The Ontology of the Tarot: From Playing Cards to Esoteric System

The ontological status of the Tarot—a deck of seventy-eight cards comprising the Major and Minor Arcana—has been a subject of enduring contention among historians, occultists, and cultural scholars. Is it primarily a gaming instrument originating in the Italian Renaissance, or is it an esoteric repository of ancient wisdom, as claimed by modern divinatory traditions? This chapter undertakes a critical historiographical survey to trace the evolution of the Tarot from its inception as *carte da trionfi* in fifteenth-century Italy to its metamorphosis into a full-fledged occult system in eighteenth-century France. By analyzing primary sources, debunking persistent myths (notably the spurious Egyptian origins), and examining the process of cultural symbol accumulation, we argue that the Tarot must be understood as a palimpsest—a medium upon which successive layers of meaning have been inscribed, erased, and rewritten over centuries. Consequently, its dual identity as both a game and a divinatory apparatus is not a contradiction but a reflection of its complex cultural biography. The following analysis proceeds in four movements: first, the documentary evidence for the Tarot’s emergence as a courtly game in Quattrocento Italy; second, the mechanisms of its transmission and regional diversification across early modern Europe; third, the pivotal occultist reinterpretations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and fourth, the synthesis of these findings into a comprehensive ontology of the Tarot as a cultural palimpsest.

The Italian Genesis: *Carte da Trionfi* as Courtly Game

The Tarot’s material and conceptual origins are firmly rooted in the Italian peninsula during the first half of the fifteenth century. The earliest unambiguous references appear in Milanese and Florentine documents between 1440 and 1450, situating the deck within the milieu of Renaissance court culture. The term *carte da trionfi* (cards of triumphs) or simply *trionfi* directly connects the imagery to the *trionfo*—a festive procession celebrating moral, cosmic, or civic victory, a genre well-established in Italian literature and art since the fourteenth century. The first documented commission comes from Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, who ordered a pack of *carte da trionfi* and *carte da gambo* (suit cards) for personal use. Surviving examples from this milieu, most notably the Visconti-Sforza decks (c. 1440–1450), now dispersed among collections in Bergamo, New York, and the Vatican, provide concrete visual evidence of the deck’s original form and function.

These early decks exhibit a consistent structural pattern: four suits (typically batons, coins, cups, swords) each containing fourteen cards—ten pip cards and four court cards (page, knight, queen, king)—supplemented by a series of twenty-two triumphant cards (*trionfi*) including the Fool (*il matto*) as a special unnumbered card. The total of seventy-eight cards thus established remains the standard configuration to this day. Crucially, the trump cards do not form a fixed sequence or possess standardized titles across all early examples; variations exist in ordering and nomenclature, reflecting local preferences rather than an imposed esoteric schema. The imagery of the trumps draws from a well-defined repertoire of late medieval and early Renaissance allegory: virtues (Justice, Strength, Temperance), celestial bodies (Sun, Moon, Stars), cosmological motifs (World, Heaven), social stations (Emperor, Empress, Pope), and moral exempla (Hanged Man, Death, Devil). For instance, the Wheel of Fortune card in the Visconti-Sforza deck depicts the classical wheel with four figures ascending and descending, while the corners feature the four Evangelists—a clear synthesis of pagan motif and Christian interpretation typical of the period. The Lovers card often portrays a triadic scene (e.g., Hercules at the crossroads) symbolizing the choice between virtue and vice, a common Renaissance moral allegory.

The primary function of these cards was unequivocally gaming. The earliest surviving rule description, attributed to the Milanese notary Martiano da Tortona (c. 1449), outlines a trick-taking game in which the *trionfi* serve as permanent trumps, outranking all suit cards. The game, known as *tarocchi* (in Italian) or *tarot* (in French), was a pastime for the nobility, often played for stakes. Contemporary literary references reinforce this interpretation: in his *Gargantua* (1534), Rabelais lists *tarot* among the games favored by the giant’s servants, and a

and a frequent subject of literary allusion in sixteenth-century French literature, as evidenced by its inclusion in lists of popular games. This gaming function is further corroborated by a substantial body of documentary evidence, including notarial records, merchant inventories, and sumptuary laws that regulated card playing among different social classes. For instance, a 1462 Milanese inventory lists “XXII triumphi et CXXVIII carte da gambo” (twenty-two trumps and one hundred twenty-eight suit cards), confirming the standard seventy-eight-card composition. Similarly, a 1506 decree from the city of Ferrara prohibited the importation of “carte da trionfi” from Bologna, citing concerns over local artisans’ livelihoods—a clear indication of the deck’s economic significance and regional variation in production. Such records underscore that the Tarot was not a marginal artifact but a commodity embedded in the commercial and social fabric of early modern Europe.

The rules of the original *tarocchi* game, while evolving over time, consistently revolved around the concept of *trionfi* as permanent trumps. Martiano da Tortona’s brief description (c. 1449) outlines a trick-taking mechanism where players must follow suit if possible, and *trionfi* automatically win any trick. Scoring was typically based on counting points accumulated from captured cards, with *trionfi* and court cards carrying higher values. By the sixteenth century, more elaborate variants had emerged, such as *Tarocchi Bolognesi* and *Tarocchi Piemontesi*, each with subtle differences in card rankings and bonus declarations (e.g., capturing the Fool or making specific combinations). The game’s complexity and strategic depth made it a favorite among the aristocracy, who often commissioned lavishly hand-painted decks as status symbols. The surviving Visconti-Sforza packs, with their gold-leaf backgrounds and intricate fresco-like imagery, were clearly not intended for casual play but as objects of display and diplomatic gift-giving. This dual purpose—functional gaming and aesthetic prestige—characterizes the Tarot’s earliest ontology.

Regional Diversification and the Standardization of the *Tarot de Marseille*

From its Italian heartland, the Tarot spread northward and westward along trade routes, through Swiss cantons, into the Holy Roman Empire, and across the Alps into France. The earliest evidence of this diffusion appears in the records of the Swiss city of Basel, where a 1425 municipal decree banned “spiln mit den karten” (games with cards), a prohibition that likely included early Tarot packs. By the late fifteenth century, Tarot production centers had emerged in cities such as Strasbourg and Colmar, where local artists began adapting the Italian iconography to Northern European tastes. The suits—batons, coins, cups, swords—remained consistent, but stylistic elements shifted toward woodcut aesthetics and more schematic figures, reflecting the constraints of print technology.

The most consequential regional variant was the *Tarot de Marseille*, which crystallized in the early seventeenth century as the dominant French form. The name “Marseille” was not originally a geographic designation but a commercial brand; decks were produced in various cities (including Lyon, Paris, and Strasbourg) but bore the generic label “Tarot de Marseille” to indicate a shared design tradition. The key featur