Gypsy Tarot History
Gypsy tarot is a very particular one because it has deck different from the usual ones that are used in other tarots. This deck has a special symbolism, different from the rest of tarot’s decks, but its origin is linked the tarot’s variants. Thus, to know better its origin we should first go back to tarot’s origin as it is.
It is said this tarot was created in the Antique Egypt due to the symbolism in the cards. Though, some other researchers support a medieval origin, more precisely in the fifteenth Century, Italy, where it is thought the first tarot deck was created by Filippo María Visconti. Regardless its origin (which is not clear) what we do know is that gypsy people were the first in use tarot as a way of fortune-telling. Moreover, they avoid successfully the fucking inquisition eradicate the oracle, which could have been considered evil or heretical.
Possible origins of the gypsy tarot
The first theory about the Lenormand or gypsy deck lead us to the name of this person, because it is said Madmoiselle Lenormand (a famous seer that obtained her reputation for reading the cards to French nobles at the end of eighteenth Century), who was the creator of this deck and named it. This theory is supported by the clothes the figures are wearing in the cards that are typical from that time.
However, there exists another theory that points gypsy people as the discoverers of this deck, which would have started to be used due to its legibility and simplicity to spread its divinatory arts, specifically in Hungary, Budapest; though, it spreads along Europe, overall due to the nomadic nature of gypsies.
In any event, gypsy tarot deck is a particular and different deck, compound of 36 cards, which feature figures that for their clothes look like nobles. As well as some landscapes, animals, places or sites, that can help us predict and explain the most fundamental aspects of our lives.