Caravaggio: the epiphany and the sacrifice

Caravaggio is not a painter: he is a prophet. Caravaggio doesn't show what you can see, he shows what nobody can see. Caravaggio doesn't see, he penetrates. Caravaggio's painting are not about religion, they are a religion. Caravaggio does not paint, he reveals. And these are merely some characteristics of a painter that has gone beyond the mere world of things and who found ways to show things, while at the same time showing what's behind things. He is Caravaggio. That's all.

Look at this painting: the martyrdom of St. Ursula. Perhaps the last painting Caravaggio painted, it is the extreme synthesis of all what Caravaggio had painted before. This is the ultimate epiphany of the divinity, shown as the final crowning of a sequence of images that followed Caravaggio's own existence on this world.

The painting shows the death of Ursula, British princess, who refused to marry Attila, king of the Huns, who in revenge killed her and all her retinue of 11,000 virgins. A naive story for our modern tastes but not for Caravaggio, who has seen the deep meaning of the myth. The divine spirit can take a human form; can step into the material world for a short while. Then, it has to return. And returning, for the divine being, means death for its human form but, for the divine form, it is resurrection.

It is the basis of the Christian myth, but it goes much deeper and much earlier; it is the most ancient myth of all: the sacrificial myth that goes to the very center of the interaction of the divine and the human spheres.

And that's what Caravaggio is showing to us. Ursula, hit by an arrow, is the human form of the divine spirit. She had already appeared in an earlier painting by Caravaggio; in his "Our Lady of the Pilgrims".

Perhaps the same woman, surely the same spiritual entity. Caravaggio has been starting with this divine epiphany to end it with the one of Ursula. It is a complete universal cycle in two paintings: the same creature that has appeared for a brief existence on the lower sphere, to leave the material world in a spiritual apotheosis, later on.

Only Caravaggio could do it. 

The mysterious power of Caravaggio

Caravaggio: the Martyrdom of St. Ursula (ca. 1610).


I have a curious story to tell about this painting by Caravaggio. A few years ago, I was in Naples for a meeting on waste management. I was taking a walk in town and I stumbled into the announcement of a special exhibition of a newly discovered Caravaggio painting. I went inside, and there it was: the martyrdom of St. Ursula, seen in public perhaps for the first time after that Caravaggio had painted it, probably just before his death, in 1610.

At that time, I was already a Caravaggio lover, not yet a Caravaggio addict, as I am now. But seeing that painting was a big step forward in that direction. And you never know what effects Caravaggio can have on you; really, it is stuff so powerful that it can shock you, or make you weep, or maybe it can push you through a multi-dimensional gate that takes you directly to the planet Tralfamadore.

What happened to me on that occasion was not as spectacular as taking me to a remote planet, but weird nevertheless. That afternoon, I took a train to Rome where I had been invited to give a talk at the convention of the Italian Radical Party. I duly spoke to the audience and, afterward, the speakers were invited for dinner, together with some politicians. We sat at a large, round table and I found myself seated near an old lady. We chatted a little and the conversation moved to Caravaggio and to the painting I had seen just that morning. It turned out that the old lady, too, was a Caravaggio lover: we are a community of addicts. She was very interested in this recently re-discovered painting; the martyrdom of St. Ursula.

In the meantime, the conversation had been going on at the table, with people engaged in some deep political discussion about I don't remember what. At some point, someone turned to me and asked me: "but, Ugo, what's your opinion?" and then he asked me what I thought of some current political event. I turned in his direction and I said, "I don't know; we were discussing the martyrdom of St. Ursula."

There was a moment of silence at the table with people looking at me, frozen. Then, they shook their heads and they restarted their political discussion, probably denying to themselves that they had heard what I had said.

I have never been invited again to another political convention; I don't know if it is because of this story, probably not. Anyway, it shows how the mysterious power of Caravaggio can appear in many forms.

About the painting itself, the martyrdom of St. Ursula, I will write another post. 

The Ecstasy of Caravaggio

Caravaggio's Our Lady of the Pilgrims (image from Wikipedia)


Every time I happen to be in Rome for one reason or another, I usually make an effort to take some free time to go to see Caravaggio's "Our Lady of the Pilgrims." Often, I succeed because it is not very far from the central train station, in the Church of St. Augustine.

And I can tell you that, every time I have a chance to see this painting, it is a new shock, a new emotion, a new sensation, something that usually forces me to sit down somewhere, typically on the steps in front of the church, to recover my wits. Then, I can walk to the station and take the train home, a little shocked, but happy. 

I am not sure if I can comment on this painting (*); it is beyond my capabilities. Let me just say that Caravaggio managed an extraordinary feat. He is showing here ordinary people: an ordinary young mother with her child, ordinary travelers with their walking canes, with their feet dirty of a long, long walk. And, yet, at the same time, that woman is the all-holy Mother of God, truly the Panagia Theotokos herself, a miracle that repeats itself for me every time I am there. And it keeps going forever for the two figures kneeling in the painting who have been adoring this manifestation of the divine spirit for more than four centuries; never getting tired of doing that.

I don't know if everyone gets the same feeling when they see this painting; probably not. But for some of us, Caravaggio is not just a painter of religious subjects, he is a religion himself. And a painting such as the Lady of the Pilgrims is not just a painting about a religious revelation, it is a revelation in itself.

So, if you have a chance to be in Rome, try to take a look to this painting by Caravaggio, then you'll tell me what effect it made on you.




(*) But I might perhaps cite something written by the Emir Abd Al-Qadir around a century ago. As well known, Islam is not interested in images, but I think these words catch something of the mystical experience that at times come to people. Maybe the good Emir would have understood the meaning of Caravaggio's painting. 

"Our God and the God of all the communities opposing ours are truly and really a unique God, in agreement with what He said in several verses "Your God is a unique God" (Cor. 2:163; 16; 22, etc.). He also said: "There is no God but God" (Cor. 3:62). It is like this despite the diversity of His theophanies, their character absolute or limited, transcendent or immanent, and the variety of His manifestations. He manifested Himself to Moslems beyond all forms at the same time manifesting Himself in all forms. To the Christians, He manifested Himself in the person of Christ and of monks, as He says in the Book. To the Jews, He manifested Himself in the form of 'Uzayr and of the rabbis. To the Mazdians, in the form of fire, and to the dualists in the light and in the obscurity. And it manifested Himself to every worshipper of anything - stone, tree, or animal..  - in the shape of that thing: because no worshipper of a finite thing worships it for what it is itself. What he worships is the epiphany in that form of the attributes of the true God - be He exalted - with this epiphany representing, for each form, the divine aspect that pertains to Him."

Translated from "Abd el-Kader le magnanime", Gallimard 2003




H/t Antonio Cavaliere for having inoculated me with the Caravaggio virus

Caravaggio: the mystery of mercy

Every masterpiece must keep a certain level of mystery, a layer of things unexplained and unexplainable, something in the style of Leonardo's Mona Lisa. A true masterpiece is like a classy woman who leaves something mysterious about herself, disclosing it only to those who deserve it. A definition that applies to most of Caravaggio's paintings: beautifully realistic, but always with a deeper layer of significance inside; a layer that you don't conquer if you don't make some effort in order to deserve it.

This is especially true for "the seven acts of mercy", one of the eeriest and most beautiful paintings by Caravaggio, perhaps the one that contains the most complex message that the author even created. A message, however, that's not easy for us to understand and that perhaps we'll never be able to unravel completely. But, it is worth to make the effort for a painting that was one of the last efforts of Caravaggio, possibly his most ambitious ever.

If you have a chance to see the original painting, in Naples, then you have no other adjective to describe it than "stunning". It stands in the church of the Pio Monte, in a large hall, surrounded by several other paintings of the same, or slightly later, age. All high-quality paintings, some of which were probably conceived as in competition, or perhaps in imitation, of Caravaggio's piece. But the distance between the masterpiece and the competitors is stark. Caravaggio is something else. Think of a wolf in a pack of poodles and you can understand what I mean.

But, apart from the overall visual effect, what is that you are seeing? What does this painting mean? What did Caravaggio want to say with it? If you look at the many available interpretations, you'll find that most of them concentrate on the various groups of figures represented, assigning to each one the role of representing a specific act of mercy (see, for instance, the recent book by Terence Ward, "The Guardian of Mercy"). So, the woman who offers her breast to the old man represents, "Pero", the Roman woman who secretly breastfed her father, Cimon, after that he was incarcerated and sentenced to death by starvation. This action is worth two acts of mercy: "feed the hungry" and "free the incarcerated".

In this way, each group can find a specific interpretation, which is fine. But what is the meaning of the whole composition? In other words, how do the various groups relate to each other and interact with each other? Just to give some idea of the kind of questions that can be asked about this painting, let me list a few

- Why is the woman breastfeeding her father so afraid? What is she looking at?

- Why did Caravaggio include Samson in the composition? What act of mercy is involved in Samson drinking from the ass jawbone that he had used to slaughter thousands of Philistines?

- What are the two Angels doing? Are they fighting with each other? If so, for what reason?

- Why do the characters completely ignore the angels and the virgin Mary flying just above them?

- Why this complete separation between the upper part of the painting (Madonna and Angels) and the lower part? They seem almost like two different painting.

And I could go on. As an answer, it may be argued that Caravaggio was in a hurry and that he was not trying to tell a single, coherent story. He just piled up characters and stories as he saw them, in the busy streets of Naples, at his time (and, today, the city atmosphere may not have changed so much).

But I think we may also try an interpretation of the overall composition if we think of the peculiar conditions of Caravaggio when he was working on this painting. He was a fugitive from Rome, where he had been sentenced to death because he had killed a man. And it may be that this situation is reflected in the composition of the painting.

So, first of all, let's take a look at the woman's face, the only female character of the human section of the painting. We don't know who modeled for Caravaggio in this painting, but if you compare this face with that of another Caravaggio's piece, Judith in "Judith killing Holofernes", well there are some elements in common; in particular, the round shape of the face. Filide Melandroni, Caravaggio's lover in Rome, is often supposed to have posed for Judith in that painting. And this Filide may well have been the cause of the duel in which Caravaggio killed his rival and was then sentenced to death. So, let's imagine that the breastfeeding woman somehow represents Filide. Then, what is she looking at that is making her so worried? The direction of her glance is rather clear: it goes to the figure of Samson, who is drinking from the ass jawbone.

Now we can propose a tentative interpretation. Samson has killed many people with the ass bone he is drinking from. He killed them for a good reason, but he remains a murderer. It is the situation of Caravaggio, who may have been thinking of having good reasons for killing his rival, but who may have been seeing himself as a murderer nevertheless. So, if Samson represents Caravaggio, the woman may represent Filide, in a sense betraying Caravaggio by offering her breast to another man. Note how Samson/Caravaggio is the only character looking "outside" the painting; he is looking up, but in the wrong direction: the divine pardon is over him, but he cannot see it. Note how Samson is also denied the shelter that, instead, is offered to another character in the painting, just nearby.

And the upper layer of the painting? One of the angels looks at the woman, the other at Samson. Why are they fighting? It is perhaps a conflict that takes place in heaven as a reflection of the conflict taking place on earth. The sky is not a refuge, for Caravaggio. At the same time, another kind of mercy is entering the painting from the center-right. It is the small procession with a priest blessing the body of a deceased person. The priest is really the focal figure of the painting, the one who brings light, the only light of the painting. Caravaggio/Samson is looking in the other direction, but the message is clear: his sin of murder can be atoned and pardoned with death. In some way, Caravaggio was prefigurating his own death that would occur not much later, on a Tuscan beach.

Is this really what Caravaggio had in mind? We will never know for sure and it is also true that real artists often act on the basis of intuition rather than a well-defined plan. That may be true for this painting, whose meaning may have appeared as a surprise to Caravaggio himself as he saw it appearing under the strokes of his brush. That must be the way masterpieces are created, and this is surely one.




h/t Antonio Cavaliere who inoculated me with the Caravaggio virus.

Medieval high fashion in the art of Giovanni di Benedetto

You may think that Medieval times in Europe were drab and uninteresting; with sex relegated to an unfortunate necessity, closely watched by the always alert catholic church. Well, that may have been true for most of the period we call "Middle Ages". But take a look at the image above. It was painted around 1380 by Giovanni di Benedetto da Como, miniaturist active during the second half of the 14th century. Isn't it fantastic? Look at these ladies: they wear splendid dresses in silk brocade; something that once was reserved only for emperors and kings. Look at their decolletage, at their hairdos, at their posture, at how these dresses enhance the ladies thin waists and their breasts. Look at how the two ladies on the right raise up their gowns to show the even richer dress they wear underneath.

That's all the more interesting if you compare it with the way of dressing that was common a few centuries before. You can see the evolution of medieval fashion in a very interesting site: "vestioevo.com" The fashion during the 11th century was completely different; for instance:

Move onward of a century, and you start seeing a hint of decolletage, but just a hint.

With the 13th century, you start seeing the decolletage appearing, and also the gesture of raising up one's dress to show the dress underneath:

And then, there comes the "explosion" of the 14th century, well interpreted by Giovanni di Benedetto da Como. Here is another example of his work. This image is the cover of the Albin Michel Edition of Marguerite Porete's "The Mirror of the Simple Souls".

It is supposed to represent the martyrdom of a saint (it has been modified with respect to the original, where she is also being stabbed in the neck), but this lady, really, is a high fashion model!

The way fashion evolved over time could tell us a lot about the evolution of ideas and of the way of seeing the world. But it is a field that's not so much studied; so, today, we can only look at these ancient dresses and wonder how the people wearing them would think and behave. And admire the art of Giovanni di Benedetto da Como, unfortunately so little known today.

The Chimera according to Janet Rasmussen

Janet Rasmussen, June 1, 2005

By kind permission of Janet Rasmussen

Introduction:

“For Romans at the time of Augustus, the memory of the Etruscan people was already hazy with the mists of legend.” (Pallotino, 1955). A renewed fascination with the Etruscan culture began in the Renaissance around the time of the discovery of the bronze image of the Chimaera of Arezzo. The statue is believed by many to be emblematic of Tuscan pride. It was discovered in 1553 during work on fortifications near Arezzo, Italy. Shaped by an unknown artist in the late fifth, or early fourth, century, the 80 cm. tall sculpture is in the likeness of a lion with serpent tail, with the head and neck of a goat protruding from its back (Spivey, 1997; Ramage and Ramage, 2005). The earliest known written record of this creature may be found in the Iliad, written in the mid eighth century BCE.

The original setting for the sculpture is unknown; but its inscription hints that it may have been a temple offering. It has been speculated that there was a companion sculpture of the Greek hero Bellerophon astride Pegasus, illustrating the story made famous by Homer. The Etruscans were known for their metal-working and for the popularity of mythological themes in their artwork (Herbert, 1949; Ramage and Ramage, 2005). The pictorial representations of the Chimaera changed over time, in Greece and in Etruria; as did its meaning as a mythological character. At the time of creation of this particular work of art, the Chimaera may well have been the appropriate symbol of classical Etruria.

Figure 1: The Chimaera of Arezzo (Ugo Bardi)

Figure 2: Location of Arezzo in Italy is in the northeastern part of ancient Etruria (www.pickatrail.com).

The Etruscans

The Etruscans thrived in west central Italy from around the beginning of the Bronze Age (about 1000 BCE) until their culture and autonomy was gradually subsumed by Rome by the early first century BCE. “Temperamentally the Etruscans were a people who devoted themselves to the outward aspects of life with almost childish enthusiasm…At one and the same time [art] combined ancient legacies from the past with Greek influences of its own day, together with an uncanny anticipation of the future; from this jumble of inspirations and intuitions it managed to derive its own quite novel and highly individual existence.” (Pallottino, 1955) This much could be surmised by careful observance of the surviving Etruscan art. The culture of the Etruscans was primitive, but the people evidently admired and adopted many foreign motifs and techniques in their art, while maintaining a distinctive flavor of their own. The popularity of heroic myths, of the manly pursuits of hunting, fishing, and wrestling, along with music, dancing, and unabashed displays of affection, all depicted in their art, together imply a culture in which strength, bravery, ancestry, and the pursuit of pleasure were highly esteemed. Politically, the Etruscans were not unified, but more a loose collection of city-states. “The Etruscan cities’ decline set in during the fifth century…”(Pallottino, 1955).”Some political unity was achieved as twelve Etruscan cities convened at a sanctuary at Velsna, but little other evidence of cohesiveness has been found (Spivey, 1997) The political climate was becoming grim for Etruscans at the time that the Chimaera of Arezzo was created. The fall of Etruria was beginning, and the statue seems to express the despair of a soon-to-be conquered people. Ancient artworks and ruins were later discovered that spoke of splendor and mystery, courage and strength; and many Romans then as now yearned for their Etruscan origins. The discovery of the Chimaera must have been a sensation at the time, though it was, according to Cellini, in rather poor condition (Cellini, 1931). Today it is proudly displayed, in original and replicas, throughout the region, and is a beloved symbol for the native people (Bardi, 2002).
The Myth of the Chimaera

In order to understand what the Chimaera meant to the Etruscans, it is helpful to review the origins of the myth. The myth has evolved since its first introduction known from literature in the 8th century BCE. The concept of a Chimaera no doubt predates Homer’s Iliad; and its original meaning, if any, is lost. In Homer, the story of the Chimaera and Bellerophon was told as an anecdotal aside, as two men, meeting in battle, hesitate for a brief introductory conversation. “I would not wish to fight against the gods. But if you are of men…come nearer…” one says to the other. His opponent, then tells his story of his ancestor Bellerophon. Bellerophon, he says, was favored by the gods, and was descended from Sisyphus. He goes on to tell the story of Bellerophon and the Chimaera. As he relates the tale, his opponent realizes that both their fathers had been friends, and they decide not to fight one another (Murray, 1999).

The story of Bellerophon, is this: the king Proetus, jealous of his wife’s affection for Bellerophon, sent Bellerophon to Lycia, “giving him fatal tokens, scratching in a folded tablet signs many and deadly”. (This, by the way, is the only passage in Homer which suggests knowledge of the art of writing.) (Murray, 1999). The king of Lycia, after showing Bellerophon hospitality for many days, eventually read the note from Proetus. Then, as now, murdering a houseguest was a breach of etiquette; therefore the king told Bellerophon to slay the Chimaera, believing this would serve the same purpose. The details of the battle we have from later writers. The goddess Athena enabled Bellerophon to subdue Pegasus; and with the help of that creature, he slew the Chimaera. He shot arrows into her from above, and finally dropped a lump of lead down her throat. Her fiery breath melted the lead, which killed her. This explains many of the figures of the Chimaera which include Bellerophon riding Pegasus. It also explains, on the Chimaera of Arezzo, the wound on the neck of the goat. The Chimaera, being of the gods and thus immortal, was relegated to the underworld (Small, 1959). Bellerophon attempted to ride Pegasus to visit the gods, and was punished for this presumptuousness when Pegasus threw him back to earth.

There have been plenty of unlikely conglomerate creatures in ancient folklore: the sphinx, centaur, Medusa, Pegasus, the hippocamp, griffin, and countless others; but none, I would venture to suggest, as awkwardly put together as the Chimaera, with a goat protruding from its spine. Hesiod states that the Chimaera is a descendent of Typhon, the god of volcanic eruptions, and Echidna, a chthonic serpent. Stephen Wilk, in his study of the Medusa, suggests that these images began as astronomical interpretations.

“It’s not hard to picture these figures as the constellations--substituting Bellerophon for Perseus…and, of course, the Chimera for Cetus. The Perseid meteor shower, emanating from the hand of the figure of Bellerophon, could represent the darts that he throws at the Chimera…The glowing red star Mira represents the chunk of lead that has been shoved into the mouth of the Chimera. For about half the year, when Mira is dim, the lead is still solid. But then it begins to melt, and the molten block of lead turns red, killing the Chimera. The constellation of Aries lies between Perseus and Cetus, and this may have something to do with the naming of the Chimera and the goat’s head that the monster bears in its middle. Finally, the fall of Bellerophon to earth might also have been inspired by the Perseid meteor shower.” Mira is a variable star, whose variability can be distinguished by the naked eye, and which becomes brighter and redder periodically over the course of several months (Wilk, 2000).

Some have believed that the Chimaera represented the seasons of the year. Inghirami, writing in the 19th century, states that the Chimaera represented a volcano with lions living near the top, goats in the middle elevations, and everywhere on the mountain there were snakes. He concluded that the Chimaera represented the summer (by the flames coming from the lion’s mouth), and the spring (by the goat), and the snake representing the coming autumn (Inghirami, 1824). The mane of the Chimaera of Arezzo certainly resembles flames. Robert Graves, says: “The Chimaera, …depicted on a Hittite building at Carchemish, was a symbol of the Great Goddess’s tripartite Sacred Year--lion for spring, goat for summer, serpent for winter.”(Graves, 1960).

Still others believe that the Chimaera originated as an explanation of volcanic activity. “Virgil must have been aware of the connection between the mythical Chimaera and the actual volcano of the same name” (Small, 1959).
The Chimaera in Greek Art

The appearance of the Chimaera is explained in Homer thus: “She was of divine stock, not of men, in front a lion, in back a serpent, and in the middle a goat, breathing out terribly the force of blazing fire.” (Homer, Iliad VI, 179-182). Anne Roes, states, “The only thing there is of goat about her is a head, that grows like a parasite out of the lion’s back, and, in most cases, looks piteous rather than terrific.” Roes speculates that the form of the Chimaera may have originated as an ancient ‘typographical error’: “Minoan seals sometimes showed two animals of which the one was partially hidden behind the other, so that only his head and his legs showed. If the artist out of carelessness omitted the legs, as may happen, we had something like the Chimaera.”(Roes, 1934). Could this, in Figure 1, have occurred?

Figure 3: A very unusual Chimaera from a proto-Corinthian vase in Boston (Roes, 1934).

The Chimaera, as a subject in Greek vase paintings, was popular from about 680 to 570 BCE. In early images, the heads face forward, and there is no snake on the tail. Around 660-650 BCE, the goat’s head is placed close to the curved spring of the lion’s neck. Corinthian vase painters concentrated more on the Chimaera as a decorative motif than the story of Bellerophon and the Chimaera. Between 630 and 600 BCE there are no examples of Chimaera in Corinthian painting, but the Attic painters used the motif from 600 to 530 BCE. They sometimes gave the Chimaera manes of straight or flame-like rays, and in the Attic figures, the lion’s and goat’s heads turn to the rear, and some show the goat’s forelegs. After the end of the Archaic period, the legend of Bellerophon and the Chimaera declined even further in Greek vase-painting, except for a popularization in Etruscan painting in the fourth century BCE, and a minor revival in Attic red-figure during the last third of the fifth century’ (Schmitt, 1966).

Many images of the Chimaera in Greek and Etruscan art can be found in the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). The images are differentiated by country of origin, but the dates are not given, nor are other details of the images. There are 108 photos of the Chimaera in Greek art in the LIMC. Of those, 15 show the goat’s head facing the rear of the lion. The goat’s forelegs appear in.10 of the images. In three, the Chimaera is depicted with full teats like the Capitoline Wolf. There was apparently some belief that a human may gain divine power or regeneration by suckling an animal-god. In many of the representations of the Chimaera in Greece and Etruria, she is shown with a mane. Although a mane is a distinctive and grand feature on a lion, it is not present on a female. The Chimaera is always referred to as female in literature. It is clear from these images that the artists had little knowledge of the form of a lion, (and none of a Chimaera!) and therefore it took on some fantastic morphologies.

Figure 4: From an Athenian pot, c. 600 BCE, from the Louvre, Paris. Typical illustration with goat’s head facing rear.

Figure 5: Greek Chimaera with goat facing backwards and forelegs included (ILMC).

Figure 6: Greek Chimaera (ILMC). Again, the goat’s head faces backward.

In the Greek examples, some, by their simplicity of form, appear modern; others crude; but most are well-proportioned, and have the expected proportions of a lion, goat and snake. This is contrasted with the Etruscan images, as we shall see.

The Chimaera as Represented by the Etruscans

From the same source (LIMC,) there are 75 photos of Etruscan Chimaera. These as a group are very different. None show the goat’s head backward, only 3 include the legs of the goat. Three of the 75 show the lion with teats. Some individual images are quite bizarre. In one, the lion’s body is more like a horse. Several have elongate and distorted shapes. Some are very crudely drawn. In 15, the goat is shown as an extension of a winglike appendage on the lion’s side. This is unique to the Etruscan Chimaeras, and may be related to the Etruscan death demon symbology.

Figure 7: The goat's head seems to be an extension of wings on the lion's body (ILMC).

Figure 8: Elongate forms of the Chimaera from the neck of a pot. These depictions are oddly similar to prehistoric Native American petroglyphs. The curling line beneath the lions’ bodies is a puzzle, and the lions look somewhat like antelope. Only the goat head protruding from the back mark these as Chimaera (ILMC).

Figure 5: More primitive and elongate forms from Etruria, suggestive of the Chimaera (ILMC).

Figure 6: This unusual representation of a Chimaera is quite puzzling. There is a curl of tail or wing protruding upwards from the lion behind the goat. The lion is nearly unrecognizable as such. (ILMC).



Figure 7: The lion body of the Chimaera in this pair of images from the same pottery vessel is very like a horse. The beast on the left has dugs, and is nursing a grown male lion which is nevertheless smaller than the body of the goat. The Chimaera on the right has a long tongue or perhaps a breath of flame. (ILMC)

Figure 8: Etruscan Chimaera being pursued by horse. Note the very odd placement of forelegs beneath the neck of the goat. This Chimaera is also shown with teats. It’s uncertain whether the pursuing horse is Pegasus. That the horse resembles an extinct prehistoric North American species is surely an accident (ILMC).

The Context of Chimaera Images

In Greek art, Bellerophon and/or Pegasus are shown on the same piece with the Chimaera in 9 of the examples. These images adorn jugs, bowls, and plates; as well as coins and small emblems which may be jewelry. In the Etruscan images, 8 are associated with Bellerophon. We know that the Etruscans in the classical period begin to depict winged death demon figures. And according to Small, 1959, and others, the Chimaera is associated with the underworld. In the images of the Chimaera in Etruscan art, which for the most part do not include Bellerophon, the Chimaera may exemplify a death demon or beast of the underworld. In the Tomb of the Bulls, Tarquinia, 500 BCE, there is a pedimental painting above the scene of Troilus and Achilles, which is believed to be Troilus riding toward the Chimaera as a scene of his journey to the underworld after death (Holloway, 1986).The uniquely Etruscan suggestion of wings on many of the Chimaera images suggests that the Etruscans may indeed have associated this beast with the underworld. The unusual and varied artistic treatment of the Chimaera by Etruscan artists may not indicate any particular sentiment about this beast, but rather be an example of how Etruscan artists expressed these motifs, as something disproportionate, mysterious, perhaps not meant to be explained in the rational Greek fashion. Or it could be the essentially unpredictable artistic style known as Etruscan.

The Chimaera of Arezzo

If there were a Chimaera, the Chimaera of Arezzo would be a believable portrait of her. It does not so much resemble a lion but it improves on one: the magnificent spiky mane, the hackles extending to its haunches, the lean muscled physique, large expressive eyes and gaping mouth. The pitiful goat is convincing, with its beard and stylized mane, flattened ears, and sad eyes.

“The Etruscan origin of this splendid bronze has been object of long discussions; it has been attributed to a Sicilian workshop, or Peloponnesic, or, in any case, to the work of an immigrant Greek artist. Yet it differs from the characters of Greek works for some details, such as the position of the ears behind the mane, instead of in front of it”(Mandel, 1989). Our Chimaera, however, resembles no other Chimaera so much as it does this lion painted by a Greek artist on a vase which was found not far from Arezzo, which dates to about the same period. Its stance is the same. The treatment of the mane and placement of the ears are strikingly similar, though the sculptor improves upon the painting considerably.

Figure 9: Lion by the Berlin Painter, on a vase imported from Greece to Spina (near Arezzo), c.500-490 BCE (Ramage and Ramage, 2005).

Figure 9: A view of the Chimaera of Arezzo (Ugo Bardi).

Cellini mentions the discovery of the Chimaera of Arezzo while he was doing some work for the Duke of Cosimi in Florence; but although he talks about restoring some small bronze figures found along with the lion, he does not mention it again (Cellini, 1931) Sketches of the Chimaera without its tail have been dated to the 18th century. The tail was welded back on only in the 18th century, by the Florentine sculptor D. Carradori or perhaps by his master, I. Spinazzi (Bardi, 2005).

The inscription, TINSCVIL, written from right to left, has been interpreted to mean “gift to the god”. Tin, or Tinia, was the Etruscan supreme God, equivalent to Zeus or Jupiter. It is likely that the statue was made to serve as a temple offering (Ramage and Ramage, 2005). It may well have been accompanied with a figure of Bellerophon on Pegasus, since the wound and the stance of the Chimaera imply her part in the myth.

Figure 10: Inscription on foreleg of the Chimaera (Ugo Bardi)

Conclusion:

The statue is an artistically mature work, as opposed to the many primitive and poorly-conceived Chimaera images often seen in Etruscan work of the period; and it was meticulously crafted. Whether the work was done by a Greek immigrant sculptor or a native Etruscan is immaterial, and would be impossible to determine. It may have been a temple offering, or the adornment of a private home.

For the meaning of the Chimaera to contemporary Etruscans; and to natives of the same region today, I refer the reader to Ugo Bardi, a Florentine chemist with, perhaps, his own Etruscan origins, who has studied the Chimaera extensively:

“It is difficult for us to understand what exactly could have been the meaning of this sculpture for the Etruscans. For us, a religious votive offering is hardly meant to be a three-headed monster. In this, we see how our way of thinking has changed in the two millennia and a half that separate us from the people who cast and first admired this statue…But perhaps there is something more in the Chimaera of Arezzo…beyond the standard iconography of the many painted and sculpted Chimaeras that have arrived to us from classical times. Here the unknown artist seemed to have wanted to transmit a message. The fiery, fire breathing monster is shown as a lean, perhaps hungry, creature in a moment of suffering…it looks like a fighter, a fighter who has fought well but who is losing nevertheless. We may perhaps imagine that the artist wanted to show the destiny of his people, the Etruscans, who at the time were being invaded and submitted by the Romans.”(Bardi, 2002).

The creation of the Chimaera of Arezzo coincided with the beginning of the decline of Etruscan power. The expression of this Chimaera is one of a desperate creature in the throes of death, determined to fight on. One cannot help but sympathize with it and admire its courage. Its emaciated body evokes more pity than fear, though it retains an image of great strength. The Etruscans were fond of Greek mythical figures and adapted them to their own tastes. The mature style of the Chimaera sculpture has a universal beauty and undeniable skill, which is a source of pride to people of that region; yet it retains that flavor of mysterious irrationality so essential to Etruscan art. It speaks of strength and bravery, qualities still esteemed by Italians. As such, it is certainly an excellent emblem of Tuscan pride.




References Cited:

Anaxilas, c.525BCE, Hetairai, fragment translated by Ugo Bardi, see website below.

Bardi, Ugo, http://chimeramyth.blogspot.it/

Boardman, John, 1981, Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, Vol 3.2, Artemis Verlag, Zuricho
Cellini, Benvenuto, 1931, The Life of Benvenute Cellini, Liveright Publishing Corp., New York, 513 pages.

Graves, Robert, 1960, The Greek Myths, Penguin Books, Ltd., London, 782 pages.

Holloway, R. Ross, 1986, The Bulls in the “Tomb of the Bulls” at Tarquinia, American Journal of Archeology, 90, 447-452.

Inghirami, F., 1824, Monument Estruschi o di Etrusco Nome,Maryon, , Vol. 2, P. 379-384, fragment translated by Ugo Bardi, see website above.

Herbert, 1949, Metal Working in the Ancient World, American Journal of Archeology, 53, 93-125.

Mandel, M. Capire l’arte Etrusca, 1989, fragment translated by Ugo Bardi, see website above.

Murray, A.T., translation, 1999, Homer, The Iliad, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 591 pages.

Pallottino, Massimo, 1955, Art of the Etruscans, Vanguard Press, New York, 154 pages.

Ramage, Nancy and Ramage, Andrew, 2005, Roman Art, Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey

Roes, Anne, 1934, The Representation of the Chimaera, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 54, 21-25.

Schmitt, M.L., 1966, Bellerophon and the Chimaera in Archaic Greek Art: American Journal of Archeology, 70, 341-347.

Small, Stuart, 1959, The Arms of Turnus: Aeneid 7.783-92, Transactions of the American Philological Association, 90, 243-252.

Spivey, Nigel, 1997, Etruscan Art, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London

Wilk, Stephen R., 2000, Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon, Oxford, New York, 277 pages

In a word, "lion"

This article by Jeremy Bernstein was published in the "Aspen Times Weekly" of July 11th, 2003 and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the author and of the editor.


In a Word "lion"

By Jeremy Bernstein

The Etruscans, as everyone knows, were the people who occupied the middle of Italy in early Roman days and whom the Romans, in their usual neighbourly fashion, wiped out entirely to make room for Rome with a very big R. They couldn't have wiped them all out, there were too many of them. But they did wipe out the Etruscan existence as a nation and a people. However, this seems to be the inevitable result of expansion with a big E, which is the sole raison d'être for a people like the Romans.  D.H. Lawrence

For reasons that I will try to make plausible, I have recently been perusing Etruscan glossaries. The one I have in front of me is typical of the genre. It is given as an appendix to "The Etruscan Language; An Introduction," by Giuliano Bonfante and his daughter Larissa Bonfante.

The senior Bonfante, who is entering his 99th year, is an emeritus professor of linguistics at the University of Turin while Larissa Bonfante is a professor of classics at New York University. Both are well-known in the field of Etruscan studies.

The glossary is not very long, a few hundred words, many of which have question marks after them, indicating the proposed meanings are tentative. Most of the words look very strange. That is, they do not seem to correspond to any language one knows. For example ?fleres? apparently means ?statue? while ?nurthanatur? is a group that does ?nurth? ? whatever that is. The glossary gives a question mark after ?nurth.?

As I was looking down the columns I came across a word that stopped me cold ? ?leu,? which means ?lion.? Leu the lion ? where did that come from?

To put this in perspective, one must understand that Etruscan is in a certain sense an orphan language. Like Basque, it does not belong to any of the well-known linguistic families such as the Indo-European, the Semitic or the African. Some scholars claim to see similarities between it and the Raetic language which is found on some inscriptions in northern Italy or Lemnian ? a language found on artifacts from the island of Lemnos. Perhaps these three languages descended from a prehistoric proto-language, or maybe the Etruscans got around.

But "leu"?

The American Heritage dictionary is not much help. On the etymology it notes confusingly that our lion word comes from Middle English, from Old French, from Latin leo, leon, from Greek leon, of Semitic origin. It then goes on to say "Old French" lion is the source of English lion, and the Old French word comes from Latin leo, leonis. After that the etymology is less clear.

The Latin word is related somehow to Greek (leon, leontos, or the earlier lewon, lewontos), which appears in the name of the Spartan king Leonides, "Lion"s son, who perished at Thermopylae. The Greek word is somehow related to the Coptic labai, laboi, "lioness." In turn, the Coptic labai is borrowed from a Semitic source related to Hebrew labi and Arkkadian labbu. There is also a native ancient Egyptian word, rw (where r can stand for either r or l, and vowels were not indicated), which is surely related as well.

Since lions were native to Africa, Asia, and Europe in ancient times (Aristotle tells us there were lions in Macedon in his day), we have no way of ascertaining who borrowed which word from whom. This is all very well, but what has it got to do with Etruscan?

I will tell you what I know, but first we need an historical and linguistic detour.

It is not certain when the Etruscans first came to Italy, nor from where, but by the eighth century B.C. they had amalgamated small settlements into what became the Etruscan cities in what is now Tuscany. They called themselves Rassena or Rasna, but were called various things related to the word "tower" "Tursci" or people who build towers by their neighbors who had only lower structures.

Most of the cities in "Etruria" were close to what is now known as the Costa degli Etruschi, the Etruscan Coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Many of the cities such as Orvieto and Bologna will be familiar, while a place like Vetulonia may not be. I have a particular fondness for Vetulonia since on a recent bicycle trip I visited it, which accounts for this burst of interest in things Etruscan. Since Vetulonia is on top of a very steep hill, I must, in the interests of full disclosure, say that I did not pedal to the top, but managed to cop a ride in a van.

In Etruscan times, it seems the town stood on the shores of a lake that communicated with the sea so that it was a port. There are remains of the original town and some tombs of the kind that contained much of the statuary, gold work, coins and the like that tell us the little we know about the Etruscans. Some of this can be found in a charming small museum in the modern town.

A much better collection, of course, can be found in the Museo Archeologico in Florence. Among other things, it contains the magnificent Chimaera of Arezzo. It is in bronze, a specialty of Arezzo, and was made around 400 B.C. and apparently restored by Botticelli. It has the body of a lion with a snake for a tail. The snake is attacking the horn of a goat that is growing out of the lion's back. The lion figures large in Etruscan art, although there were surely none in Etruria at this time. There are also some examples of the engraved copper mirrors, some of the engravings are quite sexy, which occasionally have inscriptions on them that seem to identify the owner. One has the impression that the Etruscans were fond of eating and drinking and sex, like Italians.

The Etruscans apparently traded widely with their neighbors. One of their most important imports was the alphabet, which they got from the Greeks, who in turn had gotten it from the Phoenicians, who apparently invented it, and a magnificent invention it was. It meant that everything you could say in a language could be written down with a small number of symbols.

Think what it means to use ideograms like the Chinese, some fifty thousand of them, to render the written language. Phoenician writing, like the other Semitic languages, ran from right to left and did not express the vowels. The Greeks wrote from left to right and did express vowels. The Etruscans took this over with a few variants. But the symbols do not look like the modern Greek alphabet.

The numbers are also interesting. I bought a T-shirt in the museum in Vetulonia that has them. "C" stands for 100 and "X" for 10, like Roman numerals, except that the Etruscans used this notation first.

One might think that, knowing the alphabet, one would have no trouble deciphering the language. Alas, this is not so. When it comes to language decipherment, there are three cases one can consider. There is the case of a language like the Egyptian hieroglyphics, where both the symbols and the underlying language they represent are unknown. Then there is the case of a language like Linear B, found on tablets in Crete dating a few hundred years prior to Etruscan writing. In this case, the symbols, which stood for syllables and not letters in an alphabet, were unknown but the underlying language turned out to be an archaic form of Greek.

In the Etruscan situation, the alphabet is known but not the underlying language. Moreover, while thousands of fragments of Etruscan writing have been found, they are not that helpful. Most of them are proper names belonging to people in tombs or on vases or mirrors. There are a few notable exceptions. One is a bronze model of a sheep?s liver that has on it inscribed the names of a large number of gods. One supposes this was a tool used in teaching how to use sheep livers for prophecies. Even when Roman power was increasing, Romans were sent to Etruscan cities to learn the art of divination. There is also a mummy wrapping, which has a fairly extensive text involving religious ceremonies. But if the Etruscans had poets or historians, their work is still undiscovered. One is basically trying to decipher a language from what is written on tombstones.

This brings us back to where we started, the lion.

It was the Egyptians who introduced the scarab, a gem in which the top is in the form of a beetle and the bottom is a carved surface that can be in some cases used as a seal. These scarabs found their way into Greece and then into Etruria. Whether the Etruscan scarabs were carved by Etruscan artists or by Greeks working in Etruria is impossible to say. This has some bearing on our lion.

As I have mentioned, the lion plays a very important role in Etruscan art, including scarabs. There are scarabs that show individual lions or lions attacking various forms of prey. But among them one is quite unique. It depicts a lioness and a cub in the act of suckling. Above the lioness there are three symbols. They are "l", "e", "u" in the archaic Etruscan alphabet. This represents our entire knowledge of the Etruscan word for lion.

It is what linguists call a hapax legomenon, a word or form that occurs only once in the recorded corpus of a language. It presumably was taken from the Greek a loan word, but it is very strange. It is not the Greek word for lion, to say nothing of lioness ? which is "leaina." What does this mean?

I put the question to Dieter Steinbauer, one of the acknowledged experts in the Etruscan language. This is what he wrote:

"There are three observations to be made. As Etruscan was a language that didn't normally distinguish between masculine and feminine genders [male and female personal names did have markings in Etruscan], "leu" must have the meaning "lioness" too. The loss of the final "n" is embarrassing because Etruscan words with an ending "un" do occur. Perhaps the loan passed via an Italic language where n-stems had no "n" in the nominative. (e.g. Latin "homo"; Greek Platon, Plato) Normally nouns were rendered in the accusative of the source language. So perhaps the Etruscans thought the animal "animated." I know no further example.

That is what we know. But Etruscan studies are very active, so one can hope that another "lion" will be found.

Jeremy Bernstein is an aficionado of lost languages. He has written many pieces for The Aspen Times, including a two-part essay on deciphering the Linear B language, which was discovered on tablets in Crete .