As far as I know, there are only a few Besançon-style decks on the market. I’ll start my survey with the most affordable and accessible deck, a re-creation by Evalyne Hall. While translating the writings of Antoine Court de Gebelin and the Comte de Mellet (18^th century French authors who were the first to link Tarot and Kaballah), she realized de Mellet used a Besançon deck. Since she didn’t have access to this type of deck, she created her own by lovingly re-drawing historic cards that reside in Paris in the Bibliothèque Nationale.

What is a Besançon deck?  It’s a traditional Tarot de Marseille with Jupiter and Juno substituting for the Papesse and Pope. Besançon was just one of several cities where the deck was manufactured, but this name stuck to the style. The story has been that the religious figures on a pack of playing cards offended Catholics, so card makers were required to put something else on the deck. Actually, the altered deck proliferated in the predominantly Protestant areas of eastern France, southwestern Germany and Switzerland. Evidently Protestants didn’t enjoy looking at iconic Catholic figures while playing cards.

Hall’s deck is based on an original by F. J. Jerger printed in Besançon about 1800. Il Meneghello has produced a deck that’s almost identical to Jerger’s, a facsimile of a deck printed by Benois of Strasbourg. You can see the difference between the decks in the two Jupiter cards shown above and the Lovers.

Since Il Meneghello’s deck is a photo-facsimile, we see the deck in its current condition with faded lines where the woodblock was worn. The original stenciled colors fall outside the lines and sometimes are unevenly applied. The paper is heavy, untreated card stock.

Hall’s deck is printed on smooth playing card stock with crisp lines and rich colors, since it’s a contemporary re-drawing. The faces on both decks are rather odd, ranging from lumpy to badly distorted, with melancholy or sly expressions.

Another deck of this type on the market is US Games Swiss 1JJ which launched Stuart Kaplan as a tarot entrepreneur. It’s based on a style made popular by J. G. Rauch in Switzerland in the mid 1800s, one of the predecessors of the AGMuller company. This deck strays from TdM imagery and is obviously meant to be decorative rather than traditional.

Decks mentioned and illustrated in this article:

Tarot de Besançon deck of J. Jerger. Evalyne’s Garden Gate, 2016. Deck available from GameCrafters and Amazon – links on EvalynesGardenGate 

Tarocco di Besançon. Il Meneghello, Milan, 2000. Edition of 1,000.

Tarot 1JJ. AGMuller, 1974.

This magazine just keeps getting better. The latest issue has several articles that especially intrigued me.

In the Tarot Art section, Monica Bodirsky’s Lucky Lenormand deck caught my eye. Its swirling, free form watercolor background appeals to me since I adore abstract art. Bodirsky appears twice more. Bonnie Cehovet reviewed her deck, then Bodirsky contributed an article on cartomancy, the proliferation of Lenormand decks, and the role imagery plays in a reading.

Andrew McGregor’s 90-Question deck, featured in the Tarot Art section, supplies very thoughtful questions enhanced by evocative black and white images. I like using these cards with black and white decks.

In the past two issues, Eric K. Lerner discussed the historical background to switching the Justice and Strength cards from the Tarot de Marseille to the Waite Smith order. In his third article, he explains how this switch can affect your readings, especially when using numerology-based techniques, like computing the soul card from the birth date.

Cherry Gilchrist, author of Tarot Triumphs, cites documentary evidence showing that the Hanged Man could be an acrobat or rope dancer rather than a traitor hung in effigy. This very exciting because in some ways the Hanged Man does not look like a traditional medieval shame painting.

Ste McCabe loves Tarot de Marseille and Waite Smith decks equally. He shows the same two-card reading with both decks, talks about their differences, then suggests we use both decks in the same spread!

Christiana Gaudet’s article on feminist tarot flashed me back to the 1980s when, along with Christiana, I discovered radical feminism and the Motherpeace and Daughters of the Moon decks. Since then we’ve evolved from replacing the patriarchy with a matriarchy, to decks that are more balanced and inclusive. Gaudet gives many deck examples.

My contributions: a review of Saleire’s modern take-off on the Visconti-Sforza deck; and an homage to Etteilla who invented modern tarot reading practices nearly 250 years ago.

Get digital or print copies at thecartomancer.com

I already have three full-sized facsimiles of the Visconti-Sforza deck. So when I came across yet another version, published by Il Meneghello in 1996, I wrestled with temptation for a couple of weeks before succumbing. I’m very glad temptation won out because this deck is the best of the lot.

I compared this deck with my other three: Dal Negro, USGames 1984 and USGames 2015 (with portraits of Francesco and Bianca Sforza on extra cards).

The first thing I checked out was the gold background on the Trump cards. When I hold the Il Meneghello cards up to the light, the gold seems to glow from within. With the other three decks, the light bounces off the surface. The USGames 2015 actually has a brighter yellow-gold background. But the entire deck has a yellowish cast which mutes the foreground colors and makes the gray beards on the Hermit and Emperor a somewhat off-putting yellow. In the USGames 1984 deck all the gold is rendered as dark bronze. If you want glittering gold you’ll have to get Lo Scarabeo’s gold foil version. But no deck begins to approach the magical aura of the original cards.

The foreground colors on the Il Meneghello deck are deeper and richer than any of the other decks, making for more contrast and better detail. But some of the more delicate details, like the sunburst on the gold coins, are very sketchy on this deck and much more defined in the USGames 2015 deck.

The white background on the pip cards has been cleaned up and brightened slightly. Not to the extent that it looks artificial; just enough so the floral decoration pops out and comes alive. On other decks, especially the Dal Negro, the background can be a bit dingy.

The sword blades were done in silver leaf which has tarnished and darkened over the centuries. The swords in this deck are dark gray, with hilts that are a pleasant shiny gold. In both USGames decks the blades appear blue; while in the Dal Negro the blades are dark gray and the hilts are a deep antique gold.

The most important consideration for me is the state of the Tower and Devil replacement cards. How anachronistic and modeled on the Tarot de Marseille are they? Do they blend with the late Gothic style of the rest of the deck?

The Il Meneghello deck wins out on this score, with replacement cards designed by Giovanni Scarsato that establish a balance between historical correctness and giving consumers the cards they’re used to seeing. The closest models for these cards that I could find are the uncut sheets of trump cards in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City dating from about 1500.

In all four decks, the Tower is a straight brick building whose top is being blasted off by fire or lightning bolts coming from the upper right corner of the card. The other three decks have two falling figures in the style of Tarot de Marseille. The Il Meneghello has just one falling figure that looks very much like the Knight of Coins, which is also a replacement card. Bricks are falling from the tower, but, contrary to custom, the top is still in place.

The other three decks have anachronistic Devil cards with two people chained at his feet as in the Tarot de Marseille. Il Meneghello gives us a more medieval Devil. Both US Games decks have the same over-the-top, psychedelic replacement cards that pretty much ruin the deck artistically.

All the court cards of one suit have the same pattern on their robes. It should be a no-brainer to give the Knight of Coins the same clothing as the other three court figures, but only USGames managed to do it.

Il Meneghello did a smaller version of this deck in 2002 with identical replacement cards. But there’s nothing like seeing the deck in its full-size 7″x 3.5″ glory to really appreciate the presence these cards have. The cards are very thick and sturdy, making the deck stand one-third again higher than the others.

Tarocchi Visconti Sforza. Il Meneghello, Milano, 1996. Edition of 1000.

If you bought the first edition of the Pierre Madenié deck produced by Yves Reynaud in 2013, do you need to get the second edition as well? Yes, you probably do.

Even though it’s my number one reading deck, I initially felt a second copy was an unnecessary indulgence. Besides, I was afraid the newer, cleaned-up version might be too pristine. I prefer historical facsimiles that preserve the original intact; so I shudder at the thought of someone touching up historic cards to conform to their arbitrary criteria of perfection. But a fellow collector convinced me the second edition was even more beautiful than the first, so I succumbed to temptation. I’m very glad I did.

Right off the top, you can see Reynaud’s methods by comparing the two Fool cards. In the first edition, the Fool’s hair, collar and bells are dark mustard. In the second edition they are lighter yellow. The colors throughout the second edition are slightly brighter, making the black lines more visible. In comparison, the colors in the earlier deck seem heavy and muddy.

In the first edition, the green on the back of the Fool’s tunic is a stenciled rectangle that covers the gold bells and the edge of his collar. This has been corrected in the second edition. The blobs of red ink along the outside of the walking stick have been removed. But I’m happy to see that his red shoe still overlaps the card border.

A ghost image of the Lover’s card can be seen in the background of the first edition Fool. This is the “kiss” that happens when a ghostly image is transferred to another card during production. I happen to enjoy seeing these artifacts of the printing process. But if you think they’re a flaw, you’ll be happy to know they have all been removed in the second edition. The backgrounds are cleaner and are a very pleasant soft white.

Ink has been removed from places where it obviously doesn’t belong, like the lovers’ foreheads, and around the Grim Reaper and the Devil’s minions. Since the cups and coins are lighter gold, the ink that spills outside the figures is not as noticeable. For the most part, the cards have been left intact and have retained their original look and feel.

Overall, this deck has acquired freshness and clarity without losing any of its historical value. The backs and the card stock are identical to the first edition, and the differences between the two are very subtle. If you missed out on the first edition, don’t hesitate to get this one. Only 1500 have been printed, so it won’t be available for long.

Here’s my 2013 review of the original deck.

If you can only own one or two Visconti Sforza decks, before purchasing you need to familiarize yourself with the replacement cards – Tower, Devil and Knight of Coins. (The Three of Swords is also replaced, but it’s hard to mess that one up.)

There are at least eleven versions of the Pierpont Morgan Bergamo Visconti Sforza Tarocchi (to use its official name) by six different publishers. It comes in two basic flavors: a photo-reproduction of the cards as they exist now with chipped paint, flaking gold and nail holes top center; or a restored version that’s been touched up to look like new. Some decks are the original size (3.5 x 7 inches), while some are smaller. The images in all decks are identical except the four lost cards. Every publisher hires an artist to create replacements, which vary greatly and can make or break a deck.

I want to see replacement cards that look like they belong in an International Gothic deck from about 1450. I don’t want to see a Devil and Tower patterned on the Tarot de Marseille which emerged over 200 years later. There is no precedent in early Italian decks for a devil on a dais with two minions, or people falling from a tower. The four court figures in each suit wear robes with the same fabric. The clothing in the suit of Coins has interlocking six-sided rings forming a dark blue honeycomb on a gray-blue background. There’s no excuse for a Knight of Coins dressed differently than the others in his suit; yet only two decks manage to come close to getting it right.

I’ve scanned the Devil and Tower from six decks in my collection and arranged them in order from my most to least favorite. I’ll discuss them in that order, and give a critique of the Knight of Coins.

Il Meneghello produced an original size deck in 1996 and an identical smaller deck (2.25 x 4.5 inches) in 2002. The replacement cards by Giovanni Scarsato look like they belong in a late medieval deck. The Devil has an extra set of ass’s ears, bat wings and a furry skirt, all common attributes of a medieval devil. The Tower resembles other early cards except for the anachronistic falling person. The Knight of Coins is dressed in plain blue fabric, and unique to this deck, he’s wearing armor. Extra points for having the best horse of any deck.

Lo Scarabeo has produced more versions of this deck than any other publisher. The best is their gold foil deck from 1995 that measures 2.3 x 4.5 inches and is printed with foil incised to resemble the original embossing. Atanas A. Atanassov did the restoration and the replacement cards. These cards glitter and shine like the originals, but unfortunately the scans come out dark bronze. The Devil and Tower were modeled on the Rothschild sheet, one of the earliest examples of Italian decks, so it gets high marks for historical accuracy. Inexplicably, the Knight of Coins is dressed in the same gold fabric as the cups court cards. Lo Scarabeo produces a mini deck (1.75 x 3.25 inches) with the same replacement cards but without the gold foil.

Around 2002 Lo Scarabeo printed another version without the gold foil and with different replacement cards which I believe closely resemble the Tarot de Marseille (I don’t have the deck in front of me to be certain).

The third set of illustrations is another Lo Scarabeo gold foil deck. The 22 Grand Trumps is 3.0 x 5.5 inches, not quite as large as the original. There’s no indication who the artist is, but it might be Atanassov. The replacement cards are modeled on the Tarot de Marseille, and although the artist has attempted to give them a medieval look, it just doesn’t come off.

In 1975 both Dal Negro and US Games/Grafica Gutenberg printed identical photo-reproduction decks in their original size. The Devil and Tower blend nicely with the rest of the deck but unfortunately are closely modeled on the Tarot de Marseille. The Knight of Coins was created by flipping the Knight of Cups so he faces the other direction, then substituting a coin for the cup, so the Knight is dressed like the cups suit rather than the suit he belongs to.

The Golden Tarot published by Race Point, with a book written by Mary Packard, is slightly smaller than original (3.25 x 6.5 inches) and is restored. Both replacement cards are heavy on the red-orange, patterned on the Tarot de Marseille, and look totally out of place in a medieval deck. The Knight’s cloak has the interlocking ring pattern, but the background is gold instead of blue-gray.

US Games/AG Muller reprinted the 1975 photo-reproduction deck in 1984, 2007 and 2015. All three printings have this same lurid, cringe-worthy replacement cards by Luigi Scapini. But the Knight of Coins is the most historically correct since his cloak has the correct pattern and colors, although a bit too bright.

Two decks not shown here:

Monumenta Longobardia printed the earliest reproduction in 1974. The replacement cards are line drawings based closely on the Tarot de Marseille. Only 500 copies were printed.

In 2012, Alice Cooper expressed her love for this deck by painting a faithful copy with replacement cards based on the Tarot de Marseille. She printed 200 copies that sell on Etsy.

Here’s my opinion in a nutshell:

• Best Devil: Il Meneghello with the Lo Scarabeo 1995 gold a close runner up.
• Best Tower: a tie between the same two decks as above. They both have drawbacks.
• Best Knight of Coins: US Games 1984/2007/2015.
• Best overall: Il Meneghello.

Links to other articles on the Visconti Sforza deck:

• Background History on the deck and its times
• Review of Race Point Golden Tarot
• Review of Alice Cooper’s hand painted deck
• Review of US Games 2015 deck
• Review of Il Meneghello
• A personal visit with the VS deck in New York
• The deck’s fate after it left Sforza hands

Yves Reynaud, who has given new life to historically important TdMs like the Burdel, Payen and Madenié, just issued his restoration of the 1760 Conver deck in a limited edition of 1500. A decade ago, the only historically correct version of this deck on the market was a photo-facsimile of a deck housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, published by Heron around 1980. Reynaud has based his restoration on this deck.

About fifteen years ago when I started collecting historic decks, the 1760 Conver, printed in Marseille, was the touchstone TdM. It was considered the first, and the ultimate Tarot de Marseille. We know a lot more about tarot history now, and we have learned the Conver is a relative late-comer based on the Chosson deck printed in Marseille in 1736. There’s an even earlier TdM, the Pierre Madenié, printed in Dijon in 1709. I’m sure the pattern predates this by several decades. Reynaud has published limited editions of both Chosson and Madenié.

The Conver deck was printed many times in the 19^th century. It became established as the standard TdM in 1930 when Paul Marteau inherited the B. P. Grimaud publishing company and printed the Grimaud Ancien Tarot de Marseille, the prototype for most subsequent French decks. This deck also solidified the Tarot de Marseille designation. In the 19^th century, occultists used Tarot de Marseille as the designation for any Italian-suited deck printed in France. Presumably this would include variants like the Besancon and Piemontese decks. Playing card historians like Sylvia Mann and Michael Dummett used the term the same way. But the meaning has drifted, and many people now insist that the only decks deserving the Tarot de Marseille designation are decks close to the Conver pattern.

Until recently I was an historical purist and a bit of a snob. I only wanted to collect facsimile decks, and turned up my nose at restorations. I found most restorations to be too nice, too clean, and the colors too bright. But recently we’ve seen some wonderfully restored decks that have a special magic and beauty because of their creator’s loving attention to detail. Pablo Robledo’s TdM is one example, as well as the second edition of Reynaud’s Madenié deck, and the work being done by Sullivan Hismans on decks from the late 15^th century. This Conver restoration belongs in this group.

Reynaud’s restoration is much more readable than the Heron facsimile while retaining its historic look and feel. The colors are strong and pure, and the lines are clean and distinct. One jarring note: Where the Heron version has a flesh or warm beige color, this deck is often very pink, resulting in oddities like pink hair and pink horses. See the Page of Swords from both decks shown here.

I’ve read with dozens of historic decks, and I find that one of the most important factors in a deck’s readability are the eyes. They must be bright, distinct and focused. I give this deck high marks for readability. Facial expressions give each deck  a predominant mood —some are grumpy or sad, the Madenié is cheerful. Most of the faces in the Conver deck seemed perplexed, worried or slightly quizzical.

The cards are the same size and the same quality card stock as Reynaud’s other decks. They are sturdy without being too thick, and with a smooth finish that’s not too shiny or laminated. Instead of the historically correct sharp corners, this deck has very subtly rounded corners that make it easier to shuffle. This detail is so subtle, I didn’t notice the corners until I saw it mentioned on the website’s video. The deck is housed in a very sturdy box and comes with informational cards in French and English with the copy number.

Here’s your chance to obtain an elegantly restored iconic deck.

See all of Yves Reynaud’s decks and purchase them at this website:

http://www.tarot-de-marseille-heritage.com/

Sullivan Hismans, at Tarot Sheet Revival, has worked tarot magic again by creating an actual deck from sheets of tarot cards printed @1500 and housed in the Rosenwald collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.

We have no tarot decks from the 15^th and early16^th centuries, since they were used up and thrown away. Instead we have printed sheets of cards with flaws that made them unusable. They were never cut into individual cards, but were recycled and often used by book binders. Occasionally a researcher will take a book apart and find random sheets of playing cards and discarded book pages in the binding.  The age of the book tells us the last date the cards could have been printed.

I’ve been fascinated by these remnants of tarot’s earliest history since first seeing them in Kaplan’s Encyclopedia of Tarot. I never dreamed I would actually hold a deck of these ancient cards in my hands. But Sullivan Hismans has made that miracle happen twice, with the Budapest deck released earlier this year, and now the Rosenwald deck.

The Rosenwald collection has three block printed tarocchi sheets. One sheet has all the trumps except the Fool, plus three queens. The other two sheets, with most of the suit cards, are from a different deck that was probably printed the same time as the trump sheet. A German playing card museum has an identical sheet of trumps printed in mirror image from a different but nearly identical wood block.

Hismans had to recreate the nearly obliterated Wheel of Fortune, a non-existent Fool and the missing Queen of Batons and tens of each suit. These are done so skillfully it’s impossible to tell they are not part of the original sheet of prints.

The deck has two sets of queens: the three queens on the trump sheet along with a re-created Queen of Batons, and a set of queens created by Hismans to replace the missing queens on the suit card sheets. These queens hold suit symbols that look like the pips on the sheets, and are the cards you will probably want to use if you read with the deck.

The original sheet has only twenty-one trump cards since the Fool and Bagatto are combined as a street magician with ass’s ears (illustration at the top). Hismans made this a twenty-two-card deck by creating a Fool with imagery from several fifteenth-century cards.

The cards are the original size, 2 x 3.5 inches, printed on sturdy card stock with a silky, smooth finish. The backs and the background of the face of each card are a photo of the paper as it exists now. If you were to discover a 500-year-old deck in a trunk, it would probably look like this deck.

The envelopes are one of the delights of Hismans’ decks. In previous centuries cards came wrapped in envelopes with the printer’s name and address and a logo that made them mini art works. Hismans taught himself block carving so he could print an envelope using authentic techniques on heavy textured paper.

Only 400 decks were printed. If you already have the set of trumps he published earlier this year, you can purchase just the suit cards. But if you get the entire deck, you get a newly-designed envelope. If you value tarot history, this deck is an indispensable addition to your collection.

When and where was this deck created?

The trump sheet that resides in a German playing card museum is accompanied by two identical book pages. The printer was evidently not satisfied with the quality of these two pages so they were recycled. If we know the date the book was printed, then we know the approximate date of the sheet of cards.

Playing card historian Franco Pratesi did an enormous amount of meticulous research to discover the title of the book and its publishing history. His original Italian article was translated by Michael Howard and posted to the Tarot History Forum (links at bottom).

The pages are from a legal book written in Latin by a member of a prominent Perugian family, and printed in many editions throughout the 16^th century. Pratesi ascertained that the loose pages came from an edition printed in 1501 in Perugia. The Rosenwald cards were undoubtedly printed at the same time and place, since scrap paper would not have been kept for long and would not have traveled very far. Both the book pages and the uncut tarot sheets somehow ended up being kept together over the centuries.

There’s one problem with a Perugian origin for the cards: In 1486, the city forbade the manufacture of dice and cards and confiscated everything needed for their manufacture, including wood blocks for card printing. Did they rescind this decision, were there clandestine card printers, or did a discarded sheet of cards somehow make its way from elsewhere (possibly Florence) to Perugia?

Was the deck designed in 1501, or is the imagery a holdover from a previous era? An unusual feature of this deck is how the Fool and the Juggler are conflated (see image at the top). The late Michael J. Hurst found a nearly identical image dating from 1465. This is hardly solid proof that the deck was designed around that year; but the simple, graceful lines of the figures go back to the earliest days of block printing on paper.

First Phase of Block Printing

Art historians divide fifteenth-century block printing into three phases. Tarot was invented during the first phase when printers produced both playing cards and religious images on single sheets of paper. The first, International Gothic, phase of block printing is characterized by graceful, heavy black lines, hairpin curves rather than sharp hooks to denote drapery, no shading or cross-hatching, and almost no background or context for the main image. Here is a typical example, Christ Before Herod, a French print from @1400, and the Rosenwald Hermit card for comparison. The Rosenwald cards seem to be a throw-back to the earlier era. Could the block carver have copied old, worn-out blocks, preserving a style that was archaic in 1501?

Florentine Connection

Perugia is an important cultural center half-way between Rome and Florence. Throughout the middle ages and Renaissance, the city managed to keep its political independence, but most likely had strong cultural connections with Florence. Several details on the Rosenwald cards connect them to Florentine cards: The Virtues’ scalloped halos, centaurs for knights, maids instead of pages in the suits of coins and cups, and Judgment placed after the World.

There’s an intriguing stylistic similarity between the first phase of block printing discussed above, the Rosenwald cards, and a book printed in Florence in 1491, Fior di Virtu. This book of moral instruction for children, written before 1325, was reprinted numerous times in several languages, often with wood cuts. Nearly every school child read it; and it was one of the blockbuster best-sellers of the late middle ages. Arthur Hind lists the book as missing, but a copy was discovered in Barcelona in 1950 with Florence 1491 inscribed on the title page.

Florence got into block printed books rather late. Engraving dominated the book trade, possibly because engravers belonged to the influential goldsmiths’ guild and monopolized the market. According to Lessing Rosenwald, between 1490 and 1510 the city enjoyed a very brief flowering of block printed books in a distinct style — mostly fiction and religious texts printed on cheap paper that rarely survives for long. Few books remain as they were meant for the mass market, not for aristocrats, who still disdained vulgar printed books. Fior di Virtu was one of the first books of its type in Florence and probably a prototype for subsequent books. It was written in the Tuscan dialect and was never intended for export. The block prints in these books shared such a distinct, minimalist style that art historians speculate one artist designed them all, or they were all engraved by one or two workshops.

Shown here is the Virtue of Constancy from I Fior de Virtu. The thick, graceful black lines, minimal background, and almost no hatching in the folds of the clothing take us back to block printing in the first quarter of the 15^th century. When this version of Fior was printed, Botticelli had already engraved Dante’s Divine Comedy and Albrecht Durer was to do his Apocalypse wood cuts in the late 1490s. Taste and technology had changed radically over the century. These illustrations seem to hark back to an earlier, simpler era.

I think it’s quite likely the Rosenwald deck was created under the influence of Florentine block printing. Could it have been printed in Florence, perhaps by a book printer who also produced cards? If so, how did a discarded sheet of cards printed in Florence get together with discarded book pages printed in Perugia? Was the deck designed and printed in Perugia by someone familiar with the popular books coming out of Florence; or even by a Florentine printer who set up shop in Perugia? We need to know more about the book and paper trade at this time to be able to speculate intelligently.

This deck is extremely significant. Various card images link it to Minchiate and to Bolognese decks, as well as the Florentine connection already mentioned. The pips are precursors to the French Tarot de Marseille. We owe Sullivan Hismans a huge debt of gratitude for making it possible to hold this deck in our hands and experience it as those tarocchi players did a half-millennium ago.

References and Links:

• Tarot Sheet Revival Sullivan Hismans web page where you can see all his work, read background information and purchase his deck. Links to the pages mentioned below are on his Rosenwald page.
• Tarot History Forum, Michael Howard’s translation of Pratesi’s article with some followup discussion
• Pratesi’s original Italian article
• Michael Howard’s website with his English translations of many Pratesi articles
• Hind, Arthur M. An Introduction to Woodcut. Dover replication, 1963. Originally published by Houghton Mifflin, 1935. Christ before Herod, Vol I, p. 115. On printing in Florence, Vol II, p. 527-532.
• I Fior di Virtu. Translated by Nicolas Fersin. Library of Congress, 1953 with facsimiles of the original woodcuts and an introduction by Lessing Rosenwald.

I just did my first reading with my new Rosenwald deck. This deck reads like a dream. The fluid lines bring the images to life, and the pips are enough like the TdM so little adjustment is required.

Since my question was “should I or shouldn’t I” do something, I used the Cross Spread. (There’s a link below to a blog post I did a few years ago on the details of this spread).

The cards on the left and right are attorneys arguing for and against what I propose to do. The card at the top is the judge synthesizing both arguments and taking an objective viewpoint. The bottom card is the judge’s pronouncement on what I should do.

The center card (the theme of the reading) is derived by adding up the numbers of the four surrounding cards and using the trump card that corresponds to the sum. The French tradition uses only trump cards for the entire spread. I put my own twist on this by using only suit cards for the spread with a trump card in the center. In this case the four cards of the spread add up to 18 – the Moon (in my system Kings = 5).

My question: “should I buy the expensive deck I’m considering.” I saw an opportunity to purchase a handmade deck that exists in only a few copies. This is an existential question for me because it will push my deck buying into another category. I usually only purchase decks if I think I’ll read with them or if I need them for research and study. This pays off when I write an article and I can illustrate it with scans from my own collection rather than having to scrounge around online hoping to find the card I want in a clear enough image.

Purchasing this deck will mean acquiring a precious object for its own sake with no other use but the joy of owning it. Since I’m retired on a fixed income, this means dipping into my savings even more than I already do to support by deck-buying habit.

Here’s the Rosenwald deck’s answer:

The argument against purchasing the deck is the Nine of Coins on the left. It’s literally saying “too much money”. The center coin seems to vacillate between the two groups of four, bouncing back and forth so one group becomes five then the other group. “Balancing the budget” pops into my mind.

The argument for purchasing the deck is the Two of Cups. I want it — it’s an object of beauty that will enhance my life. Why shouldn’t I indulge myself?

The King of Coins at the top is hanging onto his money and looking at the other coins. The judgments seems pretty clear, “you can’t afford to go down this road; be sensible and don’t even think about it.”

What action is the Two of Coins prescribing?  This card is very different from the standard TdM card.  Please resist the temptation to read the Rosenwald card with the familiar and comfortable TdM meanings.  This card is rather enigmatic and I may need everyone’s help in interpreting it. We have two coins, or two material objects, that are separated by quite a distance. They don’t interact at all, as in the TdM. I see these two coins as my money and the deck I desire. I’ve got to keep them separate.

The Moon as the theme of the reading is telling me there’s an element of fantasy or delusion in all this. I don’t want to look at my finances realistically. Maybe the deck will turn out not to be as thrilling as I thought it would be.

One could add another layer by reading the three horizontal cards as a story. It pretty much comes out to the same thing – money, desire and delusion.

I would love to hear if anyone has an alternate interpretation.

Get the Rosenwald deck at Tarot Sheet Revival where you can also find the Budapest deck, a near contemporary of the Rosenwald, but with a very different look and feel.

 Rosenwald deck review

Cross Spread instructions

The Tarocchino Bolognese engraved by Giuseppe Mitelli is a unique treasure. Just as the Visconti-Sforza deck was a luxury item commissioned by an aristocrat from a prominent artist in Cremona, this exceptionally beautiful deck was commissioned around 1660 by Count Bentivoglio of Bologna from a prolific Bolognese artist.

Giordano Berti’s version of the deck is a facsimile of a deck published by Trombeta in the 18^th century and found in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Mitelli’s copper plates were retained by the Bentivoglio family, but in subsequent centuries printers made copies of the cards on their own copper plates or wood blocks, attesting to the deck’s popularity.

These cards are 2.5 x 5 inches, with a smooth finish. The backs show the original Trombeta insignia. The cards are wrapped in a metallic gold pouch housed in a sturdy handcrafted box lined with red felt. The green and gold box imitates the color scheme of a deck in the British Museum that was bound into a green leather book.

The accompanying 117-page booklet is stuffed with historical detail and instructions for Bolognese-style cartomancy. I discuss the booklet in detail at the end of this article.

Who was Mitelli? Giuseppe Mitelli (1634-1718) was a charismatic personality who excelled at painting, engraving and sculpture. He was also an outdoorsman, sportsman, actor, and inventor of games and amusements for all levels of society. At least 600 of his engravings exist, including many etchings based on paintings by famous artists of his day. Later in life he focused on etchings with a moral lesson accompanied by explanatory text.

Il Meneghello reproduced Proverbi Figurati (Illustrated Proverbs) a set of 48 etchings by Mitelli. The proverb above the image is explained with rhymed triplets at the bottom. The one shown here is about henpecked husbands. The quote at the top says “Sad is that house where the hen sings while the cock stays silent.”

What’s a Tarocchino? Bologna has a distinct and very old tarot tradition featuring the tarocchino, a shortened 62-card tarot deck with cards two through five removed from the four suits. There is documentation of tarot in Bologna as early as 1441, shortly after Tarot’s invention, and Tarocchino is documented by 1550. The trump cards are the same as a standard tarot with a few variations: the three virtues appear together after the Chariot; the Hermit and Wheel of Fortune switch places; the Angel (Judgment) card is the highest; and the suits of cups and coins have female Pages. The Papesse, Empress, Emperor and Pope are replaced by the Four Moors.

Mitelli’s Tarocchino: Count Bentivoglio received six sheets of paper with ten or eleven copper engravings to a page. Back then, the purchaser was expected to arrange for the engravings to be cut into individual pieces and pasted to a cardboard backing. A few uncut sheets exist in museums today, along with a few sets of cards that have been bound into books. Evidently no cards that were actually used in game playing have survived.

The trump cards of this deck are playful, fanciful and baroque. The imagery emphasizes classical myth—the Sun and Moon are Apollo and Artemis, and the Lovers card is Cupid. In a major departure from the traditional tarot deck, the Papesse and Empress have been replaced by a second Emperor and Pope. This was done at least 60 years before the card makers of Bologna were ordered to replace these trumps with the four Moors, so we can only speculate about Mitelli’s motivation. The figures are rendered in pleasing, soft colors, mostly ecru, coral and teal blue. Bentivoglio heraldic symbols appear throughout, and Mitelli put his self-portrait on the Ace of Coins.

The accompanying booklet by Giordano Berti

The 117-page booklet, printed on sturdy paper, is generously illustrated in color and black and white with Mitelli’s engravings and cards from related decks. The book presents Mitelli’s detailed biography, facts about Bologna’s unique tarot traditions, details about how the game was played in Bologna, and illustrations of various editions of this deck through the centuries. Berti debunks in great detail the urban legend that Prince Fibbia invented Tarot in Bologna before his death in 1419. Then we’re told the story of the political uproar in 1725 that led to four trump cards being replaced by four Moors.

The divination chapter, written by a traditional Bolognese card reader, contains exciting new material. Every card is reproduced with a color thumbnail and accompanied by divinatory meanings based on tradition and the author’s extensive experience. We’re also given a list of the trump cards with their traditional meanings as indicators of time. For instance, the Sun card tells you something is going to happen during the day or in one year, while the Death card means something will happen suddenly. We’re given a five-card spread with positions modified to address questions about situations or relationships.

Bologna has the oldest documented tradition of divination with tarot. Playing card researcher Franco Pratesi discovered a sheet of paper from the 1750s giving divinatory meanings for 35 cards, which are reproduced in this book. The list maker didn’t forget the rest of the deck. Card readers in Bologna reduced the 62-card Tarocchino even further to 35, 45, 50 or 55 cards. The number five seem to be very significant in Bolognese cartomancy, so cards were read in sets of five.

Only 900 copies of this deck were produced. If you love beautiful cards, and if you are fascinated by tarot history, this deck and book set are indispensable.

Contact Berti for purchasing information through the Rinascimento Italian Style Art facebook page

Read an illustrated article on Bolognese tarot at TarotWheel.net

Yves Reynaud has produced facsimiles of historically important decks like the Madenié, Burdel and Conver. Now he’s done it again with a recreation of the 1713 Jean-Pierre Payen Tarot, one of the few Tarot de Marseille Type I decks available to purchase. If you’re familiar with any of Reynaud’s decks, the Payen is the same high-quality, limited-edition production housed in a sturdy box. Let’s put this deck in context with the Tarot de Marseille tradition.

What’s a TdM I Tarot?

The designations Tarot de Marseille Type I and Type II originated with playing card historian Thierry Depaulis in his 1984 exhibit catalog Tarot, Jeu & Magie.

TdM type II is the deck we think of when someone mentions the Tarot de Marseille. It’s the standard French TdM first printed by Madenié, Chosson and Conver in the 18^th century. Grimaud, Lo Scarabeo, Fournier other major European card publishers currently print their own versions. Most modern reproductions, like Pablo Robledo’s Tarot de Marseille, the CBD by Yoav Ben Dov, and the Jodorowsky Camoin deck are TdM Type II.

The TdM Type I is identical to the Type II but with ten minor differences. Historians used to think the TdM I was an earlier version of Tarot which the TdM II evolved from. Recently we’ve discovered that the Madenié deck of 1709 is earlier than the two oldest TdM I decks we know of, the 1710 Dodal and the 1713 Payen. It seems the two types are parallel traditions. The TdM I’s distinct imagery was used from the 17^th to 19^th centuries in decks from many regions.

This Page shows the ten unique TdM I cards next to the comparable TdM II cards. If you aren’t familiar with the differences, I suggest you take a look now before reading on.

Origins of TdM I imagery

The first evidence we have of the distinctive TdM I style is the Cary Sheet housed in the Beinecke Library of Yale University. This fragment contains 6 complete and 14 partial cards. It was probably printed in Milan about 1500, but there’s no solid proof.

Shown here is the section of the sheet with the most complete cards. A few images are like the standard TdM II, but some are distinctive, like the Devil spearing a child. A few cards have TdM I imagery: the Moon facing forward and the blank shield on the Chariot. The Pope has a bishop’s crook, not the triple cross of the TdM Type II, and not the bulb and folded top of the TdM Type I. This deck is too unique to call it a prototype of either the TdM I or II. But it shows that some TdM I imagery existed in the early 1500s.

In the early 20^th century, when a well at the Sforza castle in Milan was cleaned out, they discovered fifty-eight cards from numerous decks dating from the early- to mid-16^th century at the bottom. One card was the distinctive TdM I World with her leafy belt and uncrossed legs.

It seems Italian decks displayed the distinctive TdM I details very early in tarot’s history, and they travelled to France at the same time as the traditional TdM II.

Tarot de Marseille Type I Decks

The first complete deck we know of with TdM I imagery was printed in Paris in 1659 by Jean Noblet. This deck has seven out of the ten TdM I details. Exceptions are the Emperor, who doesn’t have the 4 in front of his face, and the Chariot which has the card maker’s initials on the shield. The Noblet Pope has a bishop’s crook like the Cary Sheet. For the most part, the rest of the trump cards conform to the standard TdM II pattern.

The Noblet Fool is unique – this is the only deck where he’s called Le Fou rather than Le Fol or Le Mat. Paired with the Bateleur and his truncated wand, it seems Le Bateleur is holding the Fool’s penis which the dog is about to bite off.

This deck is close to being a standard TdM type I, but not entirely. Two versions, by Jean-Claude Flornoy and Joseph H. Peterson, are currently available.

The Rolichon deck from mid-1600s Lyon only exists as a drawing in a book printed in1919. It’s very similar to the Dodal deck from a half-century later and may show us what the standard tarot deck looked like before the TdM II became standard. Or perhaps the Rolichon-Dodal style deck was a parallel tradition that was swamped by the TdM II thanks to economic and marketing trends, just as the Waite Smith deck edged out any other style of deck in the USA by the mid-20^th century.

A deck printed by Jean Dodal shortly after 1700 in Paris is the earliest deck that has all the significators of a TdM Type I. It’s a near contemporary of the first known TdM Type II by Pierre Madenié in 1709, and is nearly identical to the Payen Type I deck. Jean-Claude Flornoy produced a reconstructed deck, and a version printed by Dusserre is out of print and rare.

Jean-Pierre Payen’s deck printed in Avignon, 1713, is so similar to the Dodal it may have been directly influenced by it. Yves Reynaud has produced the only version of the Payen deck on the market.

Two TdM I decks appeared in Italy in different centuries. Four of the Toso trumps printed in Genoa @1770 are in the TdM I style (Kaplan’s Encyclopedia Volume II, page 339). Giacomo Draghi of Liguria printed a TdM I deck before 1860 (Kaplan’s Encyclopedia Volume II, page 350).

TdM I imagery on non-standard TdM decks

TdM I details often appear in decks that deviate from the standard TdM II pattern.

Besançon-style decks with Juno and Jupiter instead of the Papesse and Pope were printed in Besançon, Strasbourg, and Switzerland from about 1720 to the early 1800s. Five cards conform to the TdM I pattern: Le Fol, the Lovers, the Chariot’s scalloped canopy, the World, and the Knight as Chevalier.

The distinctive Piedmont style has elements of the TdM I. The Pope has a bulb and flower on his staff instead of the triple cross. Cupid flies in from the right on the Lovers card, but he’s not blindfolded. The chariot has a scalloped canopy, and the Devil is a TdM I type with a face in his belly.

Decks with TdM I details were printed from Paris to Piedmont over three centuries. This style has infiltrated numerous decks in many times and places, and is a nearly forgotten alternative to the ubiquitous TdM II. Thanks to Jean-Claude Flornoy, Giordano Berti and Yves Reynaud the TdM Type I deck is now available for all everyone.

Decks shown in this article

The Lovers, Tarot Jean-Pierre Payen 1713, Yves Reynaud, 2016.  http://www.tarot-de-marseille-heritage.com/

Cary Sheet, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.  http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/

Le Fol and Le Bateleur, Jean Noblet Tarot, Jean-Claude Flornoy, 2007. http://www.letarot.com/

The Hanged Man, Jean Dodal Tarot de Marseille, Jean-Claude Flornoy, 2002. http://www.letarot.com/

The Devil, Tarocchi Vergnano, Giordano Berti, 2014. https://rinascimentoitalianartenglish.wordpress.com/catalog/

Has anyone read the folded sheet of paper that comes with every Il Meneghello deck? Recently I became curious enough to dust off my Italian dictionary and read it carefully. Osvaldo Menegazzi, the owner and artistic force behind Il Meneghello, is a native of Milan who’s been immersed in tarot most of his long life. I was hoping for special insights from a Milanese perspective. Instead I got a dose of Oswald Wirth.

Here’s a summary of the sheet. Where material seems to be lifted directly from Wirth’s book, I cite the chapter. (Information on Wirth and his book at the bottom.)

History: This section of the sheet reads like the 1960s. We’re told that the oldest deck in existence resides in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and was commissioned by King Charles VI of France in 1392. Historians have known for decades that this deck was actually created in Italy in the late 15^th century. He goes on to tell us that in the 15^th century there were luxury hand-painted decks for the upper classes and woodblock decks colored with stencils for the masses. Tarot was invented by combining two decks: a card game called Naibe and a 22-card deck with symbolic figures designed for fortunetelling. While these 22 images are obviously Christian, they may be European adaptations of abstract designs used for divination in the orient, like Geomancy or the I Ching. (Wirth, Chapter 14).

Menegazzi speaks approvingly of Antoine Court de Gebelin who discovered that tarot is the sacred Book of Thoth; and of Etteilla who designed an Egyptian-style deck and became a rich and famous cartomancer. Menegazzi can’t resist joining his fellow occultists in sneering at Etteilla, calling him a self-promoting wig maker. Etteilla was a successful professional card reader and astrologer, so he must have known a few things about self-promotion. But he was never a wig maker. (See my article here for a rant about why and how Etteilla was dissed so badly by his fellow occultists.)

Divination: Menegazzi says up front that he’s using Wirth’s method because it only uses 22 cards and is fairly simple. He refers readers to the Alfred Douglas book The Tarot. Here’s a compilation of his advice for readers:

• Don’t let other people touch your cards unless you allow the querent to shuffle the deck before a reading.
• The more you study the cards and memorize their meanings, the more they will be imprinted on your subconscious and take on your personal vibrations.
• Store your cards in a wooden box placed near the east wall of your house.
• Before consulting the cards, light incense and put yourself in a meditative state.
• If you have an either/or question like, “should I go out with Frankie or with Johnnie?” do two readings asking how it will work out with each option.

The method for selecting cards, and the spread, are taken directly from Wirth, Chapter 15.

Picking Cards: the reader shuffles the 22 cards and asks the querent to give him a random number between 1 and 22. The reader counts down that number of cards from the top of the deck, makes a note of the card, and leaves the card in the deck. The reader shuffles again and asks for another number. You repeat this as many times as there are spread positions. (When reading for yourself you can roll dice to get a number). Pull the selected cards out of the deck and lay them out in a spread. With this method it’s possible to get the same card in more than one spread position.

The Spread: Menegazzi uses Wirth’s 5-card cross spread minus one card. He seems to combine Wirth’s spread positions 4 and 5. (Here’s an article explaining the Cross Spread in detail.) Three cards are pulled from the deck, while the fourth card is derived from adding up the sum of the other three. Menegazzi does not mention laying the cards out in any particular configuration, but they seem to fall naturally into a square with 1 and 2 on the left and right, 3 above and between the first two, and 4 beneath 3. Here are the spread positions:

(1) What is favorable in this situation, or the attitude or action that would be favorable to take.

(2) What is unfavorable in this situation, or the attitude or action that would not be good to take.

(3) The Mediator that bridges the first two cards, points to a middle way, and facilitates getting what you asked for.

(4) The Solution or Outcome: this card is derived by adding up the sum of the previous three cards. If the sum is more than 22, add up the digits in the sum until the number is reduced to 22 or less.

Divinatory meanings for the 22 trump cards comprise a large part of the sheet. They’re a condensation of Wirth’s DMs, and are in line with what you see in most books on how to read the TdM.

Oswald Wirth (1860-1943) was a Rosicrucian and prominent member of French occult circles. In 1887 he designed a deck with Egyptian and kabalistic details inspired by Eliphas Levi’s writings. This was the first deck to have Hebrew letters on the cards. It’s published by US Games Inc.

In 1927, Wirth wrote Le Tarot des Imagiers du Moyen-Ȃge (Tarot of the Medieval Image-Makers). The chapter citations in this article refer to this book.

The most recent and accessible edition of this book was published in 2012 by Red Wheel/Weiser as Tarot of the Magicians. The introduction by Mary Greer gives a gives a biography of Wirth that puts him in the context of his times and of other French occultists. Wirth’s cards as he designed them (not the later, rather ugly, versions) are reprinted on heavy paper in the back of the book so you can cut them out and have an original Wirth deck.

Deck used to illustrate the spread: Tarocco Milanese 1850. Milan: Il Meneghello, 1986.

Another historically important Piedmontese deck produced by Giordano Berti just arrived in my mailbox. Like Berti’s other productions, this deck is housed in a sturdy handmade box lined with felt and covered with marbled paper. The cards are protected by a sparkling gold bag and are accompanied by a booklet with detailed historical background.

Two sets of sheets from the same wood blocks were registered in Turin: in 1829 by Lando and in 1832 by Lando’s widow. This deck is a facsimile of the latter set of sheets. Like most printers, Lando produced a variety of card styles: Tarot de Marseille, Piedmontese, and decks with French suit symbols.

This deck is a Tarot de Marseille Type I with two exceptions: The World card is a standard TdM Type II, and the Pope is a hybrid of Types I and II. Four trump cards have details derived from Piedmont-style decks, like the lion raising his paw on the Strength card, and the Hanged Man’s shoes. (Links below will take you to explanations of the Type I and Piedmont style.) The Star card is unique with only four stars in the sky and water jars of different sizes and colors. “Lando” is printed at the top of every trump and court card, and card titles are in French.

This was not a luxury deck. The block carving is only competent, and in many places the stenciled colors (orange, yellow and two shades of blue) were applied hastily. To judge whether a deck is readable, I look at the eyes. I think it’s important for the eyes to be well-defined so you can see the direction of their gaze. This deck gets high marks in that department. A few figures just have black smudges for eyes, but they are a rare exception.

The 24-page booklet gives a short history of tarot in Savoy and Piedmont along with an overview of Lando’s output. Most card printers are just names on a box. Thanks to diligent genealogical research by Phillipe Noyes we meet Lando and his family in their social setting. Giuseppe Lando was born @1784 into a family of shoemakers. After serving in the army during the Napoleonic wars, he returned home to Turin and somehow transformed himself into a card printer. After he died of pleurisy in 1831, his widow continued the family business until their son could take over.

The Lando family produced playing cards in Turin from the 1820s to the 1860s. This spans the golden age of tarot in Piedmont when large numbers of card makers were printing decks in several styles. They often borrowed or stole each other’s designs, resulting in hybrid decks such as this one with imagery from several types of decks.

An unexpected bonus is a little booklet on cartomancy by Giulia Orsini. She gives keywords for all 78 cards plus two spreads. Unfortunately, the text is in dire need of an English-speaking editor. Whenever you see the word “seed” read it as “suit.” The keywords for the 7 and 8 of Coins are identical because a line was repeated. This happens again where two spread positions have identical descriptions.

Berti has published three other 19^th-century Piedmontese decks (all reviewed here): the luxurious Oriental Foudraz, the refined Perrin, and the elegant Vergnano that won a design award when it was first published. I’m very happy to round out my collection with a deck from Piedmont printed for the average working person.

See more images and purchase the deck at Berti’s website RinascimentoItalianArtEnglish.wordpress

For the characteristics of the Tarot de Marseille Type I deck click here

For the characteristics of Piedmont type decks click here

This deck is an 18^th-century Tarot de Marseille redrawn with a contemporary folk art flavor. The lacy vegetation on the pips and the bright pastel colors like aqua, violet and peach give the deck a fresh, airy feel without being cloying or cute.

If you’re familiar with the standard Marseille deck, you’ll notice a few minor differences in the pips. The straight swords on the Seven and Nine of Swords enter at a slant. The Nine and Ten of Coins lose their static symmetry and tumble energetically among the cascading vines. French card names are hand-lettered alongside the image, with words broken at odd places, adding a touch of quirkiness.

The deck is a bit smaller than usual, about 2.5 x 3.5 inches. I’ve been wanting a small, compact TdM to carry in my purse or backpack; this may be the one. The second edition has just come out (July 2018) with an improved box and iridescent backs that retain the same kaleidoscope image with a little marshmallow in the center. The cards, printed on 320 gsm card stock, are smooth, pleasant and very easy to shuffle.

This deck is not a fanciful invention. It’s faithful to a deck by Angelo Valla of Trieste published about 1790. See the original deck here:

http://www.albideuter.de/html/lombardisch-trieste.html

I shuffled the deck while asking how it will read. The Seven and Two of Swords came up, with their sum, the Hermit, as a clarifying card. The deck says, “I may be pretty but I know how to cut to the core. I will uncover the source of your pain and shed light on what has been denied or buried.” A powerful message from a pint-sized deck.

See more cards and get the deck for $40 at www.WanderingOracle.com

I am very excited about this fresh new version of the 1762 Vandenborre deck published this month by the Argentinian tarot maker Pablo Robledo.

This Brussels-Rouen pattern deck is first cousin to the Tarot de Marseille. Some of its unique imagery may stem from a lost tradition that migrated from Ferrara to France and Belgium. Its most notable feature is the substitution of the Spanish Captain and Bacchus for the Papesse and Pope. Read a lot more information about this deck and the Captain in another blog article here.

Until now, the only available version was printed by Carta Mundi in 1983 and distributed by US Games. I’ve always been very happy to have a copy of this historically unique deck to refer to. But Robledo’s deck is so beautiful and so pleasant to handle that I may actually start reading with it!

Shown here is a side-by-side comparison of Le Bateleur in the two decks. Robledo’s deck is a bit smaller (2.5 by a little less than 4.5 inches). The background is slightly off-white so there’s no harsh glare. The lines are faithfully reproduced from the original, but the colors are subtly updated, making the cards much easier to read.

I love the pips in this deck.  They are large, sturdy, and have a strong presence. It’s going to be interesting to find out how they speak when I start reading with this deck.

The medium weight card stock is smooth, silky and pleasant to touch. Instead of a box, the deck comes wrapped in a sturdy envelope with a unique block printed design created by Robledo in the 18^th-century tradition. A card is included with publication information that’s dated and initialed by Robledo.

As far as I know the only way you can get this very limited edition deck, aside from contacting Robledo himself, is to e-mail info@collectarot.com (located in the US).

My 1983 Vandenborre deck by Carta Mundi has been sitting unused on a shelf for a few decades. After falling in love with Pablo Robledo’s recent production of the deck, and discovering a third version on the market at the GameofHope website, I went on a buying spree then sat down to compare the decks. All three decks faithfully recreate the lines on the original cards, but none is a photo facsimile. The stains and tax stamps have been eliminated, making each deck pristine. (There’s a link at the bottom where you can see the original cards in the British Museum.) Here’s a run-down of how the decks compare.

Colors

Robledo’s colors follow the originals in the British Museum exactly (bottom card in the set of three shown above). Carta Mundi’s colors are washed out and they made some arbitrary changes that remove even more color from the cards. For instance, in the Star card shown at top left, the stars have lost their red centers and there are changes to the colors at the bottom of the tower. The GameOfHope cards (top right) follow the Carta Mundi colors but are much deeper. The greens in the Carta Mundi deck appear light olive, so the GameofHope cards have dark olive; while the original and Robledo’s deck are grass green. Robledo’s cards have a white background, unlike the tan originals, making the colors pop.

Nothing in the three decks stands out as arbitrary or wrong. If we didn’t have an original deck for comparison we wouldn’t know the color had been altered. So the deck you prefer really comes down to a matter of taste.

Size

The Carta Mundi and GameOfHope cards are the same overall size, 2.75 x 4.75 inches. The actual images in the GameofHope deck are one-quarter inch shorter and narrower, but the border is larger to make up the difference. This is the only deck with rounded corners. The images in Robledo’s deck are nearly the same size as the GameofHope, but the borders are very narrow, making this the smallest deck. (The image at left gives the Robledo card an extra wide top border that doesn’t exist. The borders on all sides are about one-tenth of an inch.

Card Stock

All three decks have pleasantly smooth card stock. The front of the Carta Mundi cards is more matte and untreated than the back. This deck is by far the heaviest and stands a half-inch taller than the other decks when stacked side-by-side. The GameofHope’s playing card stock is a bit lighter than Robledo’s.

Backs

Robledo’s deck  reproduces the original sun faces in ruffled rings. Carta Mundi’s rather crude version is larger and blue. GameofHope does something different, but is still in line with historic card backs.

Packaging

The Carta Mundi box is rather flimsy. Mine is showing wear even though I rarely take the deck out. The GameofHope deck comes in a sturdy tuck box and the box and title card display an old engraving of the Spanish Captain. Robledo’s deck does not have a box. It comes in a handmade, block-printed envelope, in keeping with how decks were packaged in previous centuries. See it in my review of the deck (link below). The enclosed card gives the deck’s number and date.

The Booklet

The Carta Mundi deck comes with a stellar 30-page booklet. Its brief discussion of history is very accurate, except for calling Etteilla a hairdresser (a pet peeve of mine). The author of the booklet believes the original order of the tarot trumps appears in the Sermones de Ludo cum Aliis. This isn’t necessarily so since tarot had been around for at least a half-century before the 22 trumps were listed in the margin of the Sermones. Even though the deck is numbered in the standard Tarot de Marseille order, the booklet discusses them in the Sermones order and arranges them in three groups: those subject to Love, Death, and Eternity.

The divinatory meanings for all 78 cards stick closely to the image with no occult correspondences or metaphysical abstractions. The booklet supplies three spreads with sample readings: Oswald Wirth’s Cross Spread, and two spreads that use the 22 trumps plus the 14 cards of the suit that pertains to the question.

Recommendations

If you want historical accuracy, you want Robledo’s deck. On the other hand, although the brilliant colors on the white background are very lively they don’t have the mellow feel of the original. (Or were the cards originally white and aging turned them tan?) I’m a bit squeamish about shuffling and using a deck when there are only 29 copies in existence. Since this deck has received such high praise, surely Robledo will print more copies which will solve that problem.

I like the deep, rich colors of the GameOfHope deck and find it very pleasant to look at. But the rounded corners and the extra wide border are a big drawback. This deck really needs a borderectomy, which would pare it down to the size of Robledo’s deck.

The Carta Mundi cards are probably difficult to shuffle, although I’ve never tried. Next to the other two decks the colors look pale and lifeless; but others might see the colors as soft and delicate.

The Carta Mundi deck is long out of print, and I don’t know if it’s worth chasing down now there are more accessible decks. The deck produced by GameofHope is a good serviceable deck that will keep you going until Robledo prints more of his historically correct masterpiece.

ADDENDUM

As soon as I published this article, a reader told me about a mini Vandenborre available at www.Pyroskin.com. Unfortunately, the shipping cost to North America nearly doubled the cost of the deck. It appears to have Carta Mundi colors.

LINKS

See an original deck on the British Museum website:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?assetId=1153098001&objectId=3268572&partId=1#more-views

These folks do reprints of several historic decks:  http://gameofhopelenormand.bigcartel.com/

Collectarot carried the first edition of Robledo’s deck. If there’s a second printing it will probably be available here.

My review of Robledo’s Vandenborre deck.

My article on the Spanish Captain and some background on this type of deck.

Acquiring this hard-to-find deck inspired me to get acquainted with Valentina Visconti and learn about the chapter of her life depicted in these cards.

In 1389, Valentina set out in a magnificent procession from Milan to France to meet her husband Louis, Duke of Orléans, brother of the mad king of France, Charles VI. They had been married in a proxy ceremony two years before, but meeting in person was delayed while Valentina’s father, the Duke of Milan, scraped together her extremely expensive dowry. The procession stopped in the town of Asti to spend five days enjoying the Palio (horse races).

First, a description of the deck before getting back to Valentina’s life.

The deck has the traditional 78-card structure, with ten additional cards. Five cards represent the prizes given to the winners of the Palio: Speroni/Spurs, Monete/Money, Gallo/Rooster, Palio/Banner and Acciuga/Sardines. The other five cards represent personal qualities one needs to win: Courage, Intrigue, Freedom, Knowledge and Shrewdness. The artists suggest using these cards to predict who will win the Palio this year. (It’s still happening on the third Sunday of every September.)

The Emperor and Empress cards depict the artists themselves, while Valentina’s portrait appears on all the coins. The batons are rendered as leafy branches, and where the batons usually interlace, this deck has concentric circles with flames.

The court cards are Re, Domina, Cavaliere and Valletto. Except for the King of Swords, who has a beard, the other kings appear very feminine. Instead of Regina, the usual word for Queen, this rank is called Domina, which accentuates her independent rulership..

The cards are 2.25 by 4.25 inches, printed on uncoated, light cream card stock, with square corners. The images are graceful, romantic line drawings rendered in dark brown ink.

The deck, created by artists Maria Teresa Perosino and Sergio Panza, was published in 1982 in an edition of 1,000 numbered copies by Edizioni Del Solleone, owned by Vito Arienti of Milano, Italy.

The Fable of the Visconti Tarocchi

The artists and publisher seem to have sincerely believed that every mention of playing cards in the 14^th century actually refers to Tarocchi. They also state that there is so much contradictory data about the deck’s origins that one story is as good as another. With this in mind, here’s a charming fable that’s included with the deck, spoken by the spirit of Valentina herself.

She tells us that when she left Italy in 1389 to take up married life with the French king’s brother, her luggage contained her favorite books, her harp and a Tarocchi deck, along with a fabulous trousseau of gowns and jewels. The procession stopped in the town of Asti for several days to enjoy the horse racing. It was there that a young French page, with the bluest eyes she had ever seen, caught her attention. The two exchanged love-sick gazes from a distance, and managed once to brush hands briefly. When the procession arrived at its destination outside Paris, the Page disappeared, his duties having been discharged.

When Valentina was conducted to the palace to meet her husband for the first time, she advanced toward Duke Louis slowly, her eyes lowered. When Louis held out his hand to her, it held the only token of affection she had been able to give the Page—a card from her Tarocchi deck. When she looked up at the Duke and saw his piercing blue eyes, she realized that he was the Page she had fallen in love with. He had disguised himself as a servant in order to get a sneak preview of his wife.

The marriage was truly a love match. Louis was eager to learn about the secrets of Tarocchi, so they spent many evenings discussing the cards. Louis shared his enthusiasm for the cards with his brother, King Charles VI, who, in 1392, ordered three luxury decks to be painted by the artist Jacquemin Gringonneur. Louis’ own painted deck was listed in the inventory of his belongings at his death in 1407.

The hatred of the queen and the intrigues at court prematurely ended the lives of both Valentina and Louis. Valentina’s spirit wandered between the worlds, remembering a prediction made by one of her grandmother’s servants, that the Visconti Tarocchi would be passed down through time to keep alive of the story of Valentina and Louis. After many generations had passed, Valentina’s spirit heard voices calling to her, the voices of Maria Teresa Perosino and Sergio Panza, residents of Asti and partners in art and in life. Inspired by Valentina’s spirit, they revived her life and times through the medium of a new Tarocchi.

The Truth About the Decks

It’s true that in 1392 King Charles VI paid a substantial amount of money to the artist Jacquemin Gringonneur for three decks of painted and gilt playing cards. For many years people assumed that one of these decks was the partial tarot deck in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. On stylistic grounds it’s obvious that this deck was created in the mid fifteenth century, most likely in Ferrara. This deck has been filled out with replacement cards and published by Lo Scarabeo as the Golden Tarot of the Renaissance.

When Louis d’Orléans was murdered in 1407, the inventory of his possessions listed un jeu de quartes serrasine – Unes Quartes de Lombardie showing that cards were still associated with the Arab world, and that one deck may have come from Valentina’s home territory.

Why can’t these be referring to tarot decks? Because we know from other listings in account books that tarocchi or trionfi was specified for that type of deck. If the document just said “a deck of cards”, that assumed a regular deck with four suits. In addition, there is no documentary evidence for the game of tarocchi/trionfi before 1440. It’s very unlikely there were trionfi decks in the 14^th century but no documentary evidence for over forty years.

Who was the real Valentina? Her story encompasses murder, madness, incest, exile, and accusations of witchcraft.  (Someone really should make a miniseries.)

Click here to get the real story of her dramatic life and times.

Nearly two decades ago, Il Meneghello of Milan gave us the best facsimile available of the 1450 Visconti-Sforza deck. Now they’ve outdone themselves by producing facsimiles of the two earliest trionfi/tarocchi decks we know of — luxurious gold-covered cards created for the Duke of Milan in the early 1440s. Il Meneghello printed the Visconti di Modrone deck in 2015 and 2017, and released a book in 2018. The Brera-Brambilla deck was published in the summer of 2018 with its accompanying book available in September.

The names of these decks can be a bit confusing. Italians refer to the decks by their last Italian owner, while Americans name them after the museum or collection where they are housed. For consistency, I’m going to refer to these decks by their Italian names with the American designation in parentheses.

Dating the decks

Both decks were created during the reign of Duke Filippo Maria Visconti (1412 to 1447) probably about 1442 or 1443. No documentary evidence such as account books exist because the Visconti records were destroyed in a fire during the political turmoil of the late 1440s. But the heraldic devices and the coins depicted on the decks tell us who was in power when they were commissioned.

Visconti di Modrone (Visconti Cary Yale) Deck

This deck was formerly in the Visconti di Modrone collection. In 1947, an American collector, Melbert B. Cary, acquired the deck and brought it to the US. He subsequently donated his collection to the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

The Deck

This deck has several features that distinguish it from the other two decks commissioned for the Visconti and Sforza dukes. Eleven trump cards still exist, including the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. We can’t say if the three virtues were added on, as in the Minchiate deck, or if they were substituting for traditional Trionfi playing cards.

All the royal characters in this deck are accompanied by one to four attendants. The Emperor and Empress have four attendants each, while a servant manages the chariot driver’s horses. All the Kings and Queens in the four suits have attendants.

There are six court cards in each suit, with the addition of female knights and pages. Putting all the ranks in male-female pairs is a romantic touch that suggests this deck was a wedding present. At left is the female Knight of Swords with the Sforza quince flower device on her gown. None of the suits retains a complete set of court cards but only one pip card is missing – the Three of Coins.

All the pip cards have an embossed silver background which has tarnished to dark gray. Gold and blue are the only pigments used on the pip symbols. The baton pips are the same arrows held by the court figures in the Brambilla deck; while the court figures in the Modrone deck hold long ceremonial staffs with elaborately carved finials.

All cards have pink borders with little blue flowers, rather than the plain borders of the other two decks made for the Visconti and Sforza families.

When was the Modrone deck created?

The betrothal or marriage scene on the Lovers card contains the best clues. On the canopy, the Visconti viper alternates with a white cross on red, which is the insignia of Pavia, the Visconti’s main residence. But it’s also a symbol of Savoy, which has led researchers to speculate that the scene is either the marriage of Filippo to his second wife Maria of Savoy in 1428, or of Francesco and Bianca Sforza’s son Galeazzo Maria to Bona of Savoy in 1468. On stylistic grounds, we can be certain the deck was created in the 1440s before Galeazzo was born. The marriage of Filippo and Bona was loveless and unconsummated, so it’s doubtful anyone commissioned a deck to commemorate it twenty years after the fact.

It’s more likely the deck was commissioned for the marriage of Filippo’s daughter Bianca to Francesco Sforza in October 1441. The man on the Lover’s card wears the Sforza heraldic fountain on his clothes. The Batons and Swords court cards wear Sforza emblems of quince flowers and fountains, while the Cups and Coins court figures wear the Visconti devices of a dove and sunrays and the ducal crown with fronds. This suggests the joining of the two families.

Who created the deck?

Three prominent Italian International Gothic artists have their champions as the creators of one or more of the decks made for the Visconti and the Sforza. The current consensus is that all three decks were created by Bonifacio Bembo and his workshop. In 1928, Roberto Longhi, one of the foremost art historians of the 20^th century, wrote an article which revived Bembo’s reputation and attributed all three decks to him. Art historians have fallen in line with this ever since. Before then, the Zavattari family were the favorites. There are compelling reasons to believe that at least one of the decks could have been created by Michelino da Besozzo. All three artists worked for the Visconti; and there are obvious connections between the cards and details in their frescoes.

The Book

Cristina Dorsini introduces us to Filippo Maria’s life and character, then dates the deck from the evidence of heraldry and coins depicted on the cards. Michelino da Besozzo is put forward as the artist, and ten examples of his work are reproduced. All the existing trump cards and four court cards are given full-page color illustrations with a discussion of the card on the facing page.

Like all recent publications coming from the Il Meneghello workshop, the English translation is very poorly done and there are numerous typos. The results range from humorous to clumsy to incomprehensible. If you can read Italian, you may want to get that version and spare yourself some agony.

Deck Details

Tarocchi Visconti di Modrone XV Secolo was published by Il Meneghello in two editions: 400 copies in 2015 and 1,000 copies in 2017. The cards in the two printings are identical: 3.5 x 7 inches, rounded corners and printed on sturdy matte card stock with speckled brown backs. The boxes for the two editions have different paper coverings and lids. Both editions are housed in boxes with marbled paper and a card pasted on the cover with a red wax seal. The 2015 deck comes with a booklet containing an abbreviated version of the material in the 2018 book. A numbered title card is included with both decks.

The Brera-Brambilla Deck

Giovanni Brambilla of Venice owned this deck in the early 20^th century; but it has been in the Pinacoteca di Brera since 1971.

Art historians argue about which deck came first, the Brambilla or Modrone. The current consensus says this is the earlier deck, which could make it one of the first commissions from the Bembo workshop after Bonifacio took over from his father around 1440.

The deck has the fairy tale quality of International Gothic art. The six remaining court figures are suspended in a golden glow and seem barely anchored in this world. They all have the curly blond hair, pale skin and vacant, childlike face that was the ideal for both men and women at the time. Compare this to the more detailed costumes, animated horses, and lively faces and figures in the Modrone deck. The gold is embossed like the Modrone with a diamond and sunburst pattern above a green bottom section.

The two Queens of Batons shown here illustrate the artistic styles of the two decks. The Brambilla Queen holds an arrow upright and wears a blue gown decorated with a flower motif. Her elegant posture and porcelain skin are typical of the International Gothic, as is her tightly curled blond hair and fashionably high forehead created by shaving or plucking the hairline. In contrast, the Modrone Queen seems more natural and lively as she leans to hear what the maid in pink is saying. Her gown is decorated with the Sforza fountain, and she holds a long ceremonial baton instead of an arrow.

Like the Modrone deck, the pips have an embossed silver background with symbols in gold and blue. Only one pip is missing, the Four of Coins. The coins in both decks are rendered as Filippo Maria Visconti’s gold florin.

In the suit of batons, a shortened odd baton lies horizontally behind the crossed batons. There are no straight swords, except for the ace. The odd-numbered cards are asymmetrical with an extra curved sword on one side (see the Three of Batons and Swords at left).

Only two trump cards remain, the Emperor and the Wheel of Fortune, which is nearly identical to the later Colleoni-Baglioni (Visconti-Sforza) card.

The Book

The book begins with a short introduction to International Gothic culture, then devotes a large section to ten castles in northern Italy that house frescoes of card players. They are referred to as tarocchi players throughout the discussion, but every card that can be identified is a pip. Since no trump cards are shown, it’s impossible to say what game is being illustrated on the castle walls.

The Zavattari dynasty, four generations of artists working in Lombardy throughout the 15^th century, receive a few pages of text and several pages of color photos. Several details in their frescoes resemble figures in the Brambilla deck, so Dorsini proposes the Zavattari as the creators of this deck.

This book cries out for a native English-speaking editor. The English translation is awkward but fairly easy to understand until you get to the technical details of the deck. This section evidently exceeded the translator’s abilities so some phrases are incomprehensible.

Deck Details

Tarocchi Visconti Brambilla XV Secolo. Edition of 200 printed in 2018. The deck is housed in a sturdy box covered in dark brown marbled paper. The cards are the same size as the Modrone deck, 3.5 x 7 inches with a dark reddish-brown back that’s streaked and distressed to look aged. A Wheel of Fortune card is pasted on the box with a red wax seal, and a numbered title card is included.

Both books and both decks, as well as a newly released Colleoni-Baglioni (Visconti-Sforza) deck by Il Meneghello, are available in North America from www.collectarot.com.

References:

Dorsini, Cristina. Visconti di Modrone Tarot: Art in Milan in 1400. Il Meneghello Edizioni, March 2018.

Dorsini, Cristina. Visconti Brambilla Tarot: The Zavattari at the Visconti Court. Il Meneghello Edizioni, September 2018.

Bandera, Sandrina. Brera: I tarocchi il caso e la fortuna – Bonifacio Bembo e la cultura cortese tardogotica. Milano, 1999. Large color reproductions of all three of Bembo’s decks.

Kaplan, Stuart. Encyclopedia of Tarot, Volume I, pp 87-98 and Volume II pp. 26-35 and 48-52. US Games Inc.

Cards used in illustrations

Visconti di Modrone: Ace of Cups, Female Knight of Swords, Lovers, Queen of Batons

Brera-Brambilla: Queen of Batons, Three of Batons, Three of Swords, Emperor, Wheel of Fortune

In the 1440s, you could go to the store and buy a pack of cards for playing the popular new game of Trionfi. What did those cards look like? Did they resemble our familiar tarot cards? We can’t be sure because not a single printed tarot deck survives from the 15^th century. All we have are a handful of gold-covered cards commissioned by wealthy aristocrats. Luxury decks like the Visconti-Sforza prove that by the mid-1400s tarot decks had 78 cards including our familiar twenty-two trump cards. But we don’t know how closely these luxury decks resembled cards printed for the masses.

Back then, playing cards were printed using wooden blocks resembling large rubber stamps. Cards were printed in sheets of about twenty. Paint was stenciled on, then the sheets were cut up into individual cards and stacked into a deck. If there was a flaw somewhere, the entire sheet was recycled and often used in book binding. Occasionally, when a restorer disassembles an antique book, a sheet of tarot cards will be found padding the inside the covers. Several of these sheets have made their way into museums and private collections and are known by the name of the collection where they reside.

The Budapest Sheet

The tarot sheets held by the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest are comprised of all the trump and court cards and the suits of swords and batons. Duplicate sheets printed from the same woodblock were sold to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City in 1922. A private collection in New York owns a small section of one sheet, and the Cary Collection of Playing Cards at Yale University owns another duplicate sheet plus a stencil used to color one of the sheets in the Budapest collection.

Out of the tens of thousands, if not millions, of decks printed in Italy in the 15^th century, only a handful of uncut sheets survive. It’s either an extraordinary coincidence that so many cards printed from the same wood blocks were preserved, or this particular deck was very popular.

These sheets are very important for understanding the early history of tarot. They could only be seen online until recently, when Belgian graphic designer Sullivan Hismans faithfully reproduced the images of both the Budapest and Rosenwald sheets, then printed them as decks. Hismans’ decks are so accurate that it’s impossible to find a discrepancy when comparing his cards with online images of the originals. Now we can hold a valuable piece of tarot history in our hands.

The Cards

All the traditional twenty-two trumps are present, but some cards have slightly different designs. A crowd of onlookers watches the Bagatto. The Lovers are a courting couple with Cupid helping things along. The Fool strides through the countryside holding a tree branch decorated with bells. This deck has one of the most cheerful and life-affirming Sun cards.

After examining the clothing on the court cards, I believe the deck was designed in the 1470s, but some of the styles go back to the very early days of tarot in the 1440s. Playing card designs were very conservative. When one set of wood blocks wore out, designs were often copied onto new blocks. It’s quite possible that this deck transmits a remnant of the earliest days of tarot.

Hismans reproduced the lines of the original woodcuts with pen and paper and digital drawing. Eight trump and court cards are partly missing from the original sheets and had to be hand drawn with pen on paper to complete them. The cups and coins suits no longer exist and were recreated using other sheets in the Budapest collection.

The areas of stenciled color on the original sheets are faithfully reproduced. Hismans applied paint to paper, photographed it then applied it digitally to the cards. The original yellow has faded to tan, and the red paint shifted toward orange, so Hismans gives us the original bright, cheerful colors. The two highest trumps, Justice and World, have blue areas that may have been hand-colored. These have been duplicated exactly.

The card backs are a black and tan diamond pattern. Only 250 copies were digitally printed on 350 gram card stock with a light glossy finish. They are sturdy yet flexible and not too thick. At 2.25 x 4 inches, the cards are slightly smaller than most decks, but shuffle easily and are very usable.

The Envelope

In previous centuries, cards were packaged for sale in heavy paper envelopes printed with ornate designs and the card maker’s name and address. Hismans learned block carving in order to understand how the lines on the cards were made. He used this skill to carve a unique envelope design, paying tribute to the original printer by incorporating the Fool’s tree branch. The deck is signed and numbered on the inside of the envelope.

Reading with the Budapest Deck

If you’re an experienced TdM reader, the suit of swords will take some mental adjustment. The swords are curved outward and are bound together by a gold crown. The straight sword in the odd numbered cards is uncolored. A curved band behind the sword hilts seems to be holding them in place.

The crown brings to mind worldly power and prestige. Two of the swords court cards are warlike: the Knight is a warrior in armor and the Page is Hercules wearing his lion skin. One could read the sequence from two to ten as a struggle for power and glory. But crowns are worn on the head. Perhaps these crowns are gathering up and focusing thoughts.

If you’re comfortable reading with the Tarot de Marseille, the Budapest deck makes a fun and intriguing alternative.

Get this deck and the Rosenwald deck at Sullivan Hismans’ web page www.TarotSheetRevival.com

When we think of historic tarot decks, the French Tarot de Marseille and early Italian decks quickly come to mind. But I’m ashamed to say that in my nearly twenty years of deck collecting it never occurred to me to think about German tarot decks.

Giordano Berti has corrected this imbalance with his latest production, the Tarot Hes published about 1750 in Augsburg, Germany. The 35-page booklet that accompanies the deck gives a quick survey of German tarot. As a bonus, the booklet quotes several of Mozart’s diary entries where he mentions playing tarot. Tarot de Marseille and Besançon (Jupiter and Juno) type decks were originally imported to Germany from France. By the mid-1700s the game was very popular and decks were being manufactured in Germany.

This deck is a hybrid of the Type I and Type II Tarot de Marseille. On this page I list ten characteristics of a TdM I deck. This deck has five out of the ten. Eight trump cards, the aces of swords and batons and the Chevalier de Bastons are a mirror image of the traditional TdM.

I was immediately struck by the smiling faces. Everyone in this deck looks like they’re really enjoying life, while Death just heard a good joke. The court cards have details you don’t find in the traditional Conver/Chosson TdM pattern: Details on the clothing, nicely turned rails on the chairs, flowers and grass under the horses’ feet.

The cards are 2.5 by almost 5 inches. The card stock is medium-light, rather bendable and has a very silky feel that’s pleasant to handle. The backs have a very pleasant, subtle brown and tan diamond pattern. This is a facsimile of the only copy in existence housed in the British Museum, so signs of aging are present. What looks like mildew is obvious on several cards. It appears in batches of adjacent cards and must have happened after the cards were put in order and stored.

The box designed by Letizia Rivetti opens like a book with a red felt interior. The marbled paper covering the outside is bolder than Berti’s other decks, with large areas of teal green and deep blue. A card is pasted on the front and a numbered card with identifying information is included. The packaging of all of Berti’s decks is a work of art in itself.

This deck is charming, friendly and attractive. I can see myself reading with it.

Published November 2018 in a limited edition of 900.

Stay tuned! Berti will soon release another German deck, the Tarot Miller 1780.

See more card and box images and order it here:

https://rinascimentoitalianartenglish.wordpress.com/marseille-tarot-of-hes-1750/

The deck’s name had me puzzled for a while. It looks French but makes no sense in that language. Then I checked out the creator’s website — Aux Arcs in French is pronounced Ozark, the mountains where the artist lives.

The deck creator, Lori LaPage, says this deck is not a Tarot de Marseille and it doesn’t read like one. But I respectfully disagree. The imagery is solid TdM rendered in acrylic washes and lively black lines that perfectly capture the energy of each card. The higher-numbered swords cards look heavy and sinister, while the cups are in a party mood with their flowers and ribbons. The batons burst with vitality. Every card sings with energy, making it easy to interpret. The backs radiate the same high energy with gold starbursts on deep red.

One of the more whimsical cards, the Page of Coins, looks like he’s puckering up and getting ready to kiss the coin in his hand. Or is it a bagel? The black Papesse, one of my favorites, is colored by the deep mysteries she transmits.

Card titles are in French, and the names on the court cards can be difficult to read, so it helps to have some background with the TdM. The pips are not labelled with the suit name and the trumps have names only, no numbers. Some cards have features that echo earlier historic decks:

• The trump cards do not have numbers, except Death, which is labeled XIII. In older Italian decks it’s often called “The Thirteen” (Il Tredici) to avoid using the “D” word.
• The Tower has one falling figure and is called La Maison Dieu.
• Some Batons look like the straight swords in the Visconti-Sforza deck, and some of their tips look like pens.

The deck is playing card size, 4.75 x 2.75 inches, smooth and easy to shuffle. It comes shrink-wrapped and does not have a card with identifying information, so I made up an index card to keep with the deck before I forgot its vital statistics.

Purchase the deck from PrinterStudio.com for $28 at https://www.printerstudio.com/sell/designs/tarot-de-aux-arcs.html

LaPage’s website https://theluminarian.wordpress.com/ has excellent articles on reading intuitively without spread positions, profiles of court card personalities, and combining suit symbols with numbers.