c. 1465
The 'Mantegna Tarocchi' — A Ladder of Being (NOT a Tarot), c. 1465
At a glance
A set of fifty 15th-century engravings, not a card game and not a tarot deck at all. Included in this library precisely to explain the confusion: the name is a later error. Not by Mantegna, not tarot, not for play or divination — a didactic image cycle of the cosmos and the social order.
Origin & dating
Two sets survive, the E-series (c.1465, the older) and the S-series (a little later). Documentary support includes a Bolognese manuscript dated 1467. Stylistic links to the Salone dei Mesi at the Palazzo Schifanoia point to artists in the Ferrarese / Este orbit (around Francesco del Cossa); the true engraver is unknown. The attribution to Andrea Mantegna is spurious.
Provenance & evidence
Fifty engravings in five decades of ten: social ranks (Beggar → Pope), the Muses and Apollo, the liberal arts, the virtues and cosmic principles, and the celestial spheres. It is a ladder of being — a Renaissance encyclopedia in pictures.
Game or divination?
Neither. No suits, no trick-taking structure, no fortune-telling. Best understood as educational prints, plausibly for instructing upper-class youths — though, honestly, no document records their actual use. The "Tarocchi" label was pinned on later by writers who confused them with the picture-rich tarot game.
The fear question
Not applicable — these are humanist study images, openly produced and circulated. Their inclusion here is corrective: to stop the genealogy absorbing material that merely looks tarot-adjacent.
Counter-voices
Esoteric authors have repeatedly raided the Mantegna series for "hidden" Neoplatonic or Hermetic keys to tarot. The series is genuinely Neoplatonic — that was mainstream learned culture — but it is not an ancestor of the tarot pack. Treating it as one is how false genealogies (and the Egyptian story) get built.
Open questions / corrections owed
- Function (teaching aid? collector's cycle? devotional ladder?) is inferred, not documented.
- Relationship, if any, between its iconographic program and early trionfi trumps is a matter of influence, not descent.
Sources & further reading
- "Mantegna Tarocchi," Wikipedia; "Tarocchi di Mantegna, c.1465," World of Playing Cards.
- "The Mantegna Tarocchi and the View of the World in Northern Italy," academia.edu.
Where the pictures come from: who holds this deck's pictures, how sharp they are and what their rights allow: Sources: Mantegna Tarocchi.
The cards (50)
1 — The Beggar
2 — The Servant3 — The Artisan
4 — The Merchant
5 — The Gentleman
6 — The Knight
7 — The Doge
8 — The King9 — The Emperor
10 — The Pope
11 — Calliope
12 — Urania
13 — Terpsichore
14 — Erato
15 — Polyhymnia
16 — Thalia17 — Melpomene
18 — Euterpe
19 — Clio
20 — Apollo
21 — Grammar
22 — Logic
23 — Rhetoric
24 — Geometry
25 — Arithmetic
26 — Music27 — Poetry
28 — Philosophy
29 — Astrology
30 — Theology31 — Genius of the Sun
32 — Genius of Time
33 — Genius of the World
34 — Temperance35 — Prudence
36 — Fortitude
37 — Justice
38 — Charity
39 — Hope40 — Faith
41 — The Moon
42 — Mercury
43 — Venus
44 — The Sun45 — Mars
46 — Jupiter
47 — Saturn
48 — The Eighth Sphere
49 — The Ninth Sphere (Primum Mobile)50 — The First Cause (Empyrean)
Sources and credits
Cleveland Museum of Art, the E-series impression 1924.432.1–50 (open access, CC0), via Wikimedia Commons. Other impressions are in the British Museum, the Albertina and elsewhere.
- Master of the E-Series Tarocchi (c. 1465): North Italian engraver (NOT Andrea Mantegna, despite the traditional name)
- Cleveland Museum of Art (public domain): The 1924.432.1–50 impression of the E-series, via Wikimedia Commons
- PlayfulProcess (2026): Grammar architecture and summaries
Research dossier: research/decks/mantegna-tarocchi.md. Data: tarot/mantegna-tarocchi/grammar.json, CC-BY-SA-4.0. Images keep their own licences (hover a card for its credit).