Cartomancy
Divination
REVIEWED
HIGH
SEED_DATA
Fortune-telling or divination using playing cards or tarot cards.
The practice of using cards for divinatory purposes. The earliest documented tarot cartomancy dates to c. 1750 (an anonymous Italian manuscript discovered by Franco Pratesi). Etteilla (Jean-Baptiste Alliette) coined the term 'cartonomancie' in 1770 and became the first known professional tarot reader. The term encompasses both playing card divination and tarot-specific practices.
Significance
Understanding cartomancy's relatively late emergence (300+ years after tarot's invention as a game) is essential for evidence-based tarot history.