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Palatino 766 pipes, pools, cliffs, streams... (by Taccola)

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  • Palatino 766 pipes, pools, cliffs, streams... (by Taccola)
• Palatino 766 pipes, pools, cliffs, streams... (by Taccola)

• RE: Palatino 766 pipes, pools, cliffs, streams... (by Taccola)

  Koen G > 22-02-2026, 12:47 PM

  (22-02-2026, 12:40 PM)DG97EEB Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.As for Barbara, I'm less convinced by this. I think there's some coincidences, but right now my feeling is that's all they are...

  
  Just to be clear, I'm also not convinced of any direct involvement of her as a person. But the fact remains that we're probably looking at the higher echelons of society.

• RE: Palatino 766 pipes, pools, cliffs, streams... (by Taccola)

  MarcoP > 22-02-2026, 02:29 PM

  (22-02-2026, 10:04 AM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The question is what happened to the original notebook (Palatino 766)? I tried to inquire its provenience from BNCF but got no reply. I understand they are busy. But please, if someone, preferably Italian (hint-Marco) could look into this, I am sure it would help us greatly. We must know how and when Palatino 766 ended up in the Florence Library and where it was before!!

  
  This is what Prager and Scaglia say about the subject You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
  
  

  ”Prager and Scaglia” Wrote:There is no evidence in Palat.766 that Sigismund, to whom it is dedicated, received this particular manuscript, or accepted it, or made it part of any library of his. However, there is indirect evidence that Mariano did not keep it. While the condition of Lat. 197 suggests that a book that stayed with Taccola soon changed its aspect, Palat.766 contains no significant additions of notes or insertion of sketches. There are minor supplements relating to woodwork near the end of Palat.766, apparently unrelated to his plan for the treatise. He made these drawings probably during a relatively short time that he retained the codex. Substantially nothing is added by persons other than Taccola. Since several of the Quattrocento copies of Palat.766 are of Sienese origin, we are inclined to think that the codex remained in Siena for some decades. In modern times, Palat.766 and the copybook, Palat. 767, appear together in Florence. This copybook, to be described later, belonged to the Strozzi family in the seventeenth century, and the autograph may also have belonged to this family of humanists. The Strozzi were book collectors even before Taccola's time. We do not know exactly when or how these two manuscripts came to the Biblioteca Nazionale, and the catalogs do not specify.

  
  Palat.767 is discussed at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Prager and Scaglia date it to 1467-75.

• RE: Palatino 766 pipes, pools, cliffs, streams... (by Taccola)

  Bernd > 22-02-2026, 04:48 PM

  Thanks Marco!
  I just hoped there had been any progress regarding the proveniance in the 50 years since the Prager and Scaglia publication.
  I read it - but obviously not well enough, I missed the part about Palatino 766 presumably staying in Siena for decades. This would rule it out as the gift to Sigismund - which would have been very odd. Taccola was famous but still such notebook would have been an inapproproate gift for a freshly coronated emperor. He would have had the time and money to make a more luxurious copy. Btw, the later You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. copy has lost nearly all VM-related imagery. No star-sun, no references to Sigismund either.
  
  So that leaves 2 paths.
  One with the alleged copy that was given to Sigismund and may have ended up with Barbara of Cili
  One with the original that stayed in Siena
  
  In any case, the point that this work was not widely distributed still stands. How and where did the VM author gain access to it?

• RE: Palatino 766 pipes, pools, cliffs, streams... (by Taccola)

  Bernd > 23-02-2026, 08:39 PM

  (23-02-2026, 03:29 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Well, for starters, I don't think a hypothetical copy of book 3+4 for the emperor would have necessarily gone to Barbara. But since we don't even know whether such a copy existed, musing about its destination is compounding speculations.
  
  What I find more likely is that someone else got the chance to browse Taccola's autograph, or even the sketches he made in preparation. We know that he was concerned about copyright, but it's not like he was writing in some dungeon, hissing at anyone who came too close. He worked as the secretary of the "Sapientia", a charitable organization for poor scholars, which also housed the court in 1432. It was also connected to a hospital. I mean, this guy was "out there", meeting students, international visitors, renaissance figures...
  
  If only one of those had been allowed at any point to copy part of Taccola's work, that's enough to create a possible point of contact. We also don't know what happened to books 3+4 when they were finished. Unlike books 1+2, they were not added to by Taccola, so perhaps they were kept elsewhere.

  
  Yes, I agree. However, if Sigismund did not, receive a copy (and there is no evidence for it), we must assume that something went terribly wrong for Taccola. He clearly put a lot of work into book 3-4 and had specifically dedicated it to the emperor. Judging his personality and the way he let St. Dorothy speak praises about him, I guess he would have boasted about an imperial copy - and also published it later. Instead the whole project just vanishes without a trace and the sketchbook only pops up again (presumably still in Siena) decades later after his death.
  
  Here's a wacky hypothesis:
  What if Taccola's sketchbook had gone lost in 1433? Either he lost it immediately after finishing it, or it got lost at the workshop that was supposed to create the copy for Sigismund. That would explain a few things, including how the VM artist could have gained access to it. I can't imagine Taccola would have voluntarily given this sketchbook away.
  
  Yet he recieved the desired title from Sigismund in Mantua, which means he probably did send him an appropriate gift. Whether it was that manuscript copy or something else. we'll probably never know.
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