L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 14 L'Italo-Americano A s o l i t a r y w o m a n d r e s s e d i n d a r k regal hues, her fin- gers adorned with topazes and opals, a voice as deep and smooth as the softest of velvets. She sits in a room scented like opium and i n c e n s e , t w i l i g h t c l o a k i n g everything in purple and orange. In front of her, there they are: beautifully decorated, colorful, mysterious, frightening. This is what comes to mind when the word "tarots" is men- t i o n e d . T h e m o r e i n f o r m e d about the topic would probably also recall specific illustrations, those of the incredibly famous Rider-Waite deck, created in England at the beginning of the 2 0 t h c e n t u r y . B u t o u r s t o r y t o d a y — a n d i n d e e d t h a t o f tarots in general — starts much earlier than that. Indeed, history and tradition both tell us that tarots are an Italian invention. Playing cards made their way into the Belpaese thanks to its commercial contacts with the Middle East, all the way back during the early decades of the R e n a i s s a n c e . T h e M a m l u k s were keen players and the Ital- ians, never to be underestimated when it comes to having fun, liked those cards so much they decided to make them theirs. This is how the history of tarots starts; then 22 anthropomorphic cards, the major arcana or, to call them as they used to then, trionfi, were added to the mid- dle eastern deck and i tarocchi were born. They are first mentioned in a letter by lawyer Giusto Giusti of Anghiari dating back to 1440, and records of their presence at the Este court, Ferrara, in 1442 are also found. They are shown in a late 15th century fresco in Palazzo Borromeo, in Milan, and there are partial decks dat- ing back to those very years: we have the Visconti di Modrone tarots, today preserved in the US, at Yale, or the beautifully i l l u s t r a t e d B r e r a B r a m b i l l a tarots, of which, however, only two major arcana survive. Then we have the Visconti-Sforza tarots, a more complete deck, probably created around the mid-15th century. Beautiful decks indeed, but all missing some cards. To see them all, preserved and beautifully illustrated, we have to look at the Sola-Busca tarots, the oldest complete deck existent in the world. These c a r d s a r e m u c h m o r e t h a n a g a m e a n d e v e n m o r e t h a n a piece of art: there is mystery and secrecy behind them, and e s o t e r i c i s m e v e n b e f o r e t h e association between tarots and magic was created (We'll have to wait until the 19th century to see that happening). A tad of history first: the deck gets its name from those of its last two owners, Marquise Busca and Count Sola, and were probably produced between 1470 and the beginning of the 16th century. I t c o m p r i s e s 7 8 , b e a u t i f u l l y i l l u s t r a t e d c a r d s , 2 2 m a j o r arcana and 56 minor arcana, engraved on cardboard and hand painted with tempera colors and gold. The first peculiarity of the Sola-Busca deck is its major arcana: in them, Classical and Biblical figures take the place of traditional tarot illustrations: for instance, the arcana of justice is Nero and that of the world is Nebuchadnezzar. Among others represented Gaius Marius, uncle of Julius Cesar, and Bacchus. There are also other not as sim- ple to identify figures, such as the Carbone of the 12th arcana, which some associate with late 15th century humanist and liter- a r y m a n L u d o v i c o C a r b o n e , who was part of the Este court in Ferrara. Minor arcana are a l s o d i f f e r e n t f r o m a l l o t h e r decks', because they are finely a n d r i c h l y i l l u s t r a t e d w i t h scenes of daily life: a true piece of art. We were talking about mys- tery, though, and the Sola-Busca deck is certainly mysterious. Indeed, Italian researcher Sofia di Vincenzo managed to prove the existence of a link between t h e d e c k a n d t h e h e r m e t i c - a l c h e m i c a l t h o u g h t o f t h e Renaissance. This is particularly e v i d e n t i n t h e s u i t o f c o i n s , which apparently illustrates the process of coin minting, but in reality alludes to the complex and secret practices of the Opus Alchemicum, that is, the method u s e d t o c r e a t e t h e l a p i s philosophorum, the philoso- pher's stone, alchemic instru- ment of immortality and perfec- tion. If there were need for any more proof, the ten of coins card holds it: on it, the figure of a man wearing a turban, open ref- erence to Hermes Trismegistus, legendary figure of the Hellenic period and author of the Corpus Hermeticum, the core text of the ancient philosophy of her- meticism, and inspiration for a plethora of later esoteric texts. And if this wasn't enough mystery for a day, there is more. In spite of the refined and deli- cate artistry behind their illus- trations, the name of the man, or m e n , w h o c r e a t e d t h e m remained shrouded in darkness for centuries; in 1938, Arthur M a y g e r H i n d m e n t i o n e d t h e Sola-Busca tarots in his work about Renaissance engravings, attempting to date them and to name their author; his analysis o f t h e i m a g e s a n d o f s o m e inscriptions led him to believe they were engraved in 1490 and painted a year later, in 1491. He also maintained they were prob- ably created for a Venetian, as w i t n e s s e d b y r e f e r e n c e s h e found to the Republic within some of the drawings. The name of the artist behind their cre- ation? Mayger Hind mentioned Mattia Serrati da Cosandola, an engraver from Ferrara. Howev- er, other theories exists. More recently, the hand of Ancona painter Nicola di Maestro Anto- nio has been recognized behind the engravings, while the color- i n g h a s b e e n a t t r i b u t e d t o Venetian humanist and historian Marin Sanudo. What an incredible story, that of the Sola-Busca tarots. And it isn't finished. For more than four centuries they remained the only complete deck of tarot cards with anthro- pomorphic, dynamic figures on them: this, along with some out- standing pictorial similarities, brought a number of esotericism experts to state the Sola-Busca t a r o t s w e r e t h e i n s p i r a t i o n behind Pamela Colman Smith's own work for the Rider-Waite d e c k , t h e m o s t f a m o u s t a r o t deck in the world. In 2009, the Sola-Busca deck was acquired by the Italian Min- istry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and it is today part of the Pinacoteca di Brera collec- tion, in Milan. FRANCESCA BEZZONE The Sola Busca tarot deck, the oldest complete deck extant, is known for the beauty of its illustrations LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE Myster y and histor y of ar t merge together in the Sola Busca tarots

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