Spirituality • Pedagogy • Philosophy • Movement

Giordano Berti - The History of Tarot: Truth and Legends

Giordano Berti The History of Tarot: Truth and Legends behind the world's most enigmatic cards

Giordano's book, published in Italian in 2022, was released in English translation late 2025. For me, this book, by a long-time colleague and friend, was a long awaited blessing.

For those who wish to read no longer than this sentence... simply get a copy: it will be an extremely worthwhile read! Having published books, I am amazed that the publisher has managed to include so many colour pages (all decks, maps etc, except for the few that were originally in black and white, are colour plates!).

Firstly, as of 2026, it is a book that summarises and includes much of the research (up to 2022) that would be of interest for all interested in the development of tarot. For those of us who have specialist interest, it will of course be seen to have treated some areas all too briefly. What Berti has managed to include in a book of under 400 pages is pretty impressive. Berti's efforts, together with those of his (and our) colleagues Andrea Vitali and Ross Caldwell, have made this book, in my personal view, a 'must have'.

Overall, given the sheer volume of material available (including the now quite incomplete four volume encyclopedia by Kaplan, and the various books by Dummett and co), to have provided such an overview of the findings with such depth is a masterful achievement. And those who know me also know that I do not hesitate to be rather bluntly critical (and hopefully taken in the right way). Berti's traversing through the tarot landscape, not only from its historical content, but also its development across its myriad uses and styles, brings to the reader a sense of the deck's rich depth and possibilities.

Of historical merit, for example, is the more recent discovery (2023) of the Marseille-style 1639 deck of Philippe Vachier, mentioned by Thierry Depaulis (a key tarot figure in French historical circles) - perhaps here worth recalling that tarot, in especially France, Spain and Italy is, amongst other factors, are historical artefacts - as well as all the other aspects that makes them such a rich dimension for inclusion in their myriad uses.

Of course, there are going to be omissions in the book, or perhaps suggestions and insights that are viewed as too fanciful for worthy discussion. A quick example includes Stav Appel's work on the Torah and the Tarot (much of which was around on the internet prior to its publication in 2025, and thus published after Berti had completed his book in Italian). Berti does mention him (without his name) in a longish footnote (14) in Chapter 4. Though I would agree with some of the comments that Berti makes, I would have preferred it be presented as simply an historical 'fact' that some see the crypto-jewish influence on tarot's development as simply that, and present it as a possibility that - certainly to Berti and many scholars - appears rather far-fetched even if having some possible merit on the stabilisation of tarot's trump sequence. On this, one book that seems to be overlooked by Berti is Mark Filipas's (2001) Alphabetic Masquerade.

There are also a couple of other omissions (mostly from the German), such as Torsten Seibt's 2020 Die Magie der Vier Elemente im Tarotspiel der Renaissance - a book that could well do with a translation! Seibt's view would complement some of the insights from the renaissance's influence on tarot's own development... again, even if I have reservations with some of the exclusivity of his views.

Another omission are two books from another friend, Russell Sturgess (2009) Metanoia and his more recent (2020 and thus just within Berti's research notes for the Italian original) The Spiritual Roots of the Tarot, whose view of the Cathar influence is well presented (even if in opposition to the views of Robert O'Neill on the subject).

These and other omissions I simply mention here, well aware that Berti himself is aware that areas have been overlooked... as he says himself near the end of the book (p 324), 'with the humility of one who embraces every innovation and the respect due to all sensitivities, I wrote and rewrote this book, striving to emcompass all the cultural aspects that have emerged from the Renaissance to the present day. There are various shortcoming, but in partial exculpation, I can say that an encyclopedia would have been needed to explain such a complex story'. Indeed! and I am grateful that Berti has managed to bring this story thus far with such depth and breadth, without the book being over ten times the size and still, inevitably, remain incomplete!

On the cartomantic side, there is the inclusion of Mlle Lenormand - a short but fascinating incursion into what Berti himself calls potentially a distraction from the main text - as the decks that bear her name and came after her have little (if anything) to do with tarot... even though it is evident she herself used, amongst other things, the tarot. From there the development of tarot's fame takes a firm hold. After all, were it not for its esoteric development in especially the 19th and into the 20th century, its fame and fortune may have simply faded instead into a relic of past games... (even though the game of tarot of course continues to be played in France and other places).

I do not have the benefit of the original Italian, but suspect that some of the sentence structures through some of especially the earlier part of the book may reflect a more literal translation lacking some of Berti's own eloquence in Italian - a task that is always so difficult to address for translation: how to be truthful to the literal aspect of the text whilst maintaining, in the new language, the efficacy and grace of the original without changing its intended meaning (including its polysemantic connotations!).

The book could, in my view, greatly benefit from an index! I realise that this is always such an awkward and tedious process... still, even if limited, it would be a welcome addition in a future edition. It should also be pointed out that the 'Table of Contents' has retained its Italian name as 'Index', with reasonably detailed content specification.

Then there are a few small 'anomalies' that are inevitable when some material remains from a period but was unpublished and only privately circulated at the time. For example, from page 316 ff, on the MBTI, it should be noted that this tool had become extremely popular in the late 1980s, to the extent that it would be inevitable that various 'obvious' correlations could be made. The example Berti gives, from Jana Riley's 1992 The Tarot Book seems to reflect the notes that had been circulated, by a former student, in photocopy from a course I held in the 1980s suggesting the same correlations (without the specified deck Riley uses). As mentioned, however, the Myers-Briggs was at its peak of popularism, and it would have been virtually impossible to overlook the obvious numerical similarity between the number of court cards and the types in the MBTI.

One major omission in the book, perhaps more simply reflecting what I had tried to begin to include in Tarotpedia - which would have involved only a little more research with the aid of university library staff specialising in such - would have been to include a summary (with abstracts) of the various graduate research submitted for at least PhDs on tarot (even if leaving the MAs out of it, as so many MAs are now no more than brief studies of under 20K words).

Overall, the book's central overview of tarot's historical development, the overview of its cartomantic usage and development, and the deck's inclusion and development through the hands of esoteric influences is a masterfully crafted volume. Thank you Giordano Berti for the wonderful service this text will bring to those whose interest in tarot continues to develop, and as a potential text or guide as a basis for courses on the subject.