The Italian Insurance Policy: Why Tarot Survived as a Game While Others Faded
Today's Lesson Here's something most tarot readers don't know: the reason we still have tarot cards today has almost nothing to do with fortune-telling. While countless other 15th-century card games vanished into history, tarot survived because it remained wildly popular as a recreational game in specific regions of Italy, France, and Switzerland. In places like Bologna, Piedmont, and parts of France, people never stopped playing tarocchi—a trick-taking game that required all 78 cards, including those mysterious trumps we now use for divination. This continuous demand kept printers producing decks century after century, even during periods when occultists showed zero interest in the cards. The game itself created a kind of cultural insurance policy. Because families passed down the rules and continued playing through the 1600s, 1700s, and beyond, tarot decks remained commercially viable products. Printers didn't need to care about mysticism or symbolism—they just needed to meet the demand for Saturday night entertainment. This is why the Tarot de Marseille pattern survived so intact: it was a game deck that worked, so why change it? Meanwhile, other elaborate card systems that lost their player base disappeared entirely. When occultists like Court de Gébelin 'discovered' tarot in the 1770s, they were…