About My Tarot Deck Of Choice: The Jean Noblet Tarot de Marseille (Part 1)

This is the first installment of what promises to be a series of pieces about my tarot deck of choice: The Jean Noblet Tarot de Marseille.

This 78 card tarot deck was faithfully restored by Frenchman Jean-Claude Flornoy in 2007, following an earlier hand stenciled restoration of the Noblet's Major Arcana (the tarot's "trumps").

There is only one original set of these cards still in existence, preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale (National Library) in France. Unfortunately, that deck is missing the six to ten of swords. Flornoy re-created these to conform with the graphics of the rest of the deck and after consulting contemporary designs.

It is the earliest example of the Tarot de Marseille in existence, dating from around 1650, so it had been out of print for over 300 years. It is thus free from the many layers of clutter that adorns so many more modern tarot decks.

I have to thank my friend Enrique Enriquez who introduced me to the Jean Noblet Tarot in his e-book Looking at the Marseilles Tarot that I recently reviewed here. I was attracted to its lack of pretension and its sometimes bawdy and irreverent imagery. I instantly bonded with the deck.

You can find out more about these cards at Jean-Claude's site. It is well worth taking a virtual stroll through to learn about the history of the deck, and see images, both from the original deck and the restoration.

If you are interested in purchasing the deck for yourself, it can be found at The Tarot Garden.