Phaeded wrote: 21 Apr 2020, 01:26 Think again of our discussion of Marziano's Vesta who institutes a nun-like order: "She first established the religious life for virgins and the vows of religion, by which those avowed would be no longer permitted to return to the world....Wearing a very modest garment, like that of nuns...." (DSH your 67-68). Is this not precisely the narrative strategy of the Ovide moralise, is reading a Christian lesson into pagan material? Or think of the the Speculum Humanae Salvationis created in the early Trecento and remained popular through the 15th century - a medieval theory of typology, whereby the events of the Old Testament prefigured the events of the New Testament, and whose devotional illustrations were in some cases almost like luxury playing cards (Seznec even ponders in a footnote: "probably used as card games"[!], 138, footnote 36; unlikely, but what an odd statement from him):

Yes, that is a Christian typological reading, the closest he gets to it in DSH anyway. Vesta is a type, or prefiguration, of world-fleeing woman who founds a type, or prefiguration, of the convent. He even conveniently excludes what everybody who studied the Roman sources knew, that Vestal virgins were not expected to be nuns, or virgins for life, but only (!) for 30 years. And there were only a set number, and they were dedicated by their parents, not self-chosen (as far as I remember). Historically, the Vestals and convents have nothing in common except that the girls and women in them were expected to be chaste, the former on pain of death (not a punishment for fallen nuns, I believe).

But Marziano wanted his Vesta to be a type of the religious woman, and he made her so.

But Venus' dove as type of the Holy Spirit? I'm not convinced, yet.

If one goes to the German wiki article "Turteltaube", then there are 70 other corresponding wiki articles with other pictures. Most of these other wiki pictures have strong similarities to that bird, that I've shown, as it seems only few to the picture, that you've selected.

My pictures use this both marked similarities, the background color differ.


Maybe the meaning of the words "turtel dove" changed in the past 600 years, possibly by progress in the research of animals.

I remain convinced that the same word for Venus's bird and for the Holy Ghost is a problem....or "opportunity" for contemplation in Marziano. Venus allows descent of the gods into flesh - the genealogy - specifically marking out Trojan flesh as destined; the Holy Ghost allows for ascent, the way out (resurrection). Both are columba. The real problem is Marziano has hidden one side of the same columba coin by implicating the "holy"/chaste/virginities with the turtur. Marziano is about as explicit as he can be in linking Virginities to Pleasures, and I would say the former redeems the latter, but especially in the sense that Pleasures is necessary for the creation of the Trojan genealogy. Venus is like Eve....under whom we find Filippo's portrait in the Visconti Hours. Opposite Filippo are two prominent Visconti doves, sans radiant sun (perhaps because the subject matter above is essential a continuation of Original Sin/generation:

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 21 Apr 2020, 15:50 I don't doubt the Visconti could conflate the dove of the Holy Spirit with their own emblem. What I am not persuaded by is that Filippo Maria would have instinctively connected the literary columba of Venus with it. And instinctive would have been necessary, since Marziano doesn't spell it out. We know Filippo Maria loved Petrarch, and Dante, and Livy. I don't know how much we can assume about Aeneid, which doesn't use the Venus-dove association (that I know of). How much of Boccaccio GDG can we assume? He wouldn't have read it for pleasure, it would have had to be part of his conversations with learned men like Marziano. Albericus barely mentions the Venus-dove connection.

I don't think I have elaborate too much to you on the importance of the famous Book VI in the Aeneid - Aeneas's descent into the underworld to see his dead father and Roman ancestors - the genealogy paired with the destiny of Rome - all made possible with the mysterious Golden Bough....revealed to Aeneas via Venus's doves:

VI.[124] In such words he prayed and clasped the altar, when thus the prophetess began to speak: “Sprung from blood of gods, son of Trojan Anchises, easy is the descent to Avernus: night and day the door of gloomy Dis stands open; but to recall one’s steps and pass out to the upper air, this is the task, this the toil! Some few, whom kindly Jupiter has loved, or shining worth uplifted to heaven, sons of the gods, have availed. In all the mid-space lie woods, and Cocytus girds it, gliding with murky folds. But if such love is in your heart – if such a yearning, twice to swim the Stygian lake, twice to see black Tartarus – and if you are pleased to give rein to the mad endeavour, hear what must first be done. There lurks in a shady tree a bough, golden leaf and pliant stem, held consecrate to nether Juno [Proserpine]....
[183] No less Aeneas, first amid such toils, cheers his comrades and girds on like weapons. And alone he ponders with his own sad heart, gazing on the boundless forest, and, as it chanced, thus prays: “O if now that golden bough would show itself to us on the tree in the deep wood! For all things truly – ah, too truly – did the seer say of you, Misenus.” Scarce had he said these words when under his very eyes twin doves [geminae cum forte columbae, line 190], as it chanced, came flying from the sky and lit on the green grass. Then the great hero knew them for his mother’s birds, and prays with joy: “Be my guides, if any way there be, and through the air steer a course into the grove, where the rich bough overshades the fruitful ground! And you, goddess-mother, fail not my dark hour!” So speaking, he checked his steps, marking what signs they bring, where they direct their course. As eyes could keep them within sight; then, when they came to the jaws of noisome Avernus, they swiftly rise and, dropping through the unclouded air, perch side by side on their chosen goal – a tree, through whose branches flashed the contrasting glimmer of gold. As in winter’s cold, amid the woods, the mistletoe, sown of an alien tree, is wont to bloom with strange leafage, and with yellow fruit embrace the shapely stems: such was the vision of the leafy gold on the shadowy ilex, so rustled the foil in the gentle breeze. Forthwith Aeneas plucks it and greedily breaks off the clinging bough, and carries it beneath the roof of the prophetic Sibyl. (AENEID BOOK 6, TRANSLATED BY H. R. FAIRCLOUGH - the version hosted on Theoi.com)

Oddly in the Visconti Hour leaf shown above, Eve holds a "bough" to hide herself, flanked by two doves. Within the privileged portion of the underworld in Elysium, when Aeneas is reunited with his father Anchises, he is shown Silvius, Aeneas's son by Lavinia and the founder of a race of kings; Romulus, founder of Rome and the descendants of Aeneas's son, Ascanius, the Julian family, whose glory will reach its peak with Augustus, "son of the deified."

The Sibyl escorts Aeneas back to the world of the living, but the whole episode can be seen as the "harrowing of hell" and in a redeemed Christian world it is resurrection. In the absence of Christ, it is the Holy Ghost that is manifested to humanity. In a sense Venus, in the form of doves, begets the genealogical sequence in Book VI, but the end of the line is not merely Augustus for a Christian world, but yet a different Sibyl showing the mother of Jesus to him (the subject of he 100th and final image in Pizan's Othea)....and the dove's iconographic prominence in all Annunciations connects this bird even to Mary:

Pizan Othea, Vision of the Tiburtine Sybil from BL Harley 4431, f. 141


Phaeded

Phaeded wrote: 21 Apr 2020, 20:50
I don't think I have elaborate too much to you on the importance of the famous Book VI in the Aeneid - Aeneas's descent into the underworld to see his dead father and Roman ancestors - the genealogy paired with the destiny of Rome - all made possible with the mysterious Golden Bough....revealed to Aeneas via Venus's doves:

VI.
[183] No less Aeneas, first amid such toils, cheers his comrades and girds on like weapons. And alone he ponders with his own sad heart, gazing on the boundless forest, and, as it chanced, thus prays: “O if now that golden bough would show itself to us on the tree in the deep wood! For all things truly – ah, too truly – did the seer say of you, Misenus.” Scarce had he said these words when under his very eyes twin doves [geminae cum forte columbae, line 190], as it chanced, came flying from the sky and lit on the green grass. Then the great hero knew them for his mother’s birds, and prays with joy: “Be my guides, if any way there be, and through the air steer a course into the grove, where the rich bough overshades the fruitful ground! And you, goddess-mother, fail not my dark hour!” So speaking, he checked his steps, marking what signs they bring, where they direct their course. As eyes could keep them within sight; then, when they came to the jaws of noisome Avernus, they swiftly rise and, dropping through the unclouded air, perch side by side on their chosen goal – a tree, through whose branches flashed the contrasting glimmer of gold. As in winter’s cold, amid the woods, the mistletoe, sown of an alien tree, is wont to bloom with strange leafage, and with yellow fruit embrace the shapely stems: such was the vision of the leafy gold on the shadowy ilex, so rustled the foil in the gentle breeze. Forthwith Aeneas plucks it and greedily breaks off the clinging bough, and carries it beneath the roof of the prophetic Sibyl. (AENEID BOOK 6, TRANSLATED BY H. R. FAIRCLOUGH - the version hosted on Theoi.com)

I KNEW you could correct me, thank you!

It's a wonderful passage. Well, I'll meditate on it as I go to bed. "The great hero knew them for his mother's birds..."

An irresistible thought occurred to me last night that I need to expunge from my system; apologies in advance as I've not really ruminated on this for a short while and probably should distance myself from the idea.

Pizan's comparable Othea (to my mind) starts off with the four cardinal virtues (Othea herself being Prudence, starting the work off by addressing Hector and throughout, so to some degree Prudence-Othea is the narrator of the material) - the four Cardinals being followed by Perseus-Pegasus/Fama; then the Seven Planets/Gifts of the Holy Spirit for VI-XII; then the three theological virtues (XIII-XV); the seven deadly sins (XVIXXII); two lessons from the Credo (XXIII-XXIV); finally, the Ten Commandments and then a hodgepodge of mythological figures exemplifying various non-canonical virtues/vice themes, often illustrated by Trojan war episodes (e.g., LXXXVIII-XCVIII presents the Trojan material more chronologically, but the remaining tales appear to be presented in a random order).

Both the Valois and Visconti trace themselves back to Trojan ancestors, but Marziano does not reference that in his game besides perhaps implicitly selecting gods tied to Aeneas' story's arc (e.g., the suit of Pleasures we have discussed involving the suit of Pleasures: Juno-Neptune-Mars-Aeolus). Contrary to the notion that all 100 stories in Pizan were illustrated, only two manuscripts were done so in her lifetime, with most with no illuminations or just the opening Cardinal virtues, thus placing an emphasis on them. So the impetus for this random thought is not only are the Cardinals illustrated as gods/heroes, but so are the theologicals as heroum in Marziano. More precisely: Could Marziano, as one layer of meaning , have associated the "good" heroum - Virtues/Virginities - with the canonical seven virtues plus humility?

Consider the possible influence of Florence on Marziano in this regard - when he was in Florence Ghiberti's "gates of paradise" on the St. John Baptistery did not yet exist; instead the Andrea di Pizano's bronze doors faced the duomo before getting relocated in 1452. Completed in 1336, these proto-Renaissance doors consist of 28 quatrefoil panels, with the twenty top panels depicting scenes from the life of St. John the Baptist, the eight lower panels depict the eight virtues of hope, faith, charity, humility, fortitude, temperance, justice and prudence. Oddly enough Filippo Visconti was interested enough in this St. John (due to his deceased namesake older brother Giovanni Maria?) to have Filelfo write a life of St. John some years later (Francesco Filelfo, “Prose e poesie volgari di Francesco Filelfo.” Atti e memorie della Reale deputazione di storia patria per le province delle Marche 5, 1901: 1–261). So perhaps the pivotal location of the Florentine doors and their relationship to a saint of some interest to Filippo contributed to Marziano's idea in overlaying the idea of the virtues, based on Marziano's earlier visit to that cultured city.

Where this intriguing idea breaks down a bit is associating which of the 8 "good" heroum go with which virtue, given the absolute lack of references in the individual god's write ups. The basis of the argument is more in the naming of the suits of the fourfold matrix: Virtues (virtutam), is plural, not virtù (or even Virtus), thus implying more than one virtue, or even that each god in that suit is a virtue. Virginities would be more appropriate to the Theologicals as the Christian-derived virtues, along with Humility (to get to 8), also falling in this group. Humility becomes less popular of a subject as the quattrocentro wore on, but certainly not an odd idea to recognize humility in c.1412. Giotto even painted humility in this panel discussed elsewhere on this webpage, holding the taper in the lower left: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/48/f1/fb ... e1a38e.jpg

Florence baptistery - virtue and attribute(s)

Temperance - Sheathed sword
Fortitude - Hercules
Justice - Sword and sales
Prudence - Snake
Humility - Hand to veil and taper
Hope - Crown
Faith - Cross and chalice (liquid/Actaeon)
Charity - Heart/Cornucopia

The association of pagan gods with the seven or eight virtues, on the other hand, was all but unheard of, and as far as I know we're limited to Dante and Pizan as precedents. Dante associates them with the planetary steps in the Paradiso, but highly confuses matters by alluding to the Theologicals in the three lowest planetary spheres of Luna-Mercury-Mars, but then as "perfected" in the extra-planetary spheres of the starry, crystalline and empyrean; so in Dante the Theologicals don't really have pagan gods associated with them (see Frank Ordiway, “In the Earth's Shadow: The Theological Virtues Marred,” in Dante Studies 100, 1982: 77-92). Some scholars even argue that the theologicals don't exist at all in the lower planetary levels, so we'll just note the cardinals in Dante (the red replaced in Marziano):

Jupiter- Justice
Apollo - Prudence
Saturn - Temperance
Mars - Fortitude


Pizan, on the other hand, completely wanders off the reservation and comes up with seven (eight if you want to count Fama in her system) pagan god assignments unique to her:
CARDINALS
Othea Prudence
"Clock" Temperance (no hero or god is named, just the example of the clock given)
Hercules Fortitude
Minos Justice
Pegasus - Fama (Perseus and Cassiopeia are depicted when illustrated, but Pizan is explicit in her text in noting Pegasus = fama)
THEOLOGICALS
[after an interlude of the 7 planets, so uncoupling them from the virtues as in Dante]
Minerva - Faith
Pallas - Hope
Penthesilea -Charity

It is debatable as to what significance fama had for Pizan and whether to include that here, but there is no doubt it appears in the list of 100 verses; and her addressee, "Hector", is the model knight and thus fama can be seen as the "carrot" or inducement for her knightly readership; i.e., be virtuous and do good deeds per this work, and fame will be yours.

It is possible Marziano was able to see an artist's copybook, an epitome or even a copy of Pizan's Othea, say from the former Visconti courtier Ambrogio Migli (Pizan's Othea was widespread among the French royals, most notably for the Duke of Orleans, for whom Migli was his secretary),. If he were familiar with it, perhaps Marziano could only shake his head at the odd choices made but retained the idea of associating heroum with the virtues? Moreover, dispensing with fama and adding humility back in would have only been logical.

Dante is also of limited help as Marziano dispenses with Saturn; moreover, Mars is not placed in one of the "good" suits (instead is in "Riches"). However, Marziano arguably follows Dante in two cases: Jupiter could still be Justice, as Apollo could be Prudence. Without further ado, Marziano's 8 "good" heroum matched to the virtues.


How did I derive these assignments?

The Cardinals are easy to explain- Jupiter/Justice and Apollo/Prudence, again, are explicit in Dante, the author of whom Marziano's special interest was in regard to his chats with Filippo, per Decembrio. Mars is in Riches (arguably because of the Juno-Aeolus complex related to Aeneas, with Mars being the father of Romulus and founding of Rome) and the replacement of Hercules as Fortitude is the least controversial of any of these assignments as that was de rigueur throughout Europe (and in Giotto's famous scheme). That leaves only Mercury as problematic - why indeed should he be "temperance", with Saturn (Dante's choice) deleted from the deck altogether? In Pizan, Temperance is effectively made the opposite of the vice of Wrath, just as she is in Giotto's Scrovegni scheme with sheathed sword: "well-tempered, and at no time has ever been touched by anger" (Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Renate, and Earl Jeffrey Richards, trans, Christine de Pizan: Othea's Letter to Hector, 2017: 38). In Marziano Mercury is likewise a tempering peacemaker: "so that spirits would be mitigated on both sides, even if some insolence or strife should arise, the ninth, fairly middle place, we appointed for Mercury" (Caldwell, p. 59). He also placates angry Jove. His oratory skills can rouse men to war when required, "but time after time, so by a tranquil, so by a calm, so by a pleasant speech, he soothed the kings splattered with blood and the bloodstained soldiers; he compelled them to come together in friendship, after throwing down their spears, and to enter eagerly into embrace" (61). Even the "quarreling serpents" of Mercury's caduceus is a symbol of settling lawsuits, and he wears winged sandals "insofar as the speakers of peace are required to be swift" (ibid). Temperance's sheathed sword meets a perfect complement in Marziano's Mercury whose special gift to man is peace.

The Theologicals, in contrast to the Cardinals, are admittedly more of a reach, and I'll accordingly address each one.

Pallas - Humility. Relying strictly on Marziano's text, we read "She restrained with remarkable viguor the movements of all sensate pleasures and charms" (35), which is certainly fitting with the modest virtue of Humility. Moreover, all her gifts can be attributed to someone else ("God"), the ultimate act of humility: "...they assert her birth from the head of of Jupiter. And it is right and very fittingly written, because every mode of duty, or political work, and civil business, would seem to have the beginning and birth from Jupiter himself" (ibid). Not much else to go on here and quite frankly humility fell to her because the other three had stronger claims on the Theologicals proper. This seemingly negligible virtue attached to the highest female of the heroum, needs to be put into context: the presence of humility speaks to the older tradition where that virtue actually was the root of all virtues in Tress of Life - springing from a pot labeled humilitas, of which Jupiter's head would be the cognate for Pallas (Wisdom, from which all other gifts proceeded), as in this Tree of Life (Beinecke MS 416)
http://brbl-archive.library.yale.edu/ex ... ges/3v.jpg MS 416 begins with a diagram of the Tower of Wisdom, which again points to why Pallas may have been associated with this genre. One might also note Trees of Life, while providing a stemma of the virtues, would parallel the genealogical line also depicted as tree-like, with oak leaves in the case of the Eulogy version of the Visconti line.

Diana - Faith. Certainly a surprising selection, I admit, yet two attributes point to Faith: Diana is explicitly linked to the moon and is covered in a "white mantle" (53) - white is of course the color associated with Faith. Furthermore she has "triple aspect", "three faces" and "reflects" the light of the sun - all of this parallels the trinity reflected in the mirror held by Faith in the Ambrogio Lorenzetti altarpiece, for instance (pasted below; note that the trinity's reflection in the mirror held by faith appears to hold just a Janus-like head but the Holy Ghost dove was only discovered in a recent restoration, but is usually not clear in on-line reproductions; at all events Faith symbolized by the trinity is of course standard).

Vesta - Charity. Besides the nun-like order described by Marziano for the Vestals and their link to charitable works (applicable to any Christian religious order), the only specific attribute would be Vestals tending to the flame in Vesta's temple ("consecrated the first fires", Marziano, 69), the flaming heart being the symbol of Charity, held by Charity/love in the same Lorenzetti painting (albeit flames are missing here, but usually featured as in this c. 1405 Parisian workshop manuscript example: https://art.thewalters.org/images/art/l ... p_dd-2.jpg ). No color is associated with Vesta but presumably the flames on the altar she would be before would be red, which is the color associated with this theological virtue (again, as depicted in the Lorenzetti painting).

Daphne - Hope. Sticking with the theological colors schema, I'll immediately point out Daphne not merely matches Hope's green but is turned into green as laurel. Marziano merely notes Daphne's perpetual nature - a byword for evergreen - in describing Daphne in her section proper, but in the Apollo section, the cause of her transformation, Marziano notes "his gift of the laurel is always green" (45). As for Daphne and spes/Hope, that link goes back to the source material of Ovid:

Particularly illuminated in the theme of spes, i.e., the tireless hope of the elegiac lover that the puella will finally yield to his erotic devises. Ovid creates an evident irony from the moment he depicts Apollo, the god of oracles, who is able to reveal ‘what will be, what was, and what is’ ([Met]. 517-518), as an amator sperans. Given that hope, by nature, derives from uncertainty about future happenings, to make Apollo ‘foster hope’ underscores his undignified character and further identifies him, consequently, with the elegiac lover, who can only long for the reciprocation of his desire. The following table illustrates this point with elegiac passages that exemplify the frequent association of the concept of spes with the amator [he goes on to cite examples in: Ovid, Am. 2.19.5; Propertius 2.22b.45-46; Propertius 3.17.11-12; Ovid, Am. 2.9b.43-44; Tibullus 2.6.27] (José Manuel Blanco Mayor, Power Play in Latin Love Elegy and its Multiple Forms of Continuity in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 2017: 160).

The Lorenzetti painting referenced above:



If any of the above holds water, to what extent did it figure into Marziano's design and how communicated to Filippo? Was the latter just supposed to divine the Virtues/Virigiities heruom as the canonical virtues while contemplating the deck, or did Marziano "play a hand" with him as it were, pointing out some of the polyvalent meanings one could extract from the game? One has to keep in mind that neither "Virtues" (nor "Virginites") were associated with a group of entities or iconographical tradition....outside of the canonical virtues. Without any specific reference other than the suit of "Virtues" in Marziano, this necessarily remains speculative.

Phaeded

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 21 Apr 2020, 10:04

Phaeded wrote: 21 Apr 2020, 01:26
Generally, why do no academics employ the term "pigeon"? I honestly don't know.

I don't know either. I can only surmise that it is because of long vernacular usage, and nobody we have yet encountered has had to argue about these distinctions to make some point before. The word pigeon evokes the blue-gray bird, the word dove the white one, and this distinction is useful. People generally don't keep pigeon coops anymore. If you order some doves for an event like a graduation or wedding, people won't just bring you any pigeons, they'll bring you white ones.

Stumbled across this:
Elena Lombardi, Wings of the Doves: Love and Desire in Dante and Medieval Culture, 2012.

Quali colombe dal disio chiamate
Coll'ali alzate e ferme al dolce nido
Vegnon per l'aere dal voler portate
Cotali uscir de la schiera Dido, A noi venendo per l'aere maligno
Si forte fu l'affettüoso grido.
(Inferno 5, 7)
"As doves called by desire with wings raised and steady come through the air, borne by their will to their sweet nest, so did these issue from the troop where Dido is, coming to us through the malignant air, such force had my compassionate cry."

As R. Allen Shoaf and Lawrence Ryan have shown, the dove is a flexible image both in bestiaries and in the scriptural tradition.' From the conflicting etymologies of the word (derived for some from "collum" for the colour change in a bird's neck feathers, and for others from "colens lumbos" with emphasis on the loins) to the distinction between white doves (sacred to Venus, but also symbols of purity), turtle doves (symbolizing the holy ghost), and rock doves (the common pigeon), doves encapsulate images of lust, love, and the ultimate spirituality. For its very nature — timid, weak, and easily seduced ("in illa sine felle, sed seducta," as Guibert of Nogent puts it) — the dove is an image of lapse and recall, of negligence and care." Like Paolo and Francesca, doves relate centrally to the act of kissing, Which is interpreted both as lust (doves are said to kiss before intercourse) and as friendship (the sign of peace) (p.90).

Another pair of Virgilian doves may have been on Dante's mind when tracing the compulsive sense of direction of Inferno s's birds. In the sixth canto of the Aeneid Venus sends two doves ("geminae columbae"), certainly the white doves that were sacred to her and a symbol of sexual attraction, to guide (they are "duces") Aeneas to the golden bough (see chapter 1). These doves have a highly obsessive sense of direction: they are moved by the desire for the golden bough (" quo tendere pergant," 198; "sedibus optatis,"...[next Google page not scanned] (p. 94)

Phaeded

BTW: I'm now converting book text to a pdf and then opening the pdf with Word which automatically is converting to text. If there is a better way to do this, please let me know. Otherwise this method beats transcribing.

For the phoenix, Aeneid II,761-65 may be the solution - a playful identification of the bird with the Homeric Greek hero Phoenix (Iliad IX) cited by Vergil in Aeneid II,761-5:

et iam porticibus uacuis Iunonis asylo
custodes lecti Phoenix et dirus Vlixes
praedam adseruabant. huc undique Troia gaza
incensis erepta adytis, mensaeque deorum
crateresque auro solidi, captiuaque uestis

"By now, in the empty colonnades of Juno's temple, the chosen custodians, Phoenix and savage Ulysses, were guarding the booty. From everywhere, the treasure of Troy was heaped up here, torn from its blazing sanctuaries, tables of the gods, mixing-bowls of solid gold, seized garments "

(Nicholas Horsfall, Virgil, Aeneid 2. A Commentary. Brill, 2008, pp. 40-41 - https://books.google.fr/books?id=YZcPgu ... 61&f=false ).

The sense would be that Phoenix guards Juno's riches.

Compare Horsfall's notes to this passage at pages 527-528, where he notes Livy's mention of the Roman practice at New Carthage, and the word "praeda" which means "booty, spoils of war, plunder." This makes it perfectly clear why Marziano brought Mars under Riches.

I found "Phoenix" in the Aeneid with this helpful concordance -
https://www.scholarsonline.org/~drmcm/a ... .php?ltr=p

And Horsfall's commentary (although I wanted medieval ones) on this page -
https://guides.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/c. ... &p=1902234
(the links are often dead, but you can search by title and name, etc.)

Then, reading Homer's biography for Phoenix that Horsfall mentions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(son_of_Amyntor)
- it strikes me that Marziano is a type of Phoenix; once Achilles' adopted father, he now has to urge the reluctant Achilles to war. But it doesn't seem likely that, during Marziano's life, anybody in his circle would have been familiar with the details of the Iliad's Phoenix. So we just have to go on Virgil's brief mention.

Phaeded wrote: 15 May 2020, 23:51 Stumbled across this:
Elena Lombardi, Wings of the Doves: Love and Desire in Dante and Medieval Culture, 2012.

Quali colombe dal disio chiamate
Coll'ali alzate e ferme al dolce nido
Vegnon per l'aere dal voler portate
Cotali uscir de la schiera Dido, A noi venendo per l'aere maligno
Si forte fu l'affettüoso grido.
(Inferno 5, 7)
"As doves called by desire with wings raised and steady come through the air, borne by their will to their sweet nest, so did these issue from the troop where Dido is, coming to us through the malignant air, such force had my compassionate cry."

As R. Allen Shoaf and Lawrence Ryan have shown, the dove is a flexible image both in bestiaries and in the scriptural tradition.' From the conflicting etymologies of the word (derived for some from "collum" for the colour change in a bird's neck feathers, and for others from "colens lumbos" with emphasis on the loins) to the distinction between white doves (sacred to Venus, but also symbols of purity), turtle doves (symbolizing the holy ghost), and rock doves (the common pigeon), doves encapsulate images of lust, love, and the ultimate spirituality. For its very nature — timid, weak, and easily seduced ("in illa sine felle, sed seducta," as Guibert of Nogent puts it) — the dove is an image of lapse and recall, of negligence and care." Like Paolo and Francesca, doves relate centrally to the act of kissing, Which is interpreted both as lust (doves are said to kiss before intercourse) and as friendship (the sign of peace) (p.90).

Another pair of Virgilian doves may have been on Dante's mind when tracing the compulsive sense of direction of Inferno s's birds. In the sixth canto of the Aeneid Venus sends two doves ("geminae columbae"), certainly the white doves that were sacred to her and a symbol of sexual attraction, to guide (they are "duces") Aeneas to the golden bough (see chapter 1). These doves have a highly obsessive sense of direction: they are moved by the desire for the golden bough (" quo tendere pergant," 198; "sedibus optatis,"...[next Google page not scanned] (p. 94)

These are fantastic quotes! Thank you very much.

I'll need some more explicit textual proof that turtur was the symbol of the Holy Spirit, and not columba, though. What we have here are two media that inform one another - the textual and the iconographic. But the textual part is never explicit that the columba (or turtur) has to be alba, while in iconography it is often, though not always, so.

Ross G. R. Caldwell wrote: 16 May 2020, 17:05 For the phoenix, Aeneid II,761-65 may be the solution - a playful identification of the bird with the Homeric Greek hero Phoenix (Iliad IX) cited by Vergil in Aeneid II,761-5...

Nice work! I missed this post since your next one followed right after. Nothing else to add at this time, besides I think that supplements the other "riches" meaning of Phoenix/Phoenician (which is germane to Dido). Given the encyclopedia proclivities of the late middle ages, I don't think we need to rule out multiple markers for "riches" - their "anthropological" assumption that meaning crossed cultural boundaries (even if manufactured by their own scholiast activities).

Phaeded wrote: 18 Apr 2020, 21:22
I think the distinction is in the association of either bird with related symbols, seldom if ever made explicit, so perhaps we should call this a hypothesis at this point, which is: The (turtle)dove is associated with the Holy Ghost while the regular dove is associated with Venus, hence the two suits of turtledove/virginites versus doves/pleasures. Consider the Ovide moralise in verse illumination of Cupid and Venus, c. 1380, from Vatican Reg.Lat.1480 (the total number of gods here had been reduced to 15 - 16 if you count Cupid in this illumination, but not completely matching Petrarch or Marziano's 16):

I know the below (lower left register) is just God creating the birds (not specifically doves) and fishes, but it is odd the comparative image above from the Ovide moralise in verse (illumination of Cupid and Venus), c. 1380, from Vatican Reg.Lat.1480, matches the attitude of the birds perfectly in the Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César below, c. 1370-80 (so contemporary), made for King Charles V. I suppose the same artist studio or sharing of a copybook, but when I came across this image it struck me as to how similar to the secular work shown above.


Phaeded