Heraldic Hose
Posted: 14 Jul 2012, 19:30
We know to look for heraldics to find out information about when, where, and for whom an early deck is made.
Well, here is one type of heraldic I didn't know about: stockings. Kristin Lippincott, in "The Genesis and Significance of the Italian Impresa" (Chivalry in the Renaissance, 1990, ed. Sydney Anglo, pp.49-76) writes (p. 59):
What color is this "morello"? The online dictionaries have "blackish", but also "cherry", as a type of tree. Also, I know that red wine in French is sometimes "noir". In one well-known depiction of Galeazzo, he is wearing red and white. Perhaps that is meant.
(from the website http://thiswritelife.wordpress.com/2010 ... ia-sforza/, dated there as 1464, a dubious dating, since Francesco was then not yet dead).
I looked in the Milan decks for such calze. I was surprised to find so few on the court figures, only one in the PMB, the Page of Cups, and two in the Cary-Yale, the Page and King of Coins. (The PMB's King of Coins has green and red.) More surprisingly to me, the CY Love card's male figure is sporting red and white calze, but not the PMB, which has him wearing two red calze. The ones on the CY, together with the banners, would suggest, if the hose was Galeazzo's heraldic, that the lovers were Galeazzo and Bona of Savoy, 1468. I know of no arguments conclusively ruling out this date, however improbable.The question is, were such colors on calze proprietary before Galeazzo, and if so, whose?
Well, here is one type of heraldic I didn't know about: stockings. Kristin Lippincott, in "The Genesis and Significance of the Italian Impresa" (Chivalry in the Renaissance, 1990, ed. Sydney Anglo, pp.49-76) writes (p. 59):
Footnote 43 is of interest also for its title, Barzizza being a maestro of some note....Furthermore, members of a ruler's entourage were often permitted to sport his colours or devices as a sign of mutual fealty. Wearing hose or calze of a particular colour, for example, ensured a nobleman the same courtesy, and in some cases, liberties as that of his lord. Of course, the temptation to take advantage of this system was enormous. There is an amusing letter written by Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza to one of his secretaries, in which the Duke complains that too many unauthorized citizens have taken to wearing calze in his heraldic colours - white and morello. Galeazzo Maria insists on a purge in which every person wearing white and morello bi-coloured stockings be stopped and asked to produce the official document which entitled him to sport the Duke's colours.(42) Similarly the notion that accepting a gift of symbolically-coloured calze implied the loyalty of the recipient is made clear by the incident in which Francesco Sforza writes to his then young son, Galeazzo Maria, saying that it is perfectly acceptable to keep some jewels which had been given to him by the Ferrarese Marchese, Borso d'Este, but that Galeazzo Maria had to return the present of a pair of calze in the Estense tri-colore of red, white and green. Francesco was obviously worried about the political implications of the heir to the Milanese Duchy wearing the colours of the Ferrarese. (43)
Footnotes: 42. Milan, Archivio di Stato Archivio Sforzesco, Missive 118, fol. 247v, 23 October 1474; "Intendemo che molti sono nel domiio nostro quali portano la divisa nostra biancha et morelo senze nostra licentia. Volemo faciate fare le cride opportune che chi porta la dicta nostra divisia o con licentia a senza licentia lo mandano ad notificare ad nuy...' Cited in E. S. Welch, "Secular Fresco Painting at the Court of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, 1466-1476', Ph.D. thesis, University of London/Warburg Institute 1987, p. 273.
43. See A. Capelli, 'Guiniforte Barzizza, maestro di Galeazzo Maria Sforza', Archivio storico lombardo, ser. iii, I (ann21), 1894, pp. 399-442, esp pp. 415 and 433-36.
What color is this "morello"? The online dictionaries have "blackish", but also "cherry", as a type of tree. Also, I know that red wine in French is sometimes "noir". In one well-known depiction of Galeazzo, he is wearing red and white. Perhaps that is meant.
(from the website http://thiswritelife.wordpress.com/2010 ... ia-sforza/, dated there as 1464, a dubious dating, since Francesco was then not yet dead).
I looked in the Milan decks for such calze. I was surprised to find so few on the court figures, only one in the PMB, the Page of Cups, and two in the Cary-Yale, the Page and King of Coins. (The PMB's King of Coins has green and red.) More surprisingly to me, the CY Love card's male figure is sporting red and white calze, but not the PMB, which has him wearing two red calze. The ones on the CY, together with the banners, would suggest, if the hose was Galeazzo's heraldic, that the lovers were Galeazzo and Bona of Savoy, 1468. I know of no arguments conclusively ruling out this date, however improbable.The question is, were such colors on calze proprietary before Galeazzo, and if so, whose?