Carolus Scribanius's Observations on Art in Antwerp

Author(s): Julius S. Held

Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 59 (1996), pp. 174-204
Published by: The Warburg Institute
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 CAROLUS SCRIBANIUS'S OBSERVATIONS
ON ART IN ANTWERP
Julius S. Held

mong the last books published by Jan I Moretus (1543-1610), head of

the famous Plantin Press at Antwerp, were two slim volumes by Carolus
Scribanius (1561-1629), rector of the Jesuit College and soon to become
Provincial of his order for the entire South-Netherlandish region (Fig. 49).'
The son of an Italian physician, scion of a distinguished family from Piacenza and
a Flemish mother from Ghent, Scribanius was born in Brussels, where his father,
Hector Scribani, a personal friend of Alessandro Farnese, had settled as a medical
functionary of the court.2 Carolus joined the Jesuit Order in 1582 and in rapid suc-
cession rose through the ranks, holding positions in a variety of localities until, in
1593, he was named prefect of studies in Antwerp, and rector in 1598. An engaged
promoter of the cause of the Counter-Reformation, he wrote several anti-Calvinist
tracts but became best known for his book Politico-Christianus(1624), in which he
defined the qualities of character and conduct desirable in ruling princes; its title-
page was designed by Rubens.3 Scribanius must have had some contact with Ru-
bens at least since the plans for the new Jesuit church had been developed in the
middle of the second decade; and although by that time residing in Brussels, Scri-
banius was present when the contract for Rubens's paintings for the ceiling of the
Antwerp church was signed on 29 March 1620.4 Yet the only evidence we have of
Scribanius's interest in and appreciation of the arts consists of about fifteen pages
in the first of two books whose principal aim was to eulogise the city of Antwerp.
Entitled Antverpiaand OriginesAntverpiensivmrespectively, they were both published
in 1610 and are frequently bound together.5 In the first volume, the author de-
scribes various aspects of life in the city, from its educational system and its citizens'
manners in food and dress, to its far-flung commerce and wealth. Several chapters
deal with the city's various cultural activities, above all the arts, but also its contri-
bution to learning and literature; and Scribanius ends, not surprisingly, with the
citizens' staunch adherence to the Catholic faith.6 In the second volume he traces

I For Scribanius (Scribani) see L. Brouwers, 4 See J. R. Martin, 77The

S.J., Caro-
lus Scribaini,Brussels 1977. I thank the Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna, for permission to reproduce this il-
lustration. Van Dyck's portrait was engraved by Pierre
Clouwet; see M. Mauquoy-Hendrickx,
d'AntoineVan Dyck, Brussels 1956, no. 170. L'Icoonographie
Its caption
reads: 'R.P. Carolus Scribanius Bruxellensis, e Socie-
tate IESV; in qua Antuerpiae et Bruxellae Rector, ac
Flandro-Belgicae Provincialis, per multos annos fuit.
Pietate, doctrina, consilio, rebus bono publico gestis,
libris editis clarus. Obijt Antuerpiae 24. lun. anno 1629,
aetatis 69.'
2 Brouwers, pp. 1-2.
3 See J. R. Judson and C. Van de Velde, Book Illus-
trationsand Title-pages(Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Bur-
chard, xxi), 2 vols, London and Philadelphia 1978, i,
no. 54a.
Ceiling Paintingsfor the Jesuit
Church in ,An4wez p (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Bur-
chard, i), Brussels 1968, pp. 213-15.
5 Scribanius's Aiitveipia and OriginesA utveipiensivnlpre-
cede by one year the first book written on the history
of Amsterdam, J. I. Pontanus's Rerun et urbisAmsteloda-
inensiumhistoriae,followed three years later with a Dutch
translation. On two pages Pontanus dealt with only five
artists; see E. J. Sluijter, De lof der schilderkuust:Over.schil-
derijen van Gerrit Dou (1613-1675) en eeu traktaat van
Philips Angel uit 1642, Hilversum and Verloren 1993, p.
78. I am indebted to Dr Sluijter for providing me with
the Dutch version of the pages on Amsterdam artists.
6 For a condensed summary of the content of both
books, in the order of the chapter-headings (27 for the
first, 16 for the second volume), see Brouwers (as in
n. 1), pp. 97-103.

174
journal of the Warburgand Courtauld Institutes, Volume 59, 1996
 SCRIBANIUSON ART 175

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Fig. 49-Anthony van Dyck,Portraitof CarolusScribanius,S.J.
Vienna, KunsthistorischesMuseum, Gemaldegalerie,no. 145

the dynastic, ecclesiastic and particularly the monastic history of the town, and de-
scribes in considerable detail Antwerp's most prominent edifices, taking the reader,
as it were, on an extended architectural tour. (Scribanius's enthusiasm for the eco-
nomic and cultural state of affairs of Antwerp should not make us forget that for
many decades Antwerp had been in a state of decline, and despite the true glory
that Rubens brought to the city in the years after the publication of Scribanius's
176 JULIUS S. HELD
books, the town never recovered the position of economic power it had held only
two generations before.7)
Written in a highly rhetorical Latin, both books offer a great deal of relevant
historical information; they have often been cited by cultural historians. Yet the
few pages Scribanius devoted to Antwerp's artists, above all, her painters, have
been almost totally neglected by historians of art. This can easily be understood:
Scribanius's pages on art provide little information not available, and in more re-
liable form, in other documents, including the works of art themselves. Scribanius's
aim, after all, was not historical but in a special way polemical. Yet no matter how
idiosyncratic his style and how sketchy and even distorted some of his descriptions
are, he obviously knew first-hand, and admired, some major works by Bruegel,
Floris, Massys, Hemessen and Coxcie. In the massive learned literature on these
masters, however, his name, as far as I can see, is not mentioned even once. The
only exception is Armin Zweite's relatively recent book (1980) on Marten de Vos,
giving Scribanius credit for having been first to mention two of the artist's paint-
ings.8 Thus not as a source, but as a peculiar historical document, Scribanius's
pages deserve to be better known; it is the aim of this paper to make them available
in their original form and, for the first time, in translation, accompanied by some
explanatory and critical notes.9
Scribanius surely knew that in composing these two volumes 'in praise of Ant-
werp' he aligned himself squarely with a venerable literary tradition. The eulogy of
cities (laudes urbium, or Stddtelob)has long been recognised as a distinct literary
genre. Having emerged first in ancient Greece, it never disappeared, though after
having taken on different forms, it was again strongly revived in the Renaissance.10
If 'praising Antwerp' was Scribanius's principal objective, there has been woven
into it also a subtext, particularly noticeable in the sections given to art. They are
dominated by the equally age-old intellectual game of comparing the past to the
present, or the 'ancients' to the 'moderns', a game which in Scribanius's own time
led to the heated controversies and claims of superiority known as the 'Querelle'."
7 For the literature on Antwerp's economic develop- Die Stadt im Spiegel der DescriptionesuandLaudes urbium
ment in the 16th century see L. Voet,Antweip, The Golden in der antiken uind mittelalterlichenLiteratur bis zurmEnde
Age, The Rise and Glory of the Metropolisin the Sixteenth des zwilften Jahrhunderts, Hildesheim, Zurich and New
Centiuy, Antwerp 1973, p. 460. Voet records that Ant- York 1986; see also E P. T Slits, Het Latijnse Stededicht:
werp's population was c. 100,000 in the middle of the Oorsprongen ontwikkelingtot in de zeventiendeEeuw, Am-
century but by 1589 it had dropped to 42,000 and 20% sterdam 1990. In the later Middle Ages writings in praise
of houses stood empty (p. 238). He concludes his re- of cities grew not only in length but also in specificity
marks by saying that at the end of the century the city (Classen, pp. 53-5). Aware of the variety in the social
'was a shadow of what it had once been.' stratification of the urban culture of their time, the
8 A. Zweite, Studien zu Marten de Vos als Maler: Ein authors of these encomia discuss not only the civic or-
Beitrag zur Geschichteder AntweipenerMalerei in der zwei- ganisations and ordinances of the cities described, but
ten Hilfte des 16. Jahrhunderts,3 vols, Berlin 1980. Zweite also the industry, enterprise and skill of their people.
also cites the sentence Scribanius wrote about de Vos's While Scribanius's two books on Antwerp are indebted
?hnptationof St Anthonyv(i, p. 22, 'Huius etiam est... quid to, and represent, a characteristic example of the literary
timere debeas'; for this quotation see the Appendix be- tradition of the laudes urbiumi,their immediate 'model'
low, p. 200). may well have been Lodovico Guicciardini's Descrittione
Mr Andrew P. Gregory kindly examined my trans- ... di tutti i Paesi Bassi, altrimentidetti Germaniainferiore,
-'
lation of Scribanius's text and clarified many difficult Antwerp 1567, 1588; for Guicciardini's forerunners see
passages. He also made valuable suggestions for the again C. J. Classen, 'Lodovico Guicciardini's Descrittione
formulation of the main text of this paper. I am also and the Tradition of the Laudes and Descriptiones
indebted to Elizabeth McGrath and Jill Kraye, editors Urbium', Actes du Colloqueinternatiotal: ?iavaux de lIns-
of the Journal, for the last polish they have given to the titut Interuniversitairepour l'Mtudede la Renaissance et de
translation. l'Humanisime,Brussels 1991, pp. 99-117. For the general
"I I am much indebted to Professor Carl Joachim tradition of panegyrical or epideictic oratory see E. R.
Classen, G6ttingen, whose work was brought to my at- Curtius, EuropeanLiteratureand The Latin MiddleAges, tr.
tention by my friend Paul-Oskar Kristeller, for references W. R. Trask, New York and Evanston 1963, pp. 68-71.
to the extensive literature on the laudes urbium(Stdidtelob). I For the historical background of the 'Querelle' see
For the ancient and medieval examples see Classen's R. Black, 'Ancients and Moderns in the Renaissance:
 SCRIBANIUS ON ART 177
There were prominent partisans on both sides of the argument, but also a good
many sensible critics who struck a reasonable balance, recognising the merits of
both camps. For a man of Scribanius's upbringing, heavily weighted as it was in
favour of the classics, the pre-eminence of the culture of Greece and ancient Rome
was surely an article of faith. But just as some Renaissance writers (among them
Vasari) had asserted that the achievements of some 'moderns' had equalled, if not
surpassed, the 'ancients', so Scribanius, engaged in writing his laus Antverpiae,
repeatedly maintained that Antwerp (in a later passage he extended it to all of
Belgium)"1 had brought forth many artists not a whit inferior to the celebrated
painters of ancient Greece.
Whatever Scribanius knew about ancient art he owed, as one would expect, to
Pliny's Naturalis historiaand principally to books xxxiv and xxxv.13 Moreover, when-
ever referring to specific works by Greek painters, he either quoted Pliny verbatim
or slightly paraphrased his words. Occasionally, he even adopted words from Pliny's
vocabulary in his commentaries on aspects of Flemish art. (See the notes to the
Latin text on pages 198-201 below.) His knowledge of the art of Antwerp and of
Northern art in general was restricted and largely confined to works in his close
environment: the majority of paintings mentioned were then located in Antwerp
Cathedral. For the planned confrontation of ancient and modern artists, Scribanius
limited himself to artists no longer alive, to avoid, as he says, reproaches from any
living one whom he may have passed over; to include all would have been too big
a job. This self-imposed limitation is all the more regrettable as by 1610 Rubens,
having recently returned from his long and successful stay in Italy, was unquestion-
ably recognised as Antwerp's foremost painter.
There is no more eloquent expression of a seventeenth-century artist's attitude
towards Pliny-a mixture of gratitude and regret-than Rubens's letter to Francis-
cus Junius of 1 August 1637.'~ He surely had Pliny in mind when he said, wistfully,
that the works of the ancients are seen 'only in the imagination, like dreams, or
so obscured by words, that we try in vain to grasp them (as Orpheus the shade of
Eurydice)'.15 He knew that words can never substitute for the actual visual appear-
ance of the works they describe. Scribanius had no such scruples. He never seems
to have been conscious of the substantive 'otherness' of the physical reality of a
work of art, compared to its reflection in the medium of words. When pitting for
the sake of comparison a work by a Flemish painter against one he knew only from
Pliny's description, Scribanius never seems to have been troubled by the thought
that he knew the first from personal experience, while for the other he had only
the meagre words of an ancient author who, as we know, repeated the words of
Rhetoric and History in Accolti's Dialogue on the Pre- or the 1587 edition, published by Jacques Dalechamps
eminence of Men of His Own Time',Journal of the History in Lyons. For this paper I have relied chiefly on the
of Ideas, xliii, 1982, pp. 3-32. See also H. Baron, 'The text and the paragraph divisions as printed in Pliny the
Querelle of the Ancients and the Moderns as a Problem Elder, Chapterson the Histoty of Art, tr. K. Jex-Blake, with
for Renaissance Scholarship', ibid., xx, 1959, pp. 3-22. commentary and introduction by E. Sellers, London
12 For Scribanius,
Belgium, as he makes clear in the 1896.
first chapter of Origines Antverpiensium, comprises all 14 M. Rooses and C. Ruelens,
Correspondance de Rubenls
the traditional 17 provinces of the ancient Netherlands, et documnents epistolairesconcernantsa vie et ses oeiivres,6 vols,
seven of which, he claims, have now been subverted by Antwerp 1887-1909, vi, p. 179; for a translation see R.
'fraud'. His second chapter is devoted to the principal S. Magurn, The Lettersof Peter PaidulRubens, Cambridge,
province of the remaining group, Brabantia (Brabant), Mass. 1955, pp. 406-8.
which encompasses the city of Antwerp. The Belgians 15
'...quae sola imaginatione tanquam somnia se nobis
are identified as the Germanic tribe which drove out the offerunt et verbis tantum adumbrata ter frustra comn-
Gauls, but not without infusing Germanic toughness prensa (ut Orpheum Euridices imago)...'
(duritiaGerflmanica) with Gallic mind (mensGallica).
I: Scribanius might have used the edition of Pliny
published by Sigmund Feyerabend in Frankfurt in 1582,
178 JULIUS S. HELD
still earlier authors, who may or may not have actually seen the works they de-
scribed.'6
For his demonstration of the greatness of Antwerp's artists (all of them of the
sixteenth century), Scribanius generally begins with a work by a Greek painter that
Pliny had listed and in most cases also praised. He then shifts to the work of a
Flemish painter, asserting that it is equal in quality and as praiseworthy as the one
described by Pliny. Like Pliny, he mentions only a few details, with emphasis given
to the presumed emotional states of the 'actors'. Stressing their emotions, Scri-
banius obviously holds with Horace that feelings, joyful or sad, reverberate simi-
larly in the viewer of a work of art, as they do also in the reader of a poem; and
the intensity of that transfer of emotions provides a measure of the greatness of a
given work.17
Although most of the works listed by Scribanius were close at hand, he felt no
obligation to check his commentaries against the actual paintings. He surely wrote
his descriptions from memory, but his memory was not very reliable; nor was cor-
rectness of description important to him. What he really hoped to do was provide
his reader with the emotive tenor of the chosen works of art, based on his own
emotional reaction to them. In fact, one may even ask whether Scribanius's drama-
tisation of the various narratives does not have something in common with practices
learned through the SpiritualExercisesof St Ignatius, in the intense concentration, be-
yond what the artist provided, on how the characters would react-in bliss or in
pain-to the situation in which they find themselves. '
Surprisingly, Scribanius makes only one reference to Van Mander's book on the
Netherlandish artists, published just six years before.'9 He calls it, respectfully, I
think, a 'curiosum volumen',"' but clearly had not much use for it. (His character-
isation of Joachim Beuckelaer as a painter of 'apples... fowl, meats and fish' may
be an echo of Van Mander's 'vegetables, fruit, meat, birds and fish'."~)There was,
after all, a fundamental difference between the aims of both authors. Van Mander,
himself a painter, wrote as a historian, interested in biographical data, artistic fili-
ation and factual enumeration of works to the extent that he knew or had heard of
them, on the model of Vasari. For his book on the artists of the ancient world (Het
Leven der oude AntijckedoorluchtigheSchilders,first published in 1603), Van Mander
relied of course also on Pliny, but he read him critically and in the light of other
sources. Scribanius, in his much more modest undertaking, is above all a polemi-
cist, drumming his message of the excellence of Antwerp's artists relentlessly into
the consciousness of his readers.
Scribanius begins the section on paintings (Arspictoria) with a broad eulogy of
Flemish art in general. Yet even in this passage, where no individual painter is
named, his dependence on Pliny is painfully obvious. When he praises local artists
for having given their figures 'oris venustas', 'capilli elegantia', 'oculorum argutiae',
16 For
Pliny's sources for his chapters on art see Sellers's function of ekphrasisin Byzantine literature see also L.
introduction (as in n. 13). James and R. Webb, "'To Understand Ultimate Things
17 Horace, Ars
poetica, 102-8. and Enter Secret Places": Ekphrasis and Art in Byzan-
'8 This is not the place to go into the tradition of ek- tium', Art History,xiv.1, 1991, pp. 1-17.
phrasesand the currently much discussed field of poetry 1i' Carel van Mander, Het leven der doorluchtigheneder-
describing works of art. It is well known that the writers laindtsche en hooghdluytscheschilders,Alkmaar 1604.
of such poems tend to flesh out the visual images with 2( 'Curiosus' is here
certainly used in a complimentary
actions and sensations befitting that context. For a valu- sense, implying that Van Mander's volume is both well-
able discussion of these problems, in connection with a informed and carefully worked out. See H. Miedema,
review of G. J. M. Weber,Der Lobtoposdes 'lebenden'Bildes. 'Karel van Mander: Did he write Art Literature?', Simi-
Jan JbosuindseiM'Zeegeder Schilderkunist' von 1654 (Hilde- olius,xxii. 1-2, 1993/4, pp. 59-60.
21 Van Mander
sheim, Zurich and New York 1991), see H. Luijten in (as in n. 19), fol. 238".
Simiolus,xxii.4, 1993/4, pp. 326-31. For the nature and
 SCRIBANIUSON ART 179
he is more or less repeating (in different order) what Pliny had written about the
works of Parrhasius ('argutiae voltus', 'elegantia capilli', 'venustas oris').22 But when
he continues talking about the complexity of the folds of garments or the exag-
gerated anatomies of the figures, he may indeed have had in mind works of the
Flemish painters to whom he turns in the following paragraphs. And even though
there is a remote analogy in his classification of landscape motifs with Pliny's list-
ing of the landscapes by Studius,2" it shows that Scribanius was fully aware of the
importance and the specific nature of Flemish landscape painting in the sixteenth
century. Before turning to the individual painters he had selected for this chapter
Scribanius proudly asserts that more artists had originated in Antwerp ('ex hac una
Republica') in one century (the sixteenth) than in all previous ones. With his last
words he comes back once more to the basic theme of his study, the making of a
fair comparison between the ancients and the moderns: 'Repetamus grata veteres
memoria, et quantum fas est componamus' ('Let us recall those of old with a grate-
ful memory and, as far as is appropriate, use them as a comparison').
As the first artist to be his witness for the glory of Antwerp's art Scribanius chose
Frans Floris (1519/20-70). This alone attests to the writer's good judgement since
Floris was unquestionably the foremost representative of the 'official' (Italianate)
practice of art in the middle of the sixteenth century; as such he was the counter-
part of Pieter Bruegel, his contemporary, of whose greatness Scribanius was also
fully aware. Moreover, Scribanius picked for his 'comparison' what is surely an
outstanding work of Floris, if not his masterpiece: the Fall of the Rebel Angels, now
in the Antwerp Museum but formerly in Antwerp Cathedral (Fig. 50).24 For the
juxtaposition with an ancient work he chose a 'celebrated' painting by Bularchos,
depicting the Battle of the Magnetes.25The case is instructive since the sequence in
which Scribanius arranged the two works (beginning with Bularchos) surely re-
verses the actual process of his thoughts about them. Being deeply, and justifiably,
impressed with Floris's painting-a combat pitting St Michael and his heavenly
Host against Lucifer and the forces of darkness-he had evidently looked in Pliny's
Historia naturalis for a renowned Greek painting also depicting a battle; and while
he knew no more of Bularchos's work than its subject, it had for him at least the
special interest of having been acquired by Candaules, King of Lydia, who (as Pliny
said) paid its weight in gold. Describing the fierce struggle in Floris's painting,
Scribanius centres on the powerful emotions displayed by both sides, even to the
extent of 'hearing' their vociferous exclamations.
In the second painting by Floris that Scribanius describes, the Assumptionof the
Virgin26 (no longer extant), he recalls particularly the joyful mood conveyed by
angels who apparently accompany the Virgin as she ascends to heaven. The picture
was set up on the high altar of the cathedral where, half a century later, another
Assumption of the Virgin was placed-a work still in the same location today-
Rubens's painting of c. 1626.27 Scribanius reserved his longest commentary on a
picture by Floris for the Last Judgement, presumably the canvas now in Brussels
22
Pliny (as in n. 13), xxxv.67. Velde suggests (on the basis of records of relatively small
23
Ibid., xxxv. 116. payments) that Floris repaired the work, but states firm-
24 Signed 'FF.IV [Invenit] ET.FA [Faciebat] 1554'. See ly that it was removed from the church 'shortly after 10
C. Van de Velde, Frans Floris (1519/20-1570): Leven en May 1581'. Since Scribanius singled out the 'joyful angels'
Werken,Brussels 1975, pp. 209-13, no. 62. I thank the accompanying the Virgin, it is possible that his memory
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp was reinforced by Van Mander's text, which had also
for permission to reproduce this illustration. made reference to these angels.
25 Pliny (as in n.
13), xxxv.55. 27 See D. Freedberg, Rubens, The Life of Christafter the
26 Van de Velde
(as in n. 24), pp. 280-2, no. 139. The Passion (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, vii),
triptych of the Assumptionof the Virgin, done in 1561-4, London 1984, no. 43.
was severely damaged by iconoclasts in 1566. Van de
180 JULIUS S. HELD

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Fig. 50-Frans Floris, The Fall of the RebelAngels. Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor
Schone Kunsten, no. 112
 SCRIBANIUSON ART 181

Fig. 51-Frans Floris,TheLastJudgement(triptych).Brussels, MusdesRoyauxdes

Beaux-Artsde Belgique, no. 92

(Fig. 51).28 He points particularly to the contrast between the happiness of the elect
and the suffering of the damned, both painted so forcefully that the viewer himself
is 'terrified by the scenes of torture, but elated by those of rejoicing' 29
Mentioning only briefly a Last Judgement by Jacques de Backer (1540/5-before
1600),"3 Scribanius turns to a painting that appears to have held a particular fasci-
nation for him, Bruegel's Massacreof the Innocents (Fig. 52).3" (As an introduction he
refers to several paintings by Parrhasius [Pliny, Historia naturalis, xxxv.70-1], one of
which-a nurse holding an infant-forms a striking contrast to the pitiful action in
Bruegel's picture.)
28 In the 1560s Floris painted two versions of the Last in the same order Van Mander had mentioned them (as
Judgement.They are closely related to each other and to in n. 19, fol. 241). His commentary, at any rate, is clearly
some extent use the same figural groups and actions. his own.
The first, of 1565, condenses the many different goings- 30 For De Backer see
J. Miiller Hofstede, Jacques
on into one unified field, while the second, of 1566, de Backer, Ein Vertreter der florentinisch-r6mischen
distributes them over the three fields of a triptych (see Maniera in Antwerpen', Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch, xxxv,
Van de Velde, as in n. 24, nos 180 and 178-9 respect- 1973, pp. 227-60. Scribanius probably had in mind De
ively). The earlier one seems to have been acquired by Backer's Last Judgement of 1591, painted for the epi-
Emperor Rudolf II (1552-1612) at an unknown date; its taph of Christopher Plantin and his family in Antwerp
first appearance (in a Prague inventory) is in 1621. It is Cathedral (ibid., fig. 5). Another Last Judgement by De
signed 'FF. ANTVERPIEN.INVE.FAC.1565', and Van Backer, of 1571, is in the Antwerp Museum (ibid., fig. 1).
de Velde argues convincingly that the stress on the place 31 I thank the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, for
of origin may indicate a foreign commission; thus it is permission to reproduce this illustration. The painting is
more likely that Scribanius knew the second version, known in several versions, of which the one at Hamp-
signed 'FFL.ET.fec.A.1566', which today is in the Brus- ton Court, though sadly disfigured by later alterations
sels Museum; it came from the church of Notre-Dame and restorations, is generally accepted as the original;
du Sablon in Brussels, where Scribanius could have seen see E Grossmann, Bruegel, The Paintings, London [1973],
it, if it was not at that time still in an Antwerp location. nos 110 (Vienna), 111 (Hampton Court). See also L.
I thank the Musdes Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique Campbell, The Early FlemishPicturesin the Collectionof Her
for permission to reproduce the illustration. Majesty the Queen, Cambridge, London, New Rochelle,
29 It
may be no more than coincidence, but is worth Melbourne and Sydney 1985, no. 9. Campbell cites 13
noting that Scribanius lists the three paintings by Floris versions of which four stand out for their quality, but he
182 JULIUS S. HELD

r!"'N

.
.. e

MR,,

I j

iA'.

Fig. 52-Pieter Bruegel the Younger(?),TheMassacreof theInnocents.Vienna,

KunsthistorischesMuseum, Gemaldegalerie,no. 1024

Bruegel's painting had also attracted the attention of Van Mander, who men-
tioned it twice: in his poetic instruction for painters, the Grondtder Edel vry Schilder-
Konst (1604), and in the lives of the Nederlandtscheen HoogduytscheSchilders(also
1604).32 In both places he singled out a group of people (he calls them a family)
begging a soldier to spare the life of a child whose mother is about to faint; in the
rhymed text of the Grondtthe soldier admits to pity but claims, regretfully, that he
has to follow the king's command. What Van Mander surprisingly failed to men-
tion, Scribanius points out in his first sentence: that the action painted by Bruegel
takes place in a wintry setting, the ground solidly covered with snow. No matter
how distorted his description may be in other respects, this observation alone would
suggest, I believe, that Scribanius had seen and remembered either Bruegel's orig-
inal or an early copy. Yet having apparently no reliable recollection of the separate
actions depicted by Bruegel, Scribanius interpolated into Bruegel's work variations
on a gruesome incident found in Pliny's description of a painting by Aristides,
which was admired (and acquired) by Alexander the Great.33In that picture, ren-
dering the sack of a city, Aristides had painted a mother wounded to death, who,
seeing her infant child crawling towards her breast, fears that it might suck her
blood now that her milk has dried up. Whatever explanation we may choose for it,
too considers the Hampton Court example the best. He 3" Pliny (as in n. 13), xxxv.98.
does not mention Scribanius's book.
32 See Carel van Mander, Den grondt der edel vry schilder-
konst, Haarlem 1604, vi.54; and Het Leven... (as in n. 19),
fol. 233v.
 SCRIBANIUS ON ART 183

-: Li:' : :;i : `"-'m t.1 e

:: 4m,

J: -
--:
4"il ;

l~~Al L

of Christ(triptych,central panel).
Fig. 53-Quentin Massys(Metsijs),TheLamentation
Antwerp, Museum voor Schone Kunsten

Scribanius seems to have been obsessed with that action. In his fictitious descrip-
tion of Bruegel's panel he evokes first the colouristic contrast of the red of the
blood mingling with the white of the snow; he then proceeds to describe different
incidents, among them one of a child imbibing blood and milk from his mother's
breast, while in another scene a severely wounded child sucks the snow in its last
agony.34 Scribanius fails, however, to introduce the psychological pain of the dying
mother, who notices her child's approach to her breast. Instead, by multiplying the
incidents-and in this he may well have remembered the many different groups of
figures in Bruegel's panel-he claims superiority, in fact even 'victory' for the Flem-
ish painter in this rather uneven contest.35

34 In the Vienna version of Bruegel's Massacre of the
Innocentsthere is a small pool of blood on the snow near
the head of one of the children lying on the ground. Its
mother, wringing her hands in helpless sorrow, stands
nearby, implying almost certainly that the child is dead.
35 The macabre story which Pliny had told in 20 words
('oppido capto ad matris morientis ex volnere mammam
adrepans infans, intellegiturque sentire mater et timere
ne emortuo lacte sanguinem lambat') and which Van
Mander retold at nearly four times its length (Het Leven
184 JULIUS S. HELD

'NIN-

Fig. 54-Quentin Massys, Salomeoffersthe Head of StJohn the Baptist

(triptych, left panel). Antwerp, Museum voor Schone Kunsten
 SCRIBANIUS ON ART 185

Ado,,

Fig. 55-Quentin Massys, The MartyrdomofSt John the Evangelist

(triptych, right panel). Antwerp, Museum voor Schone Kunsten
186 JULIUS S. HELD
If Scribanius's description of Bruegel's Massacreof the Innocents,sparked by Pliny,
is more fantasy than observed reality, it is quite clear that he had reliable recol-
lections when he discussed the St John triptych by Quentin Massys (1508/9-11),
formerly in Antwerp Cathedral and now in Antwerp Museum (Fig. 53).? Against
this he pitted another famous Greek painting, the Sacrificeoflphigenia by Timantes."
The common denominator in this case was the pervasive sense of sorrow: in the
Sacrifice of Iphigenia the sorrow of the crowd assembled for the sacrifice, and par-
ticularly of the father offering his own daughter so that the Trojan adventure might
be successful; in the work by Massys, the group of mourners around Christ's dead
body, chief among them his mother, Mary. Leading us from figure to figure, Scri-
banius reads their poses as indicative of their profound anguish: Nicodemus on his
knees under the weight of his grief; John supporting the Virgin, who is close to
swooning; and above all the Magdalen, about to anoint Christ's body (she actually
holds one of Christ's feet, with the ointment jar next to her). It is Scribanius's own
compassion that sees her sorrow struggling with her love, and her readiness to sub-
stitute her own life for that of the beloved.
Nor did Scribanius pass over the wings of the triptych. On the left he sees Salome
(not identified by name) 'sweeping across the ground' with 'poised and shameless
step' as she offers the Baptist's head to her mother, who examines it with 'lustful
eyes', more impure than those of a whore in a brothel (Fig. 54).?8 He notices acutely
how calmly St John the Evangelist on the right wing undergoes his horrid torture
-being submerged in a cauldron of boiling oil-as if taking a 'warm, healing bath'
(Fig. 55)."` The saint's quiet demeanour in this situation is evidently to be under-
stood as a miracle, testifying to the firmness of his faith and not as a sign of human
endurance.

der oude Atitjcke doorluchtigheSchilders...,Alkmaar 1603,
fol. 71"), seems to have acquired the nature of an
emotional topos, appropriate for particularly dolorous
stories. In his life of G(hirlandaio, Vasari says that in his
Massacreof the Innhoceints in Sta Maria Novella the Flor-
entine master included a similar incident (among several
others): 'si vede uno che ancora appiccato alla poppa
muore per le ferite ricevute nella gola, onde sugge, per
non dir beve, dal petto non meno sangue che latte: cosa
veramente di sua natura, e per esser fatta nella maniera
ch'ella e, da tornar viva la pieta' dove ella fusse ben
morta.' (Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de piti ecellenti pittori,
scultori e architettori,ed. G. Milanesi, iii, Florence 1878,
pp. 264-5). Despite Vasari's 'si vede' I have not been
able to discover such a detail in the photos of (Chirlan-
daio's fresco (which admittedly appears to have suffered
damages), nor has Dr Wolfger Bulst, who was kind
enough to examine the painting for me, identified this
particular action. 'One cannot help suspecting that Va-
sari let himself be guided here by literary tradition', he
wrote. If this fusion of visual and textual memory could
happen to Vasari, Scribanius's case is less astounding.
The motif of an infant on the breast of its wounded and
dying mother does occur later in Marcantonio's engrav-
ing (after Raphael) of The Plague in Phrygia, where a
male figure (its father?) restrains the child from ap-
proaching the mother's breast (The Illustrated Bartsch,
ed. W. L. Strauss, xxvii, New York 1978, no. 417). The
most famous variation of the theme is found in Pous-
sin's Plague at Ashdod (I Samuel 5) in the Louvre (see
A. Blunt, The Paihltitngs of Nicolas Poussin, London 1960,
no. 32), vividly described by Bellori (Le Vite de' pittori,
scultori et architettimoderni,Rome 1672, pp. 414-15). It
was also introduced, most probably under Poussin's
influence, in a painting by Michiel Sweerts (New York,
Saul P. Steinberg Collection), where the incident is given
particular prominence by a strong light trained upon
it (P. C. Sutton, The Age of Ruibenis,exhib. cat., Boston
1983-4. no. 129).
:3 L. Silver, The Paintiingsof Qintetn with Cala-
logue Montclair 1984, no. 11,
MaI.svs,,
pp. 204-5, pls 13,
raisot•i,
15, 17-20. I thank the Museum voor Schone Kunsten,
Antwerp, for permission to reproduce the illustrations
(Figs 53-5).
17
Pliny (as in n. 13), xxxv.73.
:MScribanius apparently transferred the music-making
firom some background figures to Salome. He also read
into the attitudes and expressions of the principal figures
more what he expected from them in the context of the
action than what the artist had indicated. At any rate,
compared to this perceptive, if rather personal, descrip-
tion of Massys's altarpiece, Van Mander's discussion of
the work is rather paltry. He admits that the figures
around the dead body of Christ exhibit all attitudes of
sadness ('alle ghedaenten van droefheyt'); yet more note-
worthy for him was the apparently popular guessing
game of how many horses' heads-six, seven, or eight-
could be seen on the right wing. He attributed this
difficulty to the less than perfect condition of the work,
which allowed some viewers to read some helmets as
horses' heads. While using his familiar vocabulary of
praise ('wonderlycke constigh, uytnemende net, suvver,
en scherp': Het leven, as in n. 19, fol. 216r, 11.15, 25), he
notes also that the execution, if seen from nearby, is
somewhat rouw (rough).
39 The
prototype for the attitude of the saint during
his ordeal is clearly l)iirer's woodcut B.61 fi-om the
Apocalypsecycle of 1498; for Massys's use of that print
 SCRIBANIUSON ART 187
at~B~II~ Illls~L

P$:l

i:

-:.ii --?-:--?--

Fig. 56-Jan van Hemessen, TheProdigalSon in a BawdyHouse(1536).

Brussels, Musees Royaux des Beaux-Artsde Belgique, no. 2838

Whether or not Scribanius arranged the sequence of the various Flemish paint-
ers according to a plan is hard to say; yet it may not be accidental that, after end-
ing his discussion of Massys's triptych with an allusion to the sexual heat of a
brothel, he turns to a painting that depicts precisely such a setting: the Prodigal Son
in a Bawdy House, by Jan van Hemessen, in Brussels (Fig. 56).40 Unlike Massys, who
by the early seventeenth century was renowned as the founder of the Antwerp
school of painters,41 Hemessen-though briefly mentioned by Guicciardini-was
largely forgotten. Van Mander knew only his name and the subject of one of his
pictures; Scribanius's interest in and intimate knowledge of his Prodigal Son is all
the more remarkable. Since the subject made the panel hardly suitable for display
in an ecclesiastical setting, we may reasonably assume that it was either in the Jesuit
College (the Professed House) in Antwerp, or was owned by a collector in close re-
lationship with the author (if not by Scribanius himself).42
For the purpose of comparison, Scribanius begins by evoking no less an artist
than Zeuxis, perhaps the most celebrated of all the Greek painters; yet immediately
in the scene of St John's martyrdom see J. S. Held, 40 See B. Wallen,
Jan van Hemessen,an AntwerpPainter
Diirer's Wirkung auf die niederliindischeKunst seiner Zeit, betweenReformand Counter-Reform, Ann Arbor 1983, pp.
The Hague 1931, p. 80. Scribanius may also have re- 53-9. I thank the Musdes Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Bel-
membered, if only subconsciously, the similar torture gique, Brussels, for permission to reproduce this illus-
of St George, who, submerged in molten lead, as the tration. The painting is signed 'JOES DE HEMESSEN
LegendaAurea has it, 'made the sign of the Cross and felt PINGEBAT' and dated 1536.
no more than the touch of a soothing bath' (The Golden 41 See J. S. Held, Rubensand His Circle, Princeton 1982,
Legend of Jacobus de Voragine,tr. and adapted by G. Ryan p. 39.
and H. Ripperger, New York, London and Toronto 42 I am indebted to Lorne
Campbell for the infor-
1948, p. 236). mation that Hemessen's Prodigal Son is mentioned by
188 JULIUS S. HELD
he turns to Hemessen as an artist of
equal merit. And just as Pliny had
described three different sections of
what appears to have been one of Zeu-
xis's major paintings (the main theme
evidently being the infant Hercules
strangling two serpents),43so Scribanius
opposes to these details three taken
from Hemessen'sProdigalSon, each one,
10^ so he claims, artistically equal to the
Greek work. Two of these incidents are
relegated to the distant background,
visible through openings of the Renais-
sance architecture that is the setting of
the main action. At the rear left, the
Prodigal Son is beaten and thrown out
of the house. In the first opening he is
seen (in the far distance) as a swineherd,
on his knees, and looking up to heaven
in prayer.44 The return to his father and
the festive meal is the subject in the
background at the right, surely not ac-
cidentally above the bagpipe player, to
Fig. 57-Jacob Jordaens, Self-portrait whom we shall return.45
Playinga Bagpipe.Genk (Belgium), Not content with elevating Hemes-
private collection sen by making him an artistic peer of
Zeuxis, Scribanius introduces two addi-
tional Greek painters, Nicias and Pausias,46both known for their skill in depicting
animals, in order to call our attention to a thieving cat (in the left foreground), a
telling allusion to the rapacious women surrounding the Prodigal Son47 Shifting
his approach, Scribanius continues the comparison in monetary terms. Citing the
Medea by Timomachus,48 a picture of which Pliny can only say that it was sold for
eighty talents, he questions whether money can do justice to Hemessen's portrayal
of the impudent old procuress; and he ends his detailed examination with a brief
description of some of the other figures, such as the happily smiling old toper just
behind the vulgarly smirking bawd, or the blind man (playing a hurdy-gurdy)49 led
into the room by a turbaned one, who holds him by the arm.

Frangois Mols (1722-91) in his Anecdotespittoresqueset
litteraires,tant sur Rubens, & autres artistes(Brussels, Bib-
liothbque Royale MSS 17661-4). In 1773 it belonged to
a certain Pieters d'Anvers.
43 Pliny (as in n. 13), xxxv.63-4.
44 Scribanius'swordy account of the conflicting emotions
imputed to the Prodigal Son in this phase of his life
('incertus animi, pugnantibus inter se, fame, frigore,
erubescentia, praeteritorum memoria, futurorum metu')
prefigures Constantijn Huygens's equally verbose read-
ing of Judas's repentance in Rembrandt's early picture
of 1629 (Britain, private collection; see D. Bomford,
C. Brown and A. Roy, Art in the Making, exhib. cat.,
National Gallery, London 1989, p. 37).
45 Wallen (as in n. 40) attributes these background
scenes to Jan Swart van Groningen (active c. 1520-53),
claiming him to have been a collaborator of Hemessen,
though it is not clear what his evidence is for this bold
thesis. I am also dubious about his effort to interpret the
major figures in Hemessen's painting as personifications
of the seven deadly sins.
46
Pliny (as in n. 13), xxxv.133 (Nicias) and xxxv.126-7
(Pausias).
47 For the thieving cat in the context of Prodigal Son
scenes see K. Renger, LockereGesellschaft,Berlin 1970,
pp. 129-30 and fig. 82 (painting at the Wadsworth
Atheneum, Hartford, CT).
48 Pliny (as in n. 13), xxxv.135.
49 Scribanius calls him a 'cytharoedum' (player of the
cithara) but he is shown playing the hurdy-gurdy, the
traditional instrument of the blind. See E. Winternitz,
'Bagpipes and Hurdy-gurdies in their Social Setting',
MetropolitanMuseum of Art Bulletin, ii, 1943-4, p. 68: 'it
is played only by the poor, and especially by the blind.'
 SCRIBANIUS ON ART 189

Fig. 58-Jan van Hemessen, A Musical

Allegory.The Hague, Museum van het
Mauritshuis,no. 1063

Fig. 59-Jan van Hemessen, YoungWoman

Playinga Harpsichord.
WorcesterArt
Museum, no. 1920.88
Given how well Scribanius knew this picture and how highly he thought of its
maker, his last words about it are of particular interest. He maintains firmly that
the still youthful bagpipe player, who looks calmly out of the painting at the be-
holder, is a self-portrait of the artist. While it is not uncommon for dubious 'self-
portraits' to be 'discovered', owing to a desire to enhance the 'human appeal' of
a given work, it seems to me more likely that Scribanius's statement is based on a
reliable tradition. First of all, the age of the bare-headed musician is roughly com-
patible with Hemessen's age-in the mid-thirties-when he painted the picture.o
Still more persuasive is Scribanius's very specific assertion that Hemessen was
equally gifted in music as in art ('omnimodis peritus ut pictor ita et modificator').
Some of these words Scribanius took from Apuleius's characterisation of Antige-
nidas, an ancient musician who was 'a delightful composer of every type of tune
and an accomplished interpreter of every musical mode' ('omnis voculae melleus
modulator et idem omnimodis peritus modificator').51 No matter how 'imaginative'
Scribanius may be in his commentaries on individual works of art, it is most un-
likely that he would have inserted into his narrative such a specific biographical
detail unless he had reliable knowledge of it. Above all, some corroborative con-
firmation may be found in other works by the artist, most tellingly in a musical
allegory in the Mauritshuis Museum at the Hague (Fig. 58).52 In that painting, as
50 The date of Hemessen's birth is not known; since he
Lydium querulum seu Phrygium religiosum seu Dori-
was apprenticed to Hendrick van Cleve in 1519 and was cum bellicosum.' ('A certain flute-player, Antigenidas, was
accepted by the guild as a freemaster by 1524 (when he a delightful composer of every type of tune and an ac-
himself registered pupils), it is safe to say that in 1536, complished interpreter of every musical mode, whether
when he painted the ProdigalSon, he was in his mid-30s. the simple Aeolian, the varied Ionic, the plaintive Lyd-
51 Apuleius, Florida,4 (in his Operaquae supersunt,ed. R. ian, the religious Phrygian or the martial Dorian.')
Helm, ii.2, Leipzig 1959, p. 5). The entire text reads: 52 When still in the art market, the
painting was at-
'Tibicen quidam fuit Antigenidas, omnis voculae melleus tributed to Scorel, Gossaert, Massys and Jan Swart van
modulator et idem omnimodis peritus modificator, seu Groningen as well as to Hemessen. It entered the Mau-
tu velles Aeolian simplex sive [I]asti[um] varium seu ritshuis in 1986.
190 JULIUS S. HELD
Emanuel Winternitz has pointed out,53 Hemessen gave a perfect rendering of a
specific form of viol ('clearly recognizable by its deep body, its sloping shoulders,
and its five strings'). Moreover, Burr Wallen has called attention to the fact that
Hemessen's daughter Caterina (born 1528) married Chr6tien de Morien, 'a talented
organist' at the Cathedral of Antwerp, though the young couple left for Spain in
1556 in the retinue of Mary of Hungary.54 (Wallen also suggests that Hemessen
painted the picture as a wedding-allegory and -gift for his daughter, though this is
at best an attractive theory.) We might add to these connections with the world of
music the paintings Hemessen did of young women playing musical instruments,
one of them playing a clavichord (Fig. 59), another a lute (last recorded with David
Koetser, Zurich).55
How much Scribanius knew about Joachim Beuckelaer (1535-74) is difficult to
say, since he may have been following Van Mander when he described the artist's
characteristic subject matter. As Beuckelaer's ancient counterpart he chose Possis,
and in doing so repeated Pliny's reference to Varro (128-15 Bc) as the source of
our knowledge about that master.56Yet what Scribanius fails to say is that Possis's
'edibles' were modelled from clay and hence represented a different category of
imitation. It is clear, however, that under the spell of Pliny's fascination with var-
ieties of trompel'oeil effects, Scribanius saw the principal purpose of Beuckelaer's
still lifes in their ability to fool the eye of the beholder: they imitate the original so
well, he says, 'that they would not disappoint a single kitchen maid'.
What Scribanius has to say about Willem Key (c. 1520-68) deserves special at-
tention since the picture he describes-a Crucifixion-was evidently a major work
of a master who today is primarily known as one of the most sensitive portrait
painters of his time.57 It showed the two thieves (on either side of Christ?) acting
out their pre-ordained roles, the repentant one asking forgiveness, the evil one
displaying his vile temper to the end. Scribanius particularly admired an old man
of benign expression 'above' the main subject; this might have been an image of
God the Father, as the First Person of the Trinity, if there was also the Dove of
the Holy Spirit, not mentioned by Scribanius, between it and the Crucified Christ
below. But where was this painting? Van Mander mentions two paintings by Key
in the Cathedral, of which one, an altarpiece of Christ offering succour to the
downtrodden and weary, was destroyed by iconoclasts. The other is described as
een Victorie oft Triumphe Christi, een seer heerlijck stuck';58 pictures so entitled
always depict the risen Christ, often sitting on the tomb, stepping on Death and
Sin.59That picture by Key, too, is lost. It certainly is peculiar that the only work by
Key that Scribanius lists does not appear in Van Mander's account of the artists's
work in the Cathedral-the place where we would look first for the paintings
Scribanius noticed and remembered (more or less). It may have been in another
church or in a different location, but I see no reason to question Scribanius's cor-
rectness as to subject, or author.61

5- E. Winternitz, 'The Inspired Musician. A Sixteenth-
Century Musical Pastiche', Burlington Magazine, c, Feb.
1958, pp. 1-4. Winternitz interpreted the young woman
as the musician's Muse who 'baptises' ('nourishes' might
be better) his instrument with the milk she presses from
her breast.
" Wallen (as in n. 40). Caterina's marriage to Chretien
de Morien had already been mentioned by Guicciardini:
'Caterina figliuola di maestro Giouanni d'Hemssen...
moglie di Christiano eccellentissimo Sonatore di buon'
accordo, & altri strumenti...' (This passage, here quoted
from the 1588 [Antwerp] edition of the Descrittione...di
tutti i Paesi Bassi, forms part of the remarkable list of
seven women artists active in the Netherlands in the
16th century, pp. 130-1.)
55 If Hemessen did indeed portray himself playing the
bagpipe he was not the only Flemish artist to do so. In
the 17th century Jordaens also portrayed himself play-
ing that low-class instrument (Fig. 57); see R.-A. d'Hulst,
JacobJordaens,Ithaca, N.Y. 1982, pl. 153, text p. 181. For
self-portraits in dissolute company see Renger (as in n.
47), p. 132.
56 Pliny (as in n. 13), xxxv. 155.
 SCRIBANIUS ON ART 191

.4

....
...

Fig. 60-Marten de Vos, The Temptationof St Anthony.Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum

voor Schone Kunsten, no. 103

57 See M. J. Friedlander, Early Netherlandish Painting, 60 The description given by Scribanius brings to mind
xiii, Leiden and Brussels 1975, pp. 51-6. Rubens's Crucifixion scene known as the Coup de Lance,
58 Van Mander (as in n. 19), fol. 232v. painted c. 1620 for the church of the Recollects and now
59 See Freedberg (as in n. 27), pp. 59-61. in the Antwerp Museum; the disappearance of Key's
192 JULIUS S. HELD
Before turning to Marten de Vos (1531/2-1603) Scribanius recounts two anec-
dotes about Protogenes, taken from different sections of Pliny's book."' He also cites
one of Pliny's rare critical judgements, supposedly coming from the mouth of
Apelles. Despite all his gifts, so Apelles said, Protogenes did not know 'when to lift
his hand from a picture'.62 Although Scribanius does not link the fault of 'excessive
diligence' expressisverbiswith De Vos-who follows immediately-it is not unreason-
able to suspect that he had this defect in mind, particularly with regard to one of
the two works by De Vos which he cites: the Temptationof St Anthony(1594), formerly
in the Cathedral (Fig. 60).63 It is crowded with hellish monsters on the ground and
in the air, evoking the Bosch-Bruegel tradition as well as the ferocious demons
besetting the same saint in works of Schongauer and Grtinewald. Of De Vos's altar-
piece of the Doubting Thomas(1574) painted for the guild of the furriers, originally
in the Cathedral but now also in the museum (no. 80),64Scribanius mentions only
the Beheading of St John on the right wing of the triptych (Fig. 61). He was clearly
struck by the rapidly foreshortened body of the Baptist, sprawling on his back, 'as
if he had only just... fallen down', an observation testifying to Scribanius's talent
for original perception.65 (It may be worth remembering in this context that Van
Mander, while full of general words of praise for De Vos, does not mention a single
work by that master.)
It is rather surprising that Scribanius picks for one of his last comparisons of a
Flemish painter and a Greek one the relatively obscure Pieter Balten(s) (1527-84),66
whose name is printed in small italics in the margin of the page. Scribanius seems
to have had a very definite idea of the character of Balten's art, as one sympatheti-
cally depicting peasants' festivities. Opposing this to the Dancing Spartan Maidens
mentioned by Pliny as the work of Callimachos,67Scribanius clearly makes the point
that great art can manifest itself just as well in scenes depicting the revels of Flemish
boors as in the gyrations of (presumably graceful) young ladies from Sparta. In this
connection Scribanius breaks once more a lance for Flemish artists who concen-
trated on depicting nature, singling out three painters (their names, like Balten's,
are printed in small type in the margin): Joachim Patinir (active 1515-24), Cornelis
Molenaer (1520[?]-?) and Joachim Beuckelaer (mentioned before).
At this point in his discourse, and for the first time, Scribanius makes reference
not to Greek painters but to three Italian Renaissance masters (Raphael, Michel-
angelo and Titian) and three German ones (Diirer, Holbein and Aldegrever); and
he follows this with a veritable avalanche of names, almost certainly taken from
Van Mander, whose Schilder-Boeckis here mentioned for the first-and last-time.
He begins with three of the Antwerp masters he had mentioned before (Massys,
Floris and Bruegel), followed by no less than nineteen additional names of 'the
illustrious painters of all of Belgium', including"8 three 'Dutch' masters, Jan van
Scorel, Marten van Heemskerck and Dirk Barentsz. Behind this somewhat arid

picture deprives us of the opportunity to see whether
Rubens was in any way indebted to the earlier work,
which surely had occupied an important place.
(1 Pliny (as in n. 13), xxxv. 102-3, 106.
62 Ibid., xxxv.80.
6:3 See Zweite (as in n. 8), no. 84.
I thank the Koninklijk
Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, for permission
to reproduce this and the following illustrations.
64 Ibid., no. 56.
1, Zweite observed correctly that the pose of the ex-
ecutioner ultimately reverts to Diirer's woodcut of the
Beheading of the Baptist (B.125, 1510: see The Complete
Woodcutsof AlbrechtDiirer, New York 1963, p. 212), but
may have been transmitted to De Vos through a work
of Barent Van Orley, known from a drawn copy in the
der
Albertina in Vienna (see O. Benesch, Die Zeichintungeni
niederldindischenSchulen des XI. uzid X'I. Jahlrhunderts,
Vienna 1928, no. 47, pl. 14). The foreshortened corpse
of the Baptist may also have been derived from an
earlier source.
11 For Pieter Balten see S. J. Kostyshyn, "'"Doortsoeck-
en men vindt". A Reintroduction to the Life and Work
of Peeter Baltens Alias Custodis of Antwerp (1527-84)',
Ph.D. diss., Case Western Reserve University 1994.
67
Pliny (as in n. 13), xxxiv.92.
"6 See n. 12 above.
 SCRIBANIUS ON ART 193

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Fig. 61-Marten de Vos, The Beheadingof StJohn the Baptist.

Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, no. 80
194 JULIUS S. HELD
exercise stands his desire to demonstrate that the local school of art has been not
only a worthy rival of the ancient Greek in terms of talent, but also in numbers,
with the understanding that only space prevented him from enlarging that register.
The last name on the list is that of Michiel Coxcie (1499-1592); and almost as if
remembering that there was also a major work by this artist in Antwerp, Scribanius
once more gives one of his characteristic condensed and selective 'descriptions'.
Depicting the martyrdom of St Sebastian, the work he refers to can only be the
altarpiece of the Guild of the Archers (Oude Handboog), a triptych of 1575, now
in the Antwerp Museum.69 The saint's ordeal is seen on the central panel, rendered
in the standard manner, with four bowmen aiming their arrows at Sebastian, who is
tied to a tree. Yet the subject to which Scribanius turns with most attention is the
martyrdom of St George, on the right of the triptych. There the saint is suspended
from a tree trunk, to which he is attached by ropes while being tortured with a
curiously shaped but obviously sharp instrument (Fig. 62). This is not, however,
what Scribanius describes (except for mentioning the tree trunk). The martyrdom
that he does describe, but which is not seen in Coxcie's painting (though it is re-
corded in the Legenda Aurea), tells of the saint being attached to a wheel spiked
with knives (or swords), though it fell apart at the first turning.70 What makes this
case so strange is that Scribanius follows up his description with a very specific ob-
servation of tumbling horses and riders (as the wheel is destroyed), among them
a horse, the (foreshortened?) back of which he found especially admirable. Was
there perhaps another painting by Coxcie which he may have confused with the
one actually forming part of the altar? While Scribanius, as we have seen, was not
above inventing details to intensify the emotional message of a work, statements
like the one about the back of the fallen horse must have had some basis of fact, all
the more so as it gave him one more chance to hark back to his main theme, the
aesthetic rivalry between a 'modern' and an 'ancient' artist: Coxcie's fallen horse
holds its own when compared to the famous horse painted by Apelles, which in-
duced live horses to neigh."7
Painting, as Scribanius well knew, was only one form of artistic expression; and
even without the prompting from his reading of Pliny, he was surely aware of other
techniques in which the city's artists and artisans had excelled. In fact, his pages
on Antwerp's painters are preceded by a short (half-page) section on crafts (artes
mechanicae).He asserts that he could list many Antwerp crafts worthy of mention
for their ingenuity and the world-wide distribution of their products, yet prefers to
remind his readers of the esteem different crafts had enjoyed in antiquity. Some
ancient places were associated with, and famous for, specific materials and tech-
niques: Miletus for sheep-shearing, China for silk-spinning, Tyre for dyeing and
Phrygia for needle-work; he also mentions the boiling of wool with juices of herbs
and the entrails of shell-fish, though without specifying a location. The only indus-
try he treats more fully, and deservedly so, is weaving, probably thinking primarily
of tapestry weaving. He not only describes the weaving technique in some detail,
but honours the craft by quoting three lines from Ovid's Metamorphoses,narrating
the contest between Pallas and Arachne."72 Yet while all these and many other crafts,

69 It is signed 'MICHEL D. COXCYIN AETATIS SUAE presumably, to emphasise the technical identity of con-
76 FE. 1575'. temporary procedures with those of antiquity. 'Tela iugo
70 This
particularly devilish device is described at much iuncta est, stamen secernit arundo. /Inseritur medium
greater length in the legendary life of St Catherine (see radiis subtemen acutis, /Quod lato feriunt inserti pectine
LegendaAurea, 25 Nov.). dentes.' ('The warp is attached to the beam, the reed
71
Pliny (as in n. 13), xxxv.95. separates the threads. The [threads of the] woof are in-
72 The three lines from book vi of the
Metamoriphoses troduced between them with pointed shuttles, and the
(apparently condensed from 11. 55-8) are introduced, teeth of the broad comb knock them [into place].')
 SCRIBANIUS ON ART 195

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Fig. 62-Michiel Coxie, The Martyrdomof St George.

Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, no. 372
196 JULIUS S. HELD
he concludes, are practiced in Antwerp with the greatest distinction and artistic
variety, he will nevertheless pass over them in silence.73
Whereas Pliny's book on sculpture (xxxiv) precedes that on painting, Scribanius's
rather meagre chapter on Flemish sculpture comes after it. What Pliny had called
statuaria is here scultoria ars; it is followed by caelatoria (silver-chasing) and a categ-
ory unknown to Pliny, incisoria ars (engraving). To build this section up, Scribanius
recapitulates the names and individual works of twenty Greek sculptors, citing
them in precisely the order in which they appear in Pliny's book." The indigenous
sculptors are fewer in number, but make up for it with the quality of their work. Yet
after naming five outstanding sculptors and asking rhetorically whether anyone
who knows their works will not shout their praises,'5 Scribanius fails to mention a
single one of these works. Two of the named masters are indeed known as out-
standing artists of their craft: Cornelis Floris (1514-75), sculptor and architect, and
Jacob Jonghelinck (1530-1606), most famous as a medallist. Antonius of Breda7"
and Willem van den Broeck (Paludanus, 1530-80)77 are known to have done work
for Antwerp Cathedral. Joannes de Hase (unless known by a different name) re-
mains a blank. True to form, Scribanius opens the short paragraph on silver-
chasing with the names of seven ancient practitioners of that art who even for Pliny
had been no more than names. They were all listed, with several others, in his
Historia naturalis at xxxiv.85; and from that list Scribanius, so it seems, pulled the
seven arbitrarily, arranging their names in alphabetical order. To these he added
the names of three Flemish masters working with precious metals: Matthaeus
Valck, Udalricus Spirincx and 'above all' ('ante omnes') Wolfgangus of Breda, who
was the first, he maintains, to teach how to chase (most likely silver) with a ham-
mer and punch over a base of pitch.78 Turning finally to engraving (incisoriaars),
Scribanius pays tribute to a branch of art which at that time had indeed achieved
a well-deserved prominence; he is fully justified when he calls engraving the beati-
tudo of his age. In imitating nature, he says, it yields neither to painting, casting or
sculpture. Yet the only three masters he cites were not from his region, and two
of them he had mentioned before (Dtirer and Aldegrever); the third is Lucas van
Leyden, the Dutch engraver. After a fulsome encomium on the beauty of human
forms as seen in the prints of these masters, Scribanius introduces again his fav-
ourite metaphor for a historical comparison by seeing it as a contest, though in this
instance not between two schools of art but between Art and Nature. Won over by
73 This remark explains his opening sentence on the 78 'Wolfgangus van Breda, qui primus malleo stiloque
section devoted to painting (see below, pp. 198, 201). substrata pice caelare docuit, cum ante fusili omnes
74 Scribanius evidently picked the artists and their ductu laminas in formas cogerunt.' The older technique,
works by simply turning the pages of his Pliny. In the described in the second part of the sentence, was to
paragraph-numbering of the Jex-Blake and Sellers vol- shape the forms by making the metal malleable, presum-
ume (as in n. 13; all in Pliny, xxxiv), this is the sequence: ably by the application of heat. See Zihlver it de (;ooden
39, 40, 41, 45, 49, 55, 62, 69, 71, 74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, EeItw van Antweipen, exhib. cat. (Rockoxhuis), Antwerp
82, 83, 88, 92. 1988. In chapter 7 ('Herwaardering van de Antwerpse
75 'quis enim Antonium van Breda, Cornelium Flores, Edelsmeedkunst', by G. van Hemeldouck with P Bau-
loanneum de Hase, Ionghelingum, Paludanum novit, douin) the same three names (with reference to Scri-
quis horum opera, qui non inclamet'. banius's book) are mentioned among many others (pp.
76 See P. Rombouts and T. van Lerius, De Liggeren, 49-50), with a few pieces of biographical data in n. 262.
Antwerp 1864-76, i, p. 102 note I (quoting the account- Matheus Valckx is credited (p. 35) with a 'gouden borcht'
book of the Cathedral of 1547-8), listing a payment (golden brooch[?]), presented to Frangois, Duc d'Anjou
made on 6 May 1548 to Jan Crans, painter, for having (the brother of Henri III of France) at his solemn entry
coloured a sculptural group consisting of Christ Cruci- into Antwerp in 1582. (The political role of 'ce Valois
fied, the Virgin, St John and the two thieves, made by ambitieux, perfide et debauche' [Pirenne] was of brief
Anthonis van Breda. duration.) The statement that Wolfgangus of Breda was
77 See De Liggeren (as in n. 76), i, p. 201 (quoted from the first to work the silver over a block of pitch (a claim
the account book of the Cathedral of 1566-7), mention- Scribanius repeated in his book Politico-Christianusof
ing payments to 'Willem de Palude' for three figures 1524 [p. 516]) is characterised (p. 50) as a 'chauvinistic
standing under the beam ('balck') of the Cross. exaggeration .
 SCRIBANIUSON ART 197
the 'sweet fluency of [these artists'] lines', he says that Nature marvels at her defeat,
and grieves ('et dolet').
When it comes to drawing (works done with a reed-pen), no one, Scribanius
claims, can compete with the native artists, neither the ancients, nor the Chinese
or Japanese 'ab alio orbe', nor artists from still other regions. In these drawings,
people who have been dead are, as it were, brought back to life, lacking nothing
but speech-an old topos used in acclaiming the verisimilitude of portraits. Again
avoiding contemporary names, Scribanius once more produces a long list of ancient
artists, following, as he had done before, the order in which they appear in Pliny's
book xxxv.
In the section on printing (Ars typographica)Scribanius gives notice quickly that
here he is dealing with material he knows well. His commentary reads almost like
a tour taken through a printing establishment seen in action. As the author of
books printed by the Plantin Press, he was evidently familiar with an outstanding
representative of this 'noble art'. The greatest publishers of the past (he mentions
Aldus Manutius [1450-1515], Johann Froben [c. 1460-1527] and Robert Estienne
[1503-59]) were 'stars' in the firmament of printing; but the House of Plantin is the
sun', illuminating with its books not only the city of Antwerp or even Belgium but
the whole world. With a special word of praise he singles out the famous Polyglot
Bible, 'the eighth wonder of the world', published by Plantin in 1569-72.7'
The eleven pages on architecture (ars architectonica)which follow the sections on
painting and applied arts are similar in rhetoric, but like the buildings described
are supported by solidly established data. Moreover, for this subject Scribanius
could rely more on authors who had dealt with the material before him, above all
Guicciardini, with his majestic publication of 1581. He focused on six major struc-
tures: the Cathedral ('Divae Matri sacratum templum'), the town hall ('senatoria
domus'), the Bursa ('Orbis totius negotiationibus destinatus locus'), a house serving
for the display and sale of tapestries ('Aulaeorum officina'), the house of the German
Hanse ('Hansatica domus'), and the Spanish Citadel ('Arx'). Not only is each of
these described in considerable detail, but four of them are illustrated in prints,
based on designs by Pieter van der Borcht (active 1552-1608), which had been first
used for Guicciardini's volume.80 Even here Scribanius seizes the chance to com-
pare one indigenous building favourably with an ancient one, when he gives the
dimensions of Antwerp's Cathedral (510 feet in length and 240 in width) against
those of the most famous building of the ancient world, the temple of Diana at
Ephesus (only 420 long and 127 wide)!H'It is of course due to the many physical
data given by the author about these buildings that his comments have often been
read and widely used by scholars investigating the early history of Antwerp's
'Golden Age'.82And it is because of this fact that they fall outside the scope of this
paper.
OLD BENNINGTON, VERMONT

79 See L. Voet,
The Goldeii Compasses,i, Amsterdam s" The source for these dimensions of the temple of
1969, pp. 62-4, pl. 15. Diana at Ephesus is again Pliny, xxxvi, p. 506 (of the
"' See A.
J. J. Delen, Icoiiographie van Antwerpetn, 1582 edn).
Brussels 1930, nos 125 (Cathedral), 126 (town hall), 127 82 See Voet
(as in n. 7).
(Bursa), 128 (German Hanse).
198 JULIUS S. HELD
APPENDIX

CaroliScribaniie SocietateIesu Antverpia,Antwerp 1610,

Ars Pictoria, pp. 31-9: Latin text

Pictoriam non transeo intactam; maxime cum videam lege cautum, vt picturam soli ingenui
exercerent, perpetuo interdicto ne seruitia docerentur, non Sicyone tantum, sed Graecia
tota.83 Neque ego in magna hac arte, viuos attingam artifices, magna Europaea miracula:
nam & modica in hac enumeratione gratia, & offensa timeri potest magna. Si enim paucos
enumerauero, quid nisi inuidiam exspectem? si omnes, ingens sit labor: si hunc illi ante-
feram, quid nisi linguae iacula, aut penicilli sperem licentiam? venient posteri, qui sine
aemulationis prurigine, magna saeculi vrbisque vestrae nomina nobili calamo propala-
bunt. de quibus interim, vniuersim hoc audeo: nullam in his penicilli gloriam desiderari;
non oris venustatem, capilli elegantiam, oculorum argutias,8" non respicientes, suspici-
entes, despicientesque vultus;85 non vestium sinus rugasque; non venarum implexus; non
articulorum membrorumque decora,"6 musculorumque contuberationes, ac quasi bulbos;
non camporum laeta, tristiaque; non luxuriantes, cadentesve nemorum vertices; non colles
ascensu salebrosos; non montium dorsa pascuis, latera viretis, opaca lustris, aperta cul-
turis, concaua fontibus, abrupta fecundata fluminibus. Sed neque priscos in his desiderabis
artifices; non Atheniensem Apollodorum, Parrhasium Ephesium, aut Xeuxen illius linteo
deceptum, cui etiam palmam concessit ingenuo pudore,87 non Eupompum, Pamphilum,
Demophilum, Melanthium, Echionem, Euphranorem, Cydiam, Pausiam.
Verum de vita functis, & quos mors extra inuidentia iactum posuisse videri potest, mihi
verba. Habuerunt prope singula orbis Regna magnos in hoc genere artifices; quorum
nomina aeternitati sacrata, ab illa omnium artium scientiarumque admiratrice & laudatrice
antiquitate. Plures tamen vno saeculo, ex hac vna Republica prodiisse, quam ex multis retro
aetatibus toto orbe reperies. Repetamus grata veteres memoria, & quantum fas est compo-
namus.
Celebratur ab illis Bularchi tabula, in qua Magnetum proelium, a Candaule Lydiae
Rege repensa auro.88 At ego video apud vos Francisci Floris caeli pugnam; Luciferum
deciduum, superstantem Michaelem, huius agmina insultantia, terrentia, minitantia; illius e
praecipitio pendula, ac in medio lapsu tremula, vt & cadere arbitreris, & mente turbata
vltima blasphematione caelum impetere. Video alibi Dei matrem conscendentem caelos,
ludentesque circumsecus angelos; vt & diffluere gaudio beatas illas mentes, & aera pennis
scindere lento suauique quodam remigio, arbitreris:89 sed & omnem circa regionem caeli
gaudium persentiscere; ita omnia laetitiae quamdam frontem induisse videntur, depulsis
moeroris signis. Huius etiam est ludicium in die Domini magno. Multa hic ad horrorem;
sententia ludicis, cuius adhuc vltima verba innatant labris, & indignantes oculi maledictum
iaculantes: inde corporum raptus, inferorum gurges; mixtae infelici interitu maribus femi-
nae, iuuenes senibus: caeli dehinc amoena, corporumque ad illa volatus, vt mireris tam
diu suspensa aeri suo inhaerere quasi aeternum volantia: quosdam etiam apud inferos
8'1Pliny, xxxv.77, about Pamphilus, the teacher of 87 Pliny, xxxv.65, about Parrhasius's
'painted curtain':
Apelles: 'huius auctoritate effectum est Sicyone primum, 'Zeuxis... remoto linteo ostendi picturam atque intellecto
deinde et in tota Graecia, ut pueri ingenui omnia ante errore concederet palmam ingenuo pudore...'
graphicen... docerentur... semper quidem honos ei fuit
88
Pliny, xxxv.55, about Bularchos: 'quid quod in con-
ut ingenui earn exercerent... perpetuo interdictu ne fesso perinde est Bularchi pictoris tabulam, in qua erat
servitia docerentur'. Scribanius evidently collapsed here Magnetum proelium, a Candaule rege Lydiae... repen-
two distinct, if related, statements by Pliny into a single sam auro?'
sentence. 89 The image of the wings of the angels dividing the
84
Pliny, xxxv.67, about Parrhasius: 'primus symmetrian air in a manner reminiscent of rowing Scribanius prob-
picturae dedit, primus argutias voltus, elegantiam capilli, ably derived from Vergil, Aeneid, i.301, where Mercury
venustatem oris.' descends from Olympus ('volat ille per aera magnum/
85
Pliny, xxxv.56, about Kimon of Kleonai: 'Hic cata- remigio alarum'), to obtain for Aeneas a friendly wel-
grapha invenit, hoc est obliquas imagines, et varie for- come in Carthage.
mare voltus, respicientes suspicientesve vel despicientes.'
86
Pliny, xxxv.56-7, 'articulis membra distinxit, venas
protulit, praeterque in vestibus rugas et sinus invenit.'
 SCRIBANIUS ON ART 199

torqueri, alios in caelo gaudio diffluere, aemula bonorum & malorum retributione; vt &
spectatorem suum tormenta terreant, & alliciant gaudia. Dedit de eadem re lacobus de
Backer, varium & nobile opus, dignum posteritate & vita; & quod cum veteribus compo-
natur.
Magnus fuit Parrhasius Ephesius, qui Cressam nutricem, infantemque in manibus dedit:
qui Athletam in certamine currentem, vt sudare videatur; qui alterum arma deponentem,
ut anhelare sentiatur.90 Magnus Aristides Thebanus, cuius erat oppido capto ad matris
morientis e vulnere mammam adrepens infans: intelligiturque sentire mater, & timere
ne emortuo lacte sanguinem infans lambat.9' Non erit inferior Petrus Bruegelius, qui
Infanticidium Herodis in media statuit niue; vt & niuem credas, & sanguinem iures; &
exhorrescas in illa sanguinis & niuis, candoris & ruboris, saeua mistione. Iam vbi matrem
videris spargentem comas, lacerantem vultum, & pro sudore lacrymas, tamquam salebrosos
torrentes, vnicum cari solamen pignoris, protrudentem, quid dices? quid vbi alteram, quasi
iam iam cadente anima, aut in vltimo secretionis suae spiritu iacentem; in qua cum nihil
videas lacrymarum, mortis videas plurimum: vbi tertiam vno vulnere lac & sanguinem fun-
dentem, pendentisque ab vbere infantis animam imbibentem; vt & infans lac sanguinem-
que bibat, & animam in eamdem nutriciam mammam iaculetur, tamquam redditurus
vitam, a qua acceperat; non inclames, Vicisti? quid vbi infantem ingenti vulnere confossum,
in quo intelligere possis quantum restet animae, & in vltima illa proiectione niuem pro
vberibus sugentem, quasi in redhibitionem animae per vulnera fugientis; non acclames, Io
triumphe?
Ingens gloria Timantis, cuius est Iphigenia,92 oratorum laudibus celebrata: qua stante
ad aras peritura, cum moestos pinxisset omnes, praecipue patruum: in quo cum tristitiae
imaginem consumpsisset, patris velauit vultum, quem digne non poterat ostendere. Eritne
minor Quintini9' Messys, a quo habes demortuum Christi corpus linteo inextensum? Vide-
bis hic sub carae ceruicis onere, non tam pondere quam dolore fatiscentem Nicodemum,
succidentibus genibus. Videbis Dei matrem, quae in cruce steterat, in filij morte tamquam
laxatis neruis, soluta compage, decoriter subsidentem, ni a discipulo, cui commissa, susten-
tetur quasi in subsidium: cui etiam, non vt sub pondere carl pignoris, sed vt sub ingenti
moeroris mole, genua labant. Videbis & Magdalenam pugnantibus inter praecordia moes-
titudine & amore, vicariamque animam pro dilecti anima spondentem, dum capillum
spargit, vnguenta parat, & capillorum & vnguentorum & oblitam sui. Habes & loannem,
in ardenti aheno, aestuante oleo & tamquam de insessoris sui victoria indignantem, animo
vultuque pacatum, ac quasi a tepenti medicante balneo recreatum. Habes puellam psalt-
riam in loannis caede, inuerecundo librato vestigio, terram non tam inambulantem, quam
verrentem: habes puellae matrem, quae libidinis oculos in demortui caput iaculatur, tam
impuro obtutu, vt frigeat omne lupanarium scortum, prae hac flamma. Magnus Xeuxis.
Inferiorne loannes Hemssen? aut cuius ingenij artisque decus maius? intuere vtriusque
penicilli, tamquam doctae matris eruditos partus; dubitabis, magisne eluceat illius lupiter
latera claudentibus diis,94 an huius Prodigus Bacchidibus circumsessus; illius Hercules
dracones strangulans, an huius Prodigus deiugulato marsupio, fustes pro genis basians;
illius Alcmena matre pauente, an huius Prodigus incertus animi, pugnantibus inter se,
fame, frigore, erubescentia, praeteritorum memoria, futurorum metu. Quid quod in eadem
tabula non vnius gloriam aemulatus? Clarus veteri fama Niceas, qui supra reliquos, canes
prosperrime expressit:95 at noster felem, quae nihil illius concedat molossis. Clarus Pausias,
90 Pliny, xxxv.70-1:
[Parrhasius] 'pinxit et Thressam 9: Ed.: Quintini.
[=-Cressam in old reading] nutricem infantemque in 94
Pliny, xxxv.63, about Zeuxis: 'Iuppiter eius in throno
manibus eius... [sunt et duae picturae eius] hoplites in adstantibus diis et Hercules infans dracones strangulans
certamine ita decurrens ut sudare videatur, alter arma Alcmena matre coram pavente...' Here Scribanius di-
deponens ut anhelare sentiatur.' vides Pliny's description of a single painting into three
91 Pliny, xxxv.98:
'Aequalis eius fuit Aristides Thebanus parts, comparing each one with an individual section of
...huis opera: oppido capto ad matris morientis ex vol- another single work, Hemessen's ProdigalSon.
nere mammam adrepens infans intelligeturque sentire 95
Pliny, xxxv.133, about Nicias: 'huic eidem adscri-
mater et timere ne emortuo lacte sanguinem lambat.' buntur quadripedes, prosperrime canes expressit.' The
92
Pliny, xxxv.73: 'Timanthi vel plurimum adsuit in- 'molossian' dogs, not mentioned by Pliny in this context,
genii. eius enim est Iphigenia...' The remainder repeats Scribanius may have interpolated from his knowledge of
Pliny's text verbatim. Horace (see Satires,vi.5.114).
200 JULIUS S. HELD
cuius boues imitati multi, aequauit nemo;96 ac nescio an huius porci inferiore lintrem
degrunniant miraculo. Clarus Timomachus, cuius Medeam octoginta talentis venumdatam
accepimus:97 ast ego dubito, dignone satis auro permutari possit Hemsseni Lena, exerta
impudenti lingua Prodigum inter amicas ludens. Taceo tabulae huius reliqua, mensae
apparatum, senem bibulum, caecum citharoedum, operisque auctorem varias vno spiritu
tibias animantem, omnimodis peritum vt pictorem ita & modificatorem.
Varro narrat cognitum a se Posim nomine, ab eoque; factas Romae vuas & pisces, ita vt
non esset aspectu discernere a veris.9• Quid diceret si culinam vidisset loachimi Buecklaer,
in qua poma & hortorum reliqua; in qua altilia, carnes, pisces, ita rem mentiuntur, vt non
vnam fallant ancillam coquariam?
Fuit & Pamphilus, cuius est Vlysses in rate," vt & periclitari videas, & sperare: & Echion,
cuius est Liber Pater,0ooin quo victorem agnoscas, & hederatam tamquam a torculari lu-
bentiam. Apud vos vero Guilielmus Key: cuius est Christus immoriens cruci, latroque inter
blasphemas vltima desperatione voces animam ingenti corporis contorsione euomens; alter-
que culpam agnoscens, & veniam deprecans. Sed super haec, senex veneranda canitie, laeto
vultu, ore blando, cui nihil desit extra vocem: nam & animam inesse reris, ita oculi, os,
vultusque reliqua, totam cum penicillo mentem afflatam testantur.
Laudatus etiam, & inter primos numeratus Protogenes, qui anhelantis canis spumam,
melius irata spongia quam penicillo expressit:10' cuius etiam est Satyrus tibias tenens"'2 &
inflans, & varia concentus expectatione auditorem fallens. de quo illud veteres, omnia illi
cum Apelle fuisse communia, nisi quod ille manum de tabula nesciret tollere, memorabili
praecepto, nocere saepe nimiam diligentiam.'0, Neque Protogene minor Martinus de Vos;
cuius est, auersantis psaltriae vultum, magni Baptistae caput; truncumque corpus, tamquam
a recenti vulnere & lapsu supinum. Huius etiam est Antonius in aera raptus, tanta stipatus
monstrorum saeua varietate, vt nihil necessum sit ad terrorem inferos adire; vna te tabula
docebit quid timere debeas.
Fuerunt & alij singuli in arte, quam profitebantur,• magni. Hic Callimachi exemplo
non saltantes Lacaenas,105 sed rusticum agmen recoctum cereuisia, tam certa expressit
agraria lege, vt nec Bacchum desideres, nec illicem tibiam. alij, nemora, arbores, fiondes,
luxuriantesque comas, ac quasi a vento motas dederunt, vt & sibilum exspectes, & aues
fallant infida sede. pluresque hic etiam, quos graue foret recensere, & curioso volumine
percensuit Carolus van Mander. Vt si suos iactet Italia Vrbinos, Angelos, Tizianos; suos
Germania Dureos, Holbenios, Aldegrauios: suos Antuerpia possit Quintinos, Florios,
Bruegelios: vt vnam iam vrbem cum tot laxissimis regnis ingeniorum magnitudine audeam
componere. Quid si ciuitatis huius reliquos? quid si vniuersi Belgij nobiles pictores ad-
duxero, & e singulis oppidis suos euocauero, quantos darem? Cleuios, Brilios, Cockios,
Congnetos, Mabusaeos, Mostardos, Moros, Schoorelios, Aertsios, Hemskerkios, Pourbusios,
Barensios, VVinghios, Hofnaglios, Cocxios? Cocxij est Antuerpiae Sebastianus iaculo traes-
fixus: in quo videas sentire animam, sinistri pedis femorisque retractu, cumrintima, sagitta
depascitur: quin & spectatores vulneris dolorem sentiunt: & Georgius ab eadem manu
96 l"' Pliny, xxxv.102-4. Here Scribanius condensed into a
Pliny, xxxv. 126-7: 'Pausias... fecit... bourn immo-
lationem... picturam, quam postea imitati sunt multi, few lines Pliny's account of Protogenes's frustration as he
aequavit nemo.' tried to paint the foam on the mouth of a panting dog
97Pliny, xxxv. 136: 'Timomachus... Aiacem et Mediam and only succeeded when he angrily threw the sponge,
pinxit... LXXX talentis venundatas.' used to wipe off his attempts, at the picture.
8 Pliny, xxxxv.155: 'M. Varro tradit sibi '02 Pliny, xxxv. 106. 'Satyrus... tenentern tibias' are the
cognitumn Ro-
mnaePossimnnomine, a quo facta poina et uvas alitem only words of Pliny's that Scribanius repeated; the re-
nescisse aspectu discernere a veris.' Varro was Pliny's mainder appears to be his own elaboration.
principal source, but this is one of the few places where '": Pliny, xxxv.80, about Protogenes: Apelles... dixit
Pliny acknowledged it. Possis, at any rate, was a sculptor, enim omnia sibi cum illo paria esse... sed uno se prae-
not a painter. stare, quod manum de tabula sciret tollere, memorabili
9' Pliny, xxxv.76: 'Ulixes in rate' is all Pliny says about praecepto nocere saepe nimiam diligentiam.' Scribanius's
Pamphilus's picture; it is Scribanius who develops the version ('de quod illud veteres') turns Apelles's critique
emnotionalcontent of the scene. into an opinlo (co0n1Nl/nlis.
100Pliny, xxxv.78. Echion is Pliny's Aetion, who indeed '"4 Ed.: profitetebantur.
painted among various 'nobiles picturae' a 'Liber pater' 10' Pliny, xxxiv.92, about Callimachus: 'huius sunt
(Dionysus), but the remainder of the sentence I have not saltantes Lacaenae.' Scribanius mentions the Spartan
yet found in Pliny. dancing girls again on p. 40, in his section on sculpture.
 SCRIBANIUS ON ART 2(1I
trunco affixus; rotaque crudeli circumactu Martyris membra perpetuis nouaculis dilania-
tura, in ipso volutionis suae initio caelo tacta, & in crudelitatis ministros eo potentius
saeuiens, quo in vnum Martyrem multorum carnificum ingenia sudauerant. equos hic
habes cum sessoribus turbatos; vnum etiam excussum pronum in terra, in cuius nudo dorso
omnis ars certare videatur: neque minor hic naturae expressio quam in Apellis equo, ad
quem adhinniuerunt equi viui.106 Nullus sit finis si pergo. ergo abrumpo, & in medio cursu
gradum sisto. totamque hanc artem, humanae aemulam naturae, cogitationi potius cuius-
que quam calamo committo.

Ars pictoria (translation)

I cannot entirely pass over the art of painting, especially since I am aware that the law
decreed that only free-born men could practice painting and that it was permanently
forbidden to teach it to slaves, not only in Sicyon, but throughout Greece. In discussing
this great art, however, I shall not deal with living artists, the great marvels of Europe-
the reward for listing them being minimal, whereas the danger of giving offence may be
great. For if I mention only a few, what could I expect but jealousy? If I list them all, the
task would be enormous; and were I to prefer one to another, what could I expect except
abusive words or painted caricature. Later generations, free from the vexation of rivalry,
will proclaim with noble pen the great names of this age and your city. For the present
I would venture to say this about them as a whole: their brushwork leaves nothing to
be desired in distinction: not the beauty of the mouth, the elegance of the hairstyles, the
expressiveness of the eyes, nor the faces, looking back, up and down; nor the folds and
creases of the garments, nor the twisting of the veins, nor the fitness of the joints and
limbs, nor the bulging of the muscles, like bulbs; nor the delights or melancholy of the
countryside; nor the tree-tops of the forest, whether in full foliage or shedding their leaves;
nor the hills which rise abruptly; nor the mountain ridges with their pastures, the slopes
with their greenery, the shady dens, open stretches of cultivation, hollows with springs and
steep inclines made fertile by rivers. Not that you will find ancient artists deficient in these
things: not Apollodorus of Athens, Parrhasius of Ephesus, nor Zeuxis, who was fooled by
Parrhasius's curtain and with perfect modesty conceded the prize to him; not Eupompus,
Pamphilus, Demophilus, Melanthius, Echion, Euphranor, Cydias nor Pausias.
But my writing is concerned with those artists who have died and whom death can be
seen to have placed beyond envy's reach. Nearly every kingdom of the world had great
artists working in this genre. Their names have been consecrated to eternity by those
ancients who admired and praised all the arts and sciences. Still, you will find that more
painters have been produced by this single republic in one century than from the entire
world over many former ages. Let us recall those of old with a grateful memory and, as far
as is appropriate, use them as a comparison.
Celebrated among the ancients was the painting of the Battle of the Magnetes by Bular-
chus, for which Candaules, King of Lydia, paid its weight in gold. Yet here today I can look
at the Battle of Heaven by Frans Floris, with Lucifer cast down and St Michael standing
over him, accompanied by his mocking, terrifying and threatening troops. Lucifer's cohorts
are hanging from a precipice and trembling in mid-descent, so that you would think they
are falling and with their minds in turmoil are insulting heaven in final blasphemy. Else-
where I see the Mother of God ascending to the heavens with angels playing all around
her, so that you would think that their blessed minds are overflowing with joy and that
they cut through the air with their wings, as if rowing, slowly and gently. And this joy is
felt throughout the entire realm of the heavens, so that everything seems to have assumed
the appearance of happiness, now that all signs of grief have been driven away. Floris also
painted a Last Judgement on the Day of Divine Reckoning which inspires great terror.

1'0 Pliny, xxxv.95. Scribanius condenses a longer treat-

ment of this 'test' into a few words.
202 JULIUS S. HELD
You can see the sentence of the Judge, whose final words still hover on his lips and whose
eyes, full of wrath, fix on the damned. Then you see bodies being carried off and the abyss
of hell-women thrown together with men, young with old, in wretched annihilation. Next
you see the delights of heaven and bodies flying towards them, so that you may marvel
at how long they have stayed suspended in the air, as if they were fixed there in eternal
flight. With equal retribution of good and evil, some are tortured in the infernal regions
while others dissolve in joy in heaven, so that the viewer is terrified by the scenes of
torture, but elated by those of rejoicing. Jacobus de Backer made a renowned picture, full
of variety, on the same subject, worthy of posterity and continued life, and comparable to
the works of the ancients.
Parrhasius of Ephesus was a great artist, who painted a Cretan nurse holding an infant
in her arms; he also painted an athlete running in a race, so that he seems to be sweating,
as well as another man who, as he lays down his arms, is perceived to pant. Another great
painter was Aristides of Thebes, who showed an infant in a captured town, crawling to-
wards the breast of its wounded and dying mother: it is evident that the mother is aware of
this and fears that the child may suck blood since her milk has stopped flowing. Pieter
Bruegel will not be judged inferior [to these ancient artists]. He depicted Herod's Mass-
acre of the Innocents in a snowy setting, so that you would believe that the snow is real,
and swear that the blood is too; and you would shudder at the terrible mingling of blood
and snow, of white and red. What will you say when you see a mother tearing her hair,
lacerating her face and, in place of sweat, pouring out tears like raging torrents, the only
solace for a beloved child? What will you say when you see another woman almost at the
very moment when her soul is slipping away, or lying prostrate, as she takes the last breath
before soul is sundered from body, in whom you see no tears but many signs of death? And
when you see a third woman shedding milk and blood from a single wound and imbibing
life from the infant hanging from her breast, so that as the baby drinks milk and blood he
injects life into that same nourishing breast, as if he were going to return life to the mother
from whom he had received it, would you not exclaim: 'You win the contest'? And again
when you see a baby pierced through by a gaping wound and are able to discern how
much life still remains in him-a child who, as he stretches out for the last time, sucks at
snow instead of breasts, as if reclaiming the life which is escaping through his wounds-
would you not cry out, 'Hurrah! Victory!'?
Timanthes's fame is vast, and his painting of Iphigenia standing at the altar, about to
die, is celebrated by orators in their eulogies. When he had painted everyone as sorrowful,
especially her uncle, and in doing so had used up every expression of sadness, he veiled
her father's face, unable to represent it in a worthy manner. Will Quentin Massys be judged
inferior, when you have his [painting of] the dead body of Christ laid out on a linen
shroud? In it you will see Nicodemus, his knees giving way, growing weary under the
burden of the beloved neck, not so much from the weight as from his grief. You will also
see the Mother of God, who had stood by the cross, decorously slipping to the ground, her
body having crumpled as if the sinews had been loosened by her son's death, were she not
supported by the disciple [St John] into whose care she had been committed [John 19.27]
as a safeguard. His knees likewise falter, not from the weight of his precious charge but
from the burden of immense sorrow. You will also see the Magdalen, sadness and love
contending within her heart, vowing to exchange her life for that of her beloved, letting
her hair fall loose as she prepares the ointments, careless of hair and ointments, and of
herself. You also have St John, in a fiery copper vat of boiling oil: indignant, you might
say, at the victory of his persecutors, he has a calm mind and expression, as though he
were refreshed by a warm, healing bath. You also have the girl musician at St John [the
Baptist]'s execution: with poised and shameless step, she is not so much walking back and
forth as sweeping across the ground. There is also the girl's mother, fixing the dead man's
head with her lustful eyes, with such an impudent gaze that compared to this fire all the
whores in their brothels would appear frigid.
Zeuxis was a great artist. But was Jan van Hemessen inferior? Which of them had great-
er esteem for his talent and art? Consider the products of each of their brushes as if they
 SCRIBANIUS ON ART 203
were the accomplished offspring of a learned mother. You will hesitate to say whether
Zeuxis's Jupiter, with the gods flanking him, or Hemessen's Prodigal Son, beset by female
bacchants, is more outstanding; or whether the former's Hercules strangling the serpents
is better than the latter's Prodigal, who-once his purse has been emptied-kisses cudgels
instead of cheeks. And how does Zeuxis's Alcmene, Hercules's terrified mother, compare
to Hemessen's Prodigal, who, in his mental uncertainty, is torn by an internal conflict be-
tween hunger, cold, shame, memory of the past and fear of the future? What of the fact
that Hemessen rivalled the glory of not just one [ancient artist] in that very painting?
Nicias, renowned in ancient accounts, was more successful than all the rest at depicting
dogs; yet our Hemessen painted a cat which is every bit as good as his Molossian hounds.
Also renowned was Pausias, whose cattle were imitated by many but equalled by none,
though I am not at all sure that Hemessen's pigs grunting in their trough are any less
marvellous. Timomachus too was famous: his Medea we learn was sold for eight talents;
but I doubt whether Hemessen's procuress, sticking out her impudent tongue as she
makes fun of the Prodigal among his girl-friends, could be exchanged for a sufficiently
worthy sum of gold. I say nothing about the rest of the painting-the spread on the table,
the old drunkard, the blind musician and the artist himself, blowing into several pipes to-
gether, accomplished in every mode, not only as painter but as musician.
Varro recounts that he knew a man named Possis in Rome who produced grapes and
fish so that no one who looked at them was able to tell them from the real thing. What
would he have said if he had seen one of Joachim Beuckelaer's kitchens, filled with apples
and other garden products, and with fowl, meats and fish, counterfeiting the real thing so
well that they would not disappoint a single kitchen maid?
There was also Pamphilus; he painted Ulysses on a raft, whom you can see exposed to
danger but full of hope. In addition there was Echion; he painted a Father Liber [Bacchus],
in whom you may recognise the conqueror, and Pleasure [Libentia?] crowned with ivy as
if from a wine-press. Among your artists is Willem Key; he pictured Christ dying on the
cross with one thief who, amid blasphemous cries of utter desperation, spews out his life
with violent contortions of his body, while the other thief acknowledges his guilt and prays
for forgiveness. But above this is an old man with venerable grey hair, a joyful expression
and a pleasant mouth which lacks only a voice; for you imagine that he is alive because his
eyes, his mouth, and the other features of his face give evidence of a complete personality
brought to life by the artist's brush.
Also celebrated and numbered among the foremost artists was Protogenes, who pro-
duced a better impression of foam at a dog's panting mouth with a sponge thrown in
anger than with his brush. He also painted a Satyr holding and blowing on pipes and
deceiving the listener with the expectation of hearing many different tunes. The ancients
said of him that he had everything in common with Apelles except that he did not know
when to remove his hand from a painting-a lesson worth remembering, that too much
careful attention can often be harmful. Marten de Vos was no less an artist than Protoge-
nes; he painted the head of the great Baptist while the girl musician turns her face away in
horror, and the headless body lying flat on the ground, as if it had only just been struck
and fallen down. He also painted a St Anthony carried off into the air and encompassed by
such a variety of savage monsters that there is no need to go to Hell to find terror: this one
picture will teach you what you must fear.
There were other individuals who were notable in the art they practised. There is one
who [in the margin: Pieter Balten], following the example of Callimachus, portrayed, not
Spartan women dancing, but rather a rustic throng, warmed by beer, so true to rural cus-
tom that you would not find Bacchus lacking-nor seductive pipes. Others [in the marngin:
Cornelis Molenaer, Joachim Patinir, Joachim Beuckelaer] have painted groves, trees, leafy
branches and luxuriant foliage, seemingly stirred by the winds, so that you expect to hear
the rustling, and birds which trick you from their deceptive perch. And there are many
more painters, who should be seriously considered here, and who have been thoroughly
treated in a volume by Karel van Mander. Just as Italy boasts of its Raphael, Michelangelo
and Titian, and Germany of its Dtirer, Holbein and Aldegrever, Antwerp can brag about its
204 JULIUS S. HELD
Massys, Floris and Bruegel; so that I may venture to compare one city with the multitude
of talents in the most far-flung kingdoms. What if I were to include the rest of the artists
of this city? What if I introduced the illustrious painters of the whole of Belgium and
summoned them from their individual towns; how many would I cite? Hendrik and
Marten van Cleve, [Matthys and Paul] Bril, [Matthys and Hieronymus] Cock, [Gillis]
Coignet, [Jan] Gossaert (Mabuse here), [Gillis] Mostaert, [Anthonis] Mor, [Jan] van Scorel,
[Pieter] Aertsen, [Marten] van Heemskerck, [Pieter and Frans] Pourbus, [Dirk] Barentsz,
[Joos] van Winghe, [Joris] Hoefnagel, [Michiel] Coxcie? In Antwerp there is a St Sebastian
pierced by a dart, by Coxcie; in it you may see his soul suffering when, with his left foot
and thigh held back, the arrow consumes his entrails-indeed, the onlookers too feel the
pain of the wound. St George, painted by the same hand, is fastened to a tree trunk, and
when the cruel wheel is turned, the martyr's limbs are going to be torn to pieces by the
continuous movement of razors; but, as the wheel begins to turn, it is struck by lightning,
raging against the perpetrators of this barbarity all the more powerfully, because the
cunning of many torturers had been exerted against one single martyr. Here you also have
horses thrown into confusion along with their agitated riders; one of the horses, still
vigorous, is lying face down on the ground, and in the depiction of its bare back every skill
seems to contend for superiority; nor is nature captured less effectively here than in the
case of Apelles's horse, which live horses neighed at.
There would be no end if I were to continue. I therefore break off and halt in mid-
course, entrusting this entire branch of art, which imitates human nature, to the consider-
ation of each of you rather than to my pen.