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 aristocrats commissioned trionfi decks drenched in silver and gold from the greatest artists of the day.
The Modrone deck was most likely a wedding gift, and is one of most romantic and feminine decks of the fifteenth-century. The cards have pink borders filled with delicate blue flowers, and the six court cards in each suit are arranged in three male/female pairs.
What remains of the original deck is too fragmented to be useful for divination. Benedetti’s vision was to produce not only a beautiful work of art, but to bring the deck to life in a version useful for shuffling and reading. To accomplish this, he is offering the deck in two sizes: the original large size in a custom-made wooden box, and a smaller deck designed for ease of shuffling. Benedetti has filled out the missing trump and court cards beautifully, retaining the aristocratic elegance of the original International Gothic style.
Let’s take a close look at the deck and at Benedetti’s choices for replacement cards.
What is the Visconti di Modrone Deck?
The Visconti di Modrone (also known as the Cary-Yale tarot) was commissioned by the Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti, in 1441. The card images were painted in tempera on embossed gold and silver foil, in the elegant International Gothic style, by one of the greatest artists of the day. Only eleven trump cards remain, including the three theological virtues, which are unique to this deck. The deck lacks one pip card, as well as seven of the original twenty-four court cards.
This deck was most likely commissioned to celebrate the 1441 marriage of Duke Filippo’s daughter, Bianca Visconti, to Francesco Sforza, one of the greatest military generals of the time, who became Duke of Milan in 1450. The canopy is decorated with Visconti and Savoy heraldry. Evidence in the court and pip cards clearly points to the union of the Visconti and Sforza families; so the Lovers card depicts the 1441 marriage. The little flowers on the canopy echo the blue flowers on the border, and also appear in the Del Maino arms of Bianca’s mother’s family. The little white dog is a traditional symbol of marital fidelity.
The Artist
Early in the twentieth century, a prominent art historian declared that all trionfi decks commissioned by the Visconti and Sforza families were done by Bonifacio Bembo and his workshop. This has been accepted uncritically ever since. The Visconti-Sforza deck, created about 1450 or a bit later, was certainly done by Bembo, Bianca and Francesco Sforza’s favorite artist. But there are good arguments in favor of this deck being painted by Michelino da Besozzo, the greatest artist of the time. Da Besozzo painted a deck in the 1420s for Duke Filippo (not tarot and now lost) that was considered the most beautiful deck of cards anyone had ever seen. It’s quite possible the artist was called in twenty years later to do another deck for the Duke. Da Besozzo had enormous influence on other prominent artists of his day like Pisanello and Zavattari, so the deck may have been done by another artist in the style of da Besozzo. It’s obvious that no expense was spared in the creation of this luxurious trionfi deck.
Marco Benedetti’s Personal Modrone
As in his Personal Visconti-Sforza and personal Charles VI decks, Benedetti has filled out the deck with replacement cards chosen to please himself, rather than trying to replicate what the original cards may have looked like. Replacement cards come from three sources: Other mid-15th century hand-painted decks, art from the 14th to 19th centuries, and by altering an existing court card to restore a missing card. The result is a very beautiful, 90-card deck that is a unique work of art.
Let’s go through the deck and look at some cards in detail.
The Pip Cards
Only one pip card is missing, the Three of Coins, which was digitally restored. Suit symbols are painted in blue with gold highlights on embossed silver foil. Big mistake! The silver quickly tarnished to black. Benedetti digitally lightened the cards to resemble their original appearance. Shown here is the Two of Coins with Visconti heraldry in the center of the coins.
The court figures in the suit of Batons hold ornate ceremonial batons, but the pips are rendered as arrows. This is the mirror opposite of the Brambilla deck which was also commissioned by the Duke about the same time as the Modrone. In the Brambilla deck, the court figures hold arrows while the pips are standard batons. There may be a precedent for a suit of arrows in older decks that are now lost.
The Court Cards
This deck has a total of twenty-four court cards instead of the usual sixteen. Each suit has six court cards arranged in three male/female pairs: King and Queen, male and female mounted Knights, and a Page paired with a Lady-in-Waiting. These latter were not servants. Both Pages and Ladies were young aristocrats serving an apprenticeship to prepare for their adult roles as a knight/courtier, or as a noble wife presiding over her husband’s court. At the left are the male and female Knights of Cups.
The Kings and Queens of all suits have attendants, as do the Emperor and Empress. Each suit has color-coded clothing and specific heraldry. Even in this very early deck, we can see the division of the suit cards into round/feminine suits and straight/masculine suits. This convention continued through the centuries into contemporary French-suited playing cards with two red and two black suits. The straight suits of swords and batons have Sforza heraldry of fountains and flowers. The round suits of coins and cups have the Visconti crown and sunburst with dove.
Except for a few older men, all court figures have curly blond hair and very pale skin, which was the standard of beauty at the time. This type is abundant in the International Gothic art of the early fifteenth century. The women have very high foreheads accomplished by plucking. Fashion victims bleached their hair by soaking it in a solution of herbs and urine, then sitting in the sun for hours. In other decks of the era, the court figures have vacant eyes and round, expressionless faces, making them look like rather dim-witted children. The expressive faces in this deck are a tribute to the artist’s skill.
Three of the missing court cards were created by repurposing existing court cards, in what Benedetti refers to as “self-loan”. The King, Queen, and Female Knight of Coins were used to create the missing King of Batons, Queen of Cups and Female Knight of Cups. This was done by flipping a card into its mirror image, switching out the suit symbols, then coloring the robes to match the rest of the suit. In the example shown here, the King of Coins on the left is the original card. To create the King of Batons, Benedetti eliminated the large coin at base of throne and the coin held up by a servant. The king’s baton is copied from the Queen of Batons. The clothing was re-colored to match the blue in the rest of batons suit.
Four court cards were borrowed from other decks: two from the Visconti-Sforza and two from the Brambilla. Shown here are the Page of Coins from Brambilla and Page of Swords from Visconti-Sforza.
I appreciate the pains Benedetti took to keep the color consistent on the clothing, and to replicate the original background and borders. The replacement figures blend in with the original cards amazingly well. Some mainstream publishers hire artists to create missing cards, resulting in unacceptable anachronistic images and lurid colors. This deck achieves a very pleasing unity that’s often lost in other historic decks with recreated cards.
The Trump Suit
Only twelve original trump cards remain, including the three theological virtues. To fill out the deck with the missing fourteen cards from the standard tarot deck, Benedetti borrowed cards from other fifteenth-century decks, and drew on art ranging from the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries. Let’s take a look at a selection of trump cards.
Emperor
This original card may depict an actual historical event featuring the Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund of Luxembourg. Sigismund made a two-year procession through Italy starting in 1431 and ending in Rome, where he was installed as Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in 1433. The Holy Roman Emperor was also King of Italy, and traditionally received the Iron Crown of Lombardy from the hands of the Duke of Milan. On the lower right of the card, a kneeling figure seems about to hand a crown up to the Emperor.
Duke Filippo had another reason to honor Emperor Sigismund. The Duke’s only living child was Bianca, his illegitimate daughter whose wedding was celebrated with this deck. The Duke paid a hefty fee to the Emperor, and in return received a document decreeing that Bianca was legitimate and the Duke’s rightful heir.
Devil and Tower
These two cards, missing from the original deck, were replaced with images from late medieval art. The Tower is an illustration of the Tower of Babel from an unidentified illuminated manuscript. The Devil is taken from a Last Judgment fresco done in the 1390s by Taddeo di Bartolo and located in the town of San Gimignano.
The Seven Virtues
The three theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, survive from the original deck. No other deck had these virtues until Minchiate was invented decades later. Hope (shown here) is a kneeling woman looking toward heaven, exemplifying unwavering confidence in salvation and everlasting life. The anchor is a traditional symbol of steadfast hope. The Virtues were often depicted with a man crushed underfoot who personifies the opposite vice. In this case, Despair is personified by Judas, who lost all hope after betraying Christ.
The cardinal virtue Strength also appears in the Modrone deck, so we can assume that all seven virtues were in the original. Benedetti filled out the missing virtues by borrowing from various places. He altered the Visconti-Sforza Justice card by removing the knight on horseback floating at the top of the original card. Temperance (shown here) was borrowed without alteration from The Ercole d’Este deck. Prudence was extracted from a panel of the seven virtues done by Pollaiuolo in the second half of the fifteenth century.
Because the trump suit is so incomplete, we can’t say for sure how many cards were in the original deck. Were the theological virtues added on, or did they replace other cards? Did the Modrone have a Star-Moon-Sun sequence of cards, or were they added to the game decades later? Is Modrone an example of the standard deck of the time? Is it a regional variant? Perhaps its structure is unique, since it wasn’t intended for shuffling and game playing. Benedetti supplies the maximum number of cards, ensuring that the deck is useable for divination.
Star and Moon
These two cards are illustrated with nineteenth-century images. The Star is taken from The Birth of Venus, a painting by Gustave Moreau done about 1866. The Moon is adapted from a tarot deck by Giovanni Vachetta, published in 1893. The Sun (not shown) depicts Apollo with his lyre borrowed from Giuseppe Mitelli’s deck published in the early 1660s.
The World Card
In my opinion, the Modrone has the most beautiful, and most unique, World card of any deck. In the top half of the card, we see a fashionable woman floating in the clouds, holding an orb and scepter. A large crown floats in the center below the clouds and seems to be descending to the scene below.
In the foreground of the lower half, a mounted knight approaches two people in a boat. On the far bank, a person kneels with a fishing pole. The knight holds a tall banner featuring the Visconti viper. Four walled cities occupy the mid ground. All are surrounded by a moat and two have their drawbridges extended. The ocean appears in the back toward the horizon with boats and a lighthouse.
This may be a Lombardy landscape with the ocean on the horizon. Duke Filippo greatly expanded Milanese territory, so the towns could be his newly conquered possessions. The woman at the top of the card is too fashionable to be an angel. She may be an allegorical figure handing the Duke symbols of worldly rulership.
The Modrone Deck in Two Sizes
Benedetti is offering his restored Modrone deck in two sizes.
Original size: 7.5 x 3.5 inches (189×89 mm.) on archival paper with a custom-made, personalized wooden box.
Tarot de Marseille size: 4.75×2.5 inches (120×60 mm.) housed in a telescope box with a choice of two papers:
Double laid paper which is used for his TdMs and is very easy to shuffle;
Archival matte paper with a laid paper back. These cards are also designed for shuffling. The archival paper produces more intense colors.
Benedetti has succeeded wonderfully in fulfilling his original intention: to bring these cards to life and create a deck that people will shuffle and use. I’m looking forward to more time travel with the Modrone deck.
See more images on the facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Marco.C.Benedetti.Tarot
To order a deck, contact him on Messenger or email benedetti.tarot@gmail.com
References
Abele-Hipp, Sabine. The World of Filippo Maria Visconti: Studying the Landscape on the World Card of the Visconti di Modrone. The Playing Card, Journal of the International Playing Card Society, Vol. 15 #2.
Dorsini, Cristina. Visconti di Modrone Tarot, Art in Milan in 1400. Il Meneghello Edizioni, 2017.
Pratesi, Franco. Ruminations on the Visconti di Modrone or Cary-Yale Tarot, January 17, 2016. Translation by Michael Howard
https://pratesitranslations.blogspot.com/2016/02/jan-17-2016-ruminations-on-visconti-di.html
A discussion of the deck’s structure and its relationship to Petrarch:
https://www.tarotwheel.net/history/tarot%20development/the%20visconti%20di%20modrone.html
Marilyn from Tarot Clarity unboxes her Modrone deck and shows off the TdM-sized cards:
Personal Modrone Tarot by Marco Benedetti WOW! (youtube.com)