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La Corte dei Tarocchi
Designed by Anna Maria D’Onofrio,
limited and numbered edition by Meneghello
This deck is a limited and numbered edition (of 1100) 78 card tarot, and printed beautifully by Il Meneghello
in Milan, Italy in 1999. Besides a top-card which displays the deck name, artist and edition info, there is a folded
sheet which has (in Italian) a very brief history on the artist, Anna Maria D’Onofrio, and the galleries she has
displayed in.
These tarots are printed on a medium toned, very thick card stock; in fact so thick that the height of the stacked
deck is slightly over 1 and 3/4 inches. I tried to shuffle them out of curiosity, but with a half deck in each
hand I could hardly bend them to riffle together - so I didn't try! Besides, I can barely get my hands around the
tops and bottoms of a half stack in a shuffle position because they are so tall: each card is 2 1/16 inches wide
and 5 1/4 inches high. Mixing them together flat on a table is probably the only way that they could be easily
shuffled. The cards, by the way, are not coated by any kind of plastic.
But their odd shape is definitely part of their charm. One of the things I like about her art is how she worked
her compositions into such a vertical shape. Her figures are long and slender, yet none of the cards look like
anything was forced to fit. While the designs are not busy, she has added several fun details into the backgrounds
of some of the cards, such as buildings, trees, and birds. Also, on her pip cards, she has painted at the top different
motifs such as crests, ornamentations, creatures and patterns, which are unique to that card. In other words, all
40 numbered cards each have their own extra design at the top.
The 22 trumps are fairly traditional, though highly stylized, imagery. One nice exception is 'Il Mondo' which apparently
shows the city of Florence from a bird's eye view. I also like the soft and muted colors of the paintings, and
all the textures in her painting style. The only thing that I'm not crazy about is that the faces on some of her
figures look a bit on the 'cute' side. The Sun card is a good example of this. On the other hand her figures are
innocent and simple, which help give this deck it's 'old world' charm. Considering this deck came out in 1999,
it surprisingly makes me feel as if I've taken a step back in time.
This is a high quality deck in every way, from it's art through to it's production. The box
is pretty cool, too. You can usually find this deck at Alida.
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