Tarot Emblemata: Interview with Nitasia Roland

Step into a world where knights, mottos, mythic beasts, and phoenixes rise again—and discover how Renaissance symbolism can illuminate your readings in entirely new ways with Tarot Emblemata: Decoding Magical Symbolism. On this episode of the Archetypal Tarot Podcast, Host Cyndera welcomes artist and deck creator Nitasia Roland for an enchanting conversation about (one of her) latest decks. Drawing from 16th-century French and Italian emblem books—particularly the 1551 collection curated by Claude Paradin—Rowland reimagines Renaissance “devices” (symbolic images paired with mottos) as a fully realized tarot system. These historic emblems, originally engraved by Bernard Salomon, explored themes of love, war, faith, philosophy, politics, and morality during the height of the Renaissance. Now, centuries later, they re-emerge as living archetypes. The conversation also explores the Renaissance world that birthed these emblems—a time of religious upheaval, artistic revolution, and humanist revival—and reflects on what this symbolic medicine offers us today. As Roland beautifully suggests, reviving these images is almost a calling: a way of bringing buried wisdom back into contemporary consciousness. In this episode, you’ll discover: How a chance encounter with occult-flavored emblem art sparked the creation of the deck The fascinating structure of traditional emblems—pictura (image), inscriptio (motto), and subscriptio (commentary)—and how they translate seamlessly into tarot Why these 500-year-old images feel uncannily aligned with modern archetypes The alchemical and esoteric currents flowing beneath the artwork (such as the powerful phoenix symbolism of rebirth and transformation) The creative journey from black-and-gold indie edition to lush, colorized reimagining Roland shares her passion for pairing poetic language with evocative imagery, creating cards that speak directly to intuition—often without needing to consult the guidebook. The result is a deck that feels at once ancient and immediate, scholarly and mystical. Whether you’re drawn to tarot as an intuitive art, a historical system, or a symbolic language of transformation, this episode offers rich insight into how past and present intertwine through archetype and image.