Click here for a direct visual comparison between Sola Busca and Waite-Smith cards

This was the first fully illustrated tarot deck, and the only one with scenes-of-life images until Art and Pam undertook the Waite-Smith deck in 1909. It was created in 1491 in Venice and jealously guarded for generations; and wisely so, as it is a legacy item of great historical importance. It gets its name from a family that has owned it since 1948 (see Giordano Berti’s article here). In addition to being one of the very few original decks to survive intact (if at all), it is a direct ancestor of the modern tarot. As we will see below Pamela gently lifted (“blatantly copied” is too harsh of a term to use here) the images and implications of this important deck in the creation of her own art. Not to worry; this happens all of the time in the art world, but with all of the superstition, hype, and outright lies that saturate the “tarot knowledge” of today it is important to acknowledge the simple facts that point to the true origin of the Waite-Smith deck, as it spawned most of what we see and believe of the tarot in the 21st century.

One of the most important thing this deck’s existence accomplishes is to show the similarity but lack of lock-step uniformity of tarot cards in the 1400’s. The general themes are similar in the oldest decks, but the individual artistic interpretation and organization of decks is left to the artist or designer. In other pages we will compare this deck to various historical decks. The images below are the only exact reproduction deck ever made. If you would like to own one of the handful of copies available, please contact Giordano Berti personally.

Sola Busca deck images (click any card below to enlarge it)

These images are from deck #88. If you would like to obtain your own copy of this extremely rare deck please contact Giordano Berti here to see if he has any left.