Medieval Scapini

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 18 May 2002, and now archived in the Forum Library.

numbrel	18 May 2002
I am fascinated by this deck. It takes a lot of work because the pictures don't mesh with traditional meaning very well. I have learned a lot by looking up the references. Does anyone else with this deck want to share what they have learned about stories Scapini is referencing in the cards or your insights into the meaning? I just got Learning the Tarot by Joan Bunning and it has helped me understand the cards better. Like why Rasputin is the Knight of Cups. Her comparisons of : romantic/overemotional, imaginative/fanciful, sensitive/temperamental, refined/overrefined, and introspective/introverted. Rasputin embodies the negative side of this card. Anyone else? numbrel

Zhritza	18 May 2002
I recently noticed that, to me, the Fool in this deck looks a heck of a lot like Jesus, although Temperance has his baptism going on in the background. This is stuff I remember from the LWB, which I no longer have, mixed with info I got elsewhere; so I don't know which info is which, and I apologize if it's mostly redundant, because you probably have the LWB. The Magician is taken directly from the Visconti, which Scapini recreated the missing cards for when it was printed by US Games. The Emperor is Stuart Kaplan -- sort of annoying, that. I am pretty fascinated by all the stuff going on beneath the Queen of Swords: the Klan and a fleet of blonde witches? I remember reading that the man in the Six of Swords is a saint who is blinded in the instant that is depicted here. The thing next to the bowl in the Four of Swords is a mandrake root. On the hilt of the Ace of Swords are Cain and Abel. The Queen of Cups is strange because she is Aphrodite, but she has her head in a nun-like dressing. The Nine of Cups has Nike, goddess of victory. The top right cup in the Three of Cups depicts Lazarus rising from the dead. The Eight of Coins shows Luigi Scapini with his wife and daughter. The Page of Swords can be seen in positions of suffering in the Nine of Swords and the Seven of Coins. I think the man in the statue on the Three of Coins is Da Vinci.

The Medieval Scapini thread was originally posted on 18 May 2002 in the Tarot Decks board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Tarot Decks, or read more archived threads.