The Visconti-Sforza Emperor cards

The earliest extant Tarot cards are those commissioned by Filippo Maria Visconti and Francesco Sforza, Dukes of Milan, in the mid-15th century, and most likely painted by Bonifacio Bembo. From these "Visconti-Sforza" Tarot decks, three Emperor cards survive -- making it the most represented of the Visconti-Sforza trumps.

Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo (c. 1451), Brera-Brambilla (1463), Cary-Yale (c. 1466)

Some notable features of these cards:

Eagle headdress: All three of these cards show the emperor wearing a distinctive fan-shaped headdress marked with the black (or, on the BB card, blue) Reichsadler that was the emblem of the Holy Roman Emperors (and which also featured on the flag of the Duchy of Milan). The strange shape almost reminds one of a "pirate hat" or of the traverse crest of a Roman centurion. Despite considerable searching, I have not been able to find any other examples of such headgear, either in the Tarot or in images of historical Holy Roman Emperors. Bernhard Strigel's portrait of Maximilian I (r. 1486-1519) and his family does show hats with a roughly similar shape, but the differences from the Tarot card are still considerable.

It seems strange that the emperor would be depicted sitting on his throne, holding his orb and scepter, and yet not wearing his crown. The crown does appear as a motif on the PMB emperor's clothing, and in the hands of one of the CY emperor's attendants, but in no case is the monarch actually wearing it. Instead, he has this extraordinary ginkgo-leaf contraption with an eagle on it.

Minimalist scepter: On all three cards, the emperor's scepters is just a simple rod, with no finial. As with the hat, I have been unable to find any parallels in the Tarot or in the regalia of historical Holy Roman Emperors.

Cracked orb: A typical orb has a circular belt around the equator, a semicircular perpendicular band passing through the north pole, and a cross at the apex. Where these bands of jeweled material should be, the PMB and BB cards have zigzag lines instead, like cracks in an egg that is about to hatch, or like the sutures of a human skull. The egg/skull effect is reinforced on the BB card by the fact that the orb is white.

This "cracked orb" design appears to be unique to the Visconti-Sforza cards. On the CY card, there is no conventional orb at all. Instead, the emperor appears to be resting his left elbow on a golden disc etched with concentric circles.

Borromean rings: The PMB emperor's robe is decorated with a repeating motif of crowns and Borromean rings -- that is, three interlocking rings, like a Venn diagram, called "Borromean" because they appear on the coat of arms of the House of Borromeo, a prominent family in Milan which intermarried with the Viscontis.

Vegetation: A bit of leafy vegetation is visible near the PMB emperor's left foot. This was perpetuated in the Tarot de Marseille, further developed by the Swiss cardmakers, and finally turned into a tulip by Oswald Wirth. Why the emperor should be sitting on a throne out of doors, rather than in his palace, is another question.

Crossed legs: The CY card is the first to show the emperor with crossed legs. This, too, was picked up by the Tarot de Marseille, and much was later made of it by the French (and, later, English) occultists, who saw in the emperor's posture a hidden allusion to the alchemical symbol for sulfur.

Armor: It's not obvious, but if you look closely you can see that the CY emperor is wearing a suit of armor, including a breastplate with a second imperial eagle on it. This feature was lost in the Tarot de Marseille but was later reintroduced by Oswald Wirth, from whom it was copied by A. E. Waite.

Attendants: The smaller figures attending the CY emperor have their counterparts in a few other early Italian decks but were never picked up by the Marseille/occult mainstream. On the CY card they appear to be children, but this is more likely an Egyptian-style convention of portraying less important figures as physically smaller. The Emperor from the Rothschild-Bassano deck -- from Florence, and possibly a few decades older than the Visconti-Sforza cards themselves, though not unambiguously a Tarot -- features positively tiny attendants who nevertheless have beards and are thus clearly not children.

Note also that the Rothschild-Bassano figure is holding an oversized florin rather than a globus cruciger, so perhaps he is meant to be the King of Coins rather than the Emperor. In any case, it is an interesting parallel with the golden disc seen on the CY card.