Creator(s): Nicola di Maestro Antonio
Date: 1491, 2012
Country: Italy, USA
Publisher: HistoricalRetrospective
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:
Type: Ferrarese
Reference: Pinacoteca di Brera

The Sola-Busca Tarocchi may be dated from around 1490 since the hypothetical date of 1491 was painted on one of the illuminated cards of the set (the inscription "ANNO AB URBE CONDITA MLXX" on card XIIII may be read as the date of 1,070 years after the foundation of Venice - either 421 or 453 - that should mean 1491 or, less likely, 1523).
Giordano Berti and Michael Dummett suggest that the deck might have been engraved in Ferrara and illuminated in Venice (or for the Venetian market). The art was bulino engravings printed on paper pressed and glued as cardboard, illuminated with colours and gold, painted faux porphyry on the back.


The complete deck, which was owned by the Sola Busca family, was photographed in 1907 for the British Museum. In 2010, the Pinacoteca di Brera museum in Milan bought the deck for 800.000 EUR.

But whatever name was given to the Trumps, in order to be actually "used" they still had to include traditional meanings. These could be identified on the basis of the iconography and history of the figures depicted. Bocchus, for instance, who had betrayed his ally Juguretha embodies the figure of The Traitor (The Hanged Man), wheras Cato, who took his own life, embodies Death.


The alchemical iconography is particularly evident in the 4 of Coins (Earth as mother of the metals), the 5 of Coins (the male element as the alchemist who impregnates the earth to get the philosopher's stone, with the use of fire) and the 9 of Coins (“nigredo”, blackness as the death of the first matter, the first step of the alchemical process).

Several reprints of the Sola Busca Taro existst: Lo Scarabeo, Italy 1995; Wolfgang Meyer edition, Germany 1998 and HistoricalRetrospective edition, USA 2012. Mine is from the first Historical Retrospective edition with bridge-sized cards.
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