The Minor Arcana, sometimes known as the Lesser Arcana, are the suit cards in a cartomantic tarot 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.
Tarot card reading is a form of cartomancy whereby practitioners use tarot cards to purportedly gain insight into the past, present or future. The process typically begins with formulation of a question, followed by drawing and interpreting cards to uncover meaning. A traditional tarot deck consists of 78 cards, which can be split into two groups, the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana. French-suited playing cards can also be used; as can any card system with suits assigned to identifiable elements (e.g., air, earth, fire, water).
The Major Arcana are the named cards in a cartomantic tarot pack. There are usually 22 such cards in a standard 78-card pack, typically numbered from 0 to 21 (or 1 to 21, with the Fool being left unnumbered). Although the cards correspond to the trump cards of a pack used for playing tarot card games, the term 'Major Arcana' is rarely used by players and is typically associated exclusively with use for divination by occultists.
The Major Arcana are complemented by the Minor Arcana—the 56 unnamed cards of the tarot deck, which more directly correspond to the contemporary standard 52-card deck.