Before the crystal ball: tarot’s unexpected beginnings

A beginning at the card table

The Met places the earliest references to tarot in northern Italy in the 1440s and 1450s. These cards belonged to a trick-taking game, with trump cards added to the ordinary suits. Their modern association with fortune-telling became widespread much later.

The Morgan Library holds cards from the fifteenth-century Visconti-Sforza deck, made for an aristocratic family. They are surviving objects you can study, rather than evidence of a timeless, unchanging system of divination.

Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art · History and structure of tarot cards · The Morgan Library & Museum · Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards

A deck with more than one kind of story

The historical structure described by the Met combines 56 suit cards with 21 trumps and a Fool. The Italian suits were Cups, Swords, Batons and Coins. Many contemporary decks keep a 78-card structure, while artists and authors vary the names, illustrations and interpretations.

When you pick up a new deck, take a moment to look at how that particular creator has organised it. Its guidebook can explain the artist’s choices; it does not have to be treated as the only possible meaning of an image.

Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art · History and structure of tarot cards

Try looking before interpreting

Choose a card and cover its title. Describe only what you can see: a person looking away, an open doorway, a hand holding an object, a landscape that seems crowded or empty. Avoid assigning a message for the first minute.

Then make a second list of associations. Perhaps a doorway reminds you of a choice, or a figure’s posture suggests hesitation. Keep those impressions separate from the visual facts. This is an original looking exercise, not a claim about a card’s traditional meaning.

• Observation: what is visibly in the picture?
• Association: what does it remind me of?
• Question: what would I like to explore from here?

Let history add texture, not certainty

A long history does not, by itself, prove that a practice can predict an event. Equally, you do not have to dismiss an image’s personal meaning because its origins are different from a story you once heard.

You might approach tarot through art, spiritual symbolism, study or a guided conversation. Name the approach you are taking. It helps you recognise when you are discussing a documented object, an inherited interpretation or your own response.

A small way to start exploring

Browse a museum’s online collection beside a deck you know. Notice one similarity and one difference: a suit, a piece of clothing, a gesture or a title. Resist the urge to decide which is the ‘right’ version immediately. Ask what each version makes visible.

If you are learning to read, keep a notebook with room for both the guidebook’s explanation and your own observations. Revisiting those notes can show you how your interpretations change. You can enjoy the mystery while being precise about what you know.