A pack of 78 cards, first used in Northern Italy in the early 14th century, originally as a tricktaking game, but now used by fortune-tellers for divination. The deck of 78 cards comprises four suits of 14 cards in each, making 56; the other 22 cards are unsuited trumps, decorated with symbolic designs like The Fool (precursor of the modern Joker), the Wheel of Fortune, The Tower, The Lovers, Strength, and other virtues and vices. The cards were first called triumphs (triumphi in Latin), and later tarocchi in Italian and tarots in French.
The tarot shows pictures of conventionalized personages and objects to which meanings are attached for the purpose of fortune-telling. The reader and the client sit at opposite sides of the table; the cards are shuffled and then taken, one at a time, from the top of the pack and laid out on the table in what is called a spread. Many different systems of meanings have been attached to the suit signs, going back to the Ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth, the Kabbalah of Jewish mysticism, the Neoplatonic virtues of the Italian Renaissance, and many others. The cards are interpreted according to the meanings assigned to them within the specific system used, and that their meaning is qualified by the position in which they are laid down that is, which card is next to which on the table.