An art tarot in homage to the great Renaissance painter and inventor, Leonardo da Vinci. The images in the Da Vinci Tarot are mostly inspired by Leonardo’s art, but do feature some of his well-known pieces. First published as the Leonardo aa Vinci Tarot a stand-alone deck, it’s now available as the Da Vinci Tarot kit with a book by Mark McElroy.
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, more commonly Leonardo da Vinci, (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He has been variously called the father of paleontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, his genius epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal.
Many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of the “Renaissance Man”, an individual of “unquenchable curiosity” and “feverishly inventive imagination”. According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent in recorded history, and “his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, while the man himself mysterious and remote”. Marco Rosci, however, notes that while there is much speculation regarding his life and personality, his view of the world was logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unorthodox for his time.
Born out of wedlock to a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, in Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter Andrea del Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded to him by Francis I.
Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only by Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam. Leonardo’s drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro coin, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings have survived, the small number because of his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques. Nevertheless, these few works, together with his notebooks, which contain drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, compose a contribution to later generations of artists rivalled only by that of his contemporary, Michelangelo.
Name: Da Vinci Tarot
Alternate Names: Leonardo da Vinci Tarot
Creators: A. Atanassov, Iassen Ghiuselev
Publisher: Lo Scarabeo 2004/2005
Deck Type: Tarot Deck
Cards: 78
Major Arcana: 22
Minor Arcana: 56
Deck Tradition: Mixed
Minor Arcana Style: Unique Scenes With Suit Symbols
Suits: Chalices, Swords, Wands, Pentacles
Court Cards: Knave, Knight, Queen, King
Major Titles: The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Lovers, The Chariot, Justice, The Hermit, The Wheel, Strength, The Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, The Devil, The Tower, The Stars, The Moon, The Sun, Judgement, The World
The Fool is 0
Strength is 11
Justice is 8
