Re: Casa del Petrarca

22
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:"Cosimo De medici had his own copy of The Trionfi by 1418."

"...Cosimo acquired his copy in 1418."

Do I have to take your word for it, or would either or you, Lorredan or Phaeded, care to provide documentation of this assertion?
What I have found is that Cosimo had 63 books in his 1418 inventory. This was published from the manuscript for the first time in 1902, by Fortunato Pintor, in a brief pamphlet titled "La libreria di Cosimo de' Medici nel 1418". It is on the web at Internet Archive -
http://archive.org/details/lalibreriadicosi00pint

Line 64 of the inventory lists "Sonetti di Messer Francesco".

There is no mention of Trionfi in this inventory, either in Cosimo's own library of 63 books, nor the others from his father Giovanni's library (the first three books on the list, "In camera di Giovanni").

From Pintor - Cosimo's are those under the heading "Nello scriptoio di Cosimo" -





The fact that there were 63 is reiterated, for instance, by E. B. Fryde in Humanism and Renaissance Historiography (1983) pp. 162-163 -

Image


Image

Image


Do either of you know more information than is provided in this 1418 inventory of Cosimo's books?
Image

Re: Casa del Petrarca

23
Good finding, Ross.

But the list seems to be from March 1418 (see 3rd line of the Fryde article), so Lorredan's "Trionfi poem acquired in 1418" still had time to happen.
Pope "Martin left Constance at the close of the council (May 1418), but travelled slowly through Italy and lingered at Florence."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Martin_V

The council of Constance was a splendid opportunity for text exchanges ... so likely with the arrival of pope Martin also "new texts" appeared in Italy and the manuscript and copy market should have been more intensive as usual in 1418. For instance the Manilius poem arrived in Italy, which later caused the Palazzo Schifanoia Trionfi scenes.

It's interesting, that Cosimo has only one Petrarca text (No. 64) and its late number in the row (1-66) possibly indicates, that it was acquired recently.

Lorredan's source
Fraser-Jenkins 'Patronage of Architecture and Theory of Magnificence.' is a jstor-article, which I unluckily don't get.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/7 ... 1167631101

But a Medici possession of the Trionfi possession in 1418 makes sense ... Cosimo and Pandolfo Malatesta (Lorredan said, that he also got a Trionfi edition) had been both at the council of Constance, and in Constance appeared emperor Sigismondo. Sigismondo got during the council close to Pietro Paolo Vergerio, who had worked in Padova for the Carrara till 1405 and had then access to the Petrarca material. He is the most remarkable early biographer of Petrarca ... there's an edition of Angelo Solerti, ed. Le vite di Dante, Petrarca e Boccaccio scritte fmo al secolo decimosesto, (1904) p. 294-304, so something of 8-9 pages, and this is not so much. (but it is called the best between all the others; I didn't get an online edition).
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=858&start=10

Pandolfo Malatesta was father to his illegitimate son Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, who got the Giusto Trionfi deck in September 1440 (the earliest Trionfi deck, about which we know). If Lorredan's information is correct, than the son had a private reason to be interested in Trionfi decks (if he had this Trionfi poem in his possession). And Sigismondo appeared a second time in 1452 as interested in the Sforza decks. Perhaps he is the first Trionfi card collector ... just cause the mentioned Trionfi poem version.

He got the name Sigismondo and was born 1417, still during the council. Father Pandolfo was only in 1415 in Constance and he was of importance, cause he declared the resignation of one of the three popes. It seems relative clear from the context, that the son Sigismondo got the name Sigismondo cause of the Emperor Sigismondo.

**************

Well, Pietro Palo Vergerio is of interest. I found a biography of him ...
http://www.archive.org/stream/pierpaolo ... t_djvu.txt
Pierpaolo Vergerio the Elder : the humanist as orator (1996) by McManamon, John M

I'm just studying it.

btw ... it would be nie to get the relevant passage about Cosimo and Pandolfo and their Trionfi poem versions. It might be a keypoint in our questions.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Casa del Petrarca

24
Well first things first…..
Matteo de’Pasti
The letter addressed to Piero in 1441, concerning the young man’s personal commission of a representation of Petrarch’s Triumphs, is perhaps the most straightforward of Artist’s letters to the Medici.
The text and the theme on which the work was based was close to the Patron’s heart; the work itself has been identified by Ames-Lewis as the first important manuscript commissioned by Piero for his magnificent collection. Matteo’s letter from Venice is brief and to the point, announcing that “since I have been in Venice I have learned something that could not be more appropriate for your work” This proved to be a new technique for painting on ground gold “like any other colour, and with it I have started to enrich it, so that you have never seen the like” Describing enthusiastically in detail what he had already done with “the ladies” in the Triumph, presumably of Love, he begged Piero “urgently to send me your notion of the others, so I can visualise them, and if you like, I will send you these” he apparently enclosed a sketch with the request to Piero to “complete it as you wish, and if you like it, send me word to do the other one of Fame, for I have the concept, except that I don’t know whether you want the seated woman in a short gown or in a mantle, as I would like.” He particularly called upon Piero “to let me have something to see” This letter is clear testimony to the liveliness and precision of the verbal and visual exchange between Patron and artist over the application of materials and techniques recommended by the latter, concerning the subject matter, chosen by the patron, but well known to the Artist, who had his own ideas about it. As Matteo continued of the Triumph of Fame “For the rest I know all that is to go into it, that is, the chariot drawn by four Elephants” The issue in question was Piero’s personal preference concerning whether the ancillary figures following should be “shield bearers and girls, or famous men of the past” obviously a choice between the previous model for the representation of the Triumphs known to the Patron and the artist. While the artist also apologised for something he had done, or not done, the main points which emerge from Matteo’s letter are that he is enthusiastic about the commission and his technical discovery, eager to please his patron in every last detail of a project were details mattered, and confident in his ability to produce “something you never saw in the world before”
The letter was published by Milanesi Lettere d’artisti 78-9 and republished by Ames Lewis,
it appears in translation and with comment by Gilbert, Italian Art 6.
~Lorredan
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: Casa del Petrarca

25
Pandolfo Malatesta, learning what was passing in the Paduan territory, and the danger to which Petrarch was exposed, sent to offer him his horses, and an escort to conduct him to Pesaro, which was at that time his residence. He was Lord of Pesaro and Fossombrone. The envoy of Pandolfo found our poet at Padua, and used every argument to second his Lord's invitation; but Petrarch excused himself on account of the state of his health, the insecurity of the highways, and the severity of the weather. Besides, he said that it would be disgraceful to him to leave Padua in the present circumstances, and that it would expose him to the suspicion of cowardice, which he never deserved.

Pandolfo earnestly solicited from Petrarch a copy of his Italian works. Our poet in answer says to him, "I have sent to you by your messenger these trifles which were the amusement of my youth. They have need of all your indulgence. It is shameful for an old man to send you things of this nature; but you have earnestly asked for them, and can I refuse you anything? With what grace could I deny you verses which are current in the streets, and are in the mouth of all the world, who prefer them to the more solid compositions that I have produced in my riper years?" This letter is dated at Padua, on the 4th of January, 1373. Pandolfo Malatesta died a short time after receiving it.
Taken from Petrarchs works/biography and translated by various? With the life of the Poet by Thomas Campbell 1869.
There is also a Malatesta form(spoken of in the Christie catalogue with four images of triumphs) in the vatican Library the Songs and Triumphs both- with some sort of disagreement whether the manuscripts are in the hand of Petrarch himself or a copyist as there is a signature which belies the date taken as usual. It would seem that the manuscripts have been dated at the time of receiving, rather than the date they were produced.
~Lorredan
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: Casa del Petrarca

26
Well, this is another, earlier Pandolfo Malatesta and these works of Petrarca's youth can't have been the "Trionfi poem". Did you meant this "Pandolfo Malatesta"?

It's clear, that Petrarca's work did spread during his life time. The question is about the "Trionfi poem", which wasn't totally ready at the time of his death.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Casa del Petrarca

27
Lorredan wrote:I have found it Huck.
Cosimo De medici had his own copy of The Trionfi by 1418. A splendidly illuminated humanist edition of the text was his son Piero's first commission for an expensive manuscript, and the other son Giovanni used his Father's copy when he went to his villa at Fiesole. (which I read about when at Fiesole and saw 3 copies of the 12 line Triumphs by different hands apparently as letters from Petrarch to his friends) So, it was just like Petrarch's other fragments or trifles- his sonnets- he sent them out peicemeal to his friends. Some people must have received complete sets- because Cosimo had one.(Like Pandolfo Malatesta)
Anyways...as to the letter from Matteo de'Pasti- he was gilding a an image of the Triumphs for Piero(1440/41) and he was checking up on the 1418 version; and later in 1449 Fame was chosen for a 'desco de parto' for the birth of Cosimo's Grandson Lorenzo.
So the letter that Ross quoted is about Piero de Medici's first commission for a manuscript- illuminated or at least gilded by Matteo de Pasti.

~Lorredan
Information comes from Fraser-Jenkins 'Patronage of Architecture andTheory of Magnificence.'
I have just read A. D. Fraser-Jenkins, "Cosimo de' Medici's Patronage of Architecture and the Theory of Magnificence" (Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 33 (1970), pp. 162-170) twice, and I cannot find a single piece of any of the above information in it. Unless my eyes are far worse than I thought - or my mind - this reference says nothing on the subject of Cosimo's manuscripts, illuminated or otherwise.

What is the real source?
Image

Re: Casa del Petrarca

28
Lorredan wrote:Well first things first…..
Matteo de’Pasti
The letter addressed to Piero in 1441, concerning the young man’s personal commission of a representation of Petrarch’s Triumphs, is perhaps the most straightforward of Artist’s letters to the Medici.
The text and the theme on which the work was based was close to the Patron’s heart; the work itself has been identified by Ames-Lewis as the first important manuscript commissioned by Piero for his magnificent collection. Matteo’s letter from Venice is brief and to the point, announcing that “since I have been in Venice I have learned something that could not be more appropriate for your work” This proved to be a new technique for painting on ground gold “like any other colour, and with it I have started to enrich it, so that you have never seen the like” Describing enthusiastically in detail what he had already done with “the ladies” in the Triumph, presumably of Love, he begged Piero “urgently to send me your notion of the others, so I can visualise them, and if you like, I will send you these” he apparently enclosed a sketch with the request to Piero to “complete it as you wish, and if you like it, send me word to do the other one of Fame, for I have the concept, except that I don’t know whether you want the seated woman in a short gown or in a mantle, as I would like.” He particularly called upon Piero “to let me have something to see” This letter is clear testimony to the liveliness and precision of the verbal and visual exchange between Patron and artist over the application of materials and techniques recommended by the latter, concerning the subject matter, chosen by the patron, but well known to the Artist, who had his own ideas about it. As Matteo continued of the Triumph of Fame “For the rest I know all that is to go into it, that is, the chariot drawn by four Elephants” The issue in question was Piero’s personal preference concerning whether the ancillary figures following should be “shield bearers and girls, or famous men of the past” obviously a choice between the previous model for the representation of the Triumphs known to the Patron and the artist. While the artist also apologised for something he had done, or not done, the main points which emerge from Matteo’s letter are that he is enthusiastic about the commission and his technical discovery, eager to please his patron in every last detail of a project were details mattered, and confident in his ability to produce “something you never saw in the world before”
Where is that quote from? It says nothing about a 1418 manuscript being the basis for the 1441 one, in any case.
The letter was published by Milanesi Lettere d’artisti 78-9 and republished by Ames Lewis,
it appears in translation and with comment by Gilbert, Italian Art 6.
~Lorredan
I have also posted the first, Gaetano Milanesi, publication of the letter in 1869 (although without translation), in the Forum, here -
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=858&p=12397&hilit=pasti#p12397

Please share Gilbert's translation if you have it.
Image

Re: Casa del Petrarca

29
Ross,
Wish I could help you out on the 1418 refenece but I was just assuming Lorredan’s reference was correct. At all events the trajectory of this thread has veered far from the question of Marcello/Monselice/Petrarch (which was a dead end) and is headed…where?

The relevant attributes that appear in the trionfi trumps – Time’s hourglass and Fame/The World’s winged trumpet - are in fact not derived from Petarch’s Trionfi texts but were appropriated from other sources and then became associated with the iconographical tradition of illuminating Petrarch’s Trionfi. Since the 1418 manuscript supposedly owned by Cosimo cannot be ascertained and his son’s 1441 version had the images subsequently cut out (and are long gone), how can this line of inquiry possibly help illuminate the origins and themes of the 1440 Anghiari deck?

I do find the origins of the winged trumpet attribute of Fama of the greatest interest. According to Phillip Hardie’s recent study (Rumour and Renown: Representations of Fama in Western Literature, Cambridge, 2012), it was the Gloria frontispieces to Petrach’s De viris illustribus, reproduced on this message board previously, that first show Fame with winged trumpet (as early as 1379: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... y-14th.jpg): “The source of this type is not the text itself of the De viris illustribus: it has been suggested that it derives from a lost fresco by Giotto of Gloria Mondana in the palace of Azzo Visconti in Milan. The Darmstadt variant is also related to the ecphrasis of the painting of ‘la Gloria del popol mondano’ in Boccacio’s Amorosa vision (Canto 6.47-75)….” (616). Hardie further goes on to say that the trumpet attribute is usually traced to Alan of Lille’s Anticlaudianus (9.137-48) and then goes on to cite in a footnote the classical sources for the trumpet or tuba fortunae: “Cic. Fam. 16.21.2 bucinatorem…existinationis meae; Juv. 14.152 foedae bucina famae. The bucina is the curved trumpet; Fame’s trumpet is usually the straight tuba, and an impulse to the bestowal of this attribute may have been images of trumpeters in Roman triumphs….” (620).

Thus the Gloria imagery from one of Petrarch’s works, De viris, was appropriated for a related theme, Fame, contained in a different Petrarchan work, Trionfi (hardly an unlikely sequence of events). But what is most intriguing to me is that Giotto is the likely origin for the motif. We know Giotto’s virtues and vices from the Scrovegni chapel definitely influenced the trionfi cards’ iconography and thus the singular source, Giotto, would help tie Fama to the Virtues and the ubiquitous polygonal halos they wear in the later (1470-80) Florentine “Charles VI” deck. But why wouldn’t the original 1440 Anghiari deck also have shown the World and the Virtues with the same halos, the later deck merely reproducing those attributes? If the World card with winged trumpet (such as we find in the Cary-Yale deck) was already present in the original Anghiari deck (perhaps associated with Santa Maria del Fiore set over a representation of Florence or even Brunelleschi’s recently completed dome) then Lorenzo Magnificent’s famous birth tray featuring Fame was an already established civic icon that his father Piero appropriated as a symbol of the family’s enduring future (i.e., Lorenzo’s destiny to be the famous scion he in fact became). Finally, I would point out that the grandfather, Cosimo, was exiled to Padua (and then Venice) in 1433-34 where he had plenty of time to visit and comtemplate his fellow countryman’s masterpiece there: Giotto’s Scrovegni chapel. Six short years later the Anghiari deck appears with a parallel permanent banishment of Cosimo’s exiled rival Albizzi faction. Cosmio had a reason to connect Giotto and the theme of exile, but in 1440 it was also the most triumphant moment of his career – both external (Visconti) and internal (Albizzi) enemies vanquished, so why not press the works of the most famous artist of his age (although deceased, Giotto still had the most renown) into the triumphal productions that celebrated the victory at Anghiari? My theory is of course that the notary from Anghiari did not invent the trionfi cards but rather ordered a set of something already being produced in Florence to celebrate the battle, as a means to flatter both the powerful Medici and one of their condottiere (Malatesta) associated with the larger campaign against the Visconti.

Phaeded

Re: Casa del Petrarca

30
Phaeded wrote:Huck,
Belated reply (was away for the recent American holiday).

As for the photo of the Euganean Hills from Petrarch’s house in Arqua that wouldn’t load from Flickr– here’s someone else’s photo showing the same, but presumably from the garden (too bad as my photo included the long window frame so the image more properly aped the dimensions of a PMB trump card with the similar mountains on the horizon at the bottom – compare “the Star” for instance):
We get pictures with google images, searching for "Casa del Petrarca", "Arqua" etc. and we can walk through Arqua on the search for Casa del Petrrarca (but I find only a wall with trees behind).
As for your focus on 1440 (mine as well since the Giusto diary reference came to light – I’ve been lurking about this webpage for some time and have been enjoying the fruits of yours and everyone else’s research), I’m not sure how Petrarch’s Trionfi matters in terms of being a template for the earliest trionfi cards, not the least of which is that a series of 6 does not follow any known tarot deck series or subset thereof. Your comment - “My logic dictates, that there should have been persons, who made this new popularity of Petrarca. Marcello might have been one of them” – misses in both time and place: Marcello was in the East of Italy, not Florence, and the first mention of him in association with Monselice is in 1441 (King, 1994: 61).
Thanks for this date, which I searched (King's online edition missed it). The decision to buy Monselice castle, likely didn't happen at one day., so one cannot think of precise dates. Marcello was useful in the war, which took a pause in autumn 1440, likely he got some income through it, and it was possible, that he could buy it. He got the job to care for the connection to Francesco Sforza in 1442. But perhaps Monselice had some function in the plans of Venice, how to care for Sforza, if it would have been necessary that he stayed at Venice territory. Monselice is near to Ferrara and near to Mantova, both had been in the war before not solid in their political decisions. A part of the Sforza army in this region would have given, that, Ferrara and Mantova in future would have been careful, if they should tun against Venice. Niccolo d'Este died end of 1441, did one know, how Leonello would behave in the future?
(does King mention details ?)
And Monselice was more or less the nearest Venetian point to Fermo, where Sforza for the situation "after 1441" was expected to have been located beside his 2nd capital in Cremona.
Well, I don't think, that Marcello participated in the invention of Trionfi cards, but in contacts Venice-Florence he might have played a role. Generally people of Venice didn't perceive themselves as Italians, but Marcello might have had proven much more open-minded for the Italian mind than other persons in Venice and therefore he was used to guard the communications in this direction. Monselice for natural reasons controlled the trading route Bologna/Ferrara - Padova/Venice.
Like the production of Petrarchan-related works of art, this comes right after the earliest known deck of 1440 but one could still posit that the Anghiari triumphal celebrations (or earlier Council of Florence as you would have it) and perhaps related trionfi deck paid for by Giusto inspired the subsequent Petrarchan works. However the very fact that Piero de Medici had to commission a Venetian artist (Matteo de Pasti) in 1441 - while Giusto specifically mentions commissioning his deck in Florence - militates against the idea that Petrarch’s Trionfi were in any way a common production in Florence before 1440 (and there is nothing to suggest anything happened in the intervening period from the time Cosimo acquired his copy in 1418). The auction house listing for one of those works clearly illuminates why Florence became interested in Petrach: “The Visconti were likely to have regarded themselves as having a particularly close association with Petrarch for the poet was for many years the friend and protégé of successive Visconti lords of Milan.” After the 1440 defeat of the Visconti-backed Albizzi exiles at Anghiari it became a point of civic pride to reclaim one of the “three crowns” for the Medici regime (that influential Florence helped spread the fashion for Petrarch in the Quattrocentro to other cities is unsurprising but still not relative to the earliest 1440 deck).
Thanks, you know the situation quite well, and even the newest developments are not foreign to you. You are a careful reader.
Well, there are a few things between 1418 - 1440:

1418: new pope in Milan, likely new books in Italy and other general influences from the council of Constance.
1423: Jubilee year ... which should mean traffic and tourism and festivities.
1423: Triumphal festivity by Alfonso and Jeanne of Naples. Two weeks later the both have war with each other.
1424: Philodoxus of Alberti, theater play in Bologna. Twice are mentioned "triumphal processions".
1425: Trionfi of Filippo Maria Visconti in Milan
1431-33: Emperor Sigismondo in Italy
1433: Masquerade with Greek gods in Ferrara, possibly in relation to a wedding between a Parisina daughter and young Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta.
(Generally the period 1425-1440 must be regarded as a time of war, which with only short pauses didn't allow too much festivities.)
1438: Council in Ferrara
1439: Council in Florence

So there is a sort of period with triumphal activities 1423-1425, possibly triggered by the Jubilee year, but it's likely not really comparable to the 1450 Jubilee event.
Finally, to get back to your original point, Marcello, despite the large corpus of literary and artistic works commissioned and gifted to him, only had one work associated with him that is (very loosely) connected to Petrach’s Trionfi. But this is a literary gift from a Fortebraccio celebrating Marcello’s deeds and merely alludes to his life’s achievements as a series of “triumphs” a’la Petrarch and dates from after 1458 (King, 1994: 51).
Likely Carlo Fortebraccio, condottiero, son of Braccio, the earlier great condottiero opposed to Muzio Attendola. I don't get the passage from the online edition. Do you have details about this passage?
Fortebraccio has a biography at condottieridiventura:
http://www.condottieridiventura.it/cond ... ONTONE.htm
He had been in the Veneto 1458, accompanying Colleoni.
Huck
http://trionfi.com
cron