Etteilla II

Part of the Etteilla lineage — hub at `10-etteilla.mdx`; see also `10a` and `10c`.

At a glance

The second-generation Etteilla: a posthumous re-edition of Alliette's system, published c.1838–1840 (often associated with the publisher Simon Blocquel and the likely-pseudonymous "Julia Orsini"). It carries Etteilla's divinatory framework forward with altered titling and imagery — a brand continued by his "school," not by his hand.

Origin & dating

Issued roughly 1838 (or 1840), decades after Alliette's death (1791). Marketed under the Grand Livre de Thot title and the name Julia Orsini — believed to be a publisher's pseudonym rather than a real cartomancer. Cards were hand-water-coloured.

Provenance & evidence

Surviving decks and accompanying booklets; catalogued in collector and reconstruction literature. It is a variant of Etteilla I — same divinatory DNA, different drawings, some renamed cards and revised keywords.

Game or divination?

Divination — squarely within the cartomantic tradition Etteilla founded; never a game deck.

The fear question

By the 1830s–40s, cartomancy in France was a commercial publishing genre — printed, titled, sold openly with instruction booklets. The "fear" register here is essentially zero for the publisher: fortune-telling decks were a normal product of the Paris print trade. (The criminalised, precarious end of the practice remained the itinerant reader, not the boxed retail deck.)

Counter-voices

The proliferation of Etteilla editions shows how quickly a manufactured tradition ("ancient Egyptian tarot") becomes a self-sustaining market. That is not evidence of suppressed antiquity; it is evidence of a successful 19th-century commercial myth.

Open questions / corrections owed

• Confirm the 1838 vs. 1840 dating and the Blocquel/Orsini attribution in the grammar.
• Catalogue exactly which cards differ from Etteilla I (titles, numbers, imagery) rather than assuming identity.

Sources & further reading

• "Etteilla," Wikipedia; Tarot Heritage and benebell wen Etteilla reconstructions; Druidcraft blog, "The Etteilla Tarot (Type I/II/III)."

RESEARCH NOTE (2026-06-13) — metadata correction. The per-card `metadata.symbols` on the minor (pip) cards had been templated from Rider-Waite-Smith (1909) scene iconography (e.g. a 'sunflower'/'cat' on the Queen, 'bandage'/'infinity' on pips) — anachronistic for Etteilla's 1788 near-pip pack, whose minors are arranged suit-symbols with printed keyword titles, not Smith's narrative scenes. Those false symbol lists have been REMOVED. The cards' divinatory sections (Etteilla's own upright/reversed meanings) are unaffected. The `archetype: card:<rank>-of-<suit>` fields are kept only as structural cross-references (King of Bâtons ↔ King of Wands), not as a claim of shared imagery. See research/cards/<this deck>.md.

Where the pictures come from: who holds this deck's pictures, how sharp they are and what their rights allow: Sources: Etteilla II.