Re: Anghiari Deck debate

41
Phaeded wrote: Since her primary interests seem to be Florentine civic processions and religious dramas (rappresentazioni), it would be interesting to get her musings on the possible relationship between Anghiari victory celebrations and the St. John procession that took place a week or so before the battle.

Link to her personal webpage with translations of contemporary descriptions of St. John processions in the first half of the 15th century: https://web.archive.org/web/20200218111 ... rence.html

Of special relevance is the fact that cities and towns under the control of Florence had to participate in the St. John’s procession – specifically likened to a ‘triumph’ by contemporaries - and provide a tribute tax in the form of expensive brocade delivered up to the baptistery. One of these tributary cities was none other than the count of Poppi who had sided with Visconti’s forces and lost Poppi for good to Florence. It was the most tangible of the spoils accruing to Florence following the victory of Anghiari (again, Florence later had to later buy San Sepolcro from the Pope). I don’t know how the Florentines could not link the recent procession (St.John must have been prayed to in order to guarantee their victory) which normally featured Poppi, naturally absent in 1440 as in the field with the enemy Piccinino, and the victory that delivered Poppi into their hands.

So the question for Prof. Newbiggin: could the Florentines conceivably have “recycled” triumphal carts and other elements from the St. John’s procession into a victory triumph for Anghiari, and if so, how likely was that? Machiavelli only mentions the victors received back in Florence with “triumphal pomp.”

Some portions of G. Dati’s description, from Newbiggin’s translation, of the St. John’s procession of 1410:
Two months in advance, they begin to make the pallium and the clothes for the servants and the
pennants and the pennants for the trumpets; and the brocade pallia that the Communes tributary cities pay as tax ….On the morning of the feast day of St John, if you go to look at the Piazza de’ Signori, it looks like a marvelous and magnificent triumph…Close by, around the ringhiera of the Palazzo Vecchio, there are a hundred processional banners or more, on their poles, fastened with iron rings: and the first are those of the major cities that pay tribute to the Commune, such as Pisa, Arezzo, Pistoia, Volterra, Cortona, Lucignano, Castiglione Aretino,and the lords of Poppi and Piombino, who are subject to the Commune...
https://web.archive.org/web/20120413215 ... ovanni.pdf
Thanks for the link, I didn't know her page.

Well, she's collecting forms of "triumphal habits", similar to us. I found in one of the presented plays (rappresentazione) a gambling scene (with dice) ...

beside your link to a San Giovanni festivity I found another ...
https://web.archive.org/web/20120413214 ... em1407.pdf

Also this:

The Representation of a Miracle of the Body of Christ
https://web.archive.org/web/20160129201 ... hristi.pdf
page 7-13
The plot serves the 'Jews persecution. It seems related to these pictures of Paolo Uccello. The gambling scene is not presented.
Image
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/u ... index.html
The jew and his family is burned.
Production 1465-69, Urbino. It's the time, when the Monte di pieta (the Franciscan bank system) was started.

Montefeltro (Urbino) participated in leading role at the fights around Volterra (1472), where Jews suffered and Montefeltro made large wins.
This victory involved likely further Jews persecutions.

*********

Another description of a Giovanni festivity between 1451 and 1454:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120413214 ... _Porto.pdf
"edificii" are described, but not very much ... this one seems to address the 3 holy kings:
Then came three kings on horses, richly adorned with great
retinues, and the queens, all adorned in the latest fashions, and behind them came an edificio on
which there were three dead kings and a hermit who was in a cell; and those dead kings talked to the
living ones and they were converted, and it was a beautiful thing.
Well, and here the description of something, which I long have searched for, the 22 edificii in St Giovanni festivity in 1454
https://web.archive.org/web/20120413215 ... on1454.pdf
Well, it has nothing to do with the Tarot sequence, I think.

In the show Nr. 11 appears a Madman, but it seems that he had nothing to do with the festivity, but was out of order and not part of the show. He attacked emperor Octavian (who was part of the show) and he was a strong German and they had difficulties to get him under control. First it was thought, that he belonged to the show.
Show Nr. 12 and 13 related to the 3 Magi.

Show 20 A cavalcade of Three Kings and Queens related to the quick and dead (?)
Show 21 related to the quick and the dead (?)
Show 22 to Last Jugdment with heaven and hell.

Well, one should study this. Please look at the text at the given location.

Thanks, Phaeded, that's a greater progress.

Links often don't work on Newbigin's page, but one finds not working links often with google.

Newgigin parts her collection in 5 larger groups
•the drama of fourteenth-century Umbria
•the spectacle and drama of fifteenth-century Florence
•the Confraternity of the Gonfalone in Renaissance Rome
•the comedy of sixteenth-century Florence
•the comedy of sixteenth-century Siena
https://web.archive.org/web/20200218015 ... /Home.html

From this the second point might mainly meet our interests.

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

Modification in 2023: The links didn't work anymore, I've updated them to links to the archive.org version.
Last edited by Huck on 04 Sep 2023, 12:24, edited 3 times in total.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Anghiari Deck debate

42
Huck wrote: Well, and here the description of something, which I long have searched for, the 22 edificii in St Giovanni festivity in 1454
http://www-personal.usyd.edu.au/~nnew41 ... on1454.pdf
Well, it has nothing to do with the Tarot sequence, I think.

In the show Nr. 11 appears a Madman, but it seems that he had nothing to do with the festivity, but was out of order and not part of the show. He attacked emperor Octavian (who was part of the show) and he was a strong German and they had difficulties to get him under control. First it was thought, that he belonged to the show.
Show Nr. 12 and 13 related to the 3 Magi.
I've been torn on whether the madman was really just someone from the crowd or furtively part of the procession, as indeed the spectators recognized as such (see Palmieri quote below for context).

To wit: by using a non-Florentine for this bit of tomfoolery, the Medici regime could wipe their hands of the affront to Aragon, keeping in mind Aragon had battled Florence for Piombino (another tribute city) in 1448 and was against their ally of Sforza during his war for the dukedom of Milan. But the Peace of Lodi was getting inked in 1454 (when Palmieri observed this St. John’s procession) and so Aragon should have been treated with kid gloves at that time, but at all events it's still a subtle jab (merely equating Aragon with imperial aspirations - note that they used 'Octavian' and not 'Augustus'), however you look at it:
The Arrival of the Madman
And it happened that, when the pageant-wagon was in front of the Signoria, and Octavian had
got off his horse and gone up onto the pageant-wagon, under, or rather, into the temple, to
begin his rappresentazione, there arrived a mad German, wearing just a thin shirt, and at the
foot of the pageant-wagon he asked: “Where is the King of Aragon?” Somebody answered
him: “There he is,” and pointed to Octavian.
The German got up onto the pageant-wagon, and
lots of people thought he was one of the people who had to appear in the festa, so nobody
stopped him. First of all he took the idol that was in the temple and hurled it into the square,
then he turned to Octavian who was dressed in a very rich robe of peacock-purple velvet
embroidered with gold, and took hold of him and tossed him head over heels onto the people
into the square, then he climbed up a column of the temple to get up so some small boys who
were standing on the top of the temple dressed as angels, and when he did so, bystanders
reached him with the maces they had in their hands, and by striking him heavily, with great
difficulty they brought him to the ground, but he got up again, and tried to climb up again
until, struck repeatedly by the maces from above and below, he was finally overcome.
12.A magnificent and triumphant temple for the pageant-wagon of the Magi, in which was
concealed another octagonal temple, with the Virgin and the Christ-Child inside, and Herod
did his rappresentazione around this first temple.
13.Three Magi, with a cavalcade of more than two hundred horses, decorated with great
magnificence, and they came with presents for the Christ-Child.
http://www-personal.usyd.edu.au/~nnew41 ... on1454.pdf

I included the last bit about the 3 Magi as they were closely associated with the Medici at this point - true kings in the service of Christianity (vs. a power-hungry Octavian) whose memory was cherished by the Medici; the Christchild's manger itself kept in San Marco where Cosimo had his private cell.

Finally, this also shows that a nominally religious procession could have significant political overtones.

Phaeded

Re: Anghiari Deck debate

43
Yes, it indeed looks funny.

The Fool has No.11 in the 5x14-theory, based on the 14 cards of PMB-1 (at least according my analyzes). In the whole show we've a march in time, starting with Old Testament to New Testament, finishing with Apocalypse. In the mid we've Octavian, followed by the Magi, which indicate the birth of Jesus.

And Octavian gets a big hit by German Arminus the Cherusker. Who, for what reason ever, asks for the King of Aragon. Short before 1454 Fredrick III. had been in Italy, but arranged his marriage in Naples, reigned by Alfonso of Aragon. Following the production numbers, that we know of the Trionfi decks, the years 1453-1454 look like the peak in the development.

And Florence might be well the place, which increased to number of the trumps, finally to 40+1.
Newbigin speaks of a "reformed Giovanni festivity".

Perhaps it was indeed arranged action, but the organizers of the festivity preferred to keep this in silence.
What happened to this German finally? We don't know it.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Anghiari Deck debate

44
Huck wrote:Perhaps it was indeed arranged action, but the organizers of the festivity preferred to keep this in silence.
What happened to this German finally? We don't know it.
...bystanders reached him with the maces they had in their hands, and by striking him heavily, with great
difficulty they brought him to the ground, but he got up again, and tried to climb up again
until, struck repeatedly by the maces from above and below, he was finally overcome.


He took a beating for proposing chess as the basis for tarot.

;-)

Re: Anghiari Deck debate

45
Matteo Palmieri, who was the observer in 1454, should be this here ...

Image

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matteo_Palmieri

He once (? when) was send as diplomat to Alfonso of Aragon. He had an apothecary shop, which was profitable. Bisticci wrote a biography, perhaps one should look this up.

The observer a few years before (1451-53 ?) had been a Camoldolese abbot, likely a distant successor of Traversari (?), who is called his teacher. He reports no beggar, but also no Octavian. And we know (and they knew, possibly by Biondo Biondi), that a triumphator (Octavian ?) needed a slave or a beggar on his chariot (Albert finished his Momus c. 1450 and he made Momus express, that the beggar would be the best role). The German madman had only a thin shirt, likely clothed rather similar to the PMB-Fool.
Agostini spends most of his text on the show of the Camoldolese order, which has an own part of the celebration, it's not a fair description.
But he notes 3 kings twice ...
Then came three kings on horses, richly adorned with great
retinues, and the queens, all adorned in the latest fashions, and behind them came an edificio on
which there were three dead kings and a hermit who was in a cell; and those dead kings talked to the
living ones and they were converted, and it was a beautiful thing
... 3 kings alive with queens, and three Kings dead. The 3 dead king, who convert the masses, might be well the 3 holy magi, but who are the living kings?
Similar we have in the description of 1454 for 12 and 13 ...
12.A magnificent and triumphant temple for the pageant-wagon of the Magi, in which was
concealed another octagonal temple, with the Virgin and the Christ-Child inside, and Herod
did his rappresentazione around this first temple.
13.Three Magi, with a cavalcade of more than two hundred horses, decorated with great
magnificence, and they came with presents for the Christ-Child.
... but 3 kings with queens etc. appear in No. 20 ...
19.The pageant-wagon of the Assumption of Christ, that is, when he ascended into heaven.
20.A cavalcade of Three Kings and Queens, maidens and nymphs, with dogs and other
appurtenances of the Quick and the Dead.
21.The pageant-wagon of the Quick and the Dead.
... following the Assumption of Christ. I have no idea, who this 3 kings shall be, maybe the idea was, that the 3 Magi where the first, which came back from death?
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Anghiari Deck debate

46
Phaeded wrote: ...bystanders reached him with the maces they had in their hands, and by striking him heavily, with great
difficulty they brought him to the ground, but he got up again, and tried to climb up again
until, struck repeatedly by the maces from above and below, he was finally overcome.


He took a beating for proposing chess as the basis for tarot.

;-)
... :-) ... perhaps he instead proposed to use now 22 cards for the trump-series and one of them should be the Fool.

... but likely it was just the result of some alcohol, as usual at very big festivities. Perhaps he thought, he would be a new John the Baptist (depicted usually in beggars outfit)

Image

http://www.wga.hu/art/d/domenico/venezian/8saints.jpg

It's strange, that the long row of descriptions doesn't include somewhere John the Baptist. Maybe there was some special arrangement in the church of John the Baptist, outside of the march?

Real "prisoners" are noted in some of the descriptions. John had been also a prisoner. I didn't see a note, what happened to them after the show.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Anghiari Deck debate

47
For 1545 - too late for our time - we've this report for the Giovanni festivities:

Florence in the Time of the Medici: Public Celebrations, Politics, and Literature in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
Michel Plaisance
Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2008
https://books.google.de/books?id=yVnuNJ ... ce&f=false

But it contains some more material to the question.

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

Public Life in Renaissance Florence
Richard C. Trexler
Cornell University Press, 1991 - 591 Seiten
https://books.google.de/books?id=JxKwg_ ... hi&f=false
... at p. 254

It describes, that the confraternities (which have rather big importance in the event of 1454) more or less weren't active in outdoor activities till 1390. Then, at the Epiphania-day 6th of January, a group with 3 holy kings marched from the Western outside of Florence a long way through Florence to the Giovanni Baptistery (conversation with Herodes), then to the Ubriachi chapel in Santa Maria Novella (which seems to have been called 3 Magi chapel) and finally to San Marco, where they found the Jesus child. This operation seems to have given an initial effect on the participation of lay people at the religious processions in Florence, which was repeated then very often.
From this point on, the appearance of Florentine confraternities in celebratory ritual increased, their presence finally becoming one o the most characteristic elements of the feast of St. John and other civic celebrations
The whole seems to have been founded by a Baldassare Ubriachi (Baldassare = Balthasar) in the 1360s, a Ghibelline noble man.

From a popular description:
http://www.thatsflorence.com/discoverin ... -florence/
THE FEAST OF ST. JOHN, PATRON SAINT OF FLORENCE

Proof of the fact that many religious holidays have a pagan origin, also comes from the history of the patron saint of Florence, St. John the Baptist. Before his conversion to Christianity, the city’s patron was the god Mars, of which a statue has held out in the city on Ponte Vecchio until the flood of 1333, when the ferocity of the Arno River knocked it down.
The conversion to the new religion took place in the Langobard period, between the VI and VII centuries AD: St. John was already the Patron Saint of that people because of his fighting spirit. From the God of War to the combative Saint, the step was short enough, and this really helped people to get used to the new character with no problems.
So the first celebration of Saint John the Baptist as the patron saint of Florence dates back to the Langobard domination: in the same period St. John Baptistery was built in Piazza del Duomo, there where once stood the temple of Mars. However, only starting from the XIII century the feast of the patron started to be celebrated on the date June 24th.
In the past, the feast of the Patron ended in front of the Baptistery and the nobles of the city were required to bring a big candle richly decorated as a tribute.
So this feast is older, but the procession organization was in the hands of the church. It's interesting, that just the 3 Magi cult seems to have given the initial effect to change the concept.
Perhaps one has to conclude, that the initiative came from North of the Alps, in other words, "somehow" from Cologne.

The author of the above text - Trexler - has otherwise written about the 3 magi
https://books.google.de/books?id=p1EABA ... ce&f=false

I saw, that he agreed with the opinion, that Milan hadn't really a magi cult before early 14th century, but adapted it cause of the great Northern success of the Magi.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Anghiari Deck debate

48
Maybe a good moment to revive his thread. I made an interesting observation once, a longer time ago.

Trevisan became cardinal at 1st of July 1440, that's short after the battle of Anghiari (29th of June 1440).

At the same opportunity Pietro Barbo was elected as cardinal, a 23-year-old nephew of Pope Eugen. 24 years later, 1464, he became Pope Paul II.
I didn't persecute this relationship:

**********

The Day the Renaissance Was Saved: The Battle of Anghiari and da Vinci's Lost Masterpiece
Niccolo Capponi
Melville House, 03.11.2015 - 240 Seiten
https://books.google.de/books?id=NU9fBw ... ri&f=false
Image


The Taste of Conquest: The Rise and Fall of the Three Great Cities of Spice
Michael Krondl
Random House Publishing Group, 28.10.2008 - 318 Seiten
https://books.google.de/books?id=ewNtDr ... ng&f=false
Image


Image


Money and Beauty
AA. VV.
Giunti Editore - 250 Seiten

Image


Image


Another interesting text ... mainly about Pope Paul II as a collector.
https://books.google.de/books?id=j9a9bE ... ng&f=false
Huck
http://trionfi.com