Devout Hera Cardinal

From the Latin devotus, consecrated — used principally in religious contexts for the dignified deep colors of sacred art and ecclesiastical dress. As a color modifier, devout implies saturation combined with restraint: the deep blues of Marian mantles, the deep reds of cardinals' robes. Sits in the bold-and-formal corner alongside imperial.

Greek Ἥρα, queen-of-the-Olympian-gods. As a color modifier, hera implies a peacock-feather-and-queen-of-gods quality, the visual register of Olympian-Hera-and-Argos-temple hand-peacock-feather-and-queen-of-gods Olympian-Hera-and-Argos-temple-and-Heraion-of-Samos hera-and-peacock-feather-and-queen-of-gods surfaces under Olympian-Hera-and-Argos-temple-and-Heraion-of-Samos Polyclitus-and-Argive-and-Samian peacock-throne-light. Sits at the modifier-and-myth end of the grid, parallel to zeus and diana in usage.

Named for the scarlet robes of Roman Catholic cardinals, dyed since the thirteenth century with kermes and later cochineal. The color carries the institutional weight of its source — a saturated red-orange that reads as authority rather than romance. Also the bird (Cardinalis cardinalis) of the American east, whose plumage takes its red from carotenoid pigments in the seeds it eats.