Every subject has its own terminology and body of basic knowledge. Tarot history is no exception. The entries in this glossary should help the newcomer to the field gain familiarity with the terminology.
Belgium, Belgian Tarot: The earliest surviving Belgian tarots, also known misleadingly as "Cartes de Suisses", date from the early 18th century. Although the trumps follow the Marseilles ordering, several of the designs are quite different: The Papess and Pope are replaced by the Spanish Captain and the wine-god Bacchus; Temperance bears a staff, and the Tower is replaced by a picture of lightning striking a tree. The Belgian tarot may preserve designs from an Italian pattern (possibly the Tarocco Bolognese), introduced to France independently of the Milan/Marseilles version.
Bembo, Bonifacio: Milanese court painter, to whom some of the Visconti-Sforza cards are attributed.
Besançon, Tarot de Besançon: a variant of the Tarot de Marseille was made in eastern France, Switzerland and Germany, from the early 18th century. The Papess and Pope are replaced by the pagan deities Junon and Jupiter. The Tarot de Besançon became the model for the Swiss Tarot.
Betts, Timothy: In Tarot and the Millenium (1998), mathematical physicist Timothy Betts argues that the tarot trumps tell the story of an apocalyptic prophecy, sequel to the Biblical book of Revelation, that was popular in the 14th century.
Boiardo: a late 15th-century writer who created a variant tarot-like game with cards representing virtues, vices, and other qualities of moral character.
Bologna, Tarocco Bolognese: Besides having a distinctive order and distinctive card designs, the Tarocco Bolognese is interesting in two other respects: the Papess, Empress, Emperor, and Pope are all of equal rank and were replaced by four identical "moors" in the 17th century, and the number cards 2 through 5 in each suit were ommitted, making a reduced deck of only 62 cards. For this reason, the Bolognese game is called tarocchino (little tarot).
Cartes de Suisses: see Belgium.
Cary sheet: an uncut sheet of woodblock tarot cards, delicately drawn, dating from around 1500. The sheet is probably from Milan, but shows designs in many cases strikingly similar to those of the Tarot de Marseille.
Cary-Yale Visconti (Visconti Modrone): one of the lavish hand-painted decks associated with the ducal families of Milan. This deck has an extended system of court cards, with female pages and knights in addition to the male ones. The trumps include the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. Because many cards are missing, the complete list of trump subjects is not known. See Visconti-Sforza.
Charles VI cards: see Gringonneur cards.
Conver, Nicolas: a French cardmaker whose 1760 Tarot of Marseilles is taken as a classic example of the pattern.
cosmograph: a representation of the fundamental elements of reality and the relationships between them. In narrow terms, a cosmograph is a map of the universe. Taken more broadly, an abstract structure, such as the qabalistic Tree of Life, is also a type of cosmograph.
Della Rocca: an artist working for the Milanese cardmaker Gumppenberg. Around 1835, Dellarocca produced a very fancy engraved tarot deck (generally known as Soprafino Tarot), which became the basis for later Tarocchino Milanese designs.
double-headed: cards that appear the same when turned upside down, like the court cards in a modern poker deck. Modern Piedmontese and Bolognese tarots are double-headed, the Tarocco Bolognese being one of the earliest decks of cards to acquire this feature.
D'Este Cards: A lavish hand-painted deck from the 15th century, presumably owned by the D'Este family, rulers of Ferrara.
Dummett, Michael: In The Game of Tarot (1980), logician Michael Dummett chronicles in prodigious detail the history of the tarot, focusing on the many variations of the tarot card game. The book also recounts the changes in card design and ordering that occurred as the tarot spread and evolved through the centuries. In A Wicked Pack of Cards (1996), Dummett and co-authors Thiery DePaulis and Ronald Decker relate the history of the French occultists, whose writings resulted in the transformation of the tarot from card game to occult divination tool. In both books, Dummett contends that there is no special significance to the original symbolism of the cards.
Gringonneur cards (Charles VI cards): an early set of hand-painted tarot cards, mistakenly identified with a set of regular playing cards made by Gringonneur for Charles VI of France in the 14th century. The cards probably date from the late 15th century.
Kaplan, Stuart: tarot collector and publisher, owner of US Games, Inc. In The Encyclopedia of Tarot, Kaplan illustrates a huge number of tarot decks (Volume I contains a sampling of the most important decks from different times and places; Volume II contains historic decks; Volume III is devoted to modern decks). Volume II also includes a detailed survey of trump names and orderings from early decks and documents, a good summary of Renaissance symbolism pertaining to the cards, and information on Petrarch and the Visconti and Sforza families.
Ferrara: One of the Italian cities in which tarot first became popular. Most scholars believe that the tarot was invented either in Milan or in Ferrara. Ferrara was ruled by the D'Este family, who owned one of the earliest hand-painted decks.
Flanders, Flemish Tarot: see Belgium
Florence: one of the major cities of the Renaissance. In the 16th century, a variant form of tarot called Minchiate was invented in Florence. There was also a 78-card Florentine tarot deck, but no certain examples of it have survived.
French-suited tarot: beginning in the 18th century, cardmakers began to produce tarot decks using the new French suit system (clubs, hearts, spades, diamonds). The traditional trump subjects were replaced by animals, scenic landscapes, and other decorative designs. The French-suited tarot cards became very popular in Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands. They are often called Tarock packs, this being the German word for tarot.
Gabriel: The archangel Gabriel is a divine messenger, announcing both the birth of Jesus and the second coming. He is depicted with his traditional trumpets on the Angel (Judgement) card of the tarot.
Geofroy, Catelin: a 16th-century French cardmaker who produced a luxury deck with nonstandard suit signs. The trump sequence, apparently, follows the odering of the Tarot de Marseille, making this deck the earliest example of the Marseilles ordering.
luxury deck: a deck designed to be especially decorative and appeal to collectors. Usually, such decks do not follow the a standard pattern very closely, and do not influence the subsequent evolution of the standard pattern.
Mantegna (Tarot of Mantegna, Tarocchi di Mantegna): a set of engravings dating from c.1470, depicting the estates of man (ranks of society), the muses, the liberal arts and sciences, the virtues, and the celestial spheres. Many of the designs closely resemble tarot designs. Despite the name, the Tarot of Mantegna was not a tarot deck and was not made by the famous Renaissance artist Andreas Mantegna. Its purpose was apparently to illustrate a Neoplatonic philosophical system of the structure of the cosmos. The engravings were probably the work of an artist from Ferrara.
Marseilles, Tarot de Marseille: the most widely circulated variant of the tarot is the Tarot de Marseilles ("Tarot of Marseilles" in English). These designs, and the Marseilles ordering of the trumps, became the basis for occult and modern tarot decks. The Marseilles tarot itself almost certainly originated in Milan, and spread to France when the French occupied that city around 1500.
Metropolitan Museum sheet: An uncut sheet of woodblock tarot cards, dating from around 1500. They may be examples of the Tarot of Ferrara or Venice, which otherwise have not survived.
Michael: The archangel Michael is a dispenser of Justice, appearing in this role at the Last Judgement. He is traditionally depicted with sword and scales, closely resembling the personification of Justice as a cardinal virtue.
Milan: One of the Italian cities in which tarot first became popular. Most scholars believe that the tarot was invented either in Milan or in Ferrara. The earliest surviving decks, the Visconti-Sforza, are from Milan. The popularity of tarot in Milan declined greatly in the 17th century, and the decks used in Milan (and throughout northern Italy) in the 18th and 19th centuries are variants of the Tarot de Marseille, reintroduced to Italy from France early in the 18th century.
Minchiate: In the 16th century, a variant form of tarot called Minchiate was invented in Florence. A Minchiate deck includes 20 additional trump cards: the signs of the zodiac, the four elements, and the four virtues (Prudence, Faith, Hope, and Charity) missing from the standard tarot. Minchiate was also called Gemini or Germini, and became very popular from the 17th through the 19th centuries, in places as far away as Sicily, Genoa, and even France.
Mitelli: an engraved luxury deck was made by artist Giuseppi Maria Mitelli of Bologna in 1665.
Moakley, Gertrude: In The Tarot Cards Painted by Bonifacio Bembo (1966), librarian Gertrude Moakley connects the symbolism of the Visconti-Sforza tarot cards with the triumphi paradigm and Visconti family history. For summary and commentary on Moakley's book, see the Moakley 101 series on this web site.
O'Neill, Robert: In Tarot Symbolism (1986), biologist Robert O'Neill examines a wide range of philosophical and cultural influences that might have contributed to the design of the tarot, concluding that the cards are a pictorial synthesis of the philosophical and theological ideas of the time, particularly the Neoplatonic concept of a hierarchy of intermediaries through which humans may approach mystical union with the Divine.
Paris: A 17th-century luxury deck, made in Paris, resembles both the Viéville Tarot and the Belgian Tarot but also includes many novel trump designs.
pattern: see standard pattern.
Petrarch: a 14th-century writer whose poem I Trionfi describes a series of allegorical triumphs (Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time, and Eternity) somewhat reminiscent of the tarot sequence.
Pierpont-Morgan/Bergamo Visconti-Sforza: the most beautiful and most nearly complete set of hand-painted Visconti-Sforza cards, probably made to commemorate the ascension of Francesco Sforza to the ducal title in 1450. Most of the cards were probably painted by court painter Bonifacio Bembo, although some (Fortitude, Temperance, Star, Moon, Sun, and World) are apparently replacement cards by a Ferrarese artist. The Devil and Fire (Tower) cards are missing from the set.
Pope Joan: a well-known legendary figure of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Joan was a woman who ascended to the papacy disguised as a man, only to have her secret revealed when she collapsed in childbirth during a processional. As the only widely known "female pope", she may be the model of the tarot Papess.
Rome: It is unlikely that Rome ever had its own distinctive form of tarot. If tarot was played in Rome, the Tarot of Florence or the Minchiate were probably used.
Rosenwald sheet: an uncut sheet of woodblock tarot cards, dating from about 1500, using very simple designs. The designs may have been a predessor to the tarot of Florence.
Rothschild sheet: actually two uncut sheets of woodblock tarot cards, one in the Rothschild collection and another in Budapest, dating from about 1500. The designs appear to be an early form of the tarot of Bologna.
Sforza, Francesco: fourth duke of Milan, reigning from 1450 to 1466. His claim to the title was based on his marriage to Filippo Visconti's illegitimate daughter Bianca, and enforced through military conquest of the city three years after the Filippo's death. The Visconti-Sforza cards, particularly the almost complete Pierpont-Morgan/Bergamo set, combine Sforza and Visconti heraldry, and were probably commissioned by Sforza.
Sicily, Tarocco Siciliano: Tarot was introduced into Sicily relatively late, reportedly in the seventeenth century. The unusual Sicilian Tarot, or Tarocco Siciliano, is derived from the Tarot of Florence, but has many unique designs. The Sicilian deck, like the Tarocco Bolognese, is shortened by omitting low-numbered cards in each suit.
Sola Busca: a variant tarot deck, dating from the late 15th century. It has "ancient warriors" in place of the usual trump subjects, and has pictorial illustrations on the pip cards. Some of these illustrations served as models for Pamela Colman Smith when she created the famous Waite-Smith deck in 1909. There is an excellent web site devoted to the Sola Busca deck.
standard pattern: a set of designs that is followed closely from printing to printing. When a deck of cards wears out or cards become lost, players generally prefer to replace the deck with another using the same familiar designs. Hence cardmakers tend to update their designs little if at all. The Tarot of Marseilles is an excellent example of a standard pattern. The designs remained essentially the same over a period of at least three centuries, even though they were made by many different printers in many different cities.
Steele sermon: a sermon condemning the game of tarot, written by an unknown cleric in the late 15th century. It contains the earliest listing of the tarot trumps.
Swiss Tarot: An artistic engraved tarot design originating around 1830, based loosely on the Tarot de Besançon. Often called Swiss 1JJ, the "JJ" refers to Junon and Jupiter, which replace the Papess and Pope in this deck. The Swiss Tarot includes many unusual designs in the trumps, some of which may reflect early Italian designs.
tarocchi: The Italian form of "tarot". The etymology of the word is unknown. Tarocchi is plural, the singular is tarocco. The term came into use in the 16th century, due to confusion over the use of the older name, trionfi.
tarocchi appropriati: a 16th-century literary form consisting of verses comparing various persons (typically ladies of the court) with the tarot trumps.
tarock: see French-suited tarot.
tetramorph: a standard religious emblem in which four living creatures (bull, lion, eagle, and angel) representing the four gospels are arrayed at the corners of a central mandorla. The tetramorph is seen on the World card in the Tarot of Marseilles and related decks.
triumphi (triumphs, trionfi): Latin for "triumphs" (Italian trionfi). Tarot cards were originally known as carte da trionfi, or cards of triumphs. The 14th-century poet Petrarch wrote a famous poem called I Trionfi, in which a series of allegories, each more powerful that the last, triumphs over the one that came before. The word also refers to the triumphal processions, dating from Roman times, in which a victorious commander would ride into the city on a chariot, with captives in tow, a practice that is ancestral to modern-day parades. Moakley has suggested that the triumphal processions, and particularly Petrarch's allegorical rendition of the theme, served as a model for the Triumph Cards now known as tarot.
trump: a corruption of the Italian trionfo, or triumph. The term refers to the special symbolic cards of the tarot, which "triumph" over the ordinary cards in play. The Fool is sometimes considered a trump, but more often is called "the excuse", since it never wins a trick but may be played at any time, regardless of which suit is led.
Venice: although there is a long tradition of referring to certain tarot designs as "Venetian", and many early references to tarot cards are associated with Venice, there are no surviving cards that can be positively identified as Venetian. The game of tarot was probably not played there much after the 16th century.
Viéville, Jacques: the maker of a French tarot deck (c. 1650) which differs from the Tarot de Marseille, but resembles the later Belgian Tarot. Two of the cards have the titles of the trumps inscribed on them, presumably as a reference for players.
Visconti, Filippo Maria: third duke of Milan, reigning from 1416 to 1447. Some of the Visconti-Sforza cards were probably commissioned during his reign.
Visconti-Sforza: the earliest surviving tarot decks were expensive works of art created for the Visconti and Sforza families who ruled Milan in the 15th century. Several different decks were made. The most well known is the Pierpont-Morgan/Bergamo deck, which is missing only four cards. The other decks are all less complete. The Cary-Yale/Modrone deck apparently included 6 court cards in each suit (knights and pages were given female counterparts), and had additional trumps, including the theological virtues Faith, Hope, and Charity.
Williams, Brian: in A Renaissance Tarot (1997), artist Brian Williams examines the iconographic tradition of the tarot symbols in the Renaissance, clarifying the meanings the symbols had for people in the 15th century.