Re: Hermathena and Cicero

Conrad,

> The "Gallic Hercules" would
> appear to be the deity Ogmios?
> I believe there is a depiction
> in which the chains run from
> the deity's tongue to the ears
> of those thus being led about.

Yes, that's the one.

Probably the most famous illustration of this appeared in Alciato's 
_Emblematum liber_ (1st unauthorized edition in 1531; 1st authorized 
edition in 1534), for which, see

http://www.mun.ca/alciato/e181.html

(As always, I like Bocchi's version better.)

At any rate, Alciato taught law (from 1538 to 1541) in the same 
academy at Bologna where Bocchi taught rhetoric, and his popular book 
of emblems inspired Bocchi's book of Symbolic Questions.


> I cannot turn up anything
> in a Google search for
> Hermathena other than a
> journal published from
> Trinity College Dublin, and
> a South American butterfly,
> so any further info (perhaps
> off-Cafe, before this gets
> just too weird) would be
> appreciated.

I would argue that the Hermathena figure is central to any 
understanding of Europe's tradition of "visual rhetoric" (which 
flourished during the Renaissance and early modern period, when visual 
allegory was one of the most powerful pedagogical tools available), so 
I'll stay on list with this, even if it is a bit weird. ;-)

Besides, I always gain so much from our Café discussions, and this is 
a subject dear to my heart, so here goes....


You mentioned before a relationship between speech and picture

> I think one could draw an
> enlightening parallel between
> learning how to use (spoken
> or written) language most
> effectively, and how to use
> visual design most effectively.

and this indeed traces back to Horace's principle of *Ut pictora 
poesis* ("Just as painting is/does, so is/does poetry", from Horace's 
_Ars Poetica_, Epistole, II.3.361).

All learned discussion of the arts (visual, plus verbal, plus 
mechanical/technological), from the Renaissance through at least C18 
(which is as far as my own knowledge of such matters extends), built 
on this Horatian concept, which started out as a poetry/painting 
analogy (e.g., from Lodovico Dolce's _Dialogo della pittura intitolato 
Aretino_ of 1557, proclaiming every learned writer a painter: "There 
will not be lacking some of those who will question that the poet is a 
speaking painter and, on the contrary, that the painter is a mute poet 
...").

This (complex!) interrelationship between verbal and visual was at the 
heart of most early-modern theorizing about the image and 
image-making, and raised a whole host of issues about representation 
and verisimilitude and ethical visual communication which are still 
relevant today, even for such modern fields as information design 
(here I'm thinking of the ages-old debate over the didactic power of 
"veiled" communication, ekphrastic images, and *enargeia* -- the 
rhetorical technique used to make a reader "see" a verbal text, in the 
Horatian tradition of literary pictorialism). Moreover, such early 
theorizing about the image informed scholars' classifications of the 
arts & sciences, and undergirded most thinking about the relationships 
between fields of study. ;-)

So, for instance, early treatises on the *imprese* (which debated the 
theory and art of symbol-making, including the integration of mottoes 
-- today's "tag lines" -- with Renaissance brands) drew on the 
painting/poetry analogy.

	"Because the Renaissance poet or artist took *ut pictura
	poesis* so seriously, argued David Rosand, the modern critic
	should appreciate the stance as revealing the Renaissance
	creator's 'cultural sense of himself': '*Ut pictura poesis*
	was clearly more than academic rhetoric to the Renaissance
	poet; it was rather an active principle, indeed, a creative
	challenge.'"

Hence, this intense "mutual attraction" between poetry/rhetoric (the 2 
were then closely related) and the visual arts is a central piece of 
the origin story for European graphic design (and information 
architecture, too).


As for the important Hermathena figure -- Cicero's and Bocchi's chosen 
symbol for scholarship -- as far as I know, there is no extant image 
of Cicero's version of this, although the verbal picture he gives in 
his letters inspired artists for centuries. Rubens, for instance, made 
Hermathena drawings during C17, and placed statues of Athena and 
Hermes over an archway leading to the garden of his home in Antwerp -- 
where, incidentally, Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle, resided 
with her husband while in exile, and one of the frontispieces to her 
books plays on this same theme (not all that surprising, I suppose, 
given that "frontispiece" was an architectural term for a facade -- 
again, the concept of a "veiled" inquiry, and the rhetorical power of 
veiled constructs and artful "dissimulation" are at play -- before it 
was a printing term). As I'm sure you know from your work on the art 
of memory, Renaissance architecture had a rhetorical function:

	"... the frequent comparison of eloquence to architecture was
	both a stimulus to build and a reflection of interest in
	architectonic structure from Quintilian forward."

(which should give the "information architects" out there something to 
think about ;-).

Bocchi's own depiction of the Ciceronian Hermathena -- whose message, 
essentially, is one of tempered eloquence: "Wisdom restrains 
Eloquence, and Eloquence tempers Wisdom" -- was unprecedented, though.

	"For Bocchi's depiction of Hermes and Athena as linked herms
	no visual precedents have been located. Of the very few
	Hermathenas extant today, only one, now in the Capitoline
	Museum in Rome, is a double herm with Mercury and Athena
	having separate torsos and heads (they share one base), and
	that one was discovered in the ruins of Pompei. The first and
	only ancient texts referring to Hermathena are in the
	collected letters from Cicero to his friend Atticus. Cicero
	had requested by late 68 B.C. that Atticus locate for him in
	Greece statues appropriate for his gymnasium, or lecture
	hall, and, more specifically, herms such as Hermeracles
	(Hermes and Hercules). In early 66, he was delighted to hear
	from Atticus of success:

	"... ('I am delighted at your news about the Hermathena. It is
	a most suitable ornament for my Academy, since no class-room
	is complete without a Hermes, and Minerva has a special
	appropriateness in mine.')

	"Just over a year later (July, 65 B.C.), Cicero wrote,

	"... ('I am highly delighted with your Hermathena, and have
	found such a good position for it, that the whole class-room
	seems but an offering at its feet. Many thanks for it.')

	"Humanists revived the idea of Hermes and Athena as gods
	belonging to places of scholarship. Marsilio Ficino, for
	example, spoke of the academy as honoring Pallas and Mercury,
	and Pietro Aretino described the Paduan house of Pietro Bembo
	as 'un publico, e mondissimo tempio consegrata a Minerva' (a
	public and perfect temple dedicated to Minerva).
	Increasingly, in the sixteenth century, the gods of eloquence
	and learning became associated with smaller domestic rooms
	set aside for more specialized use, such as studies,
	libraries, and treasure rooms for collections (*studioli*)
	with appropriate decoration...."

	(from Elizabeth See Watson's excellent _Achille Bocchi and
	the Emblem Book as Symbolic Form_, Cambridge University
	Press, 1993)

Bocchi, whose Hermathena appeared in several of the bronze engravings 
in his book, also inscribed his educational theory and practice "into 
the idealized facade of the Palazzo Bocchi", which was illustrated in 
his book of Symbolic Questions, thus turning book and house into "a 
labyrinth of symbols". In both, Bocchi's Hermathena figured 
prominently: Bocchi actually moved what were originally separate 
statues of Hermes and Athena at roof level of the house to ground 
level, where they were joined as one to make even more of a visual 
statement, in the process emphasizing the house's position on a street 
corner (thus showing Hermes as "a Mercury of the Crossroads as well as 
eloquence"). Bocchi's literary academy (open to the public, including 
perhaps women) met in a large room on the ground floor of the palazzo.

There is now a tendency among feminist scholars to dismiss Athena as a 
feminist symbol because she is considered overly "male-identified" 
(her supreme virtue and wisdom deriving from the fact that no women 
were involved in her birth = a blanket denial of the female body and 
"embodied knowing").

There is some truth to this, and male supremacist scholars certainly 
made ample use of Athena mythography to denigrate the real women 
around them.

But, as always with this stuff, the imagery cuts both ways (and more! 
;-), and I think the Hermathena figure offers women in the arts & 
sciences as much to think about and to strive for, in their personal 
and professional lives, as it does men.

Bocchi's vision of Athena as symbolic of the *active wisdom* (secular, 
practical wisdom) of teaching and of prudence reminds me, at least, of 
what scholarship can be.


... Finally, for those of you who have stuck with me thus far: I have 
temporarily posted a facsimile of Bocchi's Hermathena (the copperplate 
engraving for Symbol CII, from Book 4 of Bocchi's _Symbolicarum 
quaestionum de universo genere_, the 2nd edn., printed at Bologna in 
1574) to my website at:

http://www.she-philosopher.com/home/temp/Bocchi1574_Symbol102.jpg

As usual, I'll leave it there for a couple of weeks while discussion 
is ongoing.

FYI, the engravings for Bocchi's _Symbolicae Quaestiones_ were first 
attributed to Giulio Bonasone in 1678 by Carlo Cesare Malvasia. Since 
then, some scholars have questioned this attribution, because the 
original drawings (which most still believe, I think, to have been the 
work of Bonasone) are so "superior in quality to the engravings of the 
symbols". So some have suggested that Bonasone did the drawings, and 
some lesser studio assistant did the engraving. Others, however, have 
suggested that the original drawings were by Prospero Fontana, and the 
engravings by Bonasone.

My only other information on this is that 82 "Bonasone drawings" for 
Bocchi's book "were sold by one private collector to another at 
Christies in London in 1972."

As far as I know, the drawings have never been published, and I don't 
believe attribution has yet been established, once and for all.

Nor is the identity of the designer and engraver the only thing in 
question about the production of Bocchi's book. At least one 
individual working in physical bibliography has challenged the 
attribution of presswork for the 1st edn. of 1555: "Bologna: In Aedib. 
Novae Academiae Bocchianae, 1555" (i.e., the private press on the 
ground floor of Bocchi's palazzo in Bologna).

	"Dennis Rhodes argues, on the basis of several ornamental
	initials in the 1555 edition and the nonappearance of other
	works printed by the academia, that the book was not printed
	at the Academia Bocchiana but at the press of Anselmo
	Giaccarelli. Perhaps Bocchi arranged to have the text printed
	professionally but used students to print the engravings in a
	separate step...."


Also, I have a question of my own which perhaps you (or other Café 
denizens) can answer: a letter from Pope Julius III in 1555 gave 
Bocchi and his heirs a 15-year license for printing and selling his 
_Symbolicae Quaestiones_,

	"along with the pope's promise of two hundred golden ducats
	from Apostolic coffers and words of praise for the book ...
	'with its very beautiful bronze engravings, a work that is to
	be praised not only for its jocundity and utility but also
	for its great value, a work from which all students of the
	fine and honorable arts may gather fruits quite rich and
	delightful'".

Presumably, the pope was correct in his description of the book's 
"bronze engravings", in which case, why do historians studying 
Bocchi's graphic art continue to discuss "... the cutting of all the 
copperplates"?

Is copperplate a catch-all term for any kind of metal engraving for 
the print trade?


Deborah
_____

Deborah Taylor-Pearce
[email protected]
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