From Trionfi to Tarot: A Card Game Before a Mystery

Tarot began as a deck for playing a game in fifteenth-century Italy. Its reputation as a book of hidden wisdom came centuries later.

Triumph cards in northern Italy

The first written references to tarot packs come from northern Italy in the mid-fifteenth century, from cities such as Milan and Ferrara. Extra cards with allegorical pictures were added to the ordinary four-suit pack. These packs were called carte da trionfi, triumph cards, and the extra cards were the trionfi, a word that became "trumps" in English. (Tarot card reading, history section.)

The oldest surviving cards

The Visconti–Sforza cards are the oldest tarot cards that survive. They are incomplete sets from around fifteen decks, now held in museums, libraries and private collections. They were commissioned by Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, and by his successor Francesco Sforza, at a time when the deck was still used for everyday play. They had a significant influence on the visual composition and numbering of later decks.

A game that is still played

Tarot was used for trick-taking card games, and the games spread from Italy across much of Europe. Tarocchini is still played around Bologna with a reduced pack, and French Tarot is played with a traditional 78-card deck in France and French-speaking Canada. For many players in Europe, a tarot pack is simply a set of cards for a game.

When the mystery arrived

Scholarly research finds no evidence of significant use of tarot cards for divination until the late eighteenth century. The idea of tarot as ancient esoteric wisdom is traced to eighteenth-century France, and it is a later layer on top of a much older game.

This site treats tarot as an object of art and cultural history. It does not read cards or claim that they foretell anything.

Revised 2026-10-22