Re: How do you play Marziano's game?

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mikeh wrote: 25 Jan 2019, 01:28
Ross: good images. How do you know it is Mercury, in the Remigius, as opposed to Perseus, who wore a "dark helm" from Hades, and flew on "waving wings" according to Ovid? In the Libellus, one version (Reginsus Lat. 1290), Perseus is shown with wings (at least I think it is him in the center, and not Mercury himself).
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I notice that Seznec does not mention Mercury in his fig. 67. But I don't know what the the Libellus actually says about Perseus. Here is the Latin
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kDaZ9GaQ-c0/ ... e-077a.jpg,, and, while I am at it, Mercury, https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oSoUvZ7U2CY/ ... e-076a.jpg.

These Reginsus Libellus 1290 images are from Liebschutz. But if that is an erection I see on the person in question (your blow-up of the fig. 67 image), that is convincing enough.
Seznec does mention him, in the chapter “The Metamorphoses of the Gods”, where he discusses figure 67. This is pages 167-168 of a Google Books English edition, Princeton UP 1981/1995 (paperback). The page you show in your post also mentions him, "Let us take Mercury, for example. The illustrator of Rémi of Auxerre has given him virtually the aspect of an angel (Monac. lat. 14271)."

But you could also know from the manuscript. This illustration in BSB Clm 14271 only refers to the Marriage proper, that is, the first two books, which is followed by Remigius’ commentary. Perseus does not appear as a character in these two books.
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 14271 - Remigius of Auxerre, Commentary on Martianus Capella
http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/000 ... =&seite=26

The name "Mercurius" is probably what is faded out above the figure. I might be able to convince myself that there is a much faded cock, gallus, to our right, by his legs.
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Re: How do you play Marziano's game?

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mikeh wrote: 25 Jan 2019, 02:39 On the web I found a better image of the Mercury in Seznec fig. 70, on a site called "Anne McLaughlin Poster". She says it's in an "Ovidius Moralizatus" by Pierre Bersuire/Petrus Berchorius. I see only one snake, unlike in Marziano's description, but he was following Boaccaccio on this point. As to what he was following for the hat, a galerus or a galero, it is beyond me. See https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9zQ7A4W1g7Y/ ... ge-001.jpg
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The Bodleian library has helpfully put up a lot of the illustrations of their manuscripts. Here is the Moralised Ovid manuscript Rawlinson B 214.

https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/inqui ... 4b184fe,vi+

This is the best screen-grab-reconstructed-in-Photoshop that I could get. I think it is slightly better than the one above.


http://www.rosscaldwell.com/images/herm ... 4small.jpg

Note the word "arpe" by the sword hilt. You can read it by noting "argus" below - the strange "a" and "r". This is a spelling of the word "harpe", which means "a sickle-shaped sword, falchion, or cimeter". Lewis and Short (Latin dictionary) cite Ovid Metamorphoses 5,69, which must be where this attribute of Mercury is mentioned. I realize that this sword doesn't look curved, but the art often doesn't correspond exactly to the text or literal meaning.

This site gives it line 70 -
http://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph5.htm

5:70 vertit in hunc harpen spectatam caede Medusae
5:71 Acrisioniades adigitque in pectus;

"The grandson of Acrisius turned against him that scimitar, tried and proven in his killing of Medusa,"
(Acrisius is grandfather of Perseus; I haven't found Bersuire yet to see how Mercury gets ahold of this sword)
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Re: How do you play Marziano's game?

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Phaeded wrote: 25 Jan 2019, 05:20 But what prompted the inventing onto the medium of cards, when otherwise the rage was manuscripts, often illuminated?
Why not? But it's a strange question you ask. Filippo Maria liked card games. Marziano implies that it was on the duke's prompting that he invented the game; Decembrio tells us he liked the game so much that he paid 1500 ducats for it to be made; we know he liked the ludus triumphorum.

So, he wanted a card game, not a manuscript with pictures of the gods.

I don't know if any Italians had German luxury cards. It's not improbable, but I don't think we need them to explain Marziano's choice of birds for suits. As you say, the dove was part of Visconti heraldry. Dove is a symbol of Venus, and the genealogy gives the Visconti ancestry starting from Venus and Anchises. These are the only examples of pagan gods I know of painted by Michelino, so for any artist who might want to recreate the deck as he made it, they are of incalculable value.


http://www.rosscaldwell.com/marzianotex ... alogy1.jpg

see here for the BnF color reproduction of lat. 5888 -
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... checontact

Whether the heraldic dove was the impetus or not, Marziano, or Filippo himself, chose birds as the suit subjects, for their symbolism relating to the moral themes. The only one whose attribution is not immediately obvious or suitable is the phoenix for riches. I think I have found the only possible answer, but I'll leave it up to you sleuths to try to find why Marziano might have chosen this bird for this suit.

Whether or not actual German decks were circulating around the courts of noble Italy, I think we can assume that a game like Karnöffel was known by 1420, when Filippo made his decree against games which went against the traditional rules of following suit and rank. The only game we know of like that is Karnöffel. It does not hurt to assume that it was such a game that inspired the decree, and even that Imperatori was this game. The Este liked this game, enough to have luxury versions made. Did it have German-esque suits like Bells and Shields? It may have.

I am confortable in the hypothesis that Marziano and Filippo together conceived of this game independently of any model, source text, or other outside inspiration. I don't see anything that would lead me to think there is something else lurking behind it.
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Re: How do you play Marziano's game?

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mikeh wrote: 25 Jan 2019, 01:28 and in Palat. 1066, the Fulgentius Metaforalis:
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I posted a colored version of this somewhere, but I can't find it at the moment.
The Vatican is doing a good job putting their manuscripts online, but many of them remain just microfilm/fiche shots, so not too great quality, and black and white as well. Thus Pal. lat. 1066 -
https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Pal.lat.1066

Here is the generic link to all the Vatican Library manuscript collections -
http://www.mss.vatlib.it/guii/scan/link.jsp

But for Reg. lat. 1290, it is in full color. You just have to put up with the watermark when taking screenshots.
http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Reg.lat.1290


http://www.rosscaldwell.com/images/herm ... allweb.jpg

I began this all looking for an answer to your question about Mercury's galerus; I think this ms. Reg. lat. 1290 is about as close as we are going to get to the place and date relevant to Marziano. It is a tight-fitting cap, but has a folded-up brim. So not a skullcap, exactly, but nothing like the Cyriac-influenced designs.



Phyllis Williams Lehmann dates it to c. 1420, north Italy, Padua. (“The Sources and Meanings of Mantegna’s Parnassus”, in Karl and Phyllis Williams Lehmann, eds., Samothracian Reflections: Aspects of the Revival of the Antique. Princeton UP, 1973.)

Note in the Libellus Mercury text there is mention of the (h)arpe; "gladium curvum, quem harpen homo vocabat". You see it looks like a scythe or sickle with a long handle. The Reg. lat. 1290 manuscript seems to be defective, reading "gladium curvum, quem homo pe vocabat" (folio 2r, line four of Mercury text).

There is a note in the Liebeschütz text transcription for this line in the image you posted for Mercury; what does it say?
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Re: How do you play Marziano's game?

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Sorry, I should have included the whole scan. Mercury:
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qOIxbSMJYUM/ ... ge-076.jpg
Perseus:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GLFShOw13vw/ ... ge-077.jpg

One comment: about the two previous posts. I was assuming that "VIII Imperatori" was a different game from Karnoffel, even if it appears to have also been called "Kaiserspiel" in some German-speaking areas. My speculation is that there were eight Imperatori in "VIII Imperatori,"4 emperors and 4 empresses; my reference is the game known from notes in 1423 Ferrara, for a deck made in Florence, and also the early 1450s there. I do not know of a game called simply "Imperatori" in Italy. I do suspect that Karnoffel did come into Italy and might have been what Filippo was annoyed with. It might have been the reversed order of the number cards in cups and coins, outside the context of Marziano's allegorical game, but it would be strange for him to approve of it one place and not another. Or perhaps somebody was trying to put the court cards at the bottom of those suits, too.

Added: I of course liked Phaeded's post very much, although I appreciate Ross's questions on the points he raised. It does seem to me that the Council at Constance cannot be discounted as an influence on card-playing in Milan. For one thing, it was there in 1416 that Poggio found Manilius's Astronomica, which considered the group of gods called "Olympian" as of some importance, as opposed to those called "Planetary", even if Marziano's list includes Vesta and not Vulcan, presumably because he needed another virgin goddess. Manilius's list of course became quite important in Ferrara and was even cited by Ficino. I do not think that the category "Olympian" got much attention in Italian art before then, nor perhaps in literature; correct me if I am wrong.
Last edited by mikeh on 26 Jan 2019, 09:31, edited 2 times in total.

Re: How do you play Marziano's game?

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mikeh wrote: 26 Jan 2019, 08:54 Sorry, I should have included the whole scan. Mercury:
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qOIxbSMJYUM/ ... ge-076.jpg
Perseus:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GLFShOw13vw/ ... ge-077.jpg
Great, thanks.

"c) homope vocabant cod. harpen homo ed. pr. St." So it is an editorial correction. I just have to figure out what the abbreviations "pr." and "St." mean; they are standard, but I don't see the list of sigla anywhere.
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Re: How do you play Marziano's game?

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mikeh wrote: 26 Jan 2019, 08:54 One comment: about the two previous posts. I was assuming that "VIII Imperatori" was a different game from Karnoffel, even if it appears to have also been called "Kaiserspiel" in some German-speaking areas. My speculation is that there were eight Imperatori in "VIII Imperatori,"4 emperors and 4 empresses; my reference is the game known from notes in 1423 Ferrara, for a deck made in Florence, and also the early 1450s there. I do not know of a game called simply "Imperatori" in Italy. I do suspect that Karnoffel did come into Italy and might have been what Filippo was annoyed with. It might have been the reversed order of the number cards in cups and coins, outside the context of Marziano's allegorical game, but it would be strange for him to approve of it one place and not another. Or perhaps somebody was trying to put the court cards at the bottom of those suits, too.
It's only called "VIII Imperadori" once; other entries in Ferrara are just to "Inperaturi" cards.

http://trionfi.com/0/c/02/index.php

Your speculation about "VIII" implying extra cards is plausible, but I can't say that the evidence is enough for me to lean that way. It could also be a descriptive name for the a) kind of cards, German suits, and b) a rule that used 8, like the attested name in Germany for Tarot, "Siebenkonigsspiel" - seven kings game, referring presumably to the fact that there are seven high cards, viz. the four kings and three counting trumps. Thus, by analogy, VIII Imperatori might refer to a game where there were eight counting cards.

I interpret Filippo's decree not to be offended at the reversal of the pip order of two suits, but rather to a game which did not follow suit at all but presumably counted cards for their number value only, like Black Jack, so used in gambling. For the "figura" part, I think it implies a game like Karnöffel, where the Unter of the Chosen Suit is the most powerful card. This sort of symbolic social subversion bothered moralists and probably also rulers like Visconti.
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Re: How do you play Marziano's game?

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mikeh wrote: 26 Jan 2019, 08:54 Added: I of course liked Phaeded's post very much, although I appreciate Ross's questions on the points he raised. It does seem to me that the Council at Constance cannot be discounted as an influence on card-playing in Milan. For one thing, it was there in 1416 that Poggio found Manilius's Astronomica, which considered the group of gods called "Olympian" as of some importance, as opposed to those called "Planetary", even if Marziano's list includes Vesta and not Vulcan, presumably because he needed another virgin goddess. Manilius's list of course became quite important in Ferrara and was even cited by Ficino. I do not think that the category "Olympian" got much attention in Italian art before then, nor perhaps in literature; correct me if I am wrong.
Marziano gives a nod to the planetary tradition when he calls Venus "Lucifer", the fourth planet. "Aurea Venus Lucifero suo per similis quarta locabitur sede" This seems to be straight from Hyginus. De Astronomia, chapter 42. - "Quarta stella est Veneris, Lucifer nominee". The fourth star is Venus, called Lucifer.

There are other ways to get to this conclusion, but the coincidence of Venus and Lucifer in the same sentence makes me sure it is Hyginus.

“seated in the fourth place”; Marziano is alluding to the classical “five wandering stars”, stellae errantae, ἄστρα πλανητὰ, a planetary order where Venus is the fourth planet; this placement is possible two ways.. The first scheme is given byAlbert of Saxony in Quaestiones in Aristotelis De Caelo, Lib. II, q. 6
“De ordine autem talium orbium septem planetarum, quidam posuerunt primo sphaeram Saturni, deinde sphaeram Iovis, deinde sphaeram Martis, deinde sphaeram Veneris, deinde sphaeram Mercurii, deinde sphaeram solis, et ultimam sphaeram lunae.” (ed. crit. Benoît Patar, Alberti de Saxonia Quaestiones in Aristotelis De Caelo ; series Philosophes Médiévaux vol. LI (Louvain-la-Neuve ; Peeters, 2008) p. 270, ll. 93-96.
For the second, cfr. Ptolemy Almagest, Bk. 9, c. 1; Visconti library in the translation of Gerard of Cremona, BnF ms. lat. 7258 f. 206. Edition of 1515 here - https://ptolemaeus.badw.de/print/1/70/93v
Ptolemy speaks of five planets, “stellarum quinque erraticarum”, excluding the Sun and Moon, and therefore although his order places Venus under the orbit of the Sun, it remains in fourth place, viz. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury.
Edward Grant, Planets, Stars, and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200-1687 (Cambridge UP, 1996)… p. 311.
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Re: How do you play Marziano's game?

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Marziano does not state that the first 12 gods are "Olympian"; it is just a fact that they are, and that, uniquely, both Vesta and Bacchus are present, and Vulcan is excluded. From what I understand, Vulcan is always present in lists of the 12, which otherwise choose between either Vesta or Bacchus, since both cannot be present.

So the exclusion of Vulcan seems to be deliberate, with the simplest answer being as you said, the need for a Virgin goddess (since the pagans had no virgin gods - did they? I guess Attis does not belong to the pantheon we are discussing, just classical Greeks and Romans, not that exotic eastern stuff).

But if the "Olympian" feature is not conscious, why have Aeolus and not Pluto, say? Pluto's very name was taken to mean "wealth" - Pluto is the obvious choice for the order of Riches.

We might speculate that chthonic or underworld deities like Vulcan and Pluto were distasteful to Filippo Maria, especially Pluto, the King of the Dead. But Vulcan's infirmity might also be relevant, given the accounts of Filippo's own "weak" or deformed feet. This is hard to prove, I have found, but we have it as part of the tradition about him. But even without that, Vulcan is also known for the adultery of his wife Venus with Mars, and Filippo had his first wife Beatric di Tenda executed for adultery in 1418. So there is another reminder that might make Vulcan inappropriate, if the book were written after 1418.

BTW, for what it is worth, there was no Manilius in the Visconti library catalogue of 1426. Plenty of other astronomy books, of course, including Hyginus. This is not decisive, since not every book was present in Pavia when the catalogue was made, including the Tractatus de deificatione itself, which is listed nowhere.
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Re: How do you play Marziano's game?

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Thus, by analogy, VIII Imperatori might refer to a game where there were eight counting cards.
The name "VIII Imperadori" is in 1423, rather early for "counting cards" unless you know of one. And yes, when in the 1440s and 1450s there are notes for "imperatori cards" simpliciter, we don't know whether it is for the game of "VIII Imperatori" or not.

About planetary gods vs. Olympic gods, I didn't mean to imply that the planetary aspects of gods dropped out of consideration - far from it. As far as Manilius being the impetus for Maziano, what I was suggesting was that before Manilius was discovered, the Olympian gods were not considered as such, as a group, more or less, in the way that planetary gods were, before Poggio's discovery. That see to me the logical explanation for why Pluto isn't included in the 12. But I don't know medieval accounts of the gods as well as some participants here.

It is not important that Manilius was not part of the Visconti library. It wasn't even necessary that anyone in Milan or Pavia have a copy. All Manilius provided was a list, as part of a few lines of his poem, maybe twelve, with a few epithets thrown in. That alone proved, later on, to be the significant thing. Unfortunately I did not scan that page of the book. Decker in his book made use of Manilius in another way, a way which I thought was quite arbitrary, and those were the pages I scanned. If the epithets related to Manilius's descriptions, that would be significant, but I don't recall that they do.

And thanks, Phaeded, for appreciating what I was saying about the Marziano deck. I assume the part about bird suits being perhaps stimulated by German was meant as a reasonable speculation, even if the reason for the particular species was moral in character. The bestiaries had all kinds of morally relevant animals.

My surmising has been that eagles were chosen because it is associated with Jupiter, and also is the most powerful of birds, hence highest in the hierarchy. It was also the emblem of Rome and its descendants. Although accounts of the phoenix vary, they invariably associated the bird with the sun, or at least Heliopolis. The sun is usually colored yellow and is the planet associated with gold. There may also be, behind that one, a metallurgical/alchemical association, Both gold and silver were obtained by mixing mercury with the ore and then boiling off the mercury, leaving the metal. There may be an association with Alexander, the Greek emperor, as a kind of "phoenix of the age," like Pico, I don't know; and Alexandria, in the country of of the phoenix's birth and death. The turtledove is an emblem of faithfulness, and so of chastity and continence. It also loves solitude. I doubt if he knew that in Persia the first Persian emperor introduced the veil as a protection of women's chastity. I do not know any particular association with virginity. The dove is the bird of Venus, of course. I doubt if he knew that before that it was the bird of Ishtar in Babylonia, from whom the Greeks borrowed the association.

That was probably more than you antcipated. But given the wide-ranging nature of Marziano's commentaries, it is hard to know what to include and what not.
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