Now I want to add that Michael has slightly changed the information about the 2nd oldest extant Triumph of Fame (or Fama, Gloria etc.), at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... detail.jpg.
He now has "c. 1380" instead of "c. 1388," based on information that I sent him. One piece is from a 1984 BNF book, Dix Siecles d'Illuminure Italienne, by Avril et al, p. 89. Here is my scan (click on the image to make it clearer):
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pzqcxlnUylk/U ... 984p89.JPG
That dating was endorsed by Kirsch, 1991, in Five Manuscripts of Giangaleazzo Visconti, Fig. 1, http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6W1e6E4FSAk/U ... 91fig1.JPG
Whatever the exact date, it was certainly before 1388, when Giangaleazzo Visconti conquered Padua and seized the manuscripts, as Avril ("saisi en 1388") and Kirsch (p. 3) point out. But it is more likely close in time to the other manuscript; hence the "c. 1380."
Also, instead of "artist unknown" Michael now has "attributed to Altichiero," again based on information I sent him. Actually, in my view it would be better to say "attributed to Altichiero or his circle," because those making the attribution say either both "Altichiero" and "circle of Altichiero" (Kirsch) or "Altichiero workshop" (Richards). Kirsch has "Altichiero" in the caption to her Fig. 1, above. But in footnote 42, p. 82, she has "circle of Altichiero", for the apparent reason that the 1379 illumination, on which the c. 1388 is based, is reminiscent of the work of Jacopo Avanzo, an associate of Altichiero's: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A5WxDm5KFe8/U ... 991p82.JPG
A second source is the caption for the picture of the c. 1380 in John Richards' Altichiero: an artist and his patrons in the Italian trecento, 2000. He has "Altichiero workshop":
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SLUS4IC-uxU/U ... dsPl37.JPG. In his case, Richards (pp. 125-126) gives reasons for thinking that this c. 1380 illumination is by an assistant, and the 1379, of higher quality and earlier, is by Altichiero himself.
A third source, referenced by Richards, is Robin Simon, "Altichiero vs. Avanzo," in Papers of the British School at Rome 45 (1977), pp. 252-271. Simon (p. 268) says that the frontispiece of the 1379 (6069F) "is now widely accepted as Altichiero's." Simon adds that the attribution to Altichiero of the other frontispiece (6069I, which I am calling "c. 1380") is "less certain". Also (pp. 269-270):
How much later? Simon quotes Shorr: "probably toward the end of the century." But surely before 1388! The newer sources give "c. 1380." Avril et al and Kirsch, who give this dating, do not give a reason why. For that I turn to Richards (p. 125), who does not actually give a dating, except after the 1379. He says the book was part of the same project as the 1379, and that it shows signs of being done hurridly:This version is lower in quality and although dependent from Cod. Lat. 6069F it also differs sufficiently, iconographically, to distance it from the Altichiero version executed for Lombardo della Seta and confirm that it should be dated rather later.
Whoever the artist was, it is part of the outcome of the frescoes of the Sala Virorum Illustrium (or Sala dei Gigante) in the Palazzo Carrara of Padua, all of which except one--its portrait of Petrarch--were lost in an early 16th century fire. These frescoes, overwhelmingly associated with Altichiero, in turn illustrated Petrarch's De Viris Illustribus (the book to which our illuminations are the frontispiece). Petrarch himself, a friend of Francesco da Carrara (il Vecchio, I think), started to write a program for these frescoes, the so-called Compendium). The project was overseen by Lombardo della Seta, Petrarch's secretary (This is in Richards, Chapter 4, among other places. For background on Carrara, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carraresi.) It is unclear whether there was actually a fresco in the Sala portraying the Triumph of Fame, as opposed to triumphs of various individuals. Richards, as against Theodore Mommsen (1952), says there was no room, given Mommsen's reconstruction. For our purposes, it makes little difference. There is no "Triumph of Fame" section in the DVI, just biographies of illustrious individuals.Volume 6069I uses unrevised, corrupt, and occasionally incoherent, texts of various parts of the DVI [De Viris Illustribus]. It is clear that Lombardo was only concerned in this case to make the older version available in a decent volume, without wasting any time on textual niceties. What probably happened is that Francesco da Carrara, who had presumably discussed the genesis and history of the DVI with Petrarch (the two men had developed a close friendship), asked for a copy of the older version to go with his copy of the final text.
Richards points out a detail in the c. 1380 illumination (not in the 1379) that he considers taken from Petrarch's "Triumph of Fame" and which is not in Boccaccio, nor described in accounts of the 1335 Giotto fresco in Milan: it is what Richards (p. 132) calls the "beams of light" in the illumination, corresponding in Petrarch to the rays of an unseen sun lighting up the sky and the morning star Venus (http://petrarch.petersadlon.com/read_tr ... e=IV-I.txt).
(http://petrarch.petersadlon.com/read_tr ... ge=IV-I.en)Quale in sul giorno un'amorosa stella
suol venir d'orïente inanzi al sole
che s'accompagna volentier con ella,
cotal venia; et oh! di quali scole
verrà 'l maestro che descriva a pieno
quel ch'io vo' dir in semplici parole?
Era d'intorno il ciel tanto sereno,
che per tutto 'l desir ch'ardea nel core
l'occhio mio non potea non venir meno.
(As at the break of day an amorous star
Comes from the east before the rising sun,
Who gladly enters her companionship,
Thus came she. From what rhetoricians' school
Shall come the master who could fully tell
What I shall only tell in simple words?
The sky all round about was now so bright
My eyes were vanquished by its brilliancy,
In spite of the desire that filled my heart.)
So we have http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... detail.jpg
There is nothing like these rays in Boccaccio, who has her instead "with a mighty circle all enclosed" (see my lengthy quote at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=858&p=13327&hilit=Boccaccio#p13327). Boccaccio's circle, which Petrarch doesn't mention, is also in this particular illumination, as a lunette (but not in the earlier one, unless you count the white space around her). The illumination seems to combine aspects of both authors. The Florentine depictions of the Triumph of Fame tend to have only Boccaccio's circle, and sometimes leave out even that.
I notice another detail (besides the car and the laurels--which perhaps in Petrarch can be assumed, as Richards suggests) that might be closer to Boccaccio (I say "might" because I don't know either poet well): Fama, in the illuminations, has far fewer laurels than there are riders to receive them. This might suggest that only a few have sufficient virtue to win the carefully aimed laurel. On the other hand, if she is just throwing them into the throng, it could be partly a matter of chance who gets them, among those with sufficient virtue. That might suggest that Fama is neither the same as Renown (which one can have with only the appearance of virtue) nor a matter only of a life with Virtue, but also, for this-worldly Fama, a certain amount of luck: Fortuna, the last and most powerful of the terrestrial Triumphs in Bocaccio's sequence, which starts with Wisdom, then Terrestrial Glory, Wealth, Love, and Fortune (and her servant Death, says Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorosa_visione). At the end there might be another Triumph as well: Celestial Love.
As reflected in the CY tarot, seeing it as an upward sequence as in Petrarch, this might mean that Fortuna must be attained, as well as the Virtues, in order to attain Fama. So I add this to my reasons for considering Fortuna as a missing card in the CY (the other reasons being that it is in the Brera-Brambrilla, a deck in the same style as the CY; that Fortune is a prominent theme in medieval literature; and that luck plays an educational role in the game).
One last comment: looking once more at Callman (1973), I see that she is the one who mixed up the two images, the c. 1379 (6069F) and the c. 1380 (6069I), not Shorr, not Michael, and not me originally (although later I thought I had). The captions on her pictures, as I showed, should be switched. That was driving me crazy!