Tarot Tour of Northern Italy with Brian Williams

by Mary K. Greer

Among the thirteen people on the September 2000 Tarot Tour were Tarot artist, Arnell Ando; Fern Mercier from New Zealand who will be speaking at the Chicago Tarot Congress; tarotist Charlotte Porter from New Orleans; and art historian Valera Lyles. Several people who reserved spaces never followed through--they missed the trip of a lifetime! Since 2000 was the Jubliee of the birth of Christ, Italy was committed to a major restoration of its art and antiquities; the dollar exchange was the best in decades. Everything was sparkling clean, and art works were being restored, plus the weather was perfect. Brian Williams [creator of the Renaissance, PoMo, and Minchiate Tarots] is fluent in Italian and seems to melt the heart of everyone he meets so we were extremely well treated, and got to see things most tourists would never have access to. His sister, Genny Obert, a professional race car driver and journalist was one of our two drivers, along with Brian's old school friend, Paolo Milazzo. Teacher and historian Andrea Savini (another of Brian's friends), accompanied us around Milan and arranged the trip to Clusone.

We began in Milan where we bought lots of Tarot decks at metaphysical shops and street-corner tabacconists. We toured art museums: the Brera features works by Bonifacio Bembo whose saints and courtiers look just like the Pages and Magician of the Visconti-Sforza deck; churches: the Oratorio Parro di Mocchirolo has a vaulted ceiling fresco of Christ as Pantocrator, seated in a mandorla, one hand pointing up, the other down, and the animals of the apostles (with scrolls) in the four corners; and La Scala Opera House. Then on to the Sforza Castle where we were treated to a private showing of Tarot cards in the castle research library by Dr. Milano, President of the Playing Card Society. He noted, concerning the old title for the Magician card Bagato, that bagatteliere means "fight, argue, shoot" and "shoe-seller," and bagatte means a "seller of small things." Later we learned that bachetta means a "small stick or pointer" [like a wand?].

Then on to the private Palazzo Borromeo for an arranged visit with the famous Tarocchi-players mural (ecstasy!)--see cover of Dummett. The restored 15th c. exterior of the building shows the same diapered pattern as found in the background of the V-S cards. We also visited St. Maria at St. Satiro with its stupendous false-perspective apse, and Leonardo's Last Supper, which when restored revealed anguished faces that had been covered for centuries.

Later we met with the white-haired but energetic Osvaldo Menegazzi who produces the fine-art "Il Meneghello" deck reproductions. Unfortunately Ricardo Minetti of Lo Scarbeo didn't make it in time but he sent decks! [Picture: Osvaldo Menegazzi, center, with his wife on the left, and Arnell Ando and her husband, Mike, on the right.]

First we went by Menegazzi's shop, "The Workshop of Art and Magic" where we got to experience his graphic artistry through hand-printed reproduction and modern decks, art-posters, 3-D shadow boxes he calls "talismans," crystal balls, and a project he is working on with a young woman who is recreating V-S cards utilizing 15th century techniques. His historical collection includes cards torn in half from orphanages where a mother could reclaim her child by reuniting the two halves of the card. Then, on to a country farm house that once belonged to the Visconti's but is now a restaurant where we met Menegazzi's wife and had a to-die-for Italian meal (in my opinion Italians have the best cuisine in Europe). An Italian journalist expressed the typical approach to Tarot reading as, "not believing in the responses of the cards but consulting them nonetheless, with the excuse that it is only an innocent game" [il Giornale, 23 Nov 1998]. Although a primarily Catholic country, Tarot is one of their national treasures.

In Bergamo we visited the Accademia Carrara which has its Visconti-Sforza cards on display in an ill-lighted stair-well. The Tarot images are available as Puzzle Post-cards and art-stamps. I should mention that viewing art with Brian is an experience of a lifetime with his love of the artists, and knowledge of periods, symbols, techniques, the how and why of style changes, but especially his appreciation of what is happening in a painting. It was an honor to be there with him. Warning: he walks incredibly fast and does not understand shopping.

We took a day-trip to Clusone where we had the great honor of a personal tour by Dr. Mino Scandella, the town's Minister of Culture. Clusone is noted for its rare 1485 fresco on the outside of the "Disciplini's Oratory" (Chapel) depicting a three-part "sermon": the Triumph of Queen Death, the Dance of Death (and Judgment), and a mostly destroyed depiction of the Vices and Virtues. The chapel was seat of a confraternity known as "Dei Battuti" (of the Beaten) who wore masks to do good works, especially preparing people for death. [Important fact: one of Robert O'Neill's Tarot theories centers on the confraternities.] In the fresco, individuals representing the different occupations are escorted by skeletons either to Heaven or to the Devil who awaits them at Hell's Mouth. The vanquished include Emperor and Pope, Knights, Pages, a Philosopher/Hermit, while those led off by skeletons in the Dance Macabre include a woman with a mirror (vanity), and a laborer with a "bastone." One of the scrolls (partially destroyed) explains the action, "The one who behaves according to justice and does not disobey high God . . . death does not come to him . . . As in everlasting life . . . " The town itself has a series of streets snaking their way up the side of a hill in four distinct levels, one for each "class" of society, with the clergy and Basilica at the top (originally a Temple of Diana). One of the amazing things is that the outer walls of the buildings are covered with frescos so that people lived surrounded by images speaking via words on banners. Many are framed, looking just like Tarot cards. At the town center is a 15th c. 24-hour clock showing the sun's movement through the signs of the zodiac, the length of day and night, and the sextile, square, trine, and opposition aspects between sun and moon. Dr. Scandella explained that all the town's activities were based on astrological timing.

This Triumph of Death is only one example of the profusion of images directly related to the Tarot Triumphs to be seen throughout Northern Italy, all centering on the late 14th and 15th centuries. While Strength is frequently shown with a column, for example, there is a notable example of her with a lion, exactly like in the Tarot card, flanking the main door of St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice (13th to 15th c.?). I was particularly struck (from across the room!) by a series of mid-14th century paintings by Jocobello Albregno of the Apocalypse. They looked just like Tarot cards, having prominent Roman numerals indicating the verse illustrated. XIIII was an angel with scythe and grape arbor, XVII showed Babylon (similar to the Thoth deck), XX depicted Christ in the sky above skeletons with open books, XIX had six kings on horseback.

We hurried through Verona (Juliet would be shocked at what they've done to her balcony), glimpsing a few churches, and on to Osolo, a tiny walled hill town beloved by the Brownings and actress Eleanora Duse, known for its stunning views and antique shops. Brian arranged a walk around the private rose gardens of a palacio with statues of Pan and a "hidden garden" lined by statues of Goddesses centering on a forest grotto with Venus holding baby Eros (the perfect place for a full moon ceremony). Nearby is the strange 15th c. Casa Longobarda that Brian calls the "alchemist's house." He then took us on a tour of local villas designed by Andrea Palladio (the Barbara and the Emo Capodilista)-- Jefferson modeled Monticello after these. They have temple-like facades, near-perfect symmetry, and are often decorated with pagan gods and goddesses. One of the most exquisite (and full of erotic pagan scenes) was the pleasure dining palace of a bishop--no one actually lived there! The Italians are completely comfortable being in the midst of pagan splendor while still glorifying the agonies of Jesus and martyred saints (there are lots of those around too). That night in the town piazza, under my window, was a high-tech fashion show (lights, loud music, and eight projectors) to kick off an annual chariot race (we left early). I bought a modern Marseille-style deck, printed in florescent colors.

In Padua we saw the Cappella Degli Scrovegni with Giotto's images of the Vices and Virtues that are often compared with Tarot. The civic Palace of Justice features one of the rarest medieval astrological cycles, a grand fresco based on the theories of Pietro d'Abano (originally painted by Giotto but destroyed by fire and replaced around 1420), depicting the twelve Apostles, months, zodiac signs, with planet and constellation, as well as occupations, activities and human characters. The movement of a sunbeam at noon follows a marble line on the floor proceeding along the zodiacal succession. Insolvent debtors sat on a "Stone of Shame" in the center of what is deemed an "astrological complex" before being banished from the city.

Eventually we reached timeless Venice. Aah. Oooh. I've been here twice before but it still takes my breath away, and cannot be described, only experienced. We woke one morning to a dreamy mist and wandered through an other worldly wonderland. I found a carnival mask with a curling brim of full-sized Tarot cards from a lively deck I've never seen before.

We visited a fine-art printer who explained how    the old wood-block decks were produced. On the last night together we dressed    up and were feted at a metaphysical bookstore, "The Temple of Isis,"   which displayed books and decks by Arnell, Brian, and me. Fern and I had an    extra day and visited the Peggy Guggenheim Museum where I found two Tarot    cards: Jackson Pollack painted a recognizable High Priestess called The Moon    Woman, flanked by columns and holding a book; and just around the corner    was The Surrealist by Victor Brauner showing the Magician with lemniscate,    aleph, wand in hand, and sword, cup, and coins on a table (which is also a winged    bug). The perfect end to a perfect trip.

Visit Fern Mercier's site at http://www.tarot.net.nz/ for her description and more pictures of our Tarot Tour.