The Tarocco Soprafino
Milan's answer to the Marseille woodcut: the whole tarot re-engraved in fine line and dressed for the opera, the most elegant deck of its century.
Carlo Della Rocca, engraver, for the publisher Ferdinando Gumppenberg · Milan; the best copies now sit in the British Museum and private collections · c. 1835
Soprafino means extra fine, and the name was a boast the deck could back. Around 1835 the Milanese publisher Ferdinando Gumppenberg had the engraver Carlo Della Rocca redraw the whole tarot, and Della Rocca kept the old Marseille order while replacing its blunt woodcut figures with theatrical scenes in crosshatched line: a Bagatto in a plumed hat working his table like a stage, a Moon with a spaniel and a poodle instead of two wolfish dogs, courts dressed like the boxes at La Scala. The pack became the model for most Italian tarot printing that followed, and modern Italian decks still trace their look back to it.
No library or museum has yet published open scans of a complete copy. The British Museum holds a hand-colored example but keeps its photographs under a restrictive license, and the other known copies are in private hands.
- The Conver Tarot de Marseillethe Marseille order it keeps
- The Mitelli TarocchinoItaly’s other fine-art tarot
- The Minchiate Fiorentinethe Italian printing tradition around it
- Where to print your indie tarot deckfine line and what it costs
- Can you copyright a tarot deckfacsimiles and rights