The Origins of Tarot: Legend and History

A legend about where tarot came from

There’s a popular legend about the origins of tarot. Long ago, so the story goes, there were nomadic people who were constantly oppressed by Egypt—harassed, enslaved, and forced into hardship. Eventually the nomads reached a breaking point. They united at a moment when Egypt had weakened and marched against their former oppressors.

The Egyptian priests understood that the attacking forces could not be held back. At that moment, preserving their system of knowledge—knowledge about how to work with and direct the forces of nature—became urgent. They needed to act quickly. A council of priests gathered to decide how to pass their knowledge into the next life after reincarnation. They wanted to preserve it in a form that only priests would understand after rebirth. At the same time, since they didn’t know where or when they would be reborn, the information had to be available everywhere.

The priests’ proposal (according to the legend)

Many different ideas were discussed. One priest reportedly said:

“I do not believe in humanity’s virtue. It can disappear. Only vice is eternal.”

He proposed hiding all their knowledge inside a gambling card game with illustrated images. People would treat it as mere entertainment, and the knowledge would survive—because, as he argued, vice is eternal.

We don’t know what other proposals were made that day. The legend says the priests did three things:

1. They created golden tablets containing their secret knowledge and hid them inside the Great Pyramid of Cheops. These tablets have never been found.

2. They carved inscriptions in the Sinai mountains, but the nomads destroyed them.

3. To be safe, they created a gambling card game with illustrated images. That is what survived to the present day.

According to the story, the priests’ knowledge from the Sacred Book of Thoth endured and was preserved this way. There is also a tradition claiming that the Book of Thoth lies at the bottom of the Nile River, in a special underground temple.

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The historical record of tarot

There are many theories about tarot’s origins. Some place tarot in very ancient times, but there is no solid evidence to support those claims. Even the dating to 1392—based on the so-called “Tarot of Charles VI”—is considered incorrect: that deck is from the late 15th century, is kept in the Italian National Library, and is a handmade deck of Northern Italian style.

Based on surviving historical evidence, tarot first appeared in Italy around 1450—more specifically in Milan—with the Visconti-Sforza Tarot. Only fragments have survived, preserved across museums. This deck is associated with the now-common structure of 78 cards.

The Visconti-Sforza Tarot quickly became popular, partly because it was also reproduced as large paintings displayed in noble households. Variations multiplied. Artists created different versions because aristocrats strongly preferred handmade, beautifully illustrated decks and paid well for them.

In 1465, the first notable variation appeared: the Tarot of Andrea Mantegna, created by the Italian painter Andrea Mantegna. This deck is also known as The 50 Gates of Binah (Binah is the third sephirah in Kabbalah; from Hebrew it is often rendered as “understanding,” “reason,” or “intellect”). It is based on Kabbalah and its division of the universe.

The Mantegna Tarot consists of 50 cards, divided into five spheres:

• Celestial Sphere

• Principles and Virtues

• Science

• Muses

• Social Status

Each sphere contains 10 cards. Some imagery used in modern tarot decks is borrowed from the Mantegna tradition.

The suit structure most familiar today—cups, swords, wands, pentacles—is described by some sources as being influenced by earlier card games used in the Muslim world, where similar suits existed. For tarot’s purposes, these suits were adapted—for example, “coins” in some traditions becomes “pentacles” in many European decks.

Because of this, tarot was used not only for divination but also for play. The game has survived to this day, especially through a French tradition called jeu de tarot—played by four players using all 78 cards.

The earliest reference to tarot being used for divination dates to 1527, in verses titled tarocchi appropriati. Later, in 1540, Francesco Marcolino da Forlì published what is considered the first book describing methods for divination with tarot. The book is titled Divination and is often cited as the earliest known text about tarot fortune-telling.

Over time, many tarot variations emerged—so many that I couldn’t realistically cover them all in one blog. Here, I’ll focus only on some of the best-known types.

Author: Morgan Shade