Tarot History Forum

Hello Everyone!

Dr. Mealing kindly suggested that I introduce myself and my project here.

My name is Leonardo Rovani. I'm an Italian film director. Over the past 2 years I developed Tarocchi e Racconti (Tales of Tarot), a 12 part documentary series on the origins, the iconography and the history of the Major Arcana.

The series was filmed in Italy with the participation of Dr. Andrea Vitali, Dr. Giordano Berti, Dr. Morena Poltronieri and Dr. Ernesto Fazioli of the Museo Internazionale dei Tarocchi in Riola, Andrea da Montefeltro and Silvano Vinceti.

The structure is 1 introductory episode on the origins of the game and then 11 episodes which treat two trumps each.

We cover the Naibi and the arrival of playing cards, Marziano da Tortona and the sixteen Gods, the Visconti and Visconti-Sforza commissions and Bembo, the Bolognese and Ferrarese material, Petrarch's Trionfi as an iconographic source, Giotto and the Cappella degli Scrovegni, the exemption of the ludus triumphorum from the gambling prohibitions, Savonarola, and the passage into France and the Marseille pattern.

It is a documentary with elements of fiction woven in. It is based on Boccaccio's conversational style around a table, and it uses animation for the theories and stories that have taken hold in the historical imagination.

The scholarly material is carried by the interviews with the specialists, who bring decades of their own research to it.

The first episode is free to watch at https://tarocchieracconti.com in the original Italian with English subtitles. The complete series will be available on the same site from this Saturday, 25th of July.

I would be glad to hear what you all think.

Thank you and kindest regards,
Leonardo Rovani

Dear Leonardo,
Welcome to the forum. When I first encountered your site I noticed the expert panel of tarot historians you had assembled to guide the history of the project. I look forward to jumping in and exploring.

best wishes for great success on the project,
Robert

Dear Robert, thank you for the welcome, and for the encouragement before it.

As promised, the complete series is live from today. All twelve episodes are now on tarocchieracconti.com, in the original Italian with English and Italian subtitles. The first episode is still free to watch.

If anyone here watches it and finds something to argue with, on the Bolognese material, on reading Petrarch's Trionfi as an iconographic source, or anywhere else, I would genuinely like to hear it.

Thank you and kindest regards,
Leonardo Rovani