Marziano Tarot – The Oldest Known “Trump-Style” Tarot
Conceived by Marziano da Tortona and first created by Michelino da Besozzo in Milan between 1412 and 1425, the Marziano Tarot is considered the earliest known “trump-style” deck. Although the original cards have been lost to history, visionary artist Robert M. Place has lovingly reimagined the deck based on a 1449 letter from Jacopo Antonio Marcello to Queen Isabelle of Lorraine.
Place redesigned the deck as though it had evolved into a standard tarot that was later reproduced in woodcuts and hand-colored. The imagery draws upon Marziano’s original descriptions, Renaissance woodcuts from the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, early printed cards, and other period sources to create a faithful yet imaginative reconstruction.
The 64-card deck includes 10 pip cards in each of the four suits—Eagles, Doves, Turtledoves, and Phoenixes—along with a King and Queen for each suit. The trump sequence consists of 16 classical deities, arranged in four groups of four, each associated with one of the suits.
Specs
- 64 Cards Deck
- Cards Measure 4.75 X 2.75
- attractive, standard tuck box. I
- 18 page booklet with history, suggested meanings, and divination guidance.
Author and Artist
Robert M. Place is an internationally known visionary artist, whose award winning works, in painting, sculpture, and jewelry, have been displayed in galleries and museums in America, Europe, and Japan. He is the designer, illustrator, and coauthor of The Alchemical Tarot and The Angels Tarot, which have received international acclaim. He is designer, illustrator, and author of The Alchemical Tarot Renewed, the award winning The Tarot of the Saints, The Buddha Tarot, The Vampire Tarot, and The Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery. He is the author of The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination, which Booklist has said, “may be the best book ever written on that deck of cards decorated with mysterious images called the tarot.” He is the author of Astrology and Divination, Magic and Alchemy, and Shamanism, written for the Mysteries, Legends, and Unexplained Phenomena series, and the author of Alchemy and the Tarot. He is the curator of The Fools’ Journey and the author of the catalog for this exhibition of Tarot art that originated at the LA Craft and Folk Art Museum. He was the guest of honor at the opening of the Tarot Museum in Riola, Italy. He has created numerous illustrations for books and magazines, his Facsimile Historic Italian Tarot is included in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and he and his work have appeared on the BBC, A&E, the Discovery Channel and the Learning Channel. His newest work is a Lenormand oracle deck, The Burning Serpent Oracle, on which he collaborated with Tarot diva Rachel Pollack.
Suggested Reading
The Tarot, Magic, Alchemy, Hermeticism, and Neoplatonism is the newest book by Robert M Place. It incorporates the material that was in Alchemy and the Tarot and The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination, but updates the facts and, as you can tell by the title, covers a lot more material—about three times as much, with 680 pages and over 300 illustrations.
This book is intended to be a guide to the Alchemical Tarot and Robert's Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery. It is the companion book for both decks. But it also covers the Tarot of Marseilles and The Waite Smith Tarot. So that it is a guide to the Tarot for anyone using any deck. Each chapter starts with a full-page illustration on the left hand page and the text on the right hand page.
