An important part of Manilius' assignment of planets to signs is the pairing of gods in opposite parts of the zodiacal year. So Jupiter in Leo gets paired with Juno in Aquarius, for example. The awkward ones are Minerva (Aries) with Vulcan (Libra) and Mercury (Cancer) with Vesta (Cap.)--I don't see the relationship between the gods. The others are Venus (Taurus) with Mars (Scorpio), Apollo (Gemini) with Diana (Sag.), and Ceres (Virgo) with Neptune (Pisces).I think, that the new found Manilius text influenced the court of Filippo Maria Visconti, which was full of astrologers.
A new "old" astrological concept found in a German library must have alarmed the astrologers. The new elected pope Martin, accompanied by Poggio (who found the text), visited, when back in Italy, first Visconti, though he didn't stay long. But surely there was time enough to learn about the text and to get some details.
In Martiano's schema (http://trionfi.com/0/es/p/table-14-1.jpg), there are a couple of these pairs (Mercury/Vesta and Apollo/Diana in "good" suits, but also places where he could have made pairs but didn't (e.g. he could have made Mars/Venus and Ceres/Neptune in the "bad" suits). That would have been more elegant.
It seems to me that Manilius's list of the Olympian gods was not new. It is the same as Apuleius's list in "On the god of Socrates" (Apuleius Rhetorical Works p. 196), a Latin work available throughout the Middle Ages. Apuleius shows here "his archaizing taste", the translator says in a footnote. The translator cites Apuleius's source as Ennius, Annales 240-1, from c. 200 b.c.; it may have been available in the Middle Ages, I don't know.
I am researching the story of Manilius's reception in the Renaissance after Poggio's discovery. I don't find any general survey in English. One essay in English refers us to W. Huebner, 1980, "Die Rezeption des astrologischen Lehrgedichts des Manilius in der italienischen Renaissance", in R. Schmitz and F. Krafft (eds.), Humanismus und Naturwissenschaften, Boppard: Boldt, 39-67. I leave that to you, Huck.
Two essays in English talk about two humanists who wrote works inspired by him, Caroline Stark's "Reception of Manilius' Anthropology" and Stephan Heilen's "Lorenzo Bonincontri on Comets", both in Forgotten Stars: Rediscovering Manilius' Astronomica, ed. Green and Volk, 2010. The first of the two humanists was Lorenzo Bonincontri, who lectured on Manilius in Florence starting in 1475 and "enjoyed a lively intellectual exchange with Marsilio Ficino, Luigi Pulci, and other humanists" (Heilen, pp. 278-9). Apparently there is an article 'Luigi Pulci e Lorenzo Bonincontri,' by R. Bessi, Rinescimento 14: 289-295.The lectures reportedly attracted an audience from all over Italy. He published his lecture notes plus his recension of the Manilian text in 1484.He wrote two earlier hexametrical poems, "for which he drew inspiration from Lucretiius, Virgil, and Manilius", both called De rebus naturalibus et divinis. Before Florence he was in Naples, Bonincontri's commentary (the lecture notes) was the standard text on Manilius for centuries.
The other Manilius-influenced writer is a friend of Bonincontri's in Naples, Giovanni Pontano author of several astrological works, of which his Urania of 1476-80 is closely modeled on Manilius (Stark p. 272). From Stark's discussion, what was interesting about Manilius for humanists was that he celebrates man's "active role in shaping his own destiny" (p. 272).
It seems to me that Manilius may have influenced Minchiate, in particular why Libra is the first zodiac sign there and Gemini the last. But that deserves a separate post.
So far, I see no mention of Milan. But then these two authors are just focusing on the two authors out of Naples. They don't even mention the Schifanoia (and I thank you for the suggestion to Google "Schifanoia Manilius", which I should have thought of myself).
Huck wrote,
It appears to start March 1, in Pisces. Manilius writes (2.192-196),When in Manilius teachings the zodiac year starts? Is that also with Aries, or is it another month. The Palazzo Schifanoia pictures seem to have started with Aries. But was this also with Manilius?
I think Goold (the translator) is wrong in footnote e p. 97, because Manilius clearly says that the returning Sun--i.e. the Sun beginning the new year--is an event in the "watery stars" i.e. Pisces. Also, the sentence before that says that one fish is in winter and the other in spring. Manilius does the same with the Gemini: one of the pair is in spring and the other in summer. But Goold saysAnd the two Fishes that the Ram sends before himself denote two seasons: one concludes winter, the other introduces spring. When the returning Sun (e) courses through the watery stars (a), then winter's rains mingle with the showers of spring; each sort of moisture belongs in the double-sign that swims.
Footnotes:
e (on p. 97): The Sun's annual orbit beginning in Aries.
a (on p. 98): Pisces.
However Manilius clearly states that the seasons change in the signs preceding the tropic signs. It would seem to be after the first degree of those signs, i.e. after the first decan. So summer starts June 1, and autumn Sept. 1.265-269: The argument developed by the poet presupposes that the turning point of the seasons occurs in the first degree of the tropic signs (See Introduction p. lxxxi). Notice that the term is applied to Aries and Libra (equinoctial signs) as well as Cancer and Capricorn, the signs properly tropic.
In his introduction, discussing another place where Manilius discusses the seasons (2.265-269, Goold says something different:
This seems to me wrong, too. What Manilius actually says is (2.265-269):The four seasons are each allotted three signs. Spring gets Pisces, Aries, and Taurus; summer Gemini, Cancer, and Leo; autumn Virgo, Libra, and Scorpio; and winter Sagitarrius, Capricorn, and Aquarius. What Manilius has said at 2. 176-196 confirms this division, although other astrologers begin the seasons with the tropic signs.
In other words, the seasons change in those three signs; it is not that the whole sign of Gemini is in summer, for example.The signs also enjoy power in their special seasons: summer comes with the Twins, autumn with the Virgin; winter begins with the Archer, spring with the Fishes. The four divisions of the year are each allotted three signs; winter's are at war with summer's, the vernal with those of autumn.
I can provide scans of the relevant pages if desired, except for lxxxi in Goold's introduction; I didn't notice the reference when I was at the library (one where I don't have borrowing privileges).
Huck wrote
Not a word.You didn't report the Manilius connection between Greek/Roman gods and months. Can it be, that Decker didn't talk about it?
Huck wrote
Sorry, I didn't mean in Greek mythology. I meant, in the allegory that Plutarch tells in On the Face in the Orb of the Moon, which I hypothesize influences these cards by the last third of the 15th century. That essay has its Latin counterpart in Apuleius's essay on daemons, although he doesn't mention Hades specifically, just evil daemons, the souls of deceased evil persons, as being in the air between earth and moon (as well as some souls of good persons; Apuleius Rhetorical Works pp. 204-207). The Latin Aesclepius, which was included the works of Apuleius, who was thought to be the translator, says that the chief daemon sends the souls of those dirtied with vice "to the storms and whirlpools of air, fire and water in their ceaseless clashing - its endless punishment to be swept back and forth between heaven and earth in the streams of matter" (Hermetica, trans. Copenhaver). Later it speaks of air specifically as the place of spirits (p. 88). In Ch. 7 Decker refers often to this work, perhaps correctly, as a source of the order of the trumps in this section of the sequence. These two works, On the demon of Socrates and the Aeclepius were part of any good library during the Middle Ages. Bound with the Metamorphoses, they were in the Visconti Library (Pellegrin p. 403, who notes that the copyist was the same as for the Song of the Virtues and Liberal Arts done for Bruzio Visconti; a sonnet by Bruzio is also in the codex, Vat. Lat. 2194).For the Greek time Hades had been in "earth", not in air between earth an moon
Huck wrote
But Manilius's time is different. He lives in the time of Middle Platonism, i.e. Philo, Apuleius, and Plutarch. Astrology in the Renaissance is based on astrology during the Roman period. In all the pictures of the Renaissance showing the four elements, it's earth, then water, then air, then fire. Actually, the four elements came in with Empedocles, endorsed by Aristotle.Thales had the idea, that earth swims on the water, likely a way to explain earthquakes. So the mythological "below" for water is "correct" (in the philosophical concept of the time).
Huck wrote
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues. The part "In Classical Antiquity" is accurate, except that Wikipedia says that one of Plato's four virtues was "prudence". All the translations of the Republic I know of (I own three) have Socrates' preferred term as "wisdom', I assume the Greek "sophia", which corresponds to the Latin "sapientia". He also calls it "prudence" (Greek phronesis, Latin prudentia) but only as part of the argument for "wisdom". The other three are courage, temperance, and justice, discussed in that order. Cicero is the one who seems to be the originator of the four cardinal virtues in the formulation adopted by Aquinas, as Wikipedia goes on to say.I don't know, when the specific suspicious iconography of the 4 cardinal virtues developed. I'm just sure, that it was "before Trionfi and Tarot cards". The Trionfi designers likely were blind for this earlier system, just followed the contemporary tradition, I would assume.
The 4 cardinal virtues are said to have developed in Platon's time, but I haven't researched that.
The iconography of the cardinal virtues is seen at least by the 9th century. Katzenellenbogen (Allegories of the Virtues and Vices in Medieval Art, p. 33 writes that:
Predecessor-images for the tarot are in the Song of the Virtues and Liberal Arts of Bologna 1350s, which reverted to the Visconti in Milan. It has its own thread here, as you know. There were others, of course, including some in Florence and I think Pisa (notably by the Pisano family).They occupy in the corners of a miniature of the Autun Sacrementary (844-5), in which the Abbot Raganaldus blesses the people from the altar [footnote: Autun, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS. 19, fol. 173v. Prudentia with cross-staff and book, Fortitude armed, Temperantia with jug and torch, Justitia with balance; all are represented full-length. Cf. Koehler [Die karolingischen Miniaturen I. Die Schule von Tours, Berlin 1930-33], pl. 68b and Text II, pp. 96ff.]