The Tower (tarot card)

The Tower (XVI) (most common modern name) is the 16th trump or Major Arcana card in most Italian-suited tarot decks.

In the Minchiate deck, the image usually shown is of two nude or scantily clad people fleeing the open door of what appears to be a burning building.

In the Tarot of Paris (17th century), the image shown is of the Devil beating his drums, before what appears to be the mouth of Hell; the card still is called La Fouldre.

The Tarot of Marseilles merges these two concepts, and depicts a burning tower being struck by lightning or fire from the sky, its top section dislodged and crumbling.

[3] Pamela Colman Smith's version is based on the Marseilles image, with small tongues of fire in the shape of Hebrew yod letters replacing the balls.

The Tower in the 1909 Rider–Waite tarot deck
The Belgian Tarot depicts a tree struck by lightning. It is captioned La Foudre , French for strike of lightning.
In this manuscript picture of the Harrowing of Hell , Jesus forces open the fiery tower gate of Hell to free the virtuous dead from Limbo . The enactment of this scene in liturgical drama may be one source of the image of the Tower.
The destruction of the tower of Babel is depicted in this Bulgarian manuscript.