Juno IS the goddess of riches, among other things. See Boccaccio Genealogia IX, 1 (especially pages 361-365 of Solomon, volume 2).

Boccaccio doesn't moralize the eyes as being watchful, or rather preoccupied, over wealth. I am sure I have read that elsewhere in some mythographer or other, maybe even Boccaccio in another place.

Nice collection from Pizan. It would have been nice if she had included Vesta and Aeolus. Marziano's Vesta is unique in euhemerist interpretation, his own invention as far as I can discover.

Ross Caldwell wrote: 08 Sep 2023, 18:15 Juno IS the goddess of riches, among other things. See Boccaccio Genealogia IX, 1 (especially pages 361-365 of Solomon, volume 2).

I added thjis later, also in volume one:

(e.g., Boccaccio, Gen.deo. IV.35: "...earth with its riches and kingdoms, over which Juno is preeminent." Tr. Solomon, V. 1, p. 521),

The Duke of Orleans definitely visited Pavia with his courtiers but I just wish there were more about Pizan in Milan, but I think I've kicked that as far I can.

Back to Filippo and the CY king wary of coin: IF it were in the context of the Peace of Cavriana/Cremona - completely orchestrated by Sforza - and the dowry of Cremona itself with Bianca, then I would think Filippo would have mixed feeling about all this at best. To me he's the one buying services, not the one holding his hand out for a condotte and dowry (which was Sforza's position). So while celebratory, a few subtle signs of disenchantment in the cards reflecting Filippo's state of mind.

Here's the fairly detailed historical timeline, based largely on M. King's Marcello work and Newbigin's Giusti giornali, leading up the wedding and peace that came right afterwards:

6 July 1441 Sforza is at the Adige River, perhaps near Verona (King, 254; Marcello was also sent by Venice to keep an eye on him) but this must have been to meet with Milanese envoys in what ultimately lead to the renewed condotte and wedding to Bianca some four months later, in late October 1441). Venice obviously aware Sforza is leaving them.
August 12, 1441 Giusti is still with Malatesta in Rimini where he reports that ‘Gismondo had returned from Lombardy [which city?] that day and married Sforza's daughter. (Newbigin, 69). [Again, why is Sforza's daughter in Lombardy? Unless she's with her dad near Verona as a marriage pawn as part of the forthcoming overall peace, which involved Malatesta losing some castles back to Urbino]
August 16 1441, Giusti leaves Rimini for Florence “because I had to leave, and the magnificent Signor Gismondo committed some of his secret things to me that I was to look after in Florence with Cosimo and with others.” (ibid)
August 17 1441 Giusti “went to see Cosimo at Careggi [Villa], on an embassy commissioned by Signor ‘Gismondo and reasoned about our situation, of which he [Cosimo] replied he was happy.” (ibid)
21-31 August 1441, King cryptically notes “at his palace in Venice, Sforza discusses matters of state” (249). Clearly this was related to the ensuing Treaty of Cavriana, located near Cremona (between Milan and the Lega of Papacy/Florence/Venice and less powerful allies).
24-28 October 1441. Sforza/Bianca wedding,
20 November 1441. Treaty of Cavriana (just outside Cremona).

Sforza then flits off to Venice to attend the Doge's son's wedding there in the new year (our reckoning). Clearly Sforza did nothing out of the ordinary for his new father-in-law and was still playing nice with his arch enemy of Venice. Filippo's mistake was to allow the wedding to come before the peace, but Sforza held all the cards. The aside of Giusti being a secretive go between Malatesta and Cosimo must have meant the latter knew Sforza was leaving the fold - at least formally - and Florence needed to secure Malatesta as the lead condottiero. Its hard to believe Filippo did not disown Sforza by the end of 1441; hell Bianca was right along side Sforza in Venice and even welcomed with the bucintoro I believe.

The CY reflects a dream of Visconti of having invincible Sforza being based in Cremona to retake anyhting back from the Venetians or in the Romagna; Sforza's other dowry city of Pontremoli is located half way between Genoa (defected from Milan in '39 I think) and Florence. One definitely gets a whiff of a Milanese grand strategy - based of Sforza directing arms from those two spots - that went up in smoke almost immediately. In this delusional regard, look again at the medal done for Filippo at the same time Pisanello made one for Sforza in 1440/1 - the veduta above the three person lanza (indicative of Sfora's forces?), is a city in the mountains in the upper left (so close at hand to Milan - Bergamo), with a view from Milan along the southern Alpine foothills to a city beyond that in the upper right, furthest from Milan: Venice.

Might the peacock feather also be a dig at Cosimo, who had three peacock feathers as his personal device, seen for example emblazoned on his (or Piero's?) horse's carapace in the Gozzoli Magi fresco (p. 158 of Christopher Hibbert, The House of Medici, 1974)? They supposedly stood for the virtues Cosimo most admired, fortitude, temperance, and prudence (p. 105).

mikeh wrote: 09 Sep 2023, 07:35 Might the peacock feather also be a dig at Cosimo, who had three peacock feathers as his personal device, seen for example emblazoned on his (or Piero's?) horse's carapace in the Gozzoli Magi fresco (p. 158 of Christopher Hibbert, The House of Medici, 1974)? They supposedly stood for the virtues Cosimo most admired, fortitude, temperance, and prudence (p. 105).
medici_e_ospitiDET.jpg

I thought those were ostrich feathers. We discussed this a while back, in relation to the device and the three Medici colors.

Added: yes, here ten years ago viewtopic.php?p=14479#p14479

Yes, I had thought so, too. I couldn't remember where I read that, so I figured I must have been mistaken. Thanks for pointing it out. But peacock is what Hibbert says. I didn't believe it, so I checked the picture. It's not ostrich feathers. They look vaguely like peacock feathers. He gives another example in Cosimo-sponsored art, but I haven't looked for it online. He speaks of an open loggia at the Medici Palace, facing Via de' Gori, whose arches were later filled in with barred windows by Michelangelo. On the corner was an iron lamp designed by Niccolo Grosso, known as "Il Caparra" (the pledge), above it the Medici arms with the three peacock feathers sprouting from the shield.

The feathers on Lorenzo's birth tray are ostrich feathers. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436516. But that was Piero's device, not Cosimo's. They look different from the ones on the horse.

What I did find was an "Adoration of the Magi" tondo with a peacock on the roof. There is a long article about it, in Jstor, but I haven't read it. Wikipedia says that the peacock and other birds on the roof were added by Gozzoli around the time he was doing the Procession fresco, and that the peacock was the personal emblem of Giovanni, Cosimo's second son. A falcon holding a ring was Piero's bird. The article also mentions another Adoration painted for the family, this one with hawks attacking cranes.

Well, this all needs more investigation. For me, later. Hibbert has little tidbits about other Cosimo devices, the diamond ring, for example. And Lorenzo had three diamond rings intertwined. They are all over Pallas's dress in Pallas and the Centaur. I suppose we've discussed all this before. I get our rings mixed up, and for me it's very late at night.

The problem with the Internet is that when you find all the sources on the internet saying the same thing, they may just repeating what they read on the internet. Hibbert's book is not on the internet, although it is digitized at my library.

mikeh wrote: 10 Sep 2023, 13:33 Yes, I had thought so, too. I couldn't remember where I read that, so I figured I must have been mistaken. Thanks for pointing it out. But peacock is what Hibbert says. I didn't believe it, so I checked the picture. It's not ostrich feathers. They look vaguely like peacock feathers. He gives another example in Cosimo-sponsored art, but I haven't looked for it online. He speaks of an open loggia at the Medici Palace, facing Via de' Gori, whose arches were later filled in with barred windows by Michelangelo. On the corner was an iron lamp designed by Niccolo Grosso, known as "Il Caparra" (the pledge), above it the Medici arms with the three peacock feathers sprouting from the shield.

Ah, I only later noticed the other symbols on the horse's saddle blankets. Yes, they look like peacock feathers with the large eyes.

Here is someone who agrees, Franco Cardini, “Le insegne laurenziane,” in Paola Ventrone, ed., Le tems revient 'l tempo si rinuova: Feste e spettacoli nella Firenze di Lorenzo il Magnifico, 1992, pp. 55-74, here page 67:

Alla sinistra del vegliardo sulla mula baia cavalca un personaggio il cui profilo, e perfino la ricca veste di broccato verde, ricordano molto da vicino il busto di Piero il Gottoso, opera di Mino da Fiesole, custodita al Bargello. Si tratta in effetti, e qui dubbi sono inconsistenti, di Piero: sulle falsiredini del cavallo di questi figurano alternate due diverse insegne: l'anello col diamante il cui intero serve da campo araldico per le sette palle medicee (a colori rovesciti, oro su rosso anziché il contrario) e il mazzo di tre piume di struzzo dorate disposte in modo da simboleggiare la Trinità (cioè distinte, ma unite) e legate da un nastro continuo che lega i vari mazzi di piume agli anelli. Il motivo delle tre piume è sistemato in modo da ricordare forse ai fiorentini anche l'insegna della loro città e del loro potente alleato, il re di Francia: cioè il fiordaliso. Il cavallo di Cosimo reca inoltre, sulla pettiera vermiglia, un fregio costituito da una catena di anelli con diamante intrecciati fra loro – un motivo che si ritrova in più punti della cappella -; al centro di ciascun anello della catena una lettera in capitale latina forma la parola “Semper”, motto di Piero. Le frappe della pettiera , vermiglie anch'esse, sono decorate a piume di pavone dorate: il pavone, a sua volta, è stato letto come una delle insegne di Piero e figura negli affreschi benozziani sulle pareti ai lati dell'altare, quelli con scene angeiche, dove lo vediamo appollaiato sulla staccionata dell'hortus conclusus. Il pavone era simbolo di eternità in quanto la sua carne, secondo Agostino, era incorruttibile; e di rinascita poiché, per la testimonianza di Plinio il Vecchio, perdeva tutte le penne d'inverno e le riacquistava in primavera. Tutto ciò fa intendere come l'impresa del pavone e il motto “Semper”, entrambi attribuiti a Piero, fossero coerenti nel sottolineare un messaggio di eternità. È da osservare che Piero, con le sue insegne allusive dell'eternità, cavalca dietro al mago Gaspare che – sia o meno un ritratto idealizzato di suo figlio Lorenzo – è colui che reca in dono al Bambino la mirra , l'unguento che rende i corpi incorruttibili e che è a sua volta simbolo di eternità.

"To the left of the old man on the bay mule rides a character whose profile, and even the rich green brocade robe, closely resemble the bust of Piero the Gouty, the work of Mino da Fiesole, housed at the Bargello. It is indeed Piero; doubts here are inconsistent. On the horse's saddle blankets, two different emblems alternate: the diamond ring, whose entirety serves as the heraldic field for the seven Medici balls (with reversed colors, gold on red instead of the reverse), and the bouquet of three golden ostrich feathers arranged to symbolize the Trinity (that is, distinct but united) and bound by a continuous ribbon that links the various bunches of feathers to the rings. The motif of the three feathers is arranged in a way that perhaps also recalls the emblem of their city and their powerful ally, the King of France, to the Florentines: the fleur-de-lis. Cosimo's horse also bears, on the vermilion breastplate, a frieze consisting of a chain of intertwined diamond rings - a motif found in several places in the chapel; in the center of each ring in the chain, a capital Latin letter forms the word "Semper," Piero's motto. The sides of the breastplate, also vermilion, are decorated with golden peacock feathers: the peacock, in turn, has been interpreted as one of Piero's emblems and is featured in the Benozzo frescoes on the walls on either side of the altar, those with angelic scenes, where we see it perched on the fence of the hortus conclusus. The peacock was a symbol of eternity because its flesh, according to Augustine, was incorruptible; and of rebirth, as Pliny the Elder's testimony indicates, it shed all its feathers in winter and regained them in spring. All of this suggests how the peacock emblem and the motto "Semper," both attributed to Piero, were consistent in emphasizing a message of eternity. It is worth noting that Piero, with his allusive emblems of eternity, rides behind the magus Gaspare, who - whether or not he is an idealized portrait of his son Lorenzo - is the one who brings myrrh to the Child as a gift, the ointment that makes bodies incorruptible and is itself a symbol of eternity."

Cardini identifies the "bouquet of three ostrich feathers" as attached to Piero's horse. Then he says of Cosimo's horse that it, too, has Piero's emblems on it:

Cosimo's horse also bears, on the vermilion breastplate, a frieze consisting of a chain of intertwined diamond rings - a motif found in several places in the chapel; in the center of each ring in the chain, a capital Latin letter forms the word "Semper," Piero's motto. The sides of the breastplate, also vermilion, are decorated with golden peacock feathers: the peacock, in turn, has been interpreted as one of Piero's emblems ...

If it's Cosimo's horse, it ought to be Cosimo's emblem, not Piero's. But I don't know what he is talking about: it is Piero's white horse that has the peacock feathers. Perhaps he meant to say "Piero's horse also bears . . . " Cosimo seems to be the old man riding the mule (long ears). The same white horse has the rings alternating with the "bouquet of ostrich feathers" on the bridle and the peacock feathers on the part below the bridle. And where is Giovanni? From the devices, it should be him behind Piero on the same horse, the man usually identified as Carlo. It seems strange that the illegitimate son should be included and not Giovanni. He didn't die until 1463, the latest year for the completion of the fresco.

The Motto "Semper" does not help. It is true that "Semper" was Piero's motto; but it also appears as part of the peacock emblem in mss. commissioned by Giovanni. Francis Ames-Lewis in "Early Medicean Devices," 1979, in JSTOR, pp. 131-2 (I omit the footnotes):

Ten books are inscribed as having been commissioned by Giovanni (44); of these the Cicero, Philippicae has in the decoration the Medici stemma enclosed within what appears to be a diamond ring, and the Silius Italicus has four times repeated a diamond ring entwined within which is the word SEMPER (P1. 37e). Clearly Giovanni was at liberty to use variants of the family device of the diamond ring generally associated with Piero di Cosimo.

If both brothers used SEMPER, they may simply be inheriting something from Cosimo. Cosimo is sometimes suggested as having been the first to commission works in the "tondo" form, used in a couple of his "Adoration of the Magi" paintings. The circle, besides being the shape of the Cosmos, is a symbol of never-ending time, eternity in that sense (not Petrarch's end of time). Ames-Lewis cautiously does not draw any conclusions about Cosimo. Hibbert may have been less cautious; but Ames-Lewis does not mention the peacock feathers sprouting from the Medici stemma above the iron lantern on the Palazzo Medici.

Ames-Lewis goes on to describe four manuscripts done for Giovanni that "have in their direction a very prominently placed peacock" (p. 132) several more have peacocks that seem to be a device rather than merely decoration. In Augustine's De Civitate Dei a peacock stands frontally above the Medici stemma with the words "REGARDE MOI" behind it on a scroll. They appear together with the stemma also in a Cassian, Vita Patrum. He mentions two other mss., adding in a footnote that in mid-century Italian mss. peacocks are not common, the exceptions being for Alfonso of Aragon and one that seems purely decorative done for Piero. About "Regarde moi," while not dismissing reference to Augustine's idea of its incorruptible flesh (after all, one of the examples is in Giovanni's copy of a work by Augustine), he says:

it is more probably derived from classical sources; he may for example be comparing his peacock with Juno's, or following Pliny's comments on the peacock's knowledge of its own magnificence: (58)

. . . omnesque reliquas in iis pavonum genus, cum forma, intelectus eius et gloria. Gemmantes laudatus expandit colores, adverso maxime Sole, quia sic fulgentius radiant . . .

It may be of interest that Ames-Lewis wonders if Piero's "ostrich feathers" are such; they could be the feathers of a molting falcon, which would be consistent with Piero's choice of the falcon as his device (p. 129). The Medici's paintings with peacocks also have birds of prey swooping down on birds with more vegetarian diets. Ames-Lewis says (Ibid., n. 30) that the earliest reference to ostrich feathers in connection with the Medici that he knows about appears in 1513 (perhaps more is known since 1979, when Ames-Lewis wrote this); they were, however, associated with the Sforza of Pesaro. He also notes that the image of a molting falcon is "listed by Segni as one of Piero de' Medici's devices and recorded by Cambi on the standard for the 1459 Spettacolo" (p. 138).

Ames-Lewis also mentions in passing that before the Medici, peacocks were used in north-Italian decoration. He cites a 1434 Adoration by Stefano da Verona in the Brera (https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adorazion ... da_Verona)) And the Visconti Hours. Although Kirsch and Meiss say only that its presence there is a "reminder of the peacocks which adorned the Visconti gardens," Ames-Lewis is not so sure it was merely decorative, because (pp. 133-34, n. 55)

The motif is prominent in other Visconti MSS, such as Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 6520, Albertus Magnus, De Animalibus, fol. I., Chambery, Bibl. municipale MS 4, Breviary, fol. 43, ... and a missal for Mantua Cathedral.

He notes that (Ibid)

Filippo Maria Visconti's motto "a bon droit" is indeed echoed in the inscription DROIT which appears on the first page of Giovanni de' Medici's Augustine in which the peacock stands over the motto REGARDE MOI.

The peacock feather on the CY King of Coins in that regard would seem to identify the wearer as a Visconti, so rich that he needs no handout, unlike Francesco Sforza. This last was observed by Phaeded, a good point. So I retract my suggestion that it might have been a dig at Cosimo, regardless of whether the latter had the peacock feather as a personal device. However, it seems to me that in that case there is no derision of the peacock on that card, far from it; if there is a connection to Marziano, the moral has been reversed, and the more Peacocks one has the better, if one also is strong in Eagles.