Tarochhi Delle Stelle
by Giorgio Tavaglione
 
When I first found out I could actually get a copy of this long out-of-print tarot, I was elated.  I've already reviewed, and loved, Tavaglione's Stairs of Gold Tarot, and so I knew before I ever laid eyes on this one that I would love it.  It's recognizably Tavaglione's art style; however, the deck itself is quite fresh and different from what I expected it to be.

The Tarocchi Delle Stelle, or Tarot of the Stars, has the full 78 cards. The cards are very large which gives a very good palette for the artwork.  A lot of white surrounds the images, instead of borders, giving the cards an open, fresh air look to them.  Those of you who have read my review of the Tarot of the Old Path know that I like this look.  The artwork style has a similarity with good comic book art and reminds me of the Prince Valiant comic strips.  Its fantasy orientation means a lot of characters in the deck are scantily clad, or nude altogether, and highly muscled.
 
The Major Arcana in this deck are titled and ordered according to the classic Marseille style.  Justice is 8 and Strength 11.  Titles appear in small black text in English in the upper left corner, in French in the upper right corner, in German in the lower left corner, and in Spanish in the lower right corner.    In the center of the image area at the bottom is a largish shield shaped text area; the Arabic numeral for the card appears here, under which is the title in Italian in large boxy letters, and then a series of keyword meanings for the card are also presented in Italian.  Hebrew letters, astrological symbols and alchemical symbols are also to be found within the image area.  Detail is exquisite.  The Death card is unnamed.  The Strength card title is misspelled The Strenght in the English corner.
 
The Minor Arcana have some very interesting details also.  Suits are untitled, but the items shown are Cups, Swords, Wands and Coins.  Where a title would normally be, instead there are keywords which explain the card.  One might think they were similar to Crowley's Thoth Tarot which has keywords for the Minors, but for some reason they feel to me like they are based more on the Etteilla Minors.  The numbered cards are illustrated with scenes.  Court cards are done like the numbered cards, in that they do not have a specific title, for example, the man who looks like a King of Coins has no title to that effect on his card.  The Courts look to follow the classical King, Queen, Knight and Page.  At the top of each Minor Arcana card, both numbered and courts, are these weird little half-round shapes with symbols in them; they contain, among other things, the suit item of the corresponding playing card deck suits and the number of the card.  So you can figure out the King of Coins because he has a K and a Diamond in the top half-round thing.
 
The cards themselves are larger than standard, but they shuffle and handle easily.  Printed on a thin flexible card stock, they are coated with a semi-gloss finish protective layer.  The back design is glorious; a blue background is covered with a colorful design incorporating lots of symbols, which is the same on both ends so it can be reversible.  The deck does use reversals.  The little white booklet which comes with the deck is practically a novel.  Dal Negro typically writes lengthy books for their decks.  Unfortunately, it's entirely in Italian, so I can't read it to say whether it's helpful or not.  Several black and white illustrations by Tavaglione grace the booklet.  They are not the same as the card images.
 
Overall, I recommend this tarot deck for collectors of tarot.  It's a beautiful deck, art-wise, but most of the time, the classically styled decks are harder to work with than the Rider-Waite types.  I'd not recommend this for a beginner since there is nothing to work with book-wise (unless the reader is fluent in Italian).  Since it is out of print, I definitely recommend that you pick it up if you should happen to catch one somewhere.  It was expensive but quite worth the price!
 
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also by Giorgio Tavaglione:
Stairs of Gold Tarot
 
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Review Copyright 1999 by Gina M. Pace