The Visconti-Sforza deck is immensely significant from a historical standpoint, being one of the oldest surviving tarot decks, and the most nearly complete. It's also a beautiful work of Renaissance art.
Mary Packard does a good job of hitting the important points about early tarot in her book. The fact that it was created as a game, but the symbolism is much older, with brief glosses on Hermetic mysticism, alchemy and neo-platonism. A lot of this info is oversimplified, probably for the benefit of the reader, and there aren't many cited resources to aid the reader.
The deck and book set comes in a large display box. Inside the box is the tarot deck in it's own box, a lovely miniature hardcover book and a purple layout cloth in a cardboard sleeve. This is an extremely high quality set that is perfect for beginners trying to find out a bit more about something that interests them and for collectors of decks alike.
Five stars for the deck. Four and a half for the book.