What this deck does differently
Numbered 24 within its suit. The court figures are named individuals rather than ranks — the Cups carry NATANABO on horseback, POLISENA crowned, and LVCIO CECILIO enthroned.
cups
24
Re di Coppe
Suit: Coppe Minor Arcana Element: Water
Also known as King of Chalices.
Core interpretation
King of Cups: emotional steadiness and creative intelligence amid change. The card joins the water nature of Cups to its courtly role.
The card's place in the historical Minor Arcana sits beside its Golden Dawn correspondences and Waite's account of Pamela Colman Smith's image. Each reading keeps the source and deck that gave it shape.
8 sourced claims: 5 traditional , 3 modern
In the Sola Busca deck
Its trumps are Roman and biblical figures with their own names and no evident relation to the allegories the other decks share. They are filed here beside the standard trumps because they occupy the same numbered slots, which is a statement about position and nothing else.
This deck calls the card Re di Coppe; it is filed here as King of Cups and numbers it 24.
This deck's book publishes no upright and reversed lists, so none are shown. Its account of the card is cited below rather than reproduced.
Unknown engraver, hand-coloured, Sola Busca — British Museum, Sola-Busca tarot.
The same card in the Rider–Waite–Smith deck
King of Cups
What the card shows
ModernA crowned king holds cup and sceptre on a stone throne surrounded by waves, with a ship and dolphin in the distance.
A concise visual description of Pamela Colman Smith's 1910 design, checked against Waite's card entry and the public-domain scan.
Divinatory meaning
ModernUpright, Waite associates the King with responsibility, equity, art, science and helpful creative intelligence. Reversed, he can indicate dishonesty, injustice, vice or serious loss.
Waite treats these as historical divinatory allocations and explicitly warns that they vary by context and are not a universal symbolic canon.
Court-card structure
Court cards are organised by rank, suit and elemental composition in Book T. They are listed separately because the source does not assign them to the numbered sephiroth in the way it assigns the pip cards.
Golden Dawn correspondences 5 sourced claims
Book T's formal title, Tree or elemental place, astrological attribution, and characteristic reading. This is the system used by the Hermetic Tree.
The Prince of the Chariot of the Waters
Book T's formal title for this court card.
Sources (1)
- Book T , Mathers, c. 1888 (Golden Dawn internal) — Titles of the Symbols, pp. 3–4; The Sixteen or Royal Cards, pp. 11–21
Water · Cups
Cups express the powers of Water: receptivity, relationship, imagination, pleasure and emotional experience.
Sources (1)
- Book T , Mathers, c. 1888 (Golden Dawn internal) — Titles and descriptions of the four suits, pp. 3–23
Prince / Vau · Air of Water
Book T uses King for the mounted figure now usually called Knight, Prince for the figure now usually called King, and Princess for the Page or Knave. The source's role is preserved here rather than silently modernised.
Sources (1)
- Book T , Mathers, c. 1888 (Golden Dawn internal) — The Sixteen or Royal Cards, pp. 11–12; The Prince of the Chariot of the Waters, pp. 12–21
20° Libra to 20° Scorpio
The twelve King/Knight, Queen and Prince/King cards bridge zodiac signs; the four Princess/Page cards instead rule polar quadrants.
Sources (1)
- Book T , Mathers, c. 1888 (Golden Dawn internal) — Spheres of Influence of the Court Cards, pp. 12–21
Feeling is directed through subtlety, craft and artistic intelligence, with manipulation or mercilessness when distorted.
A concise paraphrase of Book T's well- and ill-dignified characteristics.
Sources (1)
- Book T , Mathers, c. 1888 (Golden Dawn internal) — The Prince of the Chariot of the Waters, pp. 12–21
History and variants 1 sourced claim
Historical context and places where influential decks or occult systems differ.
One of the fifty-six suit cards in a standard Tarot pack: four suits of ten pip cards and four court cards.
The Met documents this structure in surviving fifteenth-century Tarot: Cups, Swords, Batons and Coins, each numbered from one to ten with king, queen, knight and knave. Occult correspondences developed later.
Sources (1)
- Before Fortune-Telling: The History and Structure of Tarot Cards , Metropolitan Museum of Art online article, 2016 — paragraphs 2–4
Correspondences 1 sourced correspondence
| Relation | To | First attested |
|---|---|---|
| Suit and element | Water | 1888 CE |