What Does Prudentia Advise?

On the Subject of the Cluny Choir Capitals

Author(s): Peter Diemer
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Gesta, Vol. 27, No. 1/2, Current Studies on Cluny (1988), pp. 149-173
Published by: International Center of Medieval Art
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/767002 .
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What does Prudentia Advise?
On the Subject of the Cluny Choir Capitals*
PETER DIEMER
Zentralinstitut fuir Kunstgeschichte, Munich
Abstract
The eight capitals from the ambulatory of the
abbey church of Cluny are examined for their thematic
content and possible program.Two capitals with female
personifications are identified as Liberal Arts, and a
third one, heretofore associated with sports activities,
as a cycle of the Seasons. A consequence of these new
interpretations is to make possible a hypothetical re-
construction of the originally intended program,which
was rendered unintelligible in the course of execution
through a confusion in the placement of the appropriate
inscriptions. The thematic content of the capitals thus
embraces the eight musical modes, the Liberal Arts,
and a group of cosmological images, as well as a foliate
capital. Cosmology and the LiberalArts are common
themes of medieval church decoration. Evidence of a
deeper or recondite level of meaning in these sculptures
is not found here.
"Dat cognoscendum Prudentia quid sit agendum"
states the inscription of a capital from the choir of the
destroyed abbey church of Cluny (Fig. 8).1 One really
cannot say that this Virtue has been absent in the efforts
made by scholars since the middle of the last century to
decipher the meaning of the eight choir capitals. But her
advice seems to have engendered contradictions, since it is
hard to avoid the conclusion that progress in arriving at a
convincing interpretation has been rather modest. This
lack of progress is revealed in the long persistence of
particularly problematic identifications, of certain attempts
at a comprehensive reading of the entire cycle, and of
methods of interpretation brought to bear on the question,
whose basis lies in Romantic historiography.
The reasons for this unsatisfactory state of research
can easily be stated. One of them is a consequence of the
poorly coordinated manner in which the discussion has
taken place. In the early period, the identification of the
subjects represented on the capitals was made in the
absence of a reasonably extensive publication of reproduc-
tions and necessarily based to a certain extent on hap-
hazard association, and therefore recognizably time-bound.
Thus, a fairly inconsequential reading error of 1850 led
to a crude misunderstanding of the personification of
Spring, precisely identified by the accompanying inscrip-
tion (Fig. 10). One scholar read Verprimos flores primos
aducit honores (instead of odores) and translated the verse
"Le printemps, avec les premieres fleurs, rambne les pre-
GESTA XXVII/ 1 and 2 @ The International Center of Medieval Art 1988
Ewald M. Vetter on his sixty-fifth birthday
"
miers homages dus Marie," finding thereby evidence for
the interpretation of the month of May as the month of
Mary, at a very early date.2 Later, the capital of the Winds
at Vezelay-and therefore, implicitly, also the one at
Cluny (Fig. 3)-was seen as evidence for the progress of
agricultural technology, allegedly illustrated in the fumiga-
tion of the vine plant.3 It is worth noting that even in
1930, the modern sports movement could in a similar way
affect the interpretation of the iconography of Cluny.4 The
identification of a figure of Justice, made on the basis of a
bit of pure conjecture around 1870, and already convinc-
ingly refuted fifty years later by MAle, could still be
repeated in 1958. The thesis of a "marial accent" in the
iconography of the capital, stated in 1850, was revived in
1981 with no better evidence for its support.6
Just as characteristic of the present state of the dis-
cussion is the coexistence of different identifications and
proposals concerning the overall program, which remain
unverified and without connection to one another-a
situation which is reflected in recent reports on research in
progress.7 It might well seem, at least to a degree, that the
direction taken by interpretation has followed a purely
fortuitous path. On the other hand, the almost mythical
name of Cluny seems to lead to the feeling that a singular
and particularly profound revelation of meaning is to be
expected: "Il est certain que l'ensemble de ces chapiteaux
est charge de complexes significations symboliques."8
The source of confusion lies in the first instance in the
irritating material state of the sculpture itself. Some figures
can be identified without any difficulty and even provide,
through the accompanying inscriptions, indications con-
cerning their real significance and iconographical inter-
connections. Others are so damaged that one cannot take
them as reliable subjects for interpretation, especially if
inscriptions are lacking. They offer themselves as fodder
for programmatic reconstructions in which difficulties can
be overlooked and wishful thinking conveniently borne
out. Even the sequence of the capitals in their architectural
context itself remains uncertain.9
A further element of confusion was first noted by
Katzenellenbogen: some of the inscriptions do not fit the
figures to which they are attached.10 The observer thus
feels compelled to resolve the difficulties, and since he is
impelled to recover the pictorial program of the most
sacred area of an outstanding Benedictine abbey, no limit
149

/ without a great deal of proof as an apple tree, a grape
FIGURE 1. Cluny, Musee du Farinier, Capital with the Four Rivers of
Paradise (photo: James Austin).
is placed on his speculative ingenuity. In recent years,
however, the discussion has experienced a renewal, again
on a variety of planes. The most significant contribution
on the level of method seems to me to be Stratford's short
reflections in 1983 on the state of research generally, and
on the iconography and significance of the capital cycle
within the decoration of the church as a whole."
The present contribution is an attempt to resolve a
number of open questions through an identification of a
large part of the problematic personifications as a cycle of
the Seven Liberal Arts. Starting with two figures, which
most clearly show attributes of the Liberal Arts-Grammar
and Rhetoric-I shall address myself to the identification
of the remaining figures. In view of the ruinous state of
preservation of some of these figures, this will only be
possible with varying degrees of certainty from case to
case. Yet it will become clear that the program as a whole,
whose outline will emerge, will show surprising consistency
and turn out not to have been without parallels.
Rivers of Paradise- Winds- Musical Modes
If the subject of the seven figural capitals is con-
sidered, a consensus exists on the meaning of one of these,
the capital with the Four Rivers of Paradise (Fig. 1).12 The
representation at Cluny of this widely diffused motif of
Christian cosmology can indeed not be doubted, since the
150
carving exhibits four nude and crowned figures in the
antique manner, from whose overturned urns spill out
streams of water enlivened with fish. If different opinions
have been expressed on the meaning of this capital, this
has to do exclusively with the four accompanying plants.
Since the late nineteenth century, these have been identified
vine, a fig tree and an olive tree,13 though Evans thought
the last-mentioned plant to be an almond tree.14 The apple
and fig trees evidently belong to the topography of Para-
dise, and the grape vine is not infrequently connected with
the Garden of Eden as well. The fourth plant, on the other
hand, could not be securely identified since it is too
generally stylized. It would be best, therefore, to have the
matter remain open, without entertaining too much hope
that an allegorical reading consistent with the grouping of
four will eventually emerge.
In the case of the capital with the four Winds (Figs.
2-5), the subject is also not in doubt, though a self-
consciously antiquarian interpretation of 1913 has led to
some confusion which has persisted until the present time:
the only fully preserved figure (Fig. 3) was identified in
this interpretation as a beekeeper in the act of extracting
the honeycomb. It seems easy today to recognize in this
interpretation an unhistorically descriptive approach, un-
supported by any reference to the context or the pictorial
tradition. In order to account for it, one must recognize
that it was formulated at a time when the much damaged
sculpture and its counterpart at Vezelay had not yet been
properly identified. Until that time, all interpretations
assumed that the capital was concerned with agricultural
activities.5 Only ten years later did Porter publish the
correct reading.16 Unfortunately, his observations attracted
little attention in the din of controversy over the date of
the Cluny capitals. In 1932, Conant returned to the bee-
keeper hypothesis, which corresponded more closely to his
own antiquarian approach,7 and even after the Second
World War, only a minority of scholarly opinion has
accepted the view that the capital depicts the Winds.
On closer examination, fragmentary remains in front
of the lost figures can be observed. In two cases, these are
sufficiently extensive to make it apparent that the figures
were equipped with large vessels carved in the round.
Presumably, these vessels were bellows like that which is
manipulated by the one remaining figure. As Panofsky
determined in 1939, these bellows represent an older type,
documented in other depictions, which was supplanted in
the course of the High Middle Ages by the form in use
today. The number of men and their summary, partly
classicizing garments, in any case justifies their identifica-
tion as the Four Winds, a universal theme of cosmology
much like the Rivers of Paradise.'8
The interpretation of the pair of capitals with eight
musical Modes (Figs. 6, 7) is also beyond question. Their
theme was already known to scholars in the middle of the
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FIGURE 2. Cluny, Musee du Farinier, Capital of the Four FIGURE 3. Cluny, Musee du Farinier, Capital of the Four
Winds (photo: James Austin). Winds (photo: James Austin).

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FIGURE 4. Cluny, Musee du Farinier, Capital of the Four FIGURE 5. Cluny, Musee du Farinier, Capital of the Four
Winds (photo: James Austin). Winds (photo: James Austin).

151
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FIGURE 6. Cluny, Musde du Farinier, Capital of the first four Modes.
The second Mode (Archives photographiques des Beaux-Arts).
nineteenth century and has remained unchallenged.19 In
1952, Meyer brought some light into the question of the
pictorial antecedents of these musicians and the accompany-
ing tituli.20 The inscriptions in all likelihood render in
verse form the text-designed solely for mnemotechnical
purposes-of a series of antiphons which would have been
found in a tonarius. Moreover, such a tonarius from the
eleventh century, the so-called Troper of Saint-Martial of
Limoges, contains a cycle of miniatures in which each tone
is associated with a depiction of musical performance. The
illustrations in this manuscript which are comparable to
the musicians of the Cluny capitals are in the main char-
acterized as entertainers, as in the case of the Second
Mode at Cluny.21 It is therefore a plausible assumption
that the texts and the pictorial types reflected in the
capitals were derived from a manuscript model, which was
similar in its appearance to the Troper of Limoges, but in
addition contained a collection of antiphons. Was this
perhaps a tonarius used in the abbey, possibly one of the
manuscripts mentioned in the catalogue of the monastic
152
....
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../
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FIGURE 7. Cluny, Musde du Farinier, Capital of the last four Modes.
The seventh Mode (photo: James Austin).
library from the middle of the twelfth century as "rationes
et definitiones VIII tonorum, et duo libri de musica"?22
Unfortunately, these books are not preserved.
I shall not concern myself with the half capitals with
representations of the Fall of Man and the Sacrifice of
Abraham. They differ stylistically from the rest, as has
long been recognized.23 The circumstances of their dis-
covery also set them apart from the other capitals,24while
the material and style connect these carvings with the west
portal sculpture of the abbey church.25It must therefore
have been the habit of seeing them together in the same
museum display, and the obsession with the idea of a
comprehensive cycle, that moved Conant to incorporate
these alien pieces into his reconstruction of the choir
sculpture. In this reconstruction, the capitals are also
thematically isolated. Their subject would be more at
home in the vicinity of an altar, where they were perhaps
employed as pendants, but more can for the moment not
be said on this question.
Prudentia- Ver-Aestas
While the subject matter of the four capitals that have
already been mentioned can be identified with every assur-
ance, the questions raised by the three others are by no
means settled. At best, it can be said that in the literature
of the past half century, certain conventional titles for
them have achieved general currency. Three of the four
female figures depicted on one of these (Figs. 8-11) are
designated by carved tituli in the form of hexameters.26
1. Dat cogn(oscen)dum Prudentia q(u)id sit agendu(m).
2. Ver primos flores primos producit odores (pro con-
tracted in the usual way).
3. vens q(u)as decoq(u)it aestas (beginning of the verse
not....
carried out).
In the case of the fourth figure, a previously un-
noticed, painted titulus was observed in 1928, and its
fragmentary text read as follows: Dat nos monendu(m)
Prudentia q(u)id sit agendum.27 Assuming that the con-
jectural restitution can be accepted as valid, the capital
would be showing two personifications of Prudentia, one
of them depicted in the act of admonishing, the other in
the guise of a counselor. In order to find an explanation
for this remarkable state of affairs, Panofsky's view has
been cited to the effect that the duplication is conceiv-
able within the context of medieval classifications of
knowledge.28
The figure with the painted titulus (Fig. 9) still has
recognizable attributes: a whip and the fragmentary re-
mains of a child at her feet, toward which she directs her
attention. Initially, after Pougnet had tentatively proposed
that the subject might be Justice-an assumption that
later developed into a that
certainty29-Mfle recognized
these attributes characterizedthe figure as Grammar.30 But
after the discovery of the titulus, his observation came to
be regarded as no longer tenable.
It is regrettable that those who discovered the inscrip-
tion did not judge it necessary to publish a photograph of
their find, which has since then entirely disappeared. It is
thus necessary to rely today on a drawing and on a few
inadequate old photographs which show only a few indi-
vidual letters.3"For this reason, it is now hardly possible
to bear out in a conclusive fashion Stratford's plausible
guess that the differences between the carved and the
painted inscriptions are merely based on inaccurate tran-
scription or an error on the part of the painter.32 One
thing is clear, in any case: because of the gross gram-
matical error in the second word of the painted inscription,
serious objections must be raised against any attempt at a
straightforward reading, to say nothing of an "improved"
version. Can such a phraseology, which would have been
unthinkable in the literate setting of the monastery, be
taken as an intended expression of meaning? In the face of
the questionable evidentiary value of the painted inscrip-
tion, it is methodologically necessary to return with Strat-
ford to Male'sdesignation of the figure as Grammar, for
both the pose and the attributes, to the best of my
knowledge, suit no other subject (Fig. 25).
Is it therefore made more likely that the other figure
identified as Prudentia (Fig. 8) actually represents this
virtue? In this case as well, the way in which the figure is
depicted decisively contradicts the statement of the titulus
(again not worded without errors).33 Prudentia can very
well, like the other virtues, wear armor in the illustrations
of the Psychomachia, but this is in no real sense her
personal attribute, and outside the context of Prudentius's
poem, she is invariably unmilitary.
Many scholars have thus looked for an iconographi-
cally more appropriate identification, preferringto call the
figure Fortitudo, which fits the armor quite well.34 It seems
to me pertinent, however, to suggest a different interpre-
tation: the figure is a war-like depiction of Rhetoric, one
of the seven Liberal Arts. In favor of this idea, I would
cite the neighboring figure of her sister, Grammar, which
in the context of the larger sculptural program, can scarcely
be imagined to have been isolated from the other Artes.35
The classic description of the Liberal Arts, of great
importance for the iconography of the subject, is found in
the late Antique compilation De nuptiis Philologiae et
Mercurii of Martianus Capella, a significant work for
medieval education and the theory of knowledge.36In this
text, Rhetoric appears as the only personification of the
Liberal Arts who is helmeted and bears weapons in her
hands.37Medieval fantasy sometimes transformed her into
a completely armored figure, as is shown in a drawing
found in a copy of Cicero's De rhetorica38from Saint-
Gall, probably from the tenth century (Fig. 22), and a leaf
from Salzburg from the period 1150-60 with a depiction
of the Liberal Arts (Fig. 24), formerly in the collection of
Robert von Hirsch and recently acquired by the Pierpont
Morgan Library.39 The outstretched right arm of the
Cluny figure can also perhaps be related to the "oratorical"
gesture frequent in twelfth-century personifications of
Rhetoric.40
Within the literature, the occurrence of Grammar and
the expansive depiction of Music have several times been
cited in support of the idea that the Liberal Arts might be
one of the ingredients of the Cluny program. But this has
without exception been done in the form of an allusion to
the Liberal Arts in the collective sense, and no one has
actually tried to identify the seven components of such a
cycle one by one in the Cluny capitals.41 There is perhaps
a simple reason for this: before the middle of the twelfth
century, the attributes of the different Artes tend to be
rather disparate, and a sustained pictorial tradition does
not seem to have existed prior to that time.42Conventional
attributes and, as in the present instance, the absence of
identifying inscriptions, are bound to discourage closer
investigation. The best example of this situation and the
difficulties which result from it is a representation of the
Artes together with their Mother and Queen Philosophia,
here designated as Sapientia, .in a collection of miscel-
laneous texts preserved in Paris, from the end of the
eleventh century (Fig. 23). The personifications resemble
one another as general types and a number of them are
153
 ..........

law,

ff
FIGURE 8. Cluny, Musee du Farinier, Capital with the FIGURE 9. Cluny, Musee du Farinier, Capital with the
Trivium, Rhetorica ("Prudentia") (photo: James Austin). Trivium. Grammatica (Archives photographiques des Beaux-
Arts).

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slip*

'7 .5 0
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.................

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FIGURE 10. Cluny, MusPe du Farinier, Capital with the FIGURE 11. Cluny, Musee du Farinier, Capital with the
Trivium. Sapientia or Philosophia ("Ver") (Monuments His- Trivium. Dialectica ("Aestas") (photo: James Austin).
toriques, Paris).
154
given the same attribute, a scroll, a staff or a scepter, a
lamp in the form of a vase; a very similar object held by
Astronomia has been thought to be a water clock.43 The
style of drawing leads to sketchy effects and makes use of
conventional formulas. The leaf is also interesting since it
gives us a good idea of the kind of figural construction,
unstable and active bodily stances, lively gestures and
drapery conventions, which the sculptors of Cluny may
have had before them.
If we assume that a probably illiterate sculptor, with
hardly any knowledge of the subject that he had to deal
with, was faced with the task of translating such fleeting
and undifferentiated drawings into stone, it would not be
surprising if the results were marked by an even greater
lack of clarity, and indeed, if, as a result of the process of
transmission, perhaps a long and complex one, errors and
absurdities were to result. In this manner, familiar in the
history of art, puzzling images could emerge, presenting to
posterity insoluble questions.
It is thus all the more regrettable that, based on the
evidence of the tituli of Grammar and Rhetoric, the
independent value of the inscriptions for the identification
of the Cluny figures must be rejected. To what extent the
tituli are in the wrong place or have been otherwise
mangled can only be gauged when the matter is more fully
examined in the light of other criteria. The fact that both
"Ver" (Fig. 10) and "Aestas" (Fig. 11) appear as female
personifications, contrary to the tradition of the iconog-
raphy of the Seasons, causes skepticism from the beginning.
Setting aside such difficulties of a general order, it will
be useful to examine the personifications in the direct
vicinity of Grammar and Rhetoric. In the case of the
"Aestas"(Fig. 11), the large remaining fragment in front of
the figure passes for a depiction of a corn reaper, though it
should be borne in mind that the very part of the titulus
which speaks of a sickle was itself ingeniously restored by
Pougnet.44 But why was no more than half of the titulus
actually carved? Was this the result of haste in the process
of transfer?45More plausible, it seems to me, is the assump-
tion that it was realized in the course of work that the
inscription had been put in the wrong place. But was it
necessarily a sickle or a scythe-like object that the woman
held? Her body must swing back far in order that a place
may be found for her attribute. This attribute has left
substantial traces on her garment as well as on the edge of
the mandorla, but it was cut free from the background.
On the basis of the position of the widely distributed
remains of attachments, it is quite possible that the missing
object was a large serpent as the attribute of Dialectica, in
its proportions and outline comparable to the counterpart
in the already mentioned Artes miniature in Paris (Fig. 23).
The large area that has been broken on the left edge of the
mandorla may well have belonged to the head of the
beast.
Assuming that these considerations and identifications
are on the mark, the personifications of the
Trivium--
Grammar, Dialectic and Rhetoric-would have been found
adjoining one another on one capital, and indeed-for the
plausibility of the proposed reconstruction, a point not
altogether without interest-readable from left to right, in
the sequence which through the writings of Cassiodorus
and Isidore of Seville had gained popularity.46
The last figure of the capital, "Ver" (Fig. 10) holds an
attribute which could well be thought inappropriate for
Spring, a book. Already in 1870, Pougnet found the idea
difficult to accept and thought that the object was more
likely to be a vanity casket of some kind.47 Others shared
his doubts,48 but the view from below definitely reveals a
book, the parchment leaves between the covers being
rendered in detail. If one is unlikely to find acceptable the
grotesque idea that the lady, meditating in the April wind,
is to be understood as a Benedictine vision of Spring,49 it
seems more probable that we have here another personi-
fication from the realm of the spirit and knowledge.
It seems a priori unlikely that the fourth personifica-
tion could have been taken from the remaining Artes,
since it would only be logical to expect the Quadrivium to
figure on another capital. In search for the true identity of
"Ver,"the already discussed verses of Prudentia may be of
help. In spite of their unreliability, these yield a basic piece
of information: among the figures of the capitals, there
was a Prudentia, at least assuming no further complication
like a change in the program in the course of execution.
The remarkable fact that the verse appears twice on the
capital with the Trivium, even if these are positioned in a
most unsatisfactory way, gives an indication that can only
refer to the figure of "Ver." It is indeed the case that this
book-wielding female figure corresponds exactly to the
Prudentia type in use since the Carolingian period. Al-
though it may be conceded that the nonspecific attribute
would be appropriate for other personifications as well,
particularly among the Artes, the identification seems to
me plausible.5o
Hearn, on iconographic grounds, had already seen in
the "Ver" a representation of Prudentia. This led him to
far-reaching conclusions, which must be briefly discussed
here, since they constitute an alternative interpretation.51
Hearn would like to see the four figures of the capital as
a depiction of the Cardinal Virtues. The armed woman
(Fig. 8) would be Fortitudo. In the case of "Aestas"
(Fig. 11), the large area of damage is to be read as the
remains of the scales of Justice. The matron with the whip
(Fig. 9) would be Temperantia. The argument does not
raise any difficulties in the case of Prudentia and the so-
called Fortitudo, but that is not the case for the remaining
virtues. In both instances, the evidence provided does not
stand up to examination. The scales leave unexplained the
enormous loss along the edge of the mandorla, and that
Temperantia should be shown taking part in an act of
punishment must not only be without parallel, but al-
together unthinkable.52Even if, as an experiment, we were
conversely to construe the broken area in the "Aestas" as
155
 Pf

4c

..........

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...

FIGURE 12. Cluny, Musee du Farinier, Capital of the FIGURE 13. Cluny, Musde du Farinier, Capital of the
Quadrivium. One of the Arts (Arithmetica?) ("Caritas ") Quadrivium. One of the Arts (Astronomia?) ("Fides")
(photo: Marburg). (Archives photographiques des Beaux-Arts).

. Al
..

AWL
4#1

I ?U,

FIGURE 14. Cluny, Musde du Farinier, Capital with the

Quadrivium. One of the Arts (Geometria?)("Spes") (photo: '47
James Austin).

FIGURE 15. Cluny, Musde du Farinier, Capital with the

Quadrivium. One of the Arts (Musica?) (photo: author).

156
the remains of Temperantia's vessels for mixing wine with
water, the result would be questionable: why should only
the two jugs have been carved a jour? A cycle of the
Cardinal Virtues for this capital is thus out of the ques-
tion. The characteristic figure of Grammar cannot easily
be interpreted out of existence, and with it, the Liberal
Arts group as a whole.
In order to round out the Liberal Arts to a cycle of
eight figures, the medieval iconographical tradition pre-
sents a logical and nearly obligatory solution: the recourse
to Philosophy or Wisdom (Figs. 23, 24). Does the "Ver"-
Prudentia thus stand for Philosophia? On first glance, a
difficulty presents itself against this idea. When it is rep-
resented as a full figure, Philosophy or Sapientia tends to
be given special emphasis by being shown in a frontalized,
seated stance. Her normal attributes, books or a scep-
ter, are derived from the description of Philosophy in
Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, whose specification
of the figure's clothes sometimes also found its way into
the pictorial tradition.53 The personification at Cluny does
not partake of this tradition. Nothing about it apparently
suggests the elevated and numinous sphere of Wisdom, the
all-embracing and nourishing mother of the Arts, which
on the mystical plane and united with Divine Wisdom,
was active in the creation of the world.54
Yet in my view, there is a way that the figure can be
meaningfully incorporated into a cycle of the Liberal Arts.
The consistency with which the iconography of Wisdom,
mainly determined by Boethius's view of Philosophy, dif-
fers from depictions of the cardinal virtue Prudence, has
much to do with the fact that diverse strains of pictorial
transmission tend to follow a linear path and therefore
exclude intrusions or alternatives from other spheres. De-
liberate selection from different pictorial models or cre-
ative departures inspired by the patron or the artist were
hardly typical, however impressive some accomplishments
of this kind that are preserved might be. Be that as it may,
the typological constancy which we can observe in the case
of Sapientia and Prudentia corresponded to a real need
for a terminological clarification in the medieval debate on
the relationship of the individual branches of knowledge
and the ethical categories to one another.55
Even within this discussion, however, the way in
which Prudentia and Sapientia were conceptually distin-
guished from one another and understood to be separate
categories is not always clear. In a representation of Phi-
losophia found in the Aldersbach manuscript of ca. 1230-
35, the personification is labeled prudens.56A half century
earlier, Alan of Lille in his Anticlaudianus had described
his Prudentia following Boethius' characterization of
Philosophy, and called her interchangeably Prudentia,
Fronesis, Sapientia and Sophia.57 In a contemporaneous
commentary on the Anticlaudianus, Prudentia consistently
and in all of her guises takes on the role of Sapientia in
the face of the other Arts.58 A reader educated in the
Schools who consulted the much used commentary of
Remigius of Auxerre on Martianus Capella's work-a
copy of which, written in the tenth century, was preserved
at Cluny-could easily be confused about the termino-
logical distinctions. Remigius at the outset translates the
name of the heroine of the title, Philologia, the future
ruler over the seven Arts, as "amor vel studium rationis"
and continues "Philologia ergo ponitur in persona sapien-
tiae et rationis."59 Later, the same author defines Philology
as the image of human wisdom, "prudentiasaeculi."60
What boundaries there were between these concepts
could be even more fluid outside the theoretical classifica-
tion of the Arts, and especially in the domain of Scripture.
As Klemm has pointed out with respect to the Aldersbach
manuscript, the Wisdom Books employ the concepts of
Sapientia and Prudentia, as well as their corresponding
adjectives, without a precise distinction, in line with the
very practical definition of Wisdom which informs these
texts.61 Three examples for the synonymous use of these
concepts will suffice here: Dominus sapientia fundavit
terrain, stabilivit caelos prudentia (Proverbs 3:19); Qui
sapiens est corde appellabitur prudens (Proverbs 16:21);
Prior omnium creata est sapientia et intellectus ab aevo
(Ecclesiastes 1:4).
From this, it is conceivable that in the world of
Cluny, deeply affected by the habit of hearing, singing and
reading of Scripture-where, in the words of Abbot
Hugh's predecessor Odilo, Abbot Mayolus had exercised
his prudence in order that already on earth, his brethren
would gain salvation62-the difference between Wisdom
and Prudence according to the school manuals would not
have been much noted. The abbey possessed a good
library, but had up to that point not had a bibliophile
abbot. It is thus wholly understandable that what was
available locally in the way of book illumination that
might have functioned as a source of inspiration or model,
was not likely to be very extensive. By no means all cycles
of the Liberal Arts in book illumination include depictions
of Philosophia. In the manuscripts of Martianus, for
example, where illustrations may be provided for each
chapter, the subject does not figure in the text and there-
fore has no pictorial place.63
In this perspective, a tentative hypothesis can be
formulated which would explain the vexing situation be-
fore us: there was perhaps a model for the seven Liberal
Arts, but not for the eighth personification required by the
decorative scheme of the capitals. A figure of the cardinal
virtue Prudence was therefore used, which would without
doubt have been more easily available than Philosophia.
A striking detail is possibly explained by this recourse to a
different model: Prudentia is the only figure of the cycle
that is provided with a titulus. Did the depictions of the
Arts available to the sculptors perhaps lack verse inscrip-
tions? It might be noted that the known Martianus illus-
trations have no versified tituli.64 Was the eighth figure
originally, as tradition required, to be re-baptised Phi-
losophy by means of appropriate verses? The answer to
157
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............
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I
.
22222
A%
1

lot

Alm-
kill

00

...................
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..............................

...........
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FIGURE 16. Cluny, Mus&edu Farinier, Capital with the Sea- FIGURE 17. Cluny, Musee du Farinier, Capital with the Sea-
sons. Summer (photo: James Austin). sons. Spring or Autumn (photo: James Austin).

'71 M
?!iprw

........
......

Ll

. ISO

..
.

FIGURE 18. Cluny, Mus&e du Farinier, Capital of the Sea- FIGURE 19. Cluny, Musee du Farinier, Capital of the Sea-
sons. Winter(photo: James Austin). sons. Autumn or Spring (photo: James Austin).

158
this question depends on one's appreciation of the titulus
of Prudentia. It is hard to decide whether its transfer to
the stone was faithful to the intentions of those responsible
for the program, or only contributed further to the already
impressive number of mishaps which affected the execution
of the capitals.65
"Theological Virtues"
With a careful qualification, Pougnet suggested in
1870 that the four female figures enclosed in remarkable
six-sided mandorlas on our second capital (Figs. 12-15)
might represent the Theological Virtues.66 This somewhat
vaguely articulated supposition has had great success in
the literature, especially after Conant claimed in 1930 to
have confirmed and further refined it.67 Yet not all the
participants in the discussion have been convinced. The
1950 edition of the Petite monographie devoted to Cluny
repeated an older explanation: in order to complement the
pairing Prudentia-Ver and Justitia-Aestas on the first
capital, supposedly disclosed by the tituli, the second one
presents us with a coupling of Fortitudo-Autumnus and
Temperantia-Hiems.68
The Theological Virtues hypothesis suffers at the out-
set from the handicap that an additional personification
must be supplied in order to arrive at the required number
of four figures. The proposals thus far made, whether they
690
involve Justitia,69 Humilitas,7 or more remote possibilities
like Mansuetudo or Benignitas are not much more than
guesses. Wholly implausible was the thought that the
figures depicted the different kinds of arts practiced in the
Middle Ages.72 But what can be said in favor of the
identification as Theological Virtues?
"Fides" (Fig. 13), following Conant, had in her hand
a now lost, flat and not too large attribute, worked ]jour,
on which she gazed attentively. Her pose gives the im-
pression that she might be glancing, as if short-sighted, at
a book.73 A book, to be understood as Holy Scripture, is
one of the most common attributes of Faith. Reading,
however, is not one of her occupations featured in depic-
tions before the late Middle Ages.74
"Spes" (Fig. 14) holds a flowering scepter and her left
hand is placed on her breast. There is in fact a unique
parallel for this attribute in the figure of Spes of the
reliquary of St. Valentinus in Brussels, a work datable
around 1160. There, the personification holds a roundel
with the cross and a green branch, which, following Bede,
who interprets an antique type,75may be a symbol of the
eternal fruit to be expected by the hopeful believer.
"Caritas" (Fig. 12) holds a casket, whose lock and
applied metal strips the sculptor has faithfully reproduced.
According to Conant, the figure is to be thought as in the
act of distributing alms.76 Such an activity, however, would
represent a unique case. The earliest comparable represen-
tation, also an isolated example, is the image of Largitas
of the west facade of Sens Cathedral, executed after 1184,
where the virtue demonstratively opens her two large
chests in order to exhibit the contents, money and preci-
ous vessels, to be distributed. It stands in opposition to
Avaritia, who sits on her closed chest.77 At Cluny, the
contents of the small casket remain hidden, and the stiff
pose of its owner has nothing of the convincing generosity
of the Gothic Largitas. Considering the very different
conception, not exclusively bound up with the technique
of contemporaneous narrative, it is an open question
whether any connection between these images can be said
to exist.
The fourth figure of the capital is almost entirely lost
(Fig. 15). It must have stood in a gently swaying pose.
Along the left edge of the mandorla, the remains of an
object which the figure once held can be seen. Stratford
interprets this object as the scales of Justice.78 But the
remaining evidence permits little more than conjecture.
All in all, the interpretation of the figures as Theo-
logical Virtues leaves one unsatisfied. The attributes which
are offered as evidence are occasional phenomena of a
marginal nature within the iconography of these virtues or
employed in an atypical way, when they are not to be
rejected altogether. The added fourth personification also
remains a problem. With its unidentifiable subject, it is the
symptom of a larger incongruence between the program
and the requirements inherent in the formal structure of
the capital.
In the face of this situation, it may be useful to
attempt as a counter test a reading of the figures of the
capital as representations of the four Liberal Arts con-
stituting the Quadrivium. The highest expectations in con-
nection with such a trial reading should not be entertained.
As in the case of the hypothesis concerning the Virtues,
the state of preservation of the capital and the absence of
a clearly systematized distribution of attributes in the
period around 1100 make it unrealistic to expect that
unimpeachable results can be forthcoming. Our question
must therefore be phrased with modesty: are the figures of
the capital, such as they have come down to us, at all
compatible with the representation of the Quadrivium?
"Fides" (Fig. 13) shows little in the way of helpful
evidence. In the event that the object which she held was
really a book, the attribute would be perfectly appropriate
for one of the Arts, as a glance at the already mentioned
miniature in Paris indicates (Fig. 23). The flowering scepter
also occurs several times in this wofk. Queen Sapientia
carries one, as do Musica and Geometria. In connection
with the latter, Wirth supposes an allusion to the measur-
ing rod spoken of by Martianus Capella in the sense of
virga geometralis.79Is "Spes" (Fig. 14) possibly Geometry?
The casket of "Caritas" (Fig. 12), on the other hand,
presents a difficulty. With the exception of the container for
the writing implements of Grammar, depicted in some illus-
trations, such caskets do not count among the attributes of
159

..........
01
j~ ~ obtain, as in the case of the Trivium capital. This sequence
ME~
FIGURE 20. Cluny, Musee du Farinier, Corinthian Capital from the
ambulatory of the abbey church (photo: James Austin).
the Arts. It is otherwise hard to find a personification for
which such an object would be appropriate.8" If our
working hypothesis remains valid, a misunderstanding of
the artist in the interpretation of his model must have
intervened. This, to be sure, is a dangerously convenient
kind of assumption, which does not always speak in
favor of the cause it is supposed to support. Yet it seems
thoroughly conceivable that the sculptor had a some-
what indistinctly represented object as a model, which he
could neither properly construe nor visualize as a three-
dimensional object. This was possibly not a book, but a
more particular attribute like the demonstration tablet of
Geometria, or the counting board of Arithmetic. Could
the suggestive and convincingly rendered applied orna-
ments of the casket have been inspired by certain details of
the misunderstood object, perhaps a work like the table of
Geometria with its drawn figures in the Bamberg Boethius
manuscript (Fig. 21)?8"The gesture of the left hand in the
painting may have had at Cluny the same direction-giving
sense.
The puzzling fragment near the fourth figure (Fig. 15)
remains a challenge. The thin, obliquely positioned staff
160
on the edge of the mandorla could just as well be part of
the instrument of Musica as another attribute.
Granting that the personification with the flowering
scepter might be Geometry and the attribute of the lost
figure a musical instrument, a left to right sequence would
corresponds to Isidore of Seville's enumeration: Arithmetic
(casket as a transmogrified counting board?), Music,
Geometry, and Astronomy (the last attribute either a book
or a globe of the heavens?).
The question whether the Quadrivium might have
figured on the capital can now be cautiously answered in a
positive sense. A firm proof is evidently just as impossible
as in the case of the "Theological Virtues." The principal
basis for the identification is without doubt the fact that
the Trivium was very likely present at Cluny. In any case,
the interpretation seems internally consistent and free of
contradictions.
One of the implications of this reading, however, calls
for some elaboration. In accord with the prior observations
of Katzenellenbogen, Hearn and Stratford, it assumes that
all the tituli of the Trivium capital are wrongly posi-
tioned.82 But the texts themselves, one must assume, are
an integral part of the programmatic scheme of the choir
capitals. In the case of the Prudentia inscription, the
intended location could be tentatively indicated. In the
same manner, Spring and Summer, and presumably
Autumn and Winter as well, must have been a part of the
overall scheme. If one does not want to postulate a change
of program in the course of execution, there can only be
one place where a Seasons cycle could have been located.
"Palaestra"
For a long time, the one remaining capital (Figs. 16-
19)-aside from the single, purely Corinthian capital
(Fig. 20)-has frustrated interpretation. Its poor condition
makes it understandable that it was once described in the
literature as a leaf capital without figures.83 It could
therefore be taken as progress when Conant in 1930
discerned on the carving "sports and diversions," an idea
that seems to combine within the respectably humanistic
concept of the Palaestra the Pauline notion of spiritual
struggle for salvation, the athletic fields of American semin-
arians and the modern associations for the promotion of
fitness. The anachronistic character of this view did not
prevent it from being gratefully received.84But an alterna-
tive interpretation was propounded, which, though arrived
at intuitively, seems to me to be the right one: Terret saw
here "les occupations ou les travaux successifs des difft-
rentes parties de l'ann~e."85The mutilated torsoes and legs
of the figures offer little to go on, and crucial sections of
the carving are largely destroyed. Still, the remaining parts
can be analyzed in relation to other cyclical depictions of
the Seasons.
 . . . .. . . .. . . .. .
............
..........
8?\
Z.W.0l
&i
. . . . .. . . . l'iii!
og'
FIGURE 21. Bamberg, Staatl. Bibliothek, Class. 3, fol. 9v. The Artes of
the Quadrivium: Musica, Arithmetica, Geometria, Astrologia (Zentral-
institutflir Kunstgeschichte).
A half-capital in the nave of Vezelay shows, sur-
rounded by vigorously worked foliage, frontal, standing
personifications of Summer and Winter.86Summer (Fig. 26)
is naked, with arms half upraised roughly in the manner of
an Orans figure. One may ask whether this type, known
through a number of examples, might possibly be con-
nected with a similar kind of depiction in which the figure
displays a raised sickle.87 Winter (Fig. 27), on the other
hand, wears a hooded mantle lined with fur and places
one hand over the other as if to warm itself. As a matter
of fact, both representations have a counterpart among
the figural remnants visible on the Cluny capital: Winter
(Fig. 18), dressed in an ample mantle, crosses his hands
and presses the clasp of his garment or a book against his
chest. On the opposite side of the capital stands the figure
of Aestas (Fig. 16), his nudity appropriately concealed by
leafage. His right hand (with or without a sickle?) was
raised, the left one covers the chest with a large leaf.
The personifications of the Seasons in two archivolt
medallions of the west portal of the cathedral of Autun
...
.. .... .. ... .......wi~
ii ?? Ir
i?Ii
FIGURE 22. Leiden, University Library, Cod. Voss. lat. q. 33, fol. lv.
Rhetorica with Cicero and Demosthenes (after Festschrift B. Bischoff,
pl. 11).
(Fig. 28) also show a relation to Cluny.88Winter is again
depicted with a long mantle and in a frontal stance,
though his hands are differently positioned. Summer is
also nude and with a raised right arm, and as at Vezelay,
without an attribute. A small mantle is seen falling off the
left shoulder. The gesture of the left arm is different.
In the case of the other personifications at Cluny, the
effect of destruction makes the task harder. The com-
parable cycles show Spring as a flower bearer89or sower
(Fig. 30),90 and Autumn as a vintager.91 But even with the
help of a reasonably consistent pictorial tradition, ulti-
mately of ancient origin, it is not easy to identify here the
personifications of Spring and Autumn. It is notable that
Zarnecki saw himself faced with the same difficulty in the
case of Autun. In the lower medallion (Fig. 28), he pur-
ported to see Spring in the figure bearing flowers or a
sheaf of wheat, and to the right, Autumn with a wind-
blown mantle. If this is on the mark, the representations at
Autun would be far removed from the norm: Spring's
bouquet of flowers has become here a monstrous giant
161

ne4loe wur y;
ot" kH
4 4
FIGURE 23. Paris, Bib. Nat. MS. lat. 3110, fol. 60. Sapientia and the
Liberal Arts (after Ornamenta Ecclesiae, A 9).
husk, Autumn's work in the vineyard is wholly unrecog-
nizable, and the gesture of Spring, whose left hand cups
the cheek as if to express concern, is in any case un-
intelligible.
Taking note of Autun's lack of clarity is justified here,
because the stance of the figure at Cluny, falling to his
knees and at the same time turning the upper body, seems
to be echoed there (Fig. 19). What activity is here depicted?
The lively movement of the figure suggests a sower, compar-
able to the personification of Spring on the Seasons bowl
at Bonn (Fig. 30), where the pose is generally stiffer, but
the left arm is similarly bent.92If Zarnecki's interpretation
of the counterpart at Autun is correct, one would have to
assume that the personage is Autumn, likely in the act of
reaching up toward a bunch of grapes. The fourth figure
at Cluny (Fig. 17) does not make the identification any
easier. The most striking detail in the rendering of the
man, bent forward and standing on lightly bent legs, is a
furry mitten on his left hand. If it is not a protection
against the cold,93 what is the purpose of this accessory,
for which I can cite no comparisons? It is tempting to
162
think that we may have here the glove of a falconer.
Falcons and falcon hunting occur frequently since the
beginning of the twelfth century-an example is found in
the Albani Psalter-in connection with the month of May,
sometimes April, and occasionally October.94But since the
sower does not extensively personify Spring, but is also
encountered as an illustration for October (Fig. 29),95 it
remains in the final analysis uncertain which of the ruined
personifications stands for Spring and which for Autumn.
An error in the process of copying can also not be ruled
out: the singular glove may be a misconstruction of a
bunch of grapes or perhaps a basket of fruit in the hand of
the figure.
The comparisons that have been made are neither
more nor less helpful than could be expected. It is apparent
that the fragmentary figures at Cluny have in their basic
configuration and garment types close or more distant
4 relationships with representations of the Seasons, in Bur-
gundy, among other places. This authorizes the conclusion
that a cycle of the Seasons was depicted here. Since the
personification of Summer and Winter, the only reliably
identifiable ones, do not stand next to one another, but
rather on opposite faces, the criterion for a reading of the
figures in a proper sequence is fully met.
Tituli
Thus, the tituli of "Ver" and "Aestas" may be dis-
counted as obstacles to the interpretation of the capital
devoted to the Trivium, having acquired at the same time
their logical place. At this point, some additional con-
siderations on the subject of the tituli may be adduced.
Looked at in a general way, the capitals of the Cluny
chevet divide between those that were clearly designed to
receive inscriptions (this factor may well have played a
role in the determination of the characteristic form of the
mandorlas as large as the much discussed motives which
may have led the sculptors to place the figures within this
particular kind of spatial setting), and those for which no
such space was foreseen. The sculptors planned inscrip-
tions for the Liberal Arts and the capitals with the musical
modes, but not for the cosmological themes of the Rivers
of Paradise, the Winds and the Seasons. This must have
been the result of instructions received from the patrons,
for otherwise it would be impossible to understand why
the capitals that are the more complex or difficult to
elucidate should be accompanied by explanations.
That this distinction should have been lost sight of in
the abbey in the course of the execution of the capitals is
shown by the fact that someone provided hexameter verses
for Spring and Summer. The sculptors entrusted with the
task of carving the inscriptions presumably could compre-
hend neither the text nor the images, or at least not the
texts. Whether the division of the labor, for which the lack
of uniformity in the epigraphical character of the "Ver"
 [ ..
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el
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FIGURE 24. New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 982, recto, FIGURE 25. Paris, Bibl. Sainte-Genevi've, Ms. 1041, foL. iv. The Artes
Sapientia and the Liberal Arts (photo: The Pierpont Morgan Library). of the Trivium: Grammatica, Dialectica, Rhetorica (after Ornamenta
Ecclesiae, A 10).

inscription argues, enables us to infer that the execution of
the work took place under great pressure of time and
reflects the structure of the workshops, had best remain an
open question.96 Since in the case of the eight musical
modes, so far as we can judge, the tituli and the personifi-
cations are correctly combined, the erroneous placement
of the inscriptions of the Trivium capital is without doubt
the result of inattention or accident. As is shown by the
Quadrivium capital, the carving of the verses was not
carried out to completion. It has already been noted that
this situation may well have been due to the fact that no
suitable cycle of verses was available.
This leads one to consider the question whether the
tituli were borrowed or newly created. In the case of the
eight Modes, the weight of probability favors the second
assumption, for where could one find a metrical redaction
of the antiphons? In the case of the Summer titulus, on the
other hand, a remarkablysimilar text is found in a twelfth-
century manuscript from Angers:
Ver lapsat (= laxat) quod stringit hyens, quod dequoqit
estas
Colligit autumnus, automno cedit egestas.97
Both final words of the first hexameter are identical,
though the form of the preceding relative pronoun differs.
Is the accepted construction of the Cluny titulus perhaps
erroneous, and does it refer to Autumn rather than Sum-
mer? Speculating about the wording of the first words now
lost, one might transpose the two variants and obtain this
reading: Colligit autumnus fervens quod decoquit aestas.
But such a reconstruction is highly improbable, not so
much because it would charge the sculptor with one more
mistake in the carving of the inscription, but because it

163

asp
AN 1
K Ask *k.
Al
as ,
NO
..
FIGURE 26. Vizelay, abbey church, nave capital, Summer (photo: James
Austin).
forms no versus leoninus, contrary to the other tituli of
the ambulatory capitals. Could we be dealing with a
variant redaction of a common model? These questions
have yet to be settled, and indeed, a philological investiga-
tion of the tituli still remains to be undertaken. For the
issue at hand, such a study might well be decisive. The
vague indications of the context tend to suggest that there
were difficulties in the composition or in the collection of
the texts, and point to a certain inattentiveness in the
process of execution.
The possibility that the error in the Trivium capital
was noted can be cautiously inferred on the basis of the
interruption of the verses of "Aestas" and the doubling of
the verses of "Prudentia." Did the sculptors hope to
correct these errors by patching up the inscriptions with
plaster and overpainting the appropriate texts in these
spaces? Regrettably, it is no longer possible to gain an
accurate picture of the original handling of the surfaces.
They must have been cleaned on a number of occasions in
modern times, notably in connection with the execution of
several casts,98 but presumably also after their recovery
from the ruins of the church. Many traces of a possible
164
Swo
31.
F it
.
.
FIGURE 27. VHzelay,abbey church, nave capital, Winter(photo: James
Austin).
alteration of the surfaces are thus unlikely to be dis-
covered, just as the painted titulus has itself disappeared
since the cast taken in 1929. The subject raises more
questions than it answers.
Program: State of the Discussion
The problem of erroneous or fantastic interpretations
for the individual capitals and the issue of a comprehen-
sive program as well as their allegorical content are closely
intertwined. The history of interpretation of the Cluny
capitals in the first three decades of the twentieth century
resembles the general evolution of research. Earlier, there
was a tendency, when an image did not correspond to an
identifiable pictorial type, to improvise on the basis of
association or reference to a given literary passage. Eccen-
tric theses were not always avoided when a certain thematic
or antiquarian detail seemed to speak in their favor. On
the other hand, roughly since the beginning of this century,
it has become more customary to look for correspondences
in the preserved, ever better documented pictorial material
and to measure the intentions of the builders, as well as
 F.4
.......
VT
4
Rn
.............
4
WO
oil
TI, ............
JU,
FIGURE 28. Autun, Saint-Lazare, archivolt of the west portal, Seasons
(photo: Marburg).
the originality of their work, in relation to this fund of
received images. This approach comes much closer to the
process of medieval pictorial creation, which normally
involved the use of models.
The iconographical tradition makes us conscious of
the boundaries of possible interpretation beyond a given
representation. The relevance of free association is thereby
decisively limited. To be sure, this does not mean that the
accepted allegorical connotations of the time were not
present in these images, together with the literal sense. It
goes without saying, for example, that the pictorial
formulas of the Rivers of Paradise, the Winds and the
Seasons evoked in the observer, schooled in exegetical
methods, an entire cosmological system. Around 1100, the
superiority of the allegorical interpretation of Scripture
over the literal sense, which has set the tone for the
elucidation of the meaning of sacred art, was still un-
questioned.99 It must be asked, however, if and to what
degree the unending quest of modern interpreters for ever
.
1-
FIGURE 29. Berlin, Staatsbib. Ms. theol. lat. fol. 192 Fragm. Cycle of
the Months and other personifications (after Beer, Die Rose der
Kathedrale von Lausanne).
more subtle shades of meaning can in particular cases do
justice to the original intention of the builders.
Let us look at Cluny. The review of previous scholar-
ship reveals certain sources of error, which have inevitably
led to complicated allegorical readings of the capital cycle.
Until Meyer succeeded in determining that the tituli of the
eight Modes were versified compositions based on anti-
phons designed for mnemotechnical use, thus pinpointing
a definite functional context from which the texts origi-
nated, these had the effect of leading scholars to look for a
hermetic symbolism and to assume that they harbored
profound and far-reaching implications for a comprehen-
sive program. Male presumed to find in them the key to
the meaning of the entire cycle, and Schrade saw in the
Modes and their accompanying texts the expression of an
arcane symbolism.100Since Meyer's research, the scope for
fantasy has been sharply curtailed. How do the words and
the images relate to their model, which can only be
reconstructed in its general outline? Can we get beyond
the fact that the antiphon texts, even in their poetic
version, still retain a certain measure of didactic authority
165
A

SAICRMKRA-'ItRT
NGREI NS'LOCATAMN-
cvm.PicE.EFVNDE
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ESVUS IR
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FIGURE 30. Bonn, Rheinisches Landesmuseum, "Hansa" Bowl, the RE ERI-SIIVL HACIPVVNTVIl
HOIN,-TMVLt
Yearand the Seasons (after Ornamenta Ecclesiae, A 7).

FIGURE 31. Formerly Lyon, Saint-Irenee, remains of a mosaic pave-

and see this as a kind of quintessence of the meaning of
the cycle? The question has apparently not yet been fully
resolved.'o1
It was likewise unavoidable that the confusion over
the tituli of the Seasons and Prudentia would lead to a
complicated effort to sort out the personifications drawn
from different realms of meaning. Pougnet had already
drawn the conclusion that each of the Seasons was com-
bined with one of the Cardinal Virtues, and he recon-
structed such a sequence of pairings, though he knew well
that these did not correspond to any known medieval
scheme.102 Finally, as I see it, Prudentia played a kind of
double role in the confusion. The Cardinal Virtue Prudence
took the place of the ruler of the Liberal Arts. As a result,
it came to be thought that Virtues, whether Theological or
Cardinal Virtues or both groups together, were represented
on the capitals, and this thought more or less hardened
into a firm conviction. But this assumption is not at all
compelling, and the fact that in the actual choir ambula-
tory, fragments of a Psychomachia-a theme incorporat-
ing Virtues-were discovered tends to argue against their
presence on the capitals.103
Compared to these misadventures, a few wrong steps
in failing to distinguish between the meaning of an image
and its possible allegorical connotations are of a banal
ment (after BNgule,Incrustations d6coratives).
order. One scholar, in order to be able to include in the
program not only the Theological, but also the Cardinal
Virtues, committed a real piafraus by giving the Rivers of
Paradise a second designation as Cardinal Virtues. The
conflation was said to be a "commonplace,",104 as if typo-
logical connections were meant to signify that the concepts
in question were interchangeable. Following this theory,
Prudentia would have been represented in the cycle no less
than three times: as a figure of warning, as a counselor, and
in the guise of a River of Paradise. Another student,
starting from the obsolete beekeeping interpretation of the
capital with the Four Winds,105 elaborated the follow-
ing chain of reasoning: from bees to Paschal Candle to
Exultet Rolls, where the praise of bees is in reference to
their activity connected with Mary's virginal conception of
the Christ Child. Conclusion: "the beekeeping scenes of
the Cluny capitals were probably intended to represent the
Virgin.'106 But setting aside the fact that Exultet Rolls are
products of a typically souLhItalian liturgical practice and
unknown in Burgundy, how could a capital where not a
single bee is visible be understood as the bearer of a

166

IN
IN
;xw
FIGURE 32. Ivrea, Seminario vescovile, Mosaic fragment from the
cathedral, Philosophia and the Liberal Arts (after CA (Champagne),
CXXXV, 1977, 89).
mariological message of this sort? Were one inclined to
wish that such a message might be found there, would not
an Annunciation have been more appropriate?
Whether a comprehensive program can be discerned
in the Cluny capitals is a question that is not decisively
answered in the literature. Many authors seem to take this
as a self-evident premise for their iconographical dis-
cussion, a presumption necessarily conditioned by concerns
of their own time.'o7 Terret believed the architectural
sculpture of the major Burgundian churches to be veritable
compendia of Christian doctrine.'08Mle saw in Cluny the
structure of the world articulated by music.'09 Conant,
inspired by Br6hier, wanted to see in the capitals an
idealized self-portrait of the abbey and of its spiritual
riches, and thought that he had actually found a textual
basis for this idea in a flattering letter from Peter Damian
to Abbot Hugh of Cluny. However, this text revealed
itself on closer inspection to be of such a conventional
nature that this hypothesis had to be abandoned."o Heitz
interpreted the cycle as an illustration of the monastic
ideal defined in Abbot Odo's Occupationes."' Following
him, Hearn argued that the main theme was concerned
with the monastic vocation.12 Both authors assume that
the observer took the capitals as the basis for a wide-
ranging process of free association in the style of biblical
exegesis of the early and high Middle Ages. Evans pro-
posed a more formal explanatory model with, as the
structuring element of the program, an anthology of con-
cepts founded on Quaternity symbolism, inspired by a
rather unoriginal list given by Radulphus Glaber.113
In the face of the results of earlier research, Crozet
and Vergnolle considered it appropriate to speak out
against the dangers which are bound to arise when the
twentieth-century mind confidently and without much con-
sideration for the historical distance involved, seeks to
enter into medieval patterns of thought, and to warn
about the launching of facile hypotheses about the pro-
gram.'14 Even someone who may not be wholly persuaded
by Vergnolle's own counter-explanation, which takes Neo-
platonic symbolism as the heart of the entire cycle, would
be inclined to regard this recommendation for methodo-
logical restraint as justified and even necessary. But
whether one should go as far as to doubt that there was a
clearly worked out program altogether is an entirely
different matter.'15
Artes and Cosmology
In this respect as well, the identification of the figuresof
the Artes promises some progress, since it enables us to gain
a sense of the range of significance that the theme was un-
derstood to embody by contemporaries. At the same time,
we may dismiss as unprofitable all speculation about an
unconventional choice and arrangementof personifications.
What remain are three coherent groups of personifications
that are respectively attached to a salvation-oriented cos-
mology, to the realm of intellectual culture, and to liturgical
music. Thematic innovations are not to be found in this
complex of images, which were presumably derived from
models found in book illumination, as could be shown in
the case of the musical Modes.
The bringing together of Liberal Arts with cosmo-
logical subjects at Cluny is not a unique case but, on the
contrary, follows established iconographical usage. There
are other examples in Romanesque mosaic pavements.
The particularly complex ensemble of the choir of Saint-
Remi in Reims, probably datable in the second quarter of
the twelfth century and destroyed in 1794, showed among
other subjects the seven Liberal Arts with Sapientia and a
number of cosmological personifications, the Rivers of
Paradise and the Seasons."6 Also known to us on a
second-hand basis is a somewhat similar mosaic in Sainte-
Irenee at Lyon, of which some remains could still be seen
around 1900 (Fig. 31): fragments of a cycle of the Artes,
the Cardinal Virtues and the Signs of the Zodiac."7 A
fragmentary mosaic pavement of the early twelfth century
that is said to have come from the cathedral of Ivrea,
shows Philosophia and four Liberal Arts (Fig. 32)."' That
the custom of using the Arts as a motif of monumental
decoration already existed before the twelfth century is
shown by Carolingian sources, and in particular, by a set
of tituli, one of them associated with Theodulph of
Orleans.119
Cluny possessed no school of any distinction. Under
Abbot Hugh, no more than six pueri had been entrusted
to the abbey, and the main emphasis of their education
was in no way in the area of intellectual formation.120
Although it possessed a rich library, Cluny was not, on the
167
whole, a center of learning and culture.121 One must
assume that the Liberal Arts were not chosen as a theme
of decoration, as they were in the Manicanterie of Lyon
Cathedral, mainly in order to give a concrete accent to the
abbey's spiritual self-portrait.122 Rather, it seems more
likely that the builders found it convenient as well as
fitting to adopt a theme with a traditional character and
stately associations. The cycle of the eight Modes, on the
contrary, was not a part of the conventional decorative
repertoire, and seems to have no parallels in church
decoration. Yet its theme is perfectly congruent with
cosmology and the Liberal Arts, since music is found
among the Artes and medieval musical theory has a
cosmological dimension. We are apt to find it meaningful
and appropriately chosen, since it transposes into pictorial
language the important role that liturgical chant played in
the opus dei in the choir of Cluny.
Thus, the old and well-traveled themes of church
decoration earlier found on pavements and textile hang-
ings were taken over into the newer medium of capital
sculpture,123 enriched by one extraordinarily significant
theme. There are some indications that the principle of
selection and the arrangement of the themes tend to be
encyclopedic, though in the flexible ways of the mosaic
pavements, and without the possibility or the ambition to
coordinate all aspects of this imagery by diagrammatic or
other compositional means that would have been available
on the two-dimensional surface.
It is possible that this renunciation on the part of
those responsible for the program did not weigh very
heavily on them. The fairly moderate pride which they
invested in their conception is shown by some aspects of
the evidence. Their failure to supervise the workshop
adequately, which alone can explain the chaotic situation
with respect to the inscriptions, is one of these. That one
of the eight capitals is a purely Corinthian type, and thus
wholly devoid of thematic content, points in the same
direction. It seems that there was no desire to incorporate
all of the elements into a comprehensive scheme, nor any
interest in numerological speculation.124 In the case of the
tituli for the musical modes, it may well be that compared
to the models, the content is less marked in its specificity,
and the cyclical coherence of the message that was to be
imparted thereby lessened. The remaining tituli do little
more than name and summarily characterizetheir subjects.
This should not come as a surprise to anyone. As
Stratford rightly stressed, the choir capitals, assuming one
could see them clearly and read the inscriptions in the first
place, did not constitute the dominant pictorial medium of
communication of the choir.125 Compared to the giant
fresco of the apse and measured in relation to the concep-
tion of the monument as a whole, they featured themes of
a secondary order of importance. The very fact that an
undeniably profane dancer was included in the cycle as a
representation of the second Gregorian Mode (Fig. 6) is
168
an indication of the more modest place of the choir
capitals in the larger scheme of things. Evidently, the
builders chose not to concern themselves too closely with
the details. Presumably, they thought in grander terms
than posterity has been willing to allow,126 and they were
thoroughly familiar with the models in the sphere of book
illumination on which they drew. It would surely be
unreasonable to expect that these capitals, just because
they happened to have been preserved, should furnish us
with crucial statements on monastic life; and it is equally
unreasonable to project such messages onto them.
NOTES
* I am very grateful to Walter Cahn, who made the English transla-
tion of this essay.
1. As guides to the vast literature on Cluny should be mentioned at
least the following: N. Hunt, Cluny under Saint Hugh 1049-1109
(London, 1967, and Notre-Dame, Ind., 1968); H. Richter, ed.,
Cluny. Beitriige und Wirkung der cluniazensischen Reform. Wege
der Forschung, 241 (Darmstadt, 1975); Conant, Cluny (reproduction
of the Prudentia capital cited in my title, fig. 133); see also in
connection with Conant's book the review of F. Salet, Bmon,
CXXVII (1969), 183-86.
2. L. de Glanville, CA (Cluny), XVII (1850), 124.
3. J. Banchereau, "Travaux d'apiculture sur un chapiteau de V6zelay,"
Bmon, LXXVII (1913), 403-11.
4. Conant, Speculum, V, 285, and idem, VII, 30-31. More reserved
are the remarks of the same author in Cluny, 88.
5. Abb6 Pougnet, "Theorie et symbolisme des tons de la musique
gr6gorienne," Annales archdologiques, XXVI (1869), 380-87, and
XXVII (1870-72), 32-50, 151-75, 287-338, specifically the last
section, 337; E. Mle, L'art religieux du XIIe siecle en France
(Paris, 1922;3rd ed., 1928), 320; Paris, Mus6e du Louvre. Sculptures
romanes des musdes de France (Paris, 1958), P. Pradel, fig. 17b.
6. M. F. Hearn, Romanesque Sculpture. The Revival of Monumental
Sculpture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Oxford, 1981),
112-13.
7. R. Crozet, "A propos de Cluny," CCM, XIII (1970), 149-58, esp.
156-57; Vergnolle, Ra, 95-101, esp. 99-101.
8. Virey, 42.
9. See the reconstruction efforts by Conant, found in his essay of 1930,
Speculum, V, fig. 1, and the same author's "The Third Church at
Cluny," Medieval Studies in Memory of A. Kingsley Porter, ed.
W. Koehler (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), II, 327-57, fig. 12; Vetter/
Diemer, fig. 46.
10. A. Katzenellenbogen, Allegories of the Virtues and Vices in Medi-
eval Art, Studies of the Warburg Institute, 10 (London, 1939),
53-54, n. 1. Following him are Evans, Cluniac Art, 114 (though
with other reasons); Hearn, Romanesque Sculpture, 111-12;
N. Stratford, "Romanesque Sculpture in Burgundy. Reflections on
its Geography, on Patronage, on the Status of Sculpture and on the
Working Methods of Sculptors," Artistes, artisans et production
artistique au Moyen Age (Rennes, 1983), II, 1349-50.
11. Stratford, "Romanesque Sculpture in Burgundy." Neil Stratford
was kind enough to discuss with me in 1987 the substance of the
present article, and to make available to me photographs as well as
the manuscript of one of his own lectures, given in 1975, whose
 publication would still be of value today for the clarification of the
problem which concerns us. This lecture anticipated certain points
here presented, for example the identification of the Seasons. The
methodological basis of both papers is also similar. The most
significant difference between them lies in the appreciation of the
program of the Cluny capitals and the relative degree of coherence
which it displays. On the basis of the still recognizable and compre-
hensive groups of themes (Tones, Winds, Seasons) that are extant,
my working hypothesis presumes a corresponding completeness in
the other figurative groups. Stratford, on the contrary, assumes that
such a degree of systematic coherence in the program never existed,
and points to the capital with only Summer and Winter at V6zelay
as an example of this lack of programmatic consistency. Who
among us comes closer to the truth only Abbot Hugh could say.
12. First formulated by A. N. Didron, Annales arch ologiques, XVII
(1857), 104-5.
13. Pougnet, "Theorie et symbolisme," 336; Pouzet, "Notes sur les
chapiteaux de l'abbaye de Cluny," Rac, XLII (1912), 1-17 and
104-8; Virey, Cluny, 41.
14. Evans, Cluniac Art, 112; Conant, Cluny, 89; Rupprecht/Hirmer,
106, No. 141-42; Hearn, Romanesque Sculpture, 109.
15. Banchereau, "Travaux d'apiculture."
16. A. Kingsley Porter, Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads
(Boston, 1923), 79.
17. Conant, Speculum, VII, 29-30.
18. E. Panofsky, Studies in Iconology. Humanistic Themes in the Art
of the Renaissance (New York, 1939), 46, n. 43. T. Raff, "Die
Ikonographie der mittelalterlichenWindpersonifikationen,"Aachener
Kunstbldtter, XLVIII (1978-79), 71-218, esp. 161-63.
19. First established by M. Canat, Bmon, XVIII (1851), 163-67. Didron,
Annales arch ologiques, XVII (1857), 104-5; Pougnet, "Theorie et
symbolisme." Pouzet, "Notes," 2-9; Male, Art religieux, 321; W. M.
Whitehill, "Gregorian Capitals from Cluny," Speculum, II (1927),
385-95; L. Schrade, "Die Darstellungen der T6ne an der Kapitellen
der Abteikirche zu Cluni. Ein Beitrag zum Symbolismus in mit-
telalterlicher Kunst," Deutsche Vierteljahrschriftftir Literaturwis-
senschaft und Geistesgeschichte, VII (1929), 229-66.
20. K. Meyer, "The Eight Gregorian Modes on the Cluny Capitals,"
AB, XXXIV (1952), 75-94. Since then, Vetter/Diemer.
21. Paris, B.N., MS. lat. 1118.
22. Meyer, "Gregorian Modes," 94, stresses the different traditions
which stand behind the images and the texts. This is justified, yet it
does not necessarily prove that the fusion of the two strains was first
accomplished by the Cluny sculptor. L. Delisle, Le Cabinet des
manuscrits de la Bibliotheque Nationale. Etude sur la formation de
ce dip6t, Histoire generale de Paris, II (Paris, 1874), 458-81; idem,
Inventaire des manuscrits de la Bibliothbque Nationale. Fonds de
Cluni (Paris, 1884), 337-73. The twice completely published cata-
logue of the monastic library seems to date from the years 1158-61.
Of its 570 numbers, a part must represent acquisitions of the early
and middle of the twelfth century. But a precise judgment is made
impossible because of the drastic losses suffered by the library in
1562. The titles quoted by me represent No. 414 of the inventory.
23. Virey, "Cluny," CA (Moulins-Nevers), LXXX (1913), 85.
24. Conant, Cluny, 87, note 30.
25. P. Quarr6, "La date des chapiteaux de Cluny et la sculpture romane
de Bourgogne," Annales de Bourgogne, XXXIX (1967), 159-60.
26. Lloyd, 336-49, publishes drawings of all the inscriptions. A further
series is found in Conant, Cluny, 171-73.
27. Conant, Speculum, V, 283-84.
28. Idem, 284-85.
29. Pougnet, "Theorie et symbolisme," 337; Pouzet, "Notes," 13; Pradel,
Sculptures romanes.
30. Male, Art religieux, 20. On the type beyond the literature of the
artes cited below, see F. Rademacher,"Eine romanische Kleinbronze
der 'Grammatik'. Ein Beitrag zur Darstellung der Sieben Freien
Ktinste im Mittelalter," Bonner Jahrbiicher, CLIX (1959), 260-71.
31. Drawings: Conant, Speculum, V, 284; Lloyd, 374; Conant, Cluny,
fig. 171. Photographs: V. Terret, La sculpture bourguignonne aux
XIIe et XIIIe siecles. Cluny (Autun and Paris, 1914), pl. LIV;
Porter, Pilgrimage Roads, I, pl. 6; Archives Photographiques des
Beaux-Arts, No. 72736, and Marburg Photo 35721. I must thank
Neil Stratford for help also on this question.
32. Suggested by Stratford, "Romanesque Sculpture in Burgundy,"
1357, and more explicitly stated by him in his presentation at the
Kalamazoo Conference on May 8, 1986.
33. The remarkable contraction in the second word is best explained as
an erroneous "jump"by the artisan from the first to the second N. It
does not seem possible to establish criteria for a relative chronology
of both versions of these tituli (see below, n. 65).
34. Katzenellenbogen,Allegories; Hearn, Romanesque Sculpture, 111-12;
Stratford, "Romanesque Sculpture in Burgundy," 1357. Besides
Fortitudo, the possibility that we might be dealing with a second
representation of Justice is suggested by R. Oursel, Bourgogne
romane (La Pierre-qui-Vire, 1968), 137.
35. K.-A. Wirth, "Von mittelalterlichen Bildern und Lehrfiguren im
Dienste der Schule und des Unterrichts," Studien zum stidtischen
Bildungswesen des spiten Mittelalters und der friihen Neuzeit, ed.
R. M611er, H. Patze and K. Stackmann (Gottingen, 1983), 262,
points to the special position that can be ascribed to Grammar
among the Liberal Arts. The encyclopedic and monumental context
here points to a derivation from a cyclical source.
36. Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, ed. A. Dick
(Leipzig, 1925). Only a few titles in the large bibliography on the
Liberal Arts can be mentioned here: Wirth, "Von mittelalterlichen
Bildern," offers a wealth of pertinent citations. M.-T. d'Alverny, "La
sagesse et ses sept filles. Recherches sur les allegories de la phi-
losophie et des arts liberaux du XIe au XIIe siecle," Milanges
didids ai la memoire de Felix Grat (Paris, 1946), I, 247-78; L. H.
Heydenreich, "Dialektik," RDK, III (1954), 1387-1400. A. Katzen-
ellenbogen, "The Representation of the Seven Liberal Arts,"
Twelfth-Century Europe and the Foundation of Modern Society,
ed. M. Clagett, G. Post and B. Reynolds (Madison and London,
1966), 39-55; P. Verdier, "L'iconographie des arts liberaux dans
l'art du moyen age jusqu'd la fin du quinzieme siecle," Arts liberaux
et philosophie medievale, Actes du quatrieme congres international
de philosophie medievale, Universit6 de Montreal (Montreal and
Paris, 1969), 304-55; J. Kronjiger, "BertihmteGrieche.nund R6mer
als Begleiter der Musen und der Artes Liberales in Bildzyklen des 2.
bis 14. Jahrhunderts" (Dissertation, Marburg, 1973); K.-A. Wirth,
"Eine illustrierte Martianus-Capella-Handschrift aus dem 13. Jahr-
hundert," Staidel-Jahrbuch, VI (1977), 319-408; M. Evans, "Alle-
gorical Women and Practical Men: The Iconography of the Artes
Reconsidered," Medieval Women, ed. D. Baker, Studies in Church
History, Subsidia, 1 (Oxford, 1978), 305-29.
37. De nuptiis, ed. Dick, 221.
38. Leiden, Universittitsbib. Voss. lat. q. 33, fol. lv. F. Mtitherich, "'De
Rhetorica'. Eine Illustration zu Martianus Capella," Festschrift
Bernhard Bischoff zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, ed. J. Autenrieth and
P. Brunh61zl(Stuttgart, 1971), 198-206, pl. 11.
169
 39. Most recently, Cologne, Schniitgen Museum, Ornamenta Ecclesiae.
Kunst und Kiinstler der Romanik (Cologne, 1985), I, 66, No. A 11.
40. Wirth, "Martianus-Capella-Handschrift,"54-55.
41. Terret, Sculpture bourguignonne, 150, with a lack of clarity on the
relation between the Liberal and the Mechanical Arts. L. Brehier,
Lart chritien (Paris, 1928), 215, counts the eight Gregorian Modes
as part of the iconography of the Liberal Arts. A. and J. Talobre,
La construction de l'abbaye de Cluny. Etude archeologique (Ma^con,
1936), 133, follow Terret's conclusions. Since then the Liberal Arts
are mentioned as among the themes illustrated on the capitals by
M. Aubert, La sculpture frangaise au moyen aige (Paris, 1946), 91;
Quarr6, "Dates des chapiteaux de Cluny," 157; Stratford, "Roman-
esque Sculpture in Burgundy," 1357.
42. Wirth, "Martianus-Capella-Handschrift,"43.
43. Paris, B.N., MS. lat. 3110, fol. 60; Alverny, "La sagesse," 261-64
and 278; Wirth, "Martianus-Capella-Handschrift," 61, fig. 21;
Kronjager, Beriihmte Griechen, 19-20 and 64, n. 154-56 (on the
subject of the attributes); Ornamenta Ecclesiae, I, 64-65, No. A 9.
44. Pougnet, "Theorie et symbolisme," 337: "du vers qui l'accompagne
on ne lit que ceci:... VENS QAS DECOQIT AESTAS que j'essaye
de completer tant bien que mal ainsi: "Falx resecat spicas fervens
quas decoquit aestas.'"'
45. This is how the matter has most recently been explained by Hearn,
Romanesque Sculpture, 108.
46. Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic, Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, Astro-
nomy. Cassiodorus, De artibus ac disciplina liberalium litterarum,
PL, LXX, cols. 1159-1220 (sequence of the capitals); idem, De
institutione divinarum litterarumedited in the same volume, Ch. 27,
cols. 1140-41; Isidori Hispalensis, Etymologiae, ed. W. M. Lindsay
(Oxford, 1911), I, 2 (also PL, LXXXII, cols. 73-74). Martianus
Capella, on the other hand, gives the order as follows: Grammar,
Dialectic, Rhetoric; Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, Harmony
(=Music). The catalogue of the Cluny library mentioned above (see
note 22) from the middle of the twelfth century lists Cassiodorus'
De artibus and Institutiones (Nos. 231, 395) as well as Isidore's
Etymologiae (Nos. 392-94) and Martianus Capella (Nos. 476-78)
with commentaries, whose authors are not mentioned. The greater
part of these standard works must have been a part of the older
holdings of the library, as is also indicated by the two surviving
fragments of the books (Paris, B.N., MS. N.A. lat. 340 and 1478;
Delisle, Cluni, 162-65, No. 91, and 16062, No. 90).
47. Pougnet, "Th6orie et symbolisme," 117.
48. Terret, Sculpture bourguignonne, 144: "coffret ou livre." Also un-
certain on the identification is Crozet, "Apropos de Cluny," 156.
49. Pradel, Sculptures romanes, 7.
50. Katzenellenbogen, Allegories, 55. S. Mahl, Quadriga virtutum. Die
Kardinaltugendenin der Geistesgeschichteder Karolingerzeit,Beiheft
zum Archiv fiur Kulturgeschichte, 9 (Cologne and Vienna, 1969),
171-76.
51. Hearn, Romanesque Sculpture, 111-12.
52. The citation in support of his interpretation from Theodulph of
Orleans' poem No. 46, De septem liberalibus artibus in quadam
pictura depictis, where a discus bearing a picture of the Arts and the
Cardinal Virtues is described, in no way carries the implication
attributed to it: the poet places in the hands of Moderatio (as he
calls Temperantia) the fortia frena and flagella, in order to portray
her action in the context of horsemanship, and not as if her business
was the punishment of children. (MGH, PLC, I, 545). For the
reconstruction of the discus, see Wirth, "Von mittelalterlichen
Bildern,"278-82).
170
53. Boethius, De consolatione Philosophiae, ed. L. Bieler, Corpus
Christ., XCIV (Turnhout, 1957), 2; P. Courcelle, La Consolation de
Philosophie dans la tradition litteraire. Antecedents et posterite de
Boece (Paris, 1967).
54. Cf. passages like Ecclesiastes 24:5-6; Proverbs 8:22-31, 8:15, 9:1.
55. On this issue, see the discussion of Wirth, "Von mittelalterlichen
Bildern."
56. W. H6rmann, "Probleme einer Aldersbacher Handschrift (Clm
2599)," Buch und Welt. Festschrift fiir Gustav Hofmann zum 65.
Geburtstag dargebracht (Wiesbaden, 1965), 352 and pl. 4 (fol.
101v); E. Klemm, "Artes liberales und antike Autoren in der
Aldersbacher Sammelhandschrift Clm 2599," ZfKg, XLI (1978),
1-15; Wirth, "Von mittelalterlichen Bildern,"323.
57. Alan of Lille, Anticlaudianus, ed. R. Bossuat, Textes philosophiques
du moyen age, 1 (Paris, 1955), index; Courcelle, Consolation,
54-56.
58. "Advertendum siquidem, quod licet tot sint diversitates scientiarum,
tamen per membra Prudentiae principaliter in hoc loco designantur
trivium et quadrivium, scilicet septem artes liberales utpote eius
membra principalia, sic ut postea patebit." (Radulphus de Longo
Campo, In Anticlaudianum Alani commentum, ed. J. Sulowski,
Polska akademia nauk zaklad historii nauki i techniki, zrodla do
dziejow nauki i techniki, XIII [Wroclaw, Cracow and Gdansk,
1972], 46.) In an extension of this passage, Prudentia is here
conceived in terms of Boethius's description.
59. Remigii Autissiodorensis, Commentum in Martianum Capellam,
ed. C. E. Lutz (Leiden, 1962-65), I, 66 (concerning the beginning of
Book I).
60. Remigii, Commentum, 113, concerning I, 25.21: Fronesis enim
mater Philologiae mortalis fingitur fuisse, atque ideo ipsam Phi-
lologiam mortali matre progenitam necesse erat esse mortalem,
quod idea fingitur quia prudentia saeculi per se mortalis et caduca
est nisi studiis verae sapientiae immortalitatem consequatur."
61. Klemm, "Artes liberales,"4.
62. "... ut per prudentiam suam suorum in antea provideret salutem"
(Vita Maioli, PL, CXLII, col. 392). An earlier statement on the
similarity between wisdom and prudence from the ecclesiastical
point of view is found in a letter of Archdeacon Peter of Cambrai to
Hucbald, dated around 910 (PL, CXXXII, col. 975-76).
63. Compare the material published by Wirth, "Martianus-Capella-
Handschrift."
64. Yet versified inscriptions consisting of a number of verses for each
personification or entire poems have been preserved: a cycle of
tituli, each consisting of four lines for the Liberal Arts, including
Sapientia is ascribed to Theodulph of Orleans (MGH, Poetae, I,
629-30). Another collection of dispersed verses concerning the
Artes is published by Wirth, "Martianus-Capella-Handschrift,"
320-34. To be added, further: MGH, PLC, V, 3rd Part, 646.
65. The carved and painted versions as they are rendered in the
drawings show certain variant letter forms: d of Prudentia, G, E
and N in agendum. From this, it can be concluded that the model
had not received a definitive form binding on the artisans who
executed the inscriptions on the capitals. Was this model perhaps
identical with the manuscript used for the iconography of the
figure?
66. Pougnet, "Thborieet symbolisme," 337.
67. Conant, Speculum, V, 282.
68. Virey, 41, and earlier, in the same sense, Pouzet, "Notes," 15-17.
Pougnet, on the other hand, who had originally offered this reading,
 left it open on which of the severely damaged capitals the second
half of the cycle might have been found (Pougnet, "Th6orie et
symbolisme," 337).
69. Occasionally assumed to have repeated the subject already depicted
on the capitals with Justice, previously discussed (Conant, Specu-
lum, V, 282; idem, Cluny, 88; Oursel, Bourgogne romane, 137;
Vergnolle, Ra, 99; Rupprecht/ Hirmer, 107 and fig. 144 below).
70. Hearn, Romanesque Sculpture, 112.
71. Evans, Cluniac Art, 113.
72. Terret, Sculpture bourguignonne, 150-52.
73. Conant, Speculum, V, 282, writes "with the hands in the attitude for
receiving a consecrated host," an anachronistic view of the icono-
graphic type involved. But see also Evans, Cluniac Art, 113.
74. G. A. Schissler, "Fides II, Theologische Tugend," RDK, VIII
(Munich, 1984), 773-830.
75. R. Kroos, Das Schrein des heiligen Servatius in Maastricht und die
vier zugehorigen Reliquiare in Briissel, Ver6ffentlichungen des
Zentralinstituts in Munchen, VIII (Munich, 1985), 251 and fig. 126.
The reliquary, preserved in the Mus6es Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire
in Brussels, was up to now identified as the reliquary of St.
Gondulphus (see Kroos, 248-49). A reproduction in color of the
enamel is found in the exhibition catalogue, Cologne, Schnuitgen
Museum, Rhein und Maas. Kunst und Kultur 800-1400 (Cologne,
1972), following 260. Kroos cites as antecedents for the attribute of
Spes only examples from Roman Antiquity. According to Conant,
Speculum, V, 282, the Cluny figure holds a heart, an observation
which cannot be verified.
76. Conant, Speculum, V, 282: "Its iconographic type is used in Gothic
times for Largesse, and here doubtless stands for Charity."
77. M. von Thadden, Die Ikonographie der Caritas in der Kunst des
Mittelalters (Dissertation, Bonn, 1951), catalogue section, 213-14.
M. Wellershoff-von Thadden, RDK, III (Stuttgart, 1954), 343-56.
The author knows only the example at Sens for a Caritas with an
open chest. On the Sens figure, see W. Sauerlander, Skulptur in
Frankreich 1140-1270 (Munich, 1970), 100, and pl. 61 above; a
reflection of the carving is found at Villeneuve-l'Archeveque (idem,
pl. 178).
78. Oral communication in a lecture at the Kalamazoo Conference,
1986.
79. Wirth, "Martianus-Capella-Handschrift,"57.
80. The only apparent exception within the context of the Artes is a
kind of round box held by Astronomia in an illustration of the
Hortus Deliciarum, which poses a similar problem for scholarship.
G. Minzel, Der Zyklus der siebenfreien Kiinste in der Vorhalle des
Freiburger Miinsters. Eine ikonographische Untersuchung (Frei-
burg, 1950), 25-26, suggests that the object is a bushel measure, and
Kronjiger, Beriihmte Griechen, 164, note 157, follows him in this
view.
81. Bamberg, Staatl. Bibl., Class. 5, fol. 9v. Munich, Bayerische Staats-
bibliothek, Bayerns Kirche im Mittelalter. Handschriften und
Urkunden aus Bayerischen Staatsbesitz (Munich, 1960), No. 212,
fig. 9.
82. Katzenellenbogen, Allegories; Hearn, Romanesque Sculpture, 111;
Stratford, "Romanesque Sculpture in Burgundy," 1357.
83. Pougnet, "Thborieet symbolisme," 337.
84. Conant, Speculum, V, 285; idem, Speculum, VII, 30; more reserved
is the same author in his Cluny, 89, without, however, withdrawing
his interpretation: Conant, "L'abside et le choeur de Cluny III,"
GBA, CXIV, 1972, 12. Oursel, Bourgogne romane, 137, and Hearn,
Romanesque Sculpture, 112-13, follow Conant. Hearn believes this
and the Corinthian capital to be an enlargement of the original
program. For him, the bather, fighter, discus thrower and reader
constitute "an allegory of the human wisdom found in learning."
85. Terret, Sculpture bourguignonne, 152.
86. J. Adhemar, Influences antiques dans lPartdu moyen age frangais.
Recherches sur les sources et les thbmes d'inspiration (London,
1937), 196, identifies the theme involved. Diemer, 326, No. 48. For
the type with the scythe, compare: Chronicon Zwifaltense minus,
Stuttgart, Landesbib. Cod. Hist. fol. 415 (around 1160-70), fol. 17v,
Grivot/Zarnecki 2, 26, fig. j, and Augsburg, Rathaus, Suevia Sacra
(Augsburg, 1973), 182-83, No. 182 and fig. 171. For personifica-
tions of Summer without an attribute: E. J. Beer, Die Glasmalereien
der Schweiz vom 12. bis zum Beginn des 14. Jahrhunderts, Corpus
Vitrearum Medii Aevi, Switzerland, I (Basel, 1956), 34, pl. 5 (Rose
of the Cathedral of Lausanne, before 1235). A monograph on the
representation of the Seasons is still lacking.
87. On the motif of a plant pressed against the body, see the personifica-
tion of May in the calendar miniature of a Sacramentary fragment,
Berlin, Staatsbib. Ms. theol. lat. fol. 192 Fragment, Fulda, last third
of the 10th century (Berlin-Dahlem, Staatliche Museen, Zimelien.
Abendliindische Handschriftendes Mittelalters aus den Sammlungen
der Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz [Berlin, 1975-76], 42, No. 34
and 57, fig. 29).
88. Grivot/Zarnecki 2, 31 and fig. O 3-4.
89. Rabanus Maurus, De originibus rerum, Monte Cassino, Cod. 132
(1022-35), p. 253; M. Reuter, Text und Bild im Codex 132 der
Bibliothek von Montecassino "Liber Rabani de originibus rerum.
Untersuchungenzur mittelalterlichenIllustrationspraxis, Minchener
Beitrage zur Medidvistik und Renaissance-Forschung, 34 (Munich,
1984), 141-42 and pl. 40; Chronicon Zwifaltense (see above, n. 86);
Rose of Lausanne (Beer, Glasmalereien, 34 and pl. 5).
90. Bowl in the Bonn Landesmuseum, 12th century: see most recently
Ornamenta Ecclesiae, I, 60-62, No. A 7. Good reproduction of the
figure in J. Weitzmann-Fiedler, Romanische gravierte Bronzeschalen
(Berlin, 1981), pl. 62.
91. All four cycles show that personification; see the Lausanne Rose
(Beer, Glasmalereien, 36 and pl. 7).
92. Weitzmann-Fiedler, loc. cit.
93. Terret, Sculpture bourguignonne, 152-53, interprets the figure as a
personification of Winter, ignoring its rather light clothing.
94. H. Peters, "Falke," RDK, VI (Stuttgart, 1973), 1333-37; O. Picht,
C. R. Dodwell, F. Wormald, The St. Albans Psalter (Albani
Psalter), Studies of the Warburg Institute, 25 (London, 1960), pl. 6.
On the iconography of the Months: O. Koseleff, "Die Monatsdar-
stellungen der franz6sischen Plastik des 12. Jahrhunderts" (Disser-
tation, Marburg, 1931), partly published, Marburg, 1934; J. C.
Webster, The Labors of the Months in Antique and Mediaeval Art
to the End of the Twelfth Century, Northwestern University Studies
in the Humanities, 4, and Princeton Monographs in Art and
Archaeology, 21 (Evanston, 1938).
95. Sower in October: Berlin, Staatsbib. Ms. theol. lat. fol. 192 Frag-
ment (see above, n. 87); The Hague, Kgl. Bibliothek, Ms. 76 F 13,
fol. 10v; O. Koseleff, "The Calendar Cycle of the F~camp Psalter,"
Studien zur Buchmalerei und Goldschmiedekunst des Mittelalters.
Festschrift fuir Karl Hermann Usener zum 60. Geburtstag, ed.
F. Dettweiler, H. Kollner and P. A. Riedl (Marburg, 1967), 209-24,
fig. 10. On the literary tradition: E. Dahl and P. Skarup, The Ages
of Man and the Months of the Year, Poetry, Prose and Pictures
171
 Outlining the "Douze mois figures" Motif Mainly Found in Shep-
herd's Calendarsand in Livres d'Heures (14th to 17th Century); Det
Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Historisk-filosofiske
Skrifter 9:3 (Copenhagen, 1980), 48-49.
96. The first half of the hexameter on the left side of the mandorla is
cut straight down and to the full width of the letters, whereas in the
second half, on the right side, the letters are cut on a bias, in the
form of a V, as in the other inscriptions (Lloyd, 347, fig. 9 C).
97. Angers, Bibl. Mun. MS. 303 (294), fol. 128r. Louis Trochet, Angers,
kindly provided me with a microfilm of the folio. Cf. A. Molinier,.
Catalogue general des manuscrits des bibliothbequespubliques de
France, XXXI (Paris, 1898), 292-94; H. Walther, Initia carminum
ac versuum medii aevi posterioris latinorum. Alphabetisches Ver-
zeichnis des Versanfinge mittellateinischer Dichtungen, Carmina
medii aeviposterioris latina, I, 1 (Gittingen, 1969), 1056, No. 20130.
98. Just around the middle of the nineteenth century, casts of the
capitals were made, as is indicated in the Bmon, XVII (1851),
163-67. On the casts campaign of 1929, see Conant, Speculum
V, 280.
99. B. Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, Paperback
edition (Notre-Dame, Ind., 1978), Ch. II.
100. M^le, Art religieux, 321: "la clef de tout cet ensemble symbolique."
Schrade, "Darstellungen der T6ne," 235.
101. The attempted interpretation of Vetter/Diemer has not thus far
been critically taken up in the discussion.
102. Pougnet, "Theorie et symbolisme," 336-37.
103. Conant, Cluny, 87 and figs. 147-48.
104. Conant, Speculum, V, 282.
105. Justified criticism already in the review of E. Fernie, Art History, V
(1982), 130-31.
106. Hearn, Romanesque Sculpture, 112. On p. 113, the conclusion that
the program is mariological is accentuated.
107. An example: Virey, 42.
108. Terret, Sculpture bourguignonne, 129-30.
109. Mile, Art religieux, 321. Comparable is Pouzet, "Notes," 2: "les
A
symboles qui president l'harmonie des manifestations terrestres."
110. Conant, Speculum V, 285-86; idem, Speculum, VII, 30 and 32-35.
As Salet notes (Bmon, 185), Conant took back this thesis in 1967,
but too late for Oursel's book of 1968, Bourgogne romane, 137.
111. C. Heitz, "Reflexions sur l'architecture clunisienne," Ra, 15
(1972), 89.
112. Hearn, Romanesque Sculpture, 115: "this allegory of monastic
vocation."
113. Evans, Cluniac Art, 110-19. She is followed by L. Schiirenberg,
"Cluniazenser," RDK, III (Stuttgart, 1954), 817. Compare also
Brehier, L'art chritien, 215.
114. Crozet, "A propos de Cluny," 156-57; Vergnolle, Ra, 100. See also
the recent article of H. M6bius, "Franzisische Bauplastik um 1100.
Form und Funktion im geschichtlichen Prozess," Skulptur des
Mittelalters. Funktion und Gestalt, ed. F. Mabiusand E. Schubert
(Weimar, 1987), 55-56.
115. Rupprecht/Hirmer, 106, Nos. 141-45.
116. H. Stern, Recueil gindral des mosaiques de la Gaule. I. Province de
Belgique. 1. Partie Ouest, Gallia, Supplement 10 (Paris, 1957),
91-93; A. Prache, Saint-Remi de Reims. L'oeuvre de Pierre de Celle
et sa place dans l'architecturegothique, Bibliothbque de la Soci&t6
frangaise d'Archbologie (Geneva, 1978), 25-26. Wirth, "Von mittel-
172
alterlichen Bildern, 324-25; X. Barral i Altet, "Les mosaiques
m6di6vales de la ville de Reims," CA (Champagne) CXXXV (1977),
79-108.
117. L. B6gule, Les incrustations dicoratives des cathedrales de Lyon et
de Vienne. Recherches sur une dicoration d'origine orientale et sur
son developpement dans l'art occidental du moyen age (Lyon,
1905), 22-23; H. Kier, Der mittelalterliche Schmuckfussboden unter
besonderer Bericksichtigung des Rheinlandes, Die Kunstdenkmiler
des Rheinlandes, Beiheft 14 (Diisseldorf, 1970), fig. 404.
118. Ivrea, Seminario. P. d'Ancona, L'uomo e le sue opere nelle figu-
razioni italiane del medioevo (Florence, 1923), 128 and fig. 48a.
RDK, III, 1393.
119. See nn. 35-36 and 64, as well as J. von Schlosser, Schriftquellen zur
Geschichte der karolingischen Kunst, Quellenschriften zur Kunst-
geschichte und Kunsttechnik des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, N.F.
4 (Vienna, 1892), 373-83, Nos. 1023-28. On the number and
distribution of the monuments, see further J. Tezmen-Siegel, Die
Darstellungen der septem artes liberales in der bildenden Kunst als
Rezeption der Lehrplangeschichte, tuduv-Studien, Reihe Kunst-
geschichte, 14 (Munich, 1985).
120. Udalricus III, 8, De pueris et eorum magistris: "Pueri autem, qui
sunt in conventu nostro, non ultra senarium protendunt, et eorum
magistri sunt duo, si non plures, tamen nunquam sunt pauciores."
(PL, CIL, col. 742, and Hunt, Cluny under Saint Hugh, 96-99).
E. Lesne, Histoire de la proprietd ecclsiastique en France. V. Les
ecoles, de lafin du VIlle siecle a lafin du XIIe (Lille, 1940), 89-94
(not free from a certain tendency to overestimate the degree of
learning at Cluny); W. Teske, "Laienminche und Laienbrtider in
der Abtei Cluny. Ein Beitrag zum 'Konversen-Problem'. 1. Teil,"
Frahmittelalterliche Studien, X (1976), 279-80 and 308; idem, "2.
Teil," Frahmittelalterliche Studien, XI (1977), 314 (in the twelfth
century, the monks of Cluny conducted a school for the training of
future clerics in the town).
121. It is not necessaryhere to enter into the discussion of the Fifties on the
possible enmity of Cluny toward culture (J. Leclercq, "Cluny fut-il
ennemi de la culture?,"Revue Mabillon, XLVII [1957], 172-82), but
around 1100 the abbey was not considered a prominent cultivator of
the Liberal Arts. H. Wolter, Ordericus Vitalis. Ein Beitrag zur
kluniazensischen Geschichtsschreibung, Ver6ffentlichungen des In-
stituts fir europaische Geschichte Mainz, 7 (Wiesbaden, 1955), 5-6.
When Abbot Hugh died in 1109, and in connection with the
canonization proceedings, successfully completed in 1120, it was
decided to procure a Vita of the saint, unexpected difficulties arose:
F. Barlow, "The Canonization and the Early Lives of Hugh I, Abbot
of Cluny," Analecta Bollandiana, XCVIII (1980), 297-334. Later,
Peter of Poitiers, secretary of the reigning abbot since 1122, Peter the
Venerable, did not fear to count Hugh among the intellectually
deficient abbots: "quibus videlicet illa eruditionis perfectio defuit"
(PL, CLXXXIX, col. 62). In a more pious vein, but basically
similar, is the characterization of Hugh found in the Vita of Gilo:
"bonus utique scientia, melior conscientia, optimus temperantia,
forma angelicus, moribus compositus, naturali incessu conspicuus,
sermone non affectato suavis, et aliis huiusmodi charismatibus
spectabilis" (PL, CLIX, col. 911). On the library of Cluny, see
E. Lesne, Histoire de la propridtd ecclhsiastique en France. IV. Les
livres, "scriptoria"et bibliothbques, du commencement du Vllle a la
fin du XIe sidcle (Lille, 1938), 524-33; and A. Wilmart, "Le couvent
et la bibliothbque de Cluny vers le milieu du XIe sidcle," Revue
Mabillon, XI (1921), 89-124.
122. R. Hamann-MacLean, "Das ikonographische Problem der 'Fried-
berger Jungfrau'," Marburger Jahrbuch fiir Kunstwissenschaft, X
(1937), 37-87. Kronjager,Beriihmte Griechen, 134-35.
123. The connection has often been seen, most recently by Vergnolle, Ra,
101, and Stratford, "Romanesque Sculpture in Burgundy," 1357.
124. On the other hand, Conant, Cluny, 88, presumes to find in the
existence of the Corinthian capital a proof of the contrary assertion:
eight minus one equals the symbolic number seven. However, he
does not explain the programmatic sense of this. Seven years later,
Conant gave a figurative interpretation of the same capital, propos-
ing to see in the pair of small quadrupeds on the abacus, with a
certain imaginative license, a hare and a wolf, and thus an illustra-
tion of the story of the hare and hound of the Physiologus (Conant,
Speculum, XXX, 383-88 and pl. 16). D. and P. v. Naredi-Rainer,
"Das 8. Kapitell in Cluny III," Orient und Okzident im Spiegel der
Kunst, Festschrift Heinrich Gerhard Franz (Graz, 1986), 267-82,
find in the Corinthian capital a distinct symbolic meaning.
125. Stratford, "Romanesque Sculpture in Burgundy," 1357; Pougnet,
"Theorie et symbolisme," 386, held images and inscriptions to be
readable in situ. But according to more recent calculations, the
upper rim of the abacus of the capitals would have been situated
some 9.30m above the pavement level of the choir (Conant,
Speculum, XXX, text accompanying pl. 16).
126. X. Barbier de Montault, Traite d'iconographie chritienne (Paris,
1890), I, 308, recognizes in the personification of the second Mode
without hesitation "Une pleureuse sonnant les &chelettes des
enterrements."
173