Tarocco Bizzarro

Franco Bruna made his name caricaturing Piedmontese politicians and celebrities, and Il Tarocco Bizzarro turns that pen on tarot itself: the Piedmontese pattern, the region's own tarot lineage, redrawn with an ironic twist to deflate the tradition's solemnity from inside its own local style. That specificity matters; this is not generic parody but a regional artist ribbing his region's cards, affection and mockery in the proper Italian proportion. Humorous decks divide by whether the joke knows the tradition, and Bruna's clearly does: caricature only works on features the artist has studied. Alongside the Fantod's literary absurdism and the Corrumpe's sacrilege, it gives the catalog's comic shelf its Italian chair. It suits collectors of tarot humor with actual craft, Piedmontese and Italian-deck completists, caricature appreciators, and readers who suspect the cards can survive being laughed at. The permanently solemn are, as ever, the joke's other half.