Artistic images, golden miniatures, symbolism and visions. In Bergamo, an exhibition event reassembles the legendary «Colleoni» deck, a fifteenth-century masterpiece that has come together after over 100 years, and tells of a language that continues to seduce, question and make the human soul reflect.
They have passed through the centuries without ever changing. Simple and powerful images. THE’Hermit barefoot who raises a lantern in the night to search for the way, theHanging that is, the man who does not know how to choose, the Deaththe XIII arcana, the only one without a name, but with the meaning of profound transformation.
THE tarot cards they continue to exert a mysterious fascination, remaining one of the most sought after things that have come down to us from Antiquity. THE’Carrara Academy of Bergamo with a unique event it will exhibit the «Colleoni» deck, recomposed for the first time in over a century. The exhibition Tarot. The origins, the cards, the luck (from February 27 to June 2, in collaboration with The Morgan Library & Museum of New York) reveals the story of one, the most complete and ancient that exists in the world, of the three Milanese decks, the so-called Visconti-Sforzacommissioned in the mid-fifteenth century by Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, and his wife Bianca Maria Visconti.
Magnificently decorated by the workshop of Bonifacio Bembo and Antonio Cicognara, they were probably precious diplomatic gifts. Paolo Plebani, conservator, head of the Academy’s collections and curator of the exhibition, explains how he was moved by studying the papers: «And also surprised by their ability to fascinate the most diverse people, from great scholars to ordinary people, who see something enigmatic and secret in them. The reunion of the Colleoni deck, 74 cards out of 78, was born in 2021 from a study project together with the Morgan Library”.
The history of the Colleoni deck
The story of how it was divided is interesting, continues the curator: «At the end of the nineteenth century it belonged entirely to the family of the same name, heirs of the mercenary captain Bartolomeo. It is not known how they came into possession of it in the mid-nineteenth century. It is certain that in 1911 the powerful American banker and patron of the arts JP Morgan bought thirty-five of them, those that are today preserved in the Morgan Library. The twenty-six in our possession were sold by the family to the noble Francesco Baglioni, collector and president of the Academy. Upon his death in 1900, he donated them to the museum. Finally, the last thirteen remained in the family’s private collection.”
The exhibition unfolds along a historical journey that spans seven centuries, from the fifteenth century to the twenty-first century, showing the evolution: from playing cards to tools for divination. From the sumptuous Renaissance courts, where nobility and royalty were used for entertainment, starting with Charles VI, the Madman, king of France suffering from depressive delusions. Until the Protestant pastor and Freemason Antoine Court de Gébelin who at the end of the eighteenth century, in the eighth volume of his encyclopedia Monde primitif, was the first to attribute esoteric characteristics to it, declaring an unlikely origin from Egypt and maintaining that they were the survival of the ancient wisdom deposited in the Book of Toth.
From playing cards to esotericism
«For almost three centuries they were only used for gaming. Since the end of the eighteenth century their esoteric aspect has prevailed. Then in the twentieth century artists looked at tarot cards in a new way. Those images so ancient and apparently distant have managed to overcome time. The exhibition divided into seven rooms is dotted with rare and beautiful decks. In addition to our set, there will be selections of the “Brambilla” and “Sola Busca” decks from the Pinacoteca di Brera, a unique testimony, coming from Washington, of the first printed tarot cards. There is a splendid French example from the sixteenth century and that of Jean Noble, the prototype of the Marseille tarot from the National Library of France”, concludes the curator. However, tarot cards do not reveal the future. They give an indication, they are a mirror to reflect on. Sort of Jungian psychoanalysisa journey inside ourselves. They are chameleons that change with every glance: they reveal fears and secrets, they unravel the certainty of our doubts.
The works on display have the grace of precious miniatures. Refined golden backgrounds, angels with blue wings, creatures holding symbolic objects, popesses and empresses with robes with precious embroidery. Once upon a time I was 22 Major Arcana they were called “Triumphs”, like those of Petrarch. Italo Calvino wrote his novel The Castle of Crossed Destinies, starting from the Colleoni deck.
Tarot, art and contemporary literature
Also on display will be the tarot cards designed by the surrealist poet and painter Leonora Carrington, who, like a priestess, was the first to introduce the eclectic artist Alejandro Jodorowsky to reading. The Chilean writer, playwright and director was a great friend of another surrealist, André Breton, who has his cult book on display, Arcane 17, inspired by the mystery of the Stars, namely Hope, illustrated by Roberto Matta. The cycle concludes with works by Niki de Saint Phalle who dedicated the famous sculpture garden in Garavicchio, in Maremma, to the esoteric world. Finally, the papers of Francesco Clemente, behind which are hidden the portraits of New York friends and intellectuals. As the most famous scholar of the subject Joseph Maxwell wrote, tarot cards can play cruel tricks on the unwary.
The mystery of the lost papers
And so among the four missing cards from the «Colleoni» deck there are two of the most powerful: the Devil and the Tower or House of God. Lust and the collapse of Babel, obsessive desire and inevitable catastrophe, greed and irreparable misfortune. Together they have a creepy meaning: they are darkness and destruction. Lost carelessly? Much more likely that they are jealously preserved in the drawer of an oriental cabinet, down there at the end of the corridor of a house that is now rarely inhabited. Or at least, we think so. Perhaps the story of the «Colleoni» deck has not yet been told in its entirety.
