I joined a monthly tarot meetup recently. We had a guest speaker come in to talk about the Italian playing card origins. Half the group had been doing readings at parties for years without knowing the Visconti-Sforza deck was basically fancy playing cards for nobles. The speaker showed us some images and explained the connections. Pretty interesting stuff if you’re into the history side of things.
Back then the major arcana had their imagery and court cards had royal figures, but the pip cards were really plain. Just rows of wands, cups, swords, or pentacles. Everything changed with the Rider-Waite deck.
Pamela Colman Smith was one of the first to illustrate actual scenes on every minor arcana card instead of just suit symbols. Waite incorporated Kabbalistic symbolism and Colman Smith brought it to life visually. Then you had Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris creating the Thoth deck later.
The difference is huge if you compare old and new decks. Pull up a Marseille deck next to a Rider-Waite and look at the same pip card, you can really see what Colman Smith did differently.