The Cary-Yale Visconti

kwaw

Racing Silk of the Barberi

Huck said:
.... Valentina got as a dowry the city of Asti (also Piedmont) from Giangaleazzo, so somehow in neighbourhood to Saluzzo .... so perhaps there is a relation by this?

Valentina visited Asti in 1389 during her bridal journey from Milan to France and witnessed there the Palio. The Palio was an annual festival held in honour of the town’s independence from its long-standing rival, Alba, in 1275, on the Feast of Saint Secondo. The victory celebrations included a horse race around the city’s walls. In 1982 Maria Teresa Perosino and Sergio Panza produced 'The Tarot of Valentina Visconti at the Palio of Asti (I Tarocchi di Valentina Visconti per il Palio d’Asti) in commemoration of this [Filipas].

Asti to this day retains the Palio delle Barberi tradition, Barberi for Barberesco, horses imported from North Africa, sometimes shortened to 'barb'. In Sienna the Palio dei Barberi is run by 10 horses drawn by lot from seventeen districts, in Florence craftsmen and merchants from different neighborhoods, the potenze, would set up courts on platforms with mock emperors and kings to view the races.

The Palio dei Barberi [horse race] from the 13th century in Italy was the common culmination of the festival precessions held on the feast days of a Cities local patron saint days, which often incorporated allegorical carts. Later such festivals inclusive of a Palio were also held as one offs at marriages of the nobility, in honour of visiting dignitaries or some other secular special occassion. The most popular breed of Palio horses were from North Africa, the barberi. Also popular were the Turcho or Turkish horse, the Visconti and Sforza were particularly fond of the Urbino or Irish hobby horse [Tobey].

Palio itself means competition, and may refer to jousting, wrestling or racing etc, but also means cloth [from the latin pallium] and refers to the banners awarded as prizes, the racing silk decorated with nappe or ribbons [and others, see dictionary definitions below].

There were races for men, women and youths and the cary-yale court figures and symetrical treatment of gender, both a horsemen and horsewoman, valet and maid, and also the fact that as well as their emblem the courts of each suit wear their own distinguishing colours suggests perhaps reference to these horse races in which both men and women took part in their own categories [the categories of youth or children could include boys and girls] which are connected as the culmination of the festival processions of allegorical carts with which we may perhaps connect the trumps, and in which the Palio or 'racing silk' was itself carried upon a triumphal cart.

Documentary evidence exists for the running of the Palio in various cities from the 13th century, for the inclusion of a category for women from the 14th. Women in city of Udine obtained permission to ride horses in a palio of their own in 1375 [Tobey]. In reference in particular to Milan and Ferrara we have a 1393 Statute of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, first Duke of Milan, which includes the rules and prizes of palio races, for both men and women [Tobey]. There is a 1279 statute issued by the D'Este for the running of the Palio in Ferrara [Tobey, Visentini]. In the Ferrara racing silk of 1391, a year in which the Pope confirmed to Alberto d' Este the “Rosa d’oro”, there were three horse races, two for men and one for women, a custom that continued from that time.

Parisina D'Este of Ferrara, wife of Niccolo, "was a lover of horses and had a notable stable; she sent them to race for palio at Verona, Modena, Bologna, Milan and Mantua; and especially in 1422 and 1423 her favourite jockey, Giovanni da Rimini, wearing her colours of red and white, carried off victory after victory" [Hoshizaki]. Also, "apparently there was an annual Palio in Milan around the feast of St. Michael (29 September). In the notes to Chapter LIX of the Vita of Filippo Maria (in the Zanichelli edition), a chapter with talks about his favorite animals, there are notes from September 20 and 21 in 1425 of Filippo Maria ordering clothing for the race horses (barbareschi, horses from north Africa), and their training, for the upcoming race. The editors say they don't know if it was only a one day event or also on other days, because on October 12, 1424, Parisina d'Este, "herself also passionate about horses and races", ordered that 30 gold ducats be given to Giovanni da Rimini, her horse-trainer (race horses, barbareschi), because he was preparing to race them in the palio of Milan. On the 15 of November Giovanni da Rimini was reported to have won the race, and to be still in Milan) [Caldwell]. Like Valentina, who it is said spent her time playing with saracen and Lombardy cards, Parisina is known also to have had some interest in cards, an order by her for Imperatory cards from Florence is recorded from 1423.

"On October 24. 1441, Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti were wed in the Abbey of San Sigismondo in Cremona, preferring that city's Cathedral for security reasons. In the typical Italian Renaissance manner, feasts lasted for several days and included a sumptuous banquet, tournaments, a palio, allegorical carts and a huge cake reproduction of the Torrazzo, the city's main tower." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bianca_Maria_Visconti]

A Palio was run in Ferrara in 1471 to celebrate Borso D'Este becoming Duke of Ferrara and a Palio race is painted in a fresco of April in the Room of the Months in the Palazzo Schianoia with members of the Ferrarese nobility watching [including Borso D'este] [Tobey, Shemek]. There is earlier documentary evidence for the running of Palio at other Italian cities such as Asti and Sienna [See Tobey, Visentini]. In the song of 'Orlando Furioso' Ludovico Ariosto wrote in the sixteenth century, “il palio rosso che avviluppava il villan però non correva sì forte quanto il prode guerriero Rinaldo ch’era più veloce del campione del Palio”.

One of the French terms for the four suits is Les Couleurs, colours. The wearing of colours at tournaments is one of the reasons historians of Heraldry give for the development of Heraldry. Saracenic heraldry developed following contact with crusaders, and a complete heraldic device in Saracenic heraldry too is call a rank, meaning 'colour'.

The pomegranate pattern on textiles originated in Persia and was imported from Turkey, and later made in Italy itself and was very popular from 1420 to 1550, very expensive and a symbol thus of wealth, and also the most popular motif for the 'racing silk' [Tobey].

In reference to the symmetrical presentation of gender in the Cary Yale, Tobey notes Handelman too considers the palio in terms of male and female duality…"of male and female, of spiritual and earthly, and sets the various players in the palio into a number of dichotomous pairings: the feminine and spiritual Virgin Mary and the masculine comune, and the feminine horse and the masculine contrada. The victory of the horse rejoins the Madonna's earthly aspect with that of her spiritual (the palio cloth). Even the holy Madonna, according to Handelman, is given an earthly aspect: the Sienese slang for the palio banner, he points out, is cencio, which means 'rag' or 'faded woman'." [see Tobey, Handelman].

It is not certain that the Cary-Yale deck is to be related to any specific event, such as either Filippo Visconti's own marriage or that of his daughter. In fact, it is not known for certain that Filippo himself commissioned them at all. If for example the suggestion that the pack commemorates the marriage of his daughter is true, then given his shaky relations with Francesco Sforzo it is more likely like they were commissioned by someone else, his wife or the Borromeo family for instance.

Kwaw

Some dictionary definitions of 'palio':

Pálio - a cloke, a robe, a veslure, a mantle, a couer, an vpper garment as the Knights of the Garter or Parliament Lords weare, or Princes at their Coronation. Also a Prelates Cope or Surplesse. Also a Paule, or Hearcecloth. Also a Horse-cloth. Also a shroud or shelter. Also the prize or goale of any running, race, wrestling, leaping, or tilting, giuen as a signe of victorie. Also a race or running course for horses or men. Vsed also for a Princes Canopie, or
cloth of state. [John Florio Queen Anna's New World of Words 1611 Italian - English dictionary]

the pryse or game of any open crye for iustyng, rennyng,wrastelyng,or suche other. William Thomas Principal Rules of the Italian Grammar 1550

Also in Spanish [Richard Perceval A Dictionary in Spanish and English 1599]:
Pálio, a goale at running, a canopie to beare ouer a prince. corrér el Pálio, to run a race.

References:

Handelman, Don. Models and Mirrors, Towards an Anthropology of Public
Events. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Shemek, Deanna. Ladies Errant: Wayward Women and Social Order in
Early Modern Italy. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1998.

Visentini, Nino Franco. Il Palio di Ferrara. Rovigo: Istituto Padano
di Arti Grafiche, 1968.

Tobey, Elizabeth. "The Palio Horse in Renaissance and Early Modern Italy" in "The Culture of the Horse - Status, Discipline, and Identity in the Early Modern World", Edited by Karen Raber.

Tobey, Elizabeth. "The palio in Italian Renaissance art, thought, and culture" by Elizabeth Tobey published
by ProQuest / UMI (2006) ISBN: 0542185261. Currently priced at $69, is also available as an ebook in pdf format for $55 from Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0542185261/ref=nosim/veryclever
1-20

Or free [though with most of the images removed for copyright reasons] from here:

https://drum.umd.edu/dspace/bitstream/1903/2458/1/umi-umd-2325.pdf

Hoshizaki, Mari: http://trionfi.com/0/d/15/index.php

Caldwell, Ross: In response to a post in another forum (thanks Ross).

Filipas, Mark: http://www.spiritone.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/valent.html
 

kwaw

The full name of this deck is I Tarocchi di Valentina Visconti per il Palio d’Asti, or The Tarot of Valentina Visconti at the Palio of Asti. It commemorates Valentina’s diversion at the Palio of Asti, Italy, which she visited in 1389 during her bridal journey from Milan to France. The Palio was an annual festival held in honor of the town’s independence from its long-standing rival, Alba, in 1275. The victory celebrations included a horse race around the city’s walls."

http://www.spiritone.com/~filipas/Masquerade/Reviews/valent.html

And there is another modern deck inspired by the Palio di Pistoia:

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/palio-di-pistoia/details.shtml

Kwaw
 

kwaw

The equality of woman, especially as warriors or guardians of the 'ideal' city, may also reference Plato's Republic, a Plato text of particular importance to Milan in their propaganda wars with Florence and Venice. I have already elsewhere detailed how the 'city' of the world card in the early painted decks may too be seen in light of this with reference to the use of such with texts for example by Filippos secretary Pier Decembrio.

Kwaw
 

Parzival

kwaw said:
The equality of woman, especially as warriors or guardians of the 'ideal' city, may also reference Plato's Republic, a Plato text of particular importance to Milan in their propaganda wars with Florence and Venice. I have already elsewhere detailed how the 'city' of the world card in the early painted decks may too be seen in light of this with reference to the use of such with texts for example by Filippos secretary Pier Decembrio.

I am particularly interested in Neoplatonic influence (or not) on the Italian Renaissance Tarots, so your comment on the World card as possibly Plato-derived is intriguing. Are there specific symbols or patterns that indicate the World card is Platonic-idealistic rather than Christian eschatological? Is there some definitive, objective connection here,-- between the Republic and the World card? Or is this more an intuitive speculation, possibly true, but in need of more detailed verification?
 

Ross G Caldwell

kwaw said:
The equality of woman, especially as warriors or guardians of the 'ideal' city, may also reference Plato's Republic, a Plato text of particular importance to Milan in their propaganda wars with Florence and Venice.

Which passages of the Republic are you thinking of specifically?

You have to be clear on your dates here. The knowledge of Plato's texts is a delicate subject, especially when claiming precise influence on a specific work of art or political policy or whatever. Some scholars might have known the Republic, others not; it wasn't translated completely into Latin until Ficino around 1480.

Can you show, iconographically or textually, that the Cary-Yale "World" reflects something in the Republic?

I have already elsewhere detailed how the 'city' of the world card in the early painted decks may too be seen in light of this with reference to the use of such with texts for example by Filippos secretary Pier Decembrio.

Kwaw

But did Decembrio use these texts during Filippo's rule, or after, with the Ambrosian Republic (unlikely I think), or even later, under Francesco Sforza?
 

Ross G Caldwell

Hi Frank,

Frank Hall said:
I am particularly interested in Neoplatonic influence (or not) on the Italian Renaissance Tarots, so your comment on the World card as possibly Plato-derived is intriguing. Are there specific symbols or patterns that indicate the World card is Platonic-idealistic rather than Christian eschatological? Is there some definitive, objective connection here,-- between the Republic and the World card? Or is this more an intuitive speculation, possibly true, but in need of more detailed verification?

Sorry I answered Kwaw first; I wanted to when he posted a few days ago, your post jogged my memory.

But I am also very interested in the idea that the Ideal City or Republic is in the tarot trumps. I think I see it in the c. 1480 Visconti-Sforza card; but I don't think I can find it in the Cary-Yale card.

In any case, I don't think it has to be Plato directly; there is also Augustine to consider (the City of God), as well as all the humanist theoreticians and architects who helped the rulers of the Renaissance conceive of their ideal Republics and the design of their cities. Francesco Sforza's architect Filarete even designed one such for his patron, and called it Sforzinda. This project, never realized, continued under Sforza's successors, and even Leonardo da Vinci did some drawings of it (later for Ludovico Sforza "il Moro").

(google Sforzinda normally and in the images; lots in Italian, less in English)
 

Huck

kwaw said:
The equality of woman, especially as warriors or guardians of the 'ideal' city, may also reference Plato's Republic, a Plato text of particular importance to Milan in their propaganda wars with Florence and Venice. I have already elsewhere detailed how the 'city' of the world card in the early painted decks may too be seen in light of this with reference to the use of such with texts for example by Filippos secretary Pier Decembrio.

Kwaw

Hm, now, when Ross stumbled about it ...

http://trionfi.com/0/k/marc/21/

Decembrio translated the Plato's Republic text in the right time, that is likely 1439 (? which is given with a perhaps), after his father had started the project already in 1400-1403 with Chrysoloras.

See date 1400 at the page.

Interesting observation, kwaw. Source? Likely an Italian biography dictionary.

But I checked it in the web: It's variously mentioned.
Search for: Decembrio + Platon
 

kwaw

Ross G Caldwell said:
You have to be clear on your dates here. The knowledge of Plato's texts is a delicate subject, especially when claiming precise influence on a specific work of art or political policy or whatever. Some scholars might have known the Republic, others not; it wasn't translated completely into Latin until Ficino around 1480.

Can you show, iconographically or textually, that the Cary-Yale "World" reflects something in the Republic?

But did Decembrio use these texts during Filippo's rule, or after, with the Ambrosian Republic (unlikely I think), or even later, under Francesco Sforza?

There was the Chrysolus-Decembrio translation for G. Visconsti, and then the translation of Decembrio's son Pier [secretary of Filippo]. Pier used in Filippos time Plato's republic as propaganda material for Milan against the regimes of Venice and Florence, in which Milan he compares as the closest in aspiration to Plato's 'ideal city', in a manner in which can be construed as being identified with Augustine's 'City of God' . There were also excerpts of Plato [particularly some of the more 'scandalous' parts others glossed over, such as homosexuality and the equality of women] in Hermaphrodita, and the very literal, without additions, omissions or glosses translation of Cassarino, also connected with the Visconti court but in an opposing faction to Decembrio.

For details on Plato's Republic as propaganda tool of Milan as closest to the Platonic 'ideal' city and the association of such with Augustines 'City of God' against Florence and Venice see 'Plato in the Italian Renaissance' by James Hankin, especially the Milan section, and Hans Baron's 'Crisis in the Italian Renaissance.'

quote from James Hankin "Plato in the Italian Renaissance".:

"Like his father, Pier Candido would use Plato's morphology of constitutions as proof that Milan's 'timocratic' constitution was superior to the oligarchic ones of her enemies Venice and Florence. Plato's authority is employed for this purpose both in the de laudibus Mediolanensium urbis panegyricus of 1436, written in reply to the recent republication of Bruni's laudatio Florentinae urbis, and in the lost declamationes, the illeitimate rule of the Visconti was identified with the rule of Plato's philosopher king, while the Venetian constitution was compared to Plato's timocracy or democracy. In the De Laudabis, Decembrio is more conservative; he argues that the Milanese constitution was identical with Plato's timocratic polity, but maintains that this is the best kind of regime one may hope for in this imperfect world:

But to carry forward what we set out to discuss, it is frequently inquired whether a commonwealth is better ruled by the advice and authority of one man, or by the judgement of many. Plato of Athens, by far the best of all philosophers (as Cicero said), distinguished four kinds of government. One was the 'honourable', which he called by the Greek term 'timocratic'; another was 'the rule of the few', or oligarchy; a third was the popular or democratic, and a fourth was the [constitution] we both [Greeks and Latins] call 'tyrannic'. Then he added a fifth one better than all of these, the 'aristocratic', but since it comes, like the phoenix, only once every 500 years, or rather never, we may omit it, and return to the rest. Now then, there is no species of government, it seems, to be preferred to the timocratic; it is in fact what Plato asserts to have been the form of government in use among the Cretans and Lacedaemonians. When any man eager for honour and victory seizes power, and does not bring violence or death to anyone, but fights nobly and protects the commonwealth with care and distinction, he generates praise for himself and utility for his country, just as Lucius Brutus did among the Romans, and many centuries ago the extraordinary kings, the founders of this magnificent City, did, who were not so much concerned with acquiring wealth [surely a hit at the Florentines] as they were mindful of glory and posterity, and thought all things were to be subordinated tot he [good of the] commonwealth. And later, in our time the divine Prince Giangaleazzo Visconti, the father of the present glorious and victorious Duke, did the same. (Decembrio)

"Where Bruni had used Aristotles doctrine of corporeal and external goods to defend the Florentine yearning for money and public honours, Decembrio mixes Plato, Seneca and Augustine to attack such worldly values, elevating instead the supreme worth of contemplation.

Many thing themselves indebted to God merely for having been born and having enjoyed the beauties of nature, I am affected yet more by those goods which are sought by the acuity of and goodness alone of mind - supported by no external aids - by whose who favour we not only gaze upon these visible objects, but, drawn on to higher things, we are made in some sense participants in the divine nature. What does it profit to look upon Earth, Sea, Heaven, to marvel at the diverse regions, to enter unknown cities, to learn the manners of peoples, to investigate the sources and mouths of rivers, if you neglect the founder and ruler of all these things, by whose gift an immortal soul has been vouchsafed to us, than which no more divine or useful gift was given by God to the human race. There are those who glory in riches, offices, and the other goods of fortune, and think nothin more excellent than fame and republican government, but such persons are far from a true and perfect felictiy; they make for themselves not repose, but troubles, and with troubles life can in no wise be blessed. (Decembrio)

"This passage shows particularly why the Republic was a more welcome text in Milan than in the republics of Florence and Venice. One may see how the affinity between signorial humanism and the older, contemplative humanism of Petrarch and his Milanese followers made them more receptive to the Republic as as text which gave nourishment to the contemplative life.

"Decembrio calls his translation of the Republic 'The Heavenly Polity of the Most Illustrious Philosopher, Plato of Athens'. This title comes from Book IX:

Not in his own city, perhaps, unless some divine providence intervenes, but he will in the city to which he properly belongs.
- I understand. You mean the one we have founded in our present discussion, whose home is in the ideal, for I don't suppose it exists anywhere on earth.
- Well, perhaps it is laid up in the heavens as a pattern for anyone who wants to see it, and seeing it to found it in himself. It makes no difference whether it exists anywhere or ever will exist. It is the only city in whose affairs he can take part. (Plato)

Of which passage Decembrio wrote:
"So help me God, I do think Plato wanted to set out in words not a human but a divine and celestial polity, to be sought not in fact but in prayer."

In other words an Augustinian 'City of God' as a platonic like 'ideal' set up in heaven.

Kwaw
Above excerpt from: James Hankin "Plato in the Italian Renaissance".
 

Huck

It's funny ... when Decembrio finished his Platon in his way in 1439, it was answered in the same year 1439 in Florence with the influence of Gemisthus Plethon, which caused the later Ficino translations to Plato.

One should know, that the year 1439 is a year of war between Milan and Florence/Venice.

Likely one was interested to correct Decembrio's panegyrik, better expressed as propaganda.

One should know, that Angelo Decembrio, the younger brother of the above mentioned author (Pier Candid Decembrio), studies as pupil in Ferrara (and likely as agent for his brother and Visconti) since 1431.

In 1438 the council in Ferrara started

In April 1438 Visconti restartet hostilities against Bologna (ca. 30 km from Ferrara). Visconti parted the interests of the council of Basel.

In December 1438 the council started to leave to Florence - likely this was not in the interest of the signore of Ferrara, Niccolo d'Este.

The delegations stayed in Florence till autumn 1439 (the council proceeded to work some years, but with much less attendace.

Late 1439, begin 1440 Ferrara changed sides, Borso d'Este and his men (earlier engaged by Venice) are now on the side of Visconti.

Mid 1440: Borso looses as leader of the Visconti troups a great battle with catastrophic results (Soncino). The political result is, that militaric activities are stopped for some time.

autumn 1440: Bianca Maria Visconti takes a journey to Ferrara, possibly with the aim to marry Leonello, son of Niccolo

1.1.1441 Sagramoro produces 14 pictures for Bianca Maria; these objects likely are Trionfi cards.
compare
http://trionfi.com/0/e/00b/
http://trionfi.com/0/d/

February 1441: Piccinino surprizes Sforza with new attacks.

March 1441: Bianca Maria back to her father

mid 1441: sudden peace between Visconti and Sforza, later Venice joins the contract

October 1441: Marriage Bianca Maria - Francesco Sforza. Likely the Cary-Yale is produced for this event.

December 1441: Niccolo poisoned in Milan, Leonello new signore in Ferrara.

January 1442: Leonello orders immediately 4 packs of Trionfi cards, which are paid at 10th of February.

########

Decembrio's Platon interpretation, which seems to be finished in 1439, asks for the correct and wise gouvernment. And Milan's system is contrasted against the republic's system of Venice and Florence. The reigning system in Ferrara was comparable to that of Milan - and just in this time (completion of the translation) Ferrara changes the sides ... as if Niccolo had read Decembrio's translation and was impressed by it. Technically the communication to Niccolo was not a problem, the Decembrio brothers were the perfect team to organize, that Niccolo knew, what was thought in Milan.

It is reported, that around this time the brothers got troubles between them (unluckily details are unknown) ... which endured in their life time.

Pier Candid Decembrio - one should know - became later a sort of president for the shortliving Ambrosian republic 1447 - 1450. With some luck he might had become a figure for Milan as Cosimo Medici was for Florence.

An interesting fact ... regarding the circumstance that Decembrio translated earlier Platon's republic.

Your observation is really interesting, kwaw.
 

kwaw

Ross G Caldwell said:
Some scholars might have known the Republic, others not; it wasn't translated completely into Latin until Ficino around 1480.

There were three translations by 1447, all three connected with the humanist circle of the Visconti court. A fact in itself I think that may be seen as testament to the importance of the text within this milieu. The first being the Chrysolus-Decembrio, according to Hankin surprisingly widespread and well-known; the second by Pier Decembrio. The third by Cassarino, not sure of the exact date but he wrote it after Decembrio and he died in 1447. This last, according to Hankin, was a complete and literal translation, without omissions or additions or any of the usual Christian apologetics. According to Decembrio Cassarino's translation was instigated by his enemies among fellow humanists of the Visconti court as an intended insult to himself.

Kwaw