Tarocchi di Sigismondo by Umberto Giovannini

Tarot's come in all kinds and sizes from the minuscule to the HUGE, this one fits in the second category, size- and prize-wise, but is was so worth it.The Italian artist printmaker Umberto Giovannini, who has a special love for the polychrome woodcut technique used this love and his mastery over it to create 22 large (20x14 cm) tarot artworks.

The deck was inspired by, and took his name from Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, an 15th century Italian nobleman and patron of the arts, a special print representing him was added to the 22 tarot prints.(shown here on the left)

The whole 'deck' was showcased during an art exhibition at the "Palazzo Gambalunga" in Rimini (Italy) during April 2004 and printed in an edition of 99 decks (XV in Roman Numbers for the artist, 9 with letters for libraries and contributors and 75 copies of the normal edition), beautifully displayed in precious dark green passe-partouts bordered with gold. and bound into a book encased in a green box, truly an exceptional production and work of art and craftsmanship.

Taylor Mccall Tarot Prints

I've recently moved homes, one of the painfullest and difficult part of the whole wasn't the furniture but my collection, terrified as i was/am of damaging one i've packed them each very carefully and moved them from my parents home to my current location. as a matter of fact i'm still doing that, taking a few, packing them carefully and moving so i can get them a place in my home where they are at their very best, this is off course a wonderful way to get re-accustomed to those treasures i wasn't always able to access regularly before.

This one is one of those treasures, due to it's massive size, 32' x 23" (32" x 16" per 'page') when it's fully opened it is very difficult to move or even simply handle. These silk-screened images are printed and folded in the middle as pages from a huge book, on the left the  description by P. D, Ouspensky (translated by A. L. Pogossky) of  the Major Arcana  on the right the designs Taylor McCall made based on these, by hand-cutting screens for each color. To further the cosmopolitan images of this creation it was printed on hemp paper handmade by the Amatruda family in Amalfi, Italy and hand-pulled for each page up to nine times by serigrapher Hugh Blackwell of London

Limited to an edition of only 150 sets and finally published by Bocaccio Press of Santa Fe in 1975, what is my birth-year so that makes it even more special to me.
 

Tarocchio - I Tarocchi Di Pinocchio by Massimiliano Frezzato

There are a few decks inspired by the story of Pinocchio the wooden puppet that came to live and wanted to be a "real boy" made famous internationally thanks to the Disney adaptation. This tarot adaptation is a portfolio (sized 377 x 285mm) by the artist Massimiliano Frezzato a well-known Italian comic book author.

This Pinocchio is fresh and with strong colours, mister Frezzato knows his art, and how to tell a story within a given frame - here that of the tarot and this without changing its structure. The scenes linked to each of e 22 majors are well chosen like for example Geppetto inside the whale as the hermit and as the World Pinocchio after his transformation into a real boy.