Stanza Della Segnatura & Julius II

JULIUS II AND THE STANZA DELLA SEGNATURAAuthor(s): Paul TaylorReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 72 (2009), pp. 103-141Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40593766 .

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JULIUS II AND THE STANZA DELLA SEGNATURA* Paul Taylor

on the Stanza della Segnatura have generally assumed that the iconographie programme of the room's decoration was drawn up for

Raphael by a learned adviser.1 Over the past 200 years, various suggestions as to the possible identity of this adviser have been made, amongst them Baldassarre Castiglione,2 Pietro Bembo,3 Marco Vigerio,4 Sigismondo de5 Conti,5 Jacopo Sadoleto,6 Filippo Beroaldo the Younger,7 Federigo Fregoso,8 Tommaso deVio Cajetan,9 Battista Casali,IOTommaso Inghirami,11 and Egidio daViterbo.12

* This article was originally delivered as a lecture at the Warburg Institute in April 2006. 1 am grateful to David Chambers, Richard Davies, Luc Deitz, Chiara Franceschini, Charles Hope, Jill Kraye, Elizabeth McGrath, Annika Murjahn, Charles Robertson, Magnus Ryan and William Schupbach for criticism and suggestions.

1. The first person to suggest this was G. P. Bellori, Descrizzione dette immagini dipinte da Rafaette d'Urbino nette camere del Palazzo Apostólico Vaticano, Rome 1695, Ρ· 27· The only author known to me who explicitly asserted that Raphael conceived the frescoes without any help from learned advisers was J. D. Passavant, Rafael von Urbino und sein Vater Giovanni Sann, 3 vols, Leipzig 1839-58, 1, p. 138. For a critical discussion of Passavant's view see E. Müntz, Raphaël, sa vie, son oeuvre et son temps, Paris 1881, pp. 324-27. O. Fischel, Raphael, Berlin 1962, pp. 54 and 60, argued that Raphael, since he had probably read Dante, would already have known most of what his advisers told him, and that literary advice of any sort is only of so much use to a painter. C. Hope, * Artists, Patrons and Advisers in the Italian Renaissance', in Patronage in the Renaissance, ed. G. F. Lytle and S. Orgel, Princeton 1981, pp. 293-343 (3l5)> suggested that Raphael may have received advice about the subsidiary subjects on the ceiling, but that the walls followed a familiar and conventional pattern of library decoration' and thus needed no adviser.

2. L. Lanzi, Storia pittorica della Italia, Florence 1792, p. 223; Müntz (as in n. 1), pp. 327 and 329.

3. Lanzi (as in n. 2), p. 223; Müntz (as in n. 1), pp. 327 and 329. Bellori (as in n. 1), p. 27, specifically discounted Bembo as an adviser, pointing out that he was not in Rome during Julius's pontificate.

4. R. Boving, St Bonaventura und der Grundge- danke der Disputa Raffaels, Münster 1914, p. 5.

5. J. Klaczko, Rome et la Renaissance, essais et esquisses: Jules II, Paris 1898, p. 220.

6. A. Springer, Raffael und Michelangelo, 2 vols, 2nd edn, Leipzig 1883, 1, p. 238; Müntz (as in n. 1),

pp. 327 and 329. L. von Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste im Zeitalter der Renaissance: von der Wahl Innozenz' VIII. bis zum Tode Julius* II: 1484-1513, Freiburg im Breisgau 1924, p. 1001.

7. Muntz (as in n. 1;, pp. 327 and 329. 8. Springer (as in n. 6), 1, p. 238. 9. H. Schrörs, 'Der Grundgedanke in Rafaels

Disputa', Zeitschrift für Christliche Kunst, xii, 1898, pp. 367-83.

10. J. O'Malley, 'The Vatican Library and the Schools of Athens: A Text of Battista Casali, 1508', The Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, vil, 1977, pp. 271-79 (275), does not actually identify Casali as adviser but suggests that his sermon on the rite of circumcision, delivered before Julius II on 1 Jan. 1508, 'should be taken into consideration in any future discussion of the meaning of the "School of Athens" and even of the function of the room in which the fresco is found', adding that 'art historians must decide how pertinent Casali's text is to Raphael's fresco, a task beyond my competence'. O'Malley is here referring to the peroration in which Casali says (p. 286): 'Tu vero, Iuli secunde, pontifex maxime, veram condis cum iacentes ac paene obrutas litteras velut ab inferis revocas, cum suis literis Athenas, sua stadia, sua theatra, suum Athenaeum, quod interruptis operibus minisque pendebat, resti- tuere instituis.' According to Casali, however, the suspension in question was due to the 'procella Maho- metica'; and it is not clear that he wants Julius to revive the Athens of Plato. He is describing in florid fashion the revival of Greek letters under Julius, but his words might have applied with greater accuracy to the study of Greek theology which seems to have been studied more often than Aristotle or Plato in the Rome of Julius, if the record of borrowings from the Vatican library forms a reliable sample (/ due primi registri di préstito della Biblioteca Apostólica Vaúcana: codici latini 3964, 3966, ed. M. Bertòla, Vatican City 1942). During Julius's pontificate Basil was borrowed three times (ibid., pp. 72, 88, 107), John Chrysostom

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104 STANZA DELLA SEGNATURA

If to date there is little scholarly consensus as to who Raphael's adviser may have been, there is more agreement about who that adviser was unlikely to have been. Relatively few students of Raphael have supposed that Pope Julius II made an important intellectual contribution to the frescoes in his private chambers. As Christiane Joost-Gaugier recently put it: cthe willful elderly Pontiff possessed neither the book learning nor the time to engage in literary pursuits and in devis- ing complicated intellectual schemes'.13 This is an opinion with a long pedigree. In 1839 Johann Passavant wrote that: 'the conception of the chosen subject, which relates to spiritual strivings, on which the higher life of man is based, shows indubitably that it could not have originated from Julius II, who had a more practical conception of life...'14

One of the small minority of scholars to have argued in favour of the idea that Julius was Raphael's principal adviser was Franz Wickhoff.15 In his seminal article 'Die Bibliothek Julius' ΙΓ, which is mainly famous for proposing that the Stanza della Segnatura was originally the pope's private library, he laid particular

twice (ibid., p. 107), Gregory Nazianzenus twice (ibid., pp. 88, 107), Cyril of Alexandria once (ibid., p. 72) and Gregory of Nyssa once (ibid., p. 107). The only Greek philosophy borrowed in the same period was a copy of Aristotle's Topics, together with a commentary by Alexander of Aphrodisias (ibid., p. 47). See further n. 142 below.

11. Inghirami was made 'praepositus' of the Vati- can library in 1505, becoming 'praeses' in 15 10; for further biographical details see Dizionario biográfico degli Italiani [hereafter DBI], lxiii, Rome 2004, pp. 383-87. The idea that he may have been behind the programme of the Stanza della Segnatura was put forward in the late 19th century by Muntz (as in n. 1), pp. 327 and 329, Springer (as in n. 6), 1, p. 238, and Klaczko (as in n. 5), p. 220; more recent scholars who have suggested an important role for Inghirami include P. Künzle, <Raffaels Denkmal für Fedro Inghirami auf dem letzten Arazzo', in Mélanges Eugène Tisserant, vi, Vatican City 1964, pp. 499-548; K. Ober- huber, Polarität und Synthese in Raphaels 'Schule von Athen', Stuttgart 1983, p. 62; I. Rowland, 'The Intel- lectual Background of the School of Athens: Tracking Divine Wisdom in the Rome of Julius ΙΓ, in Raphael's 'School of Athens', ed. M. Hall, Cambridge 1997, pp. 131-70; and C. L. Joost-Gaugier, Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura: Meaning and Invention, Cambridge 2002, esp. pp. 17-42. Another possibility - one that does not seem to have surfaced in the literature - is that Inghirami's predecessor as Vatican librarian, Giuliano Maffei, may have been involved in the design of the programme. Julius II is said to have 'revered him as a father': DBI, lxyii, Rome 2006, pp. 235-37 (236).

12. H. Pfeiffer, Zur Ikonographie von Raffaels Disputa: Egidio da Viterbo und die christlich-platonische Konzeption der Stanza della Segnatura, Rome 1975;

Β. Kempers, 'Staatssymboliek in Rafaels Stanza della Segnatura', Incontri: Rivista di Studi Italo-Nederlan- desi, 11, 1986-87, pp. 3-48 (15-16); F. Zeri, Behind the Image, New York 1987, p. 147; Rowland (as in η. 1 1). All of these authors see Egidio as the intellectual eminence grise of the programme, rather than as Raphael's actual adviser.

13. Joost-Gaugier (as in n. 11), p. 17. 14. Passavant (as in n. 1), 1, p. 137: 'Unstreitig aber

zeigt die Conception des gewählten Gegenstandes, der sich auf die geistigen Richtungen bezieht, auf denen das höhere Leben des Menschen beruht, dass sie nicht von dem mehr im Leben praktisch gebil- deten Julius II herrühren könne ...' Passavant's senti- ment is cited approvingly by Ε. R. Schneider, Raffaels Disputa, Munich 1925, p. 26.

15. F. Wickhoff, 'Die Bibliothek Julius' ΙΓ, Jahr- buch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, xiv, 1893, pp. 49-64. Other scholars who have assumed that Julius played an important role in the conception of the frescoes include Muntz (as in n. 1), p. 327 n. 1; J. A. Crowe and G. B. Cavalcaselle, Raphael: His Life and Works, 2 vols, London 1882-85, 11, p. 15; A. Groner, Raffaels Disputa. Eine kritische Studie über ihren Inhalt, Strasbourg 1905, p. 5; and Pastor (as in n. 6), p. 1018. In recent years Julius's star has been rising: see Kempers (as in n. 12), M. Winner, 'Projects and Execution in the Stanza della Segnatura', in G. Cornini et al., Raphael in the Apartments of Julius II and Leo X, Vatican City 1993, pp. 247-91 (247, 267- 68), and A. Nesselrath, Raphael's School of Athens, Vatican City 1996, p. 12; see also O'Malley (as in n. 10), p. 276. Rowland (as in n. 11), p. 137, argues that Inghirami and Egidio da Viterbo were articulating 'specifically Julian ideas' which the pope himself 'who hated public speaking and never sat still long enough to write a journal' was unable or unwilling to express.



PAUL TAYLOR 105

emphasis on the words of Paolo Giovio, Raphael's first biographer, that the frescoes were painted 'ad praescriptum Julii Pontificis'. Unfortunately the phrase is ambiguous: it can mean either 'at the order of Pope Julius' or 'under the direc- tion of Pope Julius'.16 Wickhoff assumed that the latter reading was correct, and wrote further that: 'there was no need for long consultations with poets and scholars, since the pope could give the painter the programme for the decoration of the library in a few words'.17

I would not want to claim (any more than Wickhoff did) that Julius was the only adviser used by Raphael when painting the Stanza; but I shall argue in this article that Julius's contribution to the iconography of the cycle has often been underestimated, and that this can be demonstrated by comparing the content of the frescoes to the contents of the pope's library. I shall then go on to examine the implications that a Julian reading of the frescoes might have for the Platonising interpretations of the Stanza which have been common in the Raphael literature since the 1870s.18

I

Since John Shearman's forceful arguments in support of the idea that the Stanza della Segnatura was Julius's personal library,19 most scholars who have written on the subject have accepted WickhofFs hypothesis.20 There are three kinds of argument for the theory: documentary, architectural, and iconographie. The

16. Wickhoff (as in n. 15), p. 49; Paolo Giovio, 'Raphaelis Urbinatis Vita', written c. 1525, first published in G.Tiraboschi, Storia deua ktteratura italiana, 11 vols, Modena 1772-95, ix, p. 292, reproduced and discussed by J. Shearman, Raphael in Early Modern Sources, New Haven, CT and London 2003, pp. 807- 12 (807). The authors in the preceding footnote who champion Julius have also made use of Giovio 's remark.

17. Wickhoff (as in n. 15), p. 64: 'Es bedurfte keiner langen Beratungen mit Dichtern und Gelehr- ten, denn das Programm für die Ausmalung seiner Bibliothek konnte der Papst dem Maler mit wenigen Worten geben.' See also ibid., p. 49.

18. E.g., W. Scherer, 'Über Raphaels Schule von Athen', Oesterreichische Wochenschrift für Wissenschaft und Kunst, n.s. Π, 1872, p. 33; H. Hettner, Italienische Studien: zur Geschichte der Renaissance, Braunschweig 1879, pp. 194-212; Springer (as in n. 6), 1, pp. 238-51; E.Wind, 'Platonic Justice, Designed by Raphael', this Journal, 1, 1937, pp. 69-70; idem, 'The Four Elements in Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura9, ibid., π, 1938, pp. 75-79; D. Redig de Campos, Raffaello e Michelangelo: Studi di storia e d'arte, Rome 1956, pp. 11-27 ('H con- cetto platonico-cristiano nella Stanza della Segna- tura'); A. Chastel, Art et humanisme à Florence au temps de Laurent le Magnifique, Paris 1959, pp. 469-84; Pfeiffer (as in n. 12); Winner (as in n. 15), pp. 268- 80; P. Hoffmann, 'L'arrière-plan néoplatonicien de

l'École d'Athènes', in Antiquités imaginaires: la réfé- rence antique dans Fart moderne, de la Renaissance à nos jours, éd. P. Hoffmann, P.-L. Rinuy and A. Farnoux, Paris 1996, pp. 143-58; G. W. Most, 'Reading Raphael: "The School of Athens" and its Pre-Text', Critical Inquiry, xxiii, 1996, pp. 145-82; Rowland (as in n. 11).

19. J. Shearman, 'Raphael's Unexecuted Projects for the Stanze', in Walter Friedlaender zum 90. Geburts- tag, ed. G. Kauffmann and W. Sauerländer, Berlin 1965, pp. 159-80; idem, The Vatican Stanze: Functions and Decoration, London 1972 (repr. from Proceedings of the British Academy, lvii), pp. 3-58; idem, 'The Apartments of Julius II and Leo X', in G. Cornini et al., Raphael in the Apartments of Julius II and Leo X, Vatican City 1993, pp. 15-36.

20. Even before Shearman, Wickhoff 's hypothesis was widely accepted: see H. von Einem, Das Pro- gramm der Stanza della Segnatura im Vatikan, Opladen 1 97 1, p. 9 (though von Einem himself did not believe the theory: see pp. 9-15). For a brief history of the debate see Shearman, 'Vatican Stanze' (as in n. 19), pp. 44-47 nn. 86 and 90; as he observes, Wickhoff was not the first scholar to propose the library theory, but he was the most influential. For discussion of the matter since Shearman, see O'Malley (as in n. 10), pp. 275-6; Hope (as in n. 1), p. 315; F. Mancinelli, Ί1 cubicolo di Giulio II', Monumenti, Musei e Gallerie pontificie. Bollettino, in, 1982, pp. 63-103; Raffaello e la Roma dei Papi, ed. G. Morello, exhib. cat. (Salone



io6 STANZA DELLA SEGNATURA

documentary arguments are3 in Shearman's words. Very nearly conclusive5,21 though they might not persuade an entrenched sceptic.22 I shall not summarise them here, but refer the reader to Shearman's articles on the subject.23 The architectural arguments are suggestive, but no more than that. Shearman pointed out, first, that the floor of the Stanza resembles the floor of the Biblioteca Vaticana, and second that, as in most libraries of the period, there is no fireplace, whereas the other Stanze do have fireplaces.24 These may be telling details, but they are not decisive.25 The iconographie arguments, therefore, are of importance to this debate.

One of the most popular of these arguments concerns the nature of library organisation in Renaissance Italy. Wickhoff put forward a theory based on evidence from the poetic eulogy of Federico da Montefeltro, written by Giovanni Santi, Raphael's father. In his description of Federico's library, Santi said (according to Wickhoff) that it was split up into four categories of author: theologians, philosophers, poets and jurists, thus matching the scheme of the Stanza della Segnatura exactly.26 However, Wickhoff quoted the passage selectively. Santi said that Federico's library was split up, not into four, but into six categories - Wickhoff suppressed historians and medical writers;27 and in any case, it is not clear that the verses of Federico's panegyrist give unimpeachable evidence about the classification system of his library. Still, Wickhoff proposed other evidence: the library of Pope Nicholas V, he noted, was also categorised by subject, under the headings of theology, philosophy, and studia hwnanitatis. The latter heading included moral writings - mostly history, but also rhetoric and poetry. This was not a perfect fit either, but it did suggest that libraries in the Renaissance were

Sistino), Rome 1986, pp. 51-53; Kempers (as in n. 12), pp. 4-7; Nesselrath (as in n. 15), p. 11; M. Hall, 'Introduction' to Raphael's 'School of Athens', ed. M. Hall, Cambridge 1997, pp. 1-47 (6); Rowland (as in n. 11), p. 131; Joost-Gaugier (as in n. 11), p. 12; G. Morello, 'La biblioteca di Giulio IT, in Giulio II, papa, politico, mecenate, Genoa 2005, pp. 207-20 (212-13). For a dissenting view see Hoffmann (as in n. 18), p. 151. Kempers (as in n. 12), pp. 4-7 and 32, and Winner (as in n. 15), p. 291, argue that the room could have served both as the repository of the pope's books and as the signatura.

21. Shearman, 'Vatican Stanze' (as in n. 19), pp. 13-14.

22. Shearman states that from the evidence of the documents alone it is possible that the pope's library was either in the Stanza della Segnatura, or in the Torre Borgia. The latter he considers 'an extremely unlikely alternative... but logically admissible': ibid., p. 44 n. 85.

23. See n. 19 above. 24. dhearman, Vatican Stanze (as in n. 19), p. 15.

In his 'Apartments' (as in n. 19), pp. 22-23, Shear- man argued further that the fireplace was removed before work began on the School of Athens. Nesselrath (as in n. 15), however, suggests on the basis of a study

of the giornate that the fireplace was only removed in the 1 540s.

25. Shearman, 'Apartments' (as in n. 19), p. 24, also added what one might term a compositional argument: he observed that in all the Stanze except the Segnatura the lowest edge of the paintings is aligned with the top of the door, but that in the Segnatura the paintings extend appreciably lower. He suggested as an explanation of this peculiarity that the level chosen 'corresponds to a man's reach' and that the frescoes extended down to the tops of the shelves.

26. Wickhoff (as in n. 15), p. 53. 27. G. Santi, La vita e le gesta di Federico di Monte-

feltro, Duca d'Urbino, ed. L. Michelini Tocci, 2 vols, Vatican City 1985, 11, pp. 420-21: 'Ivi adunò de libri un mimer tanto/ ehe ogni chiar spirto li può spiegar 1'ale:/ prima, di quel colégio sacro e sancto,/ Theo- logi divoti, 1'opre tucte,/ coperte e ornate de mira- bil manto;/ e le scripture possa, ehe construete/ da' Philosophi antichi ai mondo fuoro,/ quante hogi se ne trova ivi èn reduete;/ le Istorie tucte, e Ί sacro concistoro/ de' chiar Poeti, e i nobili Legisti,/ Mediei molti, in ordine e decoro;/ po' de diverse lingue anco ivi ho visti,/ Arabi, Greci e venerandi Hebrei,/ libri diversi, insiem cum gli altri misti ...'



PAUL TAYLOR 107

sometimes ordered by subject. WickhofFs description of Nicholas's library, however, was no more accurate than his characterisation of Federico's: as Antonio Manfredi's edition of the inventories of Nicholas's books shows, the pope filed his books in a rather haphazard way. In some sections there are clumps of theological or philosophical works, but elsewhere poets, philosophers, historians and theologians are jumbled together on the shelf.28 A more telling example for Wickhoff 's argument would have been the public reading rooms of the Vatican library, where in Julius's time books were divided by subject, as follows: 'Testamentum Vêtus et Novum'; 'Authores clariores Ecclesiae'; 'lus civile et canonicum'; Thilosophi'; Oratores et rhetores'; Toetae et Grammatici'.29 Again, the fit is not perfect, but there is a loose correspondence with the walls of the Stanza della Segnatura.

Perhaps the most persuasive argument in favour of the idea that the Stanza was a library was also put forward by Wickhoff, and he expressed it so well that it deserves to be quoted at length:

The paintings in the Stanza della Segnatura present themselves as an illustrated book cata- logue, a role which would be somewhat unusual for a living room .... The allegorical figures who sit above on their thrones have books in their hands... ; the Gospels, Christianity's most revered books, are brought by angels to the faithful; the four Church Fathers who are gathered round the sacrament are writing and reading books, books lie strewn on the ground and saints and laity amongst the bystanders hold them as attributes; those who delight in the presence of the Muses hold scrolls and writings; books and tablets are in the hands of everyone in the School of Athens; composing, writing, reading and explaining texts in every corner, so that it is hard to think of any relationship to the written word which does not receive its embodiment in this painting. Even the two princes of philosophy are picked out only by their two most famous books; the pope receives a book with the canon law, and Justinian sits there with a book, his famous Corpus, before him... .There is no other work in the visual arts in which books play so important a role, everything in it concerns books, everything refers to them.30

28. A. Manfredi, / codici latini di Niccolò V: edizione degli inventari e identificazione dei manoscrítti} Vatican City 1994. Nicholas's library inventory starts out co- herently theological (inv. nos 1-338), but becomes less organised when secular works make their appearance. Items 633-53, e.g., include works by Thomas Aquinas, Robert Grosseteste, Aegidius Romanus, Boethius, Balbus, Suetonius, Livy, Cicero, Juvenal, Boccaccio, Vergil and Claudian.

29. Index seu Inventarium Bibliothecae Vaticanae Divi Leonis Pontifias Opttmi, Anno is 10 C, Series Graeca, ed. M. L. Sosower, D. F. Jackson and A. Manfredi, Vatican City 2006; cf. Librorum Graecorum Bibliothecae Vancanae Index a Nicolao de Maioranis compositus et Fausto Saboeo collatus anno jjjj, ed. M. R. Dilts, M. L. Sosower and A. Manfredi, Vatican City 1998, p. xi.

30. Wickhoff (as in n. 15), p. 54: Die Illustrierung eines Bücherkataloges also bieten uns die Gemälde der Stanza della Segnatura, eine Aufgabe, die für ein Wohnzimmer etwas wunderlich ist. Aber fragen wir

zuerst, ob ihr der Künstler auch wirklich nachge- kommen ist. Schon dem materiellen Teile nach voll- ständig. Bücher haben die allegorischen Figuren in Händen, die oben auf den Thronen sitzen, nur der Justitia lassen Schwert und Wage die Hände nicht frei; die Evangelien, die ehrwürdigsten Bücher für die Christen, werden von Engeln zu den Gläubigen hinabgetragen; Bücher schreiben und lesen jene vier um das Sakrament versammelten heiligen Väter, Bücher liegen verstreut am Boden und Heilige wie Laien in der Gemeinde sind durch ihren Besitz ausgezeichnet; Rollen und Schriften halten Jene, die sich der geheimnisvollen Gegenwart der Musen erfreuen; Bücher und Tafeln in allen Händen auf der Schule von Athen; Concipieren, Schreiben, Lesen, Erklären der Schriften in allen Winkeln, so dass sich kaum eine Beziehung zu den Schriftwerken erdenken ließe, die hier nicht ihren sinnlichen Ausdruck gefunden hätte. Selbst jene zwei höchsten Philosophen sind nur durch ihre zwei berühmtesten Bücher be- zeichnet; ein Buch fasst der Papst mit den Gesetzen



io8 STANZA DELLA SEGNATURA

He does have a point. If the Stanza della Segnatura was not meant to be a library, one has to say that its decoration is oddly bookish. When these iconographie arguments are put together with the documentary and architectural evidence, then the library theory becomes attractive.

Another argument can be added in support of the theory. As Wickhoff says, books are strewn on the ground in the Disputa (Fig. 10). Four of those books have their titles clearly written on them. Next to Jerome we see the Bible and his Letters; next to St Gregory we see the Liber moralium, his famous commentary on the book of Job; and on the other side of the altar, next to St Augustine, we see his De civitate Dei. One might think that these books are simply serving as the attributes of the saints in question, but they are entirely unnecessary; the saints already have their names written in their haloes. St Jerome's books are particularly otiose. Even without the names in the haloes, it is obvious that we are looking at the four Doctors of the Church; and since Jerome is the only cardinal in the group, his identity is clear. To help us still further, Raphael has depicted his lion at his feet; and, as if this were not enough, he throws in the Bible in Jerome's translation. Not content with this, Raphael also adds a copy of Jerome's Letters as his fourth attribute.

And it is, clearly, a vacuous attribute. All the Doctors of the Church wrote letters; it is therefore not a defining characteristic. Why is it there? One might argue that Jerome's Letters were much admired in the Renaissance, and that this is simply a tribute to their excellence; but a more compelling explanation can be found.

We have observed that four books are named in the Disputa. All four were to be found in the bibliotheca secreta of Julius II. And not only were all four on his shelves; there were multiple copies of all four. In the inventories of the pope's private library drawn up after his death,31 we find seven Bibles,32 four copies of Jerome's Letters,33 two of the Moralia in Job,34 and four of the De civitate Dei.35 That precisely these titles should have been depicted in the Disputa is probably not a coincidence. And as we look elsewhere in the Stanza della Segnatura, we find a similar story. On the Justice wall we see a pope, most likely Gregory IX, presented with a large volume clearly marked 'Decretale' (Fig. 2). In Julius's library there were two copies of Gregory IX's Decretals,36 three copies of Boniface

der Kirche, und Justinian sitzt dort, ein Buch, sein berühmtes Corpus vor sich. Auf den Grisailles unter dem Parnass werden auf einer Seite Bücher in einem Marmorsarkophage gefunden, auf der anderen Seite Bücher verbrannt. Es giebt kein zweites Werk der bildenden Künste, in dem Bücher eine so große Rolle spielen, in dem Alles von Büchern ausgeht, Alles auf sie zurückbezogen wird.'

31. The inventories are presented in the Appendix below, and discussed on pp. 1 17-18. In subsequent footnotes I refer to items as Appendix I or Appendix II, followed by a number, depending on the inventory in which they appear.

32. Appendix I, 67, 74, 84, 95, 183, and 72, 131 ('pars prima' and fecunda' respectively), Appendix II, 12.

33. Appendix 1, 16, 104, and (two-volume editions) 10, 11, and 92, 127. For 10 and 11, see L. Dorez, 'La bibliothèque privée du pape Jules ΙΓ, Revue des biblio- thèques, vi, 1896, pp. 97-121 (109 n. 3). There was also a stray copy of the second volume, Appendix I, 83.

34. Appendix 1, 102, 115. 35. Appendix I, 17, 34, 36, 71. There was also a

stray copy of volume one, Appendix 1, 142. 36. Appendix 1, 1, 106. See Kempers (as in n. 12),

p. 21, for the identification of one of these (Vatican



PAUL TAYLOR 109

■Ε ι. (left) Raphael, Justinian receiving part of his Digest. 2. (right) Raphael, Pope Gregory IX receiving the Decretals.

Vatican Palace, Stanza della Segnatura, Justice wall

VIII's Decretals,37 and eight copies of Clement V's Decretals,38 as well as eight commentaries on various volumes of Decretals.39 The Emperor Justinian (Fig. 1) receives a book which is unmarked, but is surely part of his Digest; this too was in the pope's library,40 together with two commentaries on the Digest by Bartolus of Sassoferrato.41

In the School of Athens, Aristotle holds his Ethics, which Julius also had on his shelves, in the Latin translation of John Argyropoulos.42 Plato's Timaeus, however, is the one book in the frescoes that does not appear in Julius's inventories, although he can hardly have avoided knowing it by repute.

On the ceiling (Fig. 13) we see four mottoes, on either side of the allegorical figures of the faculties. The motto on either side of Justice (Fig. 4) reads 'lus suum unicuique tribuit', 'Each is accorded his due'. This is a definition of Justice which can be found in varying forms in Justinian's Institutes,43 Justinian's Digest44 and

City, Biblioteca Apostólica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 1385).

37. Appendix 1, 109, 119, 121. 38. Appendix I, 69, 118, 126, 130, 135, 139, 156,

158. 39. Appendix I, 68, 76, 77, 105, 108, 120, 134.

Appendix I, 76 contains two separate commentaries. 40. Though Julius seems to have been missing the

middle section. The 'Infortiatum', i.e, books xxiv.3- xxxviii of the Digest, does not appear in the library inventories, which only list the 'Digestum vetus',

books 1-XXIV.2 (Appendix I, 113) and the 'Digestum novum', books xxxix-l (Appendix 1, 136).

41. Appendix 1, 117, 137. 42. Appendix 1, 156. This is MS Vat. lat. 2098, one

of the books 'Iulii II Pont. Max. bibliothecae secretae dicatus' (see n. 82 below), thus presumably a Vatican manuscript requisitioned by Julius during his papacy.

43. Institutiones, 1.1. See V. Wanscher, Raffaeuo Santi da Urbino, London 1926, p. 128; H.Weizsäcker, 'literarisches in Raffaels Gedankenwelt', Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, LViii, 1937, pp. 59-62



no STANZA DELLA SEGNATURA

3. (left) Raphael, Judgement of Solomon. 4. (right) Raphael, Justice. Vatican Palace, Stanza della Segnatura, ceiling

Gregory IX's Decretals;45 Julius had copies of all three.46 None of these books, however, gives the precise wording 'ius suum unicuique tribuit5.47 The exact words, letter-perfect, can be found in a work of a different kind, the Summa theologiae of St Thomas Aquinas.48 Julius only had one section of the Summa on his shelves, Tars prima Secunde 21', according to his library inventory.49 This is the section which deals with Justice, and it contains the phrase 'lus suum unicuique tribuit'.

Painted on the ceiling next to the personification of Justice is a depiction of the Judgement of Solomon (Fig. 3). Besides being told in the Bible (I Kings 3.16- 28), this story also appears in the Decretals of Gregory IX.50

(61); D. Redig de Campos, Raffaello nelle Stanze, Milan 1965, p. 22; H. B. Gutman, 'Zur Ikonologie der Fresken Raffaels in der Stanza della Segnatura', Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, xxi, 1958, pp. 27-39 (29); Künzle (as in n. 11), p. 537; von Einem (as in n. 20), p. 20; C. Cieri Via, 'Da Urbino a Roma: sapienza umana e sapienza divina nella Stanza della Segna- tura', in Studi su Raffaello, ed. M. Sambucco Hamoud and M. L. Strocchi, Urbino 1987, pp. 301-22 (307).

44. Digest, i.i.iopr. aee Kunzle (as in n. 11;, p. 537; Pfeiffer (as in n. 12), p. 154.

45. Décrétâtes, praefatio. See H. Pfeiffer, 'Die drei Tugenden und die Übergabe der Dekretalen in der Stanza della Segnatura', in Raffaello a Roma (con- vegno, 1983), ed. C. L. Frommel and M. Winner, Rome 1986, pp. 47-57 (48).

46. See nn. 36-41 above, and n. $2 below. 47· In the Institutes the phrase reads *ius suum

cuique tribuens', in the Digest 'ius suum cuique tribuendi' and in the Decretals 'ius suum unicuique

tribuat'. The phrase in the Digest would make no sense on its own, taken out of its original context ('Iustitia est constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuendi'); and the phrases in the Institutes and the Decretals, though they could form indepen- dent mottoes, would be awkward.

48. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 11.2.58.1. 49. Appendix II, 9. 50. Décrétâtes, 11.23.2 ('De praesumptionibus'): Έχ

violenta praesumptione fertur definitiva. Et est casus notabilis. Idem [Salomon]. Afferte mini gladium. Quumque attulissent [gladium coram rege} ait: Dividite infantem vivum [in duas partes], et date dimidiam partem uni, et dimidiam partem alteri. Dixit autem mulier, cuius filius erat vivus, ad regem, (commota sunt quippe viscera eius super filio suo): Obsecro domine, date illi infantem vivum, et non occidatur. Ε contrario alia dicebat: Nee mini, nee tibi sit, sed dividatur. Respondit rex et ait: Date huic infantem vivum, et non occidatur. Haec est enim mater eius.'



PAUL TAYLOR in

5. (left) Raphael, The Fall 6. (right) Raphael, Theology. Vatican Palace, Stanza della Segnatura, ceiling

The motto on either side of Theology (Fig. 6) reads 'Divinarum rerum notitia', 'Knowledge of divine things'. This is a quotation with a slight twist. The second sentence of Justinian's Institutes, which follows immediately on from the sentence which contains the phrase cius suum cuique tribuens', reads: 'Iuris- prudentia est divinarum atque humanarum rerum notitia, iusti atque iniusti scientia', 'Jurisprudence is the conception of divine and human things, the knowledge of the just and the unjust.'51 As noted above, we know that Julius owned a copy of Justinian's Institutes; he bought it when he was a student in Perugia, and transcribed the fact on the verso of the last folio.52

Heinrich Pfeiffer has argued, convincingly I think, that the condensation of the quotation contains an allusion to a passage in Augustine's De Trinitate.53 1 shall return to this argument later; for now I would like to point out that Julius's library also contained a copy of De Trinitate.54

Next to the personification of Theology is a painting of the Fall of Man (Fig. 5). This is perfectly apt - the Disputa, as argued below, is concerned with the nature of redemption from original sin - but it may also be a punning reference to Justinian's Institutes. Adam and Eve are eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ('lignum scientiae boni et mali'. Genesis 2.17), and this is perhaps an intentional echo of the phrase 'iusti atque iniusti scientia', which we have just encountered in the Institutes.

See nn. 36-38 above for the copies of the Decretals in Julius's library.

51. The same sentence occurs in Justinian's Digest (1.1.1 0.2), but there is another sentence between it and 'ius suum cuique tribuendi'.

52. Morello (as in n. 20), p. 54. The manuscript is now in the Vatican library, MS Vat. lat. 1432. It does not appear in the inventories of Tulius's librarv.

53. Pfeiffer (as in n. 12), pp. 161 and i6sf. 54. Appendix 1, 14. See p. 128 below.




7. (left) Raphael, Apollo and Marsyas. 8. (right) Raphael, Poetry. Vatican Palace, Stanza della Segnatura, ceiling

Above the Parnassus, on either side of the female personification of Poetry (Fig. 8), we see the words 'Numine afflatur', 'she is inspired with divine power'. This is almost certainly a half quotation of the words ' Adflata (or afflata) est numine', in book vi of Vergil's Aeneid.55 Julius had a volume of Vergil in his library,56 and he was clearly familiar with its contents, like most educated people in the Renaissance. We learn from the diary of his master of ceremonies Paris de' Grassi that the pope was able to quote an apposite passage of the Aeneid when circumstances arose.57

We might also note that the phrase 'adflata est numine' is used in the Aeneid to describe the inspiration by Apollo of the Cumaean sibyl. The Cumaean sibyl was taken later to have predicted the coming of Christ, and it was argued by Emile Mâle that the increased popularity of the sibyls in the fifteenth century was due to a revival of interest in the Divinae institutiones of Lactantius, who discussed the sibylline prophecies of Christ at length.58 Julius II had three copies of Lactantius in his library.59

55. Aeneid, vi.50. Klaczko (as in n. 5), p. 223; Gut- man (as in n. 43), p. 29. For other possible sources see Pfeiffer (as in n. 12), pp. 157-60, but as he observes, later authors who use these words are themselves quoting Vergil. Pfeiffer points out that Egidio da Viterbo, in his commentary on Peter Lombard's Sentences, comes closest to the precise formulation 'numine afflatur'. This may be evidence that Egidio had a hand in the design of the programme, but the text cannot be taken as a quotation of his work; his manuscript seems to have been barely known during his lifetime. On the manuscript history of Egidio's

commentary see F. X. Martin, 'The Writings of Giles of Viterbo', Augustiniana, xxix, 1979, pp. 141- 93 (169-70).

56. Appendix I, 24. 57. When travelling on poor roads to Imola in

1506, Julius light-heartedly quoted a passage from book 1 of the Aeneid (204-05): Ter vários casus per tot discrimina rerum/ tendimus in Latium' etc. See Le due spedizioni militari di Giulio II, tratte dal diário di Paride Grassi Bolognese, ed. L. Frati, Bologna 1886, pp. 65-66; C. Shaw, Julius II, the Warrior Pope, Oxford 1993, p. 160.



PAUL TAYLOR 113

Next to Poetry is a painting of the flaying of Marsyas (Fig. 7). It has been observed by a number of scholars that there may be a reference here to the hymn to Apollo which opens Dante's Paradiso:

Ο buono Appollo, a l'ultimo lavoro fammi del tuo valor si fatto vaso, come dimandi a dar l'amato alloro.

Infino a qui l'un giogo di Parnaso assai mi fu; ma or con amendue m'è uopo intrar ne l'aringo rimaso.

Entra nel petto mio, e spira tue si come quando Marsia traesti de la vagina de le membra sue.60

The Divina Commedia does not appear in the inventories of Julius's library - in fact there is only one item suggesting a book written in the volgare61 - but we should not assume from this that he had no interest in Dante. The poet is depicted twice in the library, in the Parnassus and the Disputa, and we know that when Julius was recovering from a bout of illness in 15 10 he asked Bramante to read to him from the Commedia.62

Above the School of Athens, on either side of Philosophy (Fig. 9), is the motto 'Causarum cognitio', 'Knowledge of causes'. It is more difficult to know for sure where this phrase is taken from, and indeed it may be wrong to think of it as a precise quotation at all. The idea that philosophy might be defined as the knowledge of causes goes back to the opening passage of Aristotle's Metaphysics, although these exact words do not appear in the Aristoteles Latinus. One can, however, find them in Thomas Aquinas's commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics.63 This commentary is not mentioned in the inventories of Julius's library, although he may have known it.

58. E. Mâle, Uart religieux de la fin du Moyen Âge en France, Paris 1908, p. 6, § iv.

59. Appendix I, 40, 55, 62. It may also be significant that Lactantius wrote a chapter (Divinae institutiones, 1.5) discussing the theological views of the ancient philosophers, in which he claimed that Thal- es, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Antisthenes, Cleanthes, Anaximenes, Chrysippus, Zeno, Aristotle, Plato, Cicero and Seneca were all monotheists.

60. Dante, Paradiso, 1. 15-21, tr. D. L. Sayers and B. Reynolds, Harmondsworth 1962: 'Gracious Apollo! in this crowning test/ Make me the conduit that thy power runs through! / Fit me to wear those bays thou lovest best!// One peak of thy Parnassus hitherto/ Has well sufficed me, but henceforth I strive/ In an arena where I need the two.// Breathe in me, breathe, and from my bosom drive/ Music like thine, when thou didst long ago /The limbs of Marsyas from their

scabbard rive.' The relevance of this passage for the Flaying of Marsyas has been noted by Passavant (as in n. 1), 1, pp. 144-45, Groner (as in n. 15), p. 9, von Einem (as in n. 20), p. 23 and Winner (as in n. 15), p. 284.

61. Appendix I, 176, "Armandi de marano medicina vulgaris'. As William Schupbach has pointed out to me, it seems an oxymoron to publish a book called "medicina vulgaris' in Latin. I have been unable to find any other references to this work or its author.

62. Pastor (as in n. 6), p. 912. 63. Thomas Aquinas, Sententia libri Metaphysicae,

praefatio: "Nam ex quibus intellectus certitudinem accipit, videntur esse intelligibilia magis. Unde, cum certitudo scientiae per intellectum acquiratur ex causis, causarum cognitio maxime intellectualis esse videtur. Unde et ilia scientia, quae primas causas con- sidérât, videtur esse maxime aliarum regulatrix.'




Another work in Julius's library does contain the words 'Causaram cognitio'. They appear in the most widely read text of medieval canon law, Gratian's De- cretum.64 Julius, who had received a legal education in Perugia,65 had four copies of the Decretwn,66 along with three commentaries on the work, in his library.67 Needless to say, the words 'Causaram cognitio' as they appear in Gratian have nothing to do with philosophy. They are used as stock examples of legal jargon in a passage which says that monks should avoid the horrors of the judicial life.68 In legal contexts 'causaram cognitio' was a common phrase, meaning 'cognizance of cases'.69 The phrase is therefore ambiguous - it has both a philosophical and a legal meaning. Julius, with his legal training, was presumably aware of the ambiguity.

It also seems possible, as a number of scholars have suggested,70 that the words 'causaram cognitio' are meant to call to mind one of the most famous lines in Latin literature, from Vergil's Georgias (11.490): 'Felix qui potuit rerum cogno- scere causas', 'The person who has been able to learn the causes of things is happy'. That Julius could quote this line we need not doubt.

From this survey of the books and mottoes in the Stanza it is clear that there is a close relationship between the texts depicted or quoted by Raphael and the contents of Julius's personal library. At the very least, the idea that Julius possessed insufficient book learning to design the programme of the Stanza must be abandoned;71 he certainly had the intellectual capacity and the erudition for the task. It is true that he was not a great scholar, a fact of which he seems to have been mildly

9. Raphael, Philosophy. Vatican Palace, Stanza della Segnatura, ceiling

64. Decretam magistri Grattant (Concórdia discordantium canonum), 11.16.1.20. Gutman (as in n. 43), p. 29, claims that the phrase 'causarum cognitio' appears 'vielfach' in the Corpus Juris Civilis, but I have not been able to find any examples. The phrase 'cognitio causae', however, appears 26 times in the Digest and 26 times in the Decretals.

65. Shaw (as in n. 57), p. 10. 66. Appendix I, 2, 99, 101, 138. 67. Appendix 1, 107, 112, 132. 68. Decretum, 11. 16. 1.20: 'Monachus defensor fieri

non débet. De presentium portitore, quod defensor factus non est, nulla vobis animi moléstia sit, quia satis valde amarissimum habeo de isto propósito ad illud offitium homines deduci, in quo nullo modo que a monachis Deo promissa sunt valeant adinpleri.

Omnimoda enim est illius habitus et istius offitii diversitas. Illic enim quies, oratio, labor manuum: at hic causarum cognitio, conventiones, actus, publica litigia, et quecumque uel ecclesiastica instituta, uel supplicantium necessitas poscit. Faciat autem Deus, ut taies sint hii, qui vel a nobis in isto habitu nut- riuntur, uel in monasteriis crescunt, ut provecta etate et probata vita non ad litigiorum offitia, sed ad sacer- dotium valeant promoueri.'

69. 1 am grateful to Magnus Ryan for this information and for much helpful advice on Renaissance legal history.

70. Weizsäcker (as in n. 43), p. 61; von Einem (as in n. 20), p. 20; Rowland (as in n. 11), pp. 137 and 148.

71. Joost-Gaugier (as in n. 11), p. 17.



PAUL TAYLOR 115

proud: when Michelangelo asked him if he wanted to be portrayed with a book in his hand, Julius suggested that a sword might be more suitable.72 Nevertheless, he had studied theology and law in reasonable depth, as can be seen from the inventories of his library. There is no need to suppose that he was Raphael's only learned adviser during the painting of the frescoes, but it is perfectly possible that he was a major source of ideas for the programme.

It also seems unlikely that he had nothing to say about the frescoes at all. Julius was a man with a violent temper, who terrified his entourage.73 He had commissioned Raphael to paint a room in which he hoped to spend much of the rest of his life, reading, looking at the frescoes and enjoying the view of the Cortile del Belvedere, which Bramante was designing in such a way that it would look at its best from the windows of the Stanze.74 The Belvedere itself was intended as a home for Julius's magnificent collection of antique statuary - few popes have ever shown so intense an interest in the visual arts. An irascible pope with a developed taste for painting and sculpture would, surely, have had a few preferences about how his library should be designed, and a tactful artist at the outset of his Roman career would presumably be willing to accommodate his patron's suggestions. And the two men were working in very close proximity. The pope's bedroom was just round the corner, to the east.75 The Signature where the pope signed peti- tions and judicial decisions in person,76 met in the room next door and to the west of the papal library,77 so that Julius had to walk past Raphael and his assistants whenever he had business of this kind to transact. When Julius was in Rome, he must have seen Raphael most days, and it is easy to imagine him bombarding the young painter with questions and advice. Everything we hear about Julius makes him sound like an extremely overbearing personality - the Venetian ambassador, Girolamo Lippomano, spoke of his 'cuor e animo terribile'78 - and since Raphael is said to have been both courteous and diplomatic,79 we should probably assume that the pope bears some responsibility for the final appearance of his Stanze.

II

If the room was meant to be the pope's library, and if Julius was involved in decisions about what the cycle of paintings would look like, then we need to look more closely at the collection of books that the room was meant to house. The

72. A. Condivi, Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti) ed. G. Nencioni, Florence 1998, p. 29; G. Vasari, Le viu de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed archiuttori) ed. G. Milanesi, 7 vols, Florence 1878-85, vu, p. 171.

73. For Julius's personality see Pastor (as in n. 6), esp. pp. 682-88; Shaw (as in n. 57), esp. pp. 169-73.

74. J. S. Ackerman, The Cortile del Belvedere, Vati- can City 1954, p. 123; Shearman, * Vatican Stanze' (as in n. 19), p. 50 n. 105.

75. For the layout of the Stanze see Shearman, 'Vatican Stanze' (as in n. 19), p. s.

76. On the functions of the Signatura see Dorez (as in n. 33), p. 108; The Catholic Encyclopedia) 17 vols,

New York 1907-18, s.v. 'Referendarii' and 'Roman Curia'; Lexikon ßr Theologie undKirche3 14 vols, Frei- burg 1957-LXViii, s.v. 'Signatur(a), Apostolische'; P. Partner, The Pope's Men: the Papal Civil Service in the Renaissance) Oxford and New York 1990, pp. 3, 21-23.

77. Now the Stanza delllncendio. This interpretation follows Shearman, 'Vatican Stanze' (as in n. 19), p. 5; idem, 'Apartments' (as in n. 19), p. 28. See Kemners (as in η. τ 2V nn. a- 7. for an alternative view.

78. Pastor (as in n. 6), p. 685. Pastor himself wrote that Julius was 'ein echter Choleriker', ibid., p. 687.

79. Vasari (as in η. 72), iv, p. 321, tells us that he was 'la gentilessa stessa'. Cf. ibid., pp. 315, 384-85.



ii6 STANZA DELLA SEGNATURA

inventories of books drawn up after Julius's death appear on fols iiir-ii5r of MS Vat. lat. 3966,80 a ledger which from the 1480s to the 1540s was used by Vatican librarians to record the loan and return of books.81 Some of the books listed here were being returned to the Vatican library after a period of loan to the pope, which presumably explains the presence of the inventories in this particular codex.82 There are two separate lists, which follow one another in the ledger. The first is entitled 'Inventory of books taken by Giannotto Lobera from the private effects of the Pope5;83 the second 'Inventory of the books of Pope Julius II consigned at the order of the College to the Very Reverend Cardinal of Aragon'. They are written in the hand of Romolo Mammacini, custodian of the Vatican library from 15 12;84 and they must have been composed after the death of Julius since they record the transfer of books from his personal library to the Biblioteca Apostólica, with thirty-seven being put aside for the Cardinal of Aragon, who was one of Leo X's favourites.85

The inventories do not provide us with a complete list of everything that Julius had read, or even owned: the copy of Justinian's Institutes, which we know he bought in his student days, does not appear in the library inventories,86 and neither do all of the books which were presented to him when he was pope.87 And, as noted earlier, the inventories lack books in the volgare?% but we should not

80. These inventories are presented in the Appen- dix below. They were published in 1896 by Dorez (as in n. 33). Since that time they have frequently been referred to in passing in the Raphael literature, but no one, to my knowledge, has attempted to provide a balanced overview of their contents. What is more common is selective quotation, a habit started by Dorez himself (see p. 118 below); see too Joost- Gaugier (n. 11 above), p. 85. Kempers (as in n. 12), p. 21, draws attention to the legal books in the inventories to lend support to his political reading of the frescoes. He also suggests, p. 45 n. 121, that a close examination of the inventories does not support the general impression among scholars that Julius was a philistine.

81. The rest of this manuscript, not including the Julian inventories or the inventory of books rebound for Inghirami (see n. 144 below), has been published in an edition with facsimile bv Bertòla (as in n. 10).

82. Seven of the manuscripts listed in n. 85 below bear the inscription 'Iulii II Pont. Max. bibliothecae secretae dicatus' (i.e., appropriated for the private library of Julius): MSS Vat. lat. 368, 570, 1797, 1800, 1835, 1923, 2098. Other manuscripts either bear the arms of Julius during his time as a cardinal (MSS Vat. lat. 112, 8910, 891 1; Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 4192A), or were presented to him during his pontificate (MSS Vat. lat. 1103, 1125, 1682) or were transcribed for him during his pontificate (MS Vat. lat. 2053).

83. 1 have not been able to discover anything about Giannotto Lobera, but I assume he was an assistant in the Vatican library.

84. Dorez (as in n. 33), p. 109. 85. Shearman, 'Vatican Stanze' (as in n. 19), p. 14:

'At Julius's death [his library] was split up, and the greater part absorbed into the main Vatican library.' Shearman gave no documentation in support of this statement. Fifteen of Julius's codices can be traced in the (still very incomplete) Codices Vaticani Latini, Rome 1902- : MSS Vat. lat. 143 (Appendix I, 112); Vat. lat. 219 (Appendix 1, 62); Vat. lat. 349 (Appendix I, 10); Vat. lat. 368 (Appendix I, 12); Vat. lat. 415 (Appendix 1, 14); Vat. lat. 710 (Appendix I, 32); Vat. lat. 1 103 (Appendix I, 26); Vat. lat. 1125 (Appendix I, 13); Vat. lat. 1682 (Appendix I, 23); Vat. lat. 1797 (Appendix I, 27); Vat. lat. 1800 (Appendix 1, 18); Vat. lat. 1835 (Appendix I, 66); Vat. lat. 1923 (Appendix I, 46); Vat. lat. 2053 (Appendix I, 52); Vat. lat. 2098 (Appendix I, 56). Dorez (as in n. 33), p. 409, also noted that MSS Vat. lat. 8910 and 891 1 were most likely identical with Appendix 1, 10 and 11 in the first list, that Appendix I, 164 could be identified with Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 4192A, and that in the late 19th century Appendix I, 144 was in the collection of A. Firmin-Didot: Cata- logue des livres précieux, manuscrits et imprimés, faisant partie de la bibliothèque de M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris 1881, pp. 80-82. For another manuscript, MS Vat. lat. 1385 (Appendix I, 1 or 106), identified by Kempers, see n. 36 above; and for a printed book, see n. 132 below.

86. See n. 52 above. 87. Shearman, 'Vatican Stanze' (as in n. 19), pp.

47-48 n. 92. 88. But see n. 61 above.



PAUL TAYLOR 117

deduce from this that Julius had never read the Italian works of Dante or Petrarch. In general, we should not expect a perfect match between the authors in Julius's library and the authors depicted on the walls; if the contents of his library are of interest, it is because they give us some insight into the intellectual culture of the room's patron.

There are 220 volumes in the inventories,89 of which fifty or so are either duplicates or parts of multi-volume works. There are therefore a little under 170 titles. About half of these titles are religious: books of the Bible, theological works, sacred histories or liturgical treatises. Julius's theological interests seem to have been very straightforward; the backbone of his reading appears to have been in the four Fathers of the Church,90 Peter Lombard91 and Thomas Aquinas.92 This is not the library of a sophisticated theologian, but it is the library of someone who is familiar with the core of Christian doctrine.

Around one sixth of Julius's books were concerned with the law, especially, as one would expect, with canon law. As already observed, besides having Justinian's Digest and numerous volumes of papal Decretals, Julius also kept on his shelves Gratian's Decretum and a useful selection of commentaries on the Decretals and the Decretum.93 Again, this is not the library of a learned doctor of canon law, but of someone who had clearly spent time studying the law and was familiar with legal modes of thought.

Around a seventh of Julius's books consisted of literature, split between prose and poetry. Among the poets we find Homer (in Lorenzo Valla's translation),94 Aratus (in the translation by Germanicus),95 Ausonius,96 Juvenal,97 Lucan,98 Ovid99 and Vergil,100 as well as some moderns, Naldo Naldi,101 Girolamo Vida102 and the panegyrist Johannes Nagonius.IO3The prose texts include ancient authors such as Seneca,104 Cicero105 and Pliny the Younger,106 and modern works like Boccaccio's De clans mulieribus™1 Angelo Decembrio's De politia literária10* and Giannozzo Manetti's Laudatio Januensium.109

A tenth of the books were historical works; Julius had Herodotus110 and Thucydides,111 both in the Latin versions of Lorenzo Valla, as well as the best- known Latin historians, Livy,112 Caesar,113 Sallust,114 Suetonius"5 and Valerius

89. Assuming that the author of the manuscript did not commit two 'dittographies': see n. 217 below.

90. Ambrose: Appendix I, 100, no. Augustine: Appendix I, 14, 17, 34, 36, 71, 98, 142, Appendix II, 22. Gregory: Appendix I, 35, 102, 115, 149. Jerome: Appendix I, 10, n, 12, 16, 83, 93, 104, 127, 128, Appendix II, 24.

91. Appendix I, 63, 85, 173. 92. Appendix 1, 33, 39, Appendix II, 5, 9, n, 15, 21.

Despite the fact that Julius was a Franciscan, there are no books by Bonaventure in the inventories.

93. See nn. 36-39 and 66-67 above. 94. Appendix II, 28. 05. Appendix II, 14. 96. Appendix II, 6. 97. Appendix 1, 166.

98. Appendix 1, 167. 99. Appendix 1, 178.

100. Appendix I, 24. 101. Appendix 1, 171. 102. Appendix I, 31. 103. Appendix I, 23. 104. Appendix 1, 159, Appendix II, 8 105. Appendix I, 80, 89. Other texts by Cicero are

included as rhetorical and philosophical works in nn. 127, 133 and 134 below. 106. Appendix I, 88. 107. Appendix 1, 162. 108. Appendix II, 36. 109. Appendix 1, 174. no. Appendix 1, 27. in. Appendix 1, 18, Appendix II, 10.



ii8 STANZA DELLA SEGNATURA

Maximus.116 He also found space for some fifteenth-century historical works by Leonardo Bruni"7 and Flavio Biondo.118 On the basis of the smattering of humanists in Julius's library, Léon Dorez tried to characterise Julius as 'un pape humaniste',119 but this is to ignore the overall balance of the library, which is heavily weighted towards traditional forms of theology.

Altogether then, theology, law, literature and history made up over ninety per cent of Julius's library. The remaining books dealt with subjects such as agricul- ture,120 antiquities,121 calendrics,122 chronography,123 geography,124 medicine,125 natural history,126 philosophy and rhetoric,127 with none of these classifications represented by more than a handful of items.

It may not be surprising that Julius had few books on subjects such as calendrics and chronography, but it is perhaps surprising that there were so few philosophy books on his shelves. As mentioned above, he had a copy of Aristotle's Ethics.12* He also had Bruni's translation of Aristotle's Politics.129 These were the only works of ancient Greek philosophy in his library. Although there was a Latin version of Maximus of Tyre's Middle Platonist work, The Philosophical Orations130 this was presented to Julius by its translator, Cosimo de' Pazzi, archbishop of Florence, just before the pope's death in 15 13,131 so it was not in Julius's pos- session while the library was being painted by Raphael. Another book, Cristoforo Marcello's commentary on Aristotle's De anima, was published in 1508 with a dedication to the pope, and was clearly a gift rather than an acquisition.132 Besides these works, Julius had at hand some Latin ethical writings which had long received the sanction of the Church: Cicero's Tusculan Disputations133 and De offi- ciis13A and Seneca's De dementia.135 One modern work of a similar cast, Petrarch's De remediis utriusque fortunae136 might be added to this list, and perhaps too Thomas Aquinas's De rege et regno should be classified under philosophy rather than theology.137

Julius also had a copy of Diogenes Laertius's Lives of the Philosophers, presumably in the translation of AmbrogioTraversari.138 Much of what he knew about ancient philosophy must have been derived from that source.

112. Appendix I, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Appendix II, 3, 4. But see n. 217 below.

113. Appendix I, 29, Appendix II, 37. 114. Appendix 1, 179. 115. Appendix 1, 51. 116. Appendix 1, 46. 117. Appendix 1, 125. 118. Appendix 1, 50, 60. 119. Dorez (as in n. 33), p. 100. Julius can hardly

be put in the same category as Nicholas V, whose extensive holdings of classical authors might indeed allow him to be described as a humanist pope; see n. 28 above and M. Albanese, Gli storici classici nella biblioteca latina di Niccolò F, Rome 2003.

120. Appendix 1, 28. 121. Appendix 1, 165. 122. Appendix I, i68, 169.

123. Appendix 1, 119, 121, presumably copies of the Chronographia by Sextus Julius Africanus. 124. Appendix 1, 38, 52, 54. 125. Appendix 1, 176; see n. 61 above. 126. Appendix 1, 3, Appendix II, 1. 127. Appendix I, 4, 15, 42, 103, 153, Appendix II,

27> 33- 128. See n. 42 above. 129. Appendix 1, 49. no. Appendix I, s8. 131. Maximus of Tyre, The Philosophical Orations,

tr. M. B. Trapp, with introd. and notes, Oxford 1997, p. lxxiv.

132. Appendix I, 43. Julius's copy of this book is in the Vatican library, pressmark R.I. Π 343.

133. Appendix 1, 47. 134. Appendix 1, 161.



PAUL TAYLOR 119

III

This presents us with an apparent paradox. It has been argued in the past that the School of Athens acts as a pendant to the Disputa, and that whereas the Disputa (Fig. 10) represents a Triumph of the Eucharist or Religion or Theology or the Church,139 the School of Athens (Fig. 14) presents a Triumph of Philosophy.140 There has also been a strong line of argument in the literature, ever since the nineteenth century, that the influence of Florentine Platonism can be discerned not only in details of the composition of the School oj "Athens, but also in the spirit of the entire fresco.141 On the basis of his library inventories, however, it does not appear that Julius had any interest in Platonism.142 There are no books by Plato, no books by any Platonists or Neoplatonists from antiquity or the Renaissance, not even a book by the Church's own Platonist, Dionysius the Areopagite. Why would a man who apparently had no interest in Platonism want to decorate his personal library with a large allegory of Platonic philosophy?

There are no doubt numerous ways of reconciling the two sides of this paradox. One could argue that the library inventories do not reflect Julius's interests. It is possible that his philosophy books were kept elsewhere. Since we know that his library contained books which do not appear in the inventories, we should not trust the inventories to mirror his collection.143 It is hard to dismiss this argument out of hand; but from the fact that, in the only sample of Julius's books that we do have, there were ten times as many theology books as philosophy books, we are surely entitled to hypothesise that he was better informed about theology than about philosophy.

Alternatively one could claim that Julius was uninterested in the iconographie design of his library, and so left it to someone else - Jacopo Sadoleto orTommaso Inghirami144 perhaps - to come up with the scheme. But from the arguments already presented, concerning Julius's temperament, taste for art and proximity

135. Appendix 1, 159. 136. Appendix 1, 48. 137. Appendix II, 11. 138. Dorez (as in n. 33), p. 100. 139. For a discussion of earlier disagreements over

which Triumph is represented, see G. Reale, RqffaeUo: la 'Disputa': una interpretazione filosófica e teológica delVaffresco. Milan 1998, p. 13.

140. E.g. Hettner (as in n. 18), pp. 191 and 195; Müntz (as in n. 1), p. 341; Klaczko (as in n. 5), pp. 238-39; Rowland (as in n. 11), pp. 143-44; Shaw (as in n. 57), p. 196; A. Emiliani and M. Scolaro, Raffaello. La Stanza delta Segnatura, Milan 2002, p. 120.

141. See n. 18 above. 142. See also n. 10 above: under the pontificate of

Julius, no Platonist books were borrowed from the Vatican library. Plato, Proclus and Porphyry were borrowed on occasion under other popes, but not under Julius. Bertòla (as in n. 10): Plato, pp. 1, 2, 18, 35» 45* 9i5 101; Proclus, pp. 14, 62, 74, 76; Porphyry, pp· 3^35556,83, 112.

143. Anyone who wishes to take this argument further might like to use the example of Pope Nicho- las V, whose library was predominantly theological but whose bedroom was full of books on (Roman) literature and history. See Manfredi (as in n. 28), pp. 507-14.

144. Joost-Gaugier (as in n. 11), p. 85, notes the lack of Greek philosophy in Julius's library and accounts for this by stating that 'his librarian, Tommaso Inghi- rami, was a Grecophile'. This may be questioned: 11 of the 12 books Inghirami borrowed from the Vatican library were in Latin (Bertòla, as in n. 10, pp. 43, 46, 54, 62, 72, 86, 89, 99, 113, 118). The one Greek book borrowed on his behalf (ibid., p. in) contained the works of Pindar with commentaries, Dionysius Periegetes's De situ orbis, Aratus with commentaries, unspecified works by Theodorus Prodromus, and Hesiod's Works and Days. Whether he wanted to read all, some, or one of these we do not know. In general, we know little about what he read in Greek. There is a list of 88 Greek and 17 Latin books, said to have



120 STANZA DELIA SEGNATURA

to the library,145 this does not appear likely. It seems more probable that Julius made at least some contribution to the programme of the Stanza. As already noted, this does not necessarily mean that he was the only contributor: he may have taken, or sought, the advice of others, and Raphael too may have sought other advice, perhaps without Julius knowing that he had. Of one thing, however, we may feel sure: that, at the end of the process, all the participants were aware that Julius had to be satisfied with the result. The frescoes may not have been a direct expression of the pope's own thoughts, but it had to be possible to describe the significance of the paintings in a manner of which Julius could approve.

Another way of thinking about the paradox is to try to undermine the other side, and to suggest that the School of Athens was not understood as a Triumph of Philosophy in the first place. In what follows I shall pursue this line of thought, since there are, I believe, a number of iconographie indications that the author, or authors, of the programme did not intend Theology and Philosophy to be treated with equal reverence. It is made clear in the Stanza della Segnatura that Theology is the queen of the sciences, and that Philosophy is only her hand- maiden.146 Or, to put it in the words of the Fifth Lateran Council, of which Julius was the convenor: 'the constant study of human philosophy - which God has made empty and foolish, as the Apostle says,147 when it lacks the seasoning of divine wisdom and the light of revealed truth - more often leads to error than to the discovery of the truth'.148 These words were published ten months after Julius's death, but it is most unlikely that he would have disagreed with them: they represent the standard theological orthodoxy of the time, and there is no reason to think that, in his theological beliefs, Julius was at all unorthodox.

If this is the case, if Julius was a man with a theological and legal training who had very little interest in philosophy, then why, it might be asked, was Philosophy shown at all? Given his intellectual interests, should the four subjects depicted not have been Theology, Law, Poetry and History?

been bound at Inghirami's behest ('libri Greci opera Domini Thome Phedri Bibliothece Pontificie Pre- sidis nuper religati'; 'Sequuntur libri latini religati') preserved in MS Vat. lat. 3966, fols ii5v-ii7r (thus following on from the inventories of the books of Julius; the Greek part of the inventory is published in Sosower et al., as in n. 29, pp. 125-32). These, in Joost-Gaugier's view (p. 31), 'give an idea of the intellectual tastes of Inghirami'. It is not at all clear that they do; and there are in any case very few works of philosophy. Only two of these are by ancient Greeks: the pseudo-Aristotelian Magna moralia and Arrian's account of the doctrines of Epictetus, though there is also a copy of the commentaries on Aristotle's natural philosophy by Theodore Metochites ('Logotetus'). Besides these we find a copy of Nicholas Trivet's commentary on Boethius, 'omnes libri morales' of Seneca and an 'Albertanus', probably Albertanus of Brescia's Liber consolationis et consilii, which may or may not be characterised as a work of philosophy. Over 60 per cent of the Greek books on the list are theological,

with 13 books by John Chrysostom alone. In Julius's day around 50 per cent of the Greek books in the Vati- can library were concerned with theology or religion: R. Devreesse, Le fonds grec de la Bibliothèque vaticane des origines à Paul F, Vatican City 1965; Sosower et al. (as in n. 29).

14s. See p. us above. 146. Pastor (as in n. 6), pp. 1001-03, has a similar

sense of the relative importance of the School of Athens and the Disputa.

147. 1 Corinthians 1. 19-20. 148. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. N. P.

Tanner and G. Alberigo, 2 vols, Washington DC 1990, 1, p. 606: 'Et cum non sufficiat aliquando tribulorum radices praescindere nisi et ne iterum pullulent funditus evellere ac eorum semina originales que causas unde facile oriuntur removere cum praecipue humanae philosophiae studia diuturniora quam deus secundum verbum apostoli evacuavit et stultam fecit absque divinae sapientiae condimento et quae sine revelatae veritatis lumine in errorem quandoque



PAUL TAYLOR 121

It is not hard to imagine the scenario which led to Philosophy being given so extensive a place in the scheme. As observed above, the Vatican library was organised by subject, and Philosophy was one of the subdivisions. In terms of simple numbers, there were more books in the Philosophy section than in the sections on Poetry or Rhetoric (but far fewer than in the sections on Theology).149 Julius may have been aware that other popes took more interest in philosophy than he did, and that if his successors were to make use of the room they would want a wall to correspond to their shelves of philosophy books. And perhaps, too, Raphael had some input into this thought process. As a painter he might have pointed out that philosophers, since they gather and argue in groups, are much easier to depict than historians, who sit on their own, taking notes from books.150 However the decision may have been taken, the underlying, theological message of the room is expressed on the walls, and most clearly in the Disputa^ to which we should turn (Fig. 10).

The optic point of the Disputes perspective construction is at the base of the monstrance on the altar which holds the Eucharistie wafer.151 That the Host is being presented as some sort of key to the painting seems very likely.152 Julius himself was only too aware of the theological and political significance of the Eucharist. When he went on campaign with his army in order to reconquer cities for the Papal States, he was accompanied by a horse which carried a supply of Eucharistie wafers and a monstrance.153 When he entered a city, the Host was carried before him in a solemn procession, as a reminder that the city was able to receive sacraments of the Church only with papal approval.154 Since salvation was granted exclusively to those who received grace by means of the sacraments,155 their withdrawal - during periods when individuals or towns were excommunicated - was considered the most serious penalty that the Church could inflict,156 and, still in Julius's day, seems to have struck fear into the victims.157 The

magis inducunt quam in veritatis elucidationem ad tollendam omnem in praemissis errandi occasionem hac salutari constitutione ordinamus et statuimus ne quisquam de cetero in sacris ordinibus constitutus saecularis vel regularis aut alias ad illos a hire arctatus in studiis generalibus vel alibi publiée audiendo philosophiae aut poesis studiis ultra quinquennium post grammaticam et dialecticam sine aliquo studio theologiae aut iuris pontificii incumbat.'

149. See the literature cited in n. 29 above. The catalogues published there are of the Greek portion of the library; there are no published Latin catalogues from Julius's time.

150. I do not know of any painting or print that depicts a group of historians; in the Warburg Insti- tute's Photographic Collection there are around 20 images of groups of philosophers. Whether justly or not, philosophers seem to have been considered more picturesque.

151. This basic observation is rarely, if ever, made in the literature on the Disputa - I have been unable to find a single instance. Instead there has been a

long and subjective debate about what counts as the 'central' point of the composition: Groner (as in n. 15), p. 17; Schneider (as in n. 14) pp. 17-18; Pfeiffer (as in n. 12), p. 63; Reale (as in n. 139), pp. 12-13.

152. A point already made by Bellori, who referred to the whole painting as 'Imagine del Santíssimo Sacramento dell'Eucharistia, o vero delia Teologia': Bellori (as in η. ι), ρ. 8. For a recent discussion, which also reproduces the tiny image of the crucified Christ painted on the Host, see Reale (as in n. 139), pp. 39- 41.

153. Shaw (as in n. 57), p. 152. 154. Pastor (as in n. 6), p. 729; Shaw, ibid., pp. 153-

54- 155. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 111.61.1. 156. Aegidius Romanus, De ecclesiastica potestate, ed.

R. Scholz, Aalen 1961, pp. 106-10 (lib. 11, cap. 12). 157. When Julius excommunicated Venice, the

Venetians appear to have had a sincere desire for the interdict to be lifted, although this desire was inter- mingled with much Realpolitik. Shaw (as in n. 57), pp. 234-43.




Eucharist is the most fitting symbol of this doctrine of sacraments, since in the act of transubstantiation the Host becomes identical with the body of Christ, and the Church itself is identified in theology with the Mystical Body of Christ.158 To place the Eucharist at the optical focus of the Disputa is therefore to make the clearest possible statement that the Church plays an essential role in Salvation. Christ is the gate through which men must pass if they are to be saved,159 and the Church is the gatekeeper:160 extra Ecclesiam nulla salus.161

For Julius, however, this theological assertion was insufficiently precise. For who, or what, had the authority to excommunicate? Who was in command of such decisions within the Church? In Rome at the beginning of the sixteenth century these questions were pressing ones. The Church councils of Constance and Basle had attempted to increase the power of the councils relative to the pope, and their efforts had been supported by the king of France. In 1438 Charles VII issued a proclamation that Church councils should be held every ten years and that the authority of the general council was superior to that of the pope. He also added, even more damagingly, that the pope's power to profit from the granting of bene- fices should be seriously curtailed.162 It was one of the central elements in papal policy for the next eighty years to see this French proclamation overturned, and indeed Julius II convened the Fifth Lateran Council in 15 12 with the explicit aim of reversing 1t.163 After Julius's death, Leo X, as a result of negotiations with Francis I, managed to achieve this long-term goal of papal politics,164 and as a result he could proclaim, echoing the words of Boniface Vffl's bull Unam sane- tarn^165 that 'subjection to the Roman pontiff is necessary for the salvation of all Christ's faithful'.166

158. Augustine, Sermones, 267.4; Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 111.49.1. The doctrine is based on various biblical passages, including Romans 12.5-6; Ephesians 4.4-13; I Corinthians 10.17.

159. John 10.9. For the theological elaboration of this metaphor, see Peter Lombard, Sententiae, 111.20; Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 111.26.1.

160. Aegidius Romanus (as in n. 156), p. 109 (π. 1 2): 'Manifeste ergo apparet, quomodo ecclesia habet claves regni celorum et quomodo potest celum claudere et aperire.'

161. L. Capéran, Le problème du salut des infidèles: essai historique, Paris 19 12, pp. 37, 77-78, 131, 148, 217-18; B. Sesboué, Hors de l'Église pas de salut. Histoire d'une formule et problèmes d'interprétation, Paris 2004. The line, which goes back to St Cyprian, was taken as axiomatic by Thomas Aquinas in his Scriptum super Sentenúis, in.25.2: 'Christus est caput totius Ecclesiae. Nullus autem salvatus est extra Ecclesiam. Ergo nullus salvatus est qui non est membrum Christi vel non fuit. Sed nullus fuit membrum Christi qui in Christum non credidit. Ergo nullus salvatus est unquam sine fide Christi.'

162. N.Valois, Histoire de la Pragmatique Sanction de Bourges sous Charles VII, Paris 1906, pp. LXXII-IX, LXXXIII-IV.

163. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (as in n. 148), 1, pp. 598-600. The conciliar aspect of the Disputa has been noted before, by Kempers (as in n. 12), pp. 19- 32. He believes that the Disputa and the Justice wall were composed after political developments in Julius's struggle with France in mid-1511, and reflect a new propagandistic attitude which the School of Athens and the Parnassus, composed beforehand, do not share. I am agnostic about the dating of the frescoes in the room, and believe that the same underlying attitudes can be found in all four paintings. I also think these attitudes were not specific to the difficult period between 15 11 and Julius's death.

164. For a more nuanced view of the outcome see F. Oakley, 'Conciliarism at the Fifth Lateran Council?', Church History, xli, 1972, pp. 452-63.

165. Corpus Juris Canonici, Graz 1959, p. 1246: Torro subesse Romano Pontifici omni humanae creaturae declaramus dicimus, definimus et pro- nunciamus omnino esse de necessitate salutis.'

166. Ibid., pp. 643-44: 'Et cum de necessitate salutis existât omnes Christi fidèles Romano pontifici subesse prout divinae scripturae et sanctorum patrum testimonio edocemur, ac constitutione felicis memoriae Bonifacii papae VIII similiter predecessoris nostri, quae incipit: Unam sanctam, declarator: pro



PAUL TAYLOR 123

10. Raphael, Disputa. Vatican Palace, Stanza della Segnatura

All of which raises a theological problem. If salvation can only be obtained by means of Christ as mediated by the Church, led by the pope or anyone else, how could anyone who lived in the period before Christ died and the Church was founded be saved?167 One answer to this question was to observe that nobody was saved in the period before Christ's death. Christ was the first person to enter into heaven.168 Thus even St John the Baptist had to wait in Limbo, the first circle of hell, until Christ freed him.169 However, when Christ descended into Limbo he also freed many people who had lived in the period before he had been born. In paintings of the Harrowing of Hell, besides John the Baptist, one frequently

eorumdem fidelium animarum salute, ac Romani pontificis et huius sanctae sedis suprema auctoritate, et ecclesiae sponsae suae imitate et potestate, consti- tutionem ipsam, sacro praesente concilio approbante, innovamus et approbamus . . .' The struggle for power between pope and council may be alluded to in the dress of the participants in the Disputa. As Kempers has observed (as in n. 12), p. 23, bishops wore white mitres at Church councils, and all the bishops in the fresco are wearing mitres of this sort. White mitres were, however, worn on other occasions, too: they can be seen in the Oath of Leo III and the Crowning of Charlemagne in the Stanza delFIncendio.

167. According to Aegidius Romanus (as in n. 156), pp. 108-09 (n.12), the Church was founded at the moment of Christ's death.

168. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 111.57.6; Aegidius Romanus, loc. cit.; Dante, Inferno, IV.62-63.

169. Capéran (as in n. 161), pp. 66-67. John is frequently seen in 16th-century images of the Har- rowing of Hell, including one print which claims to be after Raphael, by Nicolas Béatrizet: Bartsch XV. 250.22. For further discussion of depictions of limbo see T. F. Worthen, 'The Harrowing of Hell in the Art of the Italian Renaissance', Ph.D. thesis, University of Iowa 1981; C. Franceschini, 'II limbo e le sue immagini', tesi di perfezionamento, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa 2008.




sees Adam and Eve, King David and other patriarchs of the Bible, together with a horde of less recognisable virtuous men and women described in the Old Testa- ment. Since Christ personally saved them, they clearly owed their salvation to him; in that sense the necessity of Christ to salvation was maintained. But it was also the case that they had, so to speak, earned their salvation by acting in accord- ance with Christ's law.170 They did this by directly prophesying the Messiah, or by having faith in the coming of the true Redeemer, or by respecting the sacraments of the Old Law, which were taken to be symbolic préfigurations of the sacraments of the Church.171

In Raphael's Disputa we see the outcome of Christ's descent into Limbo. The heavenly host on the lower cloudbank is made up in part of saints, and in part of Old Testament patriarchs. Counting round from the right,172 we find first St Paul, then Abraham, then a figure who is probably St James the Great, then Moses, then a deacon saint who is presumably St Lawrence or St Stephen, then a patriarch in armour who may be Judas Maccabeus.173 Crossing over onto the opposite cloudbank (Fig. n), we encounter another armoured patriarch, who could be Joshua,174 and another deacon saint, so presumably Stephen or Lawrence. Next to the deacon is King David, then St John the Evangelist, then a semi-nude man who has always been identified as Adam,175 followed by St Peter. Saints alter- nate with patriarchs all the way round. This is a very unorthodox arrangement. Normally in images of heaven one finds only saints. The fact that patriarchs have been chosen to sit next to them here is surely theologically significant, and is surely an allusion to the redemption of pre-Christians by Christ.

Abraham, Moses, David, Joshua and Judas Maccabeus all had something in common, besides being saved: they were Jewish. The Jews, as the chosen people, had a covenant with God, which was rendered visible in their sacraments of circumcision, sacrifice, purification and consecration. As we have already noted, these Jewish sacraments were taken to foreshadow Christian sacraments.176 Does it follow from this that Jews were the only people in the pre-Christian era who were able to obtain salvation? The answer to this question is provided in the two books in front of the altar in the Disputa, Gregory the Great's Moralia in Job and Augustine's De civitate Dei. Of the two Church Fathers, Augustine puts the argument more pithily, in a chapter devoted to the subject of whether before Christian times there were any non-Israelites who had attained the heavenly city.177 He replies that yes, there was at least one: 'the holy and wonderful man Job'. Job was a gentile, but he nevertheless found favour in God's eyes. Augustine writes:

170. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theobgiae, 111.52.5. 171. Peter Lombard, Sententiae, iv.i; Thomas

Aquinas, Summa theobgiae, 1.2. 102.5. 172. On theories concerning the identities of the

figures on the clouds see Reale (as in n. 139), pp. 42- 56.

173. He is identified by Bellon (as in n. 1), p. 9, as "San Giorgio Protettore delia LJguria, pátria del

Pontefice Giulio', but this would seem to be ruled out by his lack of a halo. The identification as Judas Maccabeus is based on Dante, Paradiso, XVIII.40.

174. Dante, Paradiso, XVlll.38. 175. See n. 180 below. 176. See n. 171 above. 177. Augustine, De civttate Dei, xvni.47.



PAUL TAYLOR 125

11. (left) Raphael, Disputa, detail: the left cloudbank. Vatican Palace, Stanza della Segnatura 12. (right) Vittore Carpaccio, Job, detail from his Meditation on the Passion. New York, Metropolitan Museum

I do not doubt it was divinely provided, so that from this one instance we might know that also among other peoples there could be men belonging to the spiritual Jerusalem who have lived according to God and have pleased Him.

To this however Augustine immediately added the proviso: 'But it is not to be supposed that this was granted to any one, unless the one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, was divinely revealed to him'.178 Job could be saved because he had stated his implicit faith in Christ, when he uttered the words:

For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold ...I79

Since both the Moralia in Job and the De civitate Dei are given a conspicuous place in the fresco, it seems reasonable to wonder if Job himself might appear, too. And it does seem possible that the figure who has always been identified as Adam could, in fact, be Job.180 He does not wear a fig leaf or garment of animal skin, Adam's usual attribute, and one might argue that his pose is meant to be redolent of patience, the virtue most frequently ascribed to Job. Carpaccio chose a not dissimilar pose when he came to depict Job (Fig. 12).181 And the fact that

178. Ibid.: 'Divinitus autem provisum fuisse non dubito, ut ex hoc uno sciremus etiam per alias gentes esse potuisse, qui secundum Deum vixerunt eique placuerunt, pertinentes ad spiritalem Hierusalem. Quod nemini concessum fuisse credendum est, nisi cui divinitus revelatus est unus mediator Dei et hominum, homo Christus Iesus, qui venturus in carne

sic antiquis sanctis praenuntiabatur, quern ad modum nobis venisse nuntiatus est, ut una eademque per ipsum fides omnes in Dei civitatem, Dei domum, Dei templum praedestinatos perducat ad Deum/

179. Job 19.25-26. 180. The idea that the figure is Adam goes back to

Bellori (as in n. 1), p. 8, and has never, so far as I am




he is sitting directly behind St Gregory, whose massive commentary on the Book of Job was so famous in the Middle Ages, may also be significant.

Whether this identification is right or wrong does not greatly matter; the theology, as expressed in Gregory's and Augustine's books, is perfectly straightforward, and we can be sure that Julius would have been aware of it.

Although Augustine acknowledged that Job was saved, he did not deduce from this that every other virtuous gentile in the period before Christ would also be saved. His view on this subject grew harsher in the course of his life, as his theological position became more entrenched during his long battle with the Pelagian heresy.182 Pelagius had expressed (or at least had been taken to express) the view that before Christ's birth there had been people who were without sin. This doctrine was strongly opposed by Augustine, since it contradicted accepted theological doctrines concerning original sin, grace, and man's redemption through Christ. We are all sinners, because of the sin of Adam; God is justified in damning even new-born children, because they are tainted with original sin;183 it is only due to the grace of God that we can be saved from original sin; and that grace is bestowed on us only on account of the redeeming sacrifice of Christ. It is not merely false to assert, Augustine tells us, that there were people before Christ who were without sin, it is also false to assert that there were people after Christ who were without sin. Even the saints are sinners. If they are nevertheless saved, that is only because of God's grace given through the mediation of Christ.184

Still, as Job proves, it is possible for Christ's redeeming power to be retro- active. Nor can the mysteries of God's grace be entirely fathomed by humans. In Dante's Commedia, Rhipeus, a virtuous Trojan mentioned in passing by Vergil, is encountered in Paradise.185 When Dante asks why this should be, Beatrice replies:

...tutto suo amor là giù pose a drittura: per ehe, di grazia in grazia, Dio li aperse l'occhio a la nostra redenzion futura ...l86

As with Job, Rhipeus is saved not through his own merits but through the redemption of Christ, revealed to him by the grace of God.

With these theological issues in mind, we can turn to the School of Athens (Fig. 14). Although it seems unlikely that the fresco was meant as an illustration of any literary text,187 it does seem probable that some Renaissance Italians, when they saw the fresco, would have remembered a famous passage from Dante's Commedia:

aware, been questioned. According to Kempers (as in n. 12), p. 29, the semi-nude figure is Abraham, but since the figure on the right-hand cloudbank holding a knife is also (correctly) identified by Kempers as Abraham, this is presumably an oversight.

181. For this painting see F. Hartt, 'Carpaccio's Meditation on the Passion', Art Buttetin> xxii, 1940, PP· 25-35 (fig· O·

182. (Japeran (as in n. 161), pp. 105-32.

183. This is also the opinion of Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 111.52.7.

184. Augustine, Contra Julianum, rv. 14-16; Capéran (as in n. 161), pp. 120-26.

185. Dante, Paradiso, XX. 67-72. 186. Ibid., XX.121-23, tr. Sayers and Reynolds (as

in n. 60), p. 235: On righteousness spent all his earthly sum/ Of love; whence God from grace to grace unsealed/ His eyes to the redemption yet to come.'



PAUL TAYLOR 127

Poi ch'innalzai un poco piu le ciglia, vidi Ί maestro di color ehe sanno seder tra filosófica famiglia.

Tutti lo miran, tutti onor li fanno: quivi vid'ïo Socrate e Platone, ehe 'nnanzi a li altri piú presso li stanno;

Democrito, ehe Ί mondo a caso pone, Diogenes, Anassagora eTale, Empedoclès, Eraclito e Zenone;

e vidi il buono accoglitor del quale, Dïascoride dico; e vidi Orfeo, Tulïo e Lino e Seneca morale;

Euclide geomètra eTolomeo, Ipocràte, Avicenna e Galïeno,

τβδ Averroís, ehe Ί gran comento feo.

The passage is, of course, from the Inferno. Dante - in this being perfectly orthodox - consigned all the pagan philosophers to limbo, the first circle of hell.189 The relevant arguments derive, again, from Augustine. In reply to the question why the virtuous pagans should be damned, Augustine replied that there were no virtuous pagans. What seemed to be virtues were only vices in disguise, no more than desire for praise and fame and worldly immortality.190 And besides, all the pagans were tainted with original sin, and so, like unbaptised children, they were damned with perfect justice. As St Paul put it, and it was a line Augustine knew well: 'All that does not proceed from faith is sin.'191

Did Pope Julius believe that the pagan philosophers depicted in the School of Athens were damned, or saved? We cannot know for sure. We do know that in the year before Raphael started work in the library one of Pope Julius's cardinals, Adriano Castellesi, published a book in which he reiterated the standard theological view that Aristotle and all the other philosophers had been condemned to hell.192 But we do not know if Castellesi's view on this matter was shared by Julius.

187. Though this has on occasion been claimed; see H. Grimme, 'Raphaels Schule von Athen in Dantescher Beleuchtung', Repertorium für Kunstwis- senschaft, XLVii, 1926, pp. 94-112; Most (as in n. 18).

188. Dante, Inferno, Γν.130-47, tr. D. L. Sayers, Harmondsworth 1949, pp. 94-95: 'Higher I raised my brow and further scanned,/ And saw the master of the men who know [Aristotle]/ Seated amid the philosophic band;// All do him honour and deep reverence show;/ Socrates, Plato, in the nearest room /To him; Diogenes, Thaïes and Zeno,// Democritus, who held that all things come/ By chance; Empedo- cles, Anaxagoras wise,/ And Heraclitus, him that wept for doom;// Dioscorides, who named the quali- ties, /Tully and Orpheus, Linus, and thereby/ Good

Seneca, well-skilled to moralize;/ Euclid the geo- metrician, Ptolemy,/ Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicen, Averroes who made the commentary...' Grimme (as in n. 187), argued in detail that this passage was the main literary source for Raphael's fresco.

189. Caperan (as in n. 161), pp. 209-12. It is clear from the way that Dante returns more than once to the fate of the pagans as he ascends through Purgatory and Paradise that he was not entirely happy about their damnation, but he accepted the theological arguments which led to this conclusion. Purga- tório, VII, XXII; Paradiso, XIX-XX. 190. Augustine, Contra Julianum, iv. 19-26; Capéran

(as in n. 161), pp. 123-24. 191. Romans 14.23; Capéran (as in n. 161), p. 121.




The question is not quite as pertinent as it seems. For if Julius believed that the pagans were saved, he must have thought, from a theological point of view, that they were saved in the same way that Dante's Rhipeus was saved: by being made aware, through the grace of God, of the redemptive power of Christ. It is only through the grace of God that anyone can be saved. To think the opposite is to be a Pelagian, and there were very few Pelagians in Renaissance Italy. Even Marsilio Ficino, one of the few men of the late fifteenth century who was bold enough to assert that the pagan philosophers were saved, nevertheless stressed that it was only through the grace of Christ that this salvation was obtained:

Pythagoras and Socrates, Plato and others like them, being worshippers of one God, men endowed with the noblest morals, were freed from hell either by Mosaic or natural knowledge of this kind; but they could not be deemed worthy of heaven without the grace of the heavenly Christ. Thus they were consigned to a certain middle region, Limbo, in which they were made most certain of the coming of the Messiah, either by the Prophets, who were also kept there, or by the angels. Hence the Gentiles, like the Jews, first through the hope of Christ, and then through the presence of Christ, returned to heaven.193

Let us return now to the mottoes on the ceiling. As noted earlier,194 Heinrich Pfeiffer has argued that the motto over the Disputa (Fig. 6) contains an allusion to a passage in Augustine's De Trinitate. The passage in question concerns the definition of wisdom. Augustine writes that many authors have defined wisdom as 'rerum humanarum divinarumque scientia', 'knowledge of human and divine things'. He argues, however, that this is inaccurate. Following the words of St Paul, 'To one is given the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge', he asserts that wisdom should be defined as the knowledge of divine things, 'rerum divinarum scientia'.195 In the Institutes of Justinian, as we have also seen,196

192. B. Gebhardt, Adrian von Corneto. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Curie und der Renaissance, Breslau 1886, p. 100; Springer (as in n. 6), I, pp. 235-37; Wickhoff (as in η. 15), pp. 57-58.

193. Marsilio Ficino, 'De salute Philosophorum ante Christi adventum', letter to Antonio da Sarzana, in Epistolarum liber V, in his Opera omnia, 2 vols, Basle 1576, ι, p. 806: 'Pythagoras et Socrates, et Plato, atque similes alii Dei unius cultores, optimisque moribus instituti, eiusmodi sive Mosaica, sive naturali disci- plina, inferos devitabant, superna vero sine superni Christi gratia mereri non poterant, quamobrem in mediam quandam regionem perferebantur, ubi in ipso lymbo de Messiae adventu, sive per Prophetas, qui ibidem similiter servabantur, sive per angelos, certissimi reddebantur. Hinc Gentiles similiter atque Iudaei sub ipsa Christi spe primum, deinde praesentia Christi superos repetebant.' I am grateful to Chiara Franceschini for bringing this letter to my attention; it is discussed in more depth in her thesis (as in n. 169), pp. 99-100. It can be compared to a different passage from Ficino's works, in which he stresses the limits of pagan theology; see Marsilio Ficino, In

Epistolas D. Pauli, ascensus ad terúum coelum, ad Paulum intelligendum, ibid., I, p. 437. 'Non utique dicimus Philosophos Deitatem ipsam ex operibus invenisse. Haec enim est ipsa Dei substantia, illis adhoc ignota, sed divinitatem, id est, beneficam providamque per cuncta diffusionem, et segregatam interim excellen- tiam. Proinde triplicem de Deo cognitionem, quasi coelum trinum, ut in libro de raptu Pauli [II Cor- inthians 12.2-4] scribimus, esse putamus. Nam aut Deus in rebus agnoscitur, aut cognoscitur res in Deo, aut Deus in seipso cognoscitur. Modos itaque duos, coelos quasi duos, Philosophi possedisse videntur. Nam et quantum divinitatis sit in mundo, et qua ratione mundi exemplar exprimatur in Deo, hactenus comprehenderunt. Quid autem ipse Deus in seipso sit, et Plato in Parmenide confitetur ignotum. Idem- que Dionysius Areopagita confirmât, et solus Paulus raptus ad tertium coelum est assequutus.'

194. Seep, in above. 195. Augustine, De Trinititate, xiv.1.3: 'Disputantes

autem de sapientia definierunt earn dicentes: Sapi- entia est rerum humanarum divinarumque scientia. Unde ego quoque in libro superiore utrarumque



PAUL TAYLOR 129

13. Vatican Palace, Stanza della Segnatura, ceiling, with Raphael's frescoes (see Figs 3-9)

rerum cognitionem, id est divinarum atque humanarum, et sapientiam et scientiam dici posse non tacui. Verum secundum hanc distinctionem qua dixit apostolus: Alii datur sermo sapientiae, alii sermo scientiae, ista definitio dividenda est ut rerum divinarum scientia sapientia proprie nuncupetur, humanarum autem proprie scientiae nomen obtineat, de qua

volumine tertio decimo disputavi, non utique quid- quid sciri ab homine potest in rebus humanis ubi plurimum supervacaneae vanitatis et noxiae curiosi- tatis est huic scientiae tribuens, sed illud tantummodo quo fides saluberrima quae ad veram beatitudinem ducit gignitur, nutritur, defenditur, roboratur.'

196. bee p. in above.




Jurisprudence is defined as 'divinarum atque humanarum rerum notitia', 'conception of divine and human things'. In the motto on either side of Theology, this definition of Jurisprudence has been compressed. Theology is the knowledge of divine things, 'divinarum rerum notitia'. Presumably this is meant to remind lawyers that the study of Divine Law can only be carried out by theologians. But by alluding to the passage from St Augustine on the definition of wisdom, it also reminds philosophers that Christian theology is the true wisdom. As Augustine puts it, elsewhere in the De Trinitate:

those distinguished philosophers of the heathens who have been able to see the invisible things of God by the things which are made,197 have yet, as is said of them, known the truth in iniquity;198 because they philosophised without a Mediator, that is, without the Man Christ... . Christ is our knowledge, and the same Christ is also our wisdom. He Himself implants in us faith concerning temporal things, He Himself shows forth the truth concerning eternal things. Through Him we proceed to Himself: through knowledge we proceed to wisdom; yet we do not withdraw from one and the same Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge.199

There are other details of the frescoes which affirm the superiority of Theology. Comparing the School of Athens (Fig. 14) to the Disputa (Fig. 10), it is striking that the philosophers are debating in a magnificent palace, while the theologians are assembled round an altar on some steps in what appears to be the middle of a field. The beginnings of a proper building are visible - there is the base of a pier on the right - but the construction seems hardly to have begun. Why is it that the theologians' Church is still being built, when the philosophers enjoy so splendid a work of architecture? We can I think reject the idea that philosophy is being presented as a superior form of enquiry. It seems likely that the half- finished pier in the background gives the key. As Matthias Winner has observed, this is probably a reference to a theme that can be found repeatedly in the Bible, which states that Christ is the cornerstone of the new Church.200 And not only is he the cornerstone; we are told that this cornerstone was 'the stone the builders rejected'.201 The Jews killed Christ; they were therefore rejecting a stone from their own temple. The Christian Church was founded on this rejected stone,

197. Romans 1.20. 198. IIThessalonians 2.7-12. 199. Augustine, De Trinitate, xiii.19: 'Illi autem prae-

cipui gentium philosophi qui invisibilia dei per ea quae facta sum intellecta conspicere potuerunt, tarnen quia sine mediatore, id est sine nomine Christo philosophati sunt, quern nee venturum prophetis nee venisse apostolis crediderunt, veritatem detinuerunt sicut de illis dictum est in iniquitate. Non potuerunt enim in his rebus infirmis constituti nisi quaerere aliqua media per quae ad ilia quae intellexerant sub- limia pervenirent, atque ita in deceptores daemones inciderunt per quos factum est ut immutarent gloriam incorruptibilis dei in similitudinem imaginis corrupti- bilis hominis et uolucrum et quadrupedum et serpen- tium. In talibus enim formis etiam idola instituerunt

sive coluerunt. Scientia ergo nostra Christus est, sapientia quoque nostra idem Christus est. Ipse nobis fidem de rebus temporalibus inserit; ipse de sem- piternis exhibet veritatem. Per ipsum pergimus ad ipsum, tendimus per scientiam ad sapientiam; ab uno tarnen eodemque Christo non recedimus in quo sunt omnes thesauri sapientiae et scientiae absconditi.' 200. rsaim 117.22; isaian 28.10; Mattnew 21.42;

Mark 12.10; Luke 20.17; Acts 4.10-12; I Peter 2.6- 8. M. Winner, 'Disputa und Schule von Athen', in Raffaetto a Roma (as in n. 45), pp. 29-45 (35)· Cf. Pfeiffer (as in η. I2), pp. 175-76; Kempers (as in η. 12), p. 16. 201. winner (as in n. 15), pp. 257-80, suggests that

the cubic stone in the centre foreground of the School of Athens may be meant to refer to this rejected stone.



PAUL TAYLOR 131

14. Raphael, School of Athens. Vatican Palace, Stanza della Segnatura

which was taken to represent the humble Christ, crushed by his assailants.202 The contrast between the lowly origins of the Church, built on a rejected stone, and the ostentatious pomp of the Academy is probably not supposed to reflect well on the philosophers.203

Another difference between the School of Athens and the Disputa which deserves comment is the way that the philosophers are broken up into groups which are turned in on themselves, whereas the theologians are all turned - or being encouraged to turn - towards the central altar with its monstrance.204 It was a commonplace in medieval theology that the philosophers of antiquity could not agree about anything, whereas the theologians of the Church spoke with one voice. In the De civitate Dei Augustine treats the theme, and Lactantius devoted an entire book of his Divinae institutiones to the subject.205 It seems probable that

202. Glossa Ordinária^ commentary on I Peter 2.8: 'Cum Christus sit lapis in quo sustententur et tuti quiescant boni, incredulis erit causa offensionis in praesenti non credentibus in eum est ideo cadentes sunt de vitio in vitium. Est in futuro petra scandali, quia ad ilium lapidem Christum quern tanquam humilem conculcaverunt, collidentur gressus eorum, et cadent in ignem aeternum qui paratus est diabolo et angélus eius.'

203. For a different reading of the architecture ('The learned company gains extra allure from the imposing architecture in the background') , see Kempers (as in n. 12), p. 18. 204. A feature also noted in A. Kuhn, Roma: die

Denkmale des heidnischen, unterirdischen, neuen Rom in Wort und Bild, Einsiedeln 191 2, p. 439; Pastor (as in n. 6), pp. 1003 and 1022-23.




the fragmented composition of the School of Athens and the unified composition of the Disputa are meant to pick up on this well-known notion.

Indeed, one can perhaps go further, and suggest that there is meant to be some satire on philosophy in the School ofAthens.This is most evident in the group in the left foreground, with two men trying to peer over Pythagoras's shoulder to get some idea of what he is up to. Then, too, there is the figure of Diogenes on the step; the young man to his right who points at him seems to be worried that he will be trampled underfoot by the advancing Plato and Aristotle. The way that the two princes of philosophy march in between opposed ranks of fawning admirers can also, once one has been alerted to it, seem faintly ridiculous, as can the cries of enthusiasm round the figure of Euclid, who has, so far, only drawn two tri- angles on a board. What we see here, one might argue, is a group of vain men wasting their time in the company of deluded sycophants. This reading may sound heretical today, but an interpretation of this kind would have come easily to an observer, like Julius II, who was familiar with Augustine and Lactantius.206

The theme of the blindness of the ancients and the wisdom of the Church can also be read in the fresco which, on the face of it, is the most secular of the four, the Parnassus (Fig. 15). The overtly blind Homer walks forward without a guide, and is about to tumble over a small precipice into the lap of Sappho. She in her turn, as Matthias Winner has shown, is on the verge of jumping from a cliff into the sea, the role she adopts in Ovid's Heroides.207 The other poets - as in the School of Athens - stand in groups, either arguing, or discussing the merits of their poems. Only one poet on the mountain seems to have a purposeful air (Fig. 16): Dante, who solemnly steps forward to be presented by Vergil to Apollo and the Muses. Since Dante also appears in the Disputa (Fig. 17), his credentials as a Christian poet are clear, and the significance of his presence in this company seems plain: he is the poet who has seen the light of truth, while Homer, immediately in front of him, stumbles in pagan darkness. The whole Parnassus can be read in a Dantean light. Cristoforo Landino, in his commentary on the Commedia, when writing of the hymn to Apollo (which seems to be alluded to in Raphael's fresco of the flaying of Marsyas, Fig. 7),208 said that 'Helicon stands for theology, which alone has knowledge of divine things'.209 His phrase, 'cognitione delle chose celesti', is, of course, the Italian correlate of 'divinarum rerum notitia', which we have encountered as the definition of theology above the Disputa. Landino also maintained that 'although [Dante] says Apollo, he means divine grace, illuminating, sustaining and consuming, and finally the Holy Spirit itself'.210

205. De civitate Dei, xviii.41; Lactantius, Divinae institutiones, in. See too the Pseudo-Clementine, Re- cognitiones, 1.3. The biblical foundation of the view is Colossians 2.8-10; cf. Acts 17.15-34. 206. That similar attitudes were still alive in Julius's

day is suggested by the pronouncement on philosophy of the Fifth Lateran Council: see n. 148 above.

207. Winner (as in n. 15), p. 286; he observes that what was known about Sappho in Julius's time came principally from Ovid. 208. See p. 113 above. 209. Cristoforo Landino, Comento sopra la Comedia,

ed. P. Procaccioli, Rome 2001, p. 1569: 'Helicone ponga per la theologia, la quale ha sole cognitione delle chose celesti . . .'



PAUL TAYLOR 133

15. Raphael, Parnassus. Vatican Palace, Stanza della Segnatura

Raphael's Parnassus, then, can be read as a Christian allegory, and possibly was so read by Julius: although we should note that there is no evidence he owned a copy of Landino's Dante commentary. Secular readings are also possible, and it may be that the pope interpreted the fresco in different ways depending on company or mood. But it seems likely, from the presence of Dante, that Raphael was making allowance for a religious reading.

That the School of Athens and the Parnassus can be interpreted in a theological light is, surely, not so very surprising, when one considers the decoration of the adjoining rooms in the Vatican palace. The paintings of the Stanza deU'Eliodoro - the Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple, the Liberation ofSt Peter, the Encounter of Leo I with Attila and the Mass at Bolsena - are all concerned in a straightforward way with the supremacy of Pope and Church. At least two of these paintings, the Expulsion and the Mass, were executed during Julius's lifetime, and the other subjects (despite the large portrait of Leo X in the painting oïLeo and Attila) were chosen during the papacy of Julius.211 In the third of the papal rooms, the Stanza

210. Ibid., p. 1570: Ό divina virtú: o divino furore d'Apolline, et per transito dimostra ehe benché dica Apolline intende Ia divina gratia illuminante cooperante et consumante, et finalmente epso Spirito sancto.'

211. A. Nesselrath, 'The Stanza d'Eliodoro', in G. Cornini et al., Raphael in the Apartments of Julius

II and Leo X3 Vatican City 1993, pp. 202-45 (232); M. Rohlmann, '"Domini mini adiutor": zu Raffaels Ausmalung der Stanza d'Eliodoro unter den Päpsten Julius II. und Leo X.', Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte^ Lix, 1996, pp. 1-28.




dell'Incendio, the theme of papal supremacy was continued, with a decided Leonine bias, in frescoes of The Oath of Purgation of Leo III, Leo III crowning Charlemagne, Leo IV miraculously extinguishing the Fire in the Borgo di San Pietro and The Saracen Fleet defeated at the Battle of Ostia in the Presence of Leo IV.212 Moreover, on the ceiling of the Stanza deirincendio are frescoes by Perugino which were painted during Julius's pontificate; they represent Christ between Mercy and Justice, The Trinity with the Apostles, Christ as Sol lustitiae and the Temptation of Christ, and God the Father Enthroned. And the iconography of the large hall adjacent to the Stanze, the Sala di Costantino, continues this clear and consistent ecclesiastical message, with its paintings of the first Christian emperor and his supposed Donation to the Church.213 The idea, then, that the School of Athens and the Parnassus may be presenting their subjects from the viewpoint of traditional theology should not seem so unreasonable, given the relentlessly ecclesiastical tenor of the decoration in the rooms to either side of the papal library.

The argument I have presented in this article pushes a theological reading of the frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura somewhat further than has been attempted in the literature to date,214 but I would like to emphasise, by way of conclusion, that I do not suppose the decoration of the room was chosen, from

the very beginning, as a vehicle for papal propaganda. The four walls are clearly meant to represent four of the principal subjects in a typical Renais- sance library, with their practitioners. If theological doctrines creep in, that is because the patron was a pope, and he inevitably thought about intellectual matters from an ecclesiastical point of view. So the Disputa reflects thoughts on the power of the papacy to bind and to loose; the Justice wall, with its

16. (left) Raphael, Parnassus, detail: Dante

17. (right) Raphael, Disputa, detail: Dante

212. J. Jacoby, Bildform und Rechtsnorm: Raphael in der Stanza dell'Incendio im Vatikanischen Palast, Berlin 2007. 213. R. Quednau, Die Sala di Costantino im Vatikan-

ischen Palast: zur Dekoration der beiden Medici-Päpste Leo X und Clemens VII, Hildesheim 1979; G. Cornini, A. M. De Strobel and M. Serlupi Crescenzi, "The

Sala di Costantino', in Cornini et al. (as in n. 15), pp. 166-201; M. Rohlmann, 'Leoninische Siegverheisung und clementinische Heilserfullung in der Sala di Costantino', Zeitschrift ßr Kunstgeschichte, LVII, 1994, pp. 153-69·

214. See in particular Kempers (as in n. 12), and Winner (as in η. 15).



PAUL TAYLOR 135

depiction of secular law squeezed into a corner by canon law, reminds us of the scope of papal jurisdiction;215 the School of Athens, by showing the philosophers 'bickering among themselves in contradictory errors',216 reminds the viewer of theology's pre-eminence in human thought; and in the Parnassus Dante is intro- duced, both in person and in the Marsyas allusion on the ceiling, to contrast the truth of Christian poetry with the fables and fictions of the ancients. But none of this, I think, was intended from the first; out of the original plan, to produce a straightforward library decoration, a loosely constructed theological statement emerged, reflecting the orthodox opinions of an unphilosophical pope.

Appendix The Inventories of Julius IPs Library

The lists of books which follow are discussed above, on pp. 11 6-1 8. They have been published before, by Léon Dorez (cited in n. 33). I have made use of his work while compiling a fresh transcription from microfilm copies, but differences between this transcription and Dorez's are purely superficial: I have reintroduced the wayward orthography of the original.

I fol. iiir

Inventarium librorum a Jannocto Lobera ex Custodia rerum secretarum Pape habitorum

1 Decretales ex membranis in velluto rubro 2 Decretum ex membranis in velluto rubro 3 Plinius in velluto celestino ex membranis 4 Orationes Ciceronis ex membranis in velluto rubro 5 Titus livius ab Urbe condita ex membranis in velluto viridi 6 T. Livius de bello macedonico ex membranis in velluto viridi 7 T. Livius ab urbe condita ex membranis in velluto viridi217 8 T. Livius de bello Macedonico ex membranis in velluto viridi 9 Titus Livius de bello púnico ex membranis in velluto viridi

10 Hieronymi Epistole ex membranis in velluto rubro 11 Hieronymi Epistole ex membranis in raso pavonatio 12 Hieronymus contra Luciferianum ex membranis in velluto pavonatio 13 Marci Vegerii Cardinalis Senogalliensis Decacordum ex membranis in raso

carmusino 14 Augustinus deTrinitate ex membranis in gilbo

215. A point also made by Pastor (as in n. 6), p. 993. 216. Augustine, De civitate Dei, xvin.41: 'Nee in-

terest diaboli regis eius, quam contrariis inter se rixentur erroribus, quos mérito multae variaeque impietatis pariter possidet.'

217. Dorez (as in n. 33), p. 109, feared that the repetition of nos 5 and 6 might be an error on his part, 'une dittographie*. However if this is a dittographie then the fault is Mammacini's, not Dorez's.




15 M. Tullii Ciceronis Rethorica nova ex membranis in pavonatio 16 Hieronymi Epistole ex membranis in raso Pavonatio 17 Augustinus de Civitate dei ex membranis in raso pavonatio 18 Tuchydides a Laurentio vallensi traductus ex membranis in velluto rubro 19 Eusebius de temporibus ex membranis in velluto violáceo 20 Breviarium ex membranis in velluto pavonatio 21 Breviarium Romanum ex membranis in velluto rubro 22 Cerimoniale ex membranis in raso viridi 23 Ioannis michaelis Nagonii pronosticon Hierosolymitanum ex membranis in

velluto rubro 24 Vergilius ex membranis in velluto pavonatio 25 Sillius italicus ex membranis in velluto gilbo 26 Paulus Cortesius in librum sententiarum ex membranis in velluto viridi

fol. iiiv 27 Herodotus a Laurentio vallensi traductus ex membranis in velluto violáceo 28 Columella ex membranis in velluto viridi 29 Commentaria Caesaris ex membranis in velluto gilbo 30 Pontificale ex membranis in velluto rubro 31 Hieronymi Vidae felsinaidos ex membranis in velluto rubro 32 Albertus magnus de mirabili scientia dei ex membranis in corio nigro 33 Thome Aquinatis Cathena aurea super Marco et Luca evangelistis in corio nigro 34 Augustinus de Civitate dei ex membranis in nigro 35 Gregorii Regestrum ex membranis in rubro 36 Augustinus de Civitate dei in nigro ex [sic] 37 Gesta Concilii Constantiensis ex membranis in nigro 38 Strabonis Cosmographia ex membranis in nigro 39 Thome Aquinatis Cathena aurea super Joanne evangelista ex membranis in gilbo 40 Lactantius in rubro ex [sic] 41 Aulus gellius ex membranis in nigro impressus 42 M. Tullii Ciceronis Verrine ex membranis in rubro 43 Christophorus marcellus de anima ex papyro in rubro impressus 44 Terentius et Ruffinus de versificatura ex membranis in rubro 45 Cassiodorus ex membranis in rubro 46 Valerius Maximus ex membranis in rubro 47 Ciceronis Tusculane ex membranis in gilbo 48 Franciscus petrarcha de remediis utriusque fortune ex papyro in [sic] 49 Aristotelis Política a Leonardo Arretino traducta ex membranis in rubro 50 Blondi Decas secunda ex membranis in nigro 51 Suetonius ex membranis in nigro 52 Ptolomei Cosmographia ex membranis in rubro 53 Zenonis sermones ex membranis in rubro 54 Ptolomei tabulae ex ligno in rubro

fol. ΐΐ2Γ 55 Lactantius ex membranis in nigro 56 Aristoteles de moribus ab Argyropolo traductus ex membranis in nigro 57 Cassianus ex membranis in rubro 58 Maximi Tyrii philosophi Platonici sermones a Cosma Paccio archiepiscopo



PAUL TAYLOR 137

Florentino traducti ad Julium II ex membranis in rubro 59 Aggregatio sententiarum omnium doctorum ex papyro in nigro impressus 60 Blondi forliviensis historiarum liber primus ex membranis in rubro 61 Leonis pape sermones ex membranis in gilbo 62 Lactantius firmianus ex membranis in rubro 63 Magister sententiarum ex membranis in rubro 64 Isacius Constantinopolitanus ex membranis in rubro 65 Pauli apostoli epistole ex membranis in rubro 66 Salustius ex membranis in nigro 67 Biblia ex membranis in broccato rubro 68 Antonius de butrio super primo Decretalium ex papyro in tabulis 69 Clementine ex papyro in tabulis 70 Missale fratrum minorum ex membranis in nigro 71 Augustinus de Civitate dei ex membranis in nigro 72 Biblie pars prima ex papyro in rubro 73 Ioannis Tortellii Orthographia ex papyro in rubro 74 Biblia ex membranis in serico azurro 75 Innocenta Quarti et Nicolai Tertii Decretales nove ex membranis in albo 76 Gecellinus de Cassanis super VIo et Joannes monachi super eodem ex

membranis in albo 77 Abbatis discipuli Innocentii Lectura ex membranis in tabulis 78 Breviarium magnum ex membranis in pavonatio 79 Regni Sicilie infeudatio ex membranis in rubro 80 Ciceronis Epistole ex papyro in nigro impresse 81 Salomonis Parabole glossate ex membranis in rubro 82 Exodus et Leviticus glossati ex membranis in rubro 83 Hieronymi secundum volumen epistolaram ex membranis in rubro

fol. II2V 84 Biblia ex membranis in brocchato rubro 85 Magister sententiarum ex membranis in rubro 86 Paralipomenon et Maccabeorum libri ex membranis in nigro 87 Candidus de Civilibus Romanorum bellis ex Appiano alexandrino ex papyro in

nigro impressus 88 Plinii Epistolarum liber primus ex membranis in serico rubro 89 Ciceronis Epistole ex membranis in velluto celestino consumpto 90 Montisregalis Ecclesie privilegiorum liber ex papyro in tabulis 91 Manipulus florum ex membranis in rubro 92 Breviarum magnum ex membranis in rubro 93 Hieronymi Primum Epistolarum volumen ex papyro in nigro impressum 94 Pauli apostoli Epistole ad Gaiatas ex membranis in nigro 95 Biblia ex membranis in rubro 96 Numeri Deuteronomii Josue Judicum et Ruth libri ex membranis in nigro 97 Pauli apostoli Epistole ad Romanos et Corinthios ex membranis in nigro 98 Augustini Omilie ex membranis in nigro 99 Decretum ex membranis in rubro

100 Ambrosius de incarnatione verbi cum aliis operibus ex membranis in rubro 101 Decretum ex membranis in rubro




102 Gregorii liber xviiii moralium ex membranis in nigro 103 M.T. Ciceronis Orationes ex membranis in pavonatio 104 Hieronymi Epistole ex membranis in rubro 105 Joannes de Imola super i° Decretalium ex papyro in rubro 106 Décrétâtes ex papyro in albo 107 Hugo super Decreto ex membranis in gilbo 108 Joannis Andrée Novella ex membranis in rubro 109 Sextus Decretalium ex membranis in gilbo no Ambrosius super Xlm Psalmis ex membranis in rubro in Repertorium in Jure canónico sine nomine auctoris ex papyro in rubro

impressus 112 Archidiaconi Rosarium super Decreto ex membranis in rubro

fol. ii3r 113 Digestum vêtus ex membranis in albo 114 Speculum ex membranis in rubro 115 Gregorii moralia ex papyro in rubro impressa 116 De vita et honestate Clericorum ex papyro in tabulis 117 Bartolus super totó Digesto novo ex membranis in rubro 118 Clementine ex membranis in viridi 119 Sextus ex membranis in gilbo 120 Joannis andree Novella super VIo ex papyro in rubro 121 Sextus ex papyro in nigro impressus 122 Gregorii Vita ex membranis in viridi 123 Marcus et Matheus evangeliste cum glossa ex membranis in rubro 124 Aulus gellius noctium Atticarum ex membranis in nigro 125 Leonardi Arretini historie florentine ex membranis in pavonatio 126 Clementine ex membranis in gilbo 127 Hieronymi secundum Epistolaram Volumen ex membranis in rubro impressum 128 Hieronymus super Ezechielem ex membranis in rubro 129 Ludovici de Roma consilia et allegationes ex papyro in chartis impressa 130 Clementine ex membranis in gilbo 131 Biblia pars secunda ex papyro in viridi 132 Bartholomeus Brixiensis super Decreto ex membranis in albo fracto 133 Nicolai de Lyra pars 2a ex papyro in gilbo 134 D. P. Cardinalis super ia parte secundi Decretalium ex papyro in tabulis 135 Clementine ex papyro in nigro impresse 136 Digestum novum ex membranis in rubro 137 Bartoli lectura super 39o Digestorum libro ex membranis in rubro 138 Concórdia discordantium Canonum ex membranis in albo 139 Clementine ex membranis sine tabulis 140 Ordinarium Misse Pontificalis ex membranis in gilbo 141 Sanctorum Patrum Vite ex membranis in rubro 142 Augustini de Civitate dei primum volumen ex membranis in rubro

fol. ii3v 143 Prophète Xllm cum glossa ex membranis in rubro 144 Liber Censuum Romane Ecclesie ex membranis in gilbo 145 Basilius super Psalmis in greco ex membranis in rubro



PAUL TAYLOR 139

146 Paulus Orosius ex membranis in rubro 147 Pontificale impressum ex papyro in rubro 148 Cypriani Epistole ex membranis in rubro 149 Gregorius super Ezechielem ex membranis in rubro 150 Pauli Florentini sermones quadragesimales ex membranis in gilbo impressi 151 Ordo septem Ecclesiasticorum graduum ex membranis in gilbo 152 Sanctorum Patrum instituta ex membranis in rubro 153 Quintilianus de institutione Oratória ex membranis in rubro 154 Β. de Luca de Vitis Pontificum ex papyro in nigro 155 Diogenes Laertius de Vitis Philosophorum ex membranis in rubro 156 Clementine ex membranis in viridi 157 Historia Scolastica ex membranis in rubro 158 Clementine ex membranis in albo 159 Seneca de Clementia ad Neronem ex membranis in rubro 160 Cyrilli Thesaurus ex membranis in rubro 161 De Officiis in velluto viridi ex membranis 162 Joannes bocchatius de Claris mulieribus ex membranis in albo 163 Qualiter procedatur ad Electionem Summi Pontificis ex membranis in viridi 164 Taxe omnium mundi Ecclesiarum ex membranis in rubro 165 Quinternus Epitaphiorum Romane antiquitatis ex membranis in rubro

impressus 166 Iuvenalis ex membranis in rubro 167 Lucanus ex membranis in gilbo 168 Computorum liber primus ex papyro in rubro 169 Computorum liber secundus ex papyro in rubro 170 Pierii Valeriani libellus ex membranis in serico carmusino impressus 171 Naldus Florentinus ex membranis in serico viridi 172 Declamationes varie ex membranis in rubro 173 Sententiarum liber ex membranis in rubro

fol. ii4r 174 Iannotti manetti laudatio Ianuensium ex membranis in [sic] 175 Joannis philippi de lignamine libellus ad Sixtum Illlm ex membranis in cartis

impressus 176 Armandi de marano medicina vulgaris ex papyro in rubro 177 Venturinus Prior de laudibus Sixti IIII ex membranis in rubro 178 Ovidius Naso de Tristibus ex membranis in rubro 179 Salustius ex membranis in rubro 180 Laurentii Parmenii libellus ex membranis in serico rubro 181 Raphael brandolinus de laudibus Julii pape II ex membranis in serico

charmusino 182 Quadragesimale sine nomine authoris ex papyro in rubro impressum 183 Biblia ex membranis in albo

Nonnulli ex supranotatis libris habent serraturas argênteas / aliqui deargentatas: aliqui vero sunt minimi pretii




fol. ii4v Inventarium librorum Julii Pape ii Rmo Car11 de Aragonia de mandato collegii consignatorum

ι Plinius cum tribus serraturis argenteis in broccato 2 Titus Livius de bello Macedonico cum quatuor serraturis octo angulis et duabus

rosis in médio argenteis; deest clavus unius anguli in brocchato 3 Titi Livii ab Urbe condita libri X in eodem volumine cum quatuor serraturis et

octo angulis argenteis ac duabus rosis in medio; deest clavus unus argenteus in serratura et alter in uno angulo in brocchato

4 Titi livii de secundo bello Púnico libri X cum quatuor serraturis octo angulis et duabus rosis in medio argenteis deest parvus clavus in una serratura in brocchato

5 Thomas de Aquino super Marcum evangelistam in brocchato sine serraturis 6 Ausonius in brocchato sine serraturis 7 Mathei evangelium in brocchato sine serraturis 8 Senece opera in velluto rubro cum quattuor serraturis ottonis 9 Thome de Aquino Pars prima Secunde 21 in velluto viridi cum quattuor serraturis

ottonis 10 Tuchydides a Laurentio Vallensi traductus in velluto rubro cum quatuor serraturis

peltri seu ottonis deargentati 11 Thomas de Aquino de Rege et Regno cum quatuor serraturis argenteis in

brocchato rubro 12 Bíblia cum quatuor serraturis argenteis inauratis in velluto nigro consumpto 13 Josephus de bello iudaico cum quatuor serraturis octo angulis et duobus

festonibus argenteis in medo in raso rubro 14 Aratus de Stellis cum commento Germanici cum quatuor serraturis argenteis in

velluto rubro 15 Thomas de Aquino de spiritualibus creaturis in corio rubro cum quattuor

serraturis ottonis 16 Vincentii historialis pars prima cum tribus serraturis argenteis in rubro corio 17 Vincentii historialis pars 2a in pavonatio cum quattuor serraturis ottonis 18 Vincentii historialis pars 3 a cum quatuor serraturis argenteis in corio rubro

fol. ii5r 19 Vincentii historialis pars 4 a cum quatuor serraturis argenteis in rubro corio 20 Vincentii historialis pars 5 a cum quatuor serraturis argenteis in rubro corio 21 Thomas de Aquino super epistola Pauli ad Corinthios in rubro corio deaurato sine

serraturis 22 Augustini Omilie et Sermones in rubro corio cum quattuor serraturis ottonis 23 Albertus magnus de mirabili scientia dei cum quatuor serraturis argenteis in

rubro corio 24 Hieronymus in Xllm Prophetis minoribus in rubro corio cum quattuor serraturis

cupri

* Words in italics are added in a different hand in the original.



PAUL TAYLOR 141

25 Cyrilli Thesaurus in rubro corto cum quattuor serraturis ottonis 26 Polybius cum quatuor serraturis argenteis in rubro corto deaurato 27 M. Tullii Ciceronis Verrine et Philippice in viridi corio cum quatuor serraturis cupri 28 Homeri Ilias per Laurentium vallensem traducta in nigro corio cum quattuor

serraturis ottonis 29 Albertus magnus de laudibus virginis Marie cum quattuor serraturis argenteis in

rubro corio 30 Paulini episcopi Nolani Epistole in pavonatio cum quatuor serraturis ottonis 31 Beda de temporibus in gilbo cum quattuor serraturis ottonis 32 Franciscus Petrarcha de Viris illustribus in rubro corio cum 4or serraturis cupri 33 Plinii et aliorum Panegirici in pavonatio corio cum quattuor serraturis ottonis 34 Athanasii Vita in rubro corio cum 4or serraturis ottonis 35 Livanii Epistole in rubro corio cum duabus serraturis ottonis 36 Angeli Decembrii de Politia litteraria in nigro 37 Caesaris commentaria in raso rubro

Postrema haec duo volumina. remanserunt in Bibliotheca / quae cum reliquis 35. superius annotatis voluminibus / sunt ex membranis

Warburg Institute



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