Tarot

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AKA

A family of trick-taking games played with the Tarot deck and variations thereupon.

There isn't actually any hard evidence that the Tarot deck was used for divination during the Renaissance; the first clear sources for that are significantly post-period. We do have reasonably clear evidence that it was used for card games, though, and in Europe these games (and various derivatives, often using shortened decks) have been played all the way through to the modern day.

Variants

Trappola -- An Italian Tarocchi variant, played with ordinary cards.

Reconstructions and Other Discussions

Regles du Jeu des Tarots (Transcription) -- Transcription by Thierry Depaulis of the earliest printed rules for Tarot. (French) (more)
Maproom Publications (History, Overview) -- Publishers of a couple of books specifically on the subject of the early history of the Tarot deck and its games. (more)
SCA-appropriate Tarot decks (Equipment) -- Compiled by Hildegarde Stickerin. Note that this focuses more on pretty "art" decks, rather than the more typical everyday decks. Some of these decks are period, some are "period-style". (more)
Trionfi (History, Overview) -- A substantial website dedicated entirely to the history of Tarot. Well worth digging into if you are interested in the early history of the decks. (more)
A brief history of the Tarot (History) -- (more)
The TarotL History Information Sheet (History) -- Compiled by members of the TarotL group, this is a concise look at various myths about the deck, and the current historical understanding. (more)
Accademia del Tarocchino Bolognese (History) -- In Italian -- has a number of interesting-looking articles on the game, some of them relating to its history. (more)
James Wickson's reconstruction of early Tarot (Reconstruction) -- (more)
Justin's description of Early French Tarot (Reconstruction) -- Largely based on Michael Dummett's The Game of Tarot (more)
Still More Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Card Games (Reconstruction) -- Part of a series by Earl Dafydd ap Gwystl, this includes reconstructions of several games. (more)
Pagat's page on Minchiate / Germini (Rules) -- This is an attested-to-period Tarot variation played with an overlarge deck (40 trumps), with a somewhat complex scoring system. (more)
Modar's reconstruction of Tarok (Reconstruction) -- An Eastern European variant. (more)
A period-style description of Tarot (Reconstruction) -- Not a primary source; this is a modern reconstruction written in Elizabethan-style language, from the Ace's Boke. (more)
Michel Wolffauer's writeup on Tarot (Reconstruction) -- PDF, adapted from Justin's version (more)
Pre-Gebelin Tarot History (Equipment, History) -- A blog focusing on "The Moral Allegory of Tarot". It is a refreshing middle ground: explicitly skeptical about the occult side (much of which was an 18th century invention) but looking seriously at Tarot imagery as allegory. Highly opinionated and intriguing, and contains many images of less-known period decks. (more)
A page on Austrian Tarock (History, Transcription) -- Collected by Hans-Joachim Alscher; in German, but mostly links, including lots of links to various period sources. Well worth going through for those links. (more)

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