Before proceeding to Marziano’s six replacement ‘heroes’, an extended sidebar on why Petrarch – who himself has heavily emended Capella – included Philology when only Capella is a source for her; quoting Bernardo on an early work of Petrarch, a comedy:
[quoteThere is evidence that from a very early age Petrarch had been intrigued by the possibility of personifying the general concept of learning or culture in a female figure” (170).
[He then goes over the scraps of information we have for the lost comedy]:
• Fam. II, 7.5, Petrarch letter to Cardinal Giovanni Colonna: “You will remember in my Philology, which I wrote only to drive out your cares through entertainment [same sentiment echoed in Marziano’s prologue], what my Tranquillinus says: ‘the greater part of man dies waiting for something.’ And so it is.” (170). [Bernardo states that it looks like the comedy may have been written for Cardinal Colonna, whose large extended family in Rome, many holding important positions in the Church, may have inherited the manuscript and thus circulated it among clerical circles so perhaps Marziano was familiar with it via his participation in the Church, but my argument depends on nothing more than the Africa].
• Fam. VII.16.6. Petrarch letter to humanist Lapo di Castiglionchio, thanking him for an oration of Cicero but can’t send his PP: “I do not deny that at a somewhat tender age I wrote the comedy you request bearing the title of Philologia. Unfortunately it is located far from here, you will learn from our common friend who bears this letter [Boccaccio!] what my opinion of it is, and the degree to which I consider it worthy of the ears of learned men such as yours” (170-171).
• Life of Petrarch (De vita et moribus Domini Francisci Petracchi), Bocaccio. “Boccaccio not only suggests Petrarch actually surpassed Terence in his comedy, but refers to it with the title of Philostratus….justification for Boaccaccio’s use of this title may be found in the letter from Petrarch to Barbaro da Sulmona….alludes to his comedy as “Philologia Philostrati”…. (172). [Bernardo notes Philostratus is “a man overcome and overthrown by love.”].
…
Putting together all these scanty facts about Petrarch’s comedy, certain significant conclusions can be reached. The title itself, Philologia Filostrati, suggests the combining of a rather learned subject with a love theme. It also reveals a third possible character in the play in addition to Philologia and Tranquillinus. This in turn suggests a possible threesome reflecting three perspectives, learning, loving and living [I would have preferred cupidity versus learning, with the contemplative life as the resolution….all of this echoed in the trionfi of Cupid versus Chastity]. Finally, the verse cited in Fam. II.7.5 implies a moral-philosophic theme that had apparently attracted the attention of Petrarch’s closest and most influential friends. In all of this, there seems to be no evidence disproving our original assumption that the concept or character of Philologia was a borrowing or at least an echo of Capella Capella’s elaborate allegory of the wedding of Philology with the god, Mercury”Bard (Aldo S. Bernardo, Petrarch, Laura, and the Triumphs 1974: 172).
Scipio – in addition to the
Africa (for which Petrarch was crowned in Rome as laureate poet in 1341), - and Philology cum Daphne/Laura would remain central to Petrarch to the degree that the question is not why did Marziano use Petrarch, but how could not have?
• The ekphrastic description of the palace of Syphax (Africa 3.87-262) was an excerpt available before the long-delayed publication of the Africa itself, notably as early as 1339-40 in the hands of Petrarch’s friend Pierre de Bersuire.
• Petrarch’s first two
trionfi, Cupidinis and
Pudicitaie, were written as a pair in c. 1352 before Petrarch’s first stay in Milan. The
Africa’s hero Scipio is featured alongside Laura/Daphne in their journey together to the temple of Patrician Chastity in Rome.
• Petrarch based in Milan 1353-1361 where he apparently invented the family imprese and motto of a bon droyt, worn on the person of Filippo Visconti in his medals and of course trionfi decks.
• Scipio was the featured hero in Petrarch’s treatise on “famous men” [ Scipio “…was to occupy the central position in the
De viris illustribus. Three progressively enlarged versions of his biography survive dating from 1338-39, 1343, and probably 1353. For a study of the three redactions, see Guido Martellotti,
La vita di Scipione l’Africano (Milan and Naples: Ricciarardi, 1954). Petrarch: A Critical Guide to the Complete Works. Ukraine: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Eds. Armando Maggis and Victoria Kirkham Scipio, 2009: 382).
• The intimately related subject of the
Aeneid (the mythical background to Petrarch’s “historical”
Africa), is in the same Venus-based Visconti genealogy in Gasparino Barzizza, and an early project of Decembrio c. 1419 was to translate the Aeneid (stopped after 89 lines, but continued in 1428).
Marziano’s Six Replacement ‘Heroes’ to those in Petrarch’s Africa
Marziano, to reiterate, created a matrix of moral categories for the four suits and it is those that drove him to seek suitable (pardon the pun) replacements, as a particular god/goddess could best exemplify the category into which they were being placed. The method he employed was otherwise straight forward – the replacements were in almost every case
cognates for those gods/goddesses replaced. I would also point to the close relations between the Valois and Visconti and that Pizan’s Ovide-inspired Othea was likely a source for the pictorial program employed by Marziano (perhaps carried over into the CY, whose “World” trump with an allegorical divinity on an arcing cloud nimbus looks precisely like those used in the Othea - and note it was first dedicated to Valentina Visconti’s husband Duc d’Orleas).
*
Daphne for Philology. See above. It is the centerpiece of Petrarch’s personal mythology and indeed he himself moved away from the Philology-related comnedy of his youth for the Daphne/Laura symbol. While Philology was chaste she was married – Daphne instead confers the
* Hercules for Perseus. Cognates in that both are Greek heroes sired by Zeus. Perseus was associated with Persia (even in Pizan) and why used for a Carthaginian-related king – they hailed from Phoenicia and allied with Persia during the classical era wars with ancient Greece. Hercules is associated with bringing civilization to Italy/Rome and a model for
Virtus, hence the preference here (Visconti had no connection to Perseus).
* Aeolus for Vulcan: both based in the same geographical location of Sicily/Aeolian islands (e.g., Pindar's First Olympian Ode) and related natural phenomena - volcanic movement/smoke and winds produced from the same region. Aeolus is central to the Aeneid in blowing Aeanas and crew to Carthage/Africa, and is emphasized as a dire sign for Hannibal in the final showdown with Scipio in Book 7 of Petrarch’s
Africa, where the Aeoloian islands and region are named (line 355) and where the oncoming force against Hannibal is likened to Polphemus’s cave under mount Aetna (where Vulcan had his forge) and where
Turbidus Eolio will appear like a baleful comet, linking the winds to the celestial gods (line 838
Terribilis, qualis pastor Poliphemus ab antro / Turbidus Eolio, uel qualis ab ethere tristis. https://petrarch.petersadlon.com/read_africa.html?s=7 )
* Bacchus for Pan. Cognates for sexual wantonness, and either would be suited in Pleasures, however “Liber” was more connected to Rome and a more civilized god who brought wine. Featured in Pizan, Harley 4431 f. 106:
http://www.bl.uk/IllImages/Ekta/mid/E070/E070017.jpg
* Vesta for Cybele: Both closely associated with the earth, but the suit of Virginity drives the search for a cognate here which can only be explained by Cybele’s famously strange male priests were
castrati: A gallus (pl. galli) was a eunuch. Marziano all but describes Vesta and her followers as nuns - a sort of pagan religious order. Although Marziano does not bother to strictly adhere to gender sameness in the suits, he does in Virginities and Vestal virgin simply trumps Cybele, who was sullied with a male lover, Adonis.
Finally,
*
Ceres for Saturn: This one looks prima facie the weakest of all, particularly with the gender change, but Marziano himself provides the straight-forward answer in his
tractatus:
“[Ceres] was engendered of Saturn”. Moreover, Ceres is one of the few deities listed in Capella, in region 5 in the Etruscan system. The familial and food connections allowed her to be placed in Pleasures along with Bacchus – both featured in Pizan (Harley 4431) and in the Vat. Reg. Lat 1290 MS of the
Libellus, where, like Saturn, she holds a sickle, thus a cognate in turns of production of the earth:
That’s all six replacements.
[/quote]
Many thanks to Ross for inserting my long-winded post in three parts. Above I added the missing relevant image - showing iconographically why Ceres could be substituted for Saturn but again Marziano's own text provides the most compelling reason - the familial connection: “[Ceres] was engendered of Saturn”.
The other two missing images are Capella's original text (which includes Ceres) is below - and Panofsky's chart.
Capella's 16 regions.jpg
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