Carnival of Venice Tarot

Carnival of Venice Tarot
Amerigo Folchi, 1988

Here is a perfect theme for a Tarot deck. Folchi starts with the unique scenes of the Venice carnival, and blends his own surprising twists into the imagery. This deck has 78 fully illustrated cards, and was printed in a limited edition of 3000 by Italcards in 1988.

Folchi briefly introduces the deck as having been inspired by Venice, Italy. Yet his initial idea grew into the more elaborate concept of depicting the characters seen during the yearly Venice carnival processions. Some of the characters in this deck were invented by Folchi. Others depict stock characters from the Commedia dell’ Arte, which were troups of touring actors. Several of these familiar characters have interesting parallels with the Trump types, including Harlequin, a jesting valet who becomes Folchi’s Fool; Brighella, his rascal companion and charlatan; Capitano, the proud soldier; Dottore, a comic old professor; Pantalone, the deceived father or husband; Pulcinella, the cruel, malicious jester; the servant Scapino; and Columbina the crafty maidservant.

The little booklet for this deck is in English and Italian, but unfortunately provides no scene descriptions for any of the cards. Only short divinatory meanings are given. But for the most part these pictures are self explanatory. The deck is fully illustrated with people on all but a handful of cards, showing a wide range of emotion throughout the deck. Folchi created some extremely clever designs for his actors, including his Page of Swords, Knight of Pentacles and The Tower cards above. There are several cards in this deck that I think are stunning, such as the Six of Swords and the Six of Cups. All of these drawings have very detailed line work. I‘ll let Folchi’s words finish my review:

“Suddenly I am caught by the recollection of a holiday I spent in Venice during the carnival days. I remember being charmed by that unreal atmosphere and by the magical game of general disguising. Yes, the carnival is a cultural phenomenon based on the liberating expression of feelings. It is spontaneous street theatricality in which self-permissiveness agrees to unrestrained exhibitions; truth and fiction interpenetrate, thus giving rise to an ambiguous and exciting psychological behavior.

“At last, stirred by these thoughts and by Harlequin’s insistent and threatening look, I have begun my work. So, here it is, my masked Taroc is born; its characters, the masks, create a mise en scène, as if they were actors they play the role attributed to their card and go about the scenery of the vast stage of Venice.”

Review by Mark Filipas, 4/15/00