Tarot of Marseille
The Tarot of Marseille is the historical European tarot deck par excellence, with iconographic origins in Italy in the 15th century and consolidated in southern France between the 17th and 18th centuries. Its 78 cards are characterised by simple, geometric and allegorical imagery, with a vibrant traditional palette of red, blue, yellow and green.
Origin and history
The first known tarot decks were painted in 15th-century Italy for noble courts (tarocchi Visconti-Sforza). The standard pattern was printed on a wooden block and travelled north, settling in Marseille as a printing centre at the beginning of the 16th century. From there it expanded throughout Europe, adopted by occultists, professional cartomancers and the public.
Its consolidation as a "ground" deck for esoteric tarot occurred between the 17th and 18th centuries. Nicolas Conver, master cardmaker of Marseille, edited in 1760 the version that today is considered classical reference. The Conver deck was reissued by Camoin and Jodorowsky in the 1990s and has been the basis of contemporary "esoteric Marseille". It is not the only Marseille version (there is the Dodal, the Noblet, the Madenié, etc.), but it is the most widespread.
Visual features
The Marseille tarot has 22 major arcana and 56 minor arcana distributed in 4 suits (cups, coins/pentacles, swords, wands) of 14 cards. Its traditional iconography is simple, allegorical and explicitly numerical: the minor arcana from 2 to 10 only show symbolic elements (X cups, X swords) without scenes. This contrasts with the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, which adds figurative scenes to all the cards.
The Marseille palette is limited and vibrant: red, blue, yellow, green, cream and black. There are no realistic shadings nor modern perspectives. The figures are flat, hieratic, almost icon-like. This austerity is a working feature: the Marseille demands more from the reader's imagination, especially in the minor arcana. Some traditional readers consider this its great strength: it forces meditation rather than figurative reading.
Marseille style of reading
Reading the Marseille tarot is different from reading the Rider-Waite. Traditional schools (Jodorowsky, Camoin, Marteau, Wirth) read by combining the symbology of the suit with the energy of the number, the orientation of the figures and the colours present. Most major arcana are not read upside down — only by their direction in the spread. The minor arcana from 2 to 10 are read predominantly by their numerical-elemental energy (e.g. a 5 of cups = emotional crisis or readjustment, regardless of figure).
Also known as
- Tarot of Marseille
- Marseille deck
- Marseille pattern
- Tarocchi marsigliese