[f. It. carta in sense ‘playing-card’ + Gr. μαντεία divination.] Divination by playing cards.
1871. Tylor, Prim. Cult., I. 114. Cartomancy, the art of fortune-telling with packs of cards.
1886. Newcastle Weekly Chron., Suppl. 29 May, 3/1. It is said that the earliest work on cartomancy was written or compiled by Francesco Marcolini, and printed at Venice, in 1540…. Cartomancy was very fashionable in England during the eighteenth century. Numbers of young ladies used to consult the cards to know whom, when, and where they would marry.
