Friday, April 16, 2021

April 16, 2021: The Decameron Tarot, a review


I have now looked at all of the cards of the Decameron Tarot, and I've gotten to know this erotic and very non-traditional deck. The Decameron Tarot is created by Giacinto Gaudenzi and Luciano Spadanuda, and was published by Lo Scarabeo in 2003.  It is a 78 card Tarot deck with the traditional Major Arcana card names, a Minor Arcana with four suits, Wands (Fire), Swords (Air), Chalices (Water) and Pentacles (Earth), and with a Court consisting of Knave, Knight, King and Queen.  The cards themselves are 2 5/8 inches by 4 3/4 inches, with color images in a Medieval style, with a smooth glossy finish.  The guidebook that comes with the deck is a traditional "LWB" (Little White Book) guidebook that contains a basic description of the focus of the deck and suggested key phrases for each card.

The Decameron Tarot is based loosely on the book, The Decameron, which is a work by Giovanni Boccaccio written between 1348 and 1358 that contains a hundred tales supposedly told over ten days by a group of ten people who fled from Florence to the countryside to avoid the Black Death.  I was able to get a really nice translation of the Decameron Tarot by Wayne A. Rebhorn and I'm glad I took the time to read the book.  While the book is not written in an erotic style, there is certainly a lot of sex and romance within the stories themselves.  Through reading The Decameron I was able to understand the woman's place in this culture and time, and this helped me to more easily accept a few of the card images which as a woman were very uncomfortable for me.  

This is not a good deck for a beginner who is still learning the traditional meanings of the Tarot deck or who is looking to learn how to interpret the cards because the majority of the card meanings are non-traditional.  However if you have a good solid base in the symbolism of the Tarot, this deck can encourage you to look at some of the traditional interpretations in a new way.

I will continue working with this deck, and I will post my Wheel of the Year readings using the Decameron Tarot on or near the first of each month through 2021.  In the mean time, I will be choosing another deck to explore, so stay tuned!

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