The Medieval Art of Ceramics and Tarot in Viterbo
by Giulia Marchetti
Every town or small village can hide beneath its surface a web of human energy and connections, ready to be discovered and shared. Sometimes it’s easy to wander the streets and stumble upon a beautiful workshop or craft shop; other times these places are more hidden, almost secret, and you need a local friend to help you find them. My wish is to take you by the hand and lead you into these creative worlds, where energy and human connection find their highest expression. I want you to meet artisans and artists, encountering their spirit in their workshops and through their art. Magical encounters that can enrich you with ever-new emotions and human connections.
Cinzia Chiulli is an extraordinary artist, but also a friend, a philosopher and an adorable enchantress who knows how to delight you with her tales of local historical figures, the world of Tarot and the medieval esotericism of Viterbo. In this sense, her studio also becomes an intellectual salon where you can absorb positive energy and ever-new knowledge.
I decided to keep one of her ceramics depicting the tree of life beside my bed, not only because it is beautiful, but because it is full of symbolism and inner meaning. It is the first image I see when I wake up in the morning and the last before I fall asleep. It is there to remind me of the importance of my inner balance, from which I can draw the seeds of life to scatter into the world, giving rise to ever-new human connections.
The Noble Art of Ceramics and Tarot
Entering Cinzia Chiulli’s studio, we are overwhelmed by vibrations and energy, and the spirit of this artist is imprinted in every single work of art she creates. After all, the work of art is a divine creation that embodies, in its very matter, the soul of the artist herself.
But there is more. According to the laws of quantum physics, even though we perceive a work of art as still, it is actually made up of 99.9999% flowing energy and 0.0001% matter. This free energy is able to produce phenomena when observed. That is why we feel invested by mystical, spiritual inner vibrations when we lay eyes on Cinzia’s wonderful masterpieces.
Her passion for the noble art of ceramics, combined with her many years of research into medieval Viterbo techniques, make her artistic output unique and refined.
The ancient techniques require time, patience and, in a way, slowness. In a world where everything moves fast, even art can be contaminated by haste, but ancient traditions have the power to sweeten the creative moment, making it more immersive and profound.
So it should come as no surprise that Cinzia’s ceramics need calm and long dedication to be created. Metaphorically, one could say that every single ceramic object holds within it a small part of Cinzia’s life. For this lovely artist, creation is like a long gestation that gives life to a new “creature” that in some way embodies a piece of herself. She says she never feels she is selling her creations, but rather giving them up for adoption, because as an artist she never truly separates herself from that part of her.
The Middle Ages also mean darkness, mystery, occultism and esotericism, and for Cinzia Chiulli it is not enough to simply study the ancient artistic traditions of the craft schools to create her ceramics. She also needs to reproduce, through her art, the icons, symbols and arcana of the past. And this is how she came close to the world of Tarot.
Tarot cards have mysterious and ancient origins, and Viterbo is the first Italian town to have welcomed them. Scholars claim they were brought by the Templars around the 13th century. They are essentially a map of the soul, a deep psychological guide to self-empowerment as imagined through 78 symbolic cards.
A traditional deck has 22 Major Arcana, which are the archetypal images. There are 56 Minor Arcana cards and four elements or suits: Fire, Earth, Air and Water. These cards follow a narrative that tells of humanity’s spiritual evolution towards enlightenment, to reach our higher self, which is also the ultimate purpose of the Tarot cards. The images are simple and speak without words, so much so that the Tarot has been compared to the silent book “Mutus Liber”, a masterpiece of 17th-century French alchemy.
Tarot cards are also an allegory of our life, a sacred mirror in which each of us recognizes ourselves. They represent what occultists call the conversation with our higher self. We are like the Magician (Arcanum number one): we must perform the magic of believing in ourselves in order to reach ever higher spiritual goals.
Following these studies, Cinzia Chiulli created the Major Arcana of FAUL, an acronym of four ancient places in Viterbo (Fano, Arbanum, Vetulonia and Longula). Viterbo is itself an alchemical and esoteric city, as can be seen in the symbols engraved on the city walls and in the churches.
This artist’s great challenge was to match the historical figures and events of Viterbo with the iconography and symbolism of the Tarot, without altering their original meaning.
For example, card number one, The Magician, is represented by Pietro Hispano, the alchemist Pope John XXI, hated by the clergy because he was considered a kind of sorcerer, and who died in Viterbo in an explosion during one of his strange experiments. Other important figures include Donna Olimpia Pamphili, sister-in-law of Pope Innocent X and Princess of San Martino al Cimino, Emperor Frederick II, the Bella Galliana (a beautiful young icon of Viterbo’s history), Giulia Farnese, and so on.
Cinzia’s Major Arcana tell the story of people of the past who connect with us through the magic of Tarot. A human connection that crosses the centuries.
The Major Arcana of FAUL have become not just a simple deck of cards but also a monumental ceramic creation made up of 22 slabs of peperino (a local volcanic stone) on which the images are fixed and painted with mineral oxides diluted with local sulphurous water, so that the whole collection radiates the spirit and energy of this enchanting land.
Cinzia Chiulli also uses peperino for another beautiful project called “Your step is already history”. Her idea is to create in Viterbo a path paved with stones bearing the pilgrim’s footstep. Essentially, every wayfarer can write their name or leave their footprint on a peperino brick that the artist will use to pave the Pilgrim’s Way. Every pilgrimage is in itself also an inner journey, and in this sense the path also takes on the metaphor of life’s journey, in which the pilgrim meets themselves.
Cinzia’s world is truly vast, but we could close this brief journey through her studio and her ceramics with one of her own aphorisms, which sums up in a few words her whole concept of art: “Creation can only be called art when it has the power to transfer energy and emotion.”
And entering Cinzia Chiulli’s studio is an overwhelming rush of vibrations, energy and emotions.
Notes:
Cinzia Chiulli is currently considered one of the leading experts in ancient Italian ceramics. She has worked in many countries around the world.
Since 2001 she has taught ceramic painting, restoration and fresco painting for the American school SYA (School Year Abroad), which has three campuses worldwide: Viterbo, Paris and Beijing.
The original Major Arcana of FAUL are on display at the Museo Colle del Duomo in Viterbo.
