Reading Minchiate Cards with Brian Williams
This is turning out to be Minchiate Month! Marco Benedetti just published a restored and recolored Fiorentine Minchiate which I reviewed here last week. A few recent videos feature this deck. Links to...
View ArticleGerard Bodet Tarot Restored by Sullivan Hismans
The Gerard Bodet Tarot restored by Sullivan Hismans (Tarot Sheet Revival) may be the oldest complete Rouen-Brussels deck we have. Around the year 1500, tarot migrated from Italy to France and entered...
View ArticleTarocco Bolognese Dalla Tore with Rivoltini
For over four centuries, every Italian playing card was handcrafted with rivoltini borders. These are created by gluing backing paper onto the card, folding the four sides over to the front, then...
View ArticleCelebrating the Tarot de Marseille Type I
Tarot de Marseille Type I is having its moment in the sun, thanks to several card makers who are recreating these rare decks from museum originals. As far as I know, there are only nine complete, or...
View ArticleThe Happiest Tarot Decks
I want start 2024 by showing off the happiest tarot decks in my collection. Let’s face it, some of the people in our pre-20th century decks can be rather grumpy, if not downright mean looking. I must...
View ArticleI Tarocchi del Mitelli by Marco Benedetti
Today I’m celebrating the artistry of Giuseppe Maria Mitelli along with Marco Benedetti’s luxurious new edition of Mitelli’s tarocchino. I’ll begin by describing Benedetti’s deck; then, I’ll give some...
View ArticleEtteilla: The First Modern Card Reader and His Reconstructed Decks by Marco...
Let’s celebrate Etteilla, the eighteenth-century cartomancer who laid the groundwork for our contemporary tarot reading practices. After writing numerous books on divination, seeing clients, running a...
View ArticleLoving Pierre Madenié
Hundreds of decks have passed through my hands during my fifty years with tarot; and I’ve been reading with a few that I really love for decades. But I never became instantly infatuated with a deck...
View ArticleMarco Benedetti’s Personal Madrone Deck
Marco Benedetti’s restored Visconti di Modrone deck is a magic carpet ride to a late medieval world of elegant lords and ladies and knights in shining armor. A world where fabulously wealthy...
View ArticleVachier: The Oldest Documented Tarot de Marseille
A flurry of excitement rippled through the tarot world in early 2023 when a previously unknown Tarot de Marseille, dated 1639, was auctioned in Paris. This very special deck is the earliest documented...
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