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The tarot first known as trionfi and then as tarocchi, tarock, among others is really a pack of playing cards most commonly numbering ), used in the mid-th century in several parts of Europe to try out a group of games including Italian tarocchini and French tarot. From the late th century until the present time the tarot in addition has found use by mystics and occultists in efforts at divination or as a map of mental and spiritual pathways.

The tarot has four suits (which vary by region, being the French suits in Northern Europe, the Latin suits in Southern Europe, as well as the German suits in Central Europe). Each of those suits has pip cards numbering from ace to ten and four face cards for the total of cards. In addition, the tarot is distinguished with a separate -card trump suit plus a single card known because the Fool. Depending on the game, the Fool may act because the top trump or could be played in order to avoid following suit.

Fran�ois Rabelais gives tarau as the name of one of the games played by Gargantua in their Gargantua and Pantagruel; this can be likely the earliest attestation of the French form from the name. Tarot cards are used throughout most of Europe to play card games. In English-speaking countr Tarot readings ies, where these games are largely unplayed, tarot cards are now used primarily for divinatory purposes.Occultists call the trump cards as well as the Fool "the major arcana" whilst the ten pip and four court cards in each suit are called minor arcana. The cards are traced by some occult writers to ancient Egypt or even the Kabbalah but there is certainly no documented evidence of which origins or of the use of tarot for divination before the th century.



The English and French word tarot derives from the Italian tarocchi, which has no known origin or etymology. One theory relates the name "tarot" to the Taro River in northern Italy, near Parma; the game seems to get originated in northern Italy, in Milan or Bologna. Other writers trust it comes from the Arabic word turuq, meaning 'ways'.Alternatively, it could possibly be from the Arabic taraka, 'to leave, abandon, omit, leave behind'. According to a French etymology, the Italian tarocco derived from Arabic ..'rejection; subtraction, deduction, discount'.

There can be the question of whether the phrase tarot is linked to Harut and Marut, who had been mentioned inside a short account inside Qur'an. According to this account, a gaggle of Israelites learned magic, for demonstration and test them, from two angels called Harut and Marut, plus it adds until this familiarity with magic will be passed on others with the devil.9 What may be taken under consideration here could be the phonetic resemblance of tarot to Harut and Marut .
History

Playing cards first entered Europe inside the late th century, probably from Mamluk Egypt, with suits very similar towards the tarot suits of Swords, Staves, Cups and Coins (also known as disks, and pentacles) and people still utilized in traditional Italian, Spanish and Portuguese decks.

The first known documented tarot cards are intended between and in Milan, Ferrara and Bologna in northern Italy when additional trump cards with allegorical illustrations were added for the common four-suit pack. These new decks were originally called carte da trionfi, triumph cards, along with the additional cards known simply as trionfi, which became "trumps" in English. The first literary evidence of the existence of carte da trionfi is really a written statement in the court records in Ferrara, in . The oldest surviving tarot cards come from fifteen fragmented decks painted in the mid th century to the Visconti-Sforza family, the rulers of Milan.
Early decks
Le Bateleur: The Juggler in the Tarot of Marseilles. This card is usually named The Magician in modern English language tarots

Picture-card packs are first mentioned by Martiano da Tortona probably between and , since the painter he mentions, Michelino da Besozzo, returned to Milan in , while Martiano himself died in . He describes a deck with picture cards with images in the Greek gods and suits depicting four types of birds, not the most popular suits. However the cards were obviously viewed as "trumps" as, about years later, Jacopo Antonio Marcello called them a ludus triumphorum, or "game of trumps".

Special motifs on cards put into regular packs show philosophical, social, poetical, astronomical, and heraldic ideas, Roman/Greek/Babylonian heroes, as in the case of the Sola-Busca-Tarocchi (9) and the Boiardo Tarocchi poem, written in an unknown date between and 9.

Two playing card decks from Milan (the Brera-Brambilla and Cary-Yale-Tarocchi)�extant, but fragmentary�were made circa . Three documents dating from January to July , make use of the term trionfi. The document from January is undoubtedly an unreliable reference; howev you could try this out er, the same painter, Sagramoro, was commissioned by the same patron, Leonello d'Este, as inside the February document. The game did actually gain in importance within the year , a Jubilee year in Italy, which saw many festivities and the movement of several pilgrims.

Three mid-th century sets were designed for members from the Visconti family. The first deck, and probably the prototype, is referred to as Cary-Yale Tarot (or Visconti-Modrone Tarot) and was developed between and by an anonymous painter for Filippo Maria Visconti. The cards (only ) are today within the Cary collection with the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University, in the U.S. state of Connecticut. The most famous was painted within the mid-th century, to celebrate Francesco Sforza and the wife Bianca Maria Visconti, daughter of the duke Filippo Maria. Probably, prepaid cards were painted by Bonifacio Bembo or Francesco Zavattari between and . Of the original cards, are in The Morgan Library & Museum, are with the Accademia Carrara, are in the Casa Colleoni and four: 'The Devil', 'The Tower', 'Money's Horse (The Chariot)' and ' of Spades', are lost otherwise never made. This "Visconti-Sforza" deck, which has been widely reproduced, reflects conventional iconography in the time and energy to an important degree.