Product Description

Since the Tarot is really a product of the Italian Renaissance, it is only appropriate that a Tarot deck be based on the genius of the quintessential Renaissance man: Leonardo da Vinci.


Created by Iassen Ghiuselev and Atanas A. Atanassov, the art for this deck--sophisticated in line, color, composition, and symbolism--is true to the style of the master himself. The accompanying book by popular Tarot author Mark McElroy reveals which pieces of Da Vinci's art each card is based upon, as well as a short history of Da Vinci's life and how he may have encountered Tarot. Also included are specific divinatory meanings written especially for these unique cards.


Prepare to be intrigued, challenged, and delighted as you explore the depth and beauty of this deck and kit.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #845832 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 64 pages

About the Author
Since 1987, Art Publisher Lo Scarabeo has published over 100 Tarot decks that have been acclaimed all over the world for originality and quality. Only the best Italian and International artists are selected for our new decks, and the result is that Lo Scarabeo's decks are all recognizable as an exceptional artistic value.

Tradition
One of Lo Scarabeo's goals is the preservation of traditional Tarot decks.

Development
New decks and ideas are continually gathered from all over the world. This allows Lo Scarabeo to produce some of the most innovative decks available today.

Quality
Lo Scarabeo is committed to ever increasing quality and beauty of their products.

Distribution
*Llewellyn is the exclusive distributor of Lo Scarabeo products in North America.
After purchasing his first Tarot deck in 1973, Mark McElroy began terrorizing other neighborhood nine-year-olds with dire and dramatic predictions.Today, he calls Tarot "the ultimate visual brainstorming tool," and shares techniques designed to help others ask better questions, see more options, and achieve their goals.

He is the author of Putting the Tarot to Work, Taking the Tarot to Heart, What's in the Cards for You?, and the new I Ching for Beginners (all Llewellyn). He is also the author of The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Tarot (Que).

Mark holds a B.A. and M.A. in creative writing and composition from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. He has more than two decades of experience as a public speaker and corporate trainer. He has written, produced, and hosted classroom, video, and online training for some of America's biggest companies, including SkyTel, MCI, Office Depot, Staples, and many others.

Mark lives and writes in Mississippi, where he shares a home with his partner, Clyde, and two cats, Tiger and Lilly.

~

Customer Reviews

Bland
"Did Leonardo Da Vinci encounter the Tarot while working for the Sforza family? No one knows. It is intriguing, though, to imagine his reactions to the cards...and to envision the sort of deck Da Vinci, a Renaissance Master, might have produced." - From the companion booklet to the Da Vinci Tarot

Books by Margaret Starbird and Elaine Pagels, coupled with the popular novel and movie The Da Vinci Code, has re-awakened an interest in the Mary Magdalene mythos as well as the Renaissance Master himself. Was Da Vinci connected to forbidden sects and secret societies that preserved and protected the history and lineage of Mary Magdalene and Jesus? No one knows for sure, but there is little evidence to support these theories.

Nevertheless, the enigmatic smiles of Da Vinci's subjects as well as his futuristic inventions intrigue us to this day. Renowned for both The Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, Da Vinci created drawings of fantastic flying machines, detailed anatomical sketches, and a myriad of inventions-including advanced weaponry.

Commissioned in 1992 to create a series of 22 paintings for a Majors only deck, Iassen Ghuiselev culled images from Da Vinci's notebooks, diagrams, and artwork. Art historian Marco Bussagli hailed the artistic works, which featured Da Vinci's mirror-script for the card titles and tiny glyphs adapted from the Master's designs. Over a decade later, a new artist was recruited to replicate the subtle shading techniques of Ghiuselev for the Minor Arcana. Atanas Atanassov completed the Minors in 2002, but Lo Scarabeo decided to expand the Da Vinci Tarot with a new kit, which includes a 63-companion guide written by Mark McElroy.

The card images in the Da Vinci Tarot depict androgynous characters, fantastical beasts, and enigmatic expressions depicted in muted shades of brown, gray, and green. Six languages announce each card title and the construction is consistent with traditional decks. The suits are Chalices, Pentacles, Swords and Wands and the Court attributions are Knave, Knight, Queen, and King. Wands are associated with element Fire and Swords with element Air. The card backings are fully reversible, depicting doubled images of the Queen of Wands. Measuring approximately 4 ¾ inches by 2 ½ inches, the sturdy but flexible card stock has a slick, matte finish and shuffles easily.

In the companion booklet, McElroy admits that some card meaning stray from traditional meanings, making the Da Vinci Tarot an unwise choice as a beginner's deck. For example, the provided meanings for the Two of Pentacles are "clarity, untainted love, honest friendship, unconditional love and acceptance, engaging in love for the simple pleasure of doing so." Traditionally, relationships, love, and emotions are the realm of the Cups/Chalices/Water suit, not Pentacles. The meaning for the Ace of Chalices is "growth, eating well, fostering a sense of well-being, tending to the healthy advancement of body and spirit, taking advantage of opportunities to be nurtured." Apart from the latter meaning, this description sounds much more like the traditional realm of the Pentacles/Earth suit, which governs health and the physical body.

For each card in the Da Vinci Tarot, McElroy gives a brief commentary and three exploration questions, as well as what they encourage and caution against. For some cards, the author offers illustration notes, highlighting the source of card images. It's my understanding that the artist didn't keep track of which sketch or painting went with each card image, but McElroy's curiosity and tenacity spurred him to resolve the derivations.

There are some omissions and mistakes in the booklet, including duplicating the card meaning of the Empress for the Emperor and a typo for The World, which says "The figure on The Sun..." To be honest, I'm not sure if there are other mistakes because I couldn't get past the Majors with a mere cursory reading of the booklet. Surprisingly, the companion booklet is a dry read. Surprising, because McElroy is usually an engaging author. Granted, hints of his cleverness and inventiveness peek through, but the booklet bored me to tears. I was going to push through the entire 63 pages, but I figured "why bother?"

While the mirror-script and icons in the background of the Majors add a hint of mystery and additional intuitive information, I found most of the card images uninspiring. The artists are very talented, especially with shading techniques, but most of the image selections aren't conducive to symbolic interpretation and intuitive association for those who don't memorize meanings to apply to every deck. I performed a reading and found the Da Vinci Tarot wanting. It just doesn't "speak" to me and, for the first time as a reader, I actually found myself thinking of the Rider-Waite correlations in the attempt to glean *some* information from the spread.

This deck would be great for rabid fans of Da Vinci and art deck collectors. However, I found the deck and companion booklet quite bland, despite the care taken with its execution.

(To see 9 card images from the Da Vinci Tarot, visit the Reviews--Decks section at JanetBoyer.com)

Da Vinci Tarot - A Review
Iassen Ghiuselev, Atanas Atanassov, and Mark McElroy collaborated to present the Great artistic Renaissance Master and overall genius' prolific and classic masterpieces to illustrate the 78 tarot cards. Ghiuselev was responsible for selecting and editing the Major Arcana cards, while Atanassov worked on the Minor Arcana versions. McElroy scripted the concise thin book that accompanies the deck, offering interpretrations of the selected illustrations and a brief meaning for each card. Although all three of these contributors must be acknowledged, the real creative force behind this deck is Leonardo himself.

The images on each card are awe-inspiring, to say the least. Interestingly, the three authors chose female artwork to provide the backbone and front image interface of the deck. The first piece that greets our eye is the infamous Mona Lisa (wearing papal headgear!), who demurely smiles from the front of the boxed set and on the accompaning book. Mona personifies the stately High Priestess, representing secrecy, mystery, intuition, reflection, and engaging in studious pursuits. The deck box itself is also graced with two other images of women. Some cards feature a complete art piece by Da Vinci while others include sections or elements from more complex paintings, carefully chosen to illustrate the essence and persona of each of the cards. The back of every card sports the image of the Queen of Wands illustration. The painting used for this illustration is apparently of Cecilia Gallerani in Lady with the Ermine, painted around 1491.

This deck uses fairly standard language to distinguish the four suits: Swords, Wands, Pentacles and Chalices, and the four Court Cards, King, Queen, Knight, and one exception Knaves (in place of Pages or Princesses). The paintings portray classically beautiful people, boasting health and vibrancy but painted in subtle muted colors and tones. For instance da Vinci's infamous painting Bacchus (hangs in the Louvre in Paris) was used for Number I Major Arcana card, The Magician.

This deck would make the perfect gift for loved ones who were enthralled with the Da Vinci Code or for artists or those who appreciate fine art, who also are drawn to the tarot.

Published in 2005, the deck includes 78 cards, with 22 Major and 56 Minor Arcana cards in a compact size to fit easily in an adult's hand.

Jump on the Bandwagon
Talk about jumping on the da Vinci band wagon! But this was to be expected. Some one was going to do it eventually. And for a tarot deck, of course it would be Lo Scarabeo.

So I decided to give it a looking at and work with it a bit. Right off the top I had issues with the images.

I always respected da Vinci as a master of the art medium. His work was revolutionary for the time. His designs were ahead of his time, working on such unheard items as flying machines and all sorts of early mechanical devices.

But the main image, Mona Lisa with a pontifical miter, in my opinion, is an insult to his art. The use in the deck is supposed to be The High Priestess. I could actually see Mona as The High Priestess, but why put the hat on. It is comical and in poor taste in my opinion.

But that is how many of the images are in this deck. Take something very da Vinci or da Vinci in appearance, add something that is supposed to be tarot related and you have a card. Many of the images are "adapted" from da Vinci's work, meaning the artist gave it a completely different aspect from the original work.

As typical for Lo Scarabeo decks, the colors are muted. Actually, da Vinci's work, as in the Mona Lisa, is not all that colorful, but there are some works that are very colorful. So, while I could argue the point, I let it stand as the artist was looking to give a general feeling of Renaissance style in muted tones. There are some subtle coloring to some of the works, but nothing brilliant or garish. The artist keeps to the theme.

The works are not just da Vinci works. The artist incorporates elements of da Vinci's work into his own compositions. The mechanical bat flies over a fortified city in The Fool. The Chariot is a collection of pieces from various da Vinci works woven together by the artist. The Devil is derived from a caricature of an old woman, several anatomical studies and a dragon from one of his sketchbooks.

But maybe I know da Vinci's works too well to see what the artist was getting at. The artist was looking for "impact" here, not the origins of the works. And while the idea was interesting, it didn't seem to carry it through for me.

But for a working deck, I find it does not blend in with the kind of atmosphere I want to suggest when working with a client. While it did spark some curiosity from a few clients and most wanted to look at the deck, they chose another for me to do their reading.

If you must have all things da Vinci, or if you collect decks and are looking for something a bit off the beaten track, this deck will please. But for a working deck, you may want to look at some others. boudica