Here is the text for William Bradford's Testamentum in its entirety:

THE LOST TAROT

A CHRONICLE OF THE CURIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES RELATING TO ITS ORIGINS AND PARTICULARS

From the Journals of the Wool Merchant William Bradford

(b. Feb 28, 1488—d. Dec 13, 1555) Nottingham, England

Testamentum: William Bradford

Let it be known:

So it was that under the wise legislation of Henry the Seventh, a commercial treaty having been struck with the Florentine Republic, under which English merchants undertook to carry every year to Florence sufficient wool to supply all the Italian city states, saving Venice, in the Year of Our Lord 1503, I traveled to Florence for the purpose of delivering much desired Nottingham wool to receive the proper purple dye, in which the Italians much exceeded our English ability.

It was there as a young apprentice to an English trader that I chanced to encounter the esteemed Florentine, Leonardo da Vinci, a polymath of extraordinary vision; painter, sculptor, architect, and anatomist, prone to uncanny technological design and invention; wings for flying, a mechanical knight, a steam cannon, and shoes for walking on water.

Of particular interest to myself, the genius da Vinci envisioned an optical device, a camera obscura, for the capture of sun pictures; a boxlike contraption of wood, and a lens of ground glass, the pictures themselves formed through the application of chemicals on coated glass, the principal being first noted by the Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle; how light passing through a small hole into a darkened room produces an image on the opposite wall.

My master, who held me in some favor, and knew of my desire, purchased for me several of da Vinci’s drawings, the most intriguing being a design for the creation of sun pictures. Having returned to England, I became obsessed with da Vinci’s novelty, and how it might be brought to practical use. To this end, having become a polished gentleman of some considerable means, I employed various tradesmen to fashion different parts of the apparatus: the blacksmith Ulric Baynard for the construction of mechanical parts, Drogo Karolus, a grinder of finely crafted lenses, and Hugh Barlow, the apothecary, for chemicals and imaging glass, until at last—Eureka!

Beyond the blush of first astonishment, which cannot here be overstated, being a soul of largely pragmatic considerations, myself possessing no skill as a draftsman or painter, but being an appreciator of the arts, I set my mind to how the device might be used in the service of creating a personal vision beyond that of still life, portraiture, and landscape.

Thereafter, I several times set sail for the boot in the sea, and upon occasion bought more drawings. It was during one such trip that I first encountered a new form of entertainment; a game of heavily colored playing cards the Italians called Trionfi, or triumphs.

These I acquired by barter for my own amusement, in exchange for Nottingham wool. Upon further study, I understood the game to be a disguise for a powerful set of esoteric images forming a system of divination. From that point, I became consumed by deciphering the cards, and determined to make images for my own Tarot.

Working in secrecy, certain that servants of the inquisition at the profane direction of certain members of the Holy Church would view the endeavor as the work of the devil—divination being a pastime of the King of Hell, punishable by torture and death—I enjoined family and trusted members of the good folk of Nottingham to sit for me, and so, the Great Work began.

Well set upon my task, following in the manner of the Italian Tarot in the use of code and symbol, I further sought the aid of the Flemish painter, Valeer onder Eyk, for the creation, where necessary, of fauna, floral, and varied adornment applied directly to the glass plates.

After eight years of trial and considerable error, the undertaking was brought to completion.

It was shortly after the completion of the Nottingham Tarot that I learned of the death of the virtuoso, da Vinci, the great man’s spirit having flown, God rest his soul, Amen, in 1519, in France, where he spent his last days, while under the sponsorship of the French monarch, Francis I, although the news did not reach me until many months after the event. Having no wish to lay claim to the remarkable invention without giving due credit to the master, it was my fondest wish that I return to Italy and demonstrate its use, but it was not to be.

During the great epidemic of the sweating sickness in 1528, I hid the opus, leaving instruction with my eldest, Merek, and with my solicitor, in the event of my death. They, however, God rest their souls, preceded me in their ascent to Holy Heaven.

Having several times been visited by member of the clergy, who wished to know about the strange device, I pled innocence and claimed no knowledge of it, attributing the rumor of its existence to a rival businessman who wished to cause me grief and usurp my share of trade.

Now, myself gravely ill and approaching imminent death, in the spirit of the enigmatic undertaking that has consumed me these two and fifty years, I make my final entry: regarding the fruit of my labor and blessed vision born under the direction of the Mage da Vinci, and wishing dearly that it not be lost forever, the treasure trove lies buried somewhere in Dear England. May they who discovers its whereabouts do with it as they will.

By me—William Bradford.

April 22 in the Year of Our Lord 1555