Tarot History Forum

Back to the Arengo as the central place for the downfall of the Ambrosian Republic, with Vimercati's pivotal role. Also note the Venetian Venerio's stemma is what we find on the painted Sola Busca.

Robin, Diana. Filelfo in Milan: Writings 1451-1477. United States: Princeton University Press, 2014: 98

Phaeded wrote: 06 Jul 2023, 19:30
A similar arrangement - Sforza as one of nine military worthies, again at the "apex" (Birago, 1490); Julius in the same spot, but Alexander is missing:

Unless he's the nameless one on the end at the right?

Caglioti page 195 lists them left to right:

Fabius Maximus (not sure which one)
Scipio Africanus
Pompey
Julius Caesar
[Francesco Sforza]
Hannibal
Epaminondas
Themistocles
"and a final unidentified one."

Ross Caldwell wrote: 07 Jul 2023, 08:36

Phaeded wrote: 06 Jul 2023, 19:30
A similar arrangement - Sforza as one of nine military worthies, again at the "apex" (Birago, 1490); Julius in the same spot, but Alexander is missing:

Unless he's the nameless one on the end at the right?

Caglioti page 195 lists them left to right:

...
"and a final unidentified one."

That makes sense and they might have made him bearded as Macedonian/"Greek", although there are plenty of examples showing him clean shaven (indeed, as on the Vimercati portal). I like how Hannibal is cradling Sforza's hand into his own; odd. Unless that as meant as a nod to the friendship with Rene of Anjou who came over the Alps, like Hannibal, to assist Sforza.

BTW: Care to hazard a guess as to what is written on the scroll of whom I assumed to be Alexander the Great (clean-shaven) in the Dal Ponte Seven Virtues/Exempli cassone? None of the others hold a scroll so not a titulus, or they'd all have that. The only thing I can think of - and why he'd be associated with Prudence - is that as Aristotle's student he holds one of his writings (e.g., in his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle defines prudence/ phronesis - φρόνησῐς, but that scroll looks like gibberish). You can zoom in pretty far here: https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5986932

Perhaps as the conqueror of the East/Persia, its pseudo-kufic script?
pseudo-Kufic script on the hem of the Virgin's mantle in Filippo Lippi's 1438 Pala Barbadori. Louvre Museum:

Phaeded wrote: 07 Jul 2023, 16:34
BTW: Care to hazard a guess as to what is written on the scroll of whom I assumed to be Alexander the Great (clean-shaven) in the Dal Ponte Seven Virtues/Exempli cassone? None of the others hold a scroll so not a titulus, or they'd all have that. The only thing I can think of - and why he'd be associated with Prudence - is that as Aristotle's student he holds one of his writings (e.g., in his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle defines prudence/ phronesis - φρόνησῐς, but that scroll looks like gibberish). You can zoom in pretty far here: https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5986932

!!!!Dal Ponte detail.jpg

Good question! I really can't make out any meaningful sequence of letters, even given the blur. I'm sure I can't find a higher resolution, but your guess about something by Aristotle is probably correct, if it is anything at all.

One of the few disappointments in Renaissance art (like how they portray woman's breasts) is how they sometimes wrote gibberish Hebrew, Arabic, and even Greek. I don't expect scholarly erudtion, but the Greek alphabet isn't hard, nor the Hebrew, and at the very least they could have asked a friend. Didn't they think that someone who DID know would sooner or later look at the painting and shake their head?

I just remembered that "Greek" in the 15th and well into the 16th centuries meant the Byzantine style, with the devilish ligatures. It wasn't the clean single letters we are used to. So their approach to faux-Greek inscriptions is understandable.

Ross Caldwell wrote: 07 Jul 2023, 17:00 One of the few disappointments in Renaissance art (like how they portray woman's breasts) is how they sometimes wrote gibberish Hebrew, Arabic, and even Greek. I don't expect scholarly erudtion, but the Greek alphabet isn't hard, nor the Hebrew, and at the very least they could have asked a friend. Didn't they think that someone who DID know would sooner or later look at the painting and shake their head?

I just remembered that "Greek" in the 15th and well into the 16th centuries meant the Byzantine style, with the devilish ligatures. It wasn't the clean single letters we are used to. So their approach to faux-Greek inscriptions is understandable.

See what I added above - now leaning towards pseudo-Kufic. Also look at some of the other robe hems - signs of ps-Kufic:

Phaeded wrote: 07 Jul 2023, 17:05

Ross Caldwell wrote: 07 Jul 2023, 17:00 One of the few disappointments in Renaissance art (like how they portray woman's breasts) is how they sometimes wrote gibberish Hebrew, Arabic, and even Greek. I don't expect scholarly erudtion, but the Greek alphabet isn't hard, nor the Hebrew, and at the very least they could have asked a friend. Didn't they think that someone who DID know would sooner or later look at the painting and shake their head?

I just remembered that "Greek" in the 15th and well into the 16th centuries meant the Byzantine style, with the devilish ligatures. It wasn't the clean single letters we are used to. So their approach to faux-Greek inscriptions is understandable.

See what I added above - now leaning towards pseudo-Kufic. Also look at some of the other robe hems - signs of ps-Kufic:

!!!!Dal Ponte detail - hem script.jpg

Could be, but on Alexander? If it is Alexander, that is. But yes, any Exotic East© figure might bear these cryptic characters, and who could say the artist was wrong? It is MEANT to evoke the mysterious.

Ross Caldwell wrote: 07 Jul 2023, 17:22

Phaeded wrote: 07 Jul 2023, 17:05 See what I added above - now leaning towards pseudo-Kufic. Also look at some of the other robe hems - signs of ps-Kufic:

!!!!Dal Ponte detail - hem script.jpg

Could be, but on Alexander? If it is Alexander, that is. But yes, any Exotic East© figure might bear these cryptic characters, and who could say the artist was wrong? It is MEANT to evoke the mysterious.

Definitely only pertaining to the scroll in Alexander's hand (not a hem), which would point to some "oriental wisdom" he obtained if Kufic. Besides the underwater journey, the flying griffins cart, etc., one of the legends that remained strong amongst the Arabs was about holding back the hordes of Gog and Magog via a wall he built in the East (a myth which may have received new life with the advent of the Mongols). Perhaps that? That would be quite esoteric, but maybe less so given the Mongols incursions all the way into the Holy land: Whatever the truth may have been, the Mongol advance led to wild rumours in Europe at the time, that perhaps the Mongols had captured Jerusalem and were going to return it to the Europeans. These rumours, starting around March 1300, were probably based on accounts from Venetian merchants who had just arrived from Cyprus.[46] The account gave a more or less accurate picture of the Mongol successes in Syria but then expanded to say that the Mongols had "probably" taken the Holy Land by that point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_ra ... _Palestine .

Perhaps its just to indicate Alexander was most learned than of all of the other exempli due to Aristotle, and the tiny scroll just needed "writing" on it.

The presumed companion piece of the seven liberal arts in the Prado - https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-col ... 901222eb76 - does have Aristotle: "Then comes Dialectics, who carries an olive branch as a symbol of agreement among the Arts, and a scorpion, whose pincers represent the opposing positions of dialectical thought. He is accompanied by Aristotle." If the Alexander figure does hold a scroll it would be in connection with that, I would assume. Also note the Ptolemy figure in the middle has a book open and the writing here is also gibberish, but more like dots and lines to connote an actual treatise, while the "Alexander scroll" does look like more of a titulus. Vexing....

Finally occurred to me (doh!) that the only other scroll is being held up by the leading art: "To the left of Astronomy, Rhetoric carries a scroll and is accompanied by Cicero (first century B.C.), who carries one of his texts." It too appears to be gibberish, although the zoom function is more limited here. If even Cicero's text is illegible than the significance of Alexander's scroll - not even a writer - reduces us to this just being a symbol of writing, likely Aristotle's (who follo's Cicero), and symbolically the two scrolls, one on either cassone, allow for the representation of that which was most dear to the humanists: Latin (Cicero) and Greek (Aristotle); neither, ironically, writ legibly.