Tractatus de deificatione sexdecim heroum

The oldest Tarot deck. Tractatus de deificatione sexdecim heroum is the only known work by Marziano da Sant'Alosio better known as Marziano da Tortona secretary to the duke of Milan Filippo Maria Visconti. It describes the structure and symbolism of a new kind of card game with a new kind of cards. In addition to four suits of number cards headed by a king the deck has a fifth suit the deified heroes of the title which serve as trump cards in the game. This set of permanent ranked trumps is nowadays associated with Tarot which had not been invented when Marziano wrote. Therefore as the first deck to have this feature it has been justifiably described as the oldest known Tarot.