"Desperately Seeking A Sicilian Tarot deck-NOT the modiano!!!

tcuret

If any of y'all out there know where I could find A Sicilian Tarot deck, other than the modiano, please, please let me know!!!
 

philebus

Sorry, to my knowledge Modiano is the only manufacturer that still produces the Sicilian pattern. If you want something else, then I think you'll have to look for old collectables sold on ebay and other such stores. Even then, the only ones that I can remember seeing there were old Modiano cards.

So far as I'm aware though, there was not any great difference between the manufacturers - the pattern being well established. Was there a difference in particular that you were looking for?
 

Le Fanu

Hey, just a queary while we´re on the subject of Modiano cards...

Are these cards used for divination? They have a Modiano deck in my local esoteric shop. They told me that - yes- they are used for divination. Sure enough on the side it says "cartomanzia". But what are they like? Are they tarot or or more like tarock? Or like standard playing cards with pips?

I just saw this thread and pounced....
 

Ross G Caldwell

Philebus is mostly right - your best hope is with auctions and ebay, or contacting playing card dealers. The Kaplan auction at Christie's in 2006 had two 19th century Sicilians (items 49 and 50). There is at least one difference between Modiano, the only manufacturer since the 1970s, and previous versions.

Here's the lowdown from Dummett and McLeod, "A History of Games Played with the Tarot Pack" (Mellen, 2004), p. 368 -

Before Modiano began to produce Tarocco siciliano, in about 1966, the only firm to produce the pack was a small printer in Catania called Concetta Campione, which did not make any other kind of playing cards (and went out of business altogether in 1975). It had probably started to produce the pack after the closure in 1929 of the great cardmaking firm of Guglielmo Murari of Bari; it is almost certainly due to it that the Tarocco siciliano has survived. In Concetta Campione's version, the 'Hermit' held, not a lamp, but an hour-glass, as it had been in all previous examples of the Sicilian Tarot pack; the misinterpretation was that of whoever made the new designs for Modiano. This was a misinterpretation that had been made many times before in different forms of the Tarot pack; an hour-glass was the original object held by this figure, who symbolised Time. The mistake in the Sicilian pack differs only in that it occured so late in its history.

Ross
 

Ross G Caldwell

Le Fanu said:
Hey, just a queary while we´re on the subject of Modiano cards...

Are these cards used for divination? They have a Modiano deck in my local esoteric shop. They told me that - yes- they are used for divination. Sure enough on the side it says "cartomanzia". But what are they like? Are they tarot or or more like tarock? Or like standard playing cards with pips?

I just saw this thread and pounced....

It depends which pack it is. Modiano makes a lot of different kinds of cards. Among their Tarots, I have a Piedmontese (double-headed TdM style, 78 cards), a Bolognese (double-headed Bolognese style, 62 cards (22 trumps and 16 courts and 24 pips), a Siciliano (63 cards), and a French-suited Tarot (double headed genre scenes on the trumps).

I don't know of a cartomancy pack they make, so maybe it is a kind of Tarot de Marseille desgin.

I'd buy it.

Ross
 

philebus

That's interesting to note about the figure of time, it seems a shame that the original should have been lost to another mistake so recently.

As regards Modiano, I know that they do publish some cartomancy tarot packs - and strangely, the Argio Orell is sold as one (but there is also the Tarocchini di Alan and the Cagliostro). However, I'm not aware of the Sicilian cards being used this way. The Sicilian cards are more like their Italian cousins but have some unusual trump cards and are very small - almost the size of a patience pack.
 

Bernice

Two years on...... I remember looking at Sicilian decks.

Found them. There are these at playingcardsales

Sicilian pattern (ASS)
Sicilian pattern (DN)
Sicilian pattern (Modiano)

VERY reasonable prices!


Bee :)