• Director(s):

    TRUFFAULT (PHILIPPE)

  • Producer(s):

    MEDIA ENTREPRISE, ARTE FRANCE

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2014

  • Language(s):

    German, English, French

  • Rights:

    TV, DVD, NON-THEATRICAL, INTERNET, VOD

The Mysteries of the Tarot of Marseille is a documentary about the most enigmatic game of cards of all time. What do they mean? Who created them and for what purpose?

The Tarot of Marseille is known today as the fortune teller’s favourite game of cards. Owing to the strange figures that adorn them, for centuries these cards have exerted a strong power of fascination. In the caves of the Hungarian castle of Esztergom, a fresco attributed to Botticelli gives us the starting point to a fantastic investigation through the art and philosophy of the Renaissance, leading to a savant in the circle of Lorenzo de’ Medici. This man, Marsilio Ficino, was a philosopher, a priest, an astrologer as well as a magician. As argued in the film, he was also the mastermind behind the philosophical enigmas that are the images on the Tarot of Marseille. This set of images, as we shall see, rather than an ordinary game of cards, reveals itself as a pedagogical tool designed to transmit, while playing, the deepest secrets of Platonic philosophy.