WISE MEN S LUST: THE IMAGE OF VIRGIL AND ARISTOTLE IN THE MIDDLE AGES. SPACES AND AUDIENCES 1 49th International Medieval Congress Kalamazoo, Western Michigan University, 8/5/2014 Pablo Ordás Díaz Universidade de Santiago de Compostela Columbia University Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza Fellow In the mid 1140 s the renovation of Chartres cathedral had progressed towards the West portal. A French sculptor was by then carving the voussoirs belonging to the South door, and there he depicted an iconographic program of knowledge and wisdom, guided by the co called Chartrian spirit. If Bernard of Chartres was more interested in the res the things- than in the voces the words- as Jacques Le Goff pointed out, 2 here we have a visual reminder of that hierarchy of interests: Aristotle, Donatus and Pythagoras serve as basis for the Dialectica (logic), Grammar and Music at the bottom, while Cicero, Euclid, Ptolemy and Boethius support Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Geometry and Astronomy. But besides this hierarchical interpretation of the importance of the Seven Liberal Arts, what we can see here is the perfect visual representation of John of Salisbury s famous statement: we are dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants. 3 Three hundred years later, in 1471, Aristotle s importance was undeniable and was considered as something much more important than a simple basis for the allegory of the 1 This paper will be later developed into two academic articles. 2 J. Le Goff, Intellectuals in the Middle Ages, Cambridge, 1993, p. 48. 3 John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, book III, chapter 4. Edition by the University of California Press, 1962, p. 167. 1
Dialectica. In the Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas, Benozzo Gozzoli depicts Plato and Aristotle flanking St. Thomas. The Greek philosophers were considered then the fundaments for the whole Christian Philosophy and the shapers of the Scholastic movement. But in the meanwhile, Aristotle s fortune changed and he was praised or despised, just as a courtesan would gain or lose the favor of his lord: during the whole 13 th century his writings were condemned in several councils held in France, being especially important that of 1277, when the bishop of Paris Ètienne Tempier prohibited to teach Aristotle s philosophy at the University of Paris. 4 All this controversy around the Philosopher had to do with his relatively recent fame. The commentators of his works Averroes in the Muslim tradition and Boethius of Dacia later on in Paris- did not have a real impact until 12 th century, when the original writings of Aristotle were rediscovered and started to be a substantial part of the universities curricula. On the other hand, the other main character of this paper, Virgil, had never been forgotten since the Classical period and his works were copied and commented uninterruptedly. The famous codices kept at the Vatican the Vergilius Romanus and the Vergilius Vaticanus- from the 5 th century are outstanding examples of what has been called The Virgilian Tradition. Furthermore, the flabellum of the Abbey of Tournus continues the iconographic line traced by those manuscripts in the Carolingian period, incorporating scenes from the Eclogues. This astonishing piece was used during the celebration of the mass to renovate the air and pull away the flies that may contaminate the sacrament. On the folding parchment there are depictions of the Sacred Story, while on the ivory hold the artist carved scenes from the Eclogues, that can be only seen when the ivory box which keeps the parchment is closed: when the parchment is displayed the Virgilian scenes remain hiden. Going back to the fame of Virgil, it remained mostly because of the exegetical interpretation of his 4 th Eclogue, which was considered to predict the birth of Christ and the reign of the Christian God; this justifies the presence of Virgilian motifs in liturgical utensils, 4 E. Grant, The Condemnation of 1277, God s Absolute Power and Physical Thought in the Middle Ages, Viator, vol. 10 (1979), pp. 211-244. 2
such is the case of the flabellum, 5 or the presence of the poet among the prophets in the Portico of the Glory in Santiago cathedral, as part of the characters who appeared in the Ordo Prophetarum, a medieval sacred drama of the twelfth century. Virgil, though, became the subject of a considerable number of legends from 12 th century onwards: in 1159, just about fifteen years after the French sculptor was carving the Chartres voussoir, a bishop of Chartres, John of Salisbury, included the first Virgilian legend in his Policraticus. Based on the previous lives of Virgil by Suetonius, Donatus, or Valerius Probus, who made of the poet a man of science as well as a man of culture, John of Salisbury transformed him in a sort of blacksmith with magical powers, able to create a fly which would chase and kill other flies, helping the inhabitants of Naples. By the end of the century Virgil had become a classical parallel of Merlin in the contemporary Arthurian literary tradition inaugurated by Chrétien de Troyes. The initial corpus of legends inaugurated by the Policraticus was continued by Alexander Neckham and Conrad of Querfurt, and by the end of the century Virgil had acquired the status of Necromancer, as John Webster Spargo called him. 6 These lay miracles grew considerably in number and in fantastical components during the 13 th century, when they became quite popular, but in 14 th century Italian humanists such as Dante or Petrarch put their effort in cleaning the image of the Mantuan poet out of impurities: when Robert of Anjou asked Petrarch about the construction of a magic tunnel attributed to Virgil, the poet, with a great sense of irony, declared he did not know that Virgil had been also a stonemason. 7 It is beyond the purpose of this paper to analyze deeply the development of these legends; these stories have been brought up because in the mid-13 th century, both Virgil and Aristotle were the subject of mocking legends that had to do with women, desire, lust and deception. 5 H. L. Kessler, Images Borne on a Breeze: the Function of the Flabellum of Tournus as Meaning, in: Charlemagne et les objects. Des thésaurisations carolingiennes aux constructions mémorielles (Ph. Cordez, ed.), Berne, 2012, pp. 57-85. 6 J. W. Spargo, Virgil the Necromancer, Cambridge, 1934. 7 F. Stok, Il Virgilio del Petrarca, in Preveggenze umanistiche del Petrarca, Atti delle giornate Petrarchesche di Tor Vergata (Roma-Cortona, 1-2 giugno 1992), Pisa, 1993, pp. 171-212. 3
The legend of Aristotle and Phyllis was well-known and spread widely from France, where it was originated, all throughout Europe in the following centuries. The exact origin, though, is not clear: scholars have speculated with two possible sources, one religious and one lay, but discern which one was the first appears to be quite difficult. The religious text is an exemplum by Jacques de Vitry, 8 dead around 1240-44; the other source is the Lai d Aristote, traditionally attributed to Henri d Andeli but related recently to Henri de Valenciennes. 9 In both cases the story is as follows: Alexander the Great was a young man who fell in love with a girl Phyllis-. He was spending too much time with her, dedicated to the pleasures of the flesh and neglecting the government of his land. Aristotle warned him against this, and following the Philosopher s advice he pushed away Phylllis; the woman, outraged, looks for revenge. She goes to Aristotle s garden and she starts to dance barely dressed under his studio window; the wise man sees her and falls for her charms. He goes down to the garden and there Phyllis tells him that she would do as he pleases with one condition: he has to crawl like a horse and carry her around the garden. Aristotle accepts the treat while Alexander, warned by Phyllis, was observing the whole scene. When he sees his master behaving like a beast he confronts him. The author, at this point, shows Aristotle s witty, replying: if she can do this to me, being old and wise, what could not she do to you, young and inexpert? The story of Virgil in the basket and his revenge will be later developed by Prof. Hueglin in her paper. I just want to outline the general plot: Virgil, seducer or seduced, according to different versions, by the daughter of the emperor, tries to reach her chamber by climbing the tower in a basket. The girl left Virgil hanging there half the way the whole night, so in the morning the inhabitants of the city could see the most famous of their poets mocked and deceived by a girl. The second part of the story is Virgil s revenge: he spent all the fires in Rome and lit one in the girl s vagina. She is then taken to the city square and all the Romans had to light their fires in there. 8 Quoted by Johannes Herolt ( 1468) in his Sermones discipuli de sanctis cum exemplorum promptuario. The edition quoted here is the one published in Lyon in 1511 by Johannem dela Pace, p. 109. 9 A. Corbellari, Un problème de paternité: le cas d Henri d Andeli. I. Arguments litteraires, Revue de linguistique romane, n. 68 (2004), pp. 47-56; and F. Zufferey, Un problème de paternité: le cas d Henri d Andeli. II. Arguments linguistiques, Revue de linguistique romane, n. 68 (2004), pp. 57-78. 4
This venetian glass form the 15 th century was used at the end of banquets to serve sweet meats or candied fruit along with sweet wines. By finishing a party showing such a provocative scene, it is obvious that the story of Virgil had a humorous component and may be read as a roman à clef, with a satirical intention behind. According to Spargo s research, the first source for the complete episode is the Manuscript Latin 6186 from mid-13 th century, kept at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Among the diverse texts compiled in it there is the narration of Quomodo Virgilius fecit exire ignem de vulva filiae Neronis. The author or the copyist of this text obviously had no idea about Roman chronology: Virgil had been dead for 73 years when Nero became Emperor of Rome. The intention here must have been to provide some source of verisimilitude for his audience; but that touch of Roman history, at the same time, erased every possibility of credibility. These two images Virgil in the basket and Aristotle ridden by Phyllis- provide us with different levels of lecture, and this is what I will try to decipher within this paper. The first lecture, and the most obvious, is the one of the theologians and Christian commentators who despised any trace of pagan heritage: Herbert de Losinga, the first Bishop of Norwich, wondered what were the Christian texts doing in the same hands that held the Ovidian falseness and Virgilian inventions ; and judged indecent that the same mouth could pray to Christ and recite Ovid s poems. 10 The same kind of thought was expressed by Robert Grosseteste regarding Aristotle, even if the bishop of Lincoln himself was the first to introduce the Philosopher s works in Oxford University and became the first English commentator of his works. The words of Grosseteste condemning those who tried to make a Christian out of the heretic Aristotle recall directly those of Herbert de Losinga. 11 One could think that the condemnation of 1277 would have a significant role in the origins and development of Aristotle s story of mockery, but this thesis has to be rejected: the spread of the tale all throughout Europe in 13 th century and later was not affected by the Parisian bishop, but by the fame Aristotle had gained, especially after St. Thomas Aquinas. 10 Herbert de Losinga, Epistolae (R. Ansruther, ed.), Bruxelles, 1846, p. 54. 11 Quoted by E. Mitre, Critianismo y vida intelectual en la plenitud del Medievo, in Historia del Cristianismo II. El mundo medieval, Madrid, 2006, pp. 337-384, esp. pp. 364-374. 5
This would lead us to our second level of interpretation of the mockery: the pleasure of laugh of the powerful and the intellectual. The presence of Aristotle and Phyllis or Virgil in the basket in 14 th century ivory writing tablets or caskets has to be understood in this context. A writing tablet kept at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore depicts the story of Virgil in the basket. In the lower register Virgil tries to seduce the girl, and then she starts to plot with her husband how to mock the poet; the story continues in the upper register: on the left Virgil hangs in the basket, while on the right the girl is on her hands and knees exposing her vagina for the men of Rome to light their fires. This development of the story seems to be related not to the Parisian manuscript version, but to that of Jans Enikel and his Weltchronik; in this book Virgil is blind to the true Faith. He was a complete son of Hell 12. This tablet, which was an instrument of learning, had a very specific audience, especially in the place where it was carved: there was a flourishing ivory industry in Paris between 1330 and 1350, where also many caskets were produced almost in a serial way. The audience for these tablets was formed of course by the students and scholars who attended the famous Paris University. On his famous book L antiquité expliquée et representée en figures Bernard de Montfaucon depicts this wax tablet alongside another where the story of Aristotle and Phyllis was carved. 13 With a blink of complicity the artist must have addressed this way his clients, who would recognize their idols, the most wise men of the Classical Antiquity, mocked and deceived by women, just as anyone of them would be by the Parisian ladies of the moment. But this assimilation and identification of the scholar with their precedents the giants of Bernard of Chartres-, can be also understood as an undermining critic to the establishment or, to the learned establishment, at least. According to Émile Mâle the art of the thirteenth century is pure, amazingly pure. 14 But one can only raise skeptically an eyebrow wondering how the situation could change that much in just a few decades, from that sculptor who left an empty medallion at Lyon 12 Jans Enikel, Weltchronik, 1900, pp. 462-472. 13 The images from Montfaucon s book were reproduced by D. J. A. Ross in his article Allegory and Romance on a Medieval French Marriage Casket, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 11 (1948), fig. 30. 14 É. Mâle, The Gothic Image; Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century, 1972, p. 62. 6
cathedral, where he had to carve the story of Lot and his daughters, to those who in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries rejoiced representing the episodes of Aristotle and Phyllis or Virgil in the basket in the capitals of churches, cathedrals and monasteries. This naïf description of the 13 th century art, which arises when the scholar had to deal with mockery and satire within the Church, has to be interpreted under the light of Mâle s profound Christian faith. But what would the canons and priests think when observing these scenes among those of the Sacred History in the House of the Lord? Of course we know the opinion of St. Bernard, who wondered what all those monstrosities were doing in the cloister capitals and what purpose they served. But the inclusion of these two themes of wise men falling for a girl and the ridiculous situation it provoked has a strong advisory meaning against the charms of women. And men of religion, despite what Émile Mâle may have thought, were not immune to these. Andreas Capellanus, in his De amore, counsels against the relations of any kind between those consecrated to the religious life and women. But he also flips the coin and in a real case of excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta, the chaplain recommends that those clerics who want to participate in the games of love should behave accordingly to their social status and chose a proper mate fur such a thing. 15 This is the third level of lecture I want to reach now: the folly of love, quoting an article title by Prof. Keith Moxey. 16 The signoria d Amore the lordship of Love- was masterly described by Dante: in the very first sonnet of the Vita Nova he addresses to every captive soul and gentle heart, whose lord is Love. 17 In this sonnet he introduces himself and narrates the dream in which he sees Love feeding a burning heart to her beloved Beatrice. Dante received some replies by other poets such as Cino da Pistoia or Guido Cavalcanti, who would recognize themselves in the words of Alighieri. But the most interesting reply for us is that of Dante da 15 Quia vix tamen unquam aliquis sine carnis crimine vivit, et clericorum sit vita propter otia multa continua et ciborum abundantiam copiosam prae aliis hominibus universis naturaliter corporis tentationi supposita, si aliquis clericus amoris voluerit subire certamina, iuxta sui sanguinis ordinem sive gradum [ ] A. Capellanus, De amore, book I, ch. 7. 16 K. Moxey, Master E.S. and the Folly of Love, Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, vol. 11, n. 3/4 (1980), pp. 125-148. 17 Dante Alighieri, Vita nova, chapter 3. 7
Maiano, who mocked his namesake: if you are healthy and your mind is firm, I counsel you to wash your testicles for a long time, until the vapor has gone; on the other hand, if he were sick, da Maiano would not dare to tell him his conclusion until he sends his water to the doctor. The lover who behaves irrationally because of the tyranny of love is a common place for the 13 th century, especially among those pre-renaissance Italian poets like Dante or Petrarch, who despise it and rejoice in it at the same time: their torments are so big that they would go sighing and lamenting their sad fate. Their love is always impossible, following the tradition of courtly love, which should be platonic and idealized. Only a few trouvadours could reach the final state the carnal love-. But among those who praised the ideal love there were also others who made a mockery out of it, such as Gilhem de Peitieu, grandfather of Leonor of Aquitaine, whose poetic style had more to do with Virgil in the basket and his revenge than with the lais of Marie de France. The most famous example is the satirical poem in which he meets two married women. They want to go to bed with him, but are afraid that he would tell to their husbands, so he pretends to be a mute. To check if he is not cheating the women take their cat and make it scratch with its paws the duke s back. After passing the test successfully by no complaining they spend some days having a great time, eating and dedicated to the pleasures of Venus I am being much more polite than he is in the poem-. When he leaves the cabin, wounded but joyful, he sends a message to the women asking them to kill the cat. To conclude, we have to say that in a highly sophisticated love courtly fashion, Virgil and Aristotle are fairly mistreated by women: the Philosopher and the poet tried to reach something that a real gentleman should not to. In both cases the main force which moves them is lust, and physical love is laughable subject when intended by old men. The Senex amator the old lover- is a usual resource for laughter in satire and farces from Antiquity we can just recall those by Plautus-, to nowadays. But I want to conclude with a little bit of hope for these poor men: the fountain of youth, often carved in the ivory caskets I ve talked about, had miraculous characteristics that made possible to plough back the aging process. The old people carried there in carts, wagons, on the other s back all these senex amatores could rejoice in their new acquired youth and play the games of Love in the appropriate age. 8