The Deck Structure
A deck of Tarot cards contains 78 cards. These can be divided into two parts. The first part is called the major suit. It consists of 22 cards with elaborate illustrations. The major suit cards are numbered consecutively, and have a specific name for each one.
The remaining 56 cards are further divided into four suits. These are called the minor suits, and have a simpler design than the 22 majors. Each minor suit consists of 14 cards: one ace card, nine number cards (numbered 2 to 10), and four court cards: page, knight, queen and king.
Major suit: The illustrations are rich in symbolic detail. Each card carries a title and a Roman numeral (in long notation, so that 9 is VIIII and not IX). Two exceptions are card number 13 with no title, and The Fool card with no number. English names for the major suit cards are listed in the quick interpretations section.
Minor suits: Each minor suit is linked with a symbolic object which appears on all its cards. The objects are: coins, wands, cups, and swords.
The coins are depicted as decorated circles. The cups are goblets with hexagonal bases. The coins and the cups are colored yellow with small areas in red.
The wands are depicted either as green clubs, or as straight rods. The swords are either regular (straight) swords with red or light blue blades, or rounded arches.
The rod-shaped wands and the rounded swords appear only in the number cards. They are shown as narrow stripes in red, light blue and black, with blades at both tips. The wands stripes are straight and cross over at the middle of the card. The swords stripes are rounded and cross over at two points – at the top of the card and at the bottom.
The ace card of each minor suit shows a big and detailed image of the suit symbol, with no title or number.
The four court cards carry titles identifying their ranks: a page (titled VALET), a knight (CAVALIER), a queen (REYNE), and a king (ROY). The titles also indicate the suit: coins (DENIERS), wands (BATON), cups (COUPE), swords (EPEE).
Each number card shows the corresponding number of suit symbol icons, geometrically arranged and usually with floral decorations around. The number cards of three suits, excepting the Coins, also have their numbers written on both sides.
