Tarot's origins are perhaps as misunderstood as the mystical symbols on the cards themselves. Thoughts of the cards invoke images of Gypsies in traveling wagons or Monks in secret rooms attempting to divine or influence the future.
The word “Tarot” itself has no historical meaning that can be determined with any certainty. The earliest use of the word seems to be French, as the name for a deck of seventy eight cards that were used for both games and divination. The word may have come from the Italian “Tarocco”, which was likewise used to describe such a deck of cards as early as the fifteenth century, but which of these terms came first is still up for scholarly debate.
The earliest deck of actual Tarot cards is believed to have been a hand-painted set created around 1440 for the Duke of Milan. They were used for a game similar to bridge and as inspiration to create amusing poetry. The promotional images and text on some of the early divination decks claim ancient origins or gypsy ancestry, but most serious sources say the roots of these symbolic cards can simply be traced to traditional playing cards.
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