Tarocchi to Tarot | Bibliography

Section 1: Primary Historical & Literary Texts

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Written c. 1380s–1400.
Application: Used for mapping medieval social and narrative archetypes (The Knight, The Prioress, The Wife of Bath, The Parson, The Pardoner) to the developmental allegory of the Major Arcana.
Petrarca, Francesco (Petrarch). I Trionfi (The Triumphs). Written c. 1351–1374.
Application: Serves as the foundational structural source for the hierarchical order of the 22 carte da trionfi (Trump cards), detailing the philosophical triumphs of Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time, and Eternity.

Court de Gébelin, Antoine. Le Monde Primitif, Analysé et Comparé avec le Monde Moderne. Volume VIII. Paris, 1781.
Application: Primary essay tracing the shift from parlor game to occult system; establishes the mythic lineage connecting Tarot to Ancient Egypt and the lost "Book of Thoth."
Etteilla (Alliette, Jean-Baptiste). Les vii herbiers d'Etteilla / Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées Tarots. Paris, 1789.
Application: Historical precedent for the formal mechanics of professional cartomancy, including the creation of the first dedicated divination deck, fixed keywords, layouts (spreads), and the introduction of upright/reversed card meanings.
Lévi, Éliphas (Constant, Alphonse Louis). Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie. Paris, 1854.
Application: The primary conceptual source for the mathematical synthesis binding the 22 Major Arcana cards irrevocably to the 22 letters of the Hebrew Alphabet and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.

Crowley, Aleister, and Harris, Frieda. The Book of Thoth: A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians. London: O.T.O., 1944 (Deck published 1969).
Application: Primary source documentation for the complex alchemical, astrological, and Qabala structures governing the design of the Thoth Tarot deck.
Dowson, Godfrey. The Hermetic Tarot. Stamford, CT: U.S. Games Systems, 1979.
Application: Contemporary artistic design based strictly on the rigorous, non-pictorial astrological and elemental attributes preserved in the Golden Dawn's hidden texts.
Mathers, S.L. MacGregor, and Mathers, Moina. The Book T / The History and Description of the Tarot Cards. Private Manuscript: Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, c. 1888.
Application: Foundational mechanics for the "Opening of the Key" layout system, including instructions for structural card counting and the behavioral dynamics of Elemental Dignities.
Waite, Arthur Edward. The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. London: William Rider & Son, Ltd., 1910.
Application: Explanatory handbook detailing the symbolic environment, aesthetic corrections, and semantic modifications built into the landmark 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith deck illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith.

Jung, Carl Gustav. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Collected Works Volume 9, Part 1. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959.
Application: Validating source for modern secular tarot usage, framing the Major Arcana as an intuitive visual projections engine mirroring universal, inherited structures of the human mind (The Mother/Empress, The Father/Emperor, The Shadow/Devil).

The British Museum. Department of Prints and Drawings: Early European Playing Card Collections. London, UK.
Application: Reference data for early woodblock print manufacturing methods, stenciled coloring mechanics, and the stylistic socioeconomic divergence between luxury court cards and popular street gaming decks.
The International Playing-Card Society (IPCS). Historical Research Portals & Pattern Sheets.
Application: Factual source tracking the migration of 13th-century Mamluk suited card sheets into southern European ports, the development of regional Italian variants (Bolognese, Siciliano, Florentine Minchiate), and the continental shift toward French-suited Tarot sets (Jeu de Tarot, Austrian Königrufen, Swiss Troggu).

To be determined - Images are still being selected and edited.
R-W-S Tarot Deck, wikimedia.com