Medici Tarot Booklet

14. XIV La Temperanza: In the Medici Chapel: Angels Worshiping by Benozzo Gozzoli, painted about 1459 can be found. It depicts Temperance in its highest form; angelic restraint and control of passion. La Temperanza is the Italian word for Temperance.

15. XV Traditore: The Italian word Traditore means: Traitor. Girolamo Savonarola (September 21, 1452 – May 23, 1498) known for Bonfire of the Vanities harbored jealousies and hostility towards the Renaissance movement. Savonarola declared to be a man of God, but his actions were questionable. Eventually, he was excommunicated and executed. Among the charges: sedition, heresy, religious errors. He was tortured on the rack then hung in chains from a cross and burned in the Piazza della Signoria; the same place he held the Bonfire of the Vanities.

16. XVI Torrione: The Medici palazzo in Florence, Italy is depicted on this card. The Annunciation with Saint Emidius by Carlo Crivelli, 1486 gracefully depicts a strange light beaming down from the heavens as if striking the Medici Palace.

17. XVII Stella: Marsilio Ficino was chosen by Cosimo de’ Medici to transcribe the complete works of Plato. He eventually had Marsilio tutor his grandson Lorenzo de’ Medici, Il Magnifico. The Italian Platonist and astrologer Marsilio Ficino authored a book entitled Libri de vita or, Three Books on Life, written in the years 1480-1489 which is considered an amalgam of philosophy, medicine, natural magick and astrology. Ficino’s knowledge of talismans and his magick in general was learned from the Hermetic writings: Asclepius and the Picatrix.

18. XVIII Luna: Lorenzo Medici gathered intellectuals, artists, philosophers, scientists and such to participate