The Tower in 6 decks
The same card as 6 decks draw it, five and a half centuries apart. What stays the same is the card’s core; what changes is where a reading can find something new. The meanings are written for the Rider–Waite–Smith picture; the descriptions here are of each deck’s own. Not in Visconti-Sforza, which has no Tower card.
Side by side
Choose any two decks and read the pictures against each other.
Pamela Colman Smith, 1909
A tall tower on a crag is struck by lightning, its crown blown off and flames bursting from the windows. Two figures, one crowned, fall headlong through the dark toward the rocks. Flames shaped like letters rain down around them, and the sky is black.
Lequart, Paris, 19th century
A tower of grey and red brick with a yellow middle band loses its crown-shaped top to a feathered red and yellow flame from the upper right. Coloured balls of red, blue, yellow and white fill the sky. One man falls head first in front of the tower, while another lies on the ground at right. Numbered XVI, titled LA MAISON DIEV.
Rider–Waite–Smith
Pamela Colman Smith, 1909
A tall tower on a crag is struck by lightning, its crown blown off and flames bursting from the windows. Two figures, one crowned, fall headlong through the dark toward the rocks. Flames shaped like letters rain down around them, and the sky is black.
Tarot de Marseille
Lequart, Paris, 19th century
A tower of grey and red brick with a yellow middle band loses its crown-shaped top to a feathered red and yellow flame from the upper right. Coloured balls of red, blue, yellow and white fill the sky. One man falls head first in front of the tower, while another lies on the ground at right. Numbered XVI, titled LA MAISON DIEV.
Tarot de Viéville
Jacques Viéville, c. 1650
Numbered XVI, unlike the Rider-Waite-Smith tower, no building appears. A young man in a dark tunic stands under a leafy tree, raising a hand towards a red and yellow rayed arc in the sky, while rings and red drops fall around him and grey sheep crowd the ground.
Sola Busca
c. 1491
A crowned young man in a red tunic with a blue sash stands with his back half turned, pointing a staff downward. A rayed sun shines at the upper right and a small brown dragon sits on the ground beside him. The name OLIVO is at the right and XVI below it.
Sola Busca trumps are named figures matched to the standard trumps by number only.
Oswald Wirth
Oswald Wirth, 1889
A lightning bolt from a cloud with a partly hidden sun strikes the top of a grey brick tower, knocking off its crenellated crown. Bricks and yellow flame shapes fall through the air. Two men tumble to the ground, one crowned and one fair-haired, one with his legs in the air. Below are the number 16, the title LE FEU DU CIEL and the Hebrew letter ayin.
Soimoi
Mike Koz, 2025
A bolt of lightning strikes the spire of a tall red pagoda on a rocky crag at night, scattering sparks and splitting down through the building and the rock as glowing cracks. A white crane flies away at left among pink flowers, pines stand on either side, and a small lit lantern sits at the foot of the rock. Unlike the Rider-Waite-Smith card, no figures fall from the tower.