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In Foraminibus Petrae: A Note on Leonardo's ‘Virgin of the Rocks’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
Critics have encountered considerable difficulty in explaining the setting of Leonardo's ‘Virgin of the Rocks'. Thus L. H. Heydenreich asserts, ‘Das Bild schildert kein Ereignis der biblischen Geschichte'. A background of apocryphal or legendary material has been postulated and denied. Although biblical history offers no explanation for the rocks, a very simple and obvious source appears in conventional biblical exegesis. A convention arose in the twelfth century where by the Sponsa in the Canticum could be taken as the Blessed Virgin as well as the Church, and this attitude persisted in Catholic countries well after the time of Leonardo. Thus Cant. 2: 13-14 was read as an injunction to the Virgin: Surge, arnica tnea, speciosa mea, et vent, columba mea, inforaminibuspetrce, in caverna maceriæ.
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- Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1954
References
1. Leonardo(Berlin, 1943), p. 50.Google Scholar
2. See The Virgin of the Rocks in the National Gallery (London, 1947), p. 12.Google Scholar Kenneth Clark, Cf., Leonardo da Vinci, 2 ed. (Cambridge, 1952), p. 43.Google Scholar
3. The two alternatives were not considered to be mutually exclusive, but were regarded as equally valid and fruitful ways of reading the text. Thus Honorius Augustodunensis wrote commentaries illustrating both approaches.See Migne, PL, CLXXII, 347 ff. and 495 ff.
4. In Canticum Canticorum Salomonis commentarius liter alls, et catena mystica (Paris, 1604). Each passage considered is interpreted separately under each of the following rubrics: ‘Littera', ‘Tropologia', ‘Mixta interpretatio, sev de Deipara', ‘Anagoge'. The 'allegorical’ interpretation applying to the Church is omitted. The authorities used, which are listed on pp. 12v-14r, make up a very representative tradition from the time of the Fathers to recent writers like Luis de Leon.
5. See the note on ‘Guilhelmus Parvus', p. 13V, and for confirmation, F. Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum, no. 3009.
6. In Canticum, pp. 91r-92r. On 86v Alanus de Insulis (12c) is quoted to the effect that the foramina are the wounds of Christ. A similar interpretation, p. 89r, is attributed to St. Gregory the Great: ‘Talis anima bené dicitur inforaminibiis petræ, & in caverna macerice, degere … quia dum in crucis recordatione patientiam CHRISTI imitatur, dum ipsa vulnera propter exemplum in memoriam reducit, quasi columba in foraminibus, sic simplex anima in vulneribus, nutrimentum quo cortualescat, inuenit.'
7. E.g., Antonina Vallentin, Leonardo da Vinci (New York, 1938), p. 98, imagines the god Pan among the rocks and finds ‘more of a heathen god than a heavenly messenger in the angel'. This paganism, like that of many other critics of Renaissance art, belongs to the era of Walter Pater and Pierre Louys and has nothing to do with the superstitions of antiquity.
8. This was the technique attributed to scripture itself. See St. Augustine, De doctrina Christiana, 3. 5. 9ff., 4. 8. 22; St. Gregory, In Canticum, PL, LXXIX, 471-474. Similar principles were applied to poetry. E.g. see Petrarch. Invective, ed. Ricci (Rome, 1950) pp. 69-70.
9. See Del'Rio's citations of Honorius, William of Newburgh, and others, p. i6or. For'mixed'interpretations see pp. 160v-16IV. E.g., Alanus is quoted as follows: ‘Merito 6 virgo tali arborum & aromatum decore decoraris, quia in te est fons saliens in vitam ceternam. Qui fons puteus est, id est, inexhaustibilis & profundus propter scientiae profunditatem. Nee tamen ex te fluunt aqua; viuae, sed de Libano, id est CHRISTO, qui omnium virtutum decore candidatus est, & dicit: si quis sitit, veniat ad me & bibat'. The water is said by some commentators to emerge from the wounds of Christ, which, as we have seen, are symbolized by the clefts in the rock.
10. The extreme youth of St. John does not preclude a symbolic association with the observer. See Matt. 18: 3.