Tarot - Origins & Afterlives: A Symposium

This one-day conference will celebrate the final week of the UK’s first exhibition on the history of tarot. Like the show, the symposium will explore a sequence of critical moments from tarot’s 600-year history, exploring the decks’ origins in the courtly card games of Renaissance Italy and the profound transformations they have undergone in the hands of artists, mystics and writers. Offering the insights of scholarly experts, including many members of the exhibition’s Scientific Committee, the day will dig deeper into both the origins and afterlives of this durable and vital set of symbols.

Refreshments will be provided and the day will conclude with a wine reception.

Featured Topics:

ORIGINS: the relationship between tarocchi and playing cards, the designs of the Visconti and Sola Busca cards
REVIVALS: Oswald Wirth, Lady Frieda Harris and Surrealist uses of tarot
HISTORIES: Aby Warburg, Ernst Tristan Kurtzahn and Gertrude Moakley

9:30-10:00: COFFEE/REGISTRATION: Reemtsma Auditorium, Warburg Institute, Woburn Square, London WC1H 0AB

10:00-12:00: ORIGINS [Martina Mazzotta, Chair]

Timothy Young (Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Yale Center for British Art): 'The Origins and Afterlives of Visconti Tarocchi'

Paolo Plebani (Accademia Carrara, Bergamo): 'The Court at Play: A Review of the Colleoni Tarot'

Laura Paola Gnaccolini (Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio per la città metropolitana di Milano): 'The Divine Man: From the "Mantegna Tarocchi" to the Sola Busca Tarot'


12:00-1:00: LUNCH BREAK


1:00-3:00: REVIVALS [Jonathan Allen, Chair]

Pete Forshaw (University of Amsterdam): 'Eliphas Levi and the Tarot'

Deja Whitehouse (Independent Scholar): 'Manifesting the Magick of the Magus'

Tessel Bauduin (University of Amsterdam): '"There is no future, let us predict it": Surrealism and the Tarot'


3:00-3:30: TEA


3:30-5:30: HISTORIES [Bill Sherman, Chair]

Claudia Wedepohl and Jonathan Allen (Warburg Institute): 'Aby Warburg, the tarocchi and the survival of the pagan gods – a conversation'

Jonathan Allen (Warburg Institute): 'The Great Goddess Etymology (2025)' - video 9mins (work in progress)

Ervin Malakaj (University of British Columbia): 'The Queer Potentiality of Ernst Tristan Kurtzahn’s Weimar Tarot'

Emily Auger: 'The History of Tarot in Narrative Fiction'


5:30-6:00: CONCLUDING DISCUSSION

WE ARE NOW FULLY BOOKED FOR IN PERSON ATTENDANCE. TO JOIN REMOTELY PLEASE EMAIL [email protected] TO REQUEST A ZOOM LINK.