In the Oresteia of Aeschylus (c. 525-455 BCE), his "last and greatest work", (2) Greek literature develops the new kind of justice – marked by reason, juried decision and extenuating circumstances – that eventually superseded the chthonic justice of simplistic vengeance pursued by the mythical Furies (Erinyes), in some way paralleling the legendary precedent of Solon’s (c. 638-558 BCE) legal reforms (3) over Draco (c. 640-20 BCE) and his Draconian harsh legal tradition in Athens. According to Plato (Protagoras 342e-343b), Solon is upheld as one of the legendary Seven Sages of Greece.

Among many other ideas Aeschylus seems to examine in his dramatic tragic trilogy (Agamemnon, Libation Bearers and Eumenides), he might be probing what kind of laws and punishments appear to follow different types of homicide. One of the playwright’s questions may also be whether his Greek society rightly prioritized types of homicide: could one homicide trump another in terms of severity? How could one ultimately find justice in punishing violent crime and where will it all end? Are there ever extenuating circumstances in a violent crime? This is one of the first literary inklings of the rational basis of modern law, however tenuous it may appear to us.

Fig. 2. W.-A. Bouguereau. The Remorse of Orestes, 1862. 227 x 278 cm. Chrysler Collection, Norfolk, Virginia

There is at least one triangulation of familial relationships in the Oresteia between father, mother and son, (also implied between father, daughter, mother), as well as another between husband, wife and offspring. This kinship is reduced here in some way to the meme of the nuclear family as the core of society in the polis. Aeschylus also shows that unchecked violence gives birth to further violence, murder begets murder.

First, although the sacrifice of Iphigenia is described in the tragedy (Agamemnon 200-45, 1503-04, 1525-26) - the tragedy is named after him, although ironically it could as easily have been named Clytemnestra since she is by far the more visible protagonist - Agamemnon has allowed their daughter Iphigenia to be sacrificed for his pride (Agamemnon 223-24). This is filicide, slaying of a child by the parent.

Second, following and stemming from the death of Iphigenia, in the first play Agamemnon is then "justifiably" murdered (Agamemnon 1340-45) by his angry wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. This is uxoricide, slaying of a spouse.

Third, their son Orestes - conspiring with his sister Electra - kills his mother Clytemnestra, matricide in Greek society (Libation Bearers 990-95 ff.) because she slew his father. But Aeschylus may suggest this murder may have been seen by some Greeks as mitigated by Apollo's complicity in ordering it (Eumenides 83-84, 594).

Although we do not really see them earlier through the other murders as Aeschylus portrays them, the Erinyes or Furies immediately spring up from the earth after Orestes to hunt him down (Libation Bearers 1048-50). One of them is Tisiphone, specifically the “Avenger of Homicide”, her name literally meaning that very task, like a bloodhound as she tracks the smell of blood (Eumenides 245-47). In the Oresteia, they are Gorgon-like and described as such (Eumenides 47-49).

This is roughly where the Eumenides begins. Even if Apollo has ordered Orestes to punish his mother with death (Eumenides 83-84, 594) – because Clytemnestra has putatively contaminated the family even further in her allotted social role by killing her husband (Agamemnon 1400-01, 1407-14, 1426-30)- nonetheless Orestes is mercilessly hunted by the Furies and flees to Delphi for refuge and purification. Here Apollo informs him the Furies are at least as great as he is; he is a later Olympian, implying they are earlier, more powerful Titans, so he cannot merely call them off (Eumenides 70-73). Instead Apollo tells Orestes to go to Athens for sanctuary. Orestes then obeys Apollo, fleeing to Athens for refuge, with the Furies hot on his trail, where he implores Athena, goddess of wisdom, to intercede on his behalf.

Why do the Furies not visibly pursue Agamemnon or Clytemnestra in the tragic trilogy? Although Cassandra sees their invisible force around the palace in more than mere prolepsis, because her prophecies are cursed in never being believed, Clytemnestra cannot see this warning. Yet why do the Furies appear fully embodied to actively pursue only Orestes? Is it partly possible that Clytemnestra and Orestes are linked by blood, the domain of the Furies, through her womb and her blood in birth, unlike the others? Or is there something far more primal in their vengeance? In their own words put in their collective mouth by Aeschylus, whether he truly agrees or not, Clytemnestra was "not of the same blood as Agamemnon" (therefore less culpable?) but Orestes slew his mother "that nearest bond, a mother's blood" (Eumenides 605-08). This relationship may also render Clytemnestra less culpable for killing Agamemnon in their eyes, not the least because Iphigenia was also thus closer to her mother than her father by the same blood argument. Orestes asks if he is blood kin to his mother, and the Furies seem to answer in the affirmative. How much of this reflects a contemporary or earlier Greek view is difficult to establish, but it certainly has a bearing on the tragic trilogy, one of whose dominant themes is "blood guilt". One can find a likely paronomasic word play in Agamemnon between guilt or "error" (in Aeschylus' Greek ‘αμαρτων hamarton) and "blood" (Greek ‘αιματος haimatos) only one line apart in Agamemnon 214-15. Whether or not the patriarchalisms of the text are justifiable or what the whole story meant in its own time is a whole separate problem, but one amply discussed in Komar, especially in terms of patriarchal vs. matriarchal tensions in the trilogy and Greek society at large seen through the lens of this and related Classical literature. (4)

Finally in the remainder of the Eumenides, taking place at the newly initiated Areopagus ("Mars Hill") court at Athens, Orestes’ trial by a jury of twelve men ensues against the angry demands of the Furies. Apollo comes in the precedent role as advocate, witnessing he has purged his suppliant Orestes of blood (Eumenides 577-79). (5) A hung jury results in equal votes for and against Orestes. Athena herself casts the deciding vote in favor of Orestes (Eumenides 734-44). From this point forward, hung juries should be acquittals to protect the potentially innocent if insufficient compelling evidence is shown. Thereafter after a reasoned speech by the gods, especially Athena, the Erinyes-Furies will be euphemistically known as the “Kindly Ones” (Εὐμενίδες) "retired", but only if they agree, persuaded by her wisdom, to a cave shrine made to them under the Acropolis, which finally appeases them (Eumenides 1043-45).

In the second work of art above, Figure 2, by W.-A. Bouguereau (circa 1862), The Remorse of Orestes, Orestes flees from the murder of his mother Clytemnestra (his knife is seen in her breast). He is pursued by the foul and ugly Furies, always angry, and whose unkempt hair is writhing with snakes because they represent chthonicity, “earth power” (from chthonos, χθονος) derived in or under the earth where snakes reside. Orestes covers his ears from their terrifying screams that will make anyone mad whom they pursue, their potent immediate effect seen in his eyes. They will range the earth after their prey and generally carry burning torches or snakes, just as the artist Rubens has also earlier depicted the Fury Tisiphone in his Tarquin and Lucretia of 1610. (6) Bouguereau has added another iconographic detail for the Furies: their breasts are often suggested as having purplish dark nipples, heavy and taut as if in passion, because the smell of human blood gives them joy (Eumenides 253). It is a night scene because they are the "Children of Night" (Eumenides 322, 416).

In the first work of art above, Figure 1, attributed to the Python Painter (circa 345 BCE), a Paestan red-figure late Classical vase, the scene depicts two conflated venues of Oresteia, Delphi and Athens, although mostly Delphi. The fugitive Orestes - holding the murder weapon in his right hand - crouches for sanctuary at the omphalos or navel stone of Apollo at Delphi, which he bloodies with the gore of homicide (Eumenides 43-44). At his left (our right) is Apollo himself holding a laurel branch. To the right of Orestes (our left) is Athena, to whom he looks and will soon flee in the next development of narrative at Athens. Above and between Orestes and Athena is the tripod of Apollo at Delphi. Above and behind Athena, who stands with one foot on her boundary stone of Athens, where Orestes will be safe at least until judgment, is most likely the ghost or shade of his dead mother Clytemnestra (top left), egging on the Furies (Eumenides 114-16). Above the tripod of Apollo is one Fury, with another Fury next to Apollo, at whom the god gazes. Some suggest instead this winged figure on the far lower right is instead a Nike, winged goddess of victory. If it is truly a snake above her head, however, arguable to some, it should be a Fury. It is clear that the duet of framing gods protect Orestes from the Furies, who are always iconographically depicted with snakes to represent their chthonicity in death-avenging associations. The Delphic moment is depicted near the opening of the Eumenides,(80-175 & ff) a climactic episode where it is still indeterminate which justice will prevail, the old avenging justice of the Furies or the new rational justice of Apollo, god of reason, and Athena, goddess of wisdom. The proleptic Athens moment presupposes the impending trial where Orestes will be acquitted on a "hung jury" vote, which rule Athena imposes and then reinforces by casting the final vote herself for Orestes, a triumph of new law over old.

Notes:

(1) British Museum GR 1917.12-10.1, Python Painter, Paestan Red-Figure (Italian) circa 345 BCE.

(2) H. J. Rose. A Handbook of Greek Literature. Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy Carducci (originally Methuen, 1950), 1996, 154.

(3) R. J. Hopper. The Early Greeks. New York: Harper and Row, 1977, 190

(4) Kathleen Komar. Reclaiming Klytemnestra: Revenge or Reconciliation. University of Illinois Press, 2003, esp. 139& ff.

(5) See Rush Rehm. Greek Tragic Theater. New York, London: Routledge, 1994, 97-104

(6) Elizabeth McGrath. Rubens' Subjects From History II. Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, Part XIII (1), vol. II London: Harvey Miller, 1997, 226-27; Patrick Hunt. Roman Use of the Rape of Lucretia and Artists’ Mythic Reuse: Where Britten’s Opera Departs and Returns. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Opera Theater, 2008.

Photo Credits: Figure 1, courtesy of British Museum, London; Fig. 2 public domain, both in Wikimedia.

Copyright © 2009 Dr. Patrick Hunt
Stanford University

http://www.patrickhunt.net

John William Waterhouse (1849-1917) was an influential and highly acclaimed British painter of historic and antiquarian subjects. He was especially attracted to Classical mythology, painting various scenes from Homer, including his Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses, 1891, and scenes from the Argonauts (Hylas and the Nymphs, 1896), among others.

The above painting, Ulysses and the Sirens, 1891, is derived from a Greek vase in the British Museum (below), (1) which it both faithfully echoes while radically changing the flatter line of sight of the vase into a deeper perspective where viewers can see into the boat and with Odysseus (Ulysses is his Roman name) tied to the ship's mast in the opposite direction than in the vase scene. The literary narrative of which this is an ekphrasis - a visual rendition of a literary text, like its earlier Greek precedent - is taken from Homer's Odyssey 12.165-217 where Odysseus risks his own and his crew's lives by sailing so close to the Sirens (Seirenes, Σειρηνες). Earlier, the sorceress Circe has told Odysseus exactly how to survive if she cannot talk him out of his adventure, since he is adamant to hear the Sirens and live (12.37-58). He repeats her instructions to his men:

"You must bind me with tight-chafing ropes
so I cannot move a muscle, bound to the spot,
erect at the mast block, lashed by ropes to the mast.
And if I plead, commanding you to set me free,
then lash me faster, rope on pressing rope." (2)

Perhaps the most haunting modern literary retelling of a siren's power is Lampedusa's magical story, Il Professore e la Sirena, the compelling tale of the Siren named Lighea (Ligeia in Greek) who loves a scholar, so unforgettably divine that he finally jumps ship as an old man, a very different twist than imagined here. (3) Even her ancient name recalls a Greek word λιγεια for "clear, shrill sound". Waterhouse depicts a mostly realistic Greek ship with its protective apotropaic pair of eyes guarding the boat stern and the one on the side of the bow (bottom right), paralleling the eye on the ship's side in the original Greek vase painting. Where the Greek vase places Odysseus slightly left of center in the boat image, Waterhouse has placed Odysseus slightly off center to the right. Waterhouse has also made interesting allusions to Greek archaeological artifacts on his ship. In one interesting example, Waterhouse uses Archaic period Greek temple lion head roof rainspouts for the ship's oarholes, where they might also function protectively along with being visually powerfully decorations.

Fig. 2 Archaic temple lion-headed rainspout, Archaeological Museum, Agrigento, Sicily, stone, 6th c. BCE

Close to steep cliffs where danger lurks as Homer describes, "just offshore as far as a man's shout can carry" (Fagles), the Sirens would lure ships into rocks after maddening sailors overboard with their ecstatic songs. Only Odysseus can hear the Sirens because his men's ears are stuffed with beeswax just as Circe commanded. Odysseus strains at his ropes tied to the mast because he intends to survive the experience. This same detail is naturally found on this Greek vase (below) that inspired the painting, showing the influence of Greek literature on Greek art as vehicles of myth narrative, especially the Odyssey (4) where at least one siren swoops low around the sailors while they chatter away to each other, oblivious to the enchantments of the eerie music that would be more than they could handle if their beeswax earplugs were not there. In Waterhouse's vision sailors have added head wraps covering their ears. Also in the modern painting paralleling the Greek vase, one siren hovers directly over a sailor in midship, her face only inches from his. Odysseus proves the strength of his mind and will in that he does not go completely crazy even though his mind is taken to the very edge of sanity and perhaps temporarily beyond by the otherness of the music. The Greek vase also shows Odysseus straining at the ropes, but a detail lacking in Waterhouse's powerful image seems present in the much older vase painting: the Greek image of Odysseus shows his head thrown back, and not looking at a siren or anything in particular. This may be ambiguous but is a realistic portrayal of ecstasy, which same iconographic clue Greek artists often depict in trancelike moments of dance and related divine madness.

In Greek myth, the Sirens were the daughters of the Muse Terpsichore by the river god Akheloos; other myths associate them with Persephone prior to her abduction by Hades. Their usual abode was near the Straits of Messina between mainland Italy and the island of Sicily. (5) The original Homeric idea of a siren was not this "bird woman" but mythological femmes fatales nonetheless lying as monstrous lures on rocky shores. (6)

Fig. 3 Odysseus and the Sirens, Greek Red-Figure Stamnos Vase, c. 480-460 BCE, British Museum (7)

Fig. 4 Greek siren, National Museum, Athens, marble, 4th c. BCE

Although arguable, many mythographers consider the visual source of a Greek siren to derive from the East, notably Egypt, like other iconographic myth creatures, where an early borrowing probably took place in the form of the ba bird. The Egyptian ba bird was a part of funerary motif, representing various ideas still not completely understood, something akin to an animated manifestation of the deceased person, able to fly through tombs and elsewhere to reunite with the mummy whenever necessary, and "often appearing above the head of the deceased". The example from the 13th c. BCE Papyrus of Ani shows one of its more typical forms. The Egyptian ba was identified with mobility of the human personality at death, among other things, but a mostly non-physical manifestation, hence its mobility was emphasized in a winged, birdlike body with a human head. (8) At times the ba appears to be rendering a stylized sparrow hawk (Accipiter nisus) or a small falcon (Falco peregrinus), but is usually so generic as to not refer to any one bird, only its mobility. That the ba has an association with death or funerary ideas is perhaps one tenuous reason why the Greeks identified its image for a siren with danger.

Fig. 5 Ba bird, Papyrus of Ani, XIXth Dynasty, Thebes, circa 1250 BCE. British Museum Papyrus BM 10470

In Waterhouse's version of Odysseus confronted by sirens, a half circle of sirens forms an open mouthed choir with wind-whipped hair around the listening hero, who leans forward for his unparalleled experience of their beguiling "high thrilling song" (Fagles) or "beautiful" voice or song (Murray and Dimock, McCrorie, Lombardo) or as Homer describes their song in καλλιμον (kallimon) (Odyssey 12.192) or elsewhere λιγυρην (from Greek ligura) (Odyssey 12.183) as "sweet, clear-toned, shrill" and thus variously translated above.

While some have criticized Waterhouse's mythological subjects as being "too pretty", Treuherz defends Waterhouse for those who often "overlook the brutality of his female protagonists (Hylas and the Nymphs)". (9) These sirens only look harmless, underscoring the danger of underestimating their deadly effects on men by their voices, not their hybrid looks.

Odysseus faces toward the rear of the boat, and its sails billow with heavy wind that also causes whitecaps on the waves, just as Homer tells it, their oars "churning the whitecaps stroke on stroke" (Fagles). There is an urgency throughout the painting as his men pull hard on their oars, a tautness in this dramatically imagined scene that the Greek vase lacks, only because its intention seems to be showing Odysseus in a moment of madness he will survive, straining in ecstasy at which any other human, less heroic, could only wonder. This is the moment both the Greek painter and Waterhouse chose, a tantalizing image of musical madness that ravished the soul until the body gave in and men threw themselves overboard, often to drown in churning seas. Odysseus is rapt, internally safe from their "honeyed voices" (Fagles) only as long as the external ropes hold him tight:

"So they sent their ravishing voices out across the air
and the heart inside me throbbed to listen longer." (10)

Notes:

(1) Anthony Hobson. J. W. Waterhouse. London: Phaidon, [1989] 2007 repr., 45, 46, 49, Plate 30.

(2) Homer. The Odyssey. Robert Fagles translation. London: Penguin, 1996. Introduction and notes by Bernard Knox, 12.175-180. Also see Homer, Odyssey, tr. Stanley Lombardo. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2000, 182-3; Homer, Odyssey. A. T. Murray and George Dimock, tr. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Loeb Classical Library, 1998, repr., 450-53, 461-63.

(3) Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. The Siren (Il Professore e la Sirena) and Selected Writings. David Gilmour, ed., Archibald Colquhoun, tr. London: The Harvill Press, 1995, originally written in 1957, 57-94.

(4) Dyffri Williams. Greek Vases. London: British Museum Press, 1999, 2nd ed., 91; Lucilla Burn. Greek Myths. London: British Museum Press, 1990, especially Odysseus, 34-6, 38-40, 43-58; Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC), Bildlexikon der Antiken Mythologie, Forschungsstelle der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, BAND I-VIII, "Odysseus", "Siren"; Beazley Archive, Oxford, #202628, see "Siren".

(5) Richard P. Martin. Myths of the Ancient Greeks. New York: Penguin/New American Library, 2003, 222, 306-7. Illustration by Patrick Hunt, 306; I. Aghion, C. Barbillou, F. Lissarrague. Gods and Heroes of Classical Antiquity. Flammarion Iconographic Guide. Paris: Flammarion, 1996 ed., 272-74.

(6) Seirenes Σειρηνες, see H. J. Rose. A Handbook of Greek Mythology. Routledge, 1990, 6th ed., 245, 252 note 55; Homer, The Odyssey. Edward McCrorie, tr., and Richard Martin, intro and notes. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005, 386.

(7) British Museum GR 1843.11-3.31, Vase E440.

(8) Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson, eds. The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt. New York and London: Harry Abrams / British Museum, 1995, 47; Stephen Quirke and Jeffrey Spencer, eds. The British Museum Book of Ancient Egypt. London: British Museum Press, 5th impr. 1997, 65, 90, 97, 106, 215; Philippe Gremond and Jacques Livet. An Egyptian Bestiary: Animals in the Life and Religion of the Land of the Pharaohs. London: Thames and Hudson, 2001, 132ff., 166-72, 196.

(9) Julian Treuherz. "J. W. Waterhouse (Groningen, London, Montreal Exhibitions)" The Burlington Magazine CLI 1279 (October, 2009), 718-19.

(10) Odyssey 12.208-09 (Fagles tr.)

Photo Credits: Fig. 1, in the public domain; Fig. 2, courtesy of Archaeological Museum, Agrigento, Sicily; Fig. 4, courtesy of National Museum, Athens; Figs. 3 & 5, courtesy of British Museum London.

Copyright © 2009 Dr. Patrick Hunt
Stanford University

http://www.patrickhunt.net

Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) painted during the early German Reformation in ducal courts at Wittenberg and elsewhere in Saxony. His work was transitional in that it often retained some Northern traits of relict Medievalism while bringing Renaissance realism and humanism to many of his subjects, especially mythological personae and biblical narratives. This pictorial hybridity might not be unusual in a German principality distant from Renaissance Italy, essentially an aesthetic balancing act for Cranach when “the spirit of reform was to be hostile to Renaissance eroticism.” (1) On the other hand, biblical texts made possibly salacious nude subjects like Adam and Eve acceptable.

Cranach’s Adam and Eve (1526) is one of quite a few versions of this biblical story he produced, a conflated visual ekphrasis from the narrative of Genesis 3, also in this case an amalgam of devotional meaning and exquisite artistic invention. (2) In the main, Cranach follows the narrative iconographically. Cranach depicts the Garden of Eden, where the serpent – apparently a spade-headed viper to boot - sinuously hangs from the fruitful Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In typical Hebrew literary fashion, the subtlety of the serpent is manifest in a clever exposition of developing the art of lying. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made” (Gen. 3:1). Here the Hebrew word for “crafty or cunning” is ערומ ‘arûm, intensified by the superlative מכל mikkol “more than any other”, which Cranach’s friend Martin Luther would have known as calladior from the Latin Vulgate although his 1523 German Bible translation mostly used the Greek Septuagint via Erasmus. (3) Among Cranach's engravings and woodcuts, his other endeavor, he also shows an earlier, more traditionally German rendering for this biblical moment.

Lucas Cranach, Adam and Eve, woodcut, 1509.

Some see in Gen. 3 a crescendo of increasing dissembling and planned deceit, commencing with the lie by exaggeration (its familiar partner being the lie by omission). The serpent disingenuously converses with Eve, initiating as if a talking snake is commonplace, implanting doubt. “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Gen. 3:1). Here the serpent conveniently emphasized not the positive of what God provided but only the negative of what was banned, and grossly stretched at that. In the narrative with Adam and Eve, God only barred one tree from their diet (Gen. 2:17), the one in question and under which Cranach places his version of the story. This certainly caught Eve’s attention. Eve, thus ensnared and showing the result of already beginning to doubt God’s benevolence, partly “corrects” the serpent but adds her own error long before tasting the fruit, going to the other extreme in another lie by exaggeration : “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said ‘You cannot eat of it, or even touch it, because in that day you will die.’ ” (Gen. 3:2-3). The "not even touching" is her exaggeration. The serpent responds with the lie by negation, “You shall not surely die in that day,” (Gen. 3:4) and adds the possible lie by distortion, “For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened...” (Gen. 3:4a), thus possibly distorting what "eyes opened" (and to what) might mean. The serpent follows this with the final whopper lie by fabrication, “…and you will be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:4b), contingent on what being "as gods" means. Ironically, later commentators suggest the Devil may tell a little truth in order to promote a greater lie. On the other hand, there is sufficient interpretive "truth" that the serpent may not be so much lying, but rather proposing some form of godlikeness too easily accessible but only in a limited way; certain kinds of knowledge would be epistemologically limited to deity, and humans would always be a far cry from gods. Experiential knowledge did not transform humans into gods. Of course, the serpent says "be like gods", not "be gods". Evidently this kind of logic was irresistible for Eve in three quick steps now that she had swallowed the theological ad hominem bait. “For she saw the fruit was good for food and pleasing to the eyes and desirable for making one wise. She took of the fruit, ate it, and gave also to her husband, and he ate. And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked…” (Gen. 3:6-7).

This is the moment Cranach illuminates, the climax of Eve having tasted and handing the fruit to Adam. Eve looks so knowing, appearing like the cat that swallowed the bird, and now looks downright crafty herself. Adam, however, isn’t in the know yet, so he scratches his head stupidly with his left hand, the exact opposite of Eve. The painterly complementarity is heightened by their skin tones, with earthy Adam the color of soil as his name implies in Hebrew (אדמ ’adam “man” and אדמה ’adamah “ground”) and Eve the hue of palest marble, as in Egyptian and even Greek art. With her left arm bending down the branch, she passes the fruit with her right hand to puzzled Adam who reaches for it, vacantly not looking exactly at Eve, or perhaps equally at the forbidden fruit, whereas Eve now looks slyly and directly at him.

Other intriguing details suggest traces of Medieval scholasticism - from which some conservative Protestantism had sprung rather than from Renaissance humanism - still somewhat prevalent in Saxony. For example, the Latin Vulgate translates the Hebrew “fruit” פרי perî as fructus (from the Greek Septuagint as καρπος), which many Medieval commentaries and artistic depictions often render as an apple. This is mostly because apple, malum in Latin, is nearly homophonous with Latin malus as “evil” – malum is also a neuter adjective or case ending for “evil”; sometimes the only difference is the length of the u vowel, entrenched when Medieval taxonomy identified the apple as Malus pumila. (4) This near equivalence of interpretation is in accord with the principle of linguistic similitude, in other words, Medieval scholiastic lexical root fallacies could drive hermeneutics. The 12th century French play Mystère d’Adam explicitly refers to the forbidden fruit of Eden as apple. Cranach’s fruit is ambiguous but could certainly be an apple as often suggested, and many examples of the fruit here - especially on the lowest branches - seem too elliptical to be citrus or other fruit. According to Gaster, medieval Jewish superstition held that even the sap of an apple tree could cause conception in a previously barren woman. (5) The apple was often symbolic of fertility from at least the Classical world onward. Greek lyrical poetry like Sappho's often makes the connection of apples to love gifts. But here in Eden, too much knowledge was not empowering but ultimately limiting, the tradeoff being fatal with ensuing mortality. It may be biologically necessary in human evolution that when we are finally capable of reproduction we are also at the point when the number of old cells dying begins to catch up with the number of new cells being formed, otherwise known as the aging process.

The animals in Cranach's painting are not mentioned in the biblical text other than as beasts previously named by Adam, but none are found in this passage by name, so other reasons for his including them are merely speculative. Medieval bestiaries derived from the Classical Physiologus often suggested moral lessons associated with certain animals. The majority of animals in Cranach’s foreground around Adam and Eve are artiodactyls or similar mammals, horned beasts like the stag and its mate and a pair of male and female gazelles, in direct symmetry with Adam and Eve. These particular beasts and stags in particular are also often allegorically symbolic of lust, rampant desire and concupiscence in medieval bestiaries. The boar, also present here behind Eve, often corresponds with gluttony or desire for food (“she saw the fruit was good for food and pleasing to the eyes” Gen. 3:6), and the sheep behind Adam can often be emblematic for docility or even stupidity (he is ignorant until tasting the fruit). (6) The idiosyncratic animal moral allegories Cranach may have implied were often shared by his age. The presumptive medieval syllogism would go something like this: eating the forbidden “evil” fruit is sinful and eating it imparts knowledge - especially a revelation that they are naked – therefore it must be imbued carnal knowledge partaken here. If the medieval idea – not at all necessarily biblical from ancient texts - of clerical celibacy impinges herein, carnal knowledge itself may be suspect or even sinful. Therefore this new knowledge was perceived as the sin of carnal knowledge and somehow contemporary viewers and text readers could have been meant to infer that an originally forbidden sexuality may have been involved in the Fall of Adam and Eve from Grace. This peculiar interpretive hang-up was quickly reinforced in Gen. 4:1 in that once banished from Eden, when Adam has sex with his wife Eve and she conceives a son Cain, the text reads literally, “And the man knew his wife Eve and she conceived and bore a son…” The Hebrew verb ידע yada‘ usually translates “knew” for their sexual union. So much for dogmatic literalism.

Another corroborating detail is that usually Adam and Eve cover their nakedness themselves by the textual fig leaves as read in Gen. 3:7b. This is a fascinating biblical parallel because figs are often visually synonymous with testicles in Mediterranean cultural puns, but also uniquely flower internally, akin to female ovulation, (7) as if physical resemblance might determine semantic choices even in the biblical narrative. Cranach’s tree, however, has a fertile grapevine bearing clusters of grapes covering their genitals. The indirect link is that grapes produce inebriating wine, also a biblical allegory of desire in Canticum Canticorum (Song of Songs) 4:10, “your lovemaking is better than wine.” (8)

Cranach has concocted here a conflation of biblical textuality, Renaissance anatomical realism and perhaps some theologically rich, even if Medieval at times, interpretative details in his Adam and Eve, choosing the moment of mutual quandary and resulting horrific consequence before Eden is lost to humanity. If Cranach's religious vision is mostly tied to Reformation conservatism, it should be no surprise given his close relationship with Martin Luther. Here the serpent both uncoils downward and looks down, almost appearing to some commentators like a Medieval illuminated capital letter, albeit apropos in inversion, for the sinister letter S in Latin Serpens and, for them, Satan's name also read therein in eisegesis (since Satan is not read in this early text but only in subsequent biblical texts to which they suggest this text is proleptic). This downward direction of the serpent is for them allusive of his own future where he will henceforth crawl (Gen. 3:14) in the divine curse this painting leads toward, an imagined landscape immediately beyond this visual narrative of a lush Eden that will soon become only a trope for lost innocence.

Notes:

(1) George Holmes. Renaissance. (Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1996). London: Phoenix / Orion House, 1998, 207.

(2) Caroline Campbell, ed. Temptation in Eden: Lucas Cranach's Adam and Eve. London: Paul Holberton Publishing, 2007. This is most likely the best explication of the painting and its meanings in the Anglophone world.

(3) Philip Baldi and Pierlugi Cuzzolin. New Perspectives on Historical Latin Syntax. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009, 211.

(4) Charlton Lewis and Charles Short. A New Latin Dictionary (from Freund’s Latin-German Lexicon), 1907, 1104.

(5) T. H. Gaster. Myth, Legend and Custom in the Old Testament. New York: Harper and Row, 1969, §333, 812.

(6) Pliny, Historia Naturalis 8.41 [stag]; Margaret B. Freeman. The Unicorn Tapestries. New York: Metropolitan Museum of New York / E. F. Dutton, 1976, 74 [stag]; A. H. Collins. Symbolism of Animals and Birds in English Church Architecture. New York: McBride and Nast, 1913, 8, as an uprooting, devouring beast [boar] and in Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, De Animalibus, XII.i.125 [boar], XII.i.9 [sheep].

(7) Maud Grieve. A Modern Herbal, vol 1. New York: Dover, 1971, 311.

(8) Patrick Hunt. “Sensory Images in Song of Songs.” Beiträge zur Erforschung des Alten Testaments und des Antiken Judentums, Band 28. XIVth IOSOT Congress at Sorbonne-College de France, Paris, 1992. Frankfurt, 1996, 73.

Copyright © 2009 Dr. Patrick Hunt
Stanford University

http://www.patrickhunt.net

An evolved Baroque Mary Magdalene is curiously seen in Caravaggio’s uniquely sensitive Penitent Magdalen of 1596-97, now in the Doria Pamphilij Gallery in Rome. Caravaggio’s treatment here is both sympathetic and idiosyncratic but visually correct only in regard to iconographic traditions of the Magdalene, This tradition, however, conflates four gospel texts that may have nothing to do with one composite woman nor do they necessarily all refer to the persona of Mary Magdalene, who is often said in modernity to be degraded into a sexual object of male fantasy.

The iconography Caravaggio employed here is both clever and innovative in many respects for its adherence to biblical text. In Caravaggio’s warm-colored tones bespeaking both her passion and Christ’s Passion, the Magdalene’s most typical visual attribute is the unguent vessel containing nard (Greek ναρδος from Hebrew or Aramaic נרד ) with which she is associated in tradition (rather than clearly supported from text) as having washed Christ’s feet with her sensuously long and lustrous reddish hair – and red is the color of sanguinity - after sacrificially pouring out its precious perfume (although here Caravaggio may be painting in advance of that biblical narrative moment). The same perfume nardus in Latin known from Pliny’s Natural History XXI.70 is probably from the Indian or Near Eastern desert plant Nardostachys jatamansi and is also called spikenard, its liquid color being golden red or orange like the Magdalene’s hair and the golden perfume hue seen here in Caravaggio’s painting. Other attributes are conveyed in the Magdalene’s putative life as a courtesan, implied by rich clothes and extravagant jewelry, and her body language of penitence is marked by her humble position, in this case close to the ground on a very low chair. What the Magdalene renounces in Caravaggio’s image is consonant with what has been noted in typical Pauline testimonia of the modest new woman of God - often suggested as a misogynistic text - who is unadorned by anything but grace: “not with their hair braided, or with gold, pearls or expensive clothes” as St. Paul writes in I Timothy 2:9.

Many pictorial details encourage closer inspection. The biblical texts state that the perfume vessel which the woman (Mary Magdalene?) used on Christ – often mistranslated from the Koiné Greek New Testament as being of alabaster stone - was a glass alabastron (Greek ’αλαβαστρον), probably sealed in ampule form against desiccating air and oxidation; terribly expensive because vessel and perfume were to be used only once, the glass needing to be broken to release its perfume inside. Caravaggio depicts a glass vessel here, either deliberately or accidentally in closer accordance with the text, but perhaps better to highlight the gold transparence of the nard perfume as symbolic of the Magdalene’s pouring her life out. On her dress is another vessel or receptacle noted by Cinotti as a possible simile of the Magdalene herself and which she fills here in Caravaggio’s schemata. In this instance, the vessel on her dress bears a shell-like form as possibly representative of the Classical notion that shells (extrapolated from Hesiod’s Theogony) were one of the visual attributes of sea-born Venus to whose sacred cult most courtesans belonged either professionally or by practice as those who live for amor sacer. The perfume vessel shown in two distinct forms may be an accommodation of both traditions: the translucent glass form at her feet and also as an opaque white alabaster form on her dress. Vegetal motifs on her clothing may depict the source of the perfume as floral – and flowers are another attribute of Venus - but could in any case merely indicate the fertility which courtesans explicitly evoke. However one views Caravaggio's Magdalene, on the one hand his naturalism gives us opportunity to agree with Bellori that it is mostly a seated woman who could be anybody and on the other hand to disagree because Caravaggio's iconographic subtlety allows us to identify her by her perfume and hair and almost the moment of penitence when she rejects her former life as a voluptuary as the long traditions suggest.

Sources:

Giovan Petro Bellori. Le Vite de pittori, scultori et achitetti moderni. Rome, 1672 ed., Evelina Borea, Torino, 1976.

S. Benedetti. Caravaggio: The Master Revealed. Dublin, 1995, 212-13. Benedetti explores the importance of Classical statuary to Caravaggio and his probable models of Classical sarcophagi such as the Revenge of Orestes and the Roman Meleager’s Companions Carrying His Body, among at least three other Classical images, either from Del Monte’s Roman Antiquarium or his country estate Vigna di Ripetta or from the nearby Giustiniani Collection accessible to Caravaggio in Rome.

Ann Graham Brock. Mary Magdalene, The First Apostle: The Struggle for Authority. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2003.

F. T. Camiz. "Music and Painting in Cardinal Del Monte's Household." Metropolitan Museum Journal 23, 1991.

Mia Cinotti. Caravaggio: tutte le opere. Bergamo, 1983.

J. Dillenberger. “The Magdalen: Reflections on the image of the saint and the sinner in Chrsitian Art” in D. Apostolos-Cappadona, ed. Image and Spirit in Sacred and Secular Art. New York, 1990. 28-50.

Bart D. Ehrman. Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene: Followers of Jesus in History and Legend. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, Part III, 179-255, 259 & ff.

John Gash. Caravaggio. London: Jupiter Books, 1980.

Patrick Hunt. Caravaggio. Life and Times Series. London: Haus Publishing, 2004, 42-47, 55-57. Portions of the discussion here are excerpted directly from the author's 2004 book.

Katherine Ludwig Jansen. The Making of the Magdalen: Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Later Middle Ages. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000.

F. Mormando, ed. Saints and Sinners: Caravaggio and the Baroque Image. McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 1999.

Lynn F. Orr. Classical Elements in the Paintings of Caravaggio. Ph.D. Dissertation, UCLA, 1982.

Elaine Pagels. The Gnostic Gospels. New York: Vintage, 1989, 64-7.

Catherine Puglisi. Caravaggio. London: Phaidon, 1998.

John Spike. Caravaggio. London / New York: Abbeville, 2001.

Jacobus Faber Stapulensis (in French, Jacques Lefèvre Étaples). Two Treatises on St. Mary Magdalene, especially De Maria Magdalena et traduo Christi disceptatio, 1517 (both Paris, 1517 and 1518). Cf F. M. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Third ed. Oxford, 1997: 593, 1049.

Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea): Lives of the Saints. William Caxton, tr. (from Latin). Selected and edited by George V. O'Neill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914. Vol. IV, 36-42.

Copyright © 2009 Dr. Patrick Hunt
Stanford University

http://www.patrickhunt.net

Dr. Patrick Hunt, Stanford University

"The Lamb broke the first seal...and I looked and saw a white horse, and seated on him was one carrying a bow, and a wreath was given to him and he went out out conquering in order to conquer...and when he broke the second seal...another horse came out fiery red and to him seated on it was given power to take peace from the earth and internecine strife and he was given a great sword...and when he broke the third seal... I looked and saw a black horse and him seated on it carried a pair of scales in his hand and I heard a voice in the middle of the creatures calling, 'A quart of wheat for a denarius and three quarts of barley for a denarius and do not injure the oil and the wine"...and when he broke the fourth seal... I looked and saw a yellowish-green horse and the name of him seated on it was Death, and Hades followed him, and authority was given to them over a quarter of the earth to kill with sword and famine and plague and by wild beasts of the earth." Apocalypse 6:1-7 (1)

This brief note is a mostly sobering assessment in the form of historical observation about ancient precedents and possible modern parallels for the metaphor of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. As an elected Fellow of the Royal Geogrpahical Society (since 1989), and some of my alpine research has also been sponored by the National Geographic Society's Expedition Council (2007-2008), the scenario of snowballing cataclysmic ecological phenomena has long occupied my thinking since studying paleoclimatology in graduate study. The cause-effect interrelationships between war, famine and plague and death are hardly lost on the historian, The above enigmatic biblical passage has been subject to so many bizarre and contradictory literary and theological misinterpretations, like so much of religious writ, and its apocalyptic genre does little to discourage a wide range of visionary hermeneutics. At least this musing is on somewhat common ground in the long view of concatenated cyclical or cause-effect related catastrophes.

Dürer's above image is perhaps the most famous of any attempts to visualize this difficult passage and easily also one of the most dramatic with its gaunt and skeletal pair of deathly horse and rider in the foreground with sad people underfoot - even the religious leaders and kings are not spared - as the very pillars of society and foundations of civilization seem to be swallowed up. Naturally, it is unlikely for the biblical author[s] to derive an environmental application - as this brief note extrapolates - from the possibly allegorical literature here with an implied sequencing of drought, famine, pestilence and death or with war inserted at the beginning or somewhere along the downward-spiraling process.

I prefer to interpret the above biblical passage where it refers to the indirect object "them" in the last verse "authority given to them " as a somewhat interlocking operation by sword, famine, plague and so on since so many are affected, possibly each one individually reducing population by a quarter in a snowball effect. Most interpretations equate the third seal and black horse and rider as famine, especially with the scales and selling of food commodities in quarts of grain. The paucity of agricultural food supply referenced is understandable because a Roman denarius was about the equivalent of a daily wage in the late first century Roman world of the biblical text. That a daily wage's earning power would only buy a quart of wheat - the more valuable grain here - speaks to the meager supply of food and therefore an extended figure for famine.

Few realize the interconnections of how the legendary “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” might also function as a collective metaphor for the ravages of humankind and the environment in history, often found together in war, famine, disease and death. In figurative language here, however, the four horsemen can manifest such cause-effect relationships that one can easily lead even galloping into the other.

As mentioned, historians attempt to understand the cause-effect interrelationships between war, famine and plague and death. In fact, it is fairly easy to recognize a terrible sequence too often familiar in war-ravaged states. The sequence may or may not replicate the exact sequence in the literary text above. Historically, war generally upsets the agricultural stability such that famine often results from the chaos of marauding, the privations of siege, or the policy of scorched earth. Famine follows, as does plague and death. Plague, however, is the least recognized, the last diagnostically-validated link described in antiquity because of ignorance of microbial activity other than contagion deduced from proximity.

By no means the only quotable text, Polybius describes, for example, in his History III.30.1-4 the narrative of Hannibal's Battle of Saguntum, with just such a sequence of war, famine and death, although any related plague is invisible and not mentioned. As a prelude to the Second Punic War, the people of Saguntum are besieged in their fortress city. Food runs out until, if in credible detail, a diminishing and dying population even resorts near the end to familial cannibalism. Finally the broken walls of the long-weakened city fall to the force of Hannibal's army and even a hardened army is horrified by what they see of the mountain of burning carcasses, which may be the only way to reduce an invisible contagion although Polybius does not record this. (2)

But there is also another observable sequence that deserves mention, one that may or may not be deducible from the above text in Apocalypse 6 but is equally recognizable and may become far more so in the 21st century as increasing feuds over water rights and possibly exponential change in global climates seem imminent, where drought, famine and malnutrition are already visible links in a chain of consequences. (3)

Extended drought - or rain at the wrong times or other disruptions of climatic patterns - can ultimately bring down a civilization, as was likely in ancient history and never too far from present reality even in a world where globalization provides food overnight from seven (or more) thousand miles away. Coupled with rising population, the resulting decreasing per capita grain production is even a looming current problem:

"Confirm[ing] the serious nature of the global food supply...the per capita availability of world cereal grains, which make up 80-90% of the world's food supply, has been declining for the past 17 years (2002)." (4)

Fig. 2 USDA 2007: Stocks-Use Ratios Indicators: note lowered supply even with 2007 factored

It is well attested that both global demand for and global food costs rose sharply in 2007-2008, gravely affecting the poorer, developing countries of the world. (5) While I am not be the first to present this ancient and possibly contemporary sequence suggested by the above literary text - many have also alluded to this metaphor in climate change projections and carbon sequestration models (6) - and a reasonable study of paleoclimatology based on palynology, the carbon record, evaporitic basins, oxygen isotopic studies and other data, I hope to summarize it briefly in accessible terms. Pointing out how humans have at times influenced this chain of events, others have posited parts of the sequence as links of the anthropogenic chain, however generalized but no less real. (7)

Here is a hypothetical situation that must have actually also happened in history, possibly at the interstices of what we often term the end of the Late Bronze Age in the Mediterranean world when mass migrations and general chaos suggest a possible scenario like below. (8) In antiquity, it was recommended that a portion of every seed harvest be reserved for the next year's planting seed. Purely for example, if on any given small to medium-sized farm, a normal crop yield was 100 bushels, it was practical to save 10% or 10 bushels of grain for planting. Given the same expected amount of mouths to feed, if conditions are good, expectations would be at least that 10 bushels of grain seed would yield another 100 bushels the following year, guaranteeing some form of stability provided that rainfall or climatic circumstances did not change radically. But if drought or freakish bad weather occurred, dramatically lowering the crop yield to 70 bushels, and if the same ratio of seed grain was put aside for planting the next year and the population remained the same, this resulted in only 70% of the comestible grain for the same number of mouths to feed. Naturally, agriculture did not produce the only food sources of antiquity, but grazing or fed livestock would also suffer accordingly from drought and famine. What results is understood by the principle of diminishing returns.

Presumably, if this drought were limited to only a local disaster, the opportunity might exist to purchase someone else's surplus. But if this became a regional disaster of widely-suffered drought or crop-afflicted change, the consequences were far more dire and more difficult to mitigate depending on the volume of total farmland affected. If it were a severe drought and water was scarce over an extended several years, the resulting problems could be catastrophic across a society. If the 10% of the crop yield of 70 bushels was reserved for seed for the following year, having eaten the diminished 70%, and if the drought gained severity so that there was again a lower harvest of only 50 bushels of grain from the 7 bushels of planted seed grain, this means that the same number of mouths to feed were now having to live on 50% of the yield even before the seed grain was yet again to be reserved, and it is more likely the reserve of 5 bushels would have been eaten too because people and farm animals would now be in trouble (a forget-the-future-we-must-survive-the-present radical philosophy). In the second year of such a drought, there would already have been some incipient malnutrition, a lowering of immune systems and resistance to disease, but now it would become especially hard for the weak, particularly the aged and infants. By the third year of extended drought, famine could easily lead to plague and pestilence and beyond to widespread death. If the social structure was also undermined by such a deepening crisis where laws or a ruler could no longer provide parameters of stable behavior for a people, the stability of the state or dynasty was greatly threatened and civil war may ensue. In any case, applying the basic scenario where drought led to famine, which led to disease and this either led to war (or in some cases followed it) and to death, it is not hard to imagine the havoc.

Fig. 3 Harvested grain - a diminishing, more costly commodity?

The above hypothetical scenario is derived from a generic grain. Agronomy in antiquity was unlikely to know, except by empirical experience, that some grains are more or less sensitive to drought and to salinization, especially salinity that might result from cultivation in an evaporitic basin. Barley (8.0) and Rye (11.4), for example, have relatively high treshhold salinity levels known as EC values, whereas rice (3.0) and corn (1.7) are relatively sensitive in EC values. (9) There is also an obvious linear decrease in crop yield as salinity increases.

If everyone in a radius of a thousand miles is so afflicted today, we compensate by importing more foodstuff from abroad or across a continent. In antiquity, there was often no other recourse than to leave the territory in a mass migration after a social catastrophe following such an environmental disaster. Some deduce this very scenario for the Aegean with the migrations of the Sea Peoples in the 12th c. BCE southeast to Egypt and to Palestine. (10) The climatic swath of the Sahel on the continent of Africa today, however rich in mineral resources, is suffering in exactly these terms on the increasingly-desertified margins of the Sahara. (11) Every observer can easily note that the once-permanent snowpacks on Mt. Kilimanjaro are greatly reduced even in the last few decades. Alpine glaciers in Europe are projected to be reduced by 25% by the year 2025, and in 2008 there was a recorded higher temperature gain of 1.1 º Celsius (compared to previous years) and a reduction of at least an overall 1.5 meters on some of the highest glaciers around Col d'Ambin in the Cottian Alps relative to 2007 alone where this researcher also works on reconstructing paleoclimatic environments and where the National Geographic Society has been sponsoring my research in 2007-2008. (12) Although not the first in the modern world, for the first time ever in extended drought the State of South Australia has had to import necessary water because its own sources have dried up, purchasing 261 gigalitres. (13) One hardly has to wonder what could happen if the vast Himalayan and related montane snowpack that supplies water for half the world's population from such rivers as the Indus, Ganges, Mekong, Yangtze, etc., begin to melt as projected by even conservative hydrologists. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse may indeed already be in the saddle.

In conclusion, while this brief note is not in any way intended as a Doomsday scenario, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse seem to have ridden together through the ancient world and can easily ride again, with or without a prophetic trumpet to announce them. "Amber waves of grain" may be at more risk than we think.

Notes:

(1) Revelation, vol. 38, Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday, 1975, 96 & ff. Commentary by J. Massyngberde Ford, excerpted by the author of this brief article. As a possible precedent, in the Hebrew scriptures, another set of four horses - now in chariots - with similar colors appears in Zechariah 6:1-7 although without such negative connotations or direct associations with these dire horses in the New Testament passage.

(2) Thomas Madden. Empires of Trust. New York: Penguin, 2008, esp. 98-108. An excellent study of the circumstances of the siege.

(3) C. Rosenzweig and D. Hillel. Climate Change and the Global Harvest. Oxford University Press, 1998; Brian Dawson and Matt Spannagle. The Complete Guide to Climate Change. London: Routledge, 2009, 215-216

(4) David Pimentel. "Malnutrition, Infectious Diseases and Global Environmental Change" in Ian Douglas, ed. Encyclopedia of Global Environmental Change: Causes and Consequences of Global Environmental Change. John Wiley & Son, 2002, 441.

(5) Martin Wolf, "Food crisis is a chance to reform global agriculture." April 30, 2008. Financial Times Economists Forum, 2008: http://blogs.ft.com/economistsforum/2008/04/food-crisis-is-a-chance-to-reform-global-agriculture/

(6) Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, "Climate change and health: preparing for unprecedented challenges." 12/10/07, http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2007/20071211_maryland/en/index.html?language=; also see Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, "IMPACTS: On the Threshold of Abrupt Climate Changes", Paul Preuss, 9/17/08, http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2008/09/17/impacts-on-the-threshold-of-abrupt-climate-changes/

(7) J. V. Thirgood. Man and the Mediterranean Forest: A History of Resource Depletion. London: Academic Press, 1981; R. Meiggs. Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982; A. W. Crosby. Ecological Imperialism: the Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986; Jared Diamond. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Viking, 2004. Diamond has his critics, to be sure, and this author will be neutral on this matter, but Diamond does present an ample group of case studies and a bibliography of specialists' research supporting some anthropogenic change.

(8) M. Williams. "Dark Ages and Dark Areas: Global deforestation in the Deep Past." Journal of Historical Geography 26 (2000) 28-46; A. J. McMichael. Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and the Health of the Human Species. Cambridge University Press, 1993; R. R. Colwell. "Global Climate Change and Infectious Disease." Science 274 (1996) 2025-2031.

(9) R. A. Fischer and R. Maurer. "Drought resistance in spring wheat cultivars. I. Grain yield responses." Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 29.5 (1978) 897 - 912. Drought experiments were conducted in northwest Mexico on a wide range of cereal cultivars, mostly durum wheats; T. Ameda and S. Schubert. "Mechanisms of drought resistance in grain legumes: I. Osmotic adjustment." SINET: Ethiopian Journal of Science 26.1 (2003) 37-46. Drought experiments in Germany in 1994-95 on diverse grain legumes to determine osmotica and alternative mechanisms; Donald Sparks. Environmental Soil Chemistry. London: Academic Press, 1995, 231, Table 10.2. Note that in Sparks citations these are relative salinity tolerances and that "absolute tolerances vary, depending on climate, soil conditions and cultural practices." EC (salinity threshold) is expressed as ECe (dS m-1).

(10) Trude and Moshe Dothan. Peoples of the Sea. New York: Scribner's, 1992, 87-96 & ff., esp. 87; Joseph Maran. "The Spreading of Objects and Ideas in the Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean: Two Case Examples from the Argolid of the 13th and 12th centuries BC," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 336 (Nov. 2004) 11-30; Ayelet Gilboa. "Sea Peoples and Phoenicians along the Southern Phoenician Coast - A Reconciliation: A Representation of Sikila (SKL) Material Culture." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 337 (Feb. 2005) 47-78; S. Wachsmann. "The Ships of the Sea Peoples." International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 11.4 (2007) 297-304.

(11) "Micronutrient Malnutrition: Half the World's Population Affected" WHO: The World Health Report 1996, World Health Organization 13 Nov. 1996 (78) 1-4.; also see Lester Brown, "World Grain Stocks Fall to 57 Days of Consumption: Grain Prices Starting to Rise" 2006, http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/indicators/C54/ (source of USDA figure).

(12) Luca Mercalli, President, Italian Meteorological Institute, Busseoleno, pers. comm., September, 2008; Patrick Hunt. Alpine Archaeology, New York: Ariel Books, 2007, chs. 1-3; Patrick Hunt. Field Report to Expeditions Council, National Geographic Society, 2008 (Hannibal Expedition); Mateo Gutierrez. Climatic Geomorphology. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2005, on soils and humans in climatic change, 349, 601.

(13) "Climate Watch: Australia" Geographical Magazine. Royal Geographical Society, London, February, 2009, 10.

Photo and image credit:
Fig. 1 www.uic.edu/depts/ahaa/classes/ah111/durer1.jpg; Fig. 2 USDA Economic Research Service 2007; http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/September07/Indicators/Charts/Indicators_market_fig2.gif; Fig. 3 Purdue University CES.

copyright © February 2009 Dr. Patrick Hunt
Stanford University

http://www.patrickhunt.net
phunt@stanford.edu

"The rose garden which today is full of flowers,
when tomorrow you would pluck a flower
it may not have one for you." Firdawsi (10th-11th c.)

“From the bounty of the rose,
the nightingale learned speech, for if not,
there had not been in his throat
all this sweet speech and singing." Hafez (14th c. ) (1)

The haunting images of both Firdawsi and Hafez on roses and nightingale song remind us about the retrieval of beauty through memory. This is a perfect distillation of sensory richness found alike in the best poetry of the world, shared with Sappho and the Hebrew Song of Songs, where striking visual kinesis is mingled with music and fragrance and where so many impressions (sight, sound, smell, movement) conjoin in lyrical mastery as a sensory cluster. (2) Since visual imagery is important in verbal poetry, how much poetic ambience can be found in visual painting?

Lyricism is clearly found not only in poetic word but also in visual poetic image. Persian painting in the Safavid period of Persia under Shah ‘Abbas (1587-1629) rose to its zenith in the art of painters such as Sadiqi Beg (1533-c. 1610) and especially Riza-i ‘Abbasi (1565-1635) at Isfahan. (3) For reference and study, the magisterial, gemlike books of Sheila Canby are the best sources on Persian painting for the Anglophone world. (4) Along with rich textiles and grand architecture, Persian paintings are one of the primary expressions of Safavid greatness even in microcosm (5), influencing Mughal art in India while newly examining ideas imbibed from European drawing and perspective. (6)

The Safavid master, Riza-i ‘Abbasi, was trained by his artist father, the court painter Ali Asghar, and much stylistic innovation and later influence is attributed to the son Riza, who was able around 1603 to append ‘Abbasi as a title “of ‘Abbas” to his name from his service to the court of Shah ‘Abbas although he left the shah’s service to paint on his own before returning to court and its kitabkhaneh workshop of poets, painters and other artists. (7) Similar in rebellious temperament to the sublime but realistic chiaroscuro Italian painter Caravaggio – who also preferred the company of rowdies and courtesans (8) - the lyricism of Riza can be seen in album folio paintings such as Woman with a Veil, circa 1590-95, one of his earlier attributed works now in the Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian, where descriptions of the work examined here even include the idea of "visual poetry."

Perhaps the viewer’s first impression is made from the distinct arching bow of the woman’s body as Riza bends her body strongly to the left with a movement that shows great kinesis on a large scale. Similar contours are often typical for his early courtly personages.(9) Perhaps this woman's gracefully-bowed body even alludes to her standing against wind or a strong breeze, accentuated by the tilt of her head in the opposite direction to the right. Descriptive details abound on the small scale as well. Using opaque watercolor, gold and ink, such bright primary pastel colors – one of his earlier hallmarks (10) – as red, yellow and blue are deliberately chosen and separated for maximum effect in the woman’s garments, shown from ankles upward above her black shoes and decorated gold undertrousers. A lavender shawl veil covers her from head to hip, open in the front. The concerted movement of her clothes with her body – even the many folds of the fairly tightly wrapped shawl veil and her blue-sleeved arm - implies both the mobility and clinging manner of light silk. Although pinned at the upper neck hem, her dark red blouse undergarment is narrowly open at her hinted breast. A gold forehead bangle and bright red and blue spangled headscarf are just visible under the shawl head veil, expressing different layers of emphasis relative to the bright pastel color garments. For lighter effect as counterpoint, her modest dainty necklace jewelry is answered by her heavier gold cloth belt sash tied at her waist, and gold buttons and gold cloth rosettes embroidered on her blue coat all simultaneously express Riza’s love of detail as well as visual economy, especially with only her bent left thumb seen under the held veil.

In subdued and subtle contrast to the woman, the natural light-brown paper background of an almost golden hue is balanced with calligraphic ink style in the lighter fronded and flowering plants in the rocks on either side of the woman, carefully placed in the empty spaces of the paper background at lower left and middle right. Above her, dramatic yet faint calligraphic swirls in the sky may represent moving air and cumulus clouds.

Similar finesse and balance of larger context with intricate detail are seen in many Persian paintings from the Safavid court. Almost certainly known to Riza-i 'Abbasi was an older artist who preceded him in leadership of the kitabkhaneh when it was in Qazvin, Sadiqi Beg (1533-c. 1610). One of Sadiqi's attributed paintings 'Balqis and the Hoopoe' now in the British Museum and contemporary with Riza's work here also shows a marvelous detail. Balqis, legendary Queen of Sheba, is reclining and wearing a beautiful garment Canby observantly identifies as a "remarkable waqwaq design" because it bears calligraphic animal and human heads interspersed with embroidered floral patterns. (11) Such detail is truly mesmerizing and shows these Safavid artists were attentive in such paintings to many aspects of the crafts in their culture.

Continuing Riza’s customary boldness tempered with subtlety in the above painting at hand, Woman with a Veil, perhaps the consummate artist in Riza now brings the viewer to the likely crux of the painting. The woman’s mostly properly hidden left hand holds her veil open in a protective shell between her hand and covered forehead. Like a candle kept out of the breeze, her pear-shaped right hand gently holds and shields between thumb and second finger the stem of a fragile spray of white flowers and her slightly-smiling oval face bends down to the flowers as if to both see its tiny blossoms and smell its scent, a meditative moment of acute sensory appreciation and the philosophic realization that attends this sensuality. The wind – ambiguous in direction but swirling on either side and behind - would tear away its petals and disperse the flowers’ fragrance. With her almond eyes focusing directly on the flower stem she seems to realize bent in the wind herself that she is just like that flower, fragile and ephemeral. A well of sympathy brings the viewer to a mutual poignant universal: the tragedy of Beauty is its brevity. (12)

Notes

(1) Firdawsi: "King Nishavir's Address to the Grandees of Persia" and "Ode of Hafez". E. S. Holden, tr. Flowers from Persian Gardens. Cambridge, MA: University Press, 1901, 54, 131; also see Rumi on the rose, Mehdi Khansari, M. Reza Moghtader, Minouch Yavari. The Persian Garden: Echoes of Paradise. Washington, DC: Mage Publishing, 2004, 171.

(2) Patrick Hunt. Poetry in the Song of Songs: A Literary Analysis. New York: Peter Lang, 2008, ch. 2, pp. 55-56 and ch. 4, pp. 83-101.

(3) Sir Lawrence Gowing, ed. A Biographical Dictionary of Artists. Abingdon: Andromeda Oxford, 2002 repr., 581-82.

(4) for example, Sheila R. Canby. The Rebellious Reformer: The Drawings and Paintings of Riza-yi-Abbasi of Isfahan. London: Azimuth Editions, 1996; Sheila R. Canby. Safavid Art and Architecture. London: British Museum Press, 2002. Also see (7) and (10) below.

(5) Barbara Brend. Islamic Art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991, 148 & ff, 164 & ff.

(6) Anjan Chakraverty. Indian Miniature Painting. New Delhi & Roli & Janssen BV, Netherlands, 2005, 34, 48.

(7) Sheila R. Canby. Persian Painting. London: British Museum, 1993, 94, 98.

(8) Patrick Hunt. Caravaggio. London: Haus, 2004, chs. 4-5 & 7-8, pp. 29-67, 92-107

(9) Canby, 1993, 99.

(10) Sheila R. Canby. The Golden Age of Persian Art 1501-1722. London: British Museum, 2002 ed., 107.

(11) ibid. Canby, 2002, 106. Also see Glossary, 187 for waqwaq. Sadiqi Beg's painting is 9.9 by 19.2 cm, British Museum OA 1948.12-11.08. In Canby's book, this illustration is Plate 93, also page 106.

(12) Patrick Hunt. Laws of Nature (Aphorisms), 2000. See http://www.jamesgeary.com/blog/aphorisms-by-patrick-hunt/

Image courtesy of the Smithsonian (http://www.asia.si.edu/). Lent by the Art and History Collection; Courtesy of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: LTS1995.2.80 (permisssion granted by Betsy Kohut, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution).

copyright © 2008 Dr. Patrick Hunt
Stanford University

http://www.patrickhunt.net
phunt@stanford.edu

Every time I see Caravaggio's Raising of Lazarus (1609) again in Messina, Sicily - such as just this week in the middle of June - new evidence of his genius appears from this late canvas. Many of these observations I've published in a recent book (Hunt, 2004:125 ), but although noticed before and mentioned in lectures at Stanford and elsewhere, the confirmation of such ideas usually comes from repeated direct reflection many times in front of the canvas after one's eyes adjust to the tenebrism of his dark style palpably employed here. Indeed, the passage of John 11:1-43 even refers to this miracle of the raising of Lazarus in the context of light versus darkness (John 11:9), which seems not to have been lost on Caravaggio.

Exemplary prior studies have long discussed Caravaggio's treatment of Lazarus as commissioned by the Genoese merchant Giovanni Battista de' Lazzari (Caravaggio's likely intended name pun noted) for the Church of the Padri Crociferi or "Cross-Bearing Fathers" in Messina (e.g., Langdon, 1998:370-3), often commenting on Lazarus's crosslike pose as an allusion to the "Cross-Bearing Fathers" and some have also long commented on Caravaggio's allusion to Michelangelo's creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel with life returning to Lazarus's hand from the command of Christ while the rest of his body is still in the sleep of death. But several possibly new observations can be suggested here as well as to develop further or respond to others' ideas.

First, the contrasting light and darkness on the hand of Lazarus also reminds one of the famous passage in Genesis 1:3 when God says "Let there be light". That God (in Christ) may also divide the light from the darkness here is possibly alluded by opposition: divine light returns warm life to Lazarus where the cold dark side of his hand is still in absolute shadow and death and the side facing Christ is in light and returning to life. Caravaggio's chiaroscuro is nowhere so dramatic as in this gesture of a dead hand responding to Christ's verbal command to move again. If God is light - Caravaggio's artistic manifest - and also life, Lazarus will rise again starting from this hand in its dual state of light and darkness.

Second, also in parallel with the darkness of Christ's face hidden in like shadow on the left - also suggestive of his yet hidden deity both before and after his Transfiguration - the body of Lazarus is held almost tenderly by his sisters Mary and Martha on the far right (his family members can endure the smell of corruption of his flesh only because of their great grief and loss). But when the lungs of Lazarus refill with air in a few seconds after the moment Caravaggio has painted, his sisters will be the first spectators to notice his breath, their faces being so close to his face about to be reanimated by this resurrection.

Third, the depth and intensity of the darkness of those holding Lazarus is finally enlightened when one studies the painting for a long time in its Messina context and one's eyes dilate to the proper level. With all due respect, John Spike - hugely authoritative - reports that the person often believed to be a self-portrait of Caravaggio is the man above Christ's pointing hand and facing Christ with praying hands, although Spike is clearly not endorsing this view (Spike, 2001: 221). Puglisi, for example, in her magisterial book supports this identification for a self-portrait (Puglisi, 1998: 327). In my opinion, however, this man is not nearly as interesting a candidate for a self-portrait as another candidate suggested below, nor does the bearded resemblance of this candidate seem as compelling as another. Furthermore, my strongest concern about the identification of the praying man as a Caravaggio self-portrait is that it seems to push piety for this rebellious artist a little too far, especially since the artist refused holy water to absolve venial sin in the Messina church of the Madonna del Pilero, as Sussino related, purportedly saying, "I don't need it because all my sins are mortal" (Hunt, 2004, 128).

On the other hand, the person who holds Lazarus's torso is usually forgotten because there is more light on the spectators around Jesus and also on Mary and Martha at either end of the canvas. If one looks very closely at this individual holding Lazarus in the middle of his body (and he is also in the darkest center of the painting), his bearded face is almost entirely in shadow yet fascinatingly lit by the light reflected off Lazarus. He is also in subtle opposition to the more easily recognizable Jesus and the sisters of Lazarus. Given Caravaggio's other self-portraits, this visage is so similar to the face of Caravaggio (equally possible given Puglisi's hallmarks "short dark hair, low forehead, beard and moustache") that it is very plausible as the painter himself in some puzzling act either akin to vicarious faith or at least a voyeur of death. Paranoid and sleeping with a dagger under his pillow at this time in Messina, as his local Sicilian chronicler Susinno relates in 1724, Caravaggio is all too aware of his own mortality.

This painting does not need to in any way suggest an intended point on the continuum of faith (however feeble or strong) or be interpreted as redemptive by its artist who is a fugitive for murder and with a death sentence all too real, but it is nonetheless a mystery about faith where Caravaggio seems to place himself in the middle of a desperately-neeeded miracle.

Notes

F. Susinno. Le vite de' pittore messinesi, 1724. Florence: V. Martinelli, ed. (1966).

Helen Langdon. Caravaggio: A Life. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1998, 370-3 & 376.

Catherine Puglisi. Caravaggio. London: Phaidon, 1998, 327.

John Spike. Caravaggio. New York: Abbeville, 2001, 221.

Patrick Hunt. Caravaggio. Life and Times Series. London: Haus Publishing, 2004, 125, 128.

John Varriano. Caravaggio: The Art of Realism. Pennsylvania State University, 2006.

copyright © 2007 Patrick Hunt
Stanford University

http://www.patrickhunt.net
phunt@stanford.edu

Bartolomeo Montagna’s nearly forgotten contribution to Renaissance Painting of the Veneto merits revisiting through a brief examination of the controversial Monte di Pietà as related to an altarpiece he painted for the Franciscan Church of San Marco in Lonigo, near Vicenza, Montagna attained status of celebrated painter in Venice after he received his first public commission in 1482. By 1485 Montagna’s altarpiece production thrived in Vicenza, Padua, Verona and throughout the Veneto, which made him an industrious and recognized painter by 1500. Here The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Sts. Francis and Homobonus, Bernardino da Feltre and Beggar, circa 1512, tempera on canvas, now in the Berlin, Gemäldegalerie shall be given primary focus with respect to the influence of Bernardino da Feltre.

Bernardino da Feltre, the Monte di Pietà and Vicenza

The figures of Blessed Bernardino da Feltre, who was never canonized, and St. Homobonus (1) were employed with some frequency in Northern Italy, though Homobonus less so than Bernardino. The presence of Bernardino da Feltre may appear innocuous as a Franciscan advocate of charity upon first glance; however, the beholder should consider that he became one of the most passionate Franciscan preachers from the 1470-90s. The effects of his fervent preaching against Jewish money-lending, especially in Mantua, Cremona, Pavia, Padua, Treviso, Vicenza and throughout northern and central Italy, inspired the flourishing of Monti di Pietà, or Christian money-lending establishments. The Monti di Pietà provided a Franciscan alternative in an attempt to interrupt the loan businesses of Jewish lenders, and Bernardino da Feltre advocated donations for the Monti di Pietà as a step toward salvation. (2) As Bernardino preached from town to town, funds poured into the local Monti di Pietà. Vicenza was no exception, and Bernardino gave sermons on numerous occasions in 1493 and 1494 at the request of its citizens. He preached as many as ninety sermons at Vicenza’s cathedral. (3) Nearby Lonigo is registered as having had a Monte di Pietà by the time of the Pope Leo X (1513-1522). Ultimately, the Monte di Pietà was not so much a charitable alternative to usury, but in point of fact, according to Franciscan scholar Vittorino Meneghin, it developed into another lending/earning establishment. (4) It is relevant that Bernardino da Feltre was the son of a wealthy noble notary, and therefore wise to finance; often arguing in support of the Monti di Pietà charging an interest rate to support its administration. Thus, the distinction between the two established loan systems becomes blurred. In the literature, it is fascinating to observe that the motives of Bernardino da Feltre are historicized differently. In one camp, Bernardino da Feltre is seen as preaching fervidly about the Monte di Pietà and its connection to Christian salvation. (5) In the other, scholars have argued that Bernardino preached only in towns with significantly populated Jewish communities with the objective of one, dispersing the Jewish community, and two, destroying their businesses. (6) In one particular case, Bernardino preached in Trent on Easter just before nine Jews were arrested, accused of the murder of a boy named Simon, and tormented until they confessed. As a late fifteenth-century depiction shows, the local Jews were charged - typically falsely - with having tortured and killed the two and half year-old Simon in order to use his blood for making Passover matzo. (7) Regrettably, the practice of charging Jews with ritual murder created an epidemic of similar cases in Northern Italy and Austria. (8) After Bernardino’s death in 1494, the Monti di Pietà continued to thrive; however, the War of the League of Cambrai, 1508-1517, in addition to the growing population in the Veneto, had disastrous effects and put the Franciscan institution in peril. (9)

In looking to fifteenth-century images of Bernardino da Feltre including Montagna’s, one finds that they are not extremely common. According to Meneghin’s survey of Bernardino da Feltre’s iconography, the incidence of Bernardino’s portraits from the late fifteenth century typically correspond to where he gave sermons and established Monti di Pietà throughout the Veneto, Umbria, and Emilia Romagna. (10) A number of visual examples present a window into the depth of Bernardino’s effectual nature as a speaker, a proponent of the Monte di Pietà and Franciscanism in the Veneto and beyond. As was the case in Vicenza, Bernardino gave sermons on a variety of occasions in Faenza, as this canvas was to commemorate his memorable orations.

The portrait shows Bernardino dressed as a Franciscan, hooded with presumably golden rays that issue from his head, a standard iconographical feature indicating the image postdates his life. Meanwhile, a donor is portrayed kneeling in the left lower corner. Bernardino holds a cartouche in his left hand with the maxim written, “Diligere Mundum,” which refers to the First Epistle of John’s “Do not love things of this world (2:15)”, and a clear allusion to the steps taken towards salvation. These same features are seen in another painting of Bernardino by an unknown Ferrarese painter, dated to 1507. Bernardino holds the typical sign for the Monte di Pietà, a mound topped with a standard flying the flag of the Resurrection, which bears an image invoking pathos: Christ, Man of Sorrows. Usually the emblem of the Monte di Pietà also contains the words “Curam illius habe,” or “Give them to the Host,” allusive to the request for charity as seen in the Umbrian example painted by Giovanni di Pietro, otherwise known as “Lo Spagna” The Veronese painter Paolo Morando, called Cavazzola, painted a profile portrait intended as one of a cycle of paintings for a chapel in the Church of San Bernardino in Verona. Here Bernardino gestures as if in the act of sermonizing. Filippo Mazzola, father of the famous Parmigianino, painted a half-length sacra conversazione with Bernardino da Feltre in Parma. While the original context of this oil on panel is uncertain, it is known that Bernardino gave sermons in Parma between 1485 and 1492. Thus, the possibility remains that Mazzola himself might have had contact with the Franciscan missionary. Here Bernardino’s physiognomy is very similar to the features seen in Lo Spagna’s portrait, taking into account the round bulbous eyes and mustache, though the symbol of the Monte di Pietà is an abbreviated Man of Sorrows. Because in many instances the paintings of Bernardino da Feltre were intended as ex-votos honoring his sermons, I pose the following question: Where does Montagna’s sacra conversazione, incorporating Bernardino da Feltre, fit into this tradition? Undoubtedly, the presence of this figure forces us to observe this understudied work in a new light.

State of Conservation

In Montagna’s San Marco altarpiece, the beggar, pendant figure to Bernardino, appears original, as is the miniature figure of St. Catherine of Alexandria. The apparent diminished size of Bernardino is curious, though interesting to note that according to his biographies, he was apparently diminutive in stature. The Bishop of Padua was recorded as having called him, affectionately, “piccolino,” or “parvulo.” (11)

As a part of the recent technical investigation conducted by the Berlin Gemäldegalerie in 2004, the x-ray assemblage reveals that Bernardino da Feltre was likely added later, due to the fact that the figure is extremely light in intensity, almost invisible compared to the other figures in the painting. (12) Further examination reveals that the podium and socle were finished before Bernardino was added, thus he is most likely not a part of the originally planned painting. The letters “M.D.” on the throne base likely refer to Mater Dei, given the titular dedication to the Immaculate Conception. The Church of San Marco was re-consecrated and three additional altars were built on June 3, 1512. (13) Given the evidence of Montagna’s stylistic maturity observed in this work, such as his interest in saturated tones, movement of human form and the blurring of hard contours, it seems probable that Montagna would have produced this altarpiece for the new structure, and thus a date of 1500 for Montagna’s painting is premature. Vicentine Church historian, Francesco Barbarano, gives an account of San Marco’s six altars and describes them as they appeared in the mid-eighteenth century. According to Barbarano, the confraternities of Lonigo maintained these six altars, though Barbarano does not specify patrons to altars. (14)

By 1512 Vicenza and its provincial territory, including Lonigo, had long since restored its allegiance to the Venetian Republic, yet the war of the League of Cambrai persisted. It is known that the Monte di Pietà in Vicenza was affected adversely during these years. If the loan establishment in urban Vicenza had exhausted its funds in this time of extreme need, then can we assume that there were similar conditions in rural Lonigo during the League of Cambrai years? I suggest here that Montagna finished the altarpiece around 1512 and upon presentation to his patron, a local confraternity in Lonigo, it was decided to augment the composition to include Bernardino da Feltre in the interest of re-awakening his memory and donations given to the local Monte di Pietà. Bernardino’s presence in Lonigo was never documented, however he spoke many times in nearby Vicenza, Padua and Verona. Moreover, as his ex-voto portraiture tradition suggests, imagery of Bernardino da Feltre is strictly connected to commemorating his sermons, thus the appeal for donations.
Regrettably, the specifics of Bartolomeo Montagna’s commission remain obscured by the lack of archival information, as none of the convent’s inventories mention the painting. The San Marco in Lonigo altarpiece thus stands as a cultural marker of Franciscan rhetoric: promoting propaganda against Jewish money lending practices, and endorsement for the use of Monti di Pietà reflects Vicentine local piety.

NOTES:

(1) George Kaftal, Saints in Italian Art: Iconography of the Saints in the Paintings of North East Italy. Florence: Sansoni, 1978, 425. In North Eastern Italy, Kaftal cites only two others in addition to Montagna, one in the Basilica San Marco and another by Domenico da Tolmezzo (1479) in Udine at the Museo Civico.

(2) Renata Segre, “Bernardino da Feltre: I Monti di Pietà e I Banchi Ebraici,” Rivista storia italiana, vol. 90, Issue 4, (1978): 888.

(3) Vittorino Meneghin, Bernardino da Feltre e I Monti di Pietà (Vicenza: 1974), 393-5.

(4) Ibid.

(5) Meneghin, 388-90.

(6) Segre, 825. For example, oddly Bernardino da Feltre never preached sermons in his native Feltre. Monte di Pietà was founded as late as 1542.

(7) Dana E. Katz, “The Contours of Tolerance: Jews and the Corpus Domini Altarpiece in Urbino,” The Art Bulletin 55 4 (December 2003): 652.

(8) Leon Poliakov, The History of Anti-Semitism (New York, Shocken Books, 1965), 148. Here is an exerpt from the Franciscan preacher’s sermon at Trento, “Jewish usurers bleed the poor to death and grow fat on their substance, and I who live on alms, who feed on the bread of the poor, shall I then be mute as a dog before outraged charity? Dogs bark to protect those who feed them, and I, whom am fed by the poor, shall I see them robbed of what belongs to them and keep silent? Dogs bark for their masters; shall I not bark for Christ?” Furthermore, the site of Simon’s execution later became a pilgrimage site.

(9) Meneghin, 401-2.

(10) See Meneghin, Iconografia del B. Bernardino Tomitano da Feltre. Venice: San Michele in Isola, 1967.

(11) Meneghin, (1967), 11. Bernardino Guslino da Feltre was his earliest biographer in 1696 and Simone da Marostica in 1871.

(12) See Elizabeth Carroll. “La Pala Ritrovata: Una rivisitazione della Pala d’Altare di
Bartolomeo Montagna, già nella Chiesa di San Marco a Lonigo.” Arte Documento 20 (2004):112-117.

(13) Pomello, 68. Cites the documentation as, “…si legge nei atti di Pietro Giovanni da Schio.”

(14) Francesco Barbarano de Mironi, Historia Ecclesiastica della Città, Territorio e Diocesi di Vicenza 1649-1762, Vicenza: Carlo Bressan, 1761., vol. VI, 48

Images courtesy of Berlin Gemaldegalerie and Vittorino Meneghin

copyright 2007

Elizabeth Carroll Consavari, Ph.D.
Department of Art and Art History
Stanford University

The capture of Pirisabora represented the first major victory for Julian's Persian expedition in A.D. 363. Ammianus Marcellinus, Zosimus, and Libanius all discuss the siege and the subsequent setback the Romans suffered the next day, when three squadrons of scouts were routed and a standard lost. Putting all three accounts together reveals substantial omissions in Ammianus' account which suggest the historian purposefully distorted his account to minimize the damage to the reputation of his hero, Julian.

On the second day of the siege of Pirisabora, Julian himself led an attack against one of the gates of the city but was repelled. He then ordered a helepolis “city-taker” siege engine to be built, the mere sight of which convinced the defenders to surrender under lenient terms of peace (24.2.18-22). Ammianus reports that the soldiers found a large stockpile of grain and weaponry in the citadel, since the city had been evacuated and 2500 men left behind to defend it from the Romans (24.2.22). Of this, the soldiers took what they needed and burnt the remainder as well as the city.

Ammianus’ chronology at this point becomes murky: he next recounts the loss of a standard by a reconnaissance force and the punishment of the men involved postera die “on day following” (24.3.1), and then he relates Julian’s speech which occurred incensa denique urbe, ut memoratum est “after the burning of the city, as I have said” (24.3.3). The reader is left to ask whether the loss of the standard (and punishment of the soldiers) occurred before or after the speech?

Ammianus seems to say that on the same day as the capture of the city, the citadel was found full of goods, the city burned, and Julian’s speech given. The following day, then, the reconnaissance force lost their standard, Julian routed the enemy, and punished the soldiers who had lost the standard. This interpretation means that Ammianus has reported the events of 24.3.1-2 out of sequence, jumping forward to the day after the city was captured and then jumping back to the day of the capture to relate Julian’s speech. Based on just the information he gives, this certainly is a possible interpretation of the sequence of events (1), but when Zosimus’ account is considered it becomes less plausible.

On the siege itself, Ammianus and Zosimus agree, but Zosimus gives much more detail following the city’s surrender. First, he says that in addition to grain and weapons, abundance τῆς ἄλλης ἀποσκευῆς “of other household stuff” was also found (3.18.5). He states that of the large amount of grain found, most was loaded onto ships and the rest split between the men. Of the weapons, the arms useful for Roman battle tactics were distributed to the men and the rest burned or thrown into the river (3.18.5-6). Zosimus' account makes good sense, but accepting it means that Ammianus’ sequence of events become awfully crowded for the day of the capture of Pirisabora: the troops had to have tried to attack the city in the morning, built a siege engine, negotiated terms with the inhabitants, found the stockpile, carried off most (if not all) of the grain and loaded it on the supply ships, burned the city, and then heard Julian’s speech.

On the other hand, the note that Julian’s speech occurred incensa denique urbe “after the city had been burned” does not necessarily place the Julian’s speech immediately before the loss of the standard by the scouts. Two alternatives are possible: either the first notice that the city was burned looks forward to the next day (having been dislocated to round out the climax of the seige in 24.2), or the second notice acts to remind the reader of the situation (the successful capture of an important city and the reason for the donative) and not act as a temporal marker. Indeed, Williams accepts without question that the speech occurred after the punishment of the soldiers (2). Zosimus’ version does not clearly put the loss of the standard either before or after Julian’s speech: while he narrates the speech before defeat of the scouts, he does not give any words which can confirm the ordering is chronological and not just topical (3.19.1).

The account of the attack and Julian’s counterattack also present difficulties when compared to Zosimus’ version, which again adds more details.

Postera die, quam haec acta erant, perfertur ad imperatorem cibos per otium capientem nuntius grauis Surenam, Persicum ducem, procursatorum partis nostrae tres turmas inopinum aggressum paucissimos trucidasse, inter quos strato tribuno unum rapuisse uexillum. Statimque concitus ira immani cum armigera manu festinatione ipsa tutissimus peruolauit et grassatoribus foeda consternatione depulsis residuos duo tribunos sacramento soluit ut desides et ignauos; decem uero milites ex his, qui fugerant, exauctoratos capitali addixit supplicio secutus ueteres leges. (Ammianus Marcellinus 24.3.1-2)

On the following day, while the emperor was peacefully taking his dinner, he received the unwelcome news that the Persian commander called the Surena had unexpectedly attacked three squadrons of our scouts. Our casualties had been very slight, but a tribune had been killed and a standard captured. Furiously angry, Julian flew in person to the spot with an armed force—the speed of the operation guaranteed its safety—and completely routed the marauders. The two surviving tribunes were cashiered for cowardice and neglect of duty, and ten men out of those who had run away were discharged and put to death in conformity with the ancient Roman practice. (W. Hamilton, trans., The Later Roman Empire, Penguin 1986)

Den Boeft et al. convincingly argue that though it was not technically a decimation (10 men out of an estimated 1050), Ammianus certainly was well aware of the practice and that he considers this incident to be a form of it (3). They also, though, come to the conclusion that “it is impossible to decide whether Ammianus here approves” of the measure, since they conclude that he chooses neutral language with the words ueteres leges, unlike at 29.5.23 when he “fully agrees with the strong measures taken by Theodosius” and uses the word priscus, expressing “awe and respect” (4). While the words describing the custom of decimation may be neutral, though, Ammianus hints that he does not fully approve: he places emphasis on Julian's rage (which Zosimus 3.19.2 confirms) by using the Vergilian (Aeneid 9.694) phrase concitus ira immani “shaken by frightful rage”, as den Boeft et al. themselves point out (5). In addition, the adversative uero introducing the soldiers' punishment may indicate that, unlike the tribunes' demotion, the execution of the men was not entirely justified in Ammianus' eyes.

More problems lie, however, in what Ammianus fails to report, but which Zosimus gives: the Surena battacked μετὰ δυνάμεως οὐκ ὀλίγης “with not a small force” (3.19.1), that Julian recovered the standard (3.19.2), and that he not only routed the enemy but burned the town from which the attack was launched (3.19.2). For Ammianus to leave these three facts out seems strange, since they would increase the glory of Julian’s lightning-fast counterattack—i.e., he fought a larger force, won back the standard, and captured a city. Why does Ammianus diminish Julian's accomplishment by omitting these facts?

The obvious answer lies in execution of the ten soldiers who lost the standard. Given what Ammianus has told the reader, Julian would seem to have acted harshly but within his rights; he lets the reader assume that the Persian force was not very large (thus the slight losses of the scouts implies cowardice), that the standard was not recovered, and that the counterattack by Julian did not accomplish the impressive act of revenge which it did. While not excusing the three squadrons, Zosimus' information certainly mitigates the culpability of scouts and makes Julian’s punishment seem excessive. In the light of the Persian expedition's ultimate failure, Julian's exection of his own men seems wasteful if not outright deplorable. Ammianus, then, seems to have cleaned up the incident as much as he could in good conscience.

Ammianus next gives the second portion of Julian's speech to the soldiers. He does not report the entire speech, in which he says Julian thanked his troops and promised them 100 pieces of silver (24.3.3). This small sum, though, caused the troops to grow angry, and Julian rebukes them, claiming poverty but offering the spoils of the rich Persian empire (24.3.3-6). Should the troops not wish to obey him, he offers his suicide or abdication (24.3.7); at this, the troops acquiesce and promise to comply, though without the overwhelming response Julian’s speeches usually evoke in Ammianus’ history. Zosimus confirms the sum of the gift, but has no mention of the near mutiny which followed (3.18.6).

That the troops were disappointed by their reward after the capture of Pirisabora is plausible: according to Ammianus, they had received only grain and weapons in addition to the silver promised by Julian. Of the abundance τῆς ἄλλης ἀποσκευῆς “of other household stuff” Zosimus mentions, much of it may have been worthless to an army on the march. Finally, the city Julian captured during his counterattack might also not have provided much plunder, or it may not have been shared with the troops at Pirisabora. When it comes to discontent among Julian's soldiers, though, Ammianus sometimes distorts the situation. When Julian, as Caesar, led his men into the Alps, they ran short of food, prompting near mutiny among troops (17.9.3-5); Ammianus, though, plays down the shortage of food and instead emphasizes their complaint of not receiving their pay, which he blames on Constantius (6). Ammianus may be employing the same tactic in Pirisabora, hiding the source of the men's discontent about the decimation behind the pretext of a small donative.

Libanius' account of the loss of the standards and the punishment describes Julian going among the defeated scouts with only a couple of his bodyguards to exact the punishment in person, making an example τοῖς ἄλλοις ἅπασιν "for all the other soldiers" (Or. 18.229-30). The orator's emphasis on Julian's bravery for going among the troops with only a few bodyguards, combined with the statement that the emperor returned to his tent θαυμαστότερος γεγονώς "having become more admirable" (Or. 18.230), suggests that Julian successfully faced some sort of disturbance as a result of his punishment of the defeated soldiers. Ammianus may have elided not just a speech thanking the soldiers, but one in which Julian ordered the deaths of the ten men as an example against cowardice. Ammianus twice refers to Julian threatening his soldiers with being hamstrung if they straggle (7); Julian may similiarly delivered threats at this occasion, provoking the near mutiny of his soldiers. The offer of 100 pieces of silver may have been Julian's attempt to win back their affections, and his offer of suicide or abdication may, as Williams thinks, have been his trump card which only barely worked, as the weak assent of the troops shows (8).

In reporting the events following the capture of Pirisabora, Ammianus has purposefully distorted his account to minimize the harshness--if not outright abuse--of Julian's command and the subsequent mutiny he nearly provokes. By omitting the recovery of the standards and Julian's capture of a city during his counterattack, Ammianus tries to make Julian's actions seem more reasonable, while his sequencing of events--which is confusing at best--may be intentionally murky to prevent the reader from associating the discontent of the troops with execution of the ten soldiers which most likely occurred just prior. Ammianus, it appears, has done his best to disguise the rapidly deteriorating relationship between the emperor and his men, as well as trying to make the best of a sordid incident which occurred on the heels of Julian's first major victory in Persia.

(1) J. den Boeft, et al., Philological and historical commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus XXIV. Brill, 2002, 69
(2) M. Williams, "Four mutinies: Tacitus' Annales 1.16-30; 1.31-49 and Ammianus Marcellinus Res Gestae 20.4.9-20.5.7; 24.3.1-8," Phoenix 51.1, 1997, p. 68.
(3) J. den Boeft, et al., op. cit., ad loc. 24.3.2
(4) J. den Boeft, et al., ibid.
(5) J. den Boeft, et al., ibid.
(6) 17.9.6-7; T. Elliot, Ammianus Marcellinus and fourth century history. Stevens, 1983, 83
(7) Directly at 23.5.21 and elliptically at 24.1.13
(8) M. Williams, op. cit., 69

"Parfois, un arbre humanise mieux un paysage que ne le ferait un homme." Gibert Cesbron

Man and nature… The story of humanity has been an unending conflict between civilisation and that needing civilising. One is constantly assaulting the other: man with his axes and ploughs, and nature with its tempests and floods. Very rarely has man lived in complete harmony with his surroundings. Until the Renaissance in Western Europe, the kinds of emotions with which man associated nature centred on fear. And yet, over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Western European man nurtured a different sort of relationship with his environment: a connection that was not based on necessity or the desire to tame, but an aesthetic appreciation of the mystery of nature’s wild beauties. Nature became “landscape”, and an artistic genre in its own right.

The rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman literature after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 revived interest in the animist perspective of the great civilisations of the past. The Greeks believed not only that trees and brooks had spirits but also that natural phenomena could be explained by means of myths. Every element of nature stemmed from divine intervention. Storms, earthquakes, and plagues were physical manifestations of godly anger. Attributing emotions to nature helped man to understand the world around him. This tight understanding bridged a gap between man and nature, which enabled – with a small leap of imagination – the transformation of one matter into the other. Ovid illustrates this bond in his Metamorphosis, a compilation of poetry that had a profound influence on writers and artists of the Renaissance.

The myth that both dramatically and tenderly explores man’s relationship with nature in the Renaissance period is the story of Philemon and Baucis. Philemon and Baucis are an old mortal couple, still deeply in love after decades of marriage. Although they live very humbly, they offer hospitality to Jupiter and Mercury – travelling through the land in disguise – when the people of a nearby town had all turned the gods from their doorsteps. The gods punish the townsfolk by summoning a flood, but reward Philemon and Baucis by granting their wish: to be able to die together at the very same moment. When the old couple dies, they are transformed into trees that grow forever in each other’s embrace. The myth was the inspiration for two important artists of the seventeenth century: the French poet Jean de La Fontaine and the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens.

An analysis of the poem Philémon et Baucis by La Fontaine and the painting Landscape with Philemon and Baucis by Rubens (Fig.1) will illuminate the nature of the relationship between man and landscape. The term “man” encompasses many different bodies: the peasant, the urban-dweller, and for our purposes, even the gods. The works of art invite a comparison between the controlled power of the human body and the savage power of nature. Philemon and Baucis’ metamorphosis into trees unites the two worlds and humanises the landscape. Though, it is possible that the two spheres were not so different to begin with, as we consider the notion of landscape as the mirror of the human being.

I. Landscape and the Peasant

No link between man and nature is as deeply forged as the connection between the peasant and the land he cultivates. In his Court traité du paysage (Short Treaty on Landscape), Alain Roger states that the peasant does not appreciate the beauty of a landscape in an aesthetic capacity, but rather he judges the beauty of a landscape based on its usefulness. “This does not signify that the peasant is bereft of all ties to his country and that he does not feel any attachment towards his land, quite the contrary; but this attachment is all the more powerful because it is symbiotic” . Further in the text, Roger reassesses his idea of the “natural contract” that exists between peasant and landscape, defined as “either death or symbiosis.”

The myth of Philemon and Baucis corresponds to Roger’s theory. Philemon and Baucis live in peace with nature. La Fontaine writes that they “cultivated, without assistance, Their enclosure and their field for two score summers.” This wisdom is rewarded by “a bit of milk, of fruits, and the gifts of Ceres.” The earth is respected and well cared for; therefore, it reciprocates with its fertility. Moreover, the cabin belonging to Philemon and Baucis is described by La Fontaine as narrow and humble. With its broken table and used carpet, is so decrepit that it is practically an extension of nature itself.

In Rubens’ painting, the artist transmits by his use of colours the notion of commensalism between the old couple and nature. While Zeus and Hermes are garbed in vibrant blue and red, Philemon and Baucis’ clothes are coloured in tones nearly indistinguishable from the hues of the countryside. Rubens uses the same greys and browns to paint their clothing and skin as the shades he applies to the waterfalls and trees. Already, during their lifetimes, Philemon and Baucis blended in with nature. This link in life prefigures their bond beyond death.

Meanwhile, the city-dwellers of the nearby burg have lost their contact with the land and consequently, they perish as punishment. Is there a correlation between life in an urban environment and the corruption of its inhabitants? In Ovid’s time, cities were being built around the quintessential city, Rome. The poet would have been able to witness the degeneration of nature and the result of this rupture between men of the countryside and city-dwellers. In his work entitled Philémon et Baucis, author Ernst Jünger says of Ovid, “He was born in the Samnite village of Sulmo, and although he lived in Rome since his earliest youth, it is likely that he always spent a part of the year in his country estates. As always with the Latins, cultivated lands, labours and gardens were more familiar than the woods. The way in which one sowed, cultivated, harvested and consumed the fruit of the land held not the slightest secret from him.”

For Ovid, the myth of Philemon and Baucis might have represented the joy of civilising nature while still cultivating and appreciating the goodness of the earth. The danger lay only in building a civilisation to the detriment of nature. City-dwellers lose their roots, so to speak, and their connection to the land. And since the land is, in animist cosmology, simply a physical manifestation of spirits and gods, we can deduce that the city-dwellers lose a certain part of their faith.

After the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, scholars fled the great city with their manuscripts and knowledge, and Western Europe found itself flooded by the literature and philosophy of Antiquity. Authors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries began to re-examine ancient literary themes, finding in the old stories material with which they could easily identify. Why did La Fontaine choose the myth of Philemon and Baucis in particular? As in Ovid’s era, large cities were developing in France. Consequently, the abundance of bodies, malnutrition and lack of hygiene contributed to the diseases that raged across Europe. Numerous illnesses, notably the bubonic plague, struck thousands of victims, particularly in overpopulated cities where maladies spread quickly. The punishment delivered upon the townspeople in the myth of Philemon and Baucis would have struck a chord with the public of La Fontaine’s Europe. We can consider the destruction wrought by Jupiter and Mercury as symbolic of the plague, which was also considered a punishment imposed by God: “God, irritated by the sins of an entire population had decided to extract vengeance…” Readers of La Fontaine’s poem might have hoped to be protected from divine retribution in the same way that Philemon and Baucis were spared by the gods. The health of the body depended on the respect that that body showed for its environment.

II. The Power of Men and Gods

In Homer’s Odyssey, the text describes only the voice of the sirens and neglects their entire physical description. This omittance only thickens their elusive and mysterious character. La Fontaine’s poem, however, often alludes to parts of the body in reference to its human and godly protagonists: hearts, front, wrinkles, feet, eyes, eyebrows, hand. Instead of distancing the characters, as Homer does with the sirens, these physical details humanise not only the mortal characters but also the gods. If it looks like a human and walks like a human… Although the gods possess abilities lacking in ordinary men, in art, we represent and thus consider them to be simply glorified humans: powerful undying men.

Fig. 2 Rubens, Self-Portrait with Isabella Brant, 1609

Artists employ many different kinds of visual strategies to depict the importance of a certain figure in relation to others present in a painted scene. For instance, in Rubens’ 1609 Self Portrait with his wife Isabelle Brant, the artist places himself in an elevated position. (Fig. 2) His wife is seated at his side; the top of her hat does not even reach the level of her husband’s nose. In this case, height designates Rubens’ superiority over Isabelle, and establishes in the mind of the observer a certain dynamic in the perception of their marriage.

Fig. 3 Rubens, Henri IV Receiving the Portrait of Marie de Medici

In Landscape with Philemon and Baucis, the most immediate observation is that the figures do not occupy the centre of the painting. The background, which is generally only present in mythological paintings in order to highlight the figures, is the focal point of this particular work. Subverting our expectations of a mythic scene, it seems that the figures are only present in order to justify the artist’s desire to paint a dramatic landscape. Clearly the landscape is the protagonist that plays the biggest role in this moment of the story.

Once we have located the figures, we note that Rubens subtly alludes to a social hierarchy. Jupiter’s head is the most elevated, followed by that of Mercury, Philemon and finally Baucis. (Fig. 3) This is in accordance with the norms of the times: gods must be placed higher than men, and men higher than women. What is surprising, however, is the fact that all four figures are equally tiny when faced with the immensity of nature. Their proximity to each other suggests solidarity between men and gods confronted with the wilderness. Men and gods, beside one another, like equals… Could Rubens have been commenting on the contiguity of human and divine power?

The Renaissance saw the birth of the Humanist movement, which is defined in part by the exaltation of the capacities of man. Man awoke to the realization of being capable of dominating the world. He was, after all, a creation of God, and thus a manifestation of divine inspiration. Mixing old stories with new values, can we say that this new consciousness of power is present in La Fontaine’s poem and Rubens’ painting? Philemon and Baucis do not exert power on their environment: they simply lack the physical strength to do so. Instead of taming the world around them, they are content to coexist. The area in which they do exert a significant force, however, a force that humbles even the gods, is on an emotional level. Philemon and Baucis love each other with an undying passion. Even the gods cannot claim to possess such devotion to marital fidelity. And yet, as beautiful as eternal love is, it is not a characteristic of a Renaissance man or a Humanist. Philemon and Baucis are not embodiments of Humanist ideals. They are not… but someone else is.

In La Fontaine’s poem and in Rubens’ painting, the gods themselves fulfil the role of Renaissance man – and not in the sense of a man with many talents, but rather a man of the Renaissance period coming to terms with his mastery over the world surrounding him. The vocabulary of power pervades the poem: “Jupiter interceded”; “Jupiter granted”; “powerful hand” . Jupiter speaks in the imperative. To the old couple, he orders, “Follow us”. Too mighty to take it upon himself to create a storm, he relegates power to his companion: “Mercury, summon the vapours” . In Rubens’ painting though, Mercury protects the mortals with a comforting hand on Philemon’s shoulder while Jupiter commands the storm with outstretched arm. It is an authoritative gesture.

These gods are clearly very powerful; but what is the nature of their power? The gods are able manipulate nature and effect transformations. Manipulate and transform, but not create. Mercury could transport pre-existing vapours, but he could not to create them. The gods were incapable of creating something out of nothing. Similarly, men of the Renaissance learned to influence their environment and accomplish their desires with the tools that nature provided, but they were not magicians who could create matter in a void. Jupiter, Mercury, and the other gods did not create the world. They inherited it from divinities far more ancient. Similarly, Rubens’ and La Fontaine’s contemporaries did not create the stories they represented in art, but they had recently inherited a vision of the world enlightened by Antiquity. La Fontaine designates the gods by the expression “Masters of the world”, a title that could apply equally well to the sixteenth and seventeenth century intellectual elite.

The power of the gods that men truly lack is the ability to outlast time. For what else is immortality but the possibility to conquer nature and its limitations? The most precious gift the gods may bestow is a share of their immortality. However mortals who actively seek immortality are punished for their presumption. Philemon and Baucis demonstrate humility when they request only the privilege of serving the gods in their temple and dying together. Their prayer is granted beyond their hopes and they are indeed rendered somewhat immortal when they are transformed into trees at their death. But as trees, not as men. As La Fontaine opines at the beginning of his poem, “Fortune sells what we think she gives”. That is to say, no gift of the gods comes without a price. Philemon and Baucis do not conquer nature – to the contrary, the gods oblige them to climb a hill with no consideration for the fact that it is difficult for two elderly people walking with canes to make such a hike. While they could have spared the old couple from the ravages of age by alleviating their aching bodies, the gods proceeded with the attitude “If you can’t beat’em, join ‘em”. Instead of helping Philemon and Baucis rise above nature, they united them to nature forevermore.

III. The Power of Nature

Men have the power of love, and gods have the power to manipulate the physical world. Yet, in the symbolic language of art, we can read in Rubens’ painting that all four figures, both mortal and divine, are small and weak relative to the dominating power of the elements. Their diminutive size connotes the inferiority of mere creatures faced with the enormity of nature. The environment expresses itself in four ways, through water, fire, air and earth. All of these elements are necessary for life, but they can also all be tools of destruction and death. In the myth of Philemon and Baucis, water is the weapon of choice.

Floods play a significant role in creation myths of many religions. The most salient example in western culture is of course the story of Noah’s Ark from the Old Testament. God, saddened and angry at the corruption of man, unleashed a deluge that annihilated all traces of life on land, with the exception of Noah and the animals sheltered in his ark. While the flood caused by Jupiter and Mercury in the myth of Philemon and Baucis was localised, the flood of the Judaeo-Christian tradition covered the entire planet.

Deluges, like storms, hurricanes and tsunamis, are a source of fear and panic. All the technology in the world is powerless to stop the devastating forces of nature. Even nowadays, we are constantly confronted with new examples of technology’s failing faced with disaster. We are reminded of the true weakness of what is considered by many to be humanity’s greatest strength. Sometimes natural disasters such as storms are seasonal and expected, yet they also arrive seemingly at random, surprising locals with their brutality. While the forces of nature have always commanded fear and humility in man, since the Renaissance man has striven not only to subdue nature but also, when complete mastery is not possible, to admire even the monstrous and ferocious side of the world for its savage beauty.

In the same way that children love, in spite of themselves, stories that make them hide under their blankets in fear, men enjoy finding in art the representation of subjects that would ordinarily frighten them were they to experience them in real life. Capturing a terrible scene in a work of art allows it to be admired in a safe and imaginary space. That which is dangerous becomes sublime. “The sublime is not only that which elevates the soul, but it also signifies to the observer its crushing, its annihilation confronted with the spectacle of an incommensurable force.” This quote by C. Legrand refers to the Joseph Vernet painting entitled The Tempest (1777). In L’homme dans le paysage, Alain Corbin also mentions “sublime chaos” in reference to the painting Fire at Sea (1835) by William Turner .

In the myth, Jupiter transforms Philemon and Baucis’ home into a temple with the exploits of the day inscribed on the walls: “All the events were traced on the panel. Far, far from the tableaux of Zeuxis and Apelle! These were traced by an immortal hand.” Jupiter guarantees that neither the force of his anger nor his mercy will be forgotten. By himself immortalising the scene in paint, Rubens echoes Jupiter’s intentions. His landscape painting is a representation made by a mortal hand that recounts the same events that the god wanted to preserve for posterity.

Rubens presents a violent and cruel scene. Uprooted broken trees bear witness to the chaos caused by the storm. The myth involves close ties between men and trees; the battered trees are symbolic of the city-dwellers also cut down by Jupiter’s wrath. Dead human bodies scattered about a landscape painting would not have been tasteful, but in the context of the story, it is a short leap of the imagination from trees to men.

The scene is not without hope. Rubens includes three easily recognizable elements that inspire optimism: the sunlight piercing the clouds, the white bird, and the rainbow. The sun will come out tomorrow… light breaking through heavy clouds is a sign of brighter days, and is often representative of God in Christian art. The white bird is evocative of the Holy Spirit, but also of the dove that brought Noah an olive branch: a sign that it was possible to start life anew on dry land. In the story of Noah’s Ark, the rainbow was God’s gift to mankind, his promise of peace.

IV. The Metamorphosis

Fig. 4 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Winter, 1573

The term “anthropomorphised landscape” designates a humanised countryside. We tend to associate this term with the works of Arcimboldo (Fig.4) or with the Vexierbilder because in these cases the humanisation is conspicuously visible. These kinds of artwork play with optical illusions and are pleasing to the eye in the same way that a pun or a play-on-words amuses the ear. The tradition was widely appreciated in the Renaissance and is maintained today by contemporary artists, such as the Mexican painter Octavio Ocampo.

The kind of anthropomorphisation practised by La Fontaine and Rubens is less visually obvious. Instead of playing with illusions, Rubens directs the observer’s eye in the direction he wishes it to follow in order to transmit a message about the eventual metamorphosis of the figures. Rubens chose to depict the storm scene of the myth; therefore, in keeping with the laws of temporality, he cannot show the transformation of Philemon and Baucis in the same frame. Rubens compresses time already in order to show the entirety of the storm – from its beginnings in the commanding gesture of Jupiter, to its end beneath the rainbow. He cannot show the entire myth occurring in one moment. He can, however, allude to the future. The viewer’s gaze starts at the right on the figures and follows Jupiter’s arm to the left in order to determine what the god is designating with his finger. Following the pathway up to the sky, the gaze is guided by continuity in colour. Gravity pulls the gaze down the path along with the rain, from the clouds to the waterfalls and finally to the rainbow (Fig. 1).

Once the viewer’s eye has traced the pathway drawn by the artist, it returns to the place it started from in order to re-examine the figures: Baucis, Philemon, Mercury and Jupiter. At that instant, it is possible to observe the foreshadowing of the impending metamorphosis. The gaze rises above Philemon and Baucis and perceives two trees intertwined (Fig. 1). These trees are symbolic of the trees that Philemon and Baucis become at the moment of their death. The trees grow beside one another and try to hold each other, even in death, in an embrace: “She became a tree, and extended her arms to him…” says La Fontaine.

Rubens is not unique in wanting to foreshadow the transformation in his artwork. La Fontaine follows suit: images of plants abound in his poem. Philemon says that the adoration of gods is more sincere when idols are sculpted of “simple wood” instead of gold, evoking the authenticity of wood. Philemon and Baucis walk with the help of a cane of reeds. This is reminiscent of the famous enigma posed by the Sphinx, which only Oedipus was able to answer correctly: what walks on four feet in the morning, two feet in the afternoon and three feet in the evening? Philemon and Baucis walk on three feet in the evening of their life. They already belong to the world of trees when they use branches to assist their movements.

In his article entitled “Arborisms in Ovid’s Baucis and Philemon from Metamorphoses”, Dr. Patrick Hunt of Stanford University proposes several hypotheses that explain the reason why Philemon and Baucis turn into oak and linden trees as opposed to other species. The interpretation that best conforms to the archetypal images of old age in La Fontaine’s poem is that the oak and linden both flower in the winter, just as Philemon and Baucis “blossom” in old age. In his poem, La Fontaine uses the metaphor of the seasons: “constant desires, had united their hearts since their sweetest Springtime.” Philemon and Baucis find themselves in a state of grace before the gods in the winter of their lives, just before their deaths. It is appropriate then that they should become trees that flower in winter.

V. The Landscape as Mirror

It is possible to contemplate the landscape as an extension of man after death, as in the case of Philemon and Baucis transformed into trees. However, the landscape is also a mirror of man while he is alive. In La Fontaine’s poem, the following verse links men’s feelings and their surroundings: “O hard people! You open neither your homes nor your hearts!” The home reflects the generosity and warm-heartedness of the individual who possesses it. Philemon and Baucis’ cabin is described in the following manner: “hospitable dwelling, humble and chaste house.” The adjectives describe the qualities of the old couple more than they inform the reader on the appearance of the house. The house is nothing more than a reflection of the personality of its inhabitants.

The artistic link between the representation of nature and the representation of the body is very strong. In the Musée du Louvre’s catalogue for an exhibit on figures in landscapes, we read “The artist, and more precisely the painter, will draw, paint the landscape as he would the face. We see to which extent the interaction, the interference remains important between man and the nature than surrounds him, and how much this dependence will act on the ‘portrait’ that is created of one like of the other.” The myth of Philemon and Baucis does not need to be depicted in a Vexierbilder kind of drawing, for the countryside is already a portrait of the figures. Besides being present in their human form, Philemon and Baucis exist in the trees just as the wrath of the gods is manifested in the cloudy storm.

Conclusion

« Nature is personified, thus may it be understood,” says the review of the Louvre exhibit. Nature is an enigma and its behaviour often mystifies men. Despite their differences, men are able to understand each other. In essence, they feel the same emotions and act according to motivations that are more or less discernable. Nature is not so easily decrypted. However, if we are able to see nature as just another step in the evolution of man’s life, we can understand and justify its peculiarities.

Philemon and Baucis are humans who become part of their landscape. Flesh becomes bark, hair becomes leaves… Man becomes nature. The result of this naturalisation of man is the humanisation of nature. The land becomes an entity with a human soul, thus rendering it more accessible and less frightening. La Fontaine says that that couples would sit in the shadow of oak and linden trees to honour the metamorphosed couple. The human body does not last, but its emotions last as long as the collective memory of those feelings survives. Man achieves immortality then in his communion with nature. And the immortality of the gods? Ironically, it is dependent on human creativity. The gods that facilitated man’s communion with nature in the first place live on only through works of art such as Philemon and Baucis by La Fontaine and Landscape with Philemon and Baucis by Rubens.

Naomi Levin, graduate student at the Sorbonne, Université de Paris IV
levinnao@gmail.com

Bibliography

Corbin, Alain. L’homme dans le paysage. Paris : Éditions Textuel, 2001.

Delumeau, Jean. La Peur en Occident, Une cité assiégée. Paris : Fayard, 1978.

Giraud, Yves. Le Paysage à la Renaissance. Fribourg (Suisse): Éditions Universitaires Fribourg, 1988.

Hunt, Patrick. « Arborisms in Ovid’s Baucis and Philemon from Metamorphoses » PHILOLOG (Dec. 2005) Stanford University, philolog/2005/12/arborisms_in_ovids_baucis_and.html>

Jünger, Ernst. Les nombres et les dieux / Philémon et Baucis. Paris : Christian Bourgois Éditeur, 1995.

Legrand, Catherine, Jean-François Méjanès et Emmanuel Starcky. Le Paysage en Europe du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle, Actes du colloque organisé au musée de Louvre par le Service Culturel du 25 au 27 janvier 1990. Paris : Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1994.

Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. Paysage, paysans, L’art et la terre en Europe du Moyen Âge au XXe siècle. Paris : Réunion des musées nationaux, 1994.

Musée National du Grand Palais . Le Paysage dans la peinture occidentale, du XVIe au XIXe siècle, Chefs-d’œuvres du Musée du Louvre. Paris : Réunion des musées nationaux, 1995.

Roger, Alain. Court traité du paysage. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1997.

Paintings

Rubens, Pierre Paul. Landscape with Philemon and Baucis (1625) Vienne : Kunsthistorisches Museum.
Image from the site Olga’s Gallery, http://www.abcgallery.com/R/rubens/rubens81.html.

Rubens, Pierre Paul. Self-Potrait with Isabelle Brant (1609) Munich : Alte Pinakothek.
Image from the site Wikipedia, http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubens.

Rubens, Pierre Paul. Henri IV Receiving the Portrait of Marie de Medici (1621) Paris : Musée du Louvre.
Image from the site of the University of Illinois in Chicago, http://www.uic.edu/depts/ahaa/classes/ah111/imagebank.html

Arcimboldo, Giuseppe. Winter (1573) Paris : Musée du Louvre.
Image from the site Wikipedia, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Giuseppe_Arcimboldo

Ocampo, Octavio. Las visiones del Quijote. Guanajuato : Museo iconográfico del Quijote.
Image from the site of the Museo iconográfico del Quijote, http://museoiconografico.guanajuato.gob.mx/pintura.html

Notes

(1) « Cela ne signifie pas que le paysan est dépourvu de tout rapport à son pays et qu’il n’éprouve aucun attachement pour sa terre, bien au contraire ; mais cet attachement est d’autant plus puissant qu’il est plus symbiotique. » A. Roger, Court traité du paysage. Paris: Gallimard, 1997, p27.
(2) « contrat naturel (…) ou la mort ou la symbiose » Ibid. p152.
« surent cultiver, sans se voir assistés, Leur enclos et leur champ par deux fois vingt Etés. (…) un peu de lait, de fruits, et des dons de Cérès. » La Fontaine
(3) « Il y est né, au village samnite de Sulmo, et bien que vivant à Rome dès sa prime jeunesse, il est probable qu’il a toujours passé une partie de l’année dans ses domaines campagnards. Comme toujours chez les Latins, terres cultivées, labours et jardins lui sont plus familiers que les bois. La façon dont on sème, cultive, moissonne et consomme le fruit de la terre n’a plus pour lui le moindre secret » Jünger, Philémon et Baucis, Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1995, p151.
(4) “Thus in France, but also more generally in the West, the endimicity of the plague diminished as of the sixteenth century, which only serves to highlight the most violent outbreaks: London in 1603,1625 and 1665 ; Milan and Venis in 1576 and 1630 ; Spain in 1596-1602, 1648-1652, 1677-1685 ; Marseilles in 1720.” Delumeau, La Peur en Occident, Une cité assiégée. Paris : Fayard, 1978, p99.
(5) Ibid. p.129.
(6) « Jupiter intercède » ; « Jupiter exauça » ; « main puissante » La Fontaine.
(7) « Suivez-nous » ; « Mercure, appelle les vapeurs » La Fontaine.
(8) « Le sublime ce n’est pas ici seulement ce qui élève l’âme, mais signifie à l’observateur son écrasement, son anéantissement devant le spectacle d’une force incommensurable à la science… » C. Legrand. Le Paysage en Europe du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle, Actes du colloque organisé au musée de Louvre par le Service Culturel du 25 au 27 janvier 1990. Paris : Réunion des musées nationaux, 1994, p206.
(9) Corbin, L’homme dans le paysage. Paris : Éditions Textuel, 2001, p80.
(10) « Tous ces événements sont peints sur le lambris. Loin, bien loin les tableaux de Zeuxis et d’Apelle ! Ceux-ci furent tracés d’une main immortelle. » La Fontaine.
(11) « Elle devenait arbre, et lui tendait les bras… » La Fontaine.
(12) « des désirs constants, Avaient uni leurs cœurs dès leur plus doux Printemps. » La Fontaine.
(13) « O gens durs ! vous n’ouvrez vos logis ni vos cœurs ! » La Fontaine.
(14) « Demeure hospitalière, humble et chaste maison. » La Fontaine.
(15) « L’artiste, et plus précisément le peintre, va dessiner, peindre le paysage tout comme il le fera du visage. On voit combien l’interaction, l’interférence demeure d’importance entre l’homme et la nature qui l’entoure, combien cette dépendance va agir sur le « portrait » qui sera fait de l’un comme de l’autre. » Le Paysage dans la peinture occidentale, du XVIe au XIXe siècle, Chefs-d’œuvres du Musée du Louvre, Paris : Musée National du Palais, 1995, p308.
(16) « La nature est personnifiée, ainsi peut-elle être comprise. » Ibid. p257.

Between 1520-23 Titian painted Bacchus and Ariadne, one of a series of mythological works for the ducal study [studiolo, the so-called 'Camerini d'Alabastro'] in the castle of Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara. (1) [Fig. 1]. Although the room was disassembled in 1598 after the d'Este family line in Ferrara died out and the castle reverted to the pope, the duke wanted these mythological paintings:

“to be explicitly all'antica in both style and content; indeed the subjects were largely based on descriptions of lost classical paintings." (2)

This is an intriguing idea where it might be asked which lost paintings and which ancient authors might describe them? This is an immediately reminder of Aristotle's comparison of the paintings of Zeuxis and Polygnotus [Poetics 6.27-28] or the paintings of Polygnotus at Delphi as recorded by Pausanias in his Description of Greece, Book 10.xxv.1 & ff., especially the Polygnotus portrait of Ariadne in 10.xxix.4 from the Lesche of Cnidos:

“You see a painting of Ariadne. Seated on a rock, she is looking at her sister Phaedra...Ariadne was taken away from Theseus by Dionysus, who sailed against him with superior forces, and either fell in with Ariadne by chance or set an ambush to catch her. This Dionysus was, in my opinion, the first to invade India.” (3)

Another Pausanias passage [Book 20. xx. 3-4] describes the paintings in the temple of Dionysus Eleuthereus in the theater precinct in Athens:

“The oldest sanctuary of Dionysus is near the theater...There are paintings here...Pentheus and Lycurgos paying the penalty of their insolence to Dionysus, Ariadne asleep, Theseus putting out to sea, and Dionysus on his arrival [at Naxos] to carry off Ariadne.”

This passage is similar in part to what Titian has depicted in Bacchus and Ariadne. Other source possibilities also abound. In Pliny [Nat. Hist. XXXV. 36, 65 & ff.] there is the story about Zeuxis that his painted grape clusters were so real that even birds tried to peck at his grapes, (4) where, admittedly speculative, such clusters might reference a painted Dionysian scene, since it was in a theater context. The probable source of the lost art applicable to Titian's work here, however, is usually thought to be that series of Naples wall-paintings described by Philostratus:

“Nor yet is it enough to praise the painter for things for which someone else too might be praised; for it is easy to paint Ariadne as beautiful and Theseus as beautiful; and there are countless characteristics of Dionysus for those who wish to represent him in painting or in sculpture...Having arrayed himself in fine purple and wreathed his head with roses, Dionysus comes to the side of Ariadne.“ (5)

Naturally, while extant Roman wall paintings or mosaics often have Dionysus (or Bacchus) and Ariadne or their sacred marriage as subjects [e.g., the 1st c. BCE Bacchus hieros gam[e]os panel in the Villa of the Mysteries, (6) the painting of Bacchus and Ariadne known from Boscoreale but now also lost; (7) and the 3rd c. CE Antioch mosaic pavements of Dionysus and Ariadne in the House of Dionysus and Ariadne, (8) to name only a few], many of these would have come to light only after the 18th c. [especially at Pompeii and Herculaneum], long after Titian. Even though many of the ancient paintings may now be lost or their influences untraceable, the classical iconography of the likely subject matter is still accessible. Although the question of lost classical paintings is quarry obviously worthy of the chase, it is not the subject of this brief paper on Titian's use of both classical iconography and literary sources in Ovidian and possibly Catullan narrative. Mosaics showing Bacchus returning from India are also known, such as the famous Sousse, Tunisia pavement with tigers (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 Bacchus returns from India, Sousse, Tunisia

Additionally, while it is likely that Titian's sources were mostly from literary texts rather than from the surviving classical visual arts, this problem will be discussed later in conjunction with early 16th c. Venetian collections such as that of Cardinal Grimani, (9) in which light we should consider that: "There were probably more notable works of ancient art available to artists in Venice and other northern Italian cities in the first decades of the sixteenth century than is normally supposed" as Marilyn Perry has suggested (10) [following the trail of Otto Brendel] with her notation of the early collections of Grimani, di Martini and Isabella d'Este.

If visual referents are difficult to prove, what about classical literary influences on this painting? In his landmark collection Essays on Literature and Art, Walter Pater discussed the school of Giorgione and Titian and extrapolated that the early Renaissance transformed prior literary narrative. It was his idea that "we may trace the coming of poetry into painting by fine gradations upwards" and also that a painting of this period can be "quite independent of anything definitely poetical in the subject it accompanies". (11) That poetry here should not be limited to mere literary text is clear, nevertheless Pater distinguishes between inspired visual accompaniment and the inspiring source subject. As Lucilla Burn elaborates:

“With the rediscovery of classical antiquity in the Renaissance, the poetry of Ovid
became a major influence on the imagination of poets and artists. His were among the first classical texts to benefit from the invention of printing in the late fifteenth century; they were widely and enthusiastically translated, and remained a fundamental influence on the diffusion and perception of Greek myths through subsequent centuries. “ (12)

Hope details the Duke of Ferrara's prior interest in artists such as Bellini, especially for the illustration of familiar Ovidian narrative. In the case of Bellini, however, the Duke did not express communication in "detailed instructions" and was ignorant of the "casual attitude of Venetian artists to erudite subject matter". (13) This description of casual attitude might well fit other artists and works, such as Hope mentions in Bellini's Feast of the Gods [National Gallery, Washington], (14) but Titian's attitude is anything but casual in his depiction of Bacchus and Ariadne, particularly since the classical iconography of Bacchus [or Dionysus in the Greek tradition], more than that of Ariadne, is a complex one, with multiple attributes or recognizable traits consistently portrayed in Greek and Roman art via black and red figure vase paintings, wall paintings, sculpture and mosaics. (15)

In terms of all'antica in style, Hope also mentions that "in general, authentically classical subject matter was almost always important to patrons elsewhere in Italy" (16) Furthermore, he claims that after d'Este's experience with Bellini, Titian was provided with a specific text to follow in the case of Bacchus and Ariadne (17) which classical texts can probably be adduced, as has been often attempted. As G. H. Thompson showed, Ovid is the most likely classical literary source for Titian, with probable direct allusions to the Ars Amatoria as a primary inspiration for this painting. Thompson also related and challenged the long-held opinions of Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo [Trattato dell'Arte della Pittura, Scoltura et Architettura, 1585] and Carlo Ridolfi in 1648 that Catullus Carmen LXIV was the primary source for this Titian painting. (18)

Figs. 3-4 Dionysus in Greek red-figure with leopard skin and ivy branch; Bacchus as a grape cluster from Pompeii, National Museum, Naples

First, however, we must establish the overall context in Titian's painting. The primary subjects are young Bacchus in the left center, Ariadne on the far left and the procession of Bacchus moving from right to left out of the woods on the island of Naxos, which Ovid recounts [Metamorphoses 3: 636-49] is the adopted home of Bacchus. Ariadne is half-turned toward the departed Theseus who has abandoned her on this island. The ship of Theseus may be seen on the sea at the horizon at Ariadne's left shoulder [however, if it is the ship of Theseus, where is the black sail we know from the myth?]. Ariadne is also now half-turned toward the youthful wine god leaping from his chariot, his wine-colored cape flying from his shoulders. The head of the unbearded Bacchus is also wreathed with ivy. After she played the courtesan to Theseus and betrayed her father Minos and his Cretan tyranny by helping Theseus to escape the labyrinth with his conquest of the monstrous Minotaur, Ariadne has slipped out of the saffron yellow robe, possibly the krokotos (22) of the hetaira, now placed on the ground behind her.

Having then consumed a krater of wine after removing the courtesan's yellow robe, perhaps in desolation at the perfidy of Theseus, she is now prepared to meet the wine god himself, in her unknowing readiness (enthusiasm from en + theos “in [the] god” or “god inside” or very loosely as the excitement coming from the god entering) (23) to be filled with his immediacy like one of his maenads. This sequence is demonstrated by the krater being placed on top of the krokotos, that is, Ariadne could not meet Bacchus until she had removed the shameful reminder of Theseus. The Bacchic procession [or thiasos group] includes the chariot of Bacchus, maenads or Bacchantes, dancing female attendants with cymbals, satyrs holding thyrsus and deer haunches, a satyr child [or faunus] dragging a deer head toward a pet dog, a drunken Silenus on a donkey, and an enigmatic snake-circled figure in the right center foreground often associated with Laocoon, the doomed Trojan priest of Apollo, who really has no direct part in this story of Bacchus meeting the abandoned Ariadne with his nuptial promise of the wedding gift, a crown of eight [or nine] stars overhead in the cumulus. Many of these elements will be enlarged in following sections.

As mentioned, the iconography of Bacchus or Dionysus is one of the most complex of all Greek and Roman deities, even as a relative newcomer "oriental" fertility god to Olympus.(24) There are at least ten recognizable attributes and many well-known vignettes in the corpus of Dionysian myth cycle [e.g. the "Birth of Dionysus", "Dionysus and His Maenads", Exekias' "Dionysus and the Pirates", "The Procession of Dionysus" and "Dionysus and Ariadne"] which would have been very familiar to most Greeks as well as specifically treated by such playwrights as Euripides [The Bacchae] and Aristophanes [The Frogs] since Dionysus was patron deity of dramatic tragedy and comedy. The very image of tragoedia was the death song or cry of the goat which invoked the god's presence at a dramatic festival. As mentioned [infra n.5 of this paper], Philostratus [Imagines I.15] records this iconography as already developed in antiquity. Boardman and others (25) have shown through the range of black figure, red figure and white-ground vase painting that the manifold attributes of Dionysus / Bacchus include [1] the kantharos wine cup or rhyton drinking horn; [2] a grape or ivy leaf wreath in his hair; [3] an effeminate mode of dress [most emphatic when the mature wine god is bearded]; [4] the thyrsus, his ivy wand; [5] satyrs, whose half-goat features and untamable propensity to drunkenness and lust are the natural attestations of wildness and bestiality; [6] panthers as wild companions, steeds or drawing his chariot; [7] maenads or bacchantes, women who dance ecstatically to Phrygian flutes, drums or cymbals and tear apart forest animals, usually deer, or cavort with wild cats; [8] ivy leaves and tendrils; [9] Silenus, his drunken old companion who always seems about to fall off his donkey in a stupor; [10] bearded in black figure vase scenes; and, lastly [10] serpents. T. B. L. Webster identifies core Dionysus scenes and his cult and Boardman also notes the presence of Dionysus on so many black figure scenes as probably due to "the function of so many of the vases involved". (26) These functions are connected to drinking either through the spring Anthesteria festival or its sacred marriage [Dionysus and Ariadne] as Richard Seaford, J. G. F. Hind [the wedding of Dionysus and Ariadne "was seen as a divine exemplar for mortal weddings"] and others attest, (27) or to celebrate the Great Dionysia festivals at Athens as M. Bieber has demonstrated. (28) Others have also examined the "animal vehicles" of Dionysus, including goats, serpents, ivy, fawns, etc. (29) T. B. L. Webster also distinguishes between the young, unbearded god and the older, bearded god, suggesting that it is the youthful Dionysus, as Titian shows here, who is involved with Ariadne [sometimes assaulting her] in the vase paintings of the 6th-4th c. BCE. (30)

In Titian's scene, the natural world of the painting seems to be divided diagonally between wildness and tameness. Titian has carefully coordinated the impenetrable density of woodsy greens and browns of the wild Dionysiac world through which the procession moves on the right without a given horizon. This is in contrast to the tamed landscape of cleared forest and island views with human habitations open to sky and sea on the left where Ariadne stands poised on the cliff, all planed to a visible horizon. What is more intense and exciting is that most of the stable horizon is distant to us while the woods are in the unstable foreground. Without warning, Titian places us closer to the wilder and unpredictable nature and wine god and his dangerous liberating tendencies [Dionysus Liber (31)]. It would also be remiss not to mention here examples of Titian's brilliant use of color, for which he was so famous, however faulty the perception `Michelangelo for form and Titian for colour', (32) a symbolic note as found in the garb of Ariadne. It is significant and perhaps not too programmatic that Ariadne's separate red, blue and white clothing blend to the prophetic wine color of Bacchus' robe at their meeting.

One of Titian's more inventive scenes in Bacchus and Ariadne is the confrontation between the satyr child [or faunus] and the dog. As a trophy of the wild orgiastic events in the woods where the Dionysiac rite of animal dismemberment usually take place, the satyr child drags a deer head on a string [probably belonging to the haunch of raw venison which one of the satyrs on the right is waving] whose blood and spoor the dog must have initially picked up. But now the dog - which the collar shows to be domesticated, perhaps as Ariadne's pet - having just smelled the little satyr, appears to be confused: it has nosed forward, but its upper body is slightly backing up away from its feet. Its stance seems to be asking cautiously "What is this creature [the satyr] which smells both half-humanly familiar and half-wildly unfamiliar?" As he looks outward to us, the satyr child is enjoying this joke at the dog's expense. Since there is no known classical precedent here, Titian has clearly inserted this little burlesque, perhaps for humorous effect, into the center foreground of the vignette.

Another curious element is the presence of the wild cats drawing the chariot of Bacchus, singularly noted by Panofsky. In antiquity, panthers [or leopards] are typical Dionysian steeds, e.g., the Greek mosaic at Pella with Dionysus on the panther, the Hellenistic House of the Muses [or Masks?] mosaic from Delos and the British Museum Roman Dionysus mosaic and Dionysus wall-painting fragment. (33) Although the word "leopard" [pardus, male or pardalis, female] does not appear anywhere in Ovid, Panofsky has imported a Greek quotation of Philostratus under the mention of panther, (34) where "panther" [panthera] occurs only once in Ovid: pictarumque iacent fera corpora pantherarum [Met. 3.669] in conjunction with Bacchus. As mentioned, the panther is a perfect animal for Dionysus because its name in Greek means ”all wild” pan + thera. Elsewhere in Ovid, lynxes are identified with the god in two other passages where the chariot of Bacchus is drawn by lynxes: colla lyncum [Met. 4.25], and lynxes were given by conquered India to the god: victa racemifero lyncas dedit India Baccho [Met. 15.413]. As Panofsky and others noted previously, tigers also draw the god's chariot: tigribus adiunctis aurea lora dabat in Ars Amatoria I. 550. (35) Confirming Ovidian use of tigers, or better, perhaps even deriving from the Ars Amatoria passage here in a literary borrowing from Ovid, it is specifically tigers in a Triumph of Dionysus mosaic at Sousse, Tunisia [circa 200 CE], who are shown drawing the chariot of Dionysus, where a panther is drinking [wine?] from a crater and a lion carries a baby satyr. (36) The presence of all three cats shows later Roman observational ability to distinguish them, even if Pliny earlier confused the distinction.

Figs. 5-6 Detail : Not Panthers but Cheetahs

But the cats in Titian's painting are certainly cheetahs, as can be seen by their unique eye markings, pattern of single spots [leopards have rosettes], smaller heads, longer legs and tufted tails [Figs. 5-6]. Panofsky explains the cheetahs in two ways: oriental Bacchus has returned from India with these cats and also that Titian would have wished to "gratify his patron's interest in rare, exotic animals... [an interest] so marked in Alfonso d'Este".(37) That may be true, although pard as the overall genus of spotted cats would have also easily included cheetahs in Renaissance bestiaries, most of which were derived in part first from Pliny and later from Physiologus [3rd. c. CE]. One of the most notable contemporary bestiaries is that of the most acute observer, Leonardo da Vinci, and was written in manuscript form mostly between 1489-1517 but was accessible in the 16th c. to only a very few readers [note the excerpts from Antonio de Beatis, 1517-18, a contemporary viewer mentioned in McCurdy's 1939 edition of Leonardo's Notebooks, p. 12]. Leonardo, who also was well-versed in Ovid's Metamorphoses [note p. 37 in McCurdy], describes leopards, panthers and tigers with some interesting conflations of the three large cats in a text which owes much to Pliny by mostly direct quotation. (38)

As noted earlier, since Ovid seems to mention panther only once in the retinue of Bacchus, otherwise having mentioned lynxes and yoked tigers pulling the god's chariot, it might be that Titian could be creative and satisfy the duke's taste for the exotic in his menagerie as well. There is, however, an additional note of irony here, as some have suggested, (39) that while motion is actively shown in all the other participants in the painting, these wild cats - specifically cheetahs, so capable of incredible speed - are the calmest beings in view, when by nature they should be the most active of all cats, not to mention more active than all the other elements in the picture. Could this be an intention of Titian that, by result of the god's exciting presence, the cheetahs are calm in comparison to all the other wilder Dionysiacs?

Panofsky, in his now famous Wrightsman Lectures [Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, published in 1969 as Problems in Titian: Mostly Iconographic] clarifies that the following generations were not so lucky in identifying Titian's actual subject matter in Bacchus and Ariadne:

"The subject of the painting is so unusual even in classical, let alone postclassical, art that Annabile [sp?] Roncagli - that gentleman who recorded the paintings illegally removed from Ferrara in 1598 - could not properly identify it: he describes the painting as `a picture of square format by Titian, in which Laocoon is depicted'." (40)

While we may not agree with Panofsky about a dearth of classical depictions of this subject, the opinion of Roncagli offers some evidence of either a general lack of knowledge about textual or visual classical iconography among Renaissance writers or inversely how careful Titian was in assembling textual and or visual representations of classical iconography [or both of the above]. Panofsky also notes a plaster cast of the Vatican group of Laocoon would have been accessible to Titian after 1520 (original excavated circa 1507) and does again suggest after Lomazzo a likely Catullus quotation of Bacchic votaries "girding themselves with coiling serpents"(41)

pars sese tortis serpentibus incingebant [Carmina LXIV 257-65]

Does this explain the enigmatic man, already mentioned, in the right foreground, the mysterious satyr-like figure grappling with the serpents? Is he actually part of the procession and is his tortured expression a Bacchic feature? Do we even know that this is a Laocoon allusion, as Otto Brendel maintained? (42) The Hellenistic period Laocoon group in question was excavated circa 1507 from Nero's Domus Aurea or Golden House near the Colosseum in Rome (43) and was immediately copied in drawings by such artists as the mid-16th c. Federico Zucchari. (44) The influence of this sculpture was enormous in the Neoclassical period. The Laocoon group also served for Johann Joachim Winkelmann, the arbiter of Neoclassicism, as the model for "an artistic wonder, in which the greatest beauty is born of the greatest suffering". (45) In his Laocoon of 1776, Gottfried Lessing also delineated the domains of poetry [time-related] and sculpture [space-related], (46) which still has some bearing now in this discussion on the mutually-inspiring relationship between literature and visual arts. This is nothing new: we are often reminded of continuing inspiration between distant cultures by Keats' likely `quotation' in his "Ode on a Grecian Urn" to the mid-5th c. BCE Parthenon frieze of Phidias with its "heifer lowing at the skies".

Fig. 7 Laocoon sculpture group, sketch circa 1600, Lucio Massari (was Laocoon more familiar to Roncagli's day than Bacchus and Ariadne?)

As for the Laocoon group, it appears that the Catullus line mentioned above is too specific to ignore, as Wind also stated,(47) although the Laocoon group could certainly be used in conjunction with a literary source for Titian. This would underscore the otherwise coincidental nature of two equally important sources made all the more significant by bolstering each other individually.

While visual classical sources in sculpture and other art forms and the diffusion of classical iconography appear at first to be scanty in the early 16th c., this long-held view changed after pioneering studies such as Brendel's and continues with Mattusch,(48) where architecture and the availability of classical art in Renaissance Italy came to light through contemporary accounts showing major collections in the early 16th c. in addition to Cardinal Grimani's in Venice and those of the papal courts of Julius II and Leo X. (49) Phyllis Bober, Ruth Rubinstein and Leatrice Mendelsohn, among others, have also catalogued a full array of Classical artistic sources in the early 16th c. and beyond, and has demonstrated considerable collections of Classical sculpture in Italy at this time. (50) Jane Reid has also catalogued Renaissance use of classical myths with clues that significant artistic precedents existed before Titian. (51) Besides the Laocoon group, it was becoming increasingly possible for traveling artists to have seen various Roman sculptures and mosaics, wall-paintings, monuments, etc., as well as some Roman copies of Greek sculpture. Certainly much of the burgeoning impetus for rediscovery of classicism was provided by the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the efforts of pope Nicholas V [reigning 1447-1455] to acquire Greek manuscripts for the growing Vatican Library through scholar-translators like Poggio Bracciolini whose earlier Sylloges [1430] systematized classical inscriptions. Written guidebooks also conducted pilgrims around Roman classical monuments, one of the best being the Mirabilia of Magister Gregory [14th c.], with other texts such as those of Giovanni Dondi's Iter Romanum [14th c], and the antiquities dealer Cyriacus of Ancona's Itinerary [early 15th c.] as well as the later topographic studies and collections of Julius Pomponius Laetus [circa 1470] and the work of Flavio Biondo, De Roma Instaurata [1446], which compared ancient texts with ancient remains. (52)

Where would we most encounter Ovid in Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne? As mentioned, G.H. Thompson claimed Ovid is the most direct source in Ars Amatoria I. 527-64 (although a similar vignette is his Ars Amatoria I.547-62), even more so than the Catullus Carmina LXIV [50-78, 116-43 & 254-64] or Ovid's Fasti [3.459-516] and Metamorphoses [8.174-82]. Edgar Wind, of course, suggested the Fasti along with Catullus. (53) All of these passages have been much mentioned as literary sources for Titian's painting. (54)

First, acknowledging the debt to Thompson, the Ars Amatoria I. 527-64 passage can be summarized thusly. Ariadne [the Gnosian maid], after being abandoned and wandering on Naxos [Dia], has just awakened and is disconsolate about Theseus when the noisy frenzied retinue of Bacchus comes. She faints in fear at the sight, including drunken Silenus, and is then revived by the god who, after giving his reins to the tigers, promises her marriage with the crown of stars as nuptial gift. Bacchus then leaps down from his chariot to offset her fear at the tigers and bears her away, accompanied by the chanting of the holy revelers, `Euhoe!' or `Hail, Hymeneus!'. Ovid concludes " so do the bride and the god meet on the sacred couch" [line 564] :

Sic coeunt sacro nupta deusque toro.

Thus, in Ars Amatoria I. 527 & ff. we see Titian could have known this Ovidian version of the event, since these features are common to both: Ariadne's loss over Theseus on Naxos, the Bacchic procession with drunken Silenus on his donkey and great cats pulling his chariot, the leaping of the god from chariot to earth, and the crown of stars. However, there is no serpent-writhed precedent in the foreground figure in Ovid's account here.

Second, following the earlier attribution of the late 16th c. Lomazzo and mid-17th c. Ridolfi, Catullus' Carmen LXIV with its Pelian embroidery depiction can also be summarized thusly. On the shore of Naxos, the just awakened and deserted Ariadne sees Theseus sailing away, and in her mindless desolation she has let all her garments slip down. In madness, she wanders up and down the island from rugged mountains to shore again. Elsewhere on the island, youthful Bacchus also wanders, seeking Ariadne with raging satyrs and Sileni crying 'Evoe!, Evoe!', where some in the Bacchic processions wave thyrsi, toss mangled limbs of animals, gird themselves with writhing serpents, beat timbrels or clash cymbals with uplifted hands.

Thus, in Catullus' poem we see Titian could have known this version of the event, since these features are common to both: Ariadne's loss over Theseus on Naxos, the frenzied Bacchic procession with satyrs and sileni, specifically with satyrs waving thyrsi or animal limbs, the writhing serpent-girded figures, and timbrels and cymbals. However, Ariadne seems to be unclothed here and Silenus on his donkey doesn't actually appear. There is no mention of the god's chariot, Ariadne's nuptial crown of stars [although it is mentioned in Carmen LXVI], or more important, no mention even of Ariadne actually meeting the god at all in Catullus LXIV. Noted by Lomazzo, Wind and Panofsky, the serpent-girded figure looms as perhaps the most important allusion to Catullus. Girded serpents, as mentioned previously, are not accidental to Bacchic processions [or thiasoi, initiate groups in Bober's terms, op. cit.], as can be seen in the famous white-ground Brygos Cup [Munich 2647] of the maenad clutching a baby panther with a live snake girdle as her head-band (Fig. 8), as Eva Keuls states "More often Maenads are depicted with a snake coiled around one arm, in reference to the red-figure Kleophrades cup [Munich 2344], a detail referred to as "snake handling" (see image below), (55) which common feature we see on many other vases, e.g., the Attic Red-figure amphora by the Altamure painter around 470-50 BC from Capua [MS5466 - University Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] where snakes also appear on the figure's head as a snake-girdled head-band.

Fig. 8 Brygos Cup (Munich 2647) of Maenad

An additional note of interest here is the discussion of Andrew Laird regarding ekphrasis in Catullus Carmen LXIV with the poet's deliberate comparison of verbal and visual media (56) in the Bacchus and Ariadne scene as well as others imaged in the Pelian woven garment. Laird defines ekphrasis as "literary description of visual works of art" and it is particularly important here in discussing how Catullus describes a visual text with words, much like Philostratus' Imagines and in contrast to possible Ovidian sources, where words themselves can be inspiration to Roman art and also in contrast to Titian's painting here if we accept that literary texts can be sources for this painting.

Third, acknowledging Edgar Wind's attribution, Ovid's Fasti 3.459-516 can be summarized thusly. Ariadne, doubly deserted by both Theseus and Bacchus on the `desert sands' of Naxos, now rails at the faithless god who had previously rescued her while she paces the island shore. The god, returning from India to Naxos a second time, comes up behind her. He has heard her complaint and sweeps her into his arms, promising her heaven and immortality since they have already shared the bed, and changing her jeweled crown into nine stars. Thus in Fasti 3.459-516 we see Titian could have also known this other Ovidian version of the event, since these features are common to both: Ariadne's loss over Theseus on Naxos, and the god returning to her with her crown transformed into stars. However, as Thompson argued, there is no riotous retinue of Bacchus and no chariot, and while many classical accounts, including Philostratus, allow for Ariadne to be found by Bacchus as asleep, not all require it, as Ars Amatoria I [and Catullus LXIV] make clear. T. B. L. Webster in Greece and Rome XIII.1, 1966, also evidences Ariadne as both asleep and awake through literature and vases, see infra, note 19 of this paper].

As Panofsky already noted, an important argument appears in the cheetahs as evidence of the second finding of Ariadne by Bacchus after his conquest of India (57) especially with Roman sarcophagi as possible models (Fig. 9).

Fig. 9 Bacchus (Dionysus) and Ariadne, Roman sarcophagus. 170-180 C.E., Rome: Terme Museum # 214

More telling according to Panofsky is Ovid's line Fasti 3. 508: "following her from behind" [a tergo forte secutus], where the Fasti here provide the only way "we can account for the averted posture of Ariadne".(58) Certainly there were plenty of Dionysian sarcophagi with the Indian Triumph of Bachus depicted, many of which survive today, (59) although it would be difficult to prove how many Titian might have seen, if any. As Tresidder pointed out, Raphael - from whom Alphonse d'Este had expected a painting of Bacchus and Ariadne before he died in 1520 - sent a sketch to the duke using panthers as expected in Indian triumphs of Bacchus, although Tresidder doubted that depicting an Indian triumph was a motive of Titian (Charles Hope suggests instead that it is possibly a sketch by Penni, one of Raphael's students).

Finally, in summarizing the Bacchus and Ariadne passage in Metamorphosis 8. 174 & ff., it is obviously a briefer version of the same story. Ariadne was abandoned on the island of Naxos by Theseus, and was distraught until Bacchus came and consoled her, wiping away her tears. To make her shine in heaven, Bacchus gave her a crown as she rose to heaven. Thompson argued against Wind here in that the crown was given on the first meeting with Bacchus, not the second, whereas T.B.L. Webster [in "Myth of Ariadne..., Greece and Rome, op. cit., pp. 25-6] cites variants between Hyginus and others where Ariadne received the crown upon her death or on Naxos respectively. This briefer version of Ovid [Met 8.174 & ff.] naturally lacks chariot, retinue, and much else of the extended passages, but Panofsky agrees with Thompson that the "difference between first and second encounters with Ariadne is deliberately obscured." (60) Showing that representative Roman images of Bacchus and Ariadne meeting (or other unspecific events between them) can also accommodate this variation, the Hermitage, St. Petersburg cameo is a good example (Fig. 10):

Fig. 10 Bacchus, Satyr and Ariadne, Roman sardonyx cameo, Hermitage, St. Petersburg 1st c. BCE-1st c. CE, 1.4 x 1.0 cm

Note that it is said to be a satyr (from Slade Collection acq. 1780, Hermitage Inv. #270) between Bacchus and Ariadne on the above cameo, but it is difficult to prove this. Perhaps more interesting as a probably coincidental link to Titian is the empty wine vessel pointing to Bacchus, also suggesting Ariadne has been thus prepared to meet the god.

Panofsky also accepts all four literary texts from Catullus to Ovid as an amalgam, which is perhaps the most reasonable suggestion on Titian's literary sources. Panofsky also comments on the availability of Ovid to Titian:

“Of the more than thirty publications of this kind [Ovid's Metamorphoses] which...appeared in Titian's lifetime, no less than fifteen were printed in Venice, among them the first illustrated edition (containing an Italian translation of the original text...published in 1497.” (61)

It is also clear that Ovid mentions Ariadne or Bacchus and Ariadne together in at least 6 texts related to the activity in Titian's painting. In addition to the three Ovid texts mentioned by Wind, Thompson and Panofsky, three of these other minor texts are familiar repetitions of material used elsewhere by Ovid but are seemingly not mentioned in previous discussions, texts which briefly mention Ariadne's abandonment.

In Ars Amatoria 3.35, Ariadne is also abandoned by Theseus in a desolate place as prey to sea-birds who would pick her from the shore:

Quantum in te, Theseu, volucres Ariadna marinas
Pavit, in ignoto sola relicta loco!

and in Ars Amatoria 3.157-58, deserted Ariadne is lifted to the god's chariot to the riotous cheers of satyrs:

Talem te Bacchus Satyris clamantibus euhoe
Sustulit in currus, Gnosi relicta, suos.

Also in Fasti 5.346, Bacchus is pleased to place in heaven the crown of stars given to Ariadne:

Baccho placuisse coronam
ex Ariadneo sidere nosse potes...

In Ovid, many of the other Bacchus appearances [where Bacchus is named directly in more than 75 lines, combined with another 26 lines where he is referred to as Liber] stress the retinue of the god and his attributes and both positive and negative human responses to his liberating nature. Bacchus is clearly one of Ovid's favorites, ranking in the Metamorphoses with Apollo, Diana, Minerva, Jupiter, Juno, and Venus for popularity of appearance. For depiction of sensuality or stratagems involving madness through wine, Bacchus becomes an Ovidian agent of change and transformation in many cameo appearances as well throughout the poet's work. (62) Especially for his erotic connections and the wildness of love and maenadism (63) with or without wine's relaxation of inhibitions and purported amatory effects, Bacchus is almost as necessary as Venus and Cupid in such love manuals as the Ars Amatoria, where Ovid as praeceptor amoris or "professor of love" [I.17], often with tongue in cheek playfulness, could not avoid utilizing Bacchus for expected maximum effect.

No doubt, with such a strong Bacchus presence in Ovid, many with satyrs, sileni and bacchantes, and with multiple references to Ariadne, the Gnosian bride of Bacchus, perhaps the real point to be made here is that Titian [and perhaps equally important, the Duke Alfonso d'Este] could have been impressed in various places with the importance given to this story by Ovid [as well as Catullus] and thus have amalgamated multiple texts for the painting.

Another thought surely worth considering, perhaps reversing the perceived order of influence to some degree, is the opinion that Ovid's mythological vignettes in poetry, especially the Metamorphoses, could be the source for much Roman mythological wall-painting at Pompeii and Herculaneum [between 10 BCE and 79 CE] (64) as well as the Renaissance depictions like Titian's. This would maintain the continuity of an Ovidian encyclopaedia of mythology, its legacy assured with vignettes as distillations of mutatio and change, an "action book" for artists [past as well as future, e.g., Titian] artists looking for subject matter in brief lapidary condensations such as Ovid employed, as Bernard Andreae shows for Ulysses in the Tiberian period. (65)

Although these literary sources may have been uppermost in Titian's imaginative reworking of the famous Ovidian story and Catullan poem, there could have been other visual stimuli alongside the Laocoon group so often mentioned, as amply demonstrated in the case made long ago by Otto Brendel, with many possible sources and models of classical art in Venice:

“It is not difficult to see that Titian was familiar with classical monuments from the beginning of his career, and that he grasped their style easily...it can be regarded as certain that Titian had a lasting interest in this ancient composition...The most conspicuous fact about his borrowings from ancient art is that the freedom with which Titian employed them increased with the years.”(66)

In this vein, another possible visual Classical model can be raised. In the Ian Jenkins and Kim Sloan catalog of the British Museum 1996 exhibition Vases and Volcanoes: Sir William Hamilton and His Collection, there is the so-called `Mantuan' Gem [Figure 51, pp. 102-3] from 1st or 2nd c. CE Rome with its later historic period gold relief "pressing" [Figure 141, p. 238, where the photo is curiously reversed unless it is not a pressing but a copy]. The gemstone shows "a female figure, probably Ariadne, asleep on a chair. She is approached by Pan, a young satyr and - on the left - Bacchus with a torch and thyrsus, supported by Silenus." Notable is the fact that it is a young Bacchus as in Titian's painting. That this gem is very close to some of the earlier Ovidian and Philostratus accounts and equally close to some of the later Roman sarcophagi is readily apparent. Also important is that any pressing or secondary relief from the original would have Bacchus approaching from the right - just as in Titian's painting. Naturally, not all is in agreement between the `Mantuan gem' and Titian. Ariadne is asleep on the gem and awake in Titian, and yet Titian could have known the many Ovidian and Catullan quotations to Ariadne just waking from sleep and have staged his painting at this more interesting moment. There is also an inert Bacchus on the gem in contrast to Titian, which seems to better follow the literary format except that the Villa of the Mysteries [which Titian could not have seen at Pompeii] repeats a similarly inert Dionysus. Finally there is the Pan in the gem, although the so-called Laocoon and the child satyr in the foreground could both be somewhat derivable from the gemstone Pan if his attributes [animation - not ithyphallic condition, bestial face, horns and goat legs] were divided among them.

Even more remarkable, however, is the likely reattribution by Ian Jenkins to the same Grimani family of Venice whose collections others have suggested Titian studied [see Perry, infra this paper, notes 69-72]: "The subject of the gem was also engraved in the sixteenth century by Battista Franco [died 1561], in a set of engravings thought to have been commissioned as a visual inventory of the powerful Grimani family in Venice."(67) Could Titian have seen this gem or a relief of it in Venice? Brendel also supports gemstones as possible sources by claiming that not all classical models used by Renaissance artists are sculptural but can include Roman coins and engraved stones. (68) Regarding the collection of antiquities, including marbles, bronzes and gemstones assembled by Cardinal Grimani in Venice by 1523, the date of his death, Marilyn Perry states:

“There can be little question but that Titian was familiar with these pieces...
as the foremost state painter Titian would surely have been allowed to study
the state's antiquities, if he wished...Cardinal Grimani's gemstones were in Venice
at his death in 1523.“ (69)

It would of course be an argument from silence to push this little-known but probable Venetian gem as a possible source of visual reference for Titian, although in reality it is no more tenuous [nor less an argument from silence] than the well-known Laocoon group in Rome so commonly indexed in discussions of this painting.

Although the iconography of Dionysus / Bacchus is well-established in the visual arts in extant classical wall and vase painting, sculpture and mosaics, arguably mostly excavated after Titian - with the possible exceptions of a version of the Laocoon group, the sculptures noted by Bober and Rubinstein and the probable Grimani collection Bacchus and Ariadne `Mantuan' gem which seem to have all been directly available to Titian in Venice in some form - and therefore mostly argumenti ab silentibus as models, it is probable that classical literary accounts such as Ovid, Catullus and Philostratus are more logical sources for Titian to follow. In this vein, Marilyn Perry's caveat [contra Brendel?] is apropos:

“For some years, a fashionable part-time pursuit of scholars engaged in celebrating the art of Titian has been the search for works of ancient sculpture known in the Renaissance by which to demonstrate, by means of comparative photographs, how particular ancient figures may be presumed to have been adapted by the master to serve new compositional purposes in his paintings...”(70)

Perry elaborates on the problem of exact identification in the face of enormous but changing 16th c. bequests [e.g., again, the Grimani Family of Venice], mutilations by contemporary sculptors, multiple examples and a fashion for classical provenance that may tend to "denigrate the artist's [own] imagination." [ibid, p. 190]. This trend of literary and, even more distilled, virtual artistic provenance may have reached an excessive height in Otto Brendel's earlier assignations ["borrowings"] of Titian's sources to specific classical art models (71) which Perry might find too rigid and, at the same time, too limiting on the genius of Titian. However, she concludes in a somewhat more Brendelian vein, by defining the terms of Titian's possible "borrowing" into an acceptable transformation of spirit rather than imitative form:

“Poetically, and perhaps temperamentally, Titian was attuned to the art of antiquity as no other artist of his time...[and, appropriately, in descriptions of classical gemstones]... We cannot, I suspect, entirely appreciate the awe, and the delight, with which Renaissance artists discovered the monumental pagan subjects...are we not at once transported to the same Arcadia where Titian's enamored shepherd pipes to his languid nymph?... Here is a genuine "borrowing" not of form but of spirit - an excursus upon the ancient invention by which the painter, in a lyrical nostalgia of his own, captures and recreates the absorbed enchantment...” (72)

Several questions yet remain regarding the possible types of visual and textual sources for this painting. There is still the unresolved puzzle of Titian reducing Ovid's nine stars in Ariadne's crown to eight. Ovid transforms the nine gems, gemmasque novem, to nine stars: aurea per stellas nunc micat illa novem [Fasti 3.515-6] where there is no mistake about the number, however uncertain the meaning. Titian, however, loses one star along the way. On one hand, some less cautious enquiries might raise the question whether this was a concealed political allegory to which we are not privy or an embedded Neoplatonic symbolism. On the other hand, it might be safer to ask whether this suggests a literary source variant, an as yet unknown Classical visual referent or just artistic caprice.

Other questions could be raised. In accord with T. B. L. Webster's analysis of Classical scenes of Dionysus and Ariadne cited earlier, how did Titian rightly choose to portray a youthful Bacchus here in his encounter with Ariadne, which seems to be logically derivable more from visual (and Roman) than from literary depictions? Also, if one accepts that Titian's satyrs are accurate [bestial faces, horns, and especially goaty-haired legs] in iconographic detail, where else would he have been able to portray satyrs at all solely from literary accounts? (73) Without disparaging his genius, could he have managed here without clear visual referents? Given his prodigious imagination, nearly all the other Bacchic elements could have been easily derived from literature but these last two questions may corroborate Brendel's and Bober's efforts in tracing visual sources for early Renaissance art in general and specifically for Titian's painting.

Finally, as noted earlier, it must be admitted that although Greek or Hellenistic visual referents could be direct models for Titian in that they would also be pre-Ovid [circa late 1st c. BCE.], it may never be known how many of the Roman wall-paintings, sculptures, gemstones, etc., might have been inspired by Ovid rather than the other way around. As a succinct yet inventive mythologist of ideally representational images, Ovid's popularity was probably nearly comparable in the Roman era as in the Renaissance. (74)

As Angus Easson said in 1969, there is no one single source in Ovid or other author for this incredible painting. Ovid's Fasti iii explains several ideas expressed in Titian's painting: describes the leap of Bacchus from his chariot, explains the constellation of Corona at upper left, and shows Bacchus meeting Ariadne after her lamenting for some time over her abandonment by Theseus. But Easson also revived the sense of Met. VIII.169-82 as a primary source, along with Catullus and Fasti III, because it it also mentions Theseus' ship and shows Ariadne awake in meeting Bacchus. He concludes: "we might accept that the picture is a simultaneous presentation of the first and last meeting of Bacchus and Ariadne." (75)

Fig. 11 Dionysus by the Kleophrades Painter (note Maenads on either side of Dionysus holding thrysoi and [bearded] serpents) Munich: Antikensammlungen # 8732, end of 5th c. BCE

Whether or not Titian had ample classical visual referents - perhaps the most memorable Greek one being the Kleophrades Painter (Fig. 11) above - for this magnificent painting of Bacchus and Ariadne alongside the many Ovidian and Catullus texts, it is our delight to recognize the continuity of classical images transformed in perhaps four tiers: by Titian from the Greek and Roman literary descriptions in poetry or art, including classical gemstones, sculptures and wall paintings which might in part derive from Ovid's accounts. With each iconographic transformation, we gain immeasurably through the imagination of artists such as Polygnotus, Ovid and Catullus and from Titian himself who then inspired Tintoretto and Poussin and still inspires others. Enduring myths - perhaps images of our closest ties to what is deep and eternal - have always evoked and will continue to evoke the genius of successive ages.

Notes

(1 ) Nicholas Penny in David Jaffé, ed. Titian. London: National Gallery, 2003, 101 ff, esp. 104; Sir Michael Levey. The National Gallery Collection, National Gallery Publications, London, 1987, 75. Out of a mythological cycle originally intended to total five paintings, two of the other "Bacchanale" paintings in d'Este's study were Bellini's Feast of the Gods [1514] whose landscape Titian finished [according to Vasari] and Titian's The Bacchanal of the Andrians [1518-19]. Edgar Wind's Bellini's Feast of the Gods, Harvard, 1948, is well worth the attention to Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne as well, esp. 56 & ff. [also see infra, Ovidian and Catullan texts on pages 8-14 of this paper]. Charles Hope also discusses the cycle in "The 'Camerini d'Alabastro' of Alphonso d'Este, I-II" in Burlington Magazine CXIII (1971), 641-50 & 712-21.
(2 ) C. Hope. `Poesie and Painted Allegories' in The Genius of Venice 1500-1600, Jane Martineau and Charles Hope, eds. Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1983, 36.
(3 ) Pausanias [Description of Greece: Phokis, X, xxiii.1 & ff. to xxix.7 & ff.] records many famous lost Greek paintings at Delphi: "Beyond the Cassotis [the rock by the temple of Apollo] stands a building with paintings of Polygnotus. It was dedicated by the Cnidians...Inside this building the whole of the painting on the right depicts Troy taken and the Greeks sailing away..." Pausanias goes on to discuss the Bacchus and Ariadne picture.
(4 ) Sir Herbert Read, ed. The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art and Artists, [1966] 1991 repr., 349, also relates the Zeuxis anecdote originally found in the Pliny passage. Other discussions of Zeuxis include Susan Woodford, Greece and Rome, Cambridge Introduction to Art, Cambridge, 1982, 49, 116. In another classical source about Zeuxis, who flourished around 400 BCE, Lucian's "Zeuxis" [Bk. VI] describes the "precision of his craftmanship" in the lost painting of the hippokentaur family which aroused such wonder in his viewers.
(5 ) Philostratus. [Imagines I.15] describes the most complete ancient Dionysian iconography: ivy cluster crown; nascent horn from the god's brow; leopard (panthera); flowered garments; thyrsus; fawn skins; bacchantes with cymbals; satyrs; and flute-playing. Philostratus is claimed as a descriptive source for Titian's painting in, to name a few, Edgar Wind, in Bellini's Feast of the Gods, Harvard, 1948, pp. 56, 60 and 62; Johannes Wilde in Venetian Art from Bellini to Titian, Clarendon, Oxford, 1974, p. 146; and Charles Hope himself, elsewhere in Titian, Jupiter Books, London, 1980, pp. 56, 59 and 60 in what he suggests as ecphrastic [see note 50 below] descriptions. Edgar Wind also tells the story [page 56] how Isabella d'Este, the duke's sister, tried vainly to recover her personal copy of Philostratus from her brother, who by now [1515-16] had begun to choose his own themes from this book which he would soon engage Titian to execute.
(6 ) Amedeo Maiuri. "Villa of the Mysteries", Roman Painting, Edition Albert Skiras, Geneva, 1953, pp. 50-63; K. Lehmann, "Ignorance and Search in the Villa of the Mysteries", Journal of Roman Studies LII, 1962, pp. 62-68; George Hanfmann, Roman Art, Norton, 1975, pp. 246-7.
(7 ) Maxwell Anderson. "Pompeiian Frescoes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Winter 1987/88 [1987], 17-36, on the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale, esp. pp. 26-27 where in Room H it is noted "The panels on the far (north) wall described Dionysos and Ariadne (now lost)...and on the preceding page "[on the north wall] to the left was Dionysos reclining on Ariadne's lap."
(8 ) Doro Levi. Antioch Mosaic Pavements, Princeton, 1947, esp. pp. 141-9; also described in D.J. Smith, "[Roman] Mosaic", Martin Henig, ed., A Handbook of Roman Art, 1983, 120: "This depicted Dionysus and Ariadne, with a satyr and a maenad in narrower flanking panels."
(9 ) P. Paschini. "Le Collezioni archeologiche dei prelati Grimani del Cinquecento" Rendiconti della Pontifica Accademia Romana di Archaeologia V, 1927, pp. 149-90, as cited in M. Perry, infra, n. 6 , p. 188.
(10 ) M. Perry. “On Titian’s Borrowings from Ancient Art: A Cautionary Case.” Tiziano e Venezia, Consegno Internazionale di Studi. Nero Pozza, ed. Venice. 1976., p. 188.
(11 ) W. Pater. Essays on Literature and Art, J.M. Dent, London, 1973 ed.
(12 ) L. Burn, Greek Myths: The Legendary Past. British Museum, 1990., p. 75.
(13 ) C. Hope, op. cit., 36. Not the least of which erudition could be Neoplatonic ideals, such as divine love, vaguely or openly embedded in the painting [also see Edgar Wind, op. cit., 60-1].
(14 ) C. Hope, ibid., 36.
(15 ) J. Henle, Greek Myths: A Vase Painter's Notebook. Indiana University Press, 1973, 6; also in Margaret Bieber, The History of the Greek and Roman Theater. Princeton University Press, 1961, 1, 8-10, and 26.
(16 ) C. Hope, op. cit., 36
(17 ) ibid., suggesting the duke was not satisfied with Bellini's inauthentic intrepretation of Ovid's episodes [either Fasti I. 415 or Met. 9.347] of Priapus waking the nymph Lotis who was changed into the flower given her name [Lotus]. In any case, Bellini's bacchanale in Feast of the Gods also contains Silenus and his donkey and satyrs, with perhaps Hermes present, judging by the petasos traveler's hat and caduceus. Elsewhere, in Titian, Jupiter Books, London, 1980, 54, Charles Hope says "Bellini's original composition was not based on the Fasti at all. Instead he relied on an Italian paraphrase of Ovid's Metamorphoses, which gives an entirely different version of the legend in which all the characters are citizens of Thebes rather than gods and nymphs."
(18 ) G. H. Thompson, "The Literary Sources of Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne." The Classical Journal LI.6, 1956:259-64. This study and that of Erwin Panofsky [also see infra, note 30], Problems in Titian: Mostly Iconographic, Phaidon, 1969, pp. 141-44, are the best discussions of the painting from classical literary sources. Both also mention Edgar Wind, op. cit., Bellini's Feast of the Gods, Harvard, 1948, with Wind's identification of Ovid's Fasti 3. 507-08 as additional literary influence on Titian's painting.
(19 ) T. B. L. Webster, "The Myth of Ariadne from Homer to Catullus", Greece and Rome XIII.1, 1966, 22-35; Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopadie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft, vol. 2, 1896, "Ariadne", 803-11.
(20 ) H. D. Rouse, ed. and tr. Nonnos: Dionysiaca, vols. 1-3. Harvard, Loeb Classics, 1995. This 5th c. Egyptian recounting of the life of Dionysus relates his birth, Olympian entry, activities among mortals, amorous adventures [including Ariadne], and his conquest of India.
(21 ) Amedeo Maiuri, op. cit., p. 81
(22 ) Dr. Jennifer March, formerly of the Greek Dept., University College, University of London, and previous Editor of the Bulletin of Classical Studies first made this interesting suggestion to me [pers. comm.] about the yellow krokotos in 1990. As appealing as this is, and completely in keeping with the story, it may, however, require too arcane a connection to expect Titian to know this iconographic subtlety even though no better explanantion exists. Unless a classical literary reference is found, it may be coincidence or reading too much into the Renaissance symbolism, although we would certainly appreciate the irony of Ariadne's exchange of courtesanship with Theseus for sacred marriage with the god. On the other hand, in perhaps just as tenuous an explanation, in the Fasti 3. 493, Ariadne complains that a `fair concubine' [candida paelax], a captive mistress from India, has been preferred to herself by Bacchus after his conquest of India. Could this other captive concubine mistress of Bacchus [to be now forgotten by the god] be the wearer of the yellow courtesan's garment? Or is yellow the color of farewell here to Theseus?
(23 ) Martin Nilsson, A History of Greek Religion, Clarendon, Oxford, 1925. p. 205:
"...the sense of being filled with a higher, divine power. This is the literal meaning of the Greek word `enthusiasm', the state in which `god is in man'." Also note Ellen Reeder, Pandora: Women in Classical Greece, with Carol Benson's section on "Maenads", 381-91, Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore and Princeton University, 1995
(24 ) H. J. Rose, A Handbook of Greek Mythology, Methuen, 1928, 149-157; Bieber, op. cit., 1; Walter F. Otto, Dionysos, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1965; Marcel Dettiene. Dionysos Slain, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979; also see C. Penglase, Greek Myths and Mesopotamia, Routledge, 1994, pp. 108, 153, 161, 173.
(25 ) John Boardman, Athenian Black Figure Vases. Oxford University Press, 1974, 218 and many Dionysus or Dionysiac scenes including pls. 66.1, 88, 89, 104, 167, 171, 181, 222, 247, 272 288, 289, and 291; also John Boardman, Greek Art, Thames and Hudson, [1964], 1991 repr., esp. pl. 84, the Amasis painter black figure amphora Paris [Bibliotheque Nationale] of Dionysus and maenads [circa 540 BCE]; pl. 177, 172, the early 4th c. BCE red-figure Meleager Painter kylix showing a Dionysus and a possible Ariadne, also pl. 154, 152, with the Dionysiac scene on the late 4th c. BCE Derveni krater in Macedonia; and 134, pl. 136, the famous Praxiteles Hermes and infant Dionysus sculpture [circa 340 BCE] from the Temple of Hera at Olympia, to name a few. Additional references include J. Henle [see note 15]; Philostratus [see note 5]; Mortimer Wheeler, Roman Art and Architecture, Thames and Hudson, [1964] 1991 repr., especially the Dionysiac scene on the Mildenhall Treasure, p. 206, pl. 192; George Hanfmann, Roman Art, Norton, 1975, pp. 117-18 and pl. 128-29 on pp. 210-11 with Dionysiac sarcophagi showing Bacchus riding a large cat in procession [also note Panofsky's point on page 141, n 7] as well as 245-46 on the Villa of the Mysteries wall-paintings of Bacchic mysteries.
(26 ) T. B. L. Webster, Potter and Patron in Classical Athens, Methuen, London, 1972, pp. 132-35; John Boardman, op. cit., Athenian Black Figure Vases, pp. 109 & 188-89.; Boardman, pers. comm., London, 1996.
(27 ) Richard Seaford, "The Imprisonment of Women in Greek Tragedy", Journal of Hellenic Studies CX, [1990] pp. 76-90, esp. p. 85, "[there is] ritual, in the controlled, temporary ceding by the Athenian `king' (the archon called basileus) of his wife for the sacred marriage to the newly arrived Dionysus at the Anthestheria"; also L. Burns, op. cit. p. 9.; John Boardman, op. cit. Athenian Black Figure Vases, p. 213; and Margaret Bieber, op. cit., p. 52; also note John G.F. Hind, "The Portland Vase: new Clues towards old solutions", Journal of Hellenic Studies CXV, [1995] p. 154, on the importance of Dionysus and Ariadne myth on the sacredness of Greek marriage. Walter Burkert, op. cit., Greek Religion, pp. 239-40, points out the central significance of Dionysus and Ariadne to sacred marriage more than any other myth coupling. Walter Otto, op. cit., Dionysos, pp. 180-88, also acknowledges the Ariadne cultus. Additionally, Greek scenes of Dionysus and Ariadne were not uncommon, e.g. Attic Black Figure neck amphora, c. 530 BC, # L-64-39, on loan to the University Museum, Pennsylvania from the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art, also depicting Dionysus along with a woman said to be Ariadne, and two satyrs fighting [although one is said to be Hermes].
(28 ) Bieber, op. cit., 2-6, Chs. 2-4, and esp. 52-54 & ff. Bieber also shows several Dionysus and Ariadne scenes including the famous Pronomos - Satyr Play vase in Naples where the divine couple recline on a couch beneath an uncoiling vine [Figure 31] and the "wedding of Dionysus and Ariadne" in the children's oinochoe in the Metropolitan Museum [Figure 218]; as well as multiple Dionysian vase scenes such as the famous Cleophrades cup in Munich [Figures 21-4], and sculpture such as Roman sarcophagi from the Capitoline [Figures 92-3]. Another good example of Dionysus and Ariadne on Greek vases is the early 5th c. small San Francisco black figure amphora [# 63.4] in the Palace of the Legion of Honor collection.
(29 ) E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, Berkeley, 1951, esp. 277.
(30 ) T. B. L. Webster, op. cit., "The Myth of Ariadne from Homer to Catullus," Greece and Rome XIII.1, 1966, 28-9.
(31 ) Marvin Meyer, ed. The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook, Harper-San Francisco, 1987, 260; Walter Burkert. Greek Religion, Harvard [and Basil Blackwell], 1985, esp. pp. 239-40; Dodds, op. cit., pp. 273, 279.
(32 ) John Steer, "Titian and Venetian Colour", in The Genius of Venice 1500-1600, Jane Martineau and Charles Hope, eds. Royal Academy of Art, London, 1983, pp. 41-43, esp. p. 41.
(33 ) British Museum, both in Gallery 70. The late Roman mosaic, perhaps a copy of the Delos mosaic, shows and names Dionysos (in late Greek with a double lunate sigma “C”) riding on a leopard. The Roman wall-painting shows a youthful Bacchus [on the left] and Silenus [on the right] standing together, Bacchus with astonished eyes and pouring wine from a small cup into the mouth of a leopard at his right hand.
(34 ) Erwin Panofsky, Problems in Titian: Mainly Iconographic. The Wrightsman Lectures at New York University Institute of Fine Arts, Phaidon, 1969, esp. 141-44.
(35 ) Roy J. Deferrari, Sr. Inviolata Barry, and Martin McGuire. A Concordance of Ovid. Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, 1939. Note the apparent lack of pardus in Ovid with only one mention of panther [p. 1378] in the section on Pentheus [Met. 3.669] "pictarumque iacent fera corpora pantherarum."
(36 ) D. J. Smith, "[Roman] Mosaics", Martin Henig, ed., A Handbook of Roman Art, Phaidon, [1983] 1995 repr., 126, pl. 98.
(37 ) Panofsky, op. cit., 143-44. Hope, op. cit., 1980, p. 59, notes "the pair of cheetahs are almost certainly portraits of animals in the duke's menagerie".
(38 ) "A Bestiary" from Leonardo da Vinci's Notebooks [ed. by Edw. McCurdy, Braziller, New York, 1939] esp. pp. 1087-88, combines some characteristics under "lions, leopards, panthers, tigers" but specifically notes on "the Panther in Africa: This has the shape of a lioness, but it is taller in the leg and slimmer and longer and quite white, marked with black spots after the manner of rosettes" [H 22 v and 23 r]. Also under "Tiger: it bears some resemblance to the panther from the various spots on its skin; and it is an animal of terrifying speed" [H 23 v. and 24 r]. Could this more easily describe a cheetah as well? In the same passage on tigers, Leonardo exchanges the word "panther" for "tiger" although the description continues on the tiger narrative. Much of Leonardo's description regarding panthers and tigers seem to come directly or indirectly from Pliny, Historia Naturalis, Book VIII.xxiii. 62-64, especially about the attractive sweet breath of the panther and the terrific speed of the tiger, VIII. xxv.66. Pliny also distinguishes the leopard in Africa as a tree-climbing animal, which "leopards crouch in the thick foliage of the trees and hidden by their boughs leap down on to animals passing by, and stalk their prey from the perches of birds." XCIV.202. For other Renaissance bestiaries, note Joseph Berruerius, Bestiarius. Savona, 1524. Also see Johann Stabius, De Labyrintho. W. Huber, Nuremburg, 1510; Jac[o]po de Barberi, Pianti di Venezia, Venezia 1500; Bernhard von Breydenbach, Reise ins Heilege Land. Petrus Drach, Speyer, 1495. Although later, also see Edward Topsell, A History of Four-Footed Beasts. E. Cotes, London, 1658. Modern bestiaries should include Ernst and Johanna Lehner, A Fantastic Bestiary. Tudor, New York, 1969 and Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings. Dutton, New York, 1969, esp. 39, 178-79, 229. Notice Borges' comment: "In medieval bestiaries the word `panther' deals with a very different animal from the carnivorous mammal of present-day zoology" where he also notes the panther's melodious voice and all-spice breath [p. 178].
(39 ) among them a student of mine who, noting the apparent calmness of these cats in contrast to the other persons in the Bacchic processional that, with the reputation of the raving Bacchantes for tearing animals apart and uprooting trees, opined "I'd rather take my chances on the cats than the wild women."
(40 ) Panofsky, op. cit., 141.
(41 ) ibid.
(42 ) Otto Brendel, "Borrowings from Ancient Art in Titian", The Art Bulletin XXXVII.2, June, 1955, p. 118.
(43 ) Claude Moatti, The Search for Ancient Rome. Thames and Hudson, London, 1993, 28-9, 39-40, 80-1.
(44 ) ibid., 39, Moatti includes the Zucchari drawing with an artist [Zucchari] also sketching the Laocoon group.
(45 ) Johann Joachim Winkelmann, History of Ancient Art, Amsterdam, 1764.
(46 ) Note Andrew Laird, "Sounding out Ecphrasis: Art and Text in Catullus 64" The Journal of Roman Studies LXXXIII, 1993, p. 19, in his discussion of Sir Robert Phillimore's 1874 translation of Lessing's Laocoon; also Walter Pater, op. cit., pp. 43 and 143 n2
(47 ) Edgar Wind, op. cit., p. 57.
(48 ) Otto Brendel, op. cit., "Borrowings from Ancient Art in Titian," The Art Bulletin, XXXVII.2, June, 1955, pp. 113-25. Also note Ian Jenkins and Kim Sloan. Vases and Volcanoes: Sir William Hamilton and his Collection. British Museum, 1996. [The author of this paper on Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne presented a paper at the British Museum Hamilton colloquium in April, 1996, on 18th c. collection of alpine Roman antiquities]. It is apparent that many collectors, vase lovers and pioneering scholars existed in Italy [and elsewhere] long before Hamilton. Especially note the Grimani family collection in Venice [pre-1523] (see this paper, infra n. 69-72) particularly of sculpture and gemstones. Other collections of Roman sculpture and inscriptions include those noted by Franciscus Bonivard [prior of S. Victoris, circa early 16th c. in Geneva], Johann Stumpf [circa early 16th c. in Zurich], Aegidius Tschudi [circa early 16th c. in Glarus], [these last three and the following mentioned by Theodore Mommsen, ed., Inscriptiones Confoederationis Helveticae Latinae, 1854, pp. XI-XVII], and Gabriel Symeon's Les illustres observations antiques en son dernier voyage d'Italie l'an 1558, Lyon. Claude Moatti has also described the 16th c. Farnese family excavation and collection of Roman sculptures in the Baths of Caracalla, the Lamia family's collection beginning with excavation of the Aldobrandini Marriage [representing Dionysus and Ariadne?] [c. 1582] from their gardens in Rome, the "Father of Etruscology" Thomas Dempster [early 17th c.] travels through Etruria and subsequent publications, the Neapolitan jurist and vase collector Giuseppe Valetta [late 17th c.], are just a few. Also note Jean Jacque Boissard's Topographia Romae, Frankfurt, 1627, which contains scores of sculptures, monuments and inscriptions well known for at least a century before he compiled his study. R.M. Cook, Greek Painted Pottery, Methuen, London, 1960, p. 288-89 has also provided historic details regarding the evaluation of Greek pottery in the 16th and 17th c. in Naples, Rome and the rest of Italy. Carol Mattusch states in The Fire of Hephaistos, Harvard University Art Museums, 1996, p. 17: "In Cellini's day, there were already a great many collections of ancient Greek and Roman statues, including those by Niccolo Niccoli, Carlo Marsuppini, Poggio Bracciolini, Cyriacus of Ancona, Cosimo de Medici, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere [Pope Julius II], and Lorenzo di Medici. Artists studied these collections, but they also collected their own statues or fragments of statues, which they sketched and used as models for their own work. Among the artist-collectors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, Andrea Mantegna, and Michelangelo." So why not Titian?
(49 ) C. Moatti, op. cit., esp. 40.
(50 ) Phyllis Bober and Ruth Rubinstein, Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture: A Handbook of Sources. Oxford University Press, 1977, esp. 105-25 with Bacchus motifs. Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne is also mentioned in context with Orestes sculptures [also mentioned by Panofsky, op. cit., 141-44] which Titian may have integrated into the movements and posture of Bacchus, as Bober and Rubinstein suggest on 138. There are at least 23 Classical Bacchic sculptures catalogued by Bober and Rubinstein as visible to Renaissance artists, especially Roman sarcophagi and other marbles, including one "Bacchic Dancers" candelabrum base which has been in Venice apparently since at least the death of Cardinal Grimani. It is even possible that this marble was seen by Titiian before his painting of Bacchus and Ariadne, where it could have influenced his Bacchic procession. [see 121-2]. Following Brendel, op. cit., 118, Bober and Rubinstein also cite an "Orestes sarcophagus" with two poses of Orestes which they maintain [125, pl. 106] was conflated into the one pose of Bacchus in this painting. Leatrice Mendelsohn, Abstracts of the 13th International Bronze Congress, Harvard University Art Museums, 1996, 56, also carefully detailed "Citation of Ancient Bronze Fragments in Renaissance Painting" with ample evidence from contemporary testimony.
(51 ) Jane Davidson Reid's Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, vol. 1, Oxford, 1993, 204-13, under "Ariadne": omits Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne but mentions the painting under "Bacchanalia", 258-71. She includes Piero di Cosimo's Theseus and Ariadne, painted before his death in 1521, as a mythological painting and also notes a literary precedent in Boccaccio's [1355-73?] De Casibus vivorum illustrium [The Fates of Illustrious Men] with "de Theseo rege Athenarum" which relates Ariadne's plight. Also important items recorded in Reid are literary precedents in F. Colonna's literary romance Hypnerotomachia Polifili in 1499 in Venice [with bacchanalia]; Andrea Mantegna's Bacchanale with Silenus in 1494; Dosso Dossi's [Venetian court painter of Alfonso d'Este] Bacchanale in 1515; and Dossi's Portrait of Alfonso d'Este as a Bacchic Votary without a date provided. These are all potentially valuable mythological sources for Titian.
(52 ) C. Moatti, op. cit, pp. 22-52. Commencing with the knowledgable Einsedeln Itinerary [8-9th c. CE], and culminating with the sack of Rome in 1527 by Charles V, Moatti provides a veritable pedigree of new classicism which this paragraph summarizes.
(53 ) Edgar Wind, op. cit. , p. 57.
(54 ) ibid., pp. 56-58; Thompson, op. cit. . pp. 262-4; Panofsky, op. cit., pp. 141-44; Johannes Wilde, op. cit., p. 146 & ff.; Charles Hope, op. cit., 1980 and 1983, to name a few.
(55 ) Eva Kuels, The Reign of the Phallus, Harper and Row, New York, 1985, discussion on Figures 297-8..
(56 ) Andrew Laird, op. cit., pp. 18-30.
(57 ) Panofsky, op. cit., p. 143
(58 ) ibid., p. 142
(59 ) Anna Marguerite McMann, "Two Fragments of Sarcophagi in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Illustrating the Indian Triumph of Dionysus", The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery XXXVI, Baltimore, 1977, pp. 123-36; also Bober and Rubinstein, op. cit., numbers 76 [p. 111], 77 [p. 112], 78 [p. 113].
(60 ) Panofsky, 143.
(61 ) ibid., p. 141
(62 ) W. Brewer, Ovid's Metamorphoses in European Culture, 1933; T.F. Higham, "Ovid: Some Aspects of his Character and Aims." Classical Review, 105 [1934]. Hermann Frankel, Ovid: A Poet Between Two Worlds, Berkeley, University of California, 1945; L.P. Wilkinson, Ovid Recalled, Cambridge, 1955; A.S. Hollis, Ovid: Metamorphoses Book VIII, Oxford, Clarendon, 1970, pp. xiv-xix. For discussion of English translations of Ovid texts, R.J. Tarrant suggests Guy Lee's translations [Guy Lee, tr. Ovid's Amores, John Murray, London, 1968] as the best available. See R.J. Tarrant, Greek and Latin Lyric Poetry in Translation, American Philological Association, 1972, esp. pp. 47-49; Alan Mandelbaum, tr., The Metamorphosis of Ovid, Harcourt, Brace, 1993.
(63 ) Richard Seaford, op. cit., "The Imprisonment of Women in Greek Tragedy", Journal of Hellenic Literature, CX, [1990], p. 85
(64 ) Bober and Rubinstein, op. cit., pp. 36-51, esp. 105-25; Antony Raubitschek, pers. comm., 1996.
(65 ) Bernard Andreae, The Art of Rome, 1977; and especially in Praetorium Speluncae: L'Antro di Tiberio a Sperlonga ed Ovidio. Rubbettino Editore, Rome, 1995, p. 28-32, 58-61, 109-14, especially pp. 40, 42-45.
(66 ) Otto Brendel, op. cit., pp. 115, 118, 125.
(67 ) Ian Jenkins cites E. Lemburgh-Ruppelt, `Die beruhmte Gemma Mantovani und die Antikensammlung Grimani in Venedig', Xenia, I, 1981, pp. 85-108.
(68 ) Otto Brendel, op. cit., p. 116.
(69 ) Marilyn Perry, op. cit., pp. 187-91,
(70 ) ibid., esp. p. 187.
(71 ) Otto Brendel, op. cit. pp. 113-25.
(72 ) Perry, op. cit., pp. 190, 191.
(73 ) Actually, in comparison to Titian's satyrs, in Piero di Cosimo's Misfortunes of Silenus, c. 1500, [Levintritt Collection, Harvard's Fogg Museum] better and truer goat legs are depicted on Cosimo's satyrs who pester and make fun of a very human and young Silenus. Perhaps it is more important to ask where Cosimo's models were [if not the Pan figures in the many Triumph of Bacchus vignettes] ?
(74 ) Bernard Andreae, op. cit., pp. 40-45.
(75 ) Angus Easson. "The Source of Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 32 (1969) 396-397.

Photo credits: Figs. 1 & 5, National Gallery, London, website; Fig. 2, Sousse Museum, Tunisia, Fig. 4, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Napoli; Fig. 6, www.edancedesign.com/images/animals/cheetahs.jpg; Fig. 7, Bryn Mawr Graduate Group Interdepartmental Seminar in Theory, www.brynmawr.edu/gradgroup/historyofart/images/GSEM_679_Laocoon.htm; Fig. 8 www.library.umass.edu/benson/images/jbgc15.jpg; Fig. 9, Terme Museum, Rome, Sculpture # 214; Fig. 10 ancientrome.ru/art/artworken/img.htm?id=937, Fig. 11, Munich Antikensammlungen # 8732

Stanford University

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copyright © 2006 Patrick Hunt

Jonathan Fildes of the BBC reports this concerning the text and its "excavation" which is taking place at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lab:

Until now, the pages have remained obscured by paintings and texts laid down on top of the original writings.

Using a non-destructive technique known as X-ray fluorescence, the researchers are able to peer through these later additions to read the underlying text.

The goatskin parchment records key details of Archimedes work, considered the foundation of modern mathematics.

The writings include the only Greek version of On Floating Bodies known to exist, and the only surviving ancient copies of The Method of Mechanical Theorems and the Stomachion.

In the treatises, the 3rd Century mathematician develops numerical descriptions of the real world.

"Archimedes was like no one before him," says Will Noel, curator of manuscripts and rare books at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland and director of the imaging project.

"It just doesn't get any better than rereading the mind of one of the greatest figures of Western civilisation."

Considered by some as the "eighth wonder of the world" a live webcast of the researchers revealing some of the original Greek will be shown at 4:00 pm PDT on 4 August.

Continue reading the BBC article here.