"The let them theory is about freedom" - Mel Robbins, Let Them Theory

I wanted to share this personal story of something that shifted in me in a great way to create an expansive and special experience while traveling in Italy I thought might be helpful for other people on their travel (and life) journeys, particularly if solo traveling.

Enjoy this share,

Michelle x

Book: Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins

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“The meaning of the river flowing is not that all things are changing so that we cannot encounter them twice but that some things stay the same only by changing” - Heraclitus, The Cosmic Fragments

Today is just some musing over art, philosophy and life while I get started on my projects for the year.

Be prepared for many tangents and a casual monologue on life and Italy. As always, a beautiful stream to float down. Every book and side note is in the show notes or you can read the transcript too.

Michelle x

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Michelle’s Books

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© 2026 A Writer In Italy - travel, books, art and life
Music Composed by Richard Johnston © 2026

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"Around the middle of the fifteenth century, not so long after the first written references in Europe to cards of any kind, an artist named Bonifacio Bembo painted a set of unnamed and unnumbered cards for the Visconti family of Milan", Origins of Tarot, Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self Awareness by Rachel Pollack

Did you know that the roots of tarot have their beginnings in the north of Italy at the height of the Renaissance. The first playing cards emerged in the courts of the noble Milanese families and became a popular card game for entertainment and play.

The Visconti Sforza, Bolognese Tarochini and the Minchiate Tarot cards were commissioned by the aristocratic families to be hand painted and designed by expert artisans. Played as a game called 'carte da trionfe' the tarot was purely a trick playing game in the height of the Renaissance.

Today I discuss the Visconti and Sforza alliance in Milan, Cosimo de Medici patronising philosophers to transcribe the Corpus Hermeticum, the time of Renaissance Magic, the shift in art and philosophy, the move toward the mystical traditions and how the tarot eventually evolved into that of cartomancy, esoteric practice via secret societies and occult practitioners in England and France in the 18th and 19th centuries. To now be tethered to the mystery traditions and used as form of divination, fortune telling and spiritual practise.

I also share a few personal revelations about the tarot system along the way. And lastly if you are in Italy it turns out there is some serendipity to this episode I discovered while writing my show-notes you can visit the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo (a quick train ride from beautiful Milano) for an exhibition that is on until June 2026, that covers the last seven hundred years of tarot. If only a patron would come calling to me! How I would love to see this exhibition!

Enjoy this Episode x

MichelleJohnston.life for the Show-notes

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Substack - At My Table

Michelle’s Books

Musical Scores by Richard Johnston

© 2026 A Writer In Italy - travel, books, art and life
Music Composed by Richard Johnston © 2026

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