Preferred Citation: Sherman, Claire Richter. Imagining Aristotle: Verbal and Visual Representation in Fourteenth-Century France. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  c1995 1995. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft4m3nb2n4/


 
17— Classical Authorities on Political Theory (Book II)

Iconography and Invention

As noted above, the well-established tradition of the author portrait serves as the basic iconographic source for two of the three representations of the ancient sages. It is particularly appropriate that this type, which originated in antiquity, should provide the ultimate models for the illustrations.[3] Yet the costumes and furnishings of these classical authorities in Figures 55–57 identify them as medieval teachers and writers. This practice exemplifies Panofsky's principle of disjunction between a classical theme and its medieval pictorial representation.[4]

The images of Socrates and Plato afford an apt example of such medieval interpretations of the conventions of the antique author portrait. One such strain is represented by the type of the Evangelist dictating to a scribe. Socrates sits in a high-backed, canopied chair dictating to the figure of Plato, who kneels at his feet. Each man wears academic dress that identifies him with his status as a "Regent Master of Theology."[5] Among the key elements of the costume is the plain supertunica , with its fur-trimmed hood. Plato's costume also includes two furred lappets on the chest, while Socrates wears a skullcap with an apex. Plato's tonsured head indicates that he is a cleric. Age differentiates the two thinkers: Socrates is depicted as a mature man with a long beard; Plato, as youthful and clean-shaven. The updating of the portrait types by these costumes and accessories places these thinkers within a recognized institutionalized structure for disseminating late medieval thought: the University of Paris. The use of French for the inscriptions identifying Phaleas and Hippodamus and for recording Socrates' ideas affords additional evidence for the authority invested in the vernacular and in French culture particularly.

Plato turns his upraised head, seen in profile, toward Socrates, whose pointing finger conveys the fact that he is speaking (Fig. 55). While listening to Socrates, Plato has written on his scroll the words dictated to him: "soit tout commun" (let everything be [held in] common). The iconography thus conveys the medieval tradition of interpreting Plato as the transmitter of Socrates' ideas rather than as a great thinker in his own right. The miniature also presents the oral communication of knowledge within a teaching situation: the magister cum discipulo relationship.[6] The Socrates-Plato image thus relates to another variation of the medieval author portrait: the writer as teacher, lecturer, or preacher.[7] The rise of universities and the mendicant orders contributed to making such themes popular. In particular, the assimilation of Aristotle's thought into the university curriculum made the depiction of the Philosopher as a teacher a popular theme in historiated initials placed at the beginning of the many Latin translations of his works.[8] A contemporary variation on the theme of the scholar as lecturer occurs in the lower left quadrilobe of Figure 7, the dedication frontispiece of A .


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The Socrates-Plato image thus combines two types of the medieval author portrait. But in Figure 55 the inscription on Plato's scroll highlights a particular subject in Book II. The featured text "soit tout commun," highlights the origin in Socrates' teaching of Plato's theory that property and wives should be held in common. Since the text of the Republic was not known in the Middle Ages, it is not surprising that Oresme, referring to a commonality of wives and property, cites the second part of Plato's Timaeus and Apuleius's De dogmate Platonis .[9] The prominence given the words soit tout commun accords with the lengthy discussion of this concept in the text and glosses of the first nine chapters of Book II. The remaining seven chapters of Book II on ancient constitutions are not represented in the program of the miniature. The "soit tout commun" inscription may also highlight what Oresme considered a politically explosive or subversive theme. In the re-edition of D , however, Plato's scroll no longer carries an inscription (Fig. 57). Despite the addition of a curtain to suggest an interior setting, Figure 57 lacks the intensity of expression characteristic of the figures in Figure 55.

In both Figures 55 and 57 Phaleas's (Felleas ) attributes, not words, characterize the theories of this writer. Since his ideas relate to the redistribution of land and property, he is depicted with symbols of measurement. In his left hand he holds a T square on which is draped a length of string weighted on one end. A vertical rod and an unidentified instrument wrapped in string are also depicted. Facing and striding to the right, Phaleas gestures with upraised hand toward these implements. Standing in the middle of the picture field, he appears as an aged figure with a short beard. His plain bonnet and simple mantle, which lacks the fur-trimmed hood that indicates the academic status of Socrates and Plato, suggest a lesser, secular rank. The elongated proportions of his figure, visible especially in his thin feet shod in pointed poulains , are typical of the style of the Master of the Coronation of Charles VI. Although the iconography may derive from the representation of a standing author holding his writings, the figure of Phaleas also recalls the depiction of a sacred person identified by his attributes. Precedents for the appropriation of this scheme occur in the Ethiques illustrations of Justice in A of Book V (Fig. 24) and of Art in Book VI of C (Fig. 34). Phaleas's vertical posture may have been chosen to balance and vary the seated figures on his right and left. Yet the lack of any kind of setting to which Phaleas might relate results in a discordant effect. The addition of a building in D (Fig. 57) may have been an attempt to remedy the lack of a concrete object appropriate for Phaleas's instruments of measure.

Hippodamus of Miletus (Hypodamus ) is the last theorist represented (Figs. 56 and 57). He wears a skullcap similar to that of Socrates. The lack of a fur-trimmed hood on his plain mantle appears to disassociate him from university status. His white hair and long beard suggest advanced age. Facing right, he is seated on a low-backed chair equipped with a stool to which a writing stand is attached (Fig. 57). Next to it lie two upended books. Hippodamus is engaged in writing with pen and scraper on a ruled sheet. Although in Figure 56 it is possible to read individual letters and several words (le and les ), the writer's hands conceal the ensemble. Thus, unlike the images of Socrates and Plato or Phaleas, those of Hip-


206

figure

Figure 58
The Dream of the Author. Le songe du vergier.


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podamus do not reveal any clue about his ideas. Yet in all three portraits authoritative doctrine and wisdom are embodied in mature, masculine figures characterized by their white hair and beards.

In another sense, however, the attention given to the ancient writers of secular works may signify a shift in attitude toward establishing the notion of individual authorial identity.[10] By means of an inscription or attributes the portraits of Socrates and Plato and Phaleas characterize their works as distinct entities. Placement of the portraits within separate frames further concentrates attention on each one as an individual unit. The inscription of the name within the picture field helps the reader associate the thinker's appearance with the sequential presentation of his theories in Book II. The relationships governing the thinker's name, figure, and activities have indexical and memory functions.

These variations on a theme may well have served Oresme as convenient talking points in an oral explication of Book II. In particular, the Socrates-and-Plato miniature could have easily led to a discussion of the "soit tout commun" subject. Although seemingly remote from contemporary experience, Plato's theories about the commonality of property and wives may have struck a chord with Oresme's primary readers because of the dynastic disputes concerning inheritance of the French throne via the female line. In a similar vein, Phaleas's ideas about redistribution of land had a practical application in view of the protracted struggle with the English about claims to territories in France. Oresme's ability to relate the ideas of the ancient sages to contemporary events is revealed in his long commentary on the issue of voluntary poverty of the clergy, inserted in a refutation of Socrates' views on common ownership of property.[11]

Oresme's long-standing mentor relationship with Charles V and the oral transmission of knowledge exemplified in the Socrates-Plato miniature seem to present appropriate analogues for discussions suggested by the writings of the ancient sages. In visual terms the prominence accorded these secular writers reflects the growth of individual authorial identity. Other contemporary portraits in which the author forms part of a narrative or addresses an audience seem far more adventurous than Figures 55–57 in asserting the writer's identity. The unknown writer of the Songe du vergier , a manuscript commissioned by Charles V in the 1370s, appears in the frontispiece by the Jean de Sy Master as a sleeping figure whose dream unfolds in the discussions of the figures deployed above him (Fig. 58).[12] Also executed by the Jean de Sy Master and also dating from the 1370s is a highly individualized portrait of Guillaume de Machaut in one of two frontispieces of his collected poetic works that shows him introduced to important characters in his writings (Fig. 59).[13] By comparison, the exactly contemporaneous illustrations of the ancient sages in Book II of the Politiques seem almost deliberately archaizing: perhaps the retardataire style of the illuminator of Figures 55 and 56 was an attempt to assert their antiquity.

Oresme's historical interest in classical theories and theorists is consistent with his search for understanding of ancient culture. At the same time, presenting the


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figure

Figure 59
Nature Introduces Her Children to the Poet Guillaume de Machaut. Collected
Works of Guillaume de Machaut.

ideas of the ancient sages in the vernacular claims for French culture the means of inheriting, transmitting, and interpreting these authoritative sources. While Figures 55–57 are among the most conservative of the Politiques cycles, their iconographic tradition bestows on the author portraits a new cultural importance.


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17— Classical Authorities on Political Theory (Book II)
 

Preferred Citation: Sherman, Claire Richter. Imagining Aristotle: Verbal and Visual Representation in Fourteenth-Century France. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  c1995 1995. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft4m3nb2n4/