Tarot Card Games
Tarocchi (Italian, plural form of Tarocco), also known as Tarock (German-Austrian name), Tarot (French name) and similar names in other languages, is a specific form of playing card deck, which in its history was used for different trick-taking games and later for cartomantic interests and divination (concrete forms appear at least since the article of Court de Gebelin in the year 1781), also as a field for artists to display specific iconographical forms often connected to an ideological system in the background.
It is recorded as one of the oldest types of playing card decks known.
The game is nowadays known in many variations, first basic rules appear in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona (before 1425; translated text), the next are known from the year 1637. In Italy the game has become less popular, one version named Tarocco Bolognese: Ottocento has still survived and there are still others played in Piedmont, but the number of games outside of Italy is much higher, there connected to the words Tarot and Tarock.
It is played with a tarot deck of playing cards. The so-called "esoteric" decks used for divination are usually ill-suited for playing, for example the corner symbols are missing; thus there are regular playing decks in the countries where tarocchi is popular.
The 78-card deck contains:
Four suits: depending on the region, either the Anglo-French hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs or the original Latin suits of swords, batons, cups, and coins; numbered one through ten, plus four court cards — a jack, a knight, a queen, and a king;
the twenty-one tarots, known in divination as the Major Arcana, which function in the game as a permanent suit of trumps;
the Fool, also known as the Excuse, an un-numbered card that in some variations
excuses the player from following suit or playing a trump, and in others acts as the strongest trump.
It is recorded as one of the oldest types of playing card decks known.
The game is nowadays known in many variations, first basic rules appear in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona (before 1425; translated text), the next are known from the year 1637. In Italy the game has become less popular, one version named Tarocco Bolognese: Ottocento has still survived and there are still others played in Piedmont, but the number of games outside of Italy is much higher, there connected to the words Tarot and Tarock.
It is played with a tarot deck of playing cards. The so-called "esoteric" decks used for divination are usually ill-suited for playing, for example the corner symbols are missing; thus there are regular playing decks in the countries where tarocchi is popular.
The 78-card deck contains:
Four suits: depending on the region, either the Anglo-French hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs or the original Latin suits of swords, batons, cups, and coins; numbered one through ten, plus four court cards — a jack, a knight, a queen, and a king;
the twenty-one tarots, known in divination as the Major Arcana, which function in the game as a permanent suit of trumps;
the Fool, also known as the Excuse, an un-numbered card that in some variations
excuses the player from following suit or playing a trump, and in others acts as the strongest trump.
