The impeccable Scarlet Imprint

cover of Christophe Poncet’s

‘The Tarot of Marsilio’.

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Christophe Poncet recent publication of the first volume of the ‘Tarot of Marsilio’ reopens the debate about an esoteric plan and vision that may underline the tarot of Marseille type. He brings the impressive understanding of many years of research, all coming into fruition in this beautiful volume freshly printed by Scarlet Imprint with a wealth of illustrations and of key source texts rarely translated in English.

We will, present below a detailed background presentation of the context in which this publication happens, as it is rather complex, and needs a holistic understanding of the very special period the Italian Renaissance is the epitome of and of our modern view of it than may be problematic.

Due to the exceptional nature of this book, we invite the benevolent reader to discover and read for himself, line by line, chapter after chapter, so to make his opinion on this subject.

Part I – A necessary contextual background

In our modern times, there are mainly four currents that can be isolated from all the people who are interested in the tarot, their history and the disputed wealth of meaning they had carried throughout the ages.

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The first current, is represented by science and the scholarship dedicated to the history of card games and subsequently to the plethora of tarot decks. Most of the historians in this current are highly opposed to the idea that the tarot has more to offer than just a tool for occupational recreation. Michael Dummett was one example of it and of its obsessive eccentricities spent trying to prove the official line. This current denies any other meaning than just the deformed mirror of times long past.

Within that same current, Scholars studying the history of ideas, and more precisely, of esoteric ideas, such as the great Warburgian scholar, Dame Frances Yates who kindly suggested that there are clues still out there to be explored that may lead to important discoveries that could lead to a complete reassessment of our understanding of the tarot de Marseille, its origin and its content. Dame Frances Yates came to question the long-accepted affirmation of the ‘naive innocence’ of the tarot, but unfortunately couldn’t prove her point, as at the time many resources, now available, had not been identified that would have vindicated her plea. Whenever someone dares to ask something that may lead to a revision of the official dogma, the whole weight of condescending mockery blasts so to isolate the black sheep into academic anathema, freezing the possibility of a proper debate for decades.

The Warburg Institute and the ESSWE (European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism) were the answer to this academic freezing that properly introduced ‘esotericism’ within the Academia after a long maturing process with trail-blazing figures such as Antoine Faivre, Wouter Hanegraaff, Adam MacLean, Rafal Prinke, Angela Voss and many others.

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The second current comes from the mainly French occult ‘milieu’ that is represented by the belief that an ancient holistic knowledge was transmitted by an un-interrupted lineage of initiates eager to preserve it up to the modern times and are represented by the successive heteroclite generations of those who enthusiastically absorbed these affirmations made by Antoine Court de Gebelin, the Count of Melet, Jean-Baptiste Alliette (Etteilla), then later Adolphe Louis Constant (a.k.a. Eliphas Levi), followed by Oswald Wirth and finally Valentin Thomberg with his ‘Meditations upon the arcana of the tarot’ that crowned a long weaving process that have made of the tarot, and subsequently the tarot of Marseille, a privileged divinatory tool alongside the modern Coleman-Waite deck.

From the eighteenth century up to the twentieth, secret (and not so discreet) societies used the tarot as a convenient tool and pretext to carry their teachings and worldviews, but built upon legends and historical fallacies impossible to verify-thus harming the reputation of the tarot as being a tool for lunatics and self-appointed soothsayers. Here as Dame France Yates says:

‘A fact of importance to the historian which Dummett brings out is that the modern occultists support their belief in the immense significance and immemorial antiquity of Tarot by assuming that all earlier occultists knew of the Tarot, though they do not mention it. Thus, Guillaume Postel is drawn into the Tarot camp by the assumption that this noted sixteenth-century French Cabalist must undoubtedly have known the Tarot mystique, and similar annoying claims are made for other well-known Renaissance figures such as Trithemius. This trait of the occultists confuses history, like their other habit of the false ascription, assigning to well-known authors statements which they never made. In such minds no firm historical statement can be arrived at.’ (‘In the Cards’ by Dame Frances A. Yates, published in the February 19, 1981 issue of the New York Review of Books)

It has become rather defensive, as the progress of academic research, especially with the gifted new generation of scholars emblematic of the ESSWE (European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism) and members of the Warburg Institute that have completely renewed our approach to the occult lore with the blatant demystification of many posturizing idols and legends (that were taken for solemn truths), but were obstructing proper research in this complex and composite field.

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The third current, is the modern self-development wave born from the so-called New Age and from the philosophical movement known as post-modernism itself born from the fashionable Modern French philosophers that brought into existence the woke movement and its aggressive expression wokism, in which (to make it simple), ‘My truth is as valid as yours’- there is no original truth, as all is relative. It is actually a positivist niche, using surface playful spiritual postures for the sake of never-ending profit using the credulity of the masses they do not wish to help awake and educate.

That current uses both the academic vision that the tarot is devoid of any meaning and equally adopts the claims of the occultists that the tarot has a secret immemorial teaching to help develop powers over the world and predict current affairs. It uses the first to say: ‘look, this is science and historically sound’, but also say: ‘Unlock your true potential by using these magical cards that will help you control your life and the world you live in! ’ It is an interesting contradiction! Consequently, its dynamic tension creates this marketing craze about tarot, ever re-inventing itself according to the ever-versatile opinions of who & who.

It denies any research that may contradict their lucrative surface business, that would allow the tarot to be something more than just a card game allowing creative cosplay, something that would also be free from all the ‘anachronistic’ layers of hazardous occult correspondences that have crippled its very essence, and finally acknowledge that there is an esoteric source, a original societal wisdom compass. We give an example further down and it is quite revelatory with Isabelle Nadolny, as representative of this third current, with her 2018 ‘Histoire du Tarot’ (Editions Trajectoire)

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The fourth current is the difficult one to spot, as it is discreet, allergic to exposure and polemics. It stands for the esoteric current that lies within the world humanistic defense against the forces of misinformation, bigotry and wealth hoarding by the very few.

That current is composed of the heirs of the great philosophers of the Greco-Latin antiquity that were forced to go underground to avoid the raging wrath of newly established Christianity that has elevated political bigotry to the state of an art. We talk about the philosophical schools based in Alexandria of Egypt, Ephesus, Haran, Constantinople and Mystras-all symptomatic of the hegemonic sword of Christianity destroying the Ancient World. Forbidden worship and temple ceremonies, their initiations, all ceased and underwent a very slow process of digestion and preservation, of which Damascius is an early good example, with him ‘riding the tiger’ with the Pseudo-Dionysus forgery.

The pursued ambition and transformative aim of the later Renaissance scholars, who saw themselves as heirs to the classical and esoteric current, was to rescue and integrate Classical Wisdom into the fabric of Christian literature and art. This synthesis was not merely an academic exercise but a deliberate act of embedding ancient truths into the cultural and spiritual life of their time. By encoding this wisdom in forms accessible to “anybody in the know,” they ensured its survival and transmission, often veiling profound ideas within familiar religious and artistic contexts.

Scholars such as Malcolm Bull, Edgar Wind, and Jean Seznec have meticulously documented this salvaging process, offering critical insights into the techniques and intentions of the Renaissance creators.

Jean Seznec, in his seminal work ‘The Survival of the Pagan Gods’, explores how the pantheon of Greco-Roman deities was reinterpreted and integrated into Renaissance art and literature. Seznec demonstrates that these figures, rather than being outright rejected by the Christian worldview, were repurposed as allegorical symbols, often embodying universal virtues or divine principles. For instance, Botticelli’s Primavera and The Birth of Venus exemplify this technique, where Venus is not merely the pagan goddess of love but a symbol of divine beauty and spiritual harmony. By aligning classical mythology with Christian ideals, Renaissance artists like Botticelli created works that operated on multiple levels, revealing deeper meanings to those attuned to the allegorical language of antiquity.

Edgar Wind, in ‘Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance’, delves into the esoteric dimensions of this integration. Wind highlights how Hermetic and Neo-Platonic themes were subtly interwoven into Christian art, creating a complex tapestry of hidden knowledge. Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel Ceiling is a prime example of this synthesis. The iconic depiction of the Creation of Adam, with God’s hand reaching towards Adam, can be read as more than a biblical moment. Wind interprets it as an allegory of the transmission of divine intellect, a theme resonant with Hermetic and Platonic traditions. Michelangelo’s mastery lay in embedding such esoteric concepts into works that adhered outwardly to Christian orthodoxy, allowing for dual interpretations.

Malcolm Bull’s ‘The Mirror of the Gods’ extends this analysis by examining how classical forms were resurrected and adapted in Renaissance visual culture. Bull argues that the Renaissance artists used classical references as a means of asserting the continuity of humanistic ideals. The return to classical models was not a rejection of Christianity but a way to enrich it with the aesthetic and intellectual rigor of antiquity. Raphael’s The School of Athens, for instance, portrays Plato and Aristotle at the center of a grand architectural space, surrounded by figures representing the pinnacles of human knowledge. While ostensibly a celebration of classical philosophy, the fresco’s placement within the Vatican underscores its alignment with Christian values, presenting philosophy and theology as complementary pursuits.

These examples reveal a sophisticated strategy of cultural and spiritual synthesis. The Renaissance luminaries, inspired by the rediscovery of classical texts and ideas, sought to create a dialogue between antiquity and Christianity. Their efforts preserved ancient wisdom while embedding it within the dominant religious and cultural paradigms of their time. Through the studies of Seznec, Wind, and Bull, we gain a deeper appreciation of this process—one that shaped the intellectual and artistic legacy of the Renaissance and continues to inspire modern interpretations of its works.

These underground currents beside literature and art, saw popular card games as the best tools to convey messages to those who would know how to read them, once they have learned the keys:

The so-called ‘Mantegna Tarot’ was alongside the Marseille family of tarot decks such an ‘educational’ game for the learned to foster societal changes, of which the Italian Renaissance is the epitome, effort short lived due to the violent Christian Counter-Reformation. We can now also place the so-called Sola Busca Tarot as being part of such a shared vision, even though it seems-in appearance only-lost in its dark imagery.

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Part II – Trail blazing research

We are fortunate that for the last ten years, many archives were discovered that allowed the courageous researcher, like knights on the Grail quest, to substantiate the claim that tarots and subsequently the tarot de Marseille were more than a game and not an apocryphal tool for the occult. This is exactly the eloquent story of Peter Mark Adams and Christophe Poncet and their respective research. And it’s such a Festina Lente!

1. Peter Mark Adams with his ground breaking study of the Sola Busca, ‘The Game of Saturn’ (Scarlet Imprint-2022).

2.‘Two Esoteric Tarots’ a conversation skillfully originated and moderated by Cesar Pedreros with both Peter Mark Adams and Christophe Poncet in 2023 (Scarlet Imprint)

3. Christophe Poncet with his ‘The Tarot of Marsilio’ published in November 2024 (also with Scarlet Imprint) the present subject of our review, exploring the wealth of documents and archives that were not available at the time of the late Dame Frances Yates. Peter Mark Adams in an interview with Ike Baker on the Arcanum podcast says about ‘The Tarot of Marsilio’:

‘This is a phenomenal work! This is the final nail into the coffin of of Dummett’s view that there was no esoteric content into the tarot before the eighteenth century.’ (Arcanum Podcast S5E9. From 56:37 to 57:18).

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Part III – When the ridiculed Ficino thesis becomes factual

For years, Christophe Poncet has said that there is more to the deck than its apocryphal layers of occult lore and its purely entertaining purpose. Article after article, he shared his discoveries that help him build his rock-solid Ficino thesis. As early as 2012, he writes for an Italian academic publication:

‘This paper deals with Marsilio Ficino’s astrological conception of the pagan sibyls and its likely influence on Baccio Baldini’s engravings from the ‘Prophets and Sibyls’ series and trump cards of the tarot of Marseille; it subsequently conjectures that the tarot of Marseille might have been conceived by Ficino as a pedagogical game to teach the Platonic philosophy.

The paper’s conclusion:

‘Ficino, who conceived astrology as a celestial language signaling humanity’s journey towards its ultimate goal, sometimes interprets Plato’s work in an astrological manner. The famous myth of Er is read as a cosmological representation in which the protagonists embody the principles governing human destinies. The particular description Ficino provides of these characters is reflected in certain figures of the Marseille tarot, specifically those graphically inspired by a series of engravings depicting astrological concepts in the guise of prophets and sibyls.

It is highly probable that these cards were conceived by Ficino as pedagogical tools, with each triumph constituting an intellectual enigma to be solved in light of Platonic thought, and executed by craftsmen and artists from the Florentine workshops associated with the Medici household. Certainly reserved for the use of Ficino’s circle of ‘confilosofi’, the game enjoyed limited dissemination, at least before its reappearance in France during the 17th century. At this point, it can be hypothesized that the deck was still known by its creator’s name—a figure who, however, was unknown to the card players. These players, imagining that the designation referred to the place of production, may have altered the final vowel, transforming the game originally known as ‘of Marsiglio’ into the ‘Marseille tarot’. (‘Un gioco tra profezia e filosofia: i tarocchi di Marsilio’ di Christophe Poncet, Italian version by Germana Ernst. In ‘Il linguaggio dei cieli , Astri e simboli nel Rinascimento’. A cura di Germana Ernst e Guido Giglioni Carocci editore-2012).

For years, he was smiled upon and even mocked on public forums by the tenants of academic fortresses, and by the self-development fashionable who & who of the moment.

In her 2018 edition of the French ‘Histoire du Tarot’, Isabelle Nadolny glosses about the Ficino thesis in these terms, without ever naming Christophe Poncet:

‘For example, the case of the famous Marsilio Ficino, another great scholar of the Renaissance of whom we will speak later about Hermeticism. He ought to be named, because he is quoted as the creator of the tarot. He was born in 1433, therefore he couldn’t not conceive the game with the 22 arcana and the 56 other cards that appeared for the first time in 1440. Nevertheless, some writers will tell that he had conceived the tarot of Marseille! He would have been inspired by the Italian tarot, he did not create, but he would have integrated diverse engravings, embedded with hermetism, with neo-platonism, in short-the figures we know of the tarot de Marseille. We will see in a short while that, with the figures that are distinctive of it and the names of the cards inscribed in French, appeared around 300 years later. So, making Ficino its creator is rather hazardous…’ (Editions Trajectoire-2018).

And also, in her concluding chapter:

‘These discoveries thrilled me; they enriched the practice of the tarot more than they impoverish it. With them, I guess that no initiate created a primitive tarot of Marseille, that the game is not imbedded with a basic plan coming from an original time. I have problems to conceive this idea, after discovering, besides the multitude of games, the writings of the early occultists (and we wonder if they in fact initiated to anything concrete!) All of this flows from them. I tell myself that no master taught a primordial teaching linked to this bizarre and intriguing game, and that does not prevent me from liking it and love what it carries. Do we need to go through an ‘initiation’ to access truth?’…/… (Editions Trajectoire-2018).

Arguments like these are typical of a little partiality, and contains misleading comments and omissions, obvious short-cuts and finally reveal more of the person’s biased attitude towards history and ideas that do not fit her pre-set vision. Her research is impeccable, but alike Michael Dummett, refuses a ‘designer creator’ for some of the early Marseille type decks, while documenting in-extenso all of the ‘apocryphal’ explanations added to the tarot by generations of occultists.

She contradicts herself a few times, when it comes to her personal opinions and not while, as a historian must put facts always forwards. For examples, she quotes a letter by Marziano da Tortora explaining the meaning of a game he was the creator of. If da Tortora is quoted, why not admit others may have had ideas too about the tarot? With the fact that in Europe most people do not learn Greek & Latin in school anymore, means that a whole block of knowledge is left to the Academia alone and the focus of their investigation are the modern ages from the eighteenth century and above. People do not peruse source-texts in Latin or Greek, thus denying arguments based only on dates and the circumstantial and incidental research from the academia that denies any content to the tarots to be anything other than a ludus tool. So, here we have somebody that did not make the effort to read Ficino and his entourage’s plethoric writings, in which they ponder how to spread Platonistic ideas and consider which media to fulfil their aim would be best. She could have studied, alike Christophe Poncet, all the letters and writings of the main Italian humanists and she would have found a wealth of clues and indication of such direct influence. She did not, Christophe Poncet did.

While accepting ‘educational’ games such as the so-called Mantegna tarot, she refuses that Ficino and his entourage may have inspired the artists that created ‘a tarot of Marsilio’ with design and collage technique as Christophe Poncet explains in  painstaking details in his 3 volumes study.

Accepting that there is an occultist aggregation of the tarot but refusing a humanistic influence to the tarot is a partial position un-worthy of someone who claims to be an historian! We have to admit that France (the country) suffers from an ‘occult’ culture versus a humanistic ‘esotericism’. It has tainted our culture with an almost indelible ink that makes wokism and all the new age circus dominant by the absence of a strong esoteric culture. Fortunately, academic research is bringing it back!

Madame Nadolny also confesses that she is not familiar with the Sola Busca Tarot, as she only references it in her book’s appendixes, as ‘a very odd tarot‘… Would she have studied the oddness alike Peter Mark Adams, she would have probably placed it within her book’s chapter 1 listing & description of diverse Italian tarot deck; and this makes sense too, as it would mean that she would have to be familiar with the complexity of the power games of the Italian families of the Renaissance, as a whole, so to understand each individual tarot as phenomena of those power games, of which the Marseille type and the Sola Busca are the-apparent-antagonists and protagonists, besides the benevolent, so-called, Mantegna Tarot (which is not a tarot per-se).

These scholars tried literature and arts to foster their societal, philosophical and religious reforms and Christophe Poncet demonstrate in detail his publication how they directly influenced the artists that will be at the origin of SOME tarot decks with the embedding of philosophical and esoteric content into their designs.

It is not about Ficino inventing tarot, (a grotesque claim!) but Ficino and his entourage being the inspirers to artists who are the proven designers of some early Italian tarot decks which conceptual designs that may be considered as the source of what will become the Marseille tarot type family.

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Part IV – The background of the Ficino thesis

Let’s go deeper now in the gist of the matter: It starts with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 which marked a turning point in the history of European thought and culture. The Ottoman conquest of the Eastern Roman Empire’s capital drove scholars and intellectuals from the city and the whole lost empire, seeking refuge in the West. These scholars brought with them a treasure trove of ancient manuscripts, preserving the classical knowledge of antiquity that had been meticulously safeguarded in the Byzantine Empire. This migration of knowledge has been aptly described as the moment “When East Goes West.”

Among the manuscripts that found their way into Italy and broader Europe were the works of Plato, the Corpus Hermeticum, and many other texts central to the philosophical and esoteric traditions of antiquity. Their arrival catalyzed an intellectual revival that would ignite the Italian Renaissance, a period of extraordinary cultural flourishing.

In Florence, Marsilio Ficino emerged as a pivotal figure in this movement. Supported by the Medici family, particularly Cosimo de’ Medici, Ficino undertook an ambitious project of translating the newly acquired classical texts. His translations of Plato’s works and the Corpus Hermeticum became foundational texts for what came to be called ‘Prisca Theologia,’ or ‘Ancient Theology.’ This term reflected an effort to synthesize the wisdom of antiquity—especially Neo-Platonism—with the tenets of Christianity, creating a unified vision of spiritual truth that transcended historical and cultural divides.

Ficino’s work extended beyond mere translation; he and his circle at the Careggi academy sought to live the philosophy they studied. In the idyllic settings of the academy, Ficino’s entourage gathered to discuss, meditate, and revive the spirit of their love for Plato and the Hermetic texts. These gatherings were not simply intellectual exercises but embodied a way of life that celebrated the divine potential of humanity and sought to align the soul with higher realms of existence.

The intellectual and artistic vitality of the Renaissance owes much to these efforts. Inspired by the synthesis of classical and Christian thought, artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Botticelli created works that embodied the ideals of human dignity, beauty, and spiritual aspiration. Writers and poets likewise infused their works with the philosophical and mystical currents emanating from Ficino’s translations and teachings.

However, the flourishing of the Renaissance was not without its challenges. The rise of the Christian Counter-Reformation, beginning in the mid-16th century, brought with it a concerted effort to reassert orthodox Christian doctrine and suppress heterodox ideas. The Counter-Reformation’s enforcement of doctrinal conformity stifled the intellectual freedoms that had fueled the Renaissance. The spirit of inquiry and the blending of diverse traditions—so central to the Renaissance—were curtailed, leading to the eventual decline of this remarkable cultural and intellectual movement.

Despite its eventual suppression, the Renaissance’s legacy endures. The fusion of ancient wisdom with the Christian worldview, as envisioned by Ficino and his contemporaries, planted seeds that would later influence the Enlightenment and continue to inspire seekers of wisdom across the ages. The story of “When East Goes West” serves as a testament to the transformative power of cultural exchange and the enduring quest for knowledge and spiritual insight.

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Part V,  a comprehensive plan in 3 volumes

We invite the benevolent reader to discover, line by line, chapter after chapter, the delineation of the Ficino thesis in Christophe Poncet painstakingly detailed demonstration that, it is our belief, will change the way we look at the tarot of Marseille. When Christophe Poncet thought about sharing his research, he opted for a three-volume approach: ‘The book comprises three parts, each forming a separate volume.

The first volume, ‘Down Here’, traces the initial steps of the inquiry that led to the identification of the savant Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) as the likely creator of the Tarot de Marseille, while emphasizing that the game’s recreational nature does not preclude esoteric uses and concentrating upon the interpretation of eight trump cards: the Chariot; the Devil; the Lovers; Strength; the Hermit; the House of God; Arcanum XIII; and the Fool.

The second volume, ‘Higher’, leads the inquiry into an examination of the remaining fourteen trump cards: the World; the Pope; the Popess; the Empress; the Emperor; the Magician; Justice; Temperance; the Wheel of Fortune; the Star; the Sun; the Moon; the Hanged Man; and the Judgement.

Finally, the third volume, ‘Three Times Seven’, proceeds from a deciphering of an enigmatic text by Ficino to reveal the Tarot de Marseille’s occult structure, thereby resuming examination, within this framework, of all twenty-two trump cards.’ (‘The Tarot of Marsilio’, page XX of the introduction).

He adds also:

‘Now, I realize that this publication in three parts has one big advantage: It allows the progressive assimilation of a rather dense content.’ (Private correspondence, December 2024).

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Epilog

Christophe Poncet can be proud of his tenacity and achievements and we gladly quote Mikhail Boulgakov, in his ‘Master and Margarita’ with this phrase: ‘Facts are the most stubborn things in the world.’ For years he went searching for these facts and having found them shares the result with us.

Two more volumes to come…

As we said earlier, it is an exciting Festina Lente !

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Post-scriptum

In our review of Peter Mark Adams and Christophe Poncet’s ‘Two Esoteric Tarots’ (Scarlet Imprints 2023), we compared Dame Frances Yates’ treatment by Michael Dummett with professor Marija Gimbutas’s painful ‘way of the cross‘ being bullied and ridiculed by her male academic colleagues and by other scholars in her field of research.

At that time, we expressed a sad disbelief that her Wikipedia page still reflected those misogynistic and condescending views. We are pleased now to share that Marija Gimbutas’ Wikipedia page had finally been updated last June, and her achievements duly recognized (with the expected clumsy apologies by some male scholars, having a hard time living their ‘Canossa walk’). This was long due!

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