I don't have the book handy at the moment, but this is what I remember about the symbolism of the Justice card from Amber Jayanti's Living the Tarot: the red robe stands for desire and courage, while the green top of the robe represents the generative, creative principle--taken together, desire and courage are mastered/directed by creative wisdom. Also, mixing red and green yields gray, the color of wisdom.
The wearing of Red Robes by High Court Judges, comes from two sources.
Before the 15th Century it was common to wear violet/green/brown. When a Monarch died the Judges wore black as a sign of mourning. You have this saying 'a red letter day'. This comes from the Church and State' use of illuminated manuscripts and Holy days, State days, Saints Days where the scripts were marked with red initials. On these days the Judges wore red- and then it became the common colour to denote Judges. In Italy about the same time The Law was trying to outpeacock the Cardinals of the Church- so they started first lining their robes with red, then outer garments, and to make it plain between them and the Church, they trimmed their Robes with white- while the cardinals trimmed theirs with fur- ermine I think. The outcry of papist wealth- the Cardinals took the fur off their robes. Thats the exoteric view from History- not the esoteric views on colour. I think with Tarot it was about making a relationship between the colours and the function.~Rosanne
I was just thinking Bodran- it would be very strange to see a judge depicted in say orange or pink- I think this is where modern decks go a little askew. Colour in our minds denotes rank and importance and in some cases spirituality; as in the particular colour of the Buddist Monks saffron orange. I have a deck where the Hermit has a red robe on- and it just does not gel with me- but Death wearing a red robe/cape does. Oh I need to add, most Judges in the west were originally from the Catholic Church and were priests to start with. ~Rosanne