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Tarot Games Fortune-Telling Italy: Tarot, Any of A Set of Cards Used in

Tarot cards originated in 15th century Italy as a deck of playing cards that was expanded with a suit of 21 illustrated cards called "trionfi" or "triumphs" and an unnumbered card called "il matto" or "the fool". These additional cards acted as a trump suit superior to the standard four suits. The modern tarot deck consists of 78 cards divided into the major arcana of 22 cards depicting archetypes and the minor arcana of 56 cards divided among four suits. Tarot cards began being used for fortune telling in 18th century France by assigning meanings to individual cards and laying them out in spreads to interpret trends in a questioner's life.

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Chinny Ratta
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224 views2 pages

Tarot Games Fortune-Telling Italy: Tarot, Any of A Set of Cards Used in

Tarot cards originated in 15th century Italy as a deck of playing cards that was expanded with a suit of 21 illustrated cards called "trionfi" or "triumphs" and an unnumbered card called "il matto" or "the fool". These additional cards acted as a trump suit superior to the standard four suits. The modern tarot deck consists of 78 cards divided into the major arcana of 22 cards depicting archetypes and the minor arcana of 56 cards divided among four suits. Tarot cards began being used for fortune telling in 18th century France by assigning meanings to individual cards and laying them out in spreads to interpret trends in a questioner's life.

Uploaded by

Chinny Ratta
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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tarot, any of a set of cards used in tarot games and in fortune-telling.

Tarot decks were invented in Italy in the 1430s by adding to the existing
four-suited pack a fifth suit of 21 specially illustrated cards
called trionfi (“triumphs”) and an odd card called il matto (“the fool”).
(The fool is not the origin of the modern joker, which was invented in the
late 19th century as an unsuited jack in the game of euchre.)

The pack to which these cards were added naturally bore Italian
suitmarks and belonged to an experimental period of card design when
queens were often added to the series of court cards previously
consisting of only a king and two male figures (see playing card). In
standard cards (but not in tarots), the four figures were subsequently
reduced to three again by suppression of the queen, except in French
cards, which suppressed the cavalier (knight).

The trionfi each bore a different allegorical illustration instead of a


common suitmark. Such illustrations probably represented characters
in medieval reenactments of Roman triumphal processions, similar to
floats in a modern festival parade. They were originally unnumbered, so
that it was necessary to remember what order they went in. Whether or
not trionfi were originally produced independently of standard playing
cards, their function, when added to the pack, was to act as a suit
superior in power to the other four—a suit of triumphs, or “trumps.”

tarot
Death, the 13th card of the major arcana.
Mary Evans Picture Library
The standard modern tarot deck is based on the Venetian or the
Piedmontese tarot. It consists of 78 cards divided into two groups:
the major arcana, which has 22 cards, also known as trumps, and
the minor arcana, which has 56 cards.

Moon, the 18th card of the major arcana.


Mary Evans Picture Library
The cards of the major arcana have pictures representing various forces,
characters, virtues, and vices. The 22 cards are numbered I through XXI,
with the fool being unnumbered. The tarots of the major arcana are, in
order, as follows: I juggler, or magician; II papess, or female pope; III
empress; IV emperor; V pope; VI lovers; VII chariot; VIII justice; IX
hermit; X wheel of fortune; XI strength, or fortitude; XII hanged man;
XIII death; XIV temperance; XV devil; XVI lightning-struck tower; XVII
star; XVIII moon; XIX sun; XX last judgment; XXI world, or universe;
and the fool.

The 56 cards of the minor arcana are divided into four suits of 14 cards
each. The suits, which are comparable to those of modern playing cards,
are as follows: wands, batons, or rods (clubs); cups (hearts); swords
(spades); and coins, pentacles, or disks (diamonds). Each suit has 4
court cards—king, queen, knight, and jack—and 10 numbered cards. In
ascending order the value progression in each suit is ace to 10, then jack,
knight, queen, and king (though the ace is sometimes assigned a high
value, as in modern playing cards).

The adaptation of tarots to occult and fortune-telling purposes first


occurred in France about 1780. For fortune-telling each tarot card is
ascribed a meaning. The cards of the major arcana refer to spiritual
matters and important trends in the questioner’s life. In the minor
arcana wands deal mainly with business matters and career ambitions,
cups with love, swords with conflict, and coins with money and material
comfort. The tarot deck is shuffled by the questioner, and then the
fortune-teller lays out a few of the cards (either selected at random by
the questioner or dealt off the top of the shuffled deck) in a special
pattern called a “spread.” The meaning of any card is modified according
to whether it is upside down, its position in the spread, and the meaning
of adjacent cards.

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