>Review: The Gilded Tarot

The Gilded Tarot is the new creation of graphic designer, Ciro Marchetti, and the latest Tarot deck release from Llewellyn. Lately, Llewellyn have changed the way they package their deck, so the Gilded Tarot comes with a black organdie Tarot bag, a white box for storage, and the companion book by Barbara Moore.

The deck itself is visually stunning- the characters in the cards are flamboyantly beautiful in their medieval clothing and chivalric setting, and they look very realistic thanks to Marchetti's masterful use of graphic design.

The cards are framed in such a way that they simply invite you to fall into them and explore, and you can almost see and hear the scenes come to life as you look at them. Throughout the deck there is plenty of symbolism, so the deck can be read easily by both beginners and advanced readers alike.

The deck takes many cues from the Rider Waite Smith deck, and as such has quite traditional images with a subtle, unique addition or twist. This serves to make the deck both useable with most of the Tarot books available at the moment, and interesting for the more advanced reader to study. Because of this, it would also be a good deck for people of all ages, spiritual bents, and backgrounds- it is a very universal deck.

If the deck is so similar to the Rider Waite Smith, why bother buying it at all? You may ask. The answer is simple: the Gilded Tarot succeeds where the Rider Waite Smith failed. It is beautiful, colourful, very pleasing to the eye. It conveys the card meanings a lot easier than the Rider Waite Smith, and it is clearer: you can really see what is supposed to be going on in the cards.

The companion book is good for a beginner, though more advanced readers may not find much in it for them, and the descriptions of the individual cards are lacking in explanation. They have the card meanings, but not the explanation of the symbolism and images found in the specific card. It's a shame, because this deck has more depth than you think upon first glance.

A nifty, clear, and beautiful deck that I would recommend to anybody, especially beginners and those looking for a more aesthetically pleasing alternative to the Rider Waite Smith.