Tarot started not as a tool of mystics but as a pastime. In the 14th and 15th centuries, playing cards arrived in Europeâmost likely inspired by the beautifully crafted Mamluk decks from the Islamic world. These early European cards featured suits, numbered pips, and court cards, forming the foundation we still see in modern playing cards.
The famous ViscontiâSforza decks, created for the noble families of Milan, were lavishly painted and richly symbolic. Yet at their core, they were part of a trick-taking game called tarocchi. The trump cardsâwhat we now call the Major Arcanaâwere originally just a bonus set added to enhance gameplay, not the centerpiece of esoteric study.
Merchants and soldiers carried these cards along Mediterranean trade routes into Italian city-states such as Venice, Florence, and Milan. Local artisans adapted the imported suits into Latin motifs â Cups, Coins, Swords, and Batons â that reflected heraldry and everyday tools. The structure proved flexible enough for gambling houses, festivals, and private salons to invent new variants while keeping a familiar backbone of ranks and trumps.
Before mass printing, decks were painstakingly produced by cartolai guilds, who traced line work on pasteboard and finished images with hand-applied tempera and gold leaf. These luxury sets were status symbols, gifted at weddings or displayed during courtly festivities. Cheaper stenciled decks followed soon after, spreading the pastime to taverns and town squares without the expense of miniature paintings.
Civic records from Ferrara and Bologna mention tarocchi alongside chess, dice, and other diversions that city councils attempted to regulate. Moralists occasionally frowned at the noise and wagering, yet the game persisted because it fused strategy with storytelling. Long before Tarot gained spiritual associations, it was cherished as a social glue linking merchants, nobility, and artisans across Renaissance Europe.
In this period, Tarotâs role was purely recreational. The mysticism and divinatory use would come much later, centuries after its creation.