Sooo... what is it with The WORLD?
Where did this card come from?
The WORLD mimics the CARD PATTERN. The GARLAND that is...
(On page 11 of the thread PDF is revered to the 3 colors as a helping and defining device for dividing the card (and ALL cards!) in 3 equal parts so that a "ladder-structure" is achieved that serves as an "inbuilt gaming board"!)
If The GARLAND was just a garland it could have been painted green - no?
Instead many historical Tarot decks portrayed The GARLAND in a somewhat "discolored" way.
Now: why would the authors do that? Maybe additionally to the widespread "dyslexia" in their circles they caught a contagious form of color-blindness too? Could bee...
But I want to suggest instead another solution that is rooted in "language patterns".
The French has "feuilles" for "leaves". And just like an English speaking person could say "leaves of paper" a French speaking person could say: "feuilles de papier" - and what are CARDS other than THAT: LEAVES OF PAPER!
So: The GARLAND is made of CARDS!
Now: what about the IIII Guardians?
The lower left Guardian on her pedestal is a portrayed "heretic" - a popess (and so her ANIMAL comes WITHOUT a HALO - because from a "cleric's viewpoint" she is NOT "holy" in any way!).
Her animal is adorned with 5 leaves (of paper > CARDS).
Her colleague to the right is presented as a LION with the same (5) features but DIFFERENT connotations. HE (the lion) is HOLY and so does wear a HALO!
(When you read again the last post on page 7 of this thread you will find a comment there that I made on the habit of the authors of Besançon-style Tarots who transformed THESE same 2 cards into JUNO & JUPITER - the Roman names for HERA the Goddess of women and marriage & ZEUS the God of sky and thunder. I said: >> ...that in a "semantic" sense both are very good choices (when you know for whom the II & the V originally stood and you consider in the case of the II the original etymological meaning ""young cow, heifer ( > for sacrifice)... " << . Please keep THAT in mind!)
So here we look at the 4 Guardians - and only 3 of them seem to be "okay-ed" by Christian tradition (Bible etc.) - of The (EGG-shaped) GARLAND that could REPRESENT an (unbound) BOOK of LEAVES made of 18 secret pages so far because everyone knows what a KING and a QUEEN are. And every good Christian knows the HOLY father and some HERETICS (even when they come in very different varieties - and this ONE seems to bee a nice one though... )
The Tarot de Marseille portrays the same situation. Paul Marteau took the respective 5 leaves for adornment from the Tarot said "ARNOULT 1748" that is available here as the "LEQUART edition 1890":
http://tarot-de-marseille-millennium.co ... llery.html
He did use foremost the lines of these cards. The "Tiara" of the II that grows above the picture frame is another detail taken from here. And Albi Deuter has a wonderful feature for such (and similar) research. It's called "Einzel-Karten-Vergleiche - Alle Decks:" = "Single-Card-Comparison - All Decks (in his library). There you can ogle all those conceptions and misconceptions side by side! I've just opened "The WORLD" for you:
http://www.albideuter.de/html/welt.html
(What's about that "outgrow" of her "Tiara" is shown in TRUE TAROT on scribd in the "addendum" that starts on page 223. It is like a dive into the "BIOS" of a (your) PC. Here you can learn WHY the 2 pillars of the popess are NEVER shown on the respective (historical) card (page 232 > 237) ... )
And...
The papal name LEO is often chosen in history: 13 times.
Among those LEOs are some of the most influential in ecclesiastic lore.
About one of them: LEO IIII - catholic lore has it - is said that he was the predecessor of Popess Johanna:
>> Leo IV died on 17 July 855 and was buried in St. Peter's Basilica. Benedict III was Leo's immediate successor. A medieval tradition claimed that a woman, Pope Joan, succeeded him, disguising herself as a man, but Joan is generally believed to be fictitious. <<
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_IV
And...
When you examine The EMPRESS III you will find 2 wings on her card: it seems she SITS on a bird and her throne has as it's left backrest an angel-like big wing - to assure you (me) that this is HER correct place.
Another perk of the 3 colors is that you can understand the structure of The GARLAND more easily - not at first sight though:
You can more easily make out that The GARLAND is made of 3 rows of leaves (of paper)...
...and that there ARE 3 cards of each color on each side of The GARLAND. But that's just a side-note on "alchemical counting"
This is the most significant feature for finding The BOOK that defines the connotations of ALL 78 cards on the 1st level that devises the meanings to ALL cards as a mnemonic device.
That is a given in that specific culture. The SEAL of Melchizedek ((who is a venerated friend of God in the Abrahamitic (offspring) religions)) is used to remember the structure and content of that specific book.
That book went through several editions where foremost the succession of the chapters was altered - until the revised edition was acquired. But to confirm that you would have to dive very deep into (for you still) uncharted territory. Maybe you should try?
So: to find the defining book you should search for a chapter that is called "The COW" (that was perceived as a BULL by you because you got so exited to see the 4 totems of the Christian Evangelists... ) in religious scripture!
Here I made another counting method visible for you that mirrors The 5 LEAVES on The COW's back. And to remind you of the LOCK-function The REVERSED MAN has (I informed you about that earlier) I show him here BEFORE the EGGshell is broken and the habitants hatch.
Same here - concerning the technicalities of The 5 LEAVES. You will find this card in chapter 5 that informs about ritual (you could say I suppose). But the titles of the chapters differ very much - so there is no way around to reading this all on your own - and you should keep in mind that in the 18th century The WORLD was MUCH simpler than today!
Maybe in hindsight you can understand more and better what I've told you before. Could it be it would be worth your time to read it all again? I don't know...
But: where did SHE come from after all?
(I may find it necessary to edit the text of this post in days to come because I just did it out of the top of my head and it's a most delicate matter - but then again you understood so much at the first take... we'll see... )
Adrian