Golden Tarot of the Renaissance

The archive review opens with Boiardo, Love conquers all, circa 1494, and that is the deck's home ground: the Golden Tarot of the Renaissance draws on the Ferrarese courtly world, the Este court whose poets and painters made Ferrara a Renaissance jewel, Giordano Berti's historical curation with Jo Dworkin's execution in the gilded style. This is the catalog's second Renaissance-gold deck, and where the Botticelli samples a single master, the Estensi evokes a court's whole culture, tournament, sonnet and dynasty. Berti is a serious historian of tarot's Italian origins, and the deck reflects that scholarship: northern Italian courts are where tarot actually began, so a Ferrarese deck is not themed history but returned mail. Gold grounds give it the luxury register the era itself favored. It suits Renaissance-court romantics, students of tarot's true birthplace, collectors of the golden decks, and readers who like their arcana with Boiardo's blessing. The Visconti lineage's admirers will recognize the family resemblance; it is genealogy, not imitation.