History and symbols
What are the Visconti-Sforza cards like, and what changed on the way to today's tarot?
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The Visconti-Sforza cards are hand-painted trionfi from fifteenth-century northern Italy, with no printed numbers or titles. They mix four suits with court figures and allegorical cards, some unlike today's, such as an old figure of Time where the Hermit now stands. The set survived incomplete.
Why do people say trionfi and not tarot?
In the fifteenth century, the common name for the deck was trionfi, or “triumphs.” The word referred to the cards that beat the others in the game, and only later did the term tarocchi take its place. That is why historians avoid calling these early decks divinatory tarot: they were made for playing.
A common hypothesis is that the images echo the period's taste for allegorical processions and poems about triumphs. This is a plausible explanation, not a settled fact, since no text from the time survives to say why each figure was chosen.
What is on the cards
In the suits, each series has numbered cards and court figures. The triumph cards show allegorical scenes painted on gold backgrounds, in a miniature style, and they carry neither the Roman numeral nor the title we recognize in modern editions.
Some figures are familiar and others surprise anyone who learned from the Rider-Waite-Smith. Instead of the Hermit with a lantern, you find an elderly figure holding an hourglass, tied to the idea of time. In place of the High Priestess and the Hierophant, you find a popess and a pope. The Fool, meanwhile, has no fixed number.
- Trionfi with no numbers and no printed titles.
- An elderly figure with an hourglass in the role we now associate with the Hermit.
- A popess and a pope in place of the High Priestess and the Hierophant.
- Gold backgrounds and Renaissance miniature-style painting.
What is missing and how modern editions handle it
The set reached us incomplete. It is often pointed out that The Devil and The Tower are among the cards that did not survive, which is why many people think these themes did not exist. That conclusion cannot be drawn, because the absence of a card from an old set does not prove it was never made.
Modern reproductions usually fill the gaps with new drawings made in the style of the period. When buying an edition, it is worth checking the credits to see which cards are copies of originals and which were recreated, and consulting museum catalogs when you want to see the old images.
Frequently asked questions
- Does the Visconti-Sforza have all 22 Major Arcana?
- Not completely, because the set survived with gaps. In addition, the early triumph cards do not follow exactly the list and order we learn today.
- Were the Visconti-Sforza cards used to tell the future?
- There is no evidence of that. The records point to use as a card game among members of a court, and symbolic reading only gains strength centuries later.
- Why do the Visconti-Sforza Minor Arcana have no scenes?
- Because, as in ordinary decks of the time, the suits were shown by repeating the symbols. The idea of a scene on every numbered card only became popular with the Rider-Waite-Smith in 1909.
Educational content, for reflection. Tarot does not replace medical, legal or financial advice.