AUTORBIS.net created 2003 - 2005       

Ludovico Lazzarelli mentioned in the year 1466

The following article refers to the presence of Ludovico Lazzarelli in the year 1466 in Padova at the opportunity of a joust celebration, at which Lazzarelli had a somewhat undefined "organising function" as a poet under the organising sponsor and current Podesta (mayor) of Padova, Ludovico Foscarini. Our informations to this event in the moment depend completely on an article from Raimondo Guarino in French language, the excerpt, which refers to Lazzarelli, is given at the end of this page ("De apparatu patavini hastiludii, poème dont plusieurs copies manuscrites sont conservées dans les bibliothèques européennes") .
Ludovico Foscarini is reported in the article as "un capitaine humaniste vénitien, orateur et mécène", a great humanist, speaker and sponsor. At other opportunities in his life Foscarini is called a diplomat and served in various administrative functions for the Venitian republic, between these also as mayor for the city of Padova (surely in 1466 at the time of the joust celebration), very similar functions, which had been also filled by Jacopo Antonio Marcello (Podesta of Padua in 1457-59 ?) - the man, who took a deciding influence in the story around the famous Michelino Trionfi deck.
From this context it's obvious, that Marcello and Foscarini were acquainted with each other. The life of both shows further parallels. Marcello also could be called a humanist, he also sponsored the arts and he also seems to have belonged to those, which profited, although Venice had suffered in the long wars with Milan. Foscarini (1451, source) and Marcello (1461) had both letter exchange with a lady of some scholarship, Isotta Nogarola, an intellectual woman, which became reknown as one of the first intellectual female writers in the time.


Data to Ludovico Foscarini:
Patrizio Veneto, Dottore in leggi, del Consiglio dei X, Avvogador di Comune nel 143…, 1456 e 1457, inviato ad Aquileia nel 1445, ambasciatore a Bologna l’11-11-1445, Savio del Comune nel 1454, Console nel 1454, ambasciatore a Roma nel 1455, 1457, 1463, 1465 e 1471, ambasciatore a Genova il 16-7-1455, Capitano di Verona nel 1456, ambasciatore a Mantova nel 1459 e 1465, Luogotenente Generale del Friuli nel 1460, Podestà di Padova nel 1466, Correttore della provvisione ducale e Cavaliere della Stola d’oro., married 1432 Elisabetta, figlia del Andrea Zane, Patrizio Veneto (Source family data)

In Margareth L .King works to Jacopo Antonio Marcello are variously reports about Foscarini (data collected mainly by Ross Caldwell, some additional remarks by autorbis):

  • 1432: married Elisabetta, daughter of Andrea Zane, Patrizio Veneto
  • 1438: Podestà di Ravenna
  • 1439: Podestà di Feltre
  • 1445, 11 November: Ambassador in Bologna
  • 1446, 7 May - Jacopo Antonio Marcello is the third candidate elected to replace Ludovico Foscarini who has long been ambassador to Bologna, and may therefore be present in Venice, but his name is canceled like those of the previous two... and Barbone Morosini is elected (on 13 May, JA Marcello was instead elected to position of provveditore of the army).
  • 258 - 1446, 8 May - ... Ludovico Foscarini is sent as ambassador to Milan to protest Filippo Maria Visconti his violation of the peace; Visconti replies that he intends to have the Cremonese.
  • 272 - 1449, 18 July - Ludovico Foscarini sent by Venetian Senate to Genoa to gain support for alliance of Genoa and Ambrosian Republic against Alfonso of Aragon who, ten days earlier, had declared ware on Venice.
  • 282 - 1450-51... Ludovico Foscarini is podestà of Verona; there he has relations with Isotta Nogarola, Giorgio Bevilacqua, among others
  • 286 - 1453 - April-August - Ludovico Foscarini, as podestà in Brescia... writes the new Venetian captain Jacopo Piccinino, naming the Venetians in the field with him as "colleagues in danger" - Jacopo Antonio Marcello, Pasquale Malipiero, and Girolamo Barbarigo. (Foscarini, "Epistolae", ##74 and 81...)
  • (René d'Anjou comes to assist Francesco Sforza with 4000 horse; arriving in Asti on August 22; he spends a week in Pavia with Bianca Maria Visconti September 18-26; is in Cremona on 7 October, prepares to attack Brescia with Sforza. (René has turned with this action against Venice in spite of earlier friendly relations). Through Giovanni Cossa, Venice responds to a French offer through Giovanni Cossa to negotiate a settlement between Milan and Venice; Venice expresses astonishment at the French advance and says she wants peace... the French and Sforza reoccupy many cities, but do not attack Brescia... Sforza winters in Cremona, René goes to Piacenza).
  • 1453, late November, Ludovico Foscarini, podestà of Brescia, attempts with Senate approval to negotiate as secret settlement with Sforza. (Peace of Lodi in begin of 1454).
  • 1454: Functions in Venice
  • 1455: since 1455 repeatedly ambassador in Rome (1455, 1457, 1463, 1465 and 1471)
  • 16 July 1455, ambassador in Genua
  • 1456, Capitano di Verona
  • 1459, Foscarini as ambassador in Mantua (probably to the Congress of Mantua 1459) - the painter Mantegna went this year from Marcello, his earlier commissioner, to Mantua, where he stayed for the rest of his life. Perhaps it maybe assumed, that Marcello/Foscarini had close influence in this matter.
  • 1461-1462 - Ludovico Foscarini is luogotenente (representative of Venice) in Friuli (in Udine) and is involved in a literary circle including the bibliophile Guarnerio d'Artegna.
  • 1462, 24 March Ludovico Foscarini promulgates new statutes for Friuli, approved now by Senate.
  • 1462 - 1 April, Ludovico Foscarini writes a consolatory letter to Niccolo Canal, describing Jesus Christ's sadness at death of Lazarus (Epistolae #196)
  • 1462 - 26 October - Senate letter to Ludovico Foscarini "our citizen" in Friuli, responding to his of 23 October, advising him, together with the luogotenente (Jacopo Antonio Marcello, at this time), to choose a representative to take over positions described ("oppidus Suera" and nearby "loci predicti") - at this time time Marcello and should have had opportunity to a longer personal communicative exchange, perhaps in relation to the reknown literary circle of Guarnerio d'Artegna
  • 1462 - 16 December - Ludovico Foscarini has returned from mission to Friuli (where Jacopo Antonio Marcello is luogotenete) to learn of the emperor's intentions regarding Trieste; now he is to be empowered to negotiate with imperial representative to purchase Trieste for 10,000 ducats.
  • 1463 - 17 December - Truce between Austria and Venice, negotiated by the pope... Ludovico Foscarini, Niccolo da Canal, Marco Donato, and Paolo Morosini are dispatched respectively to Rome, France, Burgundy, and Bohemia/Poland for the necessary negotiations regarding an allied offense against the Turks.
  • 1464 - Death of Marcello
  • 1465: Again as ambassador in Mantua
  • 1466: Podesta in Padova, in this year here the great joust took place, about which the young Lazzarelli reported.
  • 1466-1467 (Padua) - Ludovico Foscarini's letter to Giorgio Bevilacqua commenting on dedication to him of Bevilacqua's commentary on Cicero.
  • 1471, 5 May: Procuratore di San Marco
  • 17-8-1480 Death of Ludovico Foscarino


Forscarini and Marcello belonged both to the rare category "sponsors and maecens", both should have been "as Venetians" winners in the long Venetian-Milanese wars, which erroneously exhausted Venice. Marcello had shown in his late life a nearly religious addiction to "education", he believed in the geniousness of his young son Valerio, who unluckily died in the year 1461 in the age of 8. A short time after this Marcello died (1464), but in 1462 Foscarini and Marcello should have had opportunity for an intellectual exchange. Marcello "returned to the Venetian's office" at this opportunity, excusing himself for having invested so much energy in the education of his son and "private life". If the suggestion is right, that Foscarini and Marcello had "long talks" at this opportunity, one may determine the content of these talks:
  • Marcello would have transported informations of his great diplomatic actions of his personal past, and one of this activities was his present of an expensive playing card deck to Renee d'Anjou. This playing card deck was connected to its contents and this were Greek gods.
  • The present resulted in a great friendship between Marcello and Renee, as Marcello saw it. Renee was famous for activities in matters of jousts.
  • Marcello would have noted about his ideas to education - which should included, that very young persons should be sponsored in their talents.
Marcello died short after this assumed "deep talkings" to Foscarini. Two years later we see Foscarini as the podesta of Padova - that is "Marcello's city", in which Marcello also once was podesta, celebrating a famous joust - as they were known before by Marcello's friend Renee. The joust uses a "Greek background" as the playing card deck, which once was a present to Renee d'Anjou. Foscarini uses a very young poet, Ludovico Lazzarelli, either 16 or 19 years old, to describe the festivity - it seems, that he follows Marcello's education ideas. It might be, that Ludovico Lazzarelli fills the place of Marcello's son Valerio.
Marcello is just 2 years dead in 1466. It might be, that the whole festivity serves to a special part to remember Marcello in a very personal way.

The joust of 1466 became, as it seems, one of the most famous events of this kind in 15th century. It seems, that it influenced in style other following similar events, the celebrations of Lorenzo de Medici in 1469 and of his brother Giuliano de Medici in 1475, also accompanied by tournaments. In Galeazzo Maria Sforza's life the first reigning years from 1466 - 1471 also saw very much tournaments - perhaps inspired by the festivity of the Venetian republic.
The career of Lazzarelli, the very young poet, progressed with the honour of becoming poetus laureatus in 1469 by Emperor Frederick III (till now I believed, that this action took place in Ferrara, but recent research did find, that Frederick was also in Venice two weeks later (and Lazzarelli crowned in Venice as "poetus laureatus" looks more natural than being "crowned in Ferrara"). The theme at the joust in Padova were the Trojan war and "Greek gods", and this theme later proceeded logically in Lazzarelli's next manuscript filled with Muses and Spheres and Greek gods for Federico Montefeltro, in which motifs of the socalled Mantegna Tarocchi were used.


Other activities around 1466:

  • 1466: In March 1466 the duke Francesco Sforza died. This immediately caused hopes to change political reality. Venice hoped to associate Milan, it was a plan, that the dukedom was taken by Colleoni, the Venetian condottieri. As Sforza's wife Bianca Maria and her son Galeazzo Maria reacted with energy and quick, the whole stayed only a plan, but nonetheless Venetian forces in cooperation with Ferrarese troops under the guidance of Colleoni in cooperation with some Florentian rebels attacked the Milanese ally Florence. A short war resulted, in the deciding battle 1467 the condottieri Federico Montefelto showed enough resistance to keep the Venetian activity successless and the Medici rulership in Florence untouched.
  • Probably it is correct to assume, that the joust was intended to prepare the later militaric action, Renees earlier tounaments also had the function to strengthen the militaric spirit and accompanied a successful war against the occupaying English troops a little later.

  • 1466: Padua got (probably accompanying the tournament) a great wooden horse (the "Trojan horse"), which still is part of the great sightseeings in the city. The horse was modelled after Donatelli's Gattamelata-statue (man on horse) - Donatello died just 1466, perhaps here also two things run together, an special honour for Donatelli also was intended.

  • 1467: The Colleoni activity ends without change. Galeazzo Maria follows his father, peace is restored in 1468.

  • 1468: Galeazzo Maria marries and a picture with Apollo and Daphne appears, which is assumed to present Galeazzo Maria and his bride Bona of Savoyen. As Daphne was the centered picture in the Michelino deck, the idea is near, that Galeazzo Maria knew the content of the Michelino deck (which he should, when the content of the deck was also a theme in 1466 at the joust).

  • 1468: There is the suspicion, that the standard Tarot found a final form (which later evolved in a standard) with 22 special cards in this year 1468. It was developed on the base of the 5x14-deck once made by Bembo for Francesco Sforza (part of the socalled Pierpont-Morgan-Bergamo-Tarocchi).

  • 1469 or little earlier: The Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara starts to be frescoed with Greek gods and motifs of the Manilius astrology. The theme involves the concept of the "12 Olympian gods", which were also a topic of the Michelino deck.

  • 1469: Lazzarelli becomes "poetus laureatus".

  • Of special interests might be, that Foscarini was variously in Rome as ambassador (5x from 1455 - 1471); so he should have contacts there and with some probability also at the Roman accademia. Lazzarelli later took the same direction, and it might be, that Venice intended to use him as a spy there. As poet he had a way to various insider stories. Venice and Rome collaborated in 1482 in a war against Ferrara - partly Lazzarelli's work? When the contact from Foscarini to Lazzarelli (and the hidden intention) was similar to Cosimo de Medici to Marsilio Ficino - elder man to younger man, a little homosexuality, a little Platonism and of course also, that the younger learnt from the older, so Lazzarelli would have learnt the game of diplomacy of Foscarini.

  • Excerpt from article:

    DU SYSTÈME DU SAVOIR À L’ORDRE DES MYTHES. Les dieux antiques dans les spectacles italiens du XVe siècle. Correzione Dondi. Precisa rif. A stampa Lazzarelli in Epistola Enoch by Raimondo Guarino [Saggio è destinato agli Atti del convegno “Dieu et les dieux. Au théâtre de la Renaissance”, Tour luglio 2002]

    Internet pdf-document (original context)

    Padoue 1466: les jeux de l’homme et la présence des dieux

    Entre le système du savoir et l’ordre des mythes, des récits vivants, il y a l’univers des techniques, des pratiques de la représentation. La danse, comme dans le contexte du cortège de Ferrara ; le chant, comme dans l’exemple du chant orphique, qui soude, à Florence, les méditations des néoplatoniciens aux transfigurations mythiques de la poésie en vulgaire (16). Et le combat chevaleresque, répandu dans les traditions de la célébration européenne à la fin du Moyen Âge, comme exhibition d’ethos aristocratique et courtois imitée par les seigneurs et les notables de la ville (17). «Danser, chanter, lutter, nous sommes en pleine fête mythologique» (18). Sur l’ensemble de ces pratiques portent la transfiguration et le mimétisme archéologique à l’œuvre dans les spectacles, et dans ce mouvement on saisit le passage des dieux des salles peintes et des manuscrits illustrés aux actions collectives.

    Dans l’histoire des typologies du spectacle au XVe siècle, la giostra, l’hastiludium monté à Padoue en 1466 précède les appareils mis en place à Florence pour les jeunes Médicis dans les années suivantes (1469 pour Laurent et 1475 pour Julien).
    La joute avait été organisée par un capitaine humaniste vénitien, Ludovico Foscarini, orateur et mécène. La source la plus détaillée est un poème de Ludovico Lazzarelli (un humaniste dont on verra le singulier parcours), De apparatu patavini hastiludii, poème dont plusieurs copies manuscrites sont conservées dans les bibliothèques européennes (19). Dans les premiers vers, l’auteur s’adresse au recteur des étudiants anglais, qui est aussi un des arbitres du combat.
    Tu liras les délices et les pompes, et par le mime se succèderont les splendides monuments des anciens, et les rites antiques et les guerres des anciens capitaines. Et on verra combien sont distantes les affaires récentes des entreprises des Antiques. Tu reconnaîtras Jupiter armé de foudres, Mars pris dans le filet. […] Et Pégase aux pieds ailés, le cheval fantastique qui soulève Bellérophon, celui qui avec ses armes glorieuses a dompté les Amazones. Tu verras Mercure au sommet du Parnasse avec son bâton enveloppé de serpents, et le Muses, les neuf nymphes qui habitent près des sources. […] Et si Calliope aide à mon chant, tu pourras décerner les choses d’aujourd’hui mêlées aux choses antiques (20). Dans ces vers, l’auteur ramasse les clichés qui permettent la reconnaissance des dieux en tant que signes de l’Antiquité dans les jeux de guerre de la ville moderne. Ces noms, et les apparences évoquées, font surgir un complexe de récits mythiques qui tournent autour de la légende d’Anthénore comme fondateur de Padoue, et de la réviviscence des fables liées au cycle troyen. Dans le texte du poème on lit la transfiguration des capitaines dans les héros, l’appareil triomphal de leurs suites et des divinités qui les protègent, les cortèges des nymphes et la danse des corybantes, les disputes et les défis entre les héros et les dieux. Ces visions se déroulent sous une image du ciel. « Maxima coelati speties cognoscitur orbis. On voit la grande image de l’orbe céleste, la Terre au centre entourée par les vagues de Thétis, les eaux entourées par l’air et l’air par le feu. Et dans la région du pôle, tu peux connaître les formes des douze signes du Zodiaque » (21).
    Il s’agit de l’horloge astrale monumentale projetée et réalisée entre 1348 et 1360 par Giovanni Dondi, dit pour cela «dell’Orologio», un ami de Pétrarque qui est aussi un des premiers antiquaires italiens, auteur d’un Iter Romanum e d’un traité d’astrologie (22). L’emplacement du tournoi était donc la Piazza dei Signori. Dans le texte de Lazzarelli émerge l’association de l’imaginaire cosmographique et de la mythologie qui inspire la décoration des salles des palais des cours et des sièges des pouvoirs publiques, dans les cycles de la peinture monumentale profane. Parmi les monuments de la figuration du temps cosmique, on compte la salle du palais de la Ragione à Padoue, peu distante de la piazza aménagée pour la joute, dont le programme astrologique a été référé aux écrits de Pietro d’Abano (23). Dans cette salle on garde, depuis le XIXe siècle, le grand cheval en bois paru, comme cheval de Troie, dans la chorégraphie de la guerre mythique de 1466. Une autre version de la mythologie cosmique est traduite dans les fresques de la salle des Mois du palais Schifanoia à Ferrare, où les jeux et les métiers de la ville sont rangés sous la protection des dieux olympiques "seigneurs des mois", dans un modèle emprunté au poème Astronomica de Manilius (Ier siècle), qui est superposé aux couches de figures astrales plus anciennes, transmises par l’astrologie arabe, et aux figures et aux mœurs de la ville moderne (24). L’image mythique du temps cosmique est liée à la définition des lieux solennels des rituels civiques (25). Il faut considérer les salles de cour, qui sont souvent les lieux des spectacles, comme les endroits où se concentrent les images et les pratiques. L’ordre des mythes produit le passage entre le savoir archéologique et les cérémonies civiques, et pourvoit le répertoire d’histoires fondamentales qui réalisent le retour des fêtes romaines. Dans ce retour, les signes de l’encyclopédie céleste se projettent dans l’histoire des communautés, dans leurs généalogies imaginaires, dans leurs déguisements solennels. Dans la composition des spectacles, la célébration de l’Antique dépasse l’héritage du théâtre classique. Il y a une culture antiquaire de la représentation qui ne puise pas dans la connaissance de Vitruve, ni dans les structures du drame latin. Les moules de ces grandes représentations fusionnent les pratiques de la célébration urbaine avec la connaissance des images et des histoires antiques. Le génie du paganisme, dans l’Europe du XVe siècle, se nourrit de croyances et créations collectives, et de l’évocation des images survivantes et vivantes d’une religion ancienne, transformée en savoir et restituée aux pratiques, renouvelée par l’évidence des actions.
    Notes:

    16 Cf. Guarino Raimondo, « Figures et mythes de la musique dans les spectacles de la Renaissance italienne », Imago Musicae, XVI/XVII, 1999/2000, p. 11-24.
    17 Sur l’imitation, par la danse et les jeux chevaleresques, des mœurs aristocratiques dans la ville marchande, Trexler Richard, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, New York, Academic Press, 1980.
    18 Francastel P., La Réalité figurative, op. cit., p. 248.
    19 Kristeller Paul Oskar, Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters, Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1956, p.     20 Venise, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Ms. Lat. XIV 262 (4719), f.1r-v: « Saepe leges pompas delitiasque leges\ Splendida sic mimo veterum monumenta subibunt\ Et ritus veteres bellaque prisca ducum\ Antiques quantum distentque recentia factis.\ Fulminei nosces et tela trisulca Iovis,\ Retibus implicitum poteris cognoscere Martem […] Bellerophonteam poteris spectare chimeram.\ Pegasus alatis sublevat hunc pedibus.\ Hic et potuit nitidis spetiosus in armis\ Termodontias perdomuisse nurus.\ Mercurium summo Parnasi in vertice nosces.\ Anguibus implicitum substinet hic baculum.\ Inde novem cernes habitantes flumina nimphas. […] Rebus et antiquis sic mixta recentia cernes\ Si faveat´ceptis Calliopea meis ».
    21 Ibidem, f. 2r-v.
    22 Cf. les études contenues dans Dondi Giovanni, Tractatus Astrarii, éd Barzon A. et al., Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1960; et Cipolla Carlo M., Clocks and Culture, 1300-1700, London, Collins, 1967, p. 45-46.
    23 Saxl Fritz, Verzeichnis astrologischer und mythologischer illustrierter Handschriften des lateinischen Mittelalters. II. Die Handschriften der Nationalbibliothek in Wien, Heidelberg, Winters, 1926, p. 49-68; Federici Vescovini Graziella, « Pietro d’Abano e gli affreschi astrologici del Palazzo della Ragione di Padova », Labyrinthos, 9, 1985, p. 50-73.
    24 La bibliographie est très riche, après l’étude de Warburg Aby, « Italienische Kunst und Internationale Astrologie im Palazzo Schifanoja zu Ferrara » (1912), dans Id.,Gesammelte Schriften, éd Bing G., Leipzig-Berlin, Teubner, 1932, II, p. 459-481, 627-644. Plusieurs contributions dans Varese Ranieri (dir.), Atlante di Schifanoia, Modena, Panini, 1989.
    25 Sur le « lieu solennel » dans la peinture et dans l’espace des cérémonies, et son rapport à l’introduction de la perspective, Chastel André, « "Vues urbaines peintes" et théâtre », dans Idem, Fables, Formes, Figures, Paris, Flammarion, 1978, I, p. 493-503.

    • Villa Foscarini in Padova


    Statue of the condottieri Gattamelata
    in Padova by Donatello
    The wooden horse, which was modeled
    1466 for the joust
    after Donatello's statue,
    is still in a church in Padova