Tarocchi di Linus

Creator(s): Nicola Falcioni
Date: 1966
Country: Italy
Publisher: Baldini & Castoldi
Number of Cards: 24
ISBN:
Type: Marseilles
Reference: 








 

Notes:
The cards were an add-on in the issue 3 (12) anno II 1966 of the Italian comics magazine linus . It was the first Italian comics magazine which featured stories for adults.

linus had a leftist cultural stance and it's editorial supported the Italian Communist Party. From the magazine's beginning, the comics section was accompanied by an extensive section dealing with society, politics, mass media, literature and other cultural themes. Among others Umberto Eco and Enzo Baldoni, the Italian journalist and writer killed in Iraq in 2004, worked for linus.

The cards came as an uncut fold-out sheet in the comics magazine. It's 24 cards, 20 of them majors and 4 aces for the 4 suits named coppe, spade, bastoni, denari. On most of the majors the traditional Tarot Marseilles imagery is recognizable and they have the traditional names. There are no cards for Magician, Justice and Chariot, but there is an aditional card "Il Fiore" (the flower) . The cards are non-traditional renumbered.  Instead of an lwb there is a page with interpretations for the cards in the magazine. I don't know if a complete tarot deck of these exists or if they are to find only in this comics magazine.

Tarocchino Milanese a Doppia Figura

Creator(s): Bordoni
Date: 1880* reproduction 2000
Country: Italy
Publisher: Bordoni*, Il Meneghello
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:
Type: Milanese
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. IV pp. 680, 682







Notes:
This is a reproduction of a deck printed by Bordoni circa 1880.  The Ace of Coins contains an Italian monarchic tax stamp, 50 centesimi (valid mid-1880/1890s) and a stamp of the Milanese tax office dated 1890, but tax stamps don't give an exact date, because they may be applied years after the deck was first published.

This reproduction was printed as a limited and numbered edition of 2000 by Il Meneghello. There was another edition of the same deck - also by Il Meneghello - named "Tarocco Lombardo (a doppia figura)" that one is limited to 1500 copies.

This deck it is one of the earliest known to have double figures (doppia figura), or mirror reflections of the images on the cards. The back design shows a lancer on horseback.
 

The original was stencil colored lithography and has the backs printed on a separate sheet and glued to the cards, with the edges wrapped around the front. This edition also reproduces the backing paper edges on the front.

The cards came in a solid cardboard box with a wax seal of Il Meneghello.

Primavera Tarot (Tarot Art Nouveau)

Creator(s): Antonella Castelli
Date: 1998
Country: Italy
Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:   
Type: RWS
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. IV, pp. 222, 223  

Notes:
The Primavera Tarot was also called  Tarot Art Nouveau, but there is another deck by Matt Myers called the Art Nouveau Tarot. The Myers deck is less representative of art nouveau and shows mainly influence of stained glass design, while Castelli's tarot looks like the works by Alphonse Mucha and Aubrey Beardsley.

The cards are are elegant, flowery and ornate, the minor arcana do show a distant influence from the Waite-Smith designs. People, which are the focus of the deck, are uniformly young and attractive. The colours are soft greens, blues,  pinks, and yellows, inset into a white border. The main title, in Italian, is purple; other language titles are pink.

There are Knights and Knaves, rather than Prince and Princess or Knight and female Page; but the Kings all have women beside them who appear to be consorts, whereas the Queens are alone. Most of the minor arcana cards have only women in them.

Death is female and Strength is male, the rest of the majors adhere to the genders usually assigned to them. There were no deeper esoteric meanings, no associiations with Kabbala, Numerology or Astrology.

The deck comes with a lwb that gives very brief card meanings.

Il Tarocco di Colombo

Creator(s): Amerigo Folchi
Date: 1991
Country: Italy
Publisher: Italcards
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:
Type: Marseilles
Reference: Manteia issue #7 p. 10





Notes:
This deck is dedicated to Christopher Columbus and his discovery of the Americas. The Fool depicts a 16th century print of Columbus.

The suit of wands corresponds to the element Fire, in this deck it is associated with the discovery and exploration of the new continent.

Cups corresponding to the element Water and is associated with the vast dimensions of the Ocean.

Swords corresponds to the element of Air and is associated with the Spanish colonisation of the new continent.

Pentacles corresponds to Earth and is associated with wealth and natural resources of the Americas.

The deck came in a solid box with an LWB in four languages (English, Italian, Spanish and French). It is a limited edition of 3000 copies, mine is number 2804.

I Tarocchi nei Colori della Toscana

Creator(s): Amerigo Folchi
Date: 1992
Country: Italy
Publisher: Italcards
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN:
Type: Marseilles
Reference: Manteia issue #7 p. 10 






Notes:
Tarot comissioned from Folchi by an Italian watchmaker. Each card consists of images from the Marseilles Tarot deck, placed on colorful backgrounds that include buildings from the Tuscany region of Italy, and includes a picture of a watch blended in to each scene.

The card name is in the top border in Italian and English. What appears to be the name of the city or town is in the bottom border and the specific building shown is identified under the city name in Italian and English.

The non-reversible backs have a row of watches and a signature of Folchi.

The deck is published in a limited edition of 3333 copies, mine is number 3231. The cards came in a lidded cardboard box.

Tarots Universels

Creator(s): Segio Toppi
Date: 1991
Country: Italy
Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN:   
Type: other
Reference:  Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. IV, pp. 570, 571








Notes:
Sergio Toppi (1932-2012) was an Italian illustrator and comic-strip artist

The original edition of the Tarocchi Universali from 1988 was limited and numbered; this is a later, smaller-format edition that is not officially released as a limited edition.

The deck has Italian titles. It included a title card, a card with a poem and came with two little leaflets in Italian only. The double-ended back design shows the bird from the Magician card.

Bolzani Tarot

Creator(s): Guido Bolzani
Date: 1976
Country: Italy
Publisher: Edizione Europrint
Number of Cards: 80
ISBN:   
Type: other
Reference:  Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. I, p. 238


 


Notes:
The deck’s art style is more common to standard playing cards than to tarot. The pip cards variously decorated, but are not illustrated in the Rider-Waite sense, and the deck uses the French suits instead of the Italian suits. The cards are rendered in bold, flat tones of red, green, blue, yellow, and brown. The trump titles are in French and Italian, the trumps and pips are Arabic-numbered on all four corners, except for the knights.

Of the two extra cards, one features a double-headed figure sitting in the lotus position, and the other is blank. The cards came in a blue standard cardboard box with companion booklet - in Italian only.

Graphik Tarocchi

Creator(s): Zoltán Tamássi
Date: 1992
Country: Italy
Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN:   
Type: other
Reference:  Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. IV, pp. 367, 370

Notes:
Zoltán Tamássi (1912-1997) was an important poster artist and graphic designer. In 1945 Tamássi was one of the leading graphic artists who renewed the visual language of the political poster in Hungary. He designed election campaign posters for opposite parties, like the Peasants’ Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Hungarian Communist Party. Tamássi was initially the propagandist of the Peasants’ Party, but he was commissioned by other political parties as well.

The art for this deck was rendered in tempura. Each card is titled in Italian and includes a poem by Gianni Brunoro. The reversable red and white back design shows a hand surrounded by the alphabet.

I Tarocchi dei Colori

Creator(s): Elena Assante
Date: 1991
Country: Italy
Publisher: Italcards
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:
Type: other
Reference: Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. IV, pp. 279, 284

 

Notes:
Limited edition of 3,000 copies. All cards are titled in Italian as well as in English, Spanish, French and German. The deck includes a title card and a card describing in Italian the artistic conception. Mine came with  an additional explanation sheet in German.

Bold areas of color form minimalistic figures and objects. The back design is wavy stripes in various colors.

Italcards stopped producing playing cards around 1993. The most recent date on any of their packs is 1992 (I tarocchi nei colori della Toscana).

Tarocchi Romantici

Creator(s): Giorgio Trevisian
Date: 1991
Country: Italy
Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN:   
Type: other
Reference:  Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. IV, pp. 494, 499







Notes: 
There are three editions of the "Tarocchi Romantici": a small edition with English titles, a larger edition with Italian titles and Roman numbering on the cards, and this small edition with Italian titles and Arabic numbers.

The English edition includes a card with a verse, the large Italian edition came with a LWB and has the verse on the box, my small edition has no verse and two explanation cards instead of the LWB. The back design is the same on all three editions.

The watercolor paintings are similar to Trevisan's Tarots of the Renaissance. 

Tarocco Di Marsiglia (Svizzera 1804)

Creator(s): Jean Proche
Date: 1804* reproduction ?
Country: Switzerland, Italy
Publisher: Il Meneghello
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN:
Type: Marseilles
Reference: Tarotgarden 








Notes:
The Marseilles pattern was produced not only in France but also in Fribourg and Neuchatel, Switzerland. This is a reproduction of the Swiss Marselles-pattern Tarot deck that was originally printed in Switzerland in 1804. It is an intermediate in style between the Marseilles and the Besancon patterns. This deck is an ancestor of those by Gassmann and Müller ("Tarot Classic").

One theory on the creator of this deck is, that the deck that had a second engraver engraving over the original. The signiature of the original creator on the Two of Coins was scratched out and another name put on instead on La Force and Le Diable. On La Force and Le Diable we can read "Engraved by Jean Proche", on Le Charior we found "J R", also on the Two of Coupes and the Four of Deniers. On the Two of Deniers the name of the supposed original cardmaker is mostly erased. "FAIT PAR JACQUE ROCHIAS FILS A NEUCHATEL" is a clear possibility.

The Hanged Man is similar to the Hanged Man from the Catelin Geofroy deck made in Lyon in 1557. The deck has a mis-titled card: The Cavallier De Coupe is actually the Knight of Pentacles. On L Empereur is the coat of arms of the principality of Neuchâtel.

The deck is republished by Il Meneghello in a limited edition of 2000 copies. It comes in a sturdy box with a lift-off lid and a wax seal. Mine is number 284.

Dame Fortune's Wheel Tarot

Creator(s): Paul Huson
Date: 2009
Country: Italy
Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
Number of Cards: 79
ISBN: 978-07387-1529-2 
Type: Etteilla
Reference: artist's page


 

Notes:  
Paul Huson is the author of Mystical Origins of the Tarot. Dame Fortune's Wheel  is a historic style deck with scenic pips, but not a Tarot de Marseilles with RWS-illustrated minors. Huson mixed Marseilles inspired iconography with Etteilla's 18th century cartomantic tradition.There are no cabbalistic and few astrological associations on the cards. The Hanged Man, Death, Justice, and a few others, are derived from the 15th Century Gringoneur deck. Other images are related to medieval mystery plays such as the Dance of Death and to historical and allegorical figures like pope Joan and Judas Iscariot. Justice is VIII and Fortitude is XI, its The Female Pope and not the High Priestess, The Fool is unnumbered and Death unnamed.

The four cardinal virtues are also part of the Majors. Three of the cardinal virtues are named, the fourth, Prudence, is represented by trump XXI The World, where it is illustrated with an image based upon the 15th century Este design in which the figure of Prudence stands upon the material world holding mirror and snake. The backgrounds of the Majors are green and yellow. 

The elemental associations of the suits were acknowledged in the colour coding. Coins are green, Cups are a dark indigo, Swords are orange and Batons sky blue. Other than these thematic colours the elements seem to play little part in the design of the cards; instead the meaning and symbology follows almost entirely  Etteilla's  interpretations. The court cards (except the Knights) have -according to the French playing card tradition-  names and personalities from history or legend : Hector as Knave of Batons, Pallas as Queen of Swords etc. Kings and Queens are enthroned, Knights on horseback and Knaves are standing.

The backs are reversible. All card titles are in English (not as in other Lo Scarabeo decks titles in different languages) and the deck came with an additional  significator card.
  

Zodiac Tarot

Creator(s): Lee Bursten, Luca Raimondo
Date: 2007
Country: Italy
Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 978-0738712383  
Type: other
Reference: aeclectic 

Notes:
The astrological attributions have been placed within a modern day concept set in a 1940s era world, rather than that of mythology or medieval times. In the Major Arcana, each card is assigned a sign or one of the planets. The seven traditional planets on the Major Arcana are represented by people in a family: grandparents, parents, son, daughter, and infant.

The zodiac signs are represented by scenes that bear an analogy to the astrological meaning of the signs. The Quadruplicates of the Signs are shown by the time of day seen on the card (Cardinal cards are daytime, Fixed cards are night, and Mutable cards take place at either sunrise or sunset).

Unlike the Golden Dawn, this deck uses the modern planets Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto (which was not even discovered when the Golden Dawn invented its system). The cards that the Golden Dawn assigned to the Elements are assigned to the three modern planets and show scenes associated with the major societal changes that these planets represent.

The Minor Arcana is divided into decants (each sign is divided into three decants of ten degrees each). Each Decan is assigned a planetary ruler, so each card carries a planet and a sign. The pip cards use the images from the Major Arcana to depict various permutations of people and scenes (planets and signs) as outlined by the Golden Dawn.

Also unlike the Golden Dawn, this deck relies solely on the astrological attributions to delineate the cards, whereas the Golden Dawn used a combination of astrology, the Kabbalah, and Picatrix for most of its interpretations.

The Major Arcana have traditional titles, with the following exceptions: the Hierophant becomes the Priest and the Wheel of Fortune becomes the Wheel. Strength is in position VIII, and Justice in position XI. The four suits are Torches (Wands), Waves (Cups), Clouds (Swords) and Stones (Pentacles). The Court Cards are Princess, Prince, Queen and King. 

Elemental Tarot (Turini)

Creator(s): Marco Turini
Date: 2010
Country: Italy
Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
Number of Cards: 79
ISBN: 978-0738721835  
Type: other
Reference: aeclectic  








Notes:
The traditional suits are represented by the elementals given by Paracelsus for the corresponding elements:

Wands /  fire / salamanders

Cups / water / undines

Swords / air / sylphs

Pentacles / earth / gnomes

The Minors are illustrated but they don't reflect the usual RWS scenes and meanings.

The deck has an extra Significator card and came with a LWB.

Celtic Tarot (Gaudenzi)

Creator(s): Giacinto Gaudenzi, Saverio Tenuta
Date: 2000
Country: Italy
Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
Number of Cards: 78
ISBN: 978-0738700137  
Type: RWS
Reference:  Encyclopedia of Tarot, vol. IV, pp. 267, 268

  




Notes:
The Celtic Tarot is illustrated by two different  artists. The Major Arcana were created by Gaudenzi in a style that is found in book illustrations. His work appears to be pen and ink colored with watercolors. The Minors Arcana are by Tenuto and recalls comic book art. The Majors were originally released in 1994 as an art deck under the name of Tarochi Celtici, and the Minors were added some years later and the deck re-released.

The Major Arcana's images are from Celtic folklore and fairytales. The Minors are based on the Rider Waite symbolism with the suits being attributed to Irish tribes. Wands represent the Fomori, Pentacles are the Tuatha De Danaan, Swords are the Ulaid, and Chalices are the Fianna. The deck attributes Wands to Air and Swords to Fire. The Court Cards follow the traditional pattern- Knave, Knight, Queen King.

The deck comes with a LWB that briefly explains the legends associated with each Major Arcana card.

Tarocchi dell' Incubo (Dylan Dog)

Creator(s): Tiziano Sclavi, Angelo Stano
Date: 1991
Country: Italy
Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
Number of Cards: 22
ISBN:   
Type: other
Reference:  Tarot Garden







Notes:
Dylan Dog is an Italian horror comics series ( featuring a paranormal investigator ) created by Tiziano Sclavi for the publishing house Sergio Bonelli Editore. Though published in Italy, the series is set in London, where the protagonist lives. Angelo Stano is an Italian comic book artist. He is mainly famous for his drawings for Dylan Dog, for which he drew the very first story. He is the current cover artist of the series.

The 22-card tarot is part of Lo Scarabeo's 'Tarocchi d'Arte' series. It came with a booklet (size A5) in Italian only.