The origins of the Tarot are lost in legend. The Tarot cards are a type of playing cards, originated between the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance in the noble courts of Bologna, Ferrara and Milan. According to some scholars, the Gypsies, the only holders of cartomancy in the Middle Ages, would have brought them to Europe from Egypt; for others they would have brought them to Europe by the Templars from Israel; still others, place their birth in India or China. With certainty the first documents that refer to the Tarot date back to the late Middle Ages, when the powerful began to take an interest in this game. However, it is unclear whether full decks of 78 cards were used from the beginning or only later the 22 Major Arcans and the 56 Minor Arcans were combined. Most scholars consider the 22 Arcani an Italian creation, while the 56 Arcani Minori seem to derive from Arab bouquets imported to Europe in the Middle Ages; the fusion of the two bouquets probably dates back to the second half of the fourteenth century. With the help of tools such as engraving on wooden or copper molds, card games spread very quickly. Already in the sixteenth century a modified Tarot game, known by the name “Marseille Tarot” became very popular. Even today in some European areas the Tarot is used to play. Alessio Delfino (born in 1976) through captivating photographic shots, proposes in a contemporary key the 22 Major Arcana that recreates and immortalizes in sets treated in detail. When you look at the Tarot cards in their complex symbolism you realize that the archetypes depicted are universal. For example, the Wheel (Arcane X) is present in the mythologies and cosmogones of all peoples (Greek, Egyptian, Aztec, Chinese, etc.). However, there is no doubt that the 22 Arcana are recognizable symbols of esoteric Christianity, think only of the Arcane XX, the Judgment. This ensured both the secrecy and the continuity of this knowledge. The Tarot has always accompanied human history over the centuries, resisting centuries to a unique decipherment and interpretation, preserving a mystical part-esoteric that makes them fascinating even today and open to endless interpretations that start directly from our Ego, touching that dark part that each of us possesses but that the Western culture has suffocated forgetting our irrational and magical part that created them and that, still, animates them, conquering us.
Claudio Composti