Martianus, Fulgentius & Rhodiginus
"In his Musica practica of 1482 Ramis de Pareja, an important Spanish theorist, again assigned notes to the hierarchy, but he gave them not as Angels but as the Nine Muses whom Martianus Capella had already distributed across the spheres. Ramis, moreover, continued his diagram to cover a second octave to a', though without any additional correspondences beyond indicating with a kind of spiral the octave equivalences. This threefold scheme of notes, planets and Muses became a favourite. It was repeated by Franchinus Gaffurius (De Harmonia Musicorum Instrumentorum Opus, 1518), Henry Cornelius Agrippa (Book II of De Occulta Philosophia, 1533), Heinrich Glarean (Dodecachordon, 1547), and others. The Angels, it might seem, were usurped by the Muses in the humanistic enthusiasm of the time. But it is clear from their very first description in the Theogony of Hesiod <lines75-9> (8th-7th century B.C.) that the Nine Muses are the very same beings as the Angels of monotheism. All that one has to understand -and for many it is unthinkable, admittedly-
a'
g'
f'
e'
d' not assigned
c'
b
a............Fixed Stars..........Urania
g..............Saturn.............Polyhymnia
f...............Jupiter................Euterpe
e...............Mars..................Erato
d................Sun...............Melpomene
c.............Venus...............Terpsichore
B..........Mercury................Calliope
A...........Moon................ Clio
(silent).....Earth...............Thalia
is that these beings actually exist and that they are knowable. To Hesiod they appear as messengers who accost chosen human beings such as poets, charging them with a divine mission (Gk. angeloi = messengers), at the same time leading their own life a little below the summit of Olympus, i.e., just below the hierarchy of the Gods."
-Joscelyn Godwin: Harmonies of Heaven and Earth, 1995.
from -Martianus Capella, Book II section 27:
"'And the nine Muses are rightly joined with him, for the instruments of the human voice are nine. 'For every act of speaking is formed out of these nine things: first the coming together of the four teeth, the repercussion of the two lips, the striking of the tongue, the cavity of the throat, the help of the lungs. 'For if one of these were absent, the voice would not have been perfect. "'The Muses are also Joined with Apollo for a physical reason, (pertaining to) things of nature. "For just as in earthly music the mese, that is media, occupies the first place in each mode, so does the sun in heavenly harmony, which is distinguished as having nine successive steps, that is because of the seven planets, the eighth celestial sphere (the Firmament) and the earth itself. "And this (natural philosophical reason) possesses the proportion of the consonance of the entire formlessness and the matter of sound. "He used a very clear order of the Muses according to the rules of allegory. "Thus, Urania comes first, that is the loftiness of human intelligence. "After her <comes> Polymnia, that is the capacity of memory. "The third is Euterpe, the charm of the will, because intelligence is joined with memory and will. "Next is Erato. "For there is nothing in which the will finds more delight than in the comparison of similar things. "This, however, is not possible without profound thought. "Therefore Melpomene follows immediately. "With her Terpsichore is associated, as the delight in the arts. "For the perfection of thoughts is not possible without excercise in the disciplines. "Out of all this the entire honesty of human speech is brought forth, which is signified by Calliope. "And then Clio, that is good fame, is born. "And after her Talia is posed, as in the last place, that is the planting or sprouting of the virtues. "For every virtue is sought after because of good fame. "And therefore it is lifted up by a white bird, that is a swan, and put down in lakes, because the seeds of good fame are shown to be spread over the earth. "It is clear that the harmony of the entire cosmos consists of seven ptongot , that is of the motions of the seven planets and the outer sphere itself, which is always turned round at highest speed. "The earth (belongs to this) proportion, that is in this reason. "'Just as the sun in the (heavenly) harmony and the mese In the lyre produce the tetrachord, so does the tongue in the voice.) <trans. W.H. Stahl>
A similar allegory of Apollo and the nine Muses as representatives of the human voice is found in Fulgentius, Mythologiae I15. Fulgentius, however, describes 10 elements of the human voice: 9 for the Muses, and the 10th for Apollo himself. His order of the Muses is also different. In his myth Clio comes first, as the will to be taught. Euterpe is the second Muse, as the delight in that which is wanted. Third comes Melpomene, the pursuit of that in which delight is found. Talia is next, as the ability to grasp what was pursued. Polynmia is put in fifth place, and she symbolizes the ability to remember what was grasped. Erato is the act of finding similarities to that which is remembered. Terpsichore is the ability to judge that which was found, Urania to select that which was judged and, finally, Calliope is the eloquent presentation of that which was selected."
-Mariken Teeuwen: Harmony and Music of the Spheres: The Ars Musica in Ninth-Century Commentaries On Martianus Capella, 2002
"The Mitologiae in particular served as a basic compendium of mythology, influential both in its own right and through its absorption into the work of the so-called Third Vatican Mythographer, now generally identified as a certain Master Alberic of London."
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~bgh2n/fulgentius.html
d'Alverny, M-Th. "Les Muses et les sphères celestes," Classical, Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies in Honor of B.L. Ullman (Rome, 1964), 7-19.
Discusses F's chapter on the Muses (Mit. I, 15 p. 25, 1ff.) at 8f. and prints two brief medieval texts that draw on it.
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~bgh2n/fulgbib.html#mit
Courcelle, Pierre. "L'interpretation evhémériste des Sirènes-courtisanes jusqu'au XIIe siècle," in Gesellschaft-Kultur-Literatur. Rezeption und Originalität im Wachsen einer Europäischen Literatur und Geistigkeit. Beiträge Luitpold Wallach Gewidmet (Stuttgart, 1975), 33-48.
F's chapter on the Sirens (Mit. II, 8) is discussed on p. 41.
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~bgh2n/fulgbib.html#mit
Plus Five:
Claude Mignault of Dijon:
"Thus Homer, that greatest of geniuses, represented the first four elements, fighting among themselves and producing each other, under the names of Jove, Juno, Neptune, and Pluto. [The four elements intended in four names of gods.] The allegory is interpreted morally as when they talk of Pallas quarelling and fighting with Mars, and we understand - do we not? - that part of the mind which lacks reason in revolt against the higher part, and vice opposed to virtue. [Why Pallas quarrels with Mars.] "
"The following is the translation of the passage from Rhodiginus (see the Latin text, note 9): Those who interpret myths allegorically take a triple pathway ... We judge mythical allegories in three ways: we interpret them physically, ethically or theologically. We understand an allegory as physical when we apply the narration to nature, as when Homer pictures the gods fighting together and means elemental nature at variance with us ... Allegory is moral when there is an application to conduct, as when for example we say that Pallas is engaged in a disagreement with Mars we understand indisputably that the part of the soul which lacks reason raises its head against the rational power, and that what is good strives with evil ..The sense of allegories is generally said to be theological when we say that the masculine names of the gods mean the efficient act in divine terms and the feminine names the power which is capable of acting. Furthermore, the fact that the heavens by their movement produce time and continually re-absorb what they produce is represented by a certain image of the god Caelus and Rhea and Saturn devouring his children. Of these Caelus represents the divine essence, Rhea means its life and Satrun its mind. For we rightly interpret the children of Saturn as the archetype of things which exist, which are engendered by the divine intelligence within itself, and which, just as they are produced by the mind so they are called back into it as it somehow re-absorbs them into itself ...
See also Book IV, which is a defence and discussion of poetry. Rhodiginus insists on the idea of the poet as a good and wise man, underlines the power of allegory as a pedagogical device, and envisions two agents of control, the church and the philosophers (cf. Mignault's citation of Lactantius and Maximus Tyrius). "
http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/Mignault_Emblem4.html
"Lodovico Ricchieri (a.k.a. Ludovicus Caelius Rhodiginus, 1453–1525) here gives a survey from Classical Greek and Latin authors on life, the universe, and everything, beginning with the nature of God and including overviews of such diverse subjects as sleep and rhetoric. First published in 1517, this work saw many 16th- and 17th-century editions."
http://www.prbm.com/interest/i.htm?classics-r-s.shtml~main
L i b e r see: XV
http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost06/Fulgentius/ful_myt1.html
Seems to be Lazzarelli's contemporary though this is published much later than Lazzarelli's poem...
-John
, but joke aside, it existed "Trionfi" (triumphal processions) with ships, at least in Venice. And perhaps Ship of Fools had the conscious intention to caricature another contemporary habit. It seems natural for the carnival groups of Basel to make jokes about Italian habits.