Confirmation that the World card is based on the throne scene in Revelation

The earliest known list of the Tarot trumps comes from the anonymous Sermones de ludo cum aliis ("Discourses on a game played with others"), published in Venice in the late 15th century, probably by a Dominican monk. It follows the Ferrara-Venice ordering of the trumps, which differs in several respects from the now-standard Milan-Marseille ordering. The author includes brief parenthetical comments on some of the trumps, including the World.

The 21st item on the list is (modernizing the spelling) "Il mondo, cioè Dio Padre" -- "The world, that is to say, God the Father."

As detailed in my very long post The Throne and the World, the World card derives from "Christ in majesty" iconography, which in turn is based on the description of God the Father on his throne in Revelation 4-5. That this 15th century writer simply equates the World with God the Father is strong evidence for this connection. It also shows that that version of the World card is older than might otherwise be supposed. The oldest surviving World cards have very different images; for example, the Visconti-Sforza, shows the earth being supported by two winged putti -- an image completely unrelated to the Marseille card or to biblical throne scenes. The list in Sermones is evidence that the World as God was already established in 15th-century Italy and was not a Marseille innovation.