Nathaniel wrote,
The Latin quatrains not only refer directly to several elements visible in them, they also largely read as though they were intended as an explanation of them. By contrast, there is nothing in Robertet's additions to the text (neither his French translations nor the additional bits of Latin, which he can be presumed to have authored too) to suggest that he was responsible for adding any significant elements to the images at all.
If the poems were written with the intent for them to be accompanied by an image, but one not yet realized by an artist, to guide the artist but not limit them, naturally he would not be the one to add anything significant to the images. In that case, they haven't been drawn yet. It is the artist who adds things so as to create an artistically pleasing scene, not the other way around. This is the normal procedure in manuscripts: first the scribe writes the text, leaving space for the image. Then the illuminator does the image. The writer of the verses may not even see it, although in this case he probably did. Also, the artist was not simply illustrating a text; he followed visual precedents in the subject-matter that were often not found in the particular text that went along with the image. The standard Florentine illuminations and cassone paintings on the theme of Petrarch's Trionfi are examples of that practice.
Nathaniel wrote,
the Latin mentions the crown, so that must have been there in the original mid-15th century Italian image.
Where does the Latin mention a crown? Here is Robertet's quatrain, including the vincit after it:
Ip(s)a triu(m)phali sedens regina tropheo
De vetere palma(m) tempore leta gero
Rex Amor atqu(e) pudor inors fama & tempus adibunt
Celeste(m) patria(m) regia n(ost)ra tenet
Eternitas o(mn)ia vincit
Perhaps by "the Latin" you mean the quatrain in the Modena manuscript. It doesn't mention a crown either.
I don't know Latin grammar, so you will have to correct any translation mistakes.
The Queen herself seated in triumph with the trophy
The old palm of slain Time I bear,
King Love and Shame, Death, Fame and Time I assail
Our kingdom holds the celestial country.
Eternity conquers all, overcomes all.
A crown may be implied by her being a queen, but that would be the one she is wearing, not holding.
In the French, a crown is mentioned:
Je suis seant au hault triumphal throsne
Du temps passe porte palme et couronne
Joyeusement comme victorieuse
Sur les choses crees glorieuse
Mondaine amour et chastete pudicque
Mort fame et temps tant soit vieil & anticque
Tout prandra fin mais jay ma mention
Eterne au ciel en clere vision
Eternite vaint tout.
I am seated at the high triumphal throne;
from Time passed I bear palm and crown
Joyfully as victorious
Over glorious created things,
Worldly Love and Pudic Chastity,
Death, Fame and Time, however old and ancient:
Everything will end, but I have my mansion
Eternal in heaven in clear vision.
Eternity conquers all.
Is this crown one she is wearing or one she is holding? It is not clear (the French "porter" fits either); as if to cover his bases, the artist has her wearing one and holding another. As a result, it is not clear whether the verses are talking about a crown she is proffering or one she is wearing. In the first case, it would indicate that she is awarding someone victory. In the second, it would indicate her queenship. The 1490-1500 image suggests that the crown she is holding is being awarded to someone not in the frame. But that is not in the verses. I hadn't noticed that until you pointed it out, so thanks for that. I only disagree with what you make of it. Usually, what is shown in an Eternity scene, when it is one of the Petrarchan six, is God's dominion over everything. The verses replace God with pesonified Eternity, but it comes to the same thing. If the image showed her only wearing a crown and holding a palm frond, that would mean the same. But the second crown conveys, something more like what the Minchiate card conveys, or the Visconti di Modrone World card: salvation to heroes; and the palm frond then conveys the same thing. Anyway, I am quite lost as to what you think the mid-15th century image would have depicted, other than a lady and a crown.
Nathaniel wrote,
I don't find it credible that Robertet would have felt the need to add the palm to go with the crown but at the same time would have written an accompanying French poem with no religious content whatsoever.
I assume you mean adding a palm to the mid-15th century image which had only a crown. Otherwise I don't know what you are talking about. There is no crown in the Latin, unless one on her head is implied by calling her a queen. In the French, he adds mention of a crown, not the palm, probably meaning the crown on her head. The 1490-1500 image adds a crown in her hand to the one mentioned in the French, so that there are two. It seems to me that there is a Christian, or rather Judeo-Christian, religious content to the French and the Latin quatrain: not that of salvation, but simply of the victory of eternity over time: that time will end, unlike the unending time of the pagans.
If the mid-15th century image had a crown in her hand, then yes, it would be surprising that the mid-15th century quatrain didn't mention it. Since it didn't, that's a good reason for assuming that the pre-1447 century image, if there was one, did not show her holding a crown, if the image was first and the quatrain later.
Actually, the salvation of heroes is a pagan theme as well as a Christian one. After Nike hands the palm and the wreath to the hero, she whisks him off to the Isles of the Blessed. In the 1490-1500 image, the only one I know, Eternity gets that role. That theme is acknowledged in the Latin couplet that follows the French:
Tempora Fama Mors Virtus amor efugit omnis
Eternos iubeo vivere sola deos
Please correct me if I have misunderstood:
Time, Fame, Death, Power, Love, all fled,
I command the eternal gods alone to live.
What the second crown does, also giving the palm branch a second meaning (beyond the personification's victory, as in Chastity's palm branch), is the elevation of the hero/martyr to the status that the divinities had in paganism: eternal life.
Nathaniel wrote,
The fact that the Latin quatrain also did not refer directly to the Christian's reward, and does not even mention the palm, is one of several reasons for thinking that the author of the Latin verses also may not have been responsible for designing the images, but was instead simply writing the verses to describe/explain/justify them after their creation by someone else.
Again I don't understand. It does mention the palm, as I've said. It is the crown it doesn't mention, or a second crown in the French. And that the author of the Latin verses may not have been responsible for designing the images is as true before the fact, for Jean Robertet, as for someone else after the fact.
Nathaniel wrote,
Moreover, by failing to highlight the Christian's reward, the Latin author is giving the figure's attributes an unconventional interpretation, just as with Chastity's attributes of palm and bouquet. There is good reason to think that the actual designer of the images would have viewed all these things in a more conventional way.)
I do not think the idea that time will end, or that Eternity rules heaven, is unconventional, which is what the Latin author is saying, no matter who it is. What the quatrain does not express, but is in the 1490-1500 image (because of the two crowns), is the idea that heroes will be rewarded with victory in eternity. That is in the holding of the second crown, as though to reward someone with it and the palm frond. That may be the 1490-1500 artist's addition, by a means that I think is suggested by certain tarot and Minchiate cards. I don't know any other images suggesting such symbolism that could reasonably have been known to the artist. There is the crowning of the Virgin, but that is something else.
I do not see in the Latin verses for Chastity any suggestion that Chastity has a bouquet of flowers - so nothing in them that is unconventional. The flowers in the poem are associated with love. The bouquet is only in the image, where it indeed is quite unconventional. My guess is that the artist (either mid- or late 15th c.) saw the mention of flowers in the poem and may even have seen depictions of Cupid with flowers, such as Barbarino's in the 14th century.
Triumph-of-love-documenta-amoris-barberinoDet.jpg
Another example is Gilles Corrozet, 1540, at
https://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/fren ... id=FCGa010.
Flowers are a customary lover's gift. So the artist probably thought that Chastity's taking his flowers could be another expression of her victory. I cannot account for the flowers any other way - in which case, the image would have been prompted by the poem, which can be Robertet's in the 1470s as much as anybody else's at an earlier time.
You refer to "the actual designer of the images" as someone with more conventional tastes. I assume by "actual designer" you mean the hypothetical designer in mid-15th century, as opposed to the actual designer of the images we see, from 1490-1500. So no flowers in the "actual" original? And no palms? Surely a palm branch held by Chastity is a perfectly conventional symbol for her victory over Cupid.