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I gave a talk at the College of Psychic Studies recently on the art of tarot, which barely scratched the surface of what is a fascinating subject. Who was the first tarot artist? Who came up with the concept of the Major Arcana or triomfi (triumphs) first?
Where did the artist get his inspiration, the one who first produced the Triumphs (the Majors)? The medieval mind had no problems thinking symbolically. Mystery plays were performed regularly, immense tableaux with music and floats. The plays could last for days and usually featured biblical scenes or morality plays. They were staged by various guilds and the morality plays, particularly, would have featured allegorical, moral characters; like the Emperor, the Chariot, Justice, Death and so on. Perhaps one of the artists involved with these mystery plays have produced a series of symbolic images to trump the suits, in the new card game of tarocchi being played. Perhaps it took shape in a conversation in a tavern one evening. Or, perhaps, one of the city-state princes had been brought a pack from the Moorish lands and commissioned his court artist to add to it. However it happened, the triomfi appeared, beautiful, exotic, and powerful, and took the population by storm.
In the records of Charles VI’s treasurer in 1392, we find this intriguing reference: ‘paid to Jacquemin Gringonneur, painter, for three packs of cards, gilded, coloured, and ornamented with various designs, for the amusement of our lord the king, 56 sols of Paris’. Were these a beautiful set of what we now think of as the Minor Arcana, painted for Charles VI, or did they include the Majors? Unfortunately – as usual with the tarot, we’ll never know unless someone invents a time machine, as none of the cards survive. If these were the triomfi, was Gringonneur the inventor of the Major Arcana?
Scholars now consider that playing cards were brought into Europe, probably through Venice, from the Mamluk empire. There was a long tradition of card-making in Egypt 
(cards have been found dating to the late 12th century), but this does not mean that the images of the tarot Majors originated in the Egyptian Book of the Death (one of the myths of tarot created by Court de Gébelin, a French Mason and occultist, in the late 18th century). However, in medieval times there were direct trade links with Muslim countries, and an inventory of the Duke of Orleans’ possessions (1408) details a ‘Saracen card deck’. Juzzo da Coveluzzo specifically refers to the cards as a ‘Saracen invention’.
The images of the Major Arcana, which are thought to have appeared separately and a little later than the Minors, clearly derive from the European medieval mind-set, although with a few interesting touches. The Papess, for example, was based on the story of a female pope (Pope Joan). The Hanged Man is now seen as a pagan reference to Odin gaining wisdom by hanging himself on the world tree, or gods such as Attis, sacrificed each year to ensure fertility. However, in medieval times thieves or traitors were sometimes hung upside down, and one or two decks show money falling from his pockets. Here we see the Hanged Man grasping two money-bags which are presumably his ill-gotten gains. An alternative suggestion is that this represents Judas.
The Wheel of Fortune was a favourite medieval reference. You could be a king one day and a pauper the next: medieval people tended to have a healthy respect for fate, given that they were often at the receiving end of power-hungry princes. Internecine wars were frequent, and the princes might ride high for a while and then lose their war with a consequent loss of prosperity for the population.
Unfortunately these tiny images cannot display the artistry of the earliest extant cards, which were produced mainly for the Visconti family. There are 239 cards in total produced for the Viscontis, which may comprise eleven distinct groups of cards. The Cary-Yale Visconti tarot, from which I’ve drawn these images, is a particularly fine set which unusually has four extra female knights.
The first decks could have been roughly drawn on card, copied from the ‘Saracen’ examples. Later when the aristocracy discovered them, they would have been commissioned from artists like Bembo or Gringonneur. These first tarot artists were probably illuminators, rather than mural artists; used to working with miniatures and gilding. Most of them were probably Italian, and must have been craftsmen (or women) rather than monks. The early decks were used for gaming (which is presumably why the church objected, which it did, strenuously and regularly – and, ironically, these objections are the only evidence we have regarding the first appearance of the tarot).
(to be continued)
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