When we think of the Tarot de Marseille (TdM), France usually comes to mind. But the game of tarot was played throughout Europe, with locally printed decks that had their own unique touches. Giordano Berti has recently produced facsimiles of two German Tarot de Marseille decks. The Tarocchi Miller is a Besançon-style deck where the Pope and Papesse are replaced with Jupiter and Juno.

Tarot arrived in Germany in the mid-1600s, just as the Tarot de Marseille pattern was becoming the dominant style in France. By the 18^th century, Germans were playing the popular game of tarot with decks imported from neighboring regions of France where the Besançon style was very popular. German printers copied this style for their own decks. There are two theories about why the Pope and Papesse were eliminated, and they might both be true depending on the region. It’s surmised that Protestants, who were numerous in eastern France, didn’t want to see Catholic religious figures on their cards. On the other hand, Catholics thought the Pope on a playing card was sacrilegious, and a female pope even worse.

In 1780, the printer Josef Rauch Miller of Salzburg printed a Besançon-style deck with many quirky features that set it apart from a traditional TdM.

The first thing I noticed were the brackets at the top corners of the trump cards with two sets of roman numerals. Perhaps it’s an indication of the political atmosphere of the time, but neither Emperor nor Empress displays the imperial eagle. The Empress has the coat of arms of the town of Salzburg on her shield, while the Emperor has the obligatory tax stamp.

I’m not sure what’s going on in the Lovers card. An old woman wearing a large lace cap (at least that’s what it looks like to me) watches while the lovers clasp hands over a little table. Is she a marriage broker or chaperone? Are they sealing an engagement? Cupid aims his arrow directly at the old woman while she holds a yellow object that I can’t make out in her upper hand.

The Devil is dressed like a clown with the Fool’s feathers in his hair. His companions seem to be hybrid human animal. The one on the left reminds me of a dancing bear.

The bright red lobster on the Moon card floats on his back toward the bridge on the left while waving his claws as if signaling for help. Nearly every trump card has a unique feature that gives this deck a distinct personality – Death’s red skullcap, The Hermit’s short pants and Fu Manchu mustache, and the Hanged Man’s crown and little ruffled skirt.

The Batons and Swords pips appear bold and energetic with their large leaves and flowers rendered in strong colors. The numbers are placed wherever they fit best—for the swords it’s inside the center oval. All the court cards seem well-fed and pleased with themselves. The rather portly Knight of Cups with his pencil mustache looks to me like an ageing Lothario.

The Deck and Book

The cards have a lovely silky feel and rounded corners making them very pleasant to handle. The colors are deep and mellow. Like all of Berti’s decks, the cards come in a gold bag and are housed in a sturdy hand-made box covered in dark blue and maroon marbled paper. The 35-page booklet gives a history of tarot in Germany, and fascinating diary entries by Salzburg citizen Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart mentioning social events where he played tarot.

If you collect historic tarot decks, Berti’s German decks are a nice way to extend the range of your collection.

Berti’s website where you can learn more about the deck and purchase it.

Here’s an article on Besançon type decks. .

In 1931, Leo Mayer discovered a nearly complete deck of medieval playing cards in the Topkapi Museum of Istanbul, giving the world solid proof that European playing cards originated in the Islamic world. With its ornate design and gold accents, this deck is comparable to the hand-painted, gold-embellished decks that were the rage among Italian aristocracy in the mid-15^th century.

The Trzes deck is a modern reconstruction based closely on the original, with fifteen reconstructed cards. The booklet says it’s “a recreation from scratch that makes use of the original design principles…the cards the Mamluk people might have produced, had they access to modern technology, such as vector graphics software or modern printing devices.”

The deck creator wanted to improve on the Mamluk deck published by Aurelia Books in 1972 and 1977 by brightening the colors, eliminating the added blue panels and using vector graphic software to ensure the design was geometrically balanced.

Structure of the Deck

The Topkapi deck is nearly complete with 48 cards including five replacement cards from two other decks. The deck is comprised of four suits numbered Ace through 10 with three or four court cards in each suit (more on that controversy later.) The four suits of Coins, Scimitars, Polo Sticks and Myriads are obvious precursors to Italian playing card suits.

The creator of the Trzes deck calls the 43 original cards Type 1; the four replacement cards from another deck Type 2 (Ace of Polo Sticks, First Deputy of Polo Sticks, 4 of Scimitars and Third Deputy of Coins). Type 3 is one replacement card from a third deck, the 10 of Scimitars. The Trzes deck includes the five replacement cards as a bonus, but the missing cards were recreated as well, giving the deck a very unified feel.

There is so much pattern and ornamentation going on that reading the cards can be overwhelming; so the deck creator thoughtfully supplied a paper showing the essential design elements as well as telling us which cards are recreations and which are based on Type 2 or 3 replacement cards.

The cards are 2.79 x 7.48 inches. The card stock is 310 grams, substantial and lightly coated, so the cards are pleasant to hold and shuffle.

The 8-page booklet discusses the suit symbols and their connection with Chinese games, the structure of the deck with respect to the replacement cards, and the differences of opinion between Mayer and Dummett concerning the court cards.

The Court Card Controversy

In the original deck shown on the website cards.old.no, all court cards have blue panels at the top and bottom with their name in gold on the bottom panel and a few lines of poetry on the top. Instead of a person, each court card has suit symbols: Malik/King has one large suit symbol and an eight-sided tile or stylized flower resting on the bottom blue panel. Unfortunately, only one Naîb (Deputy) and Naîb Thanî (Second Deputy) exist from the original deck, both from the suit of Myriads. They have one and two suit symbols each. This lack of a complete set of court cards, along with replacement number cards that have blue panels like the court cards, has resulted in massive confusion.

Leo Mayer wrote an article in 1931 about his newly discovered deck which was reprinted as a book in 1971. Michael Dummett critiqued this book, as well as the Aurelia Books Mamluk deck published in 1972, in three articles in the Journal of the Playing Card Society in 1973-1974.

Dummett believes the deck originally had 3 court cards in each suit; that Mayer mistook two of the Kings for a fourth rank he called the Helper. He also mistook replacement pip cards with blue panels for court cards. As pip cards were lost from the original deck, replacement cards were brought in from other decks which had blue panels. As more cards were lost these cards were promoted to court cards. As things got confusing, the court cards needed to be labelled with their name on a blue panel at the bottom. At the right is the Third Deputy of Coins from the Trzes deck which seems to have originally been an Ace of Coins that got promoted.

According to Dummett, the researchers behind the Aurelia deck perpetuated the error that there are four court cards per suit. They also believed that pip cards with blue panels came from another deck, so they shifted the blue panels and their inscriptions onto the court cards and redesigned the pip cards.

Apparently, blue panels on certain pip cards were in the original deck, which we can see on photos of the museum cards on the website cards.old.no. These blue panels designated the highest ranking pips of each suit. The suits of coins and polo sticks had reversed ranking, like the suits of coins and cups in game of tarot, with the Ace, 2 and 3 ranking highest. But the suit of Myriads has no blue panels, perhaps due to how this suit functioned in the game.

The Trzes deck follows Mayer in having four court cards per suit. The issue gets down to whether a blue panel always indicates a court card and is never found on a number card, or if the replacement cards came from a deck where all pip cards had blue panels. The Trzes recreation takes a stand with blue panels only on court cards and with a fourth court rank called the Third Deputy. Shown here is a black and white photo of the Two of Polo Sticks from the museum with a blue panel at the top to indicate a high-ranking pip. Next to it is the Trzes recreation without the blue panel.

For the historical purist, I suggest setting aside the five extra replacement cards and the Third Deputies of each suit in the Trzes deck to recreate the presumed structure of the original Mamluk deck.

Historical Background

The Chinese invention of games played with little strips of bamboo that you hold in your hands made its way down the Silk Road through Persia, India and the Arab world. Along the way, bamboo was replaced with papyrus and paper. Cards could be round, square or rectangle and the number of suits in a deck varied. By the 1300s, card playing had reached the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt and taken on the familiar form of four suits numbered ace through ten and three or four court cards.

Arab traders and sailors introduced their card games to ports in Italy and Spain around 1370. In less than a decade, cards proliferated throughout Europe. There was no evolution from intermediate deck styles. Playing cards exploded onto the scene as the familiar 52-card deck we still use. Well into the 15^th century, cards were associated with their place of origin and known as Saracen cards, or Naipes, after one of the Mamluk court cards.

An Early Saracen Deck

We only know about the structure of the first European decks from written sources, since virtually no playing cards exist from those early decades. Then museum curators in Barcelona discovered 15^th-century playing cards being used to stiffen the covers of a book they were restoring. The playing card historian Simon Wintle saw these sheets of cards in the Historical Museum of Barcelona and recognized that they illustrate how Mamluk cards were modified for European tastes. The sevens of each suit are shown here from a deck that was recently printed by Guinevere’s Games. Very little information came with this deck, so we don’t know how many cards were recreated. But Wintle reported there were two sheets of cards in the Barcelona museum. The sheet illustrated in his article contains 12 cards covering all four suits and a variety of numbers. Perhaps with a variety of 24 cards it would be possible to recreate the deck fairly accurately. The suits of Coins and Myriads (Cups) are substantially the same in Mamluk and European decks. Scimitars became straight swords. Polo sticks were unknown in Europe so they eventually morphed into batons. In this deck they are a strange object with a knot in the center that was undoubtably recognizable in 15^th century Spain. Court cards are illustrated with people: a seated King, mounted Knight and standing Page.

Wintle, in the article referenced below, compares the suit symbols in this deck with various early Spanish and Italian decks and doesn’t find compellingly strong correlations. But he concedes that this deck is a Moorish deck with design elements created by a Spanish printer. He speculates on how and where Mamluk decks entered Europe and which early European decks show their influence. But the bottom line is we have very little hard evidence. All we can do is connect the few dots we have and make up stories based on these connections.

How about reading with this deck?

Cartomancers have been putting their readings online; so yes, it can be done. I’ve never read with playing cards, and don’t feel the need to use these cards in spreads for traditional readings. It seems to me, the mind-bending profusion of pattern and ornamentation is the whole point. So I like to scry with these cards. Just stare at one card and get lost in an alternate universe. I see conga lines of flowers, elves wearing leaf hats, clusters of eggs, stars that look like cross-sections of apples, sinuous dragons, ginko leaves blowing bubbles, yonis, and lots of crescent moons. I’m sure you’ll find other things. Gaze at a card with a question or situation in mind and wait for a message.

Trzes’ Mamluk deck, or the Game of Kings and Deputies. Ulrich Kaltenborn (Trzes-art), 2018.

Where to get this deck

https://shop.spiorad.net/

https://www.collectarot.com/MULUK-WA-NUWWAB-Restoration-of-c-1500-Mamluk-Card-p/ta-mwn-2019.htm

Illustrations in this article

Trzes deck: King of Scimitars, 8 of Myriads, Third Deputy of Coins, 2 of Polo Sticks, 4 of Scimitars

Photo of the 2 of Polo Sticks in the Topkapi Museum taken from cards.no.old.

Moorish deck by Guinevere’s Games: the seven of each suit.

References

http://mamluk.spiorad.net/ – website of the Trzes deck creator. Information on the evolution of suit symbols, his design process, translations of the Arabic inscriptions, and his response to Dummett on the blue panels and the number of court cards.

http://cards.old.no/1500-mamluk/  photos of Topkapi museum cards arranged in order.

http://l-pollett.tripod.com/cards64.htm?fbclid=IwAR0hbRV2NXzWrx0FFqM0DYs6Op9Aem2eZYH4a9q-FdBgNfeMhyYrTGCgkMI – Andy’s Playing Cards. Good background on the cards and the Mamluks.

Michael Dummett in the Journal of the Playing Card Society, Volume I, #2, November 1972. Review of the Book Mamluk Playing Cards by L. A. Mayer, published by E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1971.

Michael Dummett in the Journal of the Playing Card Society, Volume II, #2, November 1973. Review: A Reproduction Mamluk Pack With Explanatory Booklet. Published by S.A.R.L. Aurelia Books of Louvain and Brussels – printed by Carta Mundi Turnhout.

Michael Dummett and Kamal Abu-Deeb in the Journal of the Playing Card Society, Volume III, #2, February 1975. Review: Further Comments on Mamluk Playing Cards. Review of an Essay by Richard Ettinghausen, one of the editors of Mayer’s book.

Simon Wintle in the Journal of the Playing Card Society, Volume XV, #4, May 1987. A “Moorish” Sheet of Playing Cards.

I came across this deck on The Gamecrafter while looking for something else and was immediately taken by the graceful, clean lines and minimalist design. The deck designer, Marco Benedetti, is not an artist, although he’s had architectural training, and this is the only thing he’s ever created. The deck is based closely on the Pierpont Morgan Bergamo Visconti-Sforza deck (V-S) with plenty of quirky personal touches, since it was never the creator’s intention to simply redraw the V-S deck.

Benedetti’s goal was to return to the roots of tarot and strip it of the extraneous occult symbols that had been laid on over the centuries. He believes that any symbolism should be implicit in the overall design, so he made his drawings simple and ambiguous to keep the viewer’s imagination from being imprisoned by specific images.

I rarely buy decks just for their aesthetic appeal. The voice in my head always says, “It’s nice but can you read with it?” The answer here is a resounding “yes.” In fact, I find it easier to read with than the 15^th-century original. The court cards are my favorite part of the deck. They’re based very closely on the V-S originals, but stripped down to their essential gesture: The Page of Batons stands and waits, the Knight of Cups comes forward and offers, the King of Swords sits defensively.

As in all historic decks, the aces are elaborate, while Benedetti has stripped the pip symbols to the essential. I asked him why the swords look like TdM pips rather than being straight as in the original V-S deck. I only know European playing cards from studying historic decks, while he’s a native Italian who’s been playing cards since he was a child. In his world, swords with curved scimitars on playing cards seem normal, while straight swords seem peculiar. Then there’s the historic precedent of the Brambilla deck commissioned by the Duke of Milan @1442. Rather than being true to the V-S original, Benedetti went with the design that felt natural to an Italian card player.

This deck is available at The Gamecrafter (see link at bottom). It’s 2.75 x 4.75 inches printed on sturdy card stock with a smooth finish that makes the cards very easy to shuffle. The backs are solid dark red. The tuck box is the same dark red with the title card (Two of Cups) printed on one side, and the Ace of Coins on the back side.

Evolution of the Deck

In 1975, Benedetti encountered Italo Calvino’s novel The Castle of Crossed Destinies and was spellbound by the Visconti-Sforza card on the cover. A few days later he purchased a copy of the deck printed by Monumentale Longobarda. This deck has been his go-to deck and primary reference ever since.

Starting in 1989, he spent two years creating black and white cards – many of them traced from the V-S deck and incorporating some Ferrarese imagery. Once he assembled the cards into an actual deck, he realized it didn’t work for him and he couldn’t read with it.

During a trip to New York City in 1992, he became one of the blessed few who have been invited for a private viewing of the V-S deck in a back room of the Morgan Library. It was then he realized the secret to the cards’ magic is the gold foil.

A friend organized a show of original tarot art in 1996 and invited Benedetti to participate. He created a 78-card deck the same size as the original using Bonifacio Bembo’s 15^th-century technique of tempera paint over gold and silver leaf, painstakingly applied by hand to cardboard. He also created twenty-two over-sized trumps which he framed and entered into the 1996 exhibit. The Hermit shown here is an example of how genuine gold gives a heavenly glow to the cards. I’m rather amazed that Benedetti actually shuffles and reads with his one-of-a-kind gold deck. He applied the gold leaf to a red background, so if the gold wears off from shuffling, the red will show through just like it does in the worn V-S cards. But Benedetti had access to a paint fixative unknown to Bembo so the cards are holding up well with daily shuffling.

When people started asking for decks, he put the first version up for sale on The Gamecrafter in 2014. This deck has been modified in 2016 and 2019.

A Disclaimer and My Own Gold Deck

I have to confess that I’m not entirely objective about this deck. I exchanged numerous emails with Benedetti in early 2019 while he made his latest revisions. I critiqued drafts of his updated cards and we had many discussions about what historic cards to use as models for his designs.

One of our toughest discussions was the Star-Moon-Sun series. In the original V-S deck these are some of the replacement cards created in Ferrara at least 25 years after Bembo’s original deck. Benedetti rejected these as models. The cards went through versions based on the Cary Sheet and the d’Este deck, then settled on a radically different design based on the fact that two of the cards in the original V-S deck show a solitary woman holding either a star or a crescent moon. Benedetti’s cards show the heavenly body along with its associated mythic figure holding its symbolic item: Aphrodite with her dove, Artemis with her bow and Apollo with his lyre.

What about those pesky replacement cards, Devil and Tower, that most publishers get so very wrong? I was very happy to see no anachronistic people on these cards. The Devil with his curved horns and his pitchfork at an angle reminds me of the Devil in Sullivan Hisman’s Rosenwald deck. The Tower conveys the sense of a solid structure suddenly rendered vulnerable and on the verge of destruction.

Shortly after the 2019 revisions were finished and sent to The Gamecrafter, a mysterious package from Italy arrived on my California doorstep (amazingly, at the very moment of the Spring Equinox on a Wednesday afternoon). I was stunned to find myself the recipient of a magically beautiful gold and silver foil version of the deck, considerably larger than the Gamecrafter deck, printed on heavy card stock. And with my name on the title card, no less! It’s housed in a sturdy wood box lined with red paper, a card pasted on the cover and the spine printed in gold. This magical gift has now become the first deck I would save in an earthquake (with Sullivan Hisman’s Budapest and Rosenwald decks not far behind).

I like to set my cards of the day, or my latest spread, in a holder where they stand upright. Then I leave them near a large window in my living room so I can watch the light play on the foil throughout the day. Sometimes the gold has an ethereal glow, other times the silver is highlighted. There are times the center of the card is emphasized and other times light sparkles around the tips of the suit symbols. Watching the cards dissolve into shimmers of light, I see that each card is one scintillating particle in tarot’s perpetually transforming energy patterns.

You, too, can have one of these magical gold and silver foil decks for your own. Just email the deck creator at Tarot@MarcoBenedetti.it to arrange for a printing.

Or, get a print-on-demand deck with a white background at The Gamecrafter:
https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/marco-benedetti-tarot-visconti-homage-edition

For the first and last time on this blog I’m reviewing a deck by a DFO (Dead French Occultist). I usually run out of the room when someone starts in about Kabbalistic associations with tarot (it’s a personal hang-up). But I know a gorgeous deck when I see one. Marco Benedetti’s gold foil edition of Wirth’s 1926 deck is pure magic.

Oswald Wirth drew two versions of his major arcana. Benedetti is offering both of them.

In 1887, Stanislaus de Guaita, founder and grandmaster of L’Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose-Croix, asked Wirth, a member of the order and an amateur artist, to create a deck embodying the order’s teachings, which were heavily influenced by Eliphas Levi. Wirth created 350 copies of his deck, each colored by hand, to be distributed to fellow initiates. The cards, which follow the TdM pattern closely, are rendered with graceful lines and only six colors on a white background, giving them a feeling of purity and simplicity. (See the entire 1887 deck further down in this article).

Benedetti’s gold foil deck is a facsimile of Wirth’s 1926 deck, in what could be called Wirth’s mature style. Intricate borders are integrated with the deck’s figures. The colors are softened and the original background was colored with gold ink. A few cards have minor design changes. The card with the most changes from 1887 is La Papesse who acquires a carved sphinx on her throne and a tai chi symbol on her book cover, while her face is partly covered with a veil.

Benedetti has a long history with the Wirth deck. The U.S. Games version was one of the first tarot decks he ever purchased. He found it aesthetically pleasing and a good transition deck between the TdM and later occult decks; but he wasn’t happy with the colors on any of the available decks. After experimenting with his own colors, Benedetti realized Wirth used subtle shading to give the images depth. Working from a 1926 original, he set about creating a facsimile with a gold foil background. He did numerous trial printings to adjust the luminosity and saturation of the colors and to align the figures with the background, which were sometimes misaligned on Wirth’s original. The result is an exquisitely beautiful and luminous set of cards

Benedetti’s decks are housed in solid wood boxes covered with sturdy paper. The box cover of the 1887 deck is a facsimile of the original packaging. The box cover for the gold deck is a slightly redesigned facsimile, printed in gold, of the cover of the first edition of Wirth’s book, Le Tarot des Imagiers du Moyen-Age. The cards are the original size (5.75 x 3.25 inches) with their original wide white borders, printed on sturdy card stock with plain backs.

This is not a limited-edition print run. Your deck is printed specifically for you, and the inside cover of the box is personalized with your name.

I have a small collection of facsimiles and restorations created by artisans who love tarot, work alone and produce a limited number of decks. These decks have a special aura – you can feel the love and energy that went into them. Benedetti’s golden Wirth has the same aura.

Who was Oswald Wirth?

Over a decade ago, I wrote a series of articles on the foundational masters of tarot, including DFOs like Etteilla and Papus. That exercise solidified my disinterest in occult tarot; but I surprised myself by developing a soft spot in my heart for Uncle Oswald.

Wirth (1860-1943) was an important figure in Rosicrucian and Masonic circles. He had a day job as a civil servant while serving as Stanislaus de Guaita’s secretary. Like most occultists, he believed tarot was designed to embody kabbalistic correspondences and to be an occult key to universal wisdom. He also believed tarot was a product of medieval “imagiers”: the architects, masons and cathedral builders who belonged to guilds that transmitted esoteric symbols and rituals. His deck is the first to have the Hebrew alphabet on the cards, and the first deck to illustrate occult teachings since Etteilla’s in 1787.

For many of us, our opinion of Wirth comes from the redrawn, uglified cards created to accompany the 1966 reprint of his 1927 book Le Tarot des Imagiers du Moyen-Age. The same cards were published in a 78-card deck with a shiny bronze background by U.S. Games in 1976. After seeing Benedetti’s beautiful cards, I’m going to reconsider Wirth.

Why should we care about Wirth?

If you’re like me, you’re probably sticking your nose in the air saying, “I read intuitively with an 18^th-century deck – I don’t need to concern myself with occult tarot”. But you may be limiting your understanding of the cards if you ignore the occultists.

Nearly two decades ago, when I first started learning to read with the TdM, there were no books in English, so I imported books from France and Italy. Nearly every author dedicated his book to Wirth or cited Wirth as a major influence. I suspect many contemporary books on the TdM are infused with Wirth’s teachings. But we’ll never know the extent of his influence if we don’t study the source itself.

I found Wirth to be the most humane and sensible of the European occultists. His writing style is refreshingly clear and conversational, in contrast to the turgid bombast of most occultists. His 1926 deck and 1927 book are the fruits of 40 years studying tarot through a masonic and kabbalistic lens and need to be taken seriously. If it weren’t for the Golden Dawn/Waite Smith tsunami that hit shortly after Wirth’s deck and book were published, tarot in the English-speaking world may have taken a very different, French occultist path.

Wirth teaches us that reading words about tarot only gives second-hand knowledge from someone else – and that goes for reading his book as well. He says you must come to your own truth by contemplating the images and letting them inspire your dreams and imagination. Wirth had the humility to suggest that you look at the cards closely before reading his book; and not depend on anyone’s canned card interpretations, including his own.

Even if I don’t agree with his esoteric philosophy, I’m looking forward to reading his book while laying out his circle and line card patterns using Benedetti’s magical gold deck.

The most accessible way to experience Wirth is the book Tarot of the Magicians published by Weiser in 2012 with an introduction by Mary Greer. Wirth’s 1887 deck is reproduced at the back of the book on heavy card stock so you can cut the cards out and make your own deck.

To see more of this and other decks go to Marco Benedetti Tarot on Facebook.

To acquire your own deck email Tarot@MarcoBenedetti.it

Here’s my review of Benedetti’s gold foil redrawing of the Visconti-Sforza deck

The Dodal/Dodali Tarot, one of the earliest and most historically important Tarot de Marseille (TdM) decks, has been beautifully recreated by Sullivan Hismans at Tarot Sheet Revival, after two years of painstaking craftsmanship. Hismans, who gave us recreations of the Budapest and Rosenwald sheets, is a visual artist fascinated by the physical reality of tarot cards and the craft of card making. His process is the same with all his decks – he examines different versions of the cards available in museum databases, takes the elements apart, then alchemically recombines them to create a transformed, but historically accurate deck.

After giving us recreations of two Italian decks from @1500, Hismans jumped ahead 200 years to 1710 Lyon and recreated what he believes is the perfect TdM, featuring fluid wood carved lines and vibrant facial expressions.

Working Method

Unlike the models for his two Italian decks, the original Dodal decks in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the British Museum are complete and in good condition, so he didn’t have to recreate any lines or entire cards. As a testament to his attention to detail, he left the cracks and breaks in the lines caused by the condition of the original wood blocks.

Hismans recreated the original stencil sheets, colored each card on blank paper, then digitally added the colors to the line drawings. This is what makes the deck extraordinary. The colors have the look of the original stenciling, rather than being clean, bright and neatly inside the lines; which for me, detracts from the historic authenticity.

The deck

Jean Dodal was a card maker working in Lyon in the very early 1700s. On this deck he changed his name to Dodali on the Two of Coins but kept Dodal on the Two of Cups. Dodal Italianized his name because the deck was made for export to Italy. Hismans chose to go with Dodali as the official name for his deck. F P Le Trenge on the four Knights, the Page of Batons, Force and World stands for “Fait Pour L’Étranger” (made for export).

Three cards: Ace of Swords, Ace of Batons and Page of Batons, have slight differences in color and line between the two museums examples; so Hismans created two versions and included both in his deck. The Page of Batons has a different face, but I can’t really see much difference between the Aces.

This deck has many quirks that I find charming:

• Deniers is spelled differently on each of the court cards in that suit.
• The even-numbered batons pips are not reversible – the flowers at either end are different.
• The Queen of Batons is the grumpiest I’ve ever seen.
• The Page of Batons has no label.
• The Chariot is called Charior.
• The Seven of Coins is off-balance.
• The two people falling from the Tower are obviously an old and a young person.
• If you look at the Hanged Man card in his usual upside-down orientation, the Roman numeral is backwards. Hismans believes he’s meant to be head up as in the Vieville and Vandenborre decks (see the top image). But that means someone in the print shop got really confused and put the title upside down.

Why is Dodal Important?

The Dodal/Dodali is one of very few TdM decks with all Type I details. TdM Type II is 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 those of Pablo Robledo, Yoav Ben Dov and Jodorowsky/Camoin are TdM Type II.

The TdM Type I is identical to the Type II but with ten minor differences, like the blindfolded Cupid shown here. Go to this page to see Type I and Type II cards side-by-side.  Historians used to think the TdM I was an earlier version that the TdM II evolved from. Recently we’ve discovered that the Madenié deck of 1709 is earlier than the two oldest complete TdM I decks we know of, the 1710 Dodal and the 1713 Payen. Other early decks with some TdM I features are by Jean Noblet of Paris in 1659 and Rolichon from mid-1600s Lyon. It seems the two types are parallel traditions. TdM I imagery was used from the 17^th to 19^th centuries in decks from many regions. Go to this article for an in-depth discussion of TdM I decks

Two versions of the deck available from Hismans

The printed deck: This deck is a bit over 2.5 x 4.75 inches, printed on sturdy card stock that is very pleasant to handle and shuffle. It feels very similar to Yves Reynaud’s decks – which is a big compliment.

Back in the day, playing cards were packaged in envelopes printed with the card maker’s name, address and logo. Hismans learned wood block carving so he could create his own envelopes. These are unique works of art with their own special magic.

The deck comes with a title card that is initialed and numbered. This is a print run of only 400 so it’s sure to sell out quickly.

A completely handmade deck: Hismans will custom create a completely handcrafted, hand painted deck for you. The cards are laminated by hand using an ancient wheat glue recipe; then the cards are cut by hand. You have a choice of two color styles: The subtle look of the old woodcut, or more intense color and lines for seeing the details more easily. The hand crafted deck is housed in a handmade box with an original unicorn design. This is almost as good as time-travelling back to purchase a deck straight from the Dodal workshop.

LINKS:

Tarot Sheet Revival: Sullivan Hisman’s website where you can see more photos of his decks, learn about his artisanal working methods, and purchase decks.

See TdM I and TdM II cards side-by-side

Read an in-depth discussion of the TdM I

The legendary “da Tortona” deck, grandfather of all tarocchi/tarot decks, is now accessible thanks to a small but incredibly rich book by Ross G. Caldwell and Marco Ponzi; and a recreated deck by Robert Place, The Marziano Tarot.

About 1420, the Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, asked his secretary and advisor, commonly known as Marziano da Tortona, to invent a card game. Marziano created the Game of Sixteen Deified Heroes, a deck of cards with four suits numbered ace to ten and an extra suit of illustrated cards – the same format as the game of trionfi/tarocchi/tarot invented about 15 years later.

The four suits are types of birds: eagle, phoenix, dove and turtledove, with just one court card, a king. Four cards of classical deities and heroes like Juno, Apollo and Hercules are appended to each suit, totaling 16 extra cards. Marziano wrote a book of stories and moral lessons based on each of the sixteen figures, with descriptions to guide the artist in creating the actual deck. This is one model for how the game of trionfi was invented – a courtier devising an allegorical card game to amuse his aristocratic patron.

The duke hired Michelino da Besozzo to create the most beautiful and luxurious deck anyone had ever seen. Da Besozzo was the greatest International Gothic painter and manuscript illuminator in Lombardy at that time. A few decades later, the duke commissioned the best artists of his time, possibly da Besozzo again, to paint what is known as the Brambilla and Modrone tarocchi decks. The deck of sixteen heroes was probably in the same style as these later decks.

The heart of Caldwell and Ponzi’s book, A Treatise on the Deification of Sixteen Heroes, is Marziano’s original Latin text with a translation on the opposite page. The text shows how a typical, early 15^th-century humanist understood his classical heritage, and the thinking that went into an allegorical game.

This book contains more gems than just a reprint of da Tortona. I was delighted to see the deck’s creator rescued from obscurity and his correct name restored. Da Tortona has been used for decades as a tag to identify the deck; but the secretary called himself Marziano da Sant’Alosio, for the town near Tortona where his father was the local lord. Caldwell and Ponzi have ferreted out what little biographical information there is, and even reprinted Marziano’s funeral oration. He couldn’t have had an easy life, flattering and catering to a perverted, sadistic madman. But to his credit, he survived with his reputation and his hide intact.

As a special bonus, there’s a chapter on divination with the deck based on attributing the 16 geomantic figures to the 16 classical heroes. These attributions are made using astrology and mythology appropriate to the late medieval milieu of the deck. We’re taught an ingenious system for creating a geomantic figure with cards, then deriving one of the sixteen heroes from the figure. We’re also given divinatory meanings for the forty pip cards, so the deck could be read using your favorite tarot techniques.

Of course, you need a deck to try out the system. Robert Place has filled the demand by using Marziano’s card descriptions to recreate the deck. The original deck was in the late medieval International Gothic style, lavishly embellished with gold and silver leaf like later decks commissioned by the Visconti duke. What if someone had made a wood block version for popular consumption? Place has imagined what this deck might look like and has given it a humanist flair.

The deck was last heard of in 1449 when it was sent to Isabella, the Duchess of Lorraine and former Queen of Naples and Sicily. I’m very intrigued by the reprint of the cover letter that accompanied the deck. Three men were involved, one of whom went to great pains to track down the deck and book. Who were these men? Why were they so strongly motivated to send a lavish gift to a has-been queen living in seclusion in France? Why were they hanging around a military camp during one of the worst years in that time of non-stop warfare? Where was the deck and why was it so difficult to find? How did it get lost again? Further down, I read between the lines of the letter to fill in historic details and add speculations of my own.

Get the book at Lulu.com
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/scholion?fbclid=IwAR1GgIUdA8OLmR8OG0qlekrSBqJ0dRWtQyKPmaddYix8cKfA1NrieRRdo8Y

Get the deck at  https://robertmplacetarot.com/  and be sure to check out the rest of the website while you’re there.

The Deck of Sixteen Deified Heroes Goes to France

In November 1449, Jacopo Antonio Marcello sent the deck in question, along with a block printed trionfi deck, to Isabella, former Queen of Naples and Sicily, accompanied by a cover letter that’s reprinted in Caldwell and Ponzi’s book. In his letter, Marcello tries to impress on Isabella just how much trouble he suffered locating such a magnificent gift.

Queen Isabella was the only child and heir of the Duke of Lorraine. In 1431, she married René of Anjou who inherited the kingdom of Sicily/Naples and ruled it from 1435 to 1442, when he lost the throne to Alfonso of Aragon. Isabella left Naples and returned to Lorraine in 1440. She retired to her country estate in 1445, leaving Lorraine’s administration to her son, John of Calabria. She died in 1453.

Marcello wrote his letter to the ex-queen from Francesco Sforza’s military headquarters at Monselice, below Padua. Marcello says he’s in charge of the troops “of our most brilliant republic” (Venice) which were sent as reinforcements “while together we were waging war against Milan”. For most of 1449, Sforza and Venice were allied in a struggle against the Ambrosian Republic of Milan. Marcello was Venice’s representative and spy in Sforza’s headquarters, making sure the condottierro did Venice’s bidding.  But in September of that year, Venice betrayed Sforza and signed a separate treaty with Milan.

In November, when this letter was written, Sforza and Venice were bitter enemies. I don’t see how a Venetian could still be in Sforza’s headquarters, unless it was due to the friendship between Sforza and Marcello. Sforza controlled the countryside around Milan and was in the process of successfully starving the city. At the same time, the Venetian army, led by Sigismondo Malatesta, was pushing towards Sforza’s territory from the northeast.

Marcello tells the queen that a friend, Scipio Caraffa, had just arrived from Provence. During a conversation, Marcello showed him a deck of trionfi cards that he had recently received as a gift. Evidently, trionfi decks were still new and exotic, since Caraffa had never seen one before and thinks it would make a splendid gift for Isabella. It must have been a plain woodblock deck, because Marcello said he spent some time looking for a “highly skilled artisan” to make improvements to the deck.  At that time, it was customary to purchase an uncolored deck then take it to your own artist to have it painted, and even gilded, if that was within your budget.

Marcello couldn’t find an artist to his liking, and he didn’t think the plain deck was good enough for someone of Isabella’s exalted rank. So he decided to track down the “new and exquisite sort of triumphs” that Filippo Maria Visconti was said to have had created.

Assuming that Caraffa made his trip from Provence to Italy in spring or early summer, Marcello probably spent the summer of 1449 tracking down the deck. By this time, the ducal palace in Milan, and its surrounding neighborhood, had been looted and was a total shambles. The Duke’s possessions were scattered or destroyed, and the citizens of Milan were prostrate with starvation. Marcello says he found the deck by pure luck with the help of the “enemy”, possibly someone within the Ambrosian Republic. That must have been tricky, since by this time Milan was devolving into a state of violent anarchy with mass executions of the upper class.

But I think Duke Filippo probably kept his deck at his primary residence, the castle at Pavia, which I don’t believe was looted.

When Milan made itself the Ambrosian Republic the very night the Visconti duke died, Pavia declared its independence; then a year later put itself under the protection of Sforza and made him Count of Pavia. Il Bolognino, a loyal friend of Sforza, was in charge of the castle; and Sforza’s mother-in-law, a former mistress of Duke Filippo, was in residence. During the last miserable months, when Milan was caving in, Sforza’s wife Bianca, daughter of the duke and his mistress, along with numerous relatives, occupied the castle. Perhaps someone took advantage of the confusion immediately after Filippo’s death to make off with the deck. Marcello must have circulated the word that he was interested in purchasing it. Since the deck was known and talked about, it would have been difficult to fence. The thief was probably happy to unload his stolen merchandise at a bargain price.

Marcello gave Marziano’s deck, along with his more humble trionfi deck, to Giovanni Cossa to deliver to Isabella. Marcello, Caraffa and Cossa were friends of Francesco Sforza and life-long supporters of the house of Anjou. They had hitched their wagons to the Anjou star and it would be in their interest to see René of Anjou returned to the throne of Naples. The men shuttled back and forth between France and Italy carrying messages, spying, counter-spying, and intriguing to topple Alfonso from the throne and reinstate René. The gift was probably meant to ingratiate them with Isabella, who would hopefully remember them once she and her husband were reinstated on the throne — which didn’t come close to happening.

But things turned out well for the three men. Cossa, who was a nephew and heir of one of the anti-popes, John XXIII, had a distinguished career as a French diplomat and died with a string of impressive titles after his name. Marcello stayed in the Monselice area, served a term as Podestà of Padua and was a respected patron of the arts. Caraffa enjoyed a successful career as a Venetian ambassador.

Let’s assume the deck actually arrived at Isabella’s residence. What could have happened to it? She died three years later and her son, John of Calabria (1426 -1470), who was her only heir, presumably inherited all her stuff. John spent the 1460s in Italy waging futile wars to retake the throne of Naples. In 1470 he went to Spain to press his claim to the Spanish throne and was poisoned there. He had five legitimate and numerous illegitimate children. Did one of them take the deck? Or a light-fingered servant or courtier? Whoever possessed the deck possibly didn’t take the book because they were only interested in the deck as a valuable object to sell or pawn.

We are very fortunate that Marziano’s book has been preserved in Paris. This book gives us a larger context for the development of allegorical card games and the creation of the ancestor of tarot. I’m grateful to Caldwell and Ponzi for making this slice of early renaissance history accessible to English-speaking readers, and to Franco Pratesi who did the original research.

References:

Ady, Cecilia. A History of Milan Under the Sforza. Reprinted by Forgotten Books, 2012.
Originally published in New York and London, 1907.

De Gregorj, W. Terni. Bianca Maria Visconti. Bergamo, 1940.

Robin, Diana. Filelfo in Milan. Princeton University, 1999.

http://trionfi.com/jacopo-antonio-marcello-venetian-provedittore

http://trionfi.com/scipio-caraffa-venetian-diplomat

http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1426

There’s something compelling about the Rosenwald deck. It’s enough like the Tarot de Marseille to feel comfortable; yet its quirky details give it a slightly exotic tone. For a transcendent experience, hold Benedetti’s gold and silver Rosenwald cards in your hands.

Benedetti worked from high resolution scans of the original uncut sheets held in the Rosenwald Collection in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. He filled in broken lines, restored parts of cards that were obliterated, and created a Fool. Many historians believe the Bagatto, wearing a jester’s hat with ass’s ears, is a combination Fool and Bagatto.  Benedetti disagrees, so he created a Fool card based on a Florentine print of a beggar from the same time period as the deck. Then he added elegant colors and printed the deck with gold and silver foil.

Why the Rosenwald deck is important

We have very little evidence for the tarot cards ordinary people played with in the 15^th century. Only two decks from that century survive because they were never cut up into individual cards. The sheets of uncut cards were used as filler in book bindings preserved in archives, so they didn’t incur same fate as most playing cards – used up and tossed in the fire.

Three versions of Benedetti’s Rosenwald deck

Benedetti is offering three versions of the deck: a standard size print-on-demand deck and two custom printed decks in the original size, 2 x 3.5 inches. A court card from each deck is  shown here.

• Print on demand deck from Gamecrafter: standard white background, 2.75 x 4.75 inches, green back, tuck box the same green with the Bagatto on the cover.
• Colored cards on a white background with your choice of a wooden box or an envelope, in the same size as the original historic cards, 2 x 3.5 inches.
• Colored cards with a gold background for the trumps and court cards, gold and silver foil accents throughout, in a customized wooden box covered in soft mint green paper. The box cover is printed with gold, a Bagatto card is pasted to the front and the inside cover is personalized with your name.

The box is solid wood and custom made for the deck. The box for the white deck is covered with white paper printed in black with the Bagatto printed on the cover. The envelope is very sturdy, printed in black on smooth green paper that’s a pleasure to handle.

This is not a limited-edition print run. Your deck is printed especially for you. The box is customized with your name and the number of the printing.

To arrange for a custom-printed deck email Tarot@MarcoBenedetti.it.

Get a print-on-demand deck with a white background at The Gamecrafter:
https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/rosenwald-tarot-completed-by-marco-benedetti?dept_uri=tarot&dept_name=Tarot

See more card photos on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarcoBenedettiTarot/

Benedetti has created two other decks printed in gold foil which are reviewed on this site:

Benedetti Tarocchi based on the Visconti-Sforza tarot

Oswald Wirth trumps

Sullivan Hismans at Tarot Sheet Revival has done historic recreations of the only two block printed 15^th century decks that survive: the Budapest and the Rosenwald.

https://www.tarotsheetrevival.com/en/home/

A square Tarot de Marseille with cards that can be turned in any direction! Pips arranged in triads according to a system described by the French occultist Papus. This radically unique deck will spark your intuition and give you a solid system for interpreting the pips. The sixty-page booklet that comes with the deck gives you everything you need to read with it. It’s great fun playing with the possibilities in these cards. Let’s look at each component of the deck in detail.

The Trumps

The hand-drawn images have a charming folk-art feel. Every card has a stream of water that links it to neighboring cards, as well as atmosphere and vegetation you don’t find in traditional decks. Two cards stray from the TdM tradition: The Empress is Waite-Smith-ish with wheat and a waterfall. Judgment has no people, just a large angel and trumpet. The deck comes with Jupiter and Juno cards to substitute for the Pope and Papesse if you wish. I’m going to keep them aside to use as significators, on the rare times I need them.

Each trump has a range of meanings depending on its orientation. Upright is optimal. If the figure is face down it’s gone to extremes and is falling on its face. A figure on its back facing up is weak, hesitant, delayed, and not fully expressing its potential. A reversed card is blocked or behaving badly. To read interpretations for each trump, find the card in the booklet, turn the page so the card has the same orientation as in your spread, then read the keywords at the top of the page.

I like this system. It gets you thinking about a range of meanings for each card – expressing too much or too little of the card’s core meaning. The booklet’s interpretations are easily transferred to a more traditional deck.

There’s plenty here for intuitive reading: one figure stepping on another, the rain in one card falling on an adjacent card, the wind blowing through multiple cards, figures mirroring each other. The deck comes with a paper outlining steps for getting acquainted with the trumps that are useful with any new deck.

Reading the Pips

If you’re floundering with learning the pip cards and need a system, this deck embodies a tradition from 19^th-century France that can be used on any deck with non-scenic pips. Remember “Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis” from philosophy class? It’s the bedrock of this system. In each suit, Ace, two and three are the thesis or commencement of a situation. Four, five and six are the antithesis or opposition to the commencement. Seven, Eight and Nine are the synthesis, resolution or equilibrium of the situation.

Like an interlocking chain, each card has a function within its own triad. Ace is the commencement of the commencement; Two is the opposition of the commencement, and so on. Card six is the equilibrium or resolution of the opposition triad, and card eight is the opposition of the equilibrium/resolution triad. Ten is either a summation or uncertainty.

There are twelve pip cards in the deck, three for each suit, since each triad is shown on one card, and ten is included with the final triad. In a reading, whichever pip is at the top of the rotated card is the only one read. As with the trumps, the booklet gives keywords for each card which you find by turning the page to the same orientation as the card in your spread.

Court Cards

There are four court cards in the deck, one for each suit. Their appearance and interpretation are traditional and similar to what you find in most TdM books. These cards are a handy resource for getting acquainted with the TdM courts.

Tarot: A Strange and Wondrous Thing

This 388-page, spiral-bound book can be purchased separately from the deck. It stands up to any of the classic Tarot de Marseille books available today. Detailed divinatory meanings are given for each card. The cards are analyzed from many angles: number, colors, details of vegetation and variations between different historics decks are discussed. Read excerpts from the book on the website (link below).

How to do a reading

The sixty-page booklet that comes with the deck has all you need for interpreting a spread. It has keywords for all the cards, an explanation of the triadic structure of the pip cards, spreads, and instructions for shuffling the cards and doing a reading.

The tops of the cards can point in four different directions. To make this happen, interrupt your shuffling three times, grab several cards and turn their tops to the left, right or bottom. Or easier still – just spread the cards out and stir them around in a pile.

There are certain limitations with this deck: You can’t get two court cards of same suit in a spread; and you can’t get two pip cards of same suit from the same triad – for instance the Two and Three, or Seven and Eight, of one suit. There are only four court cards and twelve pip cards, so these don’t show up as much in a spread and have more weight when they do. Since the pip cards have precise meanings, I take them as the final answer. Get around this limitation by dividing the deck into trumps, court cards and pips, then picking one card from each stack for a three-card spread.

Turning the trump cards in four directions and reading them intuitively more than makes up for these constraints. I’ve done many readings with this deck and never felt limited. The booklet gives several spreads: A line of 3 cards and a grid of four or nine cards based on a past-present-future layout. I’ve shown a sample reading at the end using my favorite technique: laying four cards in a grid with no spread positions.

About the Deck Creator

Annette Wakulenko became fascinated with tarot as a child when she saw an old block-printed card in a book. Her passion, which I share, is to deliver tarot from the grip of the Golden Dawn/Waite Smith paradigm and introduce Americans to European decks and reading styles. She drew the cards herself in the style of block printing, then took early retirement to devote herself to the deck and book. This project is the product of fourteen years’ labor of love. Her passion for tarot shines through every page.

What’s on the Website www.arcanaPress.net

Get a feel for her system by reading book excerpts.

Find detailed interpretations of the trumps under the “Articles” tab

The Marseille Minis section has sample readings.

How to Get the Deck and Book

Ordering is low tech. Download and print an order form on the website and mail it in with a check or money order. USA only.

Sample Reading

I shuffled the deck while turning the cards randomly in all four directions. Then I laid out a grid of four cards with no specific spread positions. You only read the top quadrant of the pip and court cards.

My Question: For four years, I’ve been submitting articles on tarot to a certain magazine. Next year the magazine is either going to have a new owner or it will cease publication. What does this mean for the series of articles I’ve been working on?

The Sun: This card is tilted so the sun is on the eastern horizon. Sunrise is a time of increasing light and energy. My articles are written in collaboration with another author, so the two figures on the card are appropriate. This is an optimistic card of bright prospects.

Six of Coins: In the Triadic system, Six is the equilibrium of the opposition triad. The booklet tells me that gains and losses are balanced out. I’ll lose the magazine, but I have an idea for another platform for the series. The Sun gives this card a positive spin.

Emperor: Upright, he represents tradition, stability and wisdom. Since I write about history and tradition, this represents my writing project. The Emperor seems to be handing his staff of authority to the Knight of Swords. The booklet says the Knight represents good news and speed.

It seems I’ll lose my current publishing outlet, but it won’t matter because I’ll take off full speed with an alternative.

I discovered this spread in a booklet by Giulia Orsini included in the Lando Tarocchi produced by Giordano Berti. It works best for providing an overview of a situation and for advice on how to get the outcome you want. I don’t often use spreads, but I was attracted to this one because it has features I like: The trumps are separated from the suit cards; only one suit is used – whichever fits the question best; and it resembles the Tirage à Croix (fancy name for the Cross Spread).

To prepare for the reading, shuffle the 22 trump cards separately. Choose a suit for the reading, pull those 14 cards out of the deck and shuffle them separately. (I use Cups for the reading below since it’s about a hoped-for relationship). In the layout shown below, cards 1, 2 and 3 are trump cards, and A and B are suit cards. X is a trump card derived from the sum of cards 1, 2 and 3.

Spread Positions (I’m assuming you’re doing the reading for yourself).

1 – Yourself in the situation

2 – How your own actions, thoughts, attitudes work AGAINST you

A – How other people and external circumstances work AGAINST you

3 – How your own actions, thoughts, attitudes work FOR you

B – How other people and external circumstances work FOR you

X – How the situation might evolve; or advice for getting what you want

Sample Reading

The question comes from one of Cinderella’s nasty step-sisters:

I’ve heard that the Crown Prince fell hard for some bubble-head at the ball the other night. The ninny dropped one of her shoes on the palace steps. Now the Prince is going door to door throughout the kingdom trying to match the shoe to the foot. Of course, it’s not my shoe — but I want the prince! I’ve known all my life that I was born into the wrong family. I was meant for wealth and power. Now I want my destiny fixed! Tell me how I can get the Prince to recognize me as his rightful wife.

Here’s my interpretation of the layout shown at the top with the Lando deck.

1 – La Papesse.  Yes, you certainly feel entitled to sit on a throne and wear a crown.  You believe it was written in the book of fate that it should be so.

2 – La Maison (The Tower).  Your take-no-prisoners attitude and ruthless willingness to do anything to achieve your goal may be a bit of a turn-off for the Prince.

A – 3 of Cups.  The Prince has seen the woman he believes he’s destined to marry, and he’s holding that vision in his mind as he searches throughout the kingdom. This is going to be difficult to overcome.

3 – Le Diable.  One thing you have going for you is your all-consuming focus and determination.  You have tremendous powers to magnetize people and situations and create your own reality.

B – 6 of Cups.  The prince’s path leads him straight to your front door. By the time he arrives at your house he may be discouraged from his long search and be susceptible to your magic.

X – La Moreux.  (The three trump cards add up to 33.  3 + 3 = 6).  You’re going to need some powerful magic to deflect Cupid’s arrow away from the prince’s beloved and point it toward yourself. The Devil card tells me you have the power and the know-how to do this.  If you need help, I was talking to a boy named Hansel the other day who told me about a powerful witch living in a cottage in the woods. If you visit her, take a big bag of pastries and an extra-large pizza. You don’t want her feeling hunger pains while you’re there.

Here’s my review of the Lando deck. It’s a Piemontese/Piedmont deck with many features of a TdM Type I.

The deck was produced by Giordano Berti at Rinascimento Italian Art

This beautifully illustrated catalog is a rare opportunity to see cards that have been hidden for centuries, until this exhibit on display from September 2019 to January 2020 at the Castello Ursino, Catania. The text of each chapter is either fully translated or summarized in English.

Sicily’s unique playing card and tarot tradition was unknown to the outside world until Michael Dummett did research there in 1973. Tarocchi was a very popular game in Sicily from the 16^th to 19^th centuries, but had nearly vanished by the mid-20^th century. Dummett discovered only a few villages where the game was still played. Many people he talked to, including playing card merchants, had never heard of Tarocco Siciliano. But the deck and game may be experiencing a renaissance thanks in part to Dummett’s interest and support. Shown here is the most popular contemporary Sicilian deck published by Modiano of Trieste.

Sicilian Tarot is a living fossil, preserving features from now-vanished 16^th and 17^th century Italian decks. Some of the trump cards are derived from the Minchiate deck; and it’s the only deck in Europe that still uses Portuguese pips. The suits of coins and cups are very similar to the Italian suit symbols we know from the Tarot de Marseille; but the swords are straight and the batons are fat cudgels. The deck has four court cards: King, Queen, Knight and Lady. Here’s a “La Fortuna” deck from 1855 showing some typical Sicilian trump cards.

Religious images in the standard tarot deck have been replaced by images from the Minchiate deck. The Devil was replaced by the Ship. The Angel (Judgment) is now Jupiter and the World is depicted as Atlas holding up a globe. There is no Pope or Papessa. The Miseria card has no number nor points value and is placed below the Bagatto which is called Piciotti (The Boys). A Roman tarocchi deck with these images was exported to Sicily in the 16^th century, became the standard gaming deck, and evolved in isolation through the centuries.

The So-Called Alessandro Sforza deck

Because of my interest in very early tarot, I was especially excited about the 15^th-century hand painted and gilded tarocchi deck in the Castello’s collection. (The World card from this deck is on the catalog cover illustrated at the top). It’s comprised of four trumps, the King of Swords and ten pip cards. The symbols on the King’s shield led people to associate the cards with Alessandro Sforza, the Lord of Pesaro. But it’s more likely to point to Niccoló III d’Este, the Duke of Ferrara. The Empress and Two of Batons belonging to the same deck were recently discovered in a private collection in Palermo. The so-called Charles VI hand-painted deck in the BNF in Paris is so similar to this deck that it must come from the same workshop. The correlation between these sets of cards has been written up in detail by Emilia Maggio in The Playing Card, Volume 44, number 4, pages 256 to 268.

Ludwig Pollack

I was very gratified to see an unknown hero of tarot history getting recognition for his work on the hand-painted Ursino (Alessandro Sforza) deck. Ludwig Pollack (1868 to 1943) was a prominent archaeologist and art connoisseur who advised museums and important collectors like J.P. Morgan and Sigmund Freud. In 1925, he and another man were hired to catalog the collection in the Museo Biscari before it was transferred to the Castello Ursino. He described the fifteen hand painted cards in detail, including the backs, which were totally obscured during a 1987 restoration. The cards are constructed of laminated layers of recycled paper. Pollack noticed a 1428 date on one of the papers. The Empress in the Palermo collection has a similar paper dated 1428, making it certain that the two sets of cards belong together, and placing this deck in the 1430s, very close to the time of tarot’s invention.

Pollack’s portion of the Biscari catalog was never published and had been totally forgotten until his write-up of the cards was found by chance in the Castello Ursino archives in 2014. His meticulous descriptions allow us to know things about the cards that it’s impossible to see in their current state. His belated recognition is especially poignant since his house and possessions were confiscated and he, his wife and his children disappeared into a German concentration camp. No record of their ultimate fate has ever been found.

This beautiful catalog, with color illustrations on nearly every page, is a treasure house of lost knowledge that has been restored and reclaimed for us and for the future.

Where to get the catalog:

I got mine from Il Meneghello in Milan. Email info@IlMeneghello.it for a price plus shipping then order it with Paypal.

I’ve heard you can order it directly from the Museo Civico di Castello Ursino in Catania.

References:

Michael Dummett, The Game of Tarot. London: Duckworth, 1980. p. 371-386

It’s fun to read Dummett’s chapter on Sicilian tarot alongside the catalog. You can see all the decks he describes in his book, and even see things he regrets not seeing himself, like the Murari deck on page 74.

See 20^th-century Sicilian playing cards here:  https://www.wopc.co.uk/italy/sicilian

Limited edition Sicilian deck in water color by Lelio Bonaccorso, Sicily, 2016

This phantom of the tarot world is possibly the earliest Tarot de Marseille we know of. The only traces of the Rolichon tarot’s existence are a brief listing in an 1851 French auction catalog, and reproductions of thirty-five cards in the July 1919 edition of the Larousse Mensuel magazine. The deck itself has disappeared, so Benedetti’s careful recreation is a wonderful opportunity to experience this important piece of tarot history.

Dating the Deck

A close examination of the cards reproduced in the magazine shows the Rolichon is nearly identical to both the Jean Dodal tarot printed in Lyon before 1715, and the Payen tarot printed in Avignon in 1713. Rolichon contains details from both decks, and may represent an early tarot tradition focused in eastern France.

The Two of Coins reproduced in the magazine identifies the printer and his city, but unfortunately, not the date. A Rolichon family of card makers was registered in Lyon from 1570 to 1670. If this deck was printed no later than 1670, then it’s by far the earliest standard TdM we know of.

The Rolichon tarot follows the TdM I pattern closely, and may show us what the TdM looked like before it diverged into the standard TdM II pattern in the early 18^th century. (If you need a reminder of the difference between the TdM I and II patterns, click the link at the end of this article).

The Restoration by Marco Benedetti

Fortunately, the 1919 illustrations show all the trumps and a careful selection of suit cards: each court rank, an example of each suit symbol, and all four aces.

Benedetti worked from the original 1919 magazine and drew on both the Dodal and Payen decks to recreate ten court and thirty-one pip cards. The color scheme in both decks is identical, so Benedetti re-created the historic colors in a rich palette inspired by Jean-Claude Flornoy’s hand painted decks.

Here are some of my favorite cards. I really appreciate the subdued deep red and antique gold of the pips. On the Ace of Swords, it looks like the tips of two gold fountain pens are emerging from the palm leaf on the right. Dodal has this same feature. The Moon’s face looks like a plump lunar goddess. The dolphins in many decks are fierce and dragon-like. These happy creatures remind me of dolphins playing in the surf in the Santa Barbara Channel. The variety of facial expressions are one of the best features of this deck. You can see a sample at the bottom of this article.

Obtaining a deck

Gamecrafter has an inexpensive standard deck, 2.75 x 4.75 inches, on bright white paper in a tuck box. Unlike other historic decks, Rolichon’s unique width to height ratio allows it to be printed without distortion on Gamecrafter’s standard card stock.

Ordering a deck directly from Benedetti gives a unique opportunity to customize your deck with a choice of two sizes: Standard 60 x 105 mm, or Mini 50 x 90 mm (2 x 3.5 inches). He offers a range of paper selections: 300 gpm cotton paper either textured or smooth, in natural (light cream) or bright (soft white). Or, you can choose standard playing card stock, coated or uncoated, at 250 or 300 gpm. The cards that illustrate this article are mini size in textured natural cotton. The weight of the textured cotton is substantial, but the cards are flexible, and have a pleasant, smooth feel. The texture is subtle and does not blur the lines or soften the rich colors.

As with all Benedetti’s decks, it’s housed in his trademark handmade wooden box (optional) that’s personalized on the inside cover.

Email tarot@marcobenedetti.it to order a customized deck.

Links

Gamecrafter: https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/tarot-de-marseille-of-nicolas-rolichon

See the entire deck and read more background history.

Benedetti’s facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MarcoBenedettiTarot/

See the Larousse magazine illustrations, a size comparison of the cards, plus all his other decks.

My reviews of Benedetti’s decks:

Rosenwald

Wirth

I Tarocchi Marco Benedetti

Illustrated guide to the difference between the TdM I and TdM II

The Rolichon Queens

Introduction

One of the most exciting events in my twenty years of collecting historic decks occurred in 2017 when Sullivan Hismans (Tarot Sheet Revival.com) introduced the Budapest Tarot. He meticulously recreated a very important fifteenth-century deck that only exists in museum collections as partly damaged uncut sheets of cards. This limited edition of 250 decks sold out quickly and has become a favorite reading deck of the lucky few who own one. Hismans just released another edition of 450 Budapest decks with some changes that I’ll illustrate below. But first, I want to put the deck in its historic context.

The Budapest Deck’s Historic Importance

In the mid-1400s, 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 the tarot cards that are familiar to us? We can’t be sure because not a single printed tarot card survives from the mid-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 and the same 22 trumps that we have today. But we don’t know how closely these custom 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. A stencil was laid on the sheet for brushing on paint, 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 playing cards will be found glued inside the covers. Many of these sheets made their way into museums and private collections, and are known by the name of the collection where they reside.

The Budapest Sheet

Sheets and stencils related to the Budapest Tarot are found in several collections. The tarot sheets held by the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest are the most significant. They 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 examples of cards printed from the same wood blocks were preserved, or this particular deck was very popular.

All the traditional 22 trumps are present, but some cards have slightly different designs. The Bagatto has a crowd of onlookers behind him. The Lovers are a courting couple with Cupid helping things along. The Fool seems like a shamanic figure leading a procession. 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 clothing styles go back to the very early days of tarot in the 1440s. Playing card designs are 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 vestiges of the earliest days of tarot.

Hismans’ Working Methods

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 of cards in the Budapest collection.

To reproduce the original stenciled colors, 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 restored 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 backgrounds are a photograph of textured paper that recreates the look of hand laid paper.

Differences with first edition

(In all the examples below the 1st edition is on the left with the 2^nd edition to the right).

The bright, sunny yellow has shifted to darker and more orange in many cards. You can see it on Death’s horse, shown here, and the lion at the top. Hismans believes this is more balanced and closer to the color tone of the original sheets.

The Emperor on the original sheet is only a fragment and must be redrawn. Hismans’ new version has a sketchier face. He holds his globe and staff in opposite hands and the staff is upright.

The coins and cups suit cards that accompanied the Budapest trump cards no longer exist. For his first edition, Hismans consulted sheets of suit cards in the Budapest museum from the same time period, then used them to create his own version, which was influenced by the French TdM.

For the second edition, Hismans stayed closer to the original sheets. In the suit of coins, 6, 7 and 9 have a different configuration; and the coins are two different sizes in 4 and 5. In the suit of cups, a hand holds the ace chalice. The cups have a different shape, and in 5 and 8 they are distributed differently.

The Envelope

In previous centuries, cards were packaged for sale in heavy paper wrappers 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 uses this skill to carve unique envelopes for each of his decks, paying tribute to the original printers by using designs from their cards. This edition has an entirely new envelope featuring the Sun, Moon and the Fool’s tree branch. The colors are hand stenciled, and each deck is initialed and numbered on the side of the envelope, making it a unique work of art.

The 350 gram card stock is identical to the first edition. The backs are the same, as well as the size (2.75 x 4 inches). The deck shuffles easily and is very usable. Because the trumps have no titles, are numbered differently and the numbers are hard to read, we’re given two cards with a key to the names and numbers. If you’re comfortable reading with the Tarot de Marseille, the Budapest deck makes a fun and intriguing alternative.

About the Artist

Hismans first discovered tarot about age fourteen when he started reading with a Grimaud Tarot de Marseille. This sparked a spiritual quest that led him to read Plato and hermetic and gnostic texts. Now he uses tarot for creative inspiration rather than divination. His current passion is to give new life to forgotten handcrafted decks, and to understand the technical processes involved in block printing and engraving. Ultimately, he would like to create a completely handcrafted deck.

Reading with this deck makes me happy. The colors are a big factor. It’s a friendly, unpretentious deck that would be comfortable in a tavern. It doesn’t take itself seriously like those aristocratic gold decks. I get chills realizing I’m handling a deck that people used 500 years ago; and I’m seeing exactly what they saw. There are only 450 copies, so don’t miss out.

See more photos and order the deck here:

https://www.tarotsheetrevival.com/en/product/budapest-tarot/

References

• Private communication with Sullivan Hismans at http://www.TarotSheetRevival.com
• The Budapest Museum of Fine Arts: http://www.PrintsandDrawings.hu
• Kaplan, Stuart R. The Encyclopedia of Tarot, Vol. I, pp 130-131, Vol. II, pp 271-285
• Many thanks to Iolon at http://www.TarotWheel.net for providing high resolution images of the original sheets

Page of Cups Visits the Author’s Hometown

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

You will also need a method for randomly generating three numbers from 1 to 22. Jodorowsky asks his clients to give him three random numbers. But if the querant knows about tarot, they’ll be tempted to give you the numbers of the cards that will give the best outcome. There’s probably a way of doing this with dice, or a random number generating app, but I put 22 little squares of paper in a bag with the numbers on them. To select my numbers, I shake up the bag, dump the papers out on my spread cloth, and the three that fall closest to me are used to pull my cards, in the order that the numbers fall on the cloth.

Here’s a sample reading to demonstrate this method.

My question: how should I focus my deck purchases?  Should I buy whatever grabs my attention? Only decks I will probably read with? Or save my money for something really spectacular?

First step: When I dumped out the bag, these numbers were lined up close to me: 16 – 5 – 19. Using Sullivan Hismans’ hand painted Jacques Vievil trumps, I picked out the cards with the corresponding numbers: from left to right: Tower, Pope, Sun.

The Tower/Foudre shows me bombarded with so many decks to see and buy online.  On the other side, I’m in the Sun card galloping off to Paypal waving my credit card. The two side cards blend together in the center. The storm clouds and the sun become the Pope, a towering authority figure. The figures on the side cards realize they are out of control and they’ve come to beg the Pope for advice.

The second step is to get a commentary on the first line of cards. I shuffled the golden Oswald Wirth deck produced by Marco Benedetti. Then I counted down from the top of the deck, put the 5^th card over the Pope, then kept counting and put the 16^th and 19^th cards in their positions.

The Empress is saying that all those purchasing opportunities bombarding me demonstrate the abundance of the universe. The sheep are my existing deck collection. I should enjoy what I have and regard spending money on decks as sharing my abundance with the deck creators.

A Trickster comments on the Pope. He’s pointing to the coin on his table saying “don’t trust that old guy with the beard when it comes to financial advice.”  The two weird effigies on the posts behind the Pope show he has his shadow side.

Judgment: the blond guy in the center with his back to us is the same guy on the horse. Before I gallop off wielding my credit card, I need a shift to a higher perspective in order to make better choices.

I didn’t get a clear answer, so I used the Wirth deck that I just shuffled to pull a card for final advice. The Moon – yikes!! I’m really not seeing things objectively and should just chill out for now.

Here’s another reading where I reversed the steps and put cards from the shuffled deck in the first row.

Question: I’m a housekeeper for seven men who work in the mines and live far out in the woods. They aren’t too difficult to work for. They’re mostly happy, although one is kind of dopey. But it’s very lonely. I can’t have friends over because I’m hiding out in fear for my life (complicated story). An old woman has been coming around every day acting friendly and offering me apples to eat. She seems nice enough, and I would love to invite her in, but I’ve been warned not to talk to anyone. What should I do?

The toss from the bag got me 3 – 19 – 1. This time I shuffled Lo Scarabeo’s oversized gold foil Visconti-Sforza trumps, counted down to the 1st, 3rd and 19th cards and put them in their proper positions to make the first line. Then I drew cards with the corresponding numbers from Robert Place’s hand painted Budapest trumps. Dilemma! The Budapest trumps are not numbered the same as conventional decks. Do I pretend they have the same numbers as the TdM, or do I honor their historic reality and use the numbers printed on the cards? I could have gone either way.  But when I saw that using the numbers on the cards would get me Judgment twice in the center, I decided that was the way to go. In this deck the Papesse is #3, ranked above the secular Empress.

Interpretation: According to the cards on the left, the old crone is more than she seems. She’s mysterious and powerful. There’s magic here. On the right, an old person holds an apple out for you; but the card above warns there’s trickery afoot. There is more going on here than you realize, so you are advised to be very cautious. Double Judgment in the center! This situation has the potential for a profound death and rebirth experience. If you let this old woman into your life, you will never be the same. You could be destroyed, or your life could open into dimensions you can’t imagine. Are you ready to take that risk?

I’d love to hear what you see in these cards. Or use this method yourself and let us know in the comments how it went.

Decks Shown Here:

Le Bateleur from the Tarot de Marseille by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Philippe Camoin (top image)

Jacques Vievil Tarot hand painted by Sullivan Hismans  https://www.tarotsheetrevival.com/en/home/

Tarot Oswald Wirth printed with gold foil by Marco Benedetti. See Marco Benedetti Tarot on facebook
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=marco%20benedetti%20tarot&epa=SEARCH_BOX

Budapest Tarot hand painted by Robert Place https://robertmplacetarot.com/

Tarot of Visconti, large foil Visconti-Sforza trumps by Lo Scarabeo

Search for Jodorowsky Tarot on Youtube for videos of his readings in Spanish with English subtitles.

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

Corband’s cards are shorter and wider than the original Della Rocca engravings, so the figures appear somewhat squat, especially the Star, Empress and Fool. The engraving is simplified, with less shading than Della Rocca’s original. The Fool’s butterfly is a nice Piemontese touch. The colors are based on a water-colored deck in a private collection.

The facial expressions are priceless: Il Bagatto is anxiously wondering if he really needs that drink. The Pope seems angry and judgmental, and the Sun can’t believe what he’s seeing. Death is actually the de-clutter card. The loveliest card is the delicately colored Moon (shown below).

The booklet gives background on the uncut sheets this deck is based on, a detailed history, and the genealogy of the Corband family researched by Philippe Noyes

The 22-card deck is housed in a gold bag held in a sturdy handmade box covered with marbled paper. The little pamphlet on card reading is a bonus. A tarot medallion etched with esoteric symbols surrounded by an ouroboros accompanies the deck. The card stock is sturdy, smooth and pleasant to handle.

If you collect soprafino decks, this will be a unique addition to your collection.

Here is a link to the deck on Berti’s website that gives a link to his Etsy shop: https://rinascimentoitalianartenglish.wordpress.com/corband-tarot-1847/

Here is background information on Della Rocca and the soprafino style: The Soprafino Deck of Carlo Dellarocca

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

To understand just how special this deck is, we need some context. Bolognese tarot pre-dates the Tarot de Marseille by more than a century; and it may be the original tarot that was ubiquitous in northern and central Italy until the Tarot de Marseille flooded the market in the seventeenth century. The people of Bologna kept this deck very much alive and unchanged through the centuries by playing several different games with it. Below are three Bolognese Moon cards from the 15^th, 18^th and 20^th centuries showing an enduring tradition that stretches back over 450 years. The Al Mondo card is in the middle.

What is Tarocco Bolognese?

If you think of the Tarot de Marseille as the default tarot deck, Bolognese tarot (also called tarocchino) may take some time getting used to. The deck has 62 cards instead of 78. Many of the trump cards look different and are in a different order. Four Moors replace the Empress, Emperor, Popess and Pope.

Removing pip cards to shorten a deck for certain games is a common European practice. In the Bolognese deck, pips 2 through 5 of the four suits are removed. The three virtues, Justice, Strength and Temperance, are grouped together and placed after the Chariot. The Angel (Judgment) is the last card in the trump series and a few other trump cards are switched around. The Aces are unique (see them at the bottom) and the suits of Coins and Cups have Maids instead of Pages. But the biggest change, which distinguishes the Bolognese tradition, are the four Moors in place of trumps II, III, IV and V of the Tarot de Marseille pattern.

Trumps II Through V

Tarot is a trick-taking game. Whoever plays the highest-ranked card wins all the cards on the table. The Empress, Emperor, Popess and Pope are an exception because they have no set hierarchy in the game. If more than one of these cards is played, and they are the highest cards on the table, the last card played wins the trick. I believe this is a bit of fifteenth-century political correctness. Italy was divided between followers of the Holy Roman Emperor and those loyal to the Pope. By giving these four cards equal rank, they avoided insulting either the Emperor or the Pope by putting him permanently below the other in the trump series.

In early Bolognese decks, these four figures looked somewhat alike and were called the Four Papi (Popes) even though two of them were obviously secular rulers holding orbs and scepters; and some of them looked rather feminine. They were treated as a group and did not have numbers assigned to them.

The Story of the Moors

In 1725, Luigi Montieri, a native of Bologna and secretary to the archbishop, invented a geography-themed tarot deck. Traditional Bolognese trump images appeared on a narrow band at the top of each card, while geographic regions and countries of the world were listed below. The traditional Empress, Emperor, Pope and Papesse were replaced by exotic figures wearing turbans and holding spears (“Moors”) on the cards dedicated to Africa, Asia, America and an unlabeled list of European countries. Montieri hired wood block carvers, typographers and printers from several workshops in central Bologna to produce his deck

One September morning in 1725, shortly after the deck was printed, soldiers raided the workshops, seizing the wood blocks and almost all the decks. The problem? The Fool card (at left) lists various countries and their type of government, with Bologna having a “mixed” government. The Pope ruled Bologna through his representative, the Papal Legate, who allowed the city to have a rather ineffectual Senate that provided a semblance of local rule. Theoretically, Bologna had a mixed government; but the papacy could not tolerate any show of autonomy by the Bolognese.

The Papal Legate was enraged by this reminder that the Pope didn’t have absolute control over the city. The legate imprisoned all the print shop owners and employees, burnt the woodblocks and all the cards he could get his hands on; then decreed that anyone caught with a deck would incur a very large fine and a seven-year jail sentence. Montieri left town very quickly and didn’t return for several years. After a week had passed and most of the printers had been released, the Papal Legate issued another edict requiring all printers of Bolognese-style tarocchino decks to use the four Moors instead of the traditional images for the lower-ranking trump cards. It seems rather perverse to burn all examples of a deck then enshrne its unique imagery in all future decks. Thanks to an irate legate, since 1725 all Bolognese decks feature four turban-wearing Moors.

Bologna was one of the first places to adopt double-headed cards for game playing in the 1760s. The Al Mondo is one of very few tarocchino decks in existence with single-headed Moors. Traditionally, the Moors were depicted clutching arrows. Al Mondo is unique because the Moors hold symbolic implements: a staff topped with either a sun or moon, an arrow, and a bow and quiver of arrows. These items retain traces of the original division between male and female secular and religious rulers.

The Al Mondo cards in the British Museum are in excellent condition so there was no need to touch up or reconstruct damaged cards when producing this facsimile. The borders were rebuilt to restore the cards to their original size (a bit over 2 x 4.5 inches or 53 x 117 mm).

Benedetti’s Al Mondo deck comes with a supplemental packet of pips 2 through 5, allowing you to expand the deck to a full Tarot deck, or switch out pips to make a standard 40-card Italian deck like the Premiera Bolognese.

The deck is printed on 350 g smooth card stock. It’s housed in a wooden box with a magnetic clasp. The price is 60 euros plus shipping.
To order a deck email: tarot@marcobenedetti.it
See more photos of this and other decks Benedetti has created on the Marco Benedetti Tarot facebook page

Read more about the Bolognese tradition: https://www.tarotwheel.net/history/cousins%20of%20the%20tarot/tarocchino.html

Illustrations from the Top

• Fool, Lovers, Queen of Coins and 10 of Batons – Tarocco Al Mondo
• Moon – Rothschild Sheet @1500, collection of the Louvre, Paris
• Moon – Tarocco Al Mondo
• Moon – Dal Negro, double-headed, 20th century
• Four Papi – Tarocco Fine Dalla Torre, 17th century, recreated by Museo Internazionale dei Tarocchi, Riola, Italy
• Asia with Moor, Geographic Tarot, Luigi Montieri, 1725
• Fool – Geographic Tarot, Luigi Montieri, 1725
• Four Moors – Tarocco Al Mondo
• Four Aces – Tarocco Al Mondo

References

Andrea Vitali and Terry Zanetti. Il Tarocchino di Bologna. Bologna, 2005.

Marcello Fini. Quando a Bologna Arrivarono i Mori: Il Tarocchino tra Gioco e Politica. Exhibit of the Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio di Bologna, 2018.

Many thanks to Iolon at Tarot Wheel for bringing this publication to my attention.

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

The deck shuffles like a dream. Handling these cards is one of the most sensuous experiences I’ve had with a tarot deck. The cards passing through my fingers feel like silk and whisper like a breeze through curtains. While being shuffled, their voice is soft and muted. This is a very special, elegant deck.
Each card is framed like an icon, intensifying its energy and clarifying its message. I find these cards especially suited for one of my favorite techniques—laying out two cards in paired spread positions: Do This—Don’t Do That. What’s Arriving—What’s Leaving. The Problem—The Solution. The Gift—The Challenge. Make up your own to fit any situation. (At the bottom of the page, see the cards in the Cross Spread).

Folded borders are unique to Italy and date back to the 15^th century. Here’s the front and back of a Devil card printed by Agnolo Hebreo in the 16^th century (British Museum). The folded borders reinforced the edges and prevented the laminated layers of paper from separating during shuffling. By the 1930s, better adhesives made reinforced borders unnecessary.

Benedetti creates each deck to order. First he prints a Rosenwald deck. He glues the backs to all 78 cards, clips the edges, then folds and glues the borders to the front. Here’s a picture of a card in progress. The intense labor makes for a rather pricey deck. If you want the look of the borders without the actual paper, you can request printed borders.

Email Marco to arrange for a custom printing of any of his decks:
Tarot@MarcoBenedetti.it.

See the decks Benedetti offers on his facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/MarcoBenedettiTarot/

A review of Benedetti’s Rosenwald deck:
https://tarot-heritage.com/2019/09/25/i-tarocchi-rosenwald-by-marco-benedetti/#more-1845

An article in Italian about the folded borders:
http://www.7bellonline.it/base/Mazzi%20standard%207bello/Storia%20Innovazioni.htm?fbclid=IwAR0n5wFY7HU9EFkNuiV1ywkmnQeRBbZDZXbv-9rK3PlA0_A2VIh7QImaArs

Here’s my favorite way of doing the Cross (Quintessence) Spread. I shuffle the suit cards separately, lay out the four cards, then put a trump card derived from the sum of the suit cards in the middle. Here’s an article explaining this spread.

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

Here’s a selection of those alternate trump images which appear in all decks of this type. The Tower is called the Thunderbolt and shows a shepherd taking shelter under a tree. The Devil is my all-time favorite of any historic Tarot. The upright Hanged Man looks like a clog dancer. I see Temperance as a housewife with a feather duster pouring herself a little mommy juice in the afternoon. There’s something playful and irreverent about this deck.

Hismans drew on three incomplete decks housed in museums in France and Germany to compile the deck without needing to recreate any cards. The luminous colors were hand stenciled onto the original cards just as in traditional workshops. Here are two of my favorite cards. I love the fluffy angel wings on Justice, and her red frisbee for a halo. Notice the skeleton on the Judgment card. No need for a complete body to participate in the Last Judgment.

The four suits are in the TdM style with some nice flourishes. I love the strength and energy of the Batons. The sweet little bird on the Two of Swords reappears in Hismans’ envelope design (below). The poor Valet de Batons seems overwhelmed by the huge log he’s carrying, while the King of Coins is styling in his ruffly shorts.

Where did this type of deck come from? The most plausible theory says that two styles of Tarot deck migrated from Italy to France about 1500. One style became the Tarot de Marseille and pushed out all competitors. The other style persisted quietly underground, leaving no examples, until re-emerging in Rouen-Brussels decks. What if the situation were reversed and the Tarot de Marseille and fallen into obscurity while the Rouen-Brussels style became the standard Tarot deck? Cartomancy with Tarot would look very different today.

About 1650, Jacques Vievil of Paris published the first deck of this type, with the variant trump cards but not the Captain and Bacchus. The pinnacle of the Rouen-Brussels type is the Vandenborre and similar decks published in Brussels in the mid 18^th century. The de Hautot is sometimes considered a bridge between Paris and Brussels. But a linear progression through time doesn’t necessarily mean that earlier decks were the ancestor of later ones. All decks of the Rouen-Brussels pattern may have drawn on one common ancestor, now lost.

In previous centuries, decks were sold in paper envelopes rather than boxes. Hismans envelopes are unique works of art with graphic elements taken from the cards. The colors are applied by hand with stencils, then the envelope is numbered and signed. The cards are on sturdy, smooth paper, 2.75 x 4.75 inches – a very nice size for shuffling.

There are only 400 decks in this edition, so don’t procrastinate. Read more about the deck and Hismans’ working methods, and purchase the deck here:

https://www.tarotsheetrevival.com/en/product/adam-c-de-hautot-tarot/

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

For some reason, the deck’s creator failed to put his name on it. The Two and Three of Cups have Faict a Paris Par (Made in Paris by) running up the left side. There’s room on the right side for the printer’s name, so its omission is mysterious. There’s evidence that he was making cards in Paris about 1650 at the same time as Jacques Vievil and Jean Noblet. It’s hard to imagine who, if anyone, actually used this deck. Since the cards display influences from several countries, perhaps the printer hoped to produce an international deck that would transcend borders and sweep throughout Europe.

The suit cards are a jumble of influences from Italy, Spain and Germany. The swords are curved scimitars and the batons are rough branches. The Aces depict a rearing animal holding a flag with the suit symbol. The coins display the arms of various cities and noble families from throughout Europe. Intriguingly, the Three of Coins (Shown at bottom) has a magical seal covered in sigils, hinting that there might be other occult references in this deck. Many court cards resemble their Tarot de Marseille counterparts. All of them are in motion and have definite personalities. I’m very happy to see so many strong women in this deck, from the sassy Empress to the Amazon Queen of Swords.

The trump cards are named and numbered as in the standard Tarot de Marseille pattern, but many are unique. Il Bagatto (center back wearing ass’s ears) is playing a game with beareded men, rather than children, as in some early Italian cards. Under the table, a monkey scratches a dog’s back. The Popess holds her book away from her body with her fingertips as if it were something disgusting she hated to touch. The Moon depicts a man with a harp serenading a naked woman on her balcony. The Sun card show a woman with very long hair looking in a mirror held by a monkey, with what seems to be an Ace of Batons behind her.

The bilingual book (Italian and English) that accompanies the deck is the result of two years’ research by the authors, Morena Poltronieri and Ernesto Fazioli. They cleared up my confusion over some of the jumbled images in the facsimile, especially La Foudre, Temperance and Sun. But I was left with several questions. Why are geese or swan pulling the chariot? Why two faces – a woman and a bearded man – on the figure of Justice? I’m not satisfied with their explanation that it’s Athena being born from Zeus’s head. They misread the sphinx at the Emperor’s feet as a dog, making their interpretation of this card totally irrelevant. I wonder why the names of some cards are badly misspelled or broken in strange places: Lan Pereut, Ler Mite, A Trempance, Les Toilles. Surely the printer knew better. Is it some kind of code?

Inexplicably, the authors refer to the Popess and Pope as the High Priestess and Hierophant, tipping us off that they’re steeped in esoteric tarot. This influence seeps into their card discussions and colors their divinatory meanings. The suits are given Golden Dawn associations with the elements and seasons. The list of keywords for each suit card is taken straight from the Waite Smith deck with no reference to the actual seventeenth-century cards. I have no idea why Italian card makers recreating a 350-year-old French deck would use late 19^th-century English occult divinatory meanings. Perhaps they hoped to make the deck more marketable by pandering to an audience who only understands tarot through the Waite Smith lens.

At left is La Foudre, the card I had the hardest time understanding. This card is traditionally a lightning-struck tower or tree; but in this deck it’s a Hell mouth, shown here in the 1984 Grimaud facsimile and the larger Museo dei Tarocchi restoration. In the newer deck, the images have been enhanced, although in some cards the image has been very slightly clipped along the edge. The borders and the cartouche at top center have been standardized in all the cards; but unless you compare the two decks closely, you probably won’t notice these differences.

This is a wonderful opportunity to own a hard-to-find deck. I’m very happy I purchased it. Comparing the two versions has helped me see the facsimile with new eyes and discover things I missed before.

This edition of 200 is printed on sturdy, smooth card stock. The deck and book are housed in a handsome black box with a satin finish, and a card is pasted to the cover. A signed and numbered slip of paper is enclosed. The deck comes in a heavy green velour bag and the 127-page book is included in the box.

If you are in the US, order here from Arnell Ando. See many more pictures on this web page.

http://www.arnellart.com/museodeitarocchi/msdk60.htm?fbclid=IwAR1cgmayiAs8NsMSMv8olJax-7Xuc0HsBM8l9XYtrSeiyvae9gfeaXslTak

Everyone else email Morena Poltronieri at: Museodeitarocchi @ gmail.com

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

It’s still an open question whether this deck was created in Ferrara or Florence; and if it was created in the1430s, the 1470s, or sometime in between. Benedetti believes all the decks discussed here were most likely created in Florence. I’m not totally convinced, but for the sake of simplicity I’ll call it the “Florentine style”.

The Visconti-Sforza deck has been published many times, but until now, no one has printed any of the Florentine style decks because they are so incomplete. Marco Benedetti has worked his tarot magic once again by creating a complete deck from fragments scattered among museums throughout Europe and North America. This deck style deserves to be better known. Let’s take a look at the decks that went into creating Benedetti’s composite.

The So-Called Charles VI Deck

The account books of King Charles VI of France record a payment dated 1392 to artist Jacquemin Gringonneur for three decks of painted and gilded playing cards. In the mid-nineteenth century, a playing card historian associated this entry with a deck of hand painted tarot cards in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF). On stylistic grounds, the BNF deck had to have been painted in Italy in the mid-fifteenth century; but the Charles VI (or Gringonneur) designation has stuck with the deck.

Only six trump cards are missing from this deck, making it the most complete deck of the Florentine style. Benedetti added cards from the decks discussed below to make a complete set of trumps and suit cards.

The Alessandro Sforza Deck

This deck was probably created in the same workshop and at the same time as the Charles VI deck. The cards in both decks are the same size and have the same borders. Only five trump cards survive, and two are identical to their corresponding Charles VI cards: The Hermit and The World. Except for two cards that were recently discovered elsewhere, this deck is located in the Castello Ursino in Catania, Sicily.

The deck’s name comes from the heraldic symbol on the King of Swords’ shield. The motif of a diamond ring enclosing a flower was used by Alessandro Sforza, the Lord of Pesaro, a renowned warrior, and half-brother of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan. Alessandro was educated at the d’Este court in Ferrara, and members of that family also use the same heraldic device, so we can’t be sure the King of Swords is actually Alessandro. Like the “Charles VI” designation, “Alessandro Sforza” will undoubtedly stick to this deck whether it’s accurate or not.
Benedetti uses only the Empress for his recreation. The other four trump cards are included in the package as extras.

The Ercole d’Este Deck

The existing eight trumps and eight court cards of this deck are housed in the Beinecke Library, Yale University. It’s possible the deck commemorates the marriage of Ercole I d’Este and Eleanora of Aragon in 1473, as the arms of both families are in the deck. Benedetti uses only the Bagatto for his deck; but the other seven trump cards are included as extras.

The Rothschild Sheets

Two of the six trump cards missing from the Charles VI deck (Wheel of Fortune and Star) were recreated by extracting the figures from uncut sheets of block printed cards and superimposing them on Charles VI backgrounds. The Rothschild Sheets, from early sixteenth-century Italy, share imagery with the Florentine pattern and Bolognese decks. Two sheets with six trump cards each are divided between the Rothschild Collection at the Louvre and the Museum of the Beaux Arts School in Paris.

The Court Cards of the Recreated Charles VI Deck

Benedetti assembled a complete set of sixteen court cards from all the decks mentioned above. The Charles VI deck has only one court card, the Page of Swords. The Rothschild Collection of the Louvre contributed the most—seven court cards in all, including the Queen of Swords shown here. Four missing court cards were recreated by giving the Ercole d’Este court figures suit symbols from other sources. The King of Cups shown here was originally the King of Coins. If you order a custom printed deck, three unused court cards, two Ercole d’Este and one Rothschild are included.

The Pip Cards of the Recreated Charles VI Deck

The pips in the recreated deck are based on a partial deck of 27 cards divided between the Louvre’s Rothschild Collection and the Correr Museum in Venice. Missing cards were digitally recreated. One of my favorites is the Ace of Swords piercing a little heart. The background decoration of these suit cards is especially elegant.

The Recreated Deck

When you purchase the 78-card recreated Charles VI deck, you get twelve duplicate trumps for a total of ninety cards, allowing you to customize the deck to your own taste. (You also get three extra court cards with the custom printed version.) Being able to lay every trump card of this style out on a table makes a wonderful study aid. Handling historic decks as actual cards feels like time travelling – a feeling I don’t get from looking at pictures in books or online.

Get the deck two ways: Order from Gamecrafter or contact Marco Benedetti to arrange for a custom printing.

The 90-card Gamecrafter deck is 88 x 140 mm (3.5 x 5.5 inches) including the border. The image alone is 69 x 129 mm (2.5 x 5.0 inches) a bit smaller than the standard custom printed cards. Order at this link and read more about the deck:

https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/charles-vi-tarot-completed-by-marco-benedetti?fbclid=IwAR37s8AlfqskOrRGbtS9o6uUBFvNx7wAt3CoXHPL6u0r1B1Pju61EhLvuZY

The 93-card custom printed deck come in two sizes:
Original size: 90 x 180 mm (3.5 x 7 inches) a bit large than the original Visconti-Sforza cards.
Standard size: 74 x 145 mm (2.9 x 5.7 inches)
The 15^th-century decks vary slightly in size, so they have all been scaled to the Charles VI deck.
You can request either single or double sheets of card stock. The single sheets are smooth 350 g/m cardstock. Double sheets are made from 250 and 180 g/m cardstock. I recommend the double for a little extra heft. The cards are still flexible and easy to shuffle.

To order, email:  Tarot @ Marcobenedetti.it

Get more information and see the cards on the facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/MarcoBenedettiTarot

Here are my reviews of other Marco Benedetti decks:
Rosenwald Bordi Rivoltinati
Tarocco Bolognese Al Mondo
Nicolas Rolichon Tarot
I Tarocchi Rosenwald
Oswald Wirth
I Tarocchi Benedetti: Visconti-Sforza Homage

References
Dummett, Michael. The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City. Duckworth, 1980. 67-75.
Kaplan, Stuart R., Encyclopedia of Tarot Vol. I. US Games Systems, Stamford CT, 1978. 109-122.
Maggio, Emilia. New Insights into the So-called Alessandro Sforza Deck. The Playing Card, Vol. 44, #4.
Various Authors. Il Mondo in Mano. Catalog of an exhibit at Il Museo Civico di Castello Ursino, Catania, 2019-2020. 16-31.
Many discussions over the years on Facebook, the Tarot History Forum, Aeclectic’s Tarot Forum and Yahoo’s Tarot_L group. I took copious notes but failed to credit the tarot historians who shared their research so generously.

Twenty-five years ago, Marco Benedetti painted a heavenly homage to the Visconti-Sforza deck in tempera on gold leaf. A few years ago, he offered his deck to the public on Gamecrafter, and as a custom printed gold-leaf deck. To celebrate the 25^th anniversary of his original deck, he is offering both the original deck and an updated 25^th anniversary edition on Gamecrafter. Both decks come with additional cards, so you really get two decks in one. Let’s compare the two versions.

The biggest update: names and numbers are removed from the trumps and court cards. This allows more space for a slightly enlarged image. The black border is a tiny bit thicker, making for better contrast. The updated cards have more presence and more visual impact.

Batons are redesigned to feel more medieval. The red and gold make a nice contrast with the other suits.

Having just a little more space makes a big difference to the swords. The hilts have been redesigned to feel more balanced.

In the original deck, several trump cards are very TdM-ish: Strength, Devil, Tower, Star, Moon, and Sun. If you order the original deck from Gamecrafter, you get these six cards from the later version of the deck in addition to the original TdM cards. If you order the 25^th anniversary deck, you get the TdM type cards listed above plus six cards in Bolognese style: Emperor, Strength, Death, Star, Moon and Sun. Ninety cards in all, allowing you to switch them out and customize your deck.

Shown here are the three Moon cards: TdM-style with dogs and crayfish, the Bolognese astronomers, and Benedetti’s rendition of the Moon as Artemis.

Both versions of the deck are the same size (2.75 x 4.75 inches) with plain dark red backs (like the original Visconti-Sforza deck) and housed in a dark red tuck box.

I’ve been reading with the older version of the deck for nearly two years. I find the newer design so striking that I’m looking forward to switching.

Links:
Gamecrafter – original deck
Gamecrafter – 25^th anniversary deck
See all of Marco Benedetti’s decks on his Facebook page
Email Benedetti to arrange for a gold leaf deck in a choice of two sizes: tarot @ Marcobenedetti.it
My 2019 review of the Gamecrafter and the custom printed gold version of Benedetti’s deck