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Mantegna's Parnassus: A Reply to Some Recent Reflections

Author(s): Edgar Wind


Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Sep., 1949), pp. 224-232
Published by: College Art Association
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224 THE ART BULLETIN

MANTEGNA'S PARNASSUS these included the Latin Iliad by Lorenzo Valla, and
A REPLY TO SOME RECENT the Latin Odyssey by Raphael of Volterra.5 To this
must be added the diffusion of Homer through manu-
REFLECTIONS1
scripts6 and through oral recitation. Public lectures
on Homer were delivered by fifteenth century hu-
EDGAR WIND
manists as divergent in outlook as Angelo Poliziano
and Codro Urceo (not to speak of the many Greek
In giving an account of my interpretationof Man-
lecturers-Chalcondylas, Lascaris, Musurus, etc.). Of
tegna's Parnassus,2Mrs. Tietze has tried her hand at Poliziano's Homeric orations two examples are pre-
a craft with which the readers of this journal are not
unfamiliar.She has engaged in a little restoration.The served, his Praefatio in Homerum, which is strictly
analytical, and his fourth Silva, entitled Ambra, cer-
gaiety which I ascribedto this subtle painting has been
tainly among the most popular of his works, and con-
heightened by a baleful touch. In Homer, the love of
Mars and Venus and the derisionof Vulcan are associ- taining a eulogy in Latin hexameters of Homer and
ated with the laughter of the gods. Hence, to discern the Homeric poems.7 From Urceo's Sermones the fol-
an echo of Homeric laughter in a representation of lowing extract may suffice: "I shall expound to you
these scenes was not a very revolutionarytheory; but Greek literature and above all the divine Homer, from
in Mrs. Tietze's adaptationit has acquired the double which perennial fountain, as was said by Ovid, the land
attraction of being far-fetched and morally repre- of the priests is irrigated with the springs of the muses.
hensible. From Homer you can learn grammar, from Homer
If the article was intended to spread confusion, it rhetoric, from Homer medicine, from Homer astrol-
may have its measure of success. But it is fortunate, as ogy, from Homer legends, from Homer history, from
Homer morals, from Homer the doctrines of the phi-
Shaftesbury observed, that tactical errors are occa-
sionally made by cloudy people. In the present case, a losophers, from Homer the military art, from Homer
little learning has been affixed to the voice of expostu- the art of cooking, from Homer architecture, from
lation, and this may prove to have been a mistake. I Homer the best manner of governing cities, and in
have collected a few samples of Mrs. Tietze's work- short, whatever good or pleasant the soul of man may
manshipto show how well equippedshe is to disputethe desire to learn, you will be easily able to find in
mock-heroic revival, or any other phase of the classic Homer."' Homeric titles of a mock-heroicstyle (Galeo-
tradition. In deference to a learned journal, I have myomachia, Hypnerotomachia) appeared among the
sustained the fiction that these malapropismsdeserve incunabula printed by Aldus.9 Pico della Mirandola,
to be seriouslyrefuted. the phoenix of his age, declared that his own poetica
Theologia was inspired by a meticulous study of the
(I) "But in the second half of the fifteenth century Odyssey.10From whateversourceMrs. Tietze may have
no such intimacy with Homer could have existed, since derived her Homeric theories, it is not from the hu-
the author, for all practical purposes, was unknown... manist literature of the fifteenth century.
it would have been necessary to prove Homer's absorp-
tion by the period in question, or at least the unique- (2)"Francesco Aretino, to be sure, had translated
ness of such an allusion to him ought to have been the Odyssey in 1459-z460. Nevertheless, the poem had
stressed." not become common property, and in fact no represen-
Mantegna's painting of the Parnassus was finished tation has been found in the visual arts of the period
and hung in the summer of 1497.' The complete Greek that may reliably be traced back to Homer."
Homer had been accessible in print since 1488.' Of An entire class of fifteenth-century cassone panels
translationsand epitomesof Homer no less than sixteen shows scenes from the Odyssey in a combination and
editions were printed between 1474 and 1497, and sequence which make the text of Homer their unmis-

is not, of course, to suggest that the Semiramis"looks like" 5. L. Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum, Milan, 1948,
a Domenichino, but simply to note that some aspects of the III, pp. 77-80, nos. 8773ff.; W. A. Copinger, Supplement to
picture unprecedentedwith Guercino (e.g. certain drapery Hain's Repertorium Bibliographicum, London, 1898, 11, i,
forms, the Queen'shair and jewels, etc.) are in fact paralleled p. 305, nos. 3034ff.; D. Reichling, Appendices ad Hainii-
in paintings by Domenichinowhich he must have seen during Copingeri Repertorium Bibliographicum, Munich, 1905, I, p.
his stay in Rome from 1621 to 1623. 48, no. 212; II, p. 51, no. 558.
6. See, for example, P. Kibre, The Library of Pico della
i. E. Tietze-Conrat, "Mantegna'sParnassus.A Discussion Mirandola, New York, 1936, who lists eight manuscripts of
of a Recent Interpretation," ART BULLETIN, XXXI, 1949, pp. Homer and one printed edition.
126-I30. 7. Opera, Paris, 1519, II, fols. Iviff., lxxxviff. In some
2. Edgar Wind, Bellini's Feast of the Gods, Cambridge, editions the Ambra is printed as the third Silva.
1948, pp. 7-20. 8. Opera, Venice, 15o6, fol. xxxiii. Urceo died in
15oo.
3. Letter from Alberto da Bologna to Isabella d'Este, 9. The Hypnerotomachia was completed in 1467 and pub-
July 3, 1497. Cf. G. Fiocco, Mantegna, tr. J. Chuzeville, lished in 1499. The edition of the Galeomyomachia, prepared
1938, p. 184. for Aldus by Aristobulus Apostolius, bears no date but is pre-
4. Editio princeps,edited by DemetriusChalcondylas,dedi- sumably earlier than the printing of the Hypnerotomachia.
cated to Piero de' Medici, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent; 10o. "De Hominis Dignitate," Opera, Basle, 1557, p. 327.
Florence, 1488.

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NOTES 225

takable source. Some of these pictures, semipopular (4) "I limit my critical analysis to the second chapter
in style and manufactured in quantity, are listed and re- of Wind's book."
produced in Schubring's Cassoni (1923), pp. 275ff., Mrs. Tietze has limited her critical analysis to five
pls. LIV-LVI, and one of them is now in the Art Insti- pages of the second chapter of my book. She has omitted
tute of Chicago. In view of the existence of these serials from her account a major part of this chapter, in
from Homer, Mrs. Tietze's statement that all single which I discuss the exceptional position held among
Mantuan humanists by Paride da Ceresara, who is
pictures of "Penelope and her suitors" or "Circe's trans-
formation of men into animals" produced in the Quat- known to have been Isabella's adviser when she com-
trocento "go back to other sources" is a false general- posed the program of her Camerino. I should hardly
have taken all this trouble about the presumed inventor
ization.
of Mantegna's Parnassus if I had thought that this
picture was a literal transcript from Homer. I stressed
(3) "'Even 'the sixteenth century remains, for the the great variety of sources from which Paride da
most part, firm in its allegiance to Dares and Dictys' as
Ceresara had drawn for his "pagan fantasy" (for ex-
Griffin states." ample, Philostratus, Vergil, Horace, Plato and Proclus,
N. E. Griffin's dissertation on the "two Latin forger- Ficino and Pico, the Appendix Ausoniana, the hiero-
ies that pass under the names of Dares Phrygius and
glyphic tradition, emblems, numismatics). As for Ho-
Dictys Cretensis"" is so well studded with references meric features, I pointed out that (I) the love of Mars
to the mediaeval and Renaissance knowledge of Homer and Venus combined with the derision of Vulcan is a
(see for example, p. II nn. I and 2; p. 16 n. 2) that theme to be found in Homer, that (2) Mercury and
to quote this particular book in support of the contention Apollo are the two gods in Homer who defended the
that Homer was "practically unknown" in these periods love of Mars and Venus and "amused the gods at the
is perhaps more audacious than confusing. Griffin was expense of Vulcan," and that (3) this subject is in-
concerned with the interesting observation that the his- troduced by Homer in the form of a dancing song.'4
torical authority enjoyed by these forgeries, which were Mrs. Tietze's list of all the Homeric details she misses
in the picture merely proves that Paride da Ceresara's
supposed to be authentic accounts of the Trojan War
way of composing a humanist fantasia was very different
by two eye-witnesses, produced a profound and last- from what we might have seen if this task had been
ing dissatisfaction with "the mendacious fictions of
assigned to Mrs. Tietze.
Homer."'" It is in the nature of mendacious fictions
that they produce dissatisfaction only in those who
(5) "The accepted interpretation of the verses of
know them. The statement by Griffin, from which Ausonius [about the muse Polyhymnia], therefore, is
Mrs. Tietze has torn out one sentence, reads as follows: that Polyhymnia is gesticulating with her hands like an
Faith in the authenticity of records that had orator."
thus received permanent embodiment in the litera- Far from being "the accepted interpretation" (a term
ture of the Middle Ages was not lightly abandoned which has no meaning in Renaissance mythography,
in the period that followed. The sixteenth century since humanist compilers delighted in collecting for
remains, for the most part, firm in its allegiance to their readers as large a choice of interpretations as they
Dares and Dictys. Sir Philip Sidney in his Apologie could muster), the interpretation does not even cover
for Poetrie (I595) contrasts with the feigned the few cases which Mrs. Tietze chose to cite, as, for
Aeneas of Virgil the right (real) Aeneas of Dares example, Timoteo della Vita's Polyhymnia, which she
described in the middle of the same paragraph. That the
Phrygius, and, at the turn of the century, de- line which I quoted from the Appendix Ausoniana-
spite the previous appearance of Chapman's Iliad
it is the old tradition to which Shake- "Signat cuncta manu loquiturque Polymnia gestu"--
(1598), defines Polyhymnia as the Muse of oratory, could be
speare reverts and gives final literary expression in
believed only by those who did not trouble to read it.
his Troilus and Cressida (1603). So, too, in the
Clearly, an orator does not "signify all with his hands"
seventeenth century, in spite of a growing scep- (signat cuncta manu), nor does he speak only "by ges-
ticism, critics are not wanting who still believe tures" (loquitur gestu). Polyhymnia is described in this
in the pre-Homeric antiquity of these records.'3 verse as the Muse of pantomime; and this role is assigned

ii. N. E. Griffin, Dares and Dictys. An Introduction to the


duced: "E il Sol ne fece manifeste prove." In mistaking these
Study of Medieval Versions of the Story of Troy, Baltimore, two passages for un-Homeric, Mrs. Tietze has confused the
190o7, p. I.
exposition of the story with its denouement.
12. Ibid., p. ix n. I.
13. Ibid., p. 16-Inadvertently, in quoting a line from 14. In Mrs. Tietze's opinion the singer and the dancers
Boiardo's Tarocchi and a phrase from Lorenzo de' Medici's "mean hardly more than a colon or quotation mark to intro-
fragment Amori [not Amore] di Marte e Venere, Mrs. Tietze duce the song," but this careless reading of Homer is not
has introduced two passages dependent on Homer's story of traditional. According to Lucian, De Saltatione, 63, the story
Mars and Venus. In Odyssey, viii, 271, 302, the role of the of Mars, Venus, and Vulcan was even in Roman times a sub-
informer is played by Helios. As the god of the sun he brings ject of pantomime, and this passage was known in Ferrara
the deed to light. It is this incident on which Lorenzo's frag- and Mantua since it is quoted in Gyraldus' dialogues De
ment is based, and to which Boiardo refers in the verse ad- Historia Poetarum (Opera, Leyden, 1696, nI, p. 328).

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226 THE ART BULLETIN

to her also in Gyraldus'Syntagmade Musis." She substi- single paragraphin Sittl's book (p. o101) and contra-
tutes gestures for words: "loquacissimaemanus, linguosi dicted by the two paragraphsfollowing (pp. o2ff.).
digiti, silentiumclamosum,expositiotacita,quam Musam To correct her information on these irrelevanciesfrom
Polymniam reperissenarratur, ostendens homines posse more pertinent sources, it may suffice to refer to the
et sine oris affatu suum velle declarare.""6For those pantomime produced by Panurge (Pantagruel, II, xix)
who would prefer to regard her as the Muse of oratory, and to quote a charming passagein Apuleius: "Raising
Gyraldus quoted a very different verse: "Rhetoricos their right hand to their lips and holding the forefinger
dictat Polyhymnia musa colores." against the lifted thumb (primore digito in erectum
That these two incompatible traditions would oc- pollicem residente), they venerated her [Psyche] as if
casionallybe confused was perhapsto be expected,"7but she were the goddessVenus with religiousadorations.""2
this does not make the confused version the "accepted" Like many other classical rituals, these ways of honor-
one. Mrs. Tietze, who reproachesme for not adopting ing Venus by gestures, called XOPEV7rLKa 'Apos8r'
"the more conventional approachof the art historian," kXtawby Lucian,21survive today only on the uncouth
has cited a Polyhymnia by Lo Spagna, and a Poly- level of folk manners.
hymnia by Timoteo Viti, but she has disregarded the
visualevidence of Mantegna's own picture. This bounc- (7) "Around 1500 the word 'galante' never had the
ing Muse, the most frolicking of the nine, with one connotation that it gained in French (and that reflected
leg lifted and stretched out in the air, does not convey from it later in Italian as well). The 'Vocabulario dell'
the idea of an orator. Accademia della Crusca' translates the word as 'beauti-
ful, ornate,' and figuratively, 'gay'."
(6) "Wind, however, gives her gesticulation an- The Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca was
other meaning." written in Italian, and if Mrs. Tietze had fully quoted
I wrote of the Muses on the side of Venus that a the original text instead of substitutingextracts in her
"concern with love is unmistakablyexpressed by the own English translation, her argument would have
playful gesture of the concluding pair"-an explanation collapsed from the start. According to this very dic-
for which Mrs. Tietze found it necessary to introduce tionary, the amorous connotations of the term galante
zoological terms. The gesture is performed by Poly- are to be found in Pulci, Ariosto, and Berni. Pulci's
hymnia, the Muse of pantomime, together with Erato, Morgante was composed between 1466 and 1480, and
the Muse of love. Thalia, the Muse of comedy, reacts first publishedin 1482-1483. The relevant passagesin
to it with amusement: Comica lascivo gaudet sermone the Vocabolario (vii, 1893, pp. 24f.) read as follows:
Thalia. This Ausonian verse, quoted in my book, has
been suppressedby Mrs. Tietze. It alone might have vii. Galante, detto di uomo, vale Che corteggia le
donne . . . e con piui grave senso, detto cosi dell'
corrected her impressionthat the Muses were always
"sacrosanct."In performing this frivolous little panto- uomo come della donna, vale Proclive agli amori.
mime, Polyhymnia conforms to the character assigned Ix. Si uso a significareChe ama di disonestoamore.
to her in Plato's Symposium (in the fifteenth century -Pulc. L. Morg. 18,
the basic classical text on Love) and expounded in 13I.
Marsilio Ficino's commentary De Amore. Plato wrote xIv. Galante, in forza di Sost., si us6 per Amante,
of "the vulgar Polyhymnia, who must be used with Drudo.-Ar., Sat. I, 177.
circumspection, that the be
pleasure enjoyed but may xvi. Fare il galante, vale Fare il vagheggino, ed
not generate licentiousness;just as in my own art [as a altresi Stare sulla vita amorosa.-Bern. Orl. 36, 39-
physician] it is a great matter so to regulate the desires
of the epicurethat he may gratify his tastes without the The passage in my book (p. 46) is also misquoted by
attendant evil of disease.""' Or in Ficino's words: Mrs. Tietze. I wrote cose galanti, not cose galante.
"There are two kinds of melodiesin music. The one is
grave and steady, the other molle atque lascivum .... (8) "More sceptical students might have asked how
The former he [Plato] assigned in the Symposium to dancers at the time of Mantegna used to hold one an-
the muse Urania, the latter to Polyhymnia."19Concern- other's hands. The most obvious example inviting com-
ing the gesture itself, Mrs. Tietze dispenses some parison is Giulio Romano's already mentioned painting
esotericinformationaboutthe exclusionof index fingers, in the Palazzo Pitti. In it, the Muse next to Apollo, in-
which she claims to have derived from Karl Sittl, Die cidentally inscribed Polyhymnia, offers a closely related
Gebiirden der Griechen und R'mer, 1890o. This not gesture."
only introducesanother false note, but also quite a few The logic of this argument is as follows: (I) A
false notions, her generalizationbeing again based on a painting by Giulio Romano is introduced to show what
15. An early work by Gyraldus ("adolescenti mihi e mani- Polymnia motus or Rhetoricos profert at quinta Polimnia
bus exciderat," ibid., p. i9) reprinted in Opera, I, pp. 555- sensus. Also, Gyraldus, Opera, 1, p. 262: Harmoniam numeris,
568. saltusque Polymnia iunxit.
16. Cassiodorus, quoted by Gyraldus, ibid., p. 564. 18. Symposium, 187 E, Jowett's translation.
17. For other verses in support of either view, see Antho- 19. Oratio, Iii, iii.
logia Latina, ed. A. Riese, Leipzig, 1,I894, p. 121, no. 88i 20o. The Golden Ass, Iv, 28.
II, 19o6, p. I35, no. 664a: Flectitur in faciles variosque 21. De Saltatione, Io.

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NOTES 227

was customary "at the time of Mantegna." (2) The Having received from them three conflicting opinions,
figure that "offers a closely related gesture" is in both the poet exclaims: "What am I to 'do? Each side has the
cases Polyhymnia; and from this we are to infer (3) same number of votes. May the favor of all the Muses
that the gesture is not confined to Polyhymnia but a alike attend me, and let me never praise anyone of them
general custom among dancers. As a matter of fact, in more or less than the rest."23 When he describes Calliope
Giulio Romano's picture none of the Muses "offers a as a kind of slut---neglectos hedera redimita capillos24
closely related gesture," but to add to the confusion, he means to allude to her poetic frenzy, but the figure is
Mrs. Tietze has misapplied the inscriptions and mis- not noble. He is quite malicious when he inquires why
taken Euterpe for Polyhymnia. " 'Grant
Cybele is worshipped in a barbaric manner:
As for "Luca della Robbia's earlier dancing chil-
me, goddess, someone whom I may question.' The
dren," these again do not hold their hands like the
Cybelean goddess spied her learned granddaughters and
Polyhymnia and Erato in Mantegna's picture; nor does bade them attend to my inquiry. 'Mindful of her com-
Mr. Hinkelday's dancing master (a misnomer for the
mand, ye nurslings of Helicon, disclose the reason why
celebrated musicologist, Professor Otto Kinkeldey). the great Goddesss delights in a perpetual din.' "25 To
Mrs. Tietze the "playful dance" of the Muses in the
(9) "In the classic tradition the Muses were sacro- Culex, famed as a model of mock-heroic poetry,26 is not
sanct."
sufficient to prove my point, even though the poet him-
Mrs. Tietze imagines that "ever since Hesiod," that
self calls this dance ludens chorea and warns the reader
is through the whole history of Greek and Roman liter-
at the beginning of his poem: "Whoso is ready to blame
ature, the dancing Muses were regarded with un- our jests and Muse, shall be deemed lighter than even
wavering solemnity. And she adds in the next sentence our gnat in weight and name.""' But the treatment of
that "ever since Ausonius" (a poet of the fourth century
the Muses with an air of mischief is not confined to
A.D., and hence removed from Hesiod by more than a humorous literature. The same ambiguity prevails in
thousand years) Apollo was represented as placed in
their center: "In medio residens amplectitur omnia Plato, who rarely addresses them without irony.28
Phoebus."
a court was
These sweeping theories are vitiated in any case by (I o) "We are acquainted with the ideal
two observations: (I) The verse quoted is not by expected to represent at that time by Castiglione, who
had spent his early years in Isabella's circle and his later
Ausonius, although like many other anonymous poems sister-in-law. Granted
years at the court of her favorite
it has been included for the sake of convenience in the
that the description given by the Cortegiano is only an
Appendix Ausoniana. (2) Mantegna's Parnassus, to other a . . .
ideal. On the hand, painting approved by
which the verse is supposed to apply, does not represent
the princess . . . executed . . . by the court painter of
Apollo as seated in the center of the Muses. In fact the
world-wide fame, necessarily embodies a corresponding
absence of this feature distinguishes his painting from
ideal."
the more formal representations of Parnassus. "When
The two works are incompatible in style and a gener-
Ausonius sings of Priapus," Mrs. Tietze explains, "he
does not dare to invite the Muses ut solent poetae, in ation apart, the manuscript of the Cortegiano in the Lau-
non virgineum locum." This negative invocation defines renziana being dated 1524.29 On the other hand, there
the nature of the poem, but the use of the Muses for is direct evidence, in the material collected by Luzio and
this purpose is not a sign of the poet's respect. On a Renier,30 of the playful and frivolous love ceremonials
famous occasion in the Fasti, Ovid invokes them because at the court of Mantua under Isabella d'Este. She had
he is puzzled by a queer name in the Roman calendar, masters of ceremonies for these matters, first Tebaldeo,
and later Equicola, who liked to introduce his amorous
knowing that they will further add to his confusion:
instructions by invoking "the shade of Ovid" as the
dicite, quae fontes Aganippidos Hippocrenes master of lovers.31 To have recourse in this context to
grata Medusaei signa tenetis equi. Castiglione's Courtier-the most hackneyed and abused
dissensere deae.22 of Renaissance references-is not only a flimsy evasion

22. v, 7-9. 29. II Cortegiano, ed. V. Cian, Florence, 1929, p. ix.


23. v, Io8-Iio (Sir James Frazer's translation). 30. A. Luzio and R. Renier, "La Coltura e le relazioni
24. v, 79. letterarie di Isabella d'Este Gonzaga," Giornale storico della
25. Iv, 191-194 (Frazer). letteratura italiana, xxxiv, 1899, pp. ixf.; also the same
26. Pietro Bembo, "De Culice Vergilii et Terentii Fabu- authors' Mantova e Urbino: Isabella d'Este ed Elisabetta
lis," Opera, III, 1567, pp. 8z2-1xo Celio Calcagnini, "En- Gonzaga nelle relazioni famigliari e nelle vicende politiche,
comium Culicis," Delitiae CC. Italorum Poetarum, i6o8, 1, 1893, pp. 225f.
i, p. 517. 3 i. Mario Equicola, Libro de Natura de Amore, Venice,
27. Culex, 6-7 (Fairclough's translation). 1525, dedicated to Isabella d'Este. On the composition of this
28. Cf. Republic, 545 E: solemn mockery; Phaedrus, book, see R. Renier, "Per la cronologia e la composizione
259 A: the Muses and the grasshoppers; Ion, 536 A: the Muses del 'Libro de Natura de Amore' di Mario Equicola," Giorn.
and the loadstone which "makes one man hang down from the stor. d. lett. ital., xiv, 1889, pp. 212-233.
other."

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228 THE ART BULLETIN

of the relevant sources,32but it places on this author di Cosimo, in which the armor of the sleeping Mars
the undeserved burden of a prig, sustaining the most serves as a toy to little satyrs or playing cupids, are
pompous"ideals"in a vacuum. idyllic variations of the same theme, which goes back
to the ancient idea of Venus Victrix.40 In contradis-
( Ii) "Isabella's many, and in part very intimate, tinction to this group of pictures, the Parnassus shows
letters do not offer the slightest clue to indicate that Mars and Venus as equals, the only vanquishedparty
she had ever deviated from the behavior considered being Vulcan, whose jealous role defines them as lovers.
proper in a Renaissance court." But if I may quote from my book in this one instance:
Isabella'sletters give ample evidence of the frolicking "The illicit love between Mars and Venus was easily
spirit which I describedin Mantegna's Parnassus. Her ennobled by allegory. In discussingthe love and pro-
pronounced preference for the poet Pistoja who ex- creation of the gods as metaphors for universal forces
celled in burlesque verse, and entertained her by a in nature, Leone Ebreo explained in his Dialoghi
lettera lunica"3 or by a tragedy "in anticipation of d'Amore that 'when this union of the two parentsoccurs
facetious sonnets" (per uno nuntio delli Sonetti faceti) ; regularly in nature, it is called marriage by the poets,
her delight in listening to Ariosto,35 or in perusing and the partnersare called husbandand wife; but when
Boiardo'stranslationof The Golden Ass;" her amuse- the union is an extraordinaryone, it is styled amorous
ment at the splendidlyexecuted gestures in a Ferrarese or adulterous, and the parents who bring forth are
" called lovers.' It is in praise of such an extraordinary
performanceof The Eunuch; her patronageof a story
teller as unrestrained as Bandello;8" and, not least, conjunction-the god of battles uniting with the god-
her friendshipwith Paride da Ceresarawhom Bandello dess of love, rerum concordia discors-that Apollo sings
characterizedas uomo Terenziano89-all these point to and the Muses dance and Amor blows his fanfare, re-
a vigorous and quite unsqueamishsense of humor. As gardless of the protests of the Philistines (f36vavo-ro)
for the propositionthat Isabella never "deviated from representedby the Dunkelmann, Vulcan.""'
the behaviourconsideredproperin a Renaissancecourt,"
this is unquestionablytrue, but it says little, since "the (13) "The pair [Mars and Venus] . .. appears in
behaviourconsideredproper in a Renaissancecourt" is epithalamia for the most distinguished members of the
the very problemunder discussion.Mrs. Tietze's decla- Ferrarese circle, sometimes even accompanied by Vul-
mationson this subjectsuffer from a remarkablepaucity can."
of categories. As Mrs. Tietze refrains from quoting the relevant
epithalamia,the role of Vulcan is not made clear. Are
(12) "Isabella, who came from Ferrara, had we to infer that, in honor of a princely wedding, the
been familiar with . . . the decoration of the Palazzo guests were treated to a spectacle of what Mrs. Tietze
Schifanoja; here Mars is kneeling in full armor before calls "the usual pair of lovers accompaniedby the not
Venus sitting on her triumphal car. This, turned into at all extraordinary appendage, the unfortunate hus-
courtly language, is the Renaissance idea of Mars and band"? When we turn to Mrs. Tietze's "note published
Venus.. ..I" many years ago,"42we discover what epithalamiumshe
The fresco in the Palazzo Schifanoja represents has in mind. It is a poem by Salimbeni celebrating the
Venus as the vanquisherof Mars, who is her captive wedding of Lucrezia d'Este to Annibale Bentivoglio in
and chained. Far from being "the Renaissance idea of Bologna. Needless to say, the poet was not so ill-advised
Mars and Venus," this image embodies a particular as to comparethe marriageto an "illicitaffair" concern-
theme-the triumph of Venus over Mars, the goddess ing which he had "reached"an "attitude devoid of any
of love being more powerful than the god of strife. The moral criticism." In contrast to the Lemnian legend
paintingsof Mars and Venus by Botticelli and by Piero adopted by Homer in which Venus was the wife of

32. Mrs. Tietze apparently has not read Equicola since she role. She professed to be alternatively bored and offended by
quotes him "after Lomazzo," an astonishing source for an the very type of comedy she had so thoroughly enjoyed the
author who had died in 1525 after a most prolific literary year before and continued to enjoy in the years that followed.
output. Bibbiena's Calandria was specially produced in her honor
33. Letter of September 14, 1499, in Luzio-Renier, Giorn. when she visited Rome in 1514. Mrs. Tietze's only source
stor. d. lett. ital., XXXIX,1902, p. 198. seems to be J. Cartwright, Isabella d'Este, London, 1903, a
34. Letter of June 18, 1499, in A. d'Ancona, Origini del book to be used with the utmost caution because many of the
teatro italiano, II, 1891, p. 376. translations are inaccurate. Cartwright distinguishes, however,
35. Letter to Ippolito d'Este, in Luzio-Renier, Giorn. stor. the two events confused by Mrs. Tietze (pp. 183 and 212).
d. lett. ital., xxxv, 900oo,p. 228. 38. Luzio-Renier, Giorn. stor. d. lett. ital. xxxIv, 1899,
36. Letter of November 24, 1512, ibid., p. 225. pp. 79-81. In the Novelle, Bandello refers to Isabella at least
37. Letter of February 3, I501 to Francesco Gonzaga: "et fifteen times.
questa sira hano facto lo Eunucho, le quale [comedie], se ben 39. Novelle, I, 17.
sono state piene de parole vane et de qualche erubescentia, per 40. H. Mattingly, Coins of the Roman Empire in the Brit-
chi la timesse, tutavia sono state multo dilectevole et de riso ish Museum, II, 1930, p. xlii. The figure was reinterpreted by
et piacere assai, maxime per le voce accomodate et optimi Poliziano, "In Venerem Armatam," Opera, 1519, fol. cii.
gesti." Ancona, op.cit., p. 379. Mrs. Tietze has confused the 41. pp. I2f.
performances so vividly praised in this letter with those which 42. "Zur h8fischen Allegorie der Renaissance," Jahrbuch
Isabella saw a year later at the wedding of her brother Alfonso, der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen, Wien, xxxIv, 1918, p. 31.
on which occasion she was determined to play a domineering

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NOTES 229

Vulcan, there was a Theban legend, known to Hesiod, foods and snake bites. As for the attractive interpre-
which claimed that Venus was married to Mars.'3 For tation she has derived from this fountainhead,45it is
wedding celebrationsthis was the only acceptable ver- rather unlucky (1) that Mantegna's Pegasus stampshis
sion of the story; and Vulcan did not appear on these foot on the wrong side of the picture, so far away
occasions as a betrayed and angry husband, but as the from the volcanic formation that he could not possibly
god of artisansproducing marriagegifts. In Salimbeni's stop it, and (2) that ancient legend distinguishesbe-
poem, he presidesover the forges manufacturing arms tween earthquakesand volcanoes, and the earth merely
for a tournament in honor of the bridegroom, Mars- heaved-heaved with delight (i' 'j80ov46)-when
Bentivoglio: the Muses sang.47Hence I prefer to hold to my view
In questo tempo ogni fuccina ha foco that it is perfectly proper for a vulcanic formation to
E cum fabri suoi Vulcan comende appear over the cave of Vulcan. When Vulcan gets
Audiassemartellare. angry, he spouts fire out of mountains, and in the
present instance he is very angry, protestingboth vigor-
Undeterred by the disparitybetween these two tra-
ously and ineffectively against the love of Mars and
ditions, Mrs. Tietze attempted to establisha correlation Venus.
between Salimbeni'stext and Mantegna's picture. And
since she was not aware at that time, as she is now, that
(15) "The two scourges . . .certainly have some
"the comical episodeacted out by Vulcan and Cupid has I rather presume that the con-
symbolic meaning....
long since been noticed," she claimed that Mantegna's nection is with Apollo, who in Rome was worshipped
picture correspondsto the wedding poem in showing as 'the Tormentor' (Suetonius); A. Thomson, in his
Vulcan "in his smithy preparingthe arms for the tour- edition
of Suetonius, refers to Martial XI, 15, I, who
nament [der in seiner Esse die Waffen zum Kampf- mentions that in Suburra 'flagella tortorum' were sold.
spiele bereitstellt]." If his intentions were really so Thus the scourges may simply have been meant as an
agreeable, he would not be scolding Cupid, or be teased attribute of Apollo."
by him. In Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars, the phrase "Apollo
In suggesting that the grapes near Vulcan's cave Tortor" occurs in a most peculiar context (ii, lxx).
might be a dolce grappolo, Mrs. Tietze has obviously Suetonius refers to a disreputablebanquet at which the
forgotten their color, while her alternativeterm, nuovo guests were disguisedas gods, Caesar Augustus playing
grappolo, would make of Vulcan not merely a "simple- the role of Apollo. The occasion was satirized in a
ton" but a "greenhorn," an idiomaticappellationhardly
lampoon which, since Mrs. Tietze refers to Dr. Thom-
compatiblewith his age." I should add that the verse son's edition, I shall quote in his translation together
on p. o in my book is not, as Mrs. Tietze surmises,a
with the rest of the passage:
"Cupid's song in ridicule of the cuckold Vulcan," but
a quotation from Love's Labour's Lost. Caesar assumed what was Apollo's due
And wine and lust inflamed the motley crew.
At the foul sight the gods avert their eyes,
( 14) ".. . the 'arrested volcanic eruption' is a natural
And from his throne great Jove indignant flies.
accessory to the scene depicted. Classic authors (Ni-
cander) inform us that Helicon began to rise heaven- What rendered this suppermore obnoxiousto public
ward when the Muses sang, and that Pegasus stopped censure, was, that it happenedat a time when there
this upward movement by stamping on the ground." was a great scarcity, and almost a famine in the city.
The informationwhich Mrs. Tietze got from "Clas- The day after, there was a cry current among the
sic authors (Nicander)," must have reached her people, 'that the gods had eaten up all the corn; and
through intermediarychannels, since the only surviving that Caesar was indeed Apollo, but Apollo the Tor-
works by Nicander deal with remediesagainst poisonous mentor'; under which title that god was worshipped

43. Hesiod, Theogony, 933-946. For the two traditions, incident of the earthquake is not mentioned by these authors.
see Pauly-Wissowa, I, 1894, s.v. Aphrodite, col. 2769. 46. Ibid., p. 8o.
44. Mrs. Tietze wonders for what purpose I added "to the 47. A parallel misapplication of a text is Mrs. Tietze's
English word 'sour grapes' the Greek translation in brackets." cryptic reference to what she calls "Lucian's interpretation of
The word 4~cLaKES, which is Aesop's, was introduced to remind the Olympic lovers," according to which "it is the conjunc-
the reader that what might sound like a modern colloquialism tion of Mars and Venus that createth the poetry of Homer."
("sour grapes") has a classical pedigree and is not out of key She does not indicate that this "profound thought which may
in a humanist argument. well have influenced the program given Mantegna" occurs
45. The Metamorphoses by Antoninus Liberalis, an author in Lucian's Defence of Astrology, 22, which explains the
who lived about four hundred years after Nicander, is our specific use of the term "conjunction." Quoted in full, the
only source for the relevant fragment and its attribution5 and passage reads: "All that he [Homer] hath said of Venus and
this work is known by only one single manuscript (Codex of Mars his passion, is also manifestly composed from no
Palatinus Graecus 398 in Heidelberg), which was not pub- other source than this science [astrology]. Indeed, it is the
lished until 1568. Cf. Mythographi Graeci, Leipzig, I896, conjunction of Venus and Mars that createth the poetry of
11, i, pp. xxixf. The passage was unknown to either Gyraldus Homer." The inference would be (i) that Mantegna's Par-
or Cartari, the two most voracious mythographers of the nassus is based on Homer, which Mrs. Tietze took so much
Renaissance. Contrary to what might be inferred from the trouble to deny, and (2) that it is an astrological picture,
list, in Pauly-Wissowa and other reference books, of pre- which is patently absurd.
sumed reflexes of Nicander in Ovid or Martianus Capella, the

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230 THE ART BULLETIN

in some quarter of the city [quo cognomine is deus they are not always quite so prominent as in the fresco
quadamin parte urbiscolebatur].48 of Venus in the Palazzo Schifanoja,which Mrs. Tietze
To explain the particular "quarter" Suetonius had claims to have studied closely. On the other hand, to
in mind, a footnote was added by Dr. Thomson, mod- take them in The Agony in the Garden for mere "ac-
estly referring the reader to Martial, xI, 15, I, and cessories of the earth" is quite incompatible with the
quoting two lines about a female barber in Suburra precise and learned diction of Mantegna, whose pic-
"where Martial informs us that torturing scourges tures give little evidence of a purely idyllic view of
were sold." But on consulting Martial, xI, 15, I, which nature. The busy group of hares so prominently placed
Mrs. Tietze clearly has not done, we find that there is on the road along which Judas approaches,and also on
a misprintin Dr. Thomson's book which she has faith- the path before Christ, carriesa definite symbolicmean-
fully repeated; for Martial xI, 15, is a different poem ing. During the Agony in the Garden, Christ begged
and reads: his disciplesto watch with him, but each time they fell
Sunt chartae mihi quas Catonis uxor asleep. The lively little hares are known symbols of
Et quas horribileslegant Sabinae: vigilance because they never close their eyes: "quod
Hic totus volo rideat libellus.... semper apertos habeat oculos hoc animalis genus."52
In exploring the varying significanceof such details,
which means: "I have written pages which may be we are on difficult ground, but the comfortable belief
read by Cato's wife and by the dreadful Sabinewomen, that trouble can be avoided by dismissingthem as purely
but I want this book to be full of laughter." The poem incidental and irrelevant to their context is to impute to
containing the "flagella tortorum" is actually II, 17, a Paduan master of the Quattrocento the visual as-
and this is one of those preposterouspieces by Martial sumptions of a paysagiste. Himself a skilled archaeo-
which one cannot blame Dr. Thomson, a respectable logical scholar, Mantegna is known to have relished
gentleman of the eighteenth century, for not reprinting Isabella's molto signati termini. Hence it is also very
fully. In any case, it leaves the reader in no doubt unlikely that he would have desired, and she allowed
concerning the "quarter" to which, he believes, Sue- him, to introduce into the rocky foreground of the
tonius was referring by his Apollo Tortor, and this is Parnassusthe arresting silhouetteof a porcupinefor no
the source which Mrs. Tietze invites us to apply to the other purposebut to give "a little businessto the eye."53
Parnassus.
(17) "It may not occur to the reader that Lodovico
(16) "Wind feels obliged to interpretevery detail of was the grandfather of Isabella'shusband,dead for ten
the picture." years [this is an error: he had been dead for nineteen
This obligation is imposed by Isabella's own pro- years], so that the reference to this device seems some-
cedure in ordering pictures for her Camerino. She what far fetched."
not only suppliedher artistswith minute instructionsas Mrs. Tietze's belief that the life of an emblem
to what they were to paint, but she insisted: "You are ceases with the life of one of its bearers reveals a total
not to add anything of your own."49Pictures composed ignorance of emblem literature. The noli me tangere
according to so precisea plan requirean equally precise device of the porcupine, as I stated on p. 13, derives
interpretation,and this cannot be obtained apart from from mediaeval and Renaissance bestiaries and was
a study of the literary sources. Comparisonswith paint- used not only by Lodovico Gonzaga, but also by Louis
ings of a different type will not do. Mrs. Tietze infers XII of France, and even by Sir Philip Sidney. Perhaps
fallaciouslythat becausein Mantegna's painting of The I should have added that Louis XII had taken the em-
Agony in the Garden the presence of rabbits would blem from Louis d'Orleans, his grandfather.54
seem to be purely incidental, their presence must be
equally incidental in a painting of Venus, the text of (18) "The only existing tradition concerning the
Philostratus notwithstanding: "For you know, I im- original arrangement [of Isabella's Camerino] dates
agine, what is said of the hare, that it possessesthe gift from 1542 and shows Costa'sso-called Parnassuson the
of Aphrodite to an unusual degree.""5 left of Perugino's painting and Mantegna's Virtue and
It is an iconographicalcommonplacethat, as attend- the Vicesand his Parnassusfacing each other."
ants of Venus, hares signify love and fertility,51though This argument is borrowed from my book. Mrs.

48. London, Bohn's Classical Library, 1884, p. I23. by the placement of the animal among rocks in a squatting
49. W. Braghirolli, "Notizie e documenti inediti intorno position, by the absence of any flourish of the tail, and by the
a Pietro Vannucci detto il Perugino," Giornale di erudizione grey color of the fur. Grey squirrels are common in North
artistica, 11, 1873, pp. 163-166. America (sciurus caroliniensis) but unfamiliar in Italy where
50. Imagines, I, 6 (Loeb Library, 1931, p. 27). the color of the common squirrel is rosso, bruno o nero (E.
51. Cf. Ripa, Iconologia, s.v. Fecondita. G. Pauli called Tortonese, Gli Animali superiori nella lore struttura e nella
them "Gesch6pfe aus dem Tierpark der Venus," Vortriige der
lore vita, Turin, 1949, p. 357). For Renaissance representa-
Bibliothek Warburg, 1921-22, p. 58.
tions of squirrels, see Ghiberti, East Door, Baptistery, Florence;
52. Horapollon, Hieroglyphica, apertum (Paris, 1551,
s.v.
p. 44); Pierio Valeriano, Hieroglyphica, xIII, 1, s.v. vigi- Intarsia, Studiolo of Federigo da Montefeltre, Urbino; Bel-
lantia (Basle, 1575, p. 95). lini(?), St. Jerome, Bonacossi Collection, Florence, etc.
53. The recent suggestion that this animal is a squirrel 54. See G. F. Hill, Medals of the Renaissance, Oxford,
(Magazine of Art, XLII, 1949, p. 15o), is rendered implausible 1920zo,p. 140.

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NOTES 231

Tietze has adopted, without saying so, the reconstruc- And of these supposedly sound assumptions, some of
tion I have introduced as fig. B on p. 53 and which the most questionable in "the more conventional ap-
differs from that previously attempted by Yriarte."55Al- proach of the art historian" take on the form of linear
though the inventory of 1542 was published by D'Arco arguments, producing a series of Polyhymnias in which
a century ago (Archivio storico italiano, I845, Ap- one Polyhymnia "explains" a second Polyhymnia, and
pendice II), to my knowledge no reconstruction of the she a third. These are the vestiges of a method which,
Grotta has been attempted besides Yriarte's and my unbeknown to many of its adherents, rests on an evo-
own. But far from being "the original arrangement," lutionary hypothesis and suffers from the inherent weak-
as mistakenly stated by Mrs. Tietze, there is evidence ness of purely linear demonstrations in matters of fact.
that this particular grouping of the pictures should not It is essential to a mature science, according to the logic
be dated before I530-I532."6 Mantegna's two paint- of Charles Peirce, "to trust rather to the multitude and
ings were ready before Perugino delivered his, and all variety of its arguments than to the conclusiveness of
three preceded the works by Costa, which in their turn any one. Its reasoning should not form a chain which
were followed by those of Correggio at a distance of at is no stronger than its weakest link, but a cable whose
least two decades. Hence an inventory which includes fibers may be ever so slender, provided they are suffi-
all of these pictures cannot possibly be described as em- ciently numerous and intimately connected."58
bodying "the original arrangement."
Throughout her article Mrs. Tietze has intimated
(19) "I am satisfied with offering a few hewn that my style of writing is not to be trusted because it
stonesfor theconstruction and,if forcedto advancelacks the "blunt outspokenness" which lends to her own
hypotheses, I insist on introducing them as such." utterances the indelible mark of veracity. This reminds
This note of self-congratulation concludes an article us a little of Malvolio: "Dost thou think, because thou
in which some of my own hypotheses have been intro- art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" If
duced as facts, and which altogether bristles with false blunt outspokenness were our only weapon, there would
generalizations: "the Renaissance idea of Mars and be an end to the use and study of symbols. We should
Venus," "the accepted interpretation of . . . Ausonius," be reduced to a choice, which Mrs. Tietze would like
"the Liberal Arts customarily equated with the Muses," to force upon us, between pedantry on the one hand
"the explanation current in the Quattrocento of Apollo's and fiction on the other, with boredom (not accuracy)
share," Isabella's "candid awe reflected" in the deco- as the prerogative of the former. In trying to fit my
ration of the library of her sister-in-law, the Camerino studies into this convenient scheme, Mrs. Tietze has
as a "drawing room" for "the most select society of misused two famous names. Mereshkowski unfortu-
Italy" and at the same time "accessible to everybody, nately I have not read; and Mr. Somerset Maugham
visible at any hour, in any mood," etc. It is interesting has recently explained the uselessness of symbols.59
that when Mrs. Tietze protests that my reconstruction If symbols continue to survive, it is because there are
of the arrangement of the Grotta before 1530 "is un- authentic experiences for which the only just expression
fortunately merely conjecture," she does not say that is indirect. "Un symbole, quoi! Tout guerrier que tu es,
this reconstruction is presented under the title Con- tu as bien entendu parler des symboles! . . ."-"J'en ai
jectured Arrangement of Isabella's Grotta before 1530 vu."-"Que faisais-tu alors? "-"Je m'approchais et
(p. 53). As she seems to believe that solid scholars are c')tait fini." This is the answer of Giraudoux's Hector,
only rarely "forced to advance hypotheses," it is per- but the observation is as old as Plato: "Verily, Theae-
haps worth pointing out that hypotheses are the most tetus, I perceive a great improvement . . . The real
vital part in the logic of exploration, and no scientific
aborigines, children of the dragon's teeth, would have
discovery can be made without them. The historian who been deterred by no shame at all, but would have ob-
thinks he can say hypotheses non fingo is either deceived
stinately asserted that nothing is which they are not
or he is barren. As Poincare observed,57 the only vicious able to
squeeze in their hands."
hypotheses are those which have hardened into customs
and commonplaces and are hence mistaken for safe. SMITH COLLEGE

55. Gazette des Beaux-Arts, xiv, 1895, p. i28i The Art Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. C. Hartshorne and P.
Journal, 1898, p. Ioz. Weiss, Cambridge, 1934, v, p. 157.
56. See p. 46 n. 7 in my book. 59. The New York Times Magazine, January 23, 1949,
57. Science et Hypothkse, Iv, 9. p. 42.
58. "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities," Collected

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