Martianus Capella
Encyclopedia
Martianus Minneus Felix Capella was a pagan
writer of Late Antiquity
, one of the earliest developers of the system of the seven liberal arts
that structured early medieval education. According to Cassiodorus
, he was a native of Madaura—which had been the native city of Apuleius
—in the Roman province of Africa (now Souk Ahras
, Algeria
), and he appears to have practiced as a jurist at Carthage
.
The lunar crater Capella
is named after him.
, the history of rhetoric
and the history of science
—after the sack of Rome
by Alaric I
in 410, which he mentions, but apparently before the conquest of North Africa by the Vandals
in 429. As early as the middle of the sixth century, Securus Memor Felix, a professor of rhetoric, received the text in Rome, for his personal subscription at the end of Book I (or Book II in many manuscripts) records that he was working "from most corrupt exemplars".
written in a mixture of prose
and elaborately allusive
verse, a prosimetrum
in the manner of the Menippean satire
s of Varro
. The style is wordy and involved, loaded with metaphor
and bizarre expressions. The book was of great importance in defining the standard formula of academic learning from the Christianized Roman Empire
of the fifth century until the Renaissance of the 12th century
. This formula included a medieval love for allegory (in particular personifications) as a means of presenting knowledge, and a structuring of that learning around the seven liberal arts.
The book, embracing in résumé form the narrowed classical culture of his time, was dedicated to his son. Its frame story
in the first two books relates the courtship and wedding of Mercury
(intelligent or profitable pursuit), who has been refused by Wisdom, Divination and the Soul, with the maiden Philologia
(learning, but literally "word-love"), who is made immortal under the protection of the gods, the Muses, the Cardinal Virtues
and the Graces
. The title refers to the allegorical union of the intellectually profitable pursuit (Mercury) of learning by way of the art of letters (Philology).
Among the wedding gifts are seven maids who will be Philology's servants: they are the seven liberal arts: Grammar
(an old woman with a knife for excising children's grammatical errors), Dialectic
, Rhetoric
(a tall woman with a dress decorated with figures of speech and armed in a fashion to harm adversaries), Geometry
, Arithmetic
, Astronomy
and (musical) Harmony
. Frances Yates
comments that these images correspond closely to the rules for the creation of images for artificial memory
. As each art is introduced, she gives an exposition of the principles of the science she represents, thereby providing a summary of the seven liberal arts. Two other arts, Architecture
and Medicine
, were present at the feast, but since they care for earthly things, they were to keep silent in the company of the celestial deities.
Each book is an abstract or a compilation from earlier authors. The treatment of the subjects belongs to a tradition which goes back to Varro's Disciplinae, even to Varro's passing allusion to architecture and medicine, which in Martianus Capella's day were mechanics' arts, material for clever slaves but not for senators
. The classical Roman curriculum, which was to pass—largely through Martianus Capella's book—into the early medieval period, was modified but scarcely revolutionized by Christianity. The verse portions, on the whole correct and classically constructed, are in imitation of Varro.
The eighth book describes a modified geocentric astronomical
model, in which the Earth is at rest in the center of the universe and circled by the moon, the sun, three planets and the stars, while Mercury
and Venus
circle the Sun. This view was singled out for praise by Copernicus
in Book I of his De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
.
.
As early as the end of the fifth century, another African, Fulgentius
, composed a work modeled on it. A note found in numerous manuscripts—written by one Securus Memor Felix, who was intending to produce an edition—indicates that by about 534 the dense and convoluted text of De nuptiis had already become hopelessly corrupted by scribal errors. (Michael Winterbottom suggests that Securus Memor's work may be the basis of the text found in "an impressive number of extant books" written in the ninth century.) Another sixth-century writer, Gregory of Tours
, attests that it had become virtually a school manual. In his 1959 study, C. Leonardi catalogued 241 existing manuscripts of De nuptiis, attesting to its popularity during the Middle Ages. It was commented upon copiously: by John Scotus Erigena
, Hadoard
, Alexander Neckham, and Remigius of Auxerre
. In the eleventh century the German monk Notker Labeo
translated the first two books into Old High German
. Martianus continued to play a major role as transmitter of ancient learning until the rise of a new system of learning founded on scholastic Aristotelianism. As late as the thirteenth century, Martianus was still credited as having been the efficient cause of the study of astronomy.
Modern interpreters have less interest in Martianus's ideas, "except for the light his work throws on what men in other times and places knew or thought it was important to know about the artes liberales
. C. S. Lewis
, in The Allegory of Love
, states that "the universe, which has produced the bee-orchid and the giraffe
, has produced nothing stranger than Martianus Capella".
The editio princeps
of De nuptiis, edited by Franciscus Vitalis Bodianus, was printed in Vicenza in 1499. The work's comparatively late date in print, as well as the modest number of later editions, is a marker of the slide in its popularity, save as an elementary educational primer in the liberal arts. For many years the standard edition of the work was that of A. Dick (Teubner, 1925), but J. Willis produced a new edition for Teubner in the 1980s.
A modern introduction, focusing on the mathematical arts, is William Harris Stahl, Richard Johnson and E. L. Burge, Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts, Vol. 1: The Quadrivium of Martianus Capella: Latin Traditions in the Mathematical Sciences, 50 B.C.–A.D. 1250 Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies, 84, (New York: Columbia University Press), 1971.
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
writer of Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown proposed...
, one of the earliest developers of the system of the seven liberal arts
Liberal arts
The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...
that structured early medieval education. According to Cassiodorus
Cassiodorus
Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator , commonly known as Cassiodorus, was a Roman statesman and writer, serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Senator was part of his surname, not his rank.- Life :Cassiodorus was born at Scylletium, near Catanzaro in...
, he was a native of Madaura—which had been the native city of Apuleius
Apuleius
Apuleius was a Latin prose writer. He was a Berber, from Madaurus . He studied Platonist philosophy in Athens; travelled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt; and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the...
—in the Roman province of Africa (now Souk Ahras
Souk Ahras
Souk Ahras is a province in Algeria, named after its capital, Souk Ahras. It stands on the border between Algeria and Tunisia.- Geography :Souk Ahras is situated in the extreme north east of Algeria, it is 4360 km²....
, Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
), and he appears to have practiced as a jurist at Carthage
Carthage
Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...
.
The lunar crater Capella
Capella (crater)
Capella is a lunar crater in diameter that lies to the north of the Mare Nectaris, in a rugged region with many small impact craters. It intrudes slightly into the eastern rim of the crater Isidorus, a feature only slightly smaller in diameter....
is named after him.
Biography
Martianus was active during the fifth century, composing his one famous book, De nuptiis—fundamental in the history of educationHistory of education
The history of education its part of the past and present teaching and learning. Each generation, since the beginning of human existence, has sought to pass on cultural and social values, traditions, morality, religion and skills to the next generation. The passing on of culture is also known as...
, the history of rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
and the history of science
History of science
The history of science is the study of the historical development of human understandings of the natural world and the domains of the social sciences....
—after the sack of Rome
Sack of Rome (410)
The Sack of Rome occurred on August 24, 410. The city was attacked by the Visigoths, led by Alaric I. At that time, Rome was no longer the capital of the Western Roman Empire, replaced in this position initially by Mediolanum and then later Ravenna. Nevertheless, the city of Rome retained a...
by Alaric I
Alaric I
Alaric I was the King of the Visigoths from 395–410. Alaric is most famous for his sack of Rome in 410, which marked a decisive event in the decline of the Roman Empire....
in 410, which he mentions, but apparently before the conquest of North Africa by the Vandals
Vandals
The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe that entered the late Roman Empire during the 5th century. The Vandals under king Genseric entered Africa in 429 and by 439 established a kingdom which included the Roman Africa province, besides the islands of Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearics....
in 429. As early as the middle of the sixth century, Securus Memor Felix, a professor of rhetoric, received the text in Rome, for his personal subscription at the end of Book I (or Book II in many manuscripts) records that he was working "from most corrupt exemplars".
De nuptiis
This single encyclopedic work, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii ("On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury"), sometimes called De septem disciplinis ("On the seven disciplines") or the Satyricon, is an elaborate didactic allegoryAllegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
written in a mixture of prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
and elaborately allusive
Allusion
An allusion is a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication. M. H...
verse, a prosimetrum
Prosimetrum
A prosimetrum is a literary piece that is made up of alternating passages of prose and poetry.-Examples:*De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii by Martianus Capella*Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius*Cosmographia by Bernard Silvestris...
in the manner of the Menippean satire
Menippean satire
The genre of Menippean satire is a form of satire, usually in prose, which has a length and structure similar to a novel and is characterized by attacking mental attitudes instead of specific individuals...
s of Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro was an ancient Roman scholar and writer. He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus.-Biography:...
. The style is wordy and involved, loaded with metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
and bizarre expressions. The book was of great importance in defining the standard formula of academic learning from the Christianized Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
of the fifth century until the Renaissance of the 12th century
Renaissance of the 12th century
The Renaissance of the 12th century was a period of many changes at the outset of the High Middle Ages. It included social, political and economic transformations, and an intellectual revitalization of Western Europe with strong philosophical and scientific roots...
. This formula included a medieval love for allegory (in particular personifications) as a means of presenting knowledge, and a structuring of that learning around the seven liberal arts.
The book, embracing in résumé form the narrowed classical culture of his time, was dedicated to his son. Its frame story
Frame story
A frame story is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories...
in the first two books relates the courtship and wedding of Mercury
Mercury (mythology)
Mercury was a messenger who wore winged sandals, and a god of trade, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter in Roman mythology. His name is related to the Latin word merx , mercari , and merces...
(intelligent or profitable pursuit), who has been refused by Wisdom, Divination and the Soul, with the maiden Philologia
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
(learning, but literally "word-love"), who is made immortal under the protection of the gods, the Muses, the Cardinal Virtues
Cardinal virtues
In Christian traditionthere are 4 cardinal virtues:*Prudence - able to judge between actions with regard to appropriate actions at a given time*Justice - proper moderation between self-interest and the rights and needs of others...
and the Graces
Grâces
Grâces is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Bretagne in northwestern France.-Population:Inhabitants of Grâces are called gracieux.-External links:*...
. The title refers to the allegorical union of the intellectually profitable pursuit (Mercury) of learning by way of the art of letters (Philology).
Among the wedding gifts are seven maids who will be Philology's servants: they are the seven liberal arts: Grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
(an old woman with a knife for excising children's grammatical errors), Dialectic
Dialectic
Dialectic is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to Indic and European philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues...
, Rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
(a tall woman with a dress decorated with figures of speech and armed in a fashion to harm adversaries), Geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
, Arithmetic
Arithmetic
Arithmetic or arithmetics is the oldest and most elementary branch of mathematics, used by almost everyone, for tasks ranging from simple day-to-day counting to advanced science and business calculations. It involves the study of quantity, especially as the result of combining numbers...
, Astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
and (musical) Harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
. Frances Yates
Frances Yates
Dame Frances Amelia Yates DBE was a British historian. She taught at the Warburg Institute of the University of London for many years.She wrote extensively on the occult or Neoplatonic philosophies of the Renaissance...
comments that these images correspond closely to the rules for the creation of images for artificial memory
Art of memory
The Art of Memory or Ars Memorativa is a general term used to designate a loosely associated group of mnemonic principles and techniques used to organize memory impressions, improve recall, and assist in the combination and 'invention' of ideas. It is sometimes referred to as mnemotechnics...
. As each art is introduced, she gives an exposition of the principles of the science she represents, thereby providing a summary of the seven liberal arts. Two other arts, Architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
and Medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
, were present at the feast, but since they care for earthly things, they were to keep silent in the company of the celestial deities.
Each book is an abstract or a compilation from earlier authors. The treatment of the subjects belongs to a tradition which goes back to Varro's Disciplinae, even to Varro's passing allusion to architecture and medicine, which in Martianus Capella's day were mechanics' arts, material for clever slaves but not for senators
Roman Senate
The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...
. The classical Roman curriculum, which was to pass—largely through Martianus Capella's book—into the early medieval period, was modified but scarcely revolutionized by Christianity. The verse portions, on the whole correct and classically constructed, are in imitation of Varro.
The eighth book describes a modified geocentric astronomical
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
model, in which the Earth is at rest in the center of the universe and circled by the moon, the sun, three planets and the stars, while Mercury
Mercury (planet)
Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits...
and Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...
circle the Sun. This view was singled out for praise by Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe....
in Book I of his De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium is the seminal work on the heliocentric theory of the Renaissance astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus...
.
Influence
Martianus Capella can best be understood in terms of the reputation of his book. The work was read, taught, and commented upon throughout the early Middle Ages and shaped European education during the early medieval period and the Carolingian renaissanceCarolingian Renaissance
In the history of ideas the Carolingian Renaissance stands out as a period of intellectual and cultural revival in Europe occurring from the late eighth century, in the generation of Alcuin, to the 9th century, and the generation of Heiric of Auxerre, with the peak of the activities coordinated...
.
As early as the end of the fifth century, another African, Fulgentius
Fabius Planciades Fulgentius
Fabius Planciades Fulgentius was a late-antique period writer. Four extant works are commonly attributed to him, as well as a possible fifth which some scholars include in compilations with much reservation...
, composed a work modeled on it. A note found in numerous manuscripts—written by one Securus Memor Felix, who was intending to produce an edition—indicates that by about 534 the dense and convoluted text of De nuptiis had already become hopelessly corrupted by scribal errors. (Michael Winterbottom suggests that Securus Memor's work may be the basis of the text found in "an impressive number of extant books" written in the ninth century.) Another sixth-century writer, Gregory of Tours
Gregory of Tours
Saint Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of Gaul. He was born Georgius Florentius, later adding the name Gregorius in honour of his maternal great-grandfather...
, attests that it had become virtually a school manual. In his 1959 study, C. Leonardi catalogued 241 existing manuscripts of De nuptiis, attesting to its popularity during the Middle Ages. It was commented upon copiously: by John Scotus Erigena
Johannes Scotus Eriugena
Johannes Scotus Eriugena was an Irish theologian, Neoplatonist philosopher, and poet. He is known for having translated and made commentaries upon the work of Pseudo-Dionysius.-Name:...
, Hadoard
Hadoard
Hadoard or Hadoardus was a priest, and presumed librarian , of the ninth century. He is known solely for his Collectaneum, an anthology of philosophical extracts. This is a source, in particular, for the knowledge at the time of the works of Cicero.-References:* Charles H. Beeson, The Collectaneum...
, Alexander Neckham, and Remigius of Auxerre
Remigius of Auxerre
Remigius of Auxerre was a Benedictine monk during the Carolingian period, a teacher of Latin grammar, and a prolific author of commentaries on classical Greek and Latin texts...
. In the eleventh century the German monk Notker Labeo
Notker Labeo
Notker Labeo , also known as Notker Teutonicus i.e. "the German", Notker the German, or Notker III, was a Benedictine monk and the first commentator on Aristotle active in the Middle Ages. "Labeo" means "the thick lipped"...
translated the first two books into Old High German
Old High German
The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
. Martianus continued to play a major role as transmitter of ancient learning until the rise of a new system of learning founded on scholastic Aristotelianism. As late as the thirteenth century, Martianus was still credited as having been the efficient cause of the study of astronomy.
Modern interpreters have less interest in Martianus's ideas, "except for the light his work throws on what men in other times and places knew or thought it was important to know about the artes liberales
Liberal arts
The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...
. C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
, in The Allegory of Love
The Allegory of Love
The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition , by C. S. Lewis , is an influential exploration of the allegorical treatment of love in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance....
, states that "the universe, which has produced the bee-orchid and the giraffe
Giraffe
The giraffe is an African even-toed ungulate mammal, the tallest of all extant land-living animal species, and the largest ruminant...
, has produced nothing stranger than Martianus Capella".
The editio princeps
Editio princeps
In classical scholarship, editio princeps is a term of art. It means, roughly, the first printed edition of a work that previously had existed only in manuscripts, which could be circulated only after being copied by hand....
of De nuptiis, edited by Franciscus Vitalis Bodianus, was printed in Vicenza in 1499. The work's comparatively late date in print, as well as the modest number of later editions, is a marker of the slide in its popularity, save as an elementary educational primer in the liberal arts. For many years the standard edition of the work was that of A. Dick (Teubner, 1925), but J. Willis produced a new edition for Teubner in the 1980s.
A modern introduction, focusing on the mathematical arts, is William Harris Stahl, Richard Johnson and E. L. Burge, Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts, Vol. 1: The Quadrivium of Martianus Capella: Latin Traditions in the Mathematical Sciences, 50 B.C.–A.D. 1250 Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies, 84, (New York: Columbia University Press), 1971.
See also
- Allegory in the Middle AgesAllegory in the Middle AgesAllegory in the Middle Ages was a vital element in the synthesis of Biblical and Classical traditions into what would become recognizable as Medieval culture...
- Macrobius, a contemporaneous pagan handbook compiler who offers many parallels with Martianus.
- CassiodorusCassiodorusFlavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator , commonly known as Cassiodorus, was a Roman statesman and writer, serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Senator was part of his surname, not his rank.- Life :Cassiodorus was born at Scylletium, near Catanzaro in...
External links
.- Online Galleries, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries High resolution images of works by Martianus Capella in .jpg and .tiff format.