Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

131
A text from 1808, in which an author Coste answers to an author with the name Millin. The name Millin is given as a reference in the other connected texts, for instance the German text of 1811.

https://books.google.de/books?id=zQQSRI ... in&f=false
Lettre de m. Coste, bibliothécaire à Besançon, et membre de l'académie de cette ville; A. M. Millin ... suivie de la réponse de m. Millin à la lettre de m. Coste
by Claude-Louis Coste
de l'imprimerie de J. B. Sajou, rue de l'harpe, 1808 - 22 pages

I've the impression, that Millin was responsible for the stuff about the festivities in Aix.

Aubin Louis Millin (* 1759, + 1818) got a lot of attention in the following German book:
https://books.google.de/books?id=BcQEAA ... in&f=false
This text translates from a text "Annales encyclopédiques Novbr. 1818" from the author "Karl Wilhelm Kraft"
Possibly the following text is the forerunner from these Annales etc.:
Annales encyclopédiques [formerly Magasin encyclopédique] rédigées par A.L. Millin
by Aubin Louis Millin de Grandmaison 1818
https://books.google.com.bn/books?id=ZcAEAAAAQAAJ

Another French report to the festivities of Aix in ...
Musée des familles: lectures du soir
by Bureaux du Musée des Familles, 1838
books.google.de/books?id=MJU9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA299&dq=razcassetos&hl=de&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=2#v=onepage&q=razcassetos&f=false
Start at page 299. It contains some pictures.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

132
A text from 1808, in which an author Coste answers to an author with the name Millin. The name Millin is given as a reference in the other connected texts, for instance the German text of 1811.

https://books.google.de/books?id=zQQSRI ... in&f=false
Lettre de m. Coste, bibliothécaire à Besançon, et membre de l'académie de cette ville; A. M. Millin ... suivie de la réponse de m. Millin à la lettre de m. Coste
by Claude-Louis Coste
de l'imprimerie de J. B. Sajou, rue de l'harpe, 1808 - 22 pages

I've the impression, that Millin was responsible for the stuff about the festivities in Aix.

Aubin Louis Millin (* 1759, + 1818) got a lot of attention in the following German book:
https://books.google.de/books?id=BcQEAA ... in&f=false
This text translates from a text "Annales encyclopédiques Novbr. 1818" from the author "Karl Wilhelm Kraft"
Possibly the following text is the forerunner from these Annales etc.:
Annales encyclopédiques [formerly Magasin encyclopédique] rédigées par A.L. Millin
by Aubin Louis Millin de Grandmaison 1818
https://books.google.com.bn/books?id=ZcAEAAAAQAAJ
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

133
Hi Huck
Yes I remember this inquiry of us about the Fête Dieu procession in Aix...(1462 ?)
The description is made a posteriori but it could well be not only an urban legend...
I would also note in 1473 that the painter TAVERNIER to whom René will later on command the two "hand painted luxury" (?) decks in 1479 that already when Charles de Bourbon access to Cardilanat, the paintor is commissioned for a big street feast in Avignon with défilés and a Fool - well paid.
Pansier declares that Tavernier also painted for this specific occasion "un costume de Fou et une marotte aux armes de la ville"
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5Hg6j ... NlZ1U/view
TAVERNIER AND CHARLES DE BOURBON'S CARDINALAT 1473 AVIGNON : the story was written by PANSIER Les peintres d'Avignon au XIV et XV siècles 1934
Here is a foto of what he writes about TAVERNIER : https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5Hg6j ... txZGc/view
Last edited by BOUGEAREL Alain on 28 Jan 2020, 17:50, edited 1 time in total.
http://www.sgdl-auteurs.org/alain-bouge ... Biographie

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

134
Unicorn notes

1. For the 1473 festivities relative to the entry of Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, 3 painters are mentionned about the construction of the 4 Arc de Triomphes :
Pierre Villate, Armand Tavernier and Nicolas Froment
See page 9 :
https://books.google.fr/books?id=-TVarb ... nt&f=false


2. Aparte Bridge of Avignon
There has been debates about the number of arches of the Pont d'Avignon (20 or 22) since years. After many scientific inquiries, it appears that if there were intially (1182) 22 , the numbers of arches did not remain stable for reasons of inondations, wars etc.
Finally in 1479 the same year René ommands to Tavernier his two decks, there were big inondations and Louis XI on October 10 orders it's reconstruction to 22.
https://books.google.fr/books?id=j3kUAQ ... &q&f=false

Here is how Nicolas Froment painted the Bridge in 1480 :
Attribué à l'entourage de Nicolas Froment, Rétable des Pérussis 1480, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... detail.jpg
Later on , 1663 - 1669, many arches collapsed and the the Bridge remained as it is
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... France.jpg

3. Added later
Description of the procession in Avignon : 27 mai 1481 and the return of the Papal Legat Julien de la Rovere with 7 Arcs de Triomphes mainly page 12 III
https://books.google.fr/books?id=-TVarb ... er&f=false
Maybe of interest the mention without description of the procession for the Fete Dieu in 1449 by the paintor Guillaume Dombay
and partial description of the one of Nicolas Froment in 1477

This kind of spectacle will culminate with the arrival in Avignon of the son of Pope Alexandre Vi and Vannozza Cattanei, Cesar Borgia in october november 1498 just after his renunciation to his Cardilanat in August 1498 - see page 16 17 V
https://books.google.fr/books?id=-TVarb ... er&f=false

Cesar Borgia
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9sar_Borgia

Rappel historique des legats pontificaux en Avignon
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9ga ... A0_Avignon
Le conflit entre le pape de Rome et les pères conciliaires s'envenimant, en 1436, il fut un moment question que le concile quitta Bâle et vint tenir ses assises à Avignon. La rupture fut parachevée quand le duc de Savoie, Amédée VIII, fut élu pape. Son intronisation eut lieu dans la cathédrale de Lausanne, où il fut couronné le 23 juillet 1440 et prit le nom de Félix V. Ses envoyés tentèrent de soulever la ville d'Avignon le 15 septembre mais leur tentative échoua.

Le légat Julien de la Rovère, devenu le pape Jules II
À Avignon, le cardinal de Foix fut à la fois un administrateur avisé et un grand seigneur qui dépensa sans compter. Il décéda le 13 décembre 1464 et ses héritiers ne se résolurent à rendre le palais des papes qu'en mars 1465.

Louis XI insista alors auprès du Vatican pour faire nommer un prélat de sa famille à la légation d'Avignon. Si Paul II s'y refusa, son successeur, Sixte IV, accepta d'en confier la charge à Charles de Bourbon, archevêque de Lyon. Le 2 avril 1472, il reçut les pouvoirs mais non le titre de légat et fut révoqué le 21 février 1476. Ce qui permit au pape de nommer légat son neveu, Julien de la Rovère, pour lequel l'année précédente, il avait élevé l'évêché d'Avignon au rang d'archevêché.

Furieux, Louis XI décida d'intervenir militairement le 30 avril 1476 pour réinstaller son cousin au palais des papes. Si l'affaire put se régler diplomatiquement, cela n'empêcha point le roi de France de diriger quelques compagnies de routiers soudoyées par ses soins piller Avignon et le Comtat.

Mais le futur Jules II se révéla aussi fin tacticien qu'administrateur éclairé. Ce fut lui qui créa en 1476 le célèbre Collège du Roure, révisa en 1481 les statuts municipaux et qui, après s'être opposé au pape Alexandre VI, en 1494, et être rentré en grâce un an plus tard, reçut magnifiquement César Borgia, le fils du pape, dans son palais d'Avignon. Il fut élu pape le 1er novembre 1503

Question : Wikipedia seems to say that Cesar Borgia was received 1496 ?! I have 1498 ...and Im pretty sure of this date
See the detailled and exhaustive study of two Triomphal Entrées ou Entrées majestueuses ou solennelles
René d'Anjou TOULON 1449-1450 (les préparatifs car l entrée effective semble ne jamais avoir eu lieu)
Cesar Borgia AVIGNON 1498
See pp. 39-65
https://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque-nume ... iecles.pdf
http://www.sgdl-auteurs.org/alain-bouge ... Biographie

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

135
So...
I suppose we'll never know exactly about this jeu de quartes tout fait à personnaiges (figures : humans or gods?)
The probability would be a jeu des Offices de la Cour a Hofämterspiel.
Nevertheless, it's proximity (timing/family relationships) with Isabelle de Lorraine gift does give some plausibility for something similar.
Also, the popular religious tradition (mainly Fete Dieu in Aix en Provence) or the procession in Triumphal Entries (mainly in Toulon/Avignon) could also have been a motif.
http://www.sgdl-auteurs.org/alain-bouge ... Biographie

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

136
I'm leaning towards a date as early as 1412 for the Tractatus de deificatione sexdecim heroum (I now use the abbreviation DSH in my notes). I was trying to summarize the argument in the Prohemium, and the question of internal evidence for dating suggested something.

The Prohemium begins with a justification for playing a game that “many say is childish and lacking sufficient maturity” (ludus puerile … et parum maturitatis habere). Decembrio says Filippo Maria loved such games “from his youth” (ab adolescentia), and Marziano anticipates (or reflects) criticism of Filippo Maria's love of card games being childish and immature. Can this suggest a date as early as 1412 for the book? It would seem that Filippo Maria's rapid reconquest of the Milanese (negotiating for Monza as the last stronghold of resistance in 1413), as well as his successful conduct of war until 1425 (January 1425 is the last month Marziano could have been alive), would have quickly quelled any criticism of his “immaturity” in the matter of playing games in his leisure time. In other words, it is hard to imagine people in 1420, when he was 28 years old (and after having executed his wife and her presumed lover, along with servants), saying “he is so childish, playing cards;” but it is easy to imagine them saying this when he was an untested youth of 19 or 20, in 1412. This tends me to an earlier dating of the text. There is no necessary relationship between the text and Michelino's cards; and in any case, if Filippo Maria had wanted Michelino, he could have gotten him, since there was no hint of hostilities between Milan and Venice between 1412 and 1418, after which Michelino is back in Milan in any case.
Image

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

137
Filippo Maria was called a duke in the text, which was true in 1414. For this reason Franco suggested once as date "after 1414" .
Generally one may assume, that the council of Constance increased the interest in playing cards. The council started in 1415., but natural a game fashion at the council needed some time to wander to Italy. In Ferrara we observe the playing card fashion since 1422, probably caused by the interest of Parisina. San Bernardino started his activities in 1417 and we don't know, when the fight against card playing became a major topic.
Dercembrio was 6 years younger than Filippo Maria, one cannot expect him in all matters a reliable witness.
Filippo Maria and also Marziano had a lot of practical ruler problems after 1412, it was not a time to engage too much in card games. You researched Milanese playing card laws once, I remember. Wasn't it so, that this development of game laws started in 1419?

Added: it was 1920 ...
1420: Filippo Maria forbids anyone to play cards, if not according to the correct and ancient system [Nel 1420 vietò qualsiasi giuoco delle carte, quando non fosse secondo il retto e antico sistema](F. Malaguzzi Valeri, "La corte di Ludovico il Moro" (Milano, Hoepli, 1913-1917) vol. I, p. 268).

1423: Filippo Maria acceded to the demand of the commune of Piacenza to stop the corruption in the gambling houses [baratteria](which gave the Ducal coffers 100 fiorini per year); that is to say, that he banned the game [Nel '23 accolse favorevolmente la supplica onde il comune di Piacenza chiedeva si togliesse la gabella della baratteria (rendeva alla Camera ducale 100 fiorini l'anno), cioè si proibisse il giuoco] (Boselli op. cit.(title not found), II, p. 160).

1426, 19 March: Filippo Maria proclaimed an ordinance "against gaming and holding 'biscatia'" [emanò ordini 'contra ludentes et tenentes biscatia]((N. Ferorelli)'I Registri dell'Ufficio degli Statuti di Milano', Milano, 1926, p. 277).(I guess 'biscatia' might be a game party or gambling house; modern Italian: bisca = gambling hell, biscazziere = owner of a gambling-hell)

1427, 17 February: Filippo Maria prohibits the use of the dice or of carticelle [proibì l'uso dei "tasselli" o delle "carticelle"](F. Malaguzzi Valeri, "La corte di Ludovico il Moro" (Milano, Hoepli, 1913-1917) vol. I, p. 268).

1429, 4 May: Filippo Maria approves the April 6 decision of the Cosiglio generale of Como to forbid games of dice and also zara, also abolishing the permit of the gambling house; only to be permitted were the games of tables, chess, cards or cartelle, except those games of pure chance; it would also be forbidden to bet more than 20 soldi a day per person [approvò la deliberazione 6 aprile dei Cosiglio generale di Como di vietar i giuochi dei dadi ed altri di zara, con l'abolir il dazio della baratteria: erano permessi solo i giuochi della tavole, scacchi, carte o cartelle, eccettuati però sempre quelli di pura fortuna, e anche nei permessi era vietato esporre a perdita piu di 20 soldi al giorno per persona](Rovelli, op. cit. (title not noted), part III, vol. I, pp. 133ff.).

[All of the above are collected in A. Butti, F. Fossati, G. Petraglione, eds., 'P. Candidi Decembri: Opuscula historica' (Rerum Italicarum Scriptores XX/I, Bologna, Zanichelli, 1925) pp. 326-327, n. 1 (ll. 97-115; 1-11)]

(found and collected by Ross Gregory Caldwell)
from http://trionfi.com/0/e1/051/
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

138
Thanks for your response.
Huck wrote: 14 Mar 2020, 20:11 Filippo Maria was called a duke in the text, which was true in 1414. For this reason Franco suggested once as date "after 1414" .
There is actually no ambiguity on this point; in fact he was called "duke" from the first day, 16 June 1412. Marziano himself, as cancellarius, wrote the letter on that day, naming Antonio Miglio as Vicar of Provvisione (the duke's representative with the city) with the title "duke of Milan." The emperor waited until 1426 to recognise this title, but that did not matter for practical politics.

I can't give you the 16 June document, but here is 17 June 1412, also signed by Marziano -


The Duke of Milan writes to the noblemen, the Vicar, and the XII of Provvisone of the comune of Milan, to elect the Council of Nine Hundred and to choose with it the procurators who, in the name of the city, must take the Oath of Fealty in accordance with the attached form, signature Marziano.

Luigi Osio, Documenti diplomatici tratti dagli archivi milanesi, volume II, parte I (Milan, 1869), pp. 1-3
Generally one may assume, that the council of Constance increased the interest in playing cards. The council started in 1415., but natural a game fashion at the council needed some time to wander to Italy. In Ferrara we observe the playing card fashion since 1422, probably caused by the interest of Parisina. San Bernardino started his activities in 1417 and we don't know, when the fight against card playing became a major topic.
I don't see the relevance of this. Card games are known in Italy since the 1370s. We can assume a general trend from that time.

Constance may have brought new games from the north, just as Poggio brought classical manuscripts from the north. I suspect that Filippo Maria's 1420 decree about the proper way to play cards (link below) was a reaction to such a game, maybe Karnoeffel. But the detail of following suit and rank, and naming the suits, shows that he knew very well how to play cards, and he cared that youths played the right kinds of games, not the disturbance of the new games.

Dercembrio was 6 years younger than Filippo Maria, one cannot expect him in all matters a reliable witness.
But Decembrio knew more than just his own eyes; both his father and older brother Modesto were permanent members of the Visconti bureaucracy. Decembrio's witness is very deeply sourced. Even if it were not so, there is no reason to distrust him. It is not controversial for Pier Candido to say that Filippo Maria loved playing cards from his youth.

Filippo Maria and also Marziano had a lot of practical ruler problems after 1412, it was not a time to engage too much in card games. You researched Milanese playing card laws once, I remember. Wasn't it so, that this development of game laws started in 1419?
Here is one thread with the 1420 decree on card games - viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1358&p=20688&hilit=signa#p20688
There is one from 1419, but it concerned gambling houses only, not directly cards (I'll check it).

There is always time for card games and board games, for those who love them. It can be a little time after lunch or dinner. Especially if you find real refreshment in them, you might use them when you are busy. I don't see the assumption of "too busy to play cards" as very strong against the idea that Filippo Maria played cards in 1412.

My sense is that the reference to immaturity was a criticism that Filippo Maria received, and Marziano heard it. Who criticised him? There were a lot people around him giving him advice, and he listened to a lot of it - he married Beatrice Cane on their advice. It may have been them, it may have been her; it may have been all of them. But the point is that it refers to childishness, and it is only a short time when Filippo Maria could have been criticised for childishness. Not when he was near 30.
Image

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

139
Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 14 Mar 2020, 17:49 The Prohemium begins with a justification for playing a game that “many say is childish and lacking sufficient maturity” (ludus puerile … et parum maturitatis habere). Decembrio says Filippo Maria loved such games “from his youth” (ab adolescentia), and Marziano anticipates (or reflects) criticism of Filippo Maria's love of card games being childish and immature. Can this suggest a date as early as 1412 for the book? It would seem that Filippo Maria's rapid reconquest of the Milanese ….
Interesting, but forces me to abandon one theory (deck was c. 1418 for Agnese del Maino, or “Mayno” per the T. Stemmario) for a relatively recent idea that Marziano was influenced by Christine de Pizan, particularly her L'Épistre de Othéa a Hector ("Letter of Othea to Hector"; hereafter simply Othéa). There are several reasons for this, but the primary one would tie into your “youth” theory, Mariano’s deck being an illuminated-only “mirror for princes,” exactly as Othéa was for Louis of Orléans, the brother of the mad King Charles VI, and seen as the potential regent of France at court until he was murdered in 1407. Othéa, specifically equated to Prudence by Pizan, instructs Hector of Troy (whose son was the putative founder of France) in the history of the virtues, classical gods and heroes, all amply illuminated. After Louis’s assassination, Pizan continued to produce luxury editions of Othéa between 1408 and 1415 (albeit with an emphasis on different persons). These dates perfectly overlap with your new proposed date for Marziano (i.e., Pizan was “in circulation”/relevant).

First of all, what of the cultural interchange between the Valois and Visconti courts? The marriages between the courts are of course well known: Isabella, the youngest daughter of King John II of France, married Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the first duke of Milan, and had Valentina. Valentina Visconti, in turn, married Louis Duke of Orléans, the younger brother of said mad King Charles VI of France. Their son, Charles of Orléans (1394 –1465) was Duke of Orléans from 1407, following the murder of his father (on the order of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. The son Charles, sometimes championed for the throne although spending much of his life as an English prisoner following his capture at Agincourt in 1415, proudly showed his familial connection to the Visconti in his own personal blasone, as in this post-mortem recognition of him in the Statutes, Ordinances and armorial of the Order of the Golden Fleece:

Image

A French and Imperial connection is found in the mad King Charles VI’s wife, Isabeau of Bavaria (c. 1370 – 24 September 1435; queen of France between 1385 and 1422). She was born into the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach, but whose mother was Taddea Visconti, eldest child of Bernabò Visconti. Pizan also dedicated works to her, so was prominent throughout the Valois courts, except perhaps to the English-leaning Duke of Burgundy, who had murdered the dedicatee of Othéa.

More specifically regarding Pizan and Milan, it should be noted that Gian Galeazzo himself invited her to Milan (she being Italian, an invite “home” while building yet another bridge to the Valois). In her own words (the autobiographical Avision, c. 1405):

Thus, the first Duke of Milan in Lombardy heard of me, perhaps in a way more flattering than I deserve, and offered me a generous lifetime income if I would come live in his land. This can be verified by several nobles from that country who served as ambassadors in this regard. (Pizan, The Writings of Christine de Pizan, ed. C.C. Willard, 1993: 20).


In the other direction, consider the Milanese humanist who entered the French court, c. 1390, an Ambrogio dei Migli (Ambrosius of Miliis), who obtained the post of secretary to the Duke of Orleans. Although we are used to discussing Gian Galeazzo’s famous Visconti genealogy purely in local Milanese terms (a version is also depicted in the Visconti Hours leaf 57v, painted for Filippo by Belbello: https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GQj03avQWq8/ ... ilippo.JPG ), consider the recontextualization here in terms of its shared use with the Valois via Migli:

For example, Pietro da Castelletto, writing in in 1402 [the famous Besozzo Eulogie], supplied a family tree for Gian Galeazzo Visconti, father-in-law of Louis of Orleans. In one manuscript version, illuminators added painted roundels with inscriptions which gave visual form to the text, which traced Gian Galeazzo’s lineage though Troy back to the gods Jupiter, Anchises and Venus. Around the same time, Ambrogio Miglo, secretary of Louis of Orleans, wrote two poems that similarly bestowed a divine genealogy on Louis. According to Migli, Louis descended from specific gods and goddesses, from whom he acquired different virtues. (Sandra Hindman, Christine de Pizan's "Epistre Othéa": Painting and Politics at the Court of Charles VI, 1986: 104)
To the point: the Visconti genealogy in the Eulogie and Marziano’s deck don’t just happen to share the same artist, Besozzo, they are part and parcel of the same “ethnogenic” project (Seznec’s term – reread his chapter one in his Survival of the Pagan Gods which deals with euhemerism), that both the Valois and Visconti courts shared. Put another way, the young Duke Filippo, like the Duke of Orleans whose duchess-wife was Filippo’s half-sister, was being informed of the nature of the pagan gods and Trojan heroes that the Visconti were descended from, and at the same time being encouraged to engage in their erotic/genetic past-time and conceive an heir – the surest way to put a new reign on solid footing (especially with the looming succession crisis in France casting a pall over that ally). Cupido is not just the lowest appendage to Marziano’s deck, but the key to the deck as an illumination of the gods/goddesses past-times of lovemaking (with appropriate Christian chaste refusals to which), generation and subsequent claims to "a bon droit"/rulership. All in a far off Homeric age when the gods consorted with humans. Consider that thesis in the light of this ballade from Pizan:

The gods and goddesses… / they left Olympus for some mate / of lowly earth, in their descent / Impetuous to participate / in earthly joys, with quick consent / Embracing them, indifferent / to all costs of all such zeal achieved / if ancient fables be believed.

Delights of love could subjugate / Enchantress and nymph; immortals spent / Time, strength and wealth moderate / On maids and shepherds, earthward went / Bestowing boons munificent / on those whose favor they received / If ancient fables be believed.

So ladies, lords, submit, assent / to love,
nor seek to be reprieved / from service proved so excellent / if ancient fables be believed.

(Ballade XXII, translation from The Writings of Christine de Pizan, ed. C.C. Willard, 1993: 42-43)
The very ambiguous emphasis on “ancient fables” is code for a learned euhemeristic understanding, which is also at the center of Marziano’s own explication of the gods/heroes in his prologue (again, Seznec’s insights are key here).

Although the god of love is featured throughout Pizan’s works (especially due to the literary quarrel over the Roman de la Rose, in which Migli also participated), the god of love is featured in Pizan’s first long poem Epistre au Dieu d'Amours (1399) which preceded the Othea (1400) by just a year. Below is from the Book of the Queen (for Isabeau), a compendium of Pizan’s works, inclusive of Othea (now Harley MS 4431); this particular illumination is the God of Love presenting a letter to a messenger, which also contains the rules and regulations of an Order established by the god:

Image

The description of Cupid in Marziano throws one off this scent, as his description of the god has him gird with hearts, a description taken from the early Trecento Francesco Barberino’s Documenti d'amore; but perhaps that is merely the fruit of Marziano’s own modest research – in a Boccaccio-genealogical sense - taken from one of the oldest documents he could find for this pivotal god (surely he submitted something to Filippo to which he thought he contributed something novel).

Ultimately, the influence of Pizan seemed to be long-lasting in Milan, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere in my "Ancona/CY World post", where the nimbus cloud/children of the planets-gods theme in Othea is clearly the closest precedent to the CY "world" (see below again: Venus/"children", Mercury/"children", CY "world" = Fama of a prudent ruler, like Othea's Hector - Sforza here, inheriting the Visconti fief of Cremona and the family name itself, VICECOMES). The above provides the basis for that cultural diffusion.

Image

Below is Pizan presenting her work "Othea" to the Duke of Orleans and Othea-Prudence herself presenting her instructional letter to Hector, the historical exemplar for all kings of France. The presumption, again, was this duke would succeed his brother, the mad King Charles VI; the relevance here is Prudence in a nimbus above the would-be ruler. But for Sforza, who had already made a name for himself as the Count of Ancona, prudence's lessons were already enacted (again, see his 1441 Pisanello medal with the sword and books = he already possesses prudence), therefore it is the fame of his self-evident prudence being proclaimed (Visconti wasn't marrying off his only child to a nobody after all). In the words of Pizan's preface to her autobiographical Vision (in third person), "she was transported....by the cry of Fama, which is to say by the cry of the holy prophets, to the law of God in which all beautiful things are contained" (and naturally there is a "Judgement" trump in the CY).

Image


Phaeded

Re: What are the documents for Marziano's dates?

140
Thank you very much for your response, Phaeded.

I can't say if Marziano were influenced by Christine de Pizan or the debate in general. Not that I doubt it; I just have no way of knowing. For the moment, those gods to me are sufficiently explained by Livy and Apuleius Dii Consentes, with Vulcan replaced by Bacchus for reasons we can reasonably suspect (at the very least, he is not a very “heroic” figure, there's only room for one sour note, Cupid), and the final four idiosyncratic choices to fill out the fourfold structure.

I checked for Pizan in Pellegrin's edition of the Pavia library inventory, but no writings of hers were there. This is disappointing, but of course it hardly excludes her. The inventories are just a snapshot. Our Tractatus isn't there either, along with a hundred others that Pellegrin found in various libraries.

There are early inventories of Este and Gonzaga as well, which list books specifically by language. A quick glance shows the usual Charlemagne and Lancelot stuff, but no Pisan.

Thanks for discovering that Gian Galeazzo invited her to Milan. I had no idea of that.

There is a very thorough study of Louis d'Orléans' “imperial ambitions” in Italy, made over a couple of installments in one of the French scholarly journals in the late 19th century, when all the best work was done on this subject. I can't get to it at the moment – my study is what might be charitably called a Goddamned mess, and my files are behind boxes that are behind boxes. But the title must be in our sources, and the original on line now.

Filippo Maria was kept very much apprised of events in France, of course. He knew the issue of succession, that, without his own proper male heir, Charles of Orléans would have a sound legal claim to the duchy. Between Louis' assassination and Giovanni Maria's in 1412, this was a distant prospect. After his own accession, Filippo Maria decreed that his bastard half-brother Antonio (of which little else is known) would be the heir if he himself left none. We have to believe that at some point Antonio had been legitimized by the Pope (the only authority, I would think, who could do that), and therefore in so appointing him presumptive successor, Filippo Maria was not contradicting his father's will, but respecting it.

Which brings us to Asti. This belonged to Orléans through Valentina. By all accounts the Asteans were generally happy with this arrangement. After Charles' capture in 1415, there was instability, abetted by the duke of Savoy. This culminated with Asti requesting and receiving Visconti's protection, on 2 October 1422 (Marziano was a witness to that act. One of the stipulations Filippo Maria agreed to was to hand back full sovereignty to Charles of Orléans upon his release. Even when he persuaded the Asteans to agree to Francesco Sforza's protection, in 1438, the stipulation remained. In 1440, Charles was released and Sforza gave it back to him). Earlier, during the negotiations that summer, Filippo Maria was sent delegations asking for this protection, as well as to help in other matters. Marziano was one of the witnesses to such a matter on 7 September, 1422, preserved in two documents, one preserved in Asti and one in Milan.

What struck me in your presentation was the name Ambrosius de Miliis. In the Asti document, 7 September, the scholar who published it, Maurice Faucon, lists as one of the witnesses the “marquis de Millo.” Unfortunately, he doesn't give his name. I wondered if this marquis could be Ambrogio, but after researching him, it appears improbable. (“Le mariage de Valentine Visconti et de Louis d'Orléans; la domination française dans le Milanais de 1387 à 1450,” (Archives des Missions scientifiques et littéraires, 3rd series, volume VIII, 1882. pp. 39-99) p. 55)

It would have been great to be able to say that Marziano and Ambrogio de' Migli had met, thereby giving us grounds to speculate on a deeper relationship, perhaps extending back to the 1390s.

But the marquis of Millo and Ambrogio de' Migli are not the same person, so there is no basis for such speculation.

The more likely scenario is that the marquis, or marchese, of Millo was Antonio de Milio of Cremona, who was present with his son Giacomo at the signing of the formal submission of Asti on 2 October. Marziano knew Antonio well enough, though: he wrote the letter with which Filippo Maria re-appointed him Vicar of Provvisione, the duke's representative with the city of Milan, on 16 June 1412, possibly Filippo Maria's first official act in Milan.

But all is not lost for Ambrogio, he may well have been one of this Cremonese family. In researching Ambrogio, I found a few pages on him by Alfred Coville in 1934, which pointed to a note in an 1894 article by Franceso Novati, who speculated precisely this, that he was a relative of Antonio de Millio. Given the obscurity and notoriety of Ambrogio, and the obscurity (and I would suggest some notoriety for Marziano as well, as I refine my impression of him) of Marziano, it may be that in this swirl around Salutati in the late 1390s, these two men knew and appreciated one anothers' unorthodoxy.

Looking at the quotes Coville supplies (link below), I am struck by how Nicolas de Clamange describes Ambrogio in regarding holy religion: “..as a Catholic Epicurus would think,” and addresses him O Epicure delicatissme, “O most dainty Epicure!” (and essentially accuses him of heresy). This is striking because Epicurus is one of the few classical authors Marziano mentions by name (in Venus), not for hedonistic indulgence, but refined delicacy. (since these guys actually communicated in Latin, we can translate it so many ways, depending on tbe depth of our sensitivity to the nuances in context; it's clearly an insult, to begin with).

Can we think that “Epicurean” among humanists of the 1390s-1400s was a codeword for a gay subculture, in the same way that the 1890s had their classically inspired “Aesthetes” like Oscar Wilde? There are probably plenty of essays on gay subculture in the early Renaissance, but I haven't looked yet.

Ambrogio de' Migli, Ambrosius de Miliis in -
Alfred Coville, Gontier et Pierre Col et l'humanisme en France au temps de Charles VI, 1934, pp. 117ff.
https://books.google.fr/books?id=lol_4m ... io&f=false
Image
cron