Large Triumphal Carriage

The chariot (also honor cart or chariot, lat currus triumphalis ) is a predominantly medieval motif with the historical background of Greek and Roman Quadriga, a steered from the open dispute, racing or triumphal car of four-horse chariot.

The motif in ancient times

For this car was already in pre-Christian antiquity, a chariot of various gods, starting with the sun god Helios, whose chariot is therefore also called sun chariot. In late antiquity this motif is found for example in the Roman province of Africa (Tunisia ) on a mosaic - with Dionysus as the driver. On a sarcophagus from the 2nd century BC, the triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne is shown. Also for almost all Roman gods there is a representation, in particular by Apollo, Cupid, Jupiter and Minerva.

The design of the vehicle was eventually applied to the triumphant emperor, among other things, at Tiberius on the " cup of Boscoreale " from the first half of the 1st century and at Titus to the Arch of Titus in Rome.

Triumphal Chariot of Emperor Tiberius, 1st half of the 1st century AD

Chariot on the Arch of Titus in Rome

Triumph of Bacchus, 3rd century AD

The subject in the Middle Ages

In the earthly paradise on the summit of Mount purification Dante meets the souls who have completed their atonement and waiting to enter Paradise. He sees a triumph whose center is one of a griffin -drawn carro trionfale which symbolizes the Church. During this procession, he meets Beatrice, his great love of the Vita Nuova. The cart of the church is transformed by a variety of external influences in a hideous monster, on which the whore of Babylon takes place.

The Triumph descriptions of Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) in his poetry & trionfi were mainly antikisierend painted as a chariot and razor, among other things, by Philip Galle ( † 1612 ) to Inventions by Maarten van Heemskerck († 1574 ) and Georg Pencz († 1550 ), despite the fact that Petrarch himself the car in his writing trionfi mentioned only for love.

Triumph of Bacchus ( Heemskerck ) to 1536/1537

The motif in Renaissance and Baroque

This ambivalent mythological allegory was maintained over the middle age.

Among other things, Francesco del Cossa and Tura Cosmè painted around 1469/1470 in salone dei mesi at Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara the planetary gods as the driver of Triumph cars. Later Crispin de Passe stabbed the Elder ( † 1637 ), in turn, the planet as the driver of Triumph weighing.

Triumph of Apollo by Francesco del Cossa

Triumph of Mercury, probably by Cosmè Tura

Albrecht Dürer ( † 1528) painted several Triumph vehicles for Emperor Maximilian I († 1519), but recently the Great Triumphal Chariot of 1518 Dürer also knows the purely allegorical use of the subject.

Coloured version of a small chariot Emperor Maximilian I. ( Burgundy Wedding )

In a woodcut to Hutten font " Triumphus Doc. Reuchlini " ( 1519), the Pforzheim humanist Johannes Reuchlin ( 1455-1522 ) is shown on the life car. 1540 was painted on a rim of a flying leaf with Melanchthon Wittenberg poem on the " chariot of Pythagoras ."

The Flemish artist Anton Wierix stabbed mid-16th century triumph weighing the elements of earth, air, water and fire.

And Basil Valentine wrote at the beginning of the 17th century, an alchemical classic, titled " The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony ", which is metaphorically drawn from the planetary forces.

1626 Peter Paul Rubens painted his famous picture triumph of the Church over the idolatry and thereby used the motif of the triumphal chariot.