The origin of the Tarot Deck

The origin of the Tarot Deck is quite interesting.

The tarot (/ˈtæroʊ/; first known as trionfi and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others) was a pack of playing cards, used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe. In the late 18th century, Tarot Cards were used for divination in the form of tarotology/cartomancy.

Divination using playing cards was recorded as early back as 1540!

A Tarot Deck was even traced back by some occult writers to as far back as ancient Egypt!

Just like common playing cards, the Tarot Deck also has four suits. The Trump cards and the Fool are sometimes called "the Major Arcana" while the ten pip and four court cards in each suit are called "the Minor Arcana."

Hand-painted Tarot cards remained a privilege of the upper classes, but three sets of Tarot cards were made especially for members of the wealthy Visconti family:

The first deck, and probably the prototype, is called the Cary-Yale Tarot (or Visconti-Modrone Tarot) and was created between 1442 and 1447 by an anonymous painter for Filippo Maria Visconti.

The cards (only 67) are today held in the Cary collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut.

The most famous was painted in the mid-15th century, to celebrate Francesco Sforza and his wife Bianca Maria Visconti. These cards were hand-painted by Bonifacio Bembo or Francesco Zavattari between 1451 and 1453.

Of the original cards, 35 are in The Morgan Library & Museum, 26 are at the Accademia Carrara, thirteen are at the Casa Colleoni,[10] and four: The Devil, The Tower, The Knight of Coins, and the 3 of Swords, are lost or were never made. This "Visconti-Sforza" Deck, which has been widely reproduced, reflects conventional iconography of the time to a significant degree.

Because the earliest Tarot Cards were hand-painted, the number of the decks produced is thought to have been relatively small. It was only after the invention of the printing press that mass production of Tarot cards even became possible.