The High Priestess is the second trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks. This card is used in game playing as well as in divination. In the first Tarot pack with inscriptions, the 18th-century woodcutMarseilles Tarot, this figure is crowned with the Papal tiara and labelled La Papesse, the Popess, a possible reference to the legend of Pope Joan.
History
''La Papesse''
This Tarot card was originally called La Papesse, or "The Popess". Some of the cards directly linked the woman on the cards to the papacy by showing the woman wearing a triregnum or Papal Tiara. There are also some modern versions of the Tarot of Marseilles which include the keys to the kingdom that are a traditional symbol of the papacy. In Protestant post-reformation countries, Tarot cards in particular used images of the legendary Pope Joan, linking in to the mythology of how Joan, disguised as a man, was elected to the papacy and was only supposedly discovered to be a woman when she gave birth. However, Italian Catholics appear to only have seen the La Papesse as representing the Holy Mother Church in an allegorical form, with the Pope taking office becoming married to the Body of Christ, which Catholics refer to in the feminine gender.
Other variants
In the creation of the Rider-Waite tarot deck the La Papesse card, which may have been confusing to non-Catholics, was changed into The High Priestess sitting between the pillars of Boaz and Jachin. She wears a crown similar to the Egyptian goddess Hathor and is depicted with the Marian imagery of a blue mantle and the moon at her feet. Other variants that came after Rider-Waite are the Virgin Mary, Isis, the metaphorical Bride of Christ or Holy Mother Church. In Swiss Troccas decks, she is called Junon, the Roman Queen of the Gods. The "Flemish Deck" by Vandenborre refers to this card as Le Espagnol Capitano Eracasse, after a version of Il Capitano, a character from Commedia dell'Arte.
Sister Manfreda
La Papessa in the Visconti-Sforza Tarot has been identified as a depiction of Sister Manfreda, an Umiliata nun and a relative of the Visconti family who was elected Pope by the heretical Guglielmite sect of Lombardy. In The Tarot Cards Painted by Bonifacio Bembo, Gertrude Moakley writes: This identification has been supported by other Tarot historians, such as Michael Dummett in his book The Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards.
Symbolism
Rider-Waite symbolism
In the Rider-Waite tarot deck, upon which many modern decks are based, The High Priestess is identified with the Shekhinah, the female indwelling presence of the divine. She wears plain blue robes and sits with her hands in her lap. She has a lunar crescent at her feet, "a horned diadem on her head, with a globe in the middle place" similar to the crown of the ancient Egyptian goddess Hathor, but with the horns having a shape more like half-crescents, and a large cross on her breast. The scroll in her hands, partly covered by her mantle, bears the letters TORA. She is seated between the white and black pillars—'J' and 'B' for Jachin and Boaz—of the mystic Temple of Solomon. The veil of the Temple is behind her: it is embroidered with palm leaves and pomegranates. The motif that hangs behind the High Priestess’s throne, veiling what ever mysteries she guards, is suggested in the pattern of The Empress’ gown. The two are sisters, one bringing life into the world, the other inviting the living to the esoteric mysteries. Further behind all of that is what seems to be a body of water, most probably the sea. The water flows through most of the cards of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot. According to A.E. Waite's Pictorial Key To The Tarot, the High Priestess card is associated with:
Secrets, mystery, the future as yet unrevealed; the woman who interests the Querent, if male; the Querent herself, if female; silence, tenacity; mystery, wisdom, science. Reversed: Passion, moral or physical ardor, conceit, surface knowledge.
Tarot of Marseilles symbolism
In the Tarot of Marseilles it is noticeable that she wears a blue cape and red robe, in contrast to The Pope, wearing a red cape and blue robe.
