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Utopian Ruins

Author(s): Edgar WindReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the Warburg Institute, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Jan., 1938), pp. 259-260Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750017.

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THE

ISLE

OF THE

AMAZONS

259

in the

reports

of the

travellers

must be

sought

in the

mediaeval

romances

about

antiquity;

a

fact

which

reflects

the

importance

attached

to

them

as

encyclopaedias

and

authoritative

books of

information.

With

increasing knowledge

of

geographical

realities

there

developed

a

tendency

to

locate

the

monsters

and

fabulous

creatures

which

populate

the

imaginary kingdoms

of

ancient

and

mediaeval

descriptions

of

the

world,

in

ever

more

distant corners

of the earth.

Fabulous creatures such as the

kynocephali,

the

monoculi,

or the

pygmies,

-the

tradition

of

which is

closely

linked with

that

of

the

Amazons,

are

still

to

be found

on

geographical

maps

of

the

sixteenth

century,

but,

alas

they

have

been driven

to

the South

Polar

regions

ALBRECrr

ROSENTHAL

TWO

NOTES

ON

THE CULT

OF

RUINS1

I. RUINS

AND

ECHOES

It

appears

from

a scene

in

Webster's

"Duchess

of Malfi"

(Act

V,

Scene

III),

that

the

love of

ruins

and the love

of echoes

were

closely

associated

in

the

Elizabethan

mind.

Immediately

before

meeting

his

death, the hero, Antonio, is led by his friend

Delio

to the

ruins of an ancient

abbey

which

"gives

the best

echo that

you

ever

heard."

Antonio

begins

his

dialogue

with

the

warning

voice

of

the

echo

by meditating

on

the nature

of ruins

:

I

do love

these ancient

ruins.

We never

tread

upon

them

but

we set

Our

foot

upon

some reverend

history

And,

questionless,

ere in

this

open

court,

Which

now

lies

naked

to the

injuries

Of

stormy

weather,

some

men

lie interred

That

loved

the church

so

well,

and

gave

so

largely

o't,

They

thought

it should

have

canopied

their

bones

Till

doomsday

but

all

things

have

their

end :

Churchesand cities,whichhave diseases ike to men,

Must

have

like

death that

we have.

The

echo

answers,

in the voice

of Antonio's

murdered

duchess,

"like

death

that

we

have."

And

of

every

sentence

that

Antonio

speaks

the

echo

resumes

the

"deadly

accent."

That

dilapidated

buildings

are

haunted

by ghosts

is

a

common

belief. But

to

a

poet

of Webster's

power

of

imagery

the

association

of

an

echoing

voice

with a ruined

building

had a

profounder

meaning.

The

scene

which

he wrote reveals

a

natural

affinity

between

the two. What the ruin

is

to

the sense

of

sight,

the echo

is

to

the sense

of

hearing

:

a

faint reflection

of the

past.

A

ruin 'lives' as

long

as

it

yields

an

echo.

Only

when the

stone has lost

that

power

is

the

death

of

the

building complete.

That this

was

actually

in

Webster's

mind

becomes

apparent

at the end

of

the

play.

After Delio has

taken

his

friend

to

the

ruined

abbey

which

"gives

the best

echo

that

you

ever

heard,"

the hero

and

his

companions

are

killed

;

and

while

the

spectator

still

has

the

scene

of

the

echo

in his

mind,

he

hears

the words

of utmost

hopelessness

in

which

the

dying

Bosola

proclaims

his

belief

in

universal

perdition

:

We

are

only

like

dead

walls

or

vaulted

graves,

That,

ruined,

yield

no

echo.

"These

notes

are

to

be

taken

as

incidental con-

tributions

o

a

study

in

progress

by

Yv.

S.

Heckscher

(cf.

his

thesis Die

Romruinen,amburgDiss., I936).

2.

UTOPIAN

RUINS

To

interchange

the tenses

of

Past,

Present

and

Future

is

one

of

the

favourite

pas-

times

of

Romanticists.

A romantic

philo-

sopher

coined

the

phrase

:

"The historian is

a

prophet

looking

backwards."'

It

was for

a

Romantic

architect

to discover

that the

reverse

is

equally

true

and

that the

r6le

of

the

prophet

can

be

played

with effect

by

an

antiquarian

looking

forward. In a

strange

drawing

in

the

Soane

Museum,

first

pub-

lished

by

John

Summerson,s

the

great

vault

of the

Bank

of

England

which

is

Soane's

architectural

chef

d'euvre,

is

represented

by

Soane's

own

draughtsman-and

evidently

at

Soane's

request--in

a state of

delapidation

so

that it

looks

like

a

classical

ruin.

Soane

evidently

felt

that,

by

indulging

in

this

reverie,

a

new nuance

was added

to

his archi-

tectural

achievement.

By anticipating

a

situation

which would

normally

be

regarded

as

'posthumous,'

he

meant

to

give

a

new

glamour

to the

building.

If Edmund

Burke

could

have

seen

this

drawing

he

might

have

used

it

as

an illus-

tration

for one

of

his favourite

theses

:

"We

delight

in

seeing things,

which so

far from

doing,

our

heartiest

wishes

would

be

to

see

redressed.

This

noble

capital,

the

pride

of

England,

and

of

Europe,

I

S44Der Historiker

ist

der

riickwiirts

gewandte

Prophet" (Friedrich

Schlegel).

1

The

Strange

Case

of

J.

M.

Gandy.

The

Architect,

1936, pp. 38-44.

8/10/2019 warburg 17

3/3

260 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

believe no

man

is

so

strangely

wicked

as

to desire to

see

destroyed

by

a

conflagra-

tion

or

an

earthquake,

though

he

should

be removed

himself

to the

greatest

distance

from the

danger.

But

suppose

such

a

fatal

accident to have happened, what num-

bers from all

parts

would

crowd

to

behold

the

ruins,

and

amongst

them

many

who

would

have

been

content

never to

have

seen London

in its

glory

?"1

Both

Burke and Soane were

high-minded

men.

Therefore,

it did not

occur

to them

that the

same

device

which

they

associated

with

tragic

grandeur,

can be

efficiently

used

in

a

spirit

of

wit.

When the

American

poetess,

Edna

Millay,

sought

for a

poignant

expression

of

jealousy,

she

chose

to address

her

lover as "if he

should lie

a-dying."2

She merely furthered the tradition of

wooing

set

by

Koko:3

There's fascination

rantic

In

a

ruin hat's

omantic

Do

you

think

ou

are

sufficiently

ecayed

E.W.

1On

the

Sublimeand

Beautiful.

Part

I,

Sect.

xv.

'A

Few

Figs

from

Thistles,

by

Edna

St. Vincent-

Millay.

T3

he

Mikado,

Act

II,

No.

12.

A

SYMBOL

OF

PLATONIC LOVE IN A

PORTRAIT

BUST

BY

DONATELLO

The

way

in

which Donatello used

an

ancient cameo in his famous bust of a

youth

in the

Bargello

(P1. 34d)4

can best be

understood

by

considering

it in

relation to

mediaeval

tradition. His

prototypes

are

the then

very

numerous

busts,

mainly

reliquaries,

which

were

decorated with inlaid

original precious

stones.

Yet,

it

is

charac-

teristic

of the

growing

Renaissance and

its

new

conception

of

Antiquity

that Donatello

does not

incorporate

an

actual cameo

;5

instead

he

copies

one-thus

preserving

the

unity

of his

material

(bronze).

By

putting

the

cameo

on

the neck

of the bust

like

a

jewel he interprets the mediaevaldevice in a

pseudo-rational

way (in reality

such

ornaments

were never worn

by

young men).

Moreover,

by

increasing

the size of his emblem in

com-

parison

with

the ancient

original

he is able

to

emphasise

the

symbolic

meaning

of

the

scene

represented:

a

winged

charioteer

driving

two horses and

holding

a

whip.

It appears that the original of this cameo

belonged

in

Donatello's

days

to the

col-

lection of

Cosimo

de'

Medici.6 We

may,

therefore,

conclude that

Cosimo

himself or

a

member of his

circle

gave

the

order

for the

bust. What was the

patron's

intention

when

he

asked

that

this

particular

cameo should

be

reproduced

? At the

date

to

which

the

bust is

generally

assigned-about

i44o-

Cosimo de'

Medici and his friends

were

filled with

enthusiasm

for a revival

of Pla-

tonism

under

the

influence of Gemisthos

Plethon,7

and

according

to

Marsiglio

Ficino

Cosimo had planned a Platonic Academy in

Florence even

before

1440,

that

is,

more

than

22

years

before

its

actual foundation

by

Ficino.

Donatello's

bust,

conceived

in

the

years

of

this first

enthusiasm

for

Plato,

can

only

be

interpreted

in a

Platonic sense.

It

is

in-

spired by

the

passage

in Plato's

Phaedruss

where

winged genii

on

cars

driving

two

horses with

whips

are

described as

symbols

of the

soul.

The

madness of

love,

the

best

of the

'Four

Divine

Madnesses',

is

explained

by

Socrates

in terms of this

image.

"We

described the

passion

of Love

in

some

sort

of figurative manner... and ... we chanted

a

sportive

and

mythic hymn

in

meet

and

pious

strain to

the

honour

of

your

lord and

mine

Phaedrus, Love,

the

guardian

of

beautiful

boys".

No

doubt

in

Cosimo's

circle the

ancient cameo

was

interpreted

in

this

Platonic sense

and

its use

on

the

bust

was meant

to

prove

its bearer as one

of

the

'beautiful

boys'

guarded

by

the

Platonic

amore

eleste.9

Bibliography

in

Catalogue,

Exposition

de

l'Art

Italien,

Paris,

1935,

No.

1032.

6

As

examples

of

the insertion of

precious

stones

into

Renaissance

busts,

we

may

refer to

Laurana's

Neapolitan

princess

in

the Mellon

Collection in

Washington (the

hole

which

formerly

contained

the

stone

recently

filled with

marble).

Mirrors instead of

stones

were

not

rare. Cf.

Mino's

medallion in

the

Cabinet des

M6dailles

de

la

Biblioth&que

Nationale,

Paris.

6

It

appears

later

in

an

inventory

of

the

collection

of Lorenzo

de'

Medici, cf.

E.

Muntz,

Revue Archdo-

logique,

1879,

p.

248.

Informative notes in

Bange,

Die

Ital.

Bronzen

d.

Renaissance. Staatl. Museen zu

Berlin

II,

1922,

No.

82,

and

Seymour

de

Ricci,

The

Gustave

Dreyfus

Collection.

Reliefs

and

Plaquettes,

1931,

p.

30,

No.

27.

There are some Renaissance

medals in

existence which were

probably

struck

after

Dona-

tello's bust.

SCf. A. della

Torre,

Storia dell'Accademia

latonica n

Firenze,

1902, pp.

426

ff.

8

Translated

by

Leonardo

Bruni

in

1423-

9

This

interpretation may

be

confirmed

by

the fact

that

about

ioo

years

later such

a

learned

man

as the

engraver

Giulio

Bonasone

used

the

same

cameo for

a