Battle of Anghiari question

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What was Filippo Maria Visconti's control over the strategy at Anghiari?

I suppose this is primarily a question for Phaeded, since he is our resident expert on the subject.

I ask because in my compilation of data for the chronology of Filippo Maria's biography - which has not been written since Decembrio in the 15th century - I've included the phases of the Moon, because of his particular superstition about not doing doing anything important around the New Moon.

It turns out that the battle of Anghiari, 29 June 1440, was on the exact day of the New Moon.

It seems to me impossible that Visconti himself would have approved of attacking on that day, so I have to attribute it to Piccinino alone. Orders from Milan would have taken at least three days, in any case.

So I wonder if Filippo Maria had much control at all over Piccinino's actions. But I don't know the nitty-gritty details, which is why I'm asking.

Re: Battle of Anghiari question

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It's imaginable, that daily 2 messengers started in both directions. Or 2 messenger-systems with post-stations, where the messenger was exchanged, which ould be much quicker. Weren't Filippo and later Sforza famous,that they had perfected this system?
Thurn und Taxis ist der Name eines in den Hochadel aufgestiegenen lombardischen Adelsgeschlechts, welches das europäische Postwesen begründete und bis zum Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts einige Jahrhunderte lang betrieb. Nach Bestätigung Kaiser Ferdinands III. gelten die Thurn und Taxis als Nachfahren der Thurn und Valsassina.
Das Geschlecht der Tasso (Dachse) ist in der Lombardei seit dem 12. Jahrhundert nachweisbar und errichtete seit dem 14. Jahrhundert einen Kurierdienst für die Republik Venedig, seit dem 15. Jahrhundert auch für die Päpste. Die Brüder Janetto und Francesco dei Tasso gründeten 1490 im Auftrag des römisch-deutschen Königs und späteren Kaisers Maximilian I. das europaweite Postwesen. Die Nachfahren betrieben die Kaiserliche Reichspost als erbliche Generalpostmeister von Brüssel aus, ab 1701 von Frankfurt am Main und ab 1748 von Regensburg aus. Nach der Auflösung des Heiligen Römischen Reichs 1806 übernahmen einige Nachfolgestaaten die Einrichtungen der Taxis’schen Reichspost gegen Abfindung in Staatsregie, andere beauftragten die Familie mit der Weiterführung als Privatunternehmen, der Thurn-und-Taxis-Post, die bis 1867 wieder von Frankfurt aus geführt wurde. Nach dem Sieg im preußisch-österreichischen Krieg erzwang Preußen 1867 die Abtretung des Unternehmens an den preußischen Staat gegen eine Abfindung.
automatic translation
Thurn und Taxis is the name of a Lombard noble family that rose to the ranks of high nobility, who founded the European postal system and operated it for several centuries until the beginning of the 19th century. After confirmation of Emperor Ferdinand III. the Thurn and Taxis are considered descendants of the Thurn and Valsassina.
The Tasso (badger) family has been documented in Lombardy since the 12th century and has established a courier service for the Republic of Venice since the 14th century, and for the popes since the 15th century. The brothers Janetto and Francesco dei Tasso founded the European postal system in 1490 on behalf of the Roman-German king and later Emperor Maximilian I. The descendants ran the Imperial Post Office as hereditary general postmasters from Brussels, from 1701 from Frankfurt am Main and from 1748 from Regensburg. After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, some of the successor states took over the facilities of the Taxis Reichspost in exchange for state compensation, while others commissioned the family to continue the business as a private company, the Thurn-und-Taxis-Post, which was again managed from Frankfurt until 1867 became. After the victory in the Austro-Prussian War, Prussia forced the cession of the company to the Prussian state in 1867 in exchange for a severance payment.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurn_und_Taxis
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Battle of Anghiari question

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This is up your alley-of-the-moment: https://www.academia.edu/8330752/The_Ri ... y_Florence

Both sides would have been timing all war movements to the stars. Theoretically an astrologer in the field with Piccinino (he surely had one) would have picked the same day as one in Milan,

Short answer to your question about Filippo's involvement of the day: lines of communication stretched too far, so unlikely. Keep in mind this was a long drawn out campaign that switched from Brescia to Tuscany, with lots of skirmishes needing the right day. Originally the approach was from the Mugello and the north and then swung down to the southwest of Florence. The key is the Count of Poppi opening his territory to Piccinino (the latter used that area as a base before the battle) - that may have been coordinated with the Florentine Albizzi exiles, as well as with Filelfo back in Milan with the Duke. Suggestions of coordination from the ducal court:

Satire 4.1 examines the contrasting figures of Palla [Strozzi] and Cosimo from an imagined point in time when Cosimo, after a brief incarceration in Florence, had just left the city to spend his eleven months in exile in Venice and Padua. Beginning as a poem addressed to Cosimo--who is addressed as "Mundus," punning by way of Latin on the Greek term kosmos--the satire takes up the Stoic theme of the wise man who rules himself and his passions, in contrast to the foolish man whose impulses are unconstrained. Despite Cosimo's use of money to win friends and influence people, the poem notes that during his time of greatest need Cosimo's friends have deserted him. Filelfo makes many of the same points in a taunting letter to Cosimo composed in 1440 on the eve of the battle of Anghiari, a letter that mocks Cosimo's "egalitarianism," that is, his demagoguery in seeking the "people's" support, even as he refuses to allow himself to be constrained by the same laws that bind the citizens of Florence. (W. Scott Blanchard, “Patrician Sages and the Humanist Cynic: Francesco Filelfo and the Ethics of World Citizenship”, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 60, No. 4, 2007: 1107-1169, 1141)

Filelfo's main connection to the exiles was Palla Strozzi, who was not that driven against the Medici, but Albizzi was. Its all a bit murky, but the Albizzi would have local connections and the middle men to Milan, and supposedly fought in the battle as well.

But you bring up an interesting point about the moon and the timing of such things. The "head and tail of the dragon" (Caput Draconis/North Node and Cauda Draconis/south) - the lunar nodes for when/where eclipses can occur - were central to such calculations. I've always wondered if the PMB's Moon's girdle is held - the "gesture" - to suggest the tail of the moon (or rather knowledge of astrology in looking for coordinating such events with the the tail; perhaps the crescent moon itself was meant to indicate the head). And the odd shape made by the girdle forms the outline of a harp - music of the spheres?

Image

Phaeded

Re: Battle of Anghiari question

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Huck wrote: 01 Jun 2022, 23:58 It's imaginable, that daily 2 messengers started in both directions. Or 2 messenger-systems with post-stations, where the messenger was exchanged, which ould be much quicker. Weren't Filippo and later Sforza famous,that they had perfected this system?
I don't know if two days were possible, so I chose three. But that is beside the point. In broad flat Lombardy, it seems possible that a letter could go from Milan to Venice in less than 24 hours, with the relay system, replacing horses and riders at regular points. Over the hills, I don't know how to calculate that.

We discussed this in a different context a couple of years ago:
This helps to give one an idea.
https://writemedieval.livejournal.com/4706.html

E.g. - "Drawing on the work of Italian historian Federico Melis, [Peter] Spufford also discusses what we can discover by looking at the dates that letters were sent and received in late fourteenth and early fifteenth-century Italy. These sources tell us about the speed of messengers, who usually travelled lighter and faster than other people.
'The 17,000 letters between Florence and Genoa normally took 5 to 7 days to deliver, as did the 7,000 letters between Florence and Venice. Outside northern Italy delivery times were not so consistent. The 13,000 letters between Barcelona and Valencia normally took between 3 and 6 days to arrive. If a greater distance was involved, including travel by boat, the times were even more variable. The 348 letters between London and Naples varied in delivery times from 27 to 75 days, although most arrived between 32 and 54 days after despatch. This should be compared to Uzzanno’s note that letters from Florence to London (over 1,500 km plus the Channel crossing) should take under 30 days. Real couriers could travel faster than expectations as well as a great deal slower. Water could be faster than land, for most of the 493 letters between Venice and Constantinople were delivered in 34 to 46 days.' (p. 27)'
From Peter Spufford, Power and Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe -
https://books.google.ca/books?id=Dn2aPw ... SzCg&hl=en
posting.php?mode=edit&f=11&p=22670

Re: Battle of Anghiari question

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Phaeded wrote: 02 Jun 2022, 03:37 This is up your alley-of-the-moment: https://www.academia.edu/8330752/The_Ri ... y_Florence

Both sides would have been timing all war movements to the stars. Theoretically an astrologer in the field with Piccinino (he surely had one) would have picked the same day as one in Milan,

Short answer to your question about Filippo's involvement of the day: lines of communication stretched too far, so unlikely. Keep in mind this was a long drawn out campaign that switched from Brescia to Tuscany, with lots of skirmishes needing the right day. Originally the approach was from the Mugello and the north and then swung down to the southwest of Florence.
Yes, it seems that both sides would have timed it as much as possible to a propitious astrological moment. I'm suspicious that either side would have picked the day of the New Moon for the decisive attack, though. Filippo Maria's superstition may have been extreme, but New Moons are bad timing in general.

My impression is that Piccinino must have ignored the astrological counsel against it, however, and taken an opportunistic risk. This impression comes from the three-paragraph synopsis at Wikipedia, based on Pia F. Cuneo's book Artful Armies, Beautiful Battles: Art and Warfare in Early Modern Europe (Brill, 2002), which I have not seen (and don't get me started on Brill et al.'s academic extortion):
The League's army concentrated on Anghiari, a small centre of Tuscany, and comprised: 4,000 Papal troops, under Cardinal Ludovico Trevisan; a Florentine contingent of around the same size, and a company of 300 men-at-arms (knights) from Venice, led by Micheletto Attendolo. Other men joined for the occasion from Anghiari itself.

The numerically superior Milanese force was led by the famous condottiero Niccolò Piccinino in the name of Duke Filippo Maria Visconti and reached the area on the night of 28 June. Some 2,000 men from the nearby town of Sansepolcro joined the Milanese. Confident in his superior manpower, and on the element of surprise Piccinino ordered an attack in the afternoon of the following day. However, the dust lifted by the Milanese on the Sansepolcro-Anghiari road was noticed by Micheletto and the League's forces were made ready for battle.

Micheletto's Venetian knights blocked the Milanese vanguard on the only bridge over the channel protecting the League's camp. Micheletto and the Venetians held the bridge allowing the greater part of the League's army to form for battle but were eventually pushed back by Milanese reinforcements led by the two captains Francesco Piccinino and Astorre II Manfredi. The Milanese advanced but their right flank was soon ferociously engaged by the Papal troops and were obliged to retreat to the bridge. The battle continued for four hours, until a surrounding manoeuvre managed to cut off a third of the Milanese on the League side of the channel. The battle continued into the night but ended with a victory for the League army.[3 - Cuneo reference]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Anghiari

I have no clue about Piccinino's reliance on astrology, whether he was a fanatic devotee like the duke, or a scoffer. He certainly scoffed at the New Moon, which Visconti never would have.

It might also be the case the the Florentine league did not expect Piccinino to attack precisely because of the day. So they had not established perfect readiness yet on the 29th. The dust gave the Milanese movement away, but the League had to scramble, which is why the first part of the battle went to Piccinino.

Re: Battle of Anghiari question

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Phaeded wrote: 02 Jun 2022, 03:37 This is up your alley-of-the-moment: https://www.academia.edu/8330752/The_Ri ... y_Florence
That's a great article, thanks!

I'd have to read the original Dieci di Balìa decisions or supporting documentation from the astrologers to know how they considered the New Moon. But in the first example Maxson gives, the Florentines giving the baton to Ercole d'Este on 27 September 1478 after the sixteenth hour, "because the stars are not propitious before the sixteenth hour," with the program Stellarium (historically accurate) I note that, presuming the 16th hour is about 10-11am, that the Moon is one day old, but that it is not above the horizon until after the sixteenth hour. So the presence of the waxing Moon above the horizon may have been an important consideration (besides others I don't know, since I'm not an astrologer).

Re: Battle of Anghiari question

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Phaeded wrote: 02 Jun 2022, 03:37 Filelfo's main connection to the exiles was Palla Strozzi, who was not that driven against the Medici, but Albizzi was. Its all a bit murky, but the Albizzi would have local connections and the middle men to Milan, and supposedly fought in the battle as well.


The temptation to relate Andrea del Castagno's pitture infamanti of the Albizzi traitors to the Hanged Man of the trumps (and thus the whole trump sequence to the triumph at Anghiari) is well-nigh irresistible. This was an extravagant gesture, and they would have been "headline news." They made Andrea's career, gave him his nickname. They would have brought shame paintings to the forefront of everybody's mind in July 1440.

But the chronology just seems too tight, in principle, and I'm resisting.
But you bring up an interesting point about the moon and the timing of such things. The "head and tail of the dragon" (Caput Draconis/North Node and Cauda Draconis/south) - the lunar nodes for when/where eclipses can occur - were central to such calculations. I've always wondered if the PMB's Moon's girdle is held - the "gesture" - to suggest the tail of the moon (or rather knowledge of astrology in looking for coordinating such events with the the tail; perhaps the crescent moon itself was meant to indicate the head). And the odd shape made by the girdle forms the outline of a harp - music of the spheres?

Image
Interesting interpretation. I've always taken the weirdly shaped girdle-ties as a kind of bow, but a broken one for some reason. Bow relating to Diana. Here is what I mean, sorry for the crappy Photoshop job, but you get the picture:
Image

Re: Battle of Anghiari question

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Here is what Decembrio says, Ianziti's translation, chapter 68 (p. 141):
When the moon was in conjunction with the sun (New Moon), he would hide himself away in the deepest recesses of his castle, shunning the officers of his court and maintaining total silence. During such times it was impossible to obtain replies to any queries, even through intermediaries. It was a similar story when the moon was in opposition to the sun (Full Moon), but in a much lesser way, so that after much insistence one might hope to get a written response of the kind "Wait a bit, and I will answer you."
Here are 12 examples of Filippo Maria's decisions made by astology that Felice Fossati gave in his notes to chapter LXVIII of Decembrio's Vita (note 1, page 420). I have bolded those where the New Moon, combustion of the Moon, is explicitly noted.

3 January 1422 revoca e rinnova la ratifica 30 dicembre 1421 del patti col Fregoso: nello strumento della revoca è detto che la fa ex certis respectibus eum moventibus, e in margine s'avverte: nota quod hec revocatio facta fuit quia illud instrumentum non erat rogatum in die electa, Registri ducali, N. 31, f. 98r.

31 March 1422; I quattro governatori scelti, nel 1422, a reggere Genova, entrarono in carica il 31 marzo, alle ore 21, secondo l'ordine dato da lui, ossequente agli astrologi, Stella, col. 1286, donde Giulini, Memorie, VI, p. 247.

Nel 1424 il Torelli, quando partí da Genova per la spedizione nell'Italia meridionale, consultò solennemente le stelle, secondo Campiglio, IV, p. 72 n. 1, certo per ordine del duca, secondo Serra, III, p. 124ff, “perché i capitani di Filippo Maria credevano a sua imitazione, o mostravano credere i computi vani dell'astrologia.”

11 October 1425, mandando un cancelliere di Carlo Malatesta e un inviato di Pier Gentile da Camerino a conferir con Z. Ricci, li avverte di lasciar però che prima presens lunaris combustio elabatur, Gli atti cancellereschi, parte I, p. 160. (checked)

1428: Nel 1428 l'ora dell'incontro e sposalizio con Maria fu stabilito dall'astrologo Stefano, Billia, col. 109.

1431: Nel 1431, secondo alcuni scrittori, non volle vedere Sigismondo, per “prestigi astrologici.” Daverio, p. 86.

1433: Nel gennaio del 1433, dopo aver acconsentito a ricevere il conte di Maticone, rifiutò assolutamente di vederlo per tutta la durata della combustione lunare, Osio, III, p. 102: Gli atti cancellereschi, parte II, p. 89. (about 18-25 January)

6 June 1434, dopo aver sentito gli oratori del Savoia, rimise la pratica ad altro giorno perché “la luna era in segno non buono,” Scarabelli, Dichiarazione p. 258, propter lune combustionem, Gabotto, La politica di Amadeo VIII, 1916, p. 190. (checked)

5 July 1434, gli oratori assicurano il loro duca che sollecitano questo possono le pratiche, “maix en son fait a tant d'astrologie et d'aultres revolucions que nous [devons] rompre ou gouverner selon sa calarmente (sic),” Gabotto, p. 200.

20 September 1434 da Abbiategrasso esortò i rappresentanti ancora del Savoia a non lasciar di concludere il contratto il giorno dopo all'ora fissata: Est enim dies ipsa electissima et optima ad istud negocium perficiendum, Gabotto, p. 219, cf. Cognasso, L'alleanza ecc. contro Venezia ecc., p. 383, e quelli poi informarono Amedeo che il 21 settembre, determinato dagli astrologi senza cui Filippo Maria non moveva un passo, avevano fissato col delegato visconteo che la lega si stabilirebbe entro il 15 ottobre e speravano di far il contratto il 14, quia illa dies est fixa et electa, Scarabelli, p. 263.

1 May 1446 planned taking of Cremona (Moon four days old; Piccinino sets out on 30 April, Moon-Venus in Gemini)

22 July 1447, Nel 1447 Guidaccio da Faenza, che pur doveva essere atteso a Milano con una certa ansia, v'entrò sul mezzodi del 22 luglio, e non il 21, perché Filippo Maria volle “aspectare bono puncto,” Daverio, p. 253 (lettera 23 luglio, del Guarna).

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Op ... ons&gbpv=1
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