View Full Version : Lorenzo de Medici / Inventory
http://www.memofonte.it/home/files/pdf/lorenzo.pdf
Ross gave this source, a copy of 1512 of the inventory of "magnifico Lorenzo di Medici", made at his death (1492)
Introduction
"Questo libro d’inventarii è copiato da un altro inventario, el quale fu fatto alla morte del magnifico Lorenzo de’ Medici, copiato per me, prete Simone di Stagio dalle Pozze, oggi, questo 23 di dicembre 1512, per commissione di Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici."
Following items I found of interest:
This might be the Fama object made at his birth.
"Uno desco tondo da parto, dipintovi il Trionfo della Fama / fiorini 10" (p. 30)
This sounds rather interesting, but I can't identify the words stoletto and bromzo; somehow it's a Trionfo of Bacchus with 21 figures
"Una stoletta di bromzo, c[i]oè del Trionfo di Baco con 21 figuruzze / fiorini 10 "(p. 117)
A book with a focus on Fama
"Uno libro in carta pecora, scritto in penna e lettera vulgare e miniato d’oro, chiamasi Trionfo di Fama, scritto di mano di Iacopo di messer Poggio, overo lo mandò a Lorenzo de’ Medici" (p. 192)
I don't know "spalliere", but there are 2 Triomfa della Fama and two Triomfo dall'Amore
"Quattro spalliere, dua col Triomfo della Fama et dua col Triomfo dell’Amore, lunghe braccia XII l’una" (p. 9)
a goalkeeper (?) in the form of Fama
"Uno portiere suvi el Triomfo della Fama, bello / fiorini 20" (p. 9)
A book of Petrarca, including between other texts the Perarca Trionfi
"Uno libro di messer Francesco Petrarca, Canzone, Sonetti, Trionfi, di carta di caveretto, scritto in penna et miniato ricamente, coperto di velluto verde, serrami e bullette d’ariento" (p. 58)
A book of Petrarca, including the Petrarca text, special notes to 4 tondi (round pictures of Muses ?) and a sun picture (?)
"Uno libro dell’opera del Petrarca, Trionfi prima storiati et miniati scritti di penna e carta di caveretto e Canzone, Sonetti et Vita di Dante, coperto di raso chermisi com più compassi, cioè sei da ogni lato con arme smaltate, 4 borchie da ogni lato, a ogni canto una, et quattro tondi smaltati entrovi le Muse e uno in mezo con uno sole con più profili di cornici e d’ariento dorato ogni cosa" (p. 59)
six pieces of cloth ?storiati? di trionfi (clothes used for trionfi activities?) (carneval costumes?)
"Sei pezzi di panno storiati di trionfi / fiorini 3"
****
There seems to have been a strong favor for the figur "Fama".
Most interesting is this note about a Bacchus Trionfo with 21 figures
"Una stoletta di bromzo" It maybe a rectangular fabric of silk and cotton panel or stole shaped like a pallium of the church. Most likely a panel for wall decoration with embroidery. Bromzo is the Fabric. ~Rosanne
Sounds plausible. Did you find "Bromzo" as a producer (name of a producer)? Or means the word "fabric"?
Bear with me Huck :D
See this...
The Celestina (used as title, synecdoche, one of the characters of the book actually called Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea or Libro de Calisto y Melibea y de la puta vieja Celestina) is a novel published anonymously by Fernando de Rojas (about whom we know little) in 1499. This book is considered to be one of the greatest in Spanish literature, and traditionally marks the end of medieval literature and the beginning of the literary renaissance in Spain. It is a Tragic comedy and has 21acts.
Now in the play the tipsy (stupid drunk) Celestina gets her words mixed up and says Madonna, Lucretia, che e uscita fuora per un bromzo daque per me, ...
The panel or stole shaped fabric is a fake bronze plaque- made of fabric(possibly wool) but with silk embroidery of 21 acts of Celestina. It was a common pun type statement after 1500- sort of like "I see you have a Bromzo???" (might not be actually Celestina but 21 pictures of a triumph that is not in Bronze)
~Rosanne
Bear with me Huck :D
See this...
Now in the play the tipsy (stupid drunk) Celestina gets her words mixed up and says Madonna, Lucretia, che e uscita fuora per un bromzo daque per me, ...
The panel or stole shaped fabric is a fake bronze plaque- made of fabric(possibly wool) but with silk embroidery of 21 acts of Celestina. It was a common pun type statement after 1500- sort of like "I see you have a Bromzo???" (might not be actually Celestina but 21 pictures of a triumph that is not in Bronze)
~Rosanne
I don't understand really ... I see that the word Bromzo is connected from two sides to the number 21. Once there are 21 figurazze in the inventory of Lorenzo, now I've 21 acts of Celistina. Is that "Bromzo", which somehow has the color bronze, imaginable as a 3x7 matrix-picture scheme used on this
stoletta?
It is a Pun. Bromzo daque = Bronze Plaque with 21 scenes on it- but not Bronze but Fabric. The word Bromzo became to mean 'fake' taken from the pun in Celestina which must have been a very popular story.
The inventory was written before the comedia could change the word. 1492, the copy of 1512.
I can understand, that Bromzo can become a "fake-word" of Bronce. But why twice the 21 ... just a strange accident?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestina
In Celestina somebody falls of a ladder finally. A 3x7 matrix .... it's possible to interprete this as a ladder.
The inventory tells:
"Una stoletta di bromzo, c[i]oè del Trionfo di Baco con 21 figuruzze / fiorini 10 "
The price seems rather high.
I can imagine somehow a peace of cloth, used around the neck, looks like bronze, but is made from wool and silk. It shows 21 pictures (or figures)
I found this sentence in the description of Celestina (and it just sounds as a joke in the current situation):
"There are two versions of the play; one is called a Comedy and has 16 acts, the other is considered a Tragic Comedy and has 21 acts."
... :-) ... first 16, then 21 ...
Ross G Caldwell
14-01-2008, 09:16
I found this sentence in the description of Celestina (and it just sounds as a joke in the current situation):
"There are two versions of the play; one is called a Comedy and has 16 acts, the other is considered a Tragic Comedy and has 21 acts."
... :-) ... first 16, then 21 ...
LOL - Huck, come on :)
Use your time for some real, relevant research.
But if we're going to play with the idea, which trumps do you think would make a Comedy, and which five extra would make a Tragic Comedy out of the series?
And why isn't the Fool (a very funny figure) in either of them? (okay, maybe he's not counted)
Ross
LOL - Huck, come on :)
Use your time for some real, relevant research.
But if we're going to play with the idea, which trumps do you think would make a Comedy, and which five extra would make a Tragic Comedy out of the series?
And why isn't the Fool (a very funny figure) in either of them? (okay, maybe he's not counted)
Ross
Hm .. I don't think, that this Spanish comedy or tragic comedy could touch really the historical meaning of the Italian Bromzo sentence of Lorenzo's inventory. Though it was translated 1506 to Italian, but I didn't find, that it was played there soon.
But what means factually:
"Una stoletta di bromzo, c[i]oè del Trionfo di Baco con 21 figuruzze / fiorini 10"
Celestina and the sentence about 16 and 21 had more the appearance of a Tarot card drawn in divinatory not-intention, it seems.
Your comments sound quite priggish Ross- the Tarot could be from a comedy of Boccaccio's perhaps something like La Fiametta with however many stanza's (I do not know) they were about Love and war, marriage and virtue (or lack of it) and were social commentary on the Court- that made everyone laugh. Why not 16 acts or 21 acts or 20 acts. These comedies were risque, sacrilegious and often apparently showed the differences between platonic love and lust. It seems a very fitting subject for however many trumps a game needed. I realise the Celestina was far to late- but I do note with interest that the same stage shape is under the Pope and Emperor of the Charles V1 is under the figures in the Visconti - why not a play? Was there a poem play about Bacchus that had 21 sections?
~Rosanne
The "real" Trionfo of Bacchus was a real famous trionfo in Florence during one of the carnevals, likely in the 70's.
The stoletta perhaps belonged directly to this event or was made later for memoration.
These Trionfi generally were near to the shows in theatre and Celestina was a piece for the theatre, no doubt. Maybe a genre had been built, that used 21 elements, for instance 21 Trionfo chariots or 21 acts in the theatre. This modus might have jumped to Spain.
Naturally this all might have had relations to the form of the Trionfi game with cards.
Italian theatre, which seemed to have developed a little earlier, might have influenced Spanish theatre by the Spanish pope in Italy in 1499.
Did not Lorenzo write songs and poems for carnivals?
Did not Lorenzo write songs and poems for carnivals?
Yes, about 10 songs, and many other stuff, also many letters.
The most famous carnival song was about Bacchus and Ariadne. The number of the chariots at these carnival-Trionfi is a riddle, at least to me. If it would have been 21, then this might signal something.
http://skuola.tiscali.it/letteratura-italiana-1700/trionfo-di-bacco-e-arianna--de-medici-lorenzo.html
This text astonishingly writes, that the song was of 1490 ... so late (?) ... if this is really correct?
I have been struggling with italian sites that don't have translation :D
1468 the Tournaments when he was 19- he won a silver? helmet with Mars on it.
Christoforo Landini was still his poetry teacher.
1469 Pageant for when he got married.
1478 His brother was murdered
In 1447 there was a ban on Carnival that Lorenzo changed in 1479
It is then he is thought to have written the Triumph poem of Bacchus.
Then came the sonnets? The liturgical ones were for his Mother before he was married- at the same time his bawdy ones were written. I cannot find a date for the Triumph of Bacchus in Florence streets.
Thats as best as I can work it out.
~Rosanne
I have been struggling with italian sites that don't have translation :D
1468 the Tournaments when he was 19- he won a silver? helmet with Mars on it.
Christoforo Landini was still his poetry teacher.
1469 Pageant for when he got married.
1478 His brother was murdered
In 1447 there was a ban on Carnival that Lorenzo changed in 1479
It is then he is thought to have written the Triumph poem of Bacchus.
Then came the sonnets? The liturgical ones were for his Mother before he was married- at the same time his bawdy ones were written. I cannot find a date for the Triumph of Bacchus in Florence streets.
Thats as best as I can work it out.
~Rosanne
Well, the factual life - at least the details - often exists only in Italian language and I've my trouble with this, too. A lot of the easy available older English reports are "written in tendency", an endless dream of idealization, which doesn't look deep enough.
Well , the carnival ... I can't really imagine, that it was changed so late from prohibition to legal (1479 ? 1469 seems logical). But I was surprized yesterday by reading, that the Bacchus song is said to have been from 1491). But ... in Rome carnival was celebrated in the late 60's under Paul II., so it's rather improbable, that Florence waited till 1479. Perhaps it was not allowed in spring 1479 cause the war, which happened by the murder of Giulio in 1478.
"1468 the Tournaments when he was 19- he won a silver? helmet with Mars on it."
This should've been in 6th of February 1469 ... but there are reports with contradictions. Perhaps it even was in in Milan ... .-) although I don't believe this. It was reported in detail by the poem of Luca/Luigi Pulci (Luca writing only the opening).
"Christoforo Landini was still his poetry teacher."
Might be a legend. Naturally Lorenzo learned from all and everything, and naturally everybody wanted to influence him and wanted to tell, that he was the teacher. Influence on the young poet was taken likely by Luigi Pulci, but naturally not he alone. The real teacher seems to have been a person with the name Giovanni Becchi (and he read Ovid with him and Giustini, a history author), also there are early influences on his musical talents in his early youth (inclusive dancing) of others. Latin came from other side. Since 1458 Lorenzo had a lot of time in Cafaggioli outside of Florence, and Pulci lived near .. but he was not a really teacher, more a friend and likely also accompanying the hunting adventures of the youth, which means, this meetings with nature.
De Facto in ca. 1474 Pulci was attacked by Matteo Franco (who tried with some success to get the ear of Lorenzo then) with the following words: "Gigi è inportuno, Gigi è fastidioso, Gigi ha pessima lingua, Gigi pazzo, Gigi arrogante, Gigi seminator di scandalo, Gigi ha mille defetti secondo voi, et nondimeno senza Gigi non si può respirare in casa vostra, Gigi è animella della vostra palle". In other words, he had the impression, that Gigi (= Luigi Pulci), although a person full of defects, seemed rather almighty in matters of Lorenzo till then.
When Gigi attacked Marsilio Ficino, Ficino did win the battle and Pulci left Florence for some time, without getting his position again later.
### 1469 Pageant for when he got married.
Yes, he got married this year and it was a great festivity.
### 1478 His brother was murdered
true
### In 1447 there was a ban on Carnival that Lorenzo changed in 1479
doubts, actually this can't have been so.
### It is then he is thought to have written the Triumph poem of Bacchus.
Then came the sonnets? The liturgical ones were for his Mother before he was married- at the same time his bawdy ones were written. I cannot find a date for the Triumph of Bacchus in Florence streets.
Thats as best as I can work it out.
There are problems to identify the time of his writings, generally. But he started early to write, in the 60's, in the Pulci times. When very young, he even is said to have written 2 choreographies, which appeared in a book, dedicated 1463. A dance to "Love" (or Venus) and a dance to "Laura" (whereby "Laura" is the female form of "Lorenzo").
The mother had this sense for writing poetry and she likely had the command about all these "teachers".
Somewhere I had found a text, whose author seemed to have insights about his literary activities and who tried plausible datings ... somewhere at books.google.com ... Lost for the moment.
But most text are likely only available in Italian and to read Italian poems is difficult, much more difficult than usual texts.
A chronology is available in the limited preview of his poems in translation here:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-WtI3ihlU1gC&pg=PA1&lpg=PR7&dq=Lorenzo+Medici+poems&output=html&sig=IR2f6W2h3BDOZhtEaOmA-4Q5fOA
His neoplatonic poetry is also studied in Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance by Robb.
The text of his triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne (in Italian) is available here:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PR8OAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA129&dq
(Some of his other poems are translated in the body of the biography.)
Kwaw
Thanks, Stephen ....
Precisely this I spoke about.
These 3 persons mentioned in his "brigata": Luigi Pulci, Bracchio Martelli, Sigismondo della Stufa should be of importance of Lorenzo for his youth years. Luigi Pulci is clear, Bracchio de Martelli is since 1466 the brother-in-law of Lucretia Donati, this nice girl Lorenzo is called to have been in love with; or better called "his muse". Sigismondo della Stufa is either dead in 1473 or was of help in the dangerous situation, when Lorenzo was wounded in the church and Giuliano was killed (1478).
The general situation of the Trionfi development demands, that Lorenzo likely didn't influence Trionfi cards production NOt in his older age, but in his youth, so only his youth should be really interesting.
Pulci writes his letter in 1466 and talks about Minchiate playing. ... that's the only real and direct context between Trionfi cards and Lorenzo in documents.
http://trionfi.com/0/p/09/
The date is given with 23rd of August 1466. That's a few days before the morning, on which some armed soldiers tried an attack on Piero de Medici (27th of August). Lorenzo became a hero at this opportunity by telling this soldiers a wrong story. After this the time was filled with political trouble. Serious matters.
Earlier - from begin of March this same year till begin of May Lorenzo was on a political journey. He visited Rome, saw the filiale of the Medici bank and the Pope and Naples, where he met King Ferrante.
A second (indirect) context between Trionfi cards and Lorenzo is at 1465. The only note of Trionfi cards in Mantova appears, when a man died there and an inventory was made, which included a Trionfo deck in the Florentine style.
This happened short after a visit of Lorenzo's delegation, which took its way to the "start of the bride to her journey to the wedding" in Naples of Ippolita Sforza, who started begin of June 1465.
Lorenzo took his way via Ferrara and then Venice and then Milan (between Venice and Milan he should have taken also a halt at Mantova).
http://trionfi.com/0/e/29/
Lorenzo had some time in Milan, saw Francesco Sforza, and then accompanied the bride till Florence, which they arrive at 22th of June to see the Giovanni-the-Baptist festivities there. The event was a little disturbed by the instable general political situation as a thread of the peste nearby. The cavalcade took its way at the 27th of June, Lorenzo and other Florentine youth accompanied them a little bit to the south.
An early Lorenzo-de-Medici work in English language in the style of the Decamerone - with kicks on the citizens of Siena. Not totally complete, but with commentary.
http://books.google.com/books?id=CHLqwKlAh6UC&pg=PA5&dq=sigismondo+stufa&sig=S7fv_lW4XPYiry2WZYTNq7JkY_Y#PPA141,M1
I try to gather some more of them.
added:
http://books.google.com/books?id=bI8LAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA385&dq=%22pietro+alamanni%22&as_brr=1&ei=gRWMR_2aC4i0iQH9_K3eBA#PPA382,M1
Italian, but interesting, as it seems to refer to persons, which Lorenzo knew in his youth. "The hunt with the falcon" including a famous passage about Pulci.
The "real" Trionfo of Bacchus was a real famous trionfo in Florence during one of the carnevals, likely in the 70's.
Likely?
You sure he wasn't describing the Sforza's fireplace;)
Itself a copy of a sarcophagus showing Bacchus and Ariadne, source for model of Eve in Floretine baptiste doors (where we see also the polygonal halo'ed virtues).
Just spent some time translating Lorenzo's triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne, but then discover you have a translation already:
http://trionfi.com/0/m/13/
Yes, "likely", we've no really confirming data, for instance something like a date. Two days ago I found a note in the web, that the poem was made 1491. Nobody could have imagined this ... I don't trust the source, of course, but in such a case you even can't trust the "in the 70's". Perhaps a writing error.
You sure he wasn't describing the Sforza's fireplace;)
http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=801174&postcount=16
http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=778464&postcount=33
http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=778877&postcount=35
A specific Trionfo, famous during the time of Lorenzo de Medici during a carnival is not given, when we have Bacchus used as a motif of art somewhere long before.
We've a description of disguising as Greek Gods in the carnival 1433, but it doesn't state that it was the Trionfo of Demorgone with 21 chariots (which happened 1565/66). Also it doesn't exclude, that in later times (after 1433) carnival was occasionally prohibited in Ferrara.
Bachus is the god of vine. Likely they did drink vine all the time. Carnival was occasionally prohibited and developed Trionfi forms.
It seems that Lorenzo made use of the Potenze to hold the Carnivals. The Potenze (meaning 'Powers') were festive Brigades/ occupational associations like from the Textile industry. They acted like the Gangs of New York lol! In 1463 there was a new company of Potenze called the Company of the Star that Lorenzo used. It was a Potenze that were involved in the Tourney and Festival in 1435 For the Explusion of Albizzi from Florence. These Companies had marked parts of Florence like their own 'patches' they had there own Saints and built tabernacles- Like the Red City Company had Saint Lawrence? in their Patches.
It may have been the Potenze of the Red City who manned the 14 Triumphal stage sets for Pope Leo X in 1515 (9 + 4 groups 4 riding horses/, 9 Marching each group with its own stage) The Company of the Star did the 1475 Joust for Lorenzo's brother. So it is possible that cards are the 'figureheads' of these Companies. This was Lorenzo's idea- like Rome's motto bread and Circuses- Textile and Carnival?? Keep the people happy. I had no idea how powerful these Companies were. They took over the neighbourhood and elected Kings and Queens etc.
http://books.google.com/books?id=CFB6V8TekrcC&pg=RA5-PA162&lpg=RA5-PA162&dq=potenze+meaning&source=web&ots=rrEwGQC-31&sig=2YGDVREZd8PIqvuP83TfMK8WLgI
Maybe this Urban history of Florence could be a fruitful research for the images of Tarot. It seems that the Potenze has only been looked at in the last two decades according to this Jstor site. Makes sense in the weird way the hand painted figures on cards were costumed. Wish I could read Italian- but there seem to be some good books out there.
This is called Society and Religion in Renaissance Florence
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0018-246X(198603)29%3A1%3C213%3ASARIRF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F
Oh Jstor links do not seem to work properly!
~Rosanne
HYere is an extract of a review by Ann Moyer of a book about Florence social history.
Guilds not only participated in the running of the city; they and other corporate bodies developed and maintained charitable institutions of various kinds. Feeding the poor and indigent, housing foundlings and orphans, and caring for the sick were among the tasks supported by groups of Florentines. The groups and their charitable projects were often housed in buildings of some significance, as Philip Gavitt recounts. The urban poor themselves had fewer resources to leave architectural marks upon the urban fabric; many of their divisions of space left traces that are harder now to discern. By the late fifteenth century, the city was mapped not only into the parishes and militia districts known by their banners, but also festival brigades known as "potenze" that left marks of their boundaries still identifiable on the walls of city buildings. These groups, which drew their membership mainly from lower social and income levels, celebrated May Day and other holidays, including Carnival, and also made pilgrimages to local shrines. They went into decline in the early seventeenth century; David Rosenthal attributes the cause primarily to the era's religious reform impulses. They were able to develop their alternate mapping of the city, divided among these various festival "kingdoms," especially because each of the city's individual neighborhoods and official gonfaloni included residents at all social levels, rather than clustering them into solidly wealthy or poor sections. Neighborhood identities remained strong throughout the era, though Nicholas Eckstein notes that by the sixteenth century they competed with other, more city-wide types of community identity that arose especially with that era's increasing degree of social stratification. Other uses of space have also left only the faintest of traces. The Wool Guild organized the itineraries or visiting wool merchants during the fourteenth century by channeling them into specific routes and itineraries with visits to the guild hall and relevant clusters of shops. Thus they orchestrated to a significant degree the Florentine experience of these visitors to the city. The aim, according to Adrienne Atwell, was to promote foreign trade by presenting a uniform, impressive, and organized experience to foreign traders.
House towers may have ceased to define the environs of Florence's big families by the fourteenth century, but real estate remained a way to express identity, as seen in the term "house" (casa) to refer both to family and to dwelling. Florentines developed a variety of legal incentives that encouraged ownership and investment in private residences. Palazzo-building accelerated already in the fourteenth century and really hit its stride in the fifteenth and finally stabilized as a style that persisted long afterwards. Their owners filled these very substantial residences with items not only for personal comfort but also for display, contributing to the development of both artistic and artisanal production in the city. Michael Lingohr, Roger Crum, and John Paoletti discuss the development of these spaces and the issues attached to those who were permitted, or invited, to see and to visit them. Domestic spaces were of course a particularly female realm. The growing use of this space by visitors in search of favor for positions and other preferments from powerful families provided an arena in which the women of these powerful families, above all the Medici, could exercise political and social patronage. Street life was more clearly dominated by men, though women of lower classes faced fewer restrictions on their movement, and those of the major houses certainly managed to circulate through the city. Natalie Tomas and Guido Ruggiero discuss these issues of gendered space, the latter reminding us of the powers of jest and ridicule in displays of dominance among Florentine men.
here is another mention of the Potenze from a book about Ridolfo Ghirladajo
Ridolfo, like his father, regarded art rather as a means of livelihood than with any aesthetic feelings, and this is probably the reason of his never attaining true excellence. His “bottega” was really a shop where any one might order a work of art, or of artisanship, and he gave as much attention to painting a banner for a procession as to composing an altar-piece. He had a great many assistants, whom he called on for help in various undertakings. They assisted him to prepare the Medici Halls for the reception of Pope Leo X., and later for the marriages of Giuliano and Lorenzo, not disdaining to paint scenes for the dramas which were then given. He painted banners, and designed costumes for the processions of the “potenze,” a festive company, the origin of which is uncertain, but dating certainly from the Middle Ages. Each quarter of the city had an emperor, lords, and dignitaries, each of whom carried his banner or emblazonment. Grand processions, tournaments, and feasts were held once a year, on S. John’s Day, by the potenze.
Here is a painting of Saint Lawrence the patron Saint of the Red City Potenze (as well as other potenze Companies.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21561/21561-h/images/illus177.jpg
In the colour image, which I cannot seem to link the vestment is sky blue like the Charles V1 card Le Pape.(The Pope in Blue is Pope Sixtus the 2nd associated with Saint Lawrence)
here is another mention of the Potenze from a book about Ridolfo Ghirladajo
They were also mentioned briefly in the Cary-Yale thread in the discussion on the palio:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=966339&postcount=41
Thanks Kwaw! Those threads of yours are fascinating- I could never seem to find them through the search function.
Is this direction one that has been discussed much? The Potenze and Tarot?
It is very like the pageants of York given by the guilds neh? ~Rosanne
It's still common use in Carnival regions, that somebody pays individually for one of the chariots shown at Rosenmontag, usually sorts of instititutions, often running as Karnevalsverein nowadays and the costs payed by the members or by members gathering sponsoring gifts of businesses etc..
The annual Giovanni-the-baptist festivities were made by a similar structure and Florentine carnival imitated it later.
The Giovanni-the Baptist season, as I understood it, started with 1st of May and finished 24th of June (day of Giovanni-the-baptist) with the great procession, actually a spring festival.
Carnival season nowadays, at least here, is from 11.11. till ca. 6 weeks before Eastern, so about 3 monthes and actually the bad weather time. Naturally it's not always carnival, but there are often enough carnivals shows in the evening till the "6 crazy days", which last from "Weiberfastnacht" (a Thursday) till the following Tuesday and the great procession is usually "Rosenmontag", although greater cities like Cologne have a lot of smaller additional processions, which for technical reasons use other days.
Curiously there is a letter from Petrarca, who visited Cologne 1333, arriving just at the day of Giovanni, 24th of June. He's very surprized to see the whole city, between them some good-looking women, as he declares admiring, wander to the Rhine and wash their hands, arms and faces.
On his questions Petrarca gets explanations, that it's a yearly ritual in Cologne and by its use all sins and bad spirits are washed away dawn the Rhine.
Now Petrarca, of Florentine descendance, doesn't know this custom ... and with some envy he declares, that the small Italian rivers are not strong enough to do such wonders.
About 100 years later, in 15th century Florence has extensive Johannes the Baptist festivities (although their river is rather small - John-the-Baptist naturally needs a river for baptising).
Nowadays in Cologne this custom around Johannes has totally disappeared, but similar (deliverance of sins) is done with an ash cross at the forehead at Aschermittwoch, the first day after carnival.
I really wonder, how that happened, that a cleaning ritual was exchanged with a make-yourself-dirty ritual and a bad weather season for a spring festival.
Updated: Collection of Lorenzo's early creativity
----------------------------------------------
The novella of Giacoppe
An early Lorenzo-de-Medici work in English language in the style of the Decamerone - with kicks on the citizens of Siena. Not totally complete, but with commentary. - This is given to the years 1469-70.
http://books.google.com/books?id=CHLqwKlAh6UC&pg=PA5&dq=sigismondo+stufa&sig=S7fv_lW4XPYiry2WZYTNq7JkY_Y#PPA141,M1
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The Partridge hunt
http://books.google.com/books?id=bI8LAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA385&dq=%22pietro+alamanni%22&as_brr=1&ei=gRWMR_2aC4i0iQH9_K3eBA#PPA382,M1
Italian, but interesting, as it seems to refer to persons, which Lorenzo knew in his youth. "The hunt with the falcon" including a famous passage about Pulci.
- This is given to the years 1465-68.
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Symposium (or Beoni): I found this short comment:
"His Symposium, or the drinkers, Beoni, a sportive imitation of Dante, describes three journeys in the wine cellar"
It's interesting to note, that this seems to accompany in time Ficino's parallel attempr to translate the Symposium of Platon.
- This is given to the years 1465-68 (first version). It's said, that it was finished in 1473-74.
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With (?) for the time there are given his "Canzoniere" and "Nencia of Barberino" (latest date ca. 1470) and "A Commentary"
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According this text these are the poems given to his youth years.
http://books.google.com/books?id=-WtI3ihlU1gC&printsec=frontcover&dq=lorenzo+medici&ei=zNWMR5ahKYrqiwHTzYjEBQ&sig=IYaJYUxLR8CGWObM_-P6JhJTmoE#PPA3,M1
Naturally there are also his letters and the 2 choreographies published 1463 and dedicated to Galeazzo Maria Sforza.