The Sola Busca tarot deck was engraved around 1491, most likely in Ferrara, and coloured by hand about a decade later in Venice. It has 78 cards, making it the oldest complete tarot sequence known, and it was the first tarot deck engraved with copperplate. Its scenes show ancient Greek and Roman heroes in late-fifteenth-century armour, with the motto TRAHOR FATIS, I am drawn by fate. Its creator is unknown, and scholars still debate its puzzles, such as why Alexander the Great appears as the King of Swords.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.