I did a reading recently with the Bolognesw tarot that I unfortunately forgot to record. It was one of those instances of “of course I will remember it.” The one thing I do remember is that the Tower featured prominently in the reading and did not take on a nefarious meaning, instead just indicating a place other than the home.

This gave me the idea of collecting here the combinations I have actually experimented in practice so far.

Tower + Queen of Coins (Truth) = School, Place of learning (this combo was in the reading I did recently)

Tower + Ace of Coins (Table) = Restaurant

Tower + Moon (Bad stuff) + Hermit (Isolation, Blockage) = Hospital

Tower + Ten of Cups (Fun) = Bar, Club or similar

Tower + World (big) = A palace (in the example of the reading I did, it was a tourist attraction)

It is not an endless list, as you can see, but then again the Tower doesn’t always come up in a reading, and when it does it doesn’t always indicate a place, and when it does it isn’t always clear what kind of place it represents, based on the other cards. But this short list is what my experience has borne out so far, and it clearly shows how the cards operate as small particles of meaning that gravitate toward each other to create complex structures.

Obviously, much depends on the context and on the other cards. The Ace of Coins, for instance, is the table, but it is also a big money card, so with other material cards it could turn the Tower into a bank instead of a restaurant. What I can say for certain at this point is that my experience with the Bolognese tarot shows the Tower isn’t necessarily an evil place (like a hospital or a prison) as some strands of the tradition seem to indicate, but its meaning can be modified by the presence of positive cards.

MQS