Huck
Well, ... ...
if one wishes to know, what Filelfo had really in this text, one would need the text, naturally.
if one wishes to know, what Filelfo had really in this text, one would need the text, naturally.
Also, here is p. 111 of Kroll vol. 1. Johnston says that the Oracle about the boy and the horse is on p. 111 lines 3-11. We do indeed see quite a few lines of verse there, clearly set off from the rest of the page and preceded by the "theoparadotos pustagogia" that tells us we are dealing with an Oracle. (It is also at http://www.hellenisticastrology.com...s-Rem-pvblicam-commentarii-ed-Kroll-vol-1.pdf, p. 111).
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eJZTBdG4i...ADlc/0ODu20Jo2QA/s1600/Kroll110and111vol1.jpg
Such a passage surely would have caught Filelfo's eye. Considering this page, with what I assume is its description of the naked boy and the horse, together with Plutarch's references to the sun as a newborn child at dawn and as the place from which daemons come and go (quoted them earlier), it seems to me that Filelfo wouldn't have needed Plethon's edition of the Oracles as inspiration for the children on the PMB Sun and World cards.
You will notice that even "Orpheus" is not indicated by name, but by way of "theologos" or "theologia"... So when Taylor puts "Orpheus" in parentheses, that would probably be his own comment, as opposed to what is in the original. But I have not checked the Greek edition of Proclus' Timaeus Commentary to see whether the word "Orpheus" appears there or not.
Well, ... ...
if one wishes to know, what Filelfo had really in this text, one would need the text, naturally.
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/francesco-filelfo_(Dizionario-Biografico)/Aprì il corso di lezioni, con molta probabilità, con un'enfatica prolusione De laudibus eloquentiae, mentre il 24 ott. 1429 tenne una praelectio, poi rimaneggiata nel 1467 dal figlio Giovanni Mario, De laudibus historiae, poeticae, philosophiae, forse introduttiva ad un corso su Cicerone.
Trasferitosi infine a Milano, il F. affiancò il padre nella disputa pubblica con il letterato Lodrisio Crivelli, ma dovette ricadere presto nelle solite dissolutezze se nel luglio 1465 fu addirittura ferito da un giovane, probabilmente per questioni di donne. Di una relazione con una certa Caterina e della continua frequentazione di luoghi malfamati testimonia d'altronde una lettera del duca del 15 luglio, che lo richiamava ad una condotta più degna. L'atteggiamento diffamatorio assunto nei confronti di Pio II, morto da poco, gli costò, insieme con il padre, alcuni giorni di prigione e lo indusse ad abbandonare la città: riparò presso Guglielmo Paleologo marchese di Monferrato, dove si trattenne per circa in anno. Partito quindi con l'intenzione di dirigersi a Roma, a causa della guerra che imperversava nelle Marche tra il papa Paolo II e Ferdinando d'Aragona approdò a Verona.
Guglielmo VIII, Mgve of Montferrato (1464-83), *Casale 19.7.1420, +Casale 1483; 1m: 19.1.1465 Cts Marie de Foix (*after 1452 +1467); 2m: Milano 18.7.1469 Elisabetta Maria (*Milan 1456, +Casale 1473), dau.of Francesco I Sforza, Duke of Milan; 3m: 6.1.1474 Jeanne Bernardine (*ca 1450, +Casale 17.2.1485), dau.of Jean I de Brosse, by Nicole de Chatillon, Css de Penthiévre
So whatever he got earlier from Plethon, it was surely second-hand and not much. For Filelfo he becomes the "first philosopher" only later.In einer Oratio aus dem Jahre 1429 (!), in der Zoroaster bereits als Fürst der Mager bei den Persen erwähnt wird, legt sich Filelfo noch nicht auf eine Reihenfolge fest,..
My attempt to translate:Wenngleich Agryropoulos sich streng an Aristoteles orientiert, so ist er doch überzeugt, daß er den krönenden Abschluß einer einheitlichen vor-aristotelischen Philosophiegeschichte darstelle -- eine unverkennbare Parallele zu Ficinos und Filelfos Begründung der Größ Platons! Die Einheit der Pgilosophie wird by Argyropoulos nicht statisch-harmonistisch, sondern als ein Prozeß gedacht, der sich in drei Schulen bzw. Stüfen entwickelt: der sokratischen, der platonischen, und schielßlich der aristotelischen.
Im Gegensatz zu Ficino und Filelfo schätzt Argyropoulos den Beitrag der vorsokratischen Philosophie allerdings nur sehr gering ein, wie deutlich aus der Einleitung zu einer Vorlesung hervorgeht, die er im Jahre 1460 über Aristoteles' De anima gehalten hat. Dort heißt es (in der Nachshrift Donato Acciaiuolis vom 5 November: "Es gab drei herausragende Geister. Ich übergehe Zoroster (omitto Zorfostrem [sic]) and viele andere bis hin zu Anaxagoras, die die Philosophie dunkel (obscure) und in Gesängen (in carminibus) überliefert haben. Es waren also drei, nämlich Sokrates, Platon und Aristotles. Die vorsokratischen Philosophen nennt er in der selben vorlesungsreihe (wie schon Filelfo) prisci philosophi. Bereits in seiner Vorlsesung über die aristotelische Physik aus dem Jahre 1458 hatte Argyropoulos hervorgehoben, die Wissenschaften seien zu Beginn (in ill principio) noch in einem rohen Zustand (crude) gewesen.
Er tritt somit eine erstaunliche Übereinstimmung mit Ficino (und teilweise mit Filelfo) zu Tage: Auch bei Johannes Argyropoulos gerät Zoroaster als erster der "Alten Philosophen" in den Blick, als deren Charakteristikum Argyropoulos (wie Ficino) herausstreicht, daß sie ihre Philosophie in Gesängen vortrugen. Was bei Ficino aber entscheidenden Rezeptionsspielraum bzw. intepretatorische Freiheit erlaubt und sich sogar ausgezeichnet mit seiner Theorie der religiösen Bedeutung der Musik verbindet,
Entsprechend der Unvereinbarkeit ihrer beiden philosophischen Projekte herrscht ein eigentümliches Schweigen zwischen Argyropoulos und Ficino. Ficino erwähnt den Aristoteliker immerhin einmal, wenn auch nur als Aristotles-Übersetzer, Argyropoulos hingegen nennt Ficino (in den bislang veröffentlichten Texten 299) nie. Dieser Graben scheint jedoch für die Studenten der beiden Gelehrten nicht bestanden zu haben, die wahrscheinlich sowohl Argyropoulos als auch Ficino hörten. Daher ist anzunehmen, daß ihr Zoroaster-Bild dementsprechend ambivalent war.
[Footnote] 299. In Argyropoulos' (noch nicht editiertem) Nachlaß finden sich noch ca. 1500 Manuskriptseiten an Vorlesungsnachschriften, die vor 1462 entstanden sind, vgl. Field, "John Argyropoulos and the 'Secret Teachings' of Plato" 304. Es ist daher nicht auszuschließen, daß Argyropoulos' Zoroaster-Rezeption vielschichtiger ist als oben auf Grund der bislang veröffentlichten Texte skizziert.
You will notice that Stausberg groups Ficino and Filelfo together most of the time, contrasting them to Argyropoulos. We should not conclude that since we have yet another Greek holding to Zoroaster as the originator of the Platonic philosophy, that it was a common view in Greece. Argyropoulos, too, had studied with Plethon, as I documented earlier from Woodhouse--even though he did not agree with him on the primacy of Plato over Aristotle. Scholarios studied with Plethon, too (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemistus_Pletho), and may have had similar views to Argyropoulos. As Ficino's teacher, Argyopoulos might have had arguments and/or documents for his position on Zoroaster that Ficino might absorb.Although Argyropoulos orientates himself strictly by Aristotle, nevertheless, he is convinced that he represents the crowning conclusion of a unity of pre-Aristotelian history of philosophy - an unmistakable parallel to Ficino's and Filelfo's foundation for the great Plato! By the unity of philosophy Argyropoulos means not static-harmonist, but a process that develops in three schools or steps: the Socratic, the Platonic and finally the Aristotelian.
In contrast to Ficino and Filelfo, Argyropoulos estimates the contribution of the presocratic philosophy, however, only very slightly, as comes out clearly from the introduction to a lecture which he presented in 1460 about Aristotle’s De Anima. There it is said (in the letter to Donato Acciaiuolis from the 5th of November): "There were three outstanding spirits. I pass over Zoroaster (omitto Zorfostrem [sic]) and many others as far as Anaxagoras, who delivered philosophy darkly (obscure) and in singings (in carminibus). These three were in fact Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. In the same lecture course he names the presocratic philosophers (like Filelfo already) prisci philosophi. Already in his lecture about Aristotelian physics from the year 1458, Argyropoulos had emphasized, the sciences at the beginning (in ill principio) were still in a brute condition (crude).
He steps therefore in astonishing agreement with Ficino (and partly with Filelfo), it is clear: Also with John Argyropoulos, Zoroaster is put as the first of the "old philosophers " in the view when of their characteristics Argyropoulos stresses (like Ficino) that they reported their philosophy in hymns. That allows, however, crucial room for reception-play or interpretive freedom with Ficino and combines even very well with his theory of the religious importance of the music, which is, for the Parapatetic Argyropoulos, who looks for a finished system of science, connected with a reverse evaluation: Zoroaster’s philosophy or science is considered by him as "dark" and "brute".
According to the incompatibility of both their philosophic projects, a strange silence rules between Argyropoulos and Ficino. Ficino mentions the Aristotelian only once; likewise, even only as an Aristotle translator, Argyropoulos, however (in the so far published texts 299), never names Ficino. However, this rift does not seem to have existed for the students of both scholars, who likely heard Argyropoulos as well as Ficino. Therefore, it is to be supposed that their Zoroaster picture was accordingly ambivalent.
299. In Argyropoulos' unpublished papers (still unedited) are found still approx. 1500 manuscript pages in lecture notes which appeared before 1462, cf Field, " John Argyropoulos and the 'Secret Teachings' of Plato" 304. Therefore it is not to be excluded that Argyropoulos' Zoroaster reception is more multilayered than apparent on the basis of that outlined in the so far published texts.
We should not conclude that since we have yet another Greek holding to Zoroaster as the originator of the Platonic philosophy, that it was a common view in Greece.
Looking at Kroll's index and text (Greek, of In Rem), I notice that the Chaldean Oracles aren't even called Chaldean. They are called "logoi" or more frequently "theoparadotos pestagogia"--I may not have the transliteration right, I'll post scans when I have a chance. In the text, the quoted text is on separate lines, at least in the one case I looked at; I don't know if that is Kroll or in the original ms.
And Kwaw, I forgot that you had posted the Greek of Proclus. I could have saved myself some work!
...
we have the chain 'Plato - Pythagoras - Aglaophemus - Orpheus' from Proclus;
and the chain 'Plato - Pythagoras - Zoroaster' is in Apuleius (Florida, Apologia & Plato and his Doctrines) ...
SOUTH
Euclid - Vittorino da Feltre - Solon - Bartolo
Pope Pius - Bessarion - Albertus Magnus - Pope Sixtus
EAST
Cicero - Seneca - Homer - Virgil
Moses - Solomon - Thomas of Aquin - Duns Scotus
NORTH
Plato - Aristotle - Ptolemy - Boethius
Pope Gregory - St. Jerome - St. Ambrosius - St Augustinus
WEST
Hippocrates - Pietro Abano
Dante - Petrarca
Zoroastes der weise. was (als ysidorus spricht) ein koenig Baractrianorum den Ninus der koenig in dem kriege ersluge vnd die bueecher verprennen hieß. von dem schreibet Solinus also. wiewol die erst stymm der die geporn werden ein waynen ist. vnd die sinn der frewd bis in den. xlij tag verzogen wird. so haben wir doch einen gekent Zoroastes genant der an den tag lachet daran er geporn ward. diser was der erst weise oder swartzkuenstiger vnd erforscher des gestirns. vnd hat zwaintzig mal hundert tausent vers gemacht. die selben kunst hat Democritus lang darnach erweitert. vnd Zoroastes reichßnet zu der zeit thare des vaters abraham.
Thanks for these citations. I can see from them how someone like Filelfo could have determined, in his reading of Proclus, that the "logia" were Chaldean verses, too. But surely he must have been told, for at least some of them, that they were Chaldean, by his teachers in Greece, including Plethon. The two verses you cite by "Chaldean theurgists" aren't by themselves enough to justify extending the name "Chaldean" to all the other verses that are just called "logia." It would have taken information derived from Psellus, in particular, to know which logia were Chaldean and which were something else, e.g. Orphic. Plethon, perhaps guided by his mysterious Jewish teacher, was the one who used Psellus to construct a recognizable Chaldean system.Proclus refers to Χαλδαίος Θεουργων (Chaldean Theurgists) in connection with Fragment 58 of the Oracles at In Remp II.220 11-18 relating to how the sun "was established at the site of the heart"
And in Timaeus Proclus discusses the Platonic and Chaldean order of planets:
...Proclus eventually accepts the plausibility of the new cosmology. His main argument is the authority of the Chaldean theurgists. They hold the sun is set in the middle of the seven zones "having heard from the gods themselves that the solar fire 'was established at the site of the heart'.
Yes indeed, a good Platonic analysis of the Magician, the Lover, and the Madman. I like it. And I can see how the Chaldean system, with its various complexities, developed from this. The deity representing magic becomes Hecate rather than Eros, and Eros becomes a transcendent figure, an initiation-master for the Empyrian world (see below).: Zoroaster (the first of the Theologos of the prisca) = Er (after Eros - according to the Oracles the First to 'leap from the Paternal Intellect' and the binding force of the universe and of the (tripart) soul).
Fits in somewhat by analogy with what I have posted elsewhere in the past re: the (TdM) Fool, Magician:
...according to Agrippa the Pythagoreans attributed One to Eros ~
"Why is love called a magician?" asked Ficino.
"Because" he replied, "all the power of magic consists in love."
"And what is this magician `love'? The mediating power uniting heaven and earth, gods and men."
Or as Diotima replied to Socrates question [in Plato's Symposium] he is like his Mother (Poverty) and Father (Reason / Zeus)
"And as his parentage is, so also are his fortunes. In the first place he is always poor, and anything but tender and fair, as the many imagine him; and he is rough and squalid, and has no shoes, nor a house to dwell in; on the bare earth exposed he lies under the open heaven, in-the streets, or at the doors of houses, taking his rest; and like his mother he is always in distress.
"Like his father too, whom he also partly resembles, he is always plotting against the fair and good; he is bold, enterprising, strong, a mighty hunter, always weaving some intrigue or other, keen in the pursuit of wisdom, fertile in resources; a philosopher at all times, terrible as an magician, wizard, sophist. He is by nature neither mortal nor immortal, but alive and flourishing at one moment when heis in plenty, and dead at another moment, and again alive by reason of his father's nature. But that which is always flowing in is always flowing out, and so he is never in want and never in wealth; and, further, he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge."
end quote from Symposium by Plato.
We may make an analogy I think to both the fool/madman and to the magician. 'Poverty' represents the soul as lover, always in need, wanting and seeking for the beauty and goodness of the beloved' and in relation to the fool or madman we may see him as representing the soul as a pilgrim of love.
...
"And what is he [love]?"
"He is a great spirit, and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal." "And what is his power?" asked Socrates. "He interprets," she replied, "between gods and men, conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods; he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them, and therefore in him all is bound together, and through him the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all, prophecy and incantation, find their way. For God mingles not with man; but through Love."
Very interesting, Steve. I presume that Truth is the woman on the left, with the laurel wreath on her head, and Faith the one on the right, putting her hand on the Lover's heart. It is as in Alciati's emblem 9, the "image of faithfulness," (http://www.mun.ca/alciato/e009.html)Too which we may note too that there are three virtues in the oracles that bring one back to god - Truth, Faith and Love - to which could we draw analogies with the triad of the TdM Lover card?
I think we have here an explanation for the sunburst that frames Cupid in the Marseille Love card: he is the Chaldean Eros coming forth from the transmundane Sun.Beneath the Iynges and Connectors are located the Teletarchs (teletarchai, lit. "masters of initiation"; see fr. 85 and 86), divine entities which are assimilated to the cosmagoi as rulers of the three worlds of Chaldean cosmology...
The Teletarchs are also associated with the Chaldean virtues of Faith (pistis), Truth (aletheia), and Love (eros; see fr. 46), which function as faculties of the three rulers; Faith is connected with the Material Teletarch; Truth with the Ethereal Teletarch; Love with the Empyrean Teletarch. (A fourth virtue, "fire-bearing Hope"--Elpis purnoxos--is also mentioned; see fr. 47.) As such, these virtues are not to be understood as spiritual qualities (as is the case with the Pauline triad of Faith, Hope, Charity), but as cosmic entities involved in the very creation and maintenance of the Universe: "For all things," says the oracle, "are governed and exist in these three (virtues)" (fr. 48)...
In addition, Faith, Truth, and Love are also understood in a theurgic sense, as it is through these three virtues that the theurgist is said to unite with God (see fr. 48 and notes)....
This last emphasis again connects these three virtues with the Teletarchs, as these three rulers are responsible for both purifying the ascending soul of material influences as well as guiding its journey upward. (As noted supra, it was through the medium of the Teletarchs that the rays of the sun--or "Material Connectors"--were conducted downward. It was on these rays, then, that the soul ascended, guided by the Teletarchs.) Further, all three Teletarchs have additional solar connections: the Empyrean Teletarch is associated with Aion (the tansmundane sun) as the intelliglble source of light, the Ethereal Teletarch is associated with Helios (the mundane sun) as the direct source of the earth's light; the Material Teletarch is associated with the moon and, as such, rules the sublunar zone traversed by the rays of the visible sun.
It would seem that the Ethereal realm does not include all the planets, as Majercik also says, in the previous quote, "the material Teletarch is associated with the moon." And later (p. 17):The Chaldean concept of the cosmos envisions a triad of concentric circles which encompasses both the intelligible and sensible orders: the Empyrean World is properly that of the intelligible; the Ethereal, that of the fixed stars and planets; the material comprises the sublunar realm including Earth. However, such a distinction is not explicitly made in the extant fragments (but cf. fr. 76 and see frr. 39, 61, 62, 67) but is based on information from the later Neoplatonists.
It seems to me that these three worlds might be reflected in the PMB 2nd artist's Star, Moon, and Sun cards. Stars are part of the the Ethereal world, and as such represent Truth--in Christian terms, Truth as embodied in Christ, the "bright and morning star" of the 2nd coming, heralded by the Star of Bethlehem. Thus the card shows a star in its upper corner, to which a woman prays. It is similar to the Cary-Yale Hope card. The woman embodies Hope, while the star is Truth....each of the three worlds can be viewed as a 'fiery' circle dominated, respectively, by the transmundane sun, mundane sun, and moon, each of which, in turn, is equated with one of the three Teletarchs.
It has been my contention for a while (see http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=365&p=4821&hilit=elisabetta+sforza#p4821) that Elisabetta Sforza is the lady depicted on the PMB 2nd artist's Temperance, Star, and Moon cards, as shown by comparison with a c. 1480 Lombard portrayal in an altarpiece of a similar-looking lady in company with ladies looking like Bona of Savoy and Ippolita Sforza; the three had been together once, at Bona's 1468 marriage. As related to distinguished Greeks, her husband Guglielmo might have appreciated references to the Oracles in a tarot deck modified in her honor. That the postulated programmer's son had visited him a little before the time the marriage was contracted is another fact in support of my idea.Interestingly Gian Maria goes after the scandal for a year or something like that to "Guglielmo Paleologo marchese di Monferrato"...
Guglielmo (then 44 years old) needed urgently a heir and married January 1465 (wife 15 years old), so "recently", before Gian Mario Filelfo arrived there. The wife died 1467, and Guglielmo married Elisabetta Sforza (13 years old) in July 1469.
MikeH, you showed interest in that earlier.
Elisabetta died 1473. Guglielmo, still without male heir, married again 1474 and died 1484, his wife died one year later. Still without heir, a brother took Montferrat.
The later Montferrat house descended from the Byzantine emperors with Theodore I of Montferrat. The earlier Montferrat house was active in crusades and had titles like Queen of Jerusalem, King of Jerusalem etc.
Sofia of Montferrat...
Sofia, Emps of Constantinople, *Casale 1396/99, +Turin 10.12.1437; 1m: 1406 (anulled 1411) Filippo Maria Visconti, Ct of Pavia (*Milan 23.9.1392, +Milan 13.8.1447); 2m: 19.1.1421 (div 1426) Ióannés VIII Palaiologos, Emperor of Byzantium (*16.12.1392, +31.10.1448)
..., once an Empress of Constantinople (wife of John VIII, the emperor at the council) and
then divorced, was an aunt to Guglielmo.
It has been my contention for a while (see http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=365&p=4821&hilit=elisabetta+sforza#p4821) that Elisabetta Sforza is the lady depicted on the PMB 2nd artist's Temperance, Star, and Moon cards, as shown by comparison with a c. 1480 Lombard portrayal in an altarpiece of a similar-looking lady in company with ladies looking like Bona of Savoy and Ippolita Sforza; the three had been together once, at Bona's 1468 marriage. As related to distinguished Greeks, her husband Guglielmo might have appreciated references to the Oracles in a tarot deck modified in her honor. That the postulated programmer's son had visited him a little before the time the marriage was contracted is another fact in support of my idea.