The tarot deck was created in fifteenth-century Italy as a card game to be enjoyed by the aristocracy. It was not until centuries later that it became associated with occult secrets, divination, and the power of fate.
Such cards were hand-painted by some of the finest artists of the day. The tarot cards at the Morgan were probably created by Bonifacio Bembo for the Visconti-Sforza family, and constitute one of the most complete decks to survive from the fifteenth century.