“‘Palma dabit palmam:’ Franciscan Themes in a Late Thirteenth-Century Italian Devotional Manuscript,” Journal of the Warburg & Courtauld Institutes, LXV, 2002 (2003), 22-66.

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'Palma Dabit Palmam': Franciscan Themes in a Devotional Manuscript Author(s): Amy Neff Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 65 (2002), pp. 22-66Published by: Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4135104Accessed: 22-12-2015 15:24 UTC

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'PALMA DABIT PALMAM': FRANCISCAN THEMES IN A DEVOTIONAL MANUSCRIPT*

Amy Neff

God is the origin, exemplar, and end of every creature.

(St Bonaventure, Itinerarium mentis in deum)'

T he late thirteenth-century Italian manuscript called the Supplicationes variae was intended

to be an instrument in the spiritual life of the reader. From the first words of the text

to the last image of the manuscript, its purpose was to inspire piety and to provide teachings that would pave the road to salvation. The book opens with a didactic poem that, after brief

devotions, is followed by three full-page introductory drawings: the Dextera dei, Microcosm, and

Measure of Christ.2 Together, these images reveal a programmatic unity that integrates the

entire manuscript into a structured, focused, and purposeful whole. They introduce an array of interlocking themes, all supporting the primary message, 'Palma dabit palmam': 'the palm will grant the palm'. Written under the first image of the book, this phrase suggests a journey of the soul that can be fostered by reading and meditating on the manuscript's texts and

images. The journey proceeds from the palm of God's Hand to the palm of salvation in

paradise.

Before discussing the themes of the Supplicationes, some basic description of the manuscript is

in order.3 The book is moderately large, with 388 folios, measuring 27 x 19-5 centimetres and

trimmed to fit a leather binding of a type common in the Medici collections of the Laurentian

Library. A reliable date, 1293, is written in contemporary script on an otherwise blank folio

preceding the text. For the most part, the calendar follows Roman use, but, since four Genoese

bishop-saints are also included, a Genoese owner can be assumed.4 In style, however, the

* This article is for C. L. Striker, with gratitude, on the occasion of his retirement from teaching. I would also like to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Tennessee's Faculty Development and EPPE/SARIF Funds for generous support of my research, along with the editors of this

Journal for their thoughtful commentary. 1. '... Deus est omnis creaturae origo, exemplar et

finis...'. Itinerarium mentis in Deum, II.12; Opera omnia, v, Quaracchi 1891, pp. 302-03 (hereafter Itin.; all

citations to Bonaventure's Latin text are to the Opera omnia; following the text citation, the Quaracchi vol- ume and page number appear in parentheses); transl. E. Cousins, Bonaventure: The Soul's Journey into God. The Tree of Life. The Life of St. Francis, New York 1978, p. 76.

2. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana MS Plut. 25-3. The introductory drawings are illustrated here as Figs 5, 19 and 24 (below, pp. 29, 54 and 6o).

3. To date, literature on the manuscript has focused mostly on problems of style, attribution, and the relationship to Byzantine art; see A. M. Ciaranfi,

'Disegni e miniature nel Codice Laurenziana Suppli- cationes variae', Rivista del R. Istituto d'Archeologia e Storia

dell'Arte, I, 1929, PP. 325-48 (repr. in Scelta per la Storia

dell'Arte, Florence 1988, pp. 325-48); B. Degenhart and A. Schmitt, Corpus der italienischen Zeichnungen 1300oo- 1450, part 1, vol. I, Berlin 1968, pp. 7-16; A. Neff, 'A

New Interpretation of the Supplicationes variae Minia-

tures', Il Medio Oriente e 1 'Occidente nell'arte del XIII secolo, ed. H. Belting, Bologna 1982, pp. 173-79. For studies

of selected iconographic elements in the manuscript see H. Belting, The Image and its Public in the Middle

Ages: Form and Function of Early Images of the Passion, New Rochelle, NY 199o, pp. 35, 75, 135, 170, 278; and

A. Neff, 'Byzantium Westernized, Byzantium Margin- alized: Two Icons in the Supplicationes variae', Gesta,

xxxvIII.1,i 1999, pp. 81-102.

4. These are Syrus (6 July), Felix (9 July), Valen- tinus (2 May), and Romulus (13 October), who are listed as the first four bishops of the city by Jacopo da Varagine, Archbishop of Genoa 1292-98; Cronaca

della citta di Genova dalle origini al 1297. Testo latino

JOURNAL OF THE WARBURG AND COURTAULD INSTITUTES, LXV, 2002



PALMA DABIT PALMAM 23

drawings and miniatures do not conform to anything else known from Genoa, and I strongly

suspect that the manuscript's artists came from elsewhere in north Italy, probably the Veneto,

possibly Venice or Padua.5 The scribe, 'Manuel', is given unusual prominence in four signatures, written in red, each following the common rhyme, 'Qui scripsit scribat. Semper cum

domino vivat'. By varying the adjective of the next verse, Manuel vaunts his admir- able qualities: 'vivat in celis Manuelus iustus

[legalis, salvus, bonus] homo fidelis' (see Fig. 1). These formulaic signatures unfor-

tunately give us no concrete clues as to Manuel's identity, but we know that he was an accomplished scribe who described himself as just, law-abiding, pious, good and faithful, and who placed his name after texts of devotion and penitence.6 Manuel is also the petitioner of a prayer to Christ, asking for

mercy, and he is explicitly addressed in the

poem that precedes the three introductory images of the manuscript.

In many ways, the Supplicationes variae is unlike other dugento manuscripts. The text is

a collection of offices, sermons, hymn and religious essays, a type of book that in Italy, by contrast with transalpine Europe, was quite rare.7 Like the Book of Hours, which was still a

relatively new devotional aid in northern Europe, the Supplicationes features the Office of

the Virgin, the Hours of the Passion and Cross, and the Office of the Dead, as well as Marian

devotions.8 But despite these similarities, the overall character of the book is essentially different from that of thirteenth-century Books of Hours, which were comparatively simple,

designed to meet the needs of laypersons unable to read extensively in Latin. The Supplicationes includes substantial Latin reading. Meditative, homiletic, and penitential texts provide a hefty

supplement to the more common devotions.9

cuinvo UR

7 5 L3

3

t-

O.

F- LL __

LL: Of LL: C/ zI 2

Figure 1. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana MS Plut. 25-3, fol. 113r. Manuel's signature following the Office for the Dead

in Appendice, ed. and transl. S. Bertini Guidetti, Genoa

1995, PP. 231-45, 440-48. 5. I intend to deal with questions of attribution in

a future study on the Supplicationes. For the present see Neff, 1999 (as in n. 3), pp. 81-83, 90.

6. Manuel's signature appears after the Psalter of the Virgin (fol. 57v), the Office of the Dead (fol. 11 3r, Fig. 1), the Office of the Passion and Cross (fol. 130%), and a penitential tract (fol. 353r). For the rhyme see

Colophons des manuscrits occidentaux des origines au XVIe siecle, vi, ed. Benedictins du Bouveret, Fribourg 1979, pp. 468-74.

7. I know of only one other Italian manuscript from this period resembling an illuminated Book of Hours. It is probably from the Marche, c. 1310-30, and contains the Hours of the Passion and Office of the Dead, 15 full-page miniatures and several historiated initials: Boston, Public Library MS qMed. 131; S. Sticca, 'Officium Passionis Domini: an Unpublished Manuscript

of the Fourteenth Century', Franciscan Studies, xxxiv, 1974, pp. 144-99; and B. S. Stocks, 'The Illustrated Office of the Passion in Italian Books of Hours', in The Art of the Book: Its Place in Medieval Worship, ed. M. Manion and B. Muir, Exeter 1988, pp. 114-16. Numer- ous Italian manuscripts, however, remain unpublished, making any statement of this sort tentative.

8. On Italian Books of Hours see Stocks (as in n.

7), pp. 111-52. For texts commonly found in the Book of Hours see V. Leroquais, Les Livres d'heures manuscrits de la Bibliotheque nationale, 3 vols, Paris 1927 (Suppliment, Macon 1943); and R. Wieck, Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in Medieval Art and Life, Baltimore 1968. These authors discuss the mature form of the book; the early development in England is studied by C. Donovan, The de Brailes Hours: Shaping the Book of Hours in Thirteenth-

Century Oxford, Toronto 1991.

9. For a description of the text of MS Plut. 25-3 see A. M. Bandini, Catalogus codicum latinorum Bibliothecae



24 AMY NEFF

Numerous drawings and miniatures complement the text. The three prefatory drawings are followed by a calendar brightly decorated with marginal figures and roundels of the

Labours of the Months; text pages are frequently illuminated; and, at the end of the book, there is a collection of forty-five full-page tinted drawings presented without text. This is a

narrative sequence in thirty-three scenes of the Life of Christ, followed by twelve primarily non-narrative, devotional images (see Figs 25-32).10 No other dugento manuscript includes

nearly so many full-page images nor such an extended full-page narrative of Christ's life.

The owner must have been well educated in Latin. Presumably he was Manuel, the scribe, who is addressed in the prefatory poem. Even though manuscript production was becoming

increasingly commercialised in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, books might still be written as personal acts of devotion and penance." In any case, the owner was pro-

foundly affected by the spirituality of the Franciscans. He may have been a friar; or, perhaps more likely, he was an aristocrat or cleric who was advised by a Franciscan or belonged to the

third order. But whatever his station, his special devotion to Francis is evident. In the calendar, of the contemporary saints' names listed, only that of Francis is written in red. In addition, Francis appears in the litany, and the confiteor, to be recited twice daily, names, along with the

Virgin, only one saint, Francis, who is addressed along with the omnipotent God. A long hymn, Talis es et tanta crucifixi passio sancta, features Francis as the friend of the crucified, while the

life of the Franciscan Order is called the Cross of the Saviour.12 Four miniatures picture Fran-

ciscans, and Franciscans authored several texts in the manuscript, notably the Office of the

Passion and Cross attributed to St Bonaventure, a rhymed Prayer of the Holy Cross based on

Bonaventure's Tree of Life, and two chapters from a late-thirteenth-century mystical treatise, the Stimulus amoris by James of Milan (lacobus Mediolanensis).13 These texts focus on the

Passion and the crucified Christ with a lyricism and ardour that spring from a fervent desire

for love and unity with the crucified.

Like the texts, much of the imagery of the Supplicationes is infused with Franciscan

spirituality. It emphasises the Passion and aims to stimulate love, pity, and compassion for the

human suffering of Christ (Fig. 25). But the reader of this manuscript is not plunged immedi-

ately into an emotional terrain of guilt, sorrow, love, and desire. Instead, the prefatory poem and introductory images set forth the moral, sacramental and theological foundations from

which such affective devotion must stem.

Mediceae Laurentianae, I, Florence 1774, PP. 748-54; partly emended in Neff, 1999 (as in n. 3), PP- 90, 96-97.

io. Illustrated below, pp. 62-65. For illustrations of all 48 drawings see Degenhart and Schmitt (as in n. 3), part 1, vol. II, pls 7-18.

11. Two near-contemporary examples of English books written by their pious owners are discussed by L. Freeman Sandler, 'The Image of the Book-Owner in the Fourteenth Century: Three Cases of Self-Defi- nition', England in the Fourteenth Century. Proceedings of the 1991 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. N. Rogers, Stamford, Lincs 1993, PP- 58-8o. The Bolognese Bible written

by Raulinus was made not for himself but for com- mercial sale; still, in a note, the scribe offers his work to the Virgin Mary in expiation of his many sins; F.

Avril and M.-T. Gousset, Bibliotheque nationale, Departe- ment des Manuscrits. Centre de Recherche sur les Manuscrits enluminis. Manuscrits enlumines d'origine italienne. 2.

XIIe siecle, Paris 1984, cat. 118 bis; R. H. Rouse and M. A. Rouse, 'Wandering Scribes and Traveling Artists: Raulinus of Fremington and His Bolognese Bible', A Distinct Voice: Medieval Studies in Honor of Leonard E.

Boyle, O.P., ed. J. Brown and W. P. Stoneman, Notre Dame 1997, PP. 32-67-

12. 'Noster Franciscus crucifixi dulcis amicus'; 'crux salvatoris est vita fratris minoris'; for the hymn see Analecta Hymnica, ed. G. Dreves and C. Blume, xLvI, Leipzig 1905, Pp. 104-06.

13. For a listing of the relevant images and texts, as well as the far less numerous mentions of Dominicans, see Neff, 1999 (as in n. 3), PP- 96-97-




The Prefatory Poem

Although the poem written on the first folio of the manuscript (Figs 2-3)14 enjoins the reader

to weep, there is no dwelling on Christ's suffering, no descriptive detail, and none of the

ecstasies of grief or mystical union that characterise texts like the Stimulus amoris. Instead, the

tone is didactic.

The poem first addresses a general reader, but eventually it becomes clear that it is

Manuel (lines 35 and 37) who is urged, if he desires eternal life, to remember the poor, be

mindful of death, practice good deeds, receive the eucharist with proper understanding, and

weep. 'If anyone were to reflect on where he was heading and whence he came, he would

never rejoice, but weep for all time' (lines 8-9); rich and poor alike should look to their end, behave well and look to the sacrament of the eucharist. The content and structure of the

verses probably derived from a type of poem, fairly common from the twelfth century on, that

taught etiquette or morals.'5 These courtesy-poems present a series of brief precepts, each

formulated as a verse couplet, often in internally rhymed leonine hexameter. Despite a certain

lack of continuity and thematic development in these poems, the couplets provide concise,

easily learned practical advice. A similar structure is found in the Supplicationes poem, which

repeats a formula from this genre along with proverbs culled from other sources.16 If, however, a courtesy-poem were indeed the model for the Supplicationes, its practical directives-to sit up

straight, not to pick one's teeth or spit, and the like-have been transformed into messages that are moral, sacramental, and eschatological. The everyday table becomes the sacred table

of the Mass.

Lines 5 and 6 in the Supplicationes are common in courtesy-poems:

When you are at table, think first of the poor man; / When you feed him, friend, you feed God.'7

But while in courtesy-poems this dictum precedes advice on good manners, in the Suppli- cationes it forms part of a theological topos: you should give of your best to Christ, not eating it

yourself; and what is given to others is given to Christ (lines 4-5).18 Thus, temperance and

charity are taught, and the focus is shifted from ordinary eating to sacred eating:

[At the altar] Christ is eaten yet still remains whole. (line 17)

If any of you wishes to be sanctified in Christ at the altar, / He agrees that on the altar bread is made flesh. (lines 25-26)

These are affirmations that Christ's body is truly present in the host; that his flesh remains

whole, even when consumed in a fragmented wafer; and that it is during Mass, on the altar, that the wafer becomes the true body of Christ. The three pieces of the host, broken during

14. For a full transcription see the Appendix below, pp. 65-66.

15. The possibility of this derivation is noted by S. Gieben, 'Robert Grosseteste and Medieval Courtesy- Books', Vivarium, v, 1967, n. 5, PP- 49-50. On courtesy- poems see S. Glixelli, 'Les Contenances de table', Romania, XLVII, 1921, pp. 1-40.

16. References for these proverbs are noted in the

Appendix below. As noted there, Hans Walther in his

compendious Sprichw6rter und Sentenzen des Mittelalters refers to several lines in this manuscript, without,

however, discussing the text as a whole or treating it as a major source for proverbs.

17. Cf., in the earliest known courtesy-poem: 'Quis- quis es in mensa, primo de paupere pensa: / Nam cum

pascis eum, pascis, amice, Deum'; Glixelli (as in n. 15), pp. 28-29; also in C. H. Haskins, Studies in Mediaeval

Culture, New York 1929 (repr. 1965), p. 79- 18. For this topos see C. W. Bynum, Holy Feast and

Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval

Women, Berkeley 1987, pp. 31-35-



26 AMY NEFF

h4 b

Aal

14 tonm ct

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CM0,

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stathu~conacta l

1iawf Malte co"

Q

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-I w z w m

ar co w

w F-

z 2

Figure 2. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana MS Plut. 25-3, fol. Ir. Prefatory poem, lines 1-21




~"latt sq

~:Ax

.Mmk

aler 3:~4~ LUX fit

on tfit

calumsfall ct remmega cumntim

tolit quncmisl"CCe one tow ran

-?t-l MCM m Clio -? ululs-

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a-Do

WE

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Figure 3. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana MS Plut. 25-3, fol. iv. Prefatory poem, lines 22-42



28 AMY NEFF

the Mass, are explained symbolically as the living, the saints, and those to be redeemed (lines

27-28). The reader is warned of fiery damnation if he receives the host unworthily (lines 29-

30). The original sin of Adam under the tree is associated with that very act, an unworthy

taking of the food of salvation, which is later redeemed by the new Adam, Christ, on his tree

(lines 31-34).19 In conclusion, Manuel is again urged to keep death always in mind, to do

good, to give to the poor, and to weep without ceasing, so as to be saved (lines 35-42).

Ag.Aw~l u~;~i- ~Y-r~;;ta?

LU -j

m

?r

o

iLL

z

2

Figure 4. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana MS Plut. 25-3, fol. 13V. Psalm 50[51].21

The teachings found in the introductory poem of the Supplicationes variae reflect a pre-

occupation with the eucharist that was characteristic of later medieval theology and devotion.20

In 1215, after more than a century of controversy, the Fourth Lateran Council had affirmed

the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine of the Mass. Efforts to define and understand

the exact nature of that presence continued throughout the thirteenth century. The assertion

of the presence of Christ's whole body even in the broken host, for example, reflects scholastic

debate on transubstantiation.21 The symbolism of the tripartite fraction of the host was elabor-

ated by twelfth- and thirteenth-century theologians.22 Although the Supplicationes poem is not

a theological treatise, it articulates and clarifies teachings on the awesome, sacrosanct presence of Christ's body. Manuel is reminded that wealth is only worldly, that charity, in the form of

good deeds, and faith, specifically faith in the miracle of the eucharist, is necessary if his hope for salvation is to be fulfilled.

19. These themes were all common in teachings on the eucharist; see Bynum (as in n. 18), pp. 31-35, 50-52; M. Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture, Cambridge 1991, pp. 27, 38-39, 57.

20o. For an overview of these issues see J. Pelikan, The Growth of Medieval Theology (6oo-300oo), III, Chicago 1978, pp. 184-204; Rubin (as in n. 19), PP- 14-35. On the 13th century in particular see D. Burr, Eucharistic

Presence and Conversion in Late Thirteenth-Century Francis- can Thought, Philadelphia 1984.

21. Rubin (as in n. 19), pp. 24-25. 22. Ibid., pp. 38-39; J. A. Jungmann, The Mass of

the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development (Missarum Sollemnia), vols I and II, New York 1950 and 1953, II,

pp. 310-11, with further bibliography.




L_ w w

-j

w z

a_ w

it

z

z

2

c c uctsva~kbutdc CL

fto? covn mVUMdrr (tr44rt

Im.1mbarpdmantil atve ua cll C&. tgo fabpalatasti inalrltgatal aratnt

Figure 5. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana MS Plut. 25.3, fol. 14r. Dextera dei



30 AMY NEFF

Dextera dei

A few pages after this poem, after a litany, some short prayers and a psalm, the reader comes to

three introductory drawings. The last verse of Psalm 50 [51] faces the image of the Dextera dei

(fols 13v-14r; Figs 4-5), and the other two images follow (fols 14', 15v; Figs 19, 24). All three

images are without parallel in Italian manuscripts of the period, in which pictorial prefaces are rare and generally consist of narrative rather than symbolic or diagrammatic material.23

The large, blessing Hand of God fills a circular disk held by four angels. The letters placed around the rim of the disk are to be read in conjunction with the 'E' on God's Hand. Starting at the 'L' at the top, and continuing inwards and out from the central 'E', results in the phrase 'LEX EST VERA DEI'. These words begin the poem placed under the Hand:

Lex est vera dei. Subtesitur huic speciei. Custos esto mei. Destera sancta dei.

Absque labore certamine non est palma victorie.24 Palma dabit palmam. Per matrem quam collit almam.

Ergo sub palma. Vir dicere gaudeat alma.

(The true law is that of God. It is veiled under this form. Be my protector, sacred right hand of God.

Without struggle in combat, there is no palm of victory. The palm will grant the palm, through the nurturing mother whom it honours.

Thus, under the nourishing palm, man may rejoice to speak.)25

Through puns and associations, verbal and visual, this image evokes a rich chain of linked

meanings. The Hand (palma/palm) of God is divine law; it is the protector; it is the palm of

victory, attained through the mother, who can be understood to be Mary and perhaps also the

Church.26 Less explicitly, the Hand suggests the Eucharist and the cross and the humanity of

Christ; it is the gateway to salvation. While some of these meanings were traditionally associated

with the Dextera dei, others were not; and all are reformulated in a radically new way.

Probably the most common medieval signification of the Dextera dei was one of protection and beneficent power.27 As such, it is a frequent symbol for God in the Bible. In early Christian

and medieval art, the Hand of God appears both in narratives and with representations of holy

23. For an example of a narrative preface see the Smith-Lesouef Psalter, made in Bologna for use in Tournai; Avril and Gousset (as in n. 11), cat. 123.

24. The poet here adapts the Dialogues of Gregory the Great: 'sine labore certaminis non est palma victoriae'; Patrologiae cursus completus. Series latina, ed.

J.-P. Migne, Paris 1844-64 (hereafter PL), LXXVII, COl. 269. The phrase occurs in a chapter on a miracle at San Zeno, Verona, but it is uncertain whether this association was significant, despite other links to San Zeno; see pp. 31-32 and Fig. 7 opposite.

25. The translation of the last verse is problematic. I have chosen 'nurturing' rather than 'fostering' or

gracious' for alma, since medieval exegesis of the palm emphasises its nourishing fruits; see below, p. 46, and, e.g., a 12th-century metaphor of Christ climbing the

cross/palm: 'Conscendit palmam quam fecit fructibus

almam'; Hildebert, De ordine mundi, PL, CLxXI, col. 1233. 26. On the Church as mother and the association of

the Church with Mary see H. Barre, 'Marie et l'Eglise du Venerable Bede A Saint Albert le Grand', Societi

fran(aise d'itudes mariales. Bulletin, Ix-xI, 1952-54, PP.

59-143.

27. For the iconography of the Dextera dei see 0.

Homburger, 'Eine unveroffentlichte Evangelienhand- schrift aus der Zeit Karls des Grossen (Codex Bernensis

348)', Zeitschriftfiir schweizerische Archaeologie und Kunst-

geschichte, v, 1943, PP- 156-62; H. P. L'Orange, Studies

on the Iconography of Cosmic Kingship in the Ancient World,

Oslo 1953, PP. 159-62, 171-87 ; W. Stechow, 'An Early Woodcut with the Hand of God', Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin, xIv, 1956, pp. 7-15; M. Kirigin, La

Mano divina nell'iconografia cristiana (Studi di antichitAi

cristiana, xxxI), Vatican City 1976.




persons, a sign of God's presence and active power, speaking, blessing, protecting his chosen

people. As in Scripture, in the visual arts, the Dextera dei projects the mighty will and voice of

the deity. A different compositional tradition of the Dextera dei, however, is more pertinent to the

imagery of the Supplicationes variae. These are images of the Hand that are independent of any narrative context. They are centralised, often set within a circular medallion or framed by a

wreath or vine. This type is sometimes also thought to be early Christian, but, since no known

examples pre-date the mid-eighth century, its origins may be more plausibly placed in that

century. In any case, the motif is rare until the Carolingian period, and contact with Carolin-

gian art may explain its popularity in northern Italy and Dalmatia, where numerous examples survive from the eighth to the fourteenth century.28 In this region, the Hand of God was often

set as the central motif of a stone or terracotta cross (Fig. 6).29 In the Romanesque period, the

Hand within a clipeus appears over the portals of several northern Italian churches associated

with the sculptor Nicholaus, for example, at San Zeno, Verona (Fig. 7).30 Framed by a circular

o z 0 N z a

(D

0

w

o o

o_ a

c3

F- o a

z

0_

w

o

w

0-1 LLI w m

U) z w

a. o n- W

_z

w z 0 N z w Z> D3 0 0 LLI 0 (D 0

z

F- z W

z w

w w z 2

Figure 6. Abbazia di Pomposa. Terracotta cross with Dextera dei, over central arch of atrium arcade

28. For early examples see A. Melucco Vaccaro, 'Sul

sarcofago altomedioevale del Vescovado di Pesaro', Alto Medioevo, I, 1967, pp. 111-39.

29. W. Dorigo, 'Croci petrinee e laterizie medio- evali in esterni: Ravenna, Pomposa, Venezia', Bisanzio e l'Occidente: arte, archeologia, storia. Studi in onore di

Fernanda De' Maffei, Rome 1996, pp. 427-42; P. Porta,

Figure 7. San Zeno, Verona. Dextera dei carved on

porch over main entry

'La Croce medievale dei SS. Ermete, Aggeo e Caio a

Bologna: Considerazioni Preliminari', Arte medievale,

x.2, 1996, pp. 57-63. See also the jewelled cross with a central Dextera dei painted in SS. Apostoli, Verona; F. Butturini, La pitturafrescale dell'anno mille nella diocesi di

Verona, Verona 1987, fig. 301.



32 AMY NEFF

inscription and centred above the main portal, in its placement over a church door its power is directed not to a character in a narrative but to those who see it when entering the church.31 The inscription speaks to them, declaring, 'The right Hand of God blesses the people seeking his sacred places'.32 In this context, the Hand conveys a message, as if from God to the viewer, and it functions as a liminal marker, a sign through which one enters into the sacred space. It

is a sort of preface to that space. Verona is not far from Venice and Padua, and the illuminators of the Supplicationes variae

could have seen the Dextera dei at San Zeno. Indeed, the practice of placing a relief of the Hand

of God over a portal probably was not uncommon in the Veneto. At least three medieval

examples survive in Venice, although none so prominent as that at San Zeno."3 Yet a manu-

script model is also possible for the Supplicationes. From the late ninth century onwards, magnificent images of the Hand were included in

three related luxury manuscripts of the Carolingian and Ottonian periods, the late ninth-

century Codex aureus made for Charles the Bald (870) and two early eleventh-century manu-

scripts from Regensburg: the Sacramentary of Henry II (1002-1014) and the Evangelistary of Abbess Uta of Niedermfinster (c. 1020) (Figs 8, 10, 1 1).34 In these images, the golden outstretched right hand of God is the focus of the page, a sign, in which the gorgeousness, the

centrality, and the abundance of the dense, intertwining letters, ornament, and geometric frames serve to underline the significance of the Hand as the source of all creation, worldly and celestial. Although the Hand in the Supplicationes variae seems modest in comparison, almost ascetic in the sparseness of its colour, these grand images from Germany share with

it several essential characteristics. They are full-page manuscript images, isolated, majestic

signs of the deity. All four Hands are framed by central, circular bands that are inscribed and

set within square frames. Like the Hand in the Supplicationes, two of the German examples function as prefaces to text. All are compelling, dominant images; in the Supplicationes, the

30. There are 12th-century examples on portals at the collegiate church at Castell'Arquato, the Cathedral of Piacenza, the Cathedrals of Ferrara and Verona, and San Zeno, Verona. For San Zeno and various attributions of the sculpture at Castell'Arquato see G. Valenzano, La Basilica di San Zeno in Verona: Problemi architettonici, Vicenza 1993, P. 159-. At Castell'Arquato, a second relief of the Dextera dei may have been the

centrepiece of a choir enclosure; it is inscribed 'Dextera Dei celum totum benedicat et evum. Amen'; see A. C. Quintavalle, Romanico padano, civiltd d'Occidente, Florence 1969, pp. 94-97, figs 150, 177. For other illustrations see Nicholaus e l'arte del suo tempo: Atti del seminario di studi tenutosi a Ferrara i98i, II, Ferrara

1985, pp. 21, 54 (Piacenza), 599 (Ferrara). In the

early 13th century, the motif was also sculpted over a side portal of the Cathedral at Fidenza (Borgo San Donnino); R. Tassi, II Duomo di Fidenza, Milan n.d., fig. 91. A similar but less prominent use of the Dextera dei occurs on portals in Aquitaine and occasionally elsewhere; L. Seidel, Songs of Glory: The Romanesque Fagades of Aquitaine, Chicago 1981, pp. 39, 43; C. B. Kendall, The Allegory of the Church: Romanesque Portals and Their Verse Inscriptions, Toronto 1998, p. 140, figs

32-33; R. Will, Repertoire de la sculpture romane de l'Alsace, Strasbourg 1955, PP- 4-5, 75-

31. Valenzano (as in n. 30), pp. 159, 233. Andrea von Hillsen-Esch interprets the Hand at San Zeno as

part of a facade programme influenced by the theology of Rupert of Deutz; Romanische Skulptur in Oberitalien als

Reflex der kommunalen Entwicklung im 2. Jahrhundert. Untersuchungen zu Mailand und Verona, Berlin 1994, PP. 209-27.

32. 'Dextera dei gentes benedicat sacra petentes'. 33. G. Espedita, Iportali medievali di Venezia, Venice

1988, pp. 36, 198-201. Another example, probably I I th-century, is in S. Maria in Cosmedin, Rome, carved on an architrave signed by one loannes de Venetia; F. Gandolfo, 'I programmi decorativi nei protiri di Niccol6', in Nicholaus e l'arte (as in n. 30), pp. 529-30.

34. The imagery of the Dextera dei in these manu-

scripts is discussed by G. Swarzenski, Die Regensburger Buchmalerei des X. und XI. Jahrhunderts, Leipzig 19o01

(repr. Stuttgart 1969), pp. 66-67, 91-93; and more

recently by A. Cohen, The Uta Codex: Art, Philosophy, and

Reform in Eleventh-Century Germany, University Park, PA

2000, pp. 27-38, 139-43, 156, 159-63, 166, 174-75, 19o-91.




lack of rich colour is compensated by the relatively large size of the Hand on the page. To my

knowledge, no other manuscript besides these four includes a similarly framed, full-page miniature of God's Hand.35

In the earliest of the manuscripts, the Codex aureus, the Hand of God is placed at the

incipit to the Gospel of John (Figs 8, 9).36 The golden inscription that runs around the dark

reddish-purple, circular frame reads: 'May this right hand of the Father, governing the world

by its might, always also protect his Charles from the enemy'.7 As in the Supplicationes variae, the Hand is not only a protector but also world ruler, divine law. While it is not especially common to find references to divine governance in images of the Dextera dei, the idea is firmly based on Scripture. When Moses gave a final blessing before his death, he described how 'from

[the Lord's] right hand came out a fiery law' ('In dextera eius ignea lex': Deuteronomy 33-2); and early Christian and medieval images of Moses receiving the tablets on Mount Sinai often

show the divine Hand.38 In the Codex aureus, divine governance is given manifest cosmic dimen-

sion by the framing circles, perfect geometric forms that evoke the all-encompassing, eternal

nature of God's rule.

The Carolingian image is also a preface. Framed by the title of the Gospel, the Dextera dei

interacts with the text in two ways, showing God to be the Gospel's divine source and to be

eternally present in its words. On the facing page is the quintessential affirmation of Christ as

the Word, 'In principio erat verbum'. The Hand represents benediction, protection, universal

and eternal law, as well as the Word, originating in God, incarnate in Christ.

Already in the Carolingian age and frequently from the tenth century onwards, the

image of the Dextera dei could simultaneously symbolise God and his son.39 Probably the most

common usage of the image in the later Middle Ages was eucharistic, revealing God and Christ

35. The full-page drawings of paschal Hands in the Tiberius Psalter (c. 1050) and Leofric Missal (c. 979) represent a different iconographic type. Although sometimes identified with the Hand of God, these

paschal Hands were used as computational devices; pictorially, they lack the circular and square frames and the compositional centrality found in my four

examples; see R. Deshman, 'The Leofric Missal and

Tenth-Century English Art', Anglo-Saxon England, vi, 1977, PP. 145-73. For images of hands used for other

computational or mnemonic purposes, as well as for

chiromancy, see C. R. Sherman, Writing on Hands:

Memory and Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, Seattle 2001, esp. pp. 28-59.

36. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14000, fol. 97v; W. Koehler and F. Miitherich, Die karolingischen Miniaturen 5. Die Hofschule Karls des Kahlen, Berlin 1982, pp. 175-98 and passim; Regensburger Buchmalerei. Von

friihkarolingischer Zeit bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, ed. F. Miltherich and K. Dachs, Munich 1987, no. 13, pp. 24, 26, 30, 32; K. Bierbrauer, Die vorkarolingischen und

karolingischen Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, Wiesbaden 199o, cat. 248. Koehler and Mfitherich, op. cit., pp. 62-65, discuss the likelihood of a second

Carolingian miniature of the Dextera dei. This has not survived, but inscriptions similar to those of the Codex aureus were copied in a later manuscript.

37. 'Dextera haec patris mundum dicione guber- nans protegat et Karolum semper ab hoste suum'.

38. For example, in the ioth-century Bible of Leo the Patrician (Leo Sakellarios); Vatican City, Biblioteca

Apostolica Vaticana MS Reg. Gr. I, fol. 155v; illustration in J. Lowden, Early Christian and Byzantine Art, London

1997, fig. 113. 39. In the 1 1th-century transcription of verses simi-

lar to those in the Codex aureus (see n. 36), the words 'Ubi dextera Christi est picta' introduce the section on the Dextera dei, the Hand of the Father. It is not clear whether these words were also part of the original Carolingian manuscript or a descriptive phrase added

by the 1 1th-century copyist; Koehler and Miltherich (as in n. 36), p. 63. A commentary by Alcuin, however, states that the Hand of God should be understood also as the Hand of Christ; Homburger (as in n. 27), p. 158. A Dextera dei with the wound of Christ can be found in the 9th-century apse mosaic of the church of St Germigny-des-Pres; for the authenticity and

significance of the wounded Hand in this mosaic see A.-O. Poilpr6, 'Le d6cor de l'oratoire de Germigny-des- Prds: l'authentique et le restaure', Cahiers de civilisation

medievale, LXI, 1998, pp. 281-97, esp. 294; and A.

Meyvaert, 'The Meaning of Theodulf's Apse Mosaic at

Germigny-des-Pr6s', Gesta, XL, 2001, pp. 125-39, esp. 133-35.



34 AMY NEFF

z

-r

m

m~

Figure 8. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14000, Codex aureus of Charles the Bald, fol. 97v. Dextera dei




z w T o z

LU

0 w I

co

m m

w T

n- WI

CO

Figure 9. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 14000, fol. 98r. Text of the Gospel ofJohn



36 AMY NEFF

in the sacrament. The Dextera dei in the Sacramentary of Henry II is a splendid example of this

symbolism (Fig. 1o).40 Clearly, the miniature was patterned after the Dextera dei of the Codex

aureus, which, following the death of Charles the Bald, had been acquired by Arnulf of Bavaria

and donated to the Benedictine monastery of St Emmeram in Regensburg soon after 893- The Sacramentary of Henry II was one of several Regensburg manuscripts inspired by the

sumptuous, imperial Carolingian codex.41 The Sacramentary shows the Hand again framed by circular bands within a square.

Unlike its Carolingian model, it is not a preface but is placed near the end of the Canon of

the Mass. Above and below it are written the words of benediction said by the priest after

breaking the host: 'Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum' ('May the Peace of the Lord be always with you'). The liturgical blessing is given potency by God's presence, represented by the

Hand. Within the miniature, it seems also to respond to the inscription on one of the circular

frames, which asks the holy right Hand of God the Father to bless and to save us.42 The text

of the Canon concludes on the facing page. The Dextera dei is again protecting and blessing,

specifically granting peace and salvation. And of course, within the context of the Mass, it is

a statement of God's presence there, as the source, Creator and 'sanctifier' of the liturgy.

Accordingly, the Hand is seen descending from heaven, hovering over a eucharistic chalice.43

The small dot on the Hand which marks the central compass-point of the circular frames, a

point which had been left relatively inconspicuous in the Codex aureus, has been marked and

lightly outlined. If this emphasis suggests that the dot was meant to represent Christ's wound, the Hand should be understood as symbol of both Father and Son.44

The second Regensburg miniature inspired by the Codex aureus is in the Uta Codex, dated

c. 1020 (Fig. 1 1).45 Within a square band, the inscription encircling the Hand tells of God's

sacred omnipotence and omnipresence: 'God, encompassing all of time by his perpetual will, sanctified from eternity all things established by the Word'.46 At the four corners of the page,

Justice, Temperance, Fortitude, and Prudence are personified and designated as divine in de-

scriptive tituli. The cardinal virtues are presented, therefore, not as aspects of human behaviour

but as eternal exemplars, divine entities integrally linked to the cosmic Godhead.47 Divine

exemplars are the subject of the titulus of the page's outer border, which seems to refer both

to the four cardinal virtues and the four unlabelled personifications closer to the Dextera dei, two of whom hold its circular frame. The four latter figures most plausibly represent principales

exemplares or first causes, reflecting the Neoplatonic concepts that inform the entire page.48

40. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 4456, fol. 2 ir. Miitherich and Dachs (as in n. 36), cat. 16.

41. Swarzenski (as in n. 34), p. 66; Cohen (as in n.

34), PP. 28-30, 138-40. 42. 'Sancta dei patris benedicat dextera nobis;

omnes atque suo nos salvet ubique sub umbro'.

43. Similar imagery is suggested by several medieval

legends of miraculous visions of the Dextera dei over the

priest or altar during the Mass; for these see Kirigin (as in n. 27), p. 86; Bynum (as in n. 18), n. 24 pp. 332-33; P. Browe, Die Eucharistischen Wunder des Mittelalters (Breslauer Studien zur historischen Theologie, n.f.

Iv), Breslau 1938, pp. 17, 115-16. 44. For this dual understanding of the Hand see

above, n. 39; also, A.-M. Bouch6, 'The Spirit in the

World: The Virtues of the Floreffe Bible Frontispiece: British Library, Add. Ms. 17738, ff. 3v-4r', Virtue & Vice: The Personifications in the Index of Christian Art, ed. C. Hourihane, Princeton 2000, pp. 56-57.

45- Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 13601,

fol. 1 . Mfitherich and Dachs (as in n. 36), no. 17; J. Riltz, Text im Bild: Funktion und Bedeutung der Beischriften in den Miniaturen des Uta-Evangelistars, Frankfurt am Main 1991; Cohen (as in n. 34).

46. 'Perpetuo totum nutu cingens deus aevum; sanxit ab aeterno quae condidit omnia verbo'.

47. Cohen (as in n. 34), PP- 33-38. 48. 'His operum formas deus examplaribus hornat'.

Cohen (as in n. 34), PP- 37-38; U. Kuder, 'Das speku- lative Gehalt der vier ersten Bildseiten des Utacodex',




z w o z -r m _o _II m .-- < n• LU

). U)) W CO

Figure 1o. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 4456, Sacramentary of Henry II, fol. 21 r. Dextera dei



38 AMY NEFF

?~a ?s~ .~:?

?r~

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IU ~ ? I L

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Figure 11. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 13601, Uta Codex, fol. iv. Dextera dei




z

I

m

z

---

T m

w

LL w

~~~~,--:-:~ ~-;~ ::~--:--~--~--~~:-~~-~

~2.--

D ~l~el` * ~ ?~

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'M 1 i%

1 ~ a

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?' ~ ?~ ~c~g L~:

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Figure 12. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 13601, fol. 2r. Uta dedicates the book to the Virgin



40 AMY NEFF

Uta appears on the facing page, dedicating her book to the Virgin and Child (Fig. 12).

Although the visual form is different, the juxtaposition of facing images parallels the Codex

aureus (Figs 8, 9). In both, the cosmic Hand of God, the source, is paired with its incarnation.

In the Codex aureus, Incarnation is manifest as Scripture, the Word of the Gospel ofJohn; in

the Uta Codex, the Word made flesh is the Christ child on Mary's lap. The Virgin and Child

look towards the Hand, to which the first part of the inscription encircling them seems to

refer: 'Hence I, a virgin, gave birth to God through the celestial Spirit...'.49 In the Uta Codex, the Dextera dei and the image of Mary are prefaces, the first images in the book. It is through the divine Hand, and through the Virgin Mother, to whom Uta addresses her prayers, that

one reaches the sacred text.

Many of the significations of the Dextera dei in these luxury manuscripts are reformulated

in the Supplicationes variae: blessing, protection, divine governance, association with Mary, and, as we shall see, God as Creator and unceasing creative energy in the world, in Christ incarnate, and in the eucharist. In all four manuscripts, the composition of circle within square, perfect

geometric shapes, symbolises the world and the cosmos, as well as the eternity, universal

domain, and perfection of the deity.50 Although the Virgin is not pictured in the prefatory

drawing of the Supplicationes, in the poem under the Hand, she is 'the nurturing mother'

through whom one may reach the sacred, 'the nourishing palm'. No virtues are shown in the

Supplicationes image, although one could argue that the 'struggle in combat' of the Suppli- cationes poem might at least in part refer to the role of the virtues in combating vice. But this

last point is minor. Overall, there is much similarity between the Supplicationes and the north-

ern manuscripts, especially those still in Regensburg in the thirteenth century, the Codex aureus

and the Uta Codex.51 While the eucharistic associations of the Hand in the Sacramentary were widespread and would not require one particular manuscript as a model,52 some of the

St. Emmeram in Regensburg: Geschichte-Kunst-Denkmalpflege (Beitrige des Regensburger Herbstsymposium, 1991), Kallmuinz 1992, pp. 166ff. My thanks to Adam Cohen for discussing these personifications with me. Swarz- enski's suggestion (as in n. 34, p. 92), that these figures represent virtues related to human behaviour, seems less likely since, in comparison to the divine virtues, they are closer to the Hand of God.

49. 'Hinc ego virgo deum genui per pneuma supernum / quod sequitur partum de me scitote remotum'; Swarzenski (as in n. 34), P- 93; Riltz (as in n. 45), PP- 39, 92; Cohen (as in n. 34), PP- 49, 190, 210o n. 53. Cohen translates the second phrase of this titulus as 'what follows the birth, know, is far from me', or 'far from my understanding', suggesting that the

phrase refers to the crucifixion, which is pictured on the following page. Rutz (as in n. 45), P. 92, thinks it

may allude to Mary's future coronation in heaven.

50. Cohen (as in n. 34), PP- 31-32, 162; A. Esmeijer, Divina Quaternitas: A Preliminary Study in the Method and Application of Visual Exegesis, Amsterdam 1978, pp. 73-74, n. 5, P. 150 and passim. The circle and, less often, the square, were common within schemas of cosmic creation; B. Bronder, 'Das Bild der Sch6pfung und Neusch6pfung der Welt als orbis quadratus',

Friihmittelalterliche Studien, vi, 1972, pp. 189-210o; J. Zahlten, Creatio mundi: Darstellungen der sechs Schbp- fungstage und naturwissenschaftliches Weltbild im Mittelalter

(Stuttgarter Beitrage zur Geschichte und Politik, Bd.

3), Stuttgart 1979, PP- 49-54, 178-84 and passim; idem, '"In principio creavit Deus caelum...." (Gen. 1,1 ) ', Der Himmel iiber der Erde: Kosmossymbolik in mittel- alterlicher Kunst, ed. F. M6bius, Leipzig 1995, P- 55-

51. By 1058, the Sacramentary of Henry II was in Bamberg Cathedral; Swarzenski (as in n. 34), PP- 66, 91.

52. At St Emmeram, Regensburg, for example, the Codex aureus was also associated with the eucharist, since it was an altar book. On the same altar, the golden Carolingian ciborium on the altar was also adorned with the Hand of God on one of its four gables. The Uta Codex shows both these objects on the altar, in the miniature of St Erhard Celebrating the Mass (fol. 4r). For the ciborium see P. Morsbach, 'Die "Arnulfinische

Schenkung"', in Ratisbona Sacra: Das Bistum Regensburg im Mittelalter, Zilrich 1989, pp. 198-89 (the Dextera dei can be seen in the colour pl., p. 405); for the Erhard

page see Cohen (as in n. 34), PP. 78-96; Swarzenski

(as in n. 34), PP- 97-99; Rfitz (as in n. 45), PP- 52-58, 16-25.




correspondences with the Codex aureus and the Uta Codex are more unusual and particular. These are the use of the image as a manuscript preface, the figures holding the central disk

(prime 'exemplars' in the Uta Codex, angels in the Supplicationes), and the links between the

Hand, creative power, divine governance, and the Virgin Mary. Moreover, there is a strong historical case for arguing that the artists of the Supplicationes could have known these manu-

scripts, either directly or through model books made by Italians working north of the Alps. A number of artists trained in Padua worked in the Tirol, Austria, and Germany in the

1260s and 127os, sparking many opportunities for artistic exchange.53 For example, one of

the artists of the Seitenstetten Missal, which was probably made in Salzburg around 1265,

painted in a style that was modelled on the Venetian-Paduan manner of the Epistolary of

Giovanni da Gaibana.54 On the other side of the Alps, Venetian miniatures of the later thir-

teenth century reveal a knowledge of the style of the Seitenstetten Missal.55 What is especially relevant here, however, is that an image in the Seitenstetten Missal suggests a specific contact

with the Uta Codex, manifested in the distinctive personification identified in the text of the

Seitenstetten Missal as Mors (Fig. 13). This figure's collapsing pose seems derived, directly or

indirectly, from the unusual iconography of Death in the Crucifixion of the Uta Codex (Fig.

14).56 I have no detailed hypothesis to explain how the concepts and iconography of the Hand

of God might have passed from the Codex aureus and Uta Codex to the Supplicationes variae, but the case of the Seitenstetten Missal demonstrates the possibility of an artistic exchange between the north and the Veneto that could have included knowledge of motifs derived from

the Uta Codex-and possibly from other early medieval manuscripts in Regensburg. Given the

z w M: L) z LU 0 m

w w co

ihamm urm w n uorfa~mmn dam.mpfhbmnfpm,

Figure 13. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M. 855, Seitenstetten Missal, fol. 108r, detail. Vita and Mors (beneath Christ crucified)

LL N

0 a

z

o1

D-

z 0 z 0 CL Of WI CL w

Figure 14. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 13601, Uta Codex, fol. 3v, detail. Symbolic Crucifixion with Vita and Mors

53. See I. Hfnsel, 'Die Miniaturmalerei einer Padua- ner Schule des Ducento', Jahrbuch der Osterreichischen

Byzantinischen Gesellschaft, II, 1952, pp. 105-48; I.

Hansel-Hacker, 'Die Fresken der Kirche St. Nikolaus bei Matrei in Osttirol', ibid., III, 1954, PP. 109-22; G.

Valagussa, 'Alcune novitti per il miniatore di Giovanni di Gaibana', Paragone. Arte, XLII, n.s., 29 (499), 1991, pp. 3-22.

54. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 855. R. Corrie, 'The Seitenstetten Missal and the Persistence

of Italo-Byzantine Influence at Salzburg', Dumbarton Oaks Papers, XLI, 1987, pp. 111-23; Valagussa (as in n. 53), PP- 7-8.

55. A. Neff, 'Miniatori e "arte dei cristallari" a Venezia nella seconda meta del Duecento', Arte Veneta, XLV, 1992/93, pp. 8, 18 n. 19.

56. Corrie (as in n. 54), P. 12o. An intermediary model is also possible, although none has survived. For the iconography of Mors see Cohen (as in n. 34), pp. 57-58.



42 AMY NEFF

unusual use of the Hand as frontispiece, and given the extent of the formal and conceptual similarities, I think it highly likely that such an exchange indeed occurred.

Familiarity with sculpted images of the Hand on portals in northeast Italy perhaps played a role in attracting the patron or artists of the Supplicationes to the images of the Hand in these

manuscripts. In both portals and manuscripts, the Hand of God is placed as a meaningful

gateway to the sacred.

Personal Devotions

In selecting the image of the Hand, two other, more personal factors were perhaps relevant.

The first involves a eucharistic miracle and St Syrus, a fourth-century bishop of Genoa. When

still a young deacon assisting at Mass, Syrus had a vision of the Dextera dei shining out from

heaven, hovering vast and radiant, consecrating the sacrificial offerings.57 Of Genoese saints,

Syrus was locally the most venerated. The first cathedral of Genoa, San Siro, was dedicated to

him. Probably in the tenth century, San Siro was replaced by San Lorenzo as the cathedral of

Genoa, but both churches claimed the saint's relics.58 This dispute and Syrus's cult gained renewed vitality in the late thirteenth century, when the cathedral of San Lorenzo pressed its

ownership of the saint's body. At a provincial synod in June 1293, the bones kept within the

high altar of the cathedral were solemnly recognised and acclaimed as the true and complete

body of Syrus.59 This event took place about five months after the date inscribed in the Suppli- cationes variae, but almost certainly, the manuscript's Genoese owner, affected by the current

promotion of Syrus's cult, would have known of the extraordinary miracle that signalled Syrus's virtues. His devotion to him is evident from the calendar of the manuscript, where Syrus is the

only Genoese saint whose name is inscribed in red letters.

The second factor involves a eucharistic relic and St Francis. The Dextera dei was often

depicted on portable altars, bishop's gloves, and, most frequently, on the paten designed to

hold the eucharistic wafer.60 Examples survive from as early as the Ottonian and Salian periods, with the engraved Hand of God depicted either in an outstretched or a blessing gesture.61 These patens were generally employed by bishops, a usage that apparently continued in the

twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when examples become more numerous.62

According to a tradition documented in Assisi as early as 1338, an early thirteenth-century chalice and its paten were used by St Francis himself (Fig. 15).63 On the small, gilded silver

57. Kirigin (as in n. 27), p. 86. The miracle is recounted in a text attributed to Jacopo da Varagine; Leggenda e Inni di S. Siro, Vescovo di Genova, ed. V. Promis (Atti della Societa Ligure di Storia Patria, ser. I,

x.4), 1876, pp. 367, 378. 58. For the early history of Genoa's cathedral see

C. Di Fabio, La Cattedrale di Genova nel Medioevo, secoli VI-XIV, Milan 1998, pp. 15-2 1.

59. T. O. De Negri, Storia di Genova, Milan 1974, PP. 107-09, 201-03, 228; Jacopo da Varagine, Cronaca (as in n. 4), pp. 240-42, 328-29, 445-46, 500-01.

6o. J. Braun, Das christliche Altargerdit in seinem Sein und seiner Entwicklung, Munich 1932, p. 234; Kirigin (as in n. 27), pp. 103-04.

61. See V. H. Elbern, Der Eucharistische Kelch im

friihen Mittelalter, Berlin 1964, pp. 139-41; Bernward

von Hildesheim und das Zeitalter der Ottonen, exhib. cat., ed. M. Brandt and A. Eggebrecht, II, Hildesheim 1993,

no. VII-6, pp. 452-53;J. Laudage, 'Symbole der Politik-

Politik der Symbole', Heinrich der Lowe und seine Zeit:

Herrschaft und Repriisentation des Welfen 1125-1 235, exhib. cat., ed. J. Luckhardt and F. Niehoff, ii, Munich

1995, PP- 91-94; S. Tavano and G. Bergamini, Patri- archi. Quindici secoli di civilti fra l'Adriatico e l'Europa, exhib. cat. (Aquileia and Cividale del Friuli), Milan

2000, cat. XI.18, pp. 169-70. 62. For example, the patens of Bishop Gravesend

of Lincoln (d. 1279) and Archbishops Walter de Gray (d. 1255) and Geoffrey de Ludham (d. 1265) of York; Braun (as in n. 6o), p. 234.

63. I. Hueck, 'L'oreficeria in Umbria dalla seconda metS del secolo XII alla fine del secolo XIII', in




paten, the Hand of God is drawn within a

circular rim engraved with the sun, moon, and stars. Since St Francis was neither bishop nor priest, he would not have used this or

any other paten to celebrate Mass. But it is

likely, as Irene Hueck has suggested, that the

chalice and paten were gifts to Francis for

use in the first Franciscan church. If so, their

association with Francis could have been

current among devotees in the late thirteenth

century. In his devotion to Francis, the owner

of the Supplicationes variae might have desired

a recollection of Francis's paten, and this, as

well as the Genoese miracle of St Syrus, may have influenced the choice of the Dextera dei

as a key image in his book.

U) U) U)

(.0 o Lo o

d

z 0 oo o o

?0

W C) U)

Figure 15. Paten of St Francis. Assisi, San Francesco,

Cappella delle reliquie

A Franciscan Book

If Syrus's vision of God's Hand is recalled in the Supplicationes variae, this is an isolated

reference to the Genoese saint. If, however, Francis is remembered, it is one element among

many that contribute to the manuscript's distinctively Franciscan character. A Franciscan

spirit is, for example, evident in the austerity of the Supplicationes; instead of the opulent gold and saturated colour of northern miniatures of the Dextera dei, there is sober, monochrome

drawing. This is a relatively 'poor' image, well suited to a devotion inspired by the order com-

mitted to an ideal of poverty. Although many text pages of the Supplicationes are decorated

with small miniatures that are brilliantly coloured with expensive pigments such as ultramarine

and gold, all the full-page images of the book are drawings: monochrome images at the

preface, colour-tinted drawings at the end of the book. Ownership of a manuscript like the

Supplicationes would have been unthinkable for the most rigorous Franciscans, who sought absolute poverty in their lives. But the book might have belonged to a more moderate Fran-

ciscan or tertiary, or to a cleric or layman under the guidance of a Franciscan spiritual advisor.

The manuscript is illuminated and beautiful, but, in the spirit of poverty, somewhat restrained

in colour and sumptuousness. Like the verses in the prefatory poem that criticise wealth and

urge charity to the poor (lines 5, 9, 21-22, 39-41), the relative austerity of the Supplicationes

drawings perhaps carried a pointed message to the book's wealthy owner.

More profoundly, the way in which the artists of the Supplicationes have adapted the image of the Hand makes it an extraordinarily apt visualisation of key concerns characteristic of

the thirteenth century and, in particular, of the Franciscans. Along with the significations that

were incorporated from earlier models-all-encompassing creative power, blessing, protection, source of divine law, gateway to the sacred-the Dextera dei in the Supplicationes variae is

eucharistic in a new way; it is Christological in a new way; and it effectively suggests a Franciscan

theology of mankind's path to salvation.

Francesco d'Assisi: Storia e Arte, exhib. cat., Milan 1982, pp. 168-70, 181.



44 AMY NEFF

Species

Written around, on, and under the Hand is the verse: 'The true law is that of God; it is veiled

under this form [subtesitur huic speciei]' (Fig. 5). As seen in the Sacramentary of Henry II and

the paten of St Francis, the Hand of God was closely associated with the Mass. Likewise, the

word species was commonly used in a eucharistic context. The body of Christ 'sub specie' meant

Christ's body in the visible forms, the 'outward signs', of wine and wafer.64 At the moment of

consecration, these retained the appearance (species) of bread and wine yet veiled the presence of Christ's body and blood. This eucharistic meaning may be applied to the drawing of the

Dextera dei; angels hold a circular disk that can be seen as the material species, the sacramental

host. The text that faces the drawing is the last verse of Psalm 50 [51], the 'Miserere', which

ends with a petition to God for acceptance of man's offerings: 'Then shalt thou accept the

sacrifice ofjustice, oblations, and holocausts: then shall they lay calves upon thine altar' (Fig.

4) 65 Surely, the disk that veils the true law of God is also the host of the altar, the 'sacrifice of

justice'. The eucharistic themes of the manuscript's prefatory poem lend further support to

this reading.

Angels display the host to the viewer, as, in the Mass, the priest would display the

consecrated host to the faithful. The drawing of the Hand should be seen in the context

of thirteenth-century eucharistic practices that placed unprecedented emphasis on visual display. The ritual of elevating the host so that it could be seen by all can be documented from 1210o and rapidly became

widespread.66 Seeing the host was believed to

confer, if not the actual sacrament, a definite

spiritual grace.67 A miniature from a thir-

teenth-century Flemish Psalter demonstrates the extraordinary value given to seeing the

species. To illustrate Psalm 26[27], 'The Lord is my light and my salvation' ('Dominus illuminatio et salus mea'), a saint gazes at the host and chalice, pointing to his eye to

emphasise vision as the medium of divine illumination (Fig. 16).68 Through the visible

form, the species of the host, the sacred is both veiled and conveyed.

LL _L .a m

LL

a

n- LL Ilisn~un wa 'Is

~i~II~ RWtthttCFtUtit RU/

gt

b~ d

Figure 16. Philadelphia, Free Library MS Lewis E 181, fol. 26v. Initial to Psalm 26

64. P. Michaud-Quantin, Etudes sur le vocabulaire

philosophique du moyen dge, Rome 1970, pp. 116-17;

Bynum (as in n. 18), pp. 50, 52. 65. 'Tunc acceptabis sacrificium iusticie oblationes

et holocausta. Tunc imponent super altare tuum vitulos.'

66. At this date the bishop of Paris decreed that

priests should hold up the host after the consecration

'ut possit ab omnibus videri'; Jungmann (as in n. 22), I, pp. 118-21; II, pp. 20o6-07. See also E. Bertaud,

'Devotion eucharistique', Dictionnaire de Spiritualiti, IV.2, Paris 1961, cols 1623, 1626-27; Bynum (as in n.

18), pp. 54-55; Rubin (as in n. 19), PP- 55-63. 67. Jungmann (as in n. 22), II, p. 208; Bynum (as in

n. 18), p. 55; Rubin (as in n. 19), pp. 63-64, 150. 68. The Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book

Department, Lewis E 181, fol. 26v. The manuscript dates from c. 1270; Leaves of Gold: Manuscript Illumi- nation from Philadelphia Collections, exhib. cat., ed. J. R. Tanis, Philadelphia 2001, cat. 12.




The host was the bread of angels, prefigured by heavenly manna and the bread brought

by an angel to Elijah in the desert.69 It was commonly believed that angels were present at

the Mass, especially at the consecration, when Christ's body became present in the sanctified

offerings.70 Indeed, the angels in the Supplicationes drawing may be envisioned as carrying the

consecrated host aloft to God's celestial altar, reflecting the Canon of the Mass, when the priest

petitions God to accept the offerings: 'Bid this sacrifice be conveyed by the hand of your holy

angel to your altar on high'.71 In the thirteenth century, this prayer was generally taken to infer

an angelic transferral of the mystical sacrifice to God, who, by his acceptance, brings the

priest's act of offering to completion.72 In this sense, the drawing of the Hand of God perfectly illustrates the verse from Psalm 50 [51] written on the facing page.

The importance accorded to seeing the host leads to consideration of another mean-

ing of the word species, as used in thirteenth-century theories of optics and cognition.73 In

theories developed primarily by Robert Grosseteste, lecturer to the Franciscans at Oxford, and the Franciscan Roger Bacon, species were understood to be powers or forms that emanate

from objects, enabling the objects to be perceived.74 Through a process of successive self-

generation, the species reaches the sensory organ and is apprehended in the mind.75 Matthew

of Aquasparta, Minister General of the Franciscan Order from 1287-89, defined the species as

a generative and emanating form, originating from the object and having the function of

69. Manna is equated with the bread of angels in Psalm 77[78].25: 'Panem angelorum manducavit homo'. Manna was understood as a type of the sacramental body of Christ at least as early as Jerome's De Mysteriis, 1.8 (PL, Lv, col. 1978) and frequently repeated. The bread of Elijah is not nearly so common as a eucharistic prefiguration, but would have been current among Franciscans, as in Bonaventure's Sermo III. De sanctissimo corpore Christi (v, pp. 556, 562-63).

7o. Many 13th-century authors quote Gregory's Dialogues, Iv.58-59, on this point, including Bonaven- ture (as in n. 69), p. 556. For the medieval tradition see Browe (as in n. 43), PP- 5-12.

71. 'Iube haec perferri per manus sancti angeli tui in sublime altare tuum'. A similar interpretation has been suggested for angels in the Te igitur initial of the Gellone Sacramentary (790-c. 804), illustrated by Christ on the cross, and in the Crucifixion carved on the 9th- century ivory cover of the Pericopes of Henry II; see C. Chazelle, The Crucified God in the Carolingian Era:

Theology and Art of Christ's Passion, Cambridge 2001,

pp. 86, 93-94, 273, 290-91. See also O. K. Werckmeis-

ter, Der Deckel des Codex Aureus von St. Emmeram: ein Goldschmiedewerk des 9. Jahrhunderts, Baden-Baden 1963, p. 58. For the history and meaning of the prayer 'lube haec perferri...' see Jungmann (as in n. 22), I1, pp. 231-34; and D. B. Botte, 'L'Ange du sacrifice et l'epi- clese de la messe romaine au moyen Age', Recherches de

theologie ancienne et medidvale, I, 1929, pp. 282-308. 72. Browe (as in n. 43), PP. 11-12. Since the

material bread and wine clearly were not literally carried away, interpretations of this prayer varied. Still, 13th-century authors generally agree that angels

carried the mystical body of Christ on high; Botte (as in n. 71), pp. 302-o8. Rubin (as in n. 19), p. 62, notes

a legacy of 1502 for the building of a mechanism to make angels rise and descend over the altar at the elevation and saying of the Pater noster.

73. For the term, species, see Michaud-Quantin (as in n. 64), PP. 1 13-50. Important implications of these theories for understanding the medieval image have been noted by M. Camille, Gothic Art: Glorious Visions, New York 1996, pp. 21-25; idem, 'Before the Gaze: The Internal Senses and Late Medieval Practices of

Seeing', in Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance:

Seeing as Others Saw, ed. R. S. Nelson, Cambridge 2000,

pp. 197-223; and S. Lewis, Reading Images: Narrative

Discourse and Reception in the Thirteenth-Century Illumi- nated Apocalypse, Cambridge 1995, pp. 6-1o.

74. As Katherine H. Tachau points out, although historians of optics such as David C. Lindberg have

rightly hesitated to label 13th-century cognitive theories 'Franciscan', contemporaries would have associated these theories with the Order; K. H. Tachau, 'Et maxime visus, cuius species venit ad stellas et ad quem species stellarum veniunt: Perspectiva and Astrologia in

Late Medieval Thought', La visione e lo sguardo nel

Medio Evo: View and Vision in the Middle Ages (Micrologus: natura, scienze e societas medievali, v), I, Turnhout 1997,

pp. 201-02; D. C. Lindberg, Theories of Vision from al-

Kindi to Kepler, Chicago 1976, pp. 94-121, esp. 107.

75. Lindberg, op. cit., pp. 98-99, 102, 13-16; K.

H. Tachau, Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham:

Optics, Epistemology and the Foundations of Semantics

1250-1345, Leiden 1988, pp. 6-11.



46 AMY NEFF

turning one's cognitive faculty back towards the object that is then known.76 Following this

model, is the species drawn in the Supplicationes analogous to the cognitive species that emanates

from a source, which, in the case of the symbolic Hand/Host, would be God? I will return to

this idea when discussing Franciscan concepts of emanation, exemplarity, and redemption. On another level, the drawing of the Dextera dei itself is an object from which the species is

projected to the viewer, whose attention is directed back to the image and prompted to

contemplation of the right hand of God, Creator, protector, veiled law, host, and body of

Christ, path to salvation.

Palm

In the Supplicationes variae, the traditional late antique motif of winged victories or angels

holding aloft a wreath or clipeus is transformed. Instead of a wreath, angels carry and display the host that veils the true presence of Christ, seen as his blessing Hand. Yet the older con-

notations of the motif are also present, victory over death, or transcendence.77 The Hand, the

host, the palm, grants spiritual sustenance and eternal life in paradise:

Without struggle in combat, there is no palm of victory. The palm will grant the palm, through the nurturing mother whom it honours.

Thus, under the nourishing palm, man may rejoice to speak.78

Although palma is an obvious word to use for the hand, I have not found it associated

with other pictorial images of the Dextera dei. In texts, however, palmus was used for the Hand

of the Creator in references to Isaiah 40. 12: 'Who has measured the waters with his fist, and

weighed the heavens in his palm?'79 And palma was commonly used for both hand and tree.

Isidore of Seville explains that the palm tree was so called because its outstretched branches

resemble the hand of a man in victory.8s As a tree, palma received rich exegesis. In Haymo of

Halberstadt's influential commentary on the Song of Songs, for example, there is a lengthy

commentary on the verse, 'I said I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit' (Canticles

7.8). The palm tree is the Church or the virtuous man who strives to subdue the vices; it is also

the cross, bitter below but sweet and beautiful above, as in paradise. The fruits of the palm are, among other things, the gifts of the Church, the rewards of good work and deeds, and

the resurrection, which is the triumph over the passion.8' In the later Middle Ages, a Marian

interpretation was added to this array of symbols, for example, by Jacopo da Varagine, for

whom the ever-green, ever-fruitful palm is Mary.82 Mary was extolled as the nurturing mother

76. Michaud-Quantin (as in n. 64), pp. 119-20.

77. See L'Orange (as in n. 27), pp. 90-102; M. Lechner, 'Imago Clipeata', Reallexicon zur b'zantinischen Kunst, III, Stuttgart 1978, cols 353-69.

78. See the Latin text above, p. 30. 79. 'Quis mensus est pugillo aquas et caelos palmo

ponderavit?' Several authors cite this verse, including Bonaventure, Collationes in Hexaeimeron, Ix.3 (hereafter Hex.; v, p. 373) and Sermo de Trinitate (Ix, p. 353), who

explains, 'Nam aquae intra viscera terrae videntur coarctari ad modum pugilli, sed caeli extendi videntur ad modum palmi, quia pugillus est manus coarctatae, palmus vero est manus extensae', and relates the verse to the idea that all things were created according to

measure and number and weight (Wisdom 11.21). I have altered the Douay translation to bring out this context.

80. In the Etymologiae, XVII.326; PL, ixxxII, col. 6o9. For the rich symbolism of the palm tree see P. Mayo, 'The Crusaders under the Palm: Allegorical Plants and Cosmic Kingship in the Liber Floridus', Dumbarton Oaks

Papers, xxvii, 1973, pp. 29-67; J. F. Hamburger, The Rothschild Canticles: Art and Mysticism in Flanders and the Rhineland circa 13oo, New Haven 199o, pp. 35-42, 47-49, 66, 92, 94-97.

81. Enarratio in Cantica Canticorum; PL, CxvII, cols

346-47. For the palm as cross see also below, n. 85.




&

0

0

C)

(D, C) o d F- z w z 0 C) 0

Figure 17. San Francesco, Trevi, facade of the church. Plaque with Cross and palm trees

from whom is born the palm of victory and sanctity.83 Similar ideas must have been current in Franciscan circles in the thirteenth century. On a stone plaque dated 1268, originally above the entrance to San Francesco, Trevi, an inscription with the Ave Maria surrounds a large cross flanked by two fruitful palm trees (Fig. 17).84 Passing under these, one entered the church.

Although no tree is pictured in the Supplicationes variae, its palm imagery draws on a tradition of associating the palm tree with triumph, paradise, the reward of virtue, Mary and the incarnation, and the joy of salvation. In conflating palm-tree with palm-hand, the source of thatjoy is shown to be the powerful right hand of God; and final happiness can be attained

only through struggle, recalling the admonitions to good work, asceticism, and charity in the

manuscript's prefatory poem. If one reads the 'strugglein combat' to be Christ's passion and his combat with the devil, then the image of the cross emerges as well; and the palm as a cross,

especially the cross which may be climbed to resurrection and salvation, was a pervasive meta-

phor in the art and literature of the Middle Ages.85 A Christological interpretation is supported by the mention of 'the nurturing mother whom it honours', Mary.

Extending these metaphors still further, one may speculate that the original owner of the book thought of St Francis both as palm and as victor with palm. The approval of Francis's rule is often illustrated with the episode of Innocent III's dream of the saint holding up the

82. A. Salzer, Die Sinnbilder und Beiworte Mariens in der deutschen Literatur und lateinischen Hymnenpoesie des

Mittelalters, Darmstadt 1967, p. 182.

83. Ibid., p. 183 n. 2, quoting, among others, Honorius Augustodunensis: 'palma datur victoribus, et hoc Cades [the palm in Cades; Eccles. 24.18], id est sanctificatis, quibus virgo alma exstat sanctificationis

palma, dum per eius generosam sobolem nanciscuntur victoriam et sanctificationem'.

84. See S. Nessi, 'San Francesco a Trevi, un raro

esempio di stabilitas loci', Il cantiere pittorico della Basilica

Superiore di San Francesco in Assisi, ed. G. Basile and P.

Pasquale Magro, Assisi 2001, pp. 383-403 (388-89 and figs 9-1 o). The inscription reads: 'Magister Angelo fecit hoc opus anno domini XCCLXVIII mense maii. Ave Maria gratia plena dominus tecum benedicta tu.' I am most grateful to Father Gerhard Ruf of the Basilica San Franceso, Assisi, for sending me several photo- graphs of this plaque.

85. E. C. Parker and C. T. Little, The Cloisters Cross: Its Art and Meaning, New York 1994, PP- 48-49, 163, 193-94. See also above, n. 81.



48 AMY NEFF

troubled church, as in the familiar scene at San Francesco, Assisi. But in the official and most

authoritative life of the saint, the Legenda maior, Innocent first realised the holiness of Francis

through another dream, in which he saw

a palm tree sprout between his feet and grow gradually until it became a beautiful tree. As he wondered what this vision might mean, the divine light impressed upon the mind of the Vicar of Christ that this palm tree symbolised the poor man [Francis]...86

In a sermon by Bonaventure, Francis is the lover from the Song of Songs who climbs the

palm tree. Citing Canticles 7.8, Bonaventure explains that Francis was told to go up the palm tree, and that 'The palm tree is a figure ofJesus Christ':

The fruit of this tree is nothing less than the joys of eternal sweetness and everlasting glory which consists in the vision, possession and enjoyment of God. The Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, led our

patron, St Francis, to eternal glory. So it is that the Son of God could say to him: Friend, go up higher (Luke 14.1o) to my presence that with me and in me you may be glorified for ever.87

The sermon then exhorts the audience or reader to seek salvation: 'Let us ask the Lord

to give us in this life the grace to buy that pearl so that together with St Francis we may obtain

the reward of the heavenly kingdom'.88 In this sermon, as in the Supplicationes, Francis is a

model for the individual's spiritual ascent.

Text and Image

Hand, disk, and palm carry multiple related meanings, yet one final aspect remains to be

explored. Although, as far as I know, the drawing's intriguing arrangement of letters and image is unique, it must have been developed from earlier medieval precedent. On the tympanum of the main portal of the twelfth-century Church at Ameugny, not far from Cluny, there is a cross carved within a circle, at the centre of which is the letter, 'E' (Fig. 18).89 The same letters used with the Dextera dei are written in the quadrants formed by the cross:

LX DI E

VRA ST

The portal has no verbal or visual references

to the palm or the Hand of God. There is,

i- ~~"-"~ ~

r ~~~~ ~;?;;;;;;

1; --- ~B

_

~ ---~ ?~ D a ?~ ?-~??~

-;;;;~ P, ~~??~ '; '; -; -;---;-;i~ -

Figure 18. Tympanum over the main portal, church at

Ameugny (from R. Oursel, Evocation..., p. 149)

86. Legenda maior, 111.9; transl. Cousins (as in n. 1), p. 204, who notes that this story was added to the

Legenda maior by Jerome of Ascoli, Minister General of the Order, 1274-79, having learned of the vision from one of Innocent's relatives. (Since it was not in Bona- venture's original text, the episode is not included in the Quaracchi Opera omnia.)

87. 'Sermon of the Feast of the Transferral of the

Body of St. Francis, May 25, 1267', The Disciple and the

Master: St. Bonaventure's Sermons on St. Francis of Assisi, transl. and ed. E. Doyle, Chicago 1983, p. 140, using

a manuscript source not available to the Quaracchi editors of the Opera omnia, whose version of this passage (Ix, p. 535) is incomplete. The topos of the just man's

spiritual ascent of the palm tree stems from influential

early medieval writings, e.g. Gregory's Moralia in Job, xix (PL, LXXVI, cols 120-31); discussed in Mayo (as in n. 8o), p. 37-

88. Ibid., p. 141.

89. Corpus des inscriptions de la France miditvale, xix, Paris 1997, no. I, pp. 51-52; R. Oursel, Evocation de la

chretiente romane, La Pierre-qui-vive 1968, pp. 148-49-




however, an explicit association with Mary in the contemporary inscription, 'Ave Maria gratia plena Dominus tecum', carved on the lintel directly below the cross, placing Mary as well as the cross and the Lex dei at the boundary through which one enters the sacred space. Conceivably, the designer of the drawing in the Supplicationes could have visited Ameugny, although there is no evidence to suggest this. Probably the phrase, 'Lex dei...', was more widely known and reached the artist from some other source-whether portal, manuscript illumination, diagram or text.90

The meaning of the Hand of God in the Supplicationes accrues not only from the symbolism of its component parts but also from the very arrangement of the letters. The reading of the text is guided in a concrete and physical way.91 Starting at the top of the rim, the reader's

eye is led repeatedly in and out, to and from the central 'E'. Additionally, a second cycle of movement is created by a sort of conversation between the Hand and the viewer. According to contemporary optical theory, the visual species of the Hand comes to meet the eye of the viewer.92 Thus the gesture and words of the Hand address the viewer, as if the voice of God were speaking aloud, 'Lex est vera dei'. In the second line of the poem beneath the Hand, the voice shifts to the viewer, who gazes back at the Hand and responds in the future imperative used as a supplication, 'Be my protector!'

Emanation and The Soul's Journey These cycles of movement in and out of the Dextera dei suggest a profound connection to Franciscan concepts of emanation from God in creation and return to God in salvation. God's

speech in the Book of Genesis is creation;9 and God's Word in the Gospel of John is Christ. Bonaventure's concept of the spoken Word of God is a fundamental part of his theology, which, influenced by the Neoplatonic tradition, describes God as prime Exemplar and 'fountain fullness' (fontalis plenitudo) from which emanate Christ and all of creation.94 Rooted in God's self-knowledge, which is his inner, unspoken Word, God's spoken Word is his outward

self-expression and self-diffusion. Bonaventure uses an analogy to human speech to explain the relationship of the Son to the Father. As vocalised words in human speech signify the inner

9o. In a much simplified fashion, the interplay of text and image and the association of the cross with the true law of God, victory, and salvation parallels a tradition of carminafigurata. See, for example, Rabanus Maurus's poem beginning, 'Lex quoque vera Dei vincenda est sorte beata / Ecce crucis Christi'; Rabanus Maurus, In Honorem Sanctae Crucis (Corpus Christian- orum Continuatio Mediaevalis, c), ed. M. Perrin, Turnholt 1997, PP. 164-65, 314-

91. At Ameugny, there is no directive to establish a linear order to the words, but in the Supplicationes, the poem sets a reading order for the letters surrounding the Hand.

92. See above, p. 45 and n. 74. 93. In at least one example, a late 12th-century

Bible from Pontigny (Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale MS lat. 8823-I), the second day of creation is illustrated by the speaking Hand of God within the circle of the cosmos; M. Peyrafort-Huin, La bibliotheque medievale de

l'abbaye de Pontigny (XIIe-XIXe sidcles): histoire, inventaires anciens, manuscrits, Paris 2001, pp. 71-72, 555-56 and

passim. 94. Bonaventure's doctrines on Christ, the Trinity,

emanation and exemplarism are discussed in many works. Useful recent resources include Z. Hayes, 'Bona- venture: Mystery of the Triune God', The History of Franciscan Theology, ed. K. Osborne, St Bonaventure, NY 1994, PP. 39-126; idem, The Hidden Center: Spiri- tuality and Speculative Christology in St. Bonaventure, St Bonaventure, NY 1992 (for the theme of speech, esp. p. 132); idem, Saint Bonaventure's Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity, St Bonaventure, NY 1979; and I. Delio, Crucified Love: Bonaventure's Mysticism of the Crucified Christ, Quincy, IL 1998, esp. pp. 30-43. For the fundamental role of language and speech in Bona- venture's thought see also E. Cousins, 'Bonaventure's

Mysticism of Language', Mysticism and Language, ed. S. T. Katz, New York 1992, pp. 236-57-



50 AMY NEFF

concept (mentis conceptum), remaining within the mind of the speaker even as they are heard

without, so Christ is an entity separate from, yet fully within and co-equal to God.95 God's

fullest and most perfect speech is Christ the Word. The Word contains all that can be said by the Father, i.e., all of creation.96 Simultaneously the perfect image and inner knowledge of the

Father-Exemplar and the incarnate, 'spoken' Word in the world, Christ is uniquely positioned, centred between God and God's creation.

The created world also emanates from the Exemplar and Word, but because of imperfection and sin, it is distant from God. To be saved it must return. Salvation is effected in a

circular process of emanation, exemplarity, and return. When creatures find their true like-

ness to the Exemplar, they are turned back to Him. Christ, in his central position and perfect similitude to the Exemplar, is the model and agent of creatures' salvation. God is a 'dynamic and fecund source' from which divine creative energy issues and to which it returns in a

dynamic circle, of which Christ is the centre.97 In the drawing of the Dextera dei, these concepts are suggested by the Hand that represents both God and Christ, centralised within a circle,

speaking, and at a pivotal position within the circular movements that are implied as the image is seen and read.

The concepts and language used by Bonaventure to describe Christ's emanation and

similitude to God are parallelled by the scientific language of Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon. In The Soul's Journey into God, written in 1259, Bonaventure explicitly likens the

projection, reception, and apprehension of visual species to the emanation, reception, and

apprehension of God. The Soul's Journey explains the stages of spiritual ascent in a magisterial summation of Bonaventure's theology and affective mysticism. The journey begins at the

lowest level, with a consideration of the things of the material world, distant vestiges of God.

These things are known to man through sensory species. Likewise, through the incarnate

Christ, God can be known:

All [worldly things] are vestiges in which we can see our God. For the species which is apprehended is a likeness generated in a medium and then impressed on the organ [the eye] itself. Through this

impression, it leads to its source, namely the object to be known. This clearly suggests that the Eternal

Light generates from itself a coequal Likeness or Splendour, which is consubstantial and coeternal. It further suggests that he who is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1.15) and the brightness of his glory and the image of his substance (Heb. 1.3), who is everywhere through his initial generation, as an object generates its likeness in the entire medium, is united by the grace of union to an individual of rational nature, as the species is united to the bodily organ. Through this union he leads us back to the Father as to the fountain-source and object [to be known].98

95. Bonaventure, De Reductione artium ad theologiam, 16 (v, p. 323); Latin text and transl. in E. T. Healy, Saint Bonaventure's De Reductione Artium ad Theologiam: A Commentary with Introduction and Translation, Saint Bonaventure, NY 1955, PP- 34-35. For Christ incarnate as the 'spoken Word' see also Bonaventure's Sermon II on the Nativity of the Lord (Ix, pp. o06-10o), transl. Z. Hayes, in What Manner of Man? Sermons on Christ by St. Bonaventure, Chicago 1989, pp. 57-94-

96. Cf. 'Unde sic Pater intelligendo se intelligit quidquid potest intelligere; sic dicendo Verbum dicit

quidquid potest dicere et quidquid dici potest in deitate'; De Mysterio Trinitatis, Quaest. V. Art. 1 concl. 8 (v, 87); transl. Z. Hayes, Disputed Questions (as in n.

94), p. 201.

97. E. H. Cousins, Bonaventure and the Coincidence

of Opposites, Chicago 1978, p. 111; see also Hayes, The Hidden Center (as in n. 94); and J. Ratzinger, The

Theology of History in St. Bonaventure, Chicago 1971, pp. 138-47-

98. Itin., nI.7 (v, p. 301); Cousins (as in n. 1), pp. 72-73.




Like creation emanating from the Father, the species emanates from the object, reflects its reality, and, in turning the perceiver's mind back to the source, enables that source to be known. Christ is 'that first Species, in which there is supreme proportion and equality with the generating Source [the Father]...'.99 Species here simultaneously signifies the emanating form of optical theory, a beautiful or perfect form, and similitude, in this case, Christ's perfect congruence with the supreme Exemplar.""'

Through the exercise of judgement, sense impressions made by the species are com-

prehended and submitted to intellect and memory. Thus man begins to discern the divine,

abstracting the eternal from the material and mutable phenomena of the natural world. Bonaventure explains that man's innate, true judgement is a manifestation of laws which are

infallible, immutable, and eternal, and therefore are 'either God or in God'.10' As in the

Supplicationes, for Bonaventure the true law, source of all knowledge (scientia), is commensurate with God and plays an essential role in spiritual ascent. Knowledge is

like rays of light shining down upon our mind from the eternal law. And thus our mind, illumined and flooded by such brilliance ..., can be led through itself to contemplate that Eternal Light. "2

Under divine law, angels govern the created universe in the work of man's restoration.1s3 The ascent to God is enabled by the law of Sacred Scripture, 'given to us by angels'. Bonaventure's

paraphrase of Galatians 3.19 could almost be a description of the drawing in the Supplicationes: 'the law was given by angels in the hand of a mediator', who is Christ, the supreme, coequal likeness of God.104

The Cross

With the writing of The Soul's Journey, Bonaventure moved toward the radically Christocentric

theology of creation and redemption that was most fully developed in the Collationes in Hex-

aemeron, a series of lectures presented in Paris a year before his death in 1274.l10 While the

drawings in the Supplicationes variae are in no sense a direct illustration of either of these texts,

concepts from both are fundamental to an understanding of the manuscript. Bonaventure's

thought builds from rational, affective, and mystical understandings of Christ as centre of all

reality. As medium, Christ is midpoint, fulcrum, goal, mediator, and medium of passage. Christ is centre of the Trinity, the universe, and the soul; centre of time and history, ethics, politics, and logic; the centre through which man may return to the eternal.106 With this understanding

99. Itin., II. 8 (v, p. 301); Cousins (as in n. 1), p. 73. Ioo. Bonaventure explicitly defines species with these

meanings: similitude, principle of cognition, and beautiful or perfect form. 'Quoniam ergo nomen speciei importat similitudinem et importat cognoscendi rationem, importat etiam pulcritudinem'; Commentarius

in I librum Sententiarum, dist. 31, pars 2 (I, p. 544). For other textual references see Lexique Saint Bonaventure,

ed.J.-G. Bougerol, Paris 1969, p. 12o. Bonaventure had ample opportunity to know the work of Franciscan

perspectivists; for his knowledge of Robert Grosseteste's teachings see Healy (as in n. 95), P- 46. Bonaventure and Roger Bacon were both part of the Franciscan

community at the University of Paris in the 1240os and 1260s.

lol. Itin., I1.9 (v, pp. 301-02); Cousins (as in n. 1), pp. 73-74. For the role of divine law in Bonaventure's theology seeJ. A. W. Hellmann, Divine and Created Order in Bonaventure's T7heolog, St Bonaventure, NY 2001, pp. 97-99.

102. Itin., III.7 (v, p. 305); Cousins (as in n. 1), p. 85. 103. Itin., II1.2 (v, p. 300); Cousins (as in n. 1), p. 70.

104. 'Lex data est per Angelos in manu Mediatoris'; Itin., IV.7 (v, p. 308); Cousins (as in n. 1), p. 92. Cf. Bonaventure, De Sanctis Angelis. Sermo I, 'lex Scripturae posita est per Angelos' (Ix, p. 613).

lo5. On Bonaventure's Christocentric mysticism and theology see above, n. 94, esp. Hayes, The Hidden Center, and Delio; also Cousins, Coincidence of Opposites (as in n. 97), PP. 131-59 and passim.



52 AMY NEFF

of the centre, the circle, traditional symbol of cosmic infinity, is given rich new symbolic dimensions as a figure of God's creation and redemption both for the individual soul and for

all of history.107 In a section of the first Collation, Bonaventure places the cross at the mathematically

measured centre of the universe, citing Psalm 73[74].12: 'He has wrought salvation in the

midst of the earth'.08s Through man's fall the centre was lost, but through the cross the centre

is found: 'when the centre is lost in the circle, it cannot be found except by two lines crossing each other at right angles'.109 The posture of the Hand in the Supplicationes suggests not only

blessing and speech but also the hand-gesture of the sign of the cross.110 Thus, the Hand itself

evokes the cross, traditionally associated with the palm, as at San Francesco, Trevi (Fig. 17); and with the Lex dei, as at Ameugny (Fig. 18).

The gesture of the sign of the cross was not static, but a movement of the hand in space,

tracing its vertical and horizontal lines. And the first words on the Hand in the Supplicationes are placed so as to be read not in a relatively simple, clockwise progression in and out, around

the circle. Instead, we read down from the top, 'lex', then down again to the bottom, 'est', then

from side to side-as if travelling the height, depth, and breadth of the circle in the sign of the

cross. This path suggests the benedictional hand-gesture and other signs of the cross, such as

that made with the eucharistic paten, which was held up and moved in a cross pattern by the

priest.111' Most of all, the path suggests the cross itself, through which one returns to God.

Divine law is to follow the path of the cross.

The Wounded Hand

In the Supplicationes variae, divine law is visibly manifest in the form of a Hand. An abstract

concept is linked with a form that is human, even while symbolising something divine and

immaterial. Similarly, Bonaventure's concept of redemption is not purely abstract and meta-

physical; it is embodied in the humanity of Christ. And the image of the Hand can be read as

Christ's hand in a very physical way. In following the movement created by the letters, the path seems to enter the Hand itself through the 'E' that is round and red and placed on the palm like Christ's wound. Reading the first phrase of the poem is like entering and leaving the

wound.

o06. The first collation of the Hexa'meron elaborates seven categories of Christ's centrality: metaphysical, physical, mathematical, logical, ethical, juridicial and

theological. In the Trinity, the Father produces but is not produced. The Spirit is produced but does not produce. Since the Son both produces and is produced, he is the central person of the Trinity and represents all three persons; Hex., 1.14 (V, p. 331).

107. For the symbol of the circle in Bonaventure see

Hayes, The Hidden Center (as in n. 94), PP. 17, 49-51, 18o-82; idem, What Manner of Man? (as in n. 95), pp. 91-94; Cousins, Coincidence of Opposites (as in n. 97), pp. 173-75; Ratzinger (as in n. 97), pp. 143-48; Delio (as in n. 94), PP. 119-20, 246.

io8. [Of Christ and the cross:] 'Tertium medium est distantiae centrali positione profundum, de quo mathematicus, cuius licet prima consideratio sit circa mensuram terrae, est tamen ulterius circa motus

corporum superiorum, ut habent disponere haec inferiora secundum influentiam eorum. Hoc medium fuit Christus in crucifixione. In Psalmo: Rex noster ante

saecula operatus est salutem in medio terrae.'; Hex. 1.21-22

(v, p. 333). 109. 'Medium enim, cum amissum est in circulo,

inveniri non potest nisi per duas lineas se orthogo- naliter intersecantes'; Hex. 1.24 (v, p. 333); see Hayes, The Hidden Center (as in n. 94), PP- 199-200, 214; Cousins, Coincidence of Opposites (as in n. 97), PP. 144, 175, 205. 1 10. J.-C. Schmitt, La Raison des gestes dans l'occident

mMdieval, Paris 1990o, pp. 62, 322, 330, 333f., 342f.; C.

Hahn, 'The Voices of the Saints: Speaking Reliquaries', Gesta, xxvi/1, 1997, pp. 20-31.

11i1. Jungmann (as in n. 22), II, pp. 308, 445- I thank

Nigel Morgan for mentioning this to me.




In text and imagery, the Supplicationes is marked by a fervent devotion to Christ's

wounds."l2 This devotion was given special impetus and resonance among Franciscans because

of the stigmata, the wounds that marked the body of their founder, Francis, in the image of

Christ.113 The drawing of the Dextera dei would have certainly recalled the wounds of Francis to

a devotee. But the wounded Hand of Christ is the primary referent, and a text in the Suppli- cationes variae suggests its profound significance in the manuscript. James of Milan's Stimulus

amoris elaborates on imagery earlier used by Bonaventure, dwelling on Christ's wounds as sites

of mystical union and spiritual rebirth. James imagines himself born from Christ, yet, not

wishing to leave Christ's 'womb' (uterus), he enters it again and again through the wounds,

until finally he is granted the gift of staying within, mystically joined to the Saviour:

However much he might bring me to birth, I know that his wounds are always open, and through these wounds I will enter his womb again; and I will repeat this over and over until I will be

inseparably enclosed within him. O blindness of the sons of Adam who know not how to enter into Christ through these wounds!114

The image of the Hand of God presents a simple yet tremendously effective visualisation

of a Franciscan model of redemption. The process of reading the letters in and out of the

Hand is an imitation of a mystical entry into and exit from the wound; and it suggests the

ceaseless flow of creative energy out from God, which, through Christ-sacrifical offering,

centre, Word, likeness, and 'first Species'-returns man, the created, back to God.

Microcosm

Man, the created, must be returned to God the source. The next two images of the Suppli- cationes variae show, on one page, mankind the created, and, on the next, the cross as the path to redemption; yet again the physical cross itself is implied but not seen. The two images are

Man the Microcosm (Fig. 19) and the Measure of Christ (Fig. 24). In the first of these, a scantily clad, long-haired youth stands, surrounded by small labelled

figures. Summer, Estas, is nude, wears a sun-hat, and perches on his head. Winter, Yems, the

heavy, cold month, wears warm clothes and a fur-brimmed hat, and crouches at his feet.

Spring, Primavera, and Autumn, Autumpnus, both nude and hatless, sit comfortably in his

hands. Each Season, in turn, holds three human faces, labelled as the months."5 The youth himself is not identified, and earlier studies of the Supplicationes variae call him the Year, Annus.

Although this title seems reasonable, the traditional personification of the Year is quite differ-

ent, an old man with a long beard, often fully clothed, and posed on a throne or crouching."116

The personification in the Supplicationes can more properly be called Man the Microcosm."7

112. See Neff, 1999 (as in n. 3), pp. 90-91. 113. L. di Fonzo and G. Colasanti, 'I1 culto del Sacro

Cuore di Gesfi negli ordini francescani', in CorJesu. Commentationes in Litteras Encyclicas Pii PP. XII 'Haurietis Aquas' ed. A. Bea et al., Rome 1959, PP- 97-137.

114. In MS Plut. 25.3, this passage appears on fol.

134'. 'Quantumcumque me pariat, scio quod semper sua vulnera sunt aperta, et per ea in eius uterum iterum introibo, et hoc toties replicabo, quousque ero sibi inseparabiliter conglobatus. O caecitas filiorum Adae, qui per haec vulnera in Christum nesciunt introire!' Text and transl., J. Eller, in Franciscan Christologp, ed. D.

McElrath, New York 1980o, pp. 102-05. I have slightly modified Eller's translation. For Bonaventure's influence on the Stimulus, ibid., pp. 90-92.

1 15. The frames surrounding these labels seem to be later additions to the miniature; they are executed in a different ink from that of the script or drawing.

116. For the iconography of Annus see 0. Koseloff in Reallexicon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte, I, Stuttgart

1937, PP. 713-16, s.V. 'Annus'; P. Springer, 'Trinitas-

Creator-Annus', Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch, xxxvIII,

1976, pp. 35-44- 1 17. For the iconography of the microcosm see M.-T.



54 AMY NEFF

L

? , ~ " - i L

ifv*

3

.,

~4M

Vl

sB

a •i

D QQ b- o

,<

z m m

l.l

0 w LIu F-

_z

2

Figure 19. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana MS Plut. 25.3, fol. 14v. Man the Microcosm




Like the image of the Hand of God, the Microcosm-Man of the Supplicationes is

unparalleled in contemporary Italian manu-

scripts and may derive from transalpine,

specifically southern German, iconography, with possible models located in the region of

Regensburg. In facial type, scanty costume,

posture and placement on the page, the

figure recalls images such as the Microcosm in

the Glossarium Salomonis from Prfifening, near

Regensburg, of c. i 165, which illustrates the

correspondence between the human body, the elements, and the seven planets (Fig.

2o).11s This figure was evidently accessible

and of interest in the thirteenth century; a close copy was made in 1241 in the

monastery at Scheyern."19 From Aldersbach, located between Regensburg and St Florian, a related late thirteenth-century drawing

presents an even closer parallel to the

Supplicationes, with two personified seasons

placed near the nude figure's outstretched

hands (Fig. 21). As in the Supplicationes, this

figure of the microcosm is presented in

conjunction with an image of the cosmic

D'Alverny, 'L'homme comme symbole. Le micro- cosme', Simboli e simbologia nell'alto medioevo (Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo,

xxIII), Spoleto 1976, pp. 124-84; repr. in Etudes sur le symbolisme de la Sagesse et sur l'iconographie, ed. C.

Burnett, Aldershot and Brookfield, Vermont 1973. The microcosm, embracing all earthly creation, and Annus, embracing all earthly time, were related, as in

diagrammatic schemata that link Mundus, Annus, and Homo with the four humours and their qualities; see

D'Alverny, op. cit., pp. 173-74, 176, tav. iii; Esmeijer (as in n. 50),,p. 37, fig. 12. Personifications of Annus

occasionally have some Christ-like attributes, but not the pose, youthfulness, and nudity of the microcosm; for the similarities see Springer (as in n. 116), esp. pp. 36 and 44.

1 18. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 13002, fol. 7v; see A. Boeckler, Die Regensburg-Priifeninger Buch-

malerei des XII.und XIII. Jahrhunderts, Munich 1924, PP.

20o-21; Esmeijer (as in n. 50), pp. 101-02, fig. 83.

119. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 17403, fol. 2r. Both manuscripts are discussed in Ornamenta Ecclesiae: Kunst und Kiinstler der Romanik, I, exhib. cat., ed. A. Legner, Cologne 1985, p. 327.

z w r C- z

w 0 -j-

co m

CO

m

F- w w co

Figure 20. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 13002, Glossarium Salomonis, fol. 7v. Microcosm

tiui

i

f

5t T

7-1

la,

t 46

Pra

?-4,- 1! e ,tr

z w LL M- o z

7-

co m

LLI rr

w

r

Figure 21. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 2655, De naturis rerum, Thomas of Cantimpre, fol. 104'v Microcosm



56 AMY NEFF

Creator-shown in the Aldersbach manuscript in the form of Christ, in the Supplicationes as

the Dextera dei.120

Other features in the Supplicationes drawing also derive from microcosm imagery. The

curious positioning of the seasons was probably modelled on an image of the microcosm as

zodiac-man, as suggested by an example from about 1300 (Fig. 22);121 and the months shown

as small human faces resemble traditional depictions of the winds, as, for example, in another

twelfth-century Microcosm from Prfifening (Fig. 23).122

Bonaventure followed a rich tradition of antique and medieval anthropology in his under-

standing of man as a microcosm which, in the image of the Creator, completes, contains and

fiwr~-zj " i T1i zIx

It', - a Iz zq J UA ?l 44"~

In - +s IIII Mill eol

le (MS~FL4

Figure 22. Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana MS N. 55 sup., fol. 12r. Zodiac-Man

0 z

0 w

0

-j co m ACM , AI A v I - --

II " R7 ZZ ?Bor

'XW .

9t : i *

Figure 23. Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek MS 12600, fol. 29r. Microcosm with winds

z W z

co

120. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek clm 2655, fol. 104V; see Esmeijer (as in n. 50o), pp. 102-04, n. 27

pp. 172-73; Zahlten, 1979 (as in n. 50), pp. 198, 200,

281; idem, 1995 (as in n. 50), pp. 55-56. The text is the Liber de naturis rerum by Thomas of Cantimpr6. Personifications of the other two seasons are placed at either side of the figure's knees. Facing the Microcosm, on fol. 105r the Creator, in human form, embraces all creation, pictured in a centralised composition of circles and squares.

121. Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana MS N. 55 sup., fol. 12r; see Codex: I tesori della Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan

2ooo, cat. 29. For other examples of this iconographic

type see H. Bober, 'The Zodiacal Miniature of the Tres Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry: Its Sources and

Meanings', this Journal, xI, 1948, pls 4-5- 122. Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek MS

12600, fol. 29r; see Esmeijer (as in n. 50), pp. oo-o01. The months are usually represented by human figures carrying appropriate attributes or engaged in seasonal activities. For the iconography of the winds see T. Raff, 'Die Ikonografie der mittelalterlichen Windpersonifi- kationen', Aachener Kunstblaitter, XLVIII, 1978-79, pp. 71-218. See figs 116 and 133 for figural compositions like that of the Supplicationes: personified winds holding in their hands smaller winds shown as human heads.




reflects the entire created world.123 The Christ-like appearance of many images of the micro-

cosm, including that in the Supplicationes, suggests this relationship to the Creator. The frontal

pose, with outstretched arms and vertical and horizontal axiality, illustrates the human body's

congruence with the four-part ordering of the cosmos.124 The Supplicationes drawing represents mankind generated by God the fountain-source; mankind as the micro-embodiment of the

universe; and mankind as the imperfect mirror of the Creator-Exemplar, seen in his Christ-like

posture. The microcosm is Adam, primordial man.125

To this traditional lore of the microcosm, Bonaventure added new dimensions which

complement his theology of redemption through Christ the medium. Because he is micro-

cosm, man is eminently suited to be the vehicle of salvation.126 In The Soul'sJourney into God, it

is because of his microcosmic nature that man can begin his spiritual ascent. As minor mundus, man receives through his senses the totality of the macrocosm.127 When received through the

senses, apprehended, judged and purified by the intellect, the totality of creation and all the

singular things in it are recognised as vestiges of God, distant emanations from the Creator. In

knowing these vestiges, man begins to be led back to their source.128 'For man is made to stand in the middle'.129 Within the cosmic hierarchy, man occupies a

middle level between God and creatures, between spirit and matter. Within the created world, as microcosm, he is at the centre, because all natural things are contained in man.130 Thus,

redemption of the universe must take place through man rather than through a supernatural

angelic being, who does not contain all things. Created in God's image, positioned at the

centre, of all creatures man most closely resembles Christ, his exemplary model and spiritual

goal.131 Man's status as microcosm is thus integrally linked to Bonaventure's understanding of

redemption through exemplarity, emanation and return.

In the Supplicationes drawing, the decision to include only temporal elements of the

macrocosm, eliminating the four humours, elements, and other traditional features of micro-

cosmic images, most likely reflects the significance of time in Bonaventure's concept of

123. See Cousins, Coincidence of Opposites (as in n. 97), pp. 150-54; J. McEvoy, 'Microcosm and Macrocosm in the Writings of St. Bonaventure', Studia de vita, mente, fontibus et operibus Sancti Bonaventurae, II, Grottaferrata

1973, PP- 309-43. 124. Anna Esmeijer calls this pose 'syndesmos' to

imply the perfect, binding, cosmic harmony of Christ on the cross that is reflected, even if imperfectly, in man. Esmeijer (as in n. 50), pp. 97-128; and, with fuller bibliography, eadem, 'La Macchina dell'Uni- verso', Album discipulorum: aangeboden aan J. G. van Gelder, Utrecht 1963, PP- 5-15.

125. For the identification of the microcosm with Adam see D'Alverny (as in n. 117), pp. 137-39, 144, 165-71.

126. In addition to McEvoy (as in n. 123), see also

Hayes, The Hidden Center (as in n. 94), PP. 17-21, 64-65. I will summarise only a few pertinent aspects of Bonaventure's extensive and complex use of the

concept of microcosm.

127. '... iste mundus, qui dicitur macrocosmus, intrat ad animam nostram, quae dicitur minor mundus, per

portas quinque sensuum...' ('... this world, which is called the macrocosm, enters our soul, which is called the minor mundus, through the doors of the five

senses...'); Itin., 11.2 (V, p. 300); Cousins (as in n. 1), p. 69.

128. On this theme in the Itin. see McEvoy (as in n.

123), pp. 332-36. 129. 'Homo enim in medio constitutur'. Prologue

to Bonaventure, Commentarius in II librum Sententiarum

(hereafter II Sent.), II, p. 5. 130. For Bonaventure's extensive thought on man's

central position in the universe see esp. A. Schaefer, 'The Position and Function of Man in the Created World according to Saint Bonaventure', Franciscan

Studies, xx, 1960, pp. 272, 274, 279, 295-315; McEvoy (as in n. 123), pp. 327-28, 337-8; and Hellmann (as in n. 101), pp. 94-95, 113-19.

131. Among creatures, only man can have God as a goal or 'motivating end' (obiectum motivum), since

only man possesses memory, intelligence, and will;

Breviloquium, II1.2-3 (V, p. 230).



58 AMY NEFF

redemption. Man's fall and redemption take place not only in the soul but also in historical

time. To Bonaventure, time is the world's primary measurement, created by God on the first

day, because time is 'not so much a measure of duration, but a measure of egress', i.e., the

emanation, going-out, or diffusion from the Father.•32 In worldly time, distant from God, man

suffers on many levels, including the physical: 'summer assails him with its extreme heat, winter with extreme cold, autumn with extreme dryness, spring with exceeding humidity; indeed, time is the origin of corruption'.133

Yet the possibility of return comes into the world with the incarnation, which Bonaventure

places at the fulcrum, the centre of time. Christ is born 'in the fullness of time' ('in pleni- tudine temporum'); in him, 'the eternal is joined with the temporal man' ('aeternum iunctum

est cum homine temporali').'34 Christ enables the measured time of the earth to be folded

back into the eternity of God.

Accordingly, the personified seasons not only signify man's misery in this world but also

offer hope. The return to God begins in earthly time. The seasons serve as a metaphor for the

spiritual progress of the contemplative soul. They represent varying stages of enlightenment,

corresponding to their ability to receive the sun, the light of God. Winter is at the lowest point and summer is at the apex of ecstatic union:

For souls are as if in winter when they have not been lifted up from below; but, when lifted to a moderate contemplation, they are as if in spring; moreover, lifted to the ecstatic extreme they are as if in summer, and they harvest the fruit of autumn, because [then] they rest.135

But in the drawing of Man the Microcosm, even while the seasons suggest the spiritual

heights attainable by mankind, union and return to God in paradise are not pictured. Because

of Adam's sin, humanity has strayed and requires Christ the medium to provide the path. As

Bonaventure puts it, man lost realisation of his centrality, his perfect likeness to Christ.136

And, in contrast to the drawing of the Dextera dei, in this composition there is no centre. The

cycle of the seasons does not proceed with perfect radial symmetry; the figure extends from

no one central point.

Measure

At the metaphysical centre, Christ brings together maximum and minimum, macrocosm and

microcosm, the temporal and the eternal, the beginning and the end, bending creation back

in a circle to its starting-point. The cross is central not only in its qualities of mathematical

measurement (see above, p. 52) but also as the medium of salvation. On the cross, Christ in

our midst is the fountain-source of life, joining the lowest with the highest, human weakness

132. Time is one of the primary structural compo- nents of the created world: 'Et prima inter mensuras est

tempus, quia non tantum dicit mensuram durationis, sed etiam egressionis'; II Sent., dist. 2, pars i, art. 2, q. 3 (I1, p. 91); see Ratzinger (as in n. 97), P. 141.

133. '...aestas impugnat eum per nimiam calidi- tatem, hiems per nimiam frigiditatem, autumnus per nimiam siccitatem, ver per excedentem humiditatem; tempus autem est principium corruptionis'; Bonaven- ture, Dominica IIAdventus. Sermo I (Ix, p. 46).

134. Itin., vI.5 (v, p. 311); Cousins (as in n. 1), p. 107; see also Bonaventure's Sermon II on the Nativity

(Ix, p. 107), transl. Hayes, What Manner of Man? (as in n. 95), pp. 6o, 79-8on. For the union of the eternal and temporal in Christ's exemplarity see Hayes, The Hidden Center (as in n. 94), PP. 130-32. 'In the fullness

of time' paraphrases Galatians 4.4. 135. 'Animae enim non sublevatae sunt quasi in

hieme; sed quae sunt elevatae ad mediocrem contem-

plationem sunt quasi in vere; sed quae elevatae sunt ad excessus ecstaticos sunt sicut in aestate et percipiunt fructus autumnales, quia quiescunt'; Hex., xx.9 (v, p.

427). 136. Hex., 1.23-27 (v, pp. 333-34).




with divine virtue.137 Christ on the cross is the point of departure from which man begins his

return to God. Through the cross, man finds the centre again. 'For when the centre is lost in

the circle, it cannot be found except by two lines crossing each other at right angles'.138 The image following Man the Microcosm is that of Christ, the resurrected Christ with

wounded hands and feet, his right hand making the sign of the cross, his left holding a cross-

staff (Fig. 24). While this image would be a logical complement to the preceding drawing, it

is problematic in that, even though it is roughly contemporary to the rest of the book, the

particular style and the pigments used are not found in any of the other drawings or minia-

tures. It seems doubtful that this or any other image was originally intended for this space, since the inscription below refers not to the figure but to the filigreed bar on which Christ

stands, which is the actual subject of the page. The inscription reads:

This line extended twice six times illustrates the measure of the body of the Lord. It was taken from

Constantinople, from the golden cross made to the form of the body of Christ.'39

The golden cross that supposedly recorded the size of Christ was indeed a real object in

Hagia Sophia; it is mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the Book of Ceremonies and, in the twelfth-century, by the pilgrim, Anthony of Novgorod.140 Placed on it were symbols of

the Passion.

The 'measure of Christ's body' was also recorded in western Europe at least by the

eleventh century.141 It was credited with considerable power. Threads, girdles or inscribed

scrolls cut to its size ensured safe childbirth, repulsed enemies, protected travellers, and

granted health.142 Measures of Christ were marked on columns and church walls; a small group of manuscripts (generally devotional miscellanies) provide a bar, simple cross, or diagram as a

module that, multiplied, yields the desired result.143 The source of the measure is variously claimed: the cross on Calvary, the tomb in the Holy Sepulchre, or, in about seven examples, the golden cross in Constantinople.144

137. 'Ego autem in medio vestrum sum, sicut qui ministrat

[Luke 22.27] - Influentiae vitae in passione, in qua iunctum est infimum cum supremo, infirmitas scilicet nostra divinae virtuti coniuncta'; Bonaventure, Dominica III. Adventus. Sermo VII (IX, p. 69). In Dominica III. Adventus. Sermo I, Bonaventure compares Christ crucified between the two thieves ('in media latronum') to the heart, which is the vivifying medium at the core of the body, and to the tree of life planted in the middle of paradise (Ix, 57-58).

138. For this text see above, n. 109; see also Hayes, The Hidden Center (as in n. 94), p. 182.

139. 'Haec linea bis sexties ducta mensuram domi- nici corporis monstrat. Sumpta est autem de constanti-

nopoli ex aurea cruce facta ad formam corporis christi'.

140. Belting (as in n. 3), pp. 95-96, 120, 219; D.

I. Pallas, Die Passion und Bestattung Christi in Byzanz (Miscellanea Byzantina Monacensia, ii), Munich 1965, pp. 69-70, 74-

141. In the Prayer Book of Aelfwine, dated 1032-35 (London, British Library MS Cotton Titus D.xxvi, fol.

3r), where the text, without image, apparently refers to an earlier diagram; see L. Gougaud, 'La Priere dite de

Charlemagne et les pieces apocryphes apparent6es', Revue d'histoire ecclisiastique, xx. 1, 1924, p. 217. More

recently on this manuscript see The Golden Age of Anglo- Saxon Art, 966-1o66, ed.J. Backhouse et al., exhib. cat.

(British Library), Bloomington 1984, p. 75- 142. Surviving examples are most numerous in the

i5th century. For the earlier period see Gougaud (as in n. 141), pp. 216-33; D. A. Jacoby, 'Heilige Langen- masse. Eine Untersuchung zur Geschichte der Amu- lette', Schweizerisches Archiv fiir Volkskunde, xxIx, 1929,

pp. 1-17, 181-216; C. Bflhler, 'Prayers and Charms in Middle English Scrolls', Speculum, xxxix, 1964, pp. 270-78; F. Lewis, 'Devotional Images and their Dissemination in English Manuscripts, c. 1350-1470', Ph.D. thesis, University of London 1989, pp. 75-84, 87-88, 91-95. For Byzantium see E. Kitzinger, 'The

Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm', Dum- barton Oaks Papers, viII, 1954, PP. 105-o6.

143. For diagrams of the measure in manuscripts see

Jacoby (as in n. 142), PP. 4, 183-84; G. Uzielli, Le misure lineari medioevale e l'effigie di Cristo, Florence 1899,

pp. 8-10, 29-31; F. Lewis (as in n. 142), figs 7, 1o, 12-

15. None of these include a standing figure of Christ.



60 AMY NEFF

.a w

w nn

_

w

:Nmobwixttc I umcpfumcuxinttcl.

fbanfouu cr mCaf lozmmiu

4p AbO lbuniiotvt c

Figure 24. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana MS Plut. 25-3, fol. 15v. Measure of Christ




Measures of Christ were often associated with the cross, but in the Supplicationes, the

cross-derived Measure plays a more sophisticated role. The sequence of Microcosm followed by the Measure of Christ invites a typological reading comparing the old Adam and the new. As

in the manuscript's prefatory poem (lines 32-34), Adam's sin is redeemed by the new Adam

on the tree of the cross. In Bonaventure's model of redemption, Christ, the cross, the centre, is found.

As an extension of his discussion of the cross as mathematical centre, Bonaventure

explains that the mathematician's job is to measure the earth and the influence of the higher bodies on the lower.145 Man, however, lost his ability to measure because of his imperfection and sin:

But darkness crept in, for Christians reject this central place [of the Crucifixion] in which Christ saved mankind. In so doing, man opposes his own salvation, not knowing how to measure himself.146

In other words, he can no longer perceive his true, Christ-like reality. In the Supplicationes, the

linear module, authenticated by its relationship to the relic-cross in Constantinople, yields the

true measure, the cross, through which, guided by divine Law, man's self-knowledge as image of the Exemplar is restored.

The Return

Christ is the centre, the medium, of return to God. The first three images of the Supplicationes variae lay out mankind's path of a circular journey from God, through Christ, and back again to God. The Hand of God suggests the metaphysics and sacramental dimension of the path; in the Microcosm and Measure of Christ, the application to mankind and the redemptive role of

the cross are made clear. Still, the three prefatory drawings do not show the journey's con-

crete progress or its end. In the present context I can outline only briefly how the theme of

redemption continues in the cycle of forty-five full-page drawings placed at the end of the

manuscript. For the Franciscans, the concept of following Christ had particular relevance and con-

creteness, inspired by St Francis, who was believed to have attained perfect conformity to

Christ. Christ in his earthly life was the perfect exemplar, the image and measure to which

mankind must aspire.147 While this scheme of redemption is integral to the Soul's Journey and the Hexaimeron, neither work actually includes an account of the life of Christ. But to

ignore the historical reality of Christ's life, his humanity and Passion, would be to ignore an

essential part of Bonaventure's spirituality that is perhaps most vividly manifested in his medi-

tative treatise, the Tree of Life.148 Viewing the thirty-three narrative drawings at the end of the

Supplicationes is akin to reading the Tree of Life, in which the chronological narrative draws

the devotee into an affective identification with the historical Jesus, stimulating emotions of

144. Examples citing the golden cross are listed in

Gougaud (as in n. 141), pp. 217-18. 145. See above, n. 1o8; Hayes, The Hidden Center (as

in n. 94), PP. 199-200. 146. 'Sed caligo subintravit, quia Christiani hunc

locum medium dimittunt, in quo Christus hominem salvavit. Unde homo impugnat suam salutem, nesciens se metiri.' Hex., 1.24 (v, p. 333).

147. On exemplarity and the imitation of Christ see

Hayes, The Hidden Center (as in n. 94), pp. 27f., 39-42, 130-38, 197f. and passim.

148. For the Tree of Life (viII, pp. 68-87) see Cousins

(as in n. 1), pp. 34-37; translation pp. 118-75. The

chapter headings of the Tree of Life are composed into a rhymed prayer on fol. 56r-v of the Supplicationes variae.



62 AMY NEFF

LLI

z

w 0- 0 w z 2

Figure 25. MS Plut. 25-3, fol. 376v. Crucifixion

.a

L, w

tu w z m

Ix

o tU w w CO z 2

Figure 26. MS Plut. 25.3, fol. 381V. LastJudgement

love and compassion as well as an imitation of Christ's human virtues. In the Supplicationes,

page by page, scene by scene, the viewer follows Christ's life and glorification, from the

Annunciation through the Passion, to the Resurrection and LastJudgement (see Figs 25-27). That this process was intended to produce a sense of following in the steps of the historical

Jesus is suggested by the number of scenes, equal to the number of years in the life of Christ.

The circular path of redemption is also an ascent. While the first, lowest steps of the

Soul'sJourney into God are in the sensory world, through divine law, through Christ, man can

pass over to the spiritual world. Following the physical, human life of Christ in the world

enables man to leave the world behind.

The final scene of the narrative cycle in the Supplicationes is the LastJudgement, the end of

the material world and historic time (Figs 26-27). This is a point of transition. In Bonaven-

ture's mystical journey, after passing through the world of the senses and the intellect, the

soul enters the sacred tabernacle and beholds the Holy of Holies, the Mercy Seat, praised by cherubim.149 Although no cherubim are pictured, the image in the Supplicationes immediately after the LastJudgement is the Mercy Seat, placed among the symbols of the four evangelists, as

Christ, centre ofJustice, is described in the Hexaemeron at the end of time (Fig. 28).150 In the

first image of the Supplicationes, the divine person was concealed under the outward appearance of the eucharistic species, his presence only intimated by the powerful, speaking Hand.

Here, in the final section of the manuscript, an image of the trinitarian fullness and unity of

the Godhead is revealed. 'Whoever turns his face fully to the Mercy Seat beholds him hanging

upon the cross ... such a one makes the Pasch, that is, the passover with Christ'.151

149. Itin., v.1 (v, p. 308); Cousins (as in n. 1), p. 94. 150. Hex., 1.34-35 (v, p. 335).




D o

w

- z .a w LU

0 w n-

z 2

F- i

LLI z LU m LL 0- LL F- ,J z

Figure 27. MS Plut. 25.3, fol. 382r. LastJudgement Figure 28. MS Plut. 25-3, fol. 382v. Mercy Seat

The last section of the Supplicationes, introduced by the Mercy Seat, is a foretaste of the

timeless world of the spirit, populated by the orders of holy men and women, saints, and,

finally, Christ himself, who is shown in his dual aspects of man and God: human and suffering in the image of the Man of Sorrows, divine and eternal in the Holy Face (Figs 29-31 ). Near the

beginning of The Soul's Journey, Bonaventure advises:

We must first pray, then lead holy lives and thirdly concentrate our attention upon the reflections of truth. By concentrating there, we must ascend step by step until we reach the height of the mountain where the God of gods is seen in Sion (Psalm 83 [84].8).152

The word translated as reflections, spectacula, implies that the reflections that aid the

soul's ascent are in some way seen. But the final drawings in the Supplicationes variae should be

understood only as the material reflections of divinity that are possible in the sensory world,

prefigurations of a vision that is non-material, a truth that transcends any image drawn on

parchment.153 'Where the God of Gods is seen in Sion' is a realm beyond that of pictured

images.

151. 'Ad quod propitiatorium qui aspicit plena con- versione vultus, aspiciendo eum in cruce suspensum ...

pascha, hoc est transitum, cum eo facit'; Itin., VII.2 (v, p. 312); Cousins (as in n. 1), pp. 111-12.

152. ' ... sic primo orandum est nobis, deinde sancte

vivendum, tertio veritatis spectaculis intendendum et intendendo gradatim ascendendum, quousque veni- atur ad montem excelsum, ubi videatur Deus deorum in Sion'; Itin., 1.8 (v, p. 298); Cousins (as in n. 1), p. 63.

153. For the medieval concept of visual images lead-

ing to mystical vision see S. Ringbom, 'Devotional

Images and Imaginative Devotions: Notes on the Place of Art in Medieval Private Piety', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, LXXIII, 1969, pp. 159-70; Hamburger (as in n. 80o),

esp. pp. 25, 162-67; idem, The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany, New York 1998, pp. 111-48.



64 AMY NEFF

LU

LLI

w z

_a

-j o

_w_

>

,(

w

w

oo _

w n, o n•

Figure 29. MS Plut. 25.3, fol. 384V. Sts Francis, Dominic

and Anthony

Figure 30. MS Plut. 25-3, fol. 387r. Man of Sorrows

On the last page of the manuscript, the archangel Michael appears, trampling the devil and holding the scales ofjustice (Fig. 32). St Francis had an intense devotion to this archangel. It was during a fast to honour Michael that Francis was marked with the stigmata, signs of his

perfect conformity to Christ.154 Bonaventure states that Francis loved and venerated Michael above all the other saints and angels because Michael's ministry is to present souls to God.155

Here, on the final page of the manuscript, Michael is present to do just that. After the journey through the texts and images of the book, he is there to escort the soul through judgement and onward to the timeless, imageless, highest realm, where the soul returns to God, completing the circle, receiving the palm.

University of Tennessee

154. Bonaventure, Legenda maior, XIII.1 (VIII, p. 542); Cousins (as in n. 1), p. 304.

155. Ibid., Ix.3 (vIII, p. 530); Cousins (as in n. i), p. 264-




-i o

w

z w

n LU w

z

Figure 31. MS Plut. 25.3, fol. 387v. Holy Face

D

w -j w E w ca w a. 0 w Z- 2,

Figure 32. MS Plut. 25-3, fol. 388r. Archangel Michael

Appendix: Supplicationes variae, fol. 1r-v, Prefatory poem

I Confueris in disco te prospice atque ministros.

Nos te mungas [sic] nisi [nec?] manibus palia iungas.

O tu qui comedis tibi consulo si mihi credis.

Ut retrahatur ori das christo de meliori.

5 Cum fueris in mensa primo de paupere pensa. Dum pascis eum pascis amice deum.156

Si quis cogitaret quo tenderit vel unde veniret.

Nunquam gauderet sed omni tempore fleret.

O dives dives non omni tempore vives.

10 Fac bene dum vivis post mortem vivere si vis.157 Vestra notat vestis quales intrinsecus estis.

156. Cf., 'Quisquis es in mensa, primo de paupere pensa: / Nam cum pascis eum, pascis, amice, Deum'; Glixelli (as in n. 15), pp. 28-29; also in C. H. Haskins, Studies in Mediaeval Culture, New York 1929 (repr. 1965), P. 79-

157. Cf., 'O dives, dives, non omni tempore vives; / Fac bene, dum vivis, quia cras rapit omnia quivis'; H. Walther, Proverbia sententiaeque Latinitatis Medii Aevi; Lateinische Sprichw6rter und Sentenzen des Mittelalters in

alphabetisherAnordnung (Carmina Medii Aevi posterioris Latina, II), G6ttingen 1963-69, no. 19451. Walther notes the verse 'Numquam rideret, sed omni tempore fleret (cf. line 8) as an alternate second verse to this

couplet; ibid. and no. 29074. For line 7 see H. Walther and P. G. Schmidt, Proverbia sententiaeque Latinitatis medii ac recentioris aevi: Lateinische Sprichw6rter und Sentenzen des Mittelalters und friihen Neuzeit in alphabetischer Anord-

nung, 3 vols, G6ttingen 1982-86, no. 42592, recorded

only from MS Plut. 25-3. The proverb, 'O dives...' (line 9), was also known in later times. It appears, for

example, in an inscription by Rubens; K. L. Belkin, 'Rubens's Latin Inscriptions on his Copies after Holbein's Dance of Death', this Journal, LII, 1989, pp. 245-50. I am very grateful to Elizabeth McGrath for her help in transcribing difficult passages in the prefatory poem and in finding textual sources.



66 AMY NEFF

Ante deum testis mens est non aspera vestis.158 Si tibi gratia si sapientia formaque detur. Sola superbia destruit omnia si comitetur.159

15 In cratere meo thetis est coniuncta lieo. Est dea coniuncta deo sed dea maior eo.160

Hic editur iehsus remanet tamen integer esus. In mensa multus cibus est super omnia vultus. Amen dico tibi tu remanebis ibi.

20 Vis fieri tutus, paciens sis, pauca locutus.161 In terra summus rex est hoc tempore nummus.162 Panditur hoc cuique quia nummus regnat ubique.'16 Si quis habet quod habere decet, sit letus habendo. Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest.164

25 Si quis ad altare vis christo sanctificare. Constat in altari carnem de pane creari. Pars intricta [sic, for intincta] mero pro vivis sanctificari. Altera pro sanctis, pars tercia pro redimendis. Esca salutaris que sacris ponitur aris.

30 Si datur indigne, sumentem mittit in ignem. Arbore sub quadam relegebat clericus adam.

Quomodo primus adam peccavit in arbore quadam. Sed postremus Adam nascens de Virgine quadam. Damnna prioris adam relevavit in arbore quadam.

35 Remove tolle moras manuel ne vivere credas.

Qui dubitat mori decipitur omine turpi. Manuel age bonum si vis acquirere regnum. Si contra feceris in omnibus ipso carebis.

Pauperis ad funus vix vadit clericus unus.165

40 Cum moritur dives cucurrunt undique cives.166

Pauperibus largus tibi vive per omnia parcus.167 Continua fletum ne perdas vivere letum.

158. Walther (as in n. 157), no. 33268c, listing MS Plut. 25.3 as the only known source for this couplet; although several are given for 'Ante deum testis ...', ibid., no. 1121.

159. Cf., 'Si tibi gratia, laus, sapientia formaque detur, / Inquinat omnia sola superbia, si comitetur'; ibid., no. 29251, with several sources.

16o. Cf., 'In cratere meo Thetis est sociata Lieo; / Est dea iuncta deo, sed dea maior eo'; Carmina Burana, poem 194 (Hugo Primas, before 1 i16), lines 1-2. Carmina Burana: Texte und Ubersetzungen Mit den Minia- turen und einem Aufsatz (Bibliothek des Mittelalters,

xIii), ed. B. K. Vollman, commentary by P. and D. Diemer, Frankfurt am Main 1987, pp. 620, 1221.

161. Walther (as in n. 157), no. 33774, known from one other source apart from MS Plut. 25-3.

162. Carmina Burana, Poem 1 i ('Versus de nummo'), line 1; Vollman (as in n. 16o), pp. 36-37, 935-36.

163. Walther and Schmidt (as in n. 157), no.

39369al, known in this form only from MS Plut. 25.3. Cf., 'Ecce patet cuique, quod Nummus regnat ubique', Carmina Burana, poem 11 ('Versus de nummo'), line

48; Vollman (as in n. 16o), pp. 38-39, 935-36; Walther

(as in n. 157), no. 6917.

164. For this couplet see Walther (as in n. 157), nos

29023 and 874, with several sources.

165. Ibid., no. 2098o, with many sources.

166. Ibid., nos 4256 and 6614, with many sources.

167. Ibid., no. 2o96oa.



“‘Palma dabit palmam:’ Franciscan Themes in a Late Thirteenth-Century Italian Devotional Manuscript,” Journal of the Warburg & Courtauld Institutes, LXV, 2002 (2003), 22-66.

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