AstralgiLike most forms of art, it is difficult to trace this one back to its beginnings, because of the nature of cards; they deteriorate, and are lost over time. This means that there are few surviving examples, and piecing together the truth takes a great deal of patience and time. I hope that more scholars will be brave enough to risk being tainted with the occult in order to discover the factual history of this fascinating custom.
What can we say, for certain, about the origins of the Tarot? Decks have been created by a wide variety of people for a wide variety of reasons, but based on the archaeological record it appears that the custom of playing and gambling with cards arrived from the east but was modified to suit Western sensibilities after its arrival. The creator of the Tarot, who almost certainly lived in Italy in the 14th century, saw these modified cards and combined them with a group of trump cards, which together represented his or her cosmology. Read about the appearance of cards in europe »
The tarot playing card deck pattern was created for the purpose of playing games that involve trick-taking (Such as those in our Games section). Its use across Europe was once far more widespread than it is today.
Just at the close of the Middle Ages, playing cards suddenly started popping up all over Europe. We know that mostly because the use of playing cards in Europe is followed very rapidly with bans and bulls and other admonishments from the authorities, not ranting about the danger of cartomancy, but rather warning of the dangers of gambling.
But of course, that’s not the interesting part of the Tarot’s history. The interesting part is, Why were the trumps added? Why are they filled with so many symbols foreign to the common man? What did the original artists of Tarot cards believe in? What were their hopes and fears? Tragically, these are the parts of the story which are currently lost to the sands of time. Only a concerted effort of practitioners, historical archaeologists, and art historians can answer these mysteries, because at the present time the data simply do not exist.
All too often, the human side of the history has been pushed aside in favor of the history of war. Unfortunately, I don’t have any historical archaeologists or art historians lying around, so I am faced with the task of presenting to you the current best information as faithfully as I can from the existing written record. Thankfully, due to our increased sense of nostalgia, we are now becoming more sensitive to the quirky, precocious side of our past, so scholars are beginning to recognize the artistic and cultural value of the Tarot.
08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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Excerpt from E. S. Taylor's "The history of playing cards, with anecdotes of their use in conjuring, fortune-telling, and card-sharping":
The stormy period of the first Consulship of Napoleon and that of the Empire which followed it, was especially characterized by cartomantic practices in France. At this time, there lived in Paris a famous woman, whose renown as a prophetess will probably not soon pass away. This person was Mlle. Lenormand, whose influence with the empress Josephine, and even Napoleon himself, was said to be considerable.
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08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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Pamela Colman Smith was the skilled artist and seer who was commissioned by fellow member of the Order of the Golden Dawn, Arthur Edward Waite, to illustrate the entire 78 card Tarot deck to his exact specifications, so that any variation introduced would not be her fault.
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08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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Before the Rider-Waite deck was published in 1911, there was no modern deck that featured pictures for each of the 78 cards in the deck. Most decks had illustrations only for the Major Arcana, while the rest of the cards featured simply a pattern of easily recognizable pips. Arthur Edward Waite (1857-1942) wanted to publish a complete, modern version of the tarot that featured pictures for each card in the deck, including the minor arcana.
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08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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660-670, China: First example of printing on paper. Early xylography was accomplished with hemp paper and woodblocks.
Frontispiece, Diamond Sutra from Cave 17, Dunhuang, ink on paper British Library Or.8210/ P.2
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08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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Kodeks IV NagHammadi100s CE, Rome: The codex format is used for the first time. A codex is the very earliest form of book that we had that looks like a book. Before the invention of the codex, all knowledge was written in scrolls or on tablets, or the walls of monuments. This was the first time we could leaf through information in such a convenient manner.
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08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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Astralgi (Sheeps’ Knuckle Bones, used as dice)Cubical dice, descended from Astralgi or sheeps' knuckle bones, made their way from Sumeria throughout the world. They had arrived in India by the 600s, and China by the 700s.
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08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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The game was often referred to as "gold speckled leaves", which does make it sound quite a lot like early gold-leaf Tarot cards. Many scholars will tell you that playing cards were invented in 827 because they have conflated these two games. If there is any relationship between these games, which I doubt, it is this:
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08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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Alphonse Louis Constant (a.k.a. Éliphas Lévi Zahed) was a famous French occultist and kabbalist who revolutionized the field of cartomancy. Had it not been for Lévi, the theories of Court de Gebelin might never have become popular.
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Etteilla (1738-1791)Jean Baptiste Alliette (a.k.a. Etteilla) was an influential French occultist who helped establish the occult nature of the Tarot. Had it not been for Etteilla, the theories of Court de Gebelin might never have become popular. It was Alliette who made divination with the Tarot popular.
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Papus (1865-1916) Papus was a French doctor, hypnotist, and occultist, who founded the modern Martinist Order and helped to popularize occultism. He was born in Spain in 1865, but his family moved to Paris when he was four years old, and he received his education there. He wrote about the Tarot from a Kabbalistic perspective, and was an expert on the works of Éliphas Lévi.
Papus in a Martinist lodge
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Antoine Court de Gebelin (c. 1719-1784)Antoine Court de Gébelin (c. 1719-1784) was a French pastor who initiated the rumor that the Tarot represented the remnants of the Book of Thoth, the wisdom of the ancient pharaohs. He was incorrect, but his theory gained widespread popularity and it has taken over two hundred years to truly dispense with his ideas. Even today, there are people who believe that the Tarot is the Book of Thoth.
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08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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On the twenty-third day of the sixth month in the thirty-first year of the zhiyuan period (17 July 1294), we caught Yan Sengzhu and Zheng Zhugou playing cards, and have also found wood blocks to print cards. Each person has admitted to the truth of the accusation. We have, according to the rules, passed judgement and punished correctly the organizer Lu Donger, accessory to gambling Zheng Zhugou, the owner of the premises Jiang Sier, and the block printer Ye Lin, and dispatched to the Ever-abundant Treasury for deposit the nine cards (zhipai) that were about to be destroyed, and...
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08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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1364, St. Gallen, Switzerland. A local ordinance forbids dice, allows board games, and leaves the subject of cards untouched. This is often cited as the date before which cards could not have been known in Europe.
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08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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1377, Basel, Switzerland. A Dominican friar by the name of John describes various types of playing cards in detail.
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08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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We know playing cards entered Europe in the 1370s because there are no references before this time, and suddenly they start appearing across the continent. In St. Gallen, an ordinance made in 1379 forbade the use of playing cards.
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08/04/2012 at 11:50 AM
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In 1372, the belfry was added to the already leaning tower of Pisa, completing the structure.
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