My apologies,Ross.
I need to give more detail.
This paper is written by a guy called Mike Sosteric, a Canadian academic.
Not the sort of thing I would normally read,I must say,but how I came across him was that he was quoted as some kind of authority in an article on the BBC News website (of all places) that appeared yesterday on the subject of an imminent "Tarot revival"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44471537
I looked him up and to be frank, he sounds to me like another academic trying to jump the new age bandwagon.
I thought that his idea of the original Italian trumps being a means to social control somewhat undeveloped,to say the least
But,it made me wonder whether there might have been a significance in owning a deck in the early days, like it signified that the owners had "bought into" some kind of ideological `club`, rather than just being game enthusiasts.
That is something that some of the contributors here might have a view on.
Thanks.