Although
portable works of art frequently echo or transmute
motifs
and styles from larger pieces, when of sufficient quality
to
offer lessons to would-be imitators, the art historian avidly
searching
for sources has usually ignored all except coins and
ivories,
with the result that there is little comprehensive
information
on how they were used. Toby Yuen, however, has
started
to redress the balance with a detailed examination of
their
effect on the art of Giulio Romano, Giovanni da Udine and
Raphael
(Yuen 1979). Although this book is not about the
influence
of antiquities on contemporary art, it bears stating
that
the mediaeval propensity for producing its own small works
to the
nearly total exclusion of more monumental pieces makes
the
imitation of small-scale antique exemplars as part of that
process
the more likely: Adhémar, for example (1939, 86),
sees
the church treasuries which received antique works from the
rich
Gallo-Roman families of France as no less than `veritable
museums
of Gallo-Roman art'. It follows, therefore, that such
work
may be of prime importance for revivals of antique art,
most of
which would be created for or in association with the
Church.
Most small
objects were no doubt found singly and casually,
but
some spectacular finds helped encourage the belief that
antiquities
meant treasure or demons, if we read Benvenuto
Cellini
on his adventure in the Colosseum, or the tales about
Virgil
the Magician - for, as Oldoni says, mediaeval romance
literature
`is punctuated by grottoes, machines, statues and
spells'
(Oldoni 1977/80, 2.605ff.). Many tales freely combine
the two
elements of treasure and magic, as in that of the famous
statue
in the Campo Marzio in Rome with HIC PERCUTE on the head:
an
ingenious interpretation of the inscription led to the
discovery
of an underground cave, with walls and ceiling of gold
- and
treasure. The tale, which appears in William of
Malmesbury,
was transposed to other localities such as Apulia,
where
no less a hero than Robert Guiscard performed the deed
(ibid.,
2.548ff.). Thus does the basest of all motivations for
the
exploration of antique sites blend with the more pressing
need
for building material, during the search for which it is
logical
to assume that most finds of treasure were made.
It is
easy to see why the survival rate of such objects is
near to
zero: when not fragile, like pottery, or ornamental,
like
gems, most finds were melted down for their bullion
value,
converted into more up-to-date designs, or
broken
down into their constituent saleable parts.
With
sarcophagi or `idols', there was good reason for the Middle
Ages to
preserve the one and destroy the other. But with
manuscripts,
the easiest thing to prove about their survival was
that it
was haphazard, as a study of any textual tradition will
show
(e.g. Billanovich 1951, 149ff., 199ff.): `how much do we
know,'
writes Pächt (1943, 64), `of the survival of
classical
manuscripts in late mediaeval libraries? Indeed, the
darkest
mystery surrounds the fate of pagan manuscripts between the
demise
of the public and private libraries of the antique world
and the
renewal of interest in their contents several centuries
later;
this is reflected in the fact that so few MSS were copied
between
550 and 750, and many parchments had their writings
washed
off for re-use. The Carolingian revival was the first
(excluding
the English and Irish outposts) to interest itself in
classical
literature, and therefore ancient MSS were once more
copied.
Furthermore,
the suggested rationale for the copying of
manuscripts
leaves much to be desired - namely that MSS were
copied
to preserve the text (and illustrations), because the
originals
were too fragile or decayed to survive. We have the
copies,
but why have so few of the originals survived, even as
fragments?
Or were many of them lost in post-mediaeval times? Can the
acquaintance
with an isolated piece of illumination have
sufficed
to convey to the northern painter the artistic secrets
of a
distant epoch and a foreign milieu?' The question is
important,
given the belief of some that manuscripts played a
crucial
part in the development of later mediaeval styles; thus
Emile
Mâle's influential L'Art réligieux du 12e
siècle
en France begins with a chapter entitled `The
birth
of monumental sculpture: influence of manuscripts' and
with
the gloss that `sculpture disappears at the end of
classical
antiquity ... Under the influence of the miniature,
sculpture
reappears in southern France in the late eleventh
century.'
Mâle is referring to mediaeval manuscripts, of
course,
and many of his comparisons are convincing; but he
leaves
no place for considering the possible influence of actual
antique
artefacts in the development of the new style. Given his
belief
that Carolingian ivories are themselves influenced by
manuscripts,
the omission of a discussion of surviving classical
manuscripts
is unfortunate.
What
were the conditions in scriptoria relevant to the
preservation
and transmission of ancient manuscripts? The
copying
of manuscripts was essential for the preservation of the
text
when the material used was as fragile as papyrus and
parchment.
The latter was particularly vulnerable to damp and
insect
attack, because it was virtually untreated leather and
most
nutritious; once damp, it would have been very difficult to
dry
with the writing preserved. Horror stories regarding the
fragility
of manuscripts are therefore common (Lesne 1938, 28).
Parchment
was also expensive, and skins were therefore liable to
be
scraped clean for re-use, so that old codices in script which
was
either old-fashioned or difficult to read would be broken up
(an
example in Billanovich 1951, 184). However, there is no
evidence
that re-use of skins was a deliberate attempt to blot
out the
pagan past, as has sometimes been surmised; and perhaps
this
whole area is of little consequence for the preservation of
classical
works, for Lesne (1937, 475) maintains that there are
no
cases in which such palimpsests conserve a complete work, and
also
that the majority are Christian texts. Simple destruction
of manuscripts
was also easy, either through neglect or design:
we are
told that the great library of Alexandria went in 638 to
feed
the fires of the baths of that city, on the excuse that `if
these
writings of the Greeks agree with the book of God, they
are
useless and need not be preserved: if they disagree, they
are
pernicious and ought to be destroyed' (cited by Gibbon 51).
The
extent to which antique manuscripts (particularly
illustrated
ones) were available in the Middle Ages is disputed
- a
natural reaction given the small size of most known
collections
(Lesne 1938, 767ff.), but unadventurous given that
most of
the classical texts surviving today do so thanks to
mediaeval
copies. One centre where the copying of antique works
of art,
or their illustration, did take place more or less
without
a break is Constantinople, which `must still have been a
treasure
house of classical art objects, including precious
manuscripts,
before its destruction in the year 1204 AD'
(Weitzmann
1949, 160). But it is not considered that a similar
quantity
of classical sources was available in the West: thus
Rosenthal
will admit a direct late antique source only for
Terence
and Aratus manuscripts, noting for the rest that
classical
elements were `imitated' indirectly, and `only after
having
been transformed during the late Antique and early
mediaeval
centuries. Classical elements, therefore, were not
`revived';
rather they entered Carolingian art as they had
`survived'
in their transmuted forms' (1953, 85). He does not
discuss
later works, such as the Vivian and Moutier-Grandval
Bibles,
which must surely have been copied directly from
fifth-century
manuscripts (Beckwith 1964, 52ff.). Indeed, for
many of
the sumptuous manuscripts with purple leaves and gold
and
silver capitals, it is surely not unreasonable to suggest
either
fifth- or sixth-century manuscripts as direct exemplars,
or
Roman lapidary capitals (cf. McGurk 1962, 23, 30f.). Certain
texts
do indeed survive in large numbers of mediaeval
manuscripts,
reflecting the interest they aroused: a notable
case is
that of Vitruvius - surely one element in the
Carolingian
revival of antique forms, to be considered along
with
survival of actual buildings (Frankl 1960, 86ff. and n. 16).
Did the
MSS of this work available to the Carolingians still have
their
illustrations?
From
reflections in later works, then, it can be inferred that
some
early illustrated manuscripts were indeed available to
scriptoria
during the Middle Ages (cf. the discussions in P[um]
acht
1943 and Bloch 1950). The majority must have survived in
monastic
or at least religious collections (cf. Lesne 1938,
31ff.
for French examples): we have no record of royal or civic
collections
in the West from the fall of the Empire to the time
of
Charlemagne. For example, it is well known that the Vienna
Genesis
(or the Cotton variant) was used for the Trecento
mosaics
in S. Mark's, Venice, and inspired the creation of
further
manuscripts (Buchthal 1971, 47ff., 63f.; Pächt 1943,
65f.).
Again, the Calendar of 354 (Vat. Barb. Lat. 2154) is one
of a
group of copies based on a Carolingian intermediary; and
the
fourteenth century Egerton Genesis `must have preserved to a
high
degree the late antique style of the original if indeed it
was not
itself the original' (Pächt 1943, 63, and 64ff. for
general
remarks). Another example is the Paris BN Manuscript of
the
third decade of Livy, the influence of which can be
documented
through the copies which were made, and the travels
of
which from Avellino to Corbie and then Tours are thereby
reconstructed
(Lesne 1937, 483f.). Proof of availability is only
firm in
such cases as this, where we still possess both
`original'
and `copy'. In the majority, however, the classical
originals
are lost: with many Carolingian
manuscripts, the
classical
forms and (sometimes) classical subject matter point
to
sources of the fourth and fifth centuries being available in
the
scriptoria: thus Delogu (1977, 66, n. 196) sees the
illustrations
in the Utrecht Psalter as a reflection of the
antiquarianism
and interest in columns and capitals manifested
at Aix.
The same epithet of `antiquarian' could, of course, be
applied
to the very paleography of many Carolingian manuscripts,
which
imitate the epigraphic style of the second and third
centuries
- rather than earlier manuscript styles (Deschamps
1929,
14).
The
reflections of ancient MSS in later productions are
indications
that several at least were `re-used' by being copied
or
imitated in the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, this is an area
where
archaeology can be of little help, for it cannot advise on
availability.
Nor should we assume that any MSS available would
automatically
be used as models - as Beck reminds us (1980, 33)
by
recounting the fiasco of Cardinal Bessarion's gift of 500
manuscripts
to the State of Venice in 1468. These were made
available
only four times between 1472 and 1476, and put into
packing
cases in 1485; subsequently it was decreed that no codex
could
be borrowed without the consent of three-quarters of the
senators!
`It is hard to comprehend', remarks Beck, `that all of
this
took place in a period we call the Renaissance.'
Why do
we not possess a more complete picture of the fate of
antique
manuscripts in mediaeval scriptoria? Because, replies
Lesne
(1937, 475f.), monasteries lacked the means, the mission
and the
need to conserve pagan texts; and our view must be a
partial
one because the monastic schools did not adopt the same
range
of interests as the pagan schools.
If, as
at Tours, there were monks who were lapidary masons as
well as
copyists of manuscripts (Adhémar 1939, 149, n. 4),
then
perhaps it was not unusual to take inspiration from
different
media. Certainly, the matter of the transmission of
classical
forms is problematic. Where, for example, did
illuminators
find those complicated acanthus capitals with which
so many
manuscripts are decorated? Jalabert (1965, 37f.)
suggests
that some would be pure invention, but never considers
that
full-size antique exemplars might have been available when
the
books were illuminated. Similarly, she sees some Romanesque
forms
as inspired by manuscripts (ibid., 45). The matter is
complicated
by the manifest connections between manuscript and
full-scale
representations in the ancient world: compare, for
example,
the similarities adduced by White (1956, 92f., and pl.
29b and
c) between Cavallini's work in S. M. in Trastevere, the
Vatican
Virgil and the probable appearance of the large
fifth-century
frescoes in S. Paolo fuori le Mura. Indeed,
so
antiquarian were some productions that it is sometimes
difficult
to decide whether certain manuscripts are late antique
`originals'
or Carolingian `copies'; the latter view assumes the
availability
of late antique originals to imitate. In many
cases,
of course, the availability of exemplars cannot be in
doubt -
as in Köhler's demonstration of the sixth-century model
behind
a mere fragment of work from the Ada School (Köhler
1952),
or Pächt's remarks on the use by the illustrators of
Frederick
II and Manfred of ancient models, and not corrupted
mediaeval
copies (1950, 24). It is not surprising that the centres
which
prized `genuine' manuscripts, and imitated them, were
precisely
those in which antiquity in other materials was also
highly
regarded. Such an interest in `authenticity' meant, in
the
case of the Carolingians, a focus on the city of Rome and
imitation
of some of her celebrated features: for those
manuscripts
containing vine columns (deriving from the columns
in Old
S. Peter's), the source was probably sixth century Roman
manuscripts
(Rosenbaum 1955, 1ff.). A parallel example is the
Lindisfarne
Gospels, which have been shown by Saxl (1943, 17f.)
to be
connected with surviving Roman sculpture as well as with
imported
manuscripts and other small-scale work: their artist
`must
have become aware of the relation between these imported
documents
and the old Roman stone work still everywhere visible,
and
probably in particular profusion in Northumbria. It does not
seem
illogical to assume that his inherited instincts and the
Romano-British
models still available led him to evolve the new
style
of the Lindisfarne Gospels.' A third example shows the
circularity
of some of the arguments on the survival of ancient
manuscripts:
Werckmeister (1976, 543ff.), investigating the
possible
sources for the Bayeux Tapestry, considers both
Trajan's
Column and the possible survival of a picture roll of
the
Joshua Roll type, itself a work of the mid-tenth century.
However,
it is impossible to decide whether the Joshua Roll is
the
last of an antique tradition or, rather, a new invention
inspired
by viewing the columns of Constantinople (ibid., 545 and
nn.).
Antique
coins have always been available in varying quantities,
as laws
on treasure trove reflect (Morrisson 1981 for the
East;
Hill 1933 for the West), and they have always been
imitated
for their iconography, motifs and even lettering (on
which
cf. Morison's suggestion that the wedge serif in Irish and
other
manuscripts could well come from Imperial coins and
medals:
Morison 1972, 155ff.). And because the most important
characteristic
of coinage is to reflect stability in value, the
mediaeval
world had much knowledge of `external' coins through
trade,
so that we not only find Arabic coin types imitated in
Europe,
but also Roman and Byzantine types imitated in the Arab
world
(Al-Ush 1971).
Most
antique coins were surely found in hoards, and there are
some
curious examples of re-use (rather than
imitation)
of antique coins in the mediaeval period, ranging
from a
whole series of first century coins overstruck and
re-issued
in the late fifth century, and Roman denarii turning
up in
tenth- and eleventh-century Germanic hoards, to Roman
coins
still in circulation in the France of Napoleon III, and
Roman,
Byzantine and Moslem coins in use in Asia Minor later in
the
same century (Morrisson 1983, especially n. 5). There are
even
cases of `official' re-use, as when coins of Domitian and
Theodosius
were found countermarked, dated 1636, and in use as
contemporary
Spanish coinage (Merson 1975). Perhaps we may
conclude
that, where hoards contain some coins much earlier than
the
majority, these were still in use as currency.
An
important reason for the continuing popularity of antique
coinage
was the power of the messages it could bear.
Because
the Christian iconography of rule to be seen on coins
evolved
from pagan ideas, rather than replacing them, and the
pictorial
répertoire was reduced rather than extended, there was
no
viable alternative to a basically pagan iconography.
Thus
although some abstractions such as Spes and Providentia
were
not used in coinage after the fourth century,
personifications
such as Victoria, Roma and Constantinopolis did
survive
(Grierson 1976); by the fifth century, we find the Cross
supported
by Victory - a hybrid which was amended rather than
replaced,
for Victory became an angel, or S. Michael. In the
East,
Victory disappeared by 629; in the West, the Franks used
it up
to c. 575, the Visigoths to c. 580, and the
Lombards
in Italy to c. 690 (ibid., 622ff.). Such an
iconographic
tradition was also a strong argument in favour of
imitation:
the Lombards imitated Roman coins in both legend and
iconography,
just as the Celts had imitated Greek ones (Belloni
1980);
and the Carolingians Charlemagne, Louis the Pious and
Lothair
I all had themselves portrayed on some of their coinage
after
the fashion of Roman pieces of the Empire (Colin 1947, 91,
n. 1) -
surely a political rather than simply an aesthetic
decision.
Indeed, the imitation of Roman coins by barbarians
begins
during the Empire itself (Belloni 1981), and was
widespread
thereafter (Baum 1937, 54ff. and figs. 26-43):
bracteates,
as used for example by the Longobards, turned
classical
coin-images from money into jewellery (Werner 1972).
The
mediaeval regard for antique coins is best known from
Charlemagne's
famous pastiche, so frequently used to prove just
how
antiquarian he was. However, this example is misleading, for
not
only is its style exceptional in the coinage of his reign,
but it
may not have gone into circulation, being used simply as
a medal
for presentation to friends - a practice for which there
are
parallels for other `special' issues (Grierson 1954,
1062f.);
perhaps Einhard reminded his master that Augustus
himself
had done likewise (Suet. Aug. 75: `he would now give
gifts
of clothing or gold and silver; again coins of every
device,
including old pieces of the kings and foreign money').
Nor was
Charlemagne's coin the first to imitate the antique, for
a
silver denarius of Ethelbert, king of East Anglia, of about
790,
shows the wolf suckling Romulus and Remus - a use equally
as
`political' as that of ancient marble or statues (the same
might
be said for the Early Christian manner of the Salerno
ivories:
Bergman 1974, 172f.). But whoever began the fashion, it
was
adopted by some (but not all) later rulers. Thus we find in
Pavia a
lead seal with the head of Lothair `all' antico', with
laurel
crown, and the legend DN HLOTHARIUS AUGUSTUS, with GLOR
EGNI
on the reverse, framed by a laurel crown with a fillet.
The
gold solidus of Louis the Pious was much imitated (Grierson
1951).
The coins of Gisulf I (946-77) are antiquarian as well,
for the
reverses have Roman-type perspective scenes (e.g. a
follis
with a view of Salerno, and the legend OPVLENTIA
SALERNV):
what is more, the coins are individual to his reign, being
very
different from those of his predecessors and his immediate
successors.
But Gisulf II (1052-77), the last Longobard prince
of
Salerno, imitated Roman coins so precisely for some of his
money
supply that the whole point would have been lost had not
originals
been available for comparison (discussion in Delogu
1977,
169ff.; Grierson 1956).
In no
case can we do more than guess what the impact such
implied
`messages' on coins might have been: but this is also
the
case with their sources for, in a rich discussion of Roman
attitudes
to their coin types, Michael Crawford (1983, 53)
believes
that `we cannot conclude ... that the Greeks and Romans
often
noticed the programmatic coin types with which they were
confronted'.
But the growth in popularity of such imitations
during
the later Middle Ages may indicate a growing availability
of antique
coins and medals. Frederick II's famous augustales
were
imitated from a specific issue of Augustus, and were
actually
put in circulation; as Wentzel has shown (1952), they
were by
no means the only example of antique inspiration in the
coinage
of that period. Even earlier, we find William II of
Sicily
issuing (from about 1184) a trifollaro with a lion-mask,
which
is taken directly from the ancient coinage of the area,
particularly
Rhegium and Messina. Such imitations may indicate a
political
identification with the history of the area, and a
desire
to demonstrate continuity; and, as the author who has
recently
published the detailed comparisons points out, `we must
recognise
and now accept evidence for a still earlier date in
mediaeval
history of the collecting and study of ancient coins -
almost
certainly an aspect of the collection of other classical
art and
artefacts' (Breckenridge 1976, 282). Further research
(in
areas like the coinage and seals of the Staufer) may well
uncover
more examples of direct imitation of the antique.
William
must have found the Greek coins he imitated on
Sicily
itself, but there are examples of coins from Greece and
its
islands probably available in Western Europe in the
thirteenth
century. The most curious were known as the
thirty
pieces of silver paid to Judas, which have been studied
by De
Mely (1899): one of these is a medallion of Syracuse,
surrounded
by a gold disc on which is engraved QUIA PRETIUM
SANGUINIS
EST (Babelon 1901, 80); others are drachmae of Rhodes
bearing
the head of Helios and, on the reverse, the legend
RODION
- perhaps taken as a reference to Herod. It would be idle
to try
to decide whether these coins reached
Europe after the
fall of
Constantinople, or through the Knights of Rhodes, who
are
connected with at least three of the coins (De Mely 1899,
503,
505f.) - especially when it is clear that the coins of
Rhodes
were famed for their beauty in Antiquity, and eagerly
collected
even then (Babelon 1901, 68; 79, n. 3). Robert de
Clari
is recorded as bringing `numismata' back from
Constantinople
(Riant 1875, 206), and the Corbie reliquary he
also
brought back contained a Roman medallion (Babelon 1901,
81),
but we have no further details. Grierson (1955) suggests
that the
Rhodian coins were found as a hoard on that island in
the
early fifteenth century.
Some
coins did survive by being converted from money into
ornaments
and, although silver ones were treated this way as
early
as the first century, the practice generally used gold.
The
choice of that metal for such jewellery (mainly brooches and
pendants)
is easily explained by its intrinsic value: many
Romanised
barbarians preferred to trust metal, and perhaps the
Imperial
images the coins bore were simply a bonus. Such
conversions
became popular from the third century, and
medallions
were used as well when they came into vogue
(Zadoks-Jitta
1953). Coin pendants and rings seem to have been
especially
popular in the seventh century, as examples found in
Merovingian
graves testify (ibid., 456). Of course, more humble
coins
were frequently used as ornaments as well, perhaps having
the
power of amulets: and the pagan Anglo-Saxons sometimes had
Roman
coins buried with them (Meaney 1981, 213ff.). Nor was this
rare in
Italy: compare the medallion necklace from Lodi, now in
Pavia,
where a gold solidus of Theodosius I (379-95) was set
into
its mount not later than the end of that century. The
practice
continued well into the ninth century (Aix la Chapelle
1965,
168ff.).
The
popularity of such `antiquarian' decorations, and
consciousness
of their aesthetic value, can be judged from the
frequent
use of imitated - rather than genuine - Roman coins,
perhaps
indicating that even by Merovingian times (but only in
some
areas?) antique coins were not only scarce, but were prized
more
for what they represented than for their metal: thus a coin
in the
Hague (ibid., 457) is pseudo-Roman and bears the Roman
eagle
with IOHANNIS - an example of the Christianisation often
seen in
Bishops' rings which are made from gems. Indeed, this
supposed
scarcity is supported by Zadoks-Jitta's description
(ibid.,
459) of a presumably seventh century fibula with a
much-worn
aureus of Antoninus Pius, which the proud owner
converted
into a pendant when the pin from the brooch broke off.
And the
suggestion that antique artefacts were prized for what
they
represented is seen in Bruce-Mitford's argument (1961) that
the
Anglo-Saxons had an intelligent attitude toward Roman
culture,
reviving both art and techniques `not in the confusion
of
invasion and settlement and the breakdown of the Roman
system,
but when the Saxon Kingdoms were consolidated and
achieving
wealth and status'. Thus Roman designs were sometimes
used
not simply as trinkets, but for conscious political or
social
ends, as we have seen. The argument is strongly supported
by the
attention given to gems, which had no bullion value:
these,
not always of late Imperial date, were widely employed in
Migration
Period brooches, and have been found in fifth- to
seventh-century
graves in Britain and on the Continent (Henig
1974,
162ff.; 196, and cats 111, 518).
Turning
coins into jewellery is the proof that the aesthetic
value
of ancient coins was recognised early - linked, probably,
to both
metal value and political overtones. Coins also had
historical
value, for both their iconography and inscriptions,
and it
would be interesting to know whether those states which
proudly
displayed full-sized inscriptions also collected antique
coins
which turned up on their territory. Unfortunately, the earliest
collection
of antique coins of which we know is that of Petrarch
(Weiss
1969, 37), who purchased medals brought to him in Rome by
peasants,
and deciphered their inscriptions with emotion
(Babelon
1901, 83). But Petrarch was not alone: Giovanni
Mansionario
drew several coins about 1320, a splendid series
appear
in a Fermo manuscript of about 1350 (cf. Degenhart
1968ff.,
2, cat. 640), and the 1351 inventory of the treasures
of Doge
Marino Faliero included a box `with fifty coins of
marvellous
antiquity'. There was therefore a market for such
coins
by the mid-fourteenth century, as is confirmed by the
acquisition
by Oliviero Forzetta in 1335 of fifty medals in
Venice;
he bought them from a Magister Simeon, and they must
have
been antique (Babelon 1901, 82f.). Roman coins would of
course
be readily available on Italian soil, but the collecting
of Greek
coins from the fifteenth century (Babelon 1901, 85ff.)
was
probably possible only through new imports - largely,
perhaps,
from Venetian possessions or trading posts; and this
was,
indeed, the path whereby one of the Rhodian coins reached
Europe,
being given to Cosimo de' Medici by the Greek Patriarch
at the
Council of Florence. However, with the fall of
Constantinople
and the ever-increasing grip of the Turks, the
importation
of spolia of any kind from the Eastern parts became
much
less easy than during those centuries when the West traded
freely
with the East, and ruled over parts of it.
By the
fourteenth century, then, Roman coins and medals were
not
only prized and imitated, but probably common, if we are
guided
by their reflection in contemporary art work, and by the
inspiration
they provided for coins and seals (Wentzel 1952;
1955).
The increased pace of urban development, as well as
purely
intellectual reasons, may have played some part in the
process.
Francesco Novello da Carrara (reigned 1390-1405) was
perhaps
the first Western ruler to use more than the occasional
antique
image on his coins and, in so doing, he began a fashion
(Weiss
1969, 53f.).
The
attitude that works of art in valuable materials were `bank
accounts',
well known from Louis XIV and his famous suite of
silver
furniture, has never disappeared: it was not unusual in
the
Middle Ages for institutions to maintain wealth in
ostentatious
form (conspicuously as reliquaries or other sacred
ornaments)
which were melted down when pressing occasion arose
(Sumption
1975, 155f.). Money had spread throughout the Roman
Empire
in trade - but also as tribute, if we may judge from a
decree
of 374 forbidding the furnishing of gold to barbarians,
who
used Roman gold coins and Roman jewellery as bullion
(Belloni
1980). This may be some reflection of the barbarian
fashion
for burying valuables with the dead (Bloch 1933, 9), as
well as
an early hint of the impoverishment of supplies of
precious
metal which would so affect the Middle Ages; for, as
Bloch
reminds us (1933, 11), these dwindled thanks partly to the
import
of luxury goods from the East. There were no gold mines
in
Western Europe in the Middle Ages, and the shortage of gold
(which
had virtually disappeared from Germanic Europe by the
eighth
century) surely contributed to the thesaurisation of
treasure,
including perhaps that of Alaric (Dochaerd 1949,
35f.),
although it has been maintained (Lesne 1936, 238f.) that
some pieces
survived for centuries because of their beauty.
Evidence
from hoards indicates that an assiduous mediaeval
grave-robber
could sometimes collect interesting material. One
hoard
at Corinth had Roman coins from the 340s to the 470s,
Byzantine
coins of the sixth century, coins from Sikyon (fourth
to
second centuries BC), and coins of Philip II of Macedon
(Dengate
1981, 153ff.). Dengate lists several other late hoards
containing
Greek coins, which are not rare (157, n. 18), and
surmises
that the collector of the Corinth hoard simply
scavenged
around the city and its graves, for he also collected
droplets
of bronze from the earlier bronzeworking areas. Indeed,
some of
his worn fourth-century coins may have been collected
directly
from circulation - that is, having been in use for
about
two centuries (ibid., n. 21 for list of later hoards
containing
them). However, most antique coins were surely
appraised
simply for their metal value, without any
consideration
of their iconography or `artistic' interest. Digs
at, for
example, Silchester and Leicester, have produced
residues
from the melting down of Roman coins. Analysis of those
from
the Forum at Leicester has found them to consist of silver,
copper,
lead sulphide and calcium phosphate: the absence of tin
means
that base silver coins, not bronze ones, were destroyed
for
their metal. This also happened to a large treasure found before
the
year 1004 during reconstruction of the cathedral of Orleans,
by the
masons who were checking the firmness of the earth for
the new
foundations (Mortet 1911, 3f.).
Indeed,
since the original point of metal coinage was its
bullion
value, it is not hard to see why so much extraneous
coinage
was melted down, or (supposedly) imported from the Arab
world
(critique in Grierson 1954): Henry III of England bought
large
quantities of Muslim gold coins - not because he needed
them in
their bought form, but because it was a convenient way
of
obtaining the metal. Nor, indeed, was there any lack of
extra-European
or even non-Christian money circulating in the
Middle
Ages, including Saracen, Syrian and Byzantine coins; but
whether
Roman money survived in use for long after the fall of
the
Empire is a moot point (Bloch 1933, 13, and n. 5). It would,
however,
be interesting to know whether antique coinage had any
recognised
barter value in the Middle Ages.
Overstriking
is a footnote to the use of ancient coins as
bullion.
The practice was not very rare, probably because the
quality
of ancient metals was recognised as superior to that of
modern
efforts. One example is a proof coin from the reign of
Francesco
da Carrara, where an actual reverse from the reign of
(probably)
Antoninus Pius, has had the bust of Francesco looking
like Vitellius
added to the obverse: his mint had evidently
filed
the antique head off a Roman coin, and then struck that of
the
modern ruler in its place (Cessi 1965). A century later, the
forger
Cavino may well have done the same, for some of his
medals
are struck in yellow metal, perhaps worn Roman sestertii:
`thus,
the variations in thickness and diameters of such medals
might
be explained by how worn the coin was and how much force
was
used to strike the coin' (Klawans 1977, 11-12).
Overstriking
continued in later centuries, as Louis Savot
writes
in his Discours sur les médailles antiques,
Paris
1627, 308f.): `For because we today have lost the means of
making
the beautiful yellow metal of the Ancients, those who
wish to
imitate it take an old medal of this metal, worn smooth,
which
they strike with a new die made in imitation of the
antique,
so that thereby they convince the more easily that the
medal
is antique.' Such care was exceptional, and overstrikes
which
have not obliterated the image underneath are frequent, as
for
example the large number of tenth-century Byzantine coins
thus
treated found in the excavations of Corinth; in mediaeval
Salerno
they are a valuable guide to relative chronology,
because
the original coins are modern, not antique (Grierson
1956,
40f.). Overstriking was clearly practised for the sake of
thrift
- but also, perhaps, because the ancients had done
likewise
(Babelon 1901, 938ff.).
One of
the oldest art-forms with a continuous history (Zazoff
1983),
gems may well have been the first small artefacts to be
collected:
Julius Caesar gave his collection to the Temple of
Venus
Genetrix, because she was the ancestress of his gens; and
Marcellus,
the nephew of Augustus, gave his collection to the
Temple
of Apollo on the Palatine (Wace 1949, 28) - proof,
perhaps,
of a vogue at the beginning of our era. All the peoples
of
mediaeval Europe seem to have treasured antique gems, and
Cagiano
de Azevedo (1970, 250f.) reminds us that the mediaeval
interest
in splendour and glitter is the legacy of late
Antiquity.
Thus, unlike most categories of antiquities, gems
were
indeed collected during the Middle Ages, and much prized:
for
many antique pieces are preserved in mediaeval settings and,
indeed,
gem-making continued during the Middle Ages, with
Christian
motifs introduced and, sometimes, pagan gems altered
(Wentzel
1963; Zazoff 1983, 374-86). The availability to the
Middle
Ages in miniature of the main motifs of classical art is
therefore
certain (e.g. Horster 1970). Gems also had plenty of
secular
uses: the Carolingians, for example, made seal-stones of
antique
intaglios, and other seals with imitations of such
antiquities
(Colin 1947, 91f.). Thereafter the practice became
common,
as with the seal impression of Richard, son of Drogo, on
a
diploma of 1090, made by an antique intaglio of two men
facing,
the one standing hand on hip, the other seated and
holding
a shield; perhaps this example reflects how readily
the
Norman conquerors of Southern Italy took up indigenous
fashions.
Because
gems are among the least destructible of antique
artefacts,
`there is every indication that some of the glyptic
masterpieces
which have come down to us were never buried but
have
served to delight their owners through twenty centuries'
(Henig
1974, 21); certainly, they have been found all over the
Roman
world (Zazoff 1983, 261ff., 307ff.). Perhaps most remained
unburied
because of the burial practices of the Christians who,
unless
they were Merovingian, tended not to indulge in
grave-goods.
It follows that, since pagan jewellery settings
were
apt to be melted down, converted to a religious use, or
perhaps
modernised (Lesne 1936, 175ff.), what gems were
available
during the Middle Ages came either from non-Christian
burials
(such as the Frankish disc-fibula in Darmstadt:
Steingräber
1957, 17f., which includes a gem with a Medusa
head),
from a few burials in Britain (Henig 1974, 65f.; Meaney
1981,
228ff.), or were preserved, frequently by monarchs -
because
`jewels became part of the ceremonial of the revived
king-worship
of antiquity' (Steingräber 1957, 17). However,
although
some treasuries with antique gems survive (such as that
at
Aachen), later disturbances have dispersed most of them: we
know
from English records, for example, that both St Alban's and
St
Paul's possessed very rich jewellery collections - including,
no
doubt, antique pieces - which were lost at the Reformation
(Henig
1974, 199). Part of such collections may have been made
during
the investigation of ancient sites, especially those with
religious
significance: compare the recent work in the Sulis
spring
at Bath, which has yielded no less than thirty-four
(Henig
1974, 61f.). Indeed, gems cannot have been scarce in
Britain,
for they laid the foundations for some British
coin-types,
and were later used in seals (Henig 1974, 2.106ff.
lists
34). An early description survives of one gem, presented
to King
Aethelred, which was later drawn by Matthew Paris
(Dodwell
1982, 109 and pl. 25).
Jewels
also had a secure place in the trappings of Christian
ritual,
for `every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius,
topaz
and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the
sapphire,
the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold' (Ezekiel
28.13)
- a passage used by Abbot Suger illustrating (and
justifying)
his exposition of the riches of his church (Frankl
1960,
19). Indeed, the mediaeval propensity for viewing gems in
terms
of their mystical Christian associations (as in Alexander
Minorita's
Expositio in Apocalypsim ch. 4, in MGH
Quellen
zur Geistesgeschichte 1.51) explains how it was that
classical
gems - even those which could admit of no Christian
explication
- were given to religious foundations as ex votos
(Baltrusaitis
1973, 51ff.). Occasionally a Christian
interpretation
is indeed possible if tendentious: it seems
likely
that commissioners and jewellers alike knew the general
origin
of the pieces they bought and used, but this did not
prevent
some preposterous misinterpretations (Müntz 1887,
48) -
any more than it did the use of apparently unsuitable
pagan
gems as clerical seal-stones (Adhémar 1939, 106ff.;
Baltrusaitis
1973, 287, n. 86; 287, n. 95). Nor was it unusual
to
mount pagan cameos and gems in Christian contexts, two famous
examples
being those set in the crown of the Miraculous Virgin
of
Notre Dame du Puy (Bachelier 1956), and the surviving
sections
of the Ecrin de Charlemagne in the Louvre, one of
which
has an antique cameo in a setting of about 860-70
(Steingräber
1957, 19ff., and fig. 3); indeed, one of the
most
splendid collections of gems was that at Saint Denis
(Montesquiou-Fezensac
1975), and one of the finest objects
therein
(apart from the Ecrin ) was the Tabernacle des
Corps
Saints built, perhaps predictably, by Abbot Suger.
One
popular Christian destination for gems was as
decorations
in sumptuous covers to religious books, frequently
those
used in the services. The practice began early: S.
Augustine
inveighs in a letter (PL 22.418) against women whose
books
are in gold on purple vellum, and their covers decorated
with
gems. Beginning under the Empire for secular books, it was
taken
over, apparently exclusively, by the Church (cf. Ezekiel
28.13,
quoted above). Are there any examples of the covering to
secular
texts from the Middle Ages decorated with engraved gems?
Antique
gems and cameos, like ivories, were enthusiastically
imitated
throughout the Middle Ages (Snijder 1933; Wentzel 1962)
- a
proof of their continuing popularity to place beside that
provided
by their continuing use in liturgical contexts well into
the
fifteenth century (Montesquiou-Fezensac 1975, 143ff., for a
gift by
the Duc de Berry, a great collector in the medium).
Intaglio
gems had natural scarcity because they were not made in
large
quantities after about 200 AD, and the scarcity of
originals
must have been partly filled by imitations: the
Longobards,
who also reset originals, such as the fibula from
Benevento
in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Rotili 1975, 124f.),
were
making glass imitations of antique pieces by the early
seventh
century, if Snijder's dating of the Brescia Cross is
accepted
(Snijder 1933, 121; Wentzel 1963); and Leo IV certainly
(847-55)
decorated the high altar of S. Clemente with a crown
embellished
with glass gems (LP 2.125) - which helps
explain
Eraclius' recipe De gemmis quas de Romano vitro facere
quaeris
(1.iii, in Merrifield 1849, 1.183ff.). Indeed, as
Wentzel
(1952) and Sauerländer (1961), among others, have shown
for the
thirteenth century, gems were the inspiration for work
in
other media (to which Panofsky 1970, 63, n. 5 adds
statuettes),
just as antique coins were the inspiration for new
seal-stones
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (Wentzel
1955).
Indeed, Wentzel's examination of French mediaeval gems
and
seals (1953) leads him to conclude that a taste for the
antique
was highly fashionable in the thirteenth century, and
their
imitation a guide not only to this, but also to the
scarcity
and high cost of the originals. If Wentzel is correct
(ibid.,
342), then were antique gems responsible for the
reintroduction
of the profile bust into European art, about 1220
AD?
The
apparent increase in interest in gem stones and references
to them
(Faral 1967, 351ff.) in the later Middle Ages may have
been
helped by the Crusades: Geoffrey of Monmouth specifically
mentions
large quantities of gems `of such rarity that they are
unknown
in our lands' as part of the booty of
the First Crusade
(Gesta
Regum Anglorum 4.371), and the succeeding
expeditions
must have increased the numbers considerably; some
of the
imports provided inspiration for contemporary gem-cutters
(Steingräber
1957, 33). Similarly, the most curious examples
of gems
treasured during the Middle Ages are surely those
preserved
in a pre-fourteenth century ebony and ivory box in the
Treasury
of the Capella Palatina at Palermo: attached labels
identify
them as a collection of `precious' stones brought back
by a
pilgrim from the Holy Land, with their provenance noted
(`de
sepulcro Ismael' on one, for example). The value of all of
them
was sentimental and religious - with the exception of a
Mesopotamian
cylinder seal of the third millennium BC, which is
so worn
that it may well have been hung around the neck as some
kind of
talisman; it was clearly not made in Palestine, so
either
it or the pilgrim must have travelled (Rocco 1981). The
rest of
the stones are, on our scale of values, worthless, but
the
power of association no doubt made them collectable: a
famous
parallel is that of the Holy Grail, convincingly
suggested
to have been a marble altar table, but proclaimed in
Wolfram
von Eschenbach to have been of precious stone. Probably
Wolfram
embroidered on the fact that several such early tables
are in
porphyry - a precious stone among marbles (Barb 1956,
49f.).
The
import of gems from the East, then, was probably not rare,
for
there are references to gifts to church treasuries from
Palestinian,
Arabic and Byzantine sources, and these may have
included
antiquities as well as contemporary work (Lesne 1936,
180, n.
2). Some of the uses of gems in Western ceremonial may,
like
fashions in marble, be inspired by Byzantine practice - and
we
should always keep in mind the scale of the Byzantine export
trade
of its own, sometimes antique-inspired, productions
(Nickel
1978). The late tenth-century pectoral worn by the
Empress
Giselda at her wedding to Conrad II at Easter 1027
(Steingräber
1957, 22f., and fig. 8) contains several Roman
intaglios,
and the whole form derives directly from the dress of
the
Byzantine Emperors. The use of Byzantine gems was a distinct
vogue
in thirteenth century France where, in later settings,
they
appear as ecclesiastical clasps, and also as models for
antiquarian
sculptors (Coche de la Ferté 1966). Others probably
arrived
at various times as gifts from one ruler to another;
this,
for example, is Colin's explanation (1947, 107ff.) for the
Cup of
the Ptolemies now in the Cabinet des Médailles, given by
Charles
the Bald to Saint-Denis; and he makes powerful arguments
for the
onyx vase given to the English monarch Aethelstan in 927
(which
has not survived) as contemporary, not antique. We have
mediaeval
accounts of other vases, too, which clearly were
antique
(Lesne 1936, 227f.), but confirmation is impossible
because
they have in most cases long since disappeared. Many
surviving
works in pietra dura were probably (like many gems)
never
buried - although some were surely taken from tombs. The
Norman
court of Sicily collected such work (and probably made
new
pieces: Giuliano 1980, 24f.); secular and religious
treasuries
(conspicuously that of S. Mark's, Venice) did
likewise
(survey in Gasparri 1979), large numbers probably
arriving
as a result of the 1204 sack of Constantinople.
The use
of antique gems as talismans was common, and one
obvious
reason for their popularity, for both designs and
materials
were believed to have magical or medicinal properties
(cf.
refs. in Maue 1982): one of the most famous of the antique
gems in
the fifteenth century, a chalcedony now lost, being
rescued
by Niccol[gr]o Niccoli from a child's neck. The lists of
talismanic
gems proclaim their magical properties: they
frequently
name the antique subject matter of gem types in
particular
stones, and their length reflects the large numbers
of
stones available (cf. Wright 1844, 449ff. for two lists of 27
and 22
items respectively). Another and parallel token of the
wide
availability of gems are the treatises on their medical and
other
properties, being imitated in English mediaeval art
(Higgitt
1973, 12, and n. 2): the Gesta Abbatum of S. Albans
(1.84)
notes that the majority of the Abbey's cameos went in the
early
twelfth century to ornament the shrine of the saint -
except
for a cameo noted for the aid it gave in parturition.
Such
lists of the properties of gems provide tangential evidence
that
they were not only prized when found, but actively and
assiduously
sought, for the formula is generally If you
should
find a stone in which there is ... or In whatever
stones
you should find ....
.st Portable Works: Ivories
Since
prehistoric times, ivory has been a favourite medium for
small
three-dimensional figures and, especially, for relief
work:
it takes detail well, and can receive a high polish -
characteristics
which, together with its rarity, befitted it for
the
luxury market of containers and decorative panels. I know of
no
examples of the re-use of ivory statuettes in the Middle
Ages;
but plaques were prized, whether made up into caskets or
used as
Consular Diptychs - that is, bivalve tablets prepared by
officials
for presentation to the Emperor on the occasion of
their
investiture.
Diptychs
were were easily translated into a Christian context,
for
bishops replaced consuls, and religious scenes replaced
pagan
ones of the hunt or the circus games; and several notices
survive
of the conservation of pagan and Christian examples in
church
treasuries (Lesne 1936, 233ff.). For such diptychs could
themselves
be re-used - as for example the Anastasius leaf in
the V
and A, London, which has lists of names on the verso which
are
perhaps one or two centuries later than its creation in 517
AD; the
Clementinus Diptych (Liverpool), which bears an
inscription
indicating re-use in Magna Graecia in the eighth
century;
or the Probianus Diptych (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek),
which
was used as covering to an eleventh-century manuscript
(other
examples in Adhémar 1939, 88f.). Indeed, decorated
bookcovers
have frequently preserved gems, ivories
and
metalwork from earlier periods (Steenbock 1965, passim).
The
fashion might have been imported from Constantinople -
witness
Halitgaire's gift to Charlemagne, after an embassy
there,
of `tabulas eburneas quibus libri cooperti' (Lesne 1936,
178, n.
6).
There
are therefore several reasons for the prizing of antique
ivories
during the Middle Ages, ranging from their scarcity
value
and connections with the Empire, to their use, alongside
Christian
counterparts, as exemplars for contemporary art work.
In
centuries when full-scale sculpture was rarely made (partly,
at
least, because it was not portable), ivories with an
established
liturgical function were popular enough to be
imitated,
sometimes so exactly that supposed copies are accepted
as such
only with difficulty. This is the case with several
ivories
of the Carolingian Court School (Fillitz 1965-6), the
sources
for at least four of which are late antique, perhaps
fifth
century. Saxl (1943, 13) has shown that an ivory is the
source
for one scene on the Ruthwell cross; and it need not
surprise
us that ivories rather than larger works are arguably
the
source of some motifs in later mediaeval panel paintings and
manuscripts:
for example, the physiognomical types of the Ada
Gospels
(ibid., 235f.). In this case, however, it was work from
the
court of Justinian which was imitated, rather than Western
styles.
The
existence of antique ivories at mediaeval courts is
therefore
used by some scholars as a sufficient explanation for
the
sources of Carolingian and Ottonian antiquarianism; and it
is
indeed true that they were one channel whereby knowledge of
large
scale antique works was maintained (e.g. Graevan 1902) -
such as
the iconography of Athena, transmitted to the court of
Charlemagne
via Byzantine work (Lewis 1980, 89ff.). Thus for
Colin
(1947, 113f.), the representation of a Gallo-Roman tomb in
the
Sacramentary of Drogo, and other similar structures in ivory
panels,
come directly from late antique ivories - one possible
source,
of course, for Villard de Honnecourt's drawing of a
`Saracen'
tomb. For Jalabert (1965, 46ff.), ivories are the key
inspiration
for the altar table at Saint Sernin and for the
cloister
at Moissac - apparently to the exclusion of surviving
Roman
forms, which she never considers. Weitzmann (1971) is more
flexible
for, while demonstrating that in Byzantium ivories did
indeed
form models for marble sculptors (he gives such a
parallel
for a twelfth-century relief in the sacristy of Ferrara
Cathedral),
and referring to Goldschmidt's demonstration that
ivory
models were thus in thirteenth-century Hildesheim and
Halberstadt,
he also suggests antique text illustrations as
models
for certain ivories, and does not totally rule out the
use of
Early Christian marbles during the Middle Byzantine
period.
On the
other hand, Schwartz (1960, 158) believes that elements
in some
Carolingian ivories (in the group attributed to Metz,
Liége
and Cologne) are themselves directly inspired by
antique
sarcophagi and tomb structures which, he suggests, the
ninth-century
artists must actually have seen; and Rosenbaum
(1955,
7 and pl. 4) also suggests sarcophagi (albeit with
circumspection)
as a source for figure groupings in Carolingian
canon
tables. For Bayle (1980), studying Romanesque sculpture in
Normandy,
manuscript illumination and ivories together, in some
cases
of two centuries previously, provide the main but
certainly
not exclusive channels of inspiration. In some
instances,
of course, such as the Ionic-style capitals in the
crypt
of Saint-Germain at Auxerre, it is clear that neither ivories
nor
other small works of art were not sources: the inspiration for these
must
derive from Provence, where the monk Heric records the
constructors
of that church having gone for material.
Metalwork,
like coinage (Grierson 1954, 1060), is bullion
re-shaped
as art. Where the metal value of objects was more
highly
prized than either their associations or their artistry,
it is
easy to see why few objects could survive from antiquity,
and we
have no indications that objects of precious or
semi-precious
metals (except perhaps for a few coins) survived
above
ground through the whole of the Middle Ages. The centre
about
which most is known is inevitably Constantinople, where
little
was preserved from the oldest periods, for it suffered
modernisation,
conversion into coinage, or iconoclasm (Lombard
1974,
128ff.). Exceptions are the lavish gifts which reached
Western
rulers from the Emperor: for example, those to Chilperic
included
a gem-incrusted salver weighing fifty pounds, and
medallions
weighing one pound each (HF 6.2). To such
imports
we must, once again, add the antique material in the
religious
booty brought back from the Fourth Crusade (Riant
1875).
Unfortunately, references in the West are far from
explicit,
so just what was available is a matter for argument.
This is
illustrated by the records of about 875 noting the gifts
of
silverware to churches in the city of Auxerre by Bishop
Didier
(603-21): Colin (1947, 92ff.) believes not only that this
material
was seventh century Byzantine, not Roman; but also that
it was
probably melted down early in the ninth century. He
refuses
to acknowledge, what is more, that one of the bribes
offered
to Bishop Theodulf of Orleans on a visit to Provence in
798
included antique art; instead, he believes the vase with
twelve
scenes from the life of Hercules which is mentioned to
have
been contemporary Byzantine work (ibid., 103ff.).
In the
West, the centres captured by the Moors suffered the
destruction
of those treasures which had not already gone to
earlier
invaders: that of the Visigoths at Toledo, in 711; or
that of
the Persians at Ctesiphon in 637 - the sale of the
precious
metal causing inflation and a drop in the price of gold
(Lombard
1974, 195ff.). One technique used by the Moors to
extract
money and goods was high taxation: thus Syrian and
Egyptian
churches lost their treasures in the eighth and ninth
centuries
for, writes Lombard (ibid., 198), `like the treasures
of the
temples in Antiquity, `the treasures of churches and
monasteries
played, in the Musulman world from the seventh to
the
ninth century, the role of reserves of metal for turning
into
money, and on which the sovereign draws from time to time.'
The
same device was common in Europe as well. Bloch (1933, 12)
cites
the case of the gold crucifix offered by Archbishop
Willigis
to the Cathedral of Mainz, one foot of which later went
to pay
the Pope his pallium, and a second to pay the expenses of
a local
war. In Gaul, precious objects were sold in times of
hardship:
accounts survive of liquidation to feed the poor and
to pay
ransoms (Lesne 1936, 164ff.), and the same happened in
England
(Dodwell 1982, 7), where the Reformation completed the
devastation.
Calabi Limentani (1970, 259) reads a similar
interest
into the noticing of objects of bronze during the later
Middle
Ages - as, for example, in Magister Gregorius' mention
that he
saw a bronze wolf and a (small) bronze tablet in the
Lateran;
nevertheless, some works survived (cf. Gazda 1970 for
refs).
Metal was also used as payment for goods - as can be
proved
from the seventh century onwards. Thus Bede tells us (
Hist.
Eccl. 3.6) that King Oswald cut up a silver dish to
distribute
as largesse: there is no hint that an antique piece
was
involved, but the very deed might suggest that antique
objects
could also be viewed as bullion, not art. David Herlihy
(1957)
has shown, by studying the contracts of the period, that
treasure
was used as substitute money on an increasing scale
from
960, reaching a peak in the later eleventh century; over
the
period studied (960-1139), forty per cent of contracts
involved
payment in something other than money (and cf. Grierson
1951,
3ff. for the Carolingian period). Similarly, bronze
statues
in Constantinople were supposedly melted down for
coinage
at the 1204 Sack (Gazda 1970, 247).
What
objects survive today come largely from modern
excavation,
from chance discovery, or as imports from the East.
But we
do have a few mentions of Western discoveries: Gregory of
Tours
thought it worthwhile to record the casual find of a
bronze snake
and rat while the Parisians were clearing out a
blocked
drain (HF 8.33), and also the finding of bronze and
iron
objects by some monks in 563 (HF 4.31) which, since they
are not
described, are presumably mentioned as an indication of
the
value of the metal. The story has a moral for, in their lust
for
gain, the monks were careless, and the hillside collapsed
and
buried them. Gregory's monks were not alone in searching for
vessels,
and the proof that these were indeed dug out throughout
the
Middle Ages is provided by the various benedictions which
allow
their re-use in Christian ritual: one, the Benedictio
super
vasa reperta in locis antiquis calls upon God to cleanse
`these
vessels made with the skill of the pagans' (cf. Wright
1844,
439f.). Perhaps the vase found at Gilton (Kent) in the
nineteenth
century is an example of such Christianisation, for
it had
been repaired in the eighth or ninth century with strips
of
metal decorated with Saxon figures.
We also
have plentiful archaeological evidence that small
items,
often of metal and especially of bronze, were robbed from
graves,
most of which would have been found by chance. At
Herdonia,
near Foggia, ancient tombs were searched in later
Antiquity
or the Middle Ages: some were cleared out, but in
others
pottery was left behind - an indication that metals had
been
extracted (Greenhalgh 1982, 8). In both Britain and Gaul
small
metal objects, like gems, seem to have had the power of
talismans;
and broken keys, Roman brooches, knife-handles,
belt-plates,
a spoon with a broken handle, and even Neolithic
necklaces,
arrowheads and flints have been found in graves;
fragments
of Roman glass are also frequent, reflecting the
sophistication
and rareness of the medium amongst both
Anglo-Saxons
and Franks (Meaney 1981, 222, 227f.). To this list
should
be added many finds of glass beads; although what
proportion
are Roman (as opposed to Germanic, Prehistoric or
contemporary)
is apparently difficult to say in the present
state
of knowledge (ibid., 192ff.).
Some
`bulk' bronze also survived the Middle Ages - such as
some of
the architectural decoration of the Pantheon. For
although
its bronze roof tiles were taken to Constantinople in
663 by
the last Emperor to visit the city (just as, earlier that
same
century, in 629, the pope had stripped the Basilica of
Maxentius
of its gilded bronze tiles for use on S. Peter's), the
great
bronze roof truss from the pronaos lasted until the
seventeenth
century, and was then taken, largely to turn into
cannon.
The (original?) bronze doors still survive, but the
bronze
cladding of one of the pilasters was melted down in the
sixteenth
century to make the S. Peter for the top of Trajan's
Column.
Genseric's sack of Rome in 455 AD had wrought similar
damage
on the bronzes of the city, including taking over half
the
bronze cladding of the roof of the Temple of Jupiter
Capitolinus
(Procop. Wars 3.5); but antique bronze doors
survived
in sufficient quantities to serve as models for some
mediaeval
sets (Mende 1983, 18ff.).
Although
most pottery is no candidate for re-use, its sheer
quantity
ensured that it was noticed - for it was a sign, like
bricks
and tiles, of previous settlement on a site. But while a
survey
of mediaeval pottery would show the survival of a few
basic
shapes, there is no evidence of a thoroughgoing imitation
of
Roman forms, or indeed of any collections of pots before the
late
fifteenth century - excent for evidence suggesting that the
Saxons
prized and collected the fabric of terra sigillata for
use as
medecine (N. Hammond in The Times, 30 August, 1984).
Occasionally,
Roman ware may have been noticed and preserved,
however:
nearly all the pottery found when excavating the Torre
Civica
at Pavia was residual; but one first-century black-gloss
bowl
might have been taken into the tower in the eleventh
century,
judging from its stratigraphy (Blake 1978A).
The
antique pottery which attracted attention in the later
Middle
Ages was Arretine and other samian wares, because of its
decorative
motifs: it was well known at Arezzo itself, probably
elsewhere
in Italy, and perhaps further afield as well. In a
short
description of that city, Giovanni Villani mentioned it as
the
main feature of the place, thinking it impossible that it
was the
work of mere human beings (1.47). Such was its fame that
Ristoro
d'Arezzo devoted a whole chapter (if a short one) to it
- the
Chapter on ancient vases - and, in the long
description
he gave of the motifs to be found used as
decoration,
proved a good knowledge of its varieties. It was
readily
available, and Villani wrote that `when today one digs
for any
reason inside the city or up to two miles around it,
large
quantities of these vase pieces are found, more in some
places
than in others ... it is assumed that they have lain
underground
for about a thousand years'. What is more, they were
prized
by artists: `when one of these pieces came into the hands
of
sculptors or draughtsmen or other knowledgeable people, they
considered
them holy objects, and said they were divine work.
And it
was thought that the subtle nobility of such vases, which
were
carried over almost all the world, was a gift of God
Himself.'
How could Ristoro have known of the export of such
vases,
were not reports of their finding elsewhere available to
him?
In
Villani's day, then, kilns and their spoil-heaps were
known,
probably outside the Roman city and hence in the suburbs
of its
mediaeval successor - so that, again, urban expansion
apparently
helped uncover antiquities. Their location is
illustrated
by the discovery of one kiln with four whole vases
and
many broken ones, said by Vasari to have been discovered by
his
ancestor Lazzaro Vasari (died 1452) near the Ponte alla
Calciarella.
The toponym could be a corruption of `Carciarelle',
because
the furnaces looked like little prisons, or of
`Calcinelle',
`the little lime-kilns' (Gamurrini 1890, 65).
Indeed,
one suburb was called `of the furnaces' (Fabroni 1841,
18;
60). Much earlier, we have `Orciolaia' - `the place of
little
vases' - in a document of 1354; and another furnace site
just
outside the Porta Buia, in a deed of 1315 (Gamurrini 1890,
63ff.).
Indeed, one puzzling word in Ristoro's account must
indicate
that kilns were rediscovered in his day, and not simply
pots;
for he states that `the vases were made of two colours,
light
blue and red, but more of the red'. Arretine pots are
always
in tones of red, so the `blue' ones must be rejects
spoilt
in the kilns and thrown away (Ballardini 1964, 70ff. for
technical
details); or just possibly, as Fabroni suggests (1841,
36), a
bluish tint given to the black glaze under certain light
conditions.
Such
hints make it probable that motifs on Arretine pottery
were
used as models by mediaeval artists, as they certainly were
by
those of the High Renaissance (Yuen 1979). They are mentioned
several
times by Vasari, who also refers to the availability of
Etruscan
pottery, painted and plain (e.g. in his life of
Battista
Franco: Vasari-Milanesi 6.581f.). A thorough search
would
no doubt show that other categories of antique vase were
known
and imitated in the Middle Ages: Gombrich, for example,
has
recently suggested (1976) that the decorative palmettes on
Bonaventura
Berlinghieri's S. Francis panel in Pescia shows
motifs
which demonstrate knowledge of antique Greek originals,
and
adduces an Apulian situla for comparison. He is surely
correct
to point to Pisa and Lucca as places where antique
spolia
provided inspiration, and to maintain that `a mason of
early
thirteenth-century Lucca would hardly have been surprised
to see
a painter deriving similar inspiration from a painted
fragment
of an ancient vase'. But the difficulties
involved
in `placing' a ubiquitous motif like a palmette into
one
century are surely too great for our present state of
knowledge,
and it is perhaps to look to the
vigorous tradition
of
architectural friezes (all but one of Berlinghieri's friezes
are
indeed architectural) conceived in Italy in terracotta as
well as
stone and marble and maintained throughout antiquity.