Tarocchino Mitelli Deck: Bologna 1660 C A Cards – January 8, 2018

This deck is reproduced from facsimiles of Giuseppe Mitelli's original copper plates made 357 years ago. The cards have a soft wax lustre. They are not shiny, nor plastic coated, nor chemically varnished, and are meant as a collector's reproduction deck. The insert card states, "As a result, they might not be suitable for shuffling." However, the main reason we might be unable to use them for divination is the fact that cards 2,3,4, and 5 of each minor suit are not included in this genre of cards. Sixteen cards are "missing." Mitelli followed the 62-card tradition of Tarocco Bolognese in which there were only 10 cards for each suit: the Ace, jumping to cards 6 through 10, followed by the 4 court cards. This deck is in fact called "Tarocchino" because of the reduced number of cards.If you're willing to forgo sweet love (2 of Cups) to be spared the rancor of the Fives, go ahead and read the cards once or twice to satisfy your curiosity. Apparently the Bolognese were fine without them because they didn't use these cards for divination. They had Popes and inquisitions for heresy and witchcraft, after all. Sixty-two card tarocchino decks are still in use in this part of Italy today for their original purpose of card games, such as Ottocento. Learn all about it at the Accademia del Tarocchino Bolognese website. Mitelli was 4 years old when Galileo was tried a second time for heresy. The idea of using tarot cards for cartomancy was awaiting the next century.The Major Arcana hold quite a few surprises. The Magician is a street musician (huh?) dancing, playing a tambourine while followed down the street by a gaggle of beguiled children and an excited dog. How does this persona become the Magician? Apparently the piazzas and public spaces of urban Renaissance Italy were filled with street performers and peddlers. Ciarlatani (charlatans) sold all manner of services and goods from haberdashery, questionable medicines to pulling out bad teeth. Cantastori (storytellers, troubadours) composed songs of epic tales and bawdy tales. They improvised verses of critical social commentary that were highly entertaining to the illiterate and disenfranchised. A contemporaneous account doesn't differentiate between these street denizens at all. Basically they were the same crowd. Thus our alchemist is a fraudulent charlatan/Trickster and a street musician as well.Mitelli replaced the High Priestess with a second Hierophant, while the Empress and Emperor also wear Hierophant head pieces. Thus, there are 4 Hierophants in all. It makes perfect sense when you think about it. All four of them uphold the established orthodoxies of church and state during this period of the Renaissance. The papacy and government were enmeshed in the feudalistic city states run by the Medicis, Viscontis, Sforzas, Borgias, Bentivoglio -- Mitelli's sponsor for this deck, etc., It would be interesting to see the cards in the privately commissioned Visconti-Sforza deck. Members of these families served as popes, cardinals, de facto rulers and absolute monarchs. When the papacy forbade the use of the words "Popess" or "Pope" in 1725, the 4 Hierophants became the four Moors. (I suggest numbering these 4 cards lightly in pencil. They're hard to differentiate once they fall out of order.)The Hanged Man is Il Traditore, the Traitor resting his weary head. He's completely unaware that someone has found him out, and that person is about to crush his skull with a large sledgehammer. This is not the RW card of an enlightened new perspective nor a period of stasis. Yes, he is taking a rest, but that's about to end, too.Strength is a lone dis-sheveled woman leaning against a broken ionic column, as if to say, "Well, at least is column and I are still standing." The Hermit is Father Time, or Il Vecchio, a winged and naked Old Man using two crutches. The Moon is Diana, goddess of the hunt and the moon. Diana is also the goddess of women and childbirth. Women's cycles and fertility are connected to The Moon, rather than to the stately Empress who's probably busy levying a grain tax on the peasantry.The deck is actually very easy to shuffle -- and I have small hands. I hold the entire deck horizontally with one hand while shuffling with the other. These cards don't stick at all. So the mechanics are reading are fine. However, I tried a few spreads for myself, and the cards don't make any sense at all. 16 cards might be too many to do without. I tried to pull clarifiers from another deck but that was also thematically incoherent. I may revisit this later. For now, it seems all I got out of this $35 investment is a nice google session on the history of tarot.

These are truly beautiful cards, but of very limited use for doing readings - not because of any issues with the actual cards, but because the Metelli deck is truly unigue, including cards other decks don't have and omitting cards all other decks do have - but because the included booklet, which for most decks includes interpretations for each card, in this case has NOTHING to say about the actual cards, focusing entirely in the history of the deck, with no help at all in dealing with the extras and omissions. I tried emailing the publisher for guidance to finding useful documentation for this desk, but that was weeks ago and they haven't bothered responding at all. Beautiful if you want tarot cards as an art collection, but limited usefulness for readings.

Happy with purchase

Exactly what you’d expect. Good quality, but not suited for vigorous shuffling or daily use. More of a deck suited for collectors.

I absolutely love this series from Lo Scarabeo. Beautifully made and historically fascinating. Highest quality.

Like!!!

The artwork is beautiful, but the cards are poorly coated. They stick and clump together. Shuffling is impossible. The deck is largely unusable because of that avoidable defect.

Excellent

One of the best specimens in my collection of Tarot.

Il tarocchino Mitelli di Bologna è un mazzo particolare. Gli Arcani Maggiori seguono perlopiù l'iconografia classica ma con molta originalità e qualche peculiarità non da poco, che sarà eccellente oggetto di studio e approfondimento per lo studioso. Le incisioni sono bellissime con colori tenui e affascinanti. Curati e particolari anche gli arcani minori. Ogni famiglia non possiede le carte 2-3-4-5, il che rappresenta la particolarità di questo mazzo di 62 carte. Da qui il nome di "tarocchino". Riprodotto con grande fedeltà, ottima qualità di stampa e cartoncino, accompagnato da un mini-libriccino con qualche cenno storico, cofanetto semplice ma efficace e certificato che attesta l'unicità della tiratura a sole 2999 copie. Ogni copia è numerata. Soddisfatissimo del fatto che questa pregevole edizione faccia parte ora della mia collezione.

Bellissima riproduzione del Tarocchino Bolognese di Giuseppe Maria Mitelli (1660 circa).A prima vista la qualità del cartoncino sembra leggermente inferiore a quella del mazzo di Nicolas Conver (sempre della serie “Anima Antiqua” e stampato più recentemente), pur rimanendo davvero molto buona.[Le carte misurano 12,2cm in altezza e 5,9cm in larghezza]

Beautiful deck but my copy came with 2 Pages of Wands and NO King of Wands. Better off with an IL Menegallo deck witch is more expensive but don't get this kind of Error.