Ancient Tarots of Liguria-Piedmont

Every card has a paper trail is this catalog's founding principle, and Lo Scarabeo's historical series is that principle in publishing form: this deck is a 1995 reprint of an 1860 pack by Giovanbattista Guala from Italy's Piedmont region, in the Marseilles tradition. Decks like this are primary documents. Before the Golden Dawn rebuilt tarot as an esoteric instrument, this is what the cards were: a regional Italian printing tradition, pattern-faithful but locally inflected, made for players and readers who never heard of correspondences. Reading with a Marseilles-pattern deck means working pip cards without scenes, number and suit carrying the meaning, which is its own discipline and older than the illustrated-minors habit. It suits historians of the deck, Marseilles readers, collectors of Lo Scarabeo's historical reproductions, and anyone who wants to hold what tarot looked like before occultism claimed it. Readers raised on scenic minors should expect a workout, and a rewarding one.