I'm going to apologize in advance for my upcoming post (though I have to think it would make MrT green with envy for its length alone.

) If the pictures are screwing anyone up seriously, please inform me and I'll edit to remove them.
EDIT: A little historical background -- there are a number of "Visconti-Sforza" tarot decks, so called because they incorporate a goodly amount of the crests of those two lines (the Visconti snake, and the coins of Sforza), and seem to have been commissioned by those houses or as gifts for them. While there is no historical record of Filippo Visconti reading tarot cards, he is widely described being insane (not to mention fat) so it didn't seem like so much of a stretch that he might be a mystic. The cards there are all modern adaptations of the "Cary-Yale Visconti" deck, which is actually missing quite a number of cards; consequently, a number of these are modern interpretations or modifications of the originals. (I couldn't find a consistently-sized and full set of the originals.)
I should also mention that that post required probably the largest amount of legwork I've had to do for a single FC post to date, both in terms of research and actual writing. Whew!
