Phaeded wrote: 21 Aug 2023, 18:04
Here's a question: Although the artistic representation of the canonical virtues is fairly common, is their pairing with exempli a fairly Tuscan innovation, even specifically Florentine? I'm not recalling the likes of dal Ponte, Pesellino, Scheggia, etc. virtues/liberal arts cassoni in any kind of medium elsewhere in the early/mid quattrocento. Petrarchan trionfi are related, but those aren't the virtues nor one-to-one pairings of theme and exempli.

I can't answer that question off-hand. There is a book I downloaded a while ago on the iconography of the Cardinal Virtues in the middle ages, but I can't quite place it. I'm looking.

Judging by the northern European iconography shown in this paper in Norwegian, I'd say that the Florentines were far from inventing it.

https://www.academia.edu/13830050/Some_ ... Norwegian_

Here is the one I remember:

Adolf Katzenellenbogen, Allegories of the Virtues and Vices in Mediaeval Art, 1964.

Borrowable from archive.org here -
https://archive.org/details/allegoriesofvirt0000katz

I screengrabbed all the pages, it's fairly short.

Yes, now it's coming back. The idea and depiction of Virtues triumphing over specific Vices, or exempla, I suppose, is found in Prudentius, Psychomachia.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, and you mean specific historical figures as exempla of the vice, while the virtue is just the allegory, not a person.

Ross Caldwell wrote: 21 Aug 2023, 20:43 Judging by the northern European iconography shown in this paper in Norwegian, I'd say that the Florentines were far from inventing it.

https://www.academia.edu/13830050/Some_ ... Norwegian_

That looks like an expansive reading of Adolf Katzenellenbogen [whoops - saw you added that], and is still largely Prudentius's psychomachia of virtues defeating vices. The only one that comes close to providing exempla is the first one, labeled as such - "Personifications of virtues with exempla from the Old Testament. The Bamberg Apocalypse" (otherwise my Norwegian is a bit rusty ;-)- but again, here the dynamic is Virtue conquering the Vice (the former always atop), helping the exemplar get past the vice; but in this case I don't see how the exemplar is a match to the virtue, especially the leper.


Perhaps of some relevance, that Bamberg manuscript was created in a monastery on Reichenau Island in Lake Constance in Southern Germany, which is in a closer trade zone with northern Italy and of course Southern Germany is where we find early luxury decks that share some aspects of Marziano's deck (e.g., bird suits and a clear preference for a courtly class setting). When the German emperor Henry VII and his court descended into Italy in Dante's time perhaps that was a point of diffusion for the nascent idea of pairing exempla, versus the vice, with a virtue. But I would still regard the Bamberg example as an intermediary step to what we find in Florence (and none of the virtues have attributes).

The c. 1380 Loggia dei Lanzi facade virtues by Agnolo Gaddi follow the old Prudentius vertical model of Virtue atop Vice, so at this late date nothing new has really surfaced in Florence yet.
Eventually what Florence uniquely develops in the next century, vis-a-vis dal Ponte, Scheggia, et. al, is:
1) removal of the vice altogether (in the case of tarot, I'd argue an echo of the vice is retained when the exemplum is an anti-type)
2) an attempt at standardization of the exempli with not just biblical heroes but a preference for classical ones, showing the influence of early humanism. Consider Christies write-up for dal Ponte's cassone (the earliest showing virtues, from the 1430s?); even if not all identifications are correct the lack of biblical heroes is startling: "Charity occupies the center, presumably with Marcus Amelius Scaurus at her feet. From left to right, the various Virtues are presented alongside their most notable historical or mythological exemplar: Fortitude with Hercules; Justice with Trajan; Faith probably with Marcus Atilius Regulus; Hope with Alexander the Great; Prudence with Solon; and Temperance with Scipio Africanus." Not a single biblical figure (there may have been one or two in the liberal arts companion cassone; e.g., Tubal-Cain).


In tarot the exempli get stripped even further of either biblical or classical exempli, and are rather societal types on the order of the Children of the Planets.

I think those two points mark a clear cultural development in the representation of the virtues in Florence.

Ah, I see what you mean. The allegorical virtue with the exemplar of that virtue in some historical or mythological figure, like Fortitude with Hercules.

Well, you could be right. I don't have enough knowledge to have an opinion. For the lack of biblical figures, though, I think that was the taste of some already in Petrarch's day. Mommsen emphasized how the Paduan cycle of famous men, perhaps with direct input of Petrarch, only had Roman heroes.

Not a virtue-vice depiction, or even explicit exemplars of specific virtues, but not Christian or Biblical figures, not even Charlemagne.

Ross Caldwell wrote: 21 Aug 2023, 20:57 Unless I'm misunderstanding you, and you mean specific historical figures as exempla of the vice, while the virtue is just the allegory, not a person.

Specifically in regard to the cassoni, yes the allegory is generic, but there is no vice (that's the Florentine innovation, per my last post) and the exempli are mythic (Hercules) or historic (Scipio).

And again, per my previous post, in tarot the exempli get reduced to what Hurst called "ranks of mankind" but what I think of as more akin to "children of the planets" (whether tarot is dependent on the astrological schema or both drawing from a similar idea I can't say - the German material is early but Baldini is late or at least more difficult to date for his originals). In either case the exempli have been made generic.

How does this work for my schema? The "planets" row below wouldn't have existed in my theory for the initial ur-tarot of 14 trumps, and just the "exemplary theme" row would be the exempli, none of whom in the ur-tarot would really be an anti-type (the PMB does have that - e.g., 'hopelessness' of the hanged man replaces Hope); not even Death, which is merely the last physically visible planet (Saturn) where one casts off the last vestiges of one's mortal coil (planetary taints informing the embryo's development) before proceeding to the Empyrean, necessary for salvation. Technically Dante only uses historical exempli (e.g., Constance in the Moon), but there are no individual attributes in tarot, and just typical exempli of those types can be found at each thematic/planetary level (the planets themselves not getting added in until the PMB). So...



The Wheel, Judgement (just burghers rising from the graves) and Death all would naturally be shown without specific historical exempli.

The Chariot, all contemporaries no doubt thinking of the one Beatrice arrives with the Virtues, could simply have been a virago meant to indicate Florence herself, placed upon the St. John's palio cart (the winning prize of the cloth becoming an awning in the CY chariot; for the original Florentine one, see Zanobi Perini's 1408 description (very similar to Dati's 1420 description): On a beautiful triumphal car, guarded by a lion on each corner, painted with a pattern of golden lilies and their coats of arms, drawn by two horses, each caparisoned, in the way that I shall now describe, in white and red, in fine fabric. And unarmed, on each horse, rode a page, beautiful, swift and light, and both dressed in similar livery. Let us leave them. In the middle of the car stands a pole where the noble palio of vermilion cloth is displayed, and at its top sits a lily...). A predecessor example would be like that found in the c. 1335 Royal MS 6 E IX f. 13r, the personification of Florence as a woman with arms folded across her chest and Florentine lily behind her (Convenevole da Prato, Carmina regia: Address of the City of Prato to Robert of Anjou).


Love, as I've argued countless times here, would be similar to that version in the CVI (dancing couples with putti above them, the latter as we find also in dal Ponte virtues cassone).

dal Ponte virtues on left (c. 1436?), CVI Love on right (c. 1460-1480) [although the CVI comes later it is not adapting the earlier dal Ponte, but rather dal Ponte is adapting a Florentine festival involving dancing for his allegory of female virtues paired with male heroes; dancing was central to notions of communal peace and prosperity. Of course the virtues are not dancing here, but the notion of harmony is underscored by the celestial symbol on the book held by the central exemplar beneath Charity; see above in earlier post]

Dante does give pronounced roles for the historical figures in the moon as Empress Constance (as well as the Franciscan nun Piccarda, who gets added in as the "Popess" in the PMB as a replacement for Faith) and Emperor Justinian in the sphere of Mercury, but artistic convention would have shown those two as stock images of the Holy Roman Emperor and his consort.

Thus, seven ahistorical exempli but whose historical representatives are all described in each of the visible seven spheres of the heavens by Dante in his Paradiso.

Phaeded wrote: 21 Aug 2023, 22:43
dal Ponte virtues on left (c. 1436?), CVI Love on right (c. 1460-1480)

From what I've been able to find today, Dal Ponte's Liberal Arts and Virtues exemplum-pairs are the earliest such as a cycle. When they compare it to Pesellino's later ones, Dal Ponte is the only precursor they cite, and no direct literary sources.

I suppose nobody knows who Dal Ponte painted the cassone for. It's interesting to wonder about who the erudite designer of these pairings was. A lot of names to choose from.

Since Ada Labriola's studies for the "Tarots enluminés" exhibition, we take the Charles VI to be from around 1460 (no one would put them so late as 1480 anymore), while Catania/Palermo (Empress) are taken to be around 1450. I don't know why they can't be closer together in time. But whatever it is, they are clearly closely related.

In my view, they are the earliest witnesses to the Florentine standard pattern, and reflect the Ur-Tarot of ... whenever it was in the late 1430s. I find the idea of the game being invented in July-August 1440 just too narrow a window to imagine all the processes of inventing a new card game. But maybe it is possible, it is only 22 cards, new rules for their presence in the trick-taking game, prototypes, and play-testing. If Andrea del Castagno's pitture infamanti were what inspired the inclusion of this figure in the sequence, then it closes the window to no more than seven weeks, since he painted them beginning on 13 July. For the artist to paint Giusti's commission would require at least a week, maybe two. So there is only that mid-July through August window.

It's seductively attractive to have so precise a dating, and, at this point, nobody can contradict it. If some earlier evidence is discovered, I suppose all I've lost in believing it is the forceful argument from "Andrea degli Impiccati"'s paintings. Without them, I have to argue more generally on the basis of the presence of such paintings in relative profusion in Florence (relative to other cities).

Ross Caldwell wrote: 22 Aug 2023, 17:06

Phaeded wrote: 21 Aug 2023, 22:43
dal Ponte virtues on left (c. 1436?), CVI Love on right (c. 1460-1480)

From what I've been able to find today, Dal Ponte's Liberal Arts and Virtues exemplum-pairs are the earliest such as a cycle. When they compare it to Pesellino's later ones, Dal Ponte is the only precursor they cite, and no direct literary sources.

I suppose nobody knows who Dal Ponte painted the cassone for. It's interesting to wonder about who the erudite designer of these pairings was. A lot of names to choose from.

I have a candidate, Giovanni di Pagolo Morelli, but I'm having trouble finding an easy source for his extended family to look for marriages in those years, although in his famous ricordi it is noted: "From the generation preceding his onwards, Morelli abandoned the rigid father-son scheme of the direct line and extended the family discourse to uncles and cousins." Perhaps a wedding for his surviving son Iacopo Morelli. I suppose I'll have to translate this: Pandimiglio, Leonida. “Giovanni Di Pagolo Morelli e Le Strutture Familiari.” Archivio Storico Italiano 136, no. 1/2 (495/496) (1978): 3–88. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26259524. Does have a family tree (p. 14) - his surviving son would have been in his early 30s for the dal Ponte (d. 1438) allegory to have been painted in the mid-1430s (but if a different artist a different terminus ante quem of course), but perhaps a second marriage:



His entry in the Dizionario: https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/gi ... ografico)/

I think in another thread you stated you didn't believe that the "allegory" attributed to dal Ponte was a correct attribution, but I think I demonstrated it does have Morelli's coat of arms on it. Do you recall why you think this is not dal Ponte? My earlier post on that subject (whomever was behind this allegory was equally erudite):

viewtopic.php?t=1005&start=40

Morelli stemma [described here: http://sepoltuario.iath.virginia.edu/to ... 290/public ]

"Wherefore a lion out of the wood hath slain them, a wolf in the evening hath spoiled them, a leopard watcheth for their cities: every one that shall go out thence shall be taken, because their transgressions are multiplied, their rebellions strengthened" (Jeremiah 5:6).

If the leopard keeps a city in line – and the same feline forearms are on the shield - then the animals must symbolize the merits of the family in question in policing the city: Florence, as denoted by the fleur-di-lys, in place of the usual Morelli device at the top. The gender of the two leopards (the left one has a mane) must signify the gender of the two figures floating in the sky above each (like illuminations of deities from Pizan’s Othea). If the left figure with mandolin is male it must be Apollo (often he’s depicted with a mandolin or lute in his competition with Marsyas, but these are usually later in date).....

A later wedding cassone for a Morelli does feature virtues (British National Gallery), so perhaps it became a family tradition:

Painted cassone made for the wedding of Lorenzo di Morelli to Donna Vaggia di Nerli and known as Morelli-Nerli Cassone depicting Camillus chases the Gauls from Rome (front panel), the side panels Justice and Fortitude, and the spaliera Horatius Cocles with the Morelli arms (left corner) and Nerli arms (right corner). The chests were commissioned in 1472 by Lorenzo di Matteo Morelli to mark the occasion of his marriage to Vaggia di Tanai di Francesco di Nerli..... http://www.travelingintuscany.com/art/a ... ntings.htm

Ross wrote,

From what I've been able to find today, Dal Ponte's Liberal Arts and Virtues exemplum-pairs are the earliest such as a cycle. When they compare it to Pesellino's later ones, Dal Ponte is the only precursor they cite, and no direct literary sources.

I don't doubt Dal Ponte's importance for Florence, but you don't have to look far for other cycles (unless, as is very possible, I have missed what is special about Dal Ponte). The most involved cycle is that of the "Song of the Virtues and Vices" done for a Visconti in Bologna in the mid-14th century. When the Visconti lost Bologna, they seem to have taken the ms. with them, although I don't remember if the route is fully documented. I seem to remember that it was owned by the Archbishopric in Milan. Dorez writes about the ms. in detail at https://archive.org/details/lacanzonede ... e/mode/2up. Plenty of exempla and anti-exempla. Before that one was Niccolo da Bologna, which I reproduced (from SteveM's post elsewhere on THF) at viewtopic.php?p=12589#p12589 (that ms. ended up at the Ambrosiana, so again apparently in Visconti hands). Dorez lists other cycles of seven virtues and/or liberal arts before that. For cycles with both, see p. 82. For the liberal arts, see pp. 94-95. I assume that these included illustrations, but I haven't re-read Dorez.

mikeh wrote: 23 Aug 2023, 09:12
I don't doubt Dal Ponte's importance for Florence, but you don't have to look far for other cycles (unless, as is very possible, I have missed what is special about Dal Ponte).

I take it that Phaeded means pairings of Virtue/Liberal Art with a single positive exemplum. This may be splitting hairs, though, a distinction without a difference.

Virtues trampling vices is ancient, as I pointed out, at least as far back as Prudentius' Psychomachia.

The most involved cycle is that of the "Song of the Virtues and Vices" done for a Visconti in Bologna in the mid-14th century. When the Visconti lost Bologna, they seem to have taken the ms. with them, although I don't remember if the route is fully documented. I seem to remember that it was owned by the Archbishopric in Milan. Dorez writes about the ms. in detail at https://archive.org/details/lacanzonede ... e/mode/2up. Plenty of exempla and anti-exempla. Before that one was Niccolo da Bologna, which I reproduced (from SteveM's post elsewhere on THF) at viewtopic.php?p=12589#p12589 (that ms. ended up at the Ambrosiana, so again apparently in Visconti hands). Dorez lists other cycles of seven virtues and/or liberal arts before that. For cycles with both, see p. 82. For the liberal arts, see pp. 94-95. I assume that these included illustrations, but I haven't re-read Dorez.

Thank you very much for Dorez.

Here's another Visconti one from 1354 that illustrates the seven Virtues and seven Liberal Arts, with vice-exampla under the virtues, and positive exempla under the arts.

Ambrosiana B 42 inf, f. 1r -
http://213.21.172.25/0b02da8280112d9e
Ambrosiana description page for the manuscript here -

https://ambrosiana.comperio.it/opac/det ... alog:28296