IL PRINCIPE DEI TAROCCHI
(The Prince of the Tarot)
Francesco Antelminelli Castracani Fibbia 

Essay by Andrea Vitali
Pocket size, cm. 15 x 9.5, p. 110 with 42 black/white photos
Moderna Editions (Mystery Editorial Series), Ravenna, Italy, 2013

In Italian

ISBN 978-88-89900-71-0

 
When was the first deck of tarot cards created and by whom? Did Prince Fibbia really exist? A delightful volume by Andrea Vitali, historian of symbolism and one of the leading international experts in the history of the Tarot, who explains everything about the origins of the most famous deck of playing cards in Europe.

In the Palazzo Fibbia of Bologna hung for many years a painting, now mysteriously disappeared and viewable only in photograph, of Prince Francesco Antelminelli Castracani Fibbia, descendant of the famous military leader Castruccio Castracani, In this painting, done in the 17th century, was writing declaring Prince Fibbia the inventor of the game of Tarot. From new documentary sources found in major institutions of the city of Bologna, Prof. Andrea Vitali undertakes a critical survey regarding this claim.

Broadening and deepening what he has already written in his essay The Prince, Prof. Vitali highlights the reasons why the invention of the 'Ludus Triumphorum' should be credited without doubt to this brilliant character.