The Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti
The Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti is largely based on the traditional tarot, as depictied by Waite, but times ten. The Gilded Tarot shimmers both Major and Minor arcana with stunning imagery and rich colors, making it a classy beginners deck.
The easy to read deck depicts the traditional elements,wands,cups,swords and pentacles and standard symbols in a way that appeals universally. The companion book is simply written and easy to understand. It is a simple 168 pages and is published by LLewellyn Publications, a leading name in occult and mysticism material.
While some decks leave a lot to the intuitiveness of the reader, this deck leaves no room for guessing,it is easy to understand exactly what Ciro Marchetti meant in the imagery used in each card. The use of digital graphics helps to make this deck lively, vibrant and stunning. This is an excellent deck to give to the beginning tarot reader in your life, especially one who started with the Rider-Waite deck.
In addition to the Gilded Tarot being easy to understand, the minor arcane have a colored jewel at the top of each card, just in case. Using the primary colors of red, blue, yellow (and green) each jewel depicts one of the four elements. While beautiful, they do not distract from the meanings in the pictures. The Gilded Tarot is an extraordinary blend of modern drawing technology and traditional tarot depiction.
Some would say too modern. Other reviewers have had thoughts that the images are “Too” perfect, having been digitally enhanced from images taken from the original Rider-Waite deck. They have been compared to Japanimation vs. “Real” cartoons.
Marchetti is originally from the U.K. and is now an award winning artist and illustrator who reside in Florida where he runs his own design agency out of Miami, where he continues to give lectures and seminars on digital imagery at Fort Lauderdale Art Institute.
