real tarot card reading
The tarot (also known as tarocchi, tarock or similar names) is typically a set of seventy-eight cards, comprising twenty-one trump cards, one Fool, and four suits of fourteen cards each—ten pip and four face cards (one more face card per suit than in ordinary playing cards). Tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe to play Tarot card games such as Italian Tarocchini and French Tarot. In English-speaking countries, where the games are largely unknown, Tarot cards are utilized primarily for divinatory purposes, with the trump cards plus the Fool card comprising the twenty-two major arcana cards and the pip and four face cards the fifty-six minor arcana.
History
Playing cards first entered Europe in the late 14th century with the Mamelukes of Egypt, with suits of Scimitars, Polo Sticks, Cups and Coins. These designs rapidly evolved into the basic 'Latin' suits of Swords, Staves, Cups and Coins (also known as disks, and pentacles), which are still used in traditional Italian and Spanish decks. Although there are quite a number of alternative theories on the origin of Tarot, evidence gathered at this time seems to indicate that the first decks were created between 1410 and 1430 in either Milan, Ferrara, or Bologna, in northern Italy, when additional trump cards with allegorical illustrations were added to the more common four suit decks that already existed. These new decks were originally called carte da trionfi, triumph cards. The first literary evidence of the existence of carte da trionfi is a written statement in the court records in Ferrara, in 1442. The oldest surviving Tarot cards are from fifteen fragmented decks painted in the mid 15th century for the Visconti-Sforza family, the rulers of Milan.
No documented examples exist prior to the 18th century of the tarot being used for divination. However, divination using similar cards is in evidence as early as 1540; a book entitled The Oracles of Francesco Marcolino da Forli shows a simple method of divination using the coin suit of a regular playing card deck. Manuscripts from 1735 (The Square of Sevens) and 1750 (Pratesi Cartomancer) document rudimentary divinatory meanings for the cards of the tarot, as well as a system for laying out the cards. In 1765, Giacomo Casanova wrote in his diary that his Russian mistress frequently used a deck of playing cards for divination.
Early decks
Playing cards first appeared in Christian Europe some time before 1367, the date of the first documented evidence of their existence, a ban on their use, in Bern, Switzerland. Before this, cards had been used for several decades in Islamic Al Andalus (see playing card history for discussion of its origins). Early European sources describe a deck with typically fifty-two cards, like a modern deck with no jokers. The seventy-eight-card tarot resulted from adding the twenty-two trump cards to an early fifty-six card variant (fourteen cards per suit).
Wide use of playing cards in Europe can, with some certainty, be given from 1377 onwards. Tarot cards appear to have been developed some forty years later, and they are mentioned in the surviving text of Martiano da Tortona. Da Tortona's text is thought to have been written between 1418 and 1425, since in 1418 the painter Michelino da Besozzo returned to Milan, and Martiano da Tortona died in 1425.
Da Tortona describes a deck similar to the cards used for Tarot card games in many specific ways though what he describes is more a precursor to tarot than what we might think of as real tarot cards. For instance, his deck has only sixteen trump cards, with motifs that are not comparable to common tarot cards (they are Greek gods) and the suits are four kinds of birds, not the common Italian suits. What makes da Tortona's deck similar to modern tarot game cards is that these sixteen cards are obviously regarded as trump cards in a card game; about twenty-five years later, a near contemporary of Da Tortona, Jacopo Antonio Marcello, called them a ludus triumphorum, or 'game winner'.
The next documents that seem to confirm the existence of objects similar to tarot cards are two playing card decks from Milan (Brera-Brambrilla and Cary-Yale-Tarocchi) — extant, but fragmentary — and three documents, all from the court of Ferrara, Italy. It is not possible to put a precise date on the cards, but it is estimated that they were made circa 1440. The three documents date from 1 January 1441 to July 1442, with the term trionfi first documented in February 1442. The document from January 1441, which used the term trionfi, is regarded as unreliable; however, the fact that the same painter, Sagramoro, was commissioned by the same patron, Leonello d'Este, as in the February 1442 document, indicates that it is at least plausibly an example of the same type. After 1442 there are some seven years without any examples of similar material. The game seemed to gain in importance in the year 1450, a Jubilee year in Italy, which saw many festivities and the movement of many pilgrims.
It seems apparent that the special motifs on the trump cards, which were added to regular playing cards with a 'four suits of fourteen cards' structure, were ideologically determined. They are thought to show a specific system of transporting messages of different content; known early examples show philosophical, social, poetical, astronomical, and heraldic ideas, for instance, as well as a group of old Roman/Greek/Babylonian heroes, as in the case of the Sola-Busca-Tarocchi (1491) and the Boiardo Tarocchi poem (produced at an unknown date between 1461 and 1494). For example, the earliest-known deck, extant only in its description in Martiano's short book, was produced to show the system of Greek gods, a theme that was very fashionable in Italy at the time. Its production may well have accompanied a triumphal celebration of the commissioner Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of Milano, meaning that the purpose of the deck was to express and consolidate the political power in Milan (as was common for other artworks of the time). The four suits showed birds, motifs that appeared regularly in Visconti heraldry, and the specific order of the gods gives reason to assume that the deck was intended to imply that the Visconti identified themselves as descendants from Jupiter and Venus (which were seen not as gods but deified mortal heroes).
This first known deck seems to have had the standard ten numbered cards, but having kings as the only court card, and only sixteen trump cards. The later standard (four suits of fourteen plus twenty-two) took time to settle; trionfi decks with seventy cards only are still spoken of in 1457. No corroborating evidence for the final standard seventy-eight card format exists prior to the Boiardo Tarocchi poem and the Sola Busca Tarocchi.
The oldest surviving tarot cards are three early to mid 15th century sets, all made for members of the Visconti family. The first deck is the so called Cary-Yale Tarot (or Visconti-Modrone Tarot), which was created between 1442 and 1447 by an anonymous painter for Filippo Maria Visconti. The cards (only sixty-six) are today in the Yale University Library of New Haven. But the most famous of these early tarot decks was painted in the mid 15th century, to celebrate the rule of Milan by Francesco Sforza and his wife Bianca Maria Visconti, daughter of the duke Filippo Maria. Probably, these cards were painted by Bonifacio Bembo, but some cards were realized by miniaturists of another school. Of the original cards, thirty-five are in the Pierpont Morgan Library, twenty-six are at the Accademia Carrara, thirteen are at the Casa Colleoni and two, 'The Devil' and 'The Tower', are lost, or possibly never made. This "Visconti-Sforza" deck, which has been widely reproduced, combines the suits of swords, batons, coins and cups and the court cards king, queen, knight and page with trump cards that reflect conventional iconography of the time to a significant degree.
For a long time tarot cards remained a privilege for the upper classes, and, although some sermons inveighing against the evil inherent in cards can be traced to the 14th century, most civil governments did not routinely condemn tarot cards during tarot's early history. In fact, in some jurisdictions, tarot cards were specifically exempted from laws otherwise prohibiting the playing of cards.
Later tarot decks
As the earliest tarot cards were hand painted, the number of the decks produced is thought to have been rather small, and it was only after the invention of the printing press that mass production of cards became possible. Decks survive from this era from various cities in France (the best known being a deck from the southern city of Marseilles and thus named the Tarot de Marseilles). At around the same time, the name tarocchi appeared.
The first wide publicity of divination by tarot came from a French occultist named Alliette, under the pseudonym "Etteilla" (his name reversed), who worked as a seer and card diviner shortly before the French Revolution. Etteilla designed the first esoteric Tarot deck, adding astrological attribution
real tarot card reading
Schedule Your Telephone Tarot Card Reading Now! I can help you find the real life answers to your most important questions like no other Tarot card reader can.
Telephone Tarot Card Readings with Corinne Alphen
Cherry Sage has over many years proven to be an experienced accurate tarot reader. She has consistently provided real psychic answers divined from the Tarot. You too can benefit ...
Tarot Card Reading, Accurate Online, Real Tarot Card Reading ...
Get your free professional and amazingly accurate tarot card ... the teaching that auras are not important or not real ... Tarot, Free Tarot Reading, Tarot Cards Reading, Tarot Online ...
Tarot - Free Tarot Readings - I Ching - Astrology - Feng Shui Formulas
More about our Online Tarot Card Reading Services.. ONLINE TAROT READINGS BY PHONE; LIVE TAROT ... for many years so you can be assured that you are talking to a REAL TAROT READER and ...
Online Tarot Readings - love tarot reading by phone.
live tarot readings, psychic help, real life questions, guidance, predictions, tarot card readings, yes-no reading, five-seven card or celtic cross spread,
live tarot readings, psychic help, real life questions, guidance ...
FREE TAROT READING (TAROT THE ORACLE) - LOVE TAROT - Rune, Biorhythm, and Numerology readings ... TAROT THE ORACLE. Choose a way of finding about your future and about yourself.
free online tarot reading, Tarot the Oracle
Deck: Etteilla: General Tarot Reading for September 3, 2008 Card: The Lovers ... Classically, the energy of this card reminded us of the real challenges posed by ...
Horoscope - Daily Tarot Reading
Consult the Ten Card Tarot Reading! Harness the wisdom of the Tarot and receive answers to ... Christian's newest site features live phone readings by real psychics, including ...
Salem Tarot: Free online Tarot and live Tarot phone readings!
Reading Tarot Cards Real Tarot Card Spreads. From Stephanie Yeh, for About.com
Tarot Card Spreads
Love tarot reading? Our expert tarot card readers provide free tarot readings over the phone, I ... REAL Tarot Readings~Accurate TIMING Details (22970) $3.50
'Spore' Spawns Ingenious New PC-Gaming Style - TechNewsWorld
'Spore' Spawns Ingenious New PC-Gaming Style
BusinessWeek
TechNewsWorld -
By Walaika Haskins "Spore" is an innovative combination of gaming elements -- some new, like the creature creator -- and some retro, like the gobbling unicellular organisms reminiscent of Pac-Man.
Spore: Create a Universe to Play In
Spore Stages
Can Britney Do It Again and Do It Right - ABC News
Can Britney Do It Again and Do It Right
BBC News
ABC News -
By SHEILA MARIKAR Forget "Entourage" and the NFL. If you're going to watch TV this Sunday night, watch Britney Spears.
Kanye Reneges on MTV Boycott, Closing VMAs
Tokio Hotel 'Don't Expect' To Snag Best New Artist VMA From The Ladies
