Lorredan wrote:P.s Filelfo is a cousin of Leonardo.
Leonado da Vinci ????? ... very unlikely. Filelfo was 54 years older than Leonardo. Leonardo was born near Florence, Filelfo in Tolentino near Ancona.
Wikipedia states: "He is believed to be a third cousin of Leonardo Da Vinci." "It is believed" is different to "it is" and "third cousins" are something different as "cousins". Well, if you have extreme familiary relationships like me, you can have astonishing much uncles and aunts of second degree. From my father alone I counted once 64 with 9 survivng children from one side (23 uncles and aunts) and 9 from the other in the grandparent families (41) - both from the period c. 1890, when the wave of European overpopulation was at its height.
This naturally makes a lot of cousins 2nd degree. If you go one step further to 3rd degree you easily might have a greater village population ... :-) ... all cousins. Reality is: you don't know these persons usually.
Naturally, if you've a smaller family configuration, this is a big difference. But Filelfo himself had 3 wives and a myriad of own children and a further myriad of grandchildren, and likely not the time to look after 3rd degree 54-years-younger cousins. Perhaps Leonardo knew about the relationship, cause a famous relative like Filelfo naturally captured some attention of the younger.
yes Huck I have a picture supposedly from the original Sforziad. I am conflicted on the authenticity.
I was under the impression that Francesco Filelfo's Heroic verse (apparently bad) was in Latin and it was not illuminated. It is in a book called "Italian Renaissance Illuminations" and the little corner of script you can see looks like Italian to me. Anyway the figure is tiny- but it looks like Pan in rags- instead of Harp has Club/cudgel- not hairy- does not have tail or cloven hoof- has hair like madwoman. The clothes look like clasical toga in tatters. It is not of the quality of the illuminations of Lodivico's later Sforziad. So I do not know really.
As if the picture would become better, at it is, if Leonardo painted it...
My sentiments exactly- but then I do not own it.
Now I have a question.
Is it beyond the realms of possibility that Filelfo had the Visconti cards tacked around his study as he apparently had finished his 1st book on the epic by 1451? I have not been able to find anything other in English than that he started with "Jove and his Lightening"
Basino Busini of Parma had finished his epic Poem (Hesperis) for Malatesta at the same time.
I believe Filelfo was in Milan at the time when Malatesta asked for a deck in 1440.
With his high living one would wonder if he bought Mamluk cards for gambling with him from his employment in Venice and Constantinople etc. I keep thinking he is some sort of gateway into Tarot.
~Lorredan
We made a lot about Filelfo in the Plethon-thread ...
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=160976
... and it is completely hopeless to bite with the researcher teeth in questions like "who made the tackholes". It's not so, that only the Visconti-Sforza cards had tackholes. Perhaps the tackholes were used in the production process.
Filelfo was 1440 more in Bologna. See Plethon thread. The colorful Mamluk cards are from late 15th century. And the Ottomans hadn't conquered Constantinople.
Filelfo wrote about Petrarca, that's probable of some more relevance, but he started this relatively late, around 1444.
I personally see not the one and only gateway to Tarot as Michael and Ross search it, I see many gateways. Filelfo took a position in the development of the Trionfi poem reception. And the Trionfi poem is naturally an important point for the early development of the Trionfi cards. Sforziad graphic of the 1490s is likely "too late".
Generally we have a lot to learn through the recent development:
http://trionfi.com/franco-pratesi
The number of early documents is increased by more than 100% in the last half year. The focus has shifted from Milan/Ferrara to Florence.
We've now the first Trionfi note in Florence, short after the battle of Anghiari ... which was a Florentine "Triumph".