Skip to content

May 8

4 Comments

The Early Tarot Research of Franco Pratesi

The Italian researcher Franco Pratesi spent decades combing through archives in Florence and Bologna, uncovering the earliest references to playing cards and trionfi decks. His research is available in a compendium of more than thirty-five articles posted on Trionfi.com. Having all of his research compiled in one place, in English, is an incredible resource for anyone interested in tarot’s fifteenth century origins.

(Note: the terms tarot and tarocchi were not used in the 15th century. The game was called Trionfi or Triunfi, and the deck “carte da trionfi”.)

Pratesi is best known for discovering a single sheet of paper dating from before 1750 that gives divinatory keywords for 35 cards from a Bolognese deck. This discovery shows that divination with tarot developed in Italy early and probably independently of the French tradition. In the article “Tarot in Bologna: Documents from the University Library”, Pratesi supplies background on Bologna’s ancient tarot tradition and its 62-card Tarocchini Bolognese. He cites other documents he found in the archives like a political sonnet that uses the names of the trump cards in order; and some examples of tarocchi appropriati where trump cards are assigned to people. Read more

Apr 23

2 Comments

Building a Collection of Historic Tarot Decks

What does it take to put together a tarot deck collection that covers every important era in Tarot’s 600-year history? After making a list and distilling it to the essentials, I found you could cover all the bases quite nicely with fourteen decks. If you stick to just the main highway of tarot evolution and avoid going down interesting by-ways, you can create a basic  collection with just seven decks.

Here are my guidelines for a well-rounded collection comprised of decks that are affordable and readily available. The collection falls into five broad categories: Fifteenth century, Tarot de Marseilles, Occult, Rider-Waite-Smith, and contemporary decks. The basic collection has the oldest examples of each category. I’ve given suggestions for filling out the basic collection with additional essential decks; then I provide a shopping list at the end of the article. Read more

Apr 5

New Tarot de Marseilles Decks

A Tarot de Marseilles revival is in the air. After more than 350 years of continuous use for divination and game playing, the TdM is being rejuvenated with new editions that remain faithful to the 17th century prototypes. A handful of devoted scholars and artists from around the globe are sprucing up the standard Covers-based TdM with fresh colors and crisp lines, and issuing beautifully crafted limited editions.

The first stop on our tour of new productions is Japan and the Institute of Study on Initiation and Symbolism (ISIS).  Examples of founder Tadahiro Onuma’s deck are scattered throughout his class descriptions. There’s a link on the Home page to a shopping cart for purchasing either a majors only or a 78-card deck.         

Next, we’ll go half way around the globe to Israel where Yoav Ben-Dov has revitalized the 1760 Convers deck with a faithful-to-the-original update known as the CBD TdM.

Naturellement, France, the home of the TdM, offers the largest selection of decks. Read more

Mar 26

Women Surrealists and Tarot

Tarot archetypes appear in the art of several women surrealists currently on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The closest to an actual tarot card is The Lady Magician by Sylvia Fein. The magician’s table is draped in a white cloth and scattered with perfume vials, shells, a framed picture, paint brushes standing in a glass vase, and a feather in a little glass bottle. I wonder if the card with the large border that’s tucked under the cloth is a Tarot card. Sylvia Fein was born in 1919 and calls herself a magical realist. Her website with examples of her work is at SylviaFeinPainter.com.

If the upright tarot tower is about destruction, is its opposite meaning construction? The Flutist by Remedios Varo turns tarot imagery on its head by levitating fossil-embedded stones and setting them in place using the power of the flute’s vibrations. This tower has eight sides to represent the musical octave, and the flutist’s face is inlayed with mother-of-pearl to signify enlightenment and the ability to co-create the universe. Varo modeled her tower on a planetarium built near Mexico City by the disciple of a Russian mystic. Read more

Mar 18

4 Comments

Spring Equinox and Tarot

It’s Spring Equinox this week when the Sun enters Aries! This cardinal fire sign shares the spontaneous, passionate and freedom-loving energy of the Knight and Ace of Rods. These two cards conjure up the image of a hero galloping over the horizon brandishing a blazing torch.

In the Tarot de Marseilles, the image is gentler than in Waite-Smith-style decks. The Knight of Rods has stopped his horse so he can offer a leafy branch or a bouquet to someone standing just beyond the card’s border. In some decks his expression seems a bit flirtatious.

This year, the Knight gets a booster rocket of energy a few days after the Equinox when the New Moon is conjunct Uranus and Mercury, all in the first four degrees of Aries. In Tarot terms this means a pile-up of the Moon, Sun, Magician and Tower cards, presided over by the Knight of Rods and fueled by the Ace. Read more

Mar 17

Francesco Clemente’s Tarot

You know Tarot has made it in the mainstream art world when a contemporary deck is given its own exhibit at the venerable Uffizi Museum.

Art News magazine just gave the deck a one-page spread in its March 2012 issue to announce the book, Francesco Clemente: The Tarots, published by Hirmer and available on Amazon for $33.00.

Clemente is an Italian artist based in New York City who studied tarot history and learned to read the cards before creating his deck. He’s quoted in the New Yorker as saying “I never imagined how similar the activities of reading the tarots and painting a picture are. In both cases, there is the effort to be completely present, and at the same time, to remove completely oneself from the picture.” Read more

Feb 27

1 Comment

Portraits of First Tarot Players

Have you ever wanted to meet the folks who created the first Tarocchi decks and played Trionfi back in the 1400s? You can come face-to-face with many of them in an exhibit now up at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City — The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini. This exhibit focuses entirely on Italian portraits of the 15th century and includes many names that will be familiar to tarot history fans.

There’s Filippo Maria Visconti, who commissioned the first gilded and painted decks, and his daughter and son-in-law Bianca Maria Visconti and Francesco Sforza who commissioned the Visconti-Sforza deck from Bonifacio Bembo, the artist who most likely did the matching portraits of the couple in the exhibit. Also on display are their descendents Galeazzo Maria Sforza and Ludovico Maria (Il Morro) Sforza who raised Milan to its pinnacle of splendor. Read more

Feb 17

8 Comments

A Tarot Card Study Aid

I firmly believe that intuitive tarot reading should rest on a solid foundation of study. Read books, take notes, visit forums, compare decks, take more notes. Then let it all sink into your subconscious mind. Trust that during your readings you’ll know what to say without having to rummage through your mental file cabinet for memorized keywords.

Brigit at Biddytarot.com recently posted a brilliant tool on her blog at http://www.biddytarot.com/blog/tarot-card-profiles  that will help you study your cards in depth. In her blog post “Rapidly Deepen Your Tarot Knowledge with Tarot Card Profiles”, she provides a form to fill out that will help you think about each card from all angles. Print out 78 copies of the PDF file she provides, put them in a notebook, and you’ll have a personalized book of card meanings to go with your deck.

Here’s how I answered the questions on Biddy’s form for the Two of Batons from my favorite deck, the Avondo Brothers version of the Tarot de Marseilles.

Read more

Jan 8

2 Comments

Reading Techniques in Action

On New Year’s Day I picked up my free readings for the week over at EnchantedSpirit.com (more about them below). One of my favorite features, “Tarot Treats”, delivers a card for the week on Sunday that I like to work with throughout the week.

My New Year’s Day card was the Ace of Swords – the perfect talisman for someone who has just resolved to do more writing and blogging in 2012. So far this week I’ve used two of my favorite techniques with this card.

I shuffled just the minor arcana of the Soprafino deck while asking for a message about how I can support Ace of Swords energy in my life during the week. When the deck felt well-shuffled, I went through it card by card until I found the Ace of Swords, and pulled it out along with the cards on either side of it. This gave me a spread where the cards work together synergistically rather than being compartmentalized into separate spread positions. Then I took the sum of the three cards (10) and found the corresponding trump card (Wheel of Fortune) to give me the theme of the reading. Read more

Jan 3

4 Comments

Echoes of the Visconti-Sforza Deck at the Getty

Whenever I go to a museum, I make a point of searching the medieval exhibits for International Gothic art that resonates with the Visconti-Sforza deck. A recent chilly (by Los Angeles standards) Sunday at the Getty Center yielded three finds in one room.

The artist Gentile da Fabriano (1370-1427), the epitome of Italian International Gothic, flourished at the time Tarot was invented and just before Italian aristocracy began commissioning their elaborate hand painted decks. Aristocrats wanted to see an idealized version of themselves and their elegant world reflected in their art. Rich colors, glittering surfaces and intricate patterns were hallmarks of the International Gothic period, when artists reproduced in paint the feel of velvet brocade and the look of clothing intricately embroidered with gold thread. Read more

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →