Lords and holy horsemen

The lecture begins with an account of Petrarch's stay in Milan (1353-1361), when he called himself "Ambrose's guest" while living under the protection of Giovanni Visconti, archbishop and lord of Milan: "However, the most beautiful sight of all, I might say, is a tomb [...] it lacks only the voice for us to see Ambrose alive." (August 23, 1353, Fam., XVI, 11). What was the political betrayal of the intellectual adventure of humanism? Using Boccaccio's reproaches as a starting point, we approach the lordly experience as a conflict of values, leading to a more general question: how can we explain the muted attraction to insidious forms of personalization of power? The lecture then resumes its narrative thread, from the moment Ottone Visconti was proclaimed lord of the city in 1277, taking in several crossroads of memoria : the memory of Galdino della Salla as a memorial bridge to Ambrose; the monumental politics of Azzone Visconti dominus (1328-1338) or lordship as the pursuit of the commune by other means; the return of the specter of Ambrose visibiliter with the battle of Parabiago (February 21, 1338). It concludes with an analysis of Azzone Visconti's mausoleum at San Gottardo in Corte (1342-1346): Ambrose appears as a victorious general, and the procession of subjugated cities to their patron saints is depicted. Through the youthful aggressiveness of a martial Ambrose, we see the transition from a cavalryman's saint to a cavalryman's saint.

Contents

• Vicinus erit Ambrosius : Petrarch's stay in Milan (1353-1361)
• Guest of Ambrosius or Giovanni Visconti, archbishop and lord of Milan?
• Two authors
• Letter to Francesco Nelli, August 23, 1353(Fam., XVI, 11): "However, the most beautiful sight of all, I might say, is a tomb [...] it lacks only the voice for us to see Ambrose alive"
• Looking up at what's staring back at us: the aura
• Ambroise is alive, but living in the past tense
• What makes Ambroise alive is the rejuvenation of his memory by political struggle
• Getting closer to a face, further from the landscape: a new way of looking at the world
• What political betrayal does the intellectual adventure of humanism cost? Boccaccio's reproaches
• The new historiography of theinsignificance of communal institutions: de-dramatizing without depoliticizing
• The lordly experience and the conflict of values
• A question for today: the muted attraction to insidious forms of personalizing power
• Back to the narrative thread: 1277, Ottone Visconti proclaimed lord of the city
• The memory of Galdino della Salla: a memorial bridge to Ambrose
• Triumph of the seigniorial capture of memory? The apse window of Milan's Duomo
• The palimpsest of a plenary missal from the second half of the 15th^century (Milan, Biblioteca del Capitolo Metropolitano, Cod. II. D. 2. 32): one saint(Gottardo) erases another(Galdino)
• Bonvesin della Riva, De Magnalibus mediolani, 1288: the shape of a city, a bulwark against tyranny
• Praise for the built city and the dispersal of Ambrosian references
• Azzone Visconti dominus (1328-1338), or seigniory as the pursuit of the commune by other means
• Monumental politics: reassigning traces of the past and symbolic coups de force after Galvano Fiamma's De rebus gestis ab Azone
• The return of the spectre: Ambrose visibiliter and the battle of Parabiago (February 21, 1338)
• Giovanni Visconti, the Commune of Milan and Sant'Ambrogio della Vittoria : a disputed place of remembrance
• The militarization of Ambrosian remembrance, "like an athlete full of vigor, returning blow for blow"(De Iacob et vita beata, I, 8, 13)
• Azzone Visconti's mausoleum at San Gottardo in Corte (1342-1346): Giovanni Visconti's commission and the choice of Tuscan sculptor Giovanni da Balduccio
• The recumbent, the promise of immortality, and "the eulogistic narrative that pervades funerary sculpture" (Panofsky)
• Triumphs and trophies: Ambrose as victorious general, the procession of subjugated cities and their patron saints
• Commune and seigneury, Popolo and Militia : who are the two figures flanking him?
• From saint of horsemen to saintly horseman: youth and aggression in a martial Ambrose
• Fearful of the invisible, the soul "haunts monuments and tombs, where one sometimes sees shadowy spectres of souls"(Phaedo, 81c)
• What is a spectral story? Medieval ghost theory
• But what is a specter made of? "Of signs, or, more precisely, signatures, i.e. those signs, numbers or monograms that time marks on things. A spectre always carries with it a date, that is to say, it is an intimately historical being" (Giorgio Agamben, "De l'utilité et de l'inconvénient de vivre parmi les spectres", in Nudités)