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The Scale of Man
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2019
Extract
The present study extends a series of articles dealing with the history of the doctrine of Nature and Genius. From Greek times on the doctrine was illustrated—often allegorically—in literature and other arts, and manifested various phases of culture.
In the Detroit Institute of Arts hangs a magnificent sixteenth-century Flemish tapestry labeled “Hilly Landscape”. It has been provisionally described by Mrs. Ardèle Coulin Weibel, Curator Emeritus of Textiles and Islamic Art. The accompanying plate describes it as a landscape with staffage by Franz Geubels, Brussels. It is dated about 1560.
The main scene, which is framed by a border, is more than a landscape. In the foreground lies an area of undergrowth including bracken, blackberry brambles, clover, and other plants, as well as decaying remnants of former vegetation.
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- Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1956
References
1 “The Goddess Nature in Early Periods”, JEGP, xix (1920), 224 ff.; “Nature in Old French”, MP, xx (1923), 309 ff.; “Nature in Early Italian”, MLN, xxxvi (1921), 329 ff.; “Nature in Early German”, JEGP, xxiv (1925), 409 ff.; “Nature in Middle English”, JEGP, xx (1921), 186 ff.; “Spenser and Nature”, JEGP, xxxiv (1935), 366 ff.; “Nature and Shakespeare”, PMLA, LI (1936), 719 ff.; “The Allegorical Figure Genius”, Class. Philol., xv (1920), 380 ff. and MLN, xxxix (1924), 89 ff.; “The Genii of Spenser”, SP, xxv (1928), 439 ff. (with plate of a mille-fleurs tapestry). Cf. also “Notes on Early Allegory”, JEGP, xxix (1930), 159 ff.
2 “Tapestries by Franz and Jacob Geubels”, Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, xxvii (1947), 6-10.
4 The phrase occurs in Ovid, Met. III, 158. Cf. Ingegno, in Ripa, Cesare, Iconologia (Padova, 1618 Google Scholar; enlarged edition, Venetia, 1645; first edition in Italian, Rome, 1593, without illustrations; 3d ed. in French, Iconologie, Paris, 1644).
5 Bulletin, XXXII (1952-3), 86-9.
6 Natura occurs in other tapestries. Cf. the Brussels tapestry of 1515, “Redemption”, of the great set of four in the M. H. de Young Museum. In one scene Natura is associated with Labor, in another with Justitia. Cf. further Hunter, G. L., The Practical Book of Tapestries (Philadelphia, 1925), pp. 29, 33Google Scholar, “Baptism”, Plate IV, j ; p. 37, “L'Un et l'Autre” and “Redemption”, Design B (these by the sixteenth century); Thomson, W. G., A History of Tapestry from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (London, 1930), pp. 139-40Google Scholar, inventory of Henry V (tapestry lost); p. 168, “Seven Deadly Sins” (ca. 1475); p. 169 (ca. 1430); pp. 217-18, “King Modus (Moderation) and Queen Ratio (Reason)” (sixteenth century)— Natura rerum. Ackerman, Phyllis, Tapestry the Mirror of Civilization (New York, 1933), pp. 120 ff.Google Scholar, “Triumph of Fame” in a series of nine in the Spanish State collection (cf. Göbel, Heinrich, Wandteppiche, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1923, 1928Google Scholar): figures of Physis, that is, Natura, and Natural Nobility (probably connected with the twelfth-century Anticlaudianus of Alan of Lille, editions of which were published in the sixteenth century); p. 361 (cf. pp. 99, 124), set, “Hunt of the Mortal Deer”, a pursuit of man by Nature (not wicked or fundamentally hostile), Ignorance, Vanity, Necessity.
7 Editions of his Emblemata consulted: Paris, 1536, 1540, 1542; Venice, 1545 (6); Lyon, 1551, 1564 (Italian), 1564 (French), 1573, 1574, 1614; Antwerp, 1584, 1587, 1715; Padua, [1618], 1621, 1661; Lyon (Spanish verses), 1540. The later ones were enlarged or further moralized with commentary. The facsimile editions by Henry Green (Manchester, 1870), Emblematum fontes quatuor, employed basically Augsburg, 1531; Paris, 1534; Venice, 1546; Milan, 1522; the first in Italian, Rome, 1593, without illustrations.
8 Op. cit.
9 Whitney, Geffrey employed this emblem in A Choice of Emblems (Leyden, 1586), p. 189.Google Scholar
10 Cf. Cicero, N.D., 1.33.92: “nulla ars imitari sollertiam naturae potest”; elsewhere ingenio solertia. Ovid is apt to contrast solertia, ingenio, astu; cf. Met. iv, 776-7; vi, 575; VII, 419; XIII, 37, 136, 148, 193, 327, 362. A celebrated woodcut of Dürer's, Albrecht (The Complete Woodcuts, ed. Kurth, Willi, London, 1927)Google Scholar presents the Emperor Maximilian's “Great Triumphal Car”. Among some twenty-two virtues, two guide the leading team of horses: Experientia (a man) and Solertia (a woman). The contrast suggests that intuition or insight is an important factor in guidance, and may be tested by practice. In Ripa, Astutia ingannevole, deemed to be an animal trait, is viewed unfavorably by Aesop and St. Thomas.
11 Cf. Joachim Camerarius (1500-1574), Symbolum ac Emblematum ethic, polit. centuriae IV (Moguntiae, 1697), Fourth Century, LI-LVII, gives crabs and crayfish in general; LII, much the same picture, with “Decipiens capitur”.
12 Cf. an opposing adage, “Astus solertia major” (Camerarius, Second Cent., LXXIV, applicable variously to fox, wolf, crane, grackle, and a loaded mule crossing a stream; corollary adages: “Astu deluditur astus” and “Fraudem sapientia pellit“). Cf. also comments on “Nihil in vim” (hawk and tortoise) below.
13 Professor John Heller has suggested that we have a fable derivable from the Aesopica, and so traceable as far back as Ademar (twelfth century). There is even an illustrated manuscript version of the Perdix et Vulpis ( Thiele, G., Der illustrierte Aesop in der Handschrift des Ademar, Leiden, 1905, tab. ix and p. 50 Google Scholar). Cf. also Phaedrus Solutus, ed. Carolus Zander (Lund, 1921).
14 Professor Erwin Panofsky has suggested an ultimate reference to Aristotle, Eth. Nicom., ii, 6 (1106 b): evil belongs to the class of the unlimited, as the Pythagoreans conjectured, whereas virtue is a mean between extremes.
15 Cf. Alexander, E. J. and Woodward, C. H., The Flora of the Unicorn Tapestries (New York, 1947 [1950])Google Scholar; Marquand, E. C., “Plant Symbolism in the Unicorn Tapestries”, Parnassus (October 1938), pp. 3 ff.Google Scholar
16 In Alciati ccviii (1661), Buxus is an evergreen fit for lovers.
17 In Camerarius, First Century, LXIX, “Brevis est usus”. Wind shatters the fragile flower, which the verses consider symbolical of the fleeting nature of life. Reference is made to the flowers of Adonis and Ovid, Met., x. Pliny is cited, xxx, ccviiii, and a corollary is expressed in “Gloria vento discutitur”.
18 The conception of a scale for plants and animals is found in Aristotle's Historia Animalium, viii, 1 (588).
19 The lady fern common in parts of Europe and America is a different species, known now as Asplenium (earlier Polypodium) filix-foemina. Its name links it with Our Lady, as in Lady Chapel. Dryopteris (earlier Polypodium and Aspidium) filix-mas is a male fern. The oak fern (Phegopteris Dryopteris, formerly Polypodium Dryopteris) has a frond which suggests that of bracken. Brake, or bracken, is now named Pteris aquilina (eagle's wing), and is sometimes called lady brake. Fuchs in his Herbarium (ed. 1599) gives Engelfus as the common, or German, name of Polypodium.
20 Cf. Aristotle, Hist. Anim., i, 1 (486 f.) for scale and domestication; for traits of character, i, 1 (488 a, b).
21 Cf. besides Odell Shepard, The Lore of the Unicorn (Boston, 1930), Dove, W. F., “Artificial Production of the Fabulous Unicorn—A Modern Interpretation of an Ancient Myth”, Scientific Monthly, XLII (1936), 431-6.Google Scholar
22 Op. cit., p. 9.
23 I should like to express gratitude for the courtesies which I have received from the libraries and staffs of the Universities of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Chicago, Wisconsin State College at La Crosse, Art Institute of Chicago, Newberry Library, John Crerar Library, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute of Technology, Cincinnati Art Museum, City Art Museum of St. Louis, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection of Harvard University, the Biltmore Estate, the de Young Museum. I owe much to friends and colleagues. In addition I am indebted to Mrs. Weibel and to Mr. Francis W. Robinson, Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Art, of the Detroit Institute of Arts, and to Professor William S. Heckscher of the State University of Iowa. None is responsible for what I have said.