Footnotes to the Painted Page: - Metropolitan Museum of Art

Footnotes to The by

Iconography of

the

Painted an

Page:

Altarpiece

Botticini

HERBERT

FRIEDMANN

Directorof the Los Angeles CountyMuseum of Natural History

THE F 0 R E G R OU N D

of the altarpieceillustrated in Figure i, by the fifteenth-century Florentine painter Francesco Botticini, is filled with little plants and animals, of a number and variety unusual in Tuscan devotional art. As we shall see, there is reason for their presence, and this article is directed to the elucidation of some of these items of iconographicinterest - and, in several cases, of rarity - in Italian art. Critics now universallyagree that the altarpiece,The Madonnaand Child Enthroned with Saints and Angels, is not only an authentic work by Botticini but also one of the best examples of his late, mature period. Some differencesof opinion as to the date of this altarpiece have been expressed, the extremes being I470 to I475 and the middle of the I48os. The latter date is based on the argument that some of the details in it are adopted from Botticelli's Barnabasaltarpiece, which is dated I483. It has been traditionally assumed, without any documentary evidence, that the painting was originally in SantissimaAnnunziata, the church of the Order of the Servi in Florence. The choice of saints represented in the picture - from left to right, Benedict, Francis, Sylvester, and Anthony Abbot - neither supports nor refutes this provenance, as none of them has any particular relation or importance to this order. In addition, none of the seven wealthy Florentine noblemen who instituted the Order of the Servi in I232 bore the names of any of these four saints. It is not known who commissioned the altarpiece, and hence it is not possible to learn if the saints provide clues to the baptismal names of members of the donor's family. This particular combination of saints seems to be, so far as I have been able to learn, unique. Of the four, Sylvester is the one least often portrayed in Florentine art, although the fact that an entire chapel in Santa Croce was given over to frescoes of his life and legend by Maso di Banco is evidence that he was regardedwith some esteem in quattrocento Florence. All the saints are holding large closed books, a somewhat unusual insistence on ecclesiasticalscholarshipand erudition in a devotional altarpiece.The book held by Anthony Abbot is a regular part of his portrayal and hence calls for no comment. That Francis

Contents Footnotesto the PaintedPage: TheIconography of an Altarpiece by Botticini HERBERT

FRIEDMANN

I

GuidoReni'sPaintingof the ImmaculateConception HOWARD

HIBBARD

Obituaryof RobertLehman

'9

32

ON THE COVER:

Detail of Figure i i. Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and Angels, by FrancescoBotticini(about 1446-I497), Italian (Florentine). Temperaon wood, Isso2

x 69 inches.Giftof GeorgeR. Hann,in memoryof hismother, Annie SykesHann, 6z.235

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also holdsa book is a little less usual:this favoritesaintis morefrequentlydepictedwithout a large tome in his hand, although in manyinstances,both beforeandafterthe date of Botticini'saltarpiece,he does have such a volume. Similarly,the presenceof a book is a variablefeature in representationsof Sylvester, a scholarlyindividualwith interests beyond the immediatescope of his religious teaching;he was pope and bishopof Rome, and is usuallyshown,as he is here, as an elderly pope tramplingon a dragon.Scholarship was a personalinterestof Benedict, but therewas no mentionof the pursuitof learning in his originalrules for his order;it was long after his death that the thriving Benedictine monasteriesbeganto study and copy the availableclassicalmanuscripts.In his right handBenedictholdsan elaborateaspergillum, one of his usualattributes,so that, in effect, he is equippedwith the meansof overcoming evil both by sprinklingholy water with his right handand by combatingit by erudition with his left. Botticini has shownBenedictin the black robe of the order'soriginalhabit, which, many centuriesbefore the altarpiece waspainted,had beenchangedto a white one after the creationof the "ReformedOrder." Why Botticinideliberatelychose the original black robe when some of his contemporaries in Florence,suchas FilippoLippi (seeFigure 3), depicted Benedict in white is impossible to say.

Strangelyenough,none of the saintslooks towardthe Virginand Child. Francishas his eyes turnedheavenwardin a state of meditation, Sylvestergazes off to the right, while Benedictand AnthonyAbbot regardthe observeras if callingattention to the opportunity to see the Madonnaand Child, made possibleby the two angelsholding back the curtainsthat would otherwiseconceal them from sight. These curtainsare trimmedwith ermine fur, purewhite with the blacktail tip of each pelt still attached.The weasel,whose fur is brownin summerand white in winter (when it is knownasermine),wasa well-knownsymbol of purity and chastity, and was accordingly often held by ladies in portraitsas a pictorialreferenceto thesevirtues.The bestknown instanceof this usageis Leonardoda Vinci's Cracow picture; another is one by Luiniin the NationalGalleryof Art in Washington (Figure4). The weaselwas associated with the motto "Betterdeaththandishonor." In Carpaccio's greatpaintingof a youngknight (Figures5, 6), thereis an ermineandbehindit a cartellinobearingthe inscriptionMalo mori quamfoedari("I wouldratherdie thanbe disgraced"),the motto adoptedby the Knights of the Orderof the Ermine,foundedin I483 by King FerdinandI of Naples. Leonardoda Vinci alluded to the moral significanceof the ermine in his notebooks; among his aphorismswe find, "Moderation

TheMetropolitan Museumof Art Bulletin VOLUME

XXVIII,

NUMBER

I

SUMMER

I969

Publishedmonthly from October to Juneand quarterlyfrom July to September.Copyright(? 969 by The MetropolitanMuseumof Art, Fifth Avenueand 82nd Street, New York,N. Y. 10028. Second classpostagepaid at New York, N. Y. Subscriptions$7.50 a year. Singlecopiesseventy-fivecents. Sent free to Museummembers.Four weeks'notice requiredfor changeof address.Back issuesavailableon microfilmfrom University Microfilms,313 N. First Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan.Volumesi-xxxvii (I905-I942) availableas a clothboundreprint set or as individualyearly volumes from Arno Press, 330 MadisonAvenue, New York, N. Y. 10OI7,or from the Museum,Box 255, Gracie Station, New York, N. Y. I0028. Editor of Publications:Leon Wilson. Editor-in-chiefof the Bulletin:Katharine H. B. Stoddert; AssistantEditor: SusanGoldsmith;Designer:Peter Oldenburg. 2

2.

St.Jerome,FlankedbySts.Eusabius,Damasus,Eustochius, andPaula,by Francesco Botticini. 6o x 68 inches.National Gallery,London

St. Maurusto 3. St. BenedictOrders theRescueof St. Placidus,by FraFilippoLippi(about Italian (Florentine). i 6V x 28 inches. National

1406-1469),

Galleryof Art,SamuelH. Kress Collection

3

to preventthe birthof Herculesto the mortal Alcmena,belovedof Jupiter.She sentLucina, the goddessof childbirth,to Alcmena'sdoor, and thereLucina,disguisedas an old hag, sat holdingher kneestightly together.Alcmena's maidGalanthisrecognizedthisgestureashaving a potentiallydisastrouseffect, impeding childbirth,andshedeliberatelymisledLucina by tellingher that the babyhadalreadybeen born.Lucinathen rose,and at that moment Alcmenagave birth to her son. Her indignationat beingdeceivedcausedLucinato change Galanthisinto a weasel,which was doomed thenceforthto deliver her offspringthrough the ear,since the maidhad deceivedthe goddess throughher ear by falsewords. Through the centuriesthis legend was retold and alteredand given Christianconnotations.An exampleoccursin the early thirteenth-centurybestiaryof Guillaumele Clerc: About the weaselis a greatmarvel, For she bringsforth by the ear.... Are they fools, who go affirming

4. Portraitof a Lady,byBernardino curbsall vices. The erminewould ratherdie than soil itself,"and in his bestiary,"The erLuini (about I480-I532), mine becauseof its moderationeatsonly once Italian. 30o x 222 inches. NationalGalleryof Art,Andrew a day, and it allowsitself to be capturedby huntersratherthan take refugein a muddy MellonCollection lair, in ordernot to stain its purity." Stillmoreimportantis thefact that theweasel was connectedallegoricallywith the conception of Christ.The connectionwas more hintedat thandirectlyexpressed,andemerged chiefly throughstatementsin early mystical and ecclesiasticalliteraturethat thislittle animal conceives through the ear. This was a RIGHT CarVittore parallelto the belief that Mary conceivedby 5. YoungKnight,by the Word of God, and the Word, like any paccio (about I455-I523/I526), Italian(Venetian).Castle word,wasreceivedthroughthe ear.In the lanRohonczMuseum,Lugano. guageof symbolism,parallelimpliesidentity. Like so many conceptsadoptedfor its own Art AlinariPhotograph: Bureau purposesby Christianlegend,this assumption Reference aboutthe weasel'searhadan ancient,classical 6. Ermine,detailof Figure5. source, going back at least as far as Ovid. Art Ovid tells how Juno, always hostile to her Alinari Photograph: husband'soffspringby humanmothers,tried Bureau Reference 4

That she receivesand discharges The seed throughthe hearing? Surelythis is not the case. With this [creature]are compared Sundry[folk]who are zealous To behavewell, to serveGod, And to hearthe wordof God. The story even came to be looked upon as a foreshadowingof Mary'sconceivingChrist through the Word. This probablyaccounts for the growthof the thoughtthat the weasel is stainlessand unsullied,and thereforea suitable symbolof the Virginherself. The weasel'swhite erminephaseservedto reinforcefurtherthe virtuesimputed to the animalbecauseof its purewhiteness,in itself a symbolof purity. It is thereforeeminently appropriatein a pictureof the Virginto border the curtainsof her thronewith ermine. Becauseof the associatedconceptsof honor and steadfastness,royalty and nobility were often representedwith ermineon their robes of state, and ermineedgingwasoften used to enhancethe rich textilesof the draperiesthat surroundedthem. At the time that Botticini painted this altarpiecethe traditionaluse of erminewas so well establishedthat he might have used it as he did even if he were not consciouslyawareof its symbolicmeaning. Botticini'sdesignof the Virgin'sthroneincorporatesa naturalisticmotif in its halfdome shapedlike a scallopshell. The scallopshellor pecten shell- wasan old symbolof the religious pilgrim, the contemplativevoyager throughlife. In art it was usuallyshown as an emblemwornby St. Jamesof Compostela, the patronsaint of pilgrims,or by St. Roch to suggesthis wanderingsin the serviceof the plague-stricken.In this work the shell has beenmodifiedfor architecturalpurposes,but it still reveals its origin.

The earthin the lowerportionof the picture is richwith numerousand variedanimal formsas well as many flowers.St. Anthony's pig at the extremeright of the painting,althoughcompositionallycloselyrelatedto the figureof the saint, may be regardedas part of the arrayof living creatures,as may the dragon,whosehead appearsto the left of St. Sylvester'sfeet.

detailof 7. Headof dragonbelowSt. Sylvester, Figurei

8. St. Anthony Abbot, by Neri di Bicci (14I9-I49I), Italian. Oil on wood, 58 x 28V4 inches. Denver Art Museum, Samuel H. Kress Collection

9. St. Anthony Abbot's pig, detail of Figure i

The dragonis an old andwidelyrecognized symbolof evil and of Satan.In art it accompaniesmany saintswho overcamethe archfiend, and is a usual pictorial attribute of Sylvester.Botticini has accentuatedits maliciousaspectby makingthe eye bloodshotand fiercelyhostile,the foreheadheavilywrinkled, and the face snarling,with a hookedbeakand a mouth full of wicked-lookingteeth. Botticini improvisedon the usualrenditionof this mythical beast by giving it a pair of bristly, long, pointedears.Florentineartists,to limit ourselvesto his more immediate,and hence more comparable,colleagues,varied greatly in their conceptof what dragonsshouldlook like: some gave them no ears at all; others gave them smalland curled,almostscalelike ears; still others, like Botticini, gave them long ears,but the pointed,hairytips arerare. The pig (Figure9) is the usualattributeof St. AnthonyAbbot and representsthe temptations of sensualityand gluttony that the holy man overcame.As such it was readily understoodby the peopleof fifteenth-century Italy. It has,however,one additionalpoint of interest,sinceBotticinicopiedit froma work by his teacher,Neri di Bicci (Figure8). Wil-

tionally given a nimbus or halo; here it has no such distinguishing mark. It would seem that the dove is included here because of the presence in the painting of St. Benedict, and that it is a reference to his twin sister, St. Scholastica, the head of the first organized community of Benedictine nuns. The story is that after her untimely death her brother saw her soul in the form of a white dove fly up to heaven. Scholastica is usually shown in art holding a crucifix or a lily, with the dove pressed to her bosom, resting at her feet, or flying toward heaven. She was not often included in altarpieces, but a good example showing her with the dove appears in a polyptych by the Venetian Bartolomeo Vivarini (Figure io), dated 1485. It is decidedly unusual to replace the saint, as it were, by the dove - in fact, I do not know of another painting in which St. Scholastica is represented in absentia in this way - but this is what Botticini has done. We can only assume that the faithful would recognize her by inference because of Benedict's presence. The decision to depict the dove on the ground may well have been dictated by the composition of the altarpiece: had the bird been shown in heavenward liam Suida dated Neri's painting "after 1480," flight, it would have distracted attention from but Roberto Longhi placed it considerably the holy personages in the main part of the earlier, between I460 and I470. Except for picture. Its act of drinking from the stream its smaller tusk and the fact that only the is a reference to the old concept of the "water front half is shown, Botticini's pig is nearly of life" emanating from the true religion, proidentical with his teacher's version both in viding spiritual nourishment for its followers. In his rendition of the dove, as in his depicpose and in appearance. This similarity is too close to be accidental, but suggests rather that tion of the other plants and animals, Botticini Neri's painting was a recent creation used as shows himself to be a careful observer and aca model by his follower. If so this might sup- curate portrayer of nature. The lifelike pose port the late date Suida gave Neri's picture. and the drawing of the drinking dove are In that painting the lesson to be read from striking if one takes the trouble to compare the saint and his pig is pointed up by the this highly naturalistic little creature with words inscribed on St. Anthony's open book: the stylized dove of the Holy Spirit usual in Lasciate i vitii, le virtu piglate, Vostroadvocato countless other paintings. so se qvvestofate ("Give up evil, embrace virTo the right of the dove stands a goldfinch tue, I am your protector if you do this"). (Cover), and there is a second some distance The white dove (Cover) drinking from a to the left, nearer the base of the Virgin's little stream at the bottom of Botticini's pic- throne (Figure ii). The symbolism of the ture is not the usual white dove of Italian goldfinch is unusual in its richness and diverreligious art. This bird ordinarily appears as a sity of implications. It is sufficient, in this symbol of the Holy Spirit, especially in paint- connection, merely to note that it was a symings of the Annunciation, where it is tradi- bol of the soul, of resurrection, of baptism, 7

io. Detail of St. Scholasticafrom an altarpieceby Bartolomeo Vivarini(active 1450-1499), Italian (Venetian). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of Quincy A. Shaw

of the Passion of Christ, even of fertility. Its Louvre [Figure I2], there is the same combichief claim to popularity, however, was as a nation of a goldfinch placed close to a lizard.) It is unusual in fifteenth-century Florensavior bird against the ravages of the plague. For these reasons, many hundreds of votive tine art to find, as one does here, more than The Nativity, by afollower of FilippinoLippi. Italian. Louvre, pictures included this colorful bird, usually one goldfinch in a single painting. There are held by the Christ child, or attached by one also two goldfinches in Botticini's tondo of Paris. Photograph:AlinariArt ReferenceBureau leg to a fine string that he holds. Children the Madonna Adoring the Child, in the Pitti were given just such tethered, wing-clipped Palace (Figure I3). As may be seen from the live birds as playthings, and this was a man- detail of that picture (Figure I4) the left ner of humanizing the Infant Jesus in art. At goldfinch is almost identical with the left one the time that Botticini created this painting, (Figure i ) in the Metropolitan's altarpiece. however, Florence was not suffering from the It is not improbable that Botticini included plague and the need for an amulet against the two goldfinches, when one would have sufdisease, held in divine hands, had largely sub- ficed from a purely symbolic standpoint, simsided. In this altarpiece the two goldfinches ply because the pretty colors of these birds probably are symbolic of resurrection, a usage made them desirable as decorative elements appropriate to a devotional picture. As we with which to enliven and embellish his picshall see, the lizard near them is a salvation- tures. Botticini's goldfinches are not only well seeking creature, so they go together very well. (In a painting of the Nativity attributed done from a purely naturalistic standpointto a follower of Filippo Lippi, now in the much more so than many of those by his fel-

si. Goldfinch and lizard, detail of

Figure i

12.

8

low Florentines- but they are also remarkably lifelikein the way they areplaced.They are neither held in the hand nor tethered: they are depicted just as small birds might appearnaturallyin a flowerymeadow.The freedomof treatmentwouldhardlyhavebeen permissiblein an altarpiecea generationearlier, but by the time this one was designed the goldfinchwas such an easily interpreted symbol that it could resume,in an outward sense,its natural,nonmysticalexistencewithout lossof significance.Botticiniwashere,and in the tondoin the Pitti Palace,farmoreoriginalanddaringthanone wouldexpecta Florentine painterof his time to be. To the left of the dove appearsa lizard (Figure I I), meticulouslycopied from nature, which is identifiableas the wall lizard, Lacertamuralis,a well-knownspeciesof southern Europe,commonin Italy. The walllizard is the same as the "sun lizard"describedin the ancientPhysiologus, the basicsourcefrom which practicallyall of the Europeanmedieval bestiariesstemmed.Accordingto Edward Evans, the name"sunlizard"arosefrom the legend that when the creaturebecomesold and its eyesight beginsto fail, it creepsinto a crevice of a wall facing to the east and "stretchesits head to the risingsun, whose raysrestoreits sight."The legend continues, "In like manner,0 man, thou who hast on the old garment,and the eyes of whoseheart areobscured,seek the wallof help,andwatch whichthe thereuntil the sunof righteousness, calls the rises with healing dayspring, prophet power,and removesthy spiritualblindness." In Botticini's altarpiecethe lizard has not climbed onto a wall, but is makingits way towardthe Virgin'sthroneand seemsintent in its concentrationon the Infant Jesus:it is the only one of the beingsin the whole picture,animalor human,thatis lookingdirectly at the Christchild. The lizardclearlyfits the spirit, if not the literal description,of the and it is to Bottilegend in the Physiologus, cini'scredit that he did not deemit necessary to include even a fragmentof a wall. That Botticini was not alwaysso discriminatingis demonstratedby his tondo in the Pitti Palace (FigureI3). There two lizards,one much

i3. MadonnaAdoringthe ChildwiththeInfantSt. Johnand FiveAngels,byFran-

cescoBotticini.PittiPalace,Florence.Photograph: Bureau Brogi- ArtReference

14. Detail of Figure 13. Photograph:Brogi- Art ReferenceBureau

smallerthan the other, may be seen on the right side of the baseof the ornatestone wall surroundingthe Virgin's"enclosedgarden." They seemto be whollyunawareof the group in the foregroundand look like mere bits of discursivenaturalismwith no directsymbolic reference. An example of a literal rendition of the "sun lizard"seekinga niche in a wall occurs in the Nativity by a followerof FilippoLippi (FigureI2). Here we find one lizardclimbing up the ruinedwall of the stable housingthe traditionalox andass,anda secondin an opening above.In this casethe artisthasbeencontent to depict the lizardson a wall, without attemptingto connect them in an emotional as neisensewith the seekingof righteousness, ther appearsto be overly awareof the Nativity scenein the foreground. The last animalto be discussedis the tortoise (FigureI5), shownjust belowthe figure of St. Francis.This creaturewas very rarely used in devotional art, and, without making an extensivesearch,I can recallonly two other Italianfifteenth-centuryreligiouscompositionsin whichit appears.One is a painting of The Holy Womenat the Sepulcherby an imitator of Andrea Mantegna (Figures I6, I7), now in the National Gallery, London, and the other is a bronzereliefof St. Jerome in Penitence by Francescodi Giorgio (Figures I8, 19), in the National Galleryof Art, Washington.Further evidence of its general absencefrom Christianart is the fact that a searchthroughthe PrincetonIndex of Christian Art-the comprehensivefile of iconographicthemes throughthe fourteenthcentury- revealedno entriesfor the tortoisein religiouspaintingsor sculpture. Althoughits rarityin religiousiconography suggeststhat the tortoisewas relativelyunimportantin the idiom of allegoryand symbolism,it did have a great variety of meanings. The tortoisewas a symbol of reticence andof chastity.In hisinfluentialandfrequently copiedemblembook,AndreaAlciatishows Venuswith her foot upon a tortoise (Figure a Greek 20), an imagederivedfrom Pausanias, writerof the secondcenturyof the Christian era.The accompanyingmotto is Maneredomi, I0

et tacitasdecetessepuellas("Girlsshouldstay at home and be silent");the emblemsignifies that womenshouldremainat home (the tortoise cannot leave its shell) and be chary of speech (the tortoise is a silent animal). Although Alciati'sgreat compendiumof pictorial allusionsdid not appearuntil some decadesafterBotticini'spainting,it may be cited as pertinentbecauseits authorcompiledfrom earlierand currentusagesfar more than he invented. That this figure of Venus connectedwith the "stay-at-home" tortoisecameto be looked of a as upon symbol chastity may be sensed fromWilliamPainter'ssixteenth-centurycollection of classicaland romancetales in The Palaceof Pleasure.Venus, "her fote vpon a Tortose,[signifies]the duety of a chasteWoman ... hir feet not strayingor wandering. . . to keep hirselfewithin the limits of hir owne house."A similarstatementby Painter'scontemporary,the prolificwriterRobertGreen, tellsus that chastityis representedasa woman treading"vpon the Tortuse,"keepingto her own house and not straying "abroadwith every wantongiglet." Many other writersof the sixteenthand seventeenthcenturiesmade essentiallysimilar referencesto the Venustortoise icon. A curious elaborationof this concept occursin French folklore,which regardedthe tortoiseas an animalwith a heart so smallas to be almostimperceptible- a suggestion that the maintenanceof chastitycan be explainedby a reducedcapacityfor love. The tortoise was also connectedsymbolically with the Church,althoughthis symbolism was little or seldomexpressed.Isidoreof Seville,the greatSpanishencyclopedistof the sixth and seventhcenturies,wrote in his Etimologiasthat the testudoor tortuga(tortoise) is so called becauseof the archlikeshape of its shell, and that the transversearch of the church,testudo,was constructedby the ancients after the designof the tortoise'scarapace in orderto createan architecturalimage of heaven,which is similarlyconvex. In ancient times the nametestudowas alsoapplied to the shieldcarriedby soldiersin warfarefor protection;while Isidoredoes not elaborate on this, he usually connects the subjectshe

15. Tortoise,detailof Figurei discusseswith moral issues,and in this case we may assumethe carapace,testudo,would symbolizea shieldagainstevil. In the medievalbestiaries,and in their ultimatesource,the Physiologus, thereis a creature called the aspedochelone,a monstrous sea tortoise,whichsailorsweresaidto mistake for an island. In Guillaumele Clerc's thirteenth-centurybestiary, the marinersmoor their ship and build a fire on what they presumeis an island.The beastreactsto the heat by plunging down into the ocean, carrying them to their death,and Le Clercdrawsthis parallel: In the sameway are deceived The wretchedmiserableunbelievers Who in the devil put their trust . . . With them right down he plunges Down to hell'sgreatestdepth, They are lost who go in there. The tortoise also conveyed the meaning of steady, if slow, progress.Eugene Rolland mentionsthreeFrenchmedievalemblematic devices thlatmake this point: one represents a tortoiseclimbinga hill, accompaniedby the

motto Elle ira enfin sur le haut ("It will eventually reach the heights"); another shows a tortoise moving slowly, with the legend Festina lente, avec la patience on vient a bout de toutes choses ("Make haste slowly; with patience one arrives at the end of all things"); and still another shows a tortoise with the motto La meilleuremaison est elle qu'est a soi ("The best house is your own"). The last recalls the Venus-tortoise icon, with its admonishment to stay home. It may also be mentioned that the motto Festina lente was used on the escutcheon of Pope Gregory XIII (reigned 1572-1585). The tortoise was also a symbol of wisdom ever since Pliny it had been considered wise - but, on the other hand, it was also a symbol of evil. This was particularly true of those tortoises that lived in the mud of swamps and streams, and to some extent this interpretation was derived from their unsavory environment. The tortoise connoted heresy, a particularly prevalent and dangerous form of evil. St. Jerome wrote of the animal: haereticorum gravissimapeccata significat, qui suis en coeno et volutebro luti erroribusimmorant, II

condemningit as a hereticalcreatureof the gravesterrors,dwellingby choice in disgrace and filth and scum like that of a pigsty. In Francescodi Giorgio'sbronzeplaqueshowing St. Jeromein Penitence(FiguresI8, I9) the animalsprobablyaremeantto suggestthe wildernessintowhichthepenitentsaintretreated. The tortoise'spositionneara scorpionand a snake,however,seemsto stressits unfortunate connotations,quite probablyas symbolicof the arch evil of heresy with which Jerome connectedit. In fourth-centurymosaicsin the Cathedral of Aquileia,the tortoisewasdepictedin combat with a cock. RudolfEggerinterpretsthis as an earlyChristiansymbolof moralcombat, the forcesof darknessrepresentedby the tortoise, and those of light representedby the cock, the heraldof dawn. These evil connotationsserved to connect the tortoisewith the idea of death and the tomb, and yet in keeping with the curious ambivalenceof the logic of allegory, it was alsoassociatedwith the conceptof emergence Thus, fromthe tomb,a symbolof resurrection. the at Women (Figures in The Sepulcher Holy i6. The Holy Women at the Sepulcher,by an imitator of Andrea Mantegna. Italian. z6Y x I214 inches. I6, 17), the tortoiseshownon the bank of a pond is the commonpond turtle of Europe, National Gallery, London not a truetortoise- an entirelydry-landcrea17. Turtle, detail of Figure 6 ture-like the one in Botticini'spainting.It seemslikelythat the pondturtleconveysboth the ideaof the tomb (in keepingwith Christ's sepulcher, the focal point of the picture), and the ideaof the Resurrection,becausethis creaturehibernatesin an undergroundburrow.Hibernationis symbolicallyequivalentto death,and emergencefromit to resurrection. The tortoisehadstillanotherpossiblemeaning. This was the ancientbelief, recordedby late classicalwriters,that the tortoise,like the ostrich,wasable to hatchits eggsmerelywith its glance. (Pliny, apparentlynot convinced, reportedthat "somepersons"held this opinion.) Inasmuchas the thoughtof life hatching out of the egg was, in the caseof the ostrich, sometimeslookedupon as a sign of resurrection,sucha mysticalinterpretationcouldhave been equally appliedto the tortoise.I have not found the tortoiseso used in religiousart or texts;whilethisdoesnot meanthat it never

occurs, it does suggest that such usage was rareat best. We can hardly guess which of this abundance of meaningsfor the tortoiseBotticini or his advisorsmay have had in mind. In its referenceto wisdomthe tortoisesuitsthe fact that all four of the saintsare holdingbooks, tokensof erudition;in its meaningof chastity the tortoiseagreeswith the ermineedgingof the curtainsand hencewith the Virgin;in its connotation of resurrection it is in harmony

with its neighborsthe lizard,the goldfinches, andevenwith St. Scholastica's dove (the symbol of her ascendingsoul); in its implication of evil and heresyit belongswith Sylvester's dragonandAnthonyAbbot'spig. The resemblanceof its convexcarapaceto the transverse archof a churchservesto connectthe tortoise symbolicallywith the Infant Jesus,who was the ChurchIncarnate. We may now turn to the plants among which these animalsare placed. Even with assistancefrom two botanicalexperts,I have not been able to identify many of them. Indeed, small floweringplants were more apt than animalsto be included-and even improvisedupon-by artistsfor purely decorative effect. A richlyfloweringmead,like the

I8. St. Jeromein Penitence,by Francescodi Giorgio

Italian (Sienese). Bronze (I439-15 zo/512), plaque, 21% x I4146 inches. National Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection I9. Detail of Figure i8

by preferencein places frequentedby men and thrives even when trodden upon, thus b AND. ALC. EtBLEM. LIl. iZdtbeminm(s symbolizingthe multitudeswho seekthe path to righteousness.There was also a belief that ud MJ,dris,6iMnonf gnm cffcoporTcre. every seventhyear a plantainmay becomea Itfcmmc tft c pus bird. Since the bird is an old symbol of the soul, and particularlyof its freedomfrom an i -~ -ii~t: 5 cDnueDamcce ioinpre. earthbound condition, there may be here a fce CIe u3 piC3 mIft otfe/ it ?7jwk