If you have read Part 2 of my post on The Theatricality of a Renaissance Book, you will realise how important this is.  I haven’t got very far with the translation of the Numerorum Mysteria yet, but I need to be prepared, and also give my friends and well wishers time to consider their own verses.  Some may wish to write in Latin hexameters or Hebrew, and these things can’t be done overnight.  For some reason I have to start the lines with bullet points.  It’s a tech thing.

• Great Bongo, pride of Bergamo, thy fame
• Shall once again illume thy city’s name.
• Thy work, for long in learned tongue disguised,
• Translated shall delight new scholars’ eyes.
• A candle’s glow oft shews a jewel bright
• And shines more clear adorned with borrowed light;
• So shall my little skill aggrandised be,
• And I share in thine immortality.

Get writing.

 

 

 

Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose

So we have had the grand procession of sages.  Surely it is time to start the treatise.  And we appear to, with an address to the reader, which is followed by a 12 page guide to deciphering Roman numerals.  A what?  I find it hard to see aesthetic merit in this insertion.  Utility seems to be winning out – this is a book about numbers, and you need to know the number systems you may meet.  In fact, buried in an unpaginated section of Numerorum Mysteria, I recommend this guide to anyone struggling with post Classical Roman number notation.  This is a top tip.  You heard it here first.

So now the treatise?  No.  Now the bibliography. Here I think the modern academic has something to learn from Bongo.  We like to put the bibliography at the back – ‘here are all the books which went into my book.’  When did bibliographies move to the back in any case?  The final position reflects the official purpose of the bibliography as an extra reference work, a place to look up books referred to in the text.  And if you are using standard referencing systems, putting the full title of the books you have referred to somewhere at the back saves space.  It is all about utility and economy, purposeful, professional.

Of course, bibliographies can be used in that way, but everyone knows that that isn’t what they are for.  Bibliographies are a form of display.  Even in my lifetime, they seem to have become more and more huge, and often need to be split into several subsections.  If these were headed truthfully, they might read ‘Books I actually read’; ‘Books I dipped into’; ‘Books I nicked quotations from out of other books’, ‘Books I pretend I used to get information I actually found in Wikipedia’; ‘Books I didn’t use at all, but found in someone else’s bibliography’.

Clearly no-one can string two words together on any subject without having memorised all the existing literature on the topic, and a great deal of literature which has almost nothing to do with the topic at all.  Why?  Because it isn’t worth listening to anyone but an expert, and clearly an expert knows about all these books.  The best experts know about the most and best books.  It is important not to leave any important predecessors out, even if you didn’t find them particularly useful on this occasion.  If I ever do bring out my article on Stoic ethics, I will be sure to cite the seminal book of Max Pohlenz, written in 1940, in magnificent but impenetrable scholarly German.  As his work was ground-breaking, his scholarship lives on in writings I can actually read without crying, but leave him out of the bibliography? Only an imbecile wouldn’t acknowledge Pohlenz.

So the bibliography turns out to be part of dramatising the author’s expertise, and Bongo rightly puts it here at the front.  The other function of a modern bibliography is to enable fellow scholars to augment each other’s kudos and marketability by accumulating citations.  Please cite my book 

Bongo has his own way of ensuring citations which we will come to in the fourth and final part of this post.  If he wanted to endorse his colleagues, he would presumably write Latin verse about them in their own books.  The purpose of his bibliography – which is more properly a list of authorities, is to show that he has mastered all relevant authorities from ancient to modern times.  No change there.

And has he?  The entries are alphabetical, giving the name of the authority only.  Bongo makes sure he has entries for every letter of the Latin alphabet.  In the true spirit of modern bibliographical display, there is no distinction of relevance, extent or quality.  Did he read all these authors?  Clearly no more than usual.  Already I have found a few ‘tells’.

Firstly some of the authorities are not authors at all, but just ancient authorities mentioned or described in the literature he has read.  So Aegyptii sacerdotes does not mean that he has been reading Egyptian texts any more than Zoroaster, filling out the Z section means that he has secret knowledge of the lost works of Zoroaster.  Bongo also rejoices in quotation, and often sources quotations within secondary works, enabling him to quote both the original source and the source where he found it.  A good example of this is the Apollinis oracula.  The quotation Bongo uses from this ‘source’ on p. 97 is actually from Eusebius.  Marginal references are rarely complete, and sometimes fit quite badly with the substance of the point they accompany, suggesting that Bongo is actually dependant for both on some other work; on p. 100 his account of the story of the Vestal Claudia contains elements inconsistent with its appearance in the supposed source, Herodian.  He also misattributes on p.97 (to Aratus) a quotation from Arator, accidentally depriving himself of another authority; perhaps another indication of indirect acquaintance.

However, Bongo is by no means grasping in his search for the perfect range of authorities.  He cites, for example, Theocritus, but not Callimachus, whom he also quotes.  I suspect this type of inconsistency is typical.  Bongo also refrains from bulking out the list with the titles of all the different books which appear in his text and marginalia.  As long as he demonstrates knowledge of all the ancient greats and the Italian moderns, he is satisfied.   Nor is there anything to help you locate any of the specific books – he has read them so you don’t have to.  In fact, given the difficulties of book distribution even after printing, you will be mercifully unable to get hold of many of them.  His aim is to become a new authority, and his bibliography tells you which books you don’t have to read, if you read his –  at least on the topic of Numerorum Mysteria.

Pietro Bongo teaches us that bibliography is largely symbolic.  His approach assures you of the expertise of the author and, rather than suggesting further reading, represents the new book as the culmination of all previous scholarship.  This is not a model which fits with the modern proliferation of books, which is more that of an infinite conversation, and should, theoretically, lead to infinite bibliographies.  I suggest scholars learn from Bongo.  Perhaps we can ditch the exhaustive bibliographies.  Maybe we could just keep one huge cross referenced bibliographical index online and actual, meaningful references within books could link to it.  And as there won’t be any need for a unique bibliography in each book,  maybe each new author could solemnly declare on her title page that she has read all the proper authorities (or ‘as many as may be useful and sufficient’) and get, say, the Queen to sign it off.  There could be a University Crest and the Royal Coat of Arms and curly writing.  And of course, a few of your colleagues could write poems about how impressed they are with you.  I think this would be extremely reassuring, aesthetically pleasing,  and just as useful as what people do now.

 

 

 

 

 

Bongo is in the building!

In Part 1 I marvelled at the extraordinary quantity of verbiage enclosing Bongo’s treatise, even taking the author’s preface as the beginning of what a modern academic would think of as the actual book.  What interests me particularly is the journey to reach this ‘beginning’ and here I am going to reflect on what it contains and why.

The concept of a title page requires no explanation, and since we are in late sixteenth century Bergamo, the imprimatur is logically the thing we need to read before we progress any further.

Then we move into a new phase of the introduction, with the arms of the Madruzzo family taking a whole page.  I see this whole section, which includes the Latin encomia on the author, along with the dedication to the Cardinal, as a single phase of the work.  In theatrical terms, it is the warm-up act.  I am seriously doubtful if the earnest scholar started with the first set of elegiacs and worked onwards, any more than a modern academic actually starts a book with the foreword (I also start fiction at the end, as I don’t like surprises).  My shrewd suspicion is that the most used part of the work comes later with the Index of Biblical citations.  However, for the integrity of the work, the encomia clearly have to be positioned first, and they perform an important and recognisable function – that of peer review.

The whole of the Numerorum Mysteria is a tour de force of display of erudition.  But what guarantee is there of its authenticity or value?  Within the modern academic community we have developed a semi-secret checklist of the reputable – part of graduateness consists of absorbing it.  Has the author a degree or position (preferably both) at a recognised seat of learning?  Is the work published by a reputable University Press?  Was it subject to peer review before publication?  Has it been reviewed in a reputable journal?  Is it cited by the worthy?  There are other finer points, subtleties about bibliography, footnotes, even font, layout and paper quality, which enable the initiated to detect the dreaded populist or coffee table work from a safe distance.  The chaos of social media has disrupted these comfortable certainties – this blog for example – perhaps I am a loon and have just made Pietro Bongo up.

The encomia by authorities of the day are a form of Renaissance peer review.  Their locations are sometimes given, situating the author in a community of Italian scholarship, and the use of Latin verse, the most prestigious and elite form of discourse, elevates the status of authors and readership.  The verse form is also supposed to be aethetically pleasing, bringing an emphasis on the entertainment of the reader sadly lacking in many modern publications.

This Renaissance book is not merely a package of information, it is a major cultural event.  The build-up to the main thesis could be compared to a stage show, where the warm-up band precedes the main act, enhancing the entertainment of the audience but focusing all expectation and respect on the band to come.  A more contemporaneous comparison might be with the conventions of the procession, where the exalted personage – the king, the Host – is preceded and followed by an escort, which may feature musicians or other entertainers.  The banners – the title page, the Medruzzo arms, go before.  The Latin verses represent a procession of sages, accompanied by music, leading the great author into the presence of his readership.

The nesting of the dedication to the Cardinal in the midst of this segment of the procession, follows the same logic.  He has his own preceding and following escort of sages.  By following the ornate prose dedication to the Cardinal with a poem in praise of his own book, Bongo actually manages to place himself at the Cardinal’s side among the sages, as well as being represented by his masterpiece later on – a trick he could not have pulled off in life.  There is good Classical precedent for framing a dedication rather than placing it early or finally in a sequence: I am thinking especially of the Odes of Horace, where the allusion to the patron is often worked into the centre of a poem.

The procession of sages escorting the Cardinal, though mainly in Latin verse, actually ends with an entry in Hebrew.   Now comes an address by the author to the reader.  This looks like a foreword and it introduces the beginning of what you might call the matter of the book, but we are still a very long way from the formal preface.  Up until now, we have had authorities guaranteeing Bongo’s erudition.  Now we move to demonstrations and citations indicated the breadth and relevance of his learning.  More on this in Part 3.

Fifteenth Century Stained glass window from All Saints North Street, York

 

I would like to acknowledge the kindness of the Church community at All Saints, North Street in permitting me to use this image as my site icon.  You may visit the image at this site.  The link will lead you to a full history of the Church and a set of annotated images of its astonishing stained glass.

I would like to encourage you to visit this Church and pray for me there, or indeed anywhere else.

One of the remarkable thing about this window is the prominence it gives, in the centre panel above the High Altar, to the image of a woman teaching her daughter to read.  Mary is not leaning to write; the ‘pen’ she holds is actually a pointer for following the words.  The words too are real words.  As far as I can make out they are the opening of one of the Seven Penitential Psalms; Domine exaudi orationem meam opens both Psalm 101 and 142, but I think the continuation suggests the latter.  (If you are not using the Vulgate, add one to the Psalm number).  These Psalms were used liturgically, and please comment if you can add to their likely use in York or Mediaeval liturgy generally.

By the fifteenth century this type of St Anne is very common – I don’t know its history, but I would love to know more.  Mary’s reading activity is significant: the angel of the Annunciation always finds her at her devotions, often with a book.  The remarkable German example below is in the National Gallery.  Prizes for telling me what the Virgin is reading.  (The angel’s wand unsurprisingly says Ave, Gratia Plena, Dominus Tecum, Luke 1. 28). Mary’s devotion is part of the grace which enables her uniquely to receive the Holy Spirit, and so save the world.  In Mediaeval theology, she is born without sin, so that she does not acquire grace by reading.  But reading is constantly depicted as an important part of her female devotion, and it is something she learns from her mother.  Like the realistic furnishings in the picture below, the associations  between women, home learning, literacy, and devotion reflect realities of pre-Reformation lay piety which are missing in the comic book version.

Or,

Why is Pietro Bongo so fat? (Part 1)

I am currently working on a translation of the Numerorum Mysteria by Petrus Bungus or Pietro Bongo.  If anyone knows of one already existing, please tell me and spare me the effort.  I am no expert on Bongo, or Renaissance literature in general, although Bongo seems so rarely visited now, that the act of opening the book makes you some sort of specialist.  I am working from the Georg Olms edition of the 1599 printing with introduction by Ulrich Ernst, 1983.  This contains a German biography and history of the text by Ernst.  Otherwise, to look up Pierto Bongo, I would start with the Italian Treccani entry here; http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/pietro-bongo_(Dizionario-Biografico)/

A Bergamasque scholar, Bongo’s Numerorum Mysteria is a synthetic work, bringing together Classical texts, Mediaeval Church writings and recent scholarship of his own time to provide an extended commentary, in Latin, on the mystical significance of numbers, especially the numbers one, two and three.  Neglected now, it was apparently very important in its day.  the first Bergamo printing of 1591 was followed by another in 1599, a posthumous reprinting in 1614, and Paris printings in 1617 and 1618, or so I understand.  To me, not a specialist in Renaissance publishing, the obvious question is WHY?  Or rather, not so much why was the treatise published, but why did anyone offer to compositors, given the cost and effort involved in setting up the pages, something so immense and overstuffed with almost unreadable apparatus.

In short, the 676 pages of the text are sandwiched between a hundred pages of introductory material, and two hundred of Appendix and Index, much of it in what appears excruciatingly small and dense print.  The Index at the end is usable although not at all economical, and for the reader with extremely high powered lenses, the Appendices presumably add to the general sum of knowledge.  I am more interested in the massive conglomeration of introductory material, which make it physically hard to find the start of the treatise.

So what does it contain?  First after the title page is the imprimatur – the authorisation by the Catholic Church.  This is clearly necessary, and the coat of arms of the Madruzzo family which follows is both decorative and practical; Cardinal Luigi Madruzzo was the dedicatee.  Then follow six pages of Latin verse by various scholars in praise of the author, a five page dedication to the Cardinal, then another 14 pages of Latin verse encomia.  Pagination is almost non-existent, making all of this more difficult to use.  Then we come to the author’s address ad benevolum lectorem (a moderate 4 pages), followed by a 12 page guide to Roman numeration.   After this, and still unaccompanied by pagination, begins the index of works cited (excluding the Bible).  This is merely a list of names and takes 6 pages, before we reach the list of Biblical citations, a mammoth 50 pages including its own appendix.    Only after this does the pagination of the book proper begin, with the Preface.

Even if authors today dared to begin their academic works with twenty pages of  poetry in praise of their own achievements, they would find themselves short of publishers and readers, even in the indulgent age of desk top publishing.  But in 1599, the preference for this grandiose scale of production impresses me with its opulence.  The time required, the difficulty of the type-setting, the sheer volume of valuable materials in use are magnified in a way which suggests a preference for increasing cost.  Does the sheer opulence of a volume guarantee its scholarship?  Does the lavish nature of the volume reflect directly on the ambitions of the patron?  Would it diminish the Cardinal to be associated with a work that was less than lavish?  Should the work look bigger, better, more expensive than its rivals to guarantee the status of author and patron alike?

These sound like rhetorical questions, but in fact they are actual questions which I am asking myself as I read.  I find it very pleasing to consider the possibility of graphing the relative wealth and ambition of Renaissance prelates by weighing the books dedicated to them.  I have no opportunity to weigh the 1599 printing, although I would love to try, but, for reference, the Georg Ulms edition weighs 1.2 kg or 2lb 10oz, which I take to be a creditable effort by Cardinal Madruzzo, weighing in for Bergamo.

But I don’t think this is entirely a joke.  In Part 2, I am going to look more seriously at the content of the ‘extra’ material and ask how its components function within the work.  I’m going to suggest that what we think of as academic utility is strongly balanced with a theatrical impulse to set the author’s main treatise in a frame which signifies its worth through means other than the merit of its contents.   I am going to look at the function of the frame as a guide to approaching the work, and consider how the elements of the frame combine to satisfy very familiar expectations on the part of the author and the reader in a very Renaissance way.

Thanks for joining me!

Téicht doróim
mór saido · becc · torbai ·
INrí chondaigi hifoss ·
manimbera latt nífogbái

I first met this poem when I was studying Old Irish in Cambridge.  I have now forgotten the Old Irish, but I will always love this poem.  The translation by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan runs as follows.

To go to Rome, much labour, little profit: the King whom thou seekest here, unless thou bring him with thee, thou findest him not.

Travel is of the soul, not the body.  The ninth century Irish monk who wrote the lines seems to have travelled to St Gall in Switzerland and to a life of back-breaking copying, but he believes he can find everything he is looking for without leaving his cell.    His poem like many remains of Old Irish, comes to us illicitly, scribbled on the edge of the important work that is supposed to be transmitted, in this case 1 Corinthians 2 & 3.  You can see the change in handwriting as he fits in his three lines under the Greek text.

And so for a moment we hear the voice of an Irish monk, transported to a Latin-speaking  Abbey in German Switzerland,  thinking in Irish as he painstakingly transmits the thoughts of a Greek-speaking Syrian Jew.  Is his a happy lot, or an unhappy one? We know nothing about him except what is most important  – that his only journey is towards redemption, and that to him physical place is an illusion.

But nonetheless a whole world has gathered in his cell as he write.  He is mixing Irish thoughts with Swiss air in the company of St Paul, and many invisible others, including Stokes and Strachan, me and now you.  If physical place is irrelevant, there is no meaningful separation in space or time between those of one mind who travel together.  The monk has exchanged the variegated distractions of change and event for the constancy of the presence of God.  He is not lonely.

For a long time I was not able to travel in the body as much as I would like, and spent many days without leaving my home.  It is not surprising that I have been very drawn to the thoughts of this monk.  When I think of travelling, I am no longer attracted by the simple idea of novelty.  I think more of returning to people and places I knew before or have visited in books.

I do literally live in my library, or rather, we as a family live in our library.  Our house is small.  Books are double stacked in the dining room, squeezed between the bannisters, piled on the landing and under beds.  Our garage is likewise given over to bookshelves.  The books form a large part of my real world, and most of all the texts from or about the Classical and Mediaeval world where I also work.  I often find small things of interest which I would like to share with like minded people, without ever reaching the lofty bar of publishable scholarship.  I use whatever I can in my teaching, but I will treat this blog as a common place book where I will publish notes from time to time on my work in progress, as if anyone who visits were dropping in on me in my library.  You are very welcome to drop in.