Single and Double-headed Eagles

So I was looking at images of Emperors and Empresses, trying to see if there was some historical connection between the tarot and the Holy Roman Emperor... and then it occured to me that I might be looking in the wrong place entirely.

For some reason, I've had it in my mind that the Emperor in the tarot had the typical double-headed Eagle.

A quick check on Wikipedia (the standard for accurate research!) says this:
Holy Roman Empire
The first mention of a double-headed eagle in the West dates from 1250, in a roll of arms of Matthew of Paris for Emperor Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire. Usually depicted black on a gold background, it replaced the earlier single-headed eagle, and was subsequently adopted in the coats of arms of many German cities and aristocratic families. After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the double-headed eagle was retained by the Austrian Empire, and served also as the coat of arms of the German Confederation.

Fine. Then I noticed that I had been seeing things.. the Emperor does not have the double-headed Eagle at all, he has the single headed eagle.

Cary Yale Visconti
Sforza Visconti
Jean Noblet
Jean Dodal

Does this mean anything at all?

See, I personally doubt that the earliest tarot decks had names or numbers on them. Perhaps this was never meant to be an Emperor at all? If not, who else could it be?

Or even more interesting, if it is supposed to be the Emperor, is there a different Emperor than the Holy Roman Emperor as I've always just assumed this card referred to?

Or one step further... What if it IS the Holy Roman Emperor.. why choose symbolism in the 1400s that dates to before 1250? Maybe there is a historical reference here. Or maybe we should be looking pre-1250 for the iconography?

Why does the Emperor in the Tarot only have a single eagle. Thanks!

le pendu said:

Why does the Emperor in the Tarot only have a single eagle

Click to expand...

Good heraldic question ...I don't know the answer.
I found that the double-headed eagle has been in use after the fall of Constantinople, when a single Emperor ruled both the Western and Eastern Empires.

But I see that the single-headed eagle was a common imperial device in Renaissance Italy. I don't know if outside Italy the double-headed eagle was more common before the XVII Century.
A few images:
http://www.ugopozzati.it/images/Bandiera di Massimiliano Sforza1.jpg
http://www.ugopozzati.it/images/Stendardo veneziano1.jpg
http://www.rbvex.it/europagif/milano4.gif
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immagine:Stemma_Quadrio_con_Aquila_Imperiale.jpg
http://immagini.p2pforum.it/out.php/i82443_6.jpg
http://legasolbiatearno.altervista.org/

Marco

Here are some pictures of Charlemagne (742-814):


A painting by Dürer, around 1520:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Charlemagne-by-Durer.jpg

And a reliquary bust of Charlemagne, which supposedly holds his skull, made arout 1350 (note the eagles on the shoulders and chest):
http://www.kunsttrip.nl/images/aken/karelsbuste.jpg

Both these works have been long after Charles the Great was dead and gone, but it does show that some artists or patrons associated him with a single-headed eagle.

Even if it was intended as a representation of the Emperor, there are two related issues, one political, the other in some way symbolic.

The 'Roman' black Eagle had a long association with the Emperor and can be traced back (in the popular imagination) to a uniting figure such as Charlemagne, whereas the double-headed Eagle would have had political associations in lands such as northern Italy and France not under the Holy Roman Empire. It would have been far more politically neutral, in such lands, to depict an Emperor with a coat-of-arms that was at ease with French or non-allied political sentiments. As for northern Italian city-states, apart from the political vicissitudes and oscillations with and against the Holy Roman Empire, a single-headed Eagle retained, in addition, such ambiguity of affiliation.

From a symbolic perspective, if can be 'argued' (somewhat contrived, as both usually face the same direction, but symbolically pertinent) that the combined heads of the Empress and Emperor unite their respective Eagles into a double-headed one - not an argument I would like to have to defend!

Heraldry is a complex science and has a long history. The formulation of standardisation of rules across Europe goes back to the Third Crusade. Suffice to say all of the previous replies have an elemnt of the the picture but none encapsulate the true state of the Holy Roman Emperor. Each country that adopted the heraldry system introduced their own variants of the rules within certain limits, whilst at the same time recognising rules that governed heraldry that crossed nation boubdaries.

The Holy Roman Emperor was one of these cases. Even though he was a Monarch of a country, he was a protector of the roman (Catholic) Church across national borders.

The heraldic device granted to the HRE was a black double headed eagle on a gold shied. From memory it was sometime after 1400 that the title of HRE lost its original meaning and became incorporated in the arms of the Kings (Emperors) of the German/Austrian line.

Now back to the original query, If you have a Marseilles or Visconti/Sforza deck (there will be others but my collection is limited), look at the Emperor and Empress. The eagles are facing in opposite directions, and therefore if overlaid they produce the double headed eagle of the HRE.

There is more symbolism that may be brought out of these cards with regards to their heraldry, but I will leave it there at this time.