Ancient Minchiate Etruria [Cards]

Lo Scarabeo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2000

Minchiate was a popular card game in Florence in the 16th century. In this 97-card deck, we find the traditional Tarot trumps and Minors along with additional cards. The Major Arcana includes the seven virtues, the four elements, and the twelve signs of the Zodiac. In this carefully and beautifully reproduced deck nothing is added -- it's simply the cards in their original lavish color and design; even the backs of the cards are reproduced from the original 1725 deck. The Majors are all numbered, save the Fool, who is unnumbered. The Minor Arcana, with the Marseilles style pips, are traditional with the exception of the Pages. In the suits of Cups and Coins, which are considered "feminine" suits, the typically male Pages are replaced with Maids. The Knights are all centaurs. Like the rediscovery of Tarot for divination in the 18th century, modern deck designers are beginning to recognize the usefulness of this deck structure for divination. Historically important, symbolically fascinating, and decidedly engaging, Minchiate is enjoying its own renaissance.

Editorial Reviews

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.

Product Details

• Cards
• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications; 97-card deck edition (September 8, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 073870024X
• ISBN-13: 978-0738700243
• Product Dimensions: 4.4 x 2.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,676,705 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beutiful, useful, and interesting deck., December 3, 2000

By 

Uri Raz (Israel) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ancient Minchiate Etruria (Cards)

The Minchiate deck is a variant of the better known tarot deck, and differs in the major arcana - there are 41 cards, rather than 22, so there are 97 cards in the deck.

The extra major arcana cards include the 12 signs of the zodiac, the 4 elements, and the 4 extra virtues. Due to religious / political reasons, the pope, popess, emperor, and empress are replaced by the grand duke, eastern & western emperors.

I find the 18th century art very beutiful, and regretfuly cant give a URL to a site that carries a sample of scanned cards.

The deck comes with a small divination booklet, and nothing much beyond that. The only book I'm aware of that goes in details to the Minchiate deck is the one that comes with Brian Williams' Minchiate deck (which I highly recommend).

I read mostly with the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, with this being my next most used deck. I highly recommend it to tarot readers and collectors.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great cards, but without a good instruction book, September 10, 2005

By 

Wulfgirl (Sacramento, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ancient Minchiate Etruria (Cards)

I love these cards. The images are lovely and 97 cards means greater variation in their readings than with a more traditional tarot deck. Because the cards are fairly small, the larger deck is easy enough to handle, as well.

If you do the Renaissance Faire or SCA, this deck is just out of period for Florence Italy, but looks period anyway. The Visconti deck is period, but the 4 cards that were recreated from scratch are not. The "Devil" card in the Ancient Minchiate deck is actually closer to what a "Devil" card would have looked like in period.

The biggest problem with this deck is that it does not have a good instruction book to go with it. It has a small booklet in several languages, but the meanings given for the cards are very limited. If you want to try out these cards or others to see how they look and how well they work in a tarot reading.[...]
Here you can try several decks and see interpretations for reversals as well as for upright cards. I know of no other website or book were you can view the meanings for reversals in the Minchiate decks.

By the way, if you decide to buy this deck from an Amazon Marketplace seller, do not use Movie Mars! They waited 2 weeks to ship. When I got my deck there were a bunch of cards missing and duplicated. I tried to return them for a replacement deck, but they never contacted me to say if or when the replacement dack had shipped. When I finally contacted them, they told me they were back-ordered. Yet, they were still offering the same deck on eBay under the store name of "Book Mars".

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ancient Minchiate Etruria Tarot Cards, February 20, 2011

By 

S. Cannon "S.D.C." (oregon) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ancient Minchiate Etruria (Cards)

I have loved this deck from afar for many years now, and I was so excited to have found it on Amazon, the seller was so sweet, she sent me another rare deck for free! I will cherish this deck forever and the cute little collectable pink elephant is really thoughtful too. The Minchiate is my favorite deck of all time and I feel grateful to have it now.