Tarot History — and Why the 1909 Deck Endures

It began as a game

The first decks with trump cards appeared in northern Italy around the 15th century, in noble households. They were used to play a game called tarocchi — and the illustrated trumps, such as the Emperor, the Pope, and the Sun, were simply the high cards in that game.

There was nothing occult about them. The lavish hand-painted, gilded images served a pastime of the wealthy. The cards were a luxury object, not a spiritual one.

Into France, and new names

As the game spread through France and Switzerland, the names and images gradually standardised. The Marseille deck emerged from woodblock printing, far plainer than the hand-painted decks, and became the most common form for centuries.

By this point tarot was still a game. The trumps played the role of simple high cards, carrying no psychological meaning.

Etteilla and the first readers

In the late 18th century, a Frenchman named Etteilla began assigning divinatory meanings to each card and writing guidebooks. He was not the only one, but he was the most influential in separating tarot from the card table and drawing it into occult territory.

From there, each generation added another layer of meaning to the deck. Divination, in other words, was not the deck's inheritance — it was an addition.

English occultism and the 1909 setting

In the early 20th century, occult societies in England took a strong interest in tarot as a symbolic system. They wanted a deck that was both deeply symbolic and clear enough for an ordinary person to read — something the Marseille deck did not offer. What they produced would become one of the most reproduced decks in the world.

Pamela Colman Smith drew the deck we know

In 1909, a deck guided by A. E. Waite and drawn by Pamela Colman Smith was published. Smith did something no one had done before: she illustrated all 56 minor cards, turning each into a scene with people, action, and feeling.

Because of that, a card's meaning sits in its image and need not be memorised. A beginner can look at the Three of Swords and see a heart pierced, look at the Moon and see a dim path under moonlight.

Why the 1909 deck endures

More than a century later, the Smith-Waite deck remains the most widely used form of tarot. The 1909 edition has passed out of copyright and sits in the public domain — which is why Arcana uses those very images. The Sun, the Star, the Moon: these pictures have travelled with countless people through hard seasons, and they still say what needs saying.

From salons to phones

Through the 20th century tarot moved from occult circles into popular culture: paperbacks, mass-printed decks, then film and music. Each time, a new group took the deck as its own. For many, tarot became less a fortune-telling device than a mirror.

Today Smith-Waite images are everywhere, largely because they are in the public domain and because Pamela Colman Smith's drawings are strong enough to stand on their own. Seeing the originals is part of why so many modern decks still echo them.

Why this matters when you read

Knowing where the deck comes from reminds you that every meaning is a product of history, not an unchanging truth. What we call a card's “standard meaning” was written by people, across generations. That is not a reason to distrust it; it is a reason to hold it lightly.

That does not make tarot less valuable — it makes it more interesting. You are allowed to read the deck your own way, as long as you stay honest with the question you carry.

The cards are a language, and languages change as the people speaking them do.