I don't know who the artist or author of this deck is, but the artwork appears to be pretty old, so it might be a reproduction of an older cartomantic deck.  The style of the artwork is similar to poster artwork and book illustrations I've seen from the earlier part of the 20th century (sheesh, I almost said "this century!")  It's a very attractive and comfortable style.  Even the lettering looks like old bookman fonts.  Since this is not a tarot deck, there are no Major or Minor Arcana.  It's kind of hard to guess what the four suits are, since no suit icons ever appear on any of the cards.  There are a total of 52 cards so it seems like it would roll right along with playing card divination.
 
Each card in the deck is rendered the same way; the image almost fully covers the card, except for a white border; a pale creamy yellow colored text box underneath the image bears two separate numbers which appear to be values for the card; the title, in Italian, appears in the center between these two numbers.  In the upper left side border of the card, there is a number and letter combination which as far as I can tell seems to indicate the number and suit of the card.  All of the cards fall into one of four letters, and the numbers in each letter go up to 13, which would be a total of 52 cards.  The four suits begin with the letters C (for Cuore), Q (for Quadri), F (for Fiori) and P (for Picche).  Which I would guess correspond to Hearts, Diamonds, etc.  Interestingly, the Italian-to-English dictionaries which I consulted were clear that "Cuore" is hearts, but the best match for "Quadri" was "four-sided."  And "Fiori" are apparently flowerpots or vases.  *smile*  I couldn't find "Picche" at all.
 
Fortunately the images are extremely intuitive as to the meaning so one needs neither the title nor the suit and number in order to divine from this deck.  This probably makes the deck excellent for children and for beginners to cartomancy.  If you don't have to unlearn memorized meanings and you aren't used to relying on the number and suit to tell you what it is, you're better off with these cards, whose images may be old, but still have meaning for us.  You can tell that the meanings are things like imprisonment, good luck, illness, a baby, etc.  Remember that fortunetelling decks are a lot more cut-and-dried in their meanings, so literal representation is more important.

The cards themselves are a comfortable size, slightly larger than standard playing cards, and printed on a somewhat stiff cardstock which it was necessary to break in well before it would shuffle or handle really easily.  The back design is a monochromatic sepia tone image of a blindfolded woman with a horn of plenty out of which is emptying a bunch of coins and bills.  She represents the goddess Fortuna, who also graces the Fortune card in the deck in full color.  This is obviously in keeping with the "fortunetelling" concept of the deck.  There is no little white booklet.  Instead, there are three cards included at the end of the deck, printed front and back, in Italian only, which seem to be a set of instructions on how to use the cards.  Not much help to anyone who doesn't speak Italian.  One thing I can make out from these cards is that the deck is based on the cards of Mademoiselle Lenormand, who was the great diviner to Napoleon.

I recommend this deck for anyone who already knows how to use cartomantic decks for divination.  It probably can be used by people who are accustomed to reading with playing cards or with Mademoiselle Lenormand's Fortunetelling Cards fairly easily.  Its lovely artwork makes it a nice addition to any cartomantic collection.  As stated above, it could be used with children or beginners who would have no preconceived notions about what to expect with the cards.  I really like it a lot and while I feel somewhat hampered by the lack of information on how to use them, perhaps it would be better not to have any information at all, and just to "wing it."  A charming deck, overall.
 
NOTE: There is a book coming out later this year which is called the Zingara Fortune Teller: A Gypsy Queen and while I am still trying to learn more information about this book, it sounds like it might be very helpful to those who like what they see with this deck and would like to know more about using these kinds of cards.

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Review Copyright 2001 by Gina M. Pace

Sibilla Della Zingara, 2000
published by LoScarabeo, Torino, Italy