Empress, Tarot card iconography Andrea Vitali

<h1>Empress - Tarot card iconography Andrea Vitali</h1> A queen crowned with a shield in her hand and the baton of command in the other characterizes the image of this triumph in the Visconti Sforza Tarots (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/03-01.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/03-01.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 1</a>) where the presence of three rings with a point of recurrent diamonds in her dress, identify the represented person as Bianca Maria Sforza , as Giuliana Algeri attests (<em>The Zavattari, a family of painters and the longobard culture in Lombardy</em>, 1981, pp.61-64). She in fact, always wanted to be known as “Cremonae Domina, Ducissa Mediolani” (Lady of Cremona, Duchess of Milan) in ducal coins and in every heading. Really, the heraldic rings constituted one of the emblems of the Sforza that the family ascribed to itself after the victory, around 1420, over Cabrino Fondulo, Master of Cremona, to whom this emblem belonged. The other emblems in the empress's suit, the palm and the laurel, for a long time belonged to the heraldic patrimony of that lineage. The emblem of the three rings as a symbol of the Sforza is attested in numerous manuscripts among which the Latin Urbinate 899 of the Vatican Library in which the Wedding of Costanzo Sforza with Camilla in Aragon is narrated.<br /><br />An eagle is represented on the empress’s shield, that is perhaps the most represented animal in heraldry since ancient times. It became symbol of the Roman legions, insignia of the Byzantine empire, emblem of the regal dynasty of the Hohenstaufen and symbol, adopted by Charlemagne (Charles the Great), of the Sacred Romano Empire, because he wanted  to perpetuate the power that he had had in Augustus, his first representative.<br /><br />As to why this bird was selected to symbolize power, we need to recall tradition. Dionigi Areopagita writes: “The aspect of the eagles reveals their regal character and the rush upwards and the rapid flight and the acuteness and the sobriety and the agility and the ingenuity to get the food that makes them strong, and their look, inflexibly ahead and without obstacles, turns toward the abundant and bright ray of the God Hierarchy solar issue in the strong extensions of the visual virtues" (<em>All the works</em>, translation by P. Scazzoso, 1981, page 133). Prerogatives that obviously the holders of the power adapted well to themselves.<br /><br />Also the Christian world resorted to the eagle setting as symbol of Christ. In the <em>Liber formularum spiritalis intelligentiae</em> by Saint Eucherio of Lyon, who was one of the most authoritative figures in the Gallican Church of the V century, we can read: «The Eagles are the saints; in the Gospel (<em>Matthew </em>24,28) it is written: “Wherever there is a  corpse, here the eagles will be assembled”. Because the holy souls, when they go out of the body, they meet Christ, who dying became himself a corpse for them. The eagle also means Christ, as in Salomon (<em>Proverbs </em>30, 19), that is the ascension of Christ».<br /><br />In the <em>Theobaldi Physiologus</em> of the XI century (II) the initial verses about  the eagle affirm: “Esse ferunt aquilam super omne volatile primam, / quae se sic renovat , quando senecta gravat: / fons ubi sit, quaerit, qui numquam surgere desit; / it super hunc coelo fitque propinqua Deo” (They say that the eagle is superior to all the flying beings and when old age burdens it grows again, looks for the source that never stops streaming; flies above it and arrives next to God). Verses that should also be symbolically interpreted as the ability of every good ruler, obviously superior to every other man, to govern well, despite old age, thanks to the continuous research and  appeal of those people who are able to offer wise suggestions, and thus approaching, through the correct choices of command, to the wish of that God from which the sceptre of power is received.<br /><br />The iconography of this triumph was practically unchanged in the following productions up until the occult tarots. In a certain way, in those by Wirth, some elements approach the figure of the empress to the Virgo of the Apocalypse (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/03-02.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/03-02.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 2</a>): the Moon under her feet, that indicates the dominion over sublunar things, that is earthly things; the twelve stars around her head and finally the wings, that had already appeared in the Marseille Tarot (<a href="../a.php?badr=p/03-03.jpg" target="F2" onMouseover="load('../a.php?badr=p/03-03.jpg',1)" onmouseout="off()">figure 3</a>) and allowed her to quickly ascend to save the child trapped by the dragon, a dirty beast that had also become an attribute of the Virgo of the apocalypse: “...a woman dressed by the sun appeared in the sky, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head” (<em>Apocalypse</em> XII, 1). <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/">Tarot cards</a> <br><br> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/00/">Tarot card Fool</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/01/">Tarot card Magician</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/02/">Tarot card Popess</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/03/">Tarot card Empress</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/04/">Tarot card Emperor</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/05/">Tarot card Pope</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/06/">Tarot card Love</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/07/">Tarot card Chariot</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/08/">Tarot card Justice</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/09/">Tarot card Hermit</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/10/">Tarot card Wheel of Fortune</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/11/">Tarot card Strength</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/12/">Tarot card Hanging Man</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/13/">Tarot card Death</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/14/">Tarot card Temperance</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/15/">Tarot card Devil</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/16/">Tarot card Tower</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/17/">Tarot card Star</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/18/">Tarot card Moon</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/19/">Tarot card Sun</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/20/">Tarot card Judgment</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/21/">Tarot card World</a> <br><br> <li><a href="http://autorbis.net">Author's site</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com">Tarot history</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/m/">Tarot and Playing Cards Museum</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/">Tarot Iconography</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/f/">Fortune Telling</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/mantegna-tarocchi/">Iconography of Mantegna Tarocchi</a> <li><a href="http://trionfi.com/i/tarot-andrea-vitali/">Tarot card iconography of Andrea Vitali</a>