What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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I have been trying to verify when Marziano was in Florence, also when he came to Milan, when he was ducal secretary, and when he died. Most of the references I can find online are to articles in Italian in books and journals I can't access, so I don't know the basis for what they say. What I do find is contradictory.

Many people say the funeral oration was in 1425. But the person who published that oration, Aristide Arzano in 1904 or so, could not date it, except that, since it was by Barzizza, it was before 1430, when Barzizza himself died. Arzano cites surviving official documents with his signature from 1418-1422 only; others say 1423.

Arzano's article, signed "A.A.”, is "Marziano da Tortona, letterato e miniatore del Rinascimento", in Storia e Arte nel Tortonese, Tortona, Rossi, 1905. pp. 63-96, at https://archive.org/details/storiaedart ... bo/page/n7 This book was uploaded in 2014.

Arzano also says that Marziano joined the "court of Rome" in 1406 (p. 70), he would have left Florence about then, since it was the last place he apparently studied. Arzano also says that he left Rome in 1409 for Milan, tutoring the young Filippo Maria, who would have been 17 at the time. Others say he came in 1412, again tutoring Filippo extensively, in Dante, Petrarch, and Livy. But that's when Filippo became duke, so there would not seem to have been much time for lessons.

On THF all I've found is Ross's post at viewtopic.php?p=10232#p10232, which does not give original sources, just something I can't find online or in a U.S. library. “Marziano da Tortona” in Ettore Cau, Franco Fagnanno and Valeria Moratti, eds., Il Tortonese: Album del II Millennio (Tortona; Rotary Club Tortona, 2001) pp. 125-136.

There is also a question of whether he was really a Rampini, which Arzano does not believe (p. 68). But of course he was writing many years ago, and doubtless more documents have been found since.

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

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Ugo Rozzo's work advanced Marziano's biography the most. He cites some documentation that puts to rest Arzano’s and Varanini’s uncertainty about Marziano being a Rampini, as well as narrowing the date of his death to “after April 1423 and before February 1425.”

“Ritratto di Marziano da Tortona,” in Marziano da Tortona e il Tarocchi, Tortona, Biblioteca Civica, 1982, pp. 2-17.

Prima di concludere sul periodo romano dobbiamo però aggiungere che probabllmente risale a questi anni l'assunzione degli ordini religiosi e l'ingresso nello stato ecclesiastico (divenne chierico della Camera apostolica), cho lo porterà al conseguimento della carica di "preposito" (dignità capitolare) della cattedrale di Tortona (com vedremo). Notiamo comunque che l'unificazione tra i due personaggi: il Marziano da Tortona, segretario di Filippo Maria e il Marziano Rampini di Sant'Alosio preposito (per altro poco conoscuito) fino ad ora non era mai stata fatta: ed è anche un ennesima conferma che il cognome di Marziano fosse Rampini. Per un suo ritorno nel Tortonese all'inizio del 1409 sta comunque un documento del 2 febbraio di quell'anno, recante i capitoli d'intesa della lega constituita dalle principali famiglie ghibelline di Tortona e del Tortonese contro il pericolo guelfo; alla lega aderitono anche i Rampini e "Marcianus Rampinus de Sancto Aloxio" venne scelto per essere uno dei cinque anziani che avrebbero dovuto guidare la lega.” (note 20, referring to a manuscript source in the Episcopal archives of Tortona, Registri Opizzoni, vol. I, ff. 30v-31r).

"Before concluding on the Roman period (1407-1409) we must, however, add that probably these years saw the assumption of religious orders and his entry into the ecclesiastical state (he became cleric of the Apostolic Chamber), which led him to the office of "provost" (a chapter position) of the cathedral of Tortona (as we shall see). Let us note, however, that the identification of the two characters: Marziano da Tortona, secretary to Filippo Maria, and Marziano Rampini di Sant’Alosio ( otherwise little known) had never been done until now: and it is also yet another confirmation that Marziano's surname was Rampini. For his return to the Tortona region at the beginning of 1409, however, there is a document of February 2 of that year, containing the chapters of agreement of the league formed by the main Ghibelline families of Tortona and the region of Tortona against the Guelph threat; also joining the league were the Rampini, and "Marcianus Rampinus de Sancto Aloxio" was chosen to be one of the five elders who were to lead the league."

As Rozzo says, we also learn from two notices that he was the preposito (provost, dean?) of the Tortona Cathedral. On 23 January 1419, Filippo Maria Visconti asked the Pope to remove the Abbot of Rivalta Scrivia, a certain Gregorio di Camogli, because at age 15 he “was not equal to the task, and to entrust its administration to Marciano de Sant'Alosio, cleric of the apostolic chamber and provost of Tortona.

See pages 19 and 119 for the source texts -
http://www.storiapatriagenova.it/BD_vs_ ... Progetto=0

For the date of death, Rozzo cites Maria Franca Baroni, "I cancellieri di Giovanni Maria e di Filippo Maria Visconti," in Nuova Rivista Storica, L (1966), p. 395; this is the last known documentary mention of him alive, 29 April 1423 (p. 5 and note 30; this is a year later than what Arzano and Fossati knew in their documentary mentions). For the terminus ante quem he cites Placido Lugano, Origine e vita storica della Abbazia di S. Marziano di Tortona (Rome, 1902), p. 41 note 1, which tells us that on 1 February 1425 the Pope had delegated the prior of S. Marcello di Pavia to settle the dispute between the abbot of S. Marziano di Tortona, Agostino de Curte and the nobleman Stefano Gentile, universal heir of the late Marziano Rampini "de S. Aroxio," provost of the cathedral. (ci dice infatti che il 1 febbraio 1425 ill papa aveva delegato il priore di S. Marcello di Pavia a dirimere la causa vertente tra l'abate di S. Marziano di Tortona, Agostino de Curte e il nobile Stefano Gentile, erede universale del fu Marziano Rampini "de S. Aroxio,", preposito della cattedrale), pp. 8-9, and note 35.

Also the anonymous author of the history of the region of Sardigliano (Sant’Alosio is about 8km NE as the crow flies) asserts that the relationship of Marziano (I) as son of Giovanni Rampini is “proven.”

See Cenni Storici - Capitolo I, p. 18, note on the family tre:
http://www.comune.sardigliano.al.it/it- ... une/storia
(downloadable documents are at the bottom of the page)
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Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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No one is sure of the date of his birth or the time he spent studying in the various cities, including Florence at the end of Barzizza's list of Tortona (leaves at age 16), Pavia, Padua, Bologna, Florence. Rozzo invokes Barzizza's familiarity with him to draw the conclusion that they were contemporaries, and since Barzizza was born in 1360, that is a safe guess for Marziano as well.

The author of the Sardigliano history puts it more at 1350, on what reasoning I can't discern. He was an "elder" in 1409 in the Ghibelline league, so maybe that implies something older than 49.

Gregory XII - Angelo Corraro or Correr - was elected in Rome by only 15 Cardinals on November 30, 1406. So Marziano's work with him can only have begun at the end of 1406. He was deposed by the Council of Pisa on 5 June 1409, by which time Marziano is already named in the Ghibelline league of Tortona. Gregory himself did not abdicate until 4 July 1415, to the Council of Constance through his delegate Carlo Malatesta.

It appears that Marziano's work for Gregory XII lasted at most only two years,
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Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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Ugo Rozzo adds some compelling thoughts in a few remarks on Marziano in “Biblioteche e bibliotecari a Tortona nel Settecento,” in Ettore Cau, Franco Fagnanno and Valeria Moratti, eds., Il Tortonese: Album del II Millennio (Tortona; Rotary Club Tortona, 2001) pp. 201-216.

Proseguendo, possiamo passare a ricordare un ‘probabile’ bibliotecario tortonese: si tratta del ben noto Marziano da Tortona, di cui se è occupato nel corso di un precedente intervento in questa stessa sede il prof. Edoardo Fumagalli; a mio avviso Marziano Rampini di Sant’Alosio, precettore di Filippo Maria Visconti e commentatore per lui di Dante, di Petrarca, di Livio, prima di diventare cancelliere nel 1412 e di trasferirisi a Milano con il duca, dovrebbe avere svolto anche la funzione di conservatore della grande collezione libraria riunita dai Visconti nel castello di Pavia. Non a caso c’è stato chi, come Lamberto Donati, ha pensato che I mitici trionfi, pagati a Marziano dal duca con l’enorme somma di 1500 ducati, costituissero in prima istanza la serie dei bozzetti per gli affreschi da realizzate nel vaso della libreria. Il che spiegherebbe meglio il compenso veramente principesco (per altro, anche la storia recente ci insegna che non sempre un compenso straordinario deve essere messo in stretta relazione ai servigi resi in una particolare circostanza, perché talvolta diventa una remunerazione complessiva). Il fatto che la Consignatio del 1426, cioè il primo inventario del patrimonio bibliografico dei Visconti, si situi pochi mesi dopo la probabile morte di Marziano fa poi pensare che si sia voluto procedere a questa descrizione prima di affidare i libri ad un nuovo responsabile che subentrava al defunto.

Continuing, we can move on to remember a 'probable' librarian from Tortona: he is the well-known Marziano da Tortona, who has been dealt with during a previous intervention in this same place by prof. Edoardo Fumagalli; in my opinion Marziano Rampini di Sant'Alosio, tutor to Filippo Maria Visconti and commentator for him on Dante, Petrarch, Livy, before becoming chancellor in 1412 and moving to Milan with the duke, should have also acted as the keeper of the large collection of books gathered by the Visconti in the castle of Pavia. It is no coincidence that there were those who, like Lamberto Donati, thought that the mythical triumphs, paid to Marziano by the duke with the enormous sum of 1500 ducats, constituted in the first instance the series of sketches for the frescoes to be made in the vault of the library. This would better explain the truly princely remuneration (moreover, recent history also teaches us that an extraordinary remuneration may not always be closely related to the services rendered in a particular circumstance, because sometimes it becomes an overall remuneration). The fact that the Consignatio of 1426, that is, the first inventory of the Visconti's bibliographic patrimony, is dated a few months after Marziano's probable death, makes us think that it was decided to proceed with this classification before entrusting the books to a new person in charge who would take over from the deceased. (pp. 202-203)

Given Rozzo’s demonstrated mastery of Marziano’s biography, it is hard to disagree with this scenario.
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Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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mikeh wrote: 21 Jul 2019, 12:59 I have been trying to verify when Marziano was in Florence, also when he came to Milan, when he was ducal secretary, and when he died.
The implication here is you are of course still asking the fair question as to whether Marziano was dealing with old humanist friends still in Florence (and thus influencing the ur-tarot), but I think the issue of diffusion is more likely at a patron to patron level; i.e., an elite’s luxury pursuits are copied by fellow elites. The problem of course is Visconti wasn’t exactly socializing with Florentine elites.

The alternate explanation, that Marziano sent a copy (who paid for it?) of the deck for Filippo to fellow humanist in Florence (who in turn produced a similar deck for one of his elite patrons or just turned it over to the "card-playing milieu"), seems dubious, even if a cheaper version. The lack of evidence for some 20 years (if a copy of the deck was shared when first produced in c. 1418) and the aforementioned issue of Marziano having the means to make a copy of an extremely costly luxury good.

Ultimately the sources informing Marziano and the CY are dissimilar: Marziano relies on the Ovide Moralisé tradition; the CY - at least as a significant subset - the canonical virtues.

Marziano’s source begs the question as to whether he generated the idea of the deck per his own fancy, or if it was suggested by Filippo’s own proclivities. Just as Filippo suggested to Filelfo a commentary on Petrarch’s Canzoniere, it is not out of the question that the prince asked the same of Marziano in regard to the Ovide Moralisé and in response went a step further and designed a related courtly game.

The latter has to be considered in light of frequent contacts between the Visconti and French courts, and the latter’s obsession with the Ovide Moralisé; from a current academic project to reclaim that literary tradition:
…the Ovide Moralisé is perhaps the most important work of the later French Middle Ages. However, to date, it has yet to receive the attention it deserves. This is no small part due to the fact that no modern translation of the text exists. https://moralizingovid.wordpress.com/

That tradition was particularly pronounced in such French court writers as Christine de Pizan in the period leading up to Marziano joining Visconti in Milan, particularly for Louis I, Duke of Orleans, and his wife, Valentina Visconti (d. 1407). For just one example of the profound influence of the Ovide Moralisé’s influence on Pizan see Suzanne Akbari, "Metaphor and Metamorphosis in the Ovide moralisé and Christine de Pizan's Mutacion de Fortune" in Metamorphosis: The Changing Face of Ovid in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Ed. Alison Keith and Stephen Rupp. , 2007: 77-90).

Before the likes of Pizan, there is already Visconti interest in the Ovide Moralisé. Commenting on the importance of Daphne, featured in the Marziano deck (the “trumps” end with Daphne and Cupid, lowering the gods’ interests to human playthings), in Blume's study of Bruzio Visconti Ovide Moralisé illuminated production he notes the importance of Daphne there as well as in the source of Ovid: “Being the poetic centerpiece in the Metamorphoses, the poet describes in rich detail the course of the pursuit and the speech of the almost victorious god” (Dieter Blume, “Visualizing Metamorphosis: Picturing the Metamorphoses of Ovid in Fourteenth-century Italy,” Troianalexandrina 2014, vol 14: 183-212, 194). Blume also notes a contemporary production of the Ovide Moralisé in Florence, the milieu and reception there, but that it occurred outside of the influence of Milan or Bologna (the latter is where Bruzio’s was made; ibid 194). So even when we are comparing apples to apples (versus Marziano and the CY), inter-city influences are hardly a given.

Contrary to the Marziano->CY proposition, I would posit the reverse was true: The Florentine ur-tarot was received in Milan and Filippo could only view it from the lens of the Marziano deck in his possession. The Marziano then had its impact on the Milanese adaptation of the ur-tarot by increasing the number of court cards, which matched the suit counts to the number of trumps in the Marziano. Moreover, the three females for males matches the Marziano emphasis on gender/courting, where the four suits feature the courtly concerns or virtues, virginities, riches and pleasures…a world dominated by the arrows of love, from which “Jupiter himself is not able to escape” (Marziano’s final words, translated by Ross Caldwell, 'The Playing Card', vol. 33 no. 2, Oct.- Dec. 2004, pp. 111-126).

Finally, thank you Ross for all of your research shared here. I was not aware of the corresponding frescoes in the Castle at Pavia, but of course I find that par for the course in just how important that ducal seat was for the Visconti (and that its coat of arms was shown on the CY Love card); Ross’s translation of the relevant Rozzo passage:
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 22 Jul 2019, 15:27 …in my opinion Marziano Rampini di Sant'Alosio, tutor to Filippo Maria Visconti and commentator for him on Dante, Petrarch, Livy, before becoming chancellor in 1412 and moving to Milan with the duke, should have also acted as the keeper of the large collection of books gathered by the Visconti in the castle of Pavia. It is no coincidence that there were those who, like Lamberto Donati, thought that the mythical triumphs, paid to Marziano by the duke with the enormous sum of 1500 ducats, constituted in the first instance the series of sketches for the frescoes to be made in the vault of the library. This would better explain the truly princely remuneration (moreover, recent history also teaches us that an extraordinary remuneration may not always be closely related to the services rendered in a particular circumstance, because sometimes it becomes an overall remuneration). Ugo Rozzo adds some compelling thoughts in a few remarks on Marziano in “Biblioteche e bibliotecari a Tortona nel Settecento,” in Ettore Cau, Franco Fagnanno and Valeria Moratti, eds., Il Tortonese: Album del II Millennio (Tortona; Rotary Club Tortona, 2001) pp. 202-203.
Phaeded

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

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That was wonderful, Ross, beyond expectations. I assume that most likely Marziano left Florence in 1406 and arrived in Pavia in 1409 or 1410.

My interest in these dates is related to whether he could have learned a proto-tarot while he was still in Florence. That seems dubious, as no one goes that early.

Otherwise, it is the date of his treatise that is of interest, which would still seem to be after 1418, when Michelino returned to Milan (actually, I don't have a source for that either! It is just from Huck on trionfi.com). It also seems unlikely to be after 1423, given his apparent retirement from work, probably due to illness.

For me the treatise is of interest as describing a game with a permanent trump suit, particularly with regard to its rules and purposes, in the early period, to balance out what meager information we have later about the games of trionfi, known from 1440, and tarocchi, known from 1505 (which I am not convinced were precisely the same; that is to say, the name-change may have been accompanied by a rule change). I do not think that tarot is derived from Marziano's game or vice versa. I think that they both have a common ancestor, 8 Emperors, and that Marziano's 4x4 matrix shows the expansion of a 4x2 matrix to 4x4,which is then relevant to the Cary-Yale.

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

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I should be thanking you for asking the question, Mike, since it gave me the impetus to look for the precisions in the various sources I knew I had, but had not fixed in my mind. I am ashamed that I didn't do it before, since it means my introduction to the Tractatus - published just last week! - lacks it; I relied on Fossati's notes to the Zanichelli Muratori of Decembrio's Vita, which only had a 1422 mention, and not the "late Marziano de S. Aloxio" one from 1425, or even the 1423 mention.

Phaeded, I also did not recall the Pavia library frescoes, I'll have to look into the information on that, starting from Donati. When I visited Pavia, my first city on my first trip to Italy in August, 2004, I made sure to establish where the library was in the castle. If I remember correctly, it was the SW tower. When you pass by that part of the castle, you can look up the narrow staircase into the tower, so enticing - yet blocked by a locked grate. I just wanted to see the room where the great library was once housed.
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Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

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Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 24 Jul 2019, 07:54 Phaeded, I also did not recall the Pavia library frescoes, I'll have to look into the information on that, starting from Donati. When I visited Pavia, my first city on my first trip to Italy in August, 2004, I made sure to establish where the library was in the castle. If I remember correctly, it was the SW tower. When you pass by that part of the castle, you can look up the narrow staircase into the tower, so enticing - yet blocked by a locked grate. I just wanted to see the room where the great library was once housed.

I was struck by how ghostly the castle in Pavia is - not at all that visited, with the courtyard area somewhat abandoned looking, the odd cannon lying about weeds (only there once, upon my first visit to Milan in 2011). And of course there is little left that would interest us - almost anything "old" merely dates from the 16th century (like in the d'Este's castle in Ferrara, excepting the barely legible Pisanello frescoes).

Sforza was elected count of Pavia by that commune fairly early on after Visconti passed (September 1447, per Jane Black, Absolutism in Renaissance Milan: Plenitude of Power Under the Visconti and Sforza 1329-1535, 2009: 91), so when the Marziano fell into the hands of Marcello "last year in the field of Milan, when I was in the camp of the highest and most celebrated leader Francesco Sforza" (could have been as late as 3/24/1449, the last day of 1448 by how they reckoned their year), it begs the question: did anyone in Sforza/Marcello's camp make the connection between the cards and the frescoes? Bianca must have known of the connection, presuming frequent contacts from where she was raised in Abbiategrasso and Pavia (perhaps even tutored there on occasion; she sailed to Ferrara from there in late 1440). Certainly Sforza did everything possible to fuse his own identity with that of the Visconti, and if the frescoes were still intact in the library (just odd that the Marziano deck was not kept in that library), wouldn't that have been something that Sforza's chancellery would have seized on? No way to determine that since both the Marziano deck and frescoes are gone, notwithstanding Marcello's description of the triumphal "celestial princes and barons" and Marziano's own description of the cards. Perhaps the PMB production was considered a nod in that direction (my own thoughts of the Marzano's possible impact on the CY noted above). An awareness of a connection between Marziano's deck and the frescoes in such a hallowed space as the ducal library - one of the largest in all of Europe - would certainly have elevated the regard with which "mere playing cards" were considered.

And many thanks once again for your diligent research here, especially for the Donati article - turning to that now.

Phaeded

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

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Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 24 Jul 2019, 09:34 Lamberto Donati's 1958 article cited by Rozzo is on JSTOR

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/262063 ... b_contents

....for the immediate purpose concerning the fresco cycle at Pavia, it starts on page 122

As far as Marziano impacting the Castle in Pavia, it looks like Rozzo has misread Donati, as the only clear evidence I see is a 1570 description of the castle and then Bembo's documented presence there, and therefore the PMB's influence, on the library in Pavia. I readily offer up caveats that I've just translated a few bits of a rather long article, while skimming the rest to try to get the gist of the article (can't copy/paste from JSTOR and I'm willing to transcribe only so much ;-). Keep in mind Donati's goal here is to explain the "Mantegna Tarocchi" and so the Pavia references are incidental to that. I do not see his proposed PMB court cards as prefiguring various "Tarocchi" figures at all. Donati ends with seeing a profound influence on the structure of the "Tarocchi" via Dante (particularly cards related to the Christianized Ptolemaic cosmos and liberal arts), in his Convivio with a few references also to the Comedia, but that is besides the point in regard to Marziano.

So here's the first key passage in regard to the ducal library in Pavia and the machine translation; after seeing a similarity in a stained glass window in Milan's Duomo with the "Tarocchi Artixan" and then a document which places a certain artist named Varallo working on that from 1460 on (hence close to the "Tarocchi" date), Donati offers us some engravings from 1505, with no suggestion of Marziano but rather works that seem to match the "Tarocchi" (presumably Donati saw the 1505 printer, Gualla, as using an earlier scheme from the library):
Al document ed alle affinita stilistiche denunciate per affermare l’ambiente pavese dei nostril ‘Tarocchi’ e bene aggiungere una testimonianza grafica. E quella offerta dal ‘Papie sanctuarium’ di Jacopo Gualla stampato a Pavia il 10 novembre 1505. Si confronti la figura infantile del Papa con quella altrettanto infantile del Papa 10 e qualla del Re col Re 8 della Serie S che abbiamo gia detto appartene ad una ‘carta’ non pervenutaci. Questa coincidenza, insieme colla somma sborsata da Filippo Maria Visconti, ci fa pensare che per le figure miniate, il grande ciclo iconografico fosse creato per una decorazione assai piu importante. Abbiamo gia accennato ad una simile eventualita, ma or ail pensiero corre al Castello Visconteo di Pavia del quale furono famose la grandezza e la belezza. Dell’eleganza artistica d’ogni sala ci ha lasciato la descrizione il Breventano[4], il quale parlando della Biblioteca dice che i libri ‘trattavano di tutte le facolta letterali, si di leggi, come di theologia, filosofia, astrologia, medicina, musica, geometria, retorica, istorie et d’altre scientie.’ Queste parole, coincidenti con alcune figure dei nostril ‘Tarocchi’, si direbbero scritte avendo innanzi agli occhi le personificazioni di quelle scienze e fanno pensare che in quello stupendo salone tutti I rami dello scibile, l’ispirazione poetica delle Muse e degli Dei, le Virtu Cristiane, le Costellazioni ed I Pianeti che influenzano la vita umana in ogni sua forma, tutta l’eredita dell’antichita classica nei tempi moderni, insomma tutto lo spirit fosse rappresentato da figure allegoriche, probailmente nel soffito, e che per questa meravigliosa creazione, tradottasi anche in forme d’arte minore, Filippo Maria Visconti avesse sborsato la grossa somma. (122-24).

Translation:
To the document and to the stylistic affinities denounced to affirm the environment of Pavia of our "Tarot" to which we add a graphic testimony. And the one offered by the 'Papie sanctuarium' by Jacopo Gualla printed in Pavia on 10 November 1505. Compare the infantile figure of the Pope with the equally childish figure of the Pope 10 and the King with the King 8 of the S Series we have already said belong to a 'card' not received by us. This coincidence, together with the sum paid out by Filippo Maria Visconti, makes us think that for the illuminated figures, the great iconographic cycle was created for a much more important decoration. We have already mentioned a similar eventuality, but the thought goes to the Visconti Castle of Pavia, whose grandeur and beauty were famous. The description of the artistic elegance of each room has been given to us by Breventano [4], who, speaking of the Library, says that books' dealt with all literary faculties, including laws, theology, philosophy, astrology, medicine, music, geometry, rhetoric, histories and other sciences. These words, which coincide with some of our 'Tarot' figures, appear to be written with the personifications of those sciences in front of them and suggest that in that wonderful hall all the branches of knowledge are the poetic inspiration of the Muses and the Gods, the Christian Virtu, the Constellations and the Planets that influence human life in all its forms, all the legacy of classical antiquity in modern times, in short, all the spirit was represented by allegorical figures, probably in the ceiling, and that for this wonderful creation , which also resulted in minor art forms, Filippo Maria Visconti paid the large sum.

The key source for the description of the rooms - not quoted by Donati (perhaps I missed that somewhere) - is this footnote:
4. Stefano Breventano, Istoria delle antichita, et delle cose notabili della citta di Pavia, Pavia, Bartoli, 1570. Il brano e riportato da Gerolamo d’Adda, Indagini storiche, artistiche e bibliografiche sula libreria visconteo-sforezesca del castello di Pavia, Milano, 1879, p. XIV-XVIII)

Without any specifics from Breventano its hard to see how Donati makes this leap to the notion that Breventano was describing a "Tarocchi" predecessor. A library is necessarily encyclopedic and so yes, all of the names of the series in the "Tarocchi" are covered by the subjects of the books held there, but that seems like the weakest argument one can make. Also the "large sum" seems to reference an earlier mentioning of the 1500 ducats to Marziano, yet Donati quickly moves onto to another artist...

A page later we have a link to Bonfacio Bembo, of all people:
Anche queste testimonianze iconografiche d’una grande serie pittorica, probabilmente esguita nel soffito a cassettoni della Biblioteca Viscontea di Pavia, nel quale le figure potevano esser disposte secondo un ordine preciso e ben meditato (A. Pianeti e Sfere. -B. Genii e Virtu. – C. Arti e Scienze. – D. Apollo e le Muse….-S. Gerarchie umane), sono accompagnate dai documenti. Indichiamone alcuni dei molti riguardanti la decorazione artistica del Castello pubblicati dal Maiocchi [2], scegliendo quelli che nominano Bonifacio Bembo al quale con ottimi argomenti sono attribuite le carte Carrara-Colleoni [PMB]: [dated documents, going from 1457 through 1482] (125)

Translation:
Also these iconographic testimonies of a great pictorial series, probably made in the coffered ceiling of the Visconti Library of Pavia, in which the figures could be arranged according to a precise and well thought out order (A. Planets and Spheres. -B. Genii and Virtu - C. Arts and Sciences - D. Apollo and the Muses ... - S. Human hierarchies), are accompanied by documents. Let us indicate some of the many related to the artistic decoration of the Castle published by Maiocchi [2], choosing those who name Bonifacio Bembo to whom Carrara-Colleoni cards [PMB] are attributed with excellent arguments: [here follows document dates, going from 1457 through 1482] (125)

This time the key source is footnote 2:
2. Rodolfo Maiocchi, Codice diplomatico artistico di Pavia dall’anno 1330 all’anno 1550, Pavia, Bianchi, 1937, I.

It seems Donati is taking the description of the castle in Breventano (whom he merely summarizes initially and then seemingly refers to in detail with the A through S sub-cycles of subjects, some of which generally match the "tarocchi") and then links Bembo to these descriptions because of Maiocchi's documentation of Bembo having worked there; having previously linked some presumed Bembo-painted PMB cards to the "Tarocchi" (an argument which I found especially weak) he then ties the genesis of the "Tarocchi" to the art scheme in the Pavia library.

Naturally, given my proposal that the planets are present in the PMB (as "children of the planets"), I find the potential linking of Bembo to a later fresco scheme, one area of which is dedicated to the planets in the Pavia library, of utmost interest, but I still do not see a Marziano connection. He is mentioned earlier, but beyond that Rozzo must have confused Marziano with the later Bembo reference, both being connected with cards (and Donati is vague about the later association of the "large sum" with anyone before moving on to Bembo).

At all events, there are two more works (the footnotes cited above) that apparently describe the artistic program of the castle at Pavia that are worth investigating.

Phaeded
Last edited by Phaeded on 25 Jul 2019, 15:44, edited 6 times in total.