Tarot-Heritage Tenth Anniversary Roundup: The Soprafino Style

Celebrating my website’s tenth anniversary: 174 blog articles and 42 website pages on tarot history, reading with non-scenic pips, and decks of historic significance. Throughout the summer, I’m going to group the most useful articles by topic and send out links in a series of blog posts.

Today I’m listing everything I’ve written about the soprafino style. Originating in Milan in the 1830s, it has been reproduced by many publishers down to Lo Scarabeo’s current mass market version. Printers have borrowed random details from the style, especially in Piedmont. See reviews of those decks listed in last week’s blog post on Piedmont decks.

The Soprafino Deck of Carlo Dellarocca gives everything you want to know about the printer Gumppenberg, the engraver Dellarocca, and the birth of the soprafino style. It also lists the unique features that make a deck a soprafino, and gives a roundup of soprafino publishers.

The Three Soprafinos compares decks by Il Solleone, Il Meneghello and Lo Scarabeo.

Teodoro Dotti was an employee of Gumppenberg who created his own soprafino. His son Edoardo carried on the tradition. Edoardo Dotti Tarot reviews this elegant soprafino variant published by Giordano Berti. An accompanying booklet gives historical details of Milanese tarot and the printer Gumppenberg.


Illustration: Sun card from Tarocco Soprafino di Gumppenberg 1835. Published by Il Meneghello 1992.