Is there an historical model for the Empress

ravenest

I am sure there are many for the Emperor , Hierophant ( Pope or Popess ) but aside from the old story of ' Pope Joan' is there any historical personage or office the card may be based on ?
 

Ross G Caldwell

I am sure there are many for the Emperor , Hierophant ( Pope or Popess ) but aside from the old story of ' Pope Joan' is there any historical personage or office the card may be based on ?

The office of being the Emperor's wife was Empress. Barbara von Cilli (died 1451), wife of Emperor Sigismund (died 1437), has sometimes been interpreted as the "model" for the Visconti and Sforza cards, and was the Empress, or at least "former" Empress, when Tarot was invented.

See this thread too -
http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=1698807&postcount=1
 

Moonbow

Hi Ross!

Why was Barbara Bon Cilli associated, is it just because the timing is right or is there a deeper reason that she would be? Or maybe that's reason enough!
 

Frater Benedict

I am sure there are many for the Emperor , Hierophant ( Pope or Popess ) but aside from the old story of ' Pope Joan' is there any historical personage or office the card may be based on ?

Emperors and empresses of Rome existed 800 AD -- 1806 AD.
During the years 800 -- 962 the imperial titles were held by the royal couples of either France, Lotharingia or Italy, but from 962 onwards they were held by the royal couple of Germany. For a time the empty titles 'King of Italy'* and 'King of Burgundy'** were connected to the imperial title. The emperor was elected, not automatically styled emperor out of inheritance, but from the 1450's most Emperors belonged to the Austrian Habsburg family.

* (The Kingdom of Italy began to fall apart in city states at the death of Duchess Matilda in 1115, and the partition was reluctantly acknowledged by the Emperor in 1176. Italy didn't reunite entirely until 1871.)

** (The Kingdom of Burgundy ceased to exist in 1032. Out of its partition the Duchy of Burgundy became a vassal state to France, while the kingdom of Arles remained a vassal state to the Empire)


The Popess conform to artistic norms of the Renaissance when allegorically depicting either Faith or the Church personified.
 

Iolon

Who is on the Empress card

There is not one single person that can be portrayed as the Empress. Every cardmaker is free to portray who he wants. Of the handpainted cards only the Empress of the Visconti di Modrone and the Visconti Sforza survive. On both decks the same lady is portrayed as the Empress. I believe it is Bianca Maria Visconti or maybe her mother Agnese del Maino who is portrayed on this card. The other cards are easier. On the Visconti di Modrone and the Brere Brambilla we see the Emperor Sigismundo portrayed as the Emperor. On the Visconti Sforza the Emperor is probably not a historical person. In showing an old man the cardmaker wants to show that the Emperor has no power over Francesco Sforza. The Pope on this deck is the antipope Felix V, who died in 1449. Remember that Pope Felix V was also known as Duke Amadeus VIII of Savoie, the father in law of Filippo Maria Visconti. On the Charles VI or Estensi deck, the pope is clearly Pope Eugene IV, who called the counsil in Ferrara. The popess on the Visconti Sforza deck is not Manfreda di Pirovano, but probably the presumed sister of Guglielma di Bohemia, St Agnes of Bohemia. In Milan the people believed that Guglielma was a daughter of King Ottocar of Bohemia. Her younger sister, was Agnes of Bohemia. When the Emperor asked Agnes for marriage, she refused and became a nun. The cord on waist of the Popess is typical Franciscan. St Agnes was very close to Clare of Assisi, the founder of the order of the Poor Ladies, the first Franciscan order of nuns. Clare of Assisi was a very close friend of Franciscus of Assisi, who founded the Franciscan order. So Agnes became a Poor Lady and had exactly the same cord on her waist as is portrayed on the Popess card. Her close relation to Guglielma, the spiritual leader of Manfreda di Pirovano explains why she is used on this card.
 

Huck

There is not one single person that can be portrayed as the Empress. Every cardmaker is free to portray who he wants. Of the handpainted cards only the Empress of the Visconti di Modrone and the Visconti Sforza survive. On both decks the same lady is portrayed as the Empress. I believe it is Bianca Maria Visconti or maybe her mother Agnese del Maino who is portrayed on this card. The other cards are easier. On the Visconti di Modrone and the Brere Brambilla we see the Emperor Sigismundo portrayed as the Emperor. On the Visconti Sforza the Emperor is probably not a historical person. In showing an old man the cardmaker wants to show that the Emperor has no power over Francesco Sforza. The Pope on this deck is the antipope Felix V, who died in 1449.
...

Welcome ...

For the PMB ("Visconti") emperor Sigismondo was discussed, also his wife Barbara of Cilly for the Empress. The "old emperor" is rather similar to San Sigismondo as painted in commission of Sigismondo Malatesta around the same time (c.1451), who had some good relation to emperor Sigismondo, who made him a knight in 1433.
The deck is supposed to be made "after Sforza took Milan", that's 1450. Pope Felix had retired in 1449.
Sforza had not a good relation to Fredric III, so he might have preferred emperor Sigismondo, who had founded a knight order in 1408 and possibly had used his stay in Italy to attract Italian knights and condottieri.
Sforza had married in the church of San Sigismondo in Cremona. San Sigismondo was (likely ?) the first king, who became a saint, so it is plausible, that his veneration was a fashion between the nobility.

Emperor Charles IV had been eager to get San Sigismondo's relics in 14th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Dragon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigismund_of_Burgundy
 

chaosbloom

Without looking at all the very early specimens, I doubt there's any connection with ancient Roman empresses. Those were generally not very glorified anyway.

http://leefitzsimmons.com/esotericon/images/Marseilles Empress Trumps.png

The coat of arms bares a badly drawn eagle looking towards the east and she's holding a sceptre with a globus cruciger on top. While both symbols had been adopted by the Germans, they were already in use by the contemporary Roman Empire (Byzantium). I think it's doubtful that French decks would not refer to the Holy Roman or Carolingian lines but some Italian ones might have made allusions at least iconographically to Roman ones which may have passed into French ones, especially since a few aristocratic families from Genoa and Venice had vassal branches inside the remaining Roman territory and female members who married into the last imperial lines in Constantinople in the 15th century. The last Roman empress descended from the Gattilusio and Doria families of Genoa, with the Doria family using the one-headed Eagle as their coat of arms. Although not a strict rule, most early western examples of the eagle in heraldry look towards the west, including the Doria family coat of arms while the Roman emblem had a two headed eagle looking both west and east. While it's a nice little detail, it's nothing to base a theory on but it might have more significance if there was more evidence of a connection.

The Doria family had many connections with France around the 15th century and earlier but it's pure conjecture on my part on whether there's any solid connection with any actual Roman figures. Without checking the dates, dissemination of decks by Italian soldiers abroad through France is not unlikely. The connection between the ancient Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire is just the political medieval ideology of translatio imperii, there was no political continuity between those two state entities whatsoever.

I could be less lazy and check late Roman imperial iconography but I'll probably bump into paywalls on the internet and I'll have to scan my own very inconveniently sized books so I'll pass. Anyone less lazy than me who has early Italian samples of the Empress at hand?
 

AmounrA II

The first thing here is to see the tarot as two things in one.

A 78 card game, some use for divination.

On this level you could just use blank cards with words like ' happy', 'death' ' peaceful prince', 'angry king' etc written on them and get the same working effect as the tarot.

or~

22 cards keeping ancient pagan ideas alive through the dark ages. The ancient story is about a young innocent fool (0) and his/hers journey through self and natural knowledge until enlightenment is reached and the universe opens (21). Each card of the trumps is very much a chapter in this story. The empress is an architype of the mother. This architype and therefore the historical model of the empress has been with us for at least 27 thousand years !! ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf ).