Visconti-Sforza tarot deck

As Visconti - Sforza Trionfikarten referred to about 300 preserved playing cards from about 20 different card games that have been produced and performed in the 15th century within the Milan Duke Visconti and Sforza. They form a large part of the total received Italian playing cards of the 15th century and are to be regarded as preparers and first drafts of the later Tarot cards (the name Taraux or Tarocchi stepped on current knowledge in 1505 first at Ferrara and in Avignon, the former name was trionfi, " ludus triumphorum or similar). The cards are hand painted and partially covered with gold leaf and decorated and have been in the production process very complicated ( a normal game of this type corresponded to the weekly wage of a nobleman, and in about the 3-month wage of a low servant ).

Three relatively complete games are the oldest Tarot cards at all.

• Brera - Brambilla Tarocchi ( get 48 cards, 2 of them stockings), since 1971 in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan
• Cary - Yale Tarocchi (also Visconti di Modrone ) (67 cards, 11 of stockings), created in 1441. The maps of the Cary - Yale Tarocchi are in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
• Pierpont - Morgan -Bergamo Tarocchi (74 cards, 20 of stockings). 35 cards are in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, 26 cards in the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, a further 13 cards in the collection of the Colleoni family of Bergamo.

It is believed today that Bonifacio Bembo, Marziano of Tortona or Zavaratti brothers are the artists of the Pierpont - Morgan -Bergamo Tarocchi -.

An even older game (created 1418-1425 ) has only been preserved in literature: it is because Tortona described in detail in an extensive manuscript of Martiano ( he died in 1425). The game was initially in a literary note famous when Pier Candido Decembrio, a secretary and diplomat of the Duke Filippo Maria Visconti (reigned 1412-1447 ), in the vita of his just- deceased Lord left the remark, it had cost 1500 ducats ( a gigantic sum ). It was as a trump card, however, no known Tarot motifs but 16 Greek deities. After the painter Michelino because Besozzo, which was considered the best artists of his time, it is now called Michelino deck.