Down Here is the first of a meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated three volume work, The Tarot of Marsilio Volume 1 by Christophe Poncet; a landmark inquiry into the origins of the Tarot de Marseille. Against the prevalent view in the academy—that the tarot was never used, before the 18th century, for anything other than card games—Poncet argues that the Tarot de Marseille is a work of esoteric philosophy hidden in plain sight.

Through a careful analysis of artworks, philosophical texts, and the imagery and symbolism of the cards, Poncet places and dates the deck to Florence in the 1470s. Marsilio Ficino, translator of the Corpus Hermeticum and the complete works of Plato, is identified as the likely mastermind behind this tarot. In this first volume, the imagery and meaning of the Chariot, the Devil, the Lovers, Strength, the Hermit, the House of God, Arcanum XIII and the Fool are explored.

As readers of Two Esoteric Tarots will know, Poncet’s investigation is comparable to that of Peter Mark Adams in The Game of Saturn, shedding new light on heterodox thought in the Renaissance.

Christophe Poncet has been on a decades long quest to discover the truth about the Tarot de Marseille and the esoteric ideas encoded in the cards. The Tarot of Marsilio Volume 1 takes us on an extraordinary journey of discovery, from a lost masterpiece of Botticelli in a ruined castle, through the stacks of the Vatican library, artist’s sketchbooks, and works in the collections of the Louvre, the British Museum, and the National Gallery. Poncet brings us into the hermetic thought-world of the circle around the brilliant polymath Marsilio Ficino.

For the tarot reader and occultist, this work opens up a profound understanding of the cards, their history and the context of their creation. With these keys we can read the visual language of the trumps as they were intended, and play the game of Western esotericism at a deeper level. Whether enhancing our divinations or stimulating the practice of talismanic and image magic, Poncet changes forever our understanding of the most archetypal and iconic tarot deck.