Minor Arcana

The Minor Arcana, sometimes known as the Lesser Arcana, are the suit cards in a cartomantictarot deck.

Ordinary tarot cards first appeared in northern Italy in the 1440s and were designed for tarot card games. They typically have four suits each of 10 unillustrated pip cards numbered one (ace) to ten, along with 4 court cards (face cards). Tarot games are still widely played in central and southern Europe; French Tarot is the second most popular card game in France after Belote.

By contrast, cartomantic tarot cards emerged in France in the late 18th century, popularised by occultists such as Etteilla. The terms "Major" and "Minor Arcana" originate with Jean-Baptiste Pitois (1811–1877), nom de plume Paul Christian.

In their contemporary versions, the Minor Arcana are often illustrated—a convention popularized by the Rider–Waite tarot in 1910. Used in a tarot card reading in conjunction with the Major Arcana, the cards of the Minor Arcana suggest subtleties and details, and signify day-to-day insights.

Cartomantic tarot cards derived from Latin-suited packs typically have a Minor Arcana of 56 cards, with 14 cards in each suit: Wands (alternately batons, clubs, staffs, or staves), Cups (chalices, goblets, or vessels), Swords (or blades), and Coins (pentacles, disks, or rings).

Originally, the court cards consisted of the king, knight, and the page (jack or knave). Many early tarot decks had added female ranks into the face cards, including the Cary-Yale deck which added queens, , and (maidens or damsels) as counterparts to the males, resulting in six court cards. Some variations have princess and prince cards replacing the page, maid, knight, and mounted lady cards, reducing it to four; some added the princess and prince, resulting in eight court cards.

While the historical Tarot of Marseilles contains 56 cards, later packs based on the French suits of clubs (♣), hearts (♥), spades (♠), and diamonds (♦) have only three court cards per suit, with a jack in addition to the queen and king. While mounted ladies, maidens faded away or survive in minor regional patterns like the Tarocco Siciliano, knights were dropped in favour of queens in non-tarot French decks. In contemporary times, only four court cards are commonly used: the original three male cards (page, knight, and king) and one female card (queen). Some decks use a female representation of the page.