Path: Supernews!supernews.com!newsfeed2.aimnet.com!newshub1.home.com!newshub2.home.com!news.home.com!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.imperium.net!usenet From: Obsidian Newsgroups: alt.tarot Subject: Re: The Sforza Deck? Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 22:17:26 -0400 Organization: The Obsidian Group Lines: 32 Message-ID: <5lr1h5$r39@news.imperium.net> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: akron104.imperium.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (Win95; I) To: "John R. Snead" Xref: Supernews alt.tarot:20131 John R. Snead wrote: > > I have run across mention of, and today saw pictures of a few cards in > the early Italian Sforza deck. It looked *very* nice, very rich and > elaborate, not at all like the other early, rather crude (like the > Marseilles deck) decks I've seen. So, does anyone know where I could > buy a reproduction of this deck? Also, I've not seen images of any > of the minor arcana. Do the minors have images like the later decks, > or simply X number of swords, cups, rods.... > > Also, when does this deck date from? I believe I heard it was 15th > century or so. > > Thanks- > > -John Snead jsnead@netcom.com Greetings... The Visconti-Sforza deck dates from circa 1440. The minor arcana cards are numbered images of those suites, ie. X swords, chalices, etc., not graphical images as in many modern decks. The reproduction set can be obtained from U.S. Games Systems 179 Ludlow St. Stamford Ct. 06902. The same source also has the so-called Cary-Yale deck, another Visconti deck from about the same time period in facsimile. OBSIDIAN -- Ex Tenebra, Lux Email replies need to manually edit my given E-address to remove the spamblock.