The Estensi Tarot

[thesteelpanther]

My absolute favorite historical deck is the Estensi Tarot, sometimes also known as the Charles VI or Gringonneur tarot. You can see the original trionfi at https://www.classicaltarot.com/p/estensi-tarot

The only restoration ever done was by Giordano Berti - a fantastic artist overseeing Rinascimento, viewable at https://rinascimentoitalianartenglish.wordpress.com/. Unfortunately, the deck was made for Lo Scarabeo, entitled the Golden Tarot of the Renaissance.

While I love Giordano's designs, the cards themselves are flimsy, have writing on them, and don't posses any of the historical aesthetic.

I'm hoping that one of these days, someone with more artistic skill than me will create a new restoration of the deck, maybe even Giordano himself. Whomever does it, I hope they include the blue expanse in the missing Star Card (present in the Moon and Sun cards) - my own only complaint with Giordano's designs.

Any historical reproductions that you either want to see or that you would like to see redone?

[CharlotteK]

Thanks for posting this. These cards are stunning. I only became aware of this deck due to reading up on Dame Fortune's Wheel Tarot as Paul Hudson drew influences from it (Temperance is a good example). It really does deserve a top quality restoration effort.

[Nemia]

I bought my Estensi second hand, and the deck came expertly trimmed. I love this deck, too, but of course a high quality restoration would be a dream. AND an in-depth book about the iconographic roots of the deck.

[Joan Marie]

AND an in-depth book about the iconographic roots of the deck.

I would LOVE to see an Encyclopedia of Historical decks.

Does anything like that exist? It would be amazing. The stories behind some of these decks are epic.

[Amoroso]

The only one that I know of is Stuart Kaplan's 4-volume opus, The Encyclopedia of Tarot. He discussed some historical decks there in detail. It's OOP now.

Maybe the Estensi didn't get a wider publication because only 17 cards from the original deck survived. This means that there may be too few cards for a faithful reproduction to appeal to collectors, altho Il Meneghello did find some success with their 67-card Cary-Yale and their recent offering, the 48-card Brera-Brambilla. If a publisher wants to release a full Estensi deck like Lo Scarabeo did, they'd have to hire a master Tarot artisan to flesh out the remaining 61 cards, which is no mean feat.

That said, the LoS Golden Estensi is a thing of beauty.

[arlecchino]

i know this is an old thread and i apologize in advance for thread-necromancy - this is my favorite non-marseille deck.

i wanted to add that the source material for berti's minor arcana, the frescoes in the hall of the months of palazzo schifanoia, are all photographed on this site (the surviving ones that is, certain walls are damaged). it's kind of like playing "i spy" to find all the minor arcana figures in the frescoes.

the gods and goddesses who "triumph" in each month became the kings and queens... except jupiter who was snubbed and put on the 10 of batons instead. the queen of swords is hiding in the bottom right corner of "allegory of march." but, i haven't been able to figure out where the king of cups or king of swords come from.

[Joan Marie]

i know this is an old thread and i apologize in advance for thread-necromancy - this is my favorite non-marseille deck.

We fully support the reanimation of old threads here.

There are many really good ones.

[_R_]

AND an in-depth book about the iconographic roots of the deck.

I would LOVE to see an Encyclopedia of Historical decks.

Does anything like that exist? It would be amazing. The stories behind some of these decks are epic.

Many of the older historical works on playing cards contain illustrations, some of which can be quite lavish, such as D'Allemagne's classic work. Many of these are now online, being out of copyright. Even if you do not read French, it is well worth a look, plus the decks are all named in the captions so it is not too hard to figure out the name of the deck.

Here is D'Allemagne, by way of example:
Volume 1: https://archive.org/details/McGillLibra ... 1/mode/2up
Volume 2: https://archive.org/details/McGillLibra ... 2/mode/2up