"Those unharnessed runners
from glen to glen!
Nobody tames
that royal blood,
each one aloof
on its rightful summit,
antlered, watchful.
Imagine them,
the stag of high Slieve Felim,
the stag of the steep Fews,
the stag of Duhallow, the stag of Orrey,
the fierce stag of Killarney..."
From Sweeney Astray a version from the Irish by Seamus Heaney
Art: Illustrated Manuscript: Gaston Phoebus, Le Livre de la chasse (Paris, ca. 1407)
These lovely Medieval flowers are always swoon-worthy in the margins of various Book of Hours, sometimes in medical texts, sometimes in gardening books. I can never get enough of looking at these beautiful images and feeling inspired, mostly to embroider May Morris-style textiles. They are helpful when writing historical fiction, for they reveal the unique preoccupation with flowers, each of which has medical and social significance. It is just those small details that provide a certain weight and body to describe a place, an action taken, a letter written, or the evolution of a plot based on the underlying language of flowers.
Above is a curious and captivating of two nude jousters -- male and female(?) -- on snails. This is from the Baldus de Ubaldis. Lectura super Institutionibus. 1480-1481. The best part of this image is that it remains an utter mystery as to what sort of allagorical or rhetorical meaning they were trying to express by placing jousting snails in the marginalia. (Most of the images are of armored knights and this is the only one I've ever seen of two nude firghters moving v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y toward each other. I did some internet checking and found this hilarious scholarly debate about the jousting snails. (It reads like something from a Monty Python sketch) And here too -- another attempt at a scholarly debate/discussion what the hell were those monks thinking!
I am not at all sure what the artist was thinking when he added this little marginal painting in a manuscript, but I love it. An angry oyster protecting a pearl? unwilling to be eaten? or just ornery from a life time of an irritating parasite giving him a silvery ulcer. Maybe a painter frustrated in love since the oyster “exciteth Venus."
Jacob van Maerlant, Der Naturen Bloeme, Flanders ca. 1350 (Den Haag, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KA 16, fol. 108v) This manuscript is rather interesting and features quite a few "angry" creatures and some even stranger pairings...like this one below:
I have been madly in love with the recent offerings of hedgehog marginalia from Medieval Animal Data Network. These adorable looking creatures, are often rendered in the rich golden and red hues of fall, and harvesting grapes (despoiling the vineyards) using their spines like cocktail toothpicks. But most wonderful of all...a group of artists got together and created an animated film of the hedgehog in action, based on the art and narrated in Latin. Totally awesome.
De Herinacio. On the Hedgehog from obrazki nunu on Vimeo.
Sources from Top to Bottom: Rochester Bestiary, England c. 1230; J. Paul Getty Trust, Unknown
English, about 1250 - 1260; Book of Hours of Charlotte of Savoy created in Paris, France, in the 15th century. New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M. 1004, fol. 82v; Bestiary- Therouanne, ca 1270; Latin bestiary Cambridge, 1320.
Penelope Writes to Odysseus
I am still in awe of these amazing little Medieval illustrations of the classical Greek and Latin heroines of Ovid writing imaginary epistles. Ovid's work was translated into French by poet Octavien de Saint-Gelais, and it so delighted Louise of Savoy (1476-1531), mother of the future king Francis I of France, that she commissioned artist Robinet Testard to decorate a sumptuous manuscript of Ovid with these beautiful miniature portraits of the heroines writing their own stories. Each one is so different ..caught in the unique drama of her life -- some beautiful, some rather violent. (And really...so many bad husbands and rotten boyfriends...) Here's a sample of some of my favorites ...but do, stop by La Folia Magazine and indulge in all the others. All these heroines writing their own stories provides fuel and words for my own characters who are impatient to write down their (mis)adventures.
Medea Writes to Jason
Ariadne Writes to Theseus
Hypsipyle Writes to Jason (double rotter)
Midori Snyder is the author of nine books for children and adults, published in English, French, Dutch, and Italian. She won the Mythopoeic Award for The Innamorati, a novel inspired by early Roman myth and the Italian "Commedia dell'Arte" tradition....more
