There's a new document about playing cards in Arezzo (1400) ...
trionfi.com/evo1
... and another report about playing cards in Arezzo in 1410 has followed ...
trionfi.com/evo3
and now we have a third with a complex trade 1400.
trionfi.com/evo4
... and, as I've heard, at least two others will follow.

Further interest (in our very special interests, which focus on the year 1440) for Arezzo is given by the following conditions: Arezzo is relative near to Anghiari (30 km), and here (in Arezzo) condottiero Agnolo of Anghiari had taken position to observe the progress of the army of Niccolo Piccinino, which somehow was located near Bibbiena. Our man with the Trionfi cards Giusto Giusti was in Florence and he was called by Agnolo to Arezzo. Piccinino was already in the region since begin of April 1440 and in one of the smaller early fights Gregory, brother of Agnolo, had become prisoner. Giusto (the man of the first Trionfi document) arrived in Arezzo at 15th of May. 1440, 1 1/2 months before the battle.

Researching the conditions of the oldest Trionfi document, one likely has to understand a little bit of Arezzo.

So I started to collect a few things about Arezzo ...



... isn't this a nice heraldic? It belongs to a bishop of Arezzo, Guido Tarlati, Vescovo di Arezzo, who was of importance in early 14th century.

Guido Tarlati (died 1327) was a lord and Bishop of Arezzo.

Tarlati, coming from a Ghibelline family of Pietramala, became bishop of 1312. In 1321 he was declared signori of Arezzo, a position he held until his death. During his administration the city had generally good relations with its neighbors Florence and Siena, and promoted the pacification between the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Later he supported Uguccione della Faggiola and Castruccio Castracani, lords of Lucca, in their wars against Florence.

Tarlati also expanded the territories of Arezzo, and in 1323, with the collaboration of Francesco I Ordelaffi (Ghibelline lord of Forlì), he conquered Città di Castello. Arezzo's expansion caused however the deterioration of the relations with the Papal States, ending with the excommunicated of Tarlati by Pope John XXII. He was replaced by another bishop, Boso Ubertini, but Tarlati did not allow him to enter in the city. Tarlati's prestige at the time was so high that German emperor Louis IV wanted to receive from him the Iron Crown.

A short time before his death Tarlati reconciled with the Pope. According to Giorgio Vasari the tomb commissioned by Guido's brother, the condottiero Pier Saccone Tarlati di Pietramala, was designed by Giotto (although this is disputed), who recommended to Pier Saccone the Sienese sculptors Agnolo da Ventura and Agostino di Giovanni to execute it.[1] It is located in the Cathedral of Arezzo.

The bishop wasn't alone ... There was also this one, his brother:

Pier Saccone Tarlati di Pietramala (1261–1356) was an Italian condottiero from Pietramala d'Arezzo in the Val d'Arno, a rocca that controlled the mule track between his native town of Arezzo and Anghiari.[1] Pietramala ("Bad rock") was the seat of the powerful family of the Tarlati, who came to prominence in the strife following Arezzo's decisive defeat at Campaldino (1289) as heads of the Ghibelline "Secchi" faction of Arezzo.[2] Pier Saccone's brother was Guido Tarlati, bishop and signore of Arezzo.

Pier Saccone, during a fighting career that lasted to his final days, held for periods of time the lordships of Anghiari,[3] Arezzo, Città di Castello, Sansepolcro, Bibbiena, Chiusi Subbiano[4] and Castiglion Fiorentino, in addition to numerous smaller strongholds.[5]

In 1312, with his brother Tarlatino Tarlatini, he was in the retinue of Henry of Luxembourg, Holy Roman Emperor at Rome. In August 1315 he participated at the battle of Montecatini, at the head of 140 gentlemen of Arezzo. In 1320 his reputation was assured through his acquisition of numerous castelli from Guido Novello da Polenta, the host of Dante in exile. In October 1323 he was invested with Città di Castello. In February 1327 he paid court in Milan to Ludwig of Bavaria, King of Germany, who was crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy by his brother Guido, bishop of Arezzo,; in October that year, at the death of Guido, he was made Lord of the city, for the space of one year; however, after he attended the coronation in Rome of Ludwig as Holy Roman Emperor the following January and was excommunicated in March 1328 by John XXII along with the Emperor and the major members of his party, the Emperor formally invested him as Signore of Arezzo and Città di Castello, in December, following the death of his brother, who had held the position for his lifetime. Pier Saccone's rule marked a rapid decline in the fortunes of Arezzo, which had reached their apogee under the bishop his brother.[6]

He took Sansepolcro in March 1329, after eight months of siege and unusually high casualties, but failed to take Cortona through a conspiracy, his favoured technique. That began a series of violent encounters with forces of Florence and Perugia that ended in March 1337, when he sold the signoria of Arezzo to the Florentines, for 42,800 florins and the back payment of his troops. Thus Ghibelline Arezzo passed for the first time under the power of Guelf Florence.[7]He and Tarlatino were received with great public honors in Florence and fought as allies of Florence in campaigns during the next years, until he failed in a Ghibelline attempt to seize power in Arezzo once more and was taken in chains to Florence, January 1342. In May Walter of Brienne, who controlled Florence, released him and restored to him his castello of Bibbiena. In June his partisans were foiled in another attempt on Arezzo, with much damage to palazzi and the city's walls and gates.

In the spring of 1343, following the terms of a truce between Guelfs and Ghibbeline, Pier Saccone exchanged some recently acquired castelli for Rondine. That summer, with Brienne expelled from Florence, Pier Saccone moved again to take control of Arezzo, held by Buodelmonti, whio had the confidence of the Aretini. Pier Saccone ravaged the countryside round about. Capturing Castiglion Fiorentino and its rich treasury of 7,000 florins, Pier Saccone confiscated belongings and imprisoned men and women, some of who were tortured to extort their goods. The following fighting season he turned against the forces of Perugia[8] and came to terms again with the Florentines in 1345; however, in 1351 he was in league with the Visconti, his old enemies the Ubertini and the Pazzi of Val d'Arno against the Florentine commune.

He died at Bibbiena in 1356, and was succeeded by his son, Marco.

From this early time on (far away from the time of Anghiari in 1440) the Tarlati were of importance in Arezzo and somehow this endured till 1440, though the Tarlati lost officially their positions in Arezzo and also Anghiari in 1384
There existed a widow of a Tarlati, Anphrosina, in the time of the Anghiari battle in the location Monterchi, 10 km South of Anghiari and she was accused to have had contacts to Filippo Maria Visconti and caused the arrival of Piccinino and the battle. This seems exaggerated ... Piccinino had a lot to do in April/May 1440:

Conquista Pianetto ed attacca Modigliana, che gli si arrende a patti; vengono in suo potere anche Portico di Romagna, Rocca San Casciano, Monte Sacco, Montevecchio, Riolo Terme, Premacore; 20 castelli dei pontifici pervengono ai viscontei. Alla notizia di una congiura in Bologna organizzata dai Canedoli e dallo Zambeccari ai danni dei Bentivoglio, ritorna nella città, cattura Battista, Galeotto e Ludovico Canedoli che fa incarcerare, rispettivamente, a Borgonovo Val Tidone, Pellegrino Parmense e Borgo Val di Taro; fa uccidere l’abate Zambeccari, non curandosi della possibile scomunica da parte delle autorità pontificie. Il commissario fiorentino abbandona vilmente Marradi: i viscontei irrompono così in Toscana; ai fuoriusciti che lo accompagnano è proibito di ardere case e villaggi. Il Piccinino punta su Vicchio e Pulicciano; supera le colline di Fiesole, ha Mucciano e scorre la pianura verso Pontassieve e Remoli. Fa prede e devastazioni fino a Vallemagna; perde, tuttavia, ventotto giorni nell’assediare Pulicciano ed a Firenze non nasce alcun tumulto a favore dei fuoriusciti. Nel capoluogo entrano, anzi, 1500 cavalli sforzeschi guidati da Neri Capponi e le truppe dell’Orsini (che ha cambiato partito nell’arco di pochi giorni). L’Albizzi cerca di convincere il Piccinino a muovere contro Pistoia, con la speranza di una sollevazione ad opera dei Panciatichi avversa ai Cancellieri, per spingere gli avversari ad una battaglia campale; egli preferisce ascoltare il parere del conte di Poppi Francesco di Battifolle per trasferirsi in Casentino al fine di tagliare le comunicazioni tra Arezzo e Perugia, da dove si sta muovendo l’esercito pontificio. Ha Bibbiena, Borgo alla Collina, Romena e Pitiano presso Vallombrosa. A Romena si vendica dei fiorentini che, contro i patti nel riconquistare un castello, hanno ucciso tutti i fanti che ne sono alla difesa e decapitato il fuoriuscito Leonardo Raffacani: fa venire davanti a sé i fanti che si sono arresi a patti, fa impiccare quelli della fazione dei Cancellieri e libera quelli della fazione dei Panciatichi. Assedia ora Castel San Niccolò e vi perde trentuno giorni sotto le sue mura: alla guardia si trova Morello da Poppi con 120 fanti; la vista dei difensori è rallegrata dalla mostra dei numerosi impiccati tutti intorno il castello. Nelle more, il condottiero prende e mette a sacco Borgo a Stia, Palagio, Ortignano, Giugatoio, Ozzano ed il forte di Reggiolo che brucia per una freccia o un verrettone incendiario che dà fuoco al tetto di paglia di una casa: l’incendio, alimentato dal vento, provoca la morte di 150 persone tra uomini, donne e bambini che vi sono dentro. Stringe sempre più d’assedio Castel San Niccolò e coloro che tentano di fuggirne sono catapultati all’interno con una briccola; anche Bartolomeo del Bologna, catturato in precedenza a Romena, subisce la medesima sorte. A fine maggio i difensori della fortezza si arrendono ed egli fa impiccare due disertori che vi hanno trovato rifugio. Il Piccinino perde altro tempo alla conquista di Rassina, mentre i suoi avversari (l’Orsini con i commissari Capponi e Bernardo dei Medici) raggiungono con 3000 cavalli Figline Valdarno per controllare da vicino i suoi movimenti e tenerlo lontano da Firenze. Quando sa del prossimo arrivo dell’Attendolo da Assisi e da Bettona in rinforzo agli avversari, invia alcune schiere a Sansepolcro ed a Montone per sbarrare loro il passo; altri 1000 cavalli e 1000 fanti sono da lui analogamente inviati in Umbria. Effettua una scorreria a Monte Castello di Vibio ed il bestiame razziato viene spedito a Collelungo; soccorre la rocca di Sberna e porta altre devastazioni ai territori di Anghiari, Sansepolcro e Città di Castello. Ha pure il tempo di tessere con i fuoriusciti un trattato in Cortona. Si avvicina alla località con 6000 cavalli e molti fanti. Deve fingere un attacco al borgo di San Vincenzo mentre suoi fautori in città avrebbero dovuto introdurre le sue truppe per la porta Colonia opposta a quel borgo. Sono arrestati i capi della congiura ed è raddoppiata la vigilanza. Il Piccinino si ritira in buon ordine con il bottino che poi, grazie a pressione dei perugini, farà riavere in parte agli abitanti di Cortona. I congiurati catturati sono tutti decapitati.

A general point about Arezzo is, that it had been earlier independent and had competed with Florence (and there were wars). In 1384 it did fall and became a part of Tuscany, a development, which some might have welcomed, but surely not all. So there might have been still living antipathies against Florence in the region.

The Albizzi were a family of Arezzo, Maso degli Albizzi became Gonfalionieri in Florence in 1393 and "dominated" then in Florence till his death in 1417 (so says wikipedia).
Maso has quite an interesting biography ...
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/mas ... rafico%29/
... with long periods as a member of the German knight order (Arezzo had traditionally a strong connection to the the German Emperor). He fought far in the North in Lithunia, till in 1381 he became head of the Albizzi family.

The Alberti (bankers of the popes in Avignon) had been hostile to the Albizzi (close to the emperor) in the 1370s, and there was competition between both family in the 1380s and 1390s, which ended with the exile of all Alberti in 1401. So it happened, that Leon Battista Alberti was born in Genova (14404) and was allowed to return to Florence as late as 1428.

With the fall of the Albizzi in Florence in 1434, naturally the political mood in the region of Arezzo was inflicted. The old independence was remembered and letters of conspiracy were written to Filippo Maria Visconti in search for a military ally. When in the course of the battles around the Garda lake 1438/39 no success was expected, Piccinino and a greater part of the Visconti armies went in spring 1440 to put pressure on Florentine regions, which must be regarded as insecure Tuscany territory. The Arezzo region at the Eastern border was such a region. There is an interesting article ...

Leonardi Bruni, Florentine traitor? Bruni, the Medici, and an Aretine conspiracy of 1437.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Leonardi+ ... a054064276

... which hypothetically considers the role of Leonardo Bruni in the current political situation.

Leonardo Bruni was "from Arezzo" and Petrarca was "from Arezzo", and Leonardo Bruni wrote a biography of Petrarca in 1436, and as we recently discussed the development of Petrarca's fame (from which at least me expects to get some ideas to the Petrarca-Trionfi-poem development in 1440), in which the biography of Bruni plays a certain role.
There's the natural relation, that a living writer of Arezzo (Bruni) gives some attention to an older writer born in Arezzo (Petrarca). Giannozzo Manetti, who followed Bruni with a further Petrarca biography in c. 1440 (so very close to earliest Trionfi deck and battle of Anghiari), had a close relation to Bruni. In 1444 at Bruni's funeral it was Giannozzo Manetti, who gave the funeral oration, and then - very unusual for a funeral oration, one should think - Manetti was crowned poetus laureatus, a big honor and a clear sign, that at least in 1444 some important political persons were very content with Manetti and also with Bruni.
Bruni and Manetti were both very good with Greek language, so likely in 1439 during the council of Florence with 700 Greek guests both had good chances, to display their abilities and to get central roles.

In the region around Arezzo some rulers changed sides during Piccinino's attack (battle of Anghiari and connected activities), but Arezzo itself stood as a place which organized the defending armies, and the defense had finally success.

Activities, which led to the production of illustrated Petrarca "Trionfi" editions we can observe since January 1441, after the first Trionfi card note in September 1440 and after the battle of Anghiari in June 1440. About the date of Manetti's Petrarca biography we've no precise ideas.

One might consider, that Arezzo was (possibly) considered as political insecure before Anghiari in June 1440, but after Anghiari there it seems probable, that some fame and praise following the victory might have fallen on Arezzo and as the next big city also some festivities might have taken place just there. Special fame for a son of Arezzo (Petrarca) would be logical just at this time "after Anghiari", especially as Arezzo played a further role as a providing line for some further war activities farther in the East (which still endured in 1440).

Huck,
I've been keeping up with Pratesi via your updates and this post of yours is damn nice supplementary research. I just reread Field's "Bruni/Florentine Traitor?" and you've done a good of tying people and events in the surrounding region together. I'll add a couple of items here (that I'm meaning to weave into an original post at some later time on a slightly broader subject):

1. After Anghiari the ensuing action lead to Poppi (north of Arezzo and Anghiari) where the Count there was forced to cede his town to Florence and exiled out of Tuscany. One is lead to the conclusion that the entire region was acting in collusion with the exiled Albizzi faction...but how then do we account for Giusti and Anghiari? Was that town the outlier of the pro-Milanese/Albizzi alliance that had to be subdued first before Piccinino lead the assault on Florence proper? Keep in mind Giusti was not a mere notary but a procurer of troops for hire (a middle man for men-of-arms for the likes of Malatesta). The entire region seems to have been rife with belicose activity, which leads me to...

2. Florence started taxing the hell out of its contado/districtus hinterlands to the degree that rebellions became quite frequent as towns became indebted to the large banking houses to pay off these tax debts, something that first climaxed from 1400-1408, which forced Florence to give out tax concessions to these areas: "1401-2 marked a balance between contado and more privileged districtus, mostly under the aegis of older formerly independent city-states – Pistoia, Volterra, and Arezzo. These areas were subject to fixed rates of a military tax called the lance, but, like the city of Florence, were freed from the estimo and direct taxation" (S. Cohn, Creating the Florentine State: Peasants and Rebellion, 1348-1434. 1999: 198). With the later financial straits that brought on the 1427 castrato “the new hot spots of revolt were further east in the district of Arezzo – Pontenano, Castel di Ranco, and Castel Focognano. Again, government petitions make clear that the spark of insurrection was excessive taxation” (Cohn, 200). Revolts then occurred again during the Lucca war in Volterra (1429), Arezzo (1431) and Pisa (1432) along with numerous villages through the Pisan plains, and the mountains of the Valdinievole and Arezzo (Cohn, 201). Most intersting to me: “For most of the costs were the expenses of maintaining public order – large salaries and expenses paid to Florentine officers of the peace, from the Captains of the larger subject cities of Arezzo, Pisa, and Pistoia to the vicarii and Podesta’ of rural regions, along with their bevies of notaries, soldiers and horses” (247).

As I alluded to above, I will include this in a broader subject post than just Arezzo, but I think we should look at uprisings/wars and the stationing of soldiers as a means to explain the spikes in card sales in Pratesi's data. How else to explain a group that: A) had the “leisure” to play cards (especially during winter quarters); and B) could account for spikes in sales of anything as the temporary increase in the local population? Notary populations would not have similarily spiked like soldiers would have.

Phaeded

Phaeded wrote:Huck,
I've been keeping up with Pratesi via your updates and this post of yours is damn nice supplementary research. I just reread Field's "Bruni/Florentine Traitor?" and you've done a good of tying people and events in the surrounding region together.

Thanks, Phaeded, that you're still interested.
I've say to say, that a few details (earlier not observed, at least not by me), has moved my opinion in the evaluation, if the battle of Anghiari was of importance for the start of the "Trionfi movement" or not. I never before bothered about the condition, that "Petrarca was born in Arezzo" ... well, I didn't care about this point. When I noted it and I also noted, that Bruni was from this region, I just realized "why" Bruni wrote his Petrarca biography (1436). It's very naturally, that a later writer from Arezzo wrote above an earlier writer from Arezzo and participates in the "fame" of such an author.
Before Bruni we find more interest in Petrarca in the region of Padova and perhaps also in Milan.

We have, that the first sign of illustrated Petrarca "Trionfi poem" editions happens in January 1441, so "after" the battle of Anghiari, not before. Naturally one doesn't know if this "after" is totally sure ... one doesn't know, what one overlooks. Similar we have the Trionfi deck September 1440 "after" the battle of Anghiari, as the first evidence, that a card deck was named "Trionfi". Similar we can't be sure, that there was nothing before, but considerable research was done without success in both cases.
A third indicator we have with "Hanging Men" by Andrea da Castagno in Florence after the battle, a motif, which appears in known Trionfi card editions. This motif existed already "before the battle of Anghiari", but we don't know, if it got much attention then and had so much popularity, that it occurred on playing card decks.

So there's reason enough to intensify the research for the possibility, that the custom to call specific decks (which in variants might have existed before the battle of Anghiari) "Trionfi" decks developed after the battle, and didn't exist before.

...

1. After Anghiari the ensuing action lead to Poppi (north of Arezzo and Anghiari) where the Count there was forced to cede his town to Florence and exiled out of Tuscany. One is lead to the conclusion that the entire region was acting in collusion with the exiled Albizzi faction...but how then do we account for Giusti and Anghiari? Was that town the outlier of the pro-Milanese/Albizzi alliance that had to be subdued first before Piccinino lead the assault on Florence proper? Keep in mind Giusti was not a mere notary but a procurer of troops for hire (a middle man for men-of-arms for the likes of Malatesta). The entire region seems to have been rife with belicose activity, which leads me to...

Yes, Poppi is the most mentioned name in the context, who took the side of Piccinino and who lost his territory, when Piccinino was gone. He and second the Lady Anfrosina da Montedoglio, vedova di Carlo Tarlati da Pietramala, are most often mentioned in context of the battle and the period before the battle.

...

As I alluded to above, I will include this in a broader subject post than just Arezzo, but I think we should look at uprisings/wars and the stationing of soldiers as a means to explain the spikes in card sales in Pratesi's data. How else to explain a group that: A) had the “leisure” to play cards (especially during winter quarters); and B) could account for spikes in sales of anything as the temporary increase in the local population? Notary populations would not have similarily spiked like soldiers would have.

In the new information from Pratesi to Arezzo, the region gets some attention ... but that's accidental. Arezzo has very old documents, so Franco researched there and had the recent success. A connection to the later Anghiari situation can't be drawn, momentary the times are too far off.

But nonetheless it's naturally very good to explore the further context of the specific time and also the location and especially also Giusto Giusti and his activities.

Huck,
For the record, I find the Bruni/Arezzo/Albizzi faction much more interesting than the Petrarch angle (Petrarch's Trionfi series simply did not form the basis of the trump series). Still interested in your thoughts of Anghiari as a lone pro-Medici bastion in that part of the rebellious Florentine districtus that was otherwise the furtive port of entry for the Milanese/Albizzi army under Piccinino.

One more person moving about his intriguing stage of affairs (from Wiki; abridged):

Giovanni Vitelleschi
Was born in Corneto (modern Tarquinia, then part of the Papal States), some kilometers north to Rome. He received a military education, which he refined as apostolic protonotary under Pope Martin V. The fighting bishop of Recanati from 1431, and afterwards made a cardinal, he was commander of the papal armies of Pope Eugene IV when the Colonna faction at Rome, infuriated by the reversal of their fortunes when Eugene succeeded Martin V (a member of the Colonna), backed an insurrection that raised a temporary republic at Rome and forced Eugene into exile at Florence in May 1434. The city was restored to obedience by Giovanni Vitelleschi in the following October, in a display of freocious cruelty. Vitelleschi abrogated all Roman rights and had the Roman senate declare him tertius pater patriae post Romulum ("the third Father of his Country since Romulus"). In 1439 he was sent by the Pope to expel the rebel Corrado IV Trinci from Foligno, which he besieged and captured. The nobleman was beheaded and the city restored to Papal authority.

Vitelleschi had received his military training as a youth in the banda of Tartaglia and refined his education under the tutelage of Pope Martin V, who made him apostolic pronotary. His success at putting down the republicans at Rome earned him the purely honorary title Patriarch of Aquileia and the more immediate one of archbishop of Florence.

Florence's spies kept a close watch over the mails and soon intercepted letters from the Patriarch to Niccolò Piccinino, who was currently ravaging Tuscany with his warband. The correspondence was in cipher and full of circumlocutions but was interpreted as dangerous to the Pope himself. Eugene IV determined to incarcerate the Patriarch. ...Vitelleschi died in 1440 and succeeded by Ludovico Trevisan.

So was this cardinal also a collaborator of the Arezzo/Poppi/Piccinino/Albizzi putsch against Cosimo/Pope Eugene? Crazy to think that Bruni may have been implicitly involved with an Arezzo plot dating to 1437, just 3 years before Anghiari, the latter partially won by Vitelleschi's successor, Cardinal Trevisan.

Phaeded

hi Phaeded,

Phaeded wrote:Huck,
For the record, I find the Bruni/Arezzo/Albizzi faction much more interesting than the Petrarch angle (Petrarch's Trionfi series simply did not form the basis of the trump series).

We have a Cupido at the love card. We have a female charioteer (Chastity). We have a Death card. We have Fame = World in the Cary-Yale (symbol "winged trumpet"). We have a Hermit as Father Time. We have symbols, which might be interpreted as Eternity. So ... why we don't have Petrarca symbols at the base of development?

Still interested in your thoughts of Anghiari as a lone pro-Medici bastion in that part of the rebellious Florentine districtus that was otherwise the furtive port of entry for the Milanese/Albizzi army under Piccinino.

Giusto and his both condottieri commissioners were all from Anghiari and also the armor business of his father. A big army stationed at Anghiari with various needs looks like a very good business for the Giusti family. The location of the Tarlati family was very near ... about 10 km.It was destroyed during the war.
Pippo's region didn't really belong to Toscana or Florentine territory. Castel San Niccolo, which took the attention of Piccinino for 32 days, seems to have been the closest Florentine threat in Pippo's region. So his personal intensity. to get this danger eliminated. With the lost battle of Anghiari, Pippo had to pay the price for his engagement and lost his territory. The Casentino did fall to Toscana and Florence.

Beside Sienna, which became very late victim to Florentine expansion (1555) the Florentine expansion had found its later borders ...



... after annexation, buying, conquering other regions (between them Prato 1351, Pistoia at different times, Arezzo 1384, Pisa 1406).

One more person moving about his intriguing stage of affairs (from Wiki; abridged):
Giovanni Vitelleschi

Yes, Vitelleschi is interesting.

Huck wrote:
We have a Cupido at the love card. We have a female charioteer (Chastity). We have a Death card. We have Fame = World in the Cary-Yale (symbol "winged trumpet"). We have a Hermit as Father Time. We have symbols, which might be interpreted as Eternity. So ... why we don't have Petrarca symbols at the base of development?

I don't want to belabor this point too much as it will lead off onto another tangent best dealt with in another thread, but there are way too many problems with seeing Petrarch's trionfi as anything more than a secondary means of informing the meaning of some of the cards. Just a few problems with the Petrarch thesis:
1. 6 subjects has no relationship to a series of 14, 16 or 22 subjects. No one posits trioni started out even as 12 cards (Petarch's themes plus exemplars).
2. Petrarch only describes the Love triumph (gods and heroes driven before Love) and that has almost nothing to do with the iconography of either the marriage themes of CY and PMB or the courting scene of CVI.
3. The winged trumpet is already irrelvant by the time of the PMB (which shows a city, not "the world")- there is nothing in the PMB "world" card that says "fame"; ergo, why would that be the World card's primary meaning?
4. Chasity is a bit hard to explain when the charioteer becames male - so again, like "world/fame", was that really the primary meaning of the card?
5. "We have symbols, which might be interpreted as Eternity." No we don't, not in the the earliest CY and PMB decks. There simply is not a single card in either of those decks that can be objectively labeled as "eternity" as its principal meaning.

To get back on point, Petrarch was associated more with Arqua than Arezzo. At all events the Malatesta deck wasn't made in Anghiari, it was made in Florence, likley to celebrate a victory over the Visconti/Albizzi - not to celebrate Petrarch, who was patronized by the Visconti and lived in Milan for a while.

Phaeded

Phaeded wrote:

Huck wrote:
We have a Cupido at the love card. We have a female charioteer (Chastity). We have a Death card. We have Fame = World in the Cary-Yale (symbol "winged trumpet"). We have a Hermit as Father Time. We have symbols, which might be interpreted as Eternity. So ... why we don't have Petrarca symbols at the base of development?

I don't want to belabor this point too much as it will lead off onto another tangent best dealt with in another thread ...

Okay, let's move it to another thread. Here I installed one:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=906

To get back on point, Petrarch was associated more with Arqua than Arezzo. At all events the Malatesta deck wasn't made in Anghiari, it was made in Florence, likley to celebrate a victory over the Visconti/Albizzi - not to celebrate Petrarch, who was patronized by the Visconti and lived in Milan for a while.

He was honored in Arqua, cause he lived there some time and died there. He was honored in Milan,cause he lived there some time. He is even honored in Cologne (which has nowadays a lot of Italians), cause he once visited the city of Cologne and wrote in a letter about his visit.
All this is no reason, that Leonardo Bruni from Arezzo might not have had the idea to claim Petrarca as a "poet of Arezzo", cause Petrarca was born in Arezzo.
It's a quite common feature, that various locations claim a relation to a famous man, once he has become amous enough to be be used as something, which would add additional pride to the own city.

Dante, Petrarca and Boccacchio are all claimed by Florence, but Dante was send to exile, Petrarca lived nearly no time there and Boccaccio is also connected to Naples and Fiesole. All were more or less post mortem "persons from Florence"