Marseille Tarot Deck – tarot gallery and description

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The Marseille Tarot is not the name of a particular deck – it is the name of the card design, repeating historical drawings known since the 15th century. Marseille is considered one of the classic tarot decks. The Marseille school is more often chosen not by beginners, but rather by professionals, since the Minor Arcana of these decks are not plotted, unlike, for example, the Rider Waite tradition.

History of the Marseille tarot deck

Marseille Tarot was named after the French city in which these cards were printed very actively – Marseille.

Papus wrote about the Arcana of this deck in his book “Gypsy Tarot” – it is the mention of Papus that is considered the very first to appear in print. Despite the fact that the Marseille Tarot was widely used in France, the design and symbolism of the cards are considered rather Italian.

The traditional patterns used in modern Marseille map design were created by Nicolas Conver – they are also called the “Marseille II” type. The Conver deck first saw the light in 1760 (approximate date) and was published for 120 years. The original, older version (“Marseille I”) refers to the design of the decks by Jean Noble and Jean Daudal – these card samples were produced between 1650 and 1701.

Today you can find several Marseille-type decks for sale from different publishers, but they all essentially repeat the style of Conver: this is the Marseille Tarot by Paul Marteau, the artist’s version of Otto Spailinger, Philip Camoin and Alexander Jodorowsky cards, the Ancient Marseille Tarot, Tarot de Marseille (Piatnik) and others.

Key features of the Marseille tarot deck

If you look into the gallery of the Marseille Tarot, the first thing that catches your eye is the rather simple style of the images. Here you will not find complex images, as, for example, in Crowley, astrological, cabalistic and numerological bindings – the Major Arcana look quite simple, but the minimalistic classical symbolism still does not disappear anywhere.

The numbering of the Major Arcana is different from Waite: Justice has a serial number 8, Strength – 11. The suits are traditional. The Minor Arcana are not drawn, but at the same time they are decorated with very beautiful patterns.

Court Cards: Page, Knight, Lady, King. All Arcanas are numbered with Roman numerals, the Major Arcana are on top, the Minor Arcana are on the sides. However, there are variations of the deck without the numbering of the Minor Arcana.

By the way, in the old Marseille decks it was not customary to put a number on the Death card, while the authors of modern cards often neglect this rule.