Cloisters Deck

A question that is often raised about the use of the Visconti tarot cards is how did one play a game with such large cards. Although we have visual evidence of tarot card playing in frescoes of the era like the reproduction of the Palazzo Borromeo frescoes on the wall behind you, it is unclear how many cards one played with in any given hand. The Cloisters playing cards on view here are part of a complete fifty-two card deck made in the Burgundian Netherlands in the late fifteenth century. The cards are smaller than Italian cards and have rounded edges for ease of use, and, unlike seventy-eight-card tarot decks, this pack excludes the twenty-two trump cards, omits the knight card in each suit, and is similar to a deck of today’s playing cards. The suits are drawn from aristocratic hunting culture: hound tethers, dog collars, hunting horns, and game nooses. The figures’ clothing likewise reflects Burgundian court fashion. Together, these variations offer an alternative to the Italian tarot cards, revealing how playing cards were tailored to regional identities.