€ 26,95 € 17,50
A tarot deck that refuses to take the Middle Ages seriously. Riccardo Gil Ferraro drew 78 borderless cards filled with knights, demons and kings, nodding to historical manuscripts with a generous dose of humour.
Ideal if you like tarot with a light hand and a strong visual narrative.
Medieval manuscripts are beautiful, but also full of bizarre margin drawings. Riccardo Gil Ferraro takes that tradition and builds a complete tarot deck around it. The result: 78 cards that look like they were pulled from an old manuscript, but with a modern, almost sarcastic humour.
The cards have no borders and no titles. That means in a spread you see only images that flow into one another. It works strongly if you like visual storytelling.
Knights, kings, maidens, demons. The style recalls medieval iconography, but with an idiosyncratic twist. Ferraro draws with an eye for detail, but at the same time deliberately breaks with the seriousness you often see in historical art.
Each of the Major Arcana contains astrological and elemental symbols. These are subtly integrated into the imagery, not added as an afterthought. The set includes a separate key card that explains which symbol appears where. That helps, especially at first.
Because the cards have no titles, you read purely on image. That asks something of your intuition, but it can also feel freeing. You are not bound to a word that pushes you in a direction beforehand.
The size is compact: 57 x 95 mm. That makes the cards easy to shuffle and convenient to carry. On the table they take up little space, which is pleasant for extended spreads.
Start with the key card. First study which astrological symbols belong to which Major Arcana. That speeds up your learning process and gives you something to hold on to with cards without titles.
Ferraro studied at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. His work is full of surrealist influences and a fascination with medieval art. He combines dream imagery with historical precision, resulting in decks that are both idiosyncratic and technically strong.
Does this deck work if you are just starting with tarot?
Yes, but it asks for a bit of extra attention. The illustrations are expressive enough to understand what is happening, but without titles you need to trust your feeling a bit more. The guidebook and key card help with that.
Which tradition does this deck follow, Rider-Waite or Marseille?
Ferraro combines elements of both, plus his own interpretations. It feels familiar to anyone who knows tarot, but not literally the same as a classic RWS deck.
| Auteur | Riccardo Gil Ferraro |
| Taal | English |
| Uitgeverij | Us Games System |
| ISBN | 9781646711062 |
| SKU | 0106-MED80 |
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