The Romantic Tarot from Lo Scarabeo, created by Emanuea Signorini and drawn by Giulia F. Massaglia is an incredibly feminine, beautiful and sweet deck of tarot cards. The Romantic Tarot is a standard 78 card tarot deck with 21 cards for Major Arcana and the rest divided into the four suits; pentacles, wands, chalices and swords. Where this deck diverges from normalcy is that each of the Minor Arcana suits represent one of the four main cities associated with romance, Rome, Paris, Vienna and Vienna, respectively. Especially if one is familiar with these cities and their culture and history, this can really allow one to pull in those influences into their divination. The deck comes in in a standard small, cardboard box with the small interpretation booklet. The booklet comes in four languages; English, Italian, Spanish and French and also does include interpretation information for the four cities if one wishes to work with that.
The cards are the standard tarot card size; larger than playing cards, smaller than most oracle cards. They are printed on a thick laminated style cardstock. I find them easier to shuffle than some, harder than other decks. The back of the cards has a beautiful design on it, with red roses on vines with thorns. From that side there is no rightside up or down, which greatly helps if you are one who reads using reversed cards. The artwork is done in a watercolor style with rich, yet somewhat muted colors. The images are in a Victorian style with a filigree styled border on all the cards. The color of the border changes depending if it's Major or Minor Arcana. The images truly are beautiful; one can easily imagine the individuals on the cards walking down the streets of London or Paris. There is a lot of lace, a lot of flowers with very high lass, upper crust imagery.
The Major Arcana follows the traditional Fool's Journey from Fool through The World.The designs on these cares are quite lovely, with little extra detail included which can help one get straight to the brunt of the interpretation. I really enjoy the interpretations of these cards, with, for example, The Devil being styled after a burlesque dancer and The Hierophant being styled after, what the interpretation booklet calls the "Prince of Faith;" The Pope. This really lets the tarot reader get some unique interpretations and readings for their querent.
The Minor Arcana also follow the standard suiting with King, Queen, Knight and Knave and then one through ten. The images on these cards are far more detailed than the Major Arcana. For example, the three of Coins has a man doing a trick with three metal circles. This is the focus of the image but there are also three women behind him watching, there is a hat on the ground for people to toss coins in, a box with cloths in it and even smaller details such as a coat of arms on the side of a building next to some ivy. We can also take the eight of swords for an example; there is a lovely statue in the back, with a fence made of swords in the front. The main image is of a woman, a nun, on her knees with a man standing behind her. There is great detail in the statue and the artist even included the people's shadows. There is additionally beautiful and realistic detail in their clothes.
While I have to admit a first thought I had was "this is very hetero-centric" that is a very realistic depiction of the time period represented in the cards and does not bother me. I find the energy of this deck to be very sweet and romantic. They give very soft readings, meaning I do not find this deck to be very blunt or harsh. I do find that this deck is very good for readings for any relationship, not just romantic ones. I can't recommend this deck to be anyone's main deck, because of how specific the imagery and energy is. However, if you are, like me, a collector of decks or someone who uses more than one deck this one is definitely a necessity.
Absolutely highly recommended!!
~review By: Jessica Elizabeth
Creator: Emanuela Signorini
Artwork by: Guilia F Massaglia
Lo Scarabeo; 2014
Deck and booklet $22.95
