took these out a week early as well. they don't really "go together" - the italian is more of an end of summer deck while the cat people are fully autumn, so they match the vibes of the month despite not aesthetically gelling together.
the tarot of the cat people was my first fully scenic deck back in the day (although not this particular copy, that one's been lost to the ages lol). i remember it felt so magical back then and some of that feeling remains. that awe and wonder of a kid - /this/ is tarot! i haven't had much success learning with it back then - many of the images didn't really match their little white booklet entries and over the years, even after i'd gained somewhat of a proficiency in reading, i felt a kind of disappointment and wrongness about the cards. but i want to give them an honest shot.
as part of that i decided to learn more about the setting, the outer regions. the author of the deck, karen kuykendall, wrote a whole bigger guide which many describe as boring and dry, so i've been putting it off. but a quick search on one of the tarot forums yielded a more interesting result. appartently there are fantasy books based on that guide, set in that world, by andre norton (someone i haven't heared about but who supposedly was "one of the most popular fantasy and scifi writers in the world for well over half a century"). so far it's quite engaging, although the grammar is slightly odd. but i do feel like i have a better understanding of the cards already, maybe there's hope!
the ancient italian tarot is what loscarabeo named their "regular" quality soprafino (although i'm not sure if they made any museum quality editions). as i took it out i got excited to work with a pip deck again (last month also featured a pip deck? i guess i prefer this one?) despite not really vibing with it outside of this challenge. it's one of those i'm holding onto out of nostalgia and will probably end up on a "secondary" shelf along with last month's margarete petersen. i think i bought it hoping for something more refined than the choppy woodblocks of the TdMs, but this fine linework also isn't doing it for me. it's almost /too/ delicate.
i do enjoy that despite the delicacy the art spreads out properly, filling the entire space. plenty of ornamentation and arabesques. and the color palette, while still not exactly my jam, at least does something more fun than the kindergarden-primary-colors of older stenciled decks. mostly it makes me think of my grandma for some reason. maybe it's the "carpet" style backs, or maybe i've actually first used it back at her place? or maybe it feels like something she might have owned, brought back from her travels (if she weren't such a devout catholic)? mysterious...
