The Major Arcana Is Not What You Think

The four suits of the tarot are not European. They came from the Islamic world and reached Europe in the 1370s — a Mamluk deck of cups, coins, swords and polo sticks, which Europeans turned into batons because they did not play polo. The twenty-two trumps do not appear until the 1440s. Sixty years later. So the Major Arcana is not the ancient core of the deck. It is the newest part of it — an expansion, invented in northern Italy as a game mechanic. And the name is nineteenth-century French occultism. The people who made these cards called them trionfi. Triumphs. No predictions. No advice. SOURCES · The Mamluk deck in the Topkapı Palace, Istanbul — four suits, numbered cards, court cards · Playing cards banned in Florence, 1377; described in detail by a Dominican in Basel the same year · Michael Dummett, The Game of Tarot, 1980 — three regional orderings of the trumps (Bologna/Florence, Ferrara, Milan) · Visconti-Sforza decks: hand-painted, gold leaf, and no numbers or names printed · "Major/Minor Arcana": nineteenth-century French occult terminology, not medieval · Divinatory meanings: Etteilla's keyword lists, 1780s, elaborated through the nineteenth century · Rider-Waite-Smith, 1909 — Pamela Colman Smith illustrated the number cards as scenes, which is why that deck conquered the market IMAGES Public domain, CC0 and PDM — 59 works, no attribution required: Creative Commons Attribution — 14 work(s): Every work listed below can be found on Wikimedia Commons by searching its exact title. · 29 City life in Medieval Bologna, Italy - pedestrians and cyclists in Italian town — Marek Ślusarczyk (Tupungato) Photo portfolio — CC BY 3.0 · A group of Peasantry, Watermen etc, playing with dice Wellcome L0051922 — author unknown — CC BY 4.0 · A man telling a lady's fortune. Engraving. Wellcome V0024846 — author unknown — CC BY 4.0 · Bridge (card game) Foarbyld fan frekwinsjesteat Example of frequency table — Top8 — CC BY 4.0 · Canal taken with a high ISO setting (painting like), Grimburgwal with Bridge 201, Sleutelbrug, (5822028762) — Jorge Láscar from Australia — CC BY 2.0 · Codex Gigas facsimile — Michal Maňas — CC BY 2.5 · Florence, Italy, Florence city view — Vyacheslav Argenberg — CC BY 4.0 · Piazza del Duomo - kuhnmi — kuhnmi — CC BY 2.0 · Roof-Topkapi-Palace-Museum — Acediscovery — CC BY 4.0 · Saint Bruno. Engraving by P. Soubeyran after Le Sueur. Wellcome V0033428 — author unknown — CC BY 4.0 · Selina Herbert Fox (1871-1958) in her study, 1900s Wellcome L0038384 — author unknown — CC BY 4.0 · Strike symbol (49778996432) — David Stewart — CC BY 2.0 · Wizard (card game) deck, box, and scorecard — tuchodi — CC BY 2.0 · Woodcut illustration of Pope Joan - Penn Provenance Project — kladcat — CC BY 2.0 All images from Wikimedia Commons. Full list of works and pages available on request. @TheDeepImage No predictions. No readings. Sources are listed above. #majorarcana #tarot #carljung #tarothistory #viscontisforza