¿El juego de espaldillas para naipes de las pruebas de imprenta atribuidas a Alonso Martínez de Orteguilla (1583) podría nombrarse “tarot mexicano”?

This article analyzes the “proof sheets of playing cards manufactured in Mexico” preserved in the General Archives of the Indies in Seville, added to a contract signed in 1583 with the card maker Alonso Martínez de Orteguilla. We will focus on the iconographic analysis of folio 4r which contains 18 engraved figures in European and pre-Hispanic style; therefore, we will discuss philologically whether these images belonged to another deck of cards or if this deck was used for divination purposes. The aim of this text is to demonstrate that, although it has commonly been called “Mexican Tarot”, there is insufficient evidence to name it as such, since tarot emerged as a divinatory game centuries later in Italy, with different characteristics from the Hispanic playing cards. However, this does not rule out the possibility that the deck could be used as a playing game to interpret the —very close— images according to the emblematical style of the time.