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The Three Soprafinos
Tarocchino Lombardo, the long out-of-print soprafino deck published by Il Solleone, fell into my hands recently. This gave me an opportunity to compare it with soprafino facsimiles by Lo Scarabeo and...
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The Spanish Captain in the Vandenborre Deck
Question: Who is the Spanish Captain, and what’s he doing in a tarot deck? The Short Answer: He’s a character from the Commedia dell’Arte who substitutes for the Papesse in a type of 18th-century...
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Arcana: The Tarot Poetry Anthology
The poems in this important anthology take us on a ride from black jack tables to the Last Supper. Many poems gently evoke the essence of a card, like lingering incense. Others delight us with new...
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Jodorowsky Retrospecitve
According to a review in the November 2015 issue of Art News, a museum in Bordeaux, France has just wrapped up a 50-year retrospective of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s career. In the photo shown here, peeking...
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The Reader’s Digest Capek Tarot de Marseille
I associate the Reader’s Digest with seeing copies in a basket in my grandparents’ bathroom. Tarot just doesn’t seem to be aligned with the Reader’s Digest’s market niche; so I was intrigued when I...
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Fifteenth-Century Playing Cards from Guinevere’s Games
In the fifteenth century, playing cards were a novelty. Italian aristocrats commissioned hand painted, gilded trionfi decks from their favorite artists, while their counterparts farther north were...
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The Cartomancer Winter 2015
The third issue of The Cartomancer just landed in my inbox, and it’s a beauty. My favorite section contains luscious full-page layouts of decks. I love the black background that intensifies the colors...
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Ofri Cnaani: Card Reading as Performance Art
Artist Ofri Cnaani turned a New York Chelsea gallery into a card reading emporium and used her readings to generate unique works of art for her clients. According to a review in the December 2015 issue...
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A Jumbo Tarot de Marseille
I’ve been wanting an oversized Tarot de Marseille for a long time but wasn’t sure one even existed. When someone on Facebook posted a link to such a deck on Amazon, I clicked the “buy now” button...
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The World in Play: 15th Century Playing Cards at The Cloisters
Luxurious playing cards from the 15th and early 16th centuries, including two tarocchi decks, are on exhibit at the Cloisters in New York City until April 17, 2016. This is a unique opportunity to see...
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The Cartomancer Spring 2016 Edition
Congratulations to Jadzia and Jay DeForest, Bonnie Cehovet, and everyone else involved with this beautiful publication. The latest edition of the Cartomancer celebrates their first anniversary of...
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The Cartomancer Summer 2016
There’s plenty in this issue of The Cartomancer to keep a history nerd happy! While discussing why Justice and Strength switch positions in some decks, Erik K. Lerner gives us a concise 250-year...
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Noblet vs. Noblet
Historic deck aficionados now have two versions of the legendary Noblet deck to enjoy. The only original in existence resides at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. The late Jean-Claude Flornoy’s 2007...
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Tarocchi Perrin 1865
Giordano Berti, who brought us the historically important Vergnano and Sola Busca decks, has done it again, producing a small print run of a virtually unknown deck. The Tarocchi Perrin, originally...
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Reading Between the Cards
Lately I’ve been doing readings with just two cards. I don’t read the cards one-two, past-present, cause-effect. I read the space between them: the field of energy, the tension, the interaction. I ask...
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Mutus Liber: The Bookstore of the Museo dei Tarocchi
The Museo dei Tarocchi’s new online bookstore makes it very easy to order their books and decks using Paypal. I celebrated their grand re-opening a few months ago with my usual lack of self-restraint...
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From My Bookshelf: Nuns Behaving Badly
This book came about when the author, an American music professor, discovered a thick, lavishly bound manuscript of secular songs from a mid-1500s convent in Bologna. The following lyrics caught the...
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The Visconti Sforza Tarocchi by U. S. Games
U.S. Games Systems has just reissued their facsimile of the Pierpont Morgan Bergamo Visconti Sforza Tarocchi, originally produced in 1975 and still in print. They’ve added bonus cards with portraits of...
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The Cartomancer Magazine Summer 2016
The August 2016 edition of The Cartomancer contains two weighty, serialized articles, as well as the usual gorgeous artwork and an intriguing range of topics. The article that anchors this edition for...
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Tarot History Rant #5: Etteilla the hairdresser
At least three times in the past few weeks I’ve heard people refer to “the hairdresser Etteilla,” mindlessly repeating disinformation that Eliphas Levi and A. E. Waite rather viciously spread about the...
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