Tarocco Soprafino 1830 – 78-Card Historical Reproduction Vintage Italian Tarot Deck | Il Meneghello

Tarocco Soprafino 1830 – One of the Most Fascinating Italian Decks Ever Made

In around 1830, Ferdinando Gumppenberg — the most ingenious innovator in 19th-century Italian playing card manufacturing — entrusted the gifted engraver Carlo Della Rocca with the task of revamping the classical 78-card tarot. Della Rocca engraved the deck on metal with extreme refinement and care, producing what became recognised as one of the most fascinating Italian decks of cards ever created. So successful was the resulting Tarocco Soprafino that it was copied, more or less integrally, in silography, etching and lithography until the end of the 19th century.

This historical reproduction is published by Il Meneghello — the celebrated Milanese publisher dedicated to the faithful reproduction of rare and important Italian tarot decks — with scholarly notes by Giuliano Crippa.

• 78 double-embossed cards — the complete tarot, faithfully reproduced from the original 1830 Della Rocca engravings
• Card titles in Italian throughout: Il Matto, Il Sole, La Forza, Il Diavolo, La Temperan., L’Appeso, La Torre, Fan. di Coppe, Caval di Coppe, Caval di Spadi, and the full 78-card sequence
• Richly coloured hand-engraving style on aged parchment grounds: full-figure court cards, classically rendered Aces (gothic chalice, crowned sword with ribbon), and expressive Major Arcana including a skeleton Death, a Neptunian Devil with trident, and a crumbling La Torre
• Presented in a tuck-style rigid box with XIX Il Sole (two figures beneath a radiant red sun) illustrated on the lid — wrapped in Il Meneghello’s signature ecru bat-print tissue paper
• White snowflake geometric card backs — a clean, simple reverse design; reversible
• Includes a bilingual scholarly insert card (English and Italian) by Giuliano Crippa, detailing the historical provenance of Gumppenberg, Della Rocca, and the Soprafino tradition
• An essential piece for collectors of historical Italian tarot and students of the Marseilles tradition

From Fan. di Coppe — a pink-clad Renaissance page holding a jewelled chalice — to the II di Coppe with its paired ornate urns on a chequered floor, every card carries the dignity and precision of its 19th-century origin. The Tarocco Soprafino is not a replica: it is a continuation. To hold it is to hold two centuries of Italian craft in your hands.