Mottoes and Devices of the Sforza

Huck

Ross G Caldwell said:
Pellegrin also lists a manuscript with the mountain with three pine cones and "Mit Zait" as early as 1459. She says it was one of Francesco's "new emblems", added to the old Visconti ones.

Unfortunately I didn't photocopy that page when I had the book (7 years ago now), but is a manuscript in Chantilly, Musée Condé lat. 368, De arte bersandi (a treatise on hunting; also called the Moamin or even Maomin).

Maybe we can find it online.

Well ... that's very interesting ... The British library comes with the information, that the coin with dog was made first in 1462.

Wasn't there a Francesco-Sforza-Trionfi-celebration in 1458? I think, storia-di-Milano was the source, but I don't find confirmation enough, there was a celebration about the pope-election.
Another event with some pomp had been in September 1459 the two weeks in Mantova, where Francesco Sforza had been the great hope of Pius II for a near crusade, which didn't take place really.

Likely the choice of great symbols were connected to some festivity, I would assume. In Mantova were many Germans, perhaps the German motti come from this opportunity. A lot of Germans were discontent with emperor Fredrick III, so perhaps Sforza found some solidarity in his situation.
 

Rosanne

Do you know what the coin was made of?
Does it tell you anywhere the composition?
My uncle tells me, that it can date a coin within a year- because of shortages and gluts of ingredients- So if it was Gold with a lot of Bronze might indicate when the silver ran out and gold bullion was promised elsewhere.
Fascinating stuff, until yesterday I did not have a clue about coinage.
Now I have only a 'smidgen' - so better than none.

~Rosanne
 

Huck

... .-) ... I think, I gave a link in the Straw hat debate, when it also was discussed, that one should move the thread. Probably the second page. That's all what I know about it, I'm not a coins expert.

I got a link to this book ...
http://books.google.es/books?id=QLd...&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
... which is not about Sforza money, but about Ferrarese money. I'm not sure, if it is of worth, but it looks interesting.

I think the plural of Motto is Motti, as it is an Italian word. Is Mottoes a general English plural of this word? It seems so, 200.000 entries at google, but Motti got 900.000. Mottos has 3 millions and somehow wins as the opinion of the majority.
 

Rosanne

Yes Huck in English the word is Motto and the plural is Mottoes, but the dictionary says the Italian word is Mot strangely enough.

Will try and quiz ancient uncle once more. He has all these books on coinage- (numismatics and metallurgy) might loan them to me if I ask nicely.

~Rosanne
 

Huck

Mot is NOT in my preferred online dictionary for Italian, but "mot" is "word" in French. Motto is in my prefered Italian dictionary.
Italians easier learn French than German, likely going back to times, when they were connected by the Romans. German-English often have words in common or similar, which are not French.

The similarity between Matto and Motto is interesting. The chess words are seen as invaders. Matt - Matto - the loser in the game of chess or life ... English "mad".
The bishop was the "fou" in French - the Gerrman very old Courier game with 24 figures had a Jester in a similar position, die bishop itself was in this game the "Courier", a "Läufer" or a "Renner" with the function of a quick bishop as nowadays. But the old "Jester" was similar handicapped as the old bishop, a very weak figure.
The "Motto" as a fighting call to overcome the role of the Matto, the Fool. As a Magical "word" (Mot) ... Magic, another Ma-word, Magic fools ... .-) ...

Mama, the universal female sound of the M ... but also Man + Mann in English-German against a homo, homme, hombre in more Roman languages. A German and a English Mond-Moon, which in German is male instead female as in Lune or Luna. The female "M" seems Roman, Mater and Maria, now German Mutter and English mother.
The female "W" in German-English in wife, woman, Weib, but also in the Roman Venus, whose attributes are less mother-like ...

:) perhaps one should read a little bit about the etymology of words.
 

Rosanne

The Biscione (Italian for ‘large grass snake’), also known as the Vipera (‘viper’ or in Milanese as the Bissa), is a heraldic charge showing in Argent an Azure serpent in the act of consuming a human; usually a child and sometimes described as a Moor. It has been the emblem of the Italian Visconti family for around a thousand years. Its origins are unknown. However it has been claimed that it was taken from the coat of arms of a Saracen killed by Ottone Visconti during the Crusades.

The biscione appears also in the coats of arms of the House of Sforza, the city of Milan, the historical Duchy of Milan and Insubria

As you can see it it is a description of the emblem used in the Visconti cards.
 

Huck

Filippo Maria gave a commission for the Zavattari brothers (after the wedding 1441). Considering the surrounding conditions of his situation (Bianca Maria waited with getting children), this might have been a sort of baby-boom magic from his side. She was his single daughter, the last Visconti possibly, and without her getting babies the Visconti dynasty was lost.

The object was Teodolinda, the location Monza and inside the story appears rather hidden a man-eating dragon. Looking at Giangaleazzo's ancestors ...

http://trionfi.com/0/b/75

Teodalinda's (second) husband might have been "36. Agistulfus Rex" (Italian wikipedia knows her husband as Agilulfo) on the Visconti list. The following Nr. 37 is at the genealogical list Desiderius Rex and this one is better to identify as "Desiderius ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderius

..., the last King of the Lombards in Northern Italy, dying 786. That there is large gap of time between Agilulfo, dying 616, ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodelinda
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theudelinde

... mustn't disturb, these were dark years, for which the Lombard genealogy researcher of 1403 likely simply had no documents.

So Filippo Maria made a sort of sacrifice to get a grandson by giving some attention to a very old grandma ...

http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=67062&highlight=teodolinda
http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=126031&page=3&pp=10&highlight=teodolinda

Another legend tells, that her son was the result of a sexual attack of a monster of the see on Teodolinda, when taking a walk at the beach. As this it became part of hero legends.

"Theodelindens Name ward auch willkürlich mit einer grotesken Sage verknüpft, die auf dem Boden merovingischer Ueberlieferungen erwachsen ist: am Strande wandelnd, wird die Königin von einem Meerungethüm überfallen und bezwungen; der Sohn, den sie später zur Welt bringt, trägt die Spuren seiner unmenschlichen Abkunft. Die uralte Sage ist überliefert in Boccaccio´s Decamerone III, 2, in dem Gedichte „Das Meerwunder“ im Heldenbuche Caspar´s von der Roen, sowie in einem Meisterliede und einem Spruchgedichte des Hans Sachs."

I checked the Decamerone, but it is not a sea monster story.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23700/23700-h/23700-h.htm#THE_SECOND_STORY3

Actually the Lake of Como, where Theodolinda likely bathed occasionally, is not "the sea", but a river is there, which takes its route down to the Milanese region and rivers occasionally become monsters, when it had rained too much. The Visconti Snake in its form is designed as a river dragon (just very long, not broad) ... :) ... Monza is there, where Theodolinda is buried and celebrated by Filippo Maria with his baby boom magic and his commission to the Zavattari brothers.
 

Yygdrasilian

Both ends of a Horse

Snaffle Bit: "hic verges nit" [Forget This Not]
Soft Brush: “merito et tempore” [And in Time Rewarded]

Both are equestrian devices- a snaffle bit was part of a bridle used for war horses when soldiers required immediate response from their steeds, and the soft brush was used during grooming after combing out a horse’s coat to give it an extra radiant sheen.

Saint Ambrose, in his account of St. Helena’s reliquary nails, relates that one was attached to the horse of the emperor Constantine. A legend further elaborated by St. Gregory of Tours who specified that this nail was used to make the horse’s bit, and was seen as in fulfillment of a prophecy by Zecharia [whose name means 'YHVH has remembered']: “In that day that which is on the bridle of the horse shall be holy to the lord.”

TT http://quatramaran.ens.fr/~madore/visconti-tarots/large/arcanum-08-justice.jpg

In this sense, the battle cry- “A Bon Droit” fits well with the Dove of the Holy Spirit.

There are other nails as well. I’ve read that Charles Borromeo had been a dealer in relics made with iron shavings from the originals. Of particular importance, however, were the nails used in the ceremonial talismans of Imperial coronation- such as the Hofberg Spear (Holy Roman Emperor) and the Iron Crown of Lombardy (King of Italy). The former has an interesting relationship to both Saint Sigismund and his namesake, the emperor Sigismund; while the latter was depicted in connection with Theodelinda in a series of frescoes within the Monza cathedral.

It may also be worthy to note that the nails were reputedly 'recovered' from a temple to the goddess Venus, to whom the Visconti traced their lineage.
 

Yygdrasilian

With Time

x3 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Cirsium_vulgare_flowerhead_Anstey_Hill.PNG

“Another story states that Achaius founded the Order in 809 to commemorate an alliance with the Emperor Charlemagne. There is some credibility to this story given the fact that Charlemagne did employ Scottish bodyguards. There is, in addition, a tradition that the order was instituted, or re-instituted, on the battlefield by Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn.
Perhaps the 3 ‘pine cones’ are actually thistles...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Thistle

Nemo me impune lacessit ["No one provokes me with impunity"]

"Carduus is the Latin term for a thistle (hence cardoon), and Cardonnacum is the Latin word for a place with thistles. This is believed to be the origin of name of the Burgundy village of Chardonnay, Saône-et-Loire, which in turn is thought to be the home of the famous Chardonnay grape variety."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardoon
 

Yygdrasilian

"Cha togar m' fhearg gun dìoladh"

If indeed we are looking at a triplet of thistles, we might consider whether a specific variety was intended. Their French name, cardoon, and its’ link to Chardonnay (within the former Kingdom of Burgundy) may explain the grapes on San Sigismondo’s cloister Door.

Carduus benedictus, or Holy Thistle, is a candidate, if for no other reason than the Abbey of San Sigismondo had, so far as I’ve been able to discern, once been a Benedictine temple. Yet, the Scotch thistle, being a favored food of caterpillars & lepadoptera, would lend a certain metamorphic connotation to the image. But a better case could probably be made for silybum marianus, sometimes referred to as carduus marianus, or Saint Mary’s Thistle. http://www.herballegacy.com/McCorrie_History.html

I’m not sure how far back or widespread the belief, but the plant’s name is said to come from its milky fluid being attributed to drops of the Virgin’s milk falling upon a thistle whilst she nursed the baby Jesus.
♍♍♍

It has also been known as an effective remedy for amanita mushroom poisoning. There has been some speculation as to whether an entheogenic tradition involving the muscaria variety of this mushroom persisted through medieval and renaissance Europe. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4556273749797755425#
Which may account for the mythic potency behind Mariam’s thistle. It has also been theorized on the basis of etymological and mycological research that Christianity may have had its’ origins as a mushroom cult ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtiMw0-akAM The various northern European barbarian tribes probably made ceremonial use of the amanita muscaria mushroom themselves and would have thus been more amenable to ‘conversion’ if Dr. Allegro’s hypothesis proves correct.

In any case, it may be worth perusing a few medieval pharmacopoeia for details on what was said about this plant in the 15th century.

Of course it is also feasible the thistle device may have been employed simply to signify the eventual joining of houses Viscounti, Sforza & Luxemborg - their offspring, like its’ multitude of seeds taking flight to propagate across the world ...mit zeit.

James II, a descendant of all 3 bloodlines, claimed to be reviving a more ancient Order of Thistle when he issued letters patent "reviving and restoring the Order of the Thistle to its full glory, lustre and magnificency". This may account for the similarity between their motto- Nemo me impune lacessit -and that of Sforza’s sighthound...

Roseanne said:
Anyway his dog under the tree or a greyhound (veltro) in repose or sitting
motto is quietum nemo impune lacessit and no dates that I can find.

Also of interest with respect to these Sforza devices- the geometric properties of Borromean Rings correspond to the walknot, or ‘knot of the slain’, associated with the Norse god Odin, from whom the Emperor Sigismund could claim bloodline descent. http://www.liv.ac.uk/~spmr02/rings/vikings.html
You may find it an interesting exercise to explore where the branches of that family tree extend today.