Tarot : Renaissance Roots, Modern Visions

This major new volume explores the origins of tarot in Renaissance Italy and its contemporary relevance as an enduring source of inspiration for modern artists.

Published with Morgan Library & Museum.

This beautiful book looks explores and reveals how tarot has developed, evolved, and been reimagined by artists, mystics, and writers over the centuries, from its origins as a fifteenth-century card game in Renaissance Italy to its profound transformations into tools for divination, artistic creation, and storytelling. This new volume fills a very real – and timely – gap in the currently available published material on the history and artistic development of tarot, its symbolism, and its source of inspiration for contemporary artists.

An illustrated introduction plus six other richly illustrated essays explore the extensive history of tarot, the origins of the cards, their iconography, the idea of individual engagement in fortune and divination, as well as the highly personal aspects in much of the imagery. A main plates section features twenty-two spreads of tarot cards, comparing the same character or virtue cards across three Renaissance decks as well as the extraordinary range of imaginative tarot imagery.

Published to accompany an exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum, June 26 – October 4, 2026.

Claire Gilman is Acquavella Curator and Department Head, Modern and Contemporary Drawings, the Morgan Library & Museum, New York.

Joshua O’Driscoll is Melvin R. Seiden Curator and Department Head, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, The Morgan Library & Museum.

Francisco H. Trujillo is Drue Heinz Book Conservator in the Thaw Conservation Center, the Morgan Library & Museum.