George Catalano

    The Florence manuscript2 was produced in Paris during the mid-thirteenth century by a lay workshop now known as the Johannes Grusch atelier, a named coined by Robert Branner.3 This manuscript contains the largest extant collection of music in the "Notre Dame" style. Apart from Branner's work, the Parisian origin of this manuscript has been determined in several ways: (1) It includes a copy of what a 13th-century theorist, commonly known as Anonymous IV, described as the magnus liber organi used at the cathedral of Paris;4 (2) The chants upon which the polyphonic compositions of the magnus liber organi are built are Parisian variants;5 (3) Though several manuscripts containing this music are extant, this is the only one in which the polyphony conforms without exception to the edicts of the Bishops of Paris governing polyphonic performance;6 (4) Furthermore, the correspondence between details of its liturgical cycles of organa and the known activities of the singers of the cathedral is often so strong that there can be little doubt that this manuscript represents a copy of the cathedral's magnus liber organi and not another church's within the Parisian diocese.7

    The illumination of the manuscript consists of thirteen historiated initials and one full-page miniature which serves as its frontispiece.8 It is the frontispiece (see Figure 1) which establishes the theme of the manuscript's illumination, so its interpretation is essential to correctly interpreting the cycle as a whole.

    In his 1988 article, "Lady Music and Her Protégés, from musical Allegory to Musicians' Portraits," which appeared in Musica Disciplina, Tilman Seebass repeats a customary interpretation of this painting which is found in many standard works.9 The left-hand frames have been identified as the allegorical figure Musica, and the right-hand frames have been equated with Boethius' division of music into three types: musica mundana, humana, and instrumentalis.10 The three figures are said to pass various judgments on their adjacent types of music, according to the hierarchy prescribed by Boethius.

    Using this interpretation (the frontispiece's depiction of various types of music) and the contents of the manuscript (which proceed from liturgical polyphony to dance music), Seebass takes the iconography of the frontispiece as a direct, general assessment of the position of music at this point in history:

It is this interpretation and conclusion which this paper aims to revise by re-identifying the female figure in the frontispiece and constructing an interpretation consistent with the re-identification.

    The success of the customary interpretation depends on identifying the female figures as the allegorical Musica. However, this identification is problematic. To summarize, if this is Musica, two important aspects of the Florence realization (to be discussed below) are unique, the visual symmetry of the left-hand zone conflicts with the ideological hierarchy of the right-hand zone, and she is identified by none of her usual attributes.

    On one hand, singularity renders an image nearly impossible to identify. On the other hand, an image which has been identified, but has unique traits usually indicates a questionable identification; one may be viewing the image in a false context and its singularity is only relative within that context. The females figures of the Florence frontispiece share two singular traits within the context of their identification as the allegorical Musica. As the traditional interpretation would have it, the left-hand zone represents the same figure three times, a trinity of sorts. However, to accept these as Musica, is to also accept that this is the only time she is so represented. A second singular aspect of this image is the judging of various types of music by the allegorical figure, which, when Martianus Capella invented her,11 was the embodiment of all music.12 This interpretation leaves Musica in the awkward position of passing judgment on herself. To my knowledge, there is no medieval literary source for Musica in this judgmental role. As we are considering a previously identified figure, these singularities may be relative to the conceptual context created by a dubious identification; considered in the proper context these traits are, as I will show, not singular, but typical.

    Furthermore, if we take these to be a threefold repetition of the same figure, we would expect them to be visually repetitive; however, the painter or the patron has taken pains to carefully make distinctions among the three figures. Beginning with relative body sizes, the figures at top and bottom are the same, while the middle figure is considerably larger, her crown actually touching the architectural frame. Likewise, the crowns of the top and bottom figure are similar while the central figure's is a bit more ornate. The outer figures are also equated by being dressed in similar cloaks. Attributes such as the white veil, the ornate throne, and the rope belt are distributed among the figures in such a way that anything an outer figure has, the central figure shares, but not the opposite outer figure. The combination of these techniques produces a central figure which appears superior to her flanking companions, her higher status being further emphasized by the red color of her tunic.

    Making the middle figure the most splendid might be seen as a matter of symmetry. However, in this case, the symmetry established is in conflict with the hierarchy of types of music in the right-hand frames, which runs from top to bottom. This inconsistency between the left and right hierarchies is the principal downfall of the customary interpretation of the frontpiece.

    There is yet another problem with the identification of the left-hand figures as Musica. Musica is typically represented standing, holding a musical instrument, sometimes accompanied by a famous practitioner such as Pythagoras. Sometimes she is seated, but usually only to perform on a musical instrument such as the harp or lute. Occasionally, when she appears without her attributes, the context makes her identity clear, as in a series of the seven liberal arts. Of the eight examples provided in Seebass's study of Lady Music,13 the figure from this frontispiece is the only one that involves multiple representations, that is crowned, enthroned, holding a staff or scepter, and the only seated figure without a musical instrument. In short, she has none of the traditional attributes of Musica.

    These problems are not insoluble if we take the implications of the iconography as our guide to re-identifying this figure: a crowned, enthroned, sceptered, allegorical woman, or group of women, in a position to pass judgment on music.

    This last criterion, the right of judgment, belonged to only one figure in the Middle Ages: Philosophy. Boethius introduced the allegorical representation of Philosophy in his Consolation of Philosophy, one of the best known works of the Middle Ages. 14 The porch

    This sculpture, however, while representing the attributes mentioned by Boethius, incorporates two that do not derive from his description: the figure's seated position and her throne. Oddly enough, these are the attributes that correspond to the Florence frontispiece. The sculptor was certainly depicting Philosophy; the ladder identifies her unmistakably. It seems, however, that he had a second iconographical tradition which served as the source for the sculpture's non-Boethian attributes.

    This same mixing of Boethian and non-Boethian attributes occurs in another representation of Philosophy. This example contains even more non-Boethian influence than the Paris sculpture, providing evidence for a second iconographical tradition from which the non-Boethian attributes of the Paris sculpture derive. Figure 3 shows a diagram from the Newberry Library's Ms. 8 F9 which contains an eleventh-century Austrian copy of Boethius' De institutione musica. The diagram shows the seven liberal arts grouped around the central figure of Philosophy. Each petal of the rose design contains a description of the allegorical figure and practitioner peculiar to each liberal art. The central disc contains the following description of Philosophy:

    Michael Masi, who published a brief article on this diagram, saw these descriptions as instructions for an artist and identified them with the illuminations of the 13th-century Austrian manuscript: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, clm 2599 (see Figure 4). Indeed the miniatures of the Munich manuscript could hardly be more faithful realizations of the earlier descriptions.

    While every aspect of the Newberry diagram's description is faithfully portrayed, the Munich realization goes beyond that description. While the description generically prescribes 'two kings,' these kings are specifically identified as the Old Testament kings, Nebuchadnezzar and Antiochus. In addition, the posture of Philosophy "treading on the necks of two kings" is both distinctive and traceable to a Biblical source. This symbolic act of conquest appears several times in the Old Testament, most prominently in Joshua 10:24:

Together, these indicate the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, as the source of the non-Boethian attributes in the examples discussed above.

    Finally, an additional inscription is added in the arch above Philosophy:

This verse, emphasizing as it does the figure's relation to kingship and her role in creation, points to the precise source of the second iconographical tradition from which the non-Boethian attributes of the Paris, Florence and Munich depictions of Philosophy were drawn: the personification of Wisdom from the Book of Proverbs. Wisdom's dominion over kings is established by the following verses from Proverbs 8:

And her role in creation is revealed in another passage from Proverbs 8:

The correspondence between the Munich Philosophy and the Florence frontispiece is, indeed, remarkable. The crown, the throne, and the scepter all correspond, as, most importantly, does the triple representation that was absent from the Paris portal sculpture. The hierarchy of the figures in the Florence illumination is paralleled in the Munich Philosophy by the centrality of Philosophy between her two handmaidens and the central figure's greater relative body size. Furthermore, the verses which the handmaidens carry parallel the ladder in Boethius's description, reflecting the practical and theoretical aspects of philosophy, and sharing a natural affinity with Boethius's musica mundana and musica instrumentalis, which are evoked by the frames opposite Philosophy's handmaidens in the Florence miniature.

    Having identified the sources of the attributes of the Florence figure as belonging to Philosophy (who herself bore aspects of Wisdom), we may now build a new interpretation of the frontispiece. Indeed, the description from the Newberry diagram can be used as a guide to the woman's attributes and to the layout of the frames. The central left-hand frame contains Lady Philosophy, crowned, sitting on a throne, holding a scepter (shown as a white rod).18 The upper and lower left-hand frames contain her handmaidens and their adjacent right-hand frames contain depictions of types of music analogous to the verses the handmaidens carry.19

    The overlay of Wisdom's properties on Philosophy is not without its own purpose and finds specific resonances in this painting, which are realized in its three horizontal zones.

    In the top zone of the Florence painting, Philosophy/Wisdom demonstrates her relationship with the cosmos and its creation according to the passage from Proverbs quoted above (Proverbs 8:27-30). Figure 5 presents a miniature from the 'Old Testament Picture Book,'20 now in the Morgan Library in New York, which shows a contemporary scene of creation. The similarities between this mini-

    A similar creation scene can be found in moralized Bibles which were produced contemporaneously with both the Morgan Library illumination and the Florence manuscript.21 These scenes, like the Morgan Library image, show Christ as the creating Word of God; however, in these images, he is shown "marking out the vault over the face of the deep" with a compass, the tool of an architect. The connection between the Word Incarnate and the personification of Wisdom is thus neatly expressed pictorially, that is to say, the verse represented, "marking out the vault...," is spoken by Wisdom (Proverbs 8:27) who claims to have been present, but is not distinctly represented. Wisdom is thus implicitly present in the person of Christ. The staff which the Florence figure holds can be seen as homologous to the compass in the images from the moralized Bibles. In fact, the homology extends to the personified creative forces, both of which can be described as Wisdom incarnate.

    We can then understand the Florence miniature's upper horizontal zone as: (1) an adaptation of a common contemporary subject of illumination to a specific, musical context; (2) a marvelous example of how supple and versatile the manipulation of iconography was during the 13th-century.

    ;In addition to her role in the creation, Wisdom plays an active role in the life of mankind and this is reflected both in the two lower zones of the frontispiece and in the 8th chapter of Proverbs, which continues:

However, in the following passage Wisdom makes a clear distinction between two types of men and in the way she treats them:

The distinction between wise men and fools is made in the Florence frontispiece by the representation of clerics, who are distinguished by their tonsures, and laymen. Note that while the clerics' heads are turned toward Wisdom, taking her direction, the heads of the laymen look in the opposite direction, ignoring her.

    While the middle zone concentrates on making this distinction, the particular theme of foolishness is stressed in the lowest zone. Both the presence of musical instruments and the posture of Philosophy/ Wisdom expand on the fact that she is being ignored. Her posture reflects yet another verse from Proverbs:

The aptness of using musical instruments as a symbol of foolishness is established by Boethius' description of instrumental musicians:

Thus, this iconography incorporates commentary not only on the relationship between Philosophy and Music (in Boethius' traditional three-fold division), but also on the relationship between reason and musicians (which is the basis for Boethius' division of musicians into three classes: musicus [one who can judge music rationally], composer [one who creates by instinct], and performer [mechanical skill]).

    The following passage from Boethius, which describes the opposite end of the spectrum from the instrumental musician, provides an ancillary example of music (as a rational science) in relation to Reason, personified as a noble mistress.

    The primary theme of the Florence frontispiece, then, is the extolling of Music's relationship to Philosophy and Wisdom. This relationship is established visually by the two vertical zones, the left zone being the personification of Philosophy/Wisdom with her handmaidens, the right symbolizing the Boethian three-fold division of music; and musically by the study of music as a quadrivial science preparatory to philosophy in the Neoplatonic tradition.24

    The overlay of Wisdom's attributes on the figure of Philosophy is reflected in the further commentary of the three horizontal zones. The upper zone refers to the cosmological role of music and the speculative theory that supported this tradition. The visual allegory of wise men and fools in the two lower zones establishes the superiority of liturgical music to secular music, and shows the instrumentalist and his music, appropriately, as the greatest of buffoons.25

    In this way, the traditional emphasis on speculative theory and liturgical practice is upheld while the "foolish" forms of music are derided. This interpretation is in diametrical opposition to Seebass's conclusion that this image represents, "a new, more interdependent relationship," between types of music in a period which, 'no longer restricted to mainly liturgical practice and to cosmologically oriented theory, allows the term 'music' to receive a wider meaning."

    The fact of this opposition does not, however, necessitate an opposite assessment of the historical context to which this image refers. The perspective of the frontispiece supports views and scholastic norms which, at the time, had already been in place for centuries. If the point of the frontispiece were indicative of an historical context which merely continued this tradition, there would be no need to demonstrate the supremacy of cosmological theory and liturgical music, nor to downgrade other types of music and musicians in this subtle game of name-calling.

    The Florence frontispiece must be understood, not as a simple, accurate reflection of its contemporary musical culture, but as the representation of a traditionalist perspective within its culture, a culture that threatened the traditional importance of musical genres and theories as they had been practiced and taught for ages. The inclusion of various musics and musicians in the frontispiece was necessary to re-emphasize the proper place and importance of each in the divinely established, traditional order.

    The allegory of wise men and fools shows us how this image related to the musical culture of its day26 and allows us to draw an analogy