Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 25 Jun 2020, 18:06 What sources do you think Michelino could have used for the gods? The Libellus was probably not drawn yet when he painted the cards, so we can exclude that. We know how he treated Jupiter and Venus in 1403 - just as contemporary people, really. But does this give us the full picture? Would Neptune just be Jupiter in a sea-chariot with a trident?

He knew togas, at least at some point. I ordered some drawings from Vienna when I first started working on this, in 2003, which shows figures dressed in togas. But would he have made classical-style gods in the teens? Or would he just have gone with the Ovid Moralized tradition?
Definitely no togas - contemporary dress. The closest toga-seeming and almost exactly contemporary with Marziano's project is Taddeo di Bartolo's frescoes of four pagan gods in Sienna's Palazzo Pubblico (c. 1414). I've haven't found anyone else point this out, although obvious when you put them side by side, but even someone as cultivated as Alberti "stooped" to borrow from these images of the gods in Siena - the wings of his eye emblem is an exact match for Jupiter's eagle's wings (low res of Jupiter's eagle, always find to hard a good image online of that for some reason)):

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Anything contemporary of course, including the manuscript production centers in the Low Countries and N. France. Yes on Ovide moralise, the Visconti Hours of course, but also mine the nobles in the tacuinum sanitatis - numerous bird scenes (just add the relevant god/dess attributes - at least useful for the Kings):

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Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 25 Jun 2020, 18:15 It is still striking to me that Marziano chose the phoenix over the peacock as the bird of riches. Especially since he moralizes the eyes of the tail feathers to represent the many eyes the rich man needs to keep watch over his riches.

One consideration that the BH ms 891 images suggested to me was that the irridescent, rainbow-like colors of the peacock are also used as the basis for those phoenixes. So it could be that Marziano was inspired for this choice partly by the comparison with the standard peacock, a very colorful bird.

But why he decided not to go with the peacock is still inexplicable to me.

Two primary reasons to me:
1. Phoenix, as previously discussed when breaking down Petrarch's Africa (and indirectly Virgil's Aeneid), was associated with Phoencia = "Saracens"/Ottomans and Mamluks. If "Riches" are a lesser item in Marziano's game, why not associate them with the lands of the enemy? And again, see the Semideus that was dedicated to Filippo with crusading in mind (the illuminations are of Saracen towns being taken). And crusading came up in every single Church Council with the pope inevitably issuing a bull calling for a crusade.

2. The primary late antique source that pushed the idea of the Roman Empire as selected by God as the means for spreading the new faith (why Jesus was born in the time of Augustus, etc.) was Lactantius who also wrote a work entitled "Phoenix" (at least attributed to him in Marziano's day), so helps keep all of this "kosher" as it were, with a dash of interpretatio Christiana. . There is what looks like a nice breakdown of this work but Google has little scanned so will have to wait for the libraries to open back up: Chapter 12. "Lactantius’s Phoenix and Late Latin Poetics", Michael Roberts, in The Poetics of Late Latin Literature, ed. Jas Elsner and Jesús Hernández Lobato, 2017. Lactantius connects the bird to immortality, Saracen lands and wealth (we underestimate his influence in the Renaissance - the source of the 10 Sibyls and was studied earnestly even in erudite Florence by the likes of Traversari). An older translation of his Phoenix here: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0707.htm

The idea of "riches" (=East) simply trumped Juno in the selection of bird.

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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I haven't been following this thread for a while, due to other preoccupations, but since it tends to move rapidly I figured I'd better jump in.

Phaeded wrote,
Lactantius connects the bird to immortality, Saracen lands and wealth (we underestimate his influence in the Renaissance - the source of the 10 Sibyls and was studied earnestly even in erudite Florence by the likes of Traversari). An older translation of his Phoenix here: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0707.htm

The idea of "riches" (=East) simply trumped Juno in the selection of bird.
I agree. As I said a year ago at
viewtopic.php?p=21136#p21136
if Lactantius is his source, then there is also the "yellow metal" on the bird's tail and thighs. This connects to the gold which is the quintessential symbol of riches. He also didn't use owls, the bird of Athena, for Virginities: turtledoves, for their faithfulness, convey the idea better. He only used the bird associated with the primary god in two suits, eagles for Jupiter and doves for Venus.

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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mikeh wrote: 27 Jun 2020, 10:43 Phaeded wrote,
Lactantius ...
The idea of "riches" (=East) simply trumped Juno in the selection of bird.
I agree. As I said a year ago at
viewtopic.php?p=21136#p21136
Thanks for linking that thread to this one, but Ross did make that point right before you did in that thread (he must have forgotten it - hell I'll come across an old post of mine and don't remember a jot about it, but hey I must have wrote that ;-):

Ross's outline for his work included this:
V. The Suits
Eagles – imperial eagle, duchy
Phoenix – Lactantius bird of oriental wealth; should only be one, many is by definition unnatural
Turtledove – fidelity, shyness, humility
Dove – pigeon, promiscuity, pestilence with too many

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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Areli Marina, "The Langobard Revival of Matteo il Magno Visconti, Lord of Milan," I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, Vol. 16, No. 1/2 (September 2013), pp. 377-414

This is fairly eye opening, but first the article's concluding summary:
Three aspects of the Visconti Langobard revival demand further attention. First, the aforementioned verbal accounts did not function in isolation: they reinforced—and were in turn confirmed by—multiple cultural operations that linked the Visconti with the Langobard kingdom, such as the family's promotion of the Langobard patron saint John the Baptist and its appropriation of real or fictive Langobard sites, such as Pavia and Angera. Second, the revival's catalyst appears to be Matteo Visconti, whose authorship is intimated but not fully acknowledged by modern scholarship. And third, a hallmark of Matteo's program consisted in seizing preexisting objects and monuments, inventing or embroidering their historical associations, and then recasting these artifacts in new terms that asserted the nobility of his lineage and promoted sovereignty (414).

Now for the money shot - that Giangaleazzo Eulogy's genealogy we like to discuss?:
His princely genealogy was not a quattrocento invention, however. It originated in a text apparently prepared at Matteo Visconti's behest sometime between 1314 and 1321 —the so-called Cronica Danielis de comitibus Angleriae.7 That historical account vindicates Matteo's usurpation of the castle at Angera (or Angleria), formerly property of the archbishopric of Milan, on the grounds that the castle was the hereditary seat of the fictitious counts of Angera, from whom the Visconti were purportedly descended. Moreover, according to the text, the counts of Angera had been granted the perennial right to rule the Langobard kingdom (including Milan) by Pope Gregory the Great (r. 590-604).8 These ancestral claims recur in several other pro-Visconti written sources, including Bonincontro Morigia's Otronicon Modoetiense and Galvano Fiamma's Chronicon maius and Chronicon extravagans. As Gigliola Soldi Rondinini and Piero Majocchi have noted, these texts were instrumental to Visconti legitimation in the trecento.9

7. Chronica Danielis de comitibus Angleriae also known as the Cronica comitum Englerie survives in several manusripts, altlough most are fragmentary. The only edition (that of Bibliotheque nationale. Paris, Ms. lat. 6168) is Adolfo Cinquini. "Una cronaca milanese inedita del XIII: 'La Cronica Danielis.,' "Miscelanea di e Cultura Ecclesiastica 4 (November 1905—October 1906): 163-91.376-91 (hereafter cited as Chronica Danielis).
8. See the appendix for Chronica Danielis chaps. 1-3. 168-69. Piero Majocchi, Pavia cittå regia: Storia e memorii di una capitale altomedievale (Rome 2008), 168—70. Matteo burned the archiepiscopal archive at Santa Radegonda in Milan to destroy any record of ecclesiastical ownership of Angera. Cogasso, "L'unificazione di Lombardia”, 5:104.
9. Cronica Danielis. chaps 1—7, 168—72. Bonincontri Morigiae (Bonincontro Morigia). "Cronicon Modoetiense,- in Rerum italicarum scriptores" 12. ed Ludovico Antonio Muratori (Milan. 1728). Fiamma. Chronicon extravagans. 487—88, 499. Fiamna. Chronicon maius. passim, which eventually interweaves archbishops of Milan into the royal and imperial dynastic account. Gigliola Soldi Rondinini. "Angera medievale nella storiografia.- in "Fabuiamm patria": Angera e il sue territorio nel Medioevo. ed Gigliola Soldi Rondinini. Studi e testi di storia medievale (Bologia. 1988). 13—25: Pavia. 166-87.


Footnotes had all kinds of machine transcription issues - let me know if someone wants something clarified.

Phaeded

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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Way ahead of you, Phaeded! Glad you found Marina's paper - the same one that started the background search for me. I have the whole bibliography on the sources for the Chronica Danielis now. Jörg Busch's 1997 study Die Mailänder Geschichtsschreibung zwischen Arnulf und Galvaneus Flamma. Die Beschäftigung mit der Vergangenheit im Umfeld eier oberitaliensichen Kommune vom späten 11. bis zum frühen 14. Jahrhundert (Milanese historiography between Arnulf and Galvaneus Flamma. The study of the past in the environment of a Northern Italian commune from the late 11th to the early 14th century. München, Fink, 1997) is the most detailed source for anything now.
https://digi20.digitale-sammlungen.de/d ... 00001.html

See page 232 for a visual depiction of the evolution of the Visconti genealogy, before Castelletto.

Here is my short list, and intention -

Genealogies, invention of Matteo; Chronica Danielis; Castelletto-Michelino, Sacco; entire list, annotated briefly
Kirsch 1991 74-86
Busch 1997 study and bibliography
Macchioro 2011 bibliography
Adolfo Cinquini Chronica Danielis
Muratori 11 Galvano Fiamma
Muratori 16 Anonimo; Azari Cognasso ed.
Ceruti Chronicon extravagans and Maius 1869
Marco Petoletti Messale 1400
Pietro da Castelletto
Catone Sacco
Vilma Cerutti thesis cited by Busch, p. 230 note 206.

Basically Castelletto inserted 19 names - from Abida to Bridomarus - from the (still unpublished) Politeia Novella of Galvano Fiamma (Codex Ambrosianus A 275 inf., fol. 1a-30c, online at the Ambrosiana, click on "HTTP Visualizza la copia digitale" - https://ambrosiana.comperio.it/opac/det ... alog:27351 Busch p. 35 dates it to between 1342-1349), a list of kings of Milan, into an earlier list (see Busch ibidem), based on the Chronica Danielis, which began with Anchises and Venus, and went up to Ascanius Junior, then jumped to Lucius (Lutius). See Busch p. 214 for the list. He thereby filled out much of missing space. But Castelletto also omitted some of Fiamma's names. Because of Sacco's comment about the 60 generations analogy with Jesus' lineage, I imagine that Castelletto himself had the same idea, although he does not mention it.

Just looking over Politeia Novella now. Fiamma makes Noah die in Italy, and his son Japheth king of Europe (the ancient tradition where Shem gets the Semites, (C)Ham gets the (C)Hamitic (African) peoples, like Egyptians and Nubians, and Japheth gets Europe). Japheth's son Tubal becomes king of Spain and Italy, and Fiamma does something unbelievable (starting folio 2r) - he makes Janus "Subre" the son of Tubal, and thereby connects the pagan to the biblical chronology. I don't know if he invented that connection or not. I assumed it was a late antique Christian invention, but I recently learned about Annius of Viterbo who published an elaborate assiimilation of the pagan pantheon to the Biblical chronology in 1498. E.g. https://www.jstor.org/stable/751317?seq=1

There's a lot in Cod. Ambr. A 275 inf.. This text demands to be edited and published. The genealogical chart on folio 12r-v jumps from Ascanius Junior to Ubertus - i.e. omits Abida to Lutius.
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Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 28 Jun 2020, 08:50 Way ahead of you, Phaeded! Glad you found Marina's paper - the same one that started the background search for me. I have the whole bibliography on the sources for the Chronica Danielis now.

The evolution of the genealogy is fascinating and I'm looking forward to the fruits of your research in that regard, but its the timing of the invention of the genealogy for Matteo that intrigues me and I was unaware of - "originated in a text apparently prepared at Matteo Visconti's behest sometime between 1314 and 1321." What sparked the genealogy was Matteo being pushed out of Milan from 1302-1310, with the retaking solidified by the arrival of Henry of Luxembourg VII in 1312, who in fact appointed Matteo as his imperial vicar, pushing the Torre and associated Guelfs out of power for good. This is the same Henry that Dante took great store in for ending his own exile and pushing the Guelf faction out of Florence while uniting Italy (see also his pro-Imperial De monarchia). Of the 13 surviving letters Dante wrote in exile, three - V, VI, VII - form a group epistole arrighiane or 'Henry letters' of 1310-1311; although Henry failed he was (incredibly) given a seat in the Rose of the Blessed (Par. XXX, 133-38), and predicted eternal damnation for Pope Clement V who had 'betrayed' Henry by not crowning and aligning with him (Inf. XIX, 82-84). In other words, Henry is not some minor character lost in history's pages (which he probably deserves), but featured in the greatest work of the age. And the Visconti intersect with him in the most meaningful way, as their control over Milan at this critical juncture practically depended on him.

While Henry is in Milan (before dying within the year at his siege of Siena) he and his knights make vows on a bird (celebrated in a poem at least and tied into a genre that continued to take off through the trecento). The retaking of Milan can thus be associated - temporally at least - with this quasi-mythical vow-taking on a bird....why Marziano makes his suits birds. Matteo's genealogy and frescoes at Angera were invented right after this event, as early as 1314 (not doubt at least conceived and initiated then). While the bird vowed on by Henry is not in Marziano, it does make a prominent appearance in the taking of a city in the Visconti Hours, but you've already identified why eagles are a suit in Marziano - they are the imperial symbol, and it was the Holy Roman Emperor Henry of Luxembourg VII that made sure Matteo remained lord and thus reinstalled the dynasty in Milan.

I'm still editing down the relevant research but will post here as soon as possible.

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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Phaeded wrote: 28 Jun 2020, 15:40
The evolution of the genealogy is fascinating and I'm looking forward to the fruits of your research in that regard, but its the timing of the invention of the genealogy for Matteo that intrigues me and I was unaware of - "originated in a text apparently prepared at Matteo Visconti's behest sometime between 1314 and 1321."
I was unaware of it, until a month or so ago. This text is the Chronica Danielis. The only edition was published in 1906, by Adolfo Cinquini, here -
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hng92i

Another manuscript somehow associated with Matteo is Ambrosiana A 227 inf. ( https://ambrosiana.comperio.it/opac/det ... alog:26929 ), which is the Milanese inquisition record of the trial of the Guglielmites in 1300. Barbara Newman, in her paper on Bianca Maria and Manfreda "The Heretic Saint" (Church History, vol. 74 (2005), https://www.jstor.org/stable/4146311?seq=1 ), made the resonable suggestion that Matteo confiscated this from the Inquisition, after which it was lost for 300 years. The manuscript was edited in 1999 by Marina Benedetti, with a study by Grado Giovanni Merlo, as Milano 1300: I processi inquisitoriali contro le devote e i devoti de santa Guglielma, Milan, 1999.
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Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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Phaeded wrote
While Henry is in Milan (before dying within the year at his siege of Siena) he and his knights make vows on a bird (celebrated in a poem at least and tied into a genre that continued to take off through the trecento).
There were 2 poems about 2 different birds, both in context of the emperor crowning and vows. Sparrow-hawk (Épervier d'Europe) and blue peafowl (paon bleu).
Huck
http://trionfi.com
cron