Led by Eve. The Large Ship of Female Fools and the Five Senses (1498; 1500)
2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 26; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/02666280903216991
ISSN1943-2178
Autores Tópico(s)Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 – Tertullian, De Culta Feminarum, 1, 12. See Elaine Pagels, Adam and Eve and the Serpent (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), p. 63 (English translation quoted from Pagels, idem, emphasis added, Y.P.). 2 – See Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary (New York: Vintage Books, 1983), pp. 58–9; Yona Pinson, ‘Fall of the Angels and Creation of Eve in Bosch's Eden: Meaning and Iconographical Sources’, in Flanders in Perspective. Manuscript Illumination in Flanders and Abroad, eds Maurits Smeyers and Bert Cardon (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1995), p. 699. 3 – Josse Bade van Assche, one of the most important editors in Lyons and Paris, was an influential figure in humanist circles, embodying the new type of northern humanist whose worldviews were still somewhat rooted in late medieval culture. Like Desiderius Erasmus, he too was a disciple of the Devotio Moderna. A native of Ghent (1462), he studied at the Jeromist Institute associated with the Fraternity of Common Life. He edited and published treatises relating to the Devotio Moderna, but was also inspired by Italian Humanist circles during his stay in Italy. After 1492 he also published The Terrance, extracts of Virgil, Horace and Aristotle. In 1503, he established his new publishing house Parelum Ascensiaunum in Paris, editing mostly humanistic writings. For a complete bibliography of Bade's own writings and publications see: Philippe Renouard, Bibliographie des impressions et des oeuvres de Josse Bade Ascensius impreimeur et humanist, 3 vols (Paris: E. Paul et fils et Guillemin, 1908). See also Charles Be´ne´, La nef des folles. Stultiferae naves, de Josse Bade, Reproduction de l'e´dition princeps d'Angelbert de Marnef (Paris, 1500), trans. and annotated by Odette Sauvage (Grenoble: Publications de l'Universite´ de langues et lettres de Grenoble, 1979), pp. 4–9. 4 – A small book of 40 pages (in 40) illustrated with six woodcuts, printed by Thielmann Kerver for Angelbert and Geoffrey de Marnef (18 February 1500), Paris, Arsenal, RES 8-BL-5805. It was later re-edited by Brant's friend, Jacob Wimpheling, who also wrote the Introduction, (Strasbourg, Johannes Prüss, 10 September 1502). Bade's ‘Supplement’ to Brant's Das Narrenschiff had a local influence, especially through the French adaptation by Jehan Drouyn, published exclusively in France. The Latin original and French adaptations were both issued in 12 editions between 1498 and 1595. 5 – Be´ne´, La nef des folles, 66:03 (my emphasis Y.P.) 6 – Be´ne´, La nef des folles, 25:04. 7 – See Be´ne´, La nef des folles, pp. 65–66; see Jehan Drouyn, La grant nef des folles, fol. aiii v: ’Ce monde est vanite´ de vanite´e; et n'y en ce monde que de vanite´’ (paraphrasing Ecclesiastes 1:2). 8 – Be´ne´, idem; this hostile tone becomes even more disturbing and provocative in Drouyn's vernacular version. Some years later, Symphorien Champier (a physician and humanist in Lyon) responding to Bade/Drouyn's offensive works, published his own version entitled La Nef des dames vertueuses (Paris 1503), one of the texts in the great debate known as ‘le querelle des femmes’. This debate still echoed in the writings of humanists in the second half of the sixteenth century, through Rabelais's misogynist writings and François de Billon's treatise. See Be´ne´, La nef des folles, p. 10; on the Querelle des Femmes, see, Joan Kelly, Women, History and Theory (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1984), chapter 4: ‘Early Feminist Theory and the Querelle des Femmes, 1400–1789’. 9 – The idea of a perilous navigation is clearly indicated in the title of Bade's addendum. On this topic, see Yona Pinson, The Fools' Journey. A Myth of Obsession in Northern Renaissance Art (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2008), chapter 3: ‘Perilous Navigation’. 10 – See Sebastian Brant, The Ship of Fools, trans. Edwin H. Zeydel (New York: Dover Publications, 1962), p. 61. 11 – Idem. 12 – See Ship of Fools, especially chapter 13: ‘Of Amours’ and chapter 50: ‘Of Sensual Pleasures’. See Yona Pinson, ‘La Dame et le Fou’, Gazette de Beaux-Arts, 122 (1993), pp. 1–16, especially pp. 4–5. 13 – Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1965), chapter 5: ‘Women on Top’; Jean Delumeau, La Peur en Occident (XIVe –XVIIe siècles). Une cite´ assie´ge´ (Paris: Fayard, 1978), pp. 335–45. 14 – In fact, Drouyn's adaptation deviates considerably from Bade's refined Latin original. Moreover, the French version, comprising 13 additional chapters, greatly surpasses, in breadth of subject, Bade's addendum. These supplementary lessons are Drouyn's original inventions and his address of his readers comes across as direct and even aggressive when compared with Bade's refined and subtle style. See Olga Anna Duhl, ‘Vernacular Translation and the Sins of the Tongue: From Brant's Stultifera Navis (1494) to Drouyn's La Nef des folles (c. 1498)’, Fifteenth-Century Studies 32 (2007), pp. 53–67, especially pp. 53–7. 15 – I refer to the later edition, n.d. (In 40; Lyon, c. 1500–10), Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Re´s. m Y 750, entitled La Brantienef des folles selon les cinq cens; La grant nef des folles selon les cinq cens de nature, compose´es (en latin par Josse Bade) selon l'Evangile de Monseigneur saint Mathieu, des cinq vierges qui ne prirent point l'uylle avecques elle pour mettre en leurs lampes. Avec plusieurs additions nouvellement adjoustees par le translateur Jehan Droyon (sic). The anti-female tone is expressively pronounced in the commentary of the ‘First Ship of Eve’ (La premiere nef des folles, de Eve; La declaration de la nef). Olga Anna Duhl of Lafayette College is preparing a critical edition of La grant nef des folles by Jehan Drouyn. 16 – ‘This should know Dames and bourgeois women of this city’, idem, fol. XXX bi v; author's translation Y.P. 17 – One should note that in Bade's original Latin version, the author refers indeed to Plinius in the commentary of the ship of Eve (Stulteferae nauis explanation, fols aiii–aiiii). However, while he is quoting Pliny's passages from Book VII, correctly (fols aiiiv and aiiii), Drouyn, on the contrary, attributes to him his own views. 18 – See Mary Beagon, The Elder Pliny: On the Human Animal. Book 7, trans. with intro. and historical commentary by Mary Beagon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005). 19 – ‘Car comme dit Anacreon Fabius “Toy qui ne croy Dieu nas [n'as] tu point de paour [peur] de perir a chacune heure de jour par quelque petit coup de serpent …”’. Here again Drouyn attributes his admonition to an ancient author, though one that was actually not a real historical figure, but rather invented by him to appeal to his audience who expected insightful quotes from ancient texts. Anacreon was a Greek lyric poet (570 BC–488 BC), mentioned in Pliny's text but not in this context, while Fabius, a Roman Senator, was also mentioned in the same text (see Beagon, The Elder Pliny, VII, 44; pp. 67–68). 20 – Jodicus Badius, In stultiferae naves sensus animosqs trahentes Mortis in exitium, Paris, Angelbert de Marnef, 1500 (Paris, BnF, Re´s. mYe 308, fols. aii r and aii v: 05–06: ‘quinqz scaphe singule a singulis mulieribus fatuis appellentur: de quibus in parabola de virginibus ait dominus…. Nam per fatuas illas quinqz quæ acceptis lampadibus: vt dictur. Matth.XXV. non sumpserunt oleum fecum’. This idea was further elaborated in Jehan Drouyn's French version (Paris, BnF, Re´s. m Y 750, frontispice) entitled: La Brant nef des folles selon les cinq cens se la nature. composees selon l'Evangile de Monseigneur saint Mathieu, des cinq vierges qui ne prinerent point d'uylle avecques elles pour mectre en leurs lampes…. 21 – Ship of Fools, p. 343. See also further in this chapter: ‘so they who have their lamp upset / Or not their oil have lighted yet / And go to seek oil every where / when far away the soul would fare’ (ibid., 344). Brant's universal admonition addresses the unwise who will be cruelly surprised when the hour suddenly comes upon them and they face the flames of hell (idem). 22 – Although in his sermonized poem Brant does not overtly mention the five foolish virgins, in the contemporary French adaptation the foolish virgins are clearly mentioned and associated with mortal vices, see La Nef des folz du monde, translated and adapted by Pierre Rivière (in verse; Paris, [Andre´ Bocard], for Jean Philippe Manstener et Geffory de Marnef, 1497), Paris, BnF, Re´s. Ve´lin, 607, fols. Lir and Lv v. (This is a sumptuous volume printed on vellum and illuminated, offered to Charles VII, King of France). The link between the fool-virgins, evil and damnation was well established in medieval thought symbolizing the approaching end of damned souls and their hour of judgment See Mauriel Laharie, La folie au Moyen Age. XIe–XIIIe siècles (Paris: Le Le´opard d'Or, 1991), p. 69. 23 – See Emile Mâle, The Gothic Image : Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century, trans. Dora Nussey (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1958), p. 198 and n. 4. See also Laharie, La folie au Moyen Age, pp. 67–8, referring to a theological mystery play, Mystère de l'Epoux ou Jeu de vierges sages et des vierges folles (thirteenth century), where the foolish virgins represent the lusts through the five senses. 24 – Tertullian, On the Soul (De anima), in The Fathers of the Church (Fathers of the Third Century; Part 4), edited and revised by Cleveland A. Coxe (Buffalo: Christian Literature Publication, 1885), Book X, pp. 214–23 and especially pp. 219–20; Saint Augustine, ‘Sermon XLVIII’ in A Select Library of Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, trans., commented and ed. by Philip Schaff and Henri Wace (reprint of the 1890–1900 edition; Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Bernards Publishers, 1978–79), Vol. VI, p. 402. See also Chu-tsing Li, The Fives Senses in Art, An Analysis of its Development in Northern Europe (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Dissertation Service, 1955; State University Iowa, 1955), ‘The Fives Senses in Medieval Allegories’, pp. 10–11. 25 – On this, see Sara F. Matthews Grieco, Ange ou diablesse, La repre´sentation de la femme au XVIe siècle (Paris: Flammarion, 1991), chapter III: ‘Les multiples de´fauts du sexe faible’, especially pp. 248–56. In Latin, however, vices are in feminine gender; see Carl Nordenfalk, ‘The Five Senses in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art’, Journal of Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 48 (1985), p. 7. 26 – ‘Stutical furor et dementia’, see Bade, Stultifera navis, fol. aii v. 27 – In patristic literature the fives senses were generally conceived as dangerous vehicles leading to vices and especially carnal love, see, Morton W. Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins: An Introduction to the History of a Religious Concept, with Special Reference to Medieval English Literature (Michigan: Michigan University Press, 1952), especially, pp. 45, 171, 185, 238 and 360. See also Li, The Fives Senses, p. 14 and n. 35. 28 – Pour les pechez & vices quellez comectent en ce nonde qui sont les souveraines folles et cause de perdition (Drouyn, Nef des folles, fol. aii). 29 – Bade, Stultiferae naves, Præfatio, fol. aiiv: 06. 30 – Drouyn, Nef des folles, fol. xv v. Venus holds a prominent place in the fleet of female fools as provocative seductress, governing the ships of Sight and Hearing, as well as Smell and Taste. In Drouyn's version, it is precisely the ship of touch, entitled also La nef de d'amour that became a reflection of the perilous court of Venus (fols. xvii r and xvii v). 31 – Sebastian Brant, Ship of Fools, chapter 108: ‘The Schluraffen Ship’. On the notion of Schluraffen land, See, Zeydel, Ship of Fools, Introduction, 9; Jöel Lefebvre, Les fols et la folie. Etude sur les genres du comique et la cre´ation litte´raire en Allemagne pendant la Renaissance (Paris: Liberarie C. Klincksieck, 1968), pp. 112–14; see Nordenfalk, ‘Five Senses in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art’, p. 12. 32 – See D.W. Robertson, Jr., Preface to Chaucer: Studies in Medieval Perspective (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962), Introduction, pp. 2–51, for garden imagery see pp. 386–8; for Venus as destructive powerful female, idem, especially pp. pp. 372–74. See also Fleming, Roman de la Rose, especially pp. 58–97; See further my discussion on this topic Pinson, The Fools' Journey, in chapter 9: ‘The Fool and Death – Unbidden Guests in a Garden of Love’. 33 – For example, the 1494 printed edition with woodcut illustrations, published in Paris by Du Pre´ and later edition by well known publisher Antoine Ve´rard, Paris, c.1500–1505. 34 – The second ship of female-fools, the ‘Ship of Hearing’ (fol. xbiv). Another example is seen in Drouyn's version, the ‘Ship of Dance’ (L'onzieme des folles, Joyeuses Exortation des dances, fol. xlviiiv). 35 – Venez cuillir des / Roses et des fleurs en ce navire (ship of touch) idem, fol. XXXbv ; De chanter cy leurs devoir /Pour l'honneur de Venus (Idem, fol. xxvi). For analogical imagery in the Roman de la Rose, see Fleming, Roman de la Rose, p. 69. In the Latin version the sirens are described as Venus's most provocative servants. See Stultorum sensus navis, fols biii v and biiii r. Bade, however, suggests that the only way to escape the sirens’ trap is to cling to the mast of the true ship, i.e. the cross. In the French version the sirens are described as Venus's devoted servants. Drouyn elaborates this motif in the prose commentary of the ship of hearing (La tierce folles de Ouyr), calling his audience to attach themselves to the mast of the Cross in order to save their souls, thereby avoiding the lulling chant of the Sirens, Venus's devotees (En oultre, chaque fois que les sirens, cest a dire les provocations de Venus, nous ptovouquent par leurs seductions, nous devons nous attacher au mat de la croix …). Following Bade, he evokes Ulysses's prudent navigation, a theme that was already elaborated in Brant's sermonic commentary of the perilous Schluraffen Ship (chapter 108); see Pinson, The Fools' Journey, chapter 3: ‘Perilous Navigation’. He further calls his readers/listeners to avoid music and love songs that will lead the fools to Hell. 36 – For the Testament de Maistre Jean de Meun, see Fleming, Roman de la Rose, pp. viii and 48–9, 51–2 and 110; the text of the Testament was added to the Roman in the contemporary printed edition published in Paris, by Antoine Ve´rard c.1500–1505 (Glasgow, University Library, Hunterian Bw.3.6). 37 – Idem, fol. aiii v. 38 – In a fourteenth-century illumination of Dixit Insipiens (Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. in Scr. 83, fol. 54v) the traditional figure of fool-sinner that usually illustrates the fool who ‘hath said in his heart there is no God’ is replaced by Eve tempting Adam, now incarnating the folly of ignoring the Lord. 39 – In Jean Mie´lot's vernacular adaptation we read: ‘Notre seineur fourma Adam et Eve nos premiers parens pour reparer le trebuschemen’, see J. Lutz and P. Perdrizet, Speculum Humanae Salvationis, texte critique. Traduction ine´dite de Jean Mie´lot (1448). Les sources de l'influence iconographique principalement sur l'art alsacien du XVe, I, (Leipzig, 1907), p. 121. 40 – See Gloria K. Fiero, ‘Les Dits: Historical Context’, in Three Medieval Views of Women, La Contenance des Fames; Le Bien des Fames; La Blasme des Fames, eds and trans.Gloria K. Fiero, Wendy Pfeffer and Mathe´ Allain (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 31; in the Dit Le Blasme des Fames (‘The Vices of Women’, 1310), we read: ‘Who first sinned – man or woman?/Who got us exiled from the Garden?/ Who offered the apple to whom:/ woman to man or man to a woman?… Because of woman's weaker wit/ She fell into the snake's gambit’, pp. 121, 14–16, 21–2. 41 – Saint Augustine, De sermone Domini in monte, I. 12.33–37. See Robertson Preface to Chaucer, 72–4 (my emphasis, Y.P.). 42 – In the rose window in Notre Dame in Paris, a young courtesan gazing into the mirror while at her toilette is representative of Luxuria. The mirror and comb are also attributes of the seductive mermaid or siren, but also refer to Venus at her toilette. Drouyn associates the captain of the Ship of Sight with Venus, perilous goddess of Love who will ultimately lead her fool-admirers toward an obscure death. 43 – The same woodcut illustration accompanies two different chapters: Pride (fol. Li) and Voluptuās (fol. Lvbi), using for both ‘ships’ the common attribute of the mirror. 44 – Drouyn, Nef des folles, fol. aiiii v. Nonetheless, as I contend, its seems significant that in Drouyn's elaborated version the woodcut illustration of the Ship of Sight (fol. ai v) appears for the first time in the ‘Prologue’ and follows the woodcut illustration of the ship of Eve on the frontispiece. 45 – On the scroll held by the angel we may read, ‘Look, this is the bread of the angels, food of pilgrims’. The scroll related to Eve reads, ‘She feeds evil’. See Françoise Borin, ‘Judging by Images’, in A History of Women. Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes, eds Natalie Zemon Davis and Arlette Farge (Cambridge, MA and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 191–3. 46 – A totally different approach is expressed in a late fifteenth-century French moralistic poem, Le Mors de la p[otilde]me (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. fr. 17001, North of France, Lille region? c.1470, fol. 107v). Here, Adam is conceived as a sinner, sharing equally with Eve the blame of engendering sin and introducing death into the world. 47 – Previously in the print collection of Ferdinand Columbus; see Mark P. McDonald, Ferdinand Columbus Renaissance Collector (1488–1539) (London: British Museum Press, 2005), p. 183, No. 67. However, here the artist also attributes Adam an active role. It is precisely Adam who offers the fruit of evil and death to an emperor on the right. On the left, the crowned Virgin/Ecclesia passes the redemptive host to the Pope followed by members of the ecclesiastic establishment. 48 – The painter-engraver addressing a cultivated urban audience, as we might learn from the accompanying Latin verses, alludes to this association of original sin, folly, rebellion and death. For the association of the putrid fruit with fool-head, see Lise Wajeman, La parole de Adam, le corps d'Eve. Le Pe´che´ originel au XVIe siècle (Geneva: Liberarie Droz, 2007), p. 155. In my view the other deadly fruits on the Tree of Evil are also ambiguous. 49 – See Henry Avril, ed., Biblia pauperum. A facsimile and edition (Aldershot: Scholar Press, 1987), sig. a., 50. Avril's facsimile edition is based on two Biblia blockbook versions: Dresden, Sächsische Landsbibliothek and Chantilly, Muse´e Conde´, entitled Biblia pauperum Seu historiae veteris et novi testamenti, Provenance: Champagnes (according to the catalogue's notice); Avril proposes a Netherlandish provenance; the Annunciation is flanked on the right with Gideon before the miraculous fleece drenched with dew (Judges 6:36), prefiguring the Immaculate Conception. The symbolic anti-type pattern was later adopted in the elaborate iconographical program of stained glass at King's College Chapel, Cambridge, apparently based on a woodcut ascribed to the workshop of Dirk Vellert, a famous designer of stained glass windows (active Antwerp, 1511–1544; (See Hilary Wayment, ‘The use of engraving in the design of the Renaissance windows of the King's College Chapel, Cambridge’, Burlington Magazine 100 (1958), pp. 378–88), where the Temptation of Eve is set against the Annunciation. In the stained-glass composition, Eve is intentionally isolated at the moment she takes the forbidden fruit from the female-headed and bodied serpent coiled around the tree. Eve's pose and gesture simultaneously denote her submission to the devil and her perilous sexuality as she points to her genitals, a device already used to similar effect by the painter-engraver of the Ship of Female Fools. 50 – The image of Eve facing the ‘standing’ serpent could have been inspired by Peter Comestor's commentary (twelfth century), describing the serpent erect like a man (erectus est ut homo) Scolastica historia. Genesis, 1.21 PL 198.1072. This type of erect serpent already occurred in early Christian art (see Kirschenbaum, Englbert et al., Lexikon der christlischen Ikonographie, I, (Rome, Freiburg, Basel and Vienna: Herder, 1968), pp. 55–7; See Henry Ansgar Kelley, ‘The Metamorphosis of the Eden Serpent during the Middle Ages and Renaissance’, Viator, 2 (1971), pp. 301–27. The erect type of the serpent was also adopted in some fourteenth- and fifteenth-century illuminated versions of the Speculum humanae salvationis, where it might take the form of a hybrid basilisk-like or even siren-like monster with female head, adopted later in Northern blockbook versions. For siren-like female-headed types of serpents or dragon-type female-headed ones, see Kelly, idem, 311–313. See above, p. 220 and note 67. 51 – A virginal-headed erect serpent facing Eve was staged in Arnould Gre´ban's Mystère de la Passion (c.1452), see Arnould Gre´ban, Le mystère de la passion, ed. Omer Jodogne (Brussels: Acade´mie royale des Belles lettres, 1965), 1.18. 52 – The human-headed serpent motif was introduced into Western visual art in the thirteenth century after it became established in mystery plays, as can be learned from the west façade of Notre-Dame de Paris, 1220, later elaborated in the Portal of the Virgin in the Notre Dame Cathedral, Amiens, c.1230. Beneath the Virgin and Child (Eve/Ave figures the Temptation where a female-headed serpent entwined on the tree is seen whispering in Eve's ear, see Kelley, idem, figs. 5a and 6. See John K. Bonnell, ‘The Serpent with a Human Head in Art and in Mystery Play’, American Journal of Archeology, 21 (1917), pp. 255–91, still valuable today. For later fifteenth-century depictions of the motif, see, R.A. Koch, ‘The Salamander in Van der Goes’ Garden of Eden’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 28 (1965), p. 323; See also Pinson, ‘Fall of the Angels and the Creation of Eve’, pp. 700–1 and Nona C. Flores, ‘“EFFIGIES AMICITAE…VERITAS INMICITIAE” Antifeminism in the Iconography of the Woman-Headed Serpent in Medieval and Renaissance Art and Literature’, in Animals in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays, ed. Nona C. Flores (New York and London: Garland, 1996), pp. 167–95. 53 – See James Montague Rhodes, Speculum Humanae Salvationis: Being a Reproduction of an Italian Manuscript of the 14th Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1946; first published 1926), p. 14. It is worth noting, however, that the text of the Speculum retains the masculine gender, while the visualizations of the Temptation of Eve and/or the Fall of Man in the fourteenth and fifteenth century Speculum usually depict the female-head type. 54 – See Kelly (as in note 50), p. 308. 55 – Miroir de la salvation humaine, translate de ryme en francoy … puy historie´ cadele et escript …l'an 1448. The manuscript was produced in Lille, Brussels and Bruges. See Bert Cardon, Manuscripts of the Speculum Humanae Salvationis in the Southern Netherlands (c. 1410–1470) (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1996), pp. 230–7. We may read the same text in another illuminated version of the Speculum made also for Philip the Good, Miroir de la salvation humaine, French trans. Jean Mie´lot, Dijon (?) 1449, BnF, Ms. Fr. 6275, fol. 3r. Actually we may note two patterns of a disguised serpent engaged in dialogue with Eve: the erect female-headed serpent or serpent with female face and torso entwined on the tree, as on the west façade of the Notre-Dame de Paris (see note 53) and in the later Paris manuscript, a pattern adopted in La nef des folles. 56 – Another plausible visual source might be contemporary engravings accompanied with banderoles or tapestries. 57 – See Lutz and Perdrizet, Speculum humanae, I, 121; Pinson, ‘Fall of the Angels’, pp. 699–701. 58 – Lutz and Perdrizet, Speculum humanae, I, 122; Adam is compared to King Solomon who was tempted into idolatry through love of his wives. This attitude might be inspired by St Augustine's commentaries as expressed in De Civitate Dei and Enchiridion, where Adam's fault is presented as the result of his ‘immoderate love to his wife’, see Wajeman, La Parole d'Adam (as in note 48), pp. 46–7. 59 – Augsburg: Peter Berger, 1489, Washington, DC, Library of Congress, Rosenwald Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division (28.2). 60 – The notion of mutual reflection of the disguised female-headed Serpent/Satan and Eve is hinted at in the fourth-century exegetical commentary of Ephrem the Syrian, The Cave of Treasures, where we read that when Eve turned toward the serpent ‘she saw her own form [reflected] in him, and she talked to him’. (See Kelly, as in note 50, 310.) Already in the Fall and the Expulsion from Eden (c.1412–16) by the Limbourg Brothers, in Les Très Riches Heures de Duc de Berry (Chantilly, Muse´e Conde´, Ms. 65, fol. 25v), the painter(s) purposely isolates the Temptation of Eve, portraying the mirrored reflections of Eve and the hybrid female serpent engaged in dialogue. The composition highlights Eve's dominant position emphasizing her role as a powerful, active and attractive woman. It seems that the fact that the scene just precedes the Annunciation probably determined the opposition of the Temptation as an anti-type of the Annunciation, adopting a typological scheme popularized later in the Biblia pauperum. 61 – Three Medieval Views of Women, pp. 120–42; Gloria K. Fiero, points out that both poems, Le Bien, and Le Blasme, are part of a manuscript that includes sermons and could have provided materials for preachers (idem, p. 29). 62 – Idem, p. 63 and p. 122, l. 31–32 (my emphasis, Y.P.). 63 – Idem, and p. 124, line 70, this part of the dit turns into a kind of bestiary defining women's faults. 64 – Serpentis dolo, lingua etiam pollutus feminea, Isidor de Seville, De Ortu et orbitu patrum, 1, 4, in PL 83, p. 131. In later sixteenth-century moralistic poetic plays, Eve's deceiving words tempting Adam to eat the forbidden fruit are defined as ‘sweet as honey and venomous’ alluding to the snake, Eve's other face. See for La Trage´die de la naissance ou la cre´ation du monde de Ville-Toustain (Rouen, c.1600), Wajeman, La Parole d'Adam (as in note 48), pp. 138–9. 65 – See Bonnell, ‘Serpent with a Human Head’ (as in note 52), pp. 281–83; See also, Gustav Cohen, Histoire de la Mise en scène dans le the´âtre religieux français du Moyen Age (Paris: Librairie Champion, 1926), p. XI. 66 – In Comestor's commentary quoting apparently Bede, we read: ‘and he (Lucifer) moved its tongue to speak, though it knew nothing itself, just as he speaks through the frenzied and possessed’. See Kelly, ‘Metamorphosis of the Eden Serpent’ (as in note 50), pp. 308 and 319–20. 67 – For this type of serpent see Kelly, ‘Metamorphosis of the Eden Serpent’, 323–4. 68 – Ibid., p. 20; Lutz and Perdrizet, Speculum, I, 121. Dirk Bax (Hieronymus Bosch and Lucas Cranach. Two Last Judgment Triptychs, trans. D. Bax [Amsterdam, Oxford, New York: North-Holland, 1983], p. 58) mentions a Netherlandish mystery play where Satan induces the serpent to make Eve envious of God, thus she becomes in a way analogous to Lucifer himself. A similar characterization appears in the fifteenth-century moralistic treatise, Dat Bouck der Blomen, where we read: ‘Then she raised herself in arrogance and because she would be equal to God she bit the apple’. 69 – The illumination opens the office of Immaculate Conception; the accompanying inscription reads: ‘As the deadly tree produces evil fruit, so Eve caused concupiscence of the flesh as a result of the Original Sin’. See Elise Lawton Smith, ‘Women and the Moral Argument of Lucas van Leyden's Dance Around the Golden Calf’, Art History 15 (1992), pp. 298–315, especially p. 299; see also, Wajeman, La parole d'Adam, pp. 64–5. 70 – See Avril, Biblia Pauperum, as in note 49. 71 – This typological motif of Eve/Ave is clearly echoed in the sermonic call for penitence in Eve's elegy. See above, pp. 223–4. 72 – According to Martin Stevens and James Paxson (‘The Fool in the Wakefield Plays’, Studies in Iconography 13 [1989–90], pp. 48–79) fool-demons appear on stage in the Creation Play. Although the Temptation scene itself has been lost, they presume that demon-fools could have played an analogical role in this scene as well (see pp. 63–5). However, I have some reservations regarding some aspects of the methodology of this essay and the way the interpretations, especially of visual sources, are sometimes forced and adapted to fit the authors’ thesis. 73 – Illustrated initials of this verse in illuminated manuscripts often confront a fool with a demon; inspired by the devil, the fool-denier of God was sometimes depicted in medieval manuscripts imitating the demon's gestures, so they might also reflect each other. The medieval fool-denier of the Lord, conversely, could have been assimilated with the devil himself, taking the shape of a sinister dark-faced demonic creature, and given the role of the devil disputing with the Lord (see Laharie, La folie au Moyen Age, chapter 1: ‘victimes et allie´es du diables (1) diabolisation de la folie’, pp. 25–35. The medieval fool-denier of the Lord, conversely, could have been assimilated with the devil himself, taking the shape of a sinister dark-faced demonic creature, and given the role of the devil disputing with the Lord. (See D. Gifford, ‘Iconographical notes toward a definition of the Medieval Fool’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 36 [1974], pp. 336–42 especially p. 338.) The fool's diabolic side was also mirrored by his marotte, as in an early fourteenth-century illustrated initial for Dixit Insipiens, Psalter, c.1300, Par
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