The Shape of Milan

creakingcricket

In the Visconti-Sforza Popess, Empress, Emperor, Pope, and Chariot, the person sits atop a platform covered with a white substance. Does the platform represent the shape of Milan? (See later view at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan ) And is the white substance wool, symbolizing the source of the wealth of Milan?

Most of the trumps contain pictures of persons. Is there a list of whom these persons may be?

Death is identified by "C" to be Apollo, god of health and plague. Could this skeleton repesent a Medici of Florence? Was Florence blamed for the introduction of plague into Milan? Between the feet of Death there appears to be the outline of a plant. Is this a medicinal plant?

cc
 

Bernice

creakingcricket: In the Visconti-Sforza Popess, Empress, Emperor, Pope, and Chariot, the person sits atop a platform covered with a white substance. Does the platform represent the shape of Milan?
An interesting observation cc. I remember that Rosanne spoke of the backgrounds in the cards of this deck - I cannot find the thread, but from memory some (or all?) of the 'landscape backgrounds' appear to be views of the visconti estates.

I do hope Rosanne comes across this thread.....


Bee :)
 

Huck

creakingcricket said:
In the Visconti-Sforza Popess, Empress, Emperor, Pope, and Chariot, the person sits atop a platform covered with a white substance. Does the platform represent the shape of Milan? (See later view at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan ) And is the white substance wool, symbolizing the source of the wealth of Milan?

Most of the trumps contain pictures of persons. Is there a list of whom these persons may be?

Death is identified by "C" to be Apollo, god of health and plague. Could this skeleton repesent a Medici of Florence? Was Florence blamed for the introduction of plague into Milan? Between the feet of Death there appears to be the outline of a plant. Is this a medicinal plant?

cc

hi cc,

the shape of the platform varies.
The Emperor might be brought together with Emperor Sigismondo (he looks a little bit like him), although he was already dead in ca. 1452, when the deck probably was made. The Empress the wife of Sigismondo. The relations to the current emperor weren't very good in Milan.
Death was surely not from Florence, as Cosimo was a friend of Francesco Sforza. The lady at the triumphal chariot is probably perceived as Bianca Maria, the lovers as Francesco Sforza with Bianca. The others ... it's generally not known, if it was intended, that they should look like somebody special.
With some enthusiasm it was discussed, that the Papessa is sister Manfreda. But she looks like Fides in the Giotto series of virtues. The Fool is similar to Stupidity in the same cycle - between the vices.
Apollo shot plague-arrows in the camp of the Greek at Troja, but in the renaissance he's usually connected to other circumstances. Music for instance.
 

Rosanne

I usually defer to Huck, but I do have ideas that vary.

There are 12 platformed dignataries + the Chariot- whom I think is Bianca Visconti/Sforza.
I have an idea that it is something to do with the game these platformed people-maybe something to do with directions of play.
The background of the cards appears to be the Hunting grounds of the Visconti- where it is said the Sforza held tournaments and plays.
I also think the the platforms are persons known to the family- their children and particular identities. I agree that the Emperor is most likely Sigismundo. The Pope card and the Popess I think are Ambrose and his sister Marcellina- patron saints of Milan. The white item on Card 1 is a Straw hat, I am reasonably confident about. Without going into the reasons, which are time consuming- it is interesting to note that our English word Millinery or Hat making, comes from the word and city Milan. A Milaner is a native of Milan and it was famous along with other Lombardy towns for the straw hats, which had a social context as well.
You can note that ideas such as Temperance/Hanged Man etc appear to sited on the Certosa of Pavia that the Visconti started and the Sforza finished.(possibly the Certosa is the building on the World card) If there were two extra cards of the Devil and the Tower- I would say within the deck there was the theological ideas of 12/13/14/15/16 of repentance. Hanging in the Air, Buried in the Earth, Sanctified by Water, Purified by Fire to maintain your standing in the House of God.
Lots to think about in these cards creakingcricket!

~Rosanne
 

creakingcricket

Thanks, Huck, for the information about Sigismondo. I see some resemblance.

Huck said:
the shape of the platform varies.

Where I can see enough of the platform to judge its shape, it appears to be a uniform trapezoid.

The persons on the Lovers card may be Francesco Sforza and Bianca, but Francesco was 24 years older and a powerfully built man, rather than the small male shown on the card.

Death was surely not from Florence, as Cosimo was a friend of Francesco Sforza . . . Apollo shot plague-arrows in the camp of the Greek at Troja, but in the renaissance he's usually connected to other circumstances. Music for instance.

I was thinking of the great plague of 1348, which might have approached Milan from Florence. Apollo is apparently the god of health through toxins, his bow being covered with snakeskin, and health or death being a matter of dosage. Thus the 'Medici' suggestion. Florence was frequently at war with Milan during the reign of Filippo Maria Visconti.

The Fool has goiter, very common above the Po river, so there may be a Visconti representative.

cc
 

creakingcricket

Rosanne said:
The white item on Card 1 is a Straw hat. . .

Indeed, the object has the shape of a straw hat, but what's this richly dressed person doing with a straw hat, considering the expensive fur-lined hat he already wears? Why is his right hand poised above the silvery pile if all it is is one straw hat? If it's straw, how did they get this silver-white color on straw in 1450?

It's a mystery. I hope to have a photocopy of this card under a magnifying glass in a few days.

cc
 

Huck

hi cc,

creakingcricket said:
Thanks, Huck, for the information about Sigismondo. I see some resemblance.

Where I can see enough of the platform to judge its shape, it appears to be a uniform trapezoid.

The persons on the Lovers card may be Francesco Sforza and Bianca, but Francesco was 24 years older and a powerfully built man, rather than the small male shown on the card.

Likely the difference in height of the two persons comes not from nature, but from the lower social position, which Sforza had in this marriage. It was "correct for the local politic" ... especially at the begin of the reign of Sforza (short after 1450). Sforza was a wise man and not proud, if it was necessary. So he would have been content, if Galeazzo Maria would have been accepted as "correct heir" by the current emperor ... but the emperor didn't accept this till his death. His son Maximilian then married a Milanese girl very quickly.

As Rosanne stated correctly, there are also kings and queens with platform, whereby the platform is raised at the chariot.

Which woud make together 13 platforms, one raised and moving. Which reminds me on a sun, which visits her 12 stations in the zodiac.

The king of coins - front - has an unusual platform, but it's trapezoid in its basic (with towers)
The king of batons - front - has a six sided shape
The king of cups - left side picture, trapezoid with great doubts
The king of swords - front, clear trapezoid

Queen - coins - right side - not recognizable
Queen - batons - front - trapezoid
Queen - cups - front - six sided shape
Queen - swords - left side - not recognizable

Popesse - front - trapezoid
Empress - front - not recognizable
Emperor - left side - trapezoid or six-sided
Pope - front trapezoid


I was thinking of the great plague of 1348, which might have approached Milan from Florence. Apollo is apparently the god of health through toxins, his bow being covered with snakeskin, and health or death being a matter of dosage. Thus the 'Medici' suggestion. Florence was frequently at war with Milan during the reign of Filippo Maria Visconti.

Milan seems to have been one of very few regions, which weren't attacked by the plague 1348.

Bubonic_plague_map.PNG


Perhaps this explains the quick progress of Milanese influence since ca 1350. Similar progress we see in Bohemia in this time, the personal kingdom of the Emperor.

The Fool has goiter, very common above the Po river, so there may be a Visconti representative.

Interesting observation, never heard of this (or - I remember dark something, but it is not in Kaplan's description). Do you have a medical background as a physician?

*********
This is, what Martiano da Tortona wrote in Milan probably ca. 1423-25 to Apollo and an idea of the plague is not given.

http://trionfi.com/0/b/11
APOLLO

Apollo Phoebus, shinging glory of the stars, surrounded by the Pierides in Helicon, you adorn the holy mount Parnassus. Approach, fifth in the number of the gods! This one, the most desirous of glory, combines arms with wisdom and letters. There would seem to be nothing lacking to him regarding these two most excellent kinds of praise: namely he did away with the Python, a serpent of enormous size and among the most dangerous in the lands; and he assisted Jupiter with amazing strength in the war with the Giants: thus we discover Apollo. The discoverer of the art of healing, he distinguished the power of herbs with sound discernment; and humankind having thereby been healed, he enjoyed their friendship. And how much thanks is owed to his divinity when healthy; it is because of him we undertake treatments of the body. Apollo is the god of divination and wisdom, by whose auspices the augurs fortell the future. And likewise he was the inventor of songs, and the composer for the voice. Especially of him, poems are written, whose favour it was accustomed to invoke by the same. And it is not everyone, who may be confident to be able to pursue the poetic honour, the laurel and the myrtle, unless Apollo breathe their songs into the breast; let him eagerly assent to the spring of Castalia; his name being counted among the highest praises of these divine prophets, since in the presence of poets and victorious leaders, his offerings of the laurel spring up; to whom uninterrupted honours are at least to be paid, for the merits of so many things. To him was built in the first place, in the island of Delphi in the Aegean sea, a marvelous temple, from which the responses of secrets used to be given by his oracle, very often still wrapped in much obscurity. His military garments are yet retained. And he was made the head of the nine Muses, and on Mount Parnassus the Cirrhan ridge was dedicated to contemplation, from where he himself drew out the notice of the future. Head locks decorated with laurel, by both Caesarian and poetic law; and he bears a bow with arrows, since he obtained excellence by his arts.
 

creakingcricket

Huck said:
Interesting observation, never heard of this (or - I remember dark something, but it is not in Kaplan's description). Do you have a medical background as a physician?

No medical background. I initially mistook the Fool's goiter for a string necklace because the goiters I remember from childhood were huge deformities. The consequences of iodine deficiency are horrendous:

Like a thousand other villages in the rural archipelago of China, this collection of black-tiled roofs and dusty courtyards looks from a distance like just another smudge on the sea of wheat fields blanketing the central China plain.

But soon after you walk under the canopy of poplar trees that shades the neat rows of houses, the curious and childlike faces begin to appear.

They are the faces of China's cretins, the most visible evidence of a generation silently ravaged by the absence of iodine in their diet.

They come with halting gaits down dirt paths or they peer out from darkened doorways with searching, innocent eyes and glowing smiles ...

And things haven't changed much:

http://www.cmaj.ca/earlyreleases/26aug09_iodine.shtml
August 26, 2009
Iodine deficiency disorders still prevalent in China

http://jrsm.rsmjournals.com/cgi/reprint/96/12/609
Michelangelo’s divine goitre

"North of the River Po, where the
plains of Lombardy stretch towards the Alps, is an area
where deficiency of iodine in the water caused endemic
goitre."

cc
 

Huck

Interesting reading about Michelangelo, thanks .. I didn't know that.

53foolis.jpg


That's from Giotto. The whole body looks proportional thicker than the head, so also the neck. Do you think, that one could attest goiter, too?
 

creakingcricket

Huck said:
That's from Giotto. The whole body looks proportional thicker than the head, so also the neck. Do you think, that one could attest goiter, too?

I would suspect hypothyroidism caused by iodine defficiency but haven't found pictures to support that conclusion. An Internet penpal developed a thyroid disorder with great weight gain, but I never saw a picture of the condition. With treatment he returned to normal.

cc