Pre-Petrarchian Triumphal Chariots
Posted: 16 Oct 2012, 19:09
Hi, Huck,
http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.com/2008/03 ... -of-5.html
Medieval Triumphs
http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.com/2009/01 ... -of-5.html
The first one should also have included at least one picture of an ancient coin with Nike and a charioteer driving a biga or quadriga.
Best regards,
Michael
P.S. Here are a few more early triumphal pics, two of them from manuscripts of Petrarch. (Thanks to Ross for pointing out the article from which they were copied: Triumphal Processions in Italian Renaissance Book Illumination, and Further Sources for Andrea Mantegna’s Triumphs of Caesar, 2008, by Lilian Armstrong.)
Triumph of Caesar, Liber ystoriarum Romanorum, ca. 1300
Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, MS 151, fol. 90v
Darmstadt, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, MS 101, fol. 53v
Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum, MS G.46, fol. 28r
A few years ago I began a series of posts on triumphalism, from ancient times to the 17th century, with particular emphasis on the use of a chariot as one symbol of triumph. Only two of the five essays got posted, but you might find something interesting in them. Here was the outline of the series, which includes pointers to other sources of interest.Huck wrote:maybe this is of interest: I saw the remark (I don't know about the "where" in the moment), that Dante had his lover Beatrice on a triumphal chariot and this would be the first appearance. I remember no remark about any connected early pictures, but later there is at least one.
Here's a Giotto picture in San Francesco of Assissi context " "Legend of St. Francis: 8. Vision of the Flaming Chariot"...
Ancient TriumphsI'm going to discuss triumphalism and related iconographic motifs in five posts, although the division is naturally somewhat arbitrary. For example, Helios in his chariot continued to be depicted in the Middle Ages as a holdover from ancient times; but it was also a precursor of the Renaissance fondness of the quadriga and a cognate for medieval images of Elijah's fiery translation. This first post will deal with ancient Roman triumphs a bit, with quotes from Margaret Ann Zaho's Imago Triumphalis. The second post will examine the transmission and transition of triumphal motifs in medieval Christian works beginning with Prudentius' Psychomachia, the most prominent early Christian example outside of the Bible (which I'm largely ignoring). It will continue through Pope Innocent III, Dante, and Giotto in the early 14th Century. Petrarch's Triumphs: Allegory and Spectacle, edited by Konrad Eisenbichler and Amilcare A. Iannucci will be the source for much of that. The third post will talk about the revival of triumphalism in the later 14th Century as allegory (i.e., Triumph of Death frescoes), as homage (i.e., Cola di Rienzi's 1354 entry into Rome), and as literary devices in Boccaccio and Petrarch. This too will rely largely on Petrarch's Triumphs. The fourth post will present some material on Renaissance triumphalism in Italy, the fashion for trionfi in the 15th and 16th centuries. This will draw mainly from Imago Triumphalis but also including comments and images regarding Durer and Mantegna. The fifth post will show some images of 17th-century German pageant wagons which illustrate how allegorical figures in such a procession might have appeared at the time Tarot was invented. Those images are from Triumphal Shews: Tournaments at German-speaking Courts in their European Context 1560-1730, by Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly.
http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.com/2008/03 ... -of-5.html
Medieval Triumphs
http://pre-gebelin.blogspot.com/2009/01 ... -of-5.html
The first one should also have included at least one picture of an ancient coin with Nike and a charioteer driving a biga or quadriga.
Best regards,
Michael
P.S. Here are a few more early triumphal pics, two of them from manuscripts of Petrarch. (Thanks to Ross for pointing out the article from which they were copied: Triumphal Processions in Italian Renaissance Book Illumination, and Further Sources for Andrea Mantegna’s Triumphs of Caesar, 2008, by Lilian Armstrong.)
Triumph of Caesar, Liber ystoriarum Romanorum, ca. 1300
Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, MS 151, fol. 90v
Triumph of Scipio Aftricanus (Jacopo di Paolo?), Libro degli uomini famosi, ca. 1400
Darmstadt, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, MS 101, fol. 53v
Triumph of Scipio Africanus (Cristoforo Cortese), Libro degli uomini famosi, ca. 1415
Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum, MS G.46, fol. 28r