Heritage Malta is displaying tarot cards and their mystical explanations of life and destiny in an exhibition at the Inquisitor’s Palace in Vittoriosa. The exhibition opened last month and the agency expects its magical and church-tabooed theme to attract a large number of visitors.

Titled ‘The Cards of Destiny: Gambling, Luck and Magic’, the display is divided into six sections, namely Playing Cards, Tarot Cards, The Allegories of the Tarots, The Game of Tarots, and the Book of Thot and Cartomacy. Besides exhibiting a wide variety of playing cards, incisions of famous artists, rare books on the subject and other material related to card games, Heritage Malta has also put together illustrations on the history of this mysterious and intriguing ritual.

The exhibition is being organised in collaboration with the Italian Associazione Culturale ‘Le Tarot’ under the patronage of the Ministry for Tourism and Culture of Malta and the Ministry of Culture and the Environment of Italy, with the cooperation of the Biblioteca Classense of Ravenna. All displayed material forms part of an immense collection that the Associazione Culturale ‘Le Tarot’ collected over the last 25 years.

The oldest references to tarot cards in Europe date back to the 14th century. By the 15th century these came under attack and denounced as the works of the devil. Since tarots was regarded as a gambling game, the Church started repressing it from the 16th century onwards. At the end of the 18th century, after the birth of occultism, a vast number of fortune-telling games started to develop. These developed even further in the 19th century and by the 20th century their success led card manufacturers to turn to famous painters and illustrators for images to be printed on new packs.

The display of these rare and history-laden artefacts will be open until 29 October. Tickets cost Lm2 for adults, Lm1 for students and senior citizens and 50c for children aged six to 11.