|
Decameron Tarot by Giacinto Gaudenzi The theme of this tarot deck is sex, no doubt. Featured Recipe: Sir Knight
Ingredients:
* 2 oz Cognac
* 1/2 oz Cointreau
* 1/2 oz Yellow Chartreuse
* 1 dash Angostura bitters
Instructions:
Shake with cracked ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a twist of lemon.
Decameron Tarot Deck Review
Beautiful, graphic illustrations depict medieval figures in all manner of sexual play. Inspired by The Decameron, a fourteenth century prose work by Giovanni Boccaccio, Giacinto Gaudenzi's art is stimulating at times, comic at others, and, yes, sometimes a little bit disturbing.
I thought I would not like this deck. I bought the Decameron Tarot to simply add to my collection, never imagining that I could do a meaningful reading with cards so full of sexual energy. But from the moment I opened the pack, I was drawn to these cards, and delighted. I did a reading right away and found myself to be less distracted by the sexual content than I expected.
Other reviewers have complained that non-traditional symbolism makes the cards difficult to read, but I found the symbolism to be very on-target with my own personal understanding of tarot.
My favorite thing about these images is that people of all shapes, sizes and age are depicted favorably engaged in the universal act we all most commonly enjoy. Old fat women getting it on with studly young men, a nun giving a hand-job to a priest, and even a horse ridden by one of the knights displays a massive erection.
  
In the world of these tarot cards, everyone is getting some and most everybody’s having a great time. It's worth mentioning, though, that all of the characters are white. I suppose people of color didn't screw in the Middle Ages.
A few cards depict violence or apparent acts of rape. This might have bothered me, for I detest gratuitous depictions of rape in our society. These images didn’t feel gratuitous or offensive to me though. Not all tarot cards have a happy message to bring and I would distrust any deck that pretended otherwise.
An extremely limited LWB comes with the deck. Mine’s in Spanish so it’s of absolutely no use to me. I understand even the English version is not much help because it is so brief. So this is not a good deck for beginners, but I recommend it to anyone with a good sense of tarot symbolism. Skilled readers will have no trouble understanding the stories that unfold in these cards, especially if they find sex inspiring instead of embarrassing or disturbing.
Review by Tess
| 
Email Article
Print Article
Discuss This (0 Comments)
Del.icio.us
Furl
Technorati
Yahoo! My Web
Reddit
Column Archives
Column RSS Subscription
