Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

291
Phaeded wrote: 19 Apr 2020, 00:32
PS I'm not sure where you are going with this comment - in 1430, Filippo Maria was looking for another symbol - but the only impresa on his person in 1441 is the dove, and the radiant sun dove appears in an explicitly eschatological context (presumably referencing Holy Spirit) on the banner pointing down to the resurrected in the CY Judgement trump:
1430 is the year that he asked Decembrio to design him a new banner, which is why we have his letter explaining the old one. Cengarle talks about it. I think Reina does too.

I don't interpret this as making the old ones obsolete, he just wanted a new one as well.

Vita 30 summarizes them.

PS - if we're going to talk about the various symbols for their own sake, and past Marziano's time, let's start a new thread. This one has stayed fairly close to the intention, with some longer digressions, but a dedicated thread would be more convenient.
Image

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

292
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 19 Apr 2020, 16:50 PS - if we're going to talk about the various symbols for their own sake, and past Marziano's time, let's start a new thread.
I'd rather use my time and energy on Marziano right now. And to that end, still more interested in your feedback on two dove-looking birds for volupatis/pleasures and continentiae/virginites.

There is no doubt in the first case that doves could be associated with voluptuous Venus, at the head of that suit; the first Latin term is thus uncontroversial. The second, given everything I've proposed with Aeneas echoed in Scipio Africanus (Dido/Sofinisba), continentiae seems to be a bridge Marziano is using link to the other positive suit, Virtues. And to reiterate the famous episode that word most famously references - the Continence of Scipio - that was about a bride's virginity remaining inviolate in Scipio's care. Scipio is one of the most important exampli of Virtus in general, particularly for Petrarch, and no need to rehearse yet again that poet's importance for the Visconti court.

Marziano seems to have picked two birds - while perhaps quite distinguishable in nature - where not represented as such by manuscript illuminators, and thus is trying to purposely cloud matters and make his invention more of a game for the discerning mind, which is precisely he has created.

So we have:
volupatis/pleasures/Venus (at head of suit)
versus
Continentiae/virginites/Pallas (at head of suit)

What Scipio did was exercise Continence, arguably a form of Wisdom, aka, Pallas. Notably Minerva is associated with the armor doled out to a knight [the outward markings of a knight] while it is Pallas who is Wisdom in Pizan's Othea, and Pallas is Marziano's title, although Minerva is mentioned as well. They are using the same symbolic language.

Your thoughts here?
Phaeded

Minerva and Pallas with their gifts in Pizan's Othea:
Image

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

293
Phaeded wrote: 19 Apr 2020, 22:59 I'd rather use my time and energy on Marziano right now. And to that end, still more interested in your feedback on two dove-looking birds for volupatis/pleasures and continentiae/virginites.

There is no doubt in the first case that doves could be associated with voluptuous Venus, at the head of that suit; the first Latin term is thus uncontroversial. The second, given everything I've proposed with Aeneas echoed in Scipio Africanus (Dido/Sofinisba), continentiae seems to be a bridge Marziano is using link to the other positive suit, Virtues. And to reiterate the famous episode that word most famously references - the Continence of Scipio - that was about a bride's virginity remaining inviolate in Scipio's care. Scipio is one of the most important exampli of Virtus in general, particularly for Petrarch, and no need to rehearse yet again that poet's importance for the Visconti court.

Marziano seems to have picked two birds - while perhaps quite distinguishable in nature - where not represented as such by manuscript illuminators, and thus is trying to purposely cloud matters and make his invention more of a game for the discerning mind, which is precisely he has created.

So we have:
volupatis/pleasures/Venus (at head of suit)
versus
Continentiae/virginites/Pallas (at head of suit)

What Scipio did was exercise Continence, arguably a form of Wisdom, aka, Pallas. Notably Minerva is associated with the armor doled out to a knight [the outward markings of a knight] while it is Pallas who is Wisdom in Pizan's Othea, and Pallas is Marziano's title, although Minerva is mentioned as well. They are using the same symbolic language.

Your thoughts here?
I don't think Marziano is purposefully clouding matters, that would be the artists and viewers. Textually and symbolically, their distinction is clear.

Researching it a bit to clear my mind, my first observation is that columba just means pigeon. There is no connotation of whiteness. None of the Biblical references, Old or New Testament, say “white dove.” The whiteness is an artistic convention, clearly become overwhelming. But the columba ordinarily speaking is just a rock pigeon, the same kind we see in cities (now called “feral pigeons”). Occasionally there are white ones, but they are not a different species.

Look up any Latin in the Vulgate you want here - http://vulsearch.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/vulsearch

When Latin writers used columba, what they had in mind was the common pigeon. It was one of the most important domestic animals, used for food and guano (and the famous homing ability, to deliver messages over long distances), until fairly recent times.

White pigeons have come to connote purity, but it is not from the Biblical text. Just artists responding to the intuitive connnection of whiteness – or “spotless” (immaculata) - and purity.

My second observation is that the pigeon/dove has two drastically different, you might even say opposed, symbolic meanings. The first is the pagan association with Venus, because the dove/pigeon is a horny bird. Boccaccio's Venus (III, 22) explains the mythology, Solomon volume 1 pages 391-393.

The other is the Biblical, where both columba and turtur were mandated as sacrifices in Leviticus (see e.g. Lev. 5:11). But in the New Testament, it is a columba that descends on Jesus at his baptism (Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32). The word “turtur” only occurs once in the New Testament, at Luke 2:24, where he quotes Leviticus.

With us the Christian iconographical tradition is so strong, that when we read “dove” we think “white dove.” But in reality it is just a white pigeon.

Petrarch's emblem for Gian Galeazzo was meant to be a turtur, turtledove, not a columba or pigeon. But artists did not care to distinguish them, and the conflation of the solitary turtledove with the gregarious pigeon of the Holy Spirit became inescapable. I suppose Petrarch was referring to the solitary habits, distinguished and aloof, that Isidore notes (see below).

But the Christian aspect does not enter Marziano's use of the symbol. He doesn't even mention it in Venus, but alludes to it with the necessity of reproduction, which was how the bird got its identification with Venus.

The difference between columba and turtur is neatly juxtaposed in Isidore, Etymologiae XII, vii, 60-61 (page 268) -
https://sfponline.org/Uploads/2002/st%2 ... %20english. pdf (I have separated the extension “pdf” from the rest so it doesn't bring the whole thing here, just join the pdf part to the dot in your browser)
The turtur is named from its call; it is a bashful bird, always dwelling in mountain heights and desert wildernesses. It flees human homes and interaction, and dwells in forests. [In winter, after it has lost its feathers, it is said to take shelter in hollow tree trunks].
In constrast to this, the columba loves human society; it is always a pleasant inhabitant in a house. They are called columbae because their necks (collum) change color every time they turn. They are tame birds, comfortable amid a large group of humans, and without bile. The ancients called them 'love birds,' because they often come to the nest and express their love with a kiss.
By the neck changing color, you can see the pigeon in your mind. It has that metallic spectrum in its neck feathers.

The bold for the turtur shows how appropriate it is for Diana, Vesta, and Daphne. Not so much for Pallas/Minerva, whose bird is unequivocally the owl. Well, I guess that part about being solitary is shared, but Pallas didn't flee human company, did she? In any case, Isidore's description of the turtledove fully explains its appropriateness for Continence and Virginities.

Isidore's remarks on the phoenix (the geography section, XIV, iii, 15 (p. 286), and birds again, XII, vii, 22, (p. 265)) are worth quoting, for the record:
The word 'Arabia' means 'sacred'; it is interpreted to mean this because the region produces incense and perfumes: hence the Greeks called it εὐδαίμων (“happy”), our Latin speakers beatus (“happy”). Its woods produce both myrrh and cinnamon: it is the birthplace of the bird phoenix, and one finds precious stones there: the sardonyx, iris crystal, malachite, and opals.

The phoenix is a bird of Arabia, so called because it possesses a scarlet (phoeniceus) color, or because it is singular and unique in the entire world, for the Arabs say phoenix for “singular.” This bird lives more than five hundred years, and when it sees that it has grown old it constructs a funeral pile for itself of aromatic twigs is has collected, and, turned to the rays of the sun, with a beating of its wings it deliberately kindles a fire for itself, and thus it rises again from its own ashes.
We know very well how artistic conventions can depart from the texts they illustrate, by those for Petrarch's Trionfi.

I am sure there was a conflation with the Visconti bird and the divine mission, if not their very origin, of the dove of the Holy Spirit. I wanted to show you something, though, about that chivalric Ordre du Saint-Esprit au Droit Désir you mentioned that Bernabò belonged to. They used a banner with a columba representing the Holy Spirit descending, before which went rays. When the banner is white, the bird is dark. It is shown repeatedly in the 1353 copy of the order's rules. It just meant that they knew what kind of bird it was, the color was optional, adapted to circumstance.
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... checontact

Exempli gratia -
Image
http://www.rosscaldwell.com/marzianotex ... esprit.jpg
Image

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

295
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 20 Apr 2020, 16:39
Phaeded wrote: 19 Apr 2020, 22:59 So we have:
volupatis/pleasures/Venus (at head of suit)
versus
Continentiae/virginites/Pallas (at head of suit)

But the Christian aspect does not enter Marziano's use of the symbol. He doesn't even mention it in Venus, but alludes to it with the necessity of reproduction, which was how the bird got its identification with Venus. ...

My second observation is that the pigeon/dove has two drastically different, you might even say opposed, symbolic meanings. The first is the pagan association with Venus, because the dove/pigeon is a horny bird. Boccaccio's Venus (III, 22) explains the mythology, Solomon volume 1 pages 391-393.

The other is the Biblical, where both columba and turtur were mandated as sacrifices in Leviticus (see e.g. Lev. 5:11). But in the New Testament, it is a columba that descends on Jesus at his baptism (Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32).

....I am sure there was a conflation with the Visconti bird and the divine mission, if not their very origin, of the dove of the Holy Spirit. I wanted to show you something, though, about that chivalric Ordre du Saint-Esprit au Droit Désir you mentioned that Bernabò belonged to. They used a banner with a columba representing the Holy Spirit descending, before which went rays. When the banner is white, the bird is dark. It is shown repeatedly in the 1353 copy of the order's rules. It just meant that they knew what kind of bird it was, the color was optional, adapted to circumstance.
Ross,
Generally, why do no academics employ the term "pigeon"? I honestly don't know.

As for the NT having columba for Holy Ghost, the bird for Venus in Boccaccio, arguably an important reference for Marziano, also has columba:
....Cupid saw that the nymph Peristera had offered to assist Venus and therefore grew resentful, he transformed her into a dove [columbam] right there. Venus immediately took the transformed girl under her protection, and because of this it follows that doves [columbas] were always allotted to Venus. (Tr. Soloman, III.22.14. p. 393)
So the same bird name is used for the bird for the Holy Ghost and Venus, and yet clearly Marziano wants us to associate that bird with volupatis/pleasures. How does this not cloud matters, unless one sublimates, like Petrarch's Laura, and one's love interest is transformed into something religious; i.e., Bernardo's idea of the novus figura?

When you argue "the Christian aspect does not enter Marziano's use of the symbol", you can't discount his knowledge of that symbolic significance for the sole recipient of the work, inheritor of his father's imprese:
The emblem that constitutes the primary evidence for the original ownership of Lat. 757 by Giangaleazzo Visconti is the radiant gold sun enclosing a white dove against a blue sky, worn as a pendant by the nobleman who kneels before the Madonna and Child on folio 109v, at the opening of the Seven Joys of the Virgon. [reproduced earlier in this thread what follows here is a discussion of Petrarch's involvement with the impresa and motto].....

In his Canzon morale fatta per la divisa del conte di Virtu of about 1389, the Visconti court poet Giovanni di Vannozzo explicates the emblem as follows: the radiant sun represents Giangaleazzo's power, reaching out to all; the dove symbolizes humility and chastity; the azure background denotes serenity. Each component, however, carries a second meaning: the sky invokes heaven, 'loco del padre,' the sun in Christ, and the dove the Holy Ghost. The bold full-page miniatuire at the opening of the Mass of the Holy Ghost on folio 241v in Lat.757 would have served aptly also as a frontispiece to Vannozzo's Canzon. [fn 15]

fn 15: Outside of Lat. 757, no Mass or Office of the Holy Ghost known to me is introduced by a full-page depiction of the Holy Spirit, alone, against a brilliant sun and a vast blue sky. If a full page is allotted to such a miniature, the subject is usually Pentecost or the Preaching of the Apostles. Although it is true that the rays behind the sun in Lat.757 are straight, while the Visconti sun is normally depicted with undulating rays, the latter often emits both. The dove that serves as both Holy Spirit and an emblem of Giangaleazzo in Banco Rari 397 emerges from a blue sky amidst straight rays. (E. Kirsch, Five Illuminated Manuscripts of Giangaleazzo Visconti, 1991: 19).

Lest we dismiss all this as the idiosyncrasies of one manuscript, (Lat. 757), note that the white Visconti turtur impresa and white Holy Ghost colomba are indistinguishable through their many appearances throughout the Visconti Hours - what the Banco Rari refers to - even in the portion completed especially for Filippo by Bebello. The Holy Spirit dove has a halo, but when it descends in flight in the Annunciation (a version of which the Giangaleaazzzo miniature stares up at across the page with the ray's angle pointed to Giangaleazzo across the way, BR104v), it is impossible to tell the two apart.

As for the white and apparent dark versions of the dove in theOrdre du Saint-Esprit au Droit Désir statutes: White/silver were used interchangeably depending on the circumstances, and the only way for white to show up on white is to make the superimposed object silver; to wit, how do we know the "grey" isn't oxidized silver? But the Visconti manuscripts obviously have much more relevance here at all events.

Having said all that, I'll concede that the words for turtledove (turtur) and dove (colomba) were meant to refer to entirely different birds, furthermore associated with continentiae/virginites/Pallas and volupatis/pleasures/Venus. But I cannot believe Marziano did any of this by willfully ignoring the very impresa associated with Filippo and his father, Giangaleazzo - the last preferring the dove for political reasons: "in 1378, the twenty-seven-year-old Giangaleazzo became co-ruler with his uncle Bernabo of Milan anbd it dominions, the young nephew, with his uncle's approval, for seven years confined his political activities to Pavia and to Piedmont, expressing fear of even visiting the city of Milan....[H] might deliberately have refrained from embellishing such books with his father-in-law's viper, symbol of Milan....Only in 1385 did Giangaleazzo seize all power from his uncle and make the viper his own" (Kirsch, 1991: 26-27).

We have the Visconti impresa, which in no uncertain terms, associated with the Holy Ghost and Chastity, the last meaning reflected in the Chastity jousting shield emblazoned with the radiant sun-cum-dove on the CY Chariot. All of the heroum (heroua?) of the continentiae/virginites suit of turtur are chastity par excellence as virgins, the last even preferring conversion to a tree to protect her virtue. Moreover Marziano praises Eagles/Virtues and Turtledoves/Virginites over Phoenixes/Doves, which "lead to the deterioration of our station." The Doves/columba are headed up by Venus...but columba is also the NT name for the Holy Spirit, which leads us back in a confusing circle to the Visconti impresa, clearly equated to the Holy Ghost. And lest we forget, the deification of the Visconti themselves goes through Venus! If the turtur suit trumps the columba suit, how is there not an implication of a reversal of fortune, an "anti-deterioration", or uplifting of what was base to what is noble, pure, chaste....immortal? Can it not be said that the bird of Venus prefigures the bird of Christian immortality, the Holy Ghost?

Think again of our discussion of Marziano's Vesta who institutes a nun-like order: "She first established the religious life for virgins and the vows of religion, by which those avowed would be no longer permitted to return to the world....Wearing a very modest garment, like that of nuns...." (DSH your 67-68). Is this not precisely the narrative strategy of the Ovide moralise, is reading a Christian lesson into pagan material? Or think of the the Speculum Humanae Salvationis created in the early Trecento and remained popular through the 15th century - a medieval theory of typology, whereby the events of the Old Testament prefigured the events of the New Testament, and whose devotional illustrations were in some cases almost like luxury playing cards (Seznec even ponders in a footnote: "probably used as card games"[!], 138, footnote 36; unlikely, but what an odd statement from him):

Image

Gethsemane: Soldiers falling; Samson and Jawbone; Shamgar; David. MS Hunter 60 (T.2.18), Bruges: 1455. f25v.

Returning to Marziano, look at how he leads off his litany of heroum with Jupiter, whom humanists famously used to symbolically use as the Christian God - all of his activities are in a sense redeeming fallen man (presumably from the Golden Age/"Eden"): "...the race of man was still rough and wild...He instituted matrimony; and banished the abominable feats on human flesh...." (DSH, your 27). This theme of elevating man is so strong Marziano barely touches on the suit that Juno head's up, riches (clearly negative and leading to "deterioration of our station"), and instead focuses on her civilizing qualities: "...admonished young girls with the most profound authority that they should carry the sacred modesty of virginity to their husbands for the duty of matrimony....Her majesty being so greatly esteemed by the Roman city, and such her dignity, that they maintained Chastity itself to rest on the seat of the Capitoline Juno.....On the island of Samos, where she was brought up....the divinity of the goddess spread out, because she was the first to kindle woman to the excellent praises f chastity...." (DSH, your 31). Who would guess this goddess was associated with riches over the suit of virginities?

And what else is Scipio doing, first in his "Continence" act with Lucretia and her groom, and then with Massinissa (weaning him off of a latter day Dido, Sofonisba), if not elevating barbarians in both instances to being allies of Rome, partaking now in its civilization. The odd thing about the "ethnogenic project" is that it places the emphasis on an anointed dynasty, prefigured since antiquity via its Trojan roots, which it makes a twofold claim on (through Venus and the Holy Spirit's conferred "bon droit").

What I'm left with in regard to the same word for a bird being emblematic of both Venus (the dynasty's divine founder) and the Holy Ghost (the dynasty's symbol), is it had to resonate in Marziano in terms of this theme of uplifting/saving mankind (to be heroum), that permutated through the fourfold suits individual themes. All of this is predicated on the medieval conceit that God gave his only Son during the Roman Empire for the explicit reason the empire would be his tool in spreading the Good Word.

Phaeded

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

296
Phaeded wrote: 21 Apr 2020, 01:26
Generally, why do no academics employ the term "pigeon"? I honestly don't know.
I don't know either. I can only surmise that it is because of long vernacular usage, and nobody we have yet encountered has had to argue about these distinctions to make some point before. The word pigeon evokes the blue-gray bird, the word dove the white one, and this distinction is useful. People generally don't keep pigeon coops anymore. If you order some doves for an event like a graduation or wedding, people won't just bring you any pigeons, they'll bring you white ones.

If you look up the etymology of dove, you'll see that it comes from the Germanic roots of English, specifically Old Norse, and not by way of Latin. Pigeon, on the other hand, like the archaic culver(<colomba), both come from Latin one way or another. The etymologists derive pigeon from a hypothetical vulgar Latin pib/pion (onomatopoeia of chirping bird), turning in old French to pijion, and thence to English and French as pigeon.

French and Italian use colombe and colomba/o for our "dove" (no Norse influence), whereas they all have variations of pigeon (Spanish uses paloma for both dove and pigeon, but they also know pichon).

The important point is that classical Latin didn't have another term than columba. If you wanted to specify white, you'd have to put "alba" (white) with it. So the Bible just says columba, not specifying a color, because no special significance attached to the color. For the sacrifices at the temple, you'd just buy a pair of pigeons from someone who sold them there, and present them to the priests at the temple as your offering. The money spent was your sacrifice, the color of the bird was irrelevant.

But I really think that all of this doesn't matter for us. Marziano is using pure Latin words, with the moral significance attached to the birds turtur and colomba, the former is "virgin," in the sense of keeping its purity from the unwashed masses, while the latter is the very definition of promiscuity.
If the turtur suit trumps the columba suit, how is there not an implication of a reversal of fortune, an "anti-deterioration", or uplifting of what was base to what is noble, pure, chaste....immortal? Can it not be said that the bird of Venus prefigures the bird of Christian immortality, the Holy Ghost?
But Marziano explicitly contradicts your first statement: "the order of the birds is that none of their types has right over another." I.e. there is no hierarchy of suits. We can presume it is a normal trick-taking game, where you have to follow the suit led if possible, or play a different suit and lose (including intrinsically more valuable cards). The innovation in Marziano is that you can trump with a god if you can't follow suit, the same as in Tarot.

For your second point about Venus' dove prefiguring the dove of the Holy Spirit, intuitively the connection seems obvious, some theologian must have grappled with the symbolic dichotomy, but even the Third Vatican Mythographer (Pepin p. 301) doesn't try to explain what seems to us to be a problem. Like the Second (p. 117), he just says that this bird is sacred to Venus because it is "fervid in sexual union."

As far as I can tell, by columba Marziano only intends the venereal symbolism. For him, turtur is the bird of moral purity, by its retiring nature, holding itself aloof and unsullied from promiscuity.

From the text itself, I can't speculate further. Marziano studiously avoids Christian themes (except for Vesta, of course). Like the Vatican mythographers, he doesn't want to find a prefiguration or link between the two symbolisms for dove. Obviously we can speculate that they saw what you see, that the connection is so glaringly obvious that it must have occurred to them and supplied a whole new track of associations, but it's not in the text. And we don't have the cards to see if Michelino made the iconographical connection. In 1403's genealogy, he doesn't included a dove in the wedding scene with Venus. But in the similar scene of the marriage of the Virgin, circa 1430, he makes the dove a central feature.


http://www.rosscaldwell.com/marzianotex ... alogy1.jpg


https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:D ... e,_met.JPG


http://www.rosscaldwell.com/marzianotex ... o/dove.jpg

I don't know what Michelino's columba suit looked like. Maybe he painted it like a common pigeon, avoiding any Christian references.
Image

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

297
Phaeded wrote: 21 Apr 2020, 01:26 So the same bird name is used for the bird for the Holy Ghost and Venus, and yet clearly Marziano wants us to associate that bird with volupatis/pleasures. How does this not cloud matters, unless one sublimates, like Petrarch's Laura, and one's love interest is transformed into something religious; i.e., Bernardo's idea of the novus figura?
It's not just Marziano, it's what every mythographer says. All the Vatican mythographers (most significantly the Third, since he moralizes the most) - see Pepin page 76 in addition to 117 and 301 as noted in my post above. That story was canonical for Venus' dove.

It doesn't seem to have bothered them that a columba was used for both for Venus' concupiscence as well as the Holy Spirit. I mean that I can't find any evidence that it did. So there is no reason to think that the symbolism clouded matters in the game. If we had the iconography, especially the Ace of Doves, it might tell us if things were possibly polyvalent. I.e. if the bird were in a sunburst. But it could have also been just a picture of a large pigeon, maybe on the ground or in an alcove, as they are often found.

But even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that such a conflation were irresistible to Filippo Maria, the word to describe the conflation doesn't have to be sublimation. Marziano gives us Epicurus in Venus, so the better term might be refinement in pleasure.

You may think I'm just being stubborn. But I think I'm just being careful, and extremely cautious about assuming I know what they thought. Marziano doesn't have to spell it out explicitly for me to make a connection, like we have managed to do with the Riches-Juno-Dido-Circe-Beatrice associations. I find that assumption plausible. But it remains merely a theory, one that someone else, perhaps more informed about Marziano, Filippo Maria, Petrarch, the Aeneid, etc., might be persuaded is wildly mistaken. Such a person is hard to imagine at this point, but may come along one day, at least on the literary side.

So while I'm not expecting explicit statements, in the case of the conflation of Venus' versus the Christian columba, I'm not even seeing implicit or subtle clues. It is not even clear to me that Filippo Maria would have conflated Venus' columba with Petrarch's turtur (per Decembrio) in his emblem, even when artists painted it Holy Spirit white. Columba didn't have to mean white dove.
Image

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

298
Phaeded wrote: 21 Apr 2020, 01:26
When you argue "the Christian aspect does not enter Marziano's use of the symbol", you can't discount his knowledge of that symbolic significance for the sole recipient of the work, inheritor of his father's imprese:
The emblem that constitutes the primary evidence for the original ownership of Lat. 757 by Giangaleazzo Visconti is the radiant gold sun enclosing a white dove against a blue sky, worn as a pendant by the nobleman who kneels before the Madonna and Child on folio 109v, at the opening of the Seven Joys of the Virgon. [reproduced earlier in this thread what follows here is a discussion of Petrarch's involvement with the impresa and motto].....

In his Canzon morale fatta per la divisa del conte di Virtu of about 1389, the Visconti court poet Giovanni di Vannozzo explicates the emblem as follows: the radiant sun represents Giangaleazzo's power, reaching out to all; the dove symbolizes humility and chastity; the azure background denotes serenity. Each component, however, carries a second meaning: the sky invokes heaven, 'loco del padre,' the sun in Christ, and the dove the Holy Ghost. The bold full-page miniatuire at the opening of the Mass of the Holy Ghost on folio 241v in Lat.757 would have served aptly also as a frontispiece to Vannozzo's Canzon. [fn 15]

fn 15: Outside of Lat. 757, no Mass or Office of the Holy Ghost known to me is introduced by a full-page depiction of the Holy Spirit, alone, against a brilliant sun and a vast blue sky. If a full page is allotted to such a miniature, the subject is usually Pentecost or the Preaching of the Apostles. Although it is true that the rays behind the sun in Lat.757 are straight, while the Visconti sun is normally depicted with undulating rays, the latter often emits both. The dove that serves as both Holy Spirit and an emblem of Giangaleazzo in Banco Rari 397 emerges from a blue sky amidst straight rays. (E. Kirsch, Five Illuminated Manuscripts of Giangaleazzo Visconti, 1991: 19).

Lest we dismiss all this as the idiosyncrasies of one manuscript, (Lat. 757), note that the white Visconti turtur impresa and white Holy Ghost colomba are indistinguishable through their many appearances throughout the Visconti Hours - what the Banco Rari refers to - even in the portion completed especially for Filippo by Bebello. The Holy Spirit dove has a halo, but when it descends in flight in the Annunciation (a version of which the Giangaleaazzzo miniature stares up at across the page with the ray's angle pointed to Giangaleazzo across the way, BR104v), it is impossible to tell the two apart.
Thanks for bringing up BnF latin 757.

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b ... checontact

I looked at it a couple of days ago because of Reina's inclusion of the image, but I couldn't find any sign of Visconti ownership. The arms have nothing to do with Visconti or Sforza families. But your quote pointed out folio 109v, which I think has to be Giangaleazzo, even though his characteristic beard has been rubbed out, perhaps, once the manuscript became someone else's commission (whoever those arms are). As if to clarify it, the dates for the "Ratio lune" on folio 8r are for the year 1400, so the manuscript took a long time to finish, and Giangaleazzo must have died before it could be given to him, hence the new owner. It is too luxurious a book not to go to someone.


http://www.rosscaldwell.com/marzianotex ... 7f109r.jpg

I don't doubt the Visconti could conflate the dove of the Holy Spirit with their own emblem. What I am not persuaded by is that Filippo Maria would have instinctively connected the literary columba of Venus with it. And instinctive would have been necessary, since Marziano doesn't spell it out. We know Filippo Maria loved Petrarch, and Dante, and Livy. I don't know how much we can assume about Aeneid, which doesn't use the Venus-dove association (that I know of). How much of Boccaccio GDG can we assume? He wouldn't have read it for pleasure, it would have had to be part of his conversations with learned men like Marziano. Albericus barely mentions the Venus-dove connection.
Image

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

300
Huck wrote: 21 Apr 2020, 16:01 European Turtle Dove
It's not a type of dove, that I would recognize. It's on the red list in Germany according wiki, so it is very rare here. They are smaller than other doves and they travel to Africa in the winter. Malta is said to be a meeting point of them.
That's a nice picture. I think what I have in my trees is actually not turtledove, but the Eurasian Collared Dove -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_collared_dove



There is no particular god or goddess that the turtur is sacred to. The moral qualities seem to be from the middle ages, starting from Isidore quoted above.

Like his association of the phoenix with riches, Marziano is making his own association of the turtledove (turtur) to the moral quality of continence or virginity.
Image