Future Solleone Tarot

Future Solleone Tarot
Elisabetta Cassari, 1987

This is a deck created by the Italian artist Elisabetta Cassari, published by Edizione del Solleone in 1987. It was limited to a printing of 1500, and each deck is numbered on the outside of the slipcased box. The style is reminiscent of her first deck, The Solleone Tarot, both decks showing her beautiful linework and crosshatch shading.

The Future Solleone Tarot is a 78-card deck with a few variations from the traditional trumps. Cassari is narrating a linear story, which begins with a creation myth, moves through the development of a fictional society, and ends with the repercussions of their fascination with technology. The first card is Chaos (below), showing a primordial and shapeless world on which life has not yet taken form. This genesis continues as cards 2-Light, 3-Aurora, 4-Reptiles and Fish (below), 5-The Human Creatures, 6-the Tyrant, and 7-the People. The rest of the trumps follow more closely to tradition yet are illustrated with some very creative variations.

The entire deck is a work of science fiction. In the folded booklet that comes with it, Cassari explains that her cards tell the story of a distant planet in a future galaxy. Reptiles and Fishes, shown above, depicts the stage in the planet’s history when its evolving creatures take to the sky. Not shown here are some interesting human characters from the series of trumps: the birth of human life on the planet (5-The Human Creatures), marriage between a couple from two different alien races (18-The Marriage), Justice as an android whose sophisticated machinery computes the fate of those brought before her, and The Devil represented by a futuristic ‘evil genius’ (15-The Evil Genius).

The fully-illustrated minors are made up of the four elements, with a keyword at the top of each card. The one major change here is that she has switched the associations of Air and Water: her booklet associates her Air to the suit of Cups and her Water to Spades. The end result is that her keywords are vaguely similar to traditional card meanings, but those usually given to Cups are here given to the suit of Air, and vice-versa.

Cassari’s suit cards provide the subplots to her story, giving us a glimpse of the various forms of life on the planet. The suit of Air (Aria) depicts astronauts and gigantic palaces suspended over the earth. They have fully embraced technology, and their society appears to be more refined than the other races. Artistic Success, below, shows one pursuit of their culture.

The suit of Water (Acgua) is my favorite because of its wonderful underwater creatures. I wanted to post several scans from this suit, but restrained myself to be fair to the rest of the deck. This is a world of algae, of sea-creatures, and of amphibious humans. Here, the Knight of Water rides a seahorse.

On the planet surface lives a less stable social mix, including humans, aliens, androids and robots. Some scenes from the suit of Earth (Terra) illustrate deception and territorial conflict. Other scenes, such as Game (Gioco) below, show less hostile interaction. This suit generally seems to be ruled by humans who maintain their authority by use of force.

Beneath the Earth is the realm of Fire. Within the underground caverns live salamander bipeds and humans that look somewhat different from those that dwell on the surface. These Fire races seem to live in various states of cooperation. The Eight of Fire shows a reconciliation in the midst of a hostile environment.

This deck seems to be intended as a metaphor of our own society. The Trumps, in particular, could be seen as a commentary on our ever-growing fascination with technology. Most of the images in the minor arcana could also be seen in a satirical light: instead of depicting familiar scenes of class struggle or social interaction, Cassari uses a fictional world populated with beings which are not as different from us as they look. This fictional setting might make the deck more palatable to those who found her first deck too intense.

The printing reproduces crisp lines and beautiful colors on a shiny, unlaminated surface. The cardstock is medium weight. Also included is a folded booklet which is written in Italian. The Future Solleone Tarot can usually be found at Alida.

Review by Mark Filipas, 7/14/00