Affirmation of the Contemplative Life

Although the illustration in A (Fig. 42) of Book X, the last book of the Ethiques , receives no special emphasis, in size, format, and style, its counterpart in C (Fig.

43) is a deliberate climax to the cycle. In one sense, Figure 43 contrasts with the representation of Félicité humaine, combined in the first miniature of C with the dedication scene (Fig. 10). Even if allowances are made for the changes in the size of the illustrations in the second half of C , the prominence and preeminence of Figure 43 are still remarkable.

Apart from Oresme's appearance in a leading role in the dedication frontispiece of C (Fig. 10), the translator does not figure in any other illustration. Yet the editorial and visual alterations noted in the second half of C indicate that Oresme's quasi-authorial intervention in the choice and ordering of the program of illustrations strengthens perceptibly. It is, therefore, tempting to see the translator's continued influence in the strong emphasis of Figure 43. Like its predecessor in C (Fig. 41), Figure 43 seems distinct from the other miniatures in format, iconography, and expressiveness. Oresme certainly took part in reordering the program to stress in a monumental and simplified format the grandeur of Félicité contemplative. The visual realization of this concept is both formally and thematically exceptional in contemporary French manuscript production.

The question now arises of Oresme's motivation in highlighting Figure 43. After all, glorification of the happiness that comes from the contemplative life is only one of several themes Aristotle explored in Book X. As a scholar and thinker, Oresme would naturally have a special affinity for the contemplative life. Chapter 12 of Oresme's text speaks of the wonderful pleasures of philosophy, marked by purity and permanence.^[34] His gloss on these delights reveals an enthusiasm quite probably derived from his own experience. Oresme explains:

Elles sont merveilleuses pour ce que elles sont excellentes et precieuses et ne sont pas communes. Car le plus des gens se delictent en choses materieles. Item, elles sont pures, car elles sont vers choses esperitueles et immaterieles.

(They are wonderful because they are excellent and precious and are not common to all and sundry. For most people delight in material things. Item, these are pure, for they incline toward spiritual and nonmaterial things.)^[35]

Oresme's emphasis on vacacion , or leisure, as a condition and advantage of intellectual activity may also reflect a preference or enjoyment familiar from his own career. The translator may here have reflected on his years in Paris working on the Aristotle translations when, with the king's assistance, he took leave from his ecclesiastical duties in Rouen. Oresme's glosses thus express a consciousness of the rarity of the withdrawal from material pleasures that typifies the classical ideal of the life of the mind, soon to be revived in the writings of the Italian humanists.^[36] Even the setting of mountains and trees in Figure 43 conveys the idea of a peaceful retreat in which contemplative activity takes place. Oresme was also personally engaged in writing about the objects of Félicité contemplative's intellectual activity. Oresme's Latin and French treatises on natural science, including physics and the study of the movement of celestial bodies, approach from various vantage

points knowledge of "les choses divines." Thus, drawing on his own life and work, the program of Figure 43 may well express Oresme's reverence for the happiness that comes from the contemplative life. Likewise, the ambiguities of the philosophical/theological context of this illustration may reflect the wavering in his scientific views between orthodox Christian beliefs and "radical philosophical ideas."^[37]

If Figure 43 displays Oresme's preferences, what interest might the illustration have held for Charles V? Chapter 13 and other locations in Book X unfavorably contrast the field of political action, driven by an incessant search for power and honors, with the leisure and tranquility that characterize the happiness of the contemplative life. But the translator explains in a gloss that political action supplies the preconditions for people to enjoy the contemplative life.^[38] In addition, Oresme states in the final gloss of Chapter 14 that the active life is sometimes more desirable and necessary than the contemplative mode, particularly when it assures the safety of the common good.^[39]

Certainly the idea that good political action assures the possibility of the contemplative life is relevant to Charles V's own tastes and his patronage of literature and the arts. The massive translation project is just one aspect of his cultural policy. The king was also known for his love of learning and his intellect.^[40] The various mentions of Charles V's "Sapience" in dedicatory poems and prologues to translations are more than literary convention. For him, as well as for Oresme, the happiness of the contemplative life was a concept that had personal meaning and merited special honor in the climactic illustration of the king's personal copy of Oresme's translation of the Ethics . In Figure 43 the illuminator creates a monumental and exceptional figure worthy of his reader's recollection. This memorable image certainly could have provided the basis for the translator's eloquent oral explication of the delights of the contemplative life.