Sorry, I forgot about this.
mikeh wrote:Huck, I don't understand how you get Doxia = Eternity. Doxa means "opinion", which is fleeting. If anybody is eternal, it's Alithia = Truth.
This is my base for discussing the "Philodoxus" of Alberti:
http://parnaseo.uv.es/celestinesca/Nume ... umento.pdf
The text sometimes says Doxia or Doxa. I just accepted (my personal Latin is of small value), that this means "Glory", and I felt, that this meaning fitted in the situation of the text. Now, when you complain, I read "Doxa" ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxa
.. and see, that Doxa is Greek "public opinion", but the word got a new meaning once (between 1st and 3rd century) and was then connected to glory.
I found it of value to establish my earlier research (or at least the begin of it) about the Philodoxus to this place ... just for easier reference:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=831&p=11853#p11853
In my analysis of Alberti's text I evaluated "3 pairs", and Doxia was clearly better positioned then her sister Phimia = "Fame". Phimia gets the bad hero Fortunius, Gloria gets the good hero Philodoxus.
Alberti clearly refers twice to "triumphal processions", so there is an indirect reference, that he likely associated Petrarca's "Trionfi" as a known background. For Petrarca Fame is ranked high (4th position 0f six), but "Time" and "Eternity" are higher. Time appears as "Chronos" in the play and Doxia shows no relation to Chronos. Doxia could only mean Petrarca's "Eternity".
huck wrote:6. Eternity = Doxia = Glory
5. Time = Alithia = Mnimia = Memory and that, what Alberti prefers
4. Fame = Phimia
3. (Death) Philodoxus
2. (Chastity) Phroneus = Alberti
1. (Love) Fortunius
mikeh wrote:
Also, in the painting, Justice is the one in blue holding the scales. And let us be clear, I hope, that Prudence is not the "Mother of the Virtues", the one in need of rescuing. Prudence is the rescuer, Pallas Athena.
Well, the Mantegna Tarocchi has Minerva as "Philosophia", not as Prudentia. Prudentia has as symbols a mirror and/or a viper ... well, a pond could be a mirror. A series of running persons build a row, and this could mean a viper.
We've a clear Diana in the picture, very central. The goddess of the moon, and she is very relaxed in contrast to all others. Shouldn't we assume, that the small figure in the background scene is a lonesome Apollo? The figure doesn't really look female.
In the first picture of the room, "Parnassus", we have Mars + Venus + Cupido, a Vulcanus, a Hermes-Mercury with Pegasos, the 9 Muses and a relative small Apollo (or an Orpheus ? ... or just the momentary poet or singer?). Apollo - if it is Apollo - is smaller than each of the Muses.
We have NO Mars, Venus, Cupido, Vulcanus, a Hermes-Mercury with Pegasos, 9 Muses in the in the new second picture with clear Minerva and clear Diane and a very small Apollo (if we assume, that it is Apollo).
The many putti with their funny wings are not Cupido ... if you've a pond, you know, what they are, naturally: Dragonflies ...
If you've a real pond, then you see many of them in much variations.
Diane is very relaxed and all what we see, is, that she is friendly with all these children of the shadow side of life, which have their refugium in the pond. Well, she's the goddess of the night.
I read Alberti's essay "Virtue" today. It is a fable in which Virtue is having a great time with all the philosophers, who all worship her, when Fortuna and a gang of ruffians come in. Fortuna says, "What, commoner, don't you freely give way when greater gods approach?" Virtue tells Fortuna off, and Fortune replies with worse. Cicero defends Virtue and is beaten up by Mark Antony in return (actually Mark Antony had Cicero killed, if I recall, but I suppose in the Elysian Fields you can't kill people). All the other philosophers flee. Then the ruffians beat up Virtue. She goes to Mercury to try to get Jupiter to do something about Fortune. She's tried to talk to him already, but was told he was too busy working on butterfly wings and such. Virtue says that the butterflies fly about in splendor, but still no one will protect her. Mercury says he's sorry, but the gods owe their positions to Fortune, and they can't risk offending her. Virtue had best hide until Fortune's hatred of her is quenched. "Then I must hide eternally. Naked and despised, I am excluded from heaven" she says and the essay ends.
This sounds very interesting. Is the text online?
Albert had in the time of Lodovico a lot of occupations in Mantova, I think more than in Ferrara and even in Florence. Actually he had opportunity to see a lot of cities.
.........
I suspect that the broken lance device is a bit of sibling rivalry with her brother Alfonso. Alfonso was at that time spending a lot of time on cannon technology. He figured that a small state like Ferrara to survive had to have better cannons than its enemies, so that if Venice or somebody wanted to shell Ferrara again, Ferrara's better cannons would get them first. In the short term, Alfonso was right. His cannon saved the day in many a battle. And you know his famous portrait, with his arm affectionately caressing his cannon. The flaming cannon ball was his device. The broken lance is then Isabella's ironic reply.
Interesting idea. Maybe a sign, that Isabella will win words and arguments and diplomacy, and not with pressure an force.
As it happened, the Gonzaga ruled Mantua longer than the Estensi ruled Ferrara. Some people say that Isabella's statecraft is a major cause.
Yes, she played a major role. And Mantovas role in 15th century was relative small in comparison to that of Milan and Ferrara. Well, it happened, that they married to "Austria" and "German Empire". And they had from begin a German orientation. But one has to see the general trend, that Italy had its height in early ("high") renaissance and lost with the passing centuries.
But there is more to the painting than the glorification of Prudence, Isabella's alter ego. Here I will try to summarize Campbell, but people should really read him, all 13 pages (it was longer than I thought at first). He raises the issue, and says the painting raises the issue: is Minerva going too far? She is not treating the little cupids with the beautiful wings very nicely, nor the female satyr with her children, nor the noble-looking centaur and the touching satyr father. Just because someone likes to do the sort of thing that produces lots of children, is no reason to attack her. Children are beautiful, like butterflies. (Lucrezia, that satyress, ended up having seven and dying in childbirth at 37. By the time she married Isabella's brother, at age 22, she'd had two husbands and one out-of-wedlock child.) Maybe Minerva, i.e. Isabella, should should leave lust alone, as long as it does no harm--just as Virtue in the Durer print should leave Pleasure alone. The vices of concern have labels: "Otium, Inertia, Suspicio (who carries the seeds of Fraud, Hatred, and Malice), Ingratitudo, Ignorantia, and Avaricia" (Campbell p. 148). Lust isn't one of them. I notice that the drunkard being carried on the right is wearing a crown; that might be an issue--I can't make out his label. But the issue is: should Isabella bother herself about her husband's sex life, as long as he fulfills his responsibilities and doesn't get in Isabella's way? (Her husband is said to have complained, in a letter, "My wife does as she pleases.") I understand from reading about her that she warmed to Lucrezia, too.
The comment of the husband was from a late time. His captivity in Venice had changed the roles. Important diplomatic activities took place in Mantova between 1508-1512 and so Isabella could grow up to her great role.