Medieval Tarocchi Deck Fragment

About the Deck

Also mistakenly known as the Gringonneur deck, but this is a misnomer. This could not have been the deck of Charles VI, because it is too late, and it is Italian in origin.

Provenance

Italy c. 1500

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.