The pictorial images on all the cards allow interpretations without the need to repeatedly consult explanatory text. Prior to the Rider-Waite Tarot, the pip cards of almost all tarot decks were marked only with the arrangement of the suit signs - swords, wands, cups, and coins, or pentacles.
These cards are likely of later Venetian origin, possibly mid-fifteenth-century Tarocchi of Venice cards.Rider Waite Tarot Free online Reading Tarot The Oracle with images from TAROT RIDER WAITE A unique feature of the Rider-Waite deck, and one of the of the principal reasons for its enduring popularity, is that all of the cards, including the Minor Arcana, depict full scenes with figures and symbols. There exists today, in the archives of the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, 17 Major Arcana cards generally believed, probably erroneously, to have been hand painted about the year 1392 by Jacquemin Gringonneur for Charles VI of France. By the sixteenth century a modified Tarot pack called the Tarot of Marseilles gained popularity. Subsequently, the card packs became more numerous because they were reproduced by techniques using woodcuts, stencils and copper engraving. It is generally accepted that playing cards emerged in Europe in the latter half of the fourteenth century, probably first in Italy as a complete 78-card deck - or some inventive genius subsequently combined the common 56 cards known as the Minor Arcana with the 22 esoteric and emblematic Tarot cards known as the Major Arcana to form the 78-card pack.ĭuring the fifteenth century Tarot cards were generally drawn or hand painted for the princely houses of Northern Italy and France. In the year 1369 playing cards are not mentioned in a decree issued by Charles VI of France against various forms of gambling however, 28 years later, the Prevot of Paris, in an ordinance dated January 22, 1397, forbids working people from playing tennis, ball, cards, or ninepins excepting only on holidays. Covelluzzo, a fifteenth-century chronicler, relates the introduction into Viterbo of the game of cards in the year 1379. A German monk, Johannes, describes a game called Ludas Cartarum played in the year 1377. The emergence of Tarot cards in Europe predates by over five centuries the work of Waite. Gebelin asserts that it is from the Egyptians and Gypsies that Tarot cards were dispersed throughout Europe. Thoth was the Egyptian Mercury, said to be one of the early Kings and the inventor of the hieroglyphic system. Court de Gebelin writing in Le Monde Primitif in 1781 advances the theory that Tarot cards derived from an ancient Egyptian book, The Book of Thoth. The precise origin of Tarot cards in antiquity remains obscure. In The Key to the Tarot he writes: “The true Tarot is symbolism it speaks no other language and offers no other signs.” What are the Tarot cards about which Waite so skillfully writes? What is the message of each card and when and where did these fascinating cardboard symbols first originate? Waite utilized symbolism as the key to the Tarot pack.
Arthur Edward Waite (1857-1942) was a genuine scholar of occultism whose published works include The Holy Kabbalah and The Key to the Tarot first issued in England in 1910. Buy This Tarot Deck Learn More View All Cards in theĭr. The vibrant cards, featuring full scenes with figures and symbols, were drawn in 1909 by Pamela Colman Smith under direction of Arthur Edward Waite. The classic Rider-Waite Tarot is the best known Tarot deck. Cards in This Tarot Deck Major Arcana Wands Cups Swords Coins Browse All Tarot Decks Major Arcana Wands Cups Swords Coins Rider Waite Deck