Re: Nightmare Alley

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Both of you are putting too fine a point on it. I am not presenting the theory that Brunelleschi invented the Tarot trump sequence single-handedly. At best he played a crucial role, perhaps the spark of the idea or even the mathematical conception, but the game was conceived, invented, perfected, and finally made real, by a group.

What I am primarily suggesting is that there is a genetic link between Michelino's deck, along perhaps with the text of Marziano explaining it (it is short enough to be copied within a couple of days, and we know at least three copies), and the concept of a symbolic trump sequence, and that Brunelleschi can provide that link. All of these points are worth considering. Trump sequences (a superior suit following a different principle to the standard suits), as opposed to individual wild cards or internal disruptions to the ranking, are only known from Milan in the 1410s and Florence et al. from 1440. The rarity of the idea, and the proximity in time and place, raises the suspicion of a connection, as do the related themes of deification and triumph. But they are otherwise so different that it takes a lot of imagination to make those connections. That is a very unsatisfying place to be, so I was content to accept a scenario of two, independent, inventions of the same ludic innovation, a permanent trump suit of ranked symbolic figures.

Enter Lo Scheggia's cardmaking and other kinds of triumphs, his friendship with Brunelleschi, and the latter's visits to the duke of Milan. Now there are names and faces to the connection, and a possible locus of transmission of the idea of a trump suit from the duke's game to the inventive circle around Brunelleschi and Lo Scheggia in Florence.

The only idea I really want to convey is the importance of the concept of a trump suit. It is unique. Traditional card playing societies can put all kinds of imagery on their cards, and can give some or many cards colourful names, but they always follow the suit system, whatever the number of suits or the nature of the game. The imagery is mere decoration for what are really just numbers, like the points on dominoes. By contrast, the symbolic and allegorical hierarchy of both sets of trumps invented between Milan and Florence between the 1410s and 1440 is absolutely unparalleled anywhere else in the history of card games. Tarot trumps are strictly ranked and can be substituted with numbers, but they were not conceived this way and did not bear numbers at the beginning. They are not mere decorations for an ordinal position. The trumps convey their relative ranking by their symbolism alone; the order itself is symbolically meaningful. It goes in a certain conceptual direction; it has a kind of narrative or plot, at least in outline; it is a logical progression. Like the chapters of a book, that narrative is in parts, of which most commentators recognize at least three, internally ranked within each part according to their symbolic meaning and some rules of the new game they were invented to play.

Re: Nightmare Alley

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Reading this thread, the inspirational and very important points for me are:

On Brunelleschi by Ross (thanks, Ross!):
Ross Caldwell wrote: 23 May 2022, 16:48 [..] and that he had been summoned to Milan twice by Filippo Maria himself, once in the early '20s, and once in the '30s, probably shortly after the consecration of the Duomo in 1436. This suggested to me that he might have seen and even played Filippo Maria's new game with him, introducing him to the concept of a trump suit. Thus there would be an organic link between the two decks with the concept of a permanent trump game with a special symbolic sequence, and not two separate inventions of the concept, Marziano and Tarot, as I had hitherto supposed.

À propos of the intellectual conception of complex programmes - the architecture of the game - here are some remarks on Brunelleschi by Paolo Ventrone:
Di lui scriveva il Vasari, [..] che messer Paulo predetto [Toscanelli], celebrandolo, usava dire che nel sentire arguir Filippo [Brunelleschi], gli pareva un nuovo San Paulo.

Diede ancora molta opera in questo tempo alle cose di Dante, le quali furon da lui bene intese circa i siti e le misure; e spesso nelle comparazioni allegandolo, se ne serviva ne' suoi ragionamenti. Né mai col pensiero faceva altro che macchinare e immaginare cose ingegnose e difficili.

[…] Sequendo le linee della biografia vasariana sono propensa a credere che proprio lo studio della Commedia abbia sfidato l'architetto alla visualizzazione dell'ineffabile con la costruzione dei paradisi per le feste nelle chiese, e che questi, a loro volta, gli siano serviti a sperimentare i macchinari con i quali pervenne all'arditissima soluzione della cupola.
(Paolo Ventrone, “La propaganda unionista negli spettacoli del 1439,” in Paolo Ventrone, Teatro civile e sacra rappresentazione a Firenze nel Rinascimento (Firenze, Le Lettere, 2016), pp. 118-140 (139-140))

"Vasari wrote of him, […] that messer Paulo predetto [Toscanelli], celebrating him, used to say that in hearing Filippo [Brunelleschi] argue, he seemed to him a new St. Paul.

He still gave much attention at this time to the things of Dante, whose sites and measures were well understood by him; and often in comparisons attaching him [Dante], he made use of them in his reasonings. Nor ever with thought did he do anything but scheming and imagining ingenious and difficult things.

“[…] Following the lines of Vasari's biography, I am inclined to believe that it was precisely the study of the Commedia that challenged the architect to visualize the ineffable with the construction of the paradises for feasts in the churches, and that these, in turn, served him to experiment with the machinery with which he arrived at the daring solution of the dome."
Note that Dante and his Commedia are referred to as a major inspirational source in Florence even in 1420 and following years. I do believe that Dante is absolutely crucial for the card game. [And I am working at discussing this in the other thread in this very forum.]

To this fits, again by Ross:
Ross Caldwell wrote: 23 May 2022, 18:30 The trumps were just like a "dome" on top of the four-sided regular deck.
Note that the last trump XXI of Tarot de Marseille “Le monde / Il mondo” can be seen as a dome of a cathedral as seen from below: e.g. the cupola of St. Peter in Rome by Michelangelo is carried by the four evangelists and their respective figure from the tetramorph. Same applies to the cupola in Florence, even if the painting is from later time.
This is related to older representations of how heaven can be seen from our world in the representations of Christ in Majesty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_in_Majesty, see most of the pictures there and e.g.:
Image

and the Florentine (without tetramorph but round) from around 1300

Image

And in Renaissance, the model for the respective cupolas are the Dome of the Pantheon in Rome which has an open hole at the top – which is clearly a Platonian Figure (the ball of the volume, the circle at the top), and is reminiscent at Plato’s Phaidros (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaedrus_(dialogue)), where the heaven itself is a sphere with a hole in it, through which the human soul can at least put its head and see the “overheavenly” reality of ideas, that pure and eternaly being (which later in Ficino’s Renaissance neoplatonic works means: God). Note that these ideas are already discussed in Boethius’ neoplatonic Consolatio w.r.t. God being in the "overheaven", on important source for Dante’s Commedia (the timeless "overheaven" is there called "empyreum" ).

Re: Nightmare Alley

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Here are my rough notes with bibliography and quotes on the issue of Brunelleschi in Milan.

Theory that Filippo Maria's game – Marziano's text and Michelino's cards – inspired the creation of game of Trionfi. Brunelleschi and Lo Scheggia. Brunelleschi in Milan. Perhaps Lo Scheggia accompanied him. Startling innovation is suit of trumps. Name of game Deificatio. Apotheosis is Triumph. Trionfo is synonymous with Carro in context (currus triumphalis; carro trionfale; carro=trionfo). Symbolic subjects and sequence common to Florence and processions.

Brunelleschi (1377-1446) in Milan “poco dopo il 1421, condotttovi dal Duca Filippo Maria per fare il modello d'una fortezza, e vi ritornava ancora prima del 1438, per disegnarvi molte cose per il duca, e per il duomo di detta città a' maestri di quello (intendasi dare il disegno) – Vasari, Vita di F. Brunelleschi – V. III, p. 225 e 226, Ed. Le Monnier. 1848” (Lauro Pozzi, Leonardo da Vinci e il disegno del Duomo di Pavia, Bollettino della Società pavese di storia patria, a. III. Fasc. III-IV, 1903, p. 405).

Vasari (1511-1574):
“It is said that Filippo was summoned to Milan in order to make the model of a fortress for Duke Filippo Maria, and that he left this building of the Innocenti in charge of Francesco della Luna, who was very much his friend.
(...)
“Returning to Milan, he made many designs for the Duke, and some for the masters of the Duomo of that city. “
(Adrienne DeAngelis, “Vasari's Lives of the Artists: Filippo Brunelleschi, Part III: Other Buildings by Brunelleschi”
https://web.archive.org/web/20181003175 ... Brun3.html )
Wikipedia for the Spedale degli Innocenti (same place as the records of the Arte della Seta, sponsors of the Ospedale, which contains many records of silk merchants purchasing playing cards for export) says that Francesco della Luna took over the direction of the construction in 1436. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spedale_degli_Innocenti
(no reference, but unanimous in quick search; see bibliography in “Repertorio delle architetture civili di Firenze” http://www.palazzospinelli.org/architet ... sp?ID=1398
“E' questo opera di Filippo Brunelleschi (seppure in parte snaturata rispetto al progetto iniziale), avviata nel 1419 a spese dell'Arte di Por Santa Maria. Sotto la direzione dell'architetto si costruirono entro il 1427 il portico, i due corpi di fabbrica a esso perpendicolari (a sinistra la chiesa e a destra il dormitorio dei fanciulli) e separati dal cortile d'ingresso (chiostro degli Uomini). Dopo un periodo di interruzione i lavori ripresero nel 1436 sotto la direzione di Francesco della Luna, che inizialmente operò nella zona oltre il dormitorio dei fanciulli. Nel 1439 lo stesso Francesco della Luna, dopo aver già aggiunto al portico di facciata una campata cieca sulla destra, soprelevò con un piano finestrato il portico per ottenere una vasta sala coperta sempre da destinarsi al soggiorno dei fanciulli: così facendo reinterpretò il progetto di Brunelleschi che prevedeva il loggiato coperto da una semplice tettoia a spiovente, ai lati della quale si disponevano i due volumi equivalenti della chiesa e del dormitorio, che superavano in facciata l'altezza del portico e ne sporgevano con tutto il colmo triangolare del tetto.”)

Manetti's “La novella del Grasso legnaiuolo” mentions that Lo Scheggia (1406-1486) also told the Brunelleschi joke on Grasso story.

Also Felice Fossati Vita p. 196 note lines 44-46: “... Brunelleschi (chiamato a Milano due volte, pare circa il 1422 o '23 e fra il 1431 e il '36, p. 435)” - cites Mongeri, “Il castello di Milano,” ASL 11 (1884), p. 435.
Mongeri cites Sansoni's edition of 1878, with the following note for the second visit (p. 368 note 3): “Della sua andata a Milano non conosciamo nessuna memoria. Ci è noto invece che nell'aprile del 1431 egli ebbe licenza di andare e stare 45 giorni a Ferrara e a Mantova, in servizio di que'principi, rinnovatagli, rispetto a Mantova, per venti giorni nell'aprile del 1436.” (April 1431 trip not noted in Battisti, “Appunti per una biografia,” p. 334, but 20 days in Ferrara and Mantova noted on p. 335; no primary sources given in Mongeri or Battisti to these notices)

See also Stefania Buganza, “Note su Filippo Maria Visconti” in Cengarle, Covini, eds., “Il ducato di Filippo Maria Visconti, 1412-1447, economia, politica, cultura,” Firenze, 2015, p. 250 and note 10, for the most recent bibliography.

Buganza's footnote:

La notizia di una fortezza milanese progettata da Brunelleschi compare per la prima volta nel Libro di Antonio Billi, datablile al primo Cinquecento (pp. 33-35, 136-137) e viene ripresa in seguito dall'Anonimo Magliabechiano, dal Gelli e dal Vasari (Vasari, Le Vite, III, p. 181), per restare ai testi più antichi. In tutte le fonti si fa esplicito riferimento ad un viaggio dell'architetto. Del disegno della fortezza tace invece la biografia più antica del fiorentino, quella di Antonio Manetti (Vita di Filippo Brunelleschi), di secondo Quattrocento, mentre un altro testo dello stesso Manetti (conservato nel ms. 1501.G.2 della Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze: Murray, “Art Historians,” p. 335) riporta la notizia di Filippo nella cattedrale di Milano: “Acconciò parte della chiesa maggiore di Milano, cioè se nulla v'è di buono”. Franchetti, Storia e descrizione del Duomo, p. 142, ricorda alla data “1430 circa” Filippo Brunelleschi tra gli ingegneri stipendiati o consultati dalla Fabbrica, ma il nome dell'architetto non compare negli Annali della Fabbrica del Duomo. Un primo tentativo di mettere a fuoco la presenza di Brunelleschi a Milano si trova nella monografia di Battisti, Filippo Brunelleschi, pp. 232-233, 338, 377.

Battisti's discussion on pp. 232-233 suggests that Brunelleschi's work on the Duomo occurred during a peace between Florence and Milan in the years 1428 to 1431.
Battisti's note on page 377 mentions Gaetano Franchetti's Storia e descrizione del Duomo di Milano, Milano, 1908. He mentions Filippo Brunelleschi under the year 1430 on page 142 among the “architetti ed ingegneri stipendiati o consultati dalla veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano.” In fact Franchetti's book was published in 1821, and the book Battisti is referring to from 1908 is Ettore Verga's L'archivio della Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano, page 21, which according to Battisti suggests that Franchetti's inclusion of Brunelleschi must have relied on records later destroyed in a fire in 1906 at the Fiera Internazionale di Torino (year is mentioned on page 232, name of event on page 377). I wonder if Battisti has not confused it with the January 25-26 1904 fire at the Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, the same fire that damaged the 15th century cards. However, this date would not explain why Brunelleschi is missing from the edition of the archives of the Fabbrica del Duomo published in the late 19th century.
(Note that Battisti cites Franchetti with the initial “G.” in the text, but in the index of names the initial is “A.” Verga is not mentioned at all. Such mistakes are to be expected in a book of this scope and detail.)

Also in the Codice dell'Anonimo Gaddiano (Magliabechiano), c. 1540, folio 62v: “Fece anchora (il Brunelleschi) il modello delle fortezze di Vicopisano, e il modello della fortezza del Porto di Pesaro, e il modello di una fortezza a Milano, a Filippo Maria Duca.” Cited by Beltrami, Il Castello di Milano [Castrum . Portae . Jovis] sotto il dominio dei Visconti e degli Sforza, MCCCLXVIII MDXXXV (Milano, Hoepli, 1894), p. 35 note 1.

Libro di Antonio Billi – Cornelio de Fabriczy, ed., Il Libro di Antonio Billi, ASI VII (1891), pages 16 and 53
https://www.academia.edu/21680022/Il_Li ... iczy_1891_
Carl Frey, ed., Il Libro di Antonio Billi, Berlin 1892 pp. 34-35
https://www.google.fr/books/edition/Il_ ... frontcover

Peter MURRAY “Art Historians and Art Critics – IV: XIV Uomini singholari in Firenze dal MCCCC innanzi,” The Burlington Magazine, 99, 1957, pp. 330-336.
The text XIV Uomini singholari in Firenze was edited already in 1887 by Gaetano Milanesi, Operette istoriche edite ed inedite di Antonio Manetti, pp. 159-168; see page 163 for Manetti's remark, and Milanesi's note: “Fra coloro che ebbero più o meno parte nella edificazione del Duomo di Milano, non si trova ricordato il nome di Filippo Brunelleschi. Il che farebbe credere che in questo particolare il Manetti abbia preso equivoco.”

Brunelleschi was a member of one of the most creative circles that we know about in the first half of the 15th century. Remarks and description by Lauro Martines, commenting on The Fat Woodcarver (Lauro Martines, An Italian Renaissance Sextet. Six Tales in Historical Context (Marsilio Publishers, 1994; translations by Murtha Baca), pp. 215-216:
“Few if any texts from the early history of Florence provide so intriguing and detailed a profile as this one, however laconic, of a mixed group of men who regularly met to chatter and have supper together. But we shall need to bring in supplementary particulars, in order to make up for what contemporary Florentine observers would themselves have brought to the story.
“Grasso's friends – and oddly they were this, even after his disgrace - “were a spirited group of respectable citizens,” who came “from the governing class (reggimento) and from among the masters of the more intellectual and imaginative of the crafts (maestri d'alcune arti miste e d'ingegno), such as painters, goldsmiths, sculptors, woodcarvers, and the like.” The company thus included a remarkable social scatter, ranging from members of the political oligarchy, such as their host Tomaso Pecori, to a major goldsmith, art theorist, and engineer (Brunelleschi), a vastly gifted sculptor (Donatello), and a highly talented woodworker, Grasso himself. Lay religious confraternities in Florence were also composed of men from the different strata of society; but religious association for ritual purposes was one thing and a chatty company, come together for the business of pleasure, was something else. Moreover, the sort of dining club, with its broad social makeup, which collected at Pecori's house on that wintry Sunday evening of 1409 was rarely to be found outside of Florence in those years, and would have been most improbable either at Venice or one of the princely states, say, Milan or Ferrara. Only Sienca, I reckon, and perhaps Bologna, had the social and mental structures for kindred groups and reunions. At that moment, having recentlyl and fiercely defended its liberties against the expansion of Milanese autocracy under the Visconti, and being much preoccupied with the grand decorating and completion of the city's gigantic cathedral, the republic of Florence was a meeting ground for productive encounters between talented or clever men from diverse backgrounds. Indeed, a minor share of its major political offices, all held for short terms of two to six months, was still reserved for men from the lesser craft guilds, with the result that rich bankers, petty tradesmen, and great landowner regularly served together in public office.”
Not only poets, humanists, and artists of all kinds, but also the astronomer and mathematician Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli.

I first heard of the Brunelleschi-Toscanelli association in reading Philine Helas, who suggested that the rotating globe in Alfonso's triumph in Naples in Februrary 1443 was designed by this pair (I speculate further that perhaps the rotating globe might have suggested to someone that the Earth was actually rotating. Copernicus was in Italy in the late 1400s long enough to have seen one in a parade).

The story “The Fat Woodcarver” was first brought to my attention by Nicole Cama's paper “Defining the 'Strano': Madness in Renaissance Italy,” in which she uses it as an example of driving someone mad, with shame as a consequence.

On reading the story for myself for the first time, in Manetti's version, I noticed that, at the end, he claimed to have heard it from several other people, who had heard it from Brunelleschi himself. One of these was “Lo Scheggia.” This struck me immediately, since we know he painted cards, and Petrarchan and other kinds of Trionfi on cassoni, and the birthtray for Lucrezia Tornabuoni on the birth of Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici.

Since we have Manetti's testimony that Lo Scheggia knew Brunelleschi, it is drawing closer to my thesis that this kind of social milieu, or guild milieu, created the game of Triumphs, and that the order and imagery of the trumps is based on festival processions, with floats and machinery in which Brunelleschi demonstrated his most clever ideas.

Finally, I remembered that Brunelleschi had visited Milan on at least two occasions, at the invitation of Duke Filippo Maria Visconti himself. Checking the dates, it finally dawned on me that Brunelleschi, and whomever accompanied him – perhaps Scheggia on the trip in the 1430s – could have seen Michelino's deck, perhaps even played it with Filippo Maria.

Here, then, might be the plausible organic link between the Marziano-Michelino deck in Milan and the invention of Triumph cards in Florence.

Lo Scheggia biography and pictures
https://clever-geek.imtqy.com/articles/ ... index.html

Luciano Bellosi, Margaret Haines, Lo Scheggia, Firenze and Siena, Maschietto & Musolino, 1999.
Eugenio Battisti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Milano, Electa, 1989

Manetti's reluctace to mention Brunelleschi's work in Milan. That Brunelleschi would work for the tyrant and enemy of Florence perhaps too distasteful, so he passed over it in silence.

I think Manetti's silence on Brunelleschi's work in Milan may be attributed to his communal instincts, and therefore his hatred for Milan and its government, similar (as Patricia D. Meneses argues in “Antonio Manetti's Brunelleschi: An Attempt at Establishing Artistic Authority”) to his distaste for the restored Medici power. Manetti's sarcastic remark in XIV Uomini alludes to his knowledge of such work, however -

Acconciò parte della chiesa maggiore di Milano, cioè se nulla v’è di buono
He arranged part of the major church of Milan, that is, if there is anything good there.

Manetti's Vita also omits mention of the Pazzi chapel, while his manuscript “XIV Uomini Singhularii in Firenze,” Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze MS. 1501.G.2. mentions it. Peter Murray, “Art Historians and Art Critics – IV,” The Burlington Magazine, vol. 99, no. 655 (Oct. 1957), pp. 330, 332-336.

Meneses:

Abstract:
The Life of Filippo Brunelleschi by Antonio Manetti constitutes a principle resource for the study of Renaissance art. Much has been written about its reliability as a primary source, its literary origins and authorship. Little has been done, however, to understand Manetti’s motivations in constructing a heroic and authoritative image for Brunelleschi, and to evaluate its effectiveness in this regard.
When analyzing the biography’s critical legacy, one can note that even though the text was influential in the later artistic literature, it didn’t quite succeed in creating an artistic superiority for Brunelleschi. His image as an authority quickly becomes that of the local hero who pulls a great engineering feat, but doesn’t achieve unanimity as a model for the next generations.
I seek to investigate Manetti’s motivations to create an artistic authority and why he fails to achieve his goal. I argue that the choice of Brunelleschi as a biographical subject is not fortuitous, but indicates a personal and cultural affinity with the artist. Manetti’s attempt fails exactly because of that affinity, that is, the implicit association between Brunelleschi and the tradition of the communal Florence, which was in decline as the Medici were achieving political success. Manetti maintained a connection to this local communal tradition evident in his work, showing resistance to the new regime.
Brunelleschi poem “Madonna se ne vien dalla fontana”
Story related by Manetti: “fu fatto portare di peso fuori, come se ragionassi stoltamente e parole da ridersene; tale che […] si vergognava andare per Firenze, e tuttavia gli pareva che gli fussi detto dietro: Guarda quel matto che dice le tai cose!”.

Catherine Enggass translation, Howard Saalman edition 1970 (magliabecchiana ii ii 325, folios 295r-312v)

“He repeated constantly that it could be vaulted without centering. After many days of standing firm – he was in his opinion and they in theirs – he was twice angrily carried out by the servants of the operai and of the Wool Merchants Guild, the consuls, and many others present, as if he were reasoning foolishly and words were laughable. As a consequence he was later often wont to say that during the period in which that occurred (some days elapsed between the first and second occasion) he was ashamed to go about Florence. He had the feeling that behind his back they were saying: Look at that mad man who utters such nonsense. However, he preserved his judgment with great prudence, caution, and incredible patience, constantly praising others when he could do so in fairness and rendering honor to those who merited it, holding the esteem of the operai and the other citizens – except in this case – for the valiant, prudent, ingenious man that he was. ”

“stoltamente e parole da ridersene; tale che con piu uo di dire poj piu uolte, che infra questo tenpo, poi che questo atto gli fu fatto, che ui fu sicuno dj dall' una altra, che si uergogniaua andare per Firenze, e tuttauia gli pareua, che gli fussi detto dietro: Ghuarda quel matto che dicie taj cose. Pure perseuerando nel parere suo con prudenza grande et con gran cautela e pazienza incre (c. 303v) dibile e senpre lodando...”

Patrick Boucheron, Le pouvoir de bâtir, (1998), p. 203.

A la mort de Gian Galeazzo Visconti, les troubles politiques et la fragilité de ses appuis sociaux amènent le jeune duc Filippo Maria à poursuivre et intensifier les travaux de fortification du Castello. Vasari nous apprend que dans les années 1420, Brunelleschi est appelé par le duc pour dessiner “il modello di una fortezza a Milano.” La renommée du Florentin dans le domaine de l'architecture militaire est alors à son apogée, ce qui fait dire à Filippo Baldinucci “Chi a con sè Brunelleschi non a bisogno di mura.” Sans doute lui demande-t-on le dessin de la guirlanda qui forme une défense avancée du château vers le plat pays (20). Mais la présence de Brunelleschi n'est pas formellement attestée par les documents milanais, ce qui indique sans doute qu'il n'eût pas de responsabilité directe sur le chantier.

(20) Voir, pour cette hypothèse, A. Vincenti, Castelli Viscontei e Sforzeschi, p. 76, n. 49. Cette défense avancée résista aux destructions de la République Ambrosienne, comme le laisse à penser une notation de Bernardino Corio: “Questo celeberrimo et potentissimo Castello dopo la morte di Filippo Principe terzo di Milano, per l'inclita libertà di questa Città fu roinato infino a fondamenti, sopra de i quali, ecceto le girlande e revellini, fu poi reedificato...” (Storia di Milano). C'est nous qui soulingnons.

Pier Candido Decembrio, writing for Filippo Maria Visconti, to Poggio Bracciolini, 28 July 1438
Lettere, volume II, letter VIII,5 (p. 317) Ann Mullaney, Massimo Zaggia text and translation -
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... sconti.pdf

Re: Nightmare Alley

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vh0610 -
vh0610 wrote: 25 May 2022, 16:30 Reading this thread, the inspirational and very important points for me are:

Note that Dante and his Commedia are referred to as a major inspirational source in Florence even in 1420 and following years. I do believe that Dante is absolutely crucial for the card game. [And I am working at discussing this in the other thread in this very forum.]
I'm very happy that somebody picked up on Brunelleschi's obsession with the "architecture" of Dante. I'll post pictures of Eugenio Battisti's brief essay on the writings of Brunelleschi, since I don't want to retype it and the book is not online. Whatever he wrote or the drawings he made on the subject of Dante have been lost, but Battisti covers everything that can be known.

Re: Nightmare Alley

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Ross Caldwell wrote: 25 May 2022, 16:35 I first heard of the Brunelleschi-Toscanelli association in reading Philine Helas, who suggested that the rotating globe in Alfonso's triumph in Naples in Februrary 1443 was designed by this pair (I speculate further that perhaps the rotating globe might have suggested to someone that the Earth was actually rotating. Copernicus was in Italy in the late 1400s long enough to have seen one in a parade).
Any hypothetical astronomical speculation was besides the point. The globe, which was accompanied by the virtues - and we can certainly relate this to the verduta-cum-"tondo" World - was connected with Caesar. At all events, trionfi came before this triumphal procession and if anything would have been adapted from trionfi (e.g., adding Caesar for King Alfonso - something that would have not been featured in Florence).

The globe - nonsensically for all late medieval polities - was a symbol of grabbing the mantle of the Roman Imperium and running with it as their own inheritance (and certainly Bruni's thesis in his Panegyric of the City of Florence , albeit as being on the forefront of a Christian Roman empire, with the pope resident in Florence after 1434, which simply amps up the rhetoric).

For instance, consider the the "tondo" in this early example of virtues with historical exempli in Siena (early 1410s), which alludes to the more famous nearby tondo of Rome on a gold background surrounded by four pagan gods (also note the proximity of the Sala del Mappamundo) is associated with the virtue of Justice here, placed over Roman exempli.

Image

And Religio has Jesus in a tondo to connote the global vision of the Roman Catholic state, matching the tondo of Rome itself:

Of this cycle which seems to be a precursor in some sense to the series of trionfi trumps in its use of virtues (and possible exempli and antetypes), Bruni may have had a hand - the Sienese humanist Pietro de’Pecci put in charge of the decorative program was ambassador to Florence in 1413 (the cycle was completed in 1414), during which Rubinstein opines:

It would be have been strange if Pecci had not taken the advantage of the opportunity offered by his embassy to discuss the programme of the antechapel with some of the scholars who were then in Florence, and to secure their advice and help and it is tempting to think that one of them may have been Leonardo Bruni himself. (Rubinstein, Nicolai. Studies in Italian History in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Italy: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2004: 94
That Bruni remained an enduring cultural influence in Siena, despite intermittent conflicts between the two cities, is born out below:
In 1438 Bruni presented the city of Siena with a copy of his translation of his Politics. In their letter of thanks, of November 29, the Signori assure Bruni that the work will serve as a guide to the citizens who govern Siena (ibid, p. 93, fn 162)



I just don't see how Brunelleschi could possibly be a stronger candidate for the inventor of trionfi than Bruni under any scenario. At all events, to discuss a humanist and guild culture outside of Bruni, who headed one of the guilds, is folly.

BTW: the ceiling fresco of Bruni's guild featured a tondo with a schematic of the Florence (not unlike the Roma tondo in Siena), surrounded by the cardinal virtues:
Image
Ceiling fresco of the Palazzo dell'Arte dei Giudici e Notai


Phaeded

Re: Nightmare Alley

17
Ross Caldwell wrote: 25 May 2022, 16:24 Trump sequences (a superior suit following a different principle to the standard suits), as opposed to individual wild cards or internal disruptions to the ranking, are only known from Milan in the 1410s and Florence et al. from 1440. The rarity of the idea, and the proximity in time and place, raises the suspicion of a connection, as do the related themes of deification and triumph....

The only idea I really want to convey is the importance of the concept of a trump suit. It is unique. Traditional card playing societies can put all kinds of imagery on their cards, and can give some or many cards colourful names, but they always follow the suit system, whatever the number of suits or the nature of the game. The imagery is mere decoration for what are really just numbers, like the points on dominoes. By contrast, the symbolic and allegorical hierarchy of both sets of trumps invented between Milan and Florence between the 1410s and 1440 is absolutely unparalleled anywhere else in the history of card games.
A weak point in my own theory (7 virtues and 7 exempli, taken from the seven planetary/virtue levels in Dante's Paradiso to form the ur-tarot trumps, later expanded in the PMB with another 7 trumps + Fool [with theologicals replaced by exemplary themes or anti-type]) compels me to meet you half way on this point. The flaw, or rather, unexplained phenomenon looking for an explanation, is that all of the other known 7 virtues that have exempli have historical figures for their exempli...even Dante's themed spheres (virtue/planet) in the Paradiso have concrete historical exempli (e.g., Hope/Mercury has "Once Constantine reversed the eagle's flight...Caesar I was and am Justinian, who, by will of the Primal Love I feel, pruned from the laws what was superfluous and vain." Par. 6.1-12). So instead of a generic emperor my theory might call for Justinian, even though he'd be represented generically as a late medieval emperor, he still might have had a titulus or one of his pandects in his hand. One could say with the mentioning of Constantine and other emperors later that the theme is imperial and so a generic emperor would have made sense. But that's not so satisfactory of an answer as I'd like.

You have proposed two influences - the possible influence of the Marziano deck (which no one in Florence ever comments on) and Florentine festivals, especially the St. John procession...which everyone in Florence witnessed (and even the likes of Giusti felt compelled to touch on).

As for Marziano, a modified Ovidian sequence, or however it might have been interpreted, might have suggested thematic myths be adapted for a different series. But this fails the same litmus test as my Dante theory - Marziano carefully describes individual gods (all the way down to Daphne), not themes. Again, the oddity of trionfi trumps is they are not historical figures but generic types or themes. I'm left with the dubious fact that there is no record of interaction with these cards by a Florentine (nobody had certainly heard of the Marziano deck in Sforza/Marcello's camp until they were procured, and they were allied with Florence at the time, so presumably Florentines among them) and the fact that individual gods are named, not generic themes makes me think this is a dead end for explaining trionfi

The edifici of St. Johns certainly featured individuals but the sheer variety of actors and decor associated with each triumphal float would lend one to name the theme versus an individual in many cases. Here's an old post of mine - viewtopic.php?p=20480#p20480 - discussing the Newbiggin's "Rewriting John the Baptist: Building a history of the San Giovanni edifici," Spunti e ricerche, 22 (2007):5-27, inclusive of an email response I got from her on a fairly trivial point. That was the year, 1454, they changed the format of the procession, however. I'm not sure if you have noticed but Newbiggin has updated her webpage with much more material including this eyewitness description of one of the last St. John processions before the format changed (she dates it c. 1451-1453)
https://italian-renaissance-theatre.syd ... ttista.pdf
Overall updated webpage: https://italian-renaissance-theatre.syd ... -florence/

Apparently the writer of the procession was of the Camaldolese order and so spends more time on that order's edificio:
Then the Camaldolese monks came with the standard of the order, with relics and robes, and they had a marvellous edificio that was carried by seventy or more men. And this edificio was very high, and there were lots of little angels who sang and played and danced, and on top there was an Annunziata, played by a living person, and the angel: and she was so beautiful and so well dressed that she seemed real, and 2 the angel too was real with wings. And when it got to in front of the palazzo it stopped, but ahead of this edificio went the prophet David on horseback with lots of prophets and pages in livery, and they had people dressed up in the latest fashions and live spiritelli, and as well as this, these prophets were preceded by a huge and terrible basilisk that had the body of a cock but a very long tail like a serpent. All these things preceded the edificio. When it got to in front of the palazzo it stopped; the angel and the woman were on two great branches of vivole. The angel knelt and said “Ave Maria” and everything that follows in the gospel; and the woman replied and mad all those gestures “et quomodo fiet, etc.”. At the end she said “Ecce ancilla domini” and at once a live dove flew out and descended upon her. This was so devout that it brought tears to the eyes and made me weep. The came monks in black and all the clergy and among other things there was a great edificio with the sepulchre and the armed men who guarded it. Suddenly there was a great explosion and the cover fell down and Christ came out with his banner. Two angels appeared there, as it says in the gospel, and they sat on the sepulchre, and Christ went at once to Limbo, which was on another edificio, with flames pouring our, and there were lots of demons and they did not want to open up. Christ opened up the gates and those demons fled; and he led forth Adam and Eve and lots of old greybeards and with lots of angels he went off to Paradise. And these things were done with such order that they were quite stupendous. And then came another edificio of Judgement Day,...

An Annunciation, angels, David, prophets, sages, a basilisk(!), spiritelli (putti), a dove released....what is one to make of all this? Certainly each float must have been referred to by theme, but there are simply too many characters for any to be singled out. It seems the emphasis was on the Commune, and at least communal participation, with less of an emphasis on the "great man" of history (Jesus excepted of course).

If that was the impetus for the creation of trionfi - no historical (or mythical individual) figures, just generic roles/types and themes - then it would seem that the creation would have occurred close in time to a St. John's procession, no? I know you have reservations about my dating of the ur-tarot, but the battle of Anghiari just followed the St. John's procession by a matter of days. IF trionfi was created right after that battle, the St. John's edifici were still about the city and could have lent themselves to imagination of whomever created trionfi. Certainly "Carro", "Judgement" were present to inspire those trumps, others were not, but all must have been conceived of in that sense of the communal procession.

There still must have been a text that selected the themes of the sequence and on that point I still insist on Dante.

Phaeded

Re: Nightmare Alley

18
Phaeded wrote: 26 May 2022, 04:21 You have proposed two influences - the possible influence of the Marziano deck (which no one in Florence ever comments on) and Florentine festivals, especially the St. John procession...which everyone in Florence witnessed (and even the likes of Giusti felt compelled to touch on).

As for Marziano, a modified Ovidian sequence, or however it might have been interpreted, might have suggested thematic myths be adapted for a different series. But this fails the same litmus test as my Dante theory - Marziano carefully describes individual gods (all the way down to Daphne), not themes. Again, the oddity of trionfi trumps is they are not historical figures but generic types or themes. I'm left with the dubious fact that there is no record of interaction with these cards by a Florentine (nobody had certainly heard of the Marziano deck in Sforza/Marcello's camp until they were procured, and they were allied with Florence at the time, so presumably Florentines among them) and the fact that individual gods are named, not generic themes makes me think this is a dead end for explaining trionfi.
hm ..... You forget to note, that the 12 Olympian gods are a theme between the 16 gods of Marziano and the scheme of the 12 Olympian gods had become popular with the astronomical manuscript of Manilius found py Poggio recently during the council of Constance. The Manilius text was discussed and became very popular with the paintings in the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Nightmare Alley

19
Phaeded wrote: 26 May 2022, 04:21 Marziano carefully describes individual gods (all the way down to Daphne), not themes.
The theme is deification, or models of character and behavior whose emulation will elevate Filippo Maria's mind and soul and make him immortal.

The fly in the ointment is Cupid, sexual obsession. Marziano apologizes for putting him in the game, but he says it is necessary to do so. We can only speculate on Cupid's ludic role, but at least we can say that the card was a spoiler of some kind, perhaps an excuse or wild like the Fool in Tarot, or the highest trump, similar to how Boiardo conflated the World and the Fool in his game -

Mondo, da pazzi vanamente amato,
Portarti un fol su l'asino presume,
Ché i stolti sol confidano in tuo stato.

World, you are vainly loved by the mad,
A fool believes he can bring you on his ass,
Because only the stupid trust in your state.


Deification suggests triumph because a triumph is an apotheosis, or just another word for deification. So when Marziano says that he describes the “reasons for their deification and perpetual fame,” he is describing their triumphs. This is explicit in Hercules, whose twelve “triumphs” are compared to Augustus' three and Caesar's five. Interesting in the context of Hercules is that Coluccio Salutati also used the term deification about him in the first edition of his De Laboribus Herculis, abandoned in 1383. The second edition, left unfinished at his death, devotes a chapter to “When and from where the veneration of deified humans came, and the origin of their likenesses.” Marziano may have read it, since he must have known Salutati in Florence. Like Leonardo Bruni, it may have been Salutati who recommended Marziano for Gregory XII's service, where Marziano and Bruni surely bumped into each other from time to time, or perhaps even worked together in the papal chancery.

Marziano also says explicitly that Cupid “triumphs as victor” over human hearts. Thus the theme of triumph, along with the word itself, is embedded in Marziano's text. Neptune, Diana, Mars, and Bacchus are also portrayed in chariots, of course.

The first notable thing about Michelino's deck was its structure. This is why Marcello compared it to standard Triumphs. If Brunelleschi and others had seen it ten years or more earlier, I think they would have remarked on that structure as well, since they would never have seen anything like it before. They could have thought “these are triumphs of the gods.” But if they were inspired to create something similar, being Florentine, they chose a civic triumph theme for their trumps instead.

Re: Nightmare Alley

20
First I will give an Addendum to my last post which I prepared, then I will read your new posts and think about them [you are too fast for me, gentlemen...]:

For more information on the tetramorph where also the connection to the world card is mentioned, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetramorph
Amongst other information, one finds there:
The prophet Ezekiel lived among the Jews who were exiled to Babylon in the 6th century BC. The creatures in his vision, from which the images of the tetramorph are derived, are reminiscent of ancient Assyrian art.

The animals associated with the Christian tetramorph originate in the Babylonian symbols of the four fixed signs of the zodiac: the ox representing Taurus; the lion representing Leo; the eagle representing Scorpio; the man or angel representing Aquarius. In Western astrology the four symbols are associated with the elements of, respectively Earth, Fire, Water, and Air. The creatures of the Christian tetramorph were also common in Egyptian, Greek, and Assyrian mythology. The early Christians adopted this symbolism and adapted it for the four Evangelists as the tetramorph, which first appears in Christian art in the 5th century,[3] but whose interpretative origin stems from Irenaeus in the 2nd century.
The elements of the Christian tetramorph first appear in the vision of Ezekiel, who describes the four creatures as they appear to him in a vision:
As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle. [Ezekiel 1:10]
They are described later in the Book of Revelation:
And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. [Revelation 4:7]
The notion “In Western astrology the four symbols are associated with the elements of, respectively Earth, Fire, Water, and Air.” In conjunction with the four suits of a tarocch’-deck also representing the four elements –and we have enough proof for this, for instance in Liber Ludo alea by Cardano, supports as well the hypothesis that the trump cards represent the fifth Aristotelian element aether –which is higher than the air and fire – and the trump cards representing the dome of the sky, resp. heaven.

This can be supported by a closer look on “The animals associated with the Christian tetramorph originate in the Babylonian symbols of the four fixed signs of the zodiac: the ox representing Taurus; the lion representing Leo; the eagle representing Scorpio; the man or angel representing Aquarius.” which we can find in the German Wikipedia
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelistensymbole
Wahrscheinlich liegen die religionsgeschichtlichen Wurzeln des Tetramorphs in der babylonischen Mythologie. Dort symbolisieren die vier Gestalten die vier männlichen Planetengötter. Der Stier stand für den babylonischen Stadtgott Marduk, der Löwe für den Kriegs- und Unterweltgott Nergal, der Adler für den Windgott Ninurta und der Mensch für Nabu, den Gott der Weisheit. Damit einher gehen altorientalische Vorstellungen von Hütern der Weltecken und von Trägern des Himmelsgewölbes im ersten (Stier), vierten (Löwe), siebten (Skorpionmensch) und zehnten Sternbild (Wassermann, in dessen Nähe sich das Sternbild des Adlers befindet) des altbabylonischen Tierkreises.

[Probably the religion-historical roots of the tetramorph lie in the Babylonian mythology. There, the four figures symbolize the four male planetary gods. The bull stood for the Babylonian city god Marduk, the lion for the god of war and the underworld Nergal, the eagle for the wind god Ninurta and the man for Nabu, the god of wisdom. This is accompanied by ancient Near Eastern ideas of guardians of the corners of the world and of bearers of the firmament in the first (Taurus), fourth (Leo), seventh (Scorpio Man) and tenth constellations (Aquarius, near which is the constellation of the eagle) of the ancient Babylonian zodiac.]
Note especially “ancient Near Eastern ideas of guardians of the corners of the world and of bearers of the firmament in the first (Taurus), fourth (Leo), seventh (Scorpio Man) and tenth constellations (Aquarius, near which is the constellation of the eagle)” - the tetramorph carries the weight of the dome of the firmament at the four corners of the world as it does for every cupola in Renaissance churches: these are representations of the firmament with the hole in it towards the eternal “overheavenly” reality of God.

See the article in German Wikipedia again for a nice depiction
Image


Die Ekliptik (rote horizontale Linie) mit dem Zodiak und seinen zwölf Lebewesen (orangefarbene Punkte) sowie den Symbolen der vier Evangelisten (mit gelbem Text) und den dazugehörigen markanten Sternbildern (orange): Markus (Löwe = Leo, Frühlingssternbild), Lukas (Stier = Taurus, Wintersternbild), Matthäus (Mensch = Wassermann = Aquarius, Herbststernbild) und Johannes (fliegender Adler = Aquila, erhöht über der Ekliptik, Sommersternbild). Diese vier Zeichen befinden sich in vier senkrecht aufeinanderstehenden Himmelsrichtungen. Die Milchstraße (via lacta) ist hellblau als Bogen eingezeichnet.

[The ecliptic (red horizontal line) with the zodiac and its twelve living creatures (orange dots) as well as the symbols of the four evangelists (with yellow text) and the corresponding prominent constellations (orange): Mark (Leo = lion, spring constellation), Luke (Taurus = bull, winter constellation), Matthew (Aquarius = man, autumn constellation), and John (flying eagle = aquila, elevated above the ecliptic, summer constellation). These four signs are located in four perpendicular cardinal directions. The Milky Way (via lacta) is drawn in light blue as an arc.]
In this light, it makes sense that the aria cards of tarocch’ are really up in the air, even beyond air as a normal element, they are ethereal cards filling the dome of the firmament.