The Grand Design of Francesco Sforza

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78 was a result of a period of growth and experiment….. Then those who hope to find a ‘master plan’ or a ‘grand design’ behind 22 trumps that have come down to us are necessarily doomed to failure. Quite simply there never was one. (John Berry)
I do not believe this- even for 15/16/20 /22 cards, nor do I believe that the game was an experiment in Chess Tarot.
For this exercise I have taken the 14 (edited for a mistake) cards of one painter in the Visconti Sforza PMB, but my scenario could well apply to what we have left of the Cary-Yale and to a certain extent the CharlesV1 cards .
There does not seem to be rules for how a game was played with these early ‘Trumping’ hand painted cards- nor were they numbered or titled.

The story starts with Borromeo family of Earls who owned the land North west of Milan and is now called 7.8.9, districts of Milan and whose centre was a municipality called Lainate. It had on it one of 16 hospitals-(the small hospital of mercy) around Milan, Saint Ambrose Monastery, Clarisse or Poor Clare Convent -a small canal for transporting goods into Milan, hamlets, communes, food storage and production, and access to Lake Como area. There are extant deeds showing feudal ownership to the Borromeo Family. When the political troubles connected to the end of the Visconti rule- the rise of the Ambrosian Republic- Vitaliano Borromeo had his rights confirmed by Francesco Sforza and he then had to take an oath of Loyalty to Sforza and all his lands became Sforza property. Before that it was Visconti property although the feudal system allowed the Borromeo’s to tax and make profit that they had Lordship over.The Fuedal alligence was to Filipo Visconti and Maria of Savoy in legal terms.

So when Sforza decides to embark on an ambitious project the benfactor was originally Borromeo (his rings can be seen on the dress of the cards we call the Emperor and Empress- who were I propose Visconti and his daughter Bianca and Saint Ambrose because of the Monastery and a Clarrise Nun because of the Convent attached to the original Hospital. So all the money that the Borromeo family made on their land was used to support this grand scheme, of which we are told the Sforza dynasty were always grateful to the Borromeos. After all He was treasurer of Milan in 1418 and Chamberlain to Visconti and his clever manipulations increased the Duchy finances.

The Ambrosian Republic issued an act called ’pro Hospitalibus et Pauperibus alogiandis’ to increase resources, control the administrations of 16 hospitals - 7 of which were run by the Church which in taking these over had clear benefit, and getting the money from the feudal Lords where the those other hospitals were. The Ambrosian Republic did not last long and so Sforza decided to form the institution called ‘Annunciata’
It had practical reasoning as well.
The recurrent plague epidemics, since the "great death" in 1348, deeply affected the survival balance of a city, lack of hygiene and an increasing number of poor and sick people were the mirror reflecting newly made riches and fortunes. These strata of people were newly made riches and fortunes. These strata of people were considered dangerous, not only as carriers of diseases, but also as potential underminers of the established and solid order. The social control on these troubles was possible thanks to the care that the rising classes, through a philanthropic aristocracy and a charitable clergy, devoted to organizations aimed at helping, giving assistance, healing, as well as controlling, watching, preventing.
So we have Ospedale Maggiore Hospital started in 1456 and incorporated numerous Welfare organisations; and three years later (1459)with much pomp and ceremony Pious11 ratified the decision and instituted a special indulgence which is still to this day celebrated bi- annually.
It is called ‘Festa del perdono’ to be held on the Feast of the Annunziation 25 March.
Now perhaps you understand the sale of Indulgence - but this is what a plenary indulgence required…
it is granted to all who visit the chapel at The Ospedale Maggiore, leaving a tangible evidence of your faith.
At the same time there was much trouble over the poverty of Banishment and fact that when you were exiled as Dante was for example all your goods and money were confiscated. So you could be granted an Indulgence (paid for involuntarily ) and could come back into the city. Great Fundraising! It is called the Wheel of Fortune. Reason and Time. It is the biblical Good Thief or Saint Dismas- you will be allowed into heaven. At the resurrection- this is your indulgence- not that you have had your sin wiped, but that you have had your punishment wiped.
Later it was said- This 'Feast of Forgiveness' is nothing but the Feast of Milan’s City hospital, held with the support of the Head of State, which takes place over several days, involving the most important regional and Municipal Authorities.

Next Post all about the Ca’Grande and who designed it, the fundraising in 1456 till now and the possible extension of 6 cards by new Artist.
~Lorredan
Last edited by Lorredan on 22 Jul 2012, 04:57, edited 1 time in total.
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: The Grand Design of Francesco Sforza

2
Lorredan wrote:
78 was a result of a period of growth and experiment….. Then those who hope to find a ‘master plan’ or a ‘grand design’ behind 22 trumps that have come down to us are necessarily doomed to failure. Quite simply there never was one. (John Berry)
I do not believe this- even for 15/16/20 /22 cards, nor do I believe that the game was an experiment in Chess Tarot.
For this exercise I have taken the 15 cards of one painter in the Visconti Sforza PMB, but my scenario could well apply to what we have left of the Cary-Yale and to a certain extent the CharlesV1 cards .
There does not seem to be rules for how a game was played with these early ‘Trumping’ hand painted cards- nor were they numbered or titled.
The first painter of PMB made 14 cards, not 15. The only rules we have for the early time are those of the Michelino deck text (Martiano da Tortona) ... and these have not much text, so can't be called "complete rules" - likely. Generally there is not so much about card game rules in 15th century.

Btw. the elder Borromeo (Vitaliano) was already dead in 1449. So he didn't live, when Sforza ruled the city.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borromeo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitaliano_I_Borromeo
"As a staunch Ghibelline, he hosted a conspiracy in February 1449 against the dictator Carlo Gonzaga, led by his friends Giorgio Lampugnano and Teodoro Bossi. The conspiracy was discovered, and while Lampugnano and Cotti were killed, Borromeo fled to Arona."
But he seems to have worked against the Milan government, when Sforza attacked the city in 1449.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: The Grand Design of Francesco Sforza

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The extant deed says this....
"Filippo Maria Angelo, Duke of Milan, Earl of Pavia and Angera, as a special favour granted by our Lordship, being our will the satisfaction of wise Vitaliano, we assign, and we bid that, in future times, is assigned to Borromei...."this is the beginning of the deed dated September 14th, 1439, by means of which Visconti gives Vitaliano Borromeo the feud including Arona lands and castle in its entirety, as a reward for his remarkable support.

Another copy says September 14th 1430.
....the Borromeos trace their origins to the 15th century, when Vitaliano I, treasurer to the Duke of Milan, began amassing a fortune and accumulating enormous amounts of property.
The origin of the Borromeo family of Milan, Italy is actually the Vitaliani family of Padua, Italy. The “separation” occured in 1416, when Vitaliano Borromeo I adopted the new surname “Borromeo.” that belonged to his mother
You are right it was the son Fillipo who Sforza Made a Golden Knight and had his rights ratified though his father' name the 'wise Vitaliano' of the original deed. The fleeing was to his own land. I believe he came back to the city by 1456.
~Lorredan
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: The Grand Design of Francesco Sforza

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

the name of the act ’pro Hospitalibus et Pauperibus alogiandis’ = whom we call the Fool/The Pauper

The granter of Indulgences via Pope Pious = whom we call the Magician or Bateleur

The Original Donors of the site = whom we call Papesse/Empress/Emperor/Pope- interesting that name Papesse as I think it was SteveM years ago who spoke of Pap the breast milk as the Lay nuns would breast feed orphans at the Hospital. So Clarrise or lay nuns, Bianca and her father, and Saint Ambrose.

The settlers of the land via feudal grants Visconti and Maria of Savoy or Sforza and Bianca= whom we call the Lovers.

Mary of Grace, the feast of the Annuciation -the Sforza deed of Annunciata Institution, carrying the Hospital emblem of the Dove in the Cary-Yale =whom we call the Chariot.

Lady Justice protected by a Knight= whom we call Justice
Canonists, at the same time, began to define the legal status of poor persons; they concluded that, because poverty itself was not a moral evil, individuals so afflicted should not be deprived of their legal rights. The Church, for its part, came to accept a special duty to protect miserabiles personae, or poor wretches -- namely, widows, orphans, the blind, the mutilated, and those debilitated by long disease. Out of this developed in the early thirteenth century the theory that the poor had a right to help from the patrimony of the Church, which represented the common property of the community, as well as from the superfluities of individuals. Michel Mollat argues that the gift economy of the early Middle Ages had thus given way to an economy of moral restitution, according to which the poor, viewed in the image of the suffering Christ, had a right in both charity and justice to material assistance.~Bollard
~Lorredan
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: The Grand Design of Francesco Sforza

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Yes,
the important man was Vitaliano (who made the big family-success under and with Filippo Maria Visconti), who likely was part of the "hidden Sforza party" in Milan in 1449. So Francesco Sforza was thankful to his heirs. It seems plausible, that Borromeo made a lot of money with "trade with the North", cause he dominated the region of an important trading way. But Wikipedia mentions also connections .
The Family
In 1434, the powerful Borromei family of Milan decided to establish a bank at Bruges to handle their growing exchange and commercial business with northern Europe. The advantages of setting up a branch of that bank in London soon became apparent. The main axes of the Borromeis banking operations were Venice-London-Bruges, Genoa-London-Bruges and Barcelona (where they also had a bank)-London-Bruges. Before 1434 all their activities in Bruges and London had to be handled by agents acting for them there, notably other members of the Borromei family.

Now, in 1434-36 Filippo Borromei & co. of Bruges and Filippo Borromei & co of London were established. Both continued to trade in one form or another until at least the early 1450s, selling expensive silk cloths to their clients in London and exporting cloth, wool and tin from England, but mostly sending money to and fro across Europe, to Venice, Genoa, Florence, the papal court, Barcelona, Valencia, Montpellier, Avignon, Basel, Geneva, Middleburg, Bergen-op-Zoom, Antwerp and Cologne. Their clients were other major Italian banking companies, English, Flemish, Dutch, German and Spanish merchants, and private individuals such as a notable English commander in the French campaigns of the 1420s, Sir Thomas Rempston, who paid part of his ransom to his captor Tanguy du Chastel through Filippo Borromei & co. of London.
http://www.history.qmul.ac.uk/research/ ... index.html

Barcelona belonged to Aragon, and this connection was possibly given, cause Filippo Maria had captured Alfonso in 1435. The Northern connections likely go back to the dominant position at Lago Maggiore.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: The Grand Design of Francesco Sforza

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http://www.tamtamtravel.it/opera/CA_GRA ... ggiore-599

This might show the size and grandness of the design.You can see some Clarisse Nuns centre picture.
http://www.policlinico.mi.it/eventi/fes ... esta05.htm

here in the 1700's you can see the Festa del Pardono or festival of forgiveness still going strong
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=ospedale ... s:10,i:112
The design was by Antonio di Pietro Averlino (c. 1400 – c. 1469), also "Averulino", known as Filarete (from φιλάρετος, Greek for "lover of excellence"), was a Florentine Renaissance architect, sculptor and architectural theorist. He is perhaps best remembered for his design of the ideal city of Sforzinda, the first ideal city plan of the Renaissance.....The most famous part of his book is his plan for Sforzinda, an ideal city named after Francesco Sforza, then Duke of Milan. Although Sforzinda was never built, certain aspects of its design are described in considerable detail. The basic layout of the city is an eight point star, created by overlaying two squares so that all the corners were equidistant. This shape is then inscribed within a perfect circular moat. This shape is iconographic and probably ties to Filarete’s interest in magic and astrology
Wikipedia
His book was published in 1464, but it seems that Sforza may have had this section at least four years earlier
and in my view maybe the reason for the 6 new cards to add to the 14. The world card looks like a version of Sforzinda with eight Towers and what we call the Strength card is very Sforzinda as well.
~Lorredan
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: The Grand Design of Francesco Sforza

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That is true Huck- but it was planned to have 8 towers- count the towers on the PMB World card 8 + one on centre building- I always thought it could be Certosa of Pavia- I think it is the artist's impression of the centre of Sforzina . It is not a City of God nor the centre of the Ospedale Maggiore as it stands.
http://www.sforzinda.com/english/idealcity.html

here is the plan for the centre buiding of the Ospedale lol.....it now looks nothing like it.
http://rometour.org/filarete-1400-1469- ... rlino.html
So what are we left with? It is like those people reconstructing the Ark from biblical dimensions.
~Lorredan
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: The Grand Design of Francesco Sforza

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I hear you say (or maybe an echo in my head :ymsigh: ) what about that new card Temperance?
Well a part of Temperance is restraint and self control and therefore 'forgiveness'.
Fortitude and Temperance belong together.
The trait of Temperance is characterized by “forgiving those who have done wrong, accepting the shortcomings of others, giving people a second chance, and not being vengeful.
So in the Cary-Yale there are the Christian Virtues of Faith Hope and Charity + Strength which is also restraint in it's depiction (Temperance) but maybe that was not clear enough for Sforza as he had changed Strength's depiction.
These Virtues are three. Justice in the 14 or the original set and the two others are added by new artist and just as applicable to Ca' Grande as the Faith Hope and Charity in the Cary Yale. Then instead of Faith Hope and Charity you have the Moon, Star and Sun which can be seen as iconology of the three Virtues.
Where is Prudence? Is she Reason at the centre of the WOF? Is she not needed because the scheme is Prudent?
Is she hiding? Or is she the concept of the World card?
~Lorredan
The Universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Eden Phillpotts

Re: The Grand Design of Francesco Sforza

10
Lorredan wrote:I hear you say (or maybe an echo in my head :ymsigh: ) what about that new card Temperance?
Well a part of Temperance is restraint and self control and therefore 'forgiveness'.
Fortitude and Temperance belong together.
The trait of Temperance is characterized by “forgiving those who have done wrong, accepting the shortcomings of others, giving people a second chance, and not being vengeful.
So in the Cary-Yale there are the Christian Virtues of Faith Hope and Charity + Strength which is also restraint in it's depiction (Temperance) but maybe that was not clear enough for Sforza as he had changed Strength's depiction.
These Virtues are three. Justice in the 14 or the original set and the two others are added by new artist and just as applicable to Ca' Grande as the Faith Hope and Charity in the Cary Yale. Then instead of Faith Hope and Charity you have the Moon, Star and Sun which can be seen as iconology of the three Virtues.
Where is Prudence? Is she Reason at the centre of the WOF? Is she not needed because the scheme is Prudent?
Is she hiding? Or is she the concept of the World card?
~Lorredan
As I recently showed, I see the elephant (figure of chess) as the deciding symbol. The elephant and trumpets (symbols of the elephants cause their long noses and their ability to make noise, which sounds like trumpets) appear at usual Petrarca "Trionfi" pictures at the element Fame and in the Cary-Yale only on Judgment and Fame. So I assume, that Fame should be not regarded as virtue-replacement in the Cary-Yale, but as a Rook. In the Charles VI (from Florence) the card "World" has the same octagonal halo as the 3 other virtues, so it should have been meant as "Prudentia", either as "real Prudentia" or "replacement of Prudentia". On the other hand it has
similarities to presentations of the Petrarca Trionfi Fame (also from Florence).
The elephant was a common figure in Eastern chess. But it occasionally appeared also as a chess figure in Europe, at least for Italy it's proven. In Eastern variants the elephant mostly had been a figure for the bishop, however, in Italy it was used as a Rook. The elephant could carry a castle or tower, so the relation to the Chess Tower was given.
Towers were natural places for person with trumpets, so that they could give signals, if an enemy was approaching.
Last edited by Huck on 22 Jul 2012, 19:31, edited 1 time in total.
Huck
http://trionfi.com