The Fool is one of the 78

cards {{Redirect, CARDS, other uses, Cards (disambiguation){{!Cards The CARDS programme, of Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilisation, is the EU's main instrument of financial assistance to the Western Balkans, covering spec ...

in a

tarot Tarot (, first known as ''trionfi (cards), trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a set of playing cards used in tarot games and in fortune-telling or divination. From at least the mid-15th century, the tarot was used to play t ...

deck. Traditionally, it is the lowest of the 22

trump cards Trump card(s) may refer to: Cards * Trump (card games), any higher-ranked playing card * Trump cards, or Major Arcana, a suit in tarot * Trump Cards, 2022 NFTs featuring Donald Trump Film and television * ''The Trump Card'' (film), a 1942 Fren ...

, in tarot card reading called the 22

Major Arcana The Major Arcana are the named cards in a cartomantic tarot pack. There are usually 22 such cards in a standard 78-card pack, typically numbered from 0 to 21 (or 1 to 21, with the Fool being left unnumbered). Although the cards correspond to the ...

. However, in

tarot card games Tarot games are card games played with tarot packs designed for card play and which have a permanent trump suit alongside the usual four card suits. The games and packs which English-speakers call by the French name tarot are called tarocchi ...

it developed to be not one of the (then 21) trump cards but a special card, serving a unique purpose by itself. In later Central European tarot card games, it re-developed to now become the ''highest'' trump. As a consequence and with respect to his unique history, The Fool is usually an unnumbered card with a unique design; but sometimes it is numbered as 0 (the first) or more rarely XXII (the last). Design and numbering-or-not clearly indicate its role as a trump or special card in the specific game.

Iconography

The Fool is titled ''Le Mat'' in the

Tarot of Marseilles The Tarot of Marseilles is a standard pattern of Italian-suited tarot pack with 78 cards that was very popular in France in the 17th and 18th centuries for playing tarot card games and is still produced today. It was probably created in Milan bef ...

, and ''Il Matto'' in most Italian language tarot decks. These archaic words mean "the madman" or "the beggar". In the earliest tarot decks, the Fool is usually depicted as a beggar or a vagabond. In the

Visconti-Sforza tarot deck The Visconti-Sforza Tarot is used collectively to refer to incomplete sets of approximately 15 decks from the middle of the 15th century, now located in various museums, libraries, and private collections around the world. No complete deck has su ...

, the Fool wears ragged clothes and stockings without shoes, and carries a stick on his back. He has what appear to be feathers in his hair. His unruly beard and feathers may relate to the tradition of the

woodwose The wild man, wild man of the woods, woodwose or wodewose is a mythical figure and motif that appears in the art and literature of medieval Europe, comparable to the satyr or faun type in classical mythology and to ''Silvanus (mythology), Silvanu ...

wild man The wild man, wild man of the woods, woodwose or wodewose is a mythical figure and motif that appears in the art and literature of medieval Europe, comparable to the satyr or faun type in classical mythology and to ''Silvanus (mythology), Silvanu ...

. Another early Italian image that relates to the tradition is the first (and lowest) of the series of the so-called '' Tarocchi of Mantegna''. This series of prints containing images of social roles,

allegorical As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory throughou ...

figures, and classical deities begins with ''Misero'', a depiction of a beggar leaning on a staff. A similar image is contained in the German ''

Hofämterspiel Hofämterspiel ("Courtly Household Cards"), one of the earliest packs of playing cards on record preserved in its entirety with all 48 cards intact, is a major 15th-century medieval handmade deck commissioned by Ladislaus the Posthumous, King of H ...

''; there the fool (German: ''Narr'') is depicted as a barefoot man in robes, apparently with bells on his hood, playing a

bagpipe Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, No ...

. The Tarot of Marseilles and related decks similarly depict a bearded person wearing what may be a

jester A jester, also known as joker, court jester, or fool, was a member of the household of a nobleman or a monarch kept to entertain guests at the royal court. Jesters were also travelling performers who entertained common folk at fairs and town ma ...

's hat; he always carries a bundle of his belongings on a stick (called a bindle) slung over his back. He appears to be getting chased away by an animal, either a dog or a cat. The animal has torn his pants. In the Rider–Waite deck and other esoteric decks made for

cartomancy Cartomancy is fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. Forms of cartomancy appeared soon after playing cards were introduced into Europe in the 14th century.Paul Huson, Huson, Paul (2004). ''Mystical Origins of the Tarot: From Anci ...

, the Fool is shown as a young man, walking unknowingly toward the brink of a precipice. In the Rider–Waite Tarot deck, he is also portrayed as having with him a small dog. The Fool holds a white rose (a symbol of freedom from baser desires) in one hand, and in the other a small bundle of possessions, representing untapped collective knowledge. In French suited tarot decks that do not use the traditional emblematic images of Italian suited decks for the suit of

trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

s, the Fool is typically made up as a jester or

bard In Celtic cultures, a bard is an oral repository and professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's a ...

, reminiscent of the Joker often included with the

standard 52-card deck The standard 52-card deck of French-suited playing cards is the most common pack of playing cards used today. The main feature of most playing card decks that empower their use in diverse games and other activities is their double-sided design, w ...

History

In the decks before Waite–Smith, the Fool is almost always unnumbered. There are a few exceptions: some old decks (including the 15th-century Sola Busca) labelled the card with a 0, and the 18th-century Belgian decks labelled the Fool as XXII. The Fool is almost always completely apart from the sequence of trumps in the historic decks. Still, there is historic precedent for regarding it as the lowest trump and as the highest trump. Traditionally, the

in tarot cards are numbered with

Roman numerals Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...

. The Fool is numbered with the

zero 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. Adding (or subtracting) 0 to any number leaves that number unchanged; in mathematical terminology, 0 is the additive identity of the integers, rational numbers, real numbers, and compl ...

, one of the

Arabic numerals The ten Arabic numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9) are the most commonly used symbols for writing numbers. The term often also implies a positional notation number with a decimal base, in particular when contrasted with Roman numera ...

. The fool may be the precursor of

The Joker The Joker is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and Jerry Robinson, the character first appeared in the debut issue of the comic book ''Batman (comic book), Batman'' on ...

. However, the Joker more likely evolved independently in the 1850s as a permanent trump specifically for the game of

Euchre Euchre or eucre ( ) is a trick-taking game, trick-taking card game played in Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, Upstate New York, and the Midwestern United States. It is played with a deck of 24, 25, 28, or 32 standard playing cards. There are no ...

Examples

File:Bembo-Visconti-tarot-arcanum-fool.jpg, Pierpont Morgan Bergamo ( 1451) File:Fool tarot charles6.jpg, Charles VI (or Gringonneur) (15th century) File:Sola Busca tarot card 00.jpg, Sola Busca (1491) File:Jean Dodal Tarot trump Fool.jpg, Jean Dodal (1701–1715) File:Tarot Belgijski - A22 - Głupiec.jpg, F. I. Vandenborre (1780) File:Tarot de Besançon - Renault - Trump 00.jpg,

Besançon Besançon (, ; , ; archaic ; ) is the capital of the Departments of France, department of Doubs in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The city is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the border with Switzerland. Capi ...

( 1820–1830) File:Troccas-0-der-narr (Vordergrundextraktion).jpg, The Fool's tarot card, ( 1831–1838) File:Minchiate card deck - Florence - 1860-1890 - Trumps - Il Matto -.jpg, Florence Minchiate (1860–1890) File:Piedmontese tarot deck - Solesio - 1865 - Trump - 00 - The Fool.jpg, F. F. Solesio (1865) File:TT Tarot.png, Lequart (1890) File:00 La Folie - Grimaud Grand Etteilla Tarot Deck.jpg, Grand Etteilla ( 1890–1910) File:Papus Atout 22-mat-fool.png, Papus (1909)

In tarot card games

In tarot card reading, the Fool is usually considered part of the Major Arcana. This is not true in

; the Fool's role in most games is independent of both the plain suit cards and the trump cards, and the card does not belong to either category. As such, most tarot decks originally made for game playing do not assign a number to the Fool indicating its rank in the suit of trumps; it has none. Waite gives the Fool the number 0, but in his book discusses the Fool between

Judgment Judgement (or judgment) is the evaluation of given circumstances to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. In an informal context, a judgement is opinion expressed as fact. In the context of a legal trial ...

, no. 20, and

The World The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk of a "plu ...

, no. 21. The only traditional game deck that numbers the Fool 0 is the

Tarocco Piemontese The Tarocco Piemontese (''Tarot of Piedmont'') is a type of tarot deck of Italian playing cards, Italian origin. It is the most common tarot playing set in northern Italy, much more common than the Tarocco Bolognese. The most popular Piedmontese Ta ...

. Since the 1930s,

Tarot Nouveau The Bourgeois Tarot deck is a mid-19th century pattern of tarot cards of German origin that is used for playing card games in western Europe and Canada. It is not designed for divinatory purposes.mullet as the corner index for the Fool. In almost all tarot games, the Fool is one of the most valuable cards.

As excuse

In most tarot games originating from Italy and France, the Fool has a unique role. In these games, the Fool is sometimes called "the Excuse". Tarot games are typically trick taking games; playing the Fool card excuses the player from either following suit or playing a

. At the end of the trick, the player then takes back the Fool and adds it to their own trick pile and (in most games) gives the trick's winner the least valuable card from that same pile. If there are no cards to give in exchange, the Fool is worth one point less and an extra point is given to the trick-taker. Or, at the end of the hand, it can be awarded to a player or team that has won all the tricks. Usually the Fool can't be captured but in some games it can be won in the last trick which may yield a scoring bonus. In a minor variant option of

French tarot The game of French Tarot is a trick-taking strategy tarot card game played by three to five players using a traditional 78-card tarot deck. The game is played in France and also in French-speaking Canada. It should not be confused with French ...

, a player dealt trump 1 but with no other trumps or the Fool can make trump 1 behave the same as the Fool (''petit imprenable''). However, in official tournament rules, a player in this situation must declare their hand and force a redeal (''petit sec'').

As lowest trump

The 18th-century

Piedmont Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the northwest Italy, Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the ...

ese game of Sedici and its variants treated the Fool as the lowest trump. Unlike most games, the Fool is worth only one point. This is similar to the role of the ''Miseria'' trump in

Sicilian tarocchi Sicilian refers to the Italian island of Sicily. Sicilian can also refer to: * Sicilian language, a Romance language spoken on the island of Sicily, its satellite islands, and southern Calabria * Sicilians, people from or with origins in Sicily ...

As highest trump

In most Central European Tarock games, the Fool, or ''

Sküs The trull is a trio of three special trump cards used in tarock games in Austria and other countries that have a much higher card value than the other trumps. The individual cards are known as trull cards (''Trullstücke''). The word ''trull'' ...

'', is simply played as the 22nd trump, making it the highest trump in such games. In

Königrufen Königrufen or Königsrufen (German: "Calling the King"Dummett (1980), ''Twelve Tarot Games'', p. 147.) is a four-player, trick-taking card game of the Tarot card games, tarot family, played in Austria and Southern Tyrol, with a pack of 54 cards ...

, the Fool can be captured but only if it is played in the same trick with trumps 21 and 1 in which case trump 1 wins; this is called the Emperor's trick or Fairytale trick. In

Hungarian Tarock The Tarock card game family is represented in Hungary by a variant for four players that uses a 42-card deck, variously called Hungarian Tarock (), Hungarian Tarokk or Paskievics ( in Austrian sources). According to McLeod "interest in this fine ...

, the player that loses trump 21 to the Fool traditionally has to wear a silly hat.

As excuse and highest trump

and

Droggn Droggn, sometimes called French Tarock () is an extinct card game of the Tarock family for three players that was played in the Stubai valley in Tyrol, Austria until the 1980s. ''Droggn'' is originally local dialect for "to play Tarock" (in stan ...

, the Fool is an excuse but in a rare circumstance it will be the highest trump. If the player who holds the Fool has won all the previous tricks, in the last trick the Fool becomes the highest trump. In

Troggu Troggu is a member of the tarot family of card games. Synonyms for the game's name are: Trogga, Tappu and Tappä. It is played in the area of Visp, Switzerland, in Upper Wallis, especially in St. Niklaus and Grächen. After Troccas, it is the se ...

, the Fool is the highest trump but if it is the last trump in the player's possession, the player can elect to throw in another card instead of following suit. Once this occurs, the Fool is no longer a trump but an excuse that must be reserved for the last trick.

As excuse and wild card

Before and after trick-play of

Tarocchini Tarocchini (plural for ''tarocchino'') are point trick-taking tarot card games popular in Bologna, capital city of the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and has been confined mostly to this area. They are the diminutive form of ''tarocchi'' (plural ...

, the ''Matto'' (Fool) and the ''Bégato'' are called ''contatori'' (counters), a limited form of

wild cards ''Wild Cards'' is a series of science fiction superhero shared universe anthologies, mosaic novels, and solo novels. They are written by a collection of more than forty authors (referred to as the "Wild Cards Trust") and are edited by George R. ...

. They can be used separately or together to fill missing gaps in combinations or extend them but they can't fill in two consecutive gaps in sequential combinations. They can't replace the highest trump or kings. Both cards can be used in every sequence but as the Fool can't be captured while the Magician is vulnerable, the player holding the Magician would want to use it only judiciously. In ''

Grosstarock Grosstarock () is an old three-handed card game of the Tarock family played with a full 78-card Tarot pack. It was probably introduced into the southern German states around 1720 but spread rapidly into Austria and northwards as far as the Nethe ...

'' games, of which Danish ''tarok'' is the last survivor, the Fool can take the place of a missing card during declarations before play. However, a meld completed using the Fool is worth only half the points compared to a natural meld. Also, when leading a trick the Fool can turn into the weakest card of any suit the player chooses but it will be sent to the player's trick pile just like an excuse. If, however, the opponents lack the suit named, then they may get the right to set the trick's suit.

Interpretations

In many esoteric systems of tarot card interpretation, the Fool is interpreted as the protagonist of a story, and the Major Arcana are the path the Fool takes through the great mysteries of life. This path is known traditionally in cartomancy as the "Fool's Journey", and is frequently used to introduce the meaning of Major Arcana cards to beginners. According to

A. E. Waite Arthur Edward Waite (2 October 1857 – 19 May 1942) was a British poet and scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider–Waite Tarot (also called the Rider–Waite–Smith or Wai ...

's 1910 book ''

The Pictorial Key to the Tarot ''The Pictorial Key to the Tarot'' is a divinatory tarot guide, with text by A. E. Waite and illustrations by Pamela Colman Smith. Published in conjunction with the Rider–Waite–Smith tarot deck, the pictorial version (released 1910, date ...

'', the Fool card is associated with:

Encoding

The Fool is encoded into

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

with the code point U+1F0E0, as part of the playing cards Unicode block.

References

Works cited

* * * * * * * *

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fool (Tarot Card) Fool, The Divination Wild men