JOURNAL OF THE WARBURG AND COURTAULD

INSTITUTES

VOLUME FIFTY

1 9 8 7

T H E W A R B U R G I N S T I T U T E U N I V E R S I T Y O F L O N D O N

E D I T O R S

D. S . C h a m b e r s Peter K i d s o n Elizabeth M c G r a t h

A D V I S O R Y B O A R D

Michael Baxandal l L o m e C a m p b e l l M i c h a e l E v a n s

J . M . Fletcher Ernst H. G o m b r i c h

Char les H o p e J o h n House Michael K a u f f m a n n M i c h a e l K i tson

Jill K r a y e

C. R. L igota A . M . M e y e r Jennifer M o n t a g u Nicolai Rubinstein J . B . T r a p p

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the British A c a d e m y for a grant towards the cost of production of this volume

© 1987, The Warburg Institute, Woburn Square, London WC1H OAB

P R I N T E D I N G R E A T B R I T A I N B Y

W . S . M A N E Y A N D S O N L I M I T E D

H U D S O N R O A D L E E D S LSQ 7 D L

TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE

Panofsky, Suger and S t Denis. B y Peter K i d s o n . . . . . . i

Pietro Lorenzett i and the History of the Carmel i te O r d e r . By J o a n n a C a n n o n . 18

Classical T h e m e s in the Decoration of the Palazzo V e c c h i o in Florence. By

Nicolai Rubinstein . . . . . . . . . . . 2 9

A n n i u s o f V i t e r b o and Historical M e t h o d . B y Christopher Ligota . . . 4 4

Ibn a l -Hâyt im on the T a l i s m a n s of the L u n a r Mansions. By Kristen Lippincott and D a v i d Pingree . . . . . . . . . . . 5 7

T h e Private C h a p e l of C a r d i n a l Alessandro Farnese in the Cancel leria , Rome. By Patricia R u b i n 82

T h e 'Bellissimo Ingegno ' o f Ferdinando G o n z a g a (1587-1626) , C a r d i n a l and D u k e of M a n t u a . By D. S. C h a m b e r s . 113

V e l a z q u e z and Muri l lo in Nineteenth-Century Britain: an A p p r o a c h through Prints. By Enriqueta Harris . . . . . . . . . 148

Lord Ronald G o w e r , G u s t a v e Doré and the Genesis of the Shakespeare Memoria l a tStrat ford-on-Avon. B y Philip W a r d J a c k s o n . . . . . . 160

C o n c e r n i n g W a r b u r g ' s ' C o s t u m i teatra l i 'and A n g e l o Solerti. By A. M . M e y e r . 171

Notes and Documents T h e Earliest C h i r o m a n c y in the W e s t (Charles Burnett) . . . . 189

A Baronial Bestiary: Heraldic Evidence for the Patronage of MS Bodley 764

(Ronald Baxter) 196

T h e Medal l ions o n the Sistine Cei l ing (Charles Hope) . . . . 200

A j a x and Cassandra: an A n t i q u e C a m e o and a D r a w i n g by Raphael (Ruth

Rubinstein) . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

T h e V e n u s Belvedere: an Episode in Restoration (Arnold Nesselrath) . . 205

T h e Illustrations of Luc ian 's Imago vitae aulicae (Jean M i c h e l Massing) . . 214

Benedetto V a r c h i and the V i s u a l Arts (François Quiviger) . . . . 219

An Early Seventeeth-Century C a n o n of Artistic Excellence: Pierleone

CaseWa's ElogialllustriumArtiJicum of 1606 (E. H. Gombrich) . . . 224

Rubens's Mus athena (Elizabeth M c G r a t h ) 233

R e m b r a n d t ' s Woman Taken i n Adultery (Michael Podro) . . . . 245

General Index . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Index o f Manuscr ipts . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Publications avai lable . . . . . . . . . . . 2 6 1

Notes for Contr ibutors 263

PANOFSKY, SUGER AND ST DENIS Peter Kidson

PANOFSKY MADE TWO notable excursions into the field of medieval architecture. T h e first took the form of an edition of Suger 's writings about the abbey church of St Denis and its art treasures. 1 T h i s was published in 1946. T h e second, entitled

Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism, began life as lectures in 1948 and appeared in print in 1951. 2 Both have been influential, especially the introductory piece on Suger, w h i c h has supplied a whole generation of younger art historians in England and A m e r i c a with all they thought they needed to know about the intellectual circumstances in which Gothic architecture was invented. It purported to offer in chapter and verse detail the evidence for an iconographical interpretation of St Denis. As it remains axiomatic that Gothic started at St Denis , the implications were clearly far-reaching. Panofsky set out to provide a cutting edge for the full-scale art-historical counter-offensive that had been brewing for the best part of half a century, against the excessively technical v iews about Gothic associated with the n a m e of Viol let- le-Duc. A corrective of some sort was certainly overdue. T h e Viol let- le-Duc position was inadequate not necessarily because it was wrong — al though this was asserted3 — but because it simply ignored or did less than justice to a great many facets of Gothic that cried out for attention. T h e reassessment belatedly recognized the style as a cultural as well as a purely architectural phenomenon. Gothic at last took it place as a m a j o r manifestation of the spiritual ferment which transformed twelfth-century Europe, and it could be seen to bear the imprint of m u c h contemporary intellectual activity. T h e task of recognizing such interactions w a s the special business of the art historian as Panofsky saw it,4 and quite apart from the almost startling tidiness with w h i c h everything seemed to fit together in his hands, it must have given him particular pleasure to be able to tie the origins of a great artistic movement like Gothic into the great tradition of neo-Platonic thought, which f lowed from antiquity through the M i d d l e A g e s to the Renaissance and with which he was constantly pre-occupied at every stage and turn of his life's work.

M u c h of this was undoubtedly pure gain. But the sheer self-evident necessity for a shift of historical perspective m a y have concealed some unsuspected dangers, the most insidious of w h i c h was probably the temptation to rewrite history rather more enthusias-tically than the evidence warranted. At the very least there has been a tendency to overstate the case. In particular it has led to a gross exaggeration of Suger 's own part in the creation of Gothic . It ought to be obvious to art historians, if to no one else, that patrons, even the most enlightened and exigent a m o n g them, do not normally invent styles. In the last resort, however meticulous or exceptional the brief, an artistic

1 Abbot S u g e r on the Abbey C h u r c h of St D e n i s and i t s art t r e a s u r e s . Edited, translated and annotated by Erwin Panofsky. Princeton 1946 (hereafter Panofsky, S u g e r ) . 2nd edn by Gerda Panofsky-Soergel, 1979.

2 G o t h i c A r c h i t e c t u r e and S c h o l a s t i c i s m , London and New York 1951. First given as Wimmer Lectures, St Vincent College, 1948.

3 See Pol Abraham, V i o l l e t - l e - D u c et le r a t i o n a l i s m e m é d i é v a l , Paris 1934.

4 Recently discussed by M. A. Holly, P a n o f s k y and the F o u n d a t i o n s o f A r t H i s t o r y , Ithaca and London 1984.

I

Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, V o l u m e 50, 1987

2 PETER KIDSON

imagination is a lways required to translate the patron's verbal specifications into visual forms. Nevertheless this truism is something that medievalists have tended to overlook in recent years, in part one fears under Panofsky's influence, if only because, as good historians should, they have devoted themselves to the pursuit of documents, and therefore in practice restricted their researches to just those problems and aspects of problems which are susceptible to documentary elucidation. As nearly all medieval documents pertaining to the arts emanated from the patronage side of the proceedings, it follows that we are liable to get from them a totally distorted impression of w h a t actually happened. T h i s must have been especially true in matters of architecture, for by its very nature medieval architecture involved mysterious operations that were excluded from the conspectus of the liberal arts and therefore beyond the understanding of even the most highly educated ecclesiastical patrons. 5 So while it m a y be granted that any symbolism present in Gothic architecture w a s the contribution of the clergy rather than the craftsmen, at best it can have been no more than a partial and superficial factor in the design procedure.

Reflections along such lines ought to have induced a certain caution, but this has not a lways been forthcoming. On the contrary, the long-term effect of art-historical dal l iance with the symbolism of architecture has been to aggravate a quite deplorable split a m o n g students of medieval buildings. On the one hand the armchair art historians have gone their own w a y , busily dreaming up iconographical fantasies that all too often could never have been taken seriously by any practising architect, even if they were actually put to him; while on the other the d o w n to earth archaeologists have resolutely turned their backs on all such nonsense, but are so myopical ly obsessed with mason's marks and masonry breaks that they scarcely ever attended to larger issues. It would be ridiculous to blame Panofsky alone for this state of affairs, a l though as one of the founding fathers of iconographical scholarship, he cannot entirely escape some responsibility. W h a t he can be charged with is twisting history to prove his point. T h a t he did so in good faith is not in question. Like many others w h o have seen the light, he could not help being partial ly blinded by it; but he was too good an historian to try to deceive; and precisely because he sought to present a wel l-documented case, he is vulnerable to criticism in w a y s that vaguer affirmations of the same point of view are not. This , coupled with the intrinsic importance of assessing Suger 's personal participation in the rebuilding of St Denis as accurately as possible, gives to Panofsky's essay a strategic significance out of all proportion to its modest size and limited aims. T h e validity of theories about symbolism in medieval architecture does not stand or fall solely on Panofsky's picture of Suger or the interpretation that stems from it; but they are a test case and if one wishes to reopen the inquest, they offer an obvious starting point.

At the outset it should be emphasized that the two issues involved are quite distinct: one is about Suger, the other about St Denis. No doubt they are connected in the sense that the account of St Denis has usually been presented as an inference from a particular theory about Suger. It certainly derives much of its plausibility from such a theory. T h a t is how Panofsky himself saw the problem. He therefore concentrated his attention very

5 The extent to which this invidious tendency has or court styles, where the defining characteristic has become enshrined in art-historical terminology is ceased to have anything to do with architects, but has reflected in the paradoxical notions of an episcopal style, been transferred to the patrons.

PANOFSKY, SUGER AND ST DENIS 3

largely on the man, and left the building to others in the entirely justified confidence that there would be no shortage of epigoni ready to leap in and spell out the consequences implicit in his own work. 6 Nevertheless it is in principle possible to treat the two sides of the question separately, and for purposes of criticism there are advantages in doing so.

T h e crux of the matter is whether the Suger w h o emerges from Panofsky's pages is a credible historical figure, or an art-historical fiction. He is certainly not quite the familiar image fabricated by orthodox historians in the nineteenth century: the genial and efficient abbot of a celebrated monastery; the friend and advisor of two successive K i n g s of France, w h o could act as regent when one of them was absent on the second crusade; the statesman w h o took a firm line with the unruly barons of the l ie de France, and set the crown on a course it was to follow with success in ecclesiastical matters for more than a hundred years; and not least the founder and most distinguished practitioner of the St Denis school of historians. Panofsky did not dispute any of this, but it was not m u c h use to him. H o w e v e r , there were two areas, apparently neglected by his predecessors, where the prospects were more promising. O n e was Suger 's dealings with St Bernard, the significance of which seemed to Panofsky far greater than had been commonly realized. T h e other was the suspicion that in addition to all his other attainments Suger was an intellectual of consequence. He also recognized a causal connection between his two discoveries. T h e s e emendations became the centrepiece of his case.

Suger and St Bernard encountered one another intermittently throughout their publ ic lives. At first their relations seem to have been somewhat cool. In a letter dating from 1127, Suger found himself favoured with a taste of Bernard 's hectoring rhetoric. ' I t was at your errors not at those of your monks that the zeal of the saintly aimed its criticism. It was by your excesses not by theirs, that they were incensed. It was against you, not against the A b b e y , that arose the murmurs of your brothers. ' 7 It was the sort of language that Bernard had formerly lavished on Pons de Melguei l and the extravagances of C l u n y . In fact the careful distinction between Suger and the monks of St Denis invites us to suppose that Bernard had anticipated the danger of Suger going the same w a y as Pons, and St Denis suffering the fate of C l u n y . T h e shocking events of 1125, when Pons's bravos had ransacked C l u n y , were still fresh in everyone's mind, Bernard 's most of all. T h e enormities w h i c h provoked these remarks were not spelt out. But whatever they were, by 112 7 they had receded into the background. Bernard wrote in the past tense. His fears had evidently not been fulfilled. T h e affairs of St Denis had been put into good order, and Suger had proved himself to be on the side of the angels. Panofsky suggests that Bernard was putting pressure on Suger, and hinting that in return for a favour, he was prepared to waive his formidable displeasure.8 Perhaps — but this is not how the letter has to be read. Bernard certainly wished to engage Suger as an ally in his efforts to procure the downfal l of Etienne de G a r l a n d e at court, and Suger m a y have complied. But if he did so, it was not

6 See H. Sedlmayr, D i e E n t s t e h u n g der K a t h e d r a l e , Zurich 1950, esp. pp. 235 ff. O. von Simson, T h e G o t h i c C a t h e d r a l , London 1956, esp. chapter 4. S. M c K . Crosby cites Panofsky with approval in his many publications on St Denis.

7 'Quid enim? tua certe, non et tuorum errata, sanctorum carpebat zelus; tuis non ipsorum excessibus succensebant, solamque in personam tuam, non etiam in abbatiam frateruum susurrium immurmurabat.

Solum denique te in causam vocaverant. Te te corrigeres, et nil residuum quod pateret calumniae. Te inquam mutate, mox omnis tumultus concideret; quiesceret strepitur. Solumque ac totum erat quod nos movebat, tuus ille scilicet habitus et apparatus cum procederes, quod panto insolentior appareret.' Bernard to Suger, Epist. LXXVIII, Migne, PL CLXXXII, 192-93.

8 Panofsky, S u g e r , n. 1 above, pp. 10-11.

4 PETER KIDSON

necessarily to appease Bernard. He had reasons of his own for wanting rid of Etienne de Gar lande, and was himself the principal beneficiary when the deed was done.

T h e fact of the matter is that almost from the start Suger and Bernard saw eye to eye about w h a t the C h u r c h should be doing and the part that France should play in the fulfi lment of its programme. At this level it was of no importance that one was Benedictine and the other Cistercian. T h e burning issue of the day was to get the claims of the C h u r c h fully and thoroughly recognized right across secular society. T h i s meant insisting on privileges, collecting and implementing canon law, extending ecclesiastical jurisdictions and organizing appeals to Rome. In other words, the effort was essentially legal; it focused inevitably on the papacy , and the desired end could be achieved only through an effective system of papal government. Early in his career Suger had conducted missions on behalf of his abbey to the papal court, and he retained throughout his life as royal counsellor the conviction that the C a p e t i a n monarchy ought to co-operate with the p a p a c y rather than resist its encroachments as the A n g e v i n Henry II did in England, with consequences that led to the confrontation with Becket. For reasons of his own, Bernard was equally anxious to promote an active papal presence in the ecclesiastical affairs of transalpine Europe. It was the reason if not the price of his support for Innocent II in the disputed papal election of 1130, a cause which Suger also endorsed. Innocent 's tr iumph was something of a turning point in papal history. It launched the C h u r c h on a course that was to transform it into a remarkably efficient political agency. Both Suger and Bernard were committed to the long term success of this enterprise, and their substantial agreement far transcended minor differences of opinion such as whether it was advisable for Louis V I I to go on the second crusade. 9 It also puts their view on ecclesiastical art into perspective.

Every medievalist knows by heart Bernard's castigation of Pons de Melguei l ' s cloister capitals at C l u n y , and takes it very seriously indeed. Panofsky was no exception. He thought it must have struck terror into Suger, and left him with guilty apprehensions that haunted him for the rest of his life. It was the need to fortify himself against another unbearable cascade of Bernard 's censorious eloquence that is supposed to have induced Suger to appeal to higher authority. T h e sort of support he had in mind took the form of philosophical or theological argument, and he found w h a t he wanted in the writings of one of the most influential thinkers of the early M i d d l e Ages: the so-called Pseudo-Dionysius, or Dionysius the Areopagite . T h e r e were three good reasons why Panofsky thought Suger should have espoused that particular source of doctrine. O n e is that he could hardly have found a more congenial view of the world than that presented by the Pseudo-Dionysius; the second is that the collected works, both the Greek text 1 0 and J o h n Scotus Eriguena's Lat in translation of them, were in the library at St Denis; and the third is that it was an article of faith at St Denis that the learned author w h o had already identified himself with the Areopagite converted by St Paul in Athens, was none other than their own patron saint . 1 1 Al l this was well known before Panofsky. T h e r e was nothing remarkable about the idea that Suger should have read the Pseudo-Dionysius. Indeed it would have been far more remarkable if he had not. W h e r e Panofsky broke new ground was in suggesting that

9 In 1148 Suger was wholeheartedly behind St Bernard's indictment of Gilbert de la Porree at the Council of Rheims. See John of Salisbury, H i s t o r i a P o n t i f i c a l i s , vm.

10 Now Paris, BN, MS grec. 437.

11 It was over this that Abelard fell foul of St Denis, and no doubt his scepticism was one of the reasons why Suger did not lift a finger to protect him from Bernard at the Council of Sens in 1140.

PANOFSKY, SUGER AND ST DENIS 5

Suger needed a philosophy to defend his taste in art, and that his works of art were actually inspired by such doctrines.

T h i s is the most novel and distinctive of Panofsky's amendments to the traditional account of Suger. It has been swallowed whole by the art-historical community with remarkably little resistance — on the contrary, with positive, uncritical eagerness. On the other hand it has m a d e singularly little impression on the learned world outside, a sign perhaps of the ominous tendency of art historians to live in a world of their own. T h e evidence w h i c h Panofsky adduced in support of his contention is to be found in the three texts which Suger composed during the 1140s, in the course of or shortly after the building operations at St Denis; or rather two of them, because the first, the Ordinatio, proved barren for his purpose. T h e other two, the Consecratione and the De administratione, yielded passages w h i c h suitably interpreted were allegedly saturated with the spirit of the Pseudo-Dionysius.

Perhaps the first thing to be noted is that the Pseudo-Dionysius is never actually mentioned by name in these texts, nor is J o h n the Scot Eriguena, and there are no identifiable quotations. As the texts are riddled with a great many quotations from other sources, mainly biblical, which Panofsky took great delight in identifying, this should have embarrassed him, especially as they were written at a time when name dropping and citing authorities were considered indispensable for conducting arguments. For an intellectual defence, the effect is curiously muted. T h e style is belle-lettre rather than forensic. Everything turns on a subtle hermeneutic exercise.

In the absence of explicit references, how could the presence of the Pseudo-Dionysius be detected? T h e only satisfactory answer would be through characteristic doctrines in Suger which were otherwise peculiar to the Pseudo-Dionysius, or which could have reached Suger only by w a y of the Pseudo-Dionysius. T h e r e was one such doctrine which would have settled the issue without more ado. T h i s was the account of the nine choirs of angels which the Pseudo-Dionysius elaborated at length in the Celestial Hierarchies, and which provided the M i d d l e A g e s with its most authoritative information on the subject of the angelic orders, intermediate between G o d and man in the scale of be ing. 1 2 O n c e again, however, there is not a word in the texts. T h i s silence is more serious than it might seem. N o b o d y has been m u c h interested in discovering angelic iconography at St Denis; but if it had been there, Panofsky would have had a really conclusive argument. As it is, without it, his resources are reduced to some exiguous and peripheral remarks alleged to prove that Suger knew all about light metaphysics, and one mention of the anagogicus mos.

Panofsky makes a great fuss about light metaphysics in his essay, but there is not m u c h to go on in Suger, and w h a t there is lacks sharpness and precision. T h i s would not matter unduly if the remarks occurred in the right places, because in the last resort art historians have only interested themselves in the Pseudo-Dionysius for the sake of his light metaphysics and in order to explain the windows of St Denis. But they do not. Suger missed the one opportunity that cried out for a digression into theory, if there had been a theory, when he was describing the chapel-ring at the new east end: 'by virtue of which the

12 The subject was of great interest to Suger's c h r i s t i a n a e f i d e i , I, v, xxx, Migne, P L , CLXXVI, 260, where neighbour and contemporary Hugh of St Victor, the nine orders of angels are named, though not ob. 1141, who certainly was acquainted with the Dionysius. Pseudo-Dionysius. See Hugh of St Victor, D e s a c r a m e n t i s

6 PETER KIDSON

w h o l e (church) should shine w i t h w o n d e r f u l a n d uninterrupted light o f most l u m i n o u s w i n d o w s , p e r v a d i n g the interior b e a u t y ' . 1 3 H e r e i f a n y w h e r e we should h a v e expected to hear of the P s e u d o - D i o n y s i u s , b u t the s tunning v isual effect ev ident ly needed no further c o m m e n t . In the end, P a n o f s k y h a d to settle for ' the orgy of neo-Platonic l ight m e t a p h y s i c s to w h i c h S u g e r a b a n d o n s himsel f in some of his p o e t r y ' . 1 4 W h a t this a m o u n t s to is that there is a lot of p l a y w i t h w o r d s like lumen, lumina a n d lux in the verses inscribed on the west front, j u s t as there is in the o p e n i n g p a r a g r a p h of de Caelesti Hierarchia.15 P a n o f s k y seems to h a v e p e r s u a d e d himsel f that S u g e r ' s ed i fy ing phrases contain deep neo-Platonic m e a n i n g s . T h i s is no d o u b t a m a t t e r of opinion; but if the message is there, it is not exact ly l a b o u r e d , a n d the verses c a n j u s t as easi ly be read as convent ional piety w i t h no overtones.

D e s p i t e this m o d e s t s h o w i n g , he ends w i t h a resounding rhetorical f lourish.

Did he (Suger) know or sense that his unreflecting enthusiasm for the pseudo Areopagites' and John the Scot's light metaphysics placed him in the van [sic!] of an intellectual movement that was to result in the proto-scientific theories of Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon on the one hand, and in a Christian Platonism ranging from William of Auvergne, Henry of Ghent and Ulric of Strassburg to Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola on the other?16

T h i s , i f i t m a y be said of a great scholar , is j u s t silly. R o g e r B a c o n , w h o lavished praise on Grosseteste for his pioneer w o r k in resurrect ing w h a t for h i m w e r e the forgotten w o r k s of the P s e u d o - D i o n y s i u s , h a d never heard of S u g e r . 1 7 T h e r e is not the sl ightest shred of ev idence to suggest that S u g e r ever m a d e the sort of sys temat ic s tudy of the Pseudo-D i o n y s i u s that w o u l d p u t h i m into such dist inguished c o m p a n y , or even that he had a n y s y m p a t h y w i t h or real u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the neo-Platonic s trand in C h r i s t i a n theology . L i g h t m e t a p h y s i c s , as the phi losophers of ant iqui ty and the C h u r c h fathers h a n d l e d the theme, w a s a lmost certainly b e y o n d h im; a n d their v i e w s w o u l d not h a v e been m u c h use to h i m , a n y w a y . T h e y w e r e not m u c h concerned wi th art or objects . L i k e Plato they dis t inguished b e t w e e n art a n d b e a u t y , a n d w h e n they talked a b o u t b e a u t y , i t w a s d iv ine b e a u t y , ethereal b e a u t y , or invis ible b e a u t y that they h a d in mind. In tune w i t h the preva i l ing m o o d of late a n t i q u i t y , they w e r e p r e o c c u p i e d w i t h a theocentric v i e w of the w o r l d , in w h i c h the besett ing p r o b l e m w a s h o w to g r a s p the relation b e t w e e n a t ranscendent G o d a n d a created w o r l d , or b e t w e e n the spir i tual and mater ia l orders of reality. In the a t t e m p t to do so they dis t inguished b e t w e e n posit ive and negat ive theology and found themselves obl iged to rely heavi ly on the resources of m e t a p h o r . Plot inus, w h o in m a n y respects w a s the seminal thinker, f o u n d l ight a n d the i m a g e of l ight part icular ly c o n d u c i v e to his purpose . S tar t ing from some rather casual remarks of A r i s t o t l e 1 8 on the subject , he d e v e l o p e d the impl icat ions of the incorporeal i ty of l ight w h i c h w a s neverthe-less the indispensable condi t ion under w h i c h the forms of the phys ica l w o r l d manifested themselves. T h i s a m b i v a l e n t status qual i f ied l ight for a crucia l p lace in his doctr ine of e m a n a t i o n , w h i c h w a s the intel l igible thread that b o u n d the universe t o g e t h e r . 1 9 L i g h t

13 De consecratione iv, 225. Panofsky, S u g e r , n. 1 above, pp. 100-01.

14 Panofsky, S u g e r , n. 1 above, pp. 21-23. 1 5 See M i g n e , P L , CXXII, 1037 c , D . 16 Panofsky, S u g e r , p. 36. 17 'Dormit igitur ecclesia quae nihil facit in hac parte,

nec aliquid te septuaginta annis fecit, nisi quod dominus Robertus, episcopus Lincolniensis, sanctae memoriae,

tradidit Latinis de libris bead Dionysii . . . .' Roger Bacon, Compendium studii p h i l o s o p h i a e , ed. J. S. Brewer, p. 474, Rolls Series 1859. Cited by Sir Richard Southern, Robert Grosseteste, Oxford 1986, p. 18.

18 Aristotle, De anima, 11 7. 418b. 19 See A. H. Armstrong, The Architecture of the I n t e l l i g i b l e

Universe in the P h i l o s o p h y of P l o t i n u s , Cambridge 1940, PP- 53 f·

PANOFSKY, SUGER AND ST DENIS 7

f igured in m a n y fruitful analogies w h i c h e m b r a c e d both the sun a n d the soul. In other w o r d s i t could be d e v e l o p e d in both c o s m i c and psycholog ica l directions. At one end of the scale, in the h a n d s o f j u l i a n the apostate , w h o hated C h r i s t i a n i t y for reasons that h a d little to do wi th doctr ine, i t b e c a m e a kind of solar theology. At the other, w i t h the Pseudo-D i o n y s i u s , i t v e r g e d on myst ic i sm. B u t any serious neo-Platonist w h o t h o u g h t a l o n g these lines had his s ights f irmly f ixed on the reality b e y o n d l ight. W i t h o u t this p a r a d o x the w h o l e effort lost its m e a n i n g .

W h i l e such ideas w e r e at all t imes rare, remote and diff icult , they w e r e not entirely out o f c irculat ion in the M i d d l e A g e s . E m a s c u l a t e d reflections of them f i l tered steadily d o w n to the e d u c a t e d c lergy , usual ly through A u g u s t i n e a n d G r e g o r y the G r e a t rather than the P s e u d o - D i o n y s i u s . In s o m e form or other the great m e t a p h o r of l ight w a s built into the ordinary C h r i s t i a n percept ion of the w o r l d , and h a d b e c o m e part of the stock in t rade of everyone w h o ever p r e a c h e d a sermon. T h e r e is p e r h a p s a sense in w h i c h a n y o n e w h o , like B r o w n i n g , greets the sun in the m o r n i n g a n d feels that ' G o d ' s in his heaven, al l 's r ight wi th the w o r l d ' , m a y be cal led a Platonist . I t could be a r g u e d that a l t h o u g h he c a n n o t be taken seriously as a theologian, S u g e r w a s a di luted Platonist of this kind. O n e m i g h t h a v e been content w i t h this rather a n o d y n e solution, w e r e i t not for s o m e t h i n g that S u g e r h imsel f tells us, in a r e m a r k a b l e p a s s a g e that P a n o f s k y total ly misconstrued.

When out of my delight in the beauty of the house of God — the loveliness of the many-coloured gems has called me away from all external cares, and worthy meditation has induced me to reflect, transferring that which is material to that which is immaterial, on the diversity of the sacred virtues: then it seems to me that I see myself dwelling as it were in some strange region of the universe which neither exists entirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in the purity of Heaven, and that by the grace of God I can be transported from this inferior to that higher world in an anagogical manner.2 0

T h i s is not the s t r a i g h t f o r w a r d l a n g u a g e of convent ional C h r i s t i a n Platonism. T h e r e is s o m e t h i n g u n e x p e c t e d l y v iv id a n d a u t o b i o g r a p h i c a l a b o u t that pr ivate wor ld poised b e t w e e n h e a v e n a n d earth. S u g e r ' s w o r d s sound like the personal confession of someone try ing to descr ibe a c o m p l e x exper ience for w h i c h the o r d i n a r y v o c a b u l a r y of his d a y m a d e no a d e q u a t e provis ion. I t involved an intuit ion of v a l u e that w a s neither myst ica l nor intel lectual . S u g e r found it c o n d u c i v e to rel igious contemplat ion , and to that extent there w a s a feel ing of upli ft w h i c h a l lowed him to b o r r o w the expression anagogico more f rom the theologians, a l t h o u g h he did not dece ive himself , nor should we be deceived into thinking that he had been transported into a rea lm b e y o n d the senses . 2 1 T h e essential thing a b o u t it is that it w a s g r o u n d e d in the phys ica l b e a u t y of the bui ld ing a n d its a p p u r t e n a n c e s . Rel ig ious archi tecture w a s here p e r f o r m i n g w h a t sensitive a n d i m a g i n a -tive souls m i g h t consider to be its p r o p e r funct ion, n a m e l y of fer ing a foretaste of p a r a d i s e t h r o u g h the senses. Instead of c o n d u c t i n g the soul to h e a v e n , i t brings h e a v e n d o w n to earth. We m i g h t prefer to call such an exper ience aesthetic , a l t h o u g h for S u g e r the religious a n d aesthetic e lements w e r e inextr icably fused, a n d he had neither the incent ive nor the m e a n s to d isentangle them. F a r f rom being a Platonist , Suger discloses h imse l f as a proto-Jesuit . He w o u l d h a v e had no di f f iculty in u n d e r s t a n d i n g the techniques of s e d u c i n g

2 0 D e a d m i n i s t r a t i o n e , xxxm; Panofsky, S u g e r , n. i above, pp. 62-65.

21 If Suger chose his words with care, it must have been just the modus o p e r a n d i of anagogy that he had in mind.

Among orthodox theologians like Gregory the Great it was normally understood to be one of the methods for elucidating the meaning of the Scriptures.

2

8 PETER KIDSON

souls for G o d through beauty, and would have thoroughly approved. His St Denis was a first step along the road which led to the Quattro Fontane and Vierzehnheiligen.

T h e one m a n w h o quite certainly would not have been impressed by these revelations is St Bernard, and it is perhaps just as well that he never got to hear of them. T h e y would have confirmed any earlier suspicions Bernard may have entertained, that Suger 's instincts were dangerously C l u n i a c . T h e naive assumption that G o d and the saints would share his delight in the opulence of the things offered to them belonged to a level of religion that Bernard had left far behind. For all his busybodying and nasty, sexy puns, Bernard knew well enough that religion was a matter of love, prayer and inwardness; and that for the spiritual elite, art was a distraction. If it had any religious purpose, it was to instruct the illiterate. Such sentiments found their w a y into the Decretal of Grat ian, which was being compiled during the 1140s, in the form of a quotation from a letter of Gregory the Great: 'quod est clerico littera, hoc est laico pictura ' , 2 2 a distant echo perhaps of Horace 's ut pictura poesis, and certainly a reflection of the medieval distinction between the liberal and the manual arts. T h e tone was not necessarily condescending. As the initiative of the laity over matters concerning its own spiritual welfare accelerated, and as the reformed church gradual ly widened the range of its pastoral responsibilities, the exegetical role of the arts acquired an accepted social function. Architecture had a special part to play in this process. C h u r c h buildings were by far the most insistent reminders to the world of the ubiquitous presence of the church; and they provided the framework through w h i c h streams of ecclesiastical imagery could be projected at the laity — or the clergy too, for that matter. T h e r e had already been occasions w h e n architectural style had been the vehicle for ideological propaganda. Speyer and C l u n y were cases in point. Suger 's St Denis was exceptional only in striking a new note that turned out to be exactly attuned to the more advanced ecclesiastical thinking of the day. W h a t is really odd is that it should have happened for the first time at a conservative Benedictine abbey. (But stranger things have happened. W h o would have expected the unification of G e r m a n y to have been achieved by a m a n like Bismarck?) T h e r e were undoubtedly residual tensions between the respective outlooks of the relaxed Benedictine Suger and the austere Cistercian Bernard; but Panofsky was w a y off the mark in suggesting that they were of a kind that could be resolved or affected by theories of symbolism based on light metaphysics. In any case Bernard had already shown w h a t he thought of intellectuals like A b e l a r d and Gi lbert de la Porree; and was not above remembering that in the ninth century Eriguena himself had actually been suspected of promoting pantheistic heresy w h e n his translations of the Pseudo-Dionysius appeared. 2 3

If Suger's texts were not aimed at Bernard as Panofsky claims, w h a t was their purpose, and w h o read them? T h e manuscripts are not exactly thick on the ground. Panofsky cites one twelfth-century version of De administratione24 from St Denis itself. T h e oldest extant copy of De consecratione dates from c. 1200.25 T h e Ordinatio apparently

2 2 R e g i s t r u m G r e g o r i i , 9.9. Letter to Serenus, Bishop of Marseilles. Gratian, C o r p u s i u r i s c a n o n i c i , 1, 1360, Leipzig 1879. Cited by Chrysogonus Waddell, 'The Reform of the Liturgy' in R e n a i s s a n c e and R e n e w a l in the T w e l f t h C e n t u r y , ed. R. L. Benson and G. Constable, Oxford 1982, p. 96 n. 25. 23 An early work was condemned by the Council of

Valence (855) and the Council of Langres (859); and

Pope Nicholas I ordered Charles the Bald, who commissioned the translation of the Pseudo-Dionysius, to send Eriguena to Rome, because he disapproved of its publication without permission. There is no evidence that he went. 24 Paris, BN, MS lat. 13835. 25 Vatican Library, MS Reg. lat. 571.

PANOFSKY, SUGER AND ST DENIS 9

survives in a single copy. 2 6 T h e r e m a y have been losses, but this is not the form of works that circulated widely. T h e contents explain w h y . T h e y are overwhelmingly about matters of no conceivable interest to anyone outside the A b b e y of St Denis. T h e y are concerned with the disposal of income from various properties, the commemorat ion of benefactors like Char les the Bald, the provision of decent dinners for the monks and, above all, the smartening up and enlargement of the abbey church. In short, they were intended solely for domestic consumption. T h e predominant mood is that of an apologia, but the accounts differ considerably, both in length and emphasis.

T h e first, the Ordinatio, which dates from 1140-41 , is a fairly perfunctory statement. It reminds the monks of w h a t they owe to their abbot 's good housekeeping, and lists the worthy objects on which money had been spent, before coming to the new west front which was presumably the bone of contention. T h e implication is that there had been complaints from the cloister about wasteful expenditure, and Suger was trying to allay fears as well as just i fy his building programme. O n c e again we may be reminded of the explosive situation at C l u n y in the 1120s, when the mutterings of the monks about the extravagance of their abbot and his prolonged absence from the abbey on non-monastic business precipitated the crisis of 1125. T h e dust of that scandal settled slowly. A m o n g its more recent repercussions had been the troubles at St M a r y ' s , Y o r k in 1135, and the secession which led to the foundation of Fountains. T h e s e were precedents that must have been constantly in Suger's mind, and he was no doubt anxious that they should not be repeated at St Denis. T h e r e is no whi f f of the Pseudo-Dionysius here.

T h e second version, the De consecratione, was written after 1144 when the choir was finished and the whole operation had been brought to a splendid conclusion. T h i s is m u c h longer. It goes into great detail about the difficulties that were encountered in the course of the work, and which were overcome thanks to the miraculous intervention of the house saints w h o clearly approved of w h a t was being done, and also the inspired resourcefulness of the abbot. As in the Ordinatio Suger goes out of his w a y to stress the p o m p and circumstance with which the ceremonies of consecration were performed. He hammers home the point that these occasions redounded to the honour of everyone connected with the abbey. T h i s is w h a t mattered to him, and it is w h y he was writing. T h e r e is still hardly anything about symbolism, the one specific case being the remark comparing the twelve columns round the apse with the twelve apostles, and the equivalent smaller columns in the ambulatory with the (minor) prophets. T h i s is certainly iconography of a sort, but it was not taken from the Pseudo-Dionysius . 2 7

T h e third account, the De administratione, was compiled at the request of the general chapter of the abbey. T h e meeting at which the invitation was issued took place after the consecration of J u n e 1144, and before M a r c h 1145, in other words while memories of the great event were still vivid. It was later than the De consecratione, which it mentions, and it

26 Paris, Archives nationales, MS K23 m.5. 27 The first time this rhetorical flourish was used must

have been in the description of the apse of the basilica of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem by Eusebius of Caesarea, in his L i f e o f C o n s t a n t i n e . There were 'twelve columns encircling the apse, equal in number to the Apostles of the Saviour . . .' See C. Coiiasnon, T h e C h u r c h of the H o l y S e p u l c h r e , f e r u s a l e m , British Academy Schweich Lectures, London 1972, p. 44· Eusebius

himself is not likely to have been Suger's immediate source. He wrote in Greek and the L i f e of C o n s t a n t i n e did not circulate in the West. But it was the kind of idea that had great exegetical possibilities, and there were many variants. See for instance Gregory the Great's M o r a l i a in J o b , xvii.xxix.42, where pillars may refer to angels, or preachers, or churches. See G. R. Evans, T h e T h o u g h t of G r e g o r y the G r e a t , Cambridge 1986, p. 91.

10 PETER KIDSON

was not finished until the period of the second crusade when Suger was acting as regent of France (1147-49) · Its relation to the other records is not entirely clear. It goes over a lot of the same ground as the Ordinatio though in greater detail; but it presupposes rather than repeats the De consecratione, to which it provides a kind of sequel. H o w e v e r the tone is perceptibly different. Suger is more relaxed and more expansive. T h e real subject is the decorative splendour of the new building and its sumptuous furnishings. T h e s e positively invite Suger to show himself in his true colours. A n d he does. He unashamedly glories in things that g leam and shine. He would like to think that there is nothing reprehensible about this, that it is compatible with his religious vocation. But that is all. It was here, behind the exuberant prose, that Panofsky thought he could detect the Pseudo-Dionysiac symptoms he was looking for. But unless one is convinced beforehand that Suger was a committed initiate, one will search his words in vain for the proof. It simply is not there.

W i t h o u t the Pseudo-Dionysius Suger loses much of his art historical g lamour. He ceases to be the c o m m a n d i n g intellectual and reverts to a more conventional style of patronage. But it does not follow that St Denis ceases to be his special creation. Even without benefit of light metaphysics there was still a great deal of light, or rather colour, in the building. T h e windows were quite certainly Suger's own distinctive contribution. T h e r e must have been at least thirty of them in the choir and the west front. T h e y were his pride and joy . He appointed a special ministerialis magistrum to look after them when they were finished2 8 and had a lot of trouble finding enough craftsmen to make them in the first place. T h e s e had to be recruited from 'many regions' 2 9 which suggests that the scale of operations was exceptional and beyond the immediate resources of any one region. T h i s 'scouring the land' in search of talent allows Suger to present himself in his favourite role as indefatigable provider. T h e r e were other occasions. If necessary he was prepared to fetch marble columns all the w a y from R o m e to match those of the old nave, a l though in the end he found w h a t he wanted (miraculously of course) in the neighbourhood of Pontoise;3 0 and when everyone else had despaired of finding timbers of the right size, he plunged hopefully into the forest o f Y v e l i n e s , and against the odds, solved the problem in a matter of hours . 3 1 A l l this conveys — as it was no doubt intended to d o — the impression of Suger the master mind in total control of the situation d o w n to the last detail; and not just supervising everything but inventing as well. As he almost certainly devised the iconography for the windows, and as the windows were the raison d'etre of the whole design, it is easy enough to slip into the w a y of thinking of him as the m a n w h o actually conceived St Denis.

T h i s disposition has become enshrined in m u c h of the recent l iterature.3 2 It does not depend on Panofsky but it shares his predilection for symbolism and meaningful images at the expense of formal or structural considerations. Light has become for modern architectural historians w h a t the rib was for Viol let- le-Duc. As Suger provides the only direct testimony we have, and we are immensely grateful for it, he may be forgiven for his part in encouraging this lopsided impression. But it is only w h e n we start to examine the building itself that the extent of the bias becomes apparent.

2 8 D e a d m i n , xxxiv; Panofsky, S u g e r , n. 1 above, pp. 76-77.

2 9 D e a d m i n , xxxiv, Panofsky, S u g e r , pp. 72-73. 3 0 D e c o n s e c . 219; Panofsky, S u g e r , pp. 90-93.

3 1 D e c o n s e c . ill, 222; Panofsky, Suger, pp. 96-97. 32 See von Simson, G o t h i c C a t h e d r a l , n. 6 above,

chapter iv, where the case is urged to the limit of credibility.

PANOFSKY, SUGER AND ST DENIS 11

T h e one thing we do not hear m u c h about from Suger is the presence on his payroll of a qualified architect . 3 3 T h e r e are fine words in praise of craftmanship w h e n it produces something that delights his eye. We learn that there was no shortage of stonemasons to do the work; but the only time we are told anything about skills of a more professional kind is w h e n 'it was cunningly provided t h a t . . . the central nave (literally roof) of the old church should be equalised by means of geometrical and arithmetical instruments with the central nave of the new addit ion' . 3 4 T h i s leads on directly to the passage about the chapels and their wonderful windows, quoted above . 3 5 But there is no inkling that these also required the services of geometry and arithmetic, not to mention a remarkably sophisti-cated sense of the behaviour of structures, without which there could have been no marvellous l ighting effects. Suger 's silence is instructive. It betrays the complacency of the great patron w h o knows exactly w h a t he wants and does not care how it is done. It also suggests the w a r y incomprehension of the literary m a n for w h o m the prestigious mysteries of applied mathematics were a closed book. 3 6 A l t h o u g h our knowledge of the twelfth-century work at St Denis has been severely curtailed by the thirteenth-century alterations in which all trace of the clerestory and vaults completely disappeared, enough is left of the plan and elevation for us to form an estimate of the range of architectural resources involved. T h e y show a powerful mind at work, thinking imaginatively about architectural problems, and working out subtle and effective solutions. T h a t mind was not Suger's. W h e t h e r he knew it or not, Suger employed an architect of genius w h o deserves our salutations even though he cannot be named.

Given its acknowledged importance in the history of architecture, the apse of St Denis has not received the close attention it deserves. T h e only serious attempt to come to grips with it in recent years is to be found in a short paper by C r o s b y , 3 7 which includes a few basic measurements, a plan which is inaccurate but w h i c h represents the essential features of the design, and a theory. C r o s b y proposed that the apse was based on Ptolemy's Almagest. T h i s is iconography in the grand manner, every bit as spectacular as invocations of the Pseudo-Dionysius. It certainly lives up to Panofsky's belief that revolutionary works of art need great ideas to explain them. It is true that the suggestion encounters certain elementary chronological obstacles at the outset. K n o w l e d g e of Ptolemy's astronomy became generally avai lable to Lat in readers only after Gerard of C r e m o n a made his translation of the Almagest from the A r a b i c in the 1170s. So it has to be argued that rumours of Ptolemy must have circulated wherever the liberal arts were

33 von Simson goes so far as to claim that 'between the patron and his chief mason there was no room for an architect in the modern sense' (op. cit. p. 97).

3 4 D e c o n s e c . iv, 225; Panofsky, S u g e r , pp. 100-01. 3 5 See n. 13. 36 The anecdote chosen by von Simson to illustrate

what he calls Suger's remarkable technical knowledge — his complete familiarity with the functions and properties of the cross-ribbed vault (von Simson op. cit. n. 6 above, p. 96), in my opinion does nothing of the sort. Suger merely describes what could be seen, and what happened on a particular occasion. Far from understanding why the arches of the vaults withstood the fury of the storm, he piously attributed the

miraculous escape of the Bishop of Chartres to the fact that 'he frequently extended his blessing hand in the direction (of the vaults) and urgently held out toward it, while making the sign of the cross, the arm of the aged St Simeon, so that he escaped disaster, manifestly not through his own strength of mind but by the grace of God and the merit of the Saints. Thus (the tempest) . . . was unable to damage these isolated and newly made arches, tottering in the mid-air, because it was repulsed by the power of God' ( D e consec. v.230; Panofsky, Suger, p. 109). If that is technical insight, any clergyman is an architect.

37 S. M c K . Crosby, 'Crypt and Choir Plans at St Denis', G e s t a 1966.

12 PETER KIDSON

studied, and the construction of an astrolabe described by Hermannus Contractus (who died in 1054) indicated a level of interest in astronomy which ought to have been up to grasping Ptolemy's central idea, i.e. that the movements of the heavenly bodies were controlled by a system of circles and epicycles. T h i s is w h a t caught C r o s b y ' s attention. T h e apse of St Denis is not a simple matter of concentric circles. C r o s b y detected two centres and two radii, with the chapels themselves forming a series of subordinate circles. W h e n he drew it out, the analogy must have leapt at him.

But that is all the evidence there is: on the one hand a somewhat out of the ordinary building; on the other a rather unusual explanation which superficially seems to fit. It is the sort of reasoning that is all too c o m m o n in art-historical studies, especially medieval . It is impossible to prove the hypothesis wrong, but a great deal more in the w a y of argument is required before it c o m m a n d s assent. It presupposes a huge amount of special pleading. Qui te apart from the Gerard of C r e m o n a issue, which cannot be entirely swept aside without more ado, there is the glaring fact that Suger himself makes no mention of Ptolemy or astronomical iconography, any more than he names the Pseudo-Dionysius; and no one else ever seems to have shown the slightest interest in the idea. Before resorting to such heroic solutions we ought to ask whether it is really impossible to find a satisfactory solution along more conventional lines.

T h e first thing to establish is the extent of the deformation. T h e apse has three curved components, one inside the other. T h e two innermost, represented by the rows of

PANOFSKY, SUGER AND ST DENIS 13

columns, are concentric, and essentially circular.3 8 Structurally, the complications are confined to the outer wal l of the chapel ring, though if C r o s b y ' s drawing is correct, the critical factor is the location of the centres from which the small circles of the chapels are struck. T h e s e lie on three arcs, which can be identified as north, east and south respectively. T h e north and south arcs have two chapels each, and were struck from the same centre as the two rows of columns which form the inner circles. Together , they all belong to a single, regular, geometrical construction. It is only the eastern arc which does not conform to this construction. T h i s arc determines the position of the axial chapel, and the chapels on either side of it. It has a shorter radius and a different centre, 2.70 m to the east of the principal centre. In practical terms the distortion is limited to the outer walls of these three middle chapels of the chapel ring, w h i c h are pushed somewhat to the east — the axial chapel being the one most affected. T h i s is true at both levels, a l though the dimensions are not the same, and the vertical al ignments do not coincide. In the crypt, where there is only one ambulatory , the effect manifests itself entirely as a deepening of the three chapels. In the choir above, where there are no party walls between the chapels, it takes the form of a slight widening toward the axis of what it is customary to call the outer ambulatory; but there is no difference because the so-called outer ambulatory is really part of the chapels (PI. i a ) . In De consecratione Suger lists the altars and the prelates w h o consecrated them. For the series in the crypt he begins with 'the lower main altar' , w h i c h is dedicated to the Virg in , and then gives four 'on the right' and four 'on the left'. From this it follows that the Virg in ' s altar in the crypt was in the axial chapel. In the choir above, the sequence is as follows: the main, high altar; the nave altar; the V i r g i n altar; and then eight more. 3 9 T h e locations are not specified, but if the procedure was the same as for the crypt, the Virg in ' s altar ought once again to have been in the axial position. As it became c o m m o n practice to put the L a d y C h a p e l on the axis, and to give it slightly more prominence than the other chapels, there m a y be no need to look further for an explanation. H o w e v e r , three chapels are involved, not one, and the other dedications hardly seem to qual i fy for special emphasis . 4 0 T h e most likely reason for including the two f lanking chapels with the axial chapel in the adjustment would seem to be the desire not to interrupt or disturb the even sequence of the chapel windows. At any rate, this was the result achieved; and in v iew of Suger's concern for the general effect of the windows such an inference would be consistent with the overall interpretation. If C r o s b y ' s drawing is reliable, the eastern arc extends across slightly more than the three central chapels. T h e total angle embraced by this sector is a fraction short of 90 degrees, and it is hard to believe that it was not meant to be a full quadrant . So all that seems to have happened is that a 90 degree stretch of the outer circle of the regular geometrical figure was left out, and replaced by a different curve which satisfied all the requirements of the design.

Looked at in this w a y , the apse of St Denis was a sensitive and intelligent compromise, in which tension between three potentially irreconcilable factors was quite beautifully resolved. T h e starting point was a list of altars, for which the appropriate architectural expression was a formation of chapels around part of a polygon. Incidental ly, if the

38 Crosby's drawing indicates that the inner colonnade is very slightly elliptical. He does not mention this in his text, and it may be no more than a draughtsman's error.

3 9 D e consec. VII, 235-37. There were twenty-one altars altogether. Suger mentions twenty, but clearly means twenty in addition to the high altar.

40 The chapels flanking the upper Lady Chapel should have been dedicated to St Peregrinus and St Cucuphas. See J. Formige, L ' A b b a y e r o y a l e de S t D e n i s , Paris i960, fig. 49. In the crypt they were assigned to St Christopher and SS Sixtus, Felicissimus and Agapitus.

14 PETER KIDSON

polygon was chosen to produce the right number of chapels and altars, the columns around the apse which are said to represent the twelve apostles and the prophets simply followed suit. T h e converse implies that the number of chapels and therefore the n u m b e r of altars were consequences of the symbolism. I suppose it is possible that Suger was prepared to institute cults at St Denis j u s t to comply with the specifications of his iconography; but a simpler explanation is that the image w a s suggested to him by the building, not the other w a y round. T h e second stage was the modification of the polygon. For liturgical reasons the axial chapels had to be larger than the rest. T h i s could have been done, as it was in other churches, without worrying about the visual consequences. But these mattered at St Denis; and so for purely aesthetic reasons the distortion was done in such a w a y as to be virtually unobtrusive (PI. i b ) . T h e sequence of windows remained regular; and although the three easternmost chapels focused geometrically on a separate centre, their windows were arranged around axes which converged on the focal point of the remaining chapels. In other words there was a single point of m a x i m u m visibility for all the windows around the apse. Al together it was a remarkable achievement. O n e might postulate a dialogue between Suger and his architect, but it was the architect w h o came up with all the answers. T h e r e is no need whatever to introduce abstract cosmic symbolism, and even if this was present, the above remarks would still apply . T h e problems were formal, aesthetic, even theatrical, but not in any special sense icono-graphical .

Speculations about symbolism and the eccentricities of the design have distracted attention a w a y from the fact that the apse is, after all, based on a regular polygon. 4 1 But it is a very unusual and therefore interesting polygon. A c c o r d i n g to Crosby the angle subtended at the centre by the sides is in the region of 27 degrees. T h e figure that seems to fit this specification best is a thirteen-sided polygon, where the angle would be 27.69 degrees. H o w medieval architects set about constructing polygons is something about which we have no positive information before the end of the Middle Ages , when texts on masonic geometry shed some light on the problem. 4 2 However , even masonic geometry was not much use on the scale required for the polygons of apses. Essentially it was a matter of fixing points on the circumference of a semicircle. It is perhaps just possible that this could be done without calculation, by quite literally drawing on the ground: setting a string on the circumference, measuring and dividing its length, and marking off the intervals along the curve. But at best this would be incredibly cumbersome, and unless it was done with extreme care, likely to be inaccurate. Otherwise it could be done by triangulation, i.e. the straight lines from one point to another. But this would require methods for calculat ing the appropriate chords, which would be the sides of the polygon.

Everything at St Denis suggests the second method. It is not entirely regular, but the precision of the setting out betokens immense theoretical confidence and suggests that all the principal dimensions were carefully worked out beforehand. It is this which distin-guishes St Denis from an obvious improvisation like St M a r t i n des C h a m p s . However , a thirteen-sided polygon is not the easiest to construct without a general theory. W a s there

4 1 It is highly probable that on the architect's drawing 42 For example, the so-called G e o m e t r i a D e u t s c h of board, the choir chapels started off as regular penta- Mattaus Roriczer. gons; but too many pragmatic factors entered the reckoning for these to have survived as anything more than notional shapes.

PANOFSKY, SUGER AND ST DENIS !5 such a theory, and was it known in twelfth-century France? T h e answer to the first part of that question is affirmative. In antiquity a rough and ready method for working out the sides of polygons inscribed in circles had been known ever since Babylonian times. It has come d o w n to us through Heron of A lexandr ia in the formula an = 3D/nn, where a is the length of the side, D the diameter of the circle, and n the number of sides in the polygon. 4 3 It is a rule of t h u m b which assumes pi to be 3, so 3D is the circumference, and the side of the polygon, n, which is really a chord of the circle, is simply equated with the segment of the circumference cut by the chord. T h i s is of course wrong, because the segment is a lways greater than the chord. H o w e v e r the error is subject to amelioration in two ways. As the n u m b e r of sides increases, so the discrepancy between the chord and the segment diminishes; and by using a low value for pi (3 instead of 3 .14159 . . .) the result is biased in favour of the chord. T h e combination of these two effects varies across the series of polygons. Up to pentagon the formula errs on the side of excess. For the hexagon it is exactly right; and beyond the hexagon the results are too low. In fact the error reaches a m a x i m u m of about 4% in the vicinity of the thirteen-sided polygon, and then it declines toward the infinitesimal as the polygon approaches the circle.

It is not easy to test the hypothesis that such a formula was used at St Denis. It would need a remarkably accurate plan to verify or refute particular inferences about dimensions, and this is not available. Perhaps the most encouraging sign is that while the layout of the chapels and the ambulatory is regular enough to suggest a theory, it is not absolutely regular, and this suggests that the theory was less than perfect. Crosby implies that all the chapels have the same radius (2.70 m in the choir), but his d iagram belies this. T h e westernmost chapel on the north side of the ambulatory , the one Suger assigned to St O s m a n n a , is perceptibly larger than the rest. Fluctuations in dimensions like the radii of chapels would be one sign of a defective theory. C r o s b y gives the radius of the arc on which the centres of the four western chapels are located, as 10.30 m, the radius of the chapels as 2.70 m, and the angle subtended by each chapel at the main centre of the whole apse as about 27 degrees. N o w it requires only a simple trigonometrical calculation to show that the chord of a circle with a radius of 10.30 m which subtends an angle of 27 degrees at the centre, is no more than 4.81 m. So if the chapel circles are contiguous or not even in contact, as C r o s b y shows them, their radii can be no more than 2.405 m. For a radius of 2.70 m they would have to overlap. T h e r e is clearly something wrong some-where. It m a y be noted that if the chord is the side of a regular thirteen-sided polygon, it becomes 4.93 m, which is exactly half the width of the Carol ingian nave (centre to centre of the colonnades) as C r o s b y gives it: 9.85 m. T h i s may or may not be a coincidence. Heron's formula would produce a chord of 4.74 m, and this would require perceptible adjustments in one or more of the chapels. Further evidence may dispose of the idea, but as matters stand it is worth asking whether Heron's formula could have been known to Suger's architect.

It is certainly not possible to prove that it was known. If it depended on access to manuscripts of Heron's works, the chances are that it was not. At an academic level Heron did not really begin to surface until the scientific movement associated with Grosseteste, Roger Bacon and Wite lo , 4 4 and this was principally directed toward his work on optics, a l though Delisle came across a reference to a copy of Heron's Mechanica that was in France

43 See Codex C o n s t a n t i n o p o l i t a n u s , Palatii Veteris no. i, 44 See A. C. Crombie, Robert G r o s s e t e s t e and the O r i g i n s of ed. E. M. Bruins, Leiden 1964, fol. 23". E x p e r i m e n t a l S c i e n c e u o o - i i y o , Oxford 1953, p- 213.

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6 PETER KIDSON

during the thirteenth century. 4 5 T h e r e is one other tantalizing clue. A p a r t from the general formula for polygons, Heron also has a series of calculations giving the areas of the regular polygons from the pentagon to the dodecagon, with a standard side of 10 (except the hexagon, for which he uses a side of 30). His answers are not too far off the mark, and the method is, after a fashion, rational. N o w at M u n i c h there is an eleventh-century manuscript 4 6 w h i c h contains an assortment of mathematical material culled from a variety of sources loosely related to the R o m a n agrimensores, a m o n g w h i c h is to be found a series of lunatic calculations purporting to give the areas of the regular polygons from the pentagon to the dodecagon with a standard side of 10. T h e ultimate source for this farrago can only have been Heron. Nevertheless, whoever transcribed the text had not the slightest idea w h a t he was doing. It reads like the hopeful paraphrase of someone whose Greek was as shaky as his mathematics . 4 7 W h e t h e r anything can be m a d e of this, it is hard to say; but it seems to indicate that at some remove and perhaps already horribly garbled, there was a text of Heron on polygons at large somewhere in western Europe during the century before St Denis.

As it stands, the M u n i c h manuscript is quite useless as a source for the mathematical knowledge in question, not just because it is full of nonsense, but because the extract on polygons does not include the general formula. In any case it m a y be a mistake to try to connect the know-how of medieval architects with texts in circulation. A more profitable line of enquiry might be to examine earlier buildings which display a high degree of geometrical proficiency for similar evidence of polygonal construction, and try to establish a continuity of expertise leading back to sources where knowledge of ancient mathematics can be presupposed with confidence. T h e r e are two places of which this would be true. O n e w a s Constantinople , the other C o r d o b a . Of the two, C o r d o b a is

45 Léopold Delisle, Le C a b i n e t des M a n u s c r i t s de l a B i b l i o t h è q u e N a t i o n a l e , Paris, Histoire Générale de Paris, 11, p. 530. La Biblionomie de Richard de Fournival, Tabula octava, 95: 'Item excerpta de libro Heronis de specialibus ingeniis.' The text of Heron's M e c h a n i c a has survived only in Arabic, but it describes machines just close enough to some of Villard de Honnecourt's visionary drawings to make one wonder whether he had heard something about Richard de Fournival's version. 46 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 13084.

See P. Tannery, M é m o i r e s s c i e n t i f i q u e s v, Paris 1922, pp. 64-70. 47 The following figures speak for themselves:

C o r r e c t H e r o n ' s M u n i c h P o l y g o n s o l u t i o n s o l u t i o n C l m 1 3 0 8 4

pentagon 172 sq. ft 166% 145 hexagon 260 2340 [iic] 190

heptagon 363 35S'/3 235 octagon 483 483 >/3 280

enneagon 618 63 7 ՝ / 2 325 decagon 769 75° 37° hendecagon 937 943 415 dodecagon I 120 1125 460

All calculated to a side of 10, except Heron's hexagon which has a side of 30. His solution is equivalent to 260. The Munich polygons increase by 45 each time. What seems to have happened is that at some stage in the transmission of the text to Heron on polygons, the solutions of the area calculations got lost, and the scribe hopefully turned to chapter iv of Boethius, de A r i t h m e t i c a , where he found Nichomachus of Gerasa's table of polygonal numbers, to make good the deficiency. For the polygonal numbers see Sir Thos. Heath, Greek M a t h e m a t i c s , Oxford 1921,11, p. 515. The manoeuvres in Munich Clm 13084 have a common starting point which is a square 10 X 10, and each ends with the number of the particular polygon. The nonsense lies partly in mistaking polygonal numbers for areas, and partly in the calculations themselves.

PANOFSKY, SUGER AND ST DENIS 17

perhaps the more promising for St Denis. T h e great mosque exemplifies a great deal of the right kind of geometry applied to architecture, both in plan and elevation, and it anticipated in a particularly daring w a y a theory of structural equil ibrium that can be recognized in subsequent Gothic buildings like Laon. In the absence of Suger's clerestory we cannot be sure about St Denis but there are signs that it was there as well. However , that opens the door to a whole range of problems that lead far beyond the scope of the present paper.

T h e conclusions to be drawn are as follows. Suger was not in any serious sense a follower of the Pseudo-Dionysius. He was an orthodox churchman in a position of great power, and his pr imary aim as a patron was to do honour to the saints of his abbey. T h e new choir of St Denis was conceived as a setting for altars and reliquaries, and in so far as it was novel, this was due to a mode of presentation which was dramatic enough in its own right, and owed nothing to symbolism. It is necessary to distinguish between the decorative ends aimed at (i.e. the windows) and the architectural means by which these were achieved. St Denis was influential under all these headings, but not a lways at the same time or in the same w a y . As a ' rel iquary ' church, it was a model for C a n t e r b u r y ; and as a frame for windows, it was a model for Chartres . But it was the geometry, which was the special contribution of the architect, that entered at once into the mainstream of church design, and this left its mark on a series of buildings which otherwise were out of sympathy with St Denis. As for the Pseudo-Dionysius, if he had anything to do with twelfth-century religious art, it was through the exegetical movement associated (among others) with the canons of St V ic tor , rather than St Denis. T h i s might provide the starting point for a further enquiry into Suger 's alleged role as one of the great innovators of medieval iconography.

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