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