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Ercole showed an interest in the 9 worthies ... cause of his mother. His mother thrown out of the Ferrara court, when she protested against the decision, that Leonello (illegitimate child) and not Ercole (born in a marriage) became successor of Niccolo as Signore of Ferrara. When Ercole became duke of Ferrara in 1471, he quickly had his mother returned to Ferrara (but she died soon). She came from the court, which had decorated the castle Manta with the 9 heroes and 9 female counter parts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castello_della_Manta

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Naturally there was an Alexander between them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_II ... of_Saluzzo
Thomas III, Marquess of Saluzzo, author of Le Chevalier Errant was painted in the role of Alexander. I don't know the genealogy precisely, but he's given as maternal grandfather of Ercole d'Este. All 18 figures are (also)
family ancestors or relatives.

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/hen-magon ... otostream/
... with more pictures

The commissioner was Valerano of Saluzzo (died 1443), an illegitimate son of Thomas III. The other half of the room was decorated with a Jungbrunnen. (a well, in which you become young again).
Valerano Saluzzo della Manta (Saluzzo, 1374 circa – Manta, 1443) fu reggente del marchesato di Saluzzo (1416-1424), signore della Manta, Verzuolo e Brondello; capostipite del ramo dei signori Saluzzo di Verzuolo e della Manta. Era soprannominato "il Burdo", dal nome del castello di Burdello (oggi Brondello).

Saluzzo, il castello della Manta
Figlio illegittimo di Tommaso III di Saluzzo e di una donna sconosciuta, Valerano venne nominato nel testamento paterno reggente del marchesato insieme alla vedova Margherita di Roussy. Il marchese morì nel 1416. Il figlio legittimo, avuto dalla nobile francese, era Ludovico, allora di appena nove anni. Valerano, che era già quarantenne, venne quindi considerato più adatto a mantenere la reggenza.[2]

Alla morte di Tommaso III, Valerano governò come un vero marchese fino alla maggiore età del fratello minore: come previsto dalle ultime volontà del padre e di Margherita (deceduta nel 1419), a Valerano spettò il castello della Manta con relativo feudo, in cui egli si ritirò fino alla morte. Qui predispose la restaurazione dell'edificio, facendo affrescare l'imponente Sala baronale, nella quale lo si può vedere ritratto nei panni di Ettore, unitamente ad altri marchesi e marchese nelle vesti di eroi e di eroine.[3]

Da lui discese il ramo dei Saluzzo della Manta, che sopravviverà fino al XIX secolo.

Lo ricorda, così, lo storico Gioffredo della Chiesa, segretario del marchese Ludovico I: Lo spectabile Valerano bastardo di Salucio, el quale se diceva el Bordo, che fu homo da assay.
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerano_di_Saluzzo

The illegitimate Valerano was regent of Saluzzo since 1416, but gave the reign in 1424 to his younger legitimate brother, when this was grown-up.
Ercole's mother was used to this "fair" system in her family. Ferrara's customs were different. Ercole's mother was pressed to leave Ferrara and Ercole was send to Naples as a sort of hostage together with his younger brother Sigismondo (parallel to the wedding of 1445). What Ercole thought about this solution, we don't know.

Valerano took the role of the hero Hector for himself. A blonde Hector, blonde as Alexander and his animal heraldry shows - as it seems - a tiger on the throne. The tiger was the animal of Bacchus, and Bacchus was associated to Alexander (both were in India, and India knows tigers). And Hector is the first in the row at the Manta castle. Hector - according some older French ideas - was the ancestor of the Merowingers.

... .-) ... everybody creates the history perspective, that pleases him.

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The Jungbrunnen scenario has occasionally funny scenes:

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Huck
http://trionfi.com

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Huck wrote:Ercole showed an interest in the 9 worthies ... cause of his mother.
She lived in a house decorated with the 9 worthies, a medieval commonplace, of which Alexander was one? This equates with or surpasses the self-identification and propagational imagery of Leonello with Alexander? Leonello's typological representation with Alexander is a matter of record, your supposition - supposition.

Alexander as one of nine worthies (a standard medieval pattern) is different to a specific self-representation as Alexander such as Leonello was identified with (by himself and others).

There is no specific reference in the nine worthies to the example of Alexander and Diogenes, as there was in the 'mirror of princes' type of educational 'mirror of princes' type dialogues between Leonello and Guarino.

We know Alexander was an exemplar which Leoneollo identified with, and the lesson of Digoneses one which his teacher Guarino used as a model as a 'mirror of princes' type lesson; For Ercole, we have Alexander as one of nine worthies or exemplars, as a standard old fashioned medieval decoration in a house his mother lived in, rather than a model for himself or of which he seems to have been particularly identified with, as opposed to one which Leonello was specifically identified (by himself and others) with.

I still don't get your gap argument - it seems to me you just don't understand the fragmentary and accidental nature of the historical records, your statistical arguments in regards to such I find bizarre and totally lacking an understanding of history'; of fragmentary information and meaningful use of statistics. Or at least, my understanding of such is different to yours, I find them unconvincing, but perhaps the statistical misunderstanding is mine.

In 1436 the d'Este court apparent imported a playing card printing press... full stop. To print cards one needs more than a press, one needs a printer, perhaps a designer, painters, certainly a regular supply of paper and ink and varnish, etc, etc. Where are the records for them? Was it just a rich mans toy never used? Or are the records for its use lost, the historical record incomplete?
... .-) ... everybody creates the history perspective, that pleases him.
Indeed, or pleases their Lord. And the one that pleased Leonello, and which those whom he patronized might profit to follow, was one in which he was identified with Alexander (even if an a moral 'mirror of princes' challenge to arrogance and reminder of subservience to a hight power). Ercole on the other hand quite appreciated representation in terms of his classical namesake, Ercole (Hercules).

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SteveM wrote
We know Alexander was an exemplar which Leoneollo identified with, and the lesson of Digoneses one which his teacher Guarino used as a model as a 'mirror of princes' type lesson.
That of course relates well to the d'Este deck's Sun card (http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page. ... 31&lng=ENG, fig. 5). It might be useful to know where you read that bit of information about Guarino and Leonello, if you can remember. I suppose Guarino also taught Ercole; but then he didn't identify with Alexander.

Huck: Galeazzo Maria Sforza's passion for chess did not exclude men playing tarot, or at least we may infer from https://books.google.com/books?id=NUoR2 ... ot&f=false, at least in the text as opposed to the online-unreachable footnote. Whether it was only when women were involved is not said. To be sure, the frescoes at Pavia only showed women and children; but that was in the family, not at court.

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mikeh wrote:SteveM wrote
We know Alexander was an exemplar which Leoneollo identified with, and the lesson of Digoneses one which his teacher Guarino used as a model as a 'mirror of princes' type lesson.
That of course relates well to the d'Este deck's Sun card (http://www.associazioneletarot.it/page. ... 31&lng=ENG, fig. 5). It might be useful to know where you read that bit of information about Guarino and Leonello, if you can remember. I suppose Guarino also taught Ercole; but then he didn't identify with Alexander.

Huck: Galeazzo Maria Sforza's passion for chess did not exclude men playing tarot, or at least we may infer from https://books.google.com/books?id=NUoR2 ... ot&f=false, at least in the text as opposed to the online-unreachable footnote. Whether it was only when women were involved is not said. To be sure, the frescoes at Pavia only showed women and children; but that was in the family, not at court.
https://books.google.de/books?hl=de&id= ... es&f=false
gives this passage for the text of Angelo Decembrio:

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The linked text gives partly the source, but only in Latin language.

Likely it's not much, what is said about him. Guarino translates partly the lives of Plutarch ... somewhere I've read, he translated 13 of them. I remember also to have read, that he started with the translations already in the period 1410-1420, so long before he had the job with Leonello. If the Alexander text belongs to them, I didn't see confirmed, if it was indeed made for Leonello, I don't know.

The Alexander text (Plutarch) is translated here (not by Guarino) ...
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14140/14 ... _ALEXANDER

Live of Alexander / appearances of Diogenes:
XIV. The Greeks after this assembled at Corinth and agreed to invade Persia with Alexander for their leader. Many of their chief statesmen and philosophers paid him visits of congratulation, and he hoped that Diogenes of Sinope, who was at that time living at Corinth, would do so. As he, however, paid no attention whatever to Alexander and remained quietly in the suburb called Kraneium, Alexander himself went to visit him. He found him lying at full length, basking in the sun. At the approach of so many people, he sat up, and looked at Alexander. Alexander greeted him, and enquired whether he could do anything for him. "Yes," answered [Pg 313]Diogenes, "you can stand a little on one side, and not keep the sun off me." This answer is said to have so greatly surprised Alexander, and to have filled him with such a feeling of admiration for the greatness of mind of a man who could treat him with such insolent superiority, that when he went away, while all around were jeering and scoffing he said, "Say what you will; if I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes."
LXV. Alexander now gave them presents and dismissed them unhurt. He also sent Onesikritus to the most renowned of them, who lived a life of serene contemplation, desiring that they would come to him. This Onesikritus was a philosopher of the school of Diogenes the cynic. One of the Indians, named Kalanus, is said to have received him very rudely, and to have proudly bidden him to take off his clothes and speak to him naked, as otherwise he would not hold any conversation with him, even if he came from Zeus himself. Dandamis, another of the Gymnosophists, was of a milder mood, and when he had been told of Sokrates, Pythagoras, and Diogenes, said that they appeared to him to have been wise men, but to have lived in too great bondage to the laws. Other writers say that Dandamis said nothing more than "For what purpose has Alexander come all the way hither?" However, Taxiles persuaded Kalanus to visit Alexander. His real name was Sphines: but as in the Indian tongue he saluted all he met with the word 'Kale,' the Greeks named him Kalanus. This man is said to have shown to Alexander a figure representing his empire, in the following manner. He flung on the ground a dry, shrunken hide, and then trod upon the outside of it, but when he trod it down in one place, it rose up in all the others. He walked all round the edge of it, and showed that this kept taking place until at length he stepped into the middle, and so made it all lie flat. This image was intended to signify that Alexander ought to keep his strength concentrated in the middle of his empire, and not wander about on distant journeys.
This are the passages, in which Diogenes appears. It's easy to recognize, that this is not much.

A great debate was caused by a discussion about Caesar and Scipio between Guarino and Poggio, Poggio on the side of Scipio and Guarino at the side of Caesar. Caesar was in the Parallel Lives the parallel to Alexander.
http://trionfi.com/poggio-guarino-ferrara

More important seems to me, that Guarino and Leon Battista Alberti developed a friendship about relations to the poet Lucian. Alberti wrote after his contacts to Ferrara the Momus and the Momus is really great and it took a few years to become ready. Momus is designed as a beggar-philosoph-fool, and he has more than one relation to the beggar-philosoph Diogenes. Lucian demonstrates his special favor to cynicism also in the "Feast of Lapithae" or "Symposium".
https://lucianofsamosata.info/AFeastOfLapithae.html
... :-) ... The guy, who makes the most trouble, is the cynic philosopher ...

It comes as a surprise to me, that Alexander shall have been so important for Leonello. I didn't know it.

Studying pictures of the scene of Alexander / Diogenes I don't find one of an older date. The Tarot card (1450 or c. 1473) might be early for this motif.
Last edited by Huck on 15 Nov 2016, 07:28, edited 1 time in total.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

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Huck wrote,
Studying pictures of the scene of Alexander / Diogenes I don't find one of an older date. The Tarot card (1450 or c. 1473) might be early for this motif.
Well, the PMB image of the Bagat, if c. 1452, is a little early for images of him, too. And images of Popesses are pretty rare before then. And old men with hourglasses. And that Moon lady? Some images in the tarot are familiar ones by the time of that tarot deck, some aren't. All images in art were new at some time.

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Well, as a surprise in 1437 Ferrara was chosen for a place for an alternative council against Basel. Naturally Greek history naturally became a focussed topic in the teaching of Guarino, when it didn't become before by the choice of Guarino, who had strong Greek interests.

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https://books.google.de/books?id=A0NbDA ... er&f=false

Stephen's info ...
The figure of Alexander may then also be of interest in relation to Leonello's own interest in Alexander. Guarino translated The Life of Alexander the Great for him, and Decembrio reports dialogues between Guarino and Leonello in which anecdotes from Alexander from a variety of sources appear.
... seems not totally correct.
Perhaps Leonello got a personal exemplar of the translation with dedication?

Leonello was first chosen for the condottieri role in the family. Then Ugo died (1425), and Leonello got the role of the oldest surviving son (beside Meliaduse, but Meliaduse had been already chosen for a role in the church career). Naturally Leonello's early education (before Guarino) will have had a focus on military topics.
1422: Leonello, 15 years old, leaves Ferarra, having been sent under the care of Nanni Strozzi to study the art of war at Perugia under the famous condottiere, Braccio da Montone. In the contrast to this Meliaduse (*1406) and Borso are send to studies in Bologna and Padua, probably both dedicated to positions in the church. Ugo, the oldest, is held as a prince (compare: Gardener). So Leonello was seen in the function as the new condottieri in the family plan of Niccolo, probably due to some personal talents as fighter (later Borso got the condottieri role, but failed to do it very impressively and lost a great battle).
http://trionfi.com/leonello-d-este-ferrara
Huck
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No, it does not seem that Guarino translated Plutarch's life of Alexander for Leonello. But that doesn't matter. Guarino did translate it and did tutor Leonello, albeit much later, starting in 1429 and staying the rest of his life (http://italianrenaissanceresources.com/ ... da-verona/)

Moreover Alexander the Great was a figure Leonello styled himself after. Regarding a particular portrait medal for Leonello, we read (https://www.google.com/culturalinstitut ... QrCWHGbBOw), I think from the British Museum:
Leonello was an enthusiastic collector of ancient Greek and Roman coins, and Pisanello designed the medal with this knowledge of the art of antiquity in mind. He subtly idealized the portrait to suggest a similarity to the heads of Hercules wearing his lion-skin that appear on the coins of Alexander the Great (reigned 336-323 BC). These images were believed to be portraits of Alexander himself. Leonello's curly hair takes the place of the lion-skin and it has been modelled rather like a lion's mane, a reference to Leonello's kingly nature (the lion is the king of beasts) and a play on his name, which translates from Italian as 'little lion'.
There is also (it should take you to the right place): https://books.google.com/books?id=mNnNb ... at&f=false

It would be nice to find an explicit connection to the incident with Diogenes. All I can find is that Diogenes is included in Alberti's Momus, done in the 1440s (http://www.san.beck.org/8-1d-ItalianHumanists.html).

However I seem to see a certain likeness between the Alexander on the d'Este card and Leonello's profile:
Image

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... .-) ... well, both have a flat nose.

But if a Leonello Hercules coin would give an argument, that the Este cards would be of 1450, what would we do with the fact, that the commissioner of c. 1473 was named Ercole (Hercules) ?

Leonello instead was named Leonello, and this caused lions on Leonello coins.

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(interpreted otherwise as "cupid teaching a lion to sing")

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Pisanello, Medal of Lionello d’Este, 1444
...
The inventor of the portrait medal, and arguably the greatest exponent of the form, was the distinguished north Italian painter Pisanello (c. 1395-1455). It is thought that his first medal, of the Byzantine Emperor John Paleologus, was made at Ferrara in 1438, under the aegis of the cultivated Leonello d’Este (Marquis of Ferrara, 1441-1450). Leonello himself was the most enthusiastic of Pisanello’s many clients, commissioning no less than six different portrait medals from him. This is the largest (just over 10 cm in diameter) and most beautiful of them, made to commemorate Leonello’s marriage to Maria of Aragon, the daughter of Alfonso, King of Aragon and Naples, in 1444.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/news-learning ... deste-1444

So a Hercules with lion dress could simply also point to the name Lionello.

Generally we have, that Lionello not became famous for actions in Alexander style (conquering many countries), but for peace-making activities, art, culture and scholarship. The circle of 30 students advanced to c. 300 in Lionello's time.

Lionello's court was famous for the interest to sing (Niccolo had many children) ... so "cupid teaching a lion to sing". Borso (not much children at his court) instead loved instrumental music.

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Given to 1441, three-headed Prudentia ? ... (just my idea)

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https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auct ... 5500fa571e

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Given to 1443 ...

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https://de.pinterest.com/pin/529806343638499404/

likely reverse to

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https://de.pinterest.com/florianapalumbo/medaglia/

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Given to c. 1442

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https://books.google.de/books?id=mNnNbv ... at&f=false

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Given to 1440-44

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http://amica.davidrumsey.com/luna/servl ... ~1~1&res=2

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Together with your cat, this are six. Which is the Hercules-Alexander medal ?????????
Huck
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According ...
http://www.coinsoftime.com/Articles/Coi ... Great.html
... this are Hercules coins of Alexander:

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Image

Coin Design
The Alexander coin has Herakles (or Hercules as the Romans called him) on the front (obverse). On the back (reverse) was the supreme god, Zeus, who was the father of Herakles. Zeus sits on his throne holding a scepter and eagle. Although some people have argued the image of Herakles was Alexander himself, there is no convincing evidence of this and the face of Herakles is different in different regions. Herakles was the greatest hero of the Greeks. Born of the Greek god Zeus and made mortal, Herakles attained divine status by accomplishing 12 great tasks on Earth known as the 12 Labors of Herakles. The idea of a man becoming a god obviously was an attractive image for Alexander. The headdress that appears on the head of Herakles is the lion skin of the fierce Nemean lion that was killed by Herakles during his first labor.

...

This is a lifetime issue - 325-323 B.C - The legs of Zeus are side by side)
There are two main styles on the back (reverse). One has Zeus with his legs side by side and another style has one leg behind the other. While most lifetime issues have Zeus with his legs side by side and most posthumous issues have one leg behind the other, it is best to consult a reference book to be sure as there are exceptions.
Huck
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Another point in favour of the earlier dating is that records of Ferrara have numerous examples for production of painted trionfi decks for period 1442 to 1460, but none after 1460 (when purchases of printed decks were the norm, occassionally with use of painters to paint heraldic devices on them, but not completely hand-painted decks). The ease with which printed decks could be obtained at a far cheaper price for what are after all emphemeral items meant there was no need for high cost hand-painted playing cards. Also, there is no indication that any of the numerous painted decks produced for the d'Estes prior to 1460 was made to commemorate anything, such as weddings, but were simply produced for the card playing members of court. The period for Leonello d'Este and Maria d'Aragon falls in the range when hand painted cards were being produced for the court, according to available records; that of Ercole and his Aragon wife is a period far later than any hand painted decks are known to have been produced for the court.
cron