars to explore the birth and development of tarot cards.
Home of the Tarot History Forum since 2008
Some starting points...
Explore how the card game of Tarot invented in the early 15th century has turned into one of the most popular forms of divination and mediums for creative expression.
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The Iconography and Order of Tarot Cards
Why these cards? Why this order? The cards are weird, aren’t they? Could you quickly memorise their order well enough to play the… continue
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Tarot is a Game of Triumphs
Petrarch and I Trionfi Francesco Petrarca, known in English as Petrarch (1304–1374), was one of the great poets and scholars of the early… continue
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Tarot is a Trick-Taking Game
Tarot was made to be played Before tarot was used for divination, art or self-reflection, it was a game, and for most of… continue
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The Origin of Tarot Cards
Tarot cards were invented to play a card game Tarot began as a card game in fifteenth-century Italy, and it is still played… continue
Explore the
Tarot History Forum
The Tarot History Website & Forum was established in 2008 as a comfortable and welcoming home for beginners, enthusiasts and scholars to explore the origin and development of Tarot Cards. If you're curious to learn what we know, and what we don't yet know, about the history of tarot cards, you're most welcome here, we'd love to have you join in the discussions.
Forum Areas Include:
The Researcher's Study (Documentation)
The Unicorn Terrace (Exploration)
Bianca's Garden (Iconography)
The Exhibition Gallery (Comparison)
The Plush Parlor (Esoterica)
The Library (with several wings) (Resources)
and... the Private Rooms, (for Members Only).
Recommended Tarot History Websites
There are some excellent sites out there, we'd like you to know about them.
Ross G. R. Caldwell's FB Group
Ross's Facebook group has over 27,000 members ...
Rónán Ó Fearġaıl's Tarot Website
Translations of French 19th-20th century occultist sources...
Sherryl E. Smith's
Tarot Website
Sherryl E. Smith's terrific Tarot History site, lots of content...
Andrea Vitali's
Tarot Website
Andrea's insightful and informative essays on Tarot studies...
Artisan Tarot
Exceptionally well made Tarot decks, many recreations of famous decks like the Dodal, Vieville and Noblet. Their Rosenwald is especially lovely...
MikeH's Tarot History Essay Archive
Over 50 essays written by MikeH over the past 20 years...
Jean-Michel
David's Website
Jean-Michel David has been a leading workshops on Tarot for decades...
Michael Hurst's Tarot Website
Archive of Michael Hurst's exceptional Tarot History site...
Hand-stencilled
Tarot card reproductions
Limited editions by Jean-Claude and Roxanne Flornoy
Artisanal Tarot cards on quality paper with gauche paints, hand-stencilled in very small batches. Available as 22 card decks or uncut sheets suitable for display. Want to have cards that look and felt like they were produced in the 1600s? Then look no further... Printed 78 card decks also available.
Huck's Tarot
History Website
Huck's website exploring the 5x14 theory & aspects of early Tarot...
Andy's Playing Cards
Andy's essays on Tarot History are a great place to start...
International Playing Cards Society
An essential resource for enthusiasts of Tarot and card games...
World of Playing Cards Website
Everything you ever wanted to know about Playing Cards & Tarot...
Tarot History Timeline
1260s-1270s Paper mills at Fabriano, later the source of cheap paper for Italian card makers.
1342 Boccaccio's Amorosa Visione, with triumphs of Wisdom, Glory, Wealth, Love and Fortune, and Death as Fortune's servant.
c.1351-1374 Petrarch writes I Trionfi. Many historians see its allegorical triumphs reflected in tarot imagery.
1370s Playing cards reach Europe, probably from Mamluk Egypt. First firm records in 1377: a ban in Florence, and Johannes of Rheinfelden's description.
1392 Charles VI pays the painter Jacquemin Gringonneur for three packs of cards. The Paris "Charles VI" tarot cards once linked to him are Italian, late 15th century.
c.1418-1425 Marziano da Tortona's game of sixteen gods for Filippo Maria Visconti, an early set of higher-ranking picture cards.- 1420s-1440 Tarot is probably devised in these years at a northern Italian court. Milan, Ferrara and Florence are the candidates; no document survives.
- 1440 First known mention of trionfi cards, in the diary of the Florentine notary Giusto Giusti.
- 1442 Ferrara court accounts record packs of trionfi cards.
1440s-1480s Tarot flourishes at northern Italian courts, with hand-painted luxury decks such as the Visconti-Sforza.
Late 15th century The Sola Busca deck (c.1491), the first with every pip card illustrated, and Boiardo's tarocchi poem describing an invented deck.
Late 15th century Woodblock printing makes cheaper tarot decks possible.
c.1500 The Cary Sheet, an uncut sheet probably from Milan, the earliest close relative of the Tarot de Marseille.- c.1502-1505 The name tarocco appears (Brescia c.1502, Ferrara 1505) as trionfi comes to mean trumps in other games.
- 1505 First French record of the game: "taraux" at Avignon.
Early 16th century Minchiate, first recorded as Germini (1506), a Florentine game like tarot with 97 cards.- 1530s Tarocchi becomes the usual Italian name.
1589 Venetian Inquisition trials record the Devil card used in love magic.- 1637 First printed rules of the game, by the Abbé de Marolles, printed at Nevers.
Mid-1600s Paris makers such as Jacques Vieville produce designs that later become the Belgian pattern.
c.1650 Jean Noblet's deck, Paris, the earliest surviving Tarot de Marseille Type I.
1725 Papal authorities in Bologna have the four 'Papi' cards replaced with Moors.
1760 Nicolas Conver’s Tarot de Marseille becomes a popular French pattern.- Late 18th century Tarot’s popularity as a card game peaks across Europe.
1781 Court de Gébelin claims Egyptian origins for Tarot in Le Monde Primitif, sparking occult interest.
1788-1789 The Grand Etteilla, the first tarot deck designed for divination.
1850s Éliphas Lévi links the trumps to the Hebrew alphabet, the start of esoteric tarot.
1888 Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn integrates Tarot into ritual magic and develops new symbolic systems.
1909 Rider-Waite-Smith deck, the first widely available deck with every pip card illustrated, drawing on the Sola Busca.
1944 Aleister Crowley’s Book of Thoth completed (Thoth Tarot deck published 1969).
1960s–present Tarot experiences global revival, inspiring new decks and approaches in psychology, art, and self-development.
Exploring the Origins and Evolution
of Tarot Cards.
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The Tarot History Forum welcomes beginners, enthusiasts and scholars to explore the incredibly rich history of Tarot cards. With over 18 years of contributions from visitors around the world.
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