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In short
The Tarot de Marseille is a standard pattern of the 78-card tarot made by French card makers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and named after Marseille, one of its centres of production. Its trumps are woodcut figures; its pips show suit symbols and decorative motifs. It is read through number, suit and visual flow, and differs in names and order from Rider–Waite–Smith.
What is the Tarot de Marseille?
The Tarot de Marseille is a historical design of the 78-card tarot, standardised by French card makers between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with woodcut figures for its trumps and court cards and numbered cards arranged as suit symbols and decorative motifs rather than narrative scenes. It is not one deck but a family of decks that share the same images and order. The name comes from Marseille, where many card makers produced it, although important early examples were made in Paris and Lyon.
Its structure is the same as any tarot: 22 trumps and 56 cards in four suits of Coupes (Cups), Deniers (Coins), Épées (Swords) and Bâtons (Batons), each with ten numbered cards and four courts, Valet, Cavalier, Reine and Roi. The differences lie in names, numbering and pictures:
| Card | Tarot de Marseille | Rider–Waite–Smith |
|---|---|---|
| The Fool | Le Mat, unnumbered | The Fool, 0 |
| II | La Papesse (the Popess) | The High Priestess |
| V | Le Pape (the Pope) | The Hierophant |
| VIII | La Justice | Strength |
| XI | La Force | Justice |
| XIII | left without a name | Death |
| XVI | La Maison Dieu | The Tower |
| Numbered cards | arranged symbols, no scenes | illustrated scenes |
Think of the Three of Swords. In the Marseille pattern it shows blades and curling leaves in a geometric design, with no heart and no rain. A reader sees “three” and “swords”, decision and conflict growing into something more, and reads from there.
The history of the Marseille tarot
Tarot began in northern Italy in the fifteenth century as a card game, and reached France with the French campaigns in Italy around 1500. By the seventeenth century, card makers in France had settled on a standard set of images. Among the best-known surviving examples are the decks of Jean Noblet of Paris, from around 1650, Jean Dodal of Lyon, from around 1701, and Nicolas Conver of Marseille, from 1760, whose deck became a model for later editions.
For most of this history the cards were used to play the game of tarot, not for divination; the game is still played in France today, though with a different, modern deck. In 1781 Antoine Court de Gébelin claimed that the trumps preserved ancient Egyptian wisdom, a claim with no historical evidence, and in the 1780s Etteilla published one of the first methods of reading tarot. The name “Tarot de Marseille” became common in the nineteenth century, and a 1930 edition by the card maker Grimaud, prepared by Paul Marteau, fixed it in the public mind.
In 1997, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Philippe Camoin published a restored version of the Marseille tarot, and their approach to reading it helped bring the pattern back to many contemporary readers.
How to read the Tarot de Marseille
Read the Majors as pictures. Look at what the figures do, where they look and what they hold. In the Marseille tradition, the direction of a figure’s gaze often links it to the neighbouring card: a figure looking left points back towards the card on that side.
Read the pips by number and suit. Give each number a theme, from the beginning of the Ace to the completion of the Ten, and combine it with the suit: Cups for feelings, Coins for material life, Swords for thought and conflict, Batons for will and action. The Seven of Coins is then the effort of the seven applied to work and money.
Lay the cards in a line. Many Marseille readers lay three or more cards side by side and read them as a single sentence, letting the images flow into each other.
Read the courts by rank. The Valet is a learner or a messenger, the Cavalier a person or energy in motion, the Reine an inner, receptive mastery of the suit, the Roi its outward command. Their gestures and the direction they face add the rest.
Decide on reversals before you start. Some Marseille readers use reversed cards, many do not. Choose one approach for a reading and keep to it.
Don’t treat it as the “true” tarot. The Marseille deck is a historical form, not the original or the only correct one. It speaks the same symbolic language as other tarots, with its own accent.
Tarot de Marseille examples
Three Majors in a line. Le Bateleur (I), La Papesse (II) and Le Chariot (VII) for a question about starting a course. The beginner with tools, the woman with a book and the moving chariot: begin, study patiently and let the study set the pace.
A pip reading. The Four of Coins, the Six of Cups and the Two of Batons set material stability beside emotional harmony and a choice of direction. Compare the number and suit of each card, then ask how holding resources, maintaining a bond and considering an action relate to the question.
The Fool without a number. Le Mat falls between L’Empereur and La Justice. Unnumbered, he can belong anywhere: here he wanders between authority and law, a free spirit in a setting of rules. The question becomes how much freedom the situation allows.
The unnamed thirteenth card. Card XIII has no name in most Marseille decks, and readers often call it the Nameless Arcanum. Its skeletal reaper brings ending, severance and transformation into focus. Beside the Star, those themes sit alongside hope and renewal; ask how the two cards relate to the question and their positions.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Tarot de Marseille the oldest tarot?
No. Italian decks such as the Visconti–Sforza cards from around 1450 are much older. The Marseille pattern is a later French standard of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and it became the best-known historical form of tarot because it was printed widely and for a long time.
Why are Strength and Justice numbered differently?
In the Marseille pattern, Justice is VIII and Strength is XI. The Golden Dawn swapped them to fit its astrological scheme, and the Rider–Waite–Smith deck followed, so in most modern decks Strength is VIII and Justice XI. Both orders are correct within their own system.
Is it harder to read the Marseille pip cards?
It takes a different method. Without scenes, the Two of Cups shows two cups and a flower. Readers combine the meaning of the number with the meaning of the suit and examine how the symbols are arranged. Symmetry, spacing and decorative motifs add visual details to that reading of number and suit.
Can I use Rider–Waite–Smith meanings with a Marseille deck?
For the Majors, largely yes, as long as you note the different names and the swapped VIII and XI. For the numbered cards, the RWS scenes do not exist in the Marseille deck, so meanings built on those pictures do not transfer directly. Read the pips by number and suit instead.
Keep exploring
The readings offered by Larisa Tarot are provided for personal awareness, self-reflection and entertainment. They contain no certainty, no guarantee about the future and no promise of a particular outcome.