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An Elizabethan translation of Bernard Palissy's ‘On Waters and Fountains’

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 30; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14601170902829691

1943-2186

Hester Lees‐Jeffries,

Historical and Literary Studies

Abstract Notes 1. All quotations are taken from Bernard Palissy, Recepte veritable, ed. Keith Cameron (Geneva: Droz, 1988). 2. Recepte, pp. 39–40. 3. Recepte, p. 47. 4. This is the text in the Authorised Version (King James Bible). Biblical quotations in the commentary on Watson's translation are taken from the Bishops’ Bible. 5. Recepte, pp. 57–58. 6. The description of the garden proper begins on p. 125 of the Recepte. 7. Recepte, p. 90. 8. Recepte, p. 59. 9. Recepte, pp. 128–148. 10. Ecclesiasticus 1.14. 11. Wisdom 3.15. 12. Wisdom 8.13. 13. Ecclesiasticus 1.5. 14. Isaiah 55.1. 15. Recepte, pp. 152–158. 16. Léonard N. Amico, [Agrave] la recherché du paradis terrestre: Bernard Palissy et ses continuateurs (Paris: Flammarion, 1996), p. 169. 17. Recepte, pp. 148–152. 18. Gilles Polizzi, ‘L'intégration du modèle: le Poliphile et les discours du jardin dans La Recepte Veritable’, in Bernard Palissy 1510–1590: L’Écrivain, Le Céramiste, Le Réformé, ed. Frank Lestringant (Mont-de-Marsan: Edition SPEC, 1992), p. 65. Amico also comments on Palissy's debts to the Songe. 19. ‘Connil’ here refers to the animal identified as a ‘coney’ (Lat. cuniculus, rabbit) in the Authorized Version and other older English translations, but as a ‘rock badger’ in (for example) the New English Bible. In zoological terms it is usually identified as a hyrax, ‘a genus of small rabbit-like quadrupeds’, additionally described in an OED citation from 1891 as ‘a dwarf rhinoceros with a dash of rodent’. 20. Recepte, p. 167. 21. Amico, p. 174. 22. See the commentary below, notes 161, 202. 23. John Jones, The Benefit of the auncient Bathes of Buckstones (London, 1572), ‡2. 24. William Harrison, The Description of England, ed. George Edelen (Ithaca, NY, 1968), p. 284. 25. ‘Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done, neither with such pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too-much-loved earth more lovely: her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden’, Philip Sidney, The Defence of Poesy, in Sidney's ‘Defence of Poesy’ and Selected Renaissance Literary Criticism, ed. Gavin Alexander (London: Penguin, 2004), p. 9. 26. G. R. Batho, The Household Papers of Henry Percy, ninth earl of Northumberland (1564–1632) (Camden 3rd Series, 93) (London: Royal Historical Society, 1962), pp. 55, 86. 27. See Edward Barrington de Fonblanque, Annals of the House of Percy (London, 1887), pp. 195–196. 28. The earl's interests and library are discussed in the biographical note above. 29. More information about Saintes is given in the commentary, in the context of Palissy's discussion of the town. 30. Palissy, Oeuvres, pp. 383–384. 31. Palissy's work on the Tuileries is further discussed below, in the commentary. 32. Alfred Dumesnil (Paris, 1851); Cecilia Brightwell (London, 1878), published by the Religious Tract Society; L. Combes (Paris, 1858); Alphonse de Lamartine (Paris, 1855); V. Preseau (Paris, 1872). Trombetta's ‘Bibliographie Palysséenne’ (see above) includes a lengthy section entitled ‘Hagiographie’ and, intriguingly, not only a number of nineteenth-century plays about Palissy but also the Dessin composé par Victorien Sardou sous l'influence spirite de Bernard Palissy (Paris, 1855) (better known as the author of the original Tosca), suggesting that Palissy (like many writers on alchemical and hermetic subjects) was also a favourite of those with interests in the occult. 33. Biographies of Watson, Percy and their associates are largely based on those in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, with additional information from other sources, which are given in the notes and bibliography. 34. On Watson's early life and family, see Ibrahim Alhiyari. ‘Thomas Watson: New Birth Year and Privileged Ancestry’, Notes and Queries (March 2006), pp. 35–40. 35. A full, annotated list of Watson's known works, together with contemporary allusions to him, can be found in Albert Chatterley, ‘Thomas Watson: Works, Contemporary References and Reprints’, Notes and Queries (September 2001), pp. 239–249. See also The Complete Works of Thomas Watson, ed. Dana F. Sutton (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1996) (2 vols), in which the ‘Learned Dialogue’ is a notable omission, for reasons that have been discussed above. 36. See Albert Chatterley, ‘Thomas Watson and the “Elvetham Entertainment”’, Notes and Queries (March 2000), pp. 37–40. 37. Mark Nicholls, ‘Percy, Henry, ninth earl of Northumberland (1564–1632)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/21939, accessed 1 September 2008]. 38. See G. R. Batho, ‘The Library of the ‘Wizard’ Earl: Henry Percy, Ninth Earl of Northumberland (1564–1632)', The Library (5th Series) 15 (1960), pp. 246–261. 39. Batho estimates a total of 1500–2000 volumes for the library, which would allow Northumberland ‘[to] take his place with such collectors as John Lord Lumley, Robert Burton, Sir Thomas Smith, Dr John Dee, Sir Edward Coke, and Sir Thomas Knyvett’ (p. 251). 40. On Northumberland's building and garden work and the possible context for Watson's translation of Palissy, see the introduction above. 41. See figure 2. The miniature is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. 42. This is now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Roy Strong has attributed the Fitzwilliam miniature to Hilliard's pupil Rowland Lockey (see ‘The Leicester House Miniatures: Robert Sidney, 1st Earl of Leicester and His Circle’, The Burlington Magazine Vol. 127 No. 991 (October 1985), pp. 694–703. On the portrait discussed here, see Strong, ‘Nicholas Hilliard's Miniature of the “Wizard Earl”’, reprinted in The Tudor and Stuart Monarchy (Woodbridge, 1995), Vol. 2, pp. 187–198. Dating of the portrait is problematic: while it would be tempting to date it prior to 1593, on the basis of the absence of any Garter insignia, Strong points out that it is not unusual for such insignia to be discarded in emblematic portraits such as this one (p. 194). 43. Strong, Tudor and Stuart Monarchy, p. 195. 44. See The Life and Minor Works of George Peele, ed. David H. Horne (New Haven, 1952), pp. 245–247. 45. This is the characteristic book-stamp of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. It presumably post-dates the MS at least slightly, as Percy was not made a Garter Knight until 1593. The half-moon is the Percy badge, properly ‘a crescent argent’. G. R. Batho identifies an early and a late state of the book-stamp; this appears to be the late variant, which ‘is very much more common and occurs indiscriminately on the books of both the ninth earl and his son the tenth earl, so that by itself it proves no more than that the volume was in the Percy collection between 1593 … and 1668, when the tenth earl died … the ‘late’ book-badge may be most easily distinguished from the ‘early’ by (apart from its greater size) the presence of stops between the words of the motto’. ‘The Library of the “Wizard” Earl: Henry Percy, Ninth Earl of Northumberland (1564–1632)’, The Library (5th Series) 15 (1960), p. 252. 46. For a brief description of the manuscript, see pp. 36–8. 47. Sic. On Palissy's life and career, see the Introduction. 48. On Watson's life and career, see the Introduction. 49. The running titles are consistent throughout, and have not been included here. 50. ‘Theorique’ is the usual sixteenth-century spelling for ‘theory’, the OED giving the earliest usage of ‘theorie’ as being by Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1597). ‘Theorique’ is found in both Gower and Chaucer; here Watson's preferred spelling emphasizes the Greek root θεωρικη. The opposition between theory and practice (or ‘practic’) is conventional; Palissy uses it throughout the Discours. 51. There is a useful illustrated discussion of the developing role of pumps in water supply, with particular reference to London, in H. W. Dickinson, Water Supply of Greater London (Leamington Spa, 1954), pp. 6–45. 52. That is air-bubbles form. 53. A valve in a pump, which consists of a hinged flap, which is first opened by the upward pressure of fluid and then closed by its weight. The OED gives its first usage as 1634. Fr: ‘la souspape’ (A2), ‘soupape’, ‘valve’. 54. A variant on the usual sixteenth-century ‘chirurgeon’, surgeon. 55. That is uvula. Fr: ‘que les chirurgiens appellent la luette’ (A2v), ‘that surgeons call the uvula’. 56. The rod which connects the piston of the pump with its power source; later, more commonly ‘pump-staff’ or ‘pump-rod’. 57. Fr: ‘un architecte François’ (A2v), ‘a French architect’. This is the first of several disparaging references to Philibert de l'Orme. Born in Lyons c. 1510, de l'Orme lived in Rome between 1533–6 and possibly again later in his life. He worked on the Château D’Ânet for Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henri II, and on Fontainebleau and Saint-Germain-en-Laye for the king, for whom he became Superintendent of Buildings; for Diane he also designed the famous bridge over the Cher at Chenonceaux. For Catherine de'Medici he designed a grotto at Montceaux-en-Brie, among other works, as well as the new palace and gardens at the Tuileries. The gardens were largely laid out, but of the vast palace he designed, little more than a single pavilion was ever constructed. He published two architectural works, Nouvelles Inventions pour bien bastir et à petits frais (1561), on vaults and roofs, and Architecture (1567). Ironically, given Palissy's evident loathing of him, presumably grounded in considerable personal experience, the two men shared (at least in their written works) an explicit concern with the practical rather than the theoretical. De l'Orme died in 1570. Loss of royal protection on Henri's death in 1559 temporarily blighted his career, and indeed compromised his safety: ‘he seems for a short time to have been exposed to serious maltreatment from his enemies, of whom he had made many by his arrogance’ (Blunt, Art and Architecture in France 1500–1700 [Fifth Edition] [New Haven, 1999], p. 49). See also Blunt, Philibert de l'Orme (London, 1958). 58. Fr: ‘vint mil en benefices’ (A2v), ‘twenty-thousand in benefices’. Watson slightly alters the sense here to reflect the English idiom. Palissy refers more specifically to de l'Orme's reputed income from benefices, with ‘francs’ presumably understood. ‘Plurality of benefices’ was the holding of the benefice or ‘living’ of a number of parishes by a member of the clergy or indeed by a layman or other organization, the implication being that the person or other body concerned would enjoy the income of the parish while employing a poorly-paid curate to live and work there. It was a form of ecclesiastical abuse and corruption that attracted opprobrium from Langland onwards, and its eradication was often a focus for reformers; here Watson may well be using it metaphorically to cast de l'Orme's professional and social success in a negative light. Palissy's claim is in fact accurate, if exaggerated: Blunt records that within a few days of the death of Henri II de l'Orme ‘was dismissed from his post of Surintendant and in due course he was compelled to give up at least some of the abbeys with which he had been endowed’. Palissy's anecdote here probably refers to work that de l'Orme undertook for the Guise family (Philibert de l'Orme, p. 88), perhaps at the Château Neuf at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. 59. Fr: ‘la chose ne valust iamais rien’ (A3), ‘the thing was never worth anything’. 60. Toulouse, a city in south-west France. 61. The Garonne river, which runs south-east from the Gironde inlet on the Bay of Biscay, through Bordeaux. 62. Left margin note: ‘Of Welles’, followed by a paraph. Palissy's text inserts ‘Des Eaux des puits’ in the left margin next to Practique's next ‘speech’ (A3v). 63. Fr: ‘croupies’ (A3v), ‘stagnant’. 64. A complaint as familiar in sixteenth-century London as in Paris: John Stow, writing in 1598, lamented that ‘Holywel is much decayed and marred with filthinesse, purposely layd there, for the heightthening of the ground, for garden plots’; although ‘Clements Well’ and ‘Clarkes wel’ remained serviceable ‘the other smaller wels that stood neare vnto Clarkes wel, to wit Skinners wel, Fagges well, Todwell, Lodes well, and Redwell, are all decayed and so filled vp. that their places are now hardly discerned’ (B7v). 65. Left margin note: ‘Welles easy to be impoysoned’, followed by a paraph; this does not appear in Palissy's text. 66. Johannes Sleidanus, whose real name was Johannes Philippi, was born in Schleiden c. 1506 and died in Strasbourg in 1556. From 1545 he was the official historian of the Schmalkaldic League, established as a mainly defensive alliance of Lutheran princes in 1531, and effectively the first historian of the German Reformation. His mammoth book, De statu religionis et reipublicae Carolo V Caesare commentarii, was published in 1555, and an English translation appeared in 1560. It includes transcriptions of most of the key documents of the time, and was hugely influential. 67. ‘About the same time also thei publish a writing, wherin they say how they are aduertised by them that are credit worthy, how the bishop and Antichrist of Rome, an instrument of the deuil, & authour of this war, who in certen yeres past, by his hired ministers, set many townes of fire in Saxon, hath now sent forth impoysoners, to infecte their welles, and standing waters, to thintent that the same which war and the sword can not destroy, these may dispatche with their poison … a certen Italian was taken of suspicion who confessed that he & diuerse others had money giuen them at Rome in the byshops name, that they shuld, with firing & poyson, do as much hurt in Germany as they possible might’, A Famouse Cronicle of oure time, called Sleidanes Commentaries (London, 1560), Book 18 (1546), Aa2v. 68. Meaux is a town to the east of Paris, in the modern département of Seine-et-Marne. It is still associated with the production of the cheese to which the former name of the region gave its name. I have not been able to find a source for this episode. 69. Left margin note: ‘A physitions bad shifte for silver’, followed by a paraph; this does not appear in Palissy's text. A ‘shift’ is a device or scheme, often with a suggestion of subterfuge or fraudulence. I have not been able to find a source for this episode. 70. Lorraine is one of the easternmost regions of France; its chief cities are Nancy and Metz. There is evidence of salt production from the Bronze Age onwards in the Seille Valley (the Seille runs through Metz): salt pans dating from this era, formed by hand from baked earth, can still be found across an area of some 120 hectares in this marshy region. Salt production continued after colonization by the Romans, utilizing a more elaborate process of ‘briquetage’, using earthenware vessels pierced with tiny holes, which were heated over a woodfire. By the twelfth century, salt-making involved the digging of wells and ditches in the salt-marshes, which fed the salt water to permanent large, shallow pans through a system of channels, where the water evaporated or was boiled off and the salt could be easily harvested. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the various abbeys, dukedoms and bishoprics competing for political and economic dominance in Lorraine regarded not only the salt-wells as a key resource, but also the forests in their vicinity, which could provide the vast quantities of wood essential to the refining process. See Histoire de la Lorraine, ed. Michel Parisse (Toulouse, 1978), pp. 44, 53, 163, 255–256. The seventh of Palissy's Discours is entitled ‘Du sel commun, la manière de le faire avec la description des marez salans’ (‘Concerning common salt and the way in which it is made, together with a description of salt-marshes’). In the autobiographical passage of his ‘De l'art de terre’, he notes that while he was conducting his experiments in ceramics, he oversaw the work of the king's surveyors as they mapped the salt-marshes of Xaintonge in preparation for the imposition of ‘la gabelle’, the salt-tax (p. 381). 71. In the late sixteenth century, ‘cattell’ was still the generic term for livestock, and could encompass pigs, sheep, goats and even horses as well as cattle. The use of ‘cattle’ in an exclusively bovine sense begins to appear in the mid-sixteenth century; here Watson clearly has more than ‘cattle’ in mind as he translates Palissy's ‘bestes’ (A5), and in Practise's reply, below, he uses ‘cattell’ to translate ‘les beufs, vaches et autre bestail’. 72. The idea that living creatures might be spontaneously engendered from mud through the action of the sun is an ancient one, found (for example) in Ovid's account of the aftermath of Deucalion's flood: ‘For when moisture and heat unite, life is conceived, and from these two sources all living things spring. And, though fire and water are naturally at enmity, still heat and moisture produce all things, and this inharmonious harmony is fitted to the growth of life’ (Metamorphoses 1.430f). The earliest source is probably Anaximander's cosmology (6th century bc); it is considerably elaborated by Aristotle. Watson uses ‘vermin’ to translate Palissy's more moderate ‘animaux’ (A5). 73. Used interchangeably with ‘asp’ as a generic term for a poisonous snake, especially in a poetic context. Shakespeare's Cleopatra is bitten by an ‘aspic’, a term that he borrows from Thomas North's translation of Plutarch, although Shakespeare omits Plutarch's account of Cleopatra's careful testing of various venoms on condemned prisoners prior to her suicide (The lives of the noble Grecians and Romanes [1579], Qqqq-Qqqqv). 74. Fr: ‘sangsues’ (A5v), ‘leeches’. Sometimes used interchangeably with the more usual medicinal leech (genus Hirudo or Sanguisuga), but more properly Haemopsis sanguisorba, larger and with differently-formed jaws. 75. The asp viper (Vipera aspis), the species of viper common in south-western Europe (including France) is not usually aquatic, preferring sunny habitats with plenty of vegetation; the common adder (V. berus) prefers similar habitats, although both can sometimes be found basking on the banks of ponds and streams. The European Grass Snake (Natrix natrix), however, is aquatic; it is found all over Europe (including Great Britain). It is non-venomous, and it is likely that Palissy is referring to grass snakes here. 76. The region to the north-west of Paris. 77. See note 72 above. 78. Fr: ‘du limon verd’ (A5v), literally ‘green silt’. ‘Duck-meat’ is the more usual term until the nineteenth century for what is now commonly known as duckweed, genus Lemna. Translating Pliny, Philemon Holland described it as ‘a kind of marish or moory Lentils… growing of it selfe in standing waters’ (1601). 79. Note in the left margin: ‘Of Cesterns’, followed by a paraph; Fr: ‘Des Cisternes’. 80. Watson translates ‘mare’, ‘estang’ and ‘claune’ interchangeably as ‘pond’. La Rocque points out that ‘claune’ or ‘clône’ is ‘a colloquial term used in Saintonge for a small body of water or a pond’ (p. 34 n. 28). 81. Note in the left margin: ‘Of naturall fountaynes’, followed by a paraph; this does not appear in Palissy's text. 82. Palissy has ‘grand nombre darcs triomphans’ (A6v), ‘a large number of triumphal arches’ at this point. 83. Palissy was born in Agen, but was living and working in Saintes (Xaintes) in western France, on the Charente river, by 1539. Today Saintes is a town of about 26 000 people; the Michelin guide verte notes that its two most ‘famous sons’ are Palissy and Dr Joseph Ignace Guillotin (1738–1814), who gave his name to the instrument of execution he advocated on humane grounds. Many of the town's Roman remains survive. One of the arches to which Palissy refers is the Arc de Germanicus, made from local limestone and erected in ad 19. It is unusual in that it is in fact a votive, rather than a triumphal arch (as Palissy describes it), dedicated by its donor Caius Julius Rufus to Germanicus, Tiberius and Drusus. It stood on the town's Roman bridge until 1843; when the bridge was demolished, the arch was saved and resited through the intervention of Prosper Merimée in his capacity as Inspector of Historic Monuments. On the city's Roman past, see Histoire de Saintes, ed. Alain Michaud (Toulouse, 1989), pp. 12–48; the Arc de Germanicus is discussed pp. 19–21. The first history of the region's antiquities had been published by Élie Vinet (1509–87), a native of the region who spent most of his working life in Guyenne, and who may well have known Palissy, given their obvious shared interests. 84. In Palissy's text, ‘des aqueducs contenans cinquante lieuës de long (chose incroyable toutesfois)’ (A7r), ‘aqueducts of fifty leagues in length (something admittedly unbelievable)’. On Roman aqueducts in general, see A. Trevor Hodge, Roman Aqueducts and Water Supply (London, 1992). The Nîmes aqueduct is around 50 km long. In Rome, the Aqua Marcia is 91 km long and the Anio Novus 87 km; the aqueduct system in Carthage totals 132 km and in Cologne 95 km. The total length of the eleven Roman aqueducts is 502 km (for these and other statistics, see Hodge, pp. 346–348). 85. The amphitheatre can still be seen. It is located to the west of the town, and it is in fact one of the oldest surviving amphitheatres anywhere, built in the first century ad. It is comparatively small, with a floor area of 64 × 39 metres, and a capacity of around 20 000 spectators. See Michaud, pp. 21–23. 86. Antiquarian books of the period frequently include illustrations of coins and medals excavated from ruins alongside pictures of ancient buildings, as shown in the illustrations here. 87. Here Watson omits a local detail in Palissy's original, that ‘le Chancelier de l'hospital se destourna de son chemin (reuenant du voyage de Bayonne) pour voir l'excellence de ladite source’ (A7v), ‘the Chancellor of the Hospital having made a detour out of his way (returning from his journey to Bayonne) in order to see the excellence of the aforesaid spring’. 88. These arches, which used to convey water to the town baths, are indeed still standing today. 89. Fr: ‘les antiques’ (A7v), ‘the ancients’. 90. Fr: ‘subtils’ (A7v), ‘skilful’. 91. To miss the cushion; to be wide of the mark or to err. A common phrase in the sixteenth century, but little recorded after the early seventeenth. Fr: ‘bien souuent tromper’ (A8), ‘often make mistakes’. 92. That is limescale, the build-up of calcium carbonate in hard water areas. 93. See the longer discussion of earthquakes, below. 94. The Pont du Gard. 95. Nîmes. 96. The Pont du Gard is still France's most famous Roman site. It is a staggering feat of engineering, completed in around 19 bc, some eight years after Nîmes had been visited by Augustus Caesar. For an exhaustive account of the aqueduct from an engineering perspective, see George Hauck, The Aqueduct of Nemausus (Jefferson, NC, 1988). 97. Although it had been settled by nomadic Celtic tribes in the fourth century bc, Nîmes (Latin Nemausus) became a Roman colony in about 40 bc; it is often suggested that it was subsequently settled by the veterans of Actium (31 bc), the city's emblem of a crocodile and a palm tree referring to this Egyptian victory. Its site on the Via Domitia, the main chariot route from Rome to Spain, made it one of the most important Roman cities in southern France. It was eventually conquered by the Visigoths, and by Moors from Spain c. 724. By the late twelfth century it was a stronghold of the Cathar counts of Toulouse, and in the mid-sixteenth century Huguenots, mainly clothmakers, made up a clear majority (about 75%) of its population. On St Michael's Day (29 September) 1567 there was a massacre of around 200 Catholics, mainly clergy, later known as the Michelade. Its amphitheatre was built in the late first century ad, and had a capacity of around 24 000. Its Roman remains are still exceptionally well-preserved, and include a nymphaeum, or decorated water reservoir, now known as the Temple of Diana, and the Maison Carrée, as well as various gates and arches. It also retains its castellum, or reservoir, one of only two such to survive from Roman times; the other is in Pompeii (Hauck, p. 1). 98. For reasons given below, I suspect that this is the Vrbis Romae sciographia ex antiquis monumentis accuratiss. delineata (1574) of Étienne Du Pérac (or Dupérac), which shows ancient rather than sixteenth-century Rome. I am grateful to David R. Marshall of the University of Melbourne for his help in elucidating the references here. That Palissy describes the map as ‘latelie imprinted’ (‘nouvellement imprimé’), together with his disparaging references to Philibert de l'Orme, who had died in 1570, and his discussion of the Tuileries, on which work stopped in the mid-1570s, below, suggests that this section of the Discours at least was written some time before its publication in 1580. 99. Watson translates Palissy's ‘réceptacle’ (B1) directly. The Latin term is castellum (literally ‘little house’), the end-point of the aqueduct; ‘reservoir’ is probably the closest equivalent. The location of the castellum was crucial in determining the gradient, and so the viability and success, of an aqueduct, as well as the water pressure of the water for domestic and public use that it supplied. 100. ‘The Acqua Vergine was the sole aqueduct supplying Rome throughout the Renaissance until Sixtus V conveyed the Acqua Felice to the city in 1587’, John A. Pinto, The Trevi Fountain (New Haven, 1986), p. 31. Palissy's reference to the ‘greate Receptacle’ is, however, problematic. The terminus of the Acqua Vergine was the Trevi Fountain, which did indeed provide water for the whole city, but by means of water-sellers, and in the sixteenth century it had not yet been elaborated into the great fountain famous today. The aqueduct did run on arcades for some of its length, but in comparison to most of the other ancient aqueducts, it ran underground for most of its length. An earlier Trevi Fountain had been designed by Alberti in 1453; what little evidence there is of its appearance, either visual or descriptive, suggests that it was quite plain, with only three outlets and little decoration. There was probably a settling tank, but it certainly would not have qualified for Palissy's description, closely translated by Watson as ‘a high, stately, and sumptuous Receptacle’. The Trevi Fountain, as it was in the 1570s, does appear on a later map by Du Pérac, but it is little more than a location, with no architectural elaboration whatsoever. I suspect that Palissy has read his knowledge of the Aqua Virgo/Acqua Vergine, in both ancient and modern Rome, on to Du Pérac's map of ancient Rome, on which there are two clearly-labelled examples of a castellum or castrum aquarum. Both are terminuses of the Aqua Julia, and the second, on the Via Praenestina, perhaps fits Palissy's description best; both are illustrated here. The way in which the aqueducts are presented in Du Pérac's map perhaps suggests that the Aqua Julia was the main aqueduct. Frontinus, on whose work Palissy perhaps draws, said that the ancient Aqua Virgo ‘continued into the Campus Martius, ending at the front of the Saepla Julia, a grand, porticoed enclosure situated just east of the Pantheon’ (Pinto, p. 11), but this is not corroborated in any other source. Du Pérac had engraved the ruins of the Castellum Aquae Juliae, or Nymphaeum of Alexander Severus, on the Esquiline Hill, in 1575, and these still survive today; although it is now unclear exactly which aqueduct fed it, it was certainly not the Aqua Virgo. 101. Catherine de'Medici (1519–89). She married Henry, son of François I in 1533; he became king in 1547. Following his death in 1559, she was regarded as the power behind the throne in the subsequent reigns of her three sons, François II (1544–60, reigned 1559–60), Charles IX (1550–74, reigned 1560–74) and Henri III (1551–89, reigned 1574–89), although she acted as official regent only for Charles. She has gained a not wholly deserved reputation as a Machiavellian figure, and in particular has been blamed for promoting the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre of Protestants in 1572. There is no doubt that her ‘reign’ coincided with one of the bloodiest and most chaotic periods in French history, and that her negotiations with (or attempts to manipulate) the various political and religious factions often contributed (and sometimes directly) to the violence and disorder. She probably does not, however, entirely deserve the ‘black legend’ that has grown up around her, many details of which can be traced to contemporary propaganda. For a recent reassessment of her life and career, see R. J. Knecht, Catherine de'Medici (London, 1998). Catherine was a considerable patron of the arts, and especially of sculptors and architects; she favoured French artists and craftsmen over Italians, notably Jean Bullant and Germain Pilon, as well as Philibert de l'Orme. She was also particularly interested in science, largely astrology and the occult. Her elaborate and expensive building works made her unpopular with Parisians: the poet Ronsard wrote ‘Il ne faut plus que la reine batisse, | Ni que sa chaux nos trésors appetisse … Peintres, maçons, engraveurs, entailleurs | Sucent l’épargne avec leurs piperies. | Mais que nous sert son lieu de Tuileries?’ (‘The queen must cease building, her lime must stop swallowing our wealth … Painters, masons, engravers, stone-carvers drain the treasury with their deceits. Of what use is her Tuileries to us?’) (quoted Knecht, p. 233). 102. Another disparaging reference to Philibert de l'Orme; see note 57 above. 103. Fr: ‘qui avoit hanté l'Italie’ (B1), ‘who had frequented Italy’. Here Watson's translation probably reflects both the more lite