De Nuptiis Research Articles

The Juxtaposition of the Ridiculous and the Sublime in Martianus Capella

Martianus Capella's De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii is a difficult work, often misunderstood. One way of approaching it is by an analysis in terms of genre. From this point of view Martianus was faced with a unique problem: how to combine an educational ideal with a practical, systematic handbook of learning. Here his model may have been Varro's Disciplinae, an encyclopaedia of the seven liberal arts of which only fragments survive. It is far more likely, however, that his solution was a unique one, and that his "pondering of some original composition unimagined hitherto" (nescio quid inopinum intactumque moliens) may not be a mere topos.

Allegorical Women and Practical Men: The Iconography of the Artes Reconsidered

Among the best-known mediaeval women are literary and pictorial personifications of abstract concepts: Virtues and Vices, Fortune and Philosophy, and the Seven Liberal Arts. Male embodiments of these subjects are exceptional, flouting both iconographie convention and the gender of the Latin nouns. The artes liberales in particular might be expected to remain a female preserve. In literature, from their first appearance as personifications in Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae, they are uniformly female.

The ?sub-Euclidean? geometry of the earlier middle ages, up to the mid-twelfth century

The problem of the transmission of Euclid has tended to stand at the centre of investigations into the geometry of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and rightly so. As M. Clagett puts it, "the question of the translation into Latin of Euclid's Elements in the Middle Ages can be resolved into two principal sub-questions"1 He refers to the survival of older translations from the Greek and to the making of fresh translations from the Arabic in the twelfth century. 2 A third question, which lies outside the scope of his paper, is that of the independent survival of a residue of "suo-Euclidean" geometry side by side with the Euclid material. That is not to suggest that any serious alternative to the Euclidean geometry was offered, but merely that a good deal of very simple geometrical knowledge was clearly being transmitted by writers who had, in many cases, not read Euclid for themselves. Important though the twelfth century translations of Euclid were to be for the future, it was these simpler versions which exerted a perhaps greater immediate influence, if only because they seem to have been more widely read, and read by scholars not primarily interested in mathematical topics. A number of late classical and early mediaeval sources contain some account of geometry: Macrobius' Commentary on the Dream of Scipio,3 Martianus Capella's De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii,4 Cassiodorus in the Institutions5 and Isidore in the Etymologiae,6 Boethius in the Arithmetica1 and the commentary on the Categories. 8 Chalcidius' commentary on Plato's Timaeus provides

The End of Terence's Adelphoe A Postscript

In a recent number of Greece and Rome Dr. T. A. Dorey has criticized those scholars who call the concluding scenes of the Adelphoe ‘a masterpiece of dramatic construction’. Arguing that at the end of the play the treatment of Micio is unsatisfactory or at least unsatisfying, the change in attitude of Aeschinus and Demea insufficiently motivated, and the transition from comedy to satire unnatural and excessively abrupt, Dorey seeks to explain these alleged flaws by reference to two passages of Donatus' commentary on the play: the note on v. 938, ‘apud Menandrum senex de nuptiis non gravatur: ergo Terentius ερετικ⋯ς’, and part of the praefatio (iii. 5), where Donatus observes that Demea is the means whereby ‘multa in comoedia nova’ are introduced into the final scenes of the play. Dorey's interpretation of these passages leads him to suggest that ‘the last scenes of the play were not in the original comedy of Menander, but were invented by Terence himself.’

Remigius' Ideas on the Classification of the Seven Liberal Arts

In the Commentary of Remigius of Auxerre on the De nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae of Martianus Capella, which was written at the end of the ninth century, there occurs an unusual tale of the origin of the seven liberal arts. According to this account, the three sons of Noah, upon learning of the impending destruction of the world, took two columns, one of brick and one of stone, and inscribed upon them the knowledge of the seven liberal arts to preserve it from oblivion. The stone column survived the Flood and long after was found in Egypt by Abraham who was thus enabled to restore the arts. From Egypt the arts were transmitted to Greece. Although this story was not commonly related in the Carolingian period, other tales of the discovery of the arts were current. Generally speaking, Cicero's claim for Mercury as the inventor and even the more prosaic accounts of Egyptian and Greek wise men as the discoverers were being superseded by the account of Hebrew discoverers that had been made popular by Isidore. It is not reasonable to think that Remigius, who in his commentary was constantly cautioning his pupils against taking Martianus' tales literally and pointing out for them the allegorical or poetic significance of the narrative, would accept at its face value any one of the versions of the invention of the arts. Actually, in discussing the origin of the arts he gives a philosophical explanation that would at once negate any account of an inventor. ‘The liberal arts,’ he says, ‘are naturally inherent in the soul and cannot be thought of as coming from elsewhere.’

CHEAP DIVORCE: CHEAPER RELIGION

New BlackfriarsVolume 1, Issue 11 p. 670-683 CHEAP DIVORCE: CHEAPER RELIGION Hugh Pope O.P., Hugh Pope O.P.Search for more papers by this author Hugh Pope O.P., Hugh Pope O.P.Search for more papers by this author First published: February 1921 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-2005.1921.tb08264.x *This is the translation of the Vulagage Latin text “uod si discesserit manere innuptam, auto viro suo reconciliari.” TheGree text, however, reads: “But if, however, she should depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband,” thus making this a parenthetical remark of St. Paul's and not a portion of the Lord's command. We cannot here discuss the relative values of the Greek and Latin text of the New Testmant; suffice it to remark here that whereas we have in the Gospels St. Jerome's revision of the Latin text, it is more than doubtful whether the same can be said of the Latin text of the Epistles, save of this particular Epistle, the First to the Corinthians, of. infra. *Lectio ii. in Ev: S. Joannis. †Contra Julivanum, I, 23-8; Ii, 17; P.L. XLIV, 656-8, 685. †Augustine;s treatise on the Sermon on the Mount was composed in A.D. 393; in 401 he wrote De Bono Conjugali; in 419 De Conjugiss Adulterinis; in 418, 419 De Nuptiis et Concupiscentiis. In all these Treatises he discusses the problem of divorce and always with the same result and on the principles of exegesis we have set forth above. *Adv. Jovin. I, IO; P.L. XXIII, 223. Readers of St. Jerome's Commentaries on Ephesians, Galatians, Philemon and Titus know how constantly he repudiates our present Vulgate text; he nowhere does this so far as we are aware in the case of I Corinthians. See his minute discussion of the text of I Cor. vii. 33, 34 after listening to St. Gregory Nazianzen's explanation of the Greek, adv. Jovin. xx. and Ep. xxii. 21. For a discussion of the whole subject see the Irish Theol. Quarterly Oct., 1914. †Lectio IIIa. on I Cor. vii. AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume1, Issue11February 1921Pages 670-683 RelatedInformation