Editing Tarot (section)

===Playing cards and early tarot-like games===
Tarot cards, then known as ''tarocchi'', first appeared in [[Ferrara]] and [[Milan]] in northern Italy, with the Fool and 21 trumps (then called ''[[Trionfi (cards)|trionfi]]'') being added to the standard Italian pack of four suits: [[batons (suit)|batons]], [[coins (suit)|coins]], [[cups (suit)|cups]] and [[swords (suit)|swords]].{{sfnp|Decker|Depaulis|Dummett|1996|pp=28, 31}} Scholarship has established that early European playing cards were probably based on the [[Playing card#Egypt|Egyptian Mamluk deck]] invented in or before the 14th century, which followed the introduction of paper from Asia into Western Europe.<ref name="wopc">[https://www.wopc.co.uk/history-the-history-of-playing-cards/early-history-of-playing-cards ''Early History of Playing Cards''] at wopc.co.uk. Retrieved 21 November 2022.</ref> By the late 1300s, Europeans were producing their own cards, the earliest patterns being based on the Mamluk deck but with variations to the [[suit symbol]]s and [[court card]]s.<ref name="wopc" />

The first records of playing cards in Europe date to 1367 in [[Bern]] and they appear to have spread very rapidly across the whole of Europe, as may be seen from the records, mainly of card games being banned.<ref>Peter F. Kopp: Die frühesten Spielkarten in der Schweiz. In: Zeitschrift für schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte 30 (1973), pp. 130–145, here 130.</ref><ref>Hellmut Rosenfeld: Zu den frühesten Spielkarten in der Schweiz. Eine Entgegnung. In: Zeitschrift für schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte 32 (1975), pp. 179–180.</ref><ref>[[Detlef Hoffmann]]: Kultur- und Kunstgeschichte der Spielkarte. Marburg: Jonas Verlag 1995, p. 43.</ref> Little is known about the appearance and number of these cards, the only significant information being provided by a text by [[John of Rheinfelden]] in 1377 from [[Freiburg im Breisgau]], who, in addition to other versions, describes the basic pack as containing the still-current 4 suits of 13 cards, the courts usually being the King, Ober and Unter ("marshals"), although Dames and Queens were already known by then.

An early pattern of playing cards used the suits of batons or clubs, coins, swords, and cups. These suits are still used in traditional [[Italian playing cards|Italian]], [[Spanish playing cards|Spanish]] and Portuguese playing card decks, and are also used in modern (occult) tarot divination cards that first appeared in the late 18th century.<ref>[[Donald Laycock]] in ''Skeptical—a Handbook of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal'', ed [[Donald Laycock]], [[David Vernon (writer)|David Vernon]], [[Colin Groves]], [[Simon Brown (author)|Simon Brown]], Imagecraft, Canberra, 1989, {{ISBN|0-7316-5794-2}}, p. 67</ref>

A lost tarot-like pack was commissioned by Duke [[Filippo Maria Visconti]] and described by Martiano da Tortona, probably between 1418 and 1425 since the painter he mentions, [[Michelino Molinari da Besozzo|Michelino da Besozzo]], returned to Milan in 1418, while Martiano himself died in 1425. He described a 60-card deck with 16 cards having images of the [[List of Roman deities|Roman gods]] and suits depicting four kinds of birds. The 16 cards were regarded as "trumps" since, in 1449, [[Jacopo Antonio Marcello]] recalled that the now deceased duke had invented a ''novum quoddam et exquisitum triumphorum genus'', or "a new and exquisite kind of triumphs."<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Pratesi|first1=Franco|author-link=Franco Pratesi|title=Italian Cards - New Discoveries|journal=[[The Playing-Card]]|date=1989|volume=18|issue=1, 2|pages=28–32, 33–38}}</ref> Other early decks that also showcased classical motifs include the [[Sola Busca tarot|Sola-Busca]] and Boiardo-Viti decks of the 1490s.<ref name="DummettGame"/>