TRAVEL | CLOSER LOOK
FOR DEVOTEES OF THIS 600-YEAR-OLD ESOTERIC ART,
A TRIP TO MILAN IS IN THE CARDS.BY ALEX SCHECHTERcommissioned a local artist named Bonifacio Bembo
to illustrate a custom tarot deck for them. Painted
in tempera, then embellished with gold and silver
leaf, the Visconti-Sforza deck attests not only to
Bembo’s talent but also to the families’ keen taste for
pocket-size art. Travelers can view 26 of the surviving
cards at the Accademia Carrara, a fine-art academy
and gallery in Bergamo, an hour northeast of Milan.
Splendid Sforza Castle, with its brick ramparts,
is where cards dating from about 1500 were discov-
ered in the early 20th century, at the bottom of a
well. Closer to the center of Milan, the Pinacoteca
di Brera art gallery houses, along with masterpiecesAT HIS TINY STUDIO in Milan, just past the Porta
Ticinese, 89-year-old Osvaldo Menegazzi has been
creating his own versions of classic tarot decks since
the 1970s. The cards are made of thick stock and
hand-dyed; the faces seem to gaze at you from
across the centuries. Of the countless tarot decks
that flood the market each year, those by Menegazzi,
a formally trained fine artist, are unique primarily
because they feel so personal. “Le carte parlano,”
he has said. “The cards speak.”
He is one reason tarot lovers, like me, come to Milan.
In the mid-15th century, the Visconti and Sforza fam-
ilies, rulers of Milan for more than two centuries,TAROT’S ITALIAN ROOTS
A work in progress at Osvaldo Menegazzi’s Milan studio depicts the Eye of Providence, a symbol that appears in tarot.PHOTO: CHIARA GOIA