ILLUSTRATED BY BONIFACIO BEMBO, FRANCESCO ZAVATTARI AND GIOVANNI DE PAOLO
The tarot is an extension of the symbolic experiences of our unconscious. No one knows exactly where it originated, but what is clear is that it was guided by the collective unconscious of the people of Europe, and that is precisely where its magic lies.
In the Middle East and Europe, from the time of Alexander the Great until the Renaissance, what we know today as Tarot was formulated. The most famous is the Visconti-Sforza as the first deck to be almost completely preserved. Aesthetically speaking, this tarot is the most beautiful and its illustrations depict members of the Visconti-Sforza family, dukes of Milan. Four of the Tarot cards were lost and we reconstructed them by means of a recreation of the brilliant Giovanni de Paolo, who has pictorial works in The National Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and other important museums.
It is the most famous Tarot and was painted around 1450 to celebrate the conquest of power in Milan by Francesco Sforza and his wife Bianca Maria Visconti, daughter of Duke Filippo Maria.
