Discovery: 'Gilded Reverie Lenormand' by Ciro Marchetti

The cards are delivered in a sturdy cardboard box. They are laminated and glossy and of the correct thickness. The cards are smaller in size than the classic tarot card format, which ensures a very good grip. The cards have a golden edge. A card with a white front allows the owner to create his own card or to replace a lost card.

Mrs Lenormand's story is rather well known, there is even a Wikipedia page about her life. We know that Marie-Anne-Adélaïde Lenormand was born in 1772 from a humble origin. Apparently from childhood she showed great imagination and curiosity, sharpened by a lively mind. Raised in the royal abbey of the Benedictine ladies of Alençon, she began to give prophecies at a very young age. The perspicacity and truthfulness of these predictions made her not only noticed but also dismissed. She then went up to Paris in the middle of the French Revolution, opened a bookstore which became a clairvoyant cabinet. She had her first successes there before she was suspected and then locked up by the Committee of Public Salvation. However, she managed to make her way through the times and took advantage of each change of regime, the Empire under Napoleon and then the Restoration with Louis XVIII, to establish her prestige and her fortune. Did she really have a talent for clairvoyance? Perhaps. But it is certain that she had a great finesse of mind in the game of intrigue, a real ability to seduce her clientele, and a true sense of business and entrepreneurship. Some specialists also say that she had built up a real network of informants throughout Paris that allowed her to be very well informed about her customers and therefore to refine her predictions.

However, we have very little information about the games she used during her consultations. However, it is commonly accepted that she based her spreads on a set of 32-36 French sign cards (Club, Spades, Heart, Diamond) on which she could write annotations. It is said that she could have been inspired by the divinatory game of the German Johann Kaspar Hechtel (1771 - 1799) whose 36-card deck known as "Das Spiel der Hoffnung" (The Game of Hope) was first published in 1799. However, it is likely that Lenormand was inspired by Eteilla's game. Indeed, upon her arrival in Paris, Marie Lenormand met a fortune-teller named Mrs. Gilbert, who taught her the divinatory tarot grace of Etteilla (1738 - 1791). Eteilla printed her tarot for the first time in 1788-1789.

What I appreciate in this Lenormand is that Ciro Marchetti has densified the often purified symbolism of the Lenormand cards, thus opening up and widening the interpretation of each card. His approach makes it possible to make the most of the Lenormand system.

In this card, I like the presence of the birds flying in the halo of the sun evoking a meaning like freedom, height, retreat. On the same card, we see a lightning bolt striking a tree, synonymous with destruction, or even the rain that can evoke the fertilization of the ground. This illustration brings a nuanced and balanced meaning to the traditional meaning.

I like this card because it has two versions, one with birds perched around a feeder, evoking abundance, community, although at first glance the card speaks more about news and communication. In the second version with the owls, the card can tell us about rumors, gossip, but with their big eyes to see clearly in the night, the owls can invite you to sort out the true and false, to look with lucidity.

The child's card is of course about learning and immaturity, but with the games in front of him, the image can also evoke play, pleasure, memories, nostalgia, and even the beginning with the inscription "Once upon a time".

The bear represents power, strength, protection. But in the vision of Marchetti who placed a polar bear in the drawing, we can also see a sign of purity, wisdom and even slowness and hibernation.

The dog usually talks about friendship and loyalty. But with the leash around the dog's neck, the illustration can also mean dependence, alienation, situation of hold.

The card talks about choices that are available and a decision to be made. In his vision, the author has shown stairs leading to both possibilities, indicating by the same token that all choices allow for evolution and growth. The two staircases, each leading to a door open to the sky, tell us that there is no one choice better than another, that the options are infinite.