Skip to content

Jan 28

5 Comments

The Fifteenth-Century Charles VI Deck Recreated by Marco Benedetti

In fifteenth-century Italy, wealthy aristocrats indulged themselves with luxurious, hand painted, gold-embossed Trionfi decks. The decks came in two distinct families: those commissioned by the Visconti and Sforza Dukes of Milan in the International Gothic style; and Renaissance-style decks created most likely in either Ferrara or Florence. The so-called Charles VI deck, with 16 trump cards, is the most complete deck of the Florentine pattern. Other decks of this type have only a handful of trump cards. Benedetti compiled a complete 78-card deck by cobbling together all the existing cards in the Florentine style. A few absent cards had to be recreated, while several cards exist as duplicates. Benedetti includes the duplicate trump cards with his recreated deck, for a total of 90 cards.

Read more

Jan 19

4 Comments

Tarocchi Francesi (The Anonymous Tarot de Paris) Restored by Il Museo dei Tarocchi

One of the oldest complete French decks that still exists, the very quirky Tarot de Paris was printed in Paris about 1650. Only one example has survived—a complete deck in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Until now, there has been only one other version on the market, a facsimile published in 1985 by Grimaud for André Dimanche and reissued by Editions-sivilixi. Now we have a fresh opportunity to acquire this hard-to-find deck. A good deal of thought went into designing this unique deck, but the stenciling was a bit sloppy, making some of the lines hard to read. The Museo dei Tarocchi’s deck (Tarocchi Francesi) is ideal for studying card details as the images are sharper, the colors brighter and the cards enlarged, without sacrificing historic authenticity.

Read more

Dec 10

3 Comments

The Adam C. de Hautot Tarot Restored by Sullivan Hismans

Spanish Captain and Bacus from Adam de Hautot tarot

The Adam C. de Hautot Tarot is another beautiful and historically important deck from the Tarot Sheet Revival workshop of Sullivan Hismans. This deck is an early representative of the Rouen-Brussels pattern, an alternate Tarot de Marseille (TdM) that flourished from about 1650 to 1780 in a corner of Europe defined by Paris, Rouen and Brussels. The Popess and Pope are replaced by a strutting Spanish Captain from the Commedia dell’ Arte, and with Bacchus straddling a wine barrel. Most of the trump cards from the Devil on up deviate from the TdM pattern, many of them resembling hand painted decks from 15th century Italy.

Read more

Nov 18

Papessa Card Visconti Sforza deck
3 Comments

Is the Visconti-Sforza Popess a Heretic?

A sister of the Umiliati Order in Milan, Maifreda da Pirovano, was burnt at the stake for heresy in 1300. Many historians believe this card from the Visconti-Sforza Tarot is her portrait. When the Duke and Duchess of Milan commissioned this golden Trionfi deck from their favorite artist, Bonifacio Bembo, shortly after 1450, they commemorated family history in some of the cards. Maifreda may have been related to the duchess; and her heresy involved claiming to be the equal of the Pope, so the connection seems obvious. But if you were the duchess of Milan, with a reputation based on good works and piety, would you advertise a heretic in the family? Let’s look at some other, more respectable, possibilities for this card.

Read more

Sep 9

Rosenwald Tarot restored by Marco Benedetti

Bordi Rivoltinati: The Rosenwald Tarocchi with Folded Borders by Marco Benedetti

Here’s a deck that not only looks like the fifteenth century, but feels like the fifteenth century: I Tarocchi Rosenwald restored by Marco Benedetti, with hand-folded paper borders (Bordi Rivoltinati). Benedetti glues backing paper to each card, clips the corners then folds the borders to the front using traditional checkered paper. Every Italian playing card was made with this labor-intensive technique from the fifteenth century to the 1930s.

Read more

Sep 3

Matto and Papessa from Visconti Sforza deck. Fool from Trippin' Waite Tarot and High Priestess from Robin Wood tarot.
2 Comments

From Trionfi to Major Arcana

How did we get from there to here? How did the Fool go from being a medieval village idiot to a vagabond, to a free spirit on the road to enlightenment? Does the medieval Popess have any relation to a modern, witchy High Priestess? Did these changes make a radical break from the past?

It’s my thesis that every major change to tarot imagery and card interpretation evolved from what preceded it. There’s a continuous 600-year thread from Italy to France to Britain to the United States and beyond.

I’ve created a new section of this website, From Trionfi to Major Arcana, where I’ll follow this thread of development for each trump card, looking at how the interpretation of the cards shifted along with the image.

Read more

Aug 3

Tarocco Bolognese Al Mondo

The Al Mondo Tarocchino is one of very few Bolognese-style decks to survive from earlier centuries with all cards intact. This deck comes to us from a narrow slice of time—after 1725 when Bolognese decks were required to have four Moors, and before the 1760s when double-headed figures became standard. The British Museum has the only copy of the Al Mondo deck in existence. Marco Cesare Benedetti has obtained the rights to reproduce twenty facsimiles. See deck details and purchasing information at the end.

Read more

Jul 15

Box for Corband Tarocchi
1 Comment

Tarocchi Corband Produced by Giordano Berti

Some of the most beautiful Tarot decks I’ve ever seen emerged from nineteenth-century Piedmont. Giordano Berti has been producing limited editions of these precious but forgotten decks for several years. His most recent deck in the series is the Corband Tarocchi based on Carlo Della Rocca’s soprafino tarot. Della Rocca died in 1835, but enjoyed an afterlife later in the century when piemontese printers like Corband and the Avondo Brothers produced knock-offs of his beautifully engraved deck.

Read more

May 26

Book Cover Origins of the Minor Arcana by Ben Hoshour
6 Comments

Origins of the Minor Arcana by Ben Hoshour

This beautifully illustrated book delves into a neglected aspect of Tarot history. Historians usually skim over the suit cards (minor arcana) in their rush to the juicier trumps. This book gives the pip cards their due. After all, the four suits comprise 65% of the deck and predate the twenty-two trumps by centuries. Tarot as we know it could not exist without them. Read more

Mar 27

Le bateleur card from the Jodorowsky tarot

Jodorowsky Card Selection Technique

I’ve been watching Alejandro Jodorowski read cards on Youtube. He has a unique method of picking the cards for his three-card line. I’ve described it below and demonstrate with two readings. You’ll need two sets of trump cards to try his method. He uses two identical sets of trumps from the TdM he created with Philippe Camoin. I see this as a chance to use a variety of trumps-only decks that rarely come off the shelf and are too precious to shuffle. Read more

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →