Sola Busca Tarot Information

 Order the Sola Busca Tarot deck by Lo Scarabeo.

 Order the Sola Busca Tarot book by Sofia Di Vincenzo.

     I had read that the earliest known deck to have illustrated Minors [as opposed to pip cards] was the Sola Busca Tarot dated somewhere around the late 15th Century. There was also the rumor that the Minors in the Sola Busca influenced A.E. Waite and Pamela Coleman-Smith when designing and illustrating the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. I wanted to see, to look at the cards myself. So with the help of a friend, I ordered my deck and waited for it to come.
     When the deck arrived, I was not prepared for the impact it would have not only on my Tarot studies but on my life as well. I took one look at the cards and wanted to know more. I searched and read as much as I could. I asked questions that led me nowhere and sent me right back to the beginning again. I was determined and kept going. I give thanks to the Sola Busca because it is the deck that inspired me to take a more serious look back into all aspects of history. To read, compare, think and, above all, question. I’ve collected here some of the information that I have gathered. It is incomplete and I would not be so foolish as to state that it is even ‘correct’. Even if some of the information I have here is ‘right’, there is still so much room to explore even further how and why it is what it is. Maybe one day I will try. In the meantime, I hope this deck inspires others to research and ask questions.
     When I first saw the deck I noticed that the Majors weren’t like anything I had ever seen before. Names and figures that I wasn’t immediately familiar with. Who are you? With that simple question, I became obsessed trying to find out more information about the Sola Busca and that question is always in the back of my mind [“Who are you?”]. Through trial and error I began to come up with some of the names of the figures on the Majors [you can see which names I have picked in the Majors section]. My search led me to Ancient Rome and I noticed that many of the figures have some sort of relationship with Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Since I couldn’t find much information on the deck, I began to wonder if Sola and Sulla were interchangeable. I’ve recently acquired the book _Sola Busca Tarot_ by Sofia Di Vincenzo and found the preface by Giordano Berti to be some of the best information on this deck I have come across. Giordano Berti sets me straight on the name of this deck by pointing out that it was named after its oldest known owners, the Sola-Busca family.
     Berti seems more comfortable in calling the deck the Ancient Warriors Tarot. Because of two engraved inscriptions which can be found in the Majors; S.C [Senatus Consultus - Senate Council] and S.P.Q.R. [Senatus Populusque Romanus - Senate and People of Rome], I tend to lean towards the idea that the Majors of this deck are actually figures who are key in the Rise and Fall of Rome and not necessarily strictly related to ‘warriors’. In either case, I agree with Berti when he refers to the Sola Busca as “an educational game that represents noteworthy episodes in ancient history, with particular references made to events in republican Rome.”