Maria Grazia Chiuri drew inspiration from tarot for the opulent collection, which marked her second collaboration with director Matteo Garrone.

Such cards were hand-painted by some of the finest artists of the day. The tarot cards at the Morgan were probably created by Bonifacio Bembo for the Visconti-Sforza family, and constitute one of the most complete decks to survive from the fifteenth century.

Bearing the name of two of Milan’s most noble families, the deck was commissioned in the mid-15th century as a display of prestige, and its misassociation with the esoteric only arose centuries later.

How do the cards’ art and design relate to the social changes, technological advances, and aesthetic sensibilities of their particular eras?

“Now, over 70 years after her death, the creator Pamela Colman Smith has been included in a new exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.”

Most ancient people were in the habit of imagining that messages from their gods were built into the world around them: in the oracles they consulted, in their dreams, and in the animals they sacrificed. They drew on them to sort out their thinking on knotty issues they faced in their lives, seeing more deeply into the past, present, or future.

Have you ever had your tarot cards read?

The earliest references to tarot all date to the 1440s and 1450s and fall within the quadrilateral defined by the northern cities of Venice, Milan, Florence, and Urbino.

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Faith, science, and stargazing influenced everyday decisions in the Middle Ages

The Met Museum branch dedicated to the Middle Ages.