What is the original tarot deck?

AnyaR

I’ve been diving deep into tarot lately and started wondering about the cards’ origins. There are so many decks now, but what was the original one? Does anyone know what the first tarot deck looked like and how it got started?

I ask because I read tarot a lot and I love how the art and symbolism change between decks, but I’d really like to know where it all began. I’ve heard different versions of the history and want something more concrete - like a description of the earliest decks and how they evolved into what we use today.

Any history buffs around who can shed some light on the roots of tarot? I’d love to learn more.

LMoretti

The oldest surviving deck we have is the Visconti-Sforza, made in 15th-century Italy. Most historians place tarot’s origins around then, but it started out as a set of playing cards - the divinatory use came later.

With Rider-Waite, the Major Arcana borrows from earlier decks but introduced lots of new symbolism and reworked several images. The Lovers is a good example: compare the Marseilles version to Rider-Waite and you’ll see they’re portrayed and read very differently.

The Minor Arcana in Rider-Waite are largely original to that deck. Arthur Waite guided the project and worked closely with Pamela Colman-Smith, who illustrated it. He gave the brief, but recent research argues Colman-Smith - who was involved with the Order of the Golden Dawn - probably contributed more of her own ideas than was originally credited.