Tarot cards are part of an ancient tradition of divination.
The tarot, first known as trionfi and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others, is a pack of playing cards.
Commonly it has 78 cards, which are used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot.
Divination using playing cards is recorded as early as 1540.
A manuscript from 1750 (Pratesi Cartomancer) documents rudimentary divinatory meanings for the cards of the tarot.
In 1765, Giacomo Casanova wrote that his Russian mistress frequently used a deck of cards for divination.
