50 free Tarot trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Tarot began as a card game. The 78-card pack, with its 21 trumps and the Fool, was invented in northern Italy in the mid-15th century and is still played for tricks in France, Austria and Italy today. The fortune-telling deck that most people picture came much later, when a French pastor named Antoine Court de Gébelin decided in 1781 that the cards were a lost Egyptian book, and a Paris seed-seller calling himself Etteilla started selling meanings for them. These 50 questions cover both histories: the Visconti-Sforza decks of Milan, the Tarot of Marseilles, the suits of batons, coins, cups and swords, French Tarot's revival, and the occult line that runs from Gébelin through Éliphas Lévi to the Golden Dawn. The modern decks get their own tier: A. E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith's 1909 Rider–Waite deck, why Strength and Justice swapped places, Aleister Crowley's Thoth deck painted by Lady Frieda Harris, and what the Fool, the Hanged Man and Death actually show. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation that adds one more detail. Play solo or print it for a games night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many cards are in a full tarot deck?
78
That is four suits of 14 cards plus 21 trumps and the Fool.
Q 02Tarot cards were originally created for what purpose?
Playing card games
Trick-taking tarot games were played across most of Europe from at least the mid-15th century.
Q 03In which country did tarot cards first appear, in the mid-15th century?
Italy
The earliest records come from Ferrara and Milan, where 21 trumps were added to an ordinary pack.
Q 04What were tarot trumps originally called in 15th-century Italy?
Trionfi
The word became 'trumps' in English; 'tarocchi' only appeared around 1502.
Q 05The oldest surviving tarot cards were painted for the rulers of which duchy?
Milan
About 15 Visconti-Sforza decks survive from the mid-15th century.
Q 06Early European playing cards were probably based on the deck of which Egyptian dynasty?
Mamluk
The Mamluk deck was invented in or before the 14th century, after paper reached Western Europe from Asia.
Q 07The first European record of playing cards, from 1367, comes from which city?
Bern
Within a decade John of Rheinfelden was describing a 52-card, four-suit pack in Freiburg.
Q 08Which four suits make up the traditional Italian tarot pack?
Batons, coins, cups, swords
Occult decks often rename batons as wands and coins as pentacles.
Q 09How many trump cards does a tarot deck have, not counting the Fool?
21
Depending on the game, the Fool may be the top trump or a card played to avoid following suit.
Q 10Which Florentine expanded tarot deck ran to 97 cards?
Minchiate
It added astrological symbols and the four elements; it was first mentioned as 'germini' in 1506.
Q 11After a 1950s boom, French Tarot became the second most popular card game where?
France
It took off in the 1950s after being confined largely to Provence; a national federation followed in 1973.
Q 12The oldest surviving Tarot of Marseilles cards were made in 1639 by whom?
Philippe Vachier
They came to light recently and went up for sale in 2023.
Q 13The name 'Tarot de Marseille' was coined in 1856 by which French card historian?
Romain Merlin
Occultists Éliphas Lévi and Papus later popularised the label.
Q 21Around 1789 Etteilla produced the first tarot deck designed for what?
Occult purposes
Its themes were Egyptian, following the belief that the cards came from the Book of Thoth.
Q 22The earliest evidence of tarot used for fortune-telling, c. 1750, concerns which deck?
Tarocco Bolognese
An anonymous manuscript gives rudimentary meanings for its cards.
Q 23Who first used the terms 'Major Arcana' and 'Minor Arcana'?
Jean-Baptiste Pitois
Better known as Paul Christian, he published his Histoire de la magie in 1870.
Q 14In the Tarot of Marseilles, the Tower card is named what?
La Maison Dieu
Italian decks called it the Arrow, the Lightning, the House of the Devil or simply Hell.
Q 15In Italian decks, the Hanged Man (Le Pendu) was known as what?
The Traitor
The upside-down pose echoed the 'shame paintings' of traitors in Renaissance Italy.
Q 16In modern Italian, 'Tarocco' as a noun names a cultivar of which fruit?
Blood orange
The verb taroccare means to fake something, from a tarot card played in place of another.
Q 17Who in 1781 first claimed the tarot was a lost book of Egyptian wisdom?
Antoine Court de Gébelin
A Protestant pastor, he wrote before Champollion had deciphered hieroglyphs and offered no evidence.
Q 18Court de Gébelin's tarot essay appeared in which of his vast works?
Le Monde primitif
Volume eight of his compendium, 1781; Louis XVI headed the subscriber list.
Q 19Court de Gébelin welcomed which American as a lodge-brother at Les Neuf Sœurs?
Benjamin Franklin
He backed American independence and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1783.
Q 20Etteilla, the first to assign divinatory meanings to tarot, was the pseudonym of whom?
Jean-Baptiste Alliette
Etteilla is Alliette spelled backwards; he published his Book of Thoth treatise in 1785.
Q 24How many cards make up the Major Arcana?
22
The Fool plus the 21 numbered trumps, from the Magician to the World.
Q 25Which is the only unnumbered card in a typical Major Arcana scheme?
The Fool
It is sometimes placed first as 0, or last as XXII.
Q 26What is the Fool called in the Tarot of Marseilles?
Le Mat
Italian decks call him Il Matto; both mean 'the madman'.
Q 27In the Rider–Waite deck, the Fool walks toward the edge of a precipice with which animal?
A small dog
He also holds a white rose, a symbol of freedom from baser desires.
Q 28What is the number of the Death card in most traditional tarot decks?
XIII
Some decks, like the Marseilles, leave the name off and call it 'The Card with No Name'.
Q 29In the Rider–Waite Death card, the skeleton carries a black standard bearing what?
The White Rose of York
His horse steps over a prone king: not even royalty can stop change.
Q 30In which year was the Rider–Waite Tarot first published?
1909
William Rider & Son of London printed it in December 1909 in a very limited run.