Quick Specs
- Type: Rider Waite Smith tarot deck with booklet
- Cards: 78 cards, standard size (5 by 2.5 inches)
- Card back: Non-reversible, Dante seated at his writing desk in blue tones
- Artist: Guido Zibordi Marchesi
- Publisher: Lo Scarabeo (Italy); North American edition by Llewellyn Publications
- ISBN: 978-0-7387-6968-4
- Occasion: Produced for the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death (1321 to 2021)
- Tradition: Rider Waite Smith
A Tarot Built Around Dante’s Divine Comedy
Guido Zibordi Marchesi built this deck around the life and work of Dante Alighieri, the 14th-century poet whose Divine Comedy maps a journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Lo Scarabeo released the deck as a tribute for the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death in 1321, and Llewellyn distributes it in North America. Marchesi keeps the Rider Waite Smith structure intact across all 78 cards while dressing every archetype in the visual language of the late Middle Ages: borderless compositions, gold-toned skies, and the flattened perspective of trecento fresco painting rendered with a contemporary colorist’s eye. The deck is a revised and more polished edition of Marchesi’s earlier 2001 release, originally titled the Giotto Tarot, and this version sharpens the linework and brightens the palette while keeping the same core artistic vision.
The strongest thematic thread runs through the Swords suit, where Marchesi lets flame imagery carry the Inferno’s episodes directly into the cards. If you know Dante’s journey through the nine circles, you’ll recognize specific moments surfacing in the Sword cards as you read. The card back shows Dante himself, seated at a writing desk with a feathered pen, rendered entirely in blue, a fitting image for a deck built as much around the act of writing a masterwork as around the masterwork’s content. Reviewers who expected the deck to carry the weight of Dante’s darker material (grief, damnation, loss) have found instead that it reads gently, an unexpected softness given the source text’s extremes. The included booklet covers upright meanings only; no reversal interpretations ship with this edition.
Reading with a Deck That Carries Its Own Literary Voice
Reach for this deck when you want a Rider Waite Smith reading with a specific historical and literary voice underneath it: readings about a personal journey through difficulty toward clarity, about creative work and the discipline it demands, or about facing a hard truth without losing hope. The Inferno-Purgatorio-Paradiso structure of the Divine Comedy maps naturally onto a three-stage spread (where you’ve been, where you are, where you’re headed), and Marchesi’s late-medieval palette holds up beautifully on a candlelit altar. Because the booklet ships without reversal meanings, pair this deck with your own reversal framework or a standard Rider Waite Smith reference if reversed readings are part of your practice. Browse my Tarot Decks collection for decks that pair with or contrast to this one.
How to Read with the Dante Tarot
The deck rewards a reader who lets the late-medieval imagery and the Divine Comedy’s three-part structure inform the reading, on top of the familiar Rider Waite Smith framework.
- Recognize the Rider Waite Smith Structure First
When a card lands, name the classic Rider Waite Smith composition underneath Marchesi’s brushwork. This deck keeps the full 78-card structure and standard archetypal meanings, so anyone who already reads Rider Waite Smith tarot can pick it up without relearning the framework. The late-medieval styling changes the mood, not the meaning.
- Watch for the Inferno Imagery in the Swords
Pay attention when a Sword card appears; Marchesi threads flame imagery from specific Inferno episodes through this suit. If you know Dante’s journey through the nine circles, these details add a layer most readers miss on a first pass. Note which episode the flames evoke and let it color your reading of conflict, decision, or hard truth.
- Build a Three-Stage Spread Around the Divine Comedy
Lay three cards mapped to Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso: where the situation currently sits in difficulty, what work remains to move through it, and what clarity waits on the other side. This spread uses the deck’s own literary architecture rather than a generic three-card pull, and it plays to the gentle, hopeful reading tone reviewers consistently note in this deck despite its dark source material.
The Tarot Fellow Standard
I brought the Dante Tarot into the shop because a Rider Waite Smith deck with a genuine literary backbone is rare, and Marchesi’s late-medieval palette gives readings a specific historical weight without sacrificing the framework readers already know. Lo Scarabeo built this edition to mark 700 years since Dante’s death, and Llewellyn’s North American distribution means the card stock and printing meet the standard readers expect from a major publisher. Browse my Celtic, Druidry and Nature collection for other historically grounded decks in a similar register.
Frequently Asked Questions
They come from the same artist and the same core vision. Guido Zibordi Marchesi first released this artwork in 2001 as the Giotto Tarot. This edition is a revised and more polished version of that original release, with sharper linework and a brighter palette, published under the Dante Tarot title to mark the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death.
No, the included booklet covers upright meanings only. If reversed readings are part of your practice, pair this deck with your own reversal framework or a standard Rider Waite Smith reference for the shadow interpretations. The Rider Waite Smith structure underneath Marchesi’s artwork supports reversed reading the same way any classic deck does; this particular edition’s booklet simply doesn’t print those meanings.
No. The Rider Waite Smith framework carries the reading whether or not you know the source text. Knowing the Divine Comedy adds a layer, particularly in the Swords suit where Marchesi threads specific Inferno imagery through the cards, but the deck reads fully on its own as a Rider Waite Smith tarot with a distinct late-medieval visual voice.
Reviewers consistently describe the opposite. Despite drawing on a text that spans depression, loss, hell, and heaven, the deck reads gently, which surprises readers who expect the darker material to dominate. The late-medieval palette and Marchesi’s contemporary color sensibility give the deck a warmth that softens the source material’s extremes.
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