Huck wrote: 20 Jul 2022, 08:01
.... if one was aware about the 12 Olympian gods as a fixed antique group, it wasn't very difficult to realize, that 11 of the first 12 god trumps in the Michelino deck belonged to the standard version of the 12 Olympic gods. The old antique versions also had occasionally modifications, so a Bacchos instead a _Hephaistos didn't disturb too much.
Hercules as the 13th Olympian is also a very old idea. As far I know, It was used, when a regent had become very successful and was declared to be a god, as in the cases of Alexander and Augustus. For instance presented here ...
https://theworldofalexanderthegreat.wor ... /hercules/
Why does Marziano's 16, not 12, "heroes" depend on Manilius?
...
... the 14th century had had a favour for 16 chess and 16 geomantic figures.
8 equal pawns does not inform an ordinal ranking of the gods in any manner. Chess does not have four suits, at the heart of Marziano's "fourfold" organization of his game. Strike 3: ALL of the Olympic gods can be found in the pre-Manilius
Ovide moralise tradition. If one's goal is to show up to 16 pagan gods then the 12 primary ones are of course going to be shown - one doesn't need Manilius for that. You might have a case if Marziano followed Manilius's rankings of the gods -
he doesn't. There are zero signs of influence, especially in your caveat "Bacchos instead a _Hephaistos didn't disturb too much.." - yes, but you are arguing for a direct influence of Manilius on Marziano, who is now suddenly altering the sacrosanct list of gods from a indisputable classical source. Nonsense. Marziano altered Petrarch''s Africa because he undertsood what Petrarch was up to - modifying Capella for a North African king's palace.
To expand on the gods in the
Ovide moralise tradition, while the
Libellus only has 14 of Marziano's 16 (and all of the Olympians,
with no help from Manilius) which it predates the rediscovery of), Pizan's
Othea, 1399-1400, has all of Marziano (not all are illuminated in the MSs that have survived - and most MS have no illustrations) is a more encyclopedia version of the
Ovide moralise tradition, but focused on the Trojan War (as the ancestors of France - like for the Visconti - are traced back to a mythical founder from Troy).
Moroever, Pizan's friend was Valentina Visconti, the owner of Lombard and 'Saracen' decks, for whom her husband as the dedicatee of the
Othea itself - as in this MS dedicated to the queen of France, Isabeau of Bavaria, herself half Visconti on her mom's side. It is much more likely the Visconti court was in possession of or aware of a summary of the
Otheathan a Manilius which did not exist by the time of Marziano's most likely writing of it. Even though he'd long been assassinated, here is Valentina Visconti's husband, Louis of Orleans, discussing the Othea with Pizan in the copy made for Isabeau:
https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminate ... llID=22513
Card playing was rampant in the Visconti family - Marziano didn't need Manilius to apply the
Ovide moralise tradition (already applied to Chess) to the different game of cards, but clearly an opportunity to get in on that allegorizing genre.
Back to Pizan, numerous of her illuminations look like later Visconti cards, as if the latter had been inspired by the former - which I think a strong argument can be made for.
Othea Venus-CY "World" - I've already pointed out four specific parallels that make influence all but assured.
Othea Atropos (when one's length of life is cut and one is dead), essentially looks like the PMB Death card - a death figure holding long spear-like arrows over the usual cast of ranks of men dead below (vs. being mounted):
Othea Sun-PMB Sun - Finally, your PMB red-headed Sun was already depicted that way in Pizan (represented multiple times, naturally as the tutelary god of the Trojans...and of interest to the radiant sun imprese of the Visconti)
And in Marziano, Apollo/Sun has his "head locks decorated with laurel, by both Caesarian and poetic law" - that clearly comes from Daphne, shown as the source of laurel in Pizan. Whence the critical personage of Daphne in Manilius, or Cupid for that matter?
And since Cupid/Daphne is foundational for the theme of Marziano's deck, and he employs birds for the four suits, it might be of some interest to see yet another version of Cupid in Pizan surrounded by birds (metamorphosis of humans into birds is the arch symbol of transformation in Ovid, esepcially as reflected in his reception in French medieval literature):
In fact, one might consider the bird pips as aspirational towards godhead, or conversely, punished as such: "the bird becomes the archetypal incarnation of mutability" (Griffin, Miranda.
Transforming Tales: Rewriting Metamorphosis in Medieval French Literature. Oxford University Press, 2015: 221). Love/
Cupido is that transforming agent, for better or worse. And what after all is the key word in the anonymous allegorical poem that inspired Conty's own work, written between 1370 and 1380 in which the game of chess serves as the controlling metaphor?
Les Échecs amoureux (Conty's own c. 1400 work was entitled
Eschez amoureux, moralises). if you can't recognize the Ovid tradition as the impetus behind the chess treatises and what Marziano adapted for cards, then you need to continue your research.
Pizan is at least a dozen years before Marziano - not too old to be unfashionable (the particular MS from the images were taken above were from New Year's Day 1414, but the
Othea had already been illuminated and copybooks must have been used - I presume one making it to Pavia, consulted/utilized for both the CY and PMB) and has all of the gods necessary for Marziano. While the Libellus and Boccaccio informed Marziano in his updating of Petrarch's
Africa passage, the artist employed would have looked for existing examples of the pagan gods depictions and the Othea was available. Keep in mind Valentina Visconti was Filippo's half-sister, and would have inherited the original
Othea MS when Louis was assassinated (and that became an affair of state involving the Visocnti).
For the involvement of the Visconti court with Manlius during the life of Marziano there is a dearth of material.
Phaeded
PS You cite Manilius as if his treatment of the 12 Olympian gods was novel information - Petrarch relies on Livy for his Africa and where we also find the 12 gods, if paired:
Ab Urbe Condita Libri, XXII.10.9 . "Six couches were publicly exhibited; one for Jupiter and Juno, another for Neptune and Minerva, a third for Mars and Venus, a fourth for Apollo and Diana, a fifth for Vulcan and Vesta, and the sixth for Mercury and Ceres. This was followed by the vowing of temples. Q. Fabius Maximus, as Dictator, vowed the temple to Venus Erycina, because it was laid down in the Books of Fate that this vow should be made by the man who possessed the supreme authority in the State." Manilius as
the source for the Olympians is completely unwarranted.