The original purpose of tarot cards was for playing games, the first basic rules appearing in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona before 1425, and the next from the year 1637. The game of tarot has many cultural variations. Divination using playing cards is in evidence as early as 1540 in a book entitled The Oracles of Francesco Marcolino da Forlì which allows a simple method of divination, though the cards are used only to select a random oracle and have no meaning in themselves. Manuscripts from 1735 ( The Square of Sevens ) and 1750 ( Pratesi Cartomancer ) document rudimentary divinatory meanings for the cards of the tarot as well as a system for laying out the cards. Giacomo Casanova wrote in his diary that in 1765 his Russian mistress frequently used a deck of playing cards for divination. The name "tarot" may come from the River Taro in northern Italy, near Parma. The Val di Taro was of strategic importance during the Middle Ages, as it was traversed by th...