Hey guys just wanted to give you a Tarot card 101. I'm sure most of you know the Tarot cards have a 4 x 14 structure with 22 extra trumps for a total of 78 cards. The Minor Arcana consists of the pips and court cards. They are basically the same as our modern day playing cards except they have an added court card called the Knight. The Major Arcana consists of the trumps numbered (1-21) and "The Fool" which has no number or rank.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot Same as our modern day playing cards we can trace the origin down to "The Rouen Pattern"
http://whiteknucklecards.com/nsp/rouenpattern.html Tarot cards can also be traced down to 4 decks. Sorry it's in german but it the best site for seeing all the Tarot cards.
The Visconi-Sforza
http://www.albideuter.de/html/visconti-sforza.html Visconti
http://www.albideuter.de/html/visconti.html Sola-Busca
http://www.albideuter.de/html/sola-busca.html Cary-Yale Visconti
http://www.albideuter.de/html/cary_yale.html All of these were made in the 15th century. I think the Cary-Yale Visconti Is like the Neanderthal of the Tarot. It's fun to look at but not a direct descendant of the Tarot. It may be the first attempt to get rid of "The Popess" card. Which a very controversial card. It's interesting to note the Cary-Yale had 6 court cards. The King, Queen, Male Knight, Female Knight, Male Page, Female Page. Again, It's like finding the Batmobile 500 years from now. Sure it's a car but not everyone drove it. There is a theory that the Tarot started out as a 5 x 14 structure. There is a furious debate going on in
http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=971 Dont bother reading all of it. These guys are hard core and go off in different directions. To me, it sorta makes sense. If I want to up the vender down the street, I'll put more trumps in my Tarot card deck. History tells up this is true. There is a Tarot card deck with 40 trumps called the Minchiate deck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minchiate It basically added the elements and the constellations and it was the second attempt to get rid of "The Popess" card. It was very popular up until the 19th century.
The modern Tarot which is the Rider-Waite his genius was to take the old Major arcana of the Visconi and the Minor Arcana of the Sola-Busca and put them together. See the 3 of Swords in the Sola-Busca to see what I mean. He made some other changes from the Marseille pattern
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot_of_Marseilles in this recent article
http://www.wopc.co.uk/tarot/rider-waite/ Most note-able in switching justice and Strength. I do have to tell you this in all my hours of research the best thing I've found is the original list of the Tarot cards by a Monk.
http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Sermones_de_Ludo_Cum_Aliis It is so neat to read the honest opinions of a person so long ago. If you notice the "The Death" card has never changed. They that's why 13 is the unlucky number. We are so superstitious we don't have a 13th floor in buildings. It also just goes to show how warped things get over time. Just look at the Jacks we have today. Back then they had weapons we can recognize. Now we have distorted clubs.
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