ITALY is said to be the birthplace of the tarot, which according to playing-card historians was originally a card game invented in the fifteenth century. It may also have had a didactic or educational motivation, similar to the "Mantegna Tarocchi" or other educational games which served as mnenomic pictures. However, the symbolism found on some early tarot cards has led many people to believe that tarot cards were in fact the expression of ancient streams of wisdom and esoteric tradition. Following this belief, modern tarot packs draw upon the teachings of a tremendous range of traditions, including Kabbalah, Western esotericism and alchemy, Buddhism, Taoism, yogic disciplines, Sufism, mystical Christianity, Gnosticism, and Neoplatonism… the list is continually growing. The prevailing idea is that the Tarot is a set of universal symbols which are much older than the invention of playing cards.
However, the thematic content of tarot trumps probably reflects the Platonic Catholicism of the time. An interesting early example is the Guildhall Library Tarocchi cards (shown below) believed to have been painted in Spain during the 15th century. The cards contain curious symbols and iconography. The Knave of clubs shows a hunting scene, and in Platonic philosophy hunting was reckoned to develop moral strength and virility. The World card shows the New Jerusalem, the paradise where we are fully self-realised. The black and white chequered floor tiles on the ace of cups, like in Masonic lodges, suggests the dualistic nature of the material realm upon which we must rebuild the spiritual life through practising higher moral virtues. The ace of swords (or Sun) suggests the idea that the endless cycles of birth and rebirth can only be penetrated or overcome by spiritual wisdom. And we can also observe that the suit symbols were batons, cups, swords… and probably coins…
Above: the 4 "Guildhall Library Tarocchi Cards" from the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards collection of historic playing cards. Hand-painted and gilded by an illuminator, these cards are reckoned to be two pairs of cards from two different decks owing to differences in their size. The Guildhall catalogue records both pairs as having been found in an old chest in Seville (Spain). The Page of Batons has a Spanish-type club, and is not holding his suit symbol as is common in all known Italian cards. The cards have no titles or numerals, so their sequence or hierarchy was presumably already known. [Images by kind permission of the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards Collection and the London Metropolitan Archives, City of London Corporation]. Another similar example are the so-called 'Goldschmidt Cards' (a Google search will find some images. Also see Hoffmann, 1973).
So the question arises, was this merely a game? How do we explain what looks more like Mystery Tradition Symbolism in these early tarot cards?
In those days, the term "psychology" hadn't been invented. What they had was Morality. "Toutes les sciences ont été mises à contribution et rien n'est plus obscur encore que la science de l'homme moral." (All sciences have been put together and nothing is more obscure than the science of moral man). Ordinary folk were very superstitious, more learned folk read philosophy books. Churches and academies used visual allegorical symbolism to depict moral lessons. Medieval bestiaries depicted various animals as examples of different moral qualities in humans. Astrological symbolism was all about temperaments, passions and moral virtues, etc. There were lots of religious paintings depicting all sorts of sins and virtues… so we should not be surprised that early playing cards and tarot cards also reflected this cultural atmosphere.
In some cases it looks like random symbols were added to the cards at the whim of the artist or woodcutter. In other cases, we ask whether the artist was trying to express his/her understanding of some religious doctrines, a new philosophical or moral teaching, or maybe a secret esoteric doctrine…?
Ultimately it is a question of what you want to believe…
Above: detail from the Cary Collection uncut and uncoloured sheet of tarot cards (housed in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut) possibly dating as early as c.1500. The entire sheet is available for digital download here. The images are untitled and unnumbered, again suggesting that players must have already known the sequence or hierarchy of trump cards in play from contemporary knowledge. Much of the imagery is recognisable as anticipating the more familiar Tarot de Marseille designs (see below) whilst other features are common to other early Italian decks such as the Visconti-Sforza and D'Este decks. Thus it looks like a prototype or intermediate form of the Tarot de Marseille design.
Above: Tarot de Marseille by N. Conver, 1760 but probably a Camoin (Marseilles) edition of c.1880 from the original woodblocks. Stencil colouring. By this time the trump cards are named and numbered to designate their value during play.
In the 18th century the trump cards became the focus of esoteric investigations and since then the tarot has become a sort of popular religion or diagnostic tool for mind, body and spirit. French occultists were largely responsible for this, notably Court de Gébelin, Eliphas Levi and Eteilla, who saw correlations between the tarot trumps and ancient mysteries.
There has also been a distinguished output of ENGLISH TAROT CARDS. By the 1870s a number of English occultists had begun taking an interest in the tarot, attracted by the idea that the tarot was some sort of repository of ancient wisdom, esoteric lore or such like, and that it could be used to predict the future… more…
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