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Even the earliest known tarot decks weren't designed with mysticism in mind; they were actually meant for playing a game similar to modern-day bridge. Wealthy families in Italy commissioned expensive, artist-made decks known as “carte da trionfi” or “cards of triumph.” These cards were marked with suits of cups, swords, coins, and polo sticks (eventually changed to staves or wands), and courts consisting of a king and two male underlings. Tarot cards later incorporated queens, trumps (the wild cards unique to tarot), and the Fool to this system, for a complete deck that usually totaled 78 cards. Today, the suit cards are commonly called the Minor Arcana, while trump cards are known as the Major Arcana.
即使是最早形式的塔罗牌，也不是按照脑中产生的神秘喻示来设计的，它是一种和现代的桥牌更加类似的游戏。富有的意大利家庭使用昂贵的，名家制作的纸牌，称作“carte da trionfi”或者说“强手牌”。这些牌上面的标志是杯子，宝剑，钱币，马球棍（后来发展成权杖和魔杖），以及由一个国王和两个随从组成的法庭。接下来塔罗牌里又在这个系列里加上了皇后，王牌（塔罗牌中一张地位特殊的牌），和愚者，牌的总数发展到了78张。今天，副牌组被称作小阿卡那，而主牌组被称作大阿卡那。
Two hand-painted Mamluk cards from Turkey (left) and two cards from the Visconti family deck (right), both circa 15th century.
在土耳其发现的两张手制的马木留克牌（左）和两张来自Visconti家族的纸牌（右），都制作于15世纪。
Graphic designer and artist Bill Wolf, whose interest in tarot illustration dates to his art-school days at Cooper Union in New York, has his own theories about the tarot's beginning. Wolf, who doesn't use cards for divination, believes that originally, “the meaning of the imagery was parallel to the mechanics of the play of the game. The random draw of the cards created a new, unique narrative each and every time the game was played, and the decisions players made influenced the unfolding of that narrative.” Imagine a choose-your-own-adventure style card game.
Bill Wolf是一名绘图师和艺术家，当年在纽约的库伯联盟学院攻读艺术学位时的兴趣就是研究塔罗牌插画的年代，对于塔罗牌的起源他有另一套理论。作为一个并不用塔罗牌进行占卜的人，他相信，“那些图画的意义恰好表现了它们在这个游戏中的玩法，每次随意画出的一张新牌，都会在游戏中被赋予新的意义，而古老的玩家对它们的使用又继续影响了这些意义的变化。”想象中那是一种随意决定玩法的卡牌游戏。
