Re: 1487 Lucrezia's wedding / Boiardo's Tarocchi poem

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SteveM wrote: It seems pretty clear to me that it is Petrarch's Laura that Boiardo is referencing here in his poem, if you look at the discussion pages of the poem at tarotpedia you will see I suggested it at the time together with the translation of the phrase 'she never put a foot wrong", both of which Marco at least seems to have agreed with. As with most of his early poems it is heavily modeled upon Petrarch's works, not only the Triumphs (the triumphal theme (which does necessitate he used the same triumphs or same ordere as Petrarch, any more than Petrarch did when he took the theme from Boccaccio's l'Amorosi Visione), the terza rima scheme, some of the figures) but also his secrets, book on fortune (the four passions) & also Africa (some other of the figures).
Hm. I personally guess, that Laura in the poem, if all other persons in the poem belong to the antique world, also belongs to the antique world and not to the more modern world of Petrarca. Even Lucretia in tercet 21 is also the Roman Lucretia, even when Boiardo did chose her to serve in an actual situation (wedding of Lucretia d'Este) with specific intentions.
As far I know it, the Petrarca research was never completely convinced, that Petrarca's Laura meant a real Laura, which lived in 14th century. Petrarca had personal interests in triumphal processions and the title poetus laureatus and so naturally also in the laurel crown. Maybe there was a real Laura available to him, but then Petrarca's interest in her might have risen cause of the identical name.
Aestethical messages (like poems) tend to work with possible double meanings. So Boiardo could address Lucretia d'Este and the Roman Lucretia with one tercet, and similar he could address Ovid's Laura-Daphne and Petrarca's Laura, if it pleased him or made sense in his personal situation.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: 1487 Lucrezia's wedding / Boiardo's Tarocchi poem

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Laura as Daphne is a Petrarchian motif (with many Plays on Name Laura and Laurel), in one of his canzoni he actually reverses the situation, and he the poet himself is turned into a Laurel tree. Whether Petrarchs Laura is based upon a real person or a total fiction I don't see how is relevant.

Viti also identified her with Petrarch's Laura:

Ragione per il quarto Trionfo si vede scripta, e la figura che la dimostra è Laura del nostro Petrarca,

For the fourth triumph you see written Reason, and the figure that shows it is our Petrarch's Laura.

Re: 1487 Lucrezia's wedding / Boiardo's Tarocchi poem

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You needn't go as late as Viti for Laura as Reason. Bernardo Lapini (Ilicini) interpreted Laura throughout as Reason in his hugely influential commentary on the Trionfi. Presumably this was the main allegorical interpretation in literary circles that discussed the Trionfi.

E.g. "Nella seconda (trionfo) tracta el principato della ragione laquale singe per persona di Madonna Laura"

which I take to mean "In the second Triumph he treats the principle of Reason, which he signifies through the person of Lady Laura"

I'm just guessing at the reading "singe" and the meaning "signifies".

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k60185p/f21.image

I can't find Lapini's commentary transcribed anywhere online in more readable format, sorry.
Image

Re: 1487 Lucrezia's wedding / Boiardo's Tarocchi poem

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Huck wrote: Tercet 4 addresses the Ovid story, in which Amor in revenge filled Apollo with love and Daphne-Laura with a strong antipathy to Apollo. Boiardo's keywords are "reason versus desire", not "love against chastity" as in the "Trionfi"

Image
Discussion of that very painting here, Art and Love in Renaissance Italy
By Andrea Bayer, Metropolitan Museum of Art (2009), in terms of Chastity on p. 292 (the painting is even on the cover of that book).

But the link below is set up to go to 295f where there is a discussion of related Chastity-related paintings contemporary with Boiardo you might find interesting (i.e., the theme did not diminish in his time and 'reason' does not replace Chastity but that they merely work in concert; think also of the Battista Sforza diptych where essentially her effigy is pulled by unicorns with an Eros before her):

https://books.google.com/books?id=-X3eG ... ra&f=false

Re: 1487 Lucrezia's wedding / Boiardo's Tarocchi poem

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Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote:You needn't go as late as Viti for Laura as Reason. Bernardo Lapini (Ilicini) interpreted Laura throughout as Reason in his hugely influential commentary on the Trionfi. Presumably this was the main allegorical interpretation in literary circles that discussed the Trionfi.

E.g. "Nella seconda (trionfo) tracta el principato della ragione laquale singe per persona di Madonna Laura"

which I take to mean "In the second Triumph he treats the principle of Reason, which he signifies through the person of Lady Laura"

I'm just guessing at the reading "singe" and the meaning "signifies".

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k60185p/f21.image

I can't find Lapini's commentary transcribed anywhere online in more readable format, sorry.
Thanks Ross, perhaps worth noting too that from 1469 Lapini was Professor of Medicine at Ferrara (and is among the list of masters 1st February 1469 created nobles or knights by Frederick III), had a good relationship with the d'Estes, and that his commentary of Petrarch's Triumphs was dedicated to Borso d'Este (first published in 1474, the popularity of which is indicated by the numerous editions, Venice 1478, 1481, 1484, 1488, 1490 and 1492 ; Milan 1494 ; Venice 1494, 1497, 1500) and many other editions in the 16th century.

Re: 1487 Lucrezia's wedding / Boiardo's Tarocchi poem

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SteveM wrote: Thanks Ross, perhaps worth noting too that from 1469 Lapini was Professor of Medicine at Ferrara (and is among the list of masters 1st February 1469 created nobles or knights by Frederick III), had a good relationship with the d'Estes, and that his commentary of Petrarch's Triumphs was dedicated to Borso d'Este (first published in 1474, the popularity of which is indicated by the numerous editions, Venice 1478, 1481, 1484, 1488, 1490 and 1492 ; Milan 1494 ; Venice 1494, 1497, 1500) and many other editions in the 16th century.
Thanks, Steve. I don't know much about Lapini's biography, although I've squinted at every page in the edition of the commentary I posted several times over the years. First it was to see if he mentioned the game of Triumphs at any point - apparently never.

It occurs to me that "singe" might be a misprint for "signe".
Image

Re: 1487 Lucrezia's wedding / Boiardo's Tarocchi poem

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... .-) ... I guess, neither Viti nor Illicino can explain, why Boiardo should place Mrs. Laura from 14th century as a lonesome single between a big number of characters from before Christian time counting.

But let's assume, that Boiardo had fun of double meaning constructions. A surface with classical interpretations, but an underground of more modern relations ....
The tercet 5, as I already described ...
As 5th tercet we should expect something like a pope ... indeed 2 connected persons behave "like a pope": a son loves his step-mother, but doesn't talk about it and gets sick. The father, when noting the reason for the sickness of his sun, retires as ruler and and also as husband.
... gets quite another character, if I observe, that the Ferrarese Este family had solved this type of love conflict in quite another way in the same century with Ugo and Parisina.

**********

btw.
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: I don't know much about Lapini's biography ...
I wrote variously about him at the Anselmo Salimbeni thread ...
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=489&p=6365&hilit=salimbeni#p6365

I was fooled in this thread, when I got the suspicion, that Anselmo Salimbeni was identical to Bernardo Illicino. This was wrong, just as a warning.
The father of Bernardo, Pietro Lapini, should be perhaps of more interest than the son. He was a friend and co-astrologer of Martiano da Tortona.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: 1487 Lucrezia's wedding / Boiardo's Tarocchi poem

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Huck wrote:... .-) ... I guess, neither Viti nor Illicino can explain, why Boiardo should place Mrs. Laura from 14th century as a lonesome single between a big number of characters from before Christian time counting.
As a tribute perhaps to the work and author who inspired his own game of triumphs, from which work he also took some of the same figures from classical history & mythology and biblical sources.

Re: 1487 Lucrezia's wedding / Boiardo's Tarocchi poem

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SteveM wrote:
Huck wrote:... .-) ... I guess, neither Viti nor Illicino can explain, why Boiardo should place Mrs. Laura from 14th century as a lonesome single between a big number of characters from before Christian time counting.
As a tribute perhaps to the work and author who inspired his own game of triumphs, from which work he also took some of the same figures from classical history & mythology and biblical sources.
... :-) ... And what has a perverse Cupido (see text tercet 4) with Laura, mother of 10 children, to do ? ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_de_Noves
... sure, her husband became ancestor to Marquis de Sade, but Boiardo couldn't know that, he lived too early.

For the case of Laura-Daphne and Ovid the "perverse Cupido" is a natural part of the story.

btw ... I think, that "Daphne" is just the Greek word for the Roman "Laura"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_(plant)
Last edited by Huck on 18 Jul 2016, 21:40, edited 1 time in total.
Huck
http://trionfi.com