The Heirophant Tarot Card Meaning and Art Visconti B Tarot Deck Fragment
Designation
About the Deck
Visconti B Tarot Deck Fragment
(aka Pierpont Morgan Bergamo Tarot Deck) One of the earliest Tarot Decks, the Pierpont Morgan Deck is entirely gilded, with fine paintings upon it.
It is estimated to have been produced around 1451 or 1452, possibly for a triumphal event in 1453.
Provenance
Italy, c. 1452.
Tags
According to Many Schools of Thought
A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings
The High Priest or Hierophant, called also Spiritual Father, and more commonly and obviously the Pope. It seems even to have been named the Abbot, and then its correspondence, the High Priestess, was the Abbess or Mother of the Convent. Both are arbitrary names. The insignia of the figures are papal, and in such case the High Priestess is and can be only the Church, to whom Pope and priests are married by the spiritual rite of ordination. I think, however, that in its primitive form this card did not represent the Roman Pontiff.
S. L. MacGregor Mathers's Divinatory Meanings
Upright
Mercy, Beneficence Kindness, Goodness
Reversed
Over-kindness, weakness, Foolish exercise of generosity.
Papus's Divinatory Meanings
Inspiration.