Re: Panegyric of Bruzio Visconti by Bartolomeo da Bologn
Posted: 17 Nov 2016, 09:50
Well, yes a person with Fama has to have virtue, in fact all four of the virtues, not just prudence. Prudence is an intellectual virtue, absolutely necessary but so are the moral virtues. But this card, near the end of the sequence, is about the result of all that, not the means. Fama is the result.
I do see the viper now; it's not easy to make out. I am not convinced that the Visconti viper would signify Prudence even if it took up half the page. Not all snakes represent prudence. Show me another context in which the viper clearly represents prudence. In the Love card, it represents the Visconti, of course.
The CVI card has at least one important attribute of Fama: the world, as where glory spreads and shines. This is in Boccaccio's Amorosa Visione, VI.64-75), Hollander translation:
Et entro l'altre cose ch'ivi scorte
allora furon da me 'ntorno a questa
eccelsa donnam, nimica di morte
nel magnanimo petto, fu ch'a sesta
un cerchio si moveva alto e ritondo,
da' pie passando a lei sovra la testa.
Ne credo che sia cosa in tutto 'I mondo,
villa, paese, dimestico o strano,
che non paresse dentro di quel tondo.
Era sovra costei, in areo piano,
un verso scritto che dicea leggendo:
"Io son la Gloria del popol mondano".
(And among other things which I noticed there
around about this supreme
lady in her magnanimous breast
the enemy of death, was a perfect circle
rotating lofty and round,
from beneath her feet and over her head.
I do not believe there can be anything
in the whole world, town or country, domestic or foreign,
which would not appear in that circle.
Over the lady, in pure gold, there was
a verse which said when one read it:
"I am the Glory of the worldly folk.")
Nearly all the post-1440 Florentine Triumphs of Fame illustrations in Petrarch Trionfi manuscripts and cassone have that circle, probably a two-dimensional description of a globe. See viewtopic.php?f=11&t=858&start=60#p13820 Boccaccio calls it a circle because, in the poem, he is looking at a fresco, perhaps even Giotto's lost fresco in Milan, some have speculated. Usually the illustrations do not put in mountains, etc. probably originallty because they would get in the way of the figure. Usually, if a circle, it is around the figure. Lorenzo's birth tray puts a globe underneath the figure. See also Ross's post at viewtopic.php?f=23&t=404#p5314. For a good world-like circle, there is the Costa Triumph of Fame, http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5e7P4Y3Wo3w/S ... amaCOL.jpg
There is also a similarity (not in Costa, but the others) in what she is holding, not a scepter and a small globe but usually a sword and a book, for the two main types of fame. Fama is also given the peculiar octagonal halo in some illustrations. But the main similarity is the globe or circle, meaning the world, deriving from Boccaccio. I grant that without the trumpet she is not as clear a symbol of Fama as the CY's. Hence the title: "Mondo".
I do see the viper now; it's not easy to make out. I am not convinced that the Visconti viper would signify Prudence even if it took up half the page. Not all snakes represent prudence. Show me another context in which the viper clearly represents prudence. In the Love card, it represents the Visconti, of course.
The CVI card has at least one important attribute of Fama: the world, as where glory spreads and shines. This is in Boccaccio's Amorosa Visione, VI.64-75), Hollander translation:
Et entro l'altre cose ch'ivi scorte
allora furon da me 'ntorno a questa
eccelsa donnam, nimica di morte
nel magnanimo petto, fu ch'a sesta
un cerchio si moveva alto e ritondo,
da' pie passando a lei sovra la testa.
Ne credo che sia cosa in tutto 'I mondo,
villa, paese, dimestico o strano,
che non paresse dentro di quel tondo.
Era sovra costei, in areo piano,
un verso scritto che dicea leggendo:
"Io son la Gloria del popol mondano".
(And among other things which I noticed there
around about this supreme
lady in her magnanimous breast
the enemy of death, was a perfect circle
rotating lofty and round,
from beneath her feet and over her head.
I do not believe there can be anything
in the whole world, town or country, domestic or foreign,
which would not appear in that circle.
Over the lady, in pure gold, there was
a verse which said when one read it:
"I am the Glory of the worldly folk.")
Nearly all the post-1440 Florentine Triumphs of Fame illustrations in Petrarch Trionfi manuscripts and cassone have that circle, probably a two-dimensional description of a globe. See viewtopic.php?f=11&t=858&start=60#p13820 Boccaccio calls it a circle because, in the poem, he is looking at a fresco, perhaps even Giotto's lost fresco in Milan, some have speculated. Usually the illustrations do not put in mountains, etc. probably originallty because they would get in the way of the figure. Usually, if a circle, it is around the figure. Lorenzo's birth tray puts a globe underneath the figure. See also Ross's post at viewtopic.php?f=23&t=404#p5314. For a good world-like circle, there is the Costa Triumph of Fame, http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5e7P4Y3Wo3w/S ... amaCOL.jpg
There is also a similarity (not in Costa, but the others) in what she is holding, not a scepter and a small globe but usually a sword and a book, for the two main types of fame. Fama is also given the peculiar octagonal halo in some illustrations. But the main similarity is the globe or circle, meaning the world, deriving from Boccaccio. I grant that without the trumpet she is not as clear a symbol of Fama as the CY's. Hence the title: "Mondo".