On this page, you can see the Suit of Swords for Tarocchino Arlecchino and Arlecchino’s Augmented Arcana.
This suit features classic motley Harlequin costumes with a serpentine theme, inspired by the Bolognese Ace of Swords (a serpent coiling back on itself). The library copy of the Bolognese tarocchino that I used as a reference was missing almost all of the Swords pip cards. To “reconstruct” the designs, I referred to the Ten from this incomplete historical deck to get an idea of the composition and the look of the points and hilts of the swords. I also looked at a more modern double-headed version of the Bolognese deck – the main thing I took from this was the gold plates over the sword crossings. They were all decorated with a similar face in that deck, but I changed mine to miniatures loosely inspired by the Etteilla keywords. My other reference was the 19th century Sopraffino tarot, which inspired the pink ribbons.
