Visual Translation: Illuminated Manuscripts and the First French Humanists

By Anne D. Hedeman

Visual Translation breaks new ground in the study of French manuscripts, contributing to the fields of French humanism, textual translation, and the reception of the classical tradition in the first half of the fifteenth century.

While the prominence and quality of illustrations in French manuscripts have attracted attention, their images have rarely been studied systematically as components of humanist translation. Anne D. Hedeman fills this gap by studying the humanist book production closely supervised by Laurent de Premierfait and Jean Lebègue for courtly Parisian audiences in the first half of the fifteenth century.

Hedeman explores how visual translation works in a series of unusually densely illuminated manuscripts associated with Laurent and Lebègue circa 1404–54. These manuscripts cover both Latin texts, such as Statius’s Thebiad and Achilleid, Terence’s Comedies, and Sallust’s Conspiracy of Cataline and Jurguthine War, and French translations of Cicero’s De senectute, Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium and Decameron, and Bruni’s De bello Punico primo. Illuminations constitute a significant part of these manuscripts’ textual apparatus, which helped shape access to and interpretation of the texts for a French audience. Hedeman considers them as a group and reveals Laurent’s and Lebègue’s growing understanding of visual rhetoric and its ability to visually translate texts originating in a culture removed in time or geography for medieval readers who sought to understand them. The book discusses what happens when the visual cycles so carefully devised in collaboration with libraries and artists by Laurent and Lebègue escaped their control in a process of normalization. With over 180 color images, this major reference book will appeal to students and scholars of French, comparative literature, art history, history of the book, and translation studies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Release date: Apr 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9780268202262

Anne D. Hedeman

Anne D. Hedeman is the Judith Harris Murphy Distinguished Professor of Art History at the University of Kansas. She is the author and co-editor of a number of books, including Inscribing Knowledge in the Medieval Book: The Power of Paratexts.

Book preview

Visual Translation

THE CONWAY LECTURES IN MEDIEVAL STUDIES 2013

The Medieval Institute gratefully acknowledges the generosity of Robert M. Conway and his support for the lecture series and the publications resulting from it.

Previous titles published in this series:

Paul Strohm

Politique: Languages of Statecraft between Chaucer and Shakespeare (2005)

Ulrich Horst, O.P.

The Dominicans and the Pope: Papal Teaching Authority in the Medieval and Early Modern Thomist Tradition (2006)

Rosamond McKitterick

Perceptions of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (2006)

Jonathan Riley-Smith

Templars and Hospitallers as Professed Religious in the Holy Land (2010)

A. C. Spearing

Medieval Autographies: The I of the Text (2012)

Barbara Newman

Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular against the Sacred (2013)

John Marenbon

Abelard in Four Dimensions: A Twelfth-Century Philosopher in His Context and Ours (2013)

Sylvia Huot

Outsiders: The Humanity and Inhumanity of Giants in Medieval French Prose Romance (2016)

William J. Courtenay

Rituals for the Dead: Religion and Community in the Medieval University of Paris (2019)

Alice-Mary Talbot

Varieties of Monastic Experince in Byzantium, 800–1453 (2019)

VISUAL

TRANSLATION

Illuminated Manuscripts and the First French Humanists

ANNE D. HEDEMAN

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

undpress.nd.edu

Copyright © 2022 by the University of Notre Dame Press

All Rights Reserved

Published in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021948732

ISBN: 978-0-268-20227-9 (Hardback)

ISBN: 978-0-268-20229-3 (WebPDF)

ISBN: 978-0-268-20226-2 (Epub)

This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail]

To Carla Bozzolo and the memory of Nicole Pons

CONTENTS

List of Figures

Preface

Acknowledgments

Editorial Principles and Abbreviations

CHAPTER 1

Noble Leisure and French Humanism

PART 1

ILLUSTRATING THE PAST IN LATIN TEXTS

CHAPTER 2

Laurent de Premierfait’s Involvement with Statius’s Thebaid and Achilleid and Terence’s Comedies

CHAPTER 3

Jean Lebègue and Sallust’s Conspiracy of Catiline and Jugurthine War

PART 2

ILLUMINATION IN FRENCH TRANSLATIONS

CHAPTER 4

Illumination in French Translations by Laurent de Premierfait

PART 3

THE CYCLES ESCAPE

CHAPTER 5

Normalization

Appendices

Notes

Bibliography

Index

FIGURES

FIGURE 1.1 Sallust in his study. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium.

FIGURE 1.2 King Micipsa speaks with Adherbal, Hiempsal, and Jugurtha. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Jugurthine War.

FIGURE 1.3 Vitruvius presents his book to the emperor; Vitruvius surrounded by artisans. Vitruvius, De Architectura.

FIGURE 1.4 Amphitryon and his Theban army fight the Teleboans; Mercury speaks to Alcmena; Alcmena sleeps with Jupiter disguised as Amphitryon and the infant Hercules strangles snakes. Plautus, Comedies.

FIGURE 1.5 Valerius Maximus presents his book to Emperor Tiberius. Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX.

FIGURE 2.1 Oedipus curses his sons Polyneices and Eteocles. Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais.

FIGURE 2.2 Queen Atlanta’s Dream; Queen Atlanta gives thanks to Diana. Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais.

FIGURE 2.3 Polynices in exile. Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais.

FIGURE 2.4 Dukes of Exeter and Salisbury. Jean Creton, La prise et mort du roi Richart.

FIGURE 2.5 Richard II meets the Duke of Northumberland. Jean Creton, La prise et mort du roi Richart.

FIGURE 2.6 Juno kneels before Jupiter at the Council of the Gods. Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais.

FIGURE 2.7 Jupiter sends Mercury to Mars. Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais.

FIGURE 2.8 Mercury delivers Jupiter’s message to Mars. Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais.

FIGURE 2.9 King Adrastus awards prizes to winners of a footrace. Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais.

FIGURE 2.10 Alcidamas wounds Capaneus during a boxing match. Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais.

FIGURE 2.11 Wrestling competition between Tydeus, King Adrastus’s son-in-law, and Agylleus. Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais.

FIGURE 2.12 Discus throwers. Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais.

FIGURE 2.13 Stoning of Saint Stephen. Notre Dame, Paris.

FIGURE 2.14 King Polynices’ farewell to his wife; King Adrastus makes an offering. Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais.

FIGURE 2.15 Capaneus urges King Adrastus to wage war. Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais.

FIGURE 2.16 King Adrastus’s daughter Argia urges him to go to war. Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais.

FIGURE 2.17 Statius presents the book to Emperor Domitian. Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais.

FIGURE 2.18 Queen Thetis sees Paris and Helen sail for Troy. Publius Papinius Statius, Achilleid.

FIGURE 2.19 Queen Thetis sees Achilles sail with Ulysses and Diomedes to Troy. Publius Papinius Statius, Achilleid.

FIGURE 2.20 Frontispiece. Publius Terentius Afer, Comediae.

FIGURE 2.21 Portrait of Terence. Publius Terentius Afer, Comedies.

FIGURE 2.22 Masks for the Andria. Publius Terentius Afer, Comedies.

FIGURE 2.23 Declaiming the Argumentum. Publius Terentius Afer, Comedies.

FIGURE 2.24 The Roman theater. Augustine, Cité de Dieu.

FIGURE 2.25 Erasmus Grasser, moresca dancer: Burgunder.

FIGURE 2.26 Erasmus Grasser, moresca dancer: Schneiderlein.

FIGURE 2.27 Simo watches Davus and Pamphilius converse; Simo calls Pamphilius. Publius Terentius Afer, Comedies.

FIGURE 2.28 Representations of matrons. Publius Terentius Afer, Comedies.

FIGURE 2.29 Representations of prostitutes. Publius Terentius Afer, Comedies.

FIGURE 2.30 Micio and Demea meet. Publius Terentius Afer, Comedies.

FIGURE 2.31 Geta, Demipho, Hegio, Caratinus, and Crito in conversation. Publius Terentius Afer, Comedies.

FIGURE 2.32 Crito, Cremes, Simo, and Pamphilius in conversation. Publius Terentius Afer, Comedies.

FIGURE 2.33 The Abduction of Calida. Publius Terentius Afer, Comedies.

FIGURE 2.34 Thais in conversation with Thraso, as Gnatho, Parmeno, and the eunuch listen. Publius Terentius Afer, Comedies.

FIGURE 2.35 Phormio and Geta in conversation. Publius Terentius Afer, Comedies.

FIGURE 2.36 Phedria speaks to Dorio at left and Geta to Antipho at right. Publius Terentius Afer, Comedies.

FIGURE 3.1 Marginal note by Jean Lebègue; Roman senators; Birth of Caesar. Les Faits des romains.

FIGURE 3.2 Sallust in his study. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.3 Marginal note De amicitia. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.4 Marginal note De amicitia. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium.

FIGURE 3.5 Lists of kings and emperors. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium.

FIGURE 3.6 Poem by Ambrogio Migli. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium.

FIGURE 3.7 Poem by Charles of Orléans. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium.

FIGURE 3.8 The beginning of Histoires sur les deux livres de Salluste. Jean Lebègue, Histoires sur les deux livres de Salluste.

FIGURE 3.9 Directions on illustrating the Conspiracy of Catiline. Jean Lebègue, Histoires sur les deux livres de Salluste.

FIGURE 3.10 Directions on illustrating the Jugurthine War. Jean Lebègue, Histoires sur les deux livres de Salluste.

FIGURE 3.11 Jugurtha meets with Bestia and Scaurus in Vaga and the quaestor Sextius receives gifts, including elephants, as part of the terms of the surrender to Rome. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.12 The speech of Gaius Memmius to the people after Bestia’s return. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.13 Sallust in his study. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.14 Marginal inscription aultre histoire. Jean Lebègue, Histoires sur les deux livres de Salluste.

FIGURE 3.15 Romans take the city of Vaga; residents, fearing the Romans, set fire to the palace. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.16 Surrender of Capsa to Marius and his forces. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.17 Annotations for placement of an illumination in the future. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.18 Catiline and his companions. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.19 Catiline’s men take a blood oath; Quintus Curius tells Fulvia about their conspiracy. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.20 Semphronia and Catiline. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.21 Philotis speaks to Syra. Publius Terentius Afer, Comedies.

FIGURE 3.22 Fulvia warns Cicero of a planned assassination attempt. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.23 Cato’s speech to the Senate. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.24 Execution of Lentulus in the Tullianum. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.25 Catiline found dead among his troops. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.26 Jugurtha appears before Gaius Memmius and the commons. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.27 Marginal annotations indicating corrections for folios 51 and 52 in Geneva Ms. lat. 54. Jean Lebègue, Histoires sur les deux livres de Salluste.

FIGURE 3.28 Metellus and his men burn and pillage fertile lands in Numidia. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.29 Jugurtha’s envoys come before the Consul Metullus. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.30 Marius attacks a fortress on a craggy hill near the Muluccha River. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.31 King Boccus becomes an ally of King Jugurtha; they approach Cirta as Metellus and his men wait nearby. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.32 Marius’s triumph as Jugurtha is brought prisoner to Rome. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.33 Detail of figure 3.32.

FIGURE 3.34 Hiempsal is murdered at night and Adherbal is routed; Marius defeats Kings Jugurtha and Bocchus; Marius’s triumphal entry into Rome. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinarium and Bellum Jugurthinum.

FIGURE 3.35 Roman triumph. Valerius Maximus, Faits et dits mémorables.

FIGURE 4.1 Laurent presents his book to Duke Louis of Bourbon. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Oratio pro Marcello; De senectute, and Livre de vieillesse.

FIGURE 4.2 Latin text page. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Oratio pro Marcello; De senectute, and Livre de vieillesse.

FIGURE 4.3 Scipio and Laelius marvel at Cato and question him. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Oratio pro Marcello; De senectute, and Livre de vieillesse.

FIGURE 4.4 Cicero gives a book to a youth who delivers it to another man. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Oratio pro Marcello; De senectute, and Livre de vieillesse.

FIGURE 4.5 Cicero and Cato appear before Atticus. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Oratio pro Marcello; De senectute, and Livre de vieillesse.

FIGURE 4.6 Original cover. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Oratio pro Marcello; De senectute, and Livre de vieillesse.

FIGURE 4.7 Scipion and Lailus speak with Atticus [sic]. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Oratio pro Marcello; De senectute, and Livre de vieillesse.

FIGURE 4.8 Milo of Crotona. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Oratio pro Marcello; De senectute, and Livre de vieillesse.

FIGURE 4.9 Lucius Flamininus orders an execution at the request of a courtesan. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Oratio pro Marcello; De senectute, and Livre de vieillesse.

FIGURE 4.10 Death threatens a youth and an old man. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Oratio pro Marcello; De senectute, and Livre de vieillesse.

FIGURE 4.11 Allegory of death. Jacques Legrand, Le livre de bonnes mœurs.

FIGURE 4.12 Jean Gerson’s directions for illustrating Honoré Bouvet’s Somnium super materia scismatis.

FIGURE 4.13 Samuel anoints Saul. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.14 Misplaced image for book 5, chapter 5. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.15 Misplaced image for book 5, chapter 9. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.16 Murder of Ptolemy IV of Egypt; his concubine and her daughter hanged. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.17 Corpses of Hieronymus of Syracuse, his wife, and his daughter. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.18 Emperor Carus struck by lightning. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.19 Emperor Carus struck by lightning. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.20 The destruction of Jerusalem. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.21 The destruction of Jerusalem. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.22 Marie, famished, devours her child. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.23 Marie, famished, devours her child. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.24 The destruction of Jerusalem. Flavius Josephus, Les Antiquités judaïques.

FIGURE 4.25 Jews flee the massacre at Jerusalem. John of Salisbury, Policratique.

FIGURE 4.26 Soldiers kill Jewish men to recuperate gold; Marie offers the leftovers of her son to two men. Vincent of Beauvais, Miroir historial.

FIGURE 4.27 Pygmalion murders Dido’s husband, Sychaeus. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.28 Suicide of Dido. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.29 Arbachus sees Sardanapalus spinning with his wives. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.30 Suicide of Sardanalalus. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.31 Alcibiades, duke of Athens, at sea. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.32 Alcibiades, duke of Athens, burned alive. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.33 Alcibiades, duke of Athens, at sea. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.34 Alcibiades, duke of Athens, burned alive. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.35 Pierre Salmon in discussion with Charles VI. Pierre Salmon, Dialogues.

FIGURE 4.36 The lion of Burgundy protects France from the wolf of Orléans. Jean Petit, Justification du duc de Bourgogne.

FIGURE 4.37 Suicide of Lucretia. Giovanni Boccaccio, Livre des femmes nobles et renommees.

FIGURE 4.38 Suicide of Lucretia. Giovanni Boccaccio, Livre des femmes nobles et renommees.

FIGURE 4.39 Rape and suicide of Lucretia. Valerius Maximus, Faits et dits mémorables.

FIGURE 4.40 Suicide of Lucretia. Jacques Legrand, Le livre de bonnes mœurs.

FIGURE 4.41 Suicide of Lucretia. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.42 Lucius Tarquinius Superbus murders his predecessor, King Servius Tullius. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 4.43 Day 5, nouvelle 7. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 4.44 A noblewoman from Gascony returning from pilgrimage is robbed in Cyprus; she seeks redress from the king. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 4.45 Rinaldo d’Asti is robbed and has his property restored to him. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 4.46 Jehannot de Chevigny, Parisian merchant, tries to convert his Jewish friend, Abraham; Abraham baptized at Notre Dame in Paris. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 5.1 Cicero gives a book to a youth who delivers it to another man. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Oratio pro Marcello; De senectute, and Livre de vieillesse.

FIGURE 5.2 Laurent presents his book to Duke Louis of Bourbon. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Oratio pro Marcello; De senectute, and Livre de vieillesse.

FIGURE 5.3 The abduction of Calida. Publius Terentius Afer, Comediae.

FIGURE 5.4 Summary of act 1, scene 1 of Woman of Andros. Publius Terentius Afer, Comediae.

FIGURE 5.5 Pamphilius and Mysis. Publius Terentius Afer, Comediae.

FIGURE 5.6 Frontispiece. Publius Terentius Afer, Comediae.

FIGURE 5.7 The abduction of Calida. Publius Terentius Afer, Comediae.

FIGURE 5.8 The abduction of Calida. Publius Terentius Afer, Comediae.

FIGURE 5.9 Demea and Micio. Publius Terentius Afer, Comediae.

FIGURE 5.10 Demea and Micio. Publius Terentius Afer, Comediae.

FIGURE 5.11 Geta, Demipho, Hegio, Caratinus, and Crito in conversation. Publius Terentius Afer, Comediæ.

FIGURE 5.12 Sannio lurks as Aeschinus and Ctesipho speak and Ctesipho talks to Syrus. Publius Terentius Afer, Comediae.

FIGURE 5.13 Sannio lurks as Aeschinus and Ctesipho speak and Ctesipho talks to Syrus. Publius Terentius Afer, Comediae.

FIGURE 5.14 Suicide of Lucretia. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 5.15 Suicide of Lucretia. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 5.16 Agamemnon’s assassination. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 5.17 Agamemnon’s assassination. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 5.18 The destruction of Jerusalem. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 5.19 Marie, famished, devours her child. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 5.20 Poems in praise of Boccaccio. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 5.21 Gontier Col’s signature. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 5.22 Plesseboys’s signature. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 5.23 Poems in praise of Boccaccio. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 5.24 Mnemonic text on recto. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 5.25 Mnemonic text on verso. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 5.26 Mnemonic text. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 5.27 Table of the Twelve Articles of Faith. The De Lisle Psalter.

FIGURE 5.28 Table of the Ten Commandments. The De Lisle Psalter.

FIGURE 5.29 Frontispiece. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 5.30 Struggle between Poverty and Fortune. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 5.31 Death of Brunhilda. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes.

FIGURE 5.32 Jehannot de Chevigny, Parisian merchant, tries to convert his Jewish friend, Abraham; Abraham baptized at Notre Dame in Paris. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 5.33 Jehannot de Chevigny, Parisian merchant, tries to convert his Jewish friend, Abraham; Abraham baptized at Notre Dame in Paris. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 5.34 Jehannot de Chevigny, Parisian merchant, tries to convert his Jewish friend, Abraham; Abraham baptized at Notre Dame in Paris. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 5.35 A noblewoman from Gascony returning from pilgrimage is robbed in Cyprus; she seeks redress from the king. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 5.36 A noblewoman from Gascony returning from pilgrimage is robbed in Cyprus; she seeks redress from the king. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 5.37 A noblewoman from Gascony returning from pilgrimage is robbed in Cyprus; she seeks redress from the king. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 5.38 Boccaccio sits outside the garden and takes down the tellers’ tales. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 5.39 The dead buried; seven women and three men gather in a country retreat. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 5.40 Presentation to John of Berry; Laurent de Premierfait and Antonio d’Arezzo translate Boccaccio. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 5.41 Boccaccio and ten young men and women assemble at a Florentine church. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 5.42 Queen Nefile and her companions listen to Filostrasto’s tale. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 5.43 Gulfardo and Ambrougia. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 5.44 Burial of the dead; young men and women depart Florence. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 5.45 Gulfardo and Ambrogia. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 5.46 Filomena sings about her lover. Giovanni Boccaccio, Des cent nouvelles.

FIGURE 5.47 Jean Lebègue presents his translation to King Charles VII. Leonardo Bruni, La première guerre punique.

FIGURE 5.48 Leonardo Bruni composing. Leonardo Bruni, La première guerre punique.

FIGURE 5.49 Jean Lebègue presents his translation to King Charles VII. Leonardo Bruni, La première guerre punique.

FIGURE 5.50 Leonardo Bruni presents the book to an emperor. Leonardo Bruni, La première guerre punique.

FIGURE 5.51 First battle between the Romans and Carthaginians. Leonardo Bruni, La première guerre punique.

FIGURE 5.52 Gnaeus Cornelius and Gaius Duillius arrive in Sicily. Leonardo Bruni, La première guerre punique.

FIGURE 5.53 Gaius Duillius fights Carthaginians. Leonardo Bruni, La première guerre punique.

FIGURE 5.54 Battle between Hamilcar and his Carthaginians and Spondius and his army. Leonardo Bruni, La première guerre punique.

FIGURE 5.55 Princes of Carthage seek to make peace with Marcus Atilius Regulus. Leonardo Bruni, La première guerre punique.

FIGURE 5.56 Princes of Carthage seek to make peace with Marcus Atilius Regulus. Leonardo Bruni, La première guerre punique.

FIGURES 5.57 Hannibal captured and put to death. Leonardo Bruni, La première guerre punique.

FIGURE 5.58 Hannibal captured and put to death. Leonardo Bruni, La première guerre punique.

FIGURE 5.59 Hannibal captured and put to death. Leonardo Bruni, La première guerre punique.

FIGURE 5.60 The Romans conquer Sicily. Leonardo Bruni, La première guerre punique.

FIGURE 5.61 The island of Sicily. Leonardo Bruni, La première guerre punique.

PREFACE

Through a consideration of artistic collaboration, Visual Translation: Illuminated Manuscripts and the First French Humanists seeks to expand the established areas of study referenced in its title: the intertwined fields of study about French humanism, the reception of the classical tradition in the first half of the fifteenth century, and textual translation. In the past thirty years scholars in these fields have shifted from the intellectual model of center and periphery with Italy as the center. For instance, scholars of humanism suggest that fifteenth-century humanism is not a philosophical position, but a literary product manifesting, as Stephen Milner eloquently put it, a knowledge and interest in classical languages, a philological approach towards textual criticism, an interest in the imitation of classical literary style, and a sense of participating in a revival of learning with a moral purpose.¹ They saw humanism taking many forms because of its different reception contexts. It was international from the outset; it manifested continuity with, rather than rupture from, classical study in the medieval past; and it spread through contact and exchange.

Many scholars of the impact of the classics on the postclassical tradition have begun to consider readers as active participants in the classical tradition who are involved in a chain of reception at specific times and places. They use reception theory as a valuable tool to offer insight into active, even if unintentional, transformations of classical Greek and Latin texts; for them reception shifts the temporal notion of center and periphery, so that the classical past is not the center that radiates out to passive later recipients. Instead, reception involves "the active participation of readers (including readers who are themselves creative artists) in a two-way process backwards as well as forwards, in which the present and the past are in dialogue with each other."² These active and diverse readings of classical texts over time in different geographic locations actively construct meaningful understandings of that past that offer insight into changing present moments.³

Scholars of translation speak of the vast program of translations in the French Middle Ages as evidence of the continuity between antiquity and the Middle Ages. Most translations during this period were from Latin, which, Michel Zink observes, was neither a maternal language nor monolithic because medieval Latin varied considerably from place to place and classical Latin differed significantly from it.⁴ Perhaps as a result, Claudio Galderisi describes medieval translation as polyphonic and the vast enterprise of translation as offering a bridge between antiquity and modernity.⁵ Furthermore, as Frédéric Duval suggests, both the medieval French and the Romans thought of history as exempla, as moral guides to behavior; until the sixteenth century the human experiences of the ancients served as powerful models in the Middle Ages in France not so much to explain the present as to offer models that would allow those present to amend their comportment for salvation [Les experiences humaines des Anciens doivent servir aux modernes, non pas tant à expliquer le present qu’à amender leur comportement en vue du salut].⁶

As will become clear, visual translation, the subject of this book, coexists with textual translation as a way to make the classical and medieval pasts present and to enhance reception of the moral examples in these texts that were seen as particularly relevant to medieval readers. Readers and viewers alike use the fruitful alterity of past stories to offer insight into their present and, hopefully, to shape their futures.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have many to thank for their help and support as I worked on Visual Translation: Illuminated Manuscripts and the First French Humanists. This book was begun during a sabbatical awarded by the University of Illinois and finished during a sabbatical granted by the University of Kansas. I completed research and writing in Europe and the United States with the help of subventions from the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. My research and writing benefited as well from appointments as a university scholar at the University of Illinois, as a museum guest scholar at the J. Paul Getty Museum, as a distinguished professor at the University of Kansas, and most recently as a chercheur invitée at the Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA). I was honored to present the Conway Lectures at the Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame, in 2013, which gave shape to this book, and I am grateful to the University of Kansas Endowment Association for a subvention toward its publication.

Over the years I benefited from responses to my work at conferences and seminars at the Universities of Leeds, Liverpool, and Manchester in the United Kingdom; the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, the Laboratoire de médiévistique occidentale de Paris (LaMOP), and the Institiut de recherche et d’histoire des textes (IRHT) in Paris; Le Studium, Loire Valley Institute for Advanced Studies, Orléans; the J. Paul Getty Museum; Harvard University; University of Notre Dame; Princeton University; the State University of New York, Binghamton; the University of Kansas; and the University of Pennsylvania.

I would like to thank Getty Publications, the Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, Publications de la Sorbonne, Peeters, Taylor & Francis, the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Mediaevalia, and Viator for permission to incorporate revised and expanded versions of material previously published.

I would like to offer particular thanks for insights and stimulating discussion to: Peter Ainsworth, Guyda Armstrong, François Avril, Carla Bozzolo, Rosalind Brown-Grant, Brigitte Buettner, Olivia Remie Constable, Godfried Croenen, Catherine Croizy-Naquet, Rhiannon Daniels, Lisa Fagin Davis, Olivier Delsaux, Marilyn Desmond, Anne-Marie Eze, Patrick Gautier-Dalché, Claude Gauvard, Marie-Thèrese Gousset, Jeffrey Hamburger, Jackie Hedeman, Sandrine Hériché-Pradeau, Olivia Holmes, Danielle Joyner, Thomas Kren, Mélisande Krypiec, Isabelle Marchesin, Scot McKendrick, Hélène Millet, Stephen Milner, Elizabeth Morrison, Nancy Netzer, Patricia Osmond, Robert Ousterhout, Gilbert Ouy, Marianne Pade, Margherita Palumbo, Maud Pérez-Simon, Nicole Pons, Bernard Ribémont, Elizabeth Sears, Dana Stewart, Patricia Stirnemann, William P. Stonemann, Michelle Szkilnik, Marie-Hélène Tesnière, Robert Ulery, Anne van Buren, Inès Villela-Petit, and Tara Welch.

Carla Bozzolo and Nicole Pons in particular offered models of careful and thoughtful scholarship on Laurent de Premierfait and Jean Lebègue. Over the years I benefited equally from their scholarly support and their friendship, and I dedicate this book to Carla and the memory of Nicole as a token of my gratitude.

EDITORIAL PRINCIPLES AND ABBREVIATIONS

When Latin and Middle French texts are cited directly from manuscripts, modernized spelling and punctuation and minimal diacritics have been added. When citations are taken from critical editions, quotations are transcribed exactly. The names of historical figures are anglicized except where anglicization would be confusing: for instance, Louis of Orléans and John of Berry, but Christine de Pizan. Finally, I have used the following abbreviations when referring to manuscripts.

Arsenal Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal

Ass. Nat. Paris, Assemblée nationale

BAV Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

BL London, British Library

BML Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana

BnF Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France

Bodl. Oxford, Bodleian Library

Bordeaux, BM Bordeaux, Bibliothèque municipale

Chantilly Chantilly, Musée Condé

Geneva Geneva, Bibliothèque de Genève

Houghton Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Harvard College Library, Houghton Library

JPGM Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum

KB The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek

KBR Brussels, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique

Morgan New York, Pierpont Morgan Library

ÖNB Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek

Pal. Arts Lyon, Palais des Arts

Philadelphia Philadelphia Museum of Art, Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs

Ste-Gen Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève

Trivulzano Milan, Archivio Storico Civico e Biblioteca Trivulziana, Trivulziano Trivulzano

UCB Berkeley, University of California, Bancroft Library

Yale New Haven, Yale University Library

CHAPTER 1

Noble Leisure and French Humanism

Beginning in the fourteenth century during the reigns of the Valois kings, French humanism and translation were associated, and they flourished with the active support of King Charles V, who reigned from 1364 to 1380.¹ At its inception, French humanism was enriched by contacts made by its practitioners in Avignon with Petrarch and the papal chancellery.² The connections that scholars made in Italy and deepened through personal correspondence and participation in diplomatic missions continued to influence the graduates and students of the Collège de Navarre in Paris who filled the royal chancellery during the early fifteenth century. Scholars such as Gilbert Ouy, Ezio Ornato, and Carla Bozzolo describe French humanists of the early fifteenth century as motivated by a desire to rival contemporary Italian authors in written expression (which they suggested often manifested a kind of French nationalism) and to collect and study manuscripts of the classics, thus contributing to a French revival of the antique past that often presented it in the image of the French present.³

The network of humanists in Paris was a close-knit community that included graduates of the Collège de Navarre, such as Jean de Montreuil, Nicolas de Clamanges, Jean Gerson, and Jean Courtecuisse, as well as notaries and secretaries with different backgrounds such as Gontier Col, Laurent de Premierfait, and Jean Lebègue. They had diverse relations to each other and to members of the nobility. For instance, Jean de Montreuil, Col, Laurent de Premierfait, and Lebègue were royal and ducal notaries. Jean de Montreuil and Gontier Col were also members of the Cour amoureuse, a literary society, founded in 1401 by Dukes Louis of Bourbon and Philip the Bold of Burgundy and headed by King Charles VI, that brought together a cross section of nobility, clerics, and bourgeoisie.⁴ They participated actively, along with Pierre Col, Jean Gerson, and Christine de Pizan, in the literary debate surrounding the Roman de la Rose, known in part through dossiers given to Queen Isabeau of Bavaria and Duke John of Berry, among others.⁵ Manuscripts annotated by Gontier Col and Jean Lebègue attest that they were avid fans of Laurent de Premierfait. The surviving manuscripts of Jean de Montreuil’s letter collection, also annotated by Lebègue, reveal Jean’s classical knowledge.⁶ He peppers his letters with classical references to such authors as Cicero, Virgil, Sallust, Terence, Valerius Maximus, Seneca, Horace, and others. Even more important, Jean de Montreuil’s letters offer insight into the relationships between Col, Laurent de Premierfait, Jean de Montreuil, and other humanists.

Ornato’s analysis of the letter collections shows how Jean de Montreuil was part of a community that read and discussed classical texts.⁷ His letters describe how he obtained books from contacts in Italy and shared them and other manuscripts with colleagues. For instance, in his correspondence with Gontier Col (letter 38), Jean de Montreuil describes a dream in which Terence appeared and told Jean to study his comedies, as Col and Pierre Mahac were doing. Jean also writes Col (letter 120) in 1400 or 1401 to tell him that he had read the Roman de la Rose at Col’s suggestion and loved it. He writes an unknown correspondent (letter 90), to ask to borrow a Latin copy of Augustine’s City of God.

Sometime between 1401 and 1403 Jean de Montreuil wrote a particularly rich series of letters involving rare texts procured from Italy. The first (letter 125) was a letter of introduction sent with Guillaume de Tigonville to a scholarly Italian friend, Jacopo, in which Jean asked what Jacopo had accomplished in the monastery of Cluny and reminded him to transcribe a manuscript of Plautus and to procure a manuscript of Cicero in Bologna. Shortly thereafter (letter 126) Jean thanked Jacopo for sending him the copy of Plautus. In a third letter (letter 157) Jean observed that one of his unknown correspondent’s copyists had just transcribed a manuscript of Livy owned by Jean. Further, he informed that person that he had received rare works from Italy that were unavailable in France, even in a college; these included Cato’s Censorinus, Varro’s De Agricultura, Vitruvius’s De Architectura, and Plautus. Jean offered to make them available to copy. Because Jean ended his letter by asking the addressee to help speed payment of two hundred francs reserved for him by the Duke of Berry, Ornato speculated that this letter may have gone to Martin Gouge, who had classical interests and was the duke’s treasurer and counselor.⁸

François Avril suggested that two Latin manuscripts painted by Virgil Master illuminators around 1405 may be copies made after those mentioned in Jean de Montreuil’s correspondence because they contain several of the rare texts that Jean procured. One combines Vitruvius’s De Architectura, Cato’s De Rustica, and Varro’s Res Rustica (BML Plut. 30.10) and the second contains Plautus’s Comedies (BnF Ms. lat. 7890).⁹ Marie-Hélène Tesnière speculated that Jean de Montreuil could equally well have addressed this offer of access to Jacques Courau, treasurer and maître d’hotel to Duke John of Berry, rather than to Martin Gouge.¹⁰ Courau had given a French translation of Valerius Maximus painted by Virgil Master illuminators (BnF Ms. fr. 282) to John of Berry in January 1402. He also owned a Latin manuscript of Virgil’s works transcribed by Pierre de l’Ormel in 1403 (BML Med. Palat. 69) that also was painted by Virgil Master illuminators. Since the same scribe and artists that produced Courau’s Virgil manuscript wrote and decorated Plautus’s Comedies (BnF Ms. lat. 7890), Tesnière suggests that Courau may have been the scholar whom Jean de Montreuil addressed.

While we will never know with certainty the identity of Jean de Montreuil’s noble French reader with interest in classical texts, the precious survival of his letters gives insight into the moment in the early fifteenth century when early French humanists began to promote the classical heritage more broadly to the nobility and the powerful, perhaps in order to counter their ignorance or apathy. In the same letter that had offered the noble Frenchman access to rare classical texts, Jean de Montreuil expressed a wish that other nobles had been as interested as his correspondent in Livy and the other historiographers and authors because then a great portion of Livy and the works of other learned and venerable writers would not be lost. He wrote that talented literate men leaned toward pursuing active and earthly things in such a way that they scorn and reject contemplative things, which Virgil calls noble leisure, with the result that modern men had no passion to pursue books from antiquity.¹¹ Jean referred at the end of the letter to his correspondent’s shared pleasure in reading works that were among the oldest in Latin literature.

Two among the group of humanists in early fifteenth-century Paris—Laurent de Premierfait and Jean Lebègue—were deeply involved in the production of illuminated manuscripts designed to expand the nobility’s cultural exposure to both Latin classics and contemporary Italian literature, thereby combating the phenomenon that Jean de Montreuil described. They are ideal candidates for exploring the complex relationship between the culture of humanist members of the