#anne of brittany

[skeleton-richard]

@ardenrosegarden LOOK AT THIS IM SCREAMING

[walkswithfae]

reading The Unicorn Hunters like:

Steal Anne's look

[skeleton-richard]

I've been pondering on it and I also think Anne would also have catastrophic bark and bite, but I couldn't immediately think of an assignment for Leonardo da Vinci...where would you place him on the chart? 👀

Oh she TOTALLY has both catastrophic bark and bite!

Hmmmmm….. Leonardo is a little more difficult. He’s a pacifist and is described as super kind to everyone, so he wouldn’t be that aggressive, but he also did have those war machine plans (but those were all theoretical and he seems to have been of the opinion they’d help end wars faster).

He also did needle Michelangelo a bit, his insistence that they needed to cover up David’s privates was purely him trolling Michelangelo.

I’m gonna say his bark is worse than his bite. Intermediate bark, weak bite.

[margaritiques]

A procession has been made there at St. Denis for the King's [Louis XII] departure, who goes against the English with better heart than legs, as he is still suffering from gout. The Queen [Anne, Duchess of Brittany] was against his going. He will have 44,000 foot, counting the 10,000 whom the Duke of Gueldres [Charles II] will bring, and 2,800 men of arms. The Queen has said "The King will never sever himself from the Signory; but I see that unless he aggrandises himself in Italy he will never be in peace, and therefore both you and we must grow in Italy."

On Louis XII and Anne of Brittany and the war between France and England.

From a summary of letters received by the Signory of Venice from their ambassador in France, 22nd August 1513.

[art-mirrors-art]

Subjectively, I feel that I post various Prudences much too often here; in reality, over all the years I’ve been running this stream, I’ve made just a bit more than 60 posts about this virtue and her mirrors.

It may look like a lot, but given that I have more than 400 artworks with all sorts of Prudences in my archive, it’s still only a very small fraction. I think I could easily start a year-long prudential marathon, posting one Prudence every day - and still not show the whole collection. Shall I? Would anyone notice if I did?

This is one of the most beautiful of them all, I believe. The marble statue stands in Nantes, in its magnificent Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul. As you see, the statue is shown only partly - this is because it’s currently difficult to photograph it in full because of the fence that surrounds the tomb:

I believe the fence was added around 2007, during the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the tomb. In this 19th-century drawing, we can see that the monument was once directly accessible to visitors:

The tomb belongs to Francis II, Duke of Brittany - effectively the last ruler of an independent Brittany. After his defeat in the so-called Mad War (la Guerre folle) by Louis XI, Brittany became an integral part of France.

His only daughter, Anne, Duchess of Brittany, later became Queen of France (in fact, twice - and queen consort three times in total, but that’s a long and complicated story; Wikipedia article or your favorite AI can help you better than I can here).

It was Anne who commissioned this tomb, completed in 1507 by the famous French sculptor Michel Colombe. To make it, he used marble blocks brought all the way from Carrara, Italy (!)

The tomb is made in form of the so called effigy: the sculptures of Francis II and his (second) wife lie as if dead on a black slab. They are surrounded by four cardinal virtues - Fortitude, Justice, Temperance, and Prudence, each with their symbols.

It is widely believed that Prudence was made after Anne of Brittany herself; her marble 'clothes' and 'lacing' are just stunning:

One very remarkable - and quite macabre - detail is the head of an old man on the back of Prudence’s head; totally Quirinus Quirrell-ian:

The canonical third attribute of medieval Prudence (in addition to the mirror and the second head) would be a snake; instead here she holds a compass:

She actually seems to trample the snake - and it looks more like a small dragon:

This particular Prudence turned out to be quite pivotal for the AMA project, and for me personally. It was after encountering her that I started digging into this whole business of virtues, down to the very turtles, so to speak. Eventually I managed to connect all these excavations to my professional field - which technically speaking has nothing to do with the past, and has everything to do with futures. Prudence, in that sense, offers a perfect bridge.

PS: I can’t promise a story this long every day, but a daily picture of Prudence still seems doable

[everymansgirl]

Anne of Brittany 🥰🫶

i just love the pie face to king charles (i think that's him at least??)

anyway she slays

[nouketou]

Anne of Brittany

« Here lies the heart of the Duchess of Brittany and queen of France. »

The case is based on the real one, exposed in Nantes, which used to conserve her heart.

[valkyries-things]

ANNE OF BRITTANY // QUEEN OF FRANCE

“She was reigning Duchess of Brittany from 1488 until her death, and Queen of France from 1491 to 1498 and from 1499 to her death. She was the only woman to have been queen consort of France twice. During the Italian Wars, Anne also became Queen of Naples, from 1501 to 1504, and Duchess of Milan, in 1499–1500 and from 1500 to 1512. She was the richest woman in Europe in her time, helped by her father (having no male heirs) arranging for her to inherit his titles and lands. She gave birth to her first son at the age of 15.”