3 of Swords

The suit of swords is older than tarot. The Latin suits (coins, cups, swords and batons) reached Europe in the 1370s on playing cards imported from Mamluk Egypt and Moorish Granada, and Italian decks kept them. Italian swords are drawn curved, as in northern Italy, or straight, as in the south. When northern Italian players added a set of trump cards around 1440, the four suits stayed as they were.

In decks of that kind, a numbered card such as the three normally shows three swords arranged as a pattern, with no scene and no figures. The card is a count of the suit symbol, and the game gave it its rank. Pip cards of this plain type remained the usual form for a long time, and they are what most early players would have known.

The main exception is the Sola Busca deck, made in Italy in the late 15th century. It is generally dated to 1491, with Ferrara and Venice both given as places connected with it, and the maker is unknown. Its minor cards carry small illustrated scenes instead of plain pips, which makes it the earliest complete tarot deck known to do so. Black-and-white photographs of the whole deck were given to the British Museum in 1907. Some writers single out its Three of Swords as a parallel to the later Rider-Waite-Smith card.

Pamela Colman Smith drew the Three of Swords for the deck that A. E. Waite published in 1909, with his book following in 1910. Unlike the plain pips of most older decks, her card is a scene in miniature: a heart with swords through it, set against a sky of cloud and rain. Waite’s own note for the card says its meanings follow from the picture, so he explains the design very little.

Smith is thought to have drawn on the Sola Busca deck for several minor cards, which she and Waite probably saw in the photographs at the British Museum. Her Three of Swords is among the cards that writers name as resembling a Sola Busca card.