Marianna Costa: The Tarot - Step by Step
Religion
ISBN 9791399025392
400 Pages, 16 x 24 cm, Paperback. €32,90
Release date: August 15st, 2026
Originally created as a card game in fifteenth-century Italy, the Tarot of Marseille later became one of the world's most influential symbolic traditions. But what is its true origin? Why do its images continue to speak so powerfully to us?
In this richly illustrated guide, Marianne Costa explores the history, symbolism, and iconography of the Tarot of Marseille, presenting an integral approach to interpreting all 78 cards—Major Arcana, Minor Arcana, and Court Cards alike.
Costa reveals the deck as a profound journey of self-discovery, leading from ordinary human experience toward wisdom, wholeness, and the deepest dimensions of being.
Rather than a tool for fortune-telling, the Tarot emerges as a source of insight, contemplation, and inner transformation.
About the Author
Marianne Costa (born 1966) holds an M.A. in Comparative Literature and is a renowned Tarot expert. She has published several books that have been translated into numerous languages, including No Woman's Land (novel, Grasset, 2004), The Way of Tarot (with Alejandro Jodorowsky; Inner Traditions, 2005; German edition: Windpferd, 2008), and Metagenealogy (France, 2011; U.S., 2014), a study of the family as both a treasure and a trap, also co-authored with Jodorowsky. She collaborates with institutions and museums as an expert in symbolism, most recently with the Guggenheim Collection in Venice and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Palermo. Her latest book, Le Tarot pas à pas (Tarot Step by Step), an essay on the history, symbolism, and iconography of the Tarot, is already available in French, Spanish, and Italian.
Her multifaceted career has also included work as a professional actress and singer, as well as writing and translating poetry, novels, and essays. She teaches groups around the world on Tarot, transgenerational psychology, and what she calls „healing fictions,” an original approach that combines—and goes beyond—therapy, personal development, and artistic expression. She is also the French translator of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poetry.
Based in Paris, she has been a passionate tango dancer and singer for the past decade.