Belgian Tarot

	Jacques Viéville Tarot (c. 1650)	Paris Tarot (c. 1650, Paris)	Vandenborre Tarot (1770, Belgium)
I - Le Bateleur
XI - La Force
XVIII - La Lune
XXI - Le Monde

The Tarot pattern common in Belgium and northern France in the 18th century shows a number of distinctive features. The Papess is replaced by a commedia dell'arte character, the Spanish Captain Fracasse, and the Pope is replaced by the pagan god Bacchus, astride a wine barrel. Instead of Le Maison Dieu, the Belgian Tarot has Le Foudre (Lightning), depicting a figure near a tree in a lightning storm. The Moon shows a figure with a distaff. The Sun has a young boy astride a horse (an image now made famous by the Waite-Smith deck). Temperance bears a torch in addition to her traditional two jugs. The Belgian Tarot is the only pattern that consistently assigns a number to the Fool, making it trump XXII.

The order of the trumps is the same as in the Tarot de Marseille, and a number of the designs are also similar. Still, the differences are substantial enough to suggest that the Belgian Tarot may have derived from sources outside the Marseilles family. The Viéville tarot is the earliest known example of the Belgian pattern, and was made in France. Another deck, by an unknown Paris card maker from around the same time, also resembles the Belgian tarot, although it is a luxury deck with some unique peculiarities. It is likely that in the 17th century, the Tarot de Marseille was used in eastern France, while these early forms of the Belgian Tarot were used in Paris and northern France. The game eventually died out in most of France, but the northern French pattern was preserved in the low countries. Interestingly, the Belgian tarots were usually referred to as "Cartes de Suisses", although we know of no examples made in Switzerland.

Michael Dummett conjectures that the Belgian Tarot came into France quite separately from the Tarot de Marseille, and perhaps derives ultimately from the Tarocco Bolognese. (The Moon, World, and Devil cards resemble Bolognese tarot designs.) It may have come to France by way of Savoy or Switzerland, hence explaining the traditional name. One should not be too quick, however, to overlook the Belgian Tarot designs (such as the Strength card) that resemble the Tarot de Marseille rather than the Tarocco Bolognese. With a few exeptions already noted, the Belgian Tarot bears the same titles and numbering as the Tarot de Marseille. It is probably best to regard it as a hybrid pattern, combining some features of a Bologna-like Italian pattern with the Tarot de Marseille pattern, with which it must have overlapped geographically in the 17th century.

All three of the decks here have been reproduced in recent decades, although none are easy to obtain in the US at the present time.