Sunday, January 15th, 2012

10. La Ruota β€” Tarocchi dei Celti

Benito Jacovitti

Illustrator: Benito Jacovitti

 

The Wheel of Fortune can be interpreted very simply. Right-side-up= Good luck. Up-side-down= bad luck.

 

Yet again I am reading from a deck that is all Italian. This is the second of two majors-only decks of the same name. I much prefer the other: these images were illustrated by a humorist whose humor I don’t appreciate. I didn’t ask a question because I didn’t want to use this deck to be insightful in any manner. I’m not exactly sure what makes this a Celtic deck.

 

This Wheel [of Fortune] is lodged under the over-sized breasts of a very large woman. The sausage at her feet is a repeating theme throughout the deck, as are the dismembered fingers sticking up from the ground. Three-headed gods are not uncommon. They see the past, present and future: every way the wheel can roll. Someone has thrown a pot of coins and a dieβ€” common symbols of gamblingβ€” at the woman’s helmeted head. The pot empties out and the woman remains oblivious, laughing.

 

I guess I don’t ever have to look at this deck again. I got it for “free” when I ordered a bunch of other decks from Italy. It gives me the same-sort of grossed-out feeling as do movies with too much bodily-function comedy and too few brains.

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