Papal Tiara - Tarot Cards

Tarot Cards

Medieval tarot cards included a card showing a woman wearing a papal tiara and known as the Popess or Papess or the High Priestess. The meaning and symbolism of the card is uncertain. The crowned woman has variously been identified as Pope Joan (a woman who according to a medieval and later Protestant myth had disguised herself as a man and been elected pope; some cards also show a child, and the Pope Joan myth pictured her as found out when she gave birth during a papal procession), as Mary, Mother of God, or even as Cybele, as Isis, or as Venus. Cards with a woman wearing a papal tiara, produced during the Protestant Reformation, and apparent images of "Pope Joan" and her child, have been seen as a Protestant attempt to ridicule the office of the papacy and the Catholic faith. The papal tiara, however, disappeared from later depictions of the High Priestess/Popess, and showed her wearing more standard medieval female headgear.

All tarot cards also contain a representation of the pope, known as The Hierophant, in some cases crowned with a papal tiara. For instance, the Rider-Waite tarot deck, currently the widest-circulated deck in existence, depicts The Hierophant or pope as wearing a papal tiara and carrying a papal cross.