• Did you know that tarot cards were invented for playing card games?
• Did you know that these games have been played for nearly 600 years?
• Did you know that the family of tarot games is still played throughout continental Europe to this day?

This site is dedicated to introducing English speaking players to these wonderful games.

 

Just click on this image to download your book of more than 40 card games or to purchase a printed edition at the cost price.

About this Site:

 

Welcome to Tarocchino, the site dedicated to promoting the card games for tarot. Here you will find the text to Tarocchi, a short book relating the rules to over 40 games, along with reviews of cards suitable for game play and links to where you can buy them, and a growing collection of YouTube movies helping you to learn.

 

I would like to note that this is a non-commercial project and where goods, such as the book, are available from print on demand services, they shall always be set at a base price - that is, you shall pay the printer for the goods and postage, not me! This way I keep the prices low and help circulate the games.

 

 

Links to other sites:

 

www.pagat.com

This site is run by John McLeod and is probably the single most comprehensive collection of card games from across the world assembled in English. There are about a dozen tarot games there, giving their native language terms.

 

www.trionfi.com

This is it dedicated to studying the history of tarot cards and includes a large gallery of images.

 

www.aeclectic.net

This is not a site that I would ordinarily recommend, as its focus is on the occult tarot and fortune telling. However, the history section of the forums are frequented by some real historians with a real passion for tarot - they are certainly worth looking out for.

 

 

Web Stores:

 

For most of us, the only way to purchase tarot cards suitable for game play will be through the inter-net. Here are a few links to web stores that sell the cards.

 

www.playingcardsales.com

This is one of the European stores, with prices listed in Sterling. Perhaps the most comprehensive selection of playing cards on the  inter-net.

 

www.alidastores.com

Another European store, this time priced in Euros. A greater focus on fortune telling packs but there is plenty for the card players here and is perhaps the better store for Latin suited tarots.

 

www.tarobearslair.com

This is a US based supplier, importing an impressive range of cards, including all the major patterns. Recently his range has grown to include a variety of playing cards of different patterns, including the Swiss Jass pack and the Austrian Tarock (not actually a tarot but it has the German suits). If you are that side of the Atlantic and enjoy your card games, then you need to visit this one!

 

www.tarock.net

Another US supplier but this time with a greater focus on the 54 card French suited packs.

 

 

Sources

 

Most of the text of this site has been drawn from articles in www.pagat.com and these two books. There have also been rules taken from the German Wiki and some German language forum pages.

 

I have attempted not to simply reproduce the findings of these works but instead to present a selection of the games in a fresh and accessible format, standardising terms and conventions, and Anglicising them where appropriate. What I have presented here can in no way substitute these books which constitute detailed works of history. Instead my goal has been to write for the casual player and those who may not have played many card games before this.

 

Those of you with a greater than casual interest in card games will certainly want to seek out these texts - I am sure that they shall give you much pleasure.

 

 

The Game of Tarot

by Michael Dummett with the assistance of Sylvia Mann

Duckworth 1980 ISBN 0 7156 10147

 

This book only saw one printing and is now much in demand, sometimes fetching high prices on eBay auctions. However, keep you eyes open and you can find a bargain. It is the most comprehensive book published about tarot, tracing the history of the games, the cards themselves, their designs, and even the occult use.

 

 

A History of Games played with the Tarot Pack

Volumes One & Two

By Michael Dummett and John McLeod

Edwin Mellen Press 2004

Volume One ISBN 0 7734 6447 6

Volume Two ISBN 0 7734 6449 2

Supplement from Maproom Publications 2009 ISBN 978 0 9562370 02

 

Edwin Mellen Press is an academic publisher that specializes in supplying academic libraries and their web site states that they expect to sell only about 500 copies of a book in its lifetime. Consequently, these are not widely available and are very costly. These volumes serve to update and expand the work on the card games and their development given in The Game of Tarot. Although the work is limited to just this part of tarot’s history, there is no more substantial source of tarot games in the English Language - or quite possibly, any language.

 

The first supplement to this work has now been published and is only available from the associated website www.tarotgame.org where it can also be downloaded without charge in pdf format. It includes a few corrections, usually expanding on the original text with new information, along with some significant new games – including some of those played in the United States.