The Fool (tarot card)
In the Visconti-Sforza tarot deck, the Fool wears ragged clothes and stockings without shoes, and carries a stick on his back.
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 figures, and classical deities begins with Misero, a depiction of a beggar leaning on a staff.
[2] The Tarot of Marseilles and related decks similarly depict a bearded person wearing what may be a jester's hat; he always carries a bundle of his belongings on a stick (called a bindle) slung over his back.
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.
As such, most tarot decks originally made for game playing do not assign a number to the Fool indicating its rank in the suit of trumps; it has none.
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.
[10] However, in official tournament rules, a player in this situation must declare their hand and force a redeal (petit sec).
[13] In Hungarian Tarock, the player that loses trump 21 to the Fool traditionally has to wear a silly hat.
[16] Before and after trick-play of Tarocchini, the Matto (Fool) and the Bégato are called contatori (counters), a limited form of wild cards.
[19] In Grosstarock games, of which Danish tarok is the last survivor, the Fool can take the place of a missing card during declarations before play.
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.
[21][22] According to A. E. Waite's 1910 book The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, the Fool card is associated with: Folly, mania, extravagance, intoxication, delirium, frenzy, bewrayment.
[24] This article incorporates text from the public domain 1910 book The Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite.
