Suspended between land and sea, Venice seems to come out of the mists of a dream. The aristocratic palaces along the Grand Canal. The elegant churches scattered among squares and squares. The houses, sometimes clean and sometimes crumbling, overlook the canals crossed by stone or wooden bridges. The labyrinth of calli and sottoportici. Everything in Venice contributes to creating a magical atmosphere at any time of the year.

All these aspects are represented in the Tarot cards of Venice: 78 splendid images taken by Maestro Davide Tonato, an acclaimed painter from Verona, following the carefully prepared screenplay by Giordano Berti, writer and historian of esotericism in art. The work was published by Dal Negro Editore in 2007.

The Tarot of Venice describes the charm of the lagoon city in all its aspects, but in this article we only dwell on the purely architectural element and on the most famous women of Venice, reserving the right to return to properly magical themes on a future occasion.

Maestro Tonato has dedicated meticulous care to the representation of churches, palaces and bridges, giving each scene a particular atmosphere and inserting a historical figure in each painting. It is amazing to observe the wealth of "references" from great Venetian artists, used by Tonato: from Veronese to Tiepolo, Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto and so on.
For example, in Arcano III, The Empress, we see the poetess and courtesan Veronica Franco (1591) sitting on a rich boat in front of the Rialto Bridge. In the Arcano X, the Wheel of Fortune, there is the mathematician Elena Cornaro Piscopia (1684) under the Clock Tower of St. Mark's Square. In the Arcano II, La Papessa, there is the philosopher Lucrezia Marinella (1653) in a room of the Biblioteca Marciana. In the Arcane XIV, the Temperance, the writer Moderata Fonte (1592), in front of the church of the Health pours water into a cup. 

In other cards we see women from all social classes involved in the most varied activities: laundresses, waitresses, artists and prostitutes. In short, a fresco of the life of women in Venice over the past centuries, which still fascinates and amazes today.