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Posts from the ‘Tarot History’ Category

Aug 13

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History Rant #3: The Church Condemned Tarot

The Church condemned tarot and the Inquisition put the screws on tarot readers – an urban legend that just won’t die.

It’s true that in the old days, priests ranted about vices like dice and cards, and town councils passed laws against them. But these prohibitions were aimed at games that encouraged the lower classes to waste time instead of working. It must have been terribly aggravating to find your valet in the pantry shooting dice with the kitchen boy instead of polishing your boots or buffing your armor. Read more

Aug 3

Astrology, Magic and Alchemy in Art by Battistini

Tarot History Mangled in a Getty Publication

I was going to give this book a glowing review (Astrology, Magic, and Alchemy in Art by Matilde Battistini). It’s chock full of gorgeous art on glossy paper (mostly medieval and Renaissance, but ranging from the Greeks to Surrealists) covering dozens of topics from Athanor to Zodiac. But when I got to the tarot section, my spirits sank to my toenails. I was going to revile the Getty Research Center for sloppy scholarship, but on closer inspection I see that the J. Paul Getty Museum merely printed an English translation of an Italian book originally published in Milan in 2004. It’s even more disheartening to realize that this material, coming from tarot’s birthplace, completely ignores the deck’s Italian origins in favor of half-baked French occultism passed off as historical fact. Read more

Jun 10

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Tarot History Rant #2: Renaissance Tarot

I frequently come across references to “Tarot’s origins in the Renaissance.” At least it’s not Ancient Egypt! It’s true, the Renaissance was getting underway in Florence at the time tarot was invented; but northern Italy lagged behind. Besides, Renaissance Humanism in the first half of the fifteenth century was basically a literary affair, with scholars collecting and translating Latin texts for aristocratic libraries.

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May 9

Hermit: Golden tarot of the renaissance
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Tarot History Rant #1: The Mists of Time

Unfortunately, authors still write nonsense like: “No one knows where Tarot came from……Ancient Egypt……heretics…….China……..mists of time”.

Actually, we’ve known for decades exactly where, when and why Tarot was invented. Read more

Mar 5

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Franco Pratesi’s Collected Articles

Tarocchi, trionfi and carte, oh, my! Playing card historian Franco Pratesi has put up a chronological list of links to all 313 of his articles on tarot and playing card history. The only other way to get access to these articles, written between 1986 and 2013, is to subscribe to several rather obscure journals.

Of special interest to my fellow tarot history nerds: Read more

Jul 23

Knight of Swords, Visconti-Sforza Deck
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Happy Birthday Francesco Sforza: July 23, 1401

Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan and the most successful condottiere of his time, gave the world the Visconti-Sforza deck, and contributed immensely to our knowledge of Tarot’s origins.

Francesco’s father-in-law, Duke Maria Filippo Visconti, commissioned two gold-leaf tarot decks in the 1440s, but so many cards are missing, we can only speculate on what the complete deck was like. Francesco’s deck, painted with precious mineral pigments on gold leaf, is nearly complete, showing us that the familiar 78-card deck existed in the mid-15th century.

Throughout the 1440s, tarot decks were mentioned in account books and correspondence from Ferrara, Bologna and Venice; but we have nothing from Milan because the castle and all the court’s records were destroyed during the political turmoil of 1447. Two letters Francesco wrote in 1450 are our earliest written clues about tarot’s place at the Milan court. Read more

Jul 17

Knight of Wands from Tarot AC Visconti-Sforza deck

Tarot AC – A New Visconti-Sforza Deck

An exciting new Visconti-Sforza deck is on the scene — a faithful reproduction hand drawn by librarian and organic farmer Alice Cooper. Ms. Cooper created this deck out of pure love, as her own personal copy, with no thought of reproducing or selling it. The care and attention she lavished on this deck during the year-long creative process gives it a magical feel that photo-reproductions of historic decks don’t conjure up. Fortunately for us, her friends persuaded her to print the deck in a limited edition of 200 and sell it on Etsy. Read more

Jun 13

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The Golden Tarot – A New Visconti-Sforza

One of the most attractive Visconti-Sforza decks on the scene is offered by Race Point Publishing. This is not a facsimile deck — the cards have been touched up. The images are very faithful to the original; and mercifully, there are no distracting numbers or titles on the borders. The faces are livelier and more expressive than in the original deck, the lines are sharper, and details are easier to read. Read more

May 30

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Sola Busca Bonanza

Deck collectors have three versions of the fifteenth-century Sola Busca deck to choose from: decks published by Lo Scarabeo, Il Meneghello, and Wolfgang Mayer. My hands-down favorite is the Mayer deck, currently sold by Giordano Berti, so I’ll describe it first, then compare it to the others. Read more

May 30

What’s the Sola Busca?

The Sola Busca Tarocchi was created about 1490 in Northern Italy, and is named for the family who owned the deck until 2009, when they sold it to the Italian government and it was placed in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan.

There are two theories about the deck’s creator: either he was an artist named Nicola who had connections to Florence and Ancona; or he was an unknown Ferrarese artist living in Venice; or perhaps it was printed in Ferrara and colored in Venice. We don’t know if the artist created the deck himself, or if it was a commission. A small number of decks were printed from the plates, and a handful of unpainted examples from four different decks are scattered about in museums and private collections. The 78-card Sola Busca in the Pinacoteca di Brera, which was painted a decade or so after it was printed, is the deck that Mayer and Il Meneghello used as the basis for their recent facsimile publications. Read more

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