Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. Don’t count on me here to tell his story in a few lines! (*1) In any case, since the romantics, all, and nearly to much has been said and written about the rediscovered Dutch master of light inelegantly thrown into darkness by the barbarians of neo-classicism.
By Karel Vereycken, June 2001.
The uneasy task that imparts me here is like that of Apelles of Cos, the Greek painter who, when challenged, painted a line evermore thinner than the abysmal line painted by his rival. In order to draw that line, tracing the horizons of the political and philosophical battles who raged that epoch will unveil new and surprising angles throwing unusual light on the genius of our painter-philosopher.
First, we will show that Rembrandt (1606-1669) was « the painter of the Thirty years War » (1618-1648), a terrible continental conflict unfolding during a major part of his life, challenging his philosophical, religious and political commitment in favor of peace and unity of mankind.
Secondly, we will inquire into the origin of that commitment and worldview. Did Rembrandt met the person and ideas of the Czech humanist Jan Amos Komensky (« Comenius ») (1592-1670), one of the organizers of the revolt of Bohemia? This militant for peace, predecessor of Leibniz in the domain of pansophia (universal wisdom), traveled regularly to the Netherlands where he settled definitively in 1656. A strong communion of ideas seems to unite the painter with the great Moravian pedagogue.
Also, isn’t it astonishing that the treaties of Westphalia, who put an end to the atrocious war, are precisely based on the notions of repentance and pardon so dear to Comenius and sublimely evoked in Rembrandt’s art?
Finally, we will dramatize the subject matter by sketching the stark contrast opposing Rembrandt’s oeuvre with that of one of the major war propagandist: (Sir) Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640).
Rembrandt, who finished rejecting any quest for earthly glory could not but paint his work away from that of the fashion-styled Flemish courtier painter. Moreover, Rubens was in high gear mobilizing all his virtuoso energy in support of the oligarchy whose Counter Reformation crusades and Jesuitical fanaticism were engulfing the continent with gallows, fire and innocent blood.
What Rembrandt advises us for his painting also applies to his life: if you stick your head to close to the canvass, the toxic odors will sharply irritate your nose and eyes. But taking some distance will permit you to discover sublime and unforgettable beauty.
What Art?
Since the triumph of Immanuel Kant‘s modernist thesis, the Critique of the Faculty of Judgment, it has not been « politically correct » to assert that art has a political dimension. And with good reason! If art can influence the course of history and shape it through its power, it is because it is a vector of ideas! An impossibility, according to the Kantian thesis, because art is a gratuitous act, free of everything, including meaning. The ultimate freedom! You either like it or you don’t, it’s all a matter of taste.
Following in the footsteps of the German poet Friedrich Schiller, we’re here to convince you otherwise, and abolish the tyranny of taste. For us, art is an eminently political act, although the work of art has nothing in common with a mere political manifesto, and the artist can in no way be reduced to an ordinary « activist ».
His domain, that of the poet, the musician or the visual artist, is to be a guide for mankind. To enable people to identify within themselves what makes them human, i.e. to strengthen that part of their soul, of their divine creativity, which places them entirely at the zenith of their responsibility for the whole of creation.
To achieve this, and we’ll develop this here, what counts in art is the type of conception of love it communicates. By making this « universal » sensitive, sublime art makes the most elevated conception of love accessible.
Such art, which forces us think, employs enigmas, ambiguities, metaphores and ironies to give us access to the idea beyond the visible. For art that limits itself to theatricality and the beauty of form fatally sinks into erotic, romantic love, depriving man of his humanity and therefore of his revolutionary power.
Rubens will be the ambassador of the great un-powers of his time: the glory of the empire and the magnificent financial strength of those days « new economy », the « tulip bubble ». In short, the oligarchy.
Rembrandt, in turn, will be the ambassador of the have-nots: the weak, the sick, the humiliated, the refugees; he will live in the image of the living Christ as the ambassador of humanity. It might seem strange to you to call such a man the « the painter of the thirty years war. »
Paradoxically, his historical period underscores the fact that very often mankind only wakes up and mobilizes its best resources for genius when confronted with the terrible menace of extinction. Today, when the Cheney’s, the Rumsfeld’s and the Kissinger’s want to plunge the world into a « post-Westphalian epoch », in reality a new dark age of « perpetual war », Rembrandt will be one of our powerful weapons of mass education.
Historical context and the origins of the war
Before entering Rembrandt, it is indispensable to know what was at stake those days. The academic name « Thirty Years War » indicates only the last period of a far longer period of « religious » conflict which was taking place around the globe during the sixteenth century, mainly centered in central Europe, on the territory of today’s Germany.
While 1618 refers to the revolt of Bohemia, the 1648 peace of Westphalia defines a reality far beyond the apparent religious pretext: the utter ruin of the utopian imperial dream of Habsburg and the birth of modern Europe composed of nation-states (*2)
On the reasons for « religious » warfare, let us look at the first half of the sixteenth century. At the eighteen years long Council of Trent (1545-1563), the Roman Catholic Church discarded stubbornly all the wise advise given earlier to avoid all conflict by one of its most ardent, but most critical supporters: Erasmus of Rotterdam.
As Erasmus forewarned, by choosing as main adversary the radical anti-semite demagogue Martin Luther, the church degraded itself to sterile and intolerant dogmatism, opening each day new highways for « the Reformation ».
The religious power-sharing of the « Peace of Augsburg » of 1555, between Rome and the protestant princes, temporarily calmed down the situation, but the ambiguous terms of that treaty incorporated all the germs of the new conflicts to come. Note that « freedom of religion » meant above all « freedom of possession ». The « peace » solely applied to Catholics and Lutherans, authorizing both to possess churches and territories, while ostracizing all the others, very often abusively labeled « Calvinists ».
Playing diabolically on internal divisions, some evil Jesuits of those days set up Calvinists and Lutherans to combat each other bitterly, by claiming, for example in Germany, that Calvinism was illegal since not explicitly mentioned in the treaty. Furthermore, the citizen obtained no real freedom of religion; he was simply authorized to leave the country or adopt the confessions of his respective lord or prince, which in turn could freely choose.
As a result of a general climate of suspicion, the protestant princes created in 1608 the « Evangelical Union » under the direction of the palatine elector Frederic V. Their eyes and hopes were turned on King Henri IV‘s France, where the Edit of Nantes and other treaties had ended a far long era of religious wars. After Henry IV‘s assassination in 1610, the Evangelical Union forged an alliance with Sweden and England.
The answer of the Catholic side, was the formation in 1609 of a « Holy League » allied with Habsburg’s Spain by Maximilian of Bavaria. Beyond all the religious and political labels, a real war party is created on both sides and the heavy clouds carrying the coming tempest threw their menacing shadows on a sharply divided Europe.
1618: The Revolt of Bohemia
Prague defenstration.
Hence, after the never-ending revolt of the Netherlands, the very idea of an insurrection of Bohemia drove the Habsburgs (and the slave trading Fugger and Welser banking empires controlling them) into total hysteria, since they felt the heath on their plans. If Bohemia would become « a new, but larger Holland », then many other nations, such as Poland, could join the Reformation camp and destabilize the imperial geopolitical power balance forever.
As from 1576, the crown of Bohemia was in the hands of the Catholic Rudolphe II, Holy Roman Emperor. Despite a far-fetched passion for esotericism, Rudolphe II will be the protector of astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler in Prague.
In 1609, the Protestants of Bohemia obtain from him a « Letter of Majesty » offering them certain rights in terms of religion. After his death in 1612, his brother Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor, became his successor and left the direction of the country to cardinal Melchior Klesl, a radical Counter Reformation militant refusing any application of the « letter of majesty ».
This set the conditions for the famous « defenestration of Prague », when two representatives of the imperial power were thrown out of the window and fall on a manure heap, at the end of hot diplomatic negotiations. That highly symbolical act was in reality the first signal for a general uprising, and following the early death of Matthias, the rebels made Frederic V their sovereign instead of accepting Habsburg’s choice.
Charles Zerotina, a protestant nobleman and Comenius, (see box below), a Moravian reverend and respected community leader, masterminded that revolt. Frederic V, for example was crowned in 1619 by Jan Cyrill, who was Zerotina’s confessor, and whose daughter will become Comenius wife.
The insurgents were defeated at the battle of White Mountain, close to Prague, in 1620 by a Catholic coalition, composed of Spanish troops pulled out of Flanders together with Maximilian’s Bavarians. On the scene: French philosopher René Descartes, who paid his own trip and who was part of the war coalition and joined in entering defeated Prague in search for Kepler’s astronomical instruments… (*3)
An arrest warrant immediately targeted Comenius, who escaped with Zerotina from bloody repression. Protestantism was forbidden and the Czech language replaced by German.
Most resistance leaders were arrested and 27 beheaded in public. Their heads were put up on pins and shown on the roof of Prague’s Saint-Charles bridge.
One of them was the famous Jan Jessenius, head of the University of Prague who performed one of Europe’s early public anatomical dissections in 1600 and was a close friend of Tycho Brahe. To warn those who used their speech to encourage « heresy », his tongue was pulled out before he was beheaded, quartered and impaled.
Thirty thousand people went into exile while Frederic V and his court took refuge in Den Haag in the Netherlands. There, but years before, Comenius had a personal encouter with the future « Winterkönig » and his wife Elisabeth Stuart, on their way back from their wedding in England for which Shakespeare had arranged a representation of « The Tempest ».
A World War
Misery and calamities of war, Jacques Callot.
1618 marked the outbreak of an all-out war across Europe, provoked by the imperial drive of Habsburg to reunify all of the continent behind one unique emperor and one single religion.
As of 1625, aided by French and English financial facilities, Christian IV of Denmark and Gustave Adolphus of Sweden intervened on the northern flank against Habsburg descending from the north as far as up till Munich.
Then, France opened another flank on the western front in 1635. Catholic cardinal Richelieu, who defeated the Huguenots at LaRochelle in 1628 (since he « fought their political rights but not their religious ones », will heavily aid the Protestant camp. His fears were that,
« if the protestant party is completely in shambles, the offensive of the house of Austria will come down on France ».
The famous etchings of the Lorraine engraver Jacques Callot, « Misery and calamities of war » of 1633, give an idea how this savage war swept Europe with its cortège of misery, famine, epidemics and desolation.
The estimated population loss on the territory of present day Germany indicates a downturn from 15 to less than 10 million. Hundreds of cities were turned back into simple villages and thousands of communities simply disappeared from the map.
War affected all the colonies of those powers involved in the conflict. Dutch and English pirates would sink any Spanish or Portuguese ships encountered at the other edge of the Earth’s curve. For Spain, loyal pillar of Habsburg, 250 million ducats were spent for the war effort (between 1568 and 1654), despite the state bankruptcy of 1575. That amount represents more than the double of the revenue from the loot of the new world (gold, spices, slaves, etc.) which scarcely amounted only to 121 million ducats…
Rembrandt and Comenius
That the young Rembrandt was totally heckled by the situation of general war which was shaking up Europe is easily visible in the early self-portrait of Nuremberg.
Here he portrays himself divided between two choices. One shoulder reveals the gorget, a piece of armor that invokes the patriotic call for serving the nation calling on every young Dutchman of his generation in age of serving the military, especially after the surprise attack of the Spanish troops on Amersfoort of august 1629.
The other shoulder is nonchalantly caressed by a « liefdelok », the French « cadenette » or lovelock exhibited by amorous adolescents. What to choose? Love the nation, or the beloved?
More and more irritated by the ambitions of Constantijn Huygens, the powerful secretary of the stadholder which got him well-paid orders for the government and made him move from Leiden to Amsterdam, Rembrandt’s thinking and activity gets ever more concentrated and powerful.
Ten years later, the dying away of his wife Saskia in 1642, year of the « Night watch », plunges the painter into a deep personnal existential crisis. Gone, the self-portraits where he paints himself as an Italian courtier, with a glove in one hand carrying a heavy golden chain around his neck fronting for his social status and competing with the court. Suddenly he seems to realize that the totality of the world’s gold will never buy back the lost lives of those once loved.
When interrogated on the matter, Rembrandt would bluntly state he didn’t need to go to Italy, as the tradition used to be, since everything Italy ever produced came to him anyway as it was available in one form or another on the Amsterdam art market. But traveler he was, as drawings of the gates of London indicate, done in the early forties, maybe the year Comenius crossed the channel?
In 1644, the neo-Platonist rabbi and teacher of Spinoza, Menasseh Ben Israel, for which Rembrandt illustrated books, received a letter from Comenius agent John Dury, chaplain of Mary Princess of Orange, starting a discussion on the reintegration of the Jews in England, and Menasseh finally went for negotiations to meet Cromwell in 1655.
The Nightly Conspiracy
« The nightly conspiracy of Claudius Civilus at the Schakerbos ».
Although some timid hypothesis’ exists concerning Comenius‘ influence on Rembrandt, a rigorous historian’s research could certainly bring more light on this matter.
Although Rembrandt’s worldview evolved in an environment of the Mennonite community, peace-loving Anabaptists miles away from any political commitment, Rembrandt’s passion for the « cause of Bohemia » seems particularly striking in « The nightly conspiracy of Claudius Civilus at the Schakerbos ».
The large painting figured as one in a series planned to decorate the new Amsterdam city hall to celebrate the revolt of the Batavians against the Romans. Starting from historical elements of Tacitus, the story had been cooked up to warm up Dutch patriotism since the reference to Spanish tyranny was clear to all. For reasons unknown today, Rembrandt’s painting was taken down after a couple of months. To mock the cowardice of the ruling elites, Rembrandt seems to have transposed the historical scene into his present timeframe.
One Swedish historian thinks that the leader of the conspiracy here is not Claudius Civilis (the Batavian general who lost an eye in battle), but another general who equally lost an eye in battle and which was non-other than the Hussite general Jan Zizka! (*4).
Remember that Comenius and the revolt of Bohemia strongly identified with John Huss. Looking closely makes you discover that Rembrandt’s Claudius Civilis is indeed dressed up in central European costume. From left to right one sees first a Dutch patrician. Is this a portrait of the then rising republican Jan De Wit?
Next, one sees a monk, without weapons, who poses his hand on Civilus’ arm in a conspiratorial gesture. Is this Comenius resistance movement, the Unity of the Brethren?
According to the historians, the two chalices, one wide, the other narrow, could signify the « Eucharist under the two species », namely that bread and wine be shared with all, which happened to be one of the demands of the Jan Hus tradition.
One also can identify a Jew or rabbi taking place in the conspiracy. Looks pretty weird for a simple Batavian conspiracy! That the establishment was unhappy to see their hero painted as an ugly Cyclops seems probable.
But to be challenged in their flight forward into pompous fantasy in stead of taking up the urgent tasks of their time was another one.
King of Swedish Steel, Louis De Geer
Louis de Geer.
Comenius arrives in Amsterdam on invitation of the de Geer family in 1656, the year of Rembrandt’s bankruptcy (*5).
Louis de Geer, alias « the Steel King » and his son Laurent were the life-long protectors of Comenius for whom they paid the funeral and even build a chapel in the city of Naarden, some miles outside Amsterdam.
Originally from Luik (Liège) in today’s Belgium, that uncompromising Calvinist family settled in Amsterdam. It was the de Geer family who led the foundations of Sweden’s industrial flowering of iron, steel and copper . To do this, de Geer brought three hundred families of Walloon steelworkers to Sweden, and for whom he build hospitals, schools, housing projects and commercial facilities.
De Geer also financed the scottish preacher John Dury and the « intelligencer » Samuel Hartlib, two active friends of Comenius in England. At war with the Royal Society and Francis Bacon, they wanted to render scientific knowledge available to all of the population.
John Milton’s treatise On Education was dedicated to the same Samuel Hartlib. Louis de Geer and Sweden’s prime Minister Johan Skytte, realized Comenius education projects were the best of all possible investment to foster the physical economy. His educational reforms created a labor force of such an exceptional quality and astonishing productivity, that they warmly invited him to Sweden and asked him to reform the nation’s educational system.
That relationship of Comenius with the de Geer family leads us to Rembrandt, since Louis de Geer’s sister, Marghareta, and her husband Jacob Trip, one of the major shareholders of the Swedish copper mines, had their portrait done by Rembrandt, offering him a well paid order during very difficult years.
Margaretha De Geer, painted by Rembrandt.
The City of Amsterdam allotted Comenius a yearly pension, encouraged him to publish his complete works on pedagogy and offered him the keys of the city library. Comenius brought over his family and assistants and installed a library and a printing shop behind the Westerkerk where Rembrandt will be buried.
Comenius, when going every day from his house to his printing shop crossed the street where Rembrandt lived his last days. Since early this century, Czech curators got convinced that Rembrandt’s Portrait of an old man at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, is in reality a portrait of Comenius (*6).
Portrait of an old man (Comenius?) by Rembrandt.Portrait of Comenius, by Rembrandt’s pupil Juriaan Ovens.
True or not, one has to realize that Rembrandt demanded to each of his models to sit each day for four hours over a period of three months to paint their portrait, a thing maybe not so evident for the aging Comenius.
But what is known with certainty is the fact that one of Rembrandt’s pupils, Juriaen Ovens, painted Comenius portrait during that period.
The Peace of Westphalia and the « Via Lucis »
Signing of the Peace of Westphalia in Münster 1648.
Although Bohemia did not gain its long-desired independence at the peace of Westphalia, one cannot underestimate Comenius influence on the negotiations leading to the establishment of the peace-treaty. His work, Cesta Pokoje (Road to peace) of 1630, written in Czech is described as,
« an ethical-religious writing in which love, faith and mutual comprehension are established as the single ethical foundations of a possible peace ».
From 1641 to 1642, right before the start of the first peace negotiations, Comenius wrote the Via Lucis (The path of light), which could have been used as a guiding memorandum for the negotiators.
At the question if this Via Lucis was a millenarist mystical vision, as has been often pretended, we can consider the following.
Asked what could be hoped for and when a major change could take place, Comenius answered that the hope would come with the arrival of a time where the Gospel of the Kingdom would be preached all over the world and universal peace established.
That change could arise as the result of the emergence of a light to which will turn not only the Christian, but all the people of the world.
That light will come, « from the combination of the lanterns of human conscience, of a rational consideration of the works of God or of nature, and from the law or divine will ».
For him, « human enterprise can, through prayer and considerations of pious men imagine the possible ways to unite these rays of light, to irradiate them on the entirety of the human species and to spill similar thoughts in the minds of others » (*7).
Rembrandt’s etching that Goethe would (wrongly) use as the frontispiece for his Faust in 1790, since the light here is the divine light and not that of the devil.
One identifies exactly that concept in an etching of Rembrandt that Goethe awkwardly used by having it copied as frontispiece for his Faust in 1790 (*8).
The subject here is not at all a man going along to get along with the devil, but light (mirror of Christ) enlightening the life and the mind of the mortals. Way before Voltaire and opposed to the Venetian illuminati, Comenius and Rembrandt made own the metaphor of light.
To get an even more precise idea of Comenius demands for peace, one can read another memorandum called Angelus Pacis (The peace-angel),
« send to the English and Dutch peace Ambassadors at Breda, a writing designated to be sent afterwards to all the Christians of Europe and then to all the nations of the world in order to stop them, that they cease fighting each other ».
Comenius first remarks laconically that England and Holland are morally so degraded that they even don’t need some spiritual difference as a pretext, but fight each other for purely material possessions! As a way out, he proposes a new friendship:
« But how do you conceive that new friendship (or rather reestablishment of your friendship)? Will it be not by the general pardon that you will allow each other? The wise men have always seen the oblivion of received injuries as the surest road leading to peace. Touching too rudely the wounds, is to revivify the pains and to furnish the wounds an occasion for irritation.
« When this is true, it would be to be wished that the river Aa, whose tranquil waters irrigate Breda, would turn for this hour into the river Lethe of which the poets tell us that whoever drinks their water forgets everything of the past.
« The one who is guilty of trouble, God will find him, even when men, for love of peace, spare him. That the just one starts accusing himself; that means that the one whose conscience accuses him of having broken the friendship and witnessed enmity, should, according to justice, be the first one and the most ardent to reestablish friendship. If the offended party neglects that duty of justice, it will be the honor of the offended party to assume that honorable role, according to the word of the philosopher. » (*9)
COMENIUS: TEACH EVERYTHING TO ALL AND EVERYONE
Jan Amos Komensky (« Comenius ») (1592-1670) was above all a militant teacher, practicing « the universal art of teaching everything to everybody » (pan-sophia) and reckless source of inspiring enthusiasm.
One year after his death in 1670, Leibniz wrote of him: « time will come, Comenius, that honors will be offered to your works, to your hopes and even to the objects of your desires ».
In some domains, indeed, Comenius was Leibniz‘s precursor. First, he fought the fossilization of thought resulting from the dominant Aristotelianism: « Little time after that unification between Christ and Aristotle, the church fell into a pitiable state and became filled with the uproar of theological dispute ».
Strong defender of the free will that he didn’t see entirely in contradiction with an Augustinianconcept of predestination, he felt closer to John Huss than to Calvin, while generally labeled a « Calvinist » by historians.
In 1608, Comenius enters the Latin School of Prérov (Moravia), a school reorganized at the demand of Charles Zerotina on the model of the Calvinist school of Sankt-Gall in Switzerland. Zerotina was one of the key figures of the Bohemian nobility, promoter of the Church of Unity of Brethren, organizer of popular education and key leader of the international anti-Habsburg resistance. For example, in 1589 he lends a considerable amount of money to the French King Henri IV, which he meets in Rouen, France, in 1593 in support of ending the religious wars with the the Spanish.
Henri IV’s conversion to Catholicism (« Paris is worth a mass ») ruined Zerotina’s hope to reproach the Unity of Brethren with the French Huguenots. Befriended with Theodore de Bèze, which he met regularly when studying in Basel and Geneva, Zerotina sent Comenius to study at the Herborn University in Nassau. That University was founded in 1584 by Louis of Nassau, brother of William the Silent, the leader of the revolt of the Netherlands against Habsburg’s Spain. Louis of Nassau, a key international coordinator of the revolt was in permanent contact with the humanist Huguenot leader Gaspard de Coligny in France and with Walsingham, the chancellor of England’s Queen Elisabeth Ist.
Together with Zerotina, Comenius unleashed the revolt of Bohemia of 1618. After spending some time with the guerrilla forces for which he drew a map of Moravia, Comenius went into exile, as bishop of his church, the « Unity Brethren of Bohemia ».
Till his death, he was the soul of the Bohemian resistance, the gray eminence of the Diaspora and the guardian that prevented the Czech language from disappearing, since it was replaced by German in Bohemia. Since wars are only possible if large parts of the population remain uneducated, for Comenius education became the leading edge to fight for Peace.
Opposed to the Jesuit educators who consolidated their own power by education the elites only, Comenius, starting from his conviction that every individual is made in the living image of God, elaborated with great passion a very high level curriculum, which he wanted accessible to all, as he develops this in his « The Great Didactic » (1638).
Following the advice of Erasmus and Vivès, Comenius abolishes corporal punishment and decides to bring boys and girls in the same class. With him, a school needs to be available in every village, free of cost and open to everybody.
Breaking the division between intellectual and manual work, the schools were part-time technical workshops, anticipating France’s Ecole Polytechnique and the Arts et Metiers (technical school to perfect working people), completely oriented towards the joy of discovery. Leibniz idea of academies originated in Comenius’ schools and societies of friends.
For him, as for Leibniz, the body of physics couldn’t walk without the legs of metaphysics. Integrating that transcendence, he strongly rejected the very idea that nature was reducible to a mere aggregate defined by formal laws, and he adamantly lambasted Bacon, Galileo and Descartes for doing so. In stead, nature has to be looked to as a dynamic process defined by the becoming. That becoming is not repetitive, but permanent progression and potentialization: nature has a quality of development, tending towards self-accomplishment and harmony.
He was severely attacked by Descartes’ « Judgment of the Pansophical works » and mocked by Voltaire, who made him appear as Candide‘s naive philosophy teacher « Pangloss ».
Founder of modern pedagogy, he realized children are beings of affection, before becoming beings of reason. Up till those days, ignorant children were often seen as possessed by the devil, a devil which had to be beaten out of them. The French cardinal Pierre de Bérulle, founder of the Oratorians, reflected that mindset when he wrote that « infancy is the most vile and abject state of man’s nature after that of death ».
To make knowledge accessible to all, Comenius revolutionized the dogmas of that educational approach. In well-ordered classrooms, beautifully decorated with maps, classes would last only one hour covering all the domains one fiends in an engraving of Comenius: theology, manual works, music, astronomy, geometry, botany, printing, construction, painting and sculpture.
Comenius taught Latin, but was strongly convinced that every pupil had to master first his mother tongue. That was a total revolution, since up till then, Latin was taught in Latin, and to bad for those who didn’t understand already !
He also will also re-introduce illustrated textbooks (« The sensible world in images »)(1653), which had been stupidly banned from schools to « not invite the senses to disturb the intellect ». For Comenius, images have the same role as a telescope, displacing the field of perception beyond immediate limits.
His ideas, and especially the rapid successes of schools adopting his pedagogy attracted all of Europe and beyond. In 1642, Comenius was hired by Johan Skytte, the influential chancellor of the University of Uppsala, to reorganize the Swedish education system according to his principles. Skytte, an erudite Platonist inspired by Erasmus, will be Gustaphe Adolph’s preceptor and his son Bengt Skytte will be an influential teacher of Leibniz.
Before that job, Comenius discarded a similar offer originating from Richelieu of France and the offer that came from John Winthrop Junior from the United States who offered Comenius to preside Harvard University, newly founded in the Massachussetts Bay Colony of America.
Rembrandt and Forgiveness
To express in art that precise moment where love gives birth to pardon and repentance will be precisely one of Rembrandt’s favorite subjects. The fact that he choose the name Titus for his son, after the roman emperor who supposedly had showed great clemency toward the early Christians, demonstrates that point. But Titus was also the name of a bishop of Creta who was a close collaborator of Apostle Paul.
Rembrandt was fascinated by the figure of Saint-Paul, who used to be after all a roman officer who, through his conversion, showed the possible transformation of each individual for the better, capable of becoming a militant for the good.
Self-portrait as Paul the Apostle.
Rembrandt’s self-portrait of the Rijksmuseum, with the famous « ghost-image » of a badly lit dagger nearly planted his breast supposedly represent him as Saint-Paul, traditionally represented defending Christian faith with the scripture in one hand and the sword in the other.
The bible in the armored hand do appear in that painting, but the sword here seems more as a dagger, suggesting an eventual reference to the name given by Erasmus to his Christian’s manual, the « Enchiridion » after the Greek word egkheiridion (dagger).
The Prodigal Son
In one of Rembrandt’s late works, the « Return of the prodigal son », despite the fact that the work was completed by a pupil, we see how profoundly he dealt with precisely that subject. The expressiveness of the figures is amplified by the nearly life-size representation on the wide canvas (262 x 205 cm).
The father’s eyes, plunged in interior vision, look yonder the small passage by which the son hasarrived, as doubting of the happiness that overwhelms him, since his son « who was dead », « came back to life ».
The son, who installs his convicts head on the father’s abdomen, engages in the act of total repentance. The naked foot who leaves behind the rotten shoe, communicates in a metaphorical way that sinners deed of repentance, offering what he has inside. The father embraces his son by putting his pardoning hands on his shoulders, while the jealous brothers stand by wondering and enraged why so much love is given to the son « who had spoiled the fathers good with prostitutes ».
Three observations indicate Comenius person and thought might have inspired this work.
First, according to all available portraits, the face of the father shows heavy resemblance with the treats of Comenius himself, a well known militant for peace based on repentance and pardon which Rembrandt probably met frequently during that period.
Second, and after a second look, the son doesn’t look European at all, but actually Negroid, which would add to the painting some critical thoughts on the widely practiced slavery of the European powers of those days.
To conclude, one could interpret the parable of the prodigal son in a much larger sense: is this not man itself, son of God, who returns to his father after having wandered on the roads of sin? Comenius, after a moment of nearly total desperation uses that same image in his book The labyrinth of the world and the paradise of the hearth (1623).
Similar to the image employed by the Dutch painter Hieronymous Bosch, in his « ambulant salesman », man gets lost in the multiplicity of the world that leads him to self-destruction, but after a crisis decides to regain divine unity.
In order to add still another dimension to the discussion on the quality of love involved in art, it is useful to contrast our master with the works of the most talented belonging to the tradition of his detractors: Peter-Paul Rubens.
Rembrandt, Rubens and other Philistines
But before investigating Rubens, it is appropriate to consider the following. Despite the fact that Rembrandt came out of the immense intellectual ferment of the late sixteenth century University of Leiden, one of the cradle’s of humanism, one cannot escape the fact that his lashing career would have infatuated many.
Remember, Constantijn Huygens« discovered Rembrandt » in 1629, while still a young millers son running a small boutique with Jan Lievens, asking them to come to Amsterdam and work for the government. (*10).
Rembrandt’s « patron » nevertheless would write without blushing in his diary Mijn Jeugd (my youth) that Peter Paul Rubens, the Flemish baroque painter was « one of the seven marvels of the world ».
Rubens was, before everything else, the talented standard bearer of the « enemy » Counterreformation and its Jesuits army, whose admiration made Rembrandt totally uncomfortable. How could this virtuoso painter be seen as the brightest star on the firmament of painting? According to some, Huygens was looking for « a Dutch Rubens », capable of making shine the « elites » of the nation.
Samson blinded by the Philistines, Rembrandt.
Rembrandt at one point got so irritated with Huygens’ shortsightedness that he offered him a large painting called Samson blinded by the Philistines. The work, a pastiche of the violent style, painted « à la Rubens », shows roman soldiers gouging out Samson’s eye with a dagger. Did Rembrandt suggest that his Republic (the strong giant) and its representatives were blinded by their own philistinism?
When a little Page becomes a great Leporello
Rembrandt perfectly translates the feeling of revulsion any honest Dutch patriot would have felt in front of Rubens. Had the Dutch elites already forgotten that Peter Paul’s father, Jan Rubens, once a Calvinist city councilor of Antwerp close to the leadership of the revolt of the Netherlands, had severely damaged the integrity of the father of the fatherland by engaging in an extra-conjugal relationship with Anna of Saxen, the unstable spouse of William the Silent?
Humiliated, but with courage and determination, Rubens mother fought as a lioness to free her husband from an uncertain jail. Her son Peter Paul, could not but become the calculated instrument of vengeance against the protestants and an indispensable tool to do away the blame hanging over the family. Hence, at the age of twelve, Peter Paul was sent to the special college of Romualdus Verdonck, a private school specifically designed to train the shock troops of the Counterreformation.
From there on, Rubens becomes a pageboy at the little court of Marguerite de Ligne, countess de Lalaing at Oudenaarde, whose descendants still form the Royal blood of today’s Belgium. As a kid, Rubens copied the biblical images of the woodprints of Holbein and the Swiss engraver Tobias Stimmer. After two waves of iconoclasm (1566 and 1581), the Counterreformation was very eager to recruit image-makers of all kinds, but under strict regulations specified by the final session of the Council of Trent in 1563. (*12).
After a short training by Abraham van Noort, Rubens career was boosted by his entering of the workshop of Otto van Veen. Born in Leiden in 1556 and trained by the Jesuits, « Venius » was the pupil of the master-courtier Federico Zuccari in Rome. Zuccari was the court painter of Habsburg’s Philippe II of Spain and the founder of the « Accademia di San Luca ». Traveling from court to court, Venius succeeded in getting the favors of Alexander Farnèse, the malign Spanish governor in charge of occupying Flanders.
Farnèse, who actually organized the successful assassination of the father of the Netherlands, the erasmian humanist William the Silent in 1584, nominated Venius as his court painter and as engineer of the Royal armies.
Furthermore, Venius will be the man who opened Rubens mind on Antiquity and together they will read and comment classical authors in Latin. Especially, he will show Rubens that an artist, if he wants to attain glory during his lifetime, must appeal a little bit to his talent and a very much to the powerful.
In Italia
In may 1600, Rubens rides his horse to Venice. In June, during Carnival he encounters the Duke of Mantua, Vincent of Gonzague, who is the cousin of archduke Albert who is ruling then Flanders with Isabella since 1598.
The duke of Mantua, the oligarchic type Mozart portrays in his « Don Giovanni » and Verdi explicitly in « Rigoletto », was very fond at the idea to add a « fiamminghi » to his stable.
The court of Mantua, in a competition of magnificence with other courts, notably those of Milan, Florence or Ferrare, employed once the painter Mantegna, the architect Leon Battista Alberti and the codifier of courtly manners Baldassare Castiglione. At the times of Rubens, the court paid the living of poet Torquato Tasso and the composer Monteverdi which wrote in Mantua his « Orpheus » and « Ariane » in 1601.
Galileo was also one of the guests for a short period in 1606. But especially, the Duke had in his possession one of the largest collections of works of art of that period, and his agents in Italy and all over the world were in charge of identifying new works worth becoming part of the collection.
Circle of friends in Mantua, Rubens.
An inventory of 1629 lists three Titian’s, two Raphael’s, one Veronese, one Tintoretto, eleven Giulio Romano’s, three Mantegna’s, two Corregia’s and one Andrea del Sarto amidst others. Similar to Giulio Romano who became the mere instrument of the « scourge of the princes »Pietro Aretino, our Flemish painter became just another Leporello, an obligingly « valet » enslaved by the Duke.
When we look to his self-portrait with his Circle of friends in Mantua, we see a fearful man, who « became somebody » because surrounded by « people who made it » and recognized by the powerful.
In Espagna
Immediately the Duke gave Rubens a truly Herculean task: transport a quite sophisticated present to Philippe III and his prime minister the Duke of Lerma from Mantua to Madrid. On top of a little chariot specially designed for hunting and several boxes of perfume, the core of the present consisted of not less then forty copies of the best paintings of the Duke’s private collection, notably some Raphael‘s and Titians. On top, Rubens’ mission was « to paint the fanciest women of Spain » during his trip. While his patron in Mantua whines for his return, Rubens will deploy his seductive capabilities at the Spanish court which looked far more promising to his career.
Back in Italy, his immediate going to Rome seems an opportune move, since in these days Barocci was held for to old, Guido Reni for to young. Also, Annibale Carracci appeared out of order since suffering from melancholic apoplexies while Caravagio, accused of murder, was hiding on the properties of his patrons, the Colonna’s.
But essentially, Rubens goes to the holy city because he’s enthusiastically promoted there by the Genovese cardinal Giacoma Serra, very impressed by the « splendid portraits » of women Rubens painted for the Spinola-Doria dynasty in Genoa.
Nevertheless, hearing about the imminent death of his mother, Rubens rushes to Antwerp, and after much a hesitation settles his workshop there, far at a distance from the centers of power, but close to the fabulous privileges he obtains from the Spanish regents over the Netherlands, Albrecht and Isabella.
In Antwerpia
Rubens house in Antwerp (reconstruction of 1910)
These advantages were such that conspiracy-theorist see them as sufficient proof that there was a blueprint to kill the soul of the Erasmian spirit in Christian painting in the region.
First, Rubens will receive 500 guilders per year without any obligation concerning his artistic output except the double portrait of the rulers, any supplementary order necessitating separate payment.
Next, Rubens obtains a status permitting him to bypass the regulations and obligations of the Saint-Luc painters guild, particularly the rule that limits the number of pupils and the amount of their salary. And since a lot is never enough, Rubens obtains a tax-exemption status in Antwerp! As a real patrician he orders the building of his palace.
Broken down long time ago, and for whatever reasons, one has to observe that it was during the times of Flemish collaboration with Hitler’s Germany (from 1938 to 1946) that his Genovese modeled resort, temporarily recreated in 1910 for the Universal Exposition in Brussels, will be entirely rebuild after the engravings of Jacobus Harrewijn of 1692, decorated as the original and the interior filled with fitting old furniture (*14).
It is true that his enthusiasm for opulent blondes and violent action was interpreted by Nazi historians as the expression of profound sympathy for the Nordic races, while his visual energy was seen as the antithesis of « degenerated » art. The Rubens cult in Antwerp might tell us something interesting about the recurrent rise of rightwing extremism in that city.
Propaganda Genius
Rubens feat was to « merchandize » the ruling taste of the oligarchy of his time. Similar to the German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl under Hitler, Rubens became the genial producer of their propaganda. Precocious child and brilliant draughtsman, he had spent hours and hours working after Italian collections and bas-reliefs in the ruins of Rome.
Since the « Warrior-pope » Julius II and Leo X took over the Vatican, art had to submit to the dictatorship of the degenerated taste of imperial Rome. Eight years of work, from 1600 to 1608, in Genoa, Mantua, Florence, Rome, without forgetting Madrid, with free access to nearly all the great collections of antiquities and paintings of the old families, enabled Rubens to constitute a « data-base », whose fructification will generate the bulk of his fortune.
Specialists do point easily to the unending stream of visual quotes identified in his works. A group of Michelangelo in « The Baptism of Christ » (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp); a pose of Raphael’sAristotle in the School of Athens in his « St-Gregory with St-Domitilla, St-Maurus and Papianus » (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin) or one of his Madonna’s in « The fall of man » (Rubenshuis, Antwerp), without forgetting a head of the Laocone in the « Elevation of the Cross » (Cathedral, Antwerp) or the « contraposto » of a Venus coming straight away from a roman statuary in « The union of Earth and Water » (Hermitage, Saint-Petersburg). (*11).
The Tulip, Seneca plus Ultra
The four philosophers, Rubens.
The desire to be accepted by the ruling oligarchs becomes even clearer when we discover his admiration for Seneca.
Through his education and under the influence of his brother Philippe, Peter Paul Rubens will become a fanatical follower of the Roman neo-stoic Seneca (4 BC – 65 AC). In his painting The four philosophers, Rubens paints himself standing, once again « on the map » with those who got a chair at the table.
With a view on the palatine hill in the background, site of the Apollo cult considered the authentic Rome, we see his brother Philippe, a renowned jurist, sitting across the leading stoic ideologue of those days, Justus Lipsius and his pupil Wowerius, all situated beneath a niche filled with a bust of Seneca honored by a vase with four tulips, two of them closed, and the other two opened.
Originally from Persia, the tulip bulb was brought from Turkey to Europe by an Antwerp diplomat in 1560. Its culture degenerated rapidly from a hobby for gentleman-botanist into the immense collective folly known as the Tulip Mania and « tulip-bubble » or « Windhandel » (wind-trade).
That gigantic speculative bubble bursted in Haarlem on February 2, 1637, while some days earlier, a tulip with the name of « vice-roy » went for 2500 guilders, paid in real goods being two units of wheat and four of rye, four fat calves, eight pigs, a dozen of sheep, two barrels of wine, four tons of butter, a thousand pounds of cheese, a bed and a silver kettle drum (*14).
« Rubens in his garden with Helena Fourment »
As can be seen in his painting Rubens in his garden with Helena Fourment, Rubens was not indifferent to that highly profitable business. Behind the master and his spouse, appears discretely behind a tree in Rubens garden a rich field of tulips!
But in the « Four philosophers », the tulip is nothing else than a metaphor of the « Brevity of life », an essay of Seneca.
The latter, tutor of Nero, preached a Roman form of sharp cynicism known under the label of fatum (fatality): to rise to (Roman) grandeur, man must cultivate absolute resignation. By an active retreat of oneself on oneself and by a obstinate denegation of a threatening and absurd world, man discovers his over-powerful self. That power even increases, if the self decides that death means nothing.
At the opposite of Socrates, who accepted to die for giving birth to the truth, Seneca makes his suicide his main existential deed. Waiting for his hour, his job is to steer his boredom by managing alternating pleasures and pains in a world where good and bad have no more sense.
As all cases of radical Aristotelianism, that philosophy, or « art of life » steers us in the hell of dualism, separating « reason », cleaned from any emotion, from the unbridled horses driving our senses. These two ways of being unfree makes us a double fool. Rubens fronts for that philosophy in his work Drunk Silenus.
Drunk Silenus, Rubens.
The excess of alcohol evacuates all reason and brings man back to his bestial state, a state which Rubens considers natural. Instead of being a polemic, the painting reveals all the complacency of the painter-courtier with the concept of man being enslaved by blind passion. Instead of fighting it, as Friedrich Schiller outlines the case repeatedly and most explicitly in his « On the Esthetical Education of Mankind », Rubens cultivates that dualism and takes pleasure in it. And sincerely tries to recruit the viewer to that obscene and degrading worldview.
Peace IS war
Peace and War, Rubens.
As an example of « allegories », let us look for a moment at Rubens canvas Peace and War.
Above all, that painting is nothing but a glittering « business-card » as one understands knowing the history of the painting. At one point, Rubens, who had become a diplomat thanks to his international relations, organized successfully the conclusion of a peace-treaty between Spain and England (which collapsed fairly soon).
Repeating that for him « peace » was based on the unilateral capitulation of the Netherlands (reunification of the Catholic south with the North ordered to abandon Protestantism), he succeeded entering the Spanish diplomatic servicesomething pretty unusual for a Flemish subject, in particular during the revolt of the Netherlands.
Following this diplomatic success, the painter is threefold knighted: by the Court of Madrid to which he presents a demand to obtain Spanish nationality; by the Court of Brussels and also by the King of England!
Before leaving that country, he offers his painting « Peace and War » to King Charles. The canvas goes as follows: Mars is repelled by wisdom, represented as Minerva, the goddess protecting Rome. Peace is symbolized by a woman directing the flow of milk spouting out of her breast towards the mouth of a little Pluto. In the mean time a satyr with goat hooves displays the corn of abundance…
On the far left, a blue sky enters on stage while on the right the clouds glide away as carton accessories of a theatre. Rubens main argument here for peace is not a desire for justice, but the increase of pleasures and gratifications resulting from the material objects which men could accumulate under peace arrangements! Ironically, seen the cupidity of the ruling Dutch elites, which Rembrandt would lambaste uncompromisingly, it seems that Rubens might have succeeded in convincing these elites to sell the Republic for a handful of tulips. If only his art would have been something else then self-glorification! Here, his style is purely didactical, copied from the Italian mannerism Leonardo despised so much.
Instead of using metaphors capable to make people think and discover ideas, the art of Rubens is to illustrate symbolized allegories. The beauty of an invisible idea has never, and can not be brought to light by this insane iconographical approach. His « style » will be so impersonal that dozens of assistants, real slave laborers, will be generously used for the expansion of his enterprise.
King Christian IV’s physician, Otto Sperling, who visits Rubens in 1621 reported:
« While still painting he was hearing Tacitus read aloud to him and at the same time was dictating a letter. When we kept silent so as not to disturb him with our talk, he himself began to talk to us while still continuing to work, to listen to the reading and to dictate his letter, answering our questions and then displaying his astonishing power. »
« Then he charged a servant to lead us through his magnificent palace and to show us his antiquities and Greek and Roman statues which he possessed in considerable number. We then saw a broad studio without windows, but whichcaptured the light of the day through an aperture in the ceiling. There, were united a considerable amount of young painters occupied each with a different work of which M. Rubens had produced the design by his pencil, heightened with colors at certain points. These models had to be executed completely in paint by the young people till finally, M. Rubens administered with his own hand thefinal touch.
« All these works came along as painted by Rubens himself, and the man, not satisfied to merely accumulate an immense fortune by operating in this manner, has been overwhelmed with honors and presents by kings and princes ». (*15).
We know, for example, that between 1609 and 1620, not less than sixty three altars were fabricated by « Rubens, Inc. ». In 1635, in a letter to his friend Pereisc, when the thirty years war is ravaging Europe, Rubens states cynically « let us leave the charge of public affairs to those who’s job it is ».
The painter asks and obtains a total discharge of his public responsibilities the same year while retiring to enjoy a private life with his new young partner.
Painter of Agapè, versus painter of Eros
Being a human, Rembrandt correctly had thousand reasons to be allergic to Rubens. The latter was not simply « on the wrong side » politically, but produced an art inspiring nothing but lowness: portraits designated to flatter the pride of the mighty by making shine and glitter some shabby gentry; history scenes being permanent apologies of Roman fascism where, under the varnish of pseudo-Catholicism, the alliance of the violent forces of nature and iron-cold reason dominated. Behind the « art of living » of Seneca, there stood the brutal methods of manipulation of the perfect courtier described by Baldassare Castiglione in his « Courtier ». For courtly ethics, everything stands with balance (sprezzatura) and appearance, and behind the mask of nice epithets operates the savage passions of seduction, possession, rape and power-games.
On the opposite, Rembrandt is the pioneer of interiority, of the creative sovereignty of each individual. To show the beauty of that interiority, why not underline paradoxically exterior ugliness?
In the « Old man and young boy » of Domenico Ghirlandajo, an imperfect appearance unveils a splendid beauty. The old man has a terribly looking nose, but the visual exchange between him and the boy shows a quality of love which transcends both of them. At the opposite of Seneca, they don’t contemplate the « brevity of life », but the longevity or « immortality of the soul ».
Martin Luther King, in a sermon tries equally to define these different species of love. After defining Eros (carnal love), and Philia (brotherly love), he says:
« And then the Greek language comes out with another word. It’s the word agape. Agape is more than Eros; it’s more than an aesthetic or romantic love; it is more than friendship. Agape is understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. Theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart. And so when one rises to love on this level, he loves every man, not because he likes him, not because his ways appeal to him, but he loves every man because God loves him, and he rises to the level of loving the person who does an evil deed, while hating the deed that the person does. » (*17)
Then, King shows how that love intervenes into the political domain:
« If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person.
The strongperson is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. And that is the tragedy of hate, that it doesn’t cut it off. It only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love. »
You probably understood our point here. Martin Luther King, in his battle for justice, was living in the same « temporal eternity » as Rembrandt and Comenius opposing the thirty years war. Isn’t that a most astonishing truth: that the most powerful political weapon at man’s disposal is nothing but transforming universal love, over more available to everyone on simple demand? But to become a political weapon, that universal love cannot remain a vague sentiment or fancy romantic concept. Strengthened by reason, Agapè can only reach height with the wings of philosophy.
Rembrandt and Comenius knew that « secret », which will remain a secret for the oligarchs, if they remain what they are. »
The Little Fur
Another comparison between two paintings will make the difference even more clearer between Eros and Agapè: Het pelsken (the little fur) of Rubens (left) and Hendrickje bathing in a river of Rembrandt (right).
That comparison has a particular significance since the two paintings show the young wives of both painters. At the age of fifty-three Rubens remarried the sixteen year old Helena Fourment, while Rembrandt settled at the age of forty-three with the twenty-two year old Hendrickje Stoffels.
The naked Helena Fourment, with staring eyes, and while effecting an hopeless gesture of pseudo-chastity, pulls a black fur coat over her shoulders. The stark color contrast between the pale body skin and the deep dark fur, a typical baroque dramatic touch of Rubens, unavoidably evokes basic instincts. No wonder that this canvas was baptized the « little fur » by those who composed the catalogues.
However, paradoxically, Hendrickje is lifting her skirt to walk in the water, but entirely free from any erotic innuendo! Her hesitating, tender steps in the refreshing water seem dominated by her confident smile. Here, the viewer is not some « Peeping Tom » intruding into somebody’s private life, but another human being invited to share a moment of beauty and happiness.
Suzanne and the Elderly
Another excellent example is the way the two painters paint the story of Suzanne and the elderly. Comenius, was so impassioned by this story that in 1643 he called his daughter Zuzanna in 1646 his son Daniel. This Biblical parable (Daniel 13) deals with a strong notion of justice, quite similar to the one already developed in Greece by Sophocles Antigone. In both cases, in the name of a higher law, a young woman defies the laws of the city.
In her private garden, far from intruding viewers, the beautiful Suzanne gets watched on by two judges which will try to blackmail her: or you submit to our sexual requests, or we will accuse you of adultery with a young man which just escaped from here! Suzanne starts shouting and refuses to submit to their demands. The next day, Suzanne gets accused publicly by the judges (the strongest) in front of her family, but Daniel, a young man convinced of her innocence, takes her defense and unmasks the false proofs forged by the judges. At the end, the judges receive the sentence initially slated for Suzanne.
Suzanna and the Elder, Rubens.
In the Rubens painting, a voluptuous Suzanne lifts her desperate eyes imploring divine help from heaven. The image incarnates the dominant but insane ideology of both Counterreformation Catholicism and radical Protestantism: the denial of the free will, and thus of the incapacity to obtain divine grace through one’s acting for the good. For the Calvinist/protestant ideologues, the soul was predestinated for good or evil. Reacting by a simple inversion to the crazy indulgences, it was « logical » that no earthly action could « buy » divine grace. So whatever one did, whatever our commitment for doing the good on earth, nothing could derail God’s original design. The Counterreformation Catholics thought pretty much the same, except that one could claim God’s indulgence in the context of the rites of the Roman Catholic Church, especially by paying the indulgences: « No salvation outside the church ».
Suzanne and the elderly, Rembrandt.
In a spectacular way, Rembrandt’s Suzanne and the elderly reinstates the real evangelical Christian humanist standpoint: a chaste Suzanne looks straight in the eyes of the viewer which is witnessing the terrible injustice happening right under his nos. So, will you be the new Daniel? Will you find the courage to intervene against the laws of the State to defend a « Divine » justice? Hence, agapè is that infinite love for justice and truth, that leads you to courageous action and makes you a sublime personality capable of changing history, in the same way Antigone, Jeanne d’Arc, or Suzanne did before.
Plato versus Aristotle
The fact that Rembrandt was a philosopher is regularly put into question, even denied. The inventory of his goods, established when his enemies forced him into bankruptcy in 1654, doesn’t mention any book outside a huge bible, supposedly establishing a legitimate suspicion of him being near to illiteracy. While romanticized biographies portray him as an accursed poet, a narcissistic genius or the simple-minded mystical visionary son of a miller, a comment in 1641 from the artist Philips Angel underscores, not his painting, but Rembrandt’s « elevated and profound reflection ».
Aristotle contemplating Homer’s bust, Rembrandt.
It is Aristotle contemplating Homer’s bust, which demonstrates once and for ever how stupid the Romantics can be. Ordered by an Italian nobleman, the painting shows Aristotle as a Venetian aristocrat, as a perfect courtier: with a wide white shirt, a large black hat and especially carrying a heavy golden chain.
In short, clothed as Castiglione, Aretino, Titian and Rubens… Rembrandt shows here his intimate knowledge of the species nature of Plato’s enemies of the Republic, that oligarchy to whom Aristotelianism became a quasi-religion.
With great irony, the canvas completely mocks knowledge derived from the « blind » submittal to sense perception. Here Rembrandt seems to join Erasmus of Rotterdam saying « experience is the school of fools! ».
Equipped with empty eyes, incapable of perception, Aristotle is groping with an uncertain hand Homer’s head of which he was supposedly a knowledgeable commentator. Homer, the Greek poet who turned blind, stares worriedly to Aristotle with the open eyes of mind.
That inversion of the respective roles of Aristotle and Homer is dramatized by situating the source enlightening the scene as a tangent behind the bust of the poet.
Light reflections illuminating Aristotle’s hat underneath make appear the ironical « ghost image » of donkey ears, the conventional attribute widely used since the Renaissance to designate the stubbornness of scholastic Aristotelianism.
To this Aristotelian blindness, Rembrandt, whose own father became blind, opposes the other clear-sightedness of Simeon, as seen in his last painting, found on Rembrandt’s easel after his death.
All during his life, Simeon had wished to see the Christ with his own eyes. But, growing old, that hope quitted him with along with his sight. As he did every day, Simeon went one day to the temple. There, Maria asked him to keep her child in his arms. Suddenly, an infinite joy overwhelmed Simeon, who, without seeing Christ with his mortal eyes, saw him much more clearly with his mind than all the healthy seers. Rembrandt wanted us to reflect on that conviction: don’t believe what you see, but act coherently with God’s design and you might see him. On Simeon’s hands, a series of dashes of paint suggest some kind of crystal ball, an image which only « appears » when our minds dares to see it, underlining Simeon’s prophetic nature.
Jesus Christ healing the sick
Christ healing the sick, etching, Rembrandt.
Rembrandt’s anti-Aristotelian philosophy is also explicitly manifest in an engraving known as Christ healing the sick, an exceptionally large etching on which he worked passionately over a six year period. In order to « sculpt » the ambiguous image of the Christ, son of both God and mankind, Rembrandt executed six oil portraits featuring young rabbi’s of Amsterdam. But it was Leonardo’s fresco, the Last Supper, which Rembrandt extensively studied as shown by drawings done after reproductions, that seems to have been his starting point.
Scientific analysis of his still existing copperplate indicate that the Christ’s hands were originally drawn as an exact imitation of Leonardo’s « Last Supper » fresco.
Completely different from the kind of « spotlight theatrics » that go from Caravagio to Hitchcock, the work reminds the description of the myth of the cavern in Plato’s Republic. But here stands the Christ blessing the sick.
Transfigured, and akin to the prisoners in Beethoven’s opera Fidelio, the sick people walk from right to left towards Christ. Encountering the light transforms them into philosophers!
One generally identifies easily, amidst others, Homer and Aristotle (who’s turning his head away from Christ), but also Erasmus and Saint-Peter, which according to some possesses here the traits of Socrates.
The etching brings together in a single instant eternal several sequences of Chapter XIX of Saint Mathew:
“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
In a powerful gesture, Christ brushes aside even the best of all wise wisdom to make his love the priority, where Peter desperately tries to prevent the children from being presented to Jesus.
Sitting close to him we observe the image of an undecided young wealthy man plunged in profound doubts, since he desired eternal life but hesitated to sell his possessions and give it all to the poor.
When he left, Jesus commented that it was certainly easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the his kingdom.
Above simple earthly space situated in clock-ticking time, the action takes place in « the time of all times », an instantaneous eternity where human minds are measured with universality, some kind of « last judgment » of divine and philosophical consciousness.
The healing of the sick souls and bodies is the central breaking point which articulates the two universes, the one of sin and suffering, with the one of the good and happiness. Christ’s love, metaphorized as light, heals the « sick » and makes philosopher-kings out of them. They appear nearly as apostles and figure exactly on the same level as the apostles of Leonardo‘s milan fresco The last Supper. Brought out of darkness into the light, they become themselves sources of light capable of illuminating many others.
That « light of Agapè » is the single philosophical basis of Rembrandt’s revolution in the techniques of oil-painting: in stead of starting drawing and paint on a white gesso underground or lightly colored under-paint (the so-called priming, eventually adding imprimatura), all the later works are painted on a dark, even black under-paint!
The « modern » thick impasto, possible through the use of Venetian turpentine and the integration of bee wax, are revived by Rembrandt from the ancient « encaustic » techniques described by Pliny the Elder. They were employed by the School of Sycione three hundred years before Christ and gave us Alexander the Great‘s court painter Apelles, and the Fayoum mommy paintings in Alexandria, Egypt (*17).
Building the color-scale inversely permitted Rembrandt to reduce his late palette to only six colors and made him into a « sculptor of light ». His indirect pupil, Johannes Vermeer, systemized Rembrandt’s revolutionary discovery (*18).
Deprived of much earthly glory during their lives, Rembrandt and Comenius were immediately scrapped from official history by the oligarchic monsters that survived them. But their lives represent important victories for humanity. Their political, philosophical, esthetical and pedagogical battles against the oligarchy and its « valets » as Rubens, makes them eternal.
They are and will remain inexhaustible sources of inspiration for today’s and tomorrows combat.
NOTES:
Karel Vereycken, « Rembrandt, bâtisseur de nation« , Nouvelle Solidarité, June 1985.
The treatises of Westphalia (Munster and Osnabruck) of 1648, and the ensuing separate peace accords between France and the Netherlands with Spain, finally shred into pieces every political, philosophical and juridical argument serving as basis of the notion of empire, and by doing so put an end to Habsburg’s imperial fantasy, the « Thirty years war ». As some had outlined before, notably French King Henry IV’s great advisor Sully in his concept of « Grand Design », making the sovereign nation-state the highest authority for international law was, and remains today, the only safe road to guaranty durable peace. Empires, by definition, mean nothing but perpetual wars. If you want perpetual war, create an empire! Hence, through this revolution, small countries obtained the same rights as those held by large ones and the notions of big= strong, and small=weak, went out of the window. The Hobbesian idea that « might makes right » was abolished and replaced by mutual cooperation as the sole basis of international relations between sovereign nation-states. Hence, tiny Republics, as Switzerland or the Netherlands,the latter at war with Spain for nearly eighty years, finally obtained peace and international recognition. Second, and that’s undoubtedly the most revolutionary part of the agreements, mutual pardon became the core of the peace accords. For example paragraph II stipulated explicitly « that there shall be on the one side and the other a perpetual Oblivion, Amnesty or Pardon of all that has been committed since the beginning of these Troubles, in what place, or what manner soever the Hostilitys have been practis’d, in such a manner, that no body, under any pretext whatsoever, shall practice any Acts of Hostility, entertain any Enmity, or cause any Trouble to each other; » (translation: Foreign Office, London). Moreover, several paragraphs (XIII, XXXV, XXXVII, etc.) stipulate (with some exceptions) that there will be a general debt forgiveness concerning financial obligations susceptible of maintaining a dynamic of perpetual vengeance. In reality, the Peace of Westphalia was the birth of new political order, based on the creation of a new international economic and monetary system necessary to build peace on the ruins of the bankrupt imperial order.
Footnote, p. 77 in Comenius by Olivier Cauly, Editions du Félin, Paris, 1995.
Brochure dealing with that painting published by the Nationalmuseum of Stockholm.
To put to an end to the politically motivated financial harassment which was organized by the family of his deceased wife, Saskia van Uylenburgh, Rembrandt submits on July 14, 1656 to the Dutch High Court a cessio bonorum (Cessation of goods to the profit of the creditors), accepting the sale of his goods. In 1660, Rembrandt abandons the official management of his art trading society to his wife Hendrickje Stoffels and his son Titus.
p. 105, Henriette L.T.de Beaufort, in Rembrandt, HDT Willinck & Zoon, Harlem, 1957.
p. 358, Samuel Hartlib and Universal Reformation, Cambridge University Press, 1994.
p. 12-13, Bob van den Bogaert, in « Goethe & Rembrandt », Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 1999.
p. 25, Marcelle Denis in Comenius, pédagogies & pédagogues, Presse Universitaire de France, 1994.
Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687), was an exceptional precocious erudite. Politician, scientist, moralist, music composer, he played the violin at the age of six, wrote poems in Dutch, Latin, French, Spanish, English and Greek. His satire, « ‘t Kostelick Mal » (expensive folly), opposed to the « Profijtelijk Vermaak » (profitable amusement) makes great fun of courtly manners and the then rampant beaumondism. His son, Christiaan Huygens was a brilliant scientist and collaborator of Leibniz at the Paris Academy of sciences.
One has to outline shortly here that contrary to the rule of the Greek canon of proportions (height of man = seven heads and a half), the Romans, as Leonardo seems to observe sourly in his drawing reworking Vitrivius, increase the body size up to eight and sometimes many more heads. It was the Greek canon established after the « Doryphore » of Polycletius, which settled the matter much earlier after many Egyptian inquiries on these matters. Leonardo, who wasn’t a fool, realized Vitruvius proportions (8 heads) are wrong, as can be seen by the two belly-buttons appearing in the famous man bounded by square and circle. Hence, the proportional « reduction » of the head was an easy trick to create the illusion of a stronger, more powerful musculature. That image of a biological man displaying « small head, big muscles » supposedly stood as the ultimate expression of Roman heroism. Foreknowledge of this arrangement permits the viewer to identify accurately what philosophy the painter is adhering to: Greek humanist or Roman oligarch? That Rubens chose Rome rather than Athens, leaves no doubt, as proven by his love for Seneca.
« The holy Council states that it isn’t permitted to anybody, in any place or church, to install or let be installed an unusual image, unless it has been approved so by the bishop »; « finally any indecency shall be avoided, of that sort that the images will not be painted or possess ornaments of provoking beauty… » P. 1575-77, t. II-2, in G. Alberigo, « The ecumenical Councils », quoted by Alain Taton (p. 132) in « The Council of Trent », editions du CERF, Paris, 2000.
p. 172, Simon Schama, in his magnificent Rembrandt’s eyes, Knopf, New York, 1999.
For a more elaborate description of the tulip-bubble, Simon Schama, p. 471, « L’embarras de richesses, La culture hollandaise au Siècle d’Or », Gallimard, Paris, 1991.
p. 117, Otto Sperling, Christian IV’s doctor, quoted by Marie-Anne Lescouret in her biography Pierre-Paul Rubens, J.C. Lattès, Paris, 1990.
« Love your enemies », sermon of Martin Luther King, November 17, 1957, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama. Quoted in Martin Luther King, Minuit, quelqu’un frappe à la porte, p.63, Bayard, Paris 1990.
p. 87-88, Karel Vereycken, in The gaze from beyond, Fidelio, Vol. VIII, n°2, summer 1999.
Johannes Vermeer of Delft was a close friend of Karel Fabritius, the most outstanding pupil of Rembrandt, who died at the age of thirty-four when the powderkeg of Delft exploded. Vermeer became the executor of his last will, a role generally reserved for the closest friend or relative. Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek, the inventor of the microscope and Leibniz correspondent, will become in turn the executor of Vermeer’s last will. That filiation does nothing more than prove the constant cross-fertilization of the artistic and scientific milieu. The Dutch « intimist » school, of which Vermeer is the most accomplished representative, is the most explicit expression of a « metaphysical » transcendence, transposed for political reasons, from the domain of religion, into the beauty of daily life scenes.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Baudiquey, Paul, Le retour du prodigue, Editions Mame, 1995, Paris.
Bély, Lucien, L’Europe des Traités de Westphalie, esprit de la diplomatie et diplomatie de l’esprit, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 2000.
Callot, Jacques, etchings, Dover, New York, 1974.
Castiglione, Baldassare, Le Livre du Courtisan, GF-Flammarion, 1991.
Cauly, Olvier, Comenius, Editions du Félin, Paris, 1995.
Clark, Kenneth, An introduction to Rembrandt, Readers Union, Devon, 1978.
Comenius, La Grande Didactique, Editions Klincksieck, Paris, 1992.
Denis, Marcelle, Comenius, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1994.
Descargues, Pierre, Rembrandt, JC Lattès, 1990.
Goethe Rembrandt, Tekeningen uit Weimar, Amsterdam University Press, 1999.
While anyone with a modicum of rationality knows that a huge proportion of the world’s debts are absolutely unpayable, it’s a fact that today any debt cancellation, however odious or illegitimate, remains taboo.
By Karel Vereycken, December 2020.
Debt repayment is presented by heads of state and government, central banks, the IMF and the mainstream press as imperative, inevitable, indisputable, compulsory. Citizens have elected their governments, so they must resign themselves to paying the debt. For not to pay is more than violating a symbol: it is to exclude oneself from civilization, and to renounce in advance any new credit that is granted only to « good payers ». What counts is not the effectiveness of the act, but the expression of one’s « good faith », i.e. one’s willingness to submit to the strongest. The only possible discussion is how to modulate the distribution of the necessary sacrifices.
It seems that the ultra-liberal, monetarist model that has been surreptitiously imposed on us is that of the Roman Empire: zero debt for states and cities, and no debt forgiveness for citizens!
In his treatise on Duties (De officiis), written in 44-43, Cicero, who had just quelled a revolt by people demanding a debt remission, justifies the radical nature of his policy towards indebtedness:
For Cicero, any debt forgiveness undermines the authority of the State.
« What does the establishment of new debt accounts [i.e., remission] mean, if not that you buy land with my money, that you have this land, and that I don’t have my money? That’s why we have to make sure there are no debts, which can harm the state. There are many ways of avoiding it, but if there are debts, not in such a way that the rich lose their property and the debtors acquire the property of others. Indeed, nothing maintains the State more strongly than good faith (fides), which cannot exist if there is no need to pay one’s debts. Never has anyone acted more forcefully to avoid paying their debts than under my Consulate. It was attempted by men of all kinds and ranks, with weapons in hand, and by setting up camps. But I resisted them in such a way that this entire evil was eliminated from the State. »
What has been carefully concealed is that another human practice has also existed: moratoria, partial and even generalized debt cancellations have taken place repeatedly throughout history and were carried out according to different contexts.
Often, proclamations of generalized debt cancellation were the initiative of self-preservation-minded rulers, aware that the only way to avoid complete social breakdown was to declare a « washing of the shelves » – those on which consumer debts were inscribed – cancelling them to start afresh.
The American anthropologist David Graeber, in Debt, the first 5000 years (2011), pointed out that the first word we have for « freedom » in any human language is Sumerian amargi, meaning freed from debt and, by extension, freedom in general, the literal meaning being « return to the mother » insofar as, once debts were cancelled, all debt slaves could return home.
Debt cancellations were sometimes the result of bitter social struggles, wars and crises. What is certain is that debt has never been a detail of history.
David Graeber sums it up:
« For millennia, the struggle between rich and poor has largely taken the form of conflicts between creditors and debtors – disputes over the justice or injustice of interest payments, peonage, amnesty, property seizure, restitution to the creditor, confiscation of sheep, seizure of vineyards and the sale of the debtor’s children as slaves. And over the last 5,000 years, with remarkable regularity, popular insurrections have begun in the same way: with the ritual destruction of debt registers – tablets, papyri, ledgers or other media specific to a particular time and place. (After which, the rebels generally attacked cadastres and tax registers.) »
And as the great ancient scholar Moses Finley was fond of saying,
« All revolutionary movements have had the same program: cancellation of debts and redistribution of land. »
Let us now examine some historical precedents for voluntary debt forgiveness.
Debt cancellation in Mesopotamia
Urukagina s reform text mentions the cancelling of obligations of indentured families as part of his reforms
The earliest known debt cancellation was proclaimed in Mesopotemia by Entemena of Lagash c. 2400 BCE.
One of his successors, Urukagina, who was the last ruler of the 1st Dynasty of Lagash, is known for his code of rules that includes debt cancelation.
Urukagina’s code is the first recorded example of government reform, seeking to achieve a higher level of freedom and equality by limiting the power of priesthood and a usurous land-owner oligarchy. Usury and seizure of property for debt payment were outlawed. « The widow and the orphan were no longer at the mercy of the powerful man ».
Similar measures were enacted by later Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian rulers of Mesopotamia, where they were known as « freedom decrees » (ama-gi in Sumerian).
This same theme exists in an ancient bilingual Hittite–Hurrian text entitled « The Song of Debt Release ».
The reign ofHammurabi, King of Babylon (located in present-day Iraq), began in 1792 BC and lasted 42 years.
The inscriptions preserved on a 2-meter-high stele in the Louvre are known as the « Hammurabi Code ». It was placed in a public square in Babylon. If it is a long, very severe code of justice, prescribing the application of the law of retaliation (« an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth »), its epilogue nevertheless proclaims that « the powerful cannot oppress the weak, justice must protect the widow and the orphan (…) in order to render justice to the oppressed ».
At the Louvre Museum in Paris, the stele with « The Hammurabi Code »
Hammurabi, like the other rulers of the Mesopotamian city-states, repeatedly proclaimed a general cancellation of citizens’ debts to public authorities, their high officials and dignitaries.
Thanks to the deciphering of numerous documents written in cuneiform, historians have found indisputable evidence of four general debt cancellations during Hammurabi’s reign (at the beginning of his reign in 1792, in 1780, in 1771 and in 1762 BC).
Babylonian society was predominantly agricultural. The temple and palace, and the scribes and craftsmen they employed, depended for their sustenance on a vast peasantry from whom land, tools and livestock were rented.
In exchange, each farmer had to offer part of his production as rent. However, when climatic hazards or epidemics made normal production impossible, producers went into debt.
The inability of peasants to repay debts could also lead to their enslavement (family members could also be enslaved for debt).
The Hammurabi Code obviously wanted to change this. Article 48 of the Code of Laws states:
« Whoever owes a loan, and a storm buries the grain, or the harvest fails, or the grain does not grow for lack of water, need not give any grain to the creditor that year, he wipes the tablet of the debt in the water and pays no interest for that year. »
This ideal of justice is notably supported by the terms kittum, « justice as the guarantor of public order », and « justice as the restoration of equity. » It was asserted in particular during the « edicts of grace » (designated by the term mîsharum), a general remission of public and private debts in the kingdom (including the release of people working for another person to repay a debt).
Thus, to preserve the social order, Hammurabi and the ruling power, acting in their own interests and in the interests of society’s future, periodically agreed to cancel all debts and restore the rights of peasants, in order to save the threatened old order in times of crisis, or as a kind of reset at the beginning of a sovereign’s reign.
Proclamations of general debt cancellation are not confined to the reign of Hammurabi; they began long before him and continued afterwards. There is evidence of debt cancellations as far back as 2400 BC, six centuries before Hammurabi’s reign, in the city of Lagash (Sumer); the most recent date back to 1400 BC in Nuzi.
In all, historians have accurately identified some thirty general debt cancellations in Mesopotamia between 2400 and 1400 BC.
These proclamations of debt cancellation were the occasion for great festivities, usually during the annual spring festival. Under the Hammurabi dynasty, the tradition of destroying the tablets on which debts were written was established.
In fact, the public authorities kept precise accounts of debts on tablets kept in the temple. Hammurabi died in 1749 BC after a 42-year reign. His successor, Samsuiluna, cancelled all debts to the state and decreed the destruction of all debt tablets except those relating to commercial debts.
When Ammisaduqa, the last ruler of the Hammurabi dynasty, acceded to the throne in 1646 BC, the general cancellation of debts he proclaimed was very detailed. The aim was clearly to prevent certain creditors from taking advantage of certain families. The annulment decree stipulates that official creditors and tax collectors who have expelled peasants must compensate them and return their property, on pain of execution.
After 1400 BC, no deeds of debt cancellation have been found, as the tradition has been lost. Land was taken over by large private landowners, and debt slavery returned.
In Egypt
In Ancient Egypt interest-bearing debt did not exist for most of its history. When it started spreading in the Late Period, the rulers of Egypt regulated it and a number of debt remissions are known to have occurred during the Ptolemaic era, including the one whose proclamation was inscribed on the Rosetta Stone.
Now on display at the British Museum in London, the « Rosetta Stone » was discovered on July 15, 1799 at el-Rashid (Rosetta) by one of Napoleon’s soldiers during the Egyptian campaign. It contains the same text written in hieroglyphs, demotic (Egyptian cursive script) and Greek, giving Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832) the key to the passage from one language to another.
This was a decree issued by PharaohPtolemy V on March 27, 196 BC, announcing an amnesty for debtors and prisoners. The Greek Ptolemy dynasty that ruled Egypt institutionalized the regular cancellation of debts.
It was perpetuating known practices, since Greek texts mention that Pharaoh Bakenranef, who ruled Lower Egypt from c. 725 to 720 BC, had promulgated a decree abolishing debt slavery and condemning debt imprisonment.
TRANSCRIPTION OF THE PHARAOH’S DECREE ON THE ROSETTA STONE:
Assembled the Chief Priests and Prophets there and those who enter the inner temple to worship the gods, and the Fanbearers and Sacred Scribes and all the other priests of the temples of the earth who have come to meet the king at Memphis, for the feast of the Assumption of PTOLEMEE, THE LIVING FOREVER, THE BELOVED OF PTAH, THE GOD EPIPHANES EUCHARISTOS, the successor of his father, All assembled in the temple of Memphis on this day when it was declared:
“that King PTOLEMEE, THE LIVING FOREVER, THE BELOVED OF PTAH, THE GOD EPIPHANES EUCHARISTOS, the son of King Ptolemy and Queen Arsinoe, the Philopator Gods, both benefactors of the temple and those who dwell therein, as well as their subjects, being a god from a god and the goddess loves Horus the son of Isis and Osiris who avenged his father Osiris by being favorably disposed towards the gods, delivered to the revenues of the temples silver and corn and undertook much expenditure for the prosperity of Egypt, and the maintenance of the temples, and was generous to all out of his own resources ;
“and exempted them from some of the revenues and taxes levied in Egypt and alleviated others so that his people and all others could be in prosperity during his reign ;
“and that he cleared the debts to the crown for many Egyptians and for the rest of the kingdom; ”
The existence of this decree therefore confirms that the practice had existed for many centuries.
The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (Ist Century BC) provides the following rationale for abolishing the debt bondage by Pharaoh Bakenranef:
« For it would be absurd… that a soldier, at the moment perhaps when he was setting forth to fight for his fatherland, should be haled to prison by his creditor for an unpaid loan, and that the greed of private citizens should in this way endanger the safety of all »
As one can see here, one of the very pragmatic reasons for debt cancellation was that the Pharaoh wanted to have a peasantry capable of producing enough food and, if need be, able to take part in military campaigns. For both of these reasons, it was important to ensure that peasants were not expelled from their lands under the thumb of creditors.
In another part of the region, the Assyrian emperors of the 1st millennium BC also adopted the tradition of debt cancellation.
In Greece: Solon of Athens
Solon of Athens
In Greece, the Athenian lawmaker Solon (c. 638 BC–558 BC), in order to rectify the widespread serfdom and slavery that had run rampant by the 6th century BCE, introduced a set of laws nown as the Seisachtheia introducing debt relief.
Before Solon, according to the account of the Constitution of the Athenians attributed to Aristotle, debtors unable to repay their creditors would surrender their land to them, then becoming hektemoroi, i.e. serfs who cultivated what used to be their own land and gave one sixth of produce to their creditors. However, should the debt exceed the perceived value of debtor’s total assets, then the debtor and his family would become the creditor’s slaves as well. The same would result if a man defaulted on a debt whose collateral was the debtor’s personal freedom. The fight for debt relief and the fight to abolish slavery were in practice identical.
Solon’s seisachtheia laws immediately cancelled all outstanding debts, retroactively emancipated all previously enslaved debtors, reinstated all confiscated serf property to the hektemoroi, and forbade the use of personal freedom as collateral in all future debts. The laws instituted a ceiling to maximum property size – regardless of the legality of its acquisition (i.e. by marriage), meant to prevent excessive accumulation of land by powerful families.
In the Torah and Old Testament
Social justice, particularly in the form of forgiving debts that shackle the poor to the rich, is a leitmotif in the history of Judaism. It was practiced in Jerusalem in the 5th century BC.
The writing of the Torah was completed at this time. Deuteronomy, 15 states:
15 At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. 2 This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite. They shall not require payment from anyone among their own people, because the Lord’s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed. 3 You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your fellow Israelite owes you. 4 However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, 5 if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. 6 For the Lord your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you. 7 If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. 8 Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need. 9 Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward the needy among your fellow Israelites and give them nothing. They may then appeal to the Lord against you, and you will be found guilty of sin. 10 Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. 11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.
Thus, the Israelites were obliged to free Hebrew slaves who had sold themselves to them for debt, and to offer them some of the produce of their small livestock, their fields and their wine presses, so that they would not return home empty-handed.
As the law is too rarely applied, Leviticus reaffirms it by modulating it:
The Year of Jubilee
8 “‘Count off seven sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. 9 Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. 10 Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan. 11 The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. 12 For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields. 13 “‘In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property. 14 “‘If you sell land to any of your own people or buy land from them, do not take advantage of each other. 15 You are to buy from your own people on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And they are to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops. 16 When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what is really being sold to you is the number of crops. 17 Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the Lord your God.
Jeremiah contemplating the destruction of Jerusalem. Painting by Rembrandt.
Today, some will tell you that under these conditions, a year before the jubilee date, credit would necessarily be scarce and expensive, and that debt would thus find its limit!
This is a mistake, because to ensure that the law is followed, the codes describe in detail how purchases and sales of goods between private individuals must be carried out according to the number of years elapsed since the previous jubilee (i.e., the number of years remaining before the goods must be returned to their previous owner).
Another passage, this time from the prophet Jeremiah, vividly illustrates the scope of the law on the remission of debts.
King Zedekia
Faced with the advance of enemy armies towards Jerusalem in 587 B.C., Jeremiah supports, in God’s name, the undertaking of King Zedekiah (then ruler of the Kingdom of Judea), who demands the immediate release of all those enslaved for debt from the powerful forces of his kingdom (Jer. 34:8-17).
Jeremiah forcefully recalls the ancient demand for the freeing of slaves… which the king, in fact, needs to patriotically reunite the social classes before the battle, and give himself sufficient troops free of all servile obligations!
The prophet Nehemiah
A passage in the Book of (the prophet) Nehemiah (447 BC), the governor of Persian Judea under Artaxerxes I of Persia (465–424 BC), influenced by the ancient Mesopotamian tradition, also proclaims the cancellation of debts owed by indebted Jews to their rich compatriots.
The social situation Nehemiah discovered in Judea was appalling. To remedy the problem, Nehemiah placed the law of debt relief within a religious framework, the Covenant with Yahweh. From then on, it was God himself who commanded the forgiveness of debts and the liberation of slaves and their land, for the land belonged to God alone.
Nehemiah Helps the Poor « Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their fellow Jews. 2 Some were saying, “We and our sons and daughters are numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain.” 3 Others were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine.” 4 Still others were saying, “We have had to borrow money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards. 5 Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our fellow Jews and though our children are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong to others.” 6 When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry. 7 I pondered them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials. I told them, “You are charging your own people interest!” So I called together a large meeting to deal with them 8 and said: “As far as possible, we have bought back our fellow Jews who were sold to the Gentiles. Now you are selling your own people, only for them to be sold back to us!” They kept quiet, because they could find nothing to say. 9 So I continued, “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies? 10 I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let us stop charging interest! 11 Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the money you are charging them—one percent of the money, grain, new wine and olive oil.” 12 “We will give it back,” they said. “And we will not demand anything more from them. We will do as you say.”
If we add to these passages the countless verses forbidding the lending of interest to fellow human beings and the taking of property as collateral, we get an idea of what the Israelites in the land of Canaan had put in place to try and maintain a certain social equilibrium.
Alas, in the first century AD, debt forgiveness and the freeing of slaves from debt were swept away from all Near Eastern cultures, including Judea.
The social situation there had deteriorated to such an extent that Rabbi Hillel was able to issue a decree requiring debtors to sign away their right to debt forgiveness.
In the Bible and New Testament
What happened to debt forgiveness in the New Testament?
While the Acts of the Apostles and the writings of the Fathers of the Church sometimes express a great docility, Jesus’ position on the forgiveness of debts, as reported repeatedly and most forcefully in Luke’s Gospel, chapter 4:16-21, appears to be marked by a revolutionary prophetic breath.
Luke places the passage at the beginning of Jesus’ public life. He makes it a key to everything that follows.
16 Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Let’s not forget that the « year of the Lord’s favor (Jubilee Year) » to which he called, demanded at once rest for the land, forgiveness of debts and the liberation of slaves.
In the midst of the slave-owning Roman Empire, which fiercely rejected the concept of debt forgiveness, Jesus’ declaration could only be seen as a declaration of war on the ruling system.
Before he was arrested, Jesus made a highly symbolic material gesture: he forcefully overturned the tables of the money-changers in the Jerusalem temple. For the Jewish high priests and the Roman authorities, this was too much.
Peace of Westphalia of 1648
In 1648, after five years of negotiations, led by the French diplomat Abel Servien on the instructions of Cardinal Mazarin, the “Peace of Westphalia” was signed, putting an end to the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648).
Long before the UN Charter, 1648 made national sovereignty, mutual respect and the principle of non-interference the foundations of international law.
But there was more. As we have documented, the peace deal also included the cancelation of debts that had become the very reason for continuing the war.
Unpayable, unsustainable and illegitimate debts, interests, bonds, annuities and financial claims, explicitly identified as fueling a dynamic of perpetual war, were examined, sorted out and reorganized, most often through the cancellation of debts (articles 13 and 35, 37, 38 and 39), through moratoria or debt rescheduling according to specific timetables (article 69).
Article 40 concludes that debt cancellations will apply in most cases, “and yet the Sums of Money, which during the War have been exacted bona fide, and with a good intent, by way of Contributions, to prevent greater Evils by the Contributors, are not comprehended herein. » (Implying that these debts would have to be honored.)
Finally, looking to the future, for Commerce to be “reestablished”, the treaty abolished many tolls and customs established by “private” authorities for they were obstacles to the exchange of physical goods and know-how and hence to mutual development. (Art. 69 and 70).
Signing of the Peace of Westphalia, in Münster 1648, painting by Gerard Ter Borch.
TREATY OF WESTPHALIA (1648)
Art. 13: “Reciprocally, the Elector of Bavaria renounces entirely for himself and his Heirs and Successors the Debt of Thirteen Millions, as also all his Pretensions in Upper Austria; and shall deliver to his Imperial Majesty immediately after the Publication of the Peace, all Acts and Arrests obtain’d for that end, in order to be made void and null.”
Art. 35: “That the Annual Pension of the Lower Marquisate, payable to the Upper Marquisate, according to former Custom, shall by virtue of the present Treaty be entirely taken away and annihilated; and that for the future nothing shall be pretended or demanded on that account, either for the time past or to come.”
During the Cold War
In the United States, Eisenhower was elected in November 1952.
His Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, otherwise an evil man, noted that, despite the Marshall Plan, Europe, still burdened by a mountain of debt dating from before the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles, was unable to regain momentum.
So much so that it is in danger of turning to the USSR!
Action was called for. In 1953, under the leadership of German banker Hermann Abs, a former Deutsche Bank executive, a major conference was organized in London.
It was decided to write off 66% of Germany’s 30 billion marks in debt.
It was wisely agreed that annual repayments of German debt should never exceed 5% of export earnings. Those wishing to have their debts repaid by Germany should instead buy its exports, enabling it to honor its debts.
In other words, nothing like the madness recently imposed on Greece to « save » the euro!
Although this was done in the name of geopolitical principles, i.e. « in favor of some » but « against others », once again, it was in the name of a better future, i.e. a Europe capable of being the showcase of capitalism in the face of Moscow, that we were able to shed the weight of the past.
On the occasion of the five-hundredth anniversary of the death of the Italian painter Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (1483-1520), several exhibitions are honoring this artist, notably in Rome, Milan, Urbino, Belgrade, Washington, Pasadena, London, and Chantilly in France.
The master is honored, but what do we really know about the intention and meaning of his work?
Introduction
Raphael, portrait of a young boy.
There is no doubt that in the collective mind of the West, Raphael, along with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, appears as one of the most brilliant artists and even as the best embodiment of the « Italian Renaissance”.
Although he died at the age of 37, Raphael was able to reveal his immense talent to the world, in particular by giving birth, between 1509 and 1511, to several monumental frescoes in the Vatican, the most famous of which, 7.7 meters long and 5 meters high, is known as The School of Athens.
The viewer finds himself inside a building that brings together the thoughts of all mankind: united in a timeless space, fifty philosophers, mathematicians and astronomers of all ages meet to discuss their vision of man and nature.
French National Assembly.
The image of this fresco embodies so powerfully the « ideal » of a democratic republic, that in France, during the February 1848 revolution, the painting representing Louis Philippe (till then hanging behind the President of the National Assembly) was taken down and replaced by a representation of Raphael’s fresco, in the form of a tapestry from the Manufacture des Gobelins, produced between 1683 and 1688 at the request of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the founder of the French Academy of Sciences.
Then, in France, arrived the idea that Raphael, being « the Prince of painters », embodied « the ultimate artist ». Superior to Rubens or Titian, Raphael was thought to have achieved the subtle « synthesis » between the « divine grace » of a Leonardo da Vinci and the « silent strength » of a Michelangelo. What more can be said ? A true observation as long as one looks only at the purity of the « forms » and thus of the « style ». Adored or hated, Raphael was erected in France as a model to be imitated by every young talent attending our Academies of Fine Arts.
Hence, for five centuries, artists, historians and connoisseurs have not ceased to comment and often to confront each other, not on the intention or the meaning of the artist’s works, but on his style! In a way akin to some of our contemporaries who adore Star Wars and its special effects without paying attention to the ideology that, underhandedly, this TV series conveys…
For this brand of historians, « iconography », that branch of art history which is interested in the subjects represented, in the possible interpretations of the compositions or particular details, is only really useful to appreciate the « more primitive » paintings, that is to say that of the « Northern Schools »…
One knows well, especially in France, that once the « form » takes the appearance of perfection, it does not matter what the content is! This or that writer tells abject horrors, but « it is so well written! »
The good news is that in the last twenty years or so, a handful of leading historians and especially female art historians, have undertaken and published in depth new research.
The latter’s book Raphael’s Stanza della Signatura, Meaning and Invention (Cambridge University Press, 2002), which I was able to read (thanks to the pandemic lockdown), allowed me to adjust some of the leads and intuitions I had summarized in 2000 in, let’s be honest, a rather messy note.
If my work had consisted in trying to give some coherence to what is in the public domain, through their assiduous archival work in the Vatican and elsewhere, these historians, for whom neither Latin nor Greek have any secrets, have largely contributed to shed new light on the political, philosophical, cultural and religious context that contributed to the genesis of Raphael’s work.
Enriched by these readings, I have tried here, in a methodical way, to « make readable » what is rightly considered Raphael’s major work, The School of Athens.
Instead of identifying and commenting from the outset on the figures we see in the Stanza della Segnatura (« Room of the Segnatura” of the Vatican in Rome), I have chosen first to sketch a few backgrounds that serve as “eye-openers” to penetrate this work. For, in order to detect the painter’s intentions, actions and feelings, it is essential to penetrate the spirit of the epoch that engendered the artist’s: those days political and economic challenges, the cultural heritage of Rome and the Church, a close-up on the pope who commissioned the work, the philosophical convictions of the advisors who dictated the theme of the work, etc.
However, if all this seems too tedious for you dear reader, or if you are just eager to familiarize yourself with the work, nothing prevents you from going back and forth between the deciphering of the frescoes at the end of this article (Guided visit) and the contextualization that precedes them.
Cleaning our eyeglasses
General view of two of Raphael’s four frescoes decorating the Chamber of the Signature.
To see the world as it is, let’s wipe our glasses and stop looking at the tint of our glasses. For as is often the case, what « prevents » the viewer from penetrating a work, from seeing its intention and meaning, is not what his eyes see as such, but the preconceived ideas that prevents him from looking at the outside world. Learning to see usually starts by challenging some of our preconceptions.
1. It’s not a easel painting! Since the 16th century, we Europeans have been thinking in terms of « easel paintings » (as opposed to mural). The artist paints on a support, a wooden panel or a canvas, which the client then hangs on the wall. However, The School of Athens, as such, is not a « painting » of this type, but simply, in the strict sense, a part or a « detail » of what we would call today, « an installation ». I explain myself. What constitutes the work here is the whole of the frescoes and decorations covering the ceiling, the floor and the four walls of the room! We will explain them to you. The viewer is, in a way, inside a cube that the artist has tried to make appear as a sphere. So, to « explain » the meaning of The School of Athens, in isolation from the rest and without demonstrating the thematic and symbolic interconnections with the iconography of the other walls, the ceiling and the floor, is not only an exercise in futility but utter incompetence.
2. Error of title! Neither at the time of its commission, nor at the time of its realization or in the words of Raphael, the fresco carried the name “School of Athens”! That name was given later. Everything indicates that the entire room covered with frescoes was to express a divine harmony uniting Philosophy (The School of Athens), Theology (on the opposite side), Poetry (on its right side) and Justice (on its left side). We will come back to that.
3. The theme is not the artist’s choice! The only person who met both Raphael and Pope Julius II during his lifetime was the physician Paolo Giovio (1483-1552)who arrived in Rome in 1512, a year before the death of Julius II. According to Giovio, it was the pontiff himself who, as early as 1506, that is, two years before Raphael’s arrival, conceived the contents of the « Signing Chamber ». This is logical, since it was the place where he installed his personal library, a collection of some 270 books, arranged on shelves below the frescoes and classified according to the themes of each wall decoration (Philosophy, Theology, Poetry and Justice). However, given the complexity of the themes, and given Julius II’s poor literary culture, historians agree that the intellectual authorship of the frescoes was attributed to the pope’s advisors and especially to the one who would have been able to synthesize them, his chief librarian, Thomaso Inghirami (1470-1516).
Raphael, who seems to have constantly modified his preparatory drawings according to the feedback and comments he received from the commissioners, was able to translate this theme and program into images with his vast talent. In short, if you like the images, congratulate Raphael; if you like or don’t like the content, talk to the « boss ».
On the far right side of The School of Athens, Raphael and Il Sodoma seem to co-sign the fresco.
4. Painted by several people? What remains to be clarified is that, according to Vatican accounts, the entire decoration of the room was entrusted in mid-1508 to the talented fresco artist Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (1477-1549), six years older than Raphael and known as Il Sodoma. He appears to be the only person to have received any money for this work. Raphael does not appear in these accounts until 1513…
However, as the cycle of frescoes on the life of St. Benedict in the territorial abbey of Santa Maria in Monte Oliveto Maggiore testifies, Sodoma also had considerable talent, and above all, an incomparable know-how in fresco technique. Although he has never been honored, his style is so similar to Raphael’s that it is hard to mistake him.
Portrait of Pietro Aretino by the Venetian painter Titian.
It should also be noted that Sodoma, who came to Rome at the request of the pope’s banker Agostino Chigi (1466-1520), was asked to decorate the latter’s villa in 1508, which would have given Raphael free rein in the Vatican before joining him on the same site.
According to the french historian Bernard Levergeois, the sulphurous Pietro Aretino (1495-1556), a pornographic pamphleteer, before becoming the protégé and « cultural agent » of the banker Chigi in Rome, spent many years in Perugia.
There he took interest in the young pupils of Pietro Perugino(c. 1448-1523), Raphael’s master, and, says Levergeois, it was there that he
met the most prestigious painters of the day: Raphael, Sebastiano del Piombo, Julius Romano, Giovanni da Udine, Giovan Francesco Penni and Sodoma, all of whom took turns decorating the magnificent villa (the Farnesina) that Chigi had built in Rome. Some of them also worked on the no less famous Villa Madam (for pope Julius II), a grandiose project that was never completed.
Aretino as he appears in Michelangelo’s fresco in the Sistine Chapel.
As seen in the portrait painted by Titian, Aretino, nicknamed « the scourge of Princes », was a powerful, possessive and tyrannical character. A blackmailer, a flamboyant pansexual and well-informed about what was going on in the alcoves of the elites, he worked himself up, like FBI boss Edgar Hoover in the Kennedy era, as a king-maker, a power above power. Historians report that both Raphael and Michelangelo, before showing their works to the public, felt compelled to seek the advice of this pervert Aretino.
And in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo depicts St. Bartolomeo in the guise of the Aretino. The artist must have thought that the traditional attribute of the martyr flayed alive was a perfect fit for the one who was bullying him: he is wearing the remains of his own skin and holding in his hand the large knife that was used for the torture…
It is therefore tempting to think that it was Aretino, the favorite of the Pope’s banker, and not necessarily Renaissance architect Donato Bramante, as is commonly accepted, who may have played the role of intermediary in bringing both Sodoma and Raphael to Rome in order to revive the glory of his patron and the oligarchy that held the Eternal City in contempt.
To my knowledge, Raphael, neither in his own letters nor in the statements reported by his entourage, would have commented on the theme and intention of his work. Strange modesty. Did he consider himself a simple « decorative painter »?
Finally, if Sodoma‘s participation in the realization of the School of Athens remains to be clarified, his portrait does appear. He is in the foreground on the far right, standing side by side to a rather sad Raphael (both on the side of the Aristotelians). A double signature?
This makes the question arise: Can one continue to speak of the frescoes as painted « by Raphael »? Are they not rather the frescoes of the four men team composed of Julius II, Inghirami, Sodoma and Raphael?
An unusual patron, « the warrior pope » Julius II
Medal with the effigy of Julius II the « Ligurian » (Genoese). On the back, the project of reconstruction of the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome.
Before talking about these famous « impresarios of the Renaissance » and understanding their motivations, it is necessary to explore the character of future pope Julius II: Giuliano della Rovere (1443-1513). He was appointed bishop of Carpentras by Pope Sixtus IV, his uncle. He was also successively archbishop of Avignon and cardinal-bishop of Ostia.
On October 31, 1503, 37 of the 38 cardinals composing the Sacred College, make him the head of the Western Church, under the name of Julius II, until its death in 1513, a moment Giuliano had been waiting for 20 years.
Before him, others had made their way. In fact, in 1492, his personal enemy, the Spanish Rodrigo de Borgia (1431-1503), succeeded in getting himself elected as pope Alexander VI. True to the legendary corruption of the Borgia dynasty, he was one of the most corrupt popes in the history of the Church. Jealous and angry at his own failure, Giuliano accused the new pope of having bought a number of votes. Fearing for his life, he leaves for France to the court of King Charles VIII, whom he convinces to lead a military campaign in Italy, in order to depose Alexander VI and to recover the Kingdom of Naples… Accompanying the young French king in his Italian expedition, he enters Rome with him at the end of 1494 and prepares to launch a council to investigate the pope’s actions. But Alexander VI managed to circumvent the machinations of his enemy and preserved his pontificate until his death in 1503.
Medal with the effigy of the pope Alexander VI Borgia.
From the moment of his accession, Giuliano della Rovere confessed that he had chosen his name as pope, Julius II, not after Pope Julius I, but in reference to the bloodthirsty Roman dictator Julius Caesar. He asserts from the start his firm will to restore the political power of the popes in Italy. For him, Rome must once again become the capital of an Empire much larger than the Roman Empire of the past.
When Julius II took office, decadence and corruption had brought the Church to the brink. The territories that would later become Italy were a vast battlefield where Italian condottieri, French kings, German emperors and Spanish nobles came to fight. The ancient city of Rome was nothing more than a vast heap of ruins systematically plundered by rapacious entrepreneurs in the service of princes, bishops and popes, each one seeking to monopolize the smallest column or architrave likely to come and decorate their palace or church. Reportedly, out of the 50,000 inhabitants of the city, there were 10,000 prostitutes and courtesans…
Obviously, Julius II was the pope chosen by the oligarchy to restore a minimum of order in the house. For, particularly since 1492, the extension of Catholicism in the New World and then in the East, required a « rebirth », not of « Christian humanism », as during the Renaissance of the early 15th century, but of the authority of the Church.
The spread of printing and humanism in Europe.
For us today, the word « Renaissance » evokes the heyday of Italian culture. However, for the powerful oligarchs of Raphael’s time, it was a matter of resurrecting the splendor of Greco-Roman antiquity, embodied in the glory of the Roman « Republic », mistakenly idealized as a great and well-administered state, thanks to efficient laws, capable civil servants possessing a great culture, based on the assiduous study of Greek and Latin texts.
And it is well to this rebirth of the Roman authority that Julius II is going to dedicate himself. In first place by the sword. In less than three years (1503-1506), the rebellious César Borgia is reduced to impotence. He was the illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI who, at the head of an army of mercenaries, waged war in the country and terrorized the Papal States,
In 1506, Julius II, quickly nicknamed « the warrior pope » at the head of his troops, took back Perugia and Bologna.
As the humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam (1467-1537), who was present in Italy and was an eyewitness to the sacking of Bologna by the papal troops, reproached him, Julius II preferred the helmet to the tiara. Questioned by Michelangelo in charge of immortalizing him with a bronze statue, to know if he did not wish to be represented with a book in his hand to underline his high degree of culture, Julius II answers:
Why a book? Rather, show me a sword in hand.
Originally from the region of Genoa (Liguria), Julius II undertook to chase the Venetians, whom he abhorred, out of Romagna, which they occupied. « I will reduce your Venice to the state of hamlet of fishermen from which it left, » had said one day the Ligurian pope to the ambassador Pisani, to which the proud patrician did not fail to retort:
And we, Holy Father, we will make of you a small village priest, if you are not reasonable…
This language gives the measure of the bitterness to which one had arrived on both sides. In the bull of excommunication launched shortly afterwards (April 27, 1509) against the Venetians, these were accused of « uniting the habit of the wolf with the ferocity of the lion, and of flaying the skin by pulling out the hairs… ».
The League of Cambrai
Italy at the time of the Ligue of Cambrai.
Against the rapacious practices of Venice, on December 10, 1508, in Cambrai, Julius II officially rallies to the « League of Cambrai », a group of powers (including the French King Louis XII, the regent of the Netherlands Margaret of Austria, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and the German Emperor Maximilian I).
For Julius II, the happiness is total because Louis XII comes in person to expel the Venetians of the States of the Church. Better still, on May 14, 1509, after its defeat by the League of Cambrai at the battle of Agnadel, the Republic of Venice agonizes and finds itself at the mercy of an invasion. However, at that juncture, Julius II, fearing that the French would establish their influence on the country, made a spectacular turnaround. He organized, from one day to the next, the survival of Venice!
His treasurer general, the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi (a Sienese billionaire close to the Borgias, to whom he had lent colossal sums of money and later Raphael’s patron), set the conditions:
In order to pay for the Swiss mercenaries capable of repelling the attackers of the Ligue of Cambrai, Chigi granted the Venetians a substantial loan.
In exchange, the Serenissima agreed to give up its monopoly on the trade of alum that it imported from Constantinople. At the time, alum, an irreplaceable mineral used to fix fabric dyes, represented a real « strategic » issue.
Once Venice stopped importing alum, the entire Mediterranean world was forced, from one day to the next, to obtain supplies, not from Venice, but from the Vatican, that is to say, from Chigi, who was in charge of exploiting the « alum of Rome » for the Papacy, located in the mines of the Tolfa mountains, northwest of Rome in the heart of the Papal States.
Aware that its very survival was at stake, and for lack of an alternative, Venice grudgingly accepted the golden deal.
In his biography on Jules II, french historian Ivan Cloulas specifies:
Above all stands out Agostino Chigi, the banker from Siena, farmer of the pontifical mines of alum of Tolfa since the reign of Alexander VI. The favor that this character enjoyed with Julius II is surprising, since he was a banker who had long served Caesar Borgia. The pontiff, according to the tradition, conferred at the time of his accession the load of ‘depositary’ to one of his Genoese compatriots, Paolo Sauli, charged to carry out all the financial transactions of the Holy See in connection with the cardinal camerlingue Raffaelo Sansoni-Riario. But Chigi did not suffer disgrace, because he advanced Julian della Rovere considerable sums of money to buy electors [cardinal members of the Sacred College], and he made the exploitation and export of alum extracted from the pontifical mines a success. The experience and value of the Sienese made him a partner of the various bankers of the papacy, notably the Sauli and the Fugger, who gained new wealth as the fruitful trade in indulgences developed in Germany.
Hence, now in alliance with Venice, Julius II, in what appears to the naive as a spectacular « reversal of alliance », set up the « Holy League » to « expel from Italy the Barbarians » (Fuori i Barbari!). A coalition in which he made enter the Swiss, Venice, the kings Ferdinand of Aragon and Henri VIII of England, and finally, the emperor Maximilian. This league will then drive out the French out of Italy. Julius II said with irony:
If Venice had not existed, it would have been necessary to invent it.
In response, Louis XII, the King of France, attempted to transpose the struggle into the spiritual realm. Thus, a national council, meeting in Orleans in 1510, he declared France exempt from the obedience of Julius II. A second council was convened in Italy itself, in Pisa, then in Milan (1512) trying to depose the pope. Julius II opposed to the King of France the Vth ecumenical council of the Lateran (1512) where he will welcome warmly those who abandoned that of Milan…
Maritime Empires
Julius II was determined to re-establish his authority both on land and on the oceans. A bit like in ancient Greece, Italy experienced a rather particular phenomenon, that of the emergence of « maritime republics ». If the « Republic of Venice » is famous, the maritime republics of Pisa, Ragusa (Dubrovnik on the Dalmatian coast), Amalfi (near Naples) and Genoa are less known.
In each case, operating from a port, a local oligarchy built a maritime empire and above all poisoned its competitors. However, maritime activity, by its very nature, implies taking risks over time. Hence the need for skillful, robust and forward-looking finance, offering insurance and purchase options on future assets and profits. It is therefore no coincidence that most financial empires developed in symbiosis with maritime empires, notably the Dutch and British, and with the West and East India Companies.
At the end of the 15th century, it was essentially Genoa and Venice that were fighting for control of the seas. On the one hand, Venice, historically the bridgehead of the Byzantine Empire and its capital Constantinople (Istanbul), was by far the largest city in the Mediterranean world in 1500 with 200,000 inhabitants. Since its heyday in the 13th century, the Serenissima has defended tooth and nail its status as a key intermediary on the Silk Road to the West. On the other hand, Genoa, which, after having established itself in the Levant thanks to the crusades, by taking control of Portugal, financed all the Portuguese colonial expeditions to West Africa from where it brought back gold and slaves.
Two maritime achievements will exacerbate this rivalry a little more:
1488. Although the works of the Persian scholar Al Biruni (11th century) and old maps, including that of the Venetion monk Fra Mauro, made it possible to foresee the bypassing of the African continent by the Atlantic Ocean to reach India, it was not until 1488 that Portuguese sailors passed the Cape of Good Hope. Thus, Genoa, without any intermediary, could directly load its ships in Asia and bring its goods back to Europe;
1492. Seeking to open a direct trade route to Asia without having to deal with the Venetians or the Portuguese (Genoese), Spain sent the Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus west in 1492. More than a new route to Asia, Columbus discovered a new continent that would be the object of covetousness.
The imperial sharing of the entire world among the Spanish (Venice) and the Portuguese (Genoa), as signed on by Pope Alexander VI Borgia with the treaty of Tordesillas in 1494
Two years later, on June 7, 1494, the Portuguese and Spanish signed the Treaty of Tordesillas to divide the entire world between them. Basically, all of the New World for Spain, all of the old one (from the Azores to Macao) for Portugal. To delimit their empires, they drew an imaginary line, which Pope Alexander VI Borgia set in 1493 at 100 leagues west of the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands.
Later, the line was extended, at the request of the Portuguese, to 370 leagues. Any land discovered to the east of this line was to belong to Portugal; to the west, to Spain. At the same time, any other Western maritime power was denied access to the new continent. However, in 1500, to the horror of the Spaniards, it was a Portuguese who discovered Brazil. And given its geographical position, to the west of the famous line, this country fell under the control of the Portuguese Empire!
Julius II, a child of Liguria (region of Genoa, therefore linked to Portugal) and vomiting Alexander VI Borgia (Spanish), in 1506, takes great pleasure in confirming, by the bull Inter Cætera, the treaty of Tordesillas of 1494 allowing to fix the dioceses of the New World, obviously to the advantage of the Portuguese and therefore to his own.
The ultimate weapon, culture
On the « spiritual » and « cultural » level, if Julius II spent most of his time at war, posterity retains essentially the image of « one of the great popes of the Renaissance » as a great protector and patron of the arts.
Indeed, to re-establish the prestige (the French word for soft power) and therefore the authority of Rome and its Empire, culture was considered a weapon as formidable as the sword. To begin with, Julius II opened new arteries in Rome, including the Via Giulia. He placed in the Belvedere courtyard the antiques he had acquired, in particular, the « Apollo of Belvedere » and the « Laocoon », discovered in 1506 in the ruins of Nero’s Imperial Palace.
Portrait of Julius II by Raphael, and his tomb by Michelangelo.
In the same year, that is to say six years before the end of the military operations, Julius II also launched great projects, some of which were only partially or entirely completed after his death:
The reconstruction of St. Peter’s Basilica, a task entrusted to the architect and painter Donato Bramante (1444-1514) ;
The tomb of Julius II, which the sculptor Michelangelo was entrusted with in the apse of the new basilica and of which his famous statue of Moses, one of the 48 bronze statues and bas-reliefs originally planned, should have been part;
The decoration of the vault of the Sistine Chapel built by Pope Sixtus IV, the uncle of Julius II, was also entrusted to Michelangelo. Julius II let himself be carried away by the creative spirit of the sculptor. Together, they worked on ever more grandiose projects for the decoration of the Chapel. The artist gave free rein to his imagination, in a different artistic genre that did not please the pope. Until October 31, 1512, Michelangelo painted more than 300 figures on the vault;
The frescoes decorating the personal library of the pope will be entrusted to the painter Raphael, called to Rome in 1508, probably at the suggestion of Chigi, Aretino or Bramante. The Stanza was the place where the pope signed his briefs and bulls. This room later became the private library of the pontiff Julius II, then the room of the Tribunal of Apostolic Signatures of Grace and Justice and later, that of the Supreme instance of appeal and cassation. Before the arrival of Julius II, this room and « the room of Heliodorus », were covered with frescoes by Piero della Francesca (1417-1492), a painter protected by the great Renaissance genius cardinal philosopher Nicolaus of Cusa (1401-1464), immortalizing the great ecumenical council of Florence (1438). Decorations by Lucas Signorelli and Sodoma were added later. Following his election, Julius II, anxious to mark his presence in history, and to re-establish the authority of the oligarchy and the Church, had the frescoes of the Council of Florence covered with new ones. Convinced by his advisors, the pope agreed to entrust the direction of the work to Raphael. Officially, it is said that Raphael spared some of the frescoes on the ceiling, notably those executed by Sodoma, so as not to antagonize him entirely. But, as we have said, the content, the very elaborate theme and part of the iconography of the frescoes were decided upon as early as 1506, even before Raphael’s arrival in 1508;
To modernize the city of Rome. Julius II, undoubtedly advised by the architect Bramante, singularly transformed the road system of Rome. In order for all the roads to converge towards St. Peter’s Basilica, he ordered the Via Giulia to be pierced on the left bank and the Lungara, the paths that meandered along the river on the right bank, to be transformed into a real street. His death interrupted the great works he had planned, in particular the construction of a monumental avenue leading to St. Peter’s and that of a new bridge to relieve the congestion of the bridge over St. Angelo, to which he had also facilitated access by widening the street leading to it. The extent of the work undertaken poses the problem of materials; although it was, in principle, forbidden to attack the ancient monuments, the reality was quite different. Ruinante, became the nickname of Bramante.
Drawing of the entrance door to the Vatican, circa 1530.
These major construction projects, patronage and military expenses drained the Holy See’s revenues. To remedy this, Julius II multiplied the sale of ecclesiastical benefits, dispensations and indulgences.
In the twelfth century, the Roman Catholic Church established the rules for the trade of « indulgences » (from the Latin indulgere, to grant) through papal decrees. They provided a framework for the total or partial remission before God of a sin, notably by promising, in exchange for a given amount of money, a reduction in the time spent in purgatory to the generous faithful after their death. In the course of time, this practice, essentially exploiting a form of religious superstition, turned into a business so lucrative that the Church could no longer do without it.
In northern Europe, particularly in Germany, the Fugger bankers of Augsburg were directly involved in organizing this trade. This practice was strongly denounced and fought against by the humanists, in particular by Erasmus, before Luther made it an essential part of the famous 95 theses that he posted, in 1517, on the doors of the church in Wittenberg.
In his book Erasmus and Italy, french historain Augustin Renaudet writes that Erasmus, after having met the highest authorities of the Vatican, was not fooled:
He was not long in understanding that apart from the Holy See, the services of the Curia and the Chancellery, apart from the cardinals, the innumerable prelates on mission and in charge, apart from a motley crowd of civil servants and scribes, who populated the administrative or financial offices and the courts, there was nothing in Rome. In all the cities he had known, in Brussels, in Paris, in London, in Milan, in Florence, and recently in Venice, an active economy, fed by industry, commerce, and finance, supported a strong urban bourgeoisie, or as in Venice, an aristocracy of shipowners. In Rome, all the economy, all the trade, all the finance, were in the hands of foreigners: Florentine or Genoese merchants, Florentine or Genoese bankers. These foreigners held in their dependence a people of small merchants, of small craftsmen who sold in the back room, of money changers and Jewish traffickers. Very little industry, the Roman population lived at the service of the Curia, the prelates and the convents. Erasmus marveled at the pride with which the descendants of the people-king pretended to maintain their ancient majesty. The word of the Roman people was no longer an empty word; Erasmus was to write one day that, in the modern world, a Roman citizen counted less than a burgher of Basel.
Historians André Chastel and Robert Klein, in L’Humanisme, l’Europe de la Renaissance, share this observation:
Another trend, favorable to Caesar and Augustus, had emerged: Rome becoming again more and more the ‘imperial’ capital of all the powerful borrowed or sought to borrow a style from it.
This new style associates besides more and more arma and litterae, the sword and the book.
(…) Rich or poor, any sovereign of the Renaissance will occupy the artists and the scholars insofar as he needs prestige: the greatest patrons of the Renaissance were the ambitious and the warriors, Maximilian, Julius II, Henry VIII, François I, Charles V.
Raphael’s « impresarios »
If, from a contemporary point of view, it seems close to unthinkable for an artist to be « dictated » the theme of his work, this was not the case at the time of the Renaissance and even less so in the Middle Ages. For example, although he was a high-level diplomat of the Duke of Burgundy Philip the Good, the Flemish painter Jan Van Eyck (, one of the first painters to sign his works with his name, was advised on theology by the Duke’s confessor, the erudite Dionysus the Cartusian(1401-1471), a close friend of Cardinal Nicolaus of Cusa. And no one will dare say that Van Eyck « did not paint » his masterpiece The Mystic Lamb.
Raphael’s position was more delicate. In his time, painters still had the status of craftsmen. Including Leonardo da Vinci, who was known for his superior intelligence, declared himself to be a « man without letters », that is to say, unable to read Latin or Greek. Raphael could read and write Italian, but was in the same condition. And when, towards the end of his short life, he was asked to work on architecture (St. Peter’s Basilica) and urban planning (Roman antiquities), he asked a friend to translate the Ten Books of the Roman architect Vitruvius into Italian. Now, any visitor to the « Chambers of the Signature » is immediately struck by the great harmony uniting several dozen philosophers, jurists, poets and theologians whose existence was virtually unknown to Raphael before his arrival in Rome in 1508.
In The Marriage of the Virgin, Perugino (left) starts with a geometric harmony between a rectangle, an isosceles triangle and a circle whose center serves as the vanishing point of the perspective. His pupil Raphael took up the process, but starting from the square.
Moreover, with the exception of The Marriage of the Virgin, painted in 1504 at the age of 21, based on the way his master Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci, known as Pietro Perugino (c. 1448-1523)had treated the same subject, Raphael had not yet had to meet the kind of challenge that the Stanza would pose to him.
As we have already said, the cartoons and other preparatory drawings, sometimes quite different from the final result, also suggest that, following the « commission, » discussions with one or more impresarios led the artist to modify, improve or change the iconography to arrive at the final result.
As for the theme, as we have already mentioned, the ideas and concepts seem to have emerged during a long period of maturation and were undoubtedly the result of multiple exchanges between Pope Julius II and several of his advisors, librarians, and « orators » of the papal court.
According to historian Ingrid D. Rowlands, the archival documents unquestionably indicate the decisive contribution of three very different personalities of the time:
Battista Casali ;
Giles of Viterbo;
Tommaso « Fedra » Inghirami.
The thorough investigation of the historian Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier has established the predominant role of Inghirami. He was the only one in a position, and in a position, as the pope’s chief librarian, to set the program of the rooms. Raphael, will be his enthusiastic collaborator and will undoubtedly end up being « recruited » to the orientations and vision of his commissionners. This is evidenced by the fact that he demanded to be buried in the Roman Pantheon, considered the most Pythagorean, and believed to be the most neo-Platonic, temple of the Roman era.
Battista Casali
As documented by the Jesuit historian John William O’Malley, it was on January 1, 1508, the year of his appointment to St. John Lateran, a few months before Raphael’s arrival in Rome, that Battista Casali (1473-1525), a professor at the University of Rome, evoked the image of The School of Athens in an oration delivered in the Sistine Chapel in the presence of Julius II:
One day (… ) the beauty of Athens inspired a contest between the gods, where humanity, learning, religion, primacies, jurisprudence and law came into being before being distributed in every country, where the Athenaeum and so many other gymnasiums were founded, where so many princes of knowledge trained their youth and taught them virtue, fortitude, temperance and justice – all of this destroyed in the whirlwind of the Mohaematan war machine… ) However, just as [your illustrious uncle Pope] Sixtus IV [who ordered the construction of the Sistine Chapel], in a way, laid the foundations of education, you laid the cornice. Here is the Vatican library which he erected as if it had come from Athens itself, gathering the books he was able to save from the wreckage, and created in the image of the Academy. You, now, Julius II, supreme pontiff, have founded a new Athens when you invoke the downtrodden world of letters as if it were rising from the dead, and order it, surrounded by threats of suspended work, that Athens, its stadiums, its theaters and its Athenaeums, be restored.
An outstanding orator, he was called to Rome in 1497 by Pope Alexander VI Borgia ;
In 1503, he became the Superior General of the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine; with 8000 members, it was the most powerful order of its time;
He is known for the boldness and seriousness of the speech he gave at the opening of the Fifth Lateran Council in 1512;
He severely criticized the bellicose policy of Julius II and urged him to triumph by culture rather than by the sword;
After the death of the latter, he became the preacher and theologian of Pope Leo X who appointed him cardinal in 1517.
Tommaso Inghirami
Tommaso Inghirami, Pope Julius II‘s chief librarian and Raphael’s true impresario for the frescoes decorating the Signing Room. Here is his portrait, painted by Raphael in 1510..
Finally, the prelate Tommaso Inghirami (1470-1516), who spoke both Latin and Greek, was also a formidable orator. The man owed his fortune to Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492).
Educated by the Neoplatonic philosopher Marsilio Ficino, Lorenzo the Magnificent was the patron of both Botticelli and Michelangelo who lived with him for three years.
Born in Volterra, Inghirami was also taken in by the Magnificent after the sacking of that city. He carefully supervised his studies and later sent him to Rome where Alexander VI Borgia welcomed him. Inghirami was a handsome and well-dressed man.
At 16, Inghirami earned the nickname « Phaedra » after brilliantly playing the role of the queen who commits suicide in a Seneca tragedy performed in a small circle at the residence of the influential Cardinal Raphael Riario, cousin of Julius II or nephew of Pope Sixtus IV and therefore cousin of Julius II. Thereafter, Phaedra, bon vivant and for whom the celestial and terrestrial pleasures were happily completed, gained in political and especially… physical weight.
In 1475, he accompanied the nuncio of Pope Alexander VI to the court of Emperor Maximilian I of the Holy Roman Empire, who named him Count Palatine and poet laureate;
On January 16, 1498, Inghirami delivered an oration in the Spanish Church of Rome in honor of the Infant Don Juan, the murdered son of the King of Spain. Inghirami, in the name of Alexander VI Borgia, fully endorsed the Spanish policy of the time: to extend Christianity as well as imperial looting into the New World, to drive the Moors out of Europe and to strengthen the colonial plunder of Africa. If Julius II hated Alexander VI, he will continue this policy;
In 1508, Julius II nominates Inghirami to head the Library of the Vatican to be installed in the Stanza;
In 1509, while he was heavily involved in the realization of the frescoes of the Stanza, Raphael made his portrait. Raphael shows us a man suffering from divergent strabismus who seems to turn his gaze towards the sky in order to signify where this « humanist » drew his inspiration from;
In 1510, the Pope appointed him Bishop of Ragusa;
Finally, in 1513, he became papal secretary and at the urgent request of the dying pope, Inghirami delivered his funeral oration: « Good God! What a mind this man had, what sense, what ability to manage and administer the Empire! What a supreme and unshakable strength! »
Inghirami soon served as secretary to the conclave electing Pope Leo X (John of Medici, second son of Lorenzo de Medici, also a great protector of neo-Platonists and « culture »), another pope whose portrait Raphael will paint.
In 1509, eager to reform the Catholic church on the basis of the study of the three languages (Latin-Greek-Hebrew) to settle the religious conflicts which were looming and announced the religious wars to come, Erasmus of Rotterdam meets Inghirami in Rome. The latter exposes to him the imposing cultural building sites which he directed. Erasmus does not say a word about it.
However, a long time after the death of Inghirami, Erasmus complained that the Vatican and the oligarchy recruited among the humanists. He notably fingerpointed the sect of “the Ciceronians”, omnipresent in the Roman Curia and of which Inghirami was one of the leaders.
Thus, in 1528, in a pamphlet titled The Ciceronians, Erasmus quoted Inghirami’s oration on Good Friday of 1509. He denounced the fact that the members of this sect, on the grounds of the elegance of the Latin language, only used Latin words that appeared as they were in the works of Cicero! As a result, all the new language of evangelical Christianity, enshrined in the Council of Florence, which Erasmus wished to promote, was either banned or « re-translated » into pagan terms and words of the Roman era! For example, in his sermon, Inghirami had presented Christ on the cross as a pagan god sacrificing himself heroically rather than as a redeemer.
Finally, shortly after Raphael’s death, Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto (1477-1547) wrote a treatise on philosophy in which Inghirami (meanwhile tragically deceased) defended rhetoric and denied the value of philosophy, his main argument being that everything written was already contained in the mystical and mythological texts of Orpheus and his followers…
Now, in order to be able to « read » the theme deployed by Raphael in the « Chamber of the Signature, » let us examine this Florentine « neo-Platonism » that animated both Giles of Viterbo and Tommaso Inghirami.
The approach of these two orators consisted above all in putting their « neo-Platonism » and their imagination at the service of a cause: that of asserting with force that Julius II, the pontifex maximus at the head of a triumphant Church, embodied the ultimate outcome of a vast line of philosophers, theologians, poets and humanists. At the origin of a civilizational and theological « big bang » presumed to lead to the immeasurable lustre of the Catholic Church under Julius II, not only Plato and Aristotle themselves, but those who had preceded them including Apollo, Moses and especially Pythagoras.
From 1506 onwards, Giles de Viterbo, in an exercise that can be described as « beyond” impossible, wrote a text entitled Sententia ad mentem Platonis (« Sentences with the mind of Plato »). In it, he tried to combine into one ideology the Sentences of Peter Lombard (1096-1160), the scholastic text par excellence of the 13th century and the starting point for the commentaries of the Dominican Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) for his Summa Theologica, and the esoteric Florentine neo-Platonism of Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) * of whom Giles de Viterbe was a follower.
All this could only please a pope who, in order to establish his authority on earthly and spiritual matters, warmly welcomed this agreement between Faith and Reason defended by Thomas Aquinas who says that “the Truth being one”, reason’s only role is to confirm faith’s superiority.
The very idea to present the wedding of Aristotelian scholasticism (logic presented as « reason ») with Florentine neo-Platonism (Plotinus’ emanationism dressed as « faith ») as a source of poetry and justice as « The Signing Room » does, comes from this.
Let us recall that in the middle of the 13th century, two mendicant Orders, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, were contesting the drift of a Church that had become, above all, the simple manager of its earthly possessions. The one who would later be called St. Thomas Aquinas, opposed on this point (his competitor) St. Bonaventure (1221-1274), founding figure of the Franciscan Order.
For his part, Aquinas relies on Aristotle, whom Albert the Great (1200-1280), whose disciple he was in Cologne, had made known to him, to establish the primacy of « reason ». For the man who was nicknamed « the dumb ox », faith and human reason, each managing their own domain, had to move forward together, hand in hand while of course, the Church had the last word.
The Triumph of Saint Thomasof Aquinas, ca. 1470, painting by Benozzo Gozzoli, Louvre, Paris.
Several paintings (the great fresco of 1366 in the Spanish chapel of Santa Maria Novella in Florence; the painting by Filippino Lippi of 1488 in the Carafa chapel in Rome; or the painting by Benozzo Gozzoli (1421-1497), painted around 1470, in the Louvre in Paris), have immortalized the “Triumph of Thomas Aquinas”.
Gozzoli’s painting in the Louvre is of particular importance because several elements prefigure the iconography of the Signing Chamber, notably the three levels found in Theology (Trinity, Evangelists and religious leaders) as well as the couple Plato and Aristotlefound in Philosophy.
In Gozzoli’s painting, we see Aquinas, standing between Plato and Aristotle, throwing down before him the Arab philosopher Averroes (1126-1198) (Ibn-Rushd of Cordoba) expelled for having denied the immortality and the thought of the individual soul, in favor of a « Single Intellect » for all men that activates in us the intelligible ideas.
In the West, before the arrival of Greek delegations in Italy to attend the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1438, if several works of Plato, including the Timaeus, were known to a handful of scholars, such as those of the School of Chartres or Italians as Leonardo Bruni in Florence, most of the West’s knowledge of Greek thought came down to the works of Aristotle.
For the Aristotelians, who became dominant in the Catholic Church with Aquinas, Plato had to be considered as incompatible with Christianity.
On the other hand, for the Platonists, including Augustine, Jerome and especially Nicholas of Cusa and Erasmus, who honored and adorned him that Erasmus called « Saint Socrates », Plato was to be venerated by Christians: he was monotheistic, believed in the immortality of the soul and venerated, in the form of the Pythagorean triad, the mystery of the Trinity.
John Bessarion, by Justius of Ghent, Louvre, Paris.
In the 15th century, for lack of epistemological clarity and some confusion on the authorship of certain manuscripts, some humanists, in particular Nicolaus of Cusa‘s friend and close collaborator Cardinal John Bessarion (1403-1472), one of the key organizers of the reunification of the Eastern and Western Churches, presented Plato as the « equal » of Aristotle, the latter’s disciple, with the sole purpose of making Plato « as acceptable as possible » to the Catholic Church.
Hence Bessarion‘s now famous phrase « Colo et veneror Aristotelem, amo Platonem » (I cultivate and venerate Aristotle, I love Plato) which appears in his In Calumniatorem Platonis (republished in 1503), a rejoinder to the virulent charge against Plato elaborated by the Greek Georges Trébizond.
Thus, in the School of Athens painted by Raphael, Plato and Aristotle appear side by side, not confronting each other but complementing the other with their respective wisdom : the first holding his book the Timaeus (on the creation of the universe) in one hand, and with the other, pointing to the sky (To the One, to God), the second holding his Ethics (the science of the good in personal life) in one hand, and raising the other arm horizontally to indicate the earthly realm (Physics).
If the commissioners had wanted to underscore the opposition of both philosophers, Plato would have rather been portrayed with his Parmenides (On Ideas) and Aristotle with his Physics (On natural sciences). That is clearly not the case.
Giles de Viterbo in his Sententia ad mentem Platonis will mobilize extreme sophism to erase the irreconcilable and very real oppositions (see box below) between the Platonic thought and that of Aristotle.
The fundamental concepts that gave birth to our European civilization can be traced back to classical Greece, and through it, to Egypt and other even more ancient civilizations.
Among the Greek thinkers, Plato (-428/-347 B.C.) and Aristotle (-385/-323 B.C.) asked all the great questions that interest our humanity: who are we, what are our characteristics, how do we live, where are we situated in the universe, how can we know it?
The accounts that have come down to us from this distant period speak of the disagreements that led Aristotle to leave Plato’s Academy, of which he had been a disciple. History then bears witness to the violence of the oppositions between the disciples of the one and the other. During the Renaissance, the most reactionary Catholic currents, the Council of Trent in particular, were inspired by Aristotle, whereas Plato reigned supreme in the camp of humanism, in the hands of some of the greatest, such as Erasmus and Rabelais.
There were various attempts, however, to make them complementary, as discussed in this article by Karel Vereycken. If Plato represents the world of Ideas, Aristotle represents the world of matter. Impossible to build a world without both, we are told. It seems so obvious!
The Greek philosopher, Plato.
Bust of Plato.
All this starts, however, from a false idea opposing these two characters. For Plato, we are told, reality is found in the existence of ideas, universal concepts which represent, in an abstract way, all the things which participate of this concept. For example, the general concept of man contains the concept of particular men such as Peter, Paul and Mary; similarly for good, which includes all good things whatever they are. For Aristotle, on the contrary, reality is located in matter, as such.
What is false in this reasoning is the concept that the Platonic Ideas are abstractions. The Platonic Ideas are, on the contrary, dynamic entities that generate and transform reality. In the myth of the cave in The Republic, Socrates says that at the origin of things is the sovereign Good. In The Phaedo, he explains that it is through « Ideas » that this sovereign Good has generated the world.
In the myth of the cave, Socrates uses an offspring of the idea of the good, the Sun, to help us understand what the sovereign Good is. The Good, he says, has generated the Sun, which is, in the visible world, in relation to sight and objects of sight, what the Good is in the intelligible world in relation to intelligence and intelligible objects. The prisoners in the cave saw only the shadows of reality, and then, on coming out, they saw, thanks to the Sun, the real objects, the firmament and the Sun. After this, they will come to the conclusion about the Sun, that it is he who produces the seasons and the years, that he governs everything in the visible world and that he is in some way the cause of all those things that he and his companions saw in the cave.
The Sun not only gives objects the ability to be seen, but is also the cause of their genesis and development. In the same way for the knowable objects, they hold from the Good the faculty to be known but, in addition, they owe him their existence and their essence. The idea of the Good is thus for Plato the dynamic cause of the things: material and immaterial and not dead universals.
For Aristotle, as for all the empiricist current which followed him, reality is situated at the level of the objects knowable by the senses. Nature sends us its signals that we decode with our mental faculties. Ideas are only abstractions of the sensible universe which constitutes reality. For him the universals have no real existence: man « in general », does not generate anything. It is only an abstraction of all the men in particular. The particular man is generated by the particular man; Peter is generated by Paul.
It is also said of Aristotle that he « exploded » Plato’s One. There are two ways of conceiving the One. One can think of it either as an absolute One (God or first cause), depending on whether one is a religious person or a philosopher, a purely intelligible principle but a dynamic cause that has generated all things; or one can think of it as the number « one » that determines each particular thing: the number one when we say: a man, a chair, an apple.
Aristotle‘s One simply becomes a particular unity, characteristic of all things that participate in unity. It is not the cause of what « is » but only the predicate of all the elements that are found in all the categories. The Being and the One, he will say, are the most universal of predicates. The One, he will say again, represents a definite nature in each kind but never the nature of the One will be the One in itself. And the Ideas are not the cause of change.
What is the point of all this?
Does this discussion make more sense than all the never-ending debates about the sexes of angels that gave scholasticism such a bad name in the Middle Ages? The One or the many, what does it matter in our daily lives?
This point is however essential. The fact of being able to go back to the intelligible causes of all that exists, puts the human species in a privileged situation in the universe. Unlike other species, it can not only understand the laws of the universe, but also be inspired by them, in order to improve human society. This is why, in history, it is the « Platonic » current that was at the origin of the great scientific, technological and cultural breakthroughs in astronomy, geometry, mechanics, architecture, but also the discovery of proportions that allow the expression of beauty in music, painting, poetry and dance.
As for Aristotle, it must be said that his conceptions of man and knowledge only led him to establish categories defining a dozen possible states of being. Aristotle was also the founder of formal logic, a system of thought that does not claim to know the truth, but only to define the rules of a correct reasoning. Logic is so little interested in the search for truth that one can consider that a judgment that is totally false in relation to reality can be said to be right if all the rules of « good reasoning » of logic have been used.
Woman riding Aristotle. Humanists have long since put their finger on a domain that totally escaped Aristotle‘s logical thinking: desire… A 13th century fable summarizes the story. Aristotle, whose pupil was Alexander the Great, reproached the latter for letting himself be distracted from his royal duties by the courtesan Phyllis, with whom he was madly in love. Obedient, the brave king of Macedonia thus ceases to frequent the damsel and returns to treat the business of the State. Learning the reasons of its abandonment, the lady decides to be avenged of the old philosopher and tries to seduce him by strutting under his windows in light dress. Aristotle falls under her charm ! Phyllis then announces to the wise man that if he wants to possess her, he will have to give himself up to a small caprice and, saddled and bridled, to let himself be ridden by the beautiful. The eminent bearded man accepts this game without suspecting the trick that is being played on him. In saddle and go ! here is Phyllis who rides Aristotle‘s back in the gardens of the king, whipping him to make him advanc
Suite
To begin with, Giles de Viterbo underlines that Aristotle is a « pupil » of Plato and that the « two princes of philosophy » could be reconciled. Very much imbued with the neo-Pythagorean spirit, and for whom Plato was only one of the greatest disciples of Pythagoras, the author argues that both philosophers agree that, contrary to the pagan pantheon, the « One » is the ultimate expression of the divine. Clearly, they were both monotheists and thus their convictions anticipated those of Christianity.
Giles of Viterbo:
Philosophy, which traces and examines all things, judges that all number and multiplicity are absent from God, as Plato and his pupil Aristotle say. Humanity has as its goal the understanding of divine things, as even Aristotle admits in his Ethics. Thus, if it is necessary to pursue this goal, it is necessary to arrive at the understanding of God.
And he continues:
Now these princes of Philosophy [Plato and Aristotle] can be reconciled, and no matter how much they disagree about creation, the Ideas, or the goal of the Good, these points [of agreement] can be identified and demonstrated (…) [Then], they appear not to disagree with each other at all (…) These great princes can be reconciled if we postulate the double nature of things, one which is free from matter and the other which is within matter (…) Plato follows the first, Aristotle the second, and because of this, these two great leaders of philosophy hardly differ from each other. If you think that we are making this up, listen to them yourselves. For if we speak of humanity, after all the subject of our conversation, then Plato says the same thing, he says humanity is the soul, in the (First) Alcibiades; and in the Timaeus, he says that humanity has two natures, and we know one of these natures by means of the senses, and the other by means of reason. Also, in the same book, he teaches us that each part in us does not exist in isolation from the other, that each nature is concerned with the other nature. Aristotle, in the tenth book of his Ethics, calls humanity Understanding. So you can know that each philosopher (Plato and Aristotle) feels the same way, no matter how much it seems to you that they are not saying the same thing.
Pico della Mirandola the Neo-Platonist
Medal with the effigy of Pico della Mirandola. On the reverse, a deviation from the Platonic theme of the Three Graces (Beauty, Love, Pleasure), an image taken identically from a Roman fresco in Pompeii, which Raphael would in turn take up in his work on the same subject.
A precocious scholar, a protégé of Lorenzo de’ Medici (like Inghirami), this man of omniscience was fearless. Thus, in 1485, at the age of 23, he announced his project to gather, at his own expense, in the eternal city and capital of Christianity, the greatest scholars of the world to debate the mysteries of theology, philosophy and foreign doctrines. The objective was to go back from scholasticism to Zoroaster, passing by the Arabs, the Kabbalah, Aristotle and Plato, to expose to the eyes of all, the concordance of wisdom. The affair failed. His initiative, which reserved an important place for magic, could only arouse distrust. For the Vatican, all this could only smell of sulfur, and the initiative was discarded at the time.
However, it will mark the minds of a generation. For his Oratio de hominis dignitate, his inaugural speech written in an elegant and almost Ciceronian style, intended for the presentation of his nine hundred theses, published together after his death, was a great success, especially among young scholars like… Inghirami.
Pico’s achievement, which was not well received by the authorities, was to give humanistic studies (studia humanitatis) a new purpose: to seek the concordance of doctrines and define the dignity of the human being. The aim was, by bringing out what unites them despite their differences, to discover their common ground and, by a coincidence of opposites, to have them meet in a unity that transcends them.
Pico della Mirandola:
That is why, not content with having added to the common doctrines a quantity of remarks on the primitive theology of Mercury Trismegistus, on the teachings of the Chaldeans and Pythagoras, on the most secret mysteries of the Jews, we have also proposed for discussion a certain number of discoveries and conceptions of our own in the physical and theological fields. First of all, we have argued that Plato and Aristotle agree: many have thought so before us, no one has proved it sufficiently. Among the Latins, Boethius had promised himself to do so, but there is no indication that he ever realized what was always his project. Among the Greeks, Simplicius had given himself the same program: heaven forbid that he should have lived up to his intentions! Augustine himself, in his work Against the Academicians, writes that many authors have conceived, with great finesse in argumentation, the project of establishing this same point, namely that the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle are one. Thus John the Grammarian [The Hellenist John Lascarus] affirms well that only those who do not hear the words of Plato believe him to be in disagreement with Aristotle, but it is to his successors that he left the care of the demonstration. We have also added various developments where the concordance between the opinions – reputedly discordant – of Scotus and Thomas on the one hand, of Averroes and Avicenna on the other hand, is affirmed. Secondly, our considerations on Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy have been enriched by seventy-two new physical and metaphysical propositions: by making them one’s own, if I am not mistaken (and I will soon be sure of this), one will be able to solve any problem of a natural or theological nature, according to a philosophical method which is quite different from the one taught orally in schools and which is in honor among the doctors of our time.
In a manuscript found unfinished at the time of his death in 1494 and entitled Concordia Platonis et Aristotelis, Pico della Mirandola explicitly mentions Plato’s Timaeus and Aristotle‘s Ethics, precisely the two books that appear as attributes of their authors in Raphael’s fresco.
Then, in his Heptaplus, a work he completed in 1489, Pico della Mirandola asserted that the writings of Moses and the Mosaic Law, according to him the foundation of all wisdom, were the basis of Greek civilization before becoming that of the Church of Rome. The Timaeus, the major work of Plato, says Pico, demonstrates that its author was an “attic Moses” (from Athens).
Cicero the Neo-platonist
For Inghirami, fascinated by the eloquence and the style of Cicero (-106/-43 BC) of whom he believed himself the reincarnation, the challenge launched by Pico della Mirandola to reconcile Apollo, Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle, appeared almost as a divine test and the frescoes of Raphael decorating the Stanza will be above all his answer.
In addition, Cicero himself claimed to be a neo-Platonist. In the first volume of his work, the Academica, after condemning Socrates for continually asking questions without ever « laying the foundations of a system of thought », Cicero asserts, several centuries before Pico della Mirandola, that the ideas of Plato and Aristotle, in essence, « had the same principles »:
In the shadow of Plato’s genius, a fertile, varied, universal genius, a unique philosophy was established under the double banner of the academicians and the peripatetics, who, agreeing on things, differed only on the terms. For Plato, who had made Speusippus, son of his sister, the heir of his philosophy, also left two disciples of great talent and rare science, Xenocrates of Chalcedony and Aristotle of Stagire: those who followed Aristotle, were named peripatetics, because they discussed while walking in the Lyceum; whereas those who, according to the institution of Plato, held their assemblies and disserted in the Academy, the other gymnasium of Athens, received from this place the name of Academicians. But both of them, all penetrated by Plato’s fertile genius, formulated philosophy into a certain complete and finished system, and abandoned the universal doubt of Socrates, and his habit of discussing everything without affirming anything. There was then what Socrates entirely disapproved of, a philosophical science, with regular divisions and a whole methodical apparatus. This philosophy, as I have said, under a double name, was one; for between the doctrine of the peripatetic [Aristotle] and the ancient Academy [Plato] there was no difference. Aristotle prevailed, in my opinion, by the richness of his genius; but the one and the other had the same principles, and judged the goods and the evils in the same way.
Royal Portal of Chartres. In the center, Pythagoras with above him the Quadrivium (the sciences: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music). To his right, a disciple, with above him the Trivium (the humanities: grammar, rhetoric and logic).
Inghirami was also strengthened by the reading of countless Christian authors in this sense, such as the Frenchman, Bernard of Chartres (12th century), a Neoplatonist philosopher who played a fundamental role in the Chartres school, which he founded. He was appointed master (1112) and then became chancellor (1119) responsible for the teaching of the cathedral school.
You wonder the sculptures of Pythagoras and Aristotle appear side by side on the western portal of the cathedral?
Historian Etienne Gilson writes:
Bernard of Chartres was first of all influenced by Boethius, whose Platonism he adapts. He then set out to reconcile Plato’s thought with that of Aristotle, which made him the greatest Aristotelian and Platonic thinker of the 12th century. John of Salisbury affirmed, in the most formal terms, that Bernard of Chartres and his disciples did not believe that they were simply expounding Plato’s thought by explaining in this way the relation of ideas to things, but that they had the pretension of putting Aristotle in agreement with Plato. That the trouble they took was wasted, is what John of Salisbury clearly states. With a very British humor he notes that these philosophers arrived too late and that they worked uselessly to reconcile dead men who had been arguing all their lives.
Inghirami will have read St. Bonaventure (1217-1274), one of the founders of the Franciscan order, who pointed out that Plato and Aristotle each excelled in their own field:
And so it appears that among philosophers, Plato’s gift is to speak of wisdom, Aristotle‘s of science.
Or the Florentine Marsilio Ficino, this neo-Platonic philosopher of the XVth century whose « Platonic Academy » had put in saddle Pico della Mirandola. Ficino, had he not written in his Platonic Theology that
Plato treats natural things divinely while Aristotle treats even divine things naturally.
In the preface he wrote for The Fable of Orpheus, a play written by his disciple Poliziano (1454-1494), Ficino, referring to Saint Augustine, makes the mythical Hermes Trismegistus (Mercury) the first of the theologians: his teaching would have been transmitted successively to Orpheus, Aglaophemus, Pythagoras, Philolaos and finally Plato.
Thereafter, Ficino will place Zoroaster at the head of these prisci theologi, to finally attribute to Zoroaster and Mercury an identical role in the genesis of the ancient wisdom: Zoroaster teaches this one among the Persians at the same time as Trismegistus taught it among the Egyptians.
Preceding Plato, Pythagoras
The great pre-Socratic thinker, Pythagoras of Samo
In Raphael’s School of Athens, the figure of Pythagoras of Samos (580-495 B.C.), surrounded by a group of admirers, takes a major place. He is clearly identifiable by a tablet on which the musical chords and the famous Tetraktys appear, which we will discuss here.
While historians have so far mainly explored the influence of the Platonic and Neo-Platonic currents on the Italian Renaissance, historian Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, in her book Pythagoras and Renaissance Europe, has highlighted the extent to which the ideas of the great pre-Socratic thinker Pythagoras influenced the thought and art of the Renaissance.
Geometry (Thales of Miletus?) and Arithmetic (Pythagoras?), bas-relief by Luca della Robbia, Campanile, Florence.
In art, Pythagoras inspired the Roman architect Vitruvius (90-15 BC), and later such theorists of the golden mean such as the Franciscan monk Luca Pacioli (1445-1517), whose treatise, De Divina Proportiona, illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci, appeared in Venice in 1509.
However, if a theorem, probably from India, bears his name (attributed to Pythagoras by Vitruvius), little is known of his life. Just like Confucius, Socrates and Christ, if we are sure that he really existed, no writing from his hand has come down to us.
became a living legend, and even very active during the Renaissance, so much so that most people saw Plato as a mere « disciple » of the « divine Pythagoras ».
Arabic and Chinese texts demonstrating the theorem attributed in the West to Pythagoras.
Born in the first half of the 6th century B.C. on the island of Samos in Asia Minor, Pythagoras was probably in contact with the school of geometer’s founded by Thales of Miletus (-625/-548 B.C.).
Around the age of 40, he left for Crotone in southern Italy to found a society of friends, both philosophical, political and religious, whose chapters were to multiply.
For Pythagoras, the issue is to build a bridge between man and the divine and on this basis to transform society and the city. When asked about his knowledge, Pythagoras, before Socrates and Cusa, asserted that he knew nothing, but that he sherished « the love of wisdom ». The word philo-sophy would have thus been born.
No Christian humanist, reading Saint Jerome (347-420), one of the Fathers of the Catholic Church, could escape the praise that the latter gives to Pythagoras.
In his polemic Apology against the Books of Rufinus, Jerome, in order to evoke an exemplary behavior, quotes what two disciples of Pythagoras would have said:
We must by all possible means avoid softness of the body, ignorance of the spirit, intemperance, civil dissensions, domestic dissensions and in general excess in all things.
And Jerome invokes the « Precepts of Pythagoras » :
Everything must be common among friends; a friend is another ourselves. We must consider two periods in life, the morning and the evening, that is, what we have done and what we must do. After God, we must seek the truth, which alone can bring men closer to the Creator.”
Secondly, Jerome believes that Pythagoras, in affirming the concept of the immortality of the soul, preceded Christianity:
Listen to what Pythagoras was the first to find in Greece, Jerome says: That souls are immortal, that they pass from one body into another, and, it is Virgil himself who tells us in the sixth book of the Aeneid: When they have made a revolution of a thousand years, God calls them in great numbers to the banks of the river Lethe, so that they may undoubtedly see again the heaven they no longer remember; it is then that they begin again to revive a new body, which first was Euphorbus, then Calide, then Hermoticus, then Perhius and finally Pythagoras ; and that after a certain time what has existed begins to be born again, that there is nothing new in the world, that philosophy is a collection of meditations on death, that every day it strives to free the soul from the chains that bind it to the body and to give it back its freedom. Plato communicates many other ideas in his writings, especially in the Phaedo and in the Timaeus.
The hidden geometry of numbers
For Pythagoras « the beginning is half of everything ». According to Theon of Smyrna (v. 70/v. 135), for the philosopher, « numbers are, so to speak, the principle, the source and the root of all things ».
The Pythagoreans first applied themselves to mathematics… Finding that things [including musical sounds] model their nature mainly on the set of numbers and that numbers are the first principles of the whole of nature, the Pythagoreans concluded that the elements of numbers are also the elements of everything that exists, and they made the world a harmony and a number.
When these things, therefore, are at rest, they give birth to mathematics and geometry, when they are in motion to the harmonica and astronomy.
The idea of the « monad », a dynamic unity participating in the One, perfected several centuries later by the philosopher and scientist Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) in his « Monadology« , comes to us from this period. Etymologically meaning « unity » (monas), it is the supreme unity (the One, God, the principle of numbers) which, while being at the same time the minimal unity, reflects in the microcosm the same dynamic activity that the One represents in the macrocosm.
Already, just the name of Apollo (a god considered as « the father » of Pythagoras) means, as Plato, Plutarch and other ancient authors point out: free of all multiplicity (Pollo = multiplicity; a-pollo = non-multiple).
Xenophanes of Colophones (born around 580 BC), asserts the existence of a unique God governing all things by the power of his intelligence. It is about a god not similar to the men, because eternal, incorporeal and spherical.
The triangular numbers: 1, 3, 6 and 10. Note the presence of a hexagon inside the number 10, the famous Tetraktys of Pythagoras.
As much as this conception of a dynamic One has sometimes provoked an explosion of esoteric interpretations, it has stimulated the most creative minds and terrorized the formalists of thought.
When speaking about simple things, arithmetic numbers, Pythagoras uses the terms of one, two, three, four, five, ten…, while to evoke ideal numbers and their power, he speaks about: monad, dyad, triad, tetrad, decad, etc. Thus, by conceiving numbers in a non-linear but figurative way, he offers an arithmetic applicable to astronomy, music and architecture. By arranging these numbers, like marbles, in a particular way, Pythagoras discovered the famous « geometry of numbers ». For example, in the case of triangular numbers, three points form a triangular surface. If we add three points below, we find the number 6, but it is still a triangle. And if we add four more points, we get the number 10, still a triangular number.
The Pythagoreans proclaimed that the complete number is ten. The number ten, is a compound of the first four numbers that we count in their order. That is why they called Tetraktys the whole constituted by this number.
Besides the plane and triangular numbers (1, 3, 6, 10, etc.), Pythagoras explored the square numbers (1, 4, 9, 16, …), rectangular, cubic, pyramidal, star-shaped, etc. In doing so, Aristoxenus said, Pythagoras had « raised arithmetic above the needs of merchants ». This approach, that of seeing harmony above and within the multiple, has inspired many scientists throughout history. One thinks of Mendeleev for the elaboration of his table of elements or of Einstein.
The power of numbers was also well understood by the cardinal-philosopher Nicolaus of Cusa, who evokes Pythagoras in the first chapter of his treatise De Docta Ignorantia (1440), when he states that :
All those who search, judge the uncertain by comparing it to a certain presupposition by a system of proportions. All research is therefore comparative, and uses the means of proportion: if the object of research can be compared to the presupposition by a small proportional reduction, the judgment of apprehension is easy; but if we need many intermediaries, then difficulty and pain arise. This is well known in mathematics: the first propositions are easily brought back to the first principles which are very well known, whereas the following ones, because they need the intermediary of the first ones, have more difficulty. Therefore, all research consists of a comparative proportion, easy or difficult, and this is why the infinite, which escapes, as infinite, from all proportion, is unknown. Now, the proportion which expresses agreement in a thing on the one hand and otherness on the other hand, cannot be understood without the number. This is why the number encloses all that is susceptible of proportions. Therefore, it does not create a proportion in quantity only, but in everything that, in some way, by substance or by accident, can agree and differ. Therefore, Pythagoras strongly believed that everything was constituted and understood by the power of numbers. Now, the precision of combinations in material things and the exact adaptation of the known to the unknown are so far above human reason that Socrates considered that he knew nothing but his ignorance; at the same time as the very wise Solomon affirms that all things are difficult and that language cannot explain them.
The Geometry of numbers, the secret of mental calculations
Here is a simple example.
One day, in Göttingen, the teacher of the young German mathematician Carl Gauss (1777-1855) asked his students to calculate the sum of all the numbers from one to one hundred. The students did so and began to add the numbers 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5, etc.
The young Gauss raises his hand and, following a mental calculation, announces the result of the operation: « 5050, Sir! »
The teacher, surprised, asks him how he arrived at the result so quickly. The young Gauss explains: to see if there is a geometry in the number 100, I added the first digit (1) with the last (100). This gives 101. Now, if I add the second digit (2) with the second to last one (99), it also makes 101. I concluded that within the number 100 there are fifty pairs of even and odd numbers whose sum is 101 each time. Thus, by multiplying 101 by the number of couples (50), I immediately arrive at 5050.
From Pythagoras to Plato
For Pythagoras, the most perfect surface is the circle and the ideal volume is the sphere since regular polyhedra can be inscribed. According to one of his disciples, the Italian Philolaus of Croton (-470/-390 BC), Pythagoras would have been the first to define the five regular polyhedrons:
the cube,
the tetrahedron (a pyramid with 4 triangular faces),
the octahedron (composed of 8 triangles),
the icosahedron (64 triangles) and
the dodecahedron (composed of 12 pentagons).
Since Plato describes them in his work, the Timaeus, these regular polyhedra took the name of « Platonic solids ». Let’s recall that Plato went to Italy several times, notably to meet his close friend, the great Pythagorean scientist, astronomer, musical theorist and political leader, Archytas of Tarantum (-428/-387), considered today as « the father of robotics ».
A direct disciple of Philolaos, Archytas became the mathematics teacher of the brilliant Greek astronomer and physician Eudoxus of Cnidus (-408/-355).
A geometrical vision of numbers allows to see how their power increases. For example, by going from the number 3 to the number 4, one goes from the second dimension to the third.
Starting with Archytas, the Pythagoreans associate the 1 to the point, the 2 to the line, the 3 to the surface (the two-dimensional geometrical figure: circle, triangle, square…), the 4 to the solid (the three-dimensional geometrical figure: tetrahedron, cube, sphere, etc.).
Let’s add that in the Timaeus, one of Plato’s last dialogues, after a brief exchange with Socrates, Critias and Hermocrates, the Pythagorean philosopher Timaeus of Locri (5th century BC) exposes a reflection on the origin and the nature of the physical world and of the human soul seen as the works of a demiurge while addressing the questions of scientific knowledge and the place of mathematics in the explanation of the world.
No doubt you have learned, Tuberon, that after the death of Socrates, Plato went first to Egypt to learn, then to Italy and Sicily, in order to learn all about the discoveries of Pythagoras. There he lived for a long time in the intimacy of Archytas of Taranto and Timaeus of Locri, and had the chance to obtain the Commentaries of Philolaos.
A magnificent bas-relief on the campanile of the Florence cathedral reflects what the early Italian humanists knew about Pythagoras.
Luca della Robbia (1399-1482), the sculptor working on the instructions of the humanist chancellor of Florence Leonardo Bruni (1370-1444), shows Pythagoras, a large hammer in one hand, a small hammer in the other, striking an anvil and concentrating his mind on the difference in the sounds he produces.
Pythagoras among the blacksmiths.
According to the legend, Pythagoras was walking near a forge when his attention was caught by the sound of hammers striking the anvil. He discerned in his ear the same consonances as those he could produce with his lyre. His intuition led to a fundamental discovery: musical sounds are governed by numbers.
This is how Guido d’Arezzo (992-1050), the Benedictine monk who created the system of musical notation still in use, relates the event in the last chapter (XX) of his book Micrologus around 1026:
A certain Pythagoras, a great philosopher, was traveling adventurously; he came to a workshop where an anvil was being struck with five hammers. Amazed by the pleasant harmony [concordiam] they produced, our philosopher approached them and, believing at first that the quality of sound and harmony [modulationis] lay in the different hands, he interchanged the hammers. When this was done, each hammer retained its own sound. After having removed one that was dissonant, he weighed the others, and, admirably, by the grace of God, the first weighed twelve, the second nine, the third eight, the fourth six of I don’t know what unit of weight. He thus knew that the science [scientiam] of music resided in the proportion and ratio of numbers [in numerorum proportione et collatione] […] What can we say about the science of music? […] What more can be said? By arranging the notes according to the intervals mentioned above, the illustrious Pythagoras was the first to perfect the monochord. As it is not lasciviousness that one finds there, but a fast revelation of the knowledge of our art, it met a general assent among the scholars. And this art has gradually been affirmed and developed to this day, for the Master himself always illuminates the human darkness and his supreme Wisdom endures for all centuries. Amen.
Here, the diagram (found on a slate placed at the feet of Pythagoras in Raphael’s fresco), which visualizes the musical harmonies obtained by dividing a string. Dividing it in two gives the octave, in three the fifth and in four the fourth. Finally, epogdoon (from the prefix epi- meaning above and ogdoon meaning the eighth) translates the interval of 9/8, which here corresponds to the tone.
IMAGE
The diagram (visible on the slate placed at the feet of Pythagoras in Raphael’s fresco), which visualizes the musical harmonies that are obtained by dividing a string. Dividing it in two gives the octave, in three the fifth and in four the fourth. Finally, epogdoon (from the prefix epi- meaning above and ogdoon meaning the eighth) translates the interval of 9/8, which corresponds here to the tone.
Let’s go back to the harmonic ratios that Pythagoras discovered from the weights of the hammers: 12, 9, 8 and 6.
The ratio between 12 and 6 is the half and corresponds to the octave (diapason). It is found on a musical instrument by vibrating half a string;
The ratio between 12 and 8 is a ratio of two thirds, which corresponds to the fifth (diapente);
The ratio between 8 and 6, is a ratio of three quarters, which corresponds to the fourth (diatessaron);
Finally, the ratio between 8 and 9 gives the interval of a tone (epogdoon, the prefix epi- meaning above and ogdoon meaning the eighth).
Illustration from the treatise Theorica musiche (1480, Naples), by the theorist and composer Franchini Gaffurio (1451-1522), a friend and colleague of Leonardo da Vinci at the Sforza court in Milan.
Later, the Pythagoreans transposed the same proportions to other objects, including volumes of water in glasses, the size of bells as well as bronze disks or the length of strings of musical instruments or flutes. For Pythagoras, this experience is fundamental because it corroborates the basic intuition of his philosophy: everything that exists is number, including phenomena as immaterial as musical intervals. In a famous passage of the Timaeus (35-36), Plato describes the fabrication of the proportions of the World Soul by the Demiurge. This passage is based on the numerical series 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27, which corresponds to the fusion of the series of the first powers of 2 (2, 4, 8) and the series of the first powers of 3 (3, 9, 27). Now, from this series, we can derive the numerical relationships on which the musical intervals are based.
The Pythagoreans noticed that the whole of the modes of musical harmony and the relations which compose it are resolved in proportional numbers.
With the French philosopher Pierre Magnard, we would rather say:
If to know is to measure, music is the art of pursuing measurement beyond the threshold of incommensurability. When numerical, metric and weight standards are no longer capable of establishing proportions between natural realities, harmony comes to the rescue of its own scales – diatonic, chromatic, enharmonic – and of its intervals – fifth, fourth, third, octave – to make up for the lack of calculation.
The Pythagoreans assert that music is a harmonic combination of opposites, a unification of multiples and an agreement of opposites.
In addition, for the Pythagoreans, music also had an ethical and medical value:
He started education with music, using certain melodies and rhythms, thanks to which he healed the character traits and passions of men, and brought harmony between the faculties of the soul.
All this made Pythagoras the incarnation of a cosmic and universal harmony**. Moreover, he would have been the first to have used the word « cosmos » (perfection, order).
Pythagoras, praised by the first true astrophysicist Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), is said to have been the first to coin the concept of « the music of the spheres » or « the harmony of the spheres ».
For, as Sextus Empiricus (towards the end of the second century) states in his Pyrrhonian sketches, Pythagoras would have noted that the distances between the orbits of the Sun, the Moon and the fixed stars correspond to the proportions regulating the intervals of the octave, the fifth and the fourth. In the Republic, Plato states that astronomy and music are « sister sciences ».
A page of the Harmony of the World where the astronomer Johannes Kepler evokes the music of the spheres.
Copernicus admits that the work of the Pythagoreans inspired his own research:
Others think that the Earth moves. Thus, Philolaos the Pythagorean says that the Earth moves around the Fire in an oblique circle, as do the Sun and the Moon. Heraclitus of Pontus and Ecphantos the Pythagorean do not, it is true, give the Earth a translational motion [motion around the Sun, heliocentrism]… Starting from this, I too began to think of the mobility of the Earth
(Copernicus, letter to Pope Paul III, preface to De revolutionibus orbium caestium [On the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs], 1543).
The name Pythagoras (etymologically, Pyth-agoras: « he who was announced by the Pythia », the goddess), derives from the announcement of his birth made by the oracle to his father during a trip to Delphi. However, legend has it that Pythagoras was the son of Apollo, the god of light, poetry and music.
According to the oldest pre-Socratic traditions, Apollo had conceived a plan to control the universe. This plan was revealed in « the music of the spheres » under the wise supervision of Apollo, the sun god and god of music; a Greek god who passed to the Romans without changing his name. Apollo is represented with a crown of laurels and a lyre, surrounded by the nine muses.
GUIDED TOUR
After reviewing the political situation of the time, the motivations of Pope Julius II and his advisors seeking to re-establish the authority of a « Triumphant Church, » the ultimate culmination for centuries to come of a culture that goes back to Apollo, Moses, Pythagoras, Plato, Cicero and their disciples, the viewer now has some solid « keys » (the « codes ») in hand that will allow him or her to « read » Raphael’s frescoes adorning the Stanza.
Without Raphael’s account of his work, this reading remains an obstacle course. For example, the identification of the figures remains uncertain, since, with a few rare exceptions, no tablet tells us this. The idea, in any case, is that the spectator, by analyzing the appearance and gestures of each one, discovers for himself who is represented.
As we said, when entering the room, the viewer is immediately asked to appreciate each fresco not in isolation, but as an expression of a coherent whole.
When entering the Stanza, as if inside a painted cube, one immediately realizes that one is facing a theatrical setting. For the great vaults that the spectator discovers are only painted images and do not respond to any structural reality of the building. Inghirami was a speaker, an actor and a director who knew who should appear where, with what attitude and dressed in what way. Thanks to this imagination, a room that was at first sight rectangular and boring, was transformed into a spherical cube because the corners of the room were « rounded » with stucco.
A. THE CEILING
The ceiling of the Signing Chamber: at the centre, the coat of arms of Julius II (A). Then four circles with Philosophy (B), Theology (C ), Poetry (D) and Justice (E).
From the thematic point of view, the visual path, as one might expect, begins on the ceiling and ends on the floor. In the center of the ceiling, a small circle with the coat of arms of Julius II. Around it, an octagon surrounded by four circles connected by four rectangles. Each of the four circles touches the top of one of the four vaults painted on the four walls and shows an allegorical figure and a text announcing the theme of the large frescoes below.
Each time, it is a question of emphasizing the harmony uniting all the opposing (circle, square) parts. While the real incompatibilities are left to the checkroom, the oppositions and the formal differences will even be strongly emphasized, but exclusively to show that one can accommodate them by submitting them to a higher design.
The four circular frescoes decorating the ceiling of the Signature Chamber. Starting at the top left and going clockwise: Theology, Philosophy, Justice and Poetry.
Thus two double themes (2 x 2) are articulated:
Philosophy (the true accessible by reason), nicknamed The School of Athens, and Theology (the Truth accessible by divine revelation), nicknamed since the Council of Trent, the « Dispute of the Holy Sacrament »; a theme common to Aquinas and the neo-Platonists.
Poetry and music (the Beautiful), and Justice (the Just), a theme of Ciceronian origin.
Above the theme Philosophy, in one of the four circles, is represented by a woman wearing a dress with each of the four colors symbolizing the four elements evoked by a motif: blue illustrates the stars, red the tongues of fire, green the fish and golden brown the plants. Philosophy holds two books entitled « Morality » and « Nature », while two small genius (geniuses) carry tablets on which one can read « CAUSARUM » and « COGNITO », read together meaning « To know the causes ». Clearly, the aim of moral and natural philosophy is to know the causes, that is to say to go back to God.
Above Theology, a woman dressed in red and green, colors of the theological virtues. In her left hand, she holds a book, her right hand points to the fresco below. Two geniuses carry tablets saying « DIVINAR.RER » and « NOTITIA », « The revelation of sacred things ».
Above Poetry, the winged figure of the Poetry carrying lyre and crown of laurels. Two putti (cherubs) present us with tablets on which are inscribed the words of Virgil: « Inspired by the spirit » (NVMINE AFFLATVR). Since we are dealing with puttis and not geniuses, there is a clear reference to the Christian spirit that inspires the arts.
Finally, above the last fresco, Justice, a woman holds the attributes of justice: the scales and the sword. Two putti carry tablets with the words of the Emperor Justinian: « IVS SVVM VNICUMQUE », that is, « to each his just punishment ».
Then, still on the ceiling, as we have indicated, there are four rectangular frescoes connecting the four circles whose theme we have just specified. Again, these are two pairs that complement each other.
In the four squares: A. Wisdom, the first mover; B. The Fall with Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise; C. The Judgment of Salomon; D. The triumph of Apollo over Marsyas in the fight for the lyre.
A. A first rectangular fresco, linking Philosophy with Poetry, shows us a woman (wisdom, the first mover) here as the first cause and setting a celestial globe in motion and thus the universe in action. It may be the mythical Sibyl mentioned by Heraclitus, a superhuman incarnation of the prophetic voice. Philosophically, it is an allegory of the creation of the universe (or Astronomy). The constellation that appears on the globe has been identified. It corresponds to the sky map of the night of October 31, 1503, the date of the election of Julius II… which of course the date he became the “prime mover” of the universe.
B. The second rectangle, diametrically opposed to the first one and linking Justice to Theology, represents « Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise ». Considered as the beginning of theology, « The Fall of Man », will be repaired by the « redemption » that the Church and Pope Julius II will bring, embodied by the creative wisdom putting the universe back into motion.
C. The third rectangle, linking Philosophy and Justice, represents « The Judgment of Solomon, » a scene showing King Solomon’s wise judgment when two mothers claimed the same child.
D. And finally, the fourth, at the other end of the diagonal, connecting Poetry and Theology, represents, not« The Flogging of Marsyas » as has been claimed, but another rather rare scene, « The Triumph of Apollo over Marsyas » in the struggle for the lyre. The latter receives a crown of laurels. The two judgments are based on different bases for their mutual appreciation. While King Solomon, representing the Old Testament, judges on the basis of the divine law, Apollo, who represents antiquity here, prevails thanks to the rules of the pagan pantheon, his will power.
B. THEOLOGY
(THE DISPUTE OF THE HOLY SACRAMENT)
Theology (Dispute of the Holy Sacrament)
*In the upper (celestial) register : A. God the Father, B. Jesus Christ, C. Mary, D. St. John the Baptist, E. Apostle Peter, F. Adam, G. St. John the Evangelist, H. King David, I. St. Lawrence, J. Judas Maccabaeus, K. St. Stephen, L. St. Stephen, M. Moses, N. James the Greater, O. Abraham, P. St. Paul, SE. Holy Spirit.
Historians tell us that it was the first fresco to be made. The core subject here is the Trinity and « transubstantiation », a supernatural phenomenon signifying the conversion of one substance into another, in the case of Christians, the conversion of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist under the action of the Holy Spirit. This meant a « real presence » of God at mass and thus a major attraction to attract the faithful and a precondition to obtain « indulgences » from him. For some humanists, such as the Swiss Protestant Ulrich Zwingli(1484-1531), any doctrine of the real presence is idolatry because it would be tantamount to worshiping bread and wine as if it were God.
Erasmus, for whom the performance of rituals should never be a substitute for true faith, explains that when Christ said to his disciples, in offering them bread, « this is my body » and « this is my blood, » in offering them wine, he was in reality talking metaphorically, not of bread and wine, but of his disciples (his body) and his teaching (his blood).
The idea of the composition is to show the triumph of the unity of the Church in Christ in all its complexities and diversities. The scene takes place on two levels, one celestial and the other terrestrial, lining up, as in a theater, a vast variety of actors presenting themselves to the public.
Above, in the celestial register, the heart of the subject, « the Trinity » with God the Father (A) blessing enthroned above a Christ (C) surrounded by Mary (B) (the New Testament) on his right and St. John the Baptist (D) (the Old Testament) on his left, themselves appearing above a dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit (SE).
Around them, to match the architecture of the School of Athens opposite, sit peacefully on a semi-circular cloud bench, the remarkable figures of the Church Triumphant, accompanied by their traditional attributes and dressed in colorful garments specific to each.
At the ends of the semicircle, two apostles: the Apostle Peter (E), representing the Jews, and the Apostle Paul (P), representing the Gentiles, face each other, as if they were the outer guards of the triumphant Church, the custodians of both the key and the letter of it. The Old Testament is represented by Adam (F) facing Abraham (O), and Moses (M) facing King David (H) with his harp in hand. The New Testament is also represented by St. John (G) facing St. Matthew (N) (two authors of the Gospel), by St. Lawrence (I) and St. Stephen (L) (both martyred saints).
At the bottom, in the terrestrial register, there is an enormous altar (Y) on which is written (in the middle) « IV LI VS » (Julius). A golden monstrance (X) with a host in its center proclaims the presence of Christ in the mystery of transubstantiation. Next to it, the Doctors of the Church of the early days of Christianity: on the left (under the features of Julius II) St. Gregory (No. 10), the great reformer of the ritual and the chant of the Mass, next to St. Jerome (No. 11), the most profound scholar of Christianity), accompanied by his lion. On his right Saint Augustine (N° 17) and Saint Ambrose (N° 16). These four doctors are, unlike the other figures, seated, which already brings them closer to the figures in the heavens; we can also distinguish two later doctors who are St. Thomas Aquinas (No. 18), a Dominican; and St. Bonaventure (No. 20), a Franciscan.
The historian Konrad Oberhuber, adds that these last two,
embody two tendencies of the Church: one that sees its essence of Christianity in ritual and devout adoration (the dimension of feeling), the other that defends the importance of theology (the dimension of thought).
Only two figures appear twince in Raphael’s frescoes: Dante Aleghieri and Pico della Mirandola. The latter, here on the left, dressed in white, in Philosophy, on the right, dressed in yellow in Theology.
Then, Popes Innocent III (1160-1216) (N° 19), the most powerful pope of the Middle Ages who established the political independence of Rome) and Sixtus IV (1414-1471) (N° 21, Francesco della Rovere by name) rub shoulders with religious figures such as the Dominican Savonarola (instigator in 1494 in Florence of a political revolution (return to the Republic) and moral revolution (rechristianization) or, the painter Fra Angelico (N° 1), contemporary of Savonarola, admired for his frescoes and his sublime paintings, accompanied by Dante Alighieri (N° 20), whose Divine Comedy (with hell, purgatory and paradise) had an influence on theology in the Middle Ages, Donato Bramante (N° 3), the famous architect of St. Peter’s Basilica, not forgetting Pico della Mirandola (N° 6), (mistaken for Francesco Maria della Rovere) who, with his hair blowing in the wind, is pointing towards the Trinity in a light and graceful wiggle. On the right, masons (N° 22), who build churches, bend forward. If on the right, behind the figures, the white marble foundations (Z), allude to the new St. Peter’s Basilica whose reconstruction Julius II has just launched, on the left, a village church (Q) reminds us that Christianity must penetrate the daily life of the humble.
A beautiful central view perspective shows a get together of 58 Greek and other thinkers in an ideal temple. No chiaroscuro effect disturbs the balance of the colors and the clarity of the composition.
The American thinker Lyndon LaRouche (1922-2019), during his visit to the Vatican, marveled at the graceful harmony that radiates from this work. It could not help but resonate with a concept LaRouche developed throughout his life: that of the « simultaneity of eternity »; the poetic idea that « immortal » ideas continue their dialogue in a place beyond material time and space.
According to historians, Raphael, faced with the Herculean task of creating this series of portraits, and lacking reliable visual data about the figures to be portrayed, sent one of his assistants to Greece to collect indications and provide him with documentation to meet the challenge.
Small detail: the event doesn’t take place in Athens or Greece, but in Rome. The architecture is clearly inspired by the church of Sant’Andrea of Mantua, renovated shortly before his death by Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) and by Bramante‘s plans for the reconstruction of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. It is Rome set to become the new Athens.
Nave of the church of Sant’Andrea in Mantua, built in 1473 by the architect Leon Battista Alberti.
Although the steps can be found in the preparatory drawings, the large arches with their coffered vaults, typical of the dome of the Roman Pantheon, do not appear. Another probable source of inspiration is the arches, also with coffered vaults, the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine, built in Rome at the beginning of the 4th century to reaffirm the power of the beauty of the Eternal City.
It is not excluded that Bramante himself, who had made a tromp-l’oeil using this type of pattern in the apse of the church of Santa Maria presso San Satiro in Milan, designed them in person. With three arches (tetrad) and seven rows of caissons, Pythagorean numerology is never far away.
Visually, the ensemble is divided in two. The audience is on the same level as the foreground, a paved parterre behind which a very wide staircase leads to a raised forecourt. For the viewer, a slightly cavalier perspective reinforces the monumental dimension of the figures on the upper level. This setting is inevitably reminiscent of a theater stage.
The actors, arriving from the old world, can enter the stage on one side, under the statue of the Greek god Apollo (A), god of light, and leave on the other, towards the new world, under the statue of Pallas Athena(B), which became Minerva in Roman times, protector of the Arts, to exchange ideas with each other, address the audience or climb the stairs and leave through the back.
In the center of the square and in the center of a perspective with a central point of view, Plato(N° 9)and Aristotle(N° 10) don’t confront each other but move forward, side by side, towards the viewers (and the Triumphant Church on the opposing wall).
The first one, with the Timaeus in his hand, points a finger towards the sky, meaning that beyond the visible, a higher principle exists. The second one extends his arm and his hand horizontally underlining that all truth comes to us from the testimony of the senses, while carrying the Ethics with the other arm.
Strangely, these are the only two books in the stanza whose names appear in Italian (Timeo, Etica) and not in Latin. As the art critic Eugenio Battisti (1924-1989) observed:
If we (…) examine the titles of the works respectively held by Plato and Aristotle, we see the philosopher of the Academy holding the Timaeus, that is to say the most Aristotelian and the most systematic of his works and the Stagirite, the Nicomachean Ethics, that is to say the most Platonic of his works.
Even the choice of the colors of the clothes emphasizes complementarity: Plato is dressed in red (fire) and purple (ether); Aristotle in blue (water) and yellow (earth).
The colors of the clothes of the two philosophers symbolize the four elements: Plato is dressed in red (fire) and purple (ether); Aristotle in blue (water) and yellow (earth).
If the whole fresco cuts the world in two between Platonists and Aristotelians, both walk together towards what is in front of them and behind the spectator who looks: towards the fresco of Theology with the Trinity in the center without forgetting the monstrance and the imposing altar on which is marked « JV-LI-VS PON TI CUS ». How generous of the Church to welcome so many pagans into its midst!
Plato and Aristote walk toward this alter in front of them, on which one can read twice (in the center and on the top): « Julius »
Raphael however communicates a great sense of movement. In the same way that the Dutch painter Rembrandt, in his 17th century masterpiece The Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq, known as The Night Watch, broke with the formal representations of the dignitaries of the city guilds, Raphael here drew a line under the frozen and static representations of the series of « great men » often decorating the palaces and libraries of the great princes and lords in the style of his master Perugino.
His fresco, like Leonardo’s Last Supper in Milan, is organized as a sequence of small groups of three or four people conversing with a great thinker or each other, never out of sync with what is happening around them. In this sense, Raphael translated into images, and thus made accessible to the eyes of the spectators, that harmonic unity transcending the multiple so sought after by the commissioners.
Raphael and Inghirami did not hesitate to use portraits of people living in their time to represent historical figures. In addition to themselves, there are their patrons, colleagues and other personalities whom they hoped to please or charm.
In the foreground, four groups are shown.
Raphael’s impresario, the Pope’s chief librarian, Tommaso Inghirami as Epicurus in Raphael’s fresco. He wears not a laurel wreath, but oak leaves, the coat of arms of Pope Julius II.
On the left, Epicurus(N° 25), here with the features of Inghirami writing the setting of the play. Born in Samos like Pythagoras, he wears here, not a crown of laurels, reward given to great orators, but a crown of oak leaves, symbols that we find in the coat of arms of pope Julius II.
Some historians believe that Inghirami was a Dionysian follower of Orphism, another pre-Socratic current. Dionysus is indeed the brother of Apollo and according to some, their teachings are one and the same.
As mentioned above, shortly after Raphael’s death (1520), Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto published a treatise in which Inghirami defends rhetoric and denies any value of philosophy, his main argument being that everything written is already in the mystical and mythological texts of Orpheus and his followers.
In Rome, the scholars of the time knew Epicurus mainly through their readings of Cicero for whom Epicurus was not a debauchee but someone who sought the noblest pleasure. Cicero had a friendship with an Epicurean philosopher, a certain Phaedrus, as it happens the nickname of Inghirami…
Finally, on the extreme left, there is an old bearded man, the Greek thinker Metrodorus(N° 26), disciple of Anaxagoras and for whom it is « the acting spirit » that organized the World. In front of him, a newborn baby. Together they could symbolize the birth of truth (the child) and wisdom (the old man) and experience.
Pythagoras of Samos, in The Philosophy. On the slate, at the bottom, the famous Tetraktys, at the top, the harmonic ratios of the musical scale.
Next to him, a little more in the center, the imposing figure of Pythagoras(N° 22) (whom the Italian historian Georgio Vasari mistook for the evangelist Saint Matthew), seated with a book, an inkwell and a pencil, writing surrounded by visibly intrigued people. Behind him, seated on the left, an old man, representing Boethius(N° 23), Roman author, in the sixth century, of a treatise on music, the first part of which evokes « the harmony of the spheres », tries to look at what he is writing in his book. Without capturing a moment of potential transformation, as Leonardo knew how to do, the scene is obviously inspired by his unfinished painting, the Adoration of the Magi.
At his feet, a black slate with the famous Tetraktys and a diagram of musical intervals (see our section in this article on Pythagoras).
Since it is totally unthinkable that it is Averroes(banned from the Church, as said, by Aquinas), the turbaned man who seems to admire him could be Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (N° 24). This Persian physician, influenced by the thought of both Hippocrates and Galen, in his Qanûn (of Medecine), operates a vast medico-philosophical synthesis of Aristotle‘s logic (which he corrects) and neo-Platonism, compatible with monotheism.
It could also be Al Fârâbi (872-950), another Arab scientist and musician who sought to reconcile faith, reason and science with the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, whose translations from Greek into Arabic he had made. Avicenna admired him and the title of one of Al Fârâbî’s works leaves no ambiguity: The Harmony of the Opinions of the Two Sages: Plato the Divine and Aristotle.
Moreover, given his position on the side of the Platonists, although he wears a white turban, it is totally excluded that he is Averroes (Ibn Rushd), an author struck down by Aquinas (see the paintings showing The Triumph of Saint Thomas) and then by the Neoplatonists of Florence for having denied the immortality of the individual soul.
More in the center of the fresco, two isolated figures immersed in their thoughts. The first, on the left, appears to have been added later by Raphael and is not in his drawing. The man is dozing on a cube, a Pythagorean volume par excellence. It is thought to be Heraclitus of Ephesus(No. 19)(an Ionian pre-Socratic for whom « there is nothing permanent but change ») with the features of Michelangelo. This sculptor fascinated Raphael, not only for his gifts in drawing, anatomy and architecture, but also for his spirit of independence from a pope he considered tyrannical.
It should be noted that the Moses that Michelangelo sculpted for the tomb of Julius II is said to be looking at him with anger because the artist captured the moment when Moses, coming down from Mount Sinai with the Tables of the Law, noticed that the Hebrew people had returned to worshiping idols, such as « the Golden Calf ». Irritated by this return to idolatry, Moses broke the Tables of the Law.
From Pythagoras to Plato. One detail raises questions: Anaximander of Miletus places his right foot on a cubic block of marble whose volume seems to be eight times smaller than the one on which Heraclitus of Ephesus rests. However, to solve the problem of Delos (the duplication of the volume of the cube) it is necessary to wait for the Pythagorean and friend of Plato, Archytas of Taranto.
Anaximander of Miletus(N° 20) (and not Parmenides), also a representative of the Ionian school, stands behind Heraclitus and seems to contest the demonstration of Pythagoras (representative of the so-called « Italian » school). Behind him, a young man with long hair, looks at the spectator. Dressed in a white toga, an attribute of the Pythagoreans, he is once again Pico della Mirandola(N° 21), triumphant and surrounded by Pythagoras and two of his disciples. Legend has it that Raphael portrayed Hypatia of Alexandria (c. 370-415), a mathematician who headed the Neoplatonist school in Alexandria. When one of the cardinals examined the painting and knew that the woman depicted was Hypatia, he is said to have ordered that she be removed from it. Raphael is said to have obeyed, but replaced her with the effeminate figure of a nephew of Pope Julius II, Francesco Maria Della Rovere, future Duke of Urbino…
If this is really Pico della Mirandola, it would be a superb piece of praise, for appearing in both Philosophy and Theology, the two images of Pico, reminiscent of the kneeling angel looking at the viewer while pointing at St. John the Baptist in Leonardo’s Madonna of the Rocks, can contemplate each other!
The second isolated figure, nonchalantly spread out on the stairs, is the cynical and hedonistic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope (N° 18), here presented as an ascetic, but in the Aristotelian tradition.
Then, in the center right, an inspiring group of young people, amazed by their discoveries and exchanging their complicit glances with their comrades, around a surveyor who is examining or drawing with a compass parallel lines inside a hexagonal star on a slate laid on the ground.
This is an illustration of a theorem that neither Euclid (an Aristotelian) nor Archimedes mentioned, although the identity of one or the other is attributed to this figure in the guise of the architect Donato Bramante.
It could be, it is my conviction, the geometer Hippocrates of Chios (N° 17) of which Aristotle speaks in great good. He wrote the first mathematics textbook, entitled The Elements of Geometry. This work precedes Euclid’s Elements by a century. Unless we are talking about the architect Leon Battista Alberti, whose church in Mantua may have inspired Bramante and after all, author, in 1435, of De Pictura, a treatise (of Aristotelian spirit) on perspective.
However, in 1485, in his treatise on architecture De re Aedificatoria, Alberti, in a passage (IX, 5) that may have been of interest to the author of the fresco, stressed that:
“Beauty consists in a harmony and in an agreement of the parts with the whole, in accordance with determinations of number, proportionality and order such as the harmony requires it, that is to say the absolute and sovereign law of the nature.”
On the edge of the tunic: R.V.S.M. (Raphael Vrbinas Sua Manu, meaning: « By the Hand of Raphael of Urbino »).
Finally, to add to the mystery, on the collar of the tunic of this figure can be read: « R.V.S.M. » (Raphael Vrbinas Sua Manu), meaning « By the Hand of Raphael of Urbino »).
For what the surveyor is addressing on the slate is the role played by the diagonals of the hexagon. The answer is provided by the geometrical composition, in the form of a hexagon, which underlies the entire construction of the perspective of the fresco.
The diagonals show a beautiful complementarity between the arithmetic mean and the harmonic mean (see authors diagram below).
It is a masterly demonstration in the field of the visible, of the concept structuring the whole theme of the work: complementarity, the foundation of universal harmony.
By tracing the horizon line and the lines of escape of the perspective from the bottom of the cornices of each arch, the isosceles triangle OAB appears. By inscribing it in a circle whose center is the central vanishing point (O), we obtain a hexagon. By tracing the diagonals (XB) of this hexagon, we obtain both the arithmetic mean (Y) and the harmonic mean (Z). The trick is done! For their complementarity illustrates marvelously the guiding motif of the whole Signature Chamber: the universal harmony that orders the beauty of the proportions of the universe. Credit: Karel Vereycken
On the right, the geographers Ptolemy (No. 16) and Strabo (No. 15) (in the guise of Baldassare Castiglione, the head of the Pope’s army and a friend of Raphael’s?), who is identified without real evidence with Zoroaster but to whom Pico della Mirandola indeed refers, stand face to face. The first shows the Earth as a sphere, the second a globe of the Heavens.
Finally, on the far right of the first register, with the features of Raphael, the legendary painter of the court of Alexander the Great, Apelles of Cos (N° 13). It should be remembered that, during his lifetime, Raphael was nicknamed « the Apelles of his time ». Next to him, his rival, the Greek painter Protogenes (N° 14) in the guise of Raphael’s colleague, the sulfurous but virtuoso fresco artist Sodoma. Coming from the world of the craftsmen, it is a question here of marking the entry of two painters-decorators into « the court of the big guys » and making their first steps in the world of philosophy.
Raphael, preparatory drawing for Plato and Aristotle. In the final version, their respective sizes have been equalized. Note the absence of the titles of the books.
On the steps, the central subject, as we have said, Plato and Aristotle. Plato‘s features in the fresco have nothing to do with any supposed portrait by Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo was born in 1452 and was only 56 years old when the fresco was painted. Raphael is said to have used the image of a bust of Plato discovered in Athens in the ruins of the ancient academy. In reality, the famous drawing of an old man (Turin), supposed to be a self-portrait of Leonardo and resembling the image of Plato in the School of Athens, has been proven to date from the 19th Century.
In the crowd to the left of Plato is Socrates (no. 6), his teacher, whose face was known to everyone from Roman statues. The identification of the other figures remains largely hypothetical. One thinks of the speakers of Plato‘s dialogues. Close to Socrates, his old friend Crito (N° 4). Behind Socrates, the Athenian intellectual Isocrates (N° 7) who had withdrawn from political life and although close to Socrates, set himself up as Plato‘s rival. Close to the latter, the five interlocutors of Plato‘s dialogue, Parmenides. Among them, Parmenides (N° 8), considered at the origin of the concept of the One and the multiple, and the pre-Socratic thinker Zeno of Elaea, known for his philosophical paradoxes.
The Athenian general (here dressed as a Roman soldier) Alcibiades (N° 3) and the young man in blue could be Phaedo of Elis (N° 5) or Xenophon, both listening to Socrates counting on his fingers, a gesture suggesting his famous dialectic.
All around the Greek thinkers, other figures are stirring. Behind general Alcibiades, a figure (perhaps a librarian) holds back another running figure, begging him not to disturb the ongoing exchanges between philosophers and scientists.
At the far left, a man with a hat enters the stage. It could be Plotinus (N° 2), a founding figure of Neoplatonism admired by cardinal Bessarion, accompanied by Porphyry (N° 1), another Neoplatonist who brought his biography of Pythagoras as a messenger from the ancient world.
In the Renaissance, the realization of a fresco (painted on fresh plaster) was no longer linked to the position of the scaffolding (bridges) but to the decision of the workers and artists as to the surface to be realized in a day (giornata) of work. Generally it was a surface between 1 and 4 m2. Here the giornata of the School of Athens.
On top, in the lunette (half moon), the three virtues represented would be Fortitude (A), Prudence (B) and Temperance (C). Together with Justice, they constitute the four cardinal (profane) virtues. The central female figure, holding a mirror, refers to Prudence. On the left, Fortitude holds an oak branch, an allusion to the della Rovere family from which Julius II, the pope who commissioned the frescoes, descended.
Below, once again, complementarity is at work. On the left, painted by Lorenzo Lotto, the Roman emperor Justinian I (N° 1) receives the Pandects (the civil law) from the Byzantine jurist Tribonian (N° 2).
On the right, in the guise of Julius II, Pope Gregory IX (N° 6) promulgates the Decretals; a masterly sum of canon law which he had ordered to be compiled and published in 1234.
On his right (thus on the left of the spectator), one sees a cardinal, in purple dress, having the features of the cardinal Jean de Médicis, future popeLeo X (N° 5). The two other cardinals behind him would be Alessandro Farnese, the future pope Paul III (N° 3), and Antonio Del Monte (N° 4). And to his left (right for the viewer) a cardinal representing Cardinal Julius de Medici, the future Pope Clement VII (N° 7). With your image immortalized on a fresco in the right place, your career to become pope would seem to be better engaged!
The fact that Julius II is represented wearing a beard allows to date the fresco beyond June 1511. Indeed, the pontiff, who left Rome beardless to wage war, then let his beard grow and vowed not to shave it off until he had liberated Italy. He returned to Rome in June. Historians point out that the prominence of the pope’s portrait indicates how the theme of the decoration of the Chambers was transformed, around 1511, into that of the glorification of the papacy. Hence, in this way “Justice” becomes the right of Julius II to impose « his » justice.
The nine muses: A. Thalia, B. Clio, C. Euterpe, D. Calliope, E. Polyhymnia, F. Melpomene, G. Terpsichore, H. Urania. I. Erato.
A window reduces the space available for the fresco to a large lunette where the characters are divided into small groups on a semi-circular line.
The underlying idea here, taken from St. Thomas, is that truth is made accessible to man, either by Revelation (Theology) or by Reason (Philosophy). For the Neoplatonic school, this truth manifests itself to our senses through Beauty (poetry and music).
The scene painted here takes place near Delphi, at the top of Parnassus, the sacred mountain of Apollo and home of the Muses of Greek mythology.
The large window around which the fresco is organized offers a view, beyond the cortile (small circular temple) of Bramante, on the hill of Belvedere (Mons Vaticanus), where shows were given and where, in ancient times, Apollo was honored, which earned him the name of Apolinis.
Apollo is the patron of musicians: « It is through the Muses and the archer Apollo that there are singers and citharists », says Hesiod. He even inspires nature: when he passes by, « the nightingales, swallows and cicadas sing ». His music soothes the wild animals and moves the stones. For the Greeks, music and dance are not only entertainments: they allow to heal men by tuning the discords that eat away at their souls and thus to bear the misery of their condition.
At the top of the hill, seven laurels. Near the Castalia spring, Apollo (N° 11), crowned with laurel leaves and in the center of the composition, is tuning around him the nine muses (A to I) playing on his lyre.
On the left side Calliope (D), the one « who has a beautiful voice » and represents the epic poetry, and on the right, Erato (I), « the lovable one » who represents the lyric and erotic poetry as well as the nuptial song. Each presides over the tuning of the other’s chorus: on the left, behind Calliope, Thalia (A) (« the flourishing, the abundant »), Clio (B) (« who is famous » and represents history) and Euterpe (C) (« the joyful » who represents music). Finally, just behind Erato, Polyhymnia (E) (« the one who says many hymns » and represents rhetoric, eloquence and pantomime), Melpomene (F) (« the singer » who represents tragedy and song); Terpsichore (G) (« the charming dancer ») and Urania (H) (« the celestial one » who represents astronomy).
And you don’t have to be Pythagoras to count 7 laurels on the mountain and remember that nine muses plus Apollo make… ten.
As one of the square frescoes on the ceiling reminds us, Apollo had triumphed over Marsyas in a fight to seize the lyre, considered as the divine instrument capable of leading souls to heaven, better than the flute which only excites the lower passions. By detaching the man from his immediate material concerns, the victorious lyre allowed to arouse the divine love in men. In addition, the Romans knew of a seven-stringed lyre, a Pythagorean legacy, the number seven referring to the seven heavenly bodies orbiting the central fire.
For the Pythagoreans and also Heraclitus, the imitation of the « harmony of the spheres », thanks to the harmonies produced by the seven strings, allows the purification of the souls.
Apollo at Mount Parnassus, woodcut by Hans von Kulmbach, published in 1502.
However, strangely enough, Apollo is not holding a traditional four-stringed lyre, but a lira da braccio. If Apollo plays here the lyre with arms, the muses Calliope, Erato and the sibyl Sappho hold lyres identical to those of the sarcophagus known as « of the Muses » of the Museo delle Terme in Rome.
In many representations of the 16th century, the lyre is played by a group of angels or mythological characters, such as Orpheus and Apollo, but also King David, Homer or the Muses. Among its interpreters, we can count Leonardo da Vinci. The instrument is essentially designed like a violin, but with a wider fingerboard and a flat bridge that allows for chordal playing. The lyre generally has seven strings: four like a violin, augmented by an additional low string (making five), and two strings beyond the fingerboard, which are not played but serve as a drone and resonate in the octave. Now, Raphael, in order to create a perfect harmony with the number of muses around Apollo, will increase the number of strings from seven to nine, that is to say seven adjustable plus two drones. This detail concerning the lyre seems to have been modified in time. Indeed, an engraved reproduction, from 1517, probably from drawings prior to the fresco, or from its preliminary project, by Marcantonio Raimondi, reveals a state quite different from what we see today.
Marcantonio Raimondi, engraving (ca. 1517) after Raphael’s Mount Parnassus in the Signing Chamber.
The composition is less dense and highlights, like the School of Athens, several groups of three figures each. What is striking at first is that the ancient lyre played by Apollo with his fingers rests on his thigh, while in the present version, Apollo vibrates the strings of his lira da braccio with a bow, while looking up to the sky, in accordance with the fresco on the ceiling where are inscribed the words of Virgil: « Inspired by the spirit » (NVMINE AFFLATVR).
All around, eighteen poets are divided into several groups. The identification of some is unequivocal, that of others more doubtful. They are all chained to each other by gestures and looks, forming a kind of continuous crescent.
At the top left, the father of Latin poetry Ennius (N° 6), seated, listens raptly to the song of Homer (N° 8), while Dante (N° 7), further back, looks at Virgil (N° 9) who turns towards him, the Roman poet Statius (N° 10), in the guise of Poliziano, at his side. The latter was a disciple of the florentine Neoplatonist Marsilio Ficino. To represent the historical figures, Raphael drew inspiration from Roman statuary. For the face of Homer, for example, he adopted the dramatic expression of the Laocoon, which he had found in Rome in 1506.
At the bottom left are the Greek poet Alcaeus of Mytilene (N°1), the Greek poetess Corinna (N° 2), Petrarch (N° 3) as well as the Greek poet Anacréon (N° 4). In the final version, two characters who leave the frame came to enrich the composition. On the left, the sibyl Sappho (N° 5) as indicated by a tablet. Considered the first poetess of ancient Greece, she lived in the seventh and sixth centuries BC. According to the Homeric Hymns, it is her who would have built the first lyre to accompany the poetic recitation. The only woman in entire fresco is painted with a monumentality that is reminiscent of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel.
Sappho is the counterpart of Pindar (N° 19), and not Horace as is claimed, considered one of the greatest lyric poets of Greece and for whom Apollo was the symbol of civilization. Pindar is here in conversation with the Italian poet Jacopo Sannazaro (N° 18), dressed in blue and standing, and above them Ovid (N° 17).
On the right, on the side of the mount, besides Pindar, Sannazaro and Ovid, five other poets and orators : Antonio Tebaldeo (N° 12), with his back turned towards Apollo and under the features of Baldassare Castiglione ? ), Boccaccio (N° 13), behind, Tibullus (N° 14), Ariosto (N° 15), Propertius (N° 16), under the features of the cardinal poet very « Petrarquist » Pietro Bembo, a friend of Inghirami and enemy of Erasmus, and at his sides two unknown poets said « poets of the future judging the past ».
The identification of these characters remains largely hypothetical and controversial. To arrive at satisfactory results, it would be necessary according to the historian Albert Chastel, to find precise correspondences between the nine muses, nine classic poets and nine modern, in addition to the grouping by poetic genre.
After the death of Julius II, Pope Leo X made the Stanza della signatura his music room, replacing the books of his predecessor (which were moved to the large library on the lower floor) with intarsiae. Leo X will also have the pavement completed.
F. THE MOSAIC ON THE FLOOR
Mosaic of the Chamber of the signature: A. Coat of arms of the pope, B. Spiral arm, C. Star of David, reference to the Jewish heritage.
Detail of the mosaic of the Chamber of Signature. We can read IVLIUS II PONT MAX.
The mosaic decorating the floor is said to be « cosmatesque », after the name of Cosmati, an old family of craftsmen and specialized in mosaics with four colors. Some materials come from Roman ruins, the green marble of the Peloponnese in Greece, the porphyry of Aswan in Egypt, and the yellow marble of North Africa. The white marble comes from the famous marble quarries of Carrara where Michelangelo chose his materials.
As on the ceiling, in the center of the room the coat of arms of the pope (A), this time inside a square (his earthly reign) inscribed in a circle (his theological mission). This first circle is surrounded by four spiral arms, each of which creates a new circular motif (B). This pattern is believed to be of Jewish origin. The Star of David (C) appears several times in this creation vortex. The doctrine of the four worlds, described in cabalistic cosmology, underlines their dynamic unity.
After all, for Giles de Viterbe, the recent discovery of Jewish mystical writings was of the same importance as the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. Let us recall that for Julius II, like Plato and Pythagoras, Moses, whom Michelangelo sculpted for his tomb, already announced the later triumph of the Church of Rome which would, under his direction, synthesize them.
Conclusion
Thus, the whole theme of the « Chamber of the Signature » finds its full coherence with the idea of harmony and concordance. But when we look more closely, we see that it is only a question of « complementarity » at the level of forms and in the service of a temporal power disguised as a divine mission. Raphael, a talented painter, submitted to this by providing the product for which he was paid. He would end up painting things increasingly decadent by submitting to the pagan whims of the papal banker Agostino Chigi for the decoration of his villa, the Farnesina.
With the « Chamber of the Signature », we are far from the famous « coincidence of opposites » dear to Pythagoras, Plato, Nicholas of Cues and today Schiller Institute’s President Helga Zepp-LaRouche, which allows, in an uncompromising search for truth and for the love of humanity, to overcome paradoxes and solve a great number of problems from a higher point of view.
By piling up allegories and symbols, if it impresses, this masterly work ends up suffocating us. By the rules of its composition, it can only sink into the theatrical and the didactic. In a universe purged of the slightest irony or surprise, no real metaphor will be able to awaken us. And although Raphael tried to bring some life into it, the spectator is fatally left with a vast sediment of fossilized ideas, as dead as the most glorious ruins of the Roman Empire.
Brief bibliography:
Julius II, Ivan Cloulas, Fayard, Paris 1990;
Léon X et son siècle, Gonzague Truc, Grasset, Paris, 1941;
Une histoire des empires maritimes, Cyrille P. Coutensais, CNRS, 2013;
L’Humanisme, l’Europe de la Renaissance, André Chastel and Robert Klein, Editions Skira, Geneva, 1995;
L’Arétin ou l’insolence du plaisir, Bertrand Levergeois, Fayard, Paris, 1999;
Giorgio Vasari, l’homme des Médicis, Grasset, Paris, 1995;
Marsile Ficin et l’Art, André Chastel, Droz, Geneva, 1996 ;
Raphael and the Pope’s librarian, Nathaniel Silver, Ingrid Rowland, Paul Holberton Publishing, 2019;
Raphael’s Stanza della Signatura, Meaning and Invention, Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, Cambridge University Press, 2002;
Pythagoras and Renaissance Europe, Finding Heaven, Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, Cambridge University Press, 2009;
Raphael, Stephanie Buck and Peter Hohenstatt, Könemann, 1998;
The Intellectual Background of the School of Athens: Tracking Divine Wisdom in the Rome of Julius II, Ingrid D. Rowland, 1996;
Pagans in the Church: The School of Athens in Religious Contex, Timothy Verdon, 1996;
Raphael’s School of Athens, Marcia Hall, Cambridge University Press, 1997;
Raphael, Konrad Oberhuber, Editions du Regard, Paris, 1999;
L’énigme de la Segnatura, Raphael and Sodoma, André-Charles Coppier, Paris, 1928;
Raphael, John Pope-Hennessy, Harper & Row, London, 1970;
Who was Raphael, Nello Ponente, Editions Skira, Geneva, 1967:
Lives and doctrines of the illustrious philosophers, Diogenes Laërtius, La pochothèque, Paris, 1999;
Erasmus and Italy, Augustin Renaudet, Editions Droz, Paris, 2000 ;
The egg without shadow of Piero della Francesca, Karel Vereycken, 2007;
Albrecht Dürer against neo-platonic melancholy, Karel Vereycken, 2007.
NOTES:
* For an in-depth treatment of the subject, see Karel Vereycken, Albrecht Dürer against Neo-Platonic Melancholy, 2007.
**We can see here where certain sects, notably Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophists, draw their inspiration. Some still insist on demonstrating that Pythagoras, who believed in the transmigration of souls and therefore their possible reincarnation in animals or plants, was a vegetarian. Diogenes Laertius tells us that one day, « passing by someone who was mistreating his dog, it is said that he [Pythagoras, in a joking tone] was moved by compassion and addressed the individual with these words: ‘Stop and do not strike again, for it is the soul of a man who was my friend, and I recognized him by hearing the sound of his voice’ « . A whole series of authors ended up falling into numerology and irrational esoteric mumbo-jubo, in particular Francesco Zorzi, Agrippa of Nettesheim and Paracelsus.
« L’encre du savant est préférable au sang du martyr »
« Demandez la science du berceau jusqu’à la tombe. »
« Cherchez le savoir serait-ce jusqu’en Chine, s’il le faut. »
(Paroles généralement attribuées au Prophète)
Nous vivons une époque d’une stupidité cruelle. Alors que l’histoire de la civilisation se caractérise par des apports culturels multiples permettant un infini et magnifique enrichissement mutuel, tout est fait pour nous déshumaniser.
A force de médiatiser les dérives les plus extrêmes, notamment en prétendant que tel ou tel acte abject ou barbare a été commis « au nom de » telle ou telle croyance ou religion, tout est fait pour nous monter les uns contre les autres. Sans réaction de notre part, le fameux « choc des civilisations », conçu par l’islamologue britannique Bernard Lewis (le maître à penser d’Henry Kissinger, de Zbigniew Brzezinski et de Samuel Huntington) comme un outil maléfique de manipulation géopolitique, deviendra alors une prophétie auto-réalisatrice.
INTRODUCTION
Afin de combattre les préjugés et les raccourcis dangereux sur « l’islam » (avec 1,6 milliard de croyants une part non-négligeable de la population mondiale), voici un bref aperçu des apports majeurs de la civilisation arabo-musulmane.
En rappelant l’apport de l’âge d’or de l’Islam, notamment l’astronomie arabe et la philosophie mutaziliste, il s’agit de pleinement reconnaître que —tout comme Memphis, Thèbes, Alexandrie, Athènes et Rome— Bagdad, Damas et Cordoue furent des creusets majeurs d’une civilisation universelle, aujourd’hui la nôtre.
Si, en Europe, on a fini par reconnaître que l’invention de l’imprimerie avait vu le jour en Chine bien avant Gutenberg, et que l’Amérique avait été fréquentée bien avant l’arrivée de Christophe Colomb, certains persistent à affirmer que les Arabes n’ont contribué en rien aux progrès de la science.
Pendant les 1300 ans séparant l’astronome romain, le grec d’Alexandrie Claude Ptolémée (env. 100-178 apr. JC), du Polonais Nicolas Copernic (1473-1543), ce fut, nous dit-on, « un trou noir » en Europe.
Poussant la caricature de l’arrogance occidentale, Alfred Koestler, écrira dans son livre Les Somnanbules (1958) :
Les Arabes n’avaient guère été que des intermédiaires : les légataires universels de cet héritage (des Grecs). Ils avaient fait preuve d’assez peu d’originalité scientifique (…) aux mains des Arabes et des Juifs qui le conservèrent deux ou trois siècles, ce vaste ensemble de connaissances demeura stérile.
Définitivement, il faut être né au bon endroit pour pouvoir entrer dans l’histoire… Etude d’Al-Biruni sur les phases de la Lune.
Or, contrairement à Koestler, Copernic était parfaitement familiarisé avec l’astronomie arabe puisqu’en 1543, dans son De Revolutionibus, il cite toute une série de scientifiques du monde arabo-musulman, plus précisément Al-Battani, al-Bitruji, al-Zarqallu, Ibn Rushd (Averroès) et Thabit ibn Qurra. Copernic se réfère également à al-Battani dans son Commentariolus, un manuscrit publié à titre posthume.
Si Nicolas de Cues (1401-1464) cite Ibn Sina, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), se réfère à Ibn Al-Haytam pour ses travaux sur l’optique.
En vérité, Copernic et Kepler, dont il ne s’agit pas de nier le génie, ont formulé leurs réponses à partir des questions posées par plusieurs générations d’astronomes arabes dont l’apport reste largement inexploré. A ce jour, avec environ 10 000 manuscrits conservés à travers le monde, dont une grande partie n’a toujours pas fait l’objet d’un inventaire bibliographique, le corpus astronomique arabe constitue l’une des composantes les mieux préservées de la littérature scientifique médiévale.
Science et religion contre esclavage
Bilal ibn-Raba, un esclave affranchi nommé premier muezzin.
Avant d’examiner les apports de l’astronomie arabe, quelques réflexions sur le lien entre l’islam et le développent des sciences.
Selon la tradition, c’est en 622 de notre ère que le prophète Mahomet et ses compagnons quittent La Mecque pour se mettre en route vers une simple oasis qui deviendra la ville de Médine. Si cet événement est connu sous le nom de « l’Hégire », mot arabe pour émigration, rupture ou exil, c’est également parce que Mahomet vient de rompre avec un modèle sociétal établi sur les liens du sang (organisation clanique), en faveur d’un modèle de communauté de destin fondé sur la croyance.
Dans ce nouveau modèle religieux et sociétal, où tous sont censés être « frères », il n’est plus permis d’abandonner le démuni ou le faible comme c’était le cas auparavant.
Les clans puissants de La Mecque vont tout faire pour éliminer cette nouvelle forme de société qui diminue leur influence, car l’égalité entre tous les croyants est proclamée lors de la rédaction de la Constitution de Médine, qu’ils soient libres ou esclaves, arabes ou non-arabes.
Le Coran prône d’ailleurs la stricte égalité entre Arabes et non-Arabes en conformité avec la parole du Prophète :
L’Arabe n’est pas meilleur que le non-Arabe, ou le non-Arabe que l’Arabe, le blanc au-dessus du Noir ou le Noir au-dessus du Blanc, excepté par la piété.
(Rapporté par Al Bayhaqi et authentifié par Cheikh Albani dans Silsila Sahiha n°2700).
Si par la suite, l’esclavage et la traite négrière ont pu être, hélas, une pratique courante dans presque tous les pays musulmans, on ne peut pas accuser le prophète. Zayd Ibn Harithah, nous dit la tradition, après avoir été l’esclave de Khadija, la femme de Mahomet, aurait été affranchi et adopté par ce dernier comme son propre fils.
Pour sa part, Abou Bakr, le compagnon et successeur de Mahomet qui sera le premier calife, affranchira également Bilal ibn-Raba, le fils d’une ancienne princesse abyssine réduite en esclavage. Bilal, qui possédait une voix magnifique, sera même nommé premier muezzin, c’est-à-dire celui qui lance, cinq fois par jour, l’appel à la prière depuis le sommet d’un des minarets de la mosquée.
La mosquée Rawze-i-Sharif en Afghanistan.
La mosquée est bien plus qu’un lieu de culte. Elle sert d’institution sociale et éducative : elle peut le cas échéant s’adjoindre une madrassa (école coranique), une bibliothèque, un centre de formation, voire une université.
Les premiers versets révélés au prophète Mahomet disent :
« Lis ! Au nom de ton Seigneur qui a créé, qui a créé l’homme d’une adhérence. Lis ! Ton Seigneur est le Plus Noble, qui a enseigné par la plume (le calame), a enseigné à l’homme ce qu’il ne savait pas. » (Sourate 96).
Le prophète indique également :
« Le meilleur d’entre vous est celui qui a appris le Coran et l’aura fait apprendre ».
Dans un autre hadith, le Messager d’Allah aurait enseigne l’amour de la science et du savoir aux musulmans en ces termes :
« L’encre du savant est préférable au sang du martyr » « Demandez la science du berceau jusqu’à la tombe. » « Cherchez la science, serait-ce jusqu’en Chine s’il le faut. ».
La mosquée se veut donc l’école de toutes les sciences, où vont se former les savants.
Mosquée de Samarcande (aujourd’hui en Ouzbékistan), ville étape des Routes de la soie.
Les manuscrits de Tombouctou en Afrique présentent à la fois des données mathématiques et astronomiques.
Comme dans la plupart des religions, les fêtes religieuses, les pratiques et les rituels musulmans sont rythmés par des événements astronomiques (années, saisons, mois, jours, heures).
Tout fidèle doit prier cinq fois par jour à des heures qui varieront en fonction de l’endroit où il se trouve : au lever du soleil (Ajr), quand il est au zénith (Dhohr), dans l’après-midi (Asr), lors du coucher du soleil (Magrib) et au début de la nuit (Icha). L’astronomie est omniprésente.
Par ailleurs, pour marquer son importance, le premier jour de l’année lunaire de l’Hégire, correspondant au 16 juillet 622, a été décrété comme le premier jour du calendrier hégirien. Enfin, lors de l’éclipse du soleil, les mosquées accueillent une prière spéciale.
L’islam encourage les musulmans à rechercher leur chemin grâce aux astres. Le Coran énonce en effet :
« C’est lui qui a placé pour vous les étoiles (dans le ciel) afin que vous soyez dirigés dans les ténèbres sur la terre et sur les mers. »
Avec une telle incitation, les premiers musulmans ne tardèrent pas à perfectionner les instruments astronomiques et de navigation, d’où vient qu’aujourd’hui encore, la plupart des étoiles naguère utilisées par les marins portent des noms arabes.
Il était donc naturel que les fidèles essaient constamment d’améliorer les calculs et observations astronomiques.
Le premier motif est le fait que lors de la prière musulmane, le fidèle doit se prosterner en direction de la Kaaba à La Mecque : il doit donc savoir trouver cette direction où qu’il se trouve sur Terre. Et la construction d’une mosquée se décidera en fonction des mêmes données.
Le deuxième motif résulte du calendrier musulman. Le Coran édicte :
Le nombre des mois est de douze devant Dieu, tel il est dans le livre de Dieu, depuis le jour où il créa les cieux et la terre. Quatre de ces mois sont sacrés ; c’est la croyance constante.
En clair, le calendrier musulman se base sur les mois lunaires, d’une durée d’environ 29,5 jours. Or 12 x 29,5 ne fait que 345 jours dans l’année. On est loin des 365 jours, 6 heures, 9 minutes et 4 secondes qui mesurent la durée de la rotation de la Terre autour du Soleil…
Enfin, un dernier défi se posait par l’interprétation du mouvement lunaire. Les mois, dans la religion musulmane, ne commencent pas avec la nouvelle lune astronomique, définie comme l’instant où la lune a la même longitude écliptique que le Soleil (elle est donc invisible, noyée dans l’albédo solaire) ; ils commencent lorsque le croissant lunaire commence à apparaître au crépuscule.
Le Coran dit précisément : « Ils t’interrogeront sur les nouvelles lunes. Dis-leur : Ce sont les époques fixées pour l’utilité de tous les hommes et pour marquer le pèlerinage de la Mecque. » Pour toutes ces raisons, les musulmans ne pouvaient se contenter ni du calendrier chrétien ni du calendrier hébreu, et devaient en créer un nouveau.
Géométrie sphérique
Pour connaître à l’avance les phases de la Lune, il fallut développer de nouvelles méthodes de calcul et mettre au point des instruments aptes à les observer. Le calcul du jour où le croissant lunaire recommence à devenir visible constituait un redoutable défi pour les savants arabes. Pour prédire ce jour, il fallait pouvoir décrire son mouvement par rapport à l’horizon, un problème dont la résolution appartient à une géométrie sphérique assez sophistiquée.
Ce sont la détermination de la direction de la Mecque depuis un lieu donné et l’heure des prières qui ont poussé les musulmans à élaborer une telle géométrie. La résolution de ces problèmes suppose en effet que l’on sache calculer le côté d’un triangle sphérique de la sphère céleste à partir de ses trois angles et des deux autres côtés ; pour trouver l’heure exacte, par exemple, il faut savoir construire le triangle dont les sommets sont le zénith, le pôle nord et la position du Soleil.
Le domaine de l’astronomie a fortement stimulé la naissance d’autres sciences, en particulier la géométrie, les mathématiques, la géographie et la cartographie. Certains aiment rappeler que platoniciens et aristotéliciens se disputaient des concepts assez abstraits, chaque courant estimant que la raison suffisait pour comprendre la nature.
Pour sa part, l’astronomie arabe, en vérifiant les différentes hypothèses grâce à la construction d’instruments de mesure et d’observatoires astronomiques, ainsi qu’à l’enregistrement rigoureux des observations pendant de longues années, a joué un rôle décisif dans l’émergence d’une vraie méthode scientifique.
LE MUTAZILISME
Discussion philosophique entre Socrate et ses disciples. Enluminure du livre Choix de sentences et de fins propos de al-Moubashir, XIIIe siècle, Bibliothèque Topka, Istanbul.
Se pose alors la question de savoir d’où a pu venir, dans une culture qui se concentre sur le fait religieux, cet engouement pour les sciences et l’astronomie ?
Une première réponse vient du fait qu’au VIIIe siècle, peu après l’apparition du sunnisme (656), du kharidjisme (657) et du chiisme (660), mais indépendamment de ces courants, apparaît une école de pensée théologique musulmane fondée par le théologien révolutionnaire Wasil ibn Ata (700-748) ? Surnommé « mutazilisme » (ou motazilisme), se courant est identifié en Occident comme « les rationalistes » de l’Islam.
L’origine de ce nom viendrait du fait que les mutazili ont refusé de prendre part aux conflits internes de l’islam, menés par des factions qui utilisaient des interprétations théologiques pour asseoir leur propre pouvoir, le mot arabe i’tazala signifiant « se retirer ».
Wasil est né à Médine dans la péninsule arabique, et s’installe à Bassorah, actuellement en Irak. De là, il forme un mouvement intellectuel qui se répand dans le monde arabo-musulman. Parmi ses disciples, beaucoup auraient été des marchands et des non-Arabes (mawâlî), issus de familles iraniennes ou araméennes « converties », sujettes à une certaine discrimination faite par les Omeyyades entre les Arabes et les non-Arabes. Hypothèse suffisante pour accréditer la thèse d’une participation mutazilite dans le renversement des Omeyyades.
En nette rupture avec les cosmologies dualistes (mazdéisme, zoroastrisme, manichéisme, etc.), le mutazilisme insiste sur l’unité absolue de Dieu, conçue comme une entité hors du temps et de l’espace. Il y a un rapport étroit entre l’unité de la communauté musulmane (Oumma) et le culte d’adoration du Seigneur. Les mutazilites s’inspirent étroitement du Coran, et il est assez erroné d’en faire « les libres penseurs de l’islam ».
Cependant, « nous rejetons la foi comme seule voie vers la religion si elle rejette la raison », précise l’adage mutazilite. S’appuyant sur la raison (le logos cher aux penseurs grecs Socrate et Platon) qu’il estime compatible avec les doctrines islamiques, le mutazilisme affirme que l’homme peut, en dehors de toute révélation divine, accéder à la connaissance.
Tout comme l’avait souligné Augustin chez les chrétiens, l’homme peut avancer sur le chemin de la vérité, non seulement grâce à l’Evangile (la révélation), mais en lisant « le Livre de la Nature », reflet et avant-goût de la sagesse divine. Déjà, dans la Bible, dans le Livre de la Sagesse (Sg. 13:5) , on peut lire :
Car à travers la grandeur et la beauté des créatures, on peut contempler, par analogie, leur Auteur.
Les Mutazilites se distinguaient de leurs adversaires par leur enseignement selon lequel Dieu a doté l’homme de la raison spécifiquement pour qu’il puisse connaître l’ordre moral de la création et son Créateur ; c’est à cela que sert la raison. La raison est au cœur de la relation de l’homme à Dieu.
Dans les Principes fondamentaux, le grand théologien mutazilite Abdel al Jabbar Ibn Ahmad (935-1025), dont les textes n’ont été découverts que dans les années 1950 par des chercheurs égyptiens dans une mosquée du Yémen, commence par poser le premier devoir de la raison : « Si on pose la question : Quel est le premier devoir que Dieu t’impose ? Dis-lui : le raisonnement spéculatif qui mène à la connaissance de Dieu, car Dieu n’est pas connaissable par l’intuition ou par les sens. Ainsi, Il doit être connu par la réflexion et la spéculation ».
Par conséquent, pour les Mutazilistes, la raison précède logiquement la révélation. La raison doit d’abord établir l’existence de Dieu avant d’entreprendre la question de savoir si Dieu a parlé à l’homme. La théologie naturelle doit être antérieure à la théologie.
Al Jabbar dit : « Les stipulations de la révélation concernant ce que nous devons dire et faire ne sont pas bonnes tant qu’il n’y a pas de connaissance de Dieu », laquelle connaissance provient de la raison. « Par conséquent, conclut-il, il m’incombe d’établir son existence et de le connaître afin de pouvoir l’adorer, le remercier, faire ce qui le satisfait et éviter la désobéissance à son égard ».
Comment la raison permet-elle alors l’homme de conclure que Dieu existe ? C’est par l’observation d’un univers ordonné que l’homme arrive à savoir que Dieu existe, dit Al Jabbar. En voyant que rien dans le monde n’est sa propre cause, mais est causé par quelque chose d’autre, l’homme arrive à la nature contingente de la création. De là, l’homme raisonne jusqu’à la nécessité d’un Créateur, une cause non causée.
Le concept d’une nature inhérente aux choses (tab’) signifie que Dieu, bien qu’il soit la cause première, agit indirectement par le biais de causes secondaires, telles que la loi physique de la gravité. En d’autres termes, Dieu ne fait pas tout immédiatement ou directement. Il ne fait pas tomber une pierre, c’est la gravité qui s’en charge. Dieu laisse une certaine autonomie à sa création, qui a son propre ensemble de règles, selon la façon dont elle a été créée.
Comme le précise l’auteur et théologien mutazilite Uthman al-Jahiz (765-869), chaque élément matériel a sa propre nature. Dieu a créé chaque chose avec une nature selon laquelle elle se comporte de manière cohérente. Un rocher sans appui tombera toujours là où il y a une force gravitationnelle. Ces lois de la nature ne sont donc pas l’imposition d’un l’ordre de l’extérieur par un commandant-en-chef, mais une expression de celui-ci à partir de l’essence même des choses, qui ont leur propre intégrité. La création est dotée d’une rationalité intrinsèque provenant du Créateur. C’est pourquoi et comment l’homme est capable de comprendre la raison de Dieu telle qu’elle se manifeste dans sa création (Ceci n’exclut pas la capacité de Dieu à supplanter les lois naturelles dans le cas d’un miracle). Du coup, pour l’homme, découvrir la nature de chaque chose ne fait que le rapprocher de Dieu.
Ainsi, le muzatilisme donne à la raison (la faculté de penser) et à la liberté (la faculté d’agir) humaines une place et une importance non seulement inconnues dans les autres tendances de l’Islam mais même dans la plupart des courants philosophiques et religieux de l’époque.
A l’opposé du fatalisme (« mektoub ! » = c’était écrit !), qui fut la tendance dominante dans l’islam, le mutazilisme affirme que l’être humain est responsable de ses actes.
Le monothéisme (Al Tawhïd), dont le concept de Dieu dépasse les capacités de réflexion de l’esprit humain. C’est pourquoi les versets du Coran décrivant Dieu assis sur un trône, ne doivent être interprétés que de façon allégorique et non à la lettre. D’où les mutazilites traitèrent leurs adversaires d’anthropomorphistes cherchant à ramener Dieu l’inconnaissable à une forme humaine. Et ils conclurent que ce seul détail (!) du Coran suffit à prouver que le livre n’est pas « incréé » mais « créé » par l’homme pour le mettre à la portée du croyant, et qu’il doit, par conséquent, pouvoir évoluer et s’adapter aux temps ;
La justice divine (Adl) concerne la responsabilité du mal dans ce monde où Dieu est tout-puissant. Le mutazilisme proclame le libre arbitre, le mal étant le fait de l’homme et non de la volonté de Dieu, car Dieu est parfait et ne peut donc pas faire le mal ni déterminer l’homme à le faire. Et, si l’erreur humaine relevait de la volonté de Dieu, la punition perdrait tout son sens puisque l’homme ne ferait que respecter la volonté divine. Cette logique incontestable permit au mutazilisme de réfuter la prédestination et le « mektoub » des écoles sunnites ;
Promesse et menace (al-Wa’d wa al-Wa’id) : ce principe concerne le jugement de l’homme à sa mort et celui du jugement dernier où Dieu récompensera les obéissants au paradis céleste, et punira ceux qui lui ont désobéi en les damnant éternellement aux feux de l’enfer ;
Le degré intermédiaire (al-manzilatu bayn al-manzilatayn), premier principe opposant le mutazilisme aux écoles sunnites. Un grand pécheur (meurtre, vol, fornication, fausse accusation de fornication, consommation d’alcool, ….) ne doit être considéré ni comme musulman (comme l’établit le sunnisme) ni comme mécréant ou kâfir (comme le pensent les Kharidjites), mais dans un degré intermédiaire d’où il ira en enfer s’il n’est pas racheté par la miséricorde de Dieu ;
Ordonner le bien et blâmer le blâmable (al-amr bil ma’ruf wa al-nahy ‘an al munkar) : ce principe autorise la rébellion contre l’autorité quand elle est injuste et illégitime, pour empêcher la victoire du mal sur tous. Ce principe leur attira la haine des oulémas et imams qui y trouvaient un moyen d’affaiblir leur autorité sur les fidèles. Et les Turcs Seldjoukides y virent un grave danger de contestation de leur pouvoir… sur les Arabes.
Le mutazilisme sous les Abbassides
L’Empire abbasside (749-1258).
Calife abbasside avec ses conseillers. Notez le cahier aux mains du conseiller et les têtes de chevaux dépassant la maison. (BnF.)
A Bagdad, c’est avec la prise de pouvoir des Abbassides en 749, que le mutazilisme gagnera en influence, d’abord sous le calife Hâroun al-Rachîd (765-809) (Aaron le bien guidé) et ensuite sous son fils, Al-Ma’mûn (786-833) (Celui en qui on a confiance). Peu avant sa mort en 833, ce dernier fera du mutazilisme la doctrine officielle de l’Empire des Abbassides.
C’en fut trop pour les oulémas (théologiens) et les imams (prédicateurs) conservateurs qui se rebellèrent contre cette vision éclairée ouvrant un espace de laïcité et limitant leur autorité. Face à la révolte, l’administration abbasside (constituée en grande partie de Perses), acquise au mutazilisme, mènera pendant quinze ans, de 833 à 848, une répression impitoyable contre les religieux sunnites (arabes). Cette persécution sanguinaire laissera un goût de plus en plus amer dans les consciences populaires, en particulier lorsque le pouvoir abbasside refuse de faire libérer les prisonniers musulmans aux mains des Byzantins s’ils ne renonçaient pas au dogme de l’« incréation » du Coran…
Enfin, en 848, le calife Jafar al-Mutawakkil (847-861), change totalement de cap et demande aux traditionalistes de prêcher des hadiths selon lesquels Mahomet aurait condamné les mutazilites et leurs soutiens.
La théologie dialectique (Kalâm) fut interdite et les mutazilites écartés de la cour de Bagdad. Ce fut également la fin de l’esprit de tolérance et le retour des persécutions contre les chrétiens et les juifs. Si l’engouement pour les sciences perdura, le mutazilisme disparut avec la chute des Abbassides et la destruction de Bagdad par les Mongols au XIIIe siècle.
Le mutazilisme influencera également le judaïsme. Le Kitab Al-Amanat Wa’l-I’tiqadat – c’est-à-dire le Livre des croyances et des opinions – du savant juif rabbinique du Xe siècle Saadia Gaon (882-942), qui vécut à Bagdad, tire son inspiration de la littérature théologique chrétienne ainsi que de modèles islamiques. Le Kitab al-Tawhid, le Livre de l’unité divine, du contemporain karaïte de Saadia, Jacob Qirqisani (m. 930), est malheureusement perdu.
Ce qui fait dire à l’islamologue allemande Sabine Schmidtke que :
La nouvelle tradition de la pensée rationnelle juive qui a surgi au cours du neuvième siècle était, dans sa phase initiale, principalement informée par la littérature théologique chrétienne, tant dans son contenu que dans sa méthodologie. De plus en plus, des idées islamiques spécifiquement Mutazilites, telles que la théodicée (*1) et le libre arbitre humain, ainsi que l’accent mis sur l’unicité de Dieu (tawhïd) ont résonné parmi les penseurs juifs, dont beaucoup ont finalement adopté l’ensemble du système doctrinal de la Mutazila. La ’Mutazila juive’ désormais émergente domina la pensée théologique juive pour les siècles à venir.
Frères de la Pureté
Un savant, membre des Frères de la Pureté (Miniature de 1287, Épîtres des frères dans la pureté, Bibliothèque Süleymaniye, Istanbul)
A signaler également, les Epitres des Frères en Pureté (Ikwân al-Safâ), une encyclopédie de 52 épitres (mathémathiques, sciences naturelles, sciences rationnelles et sciences théologiques), composée entre le début du IXe et la fin du Xe siècle contenant le savoir commun, que vont s’approprier les Ismaéliens, courant contestataire de l’époque. Réalisé à Bassorah, dans l’actuel Irak, ce livre, d’essence néo-platonicienne, est une œuvre collective. Quant aux auteurs, désignés sous le nom mystérieux de Frères de la Pureté, ils appartenaient à une confrérie de sages et d’intellectuels qui se réunissait régulièrement pour organiser des séances de discussion, de lectures et de récitation. Ses adeptes considéraient que la connaissance du savoir et du monde était une condition indispensable à toute élévation spirituelle et mystique. Souvent brûlée par les oulémas sunnites, le caractère d’avant-garde de l’œuvre se découvre en particulier dans son hymne à la tolérance préconisant une pluralité de voies pour accéder au salut. Certains experts estiment que les Epîtres des Frères en Pureté sont l’œuvre d’un philosophe pythagoricien de haut niveau, disciple du mutaziliste platonicien al-Kindî.
Abstraction faite d’égarements qui ont été bien réels, reconnaissons tout de même que la vision philosophique optimiste du mutazilisme (raison, libre arbitre, responsabilité, perfectibilité de l’homme) a fortement contribué à l’émergence d’un véritable « âge d’or » des sciences arabes.
Enfin, il n’est pas inintéressant de constater qu’aujourd’hui, des courants « néo-mutazilites » apparaissent en réaction aux doctrines obscurantistes et aux actes barbares qu’elles suscitent.
Pour le penseur réformiste égyptien Ahmad Amin,
la mort du mutazilisme a été le plus grand malheur qui a frappé les musulmans ; ils ont commis un crime envers eux-mêmes.
Bagdad
Représentation de la ville de Bagdad lors de sa fondation en 762. Notez le canal traversant la ville et permettant son intégration dans l’infrastructure naturelle du fleuve Tigre. En réalité, les alentours étaient urbanisés.
En 762, le second calife abbasside Al-Mansur (714-775) (« le victorieux ») entreprend la construction d’une nouvelle capitale, Bagdad. Appelée Madinat-As-Salam (cité de la paix), elle abrite le palais de la Cour, la mosquée et les bâtiments administratifs. Construite sur un plan circulaire, elle s’inspire des traditions antérieures, notamment celle qui avait donné naissance à la ville iranienne de Gur (nom actuel : Firouzabad).
Nous sommes au cœur de la fertile Mésopotamie, le « pays entre les fleuves », essentiellement l’Euphrate et le Tigre qui prennent chacun leur source en Turquie. C’est ici que les Sumériens inventèrent, à partir du dixième millénaire av. JC, aussi bien l’irrigation, l’agriculture (céréales et élevage) (*2), que l’écriture (-3400 ans av. JC).
Ville puissante et raffinée, Bagdad régnera sur tout l’Orient et devient la capitale du monde arabe. Traversée par le Tigre, peuplée aujourd’hui de quelque 10 millions d’habitants, elle reste la plus grande ville d’Irak ainsi que la deuxième ville la plus peuplée du monde arabe (après le Caire, en Egypte).
Minaret de la mosquée de Samarra que de nombreux Occidentaux croyaient être la Tour de Babel…
Les villes abbassides sont aménagées sur des sites immenses. Les palais et les mosquées de Samarra, nouvelle capitale à partir de 836, s’étendent sur 40 kilomètres le long des rives du Tigre. Pour correspondre à l’échelle des sites, des bâtiments monumentaux furent érigés, tels que la mosquée Abu Dulaf ou la Grande Mosquée de Samarra, sans équivalent à l’époque. Son curieux minaret hélicoïdal (52 mètres de haut) a inspiré dans les siècles suivants les représentations occidentales de la tour de Babel.
De plus, en se reposant sur une armée originaire du Khorassan (région du nord-est iranien) (*3) extrêmement disciplinée et obéissante, mais aussi sur un système élaboré de diligences et de distribution de courrier, les chefs abbassides parviennent à augmenter leur emprise sur les gouverneurs de province. Ces derniers, qui, du temps des califes omeyyades ne payaient que peu d’impôts sous prétexte qu’ils devaient assurer à leurs frais la défense des frontières du califat, devaient dès lors payer les taxes imposées par le souverain.
La Route du papier
Grâce à du papier d’excellente qualité, le travail des astronomes arabes a été conservé. Notez que les deux tiers des noms d’étoiles sont d’origine arabe. « Catalogue d’étoiles » d’al–Soufi (903–986). (BnF).
Après la victoire militaire contre les Chinois lors de la bataille de Talas (ville de l’actuel Kirghizistan), en 751, année qui marqua l’avancée la plus orientale des armées abbassides, Bagdad s’ouvre aux cultures chinoise et indienne.
Les Abbassides assimileront rapidement un certain nombre de techniques chinoises, en particulier la fabrication du papier, un art développée à Samarcande (capitale de la Sogdiane, aujourd’hui en Ouzbékistan), autre ville étape des Routes de la soie.
Les artisans de cette ville lissaient le papier à l’aide d’une pierre d’agate. La surface extrêmement lisse et brillante obtenue absorbait moins d’encre et les deux faces d’une même feuille étaient donc utilisables. Les Chinois, qui avaient inventé le papier de soie, n’avaient pas besoin de lisser leur papier parce qu’ils écrivaient avec des pinceaux et non avec des plumes.
Hâroun al-Rachîd s’intéresse fortement à la production industrielle du papier. Il ordonnera l’usage du papier dans toutes les administrations de l’Empire, plus facile à transporter que les tablettes en argile et plus intéressant que la soie, car on peut difficilement effacer ce qui y est écrit. Il développe des manufactures de papier à Samarcande et en fera construire du même type à Bagdad, Damas et à Tibériade vers 1046 (on parle alors de papier de Tripoli ou de Damas, dont la qualité est considérée comme supérieure à celle du papier de Samarcande), et au Caire avant 1199, où il est utilisé pour emballer des marchandises, et au Yémen au début du XIIIe siècle.
Dans le même temps, plusieurs fabriques de papier s’installent à leur tour en Afrique du Nord. On recense ainsi à Fès, au Maroc, 104 fabriques de papier avant 1106, et 400 meules à fabriquer du papier entre 1221 et 1240. Elles apparaîtront en Andalousie, en Espagne, à Jativa, près de Valence, en 1054 et à Tolède en 1085.
Révolution agro-industrielle
Moulin de l’Albolafia à Cordoue (Andalousie, Espagne).
Du modèle omeyyade reposant sur le tribut, le butin ou la vente d’esclaves, les premiers califes abbassides mènent la transition économique vers une économie basée sur l’agriculture, les manufactures, le commerce et les impôts.
L’introduction de technologies et de formes d’énergie plus denses (pour l’époque), vont révolutionner l’irrigation et l’agriculture :
Un moulin-navire utilisé sur le Tigre au Xe siècle. En immobilisant le bateau grâce à des câbles attachés aux deux rives, l’eau coulant sous le bateau actionne des roues à aubes faisant tourner le moulin.
Construction de canaux assurant l’irrigation et limitant les inondations ;
Construction de barrages et l’exploitation de l’énergie mécanique qu’ils produisent ;
Construction de moulins à eau ;
Utilisation de l’énergie marémotrice ;
Construction de moulins à vents ;
Distillation du kérosène. Connu en Occident comme le « pétrole lampant », il s’agit de la « première source de lumière efficace, abondante et pas chère dont ait jamais disposé l’humanité » (*4) ;
Les utilisations industrielles des moulins à eau dans le monde islamique remontent au VIIe siècle. À l’époque des croisades, toutes les provinces du monde islamique avaient des moulins en activité, d’al-Andalus et de l’Afrique du Nord au Moyen-Orient et à l’Asie centrale.
Les plus anciens moulins à vent au village de Nashtifân situé à Khâf, province du Khorassan (Iran).
Lorsque Cervantès nous dépeint son Don Quichote s’attaquant aux moulins à vents, il se moque du culte de la chevalerie, mais également des croisades.
L’irrigation, héritée du monde antique —crues du Nil en Égypte, canaux en Mésopotamie, puits à balancier (chadouf), roue mue par des animaux (noria), barrages en Transoxiane, au Khuzistan et au Yémen, galeries souterraines au pied des montagnes en Iran (qanat) ou au Maghreb (khettaras) — se met en place grâce à une solide organisation communautaire et l’intervention de l’État.
Les artisans et ingénieurs abbassides développent des machines (telles que des pompes) incorporant des vilebrequins et utiliseront des engrenages dans des moulins et des mécanismes d’élévation de l’eau. Ils se serviront également des barrages pour fournir une puissance supplémentaire à ces moulins et machines.
Ces avancées permettront la mécanisation de nombreuses tâches agricoles et industrielles et libéreront la main d’œuvre pour un travail plus créateur.
A son apogée du Xe siècle, Bagdad comptait 400 000 à 500 000 habitants. Sa survie alimentaire dépendait entièrement d’un ingénieux système de canaux pour l’irrigation des cultures et la gestion des crus récurrents de l’Euphrate et du Tigre. Exemple : le canal de Nahrawan, parallèle au Tigre, qui permettait de dévier les eaux du Tigre pour mettre la capitale à l’abri des inondations.
La production agricole se diversifie : céréales (blé, riz), fruits (abricots, agrumes), légumes, huile d’olive (Syrie et Palestine), de sésame (Irak), de rave, de colza, de lin ou de ricin (Égypte), viticulture (Syrie, Palestine, Égypte), dattes, bananes (Égypte), canne à sucre.
L’élevage reste important pour la nourriture, la fourniture de matières premières (laine, cuir) et pour le transport (chameaux, dromadaires, chevaux). Le mouton est présent partout mais l’élevage du buffle se développe (marais du bas Irak ou de l’Oronte). Les petits élevages de volailles, de pigeons et d’abeilles correspondent à une demande importante. La nourriture du peuple est essentiellement végétarienne (galette de riz, bouillie de blé, légumes et fruits).
Un certain nombre d’industries émergeront de cette révolution agro-industrielle, y compris les premières brasseries de bière, les manufactures de textile, la fabrication de cordes, de soie et, comme indiqué précédemment, de papier. Enfin, le travail des métaux, la verrerie, les céramiques, l’outillage et l’artisanat connaîtront des niveaux élevés de croissance au cours de cette période.
Charlemagne, Bagdad et la Chine
Enluminure représentant Charlemagne (à droite) réceptionnant les présents d’Hâroun al-Rachîd, dont le célèbre éléphant.
Au VIIIe et IXe siècle, cherchant à contrer les Omeyyades et l’Empire byzantin, Abbassides et Francs carolingiens nouent à plusieurs reprises des ententes et des coopérations.
Trois ambassades sont envoyées par Charlemagne à la cour d’Hâroun al-Rachîd et ce dernier lui en envoie au moins deux. Le calife lui fait parvenir de nombreux présents, comme des aromates, des tissus, un éléphant et une horloge automatique, décrite dans les Annales royales franques de 807. Les heures sont marquées par des boules de cuivre tombant sur une plaque à chaque heure, tandis que douze cavaliers apparaissent chacun à leur tour.
Le calife enverra également une mission diplomatique à Chang’an (appelé aujourd’hui Xi’an), capitale chinoise sous la dynastie des Tang. Etant aussi le terminus de la Route de la soie, son marché ouest devient centre du commerce mondial. Selon le registre de l’Autorité Six des Tang, Chang’an avait des relations commerciales avec plus de 300 nations et régions.
Route de la soie maritime
Ces relations diplomatiques avec la Chine sont contemporaines de l’expansion maritime du monde musulman dans l’océan Indien, et jusqu’en Extrême-Orient. En dehors du Nil, du Tigre et de l’Euphrate, les fleuves navigables sont rares, le transport par mer est donc très important.
Les navires du califat ont commencé à naviguer de Siraf, le port de Bassorah, vers l’Inde, le détroit de Malacca et l’Asie du Sud-Est. Les marchands arabes domineront le commerce dans l’océan Indien jusqu’à l’arrivée des Portugais au XVIe siècle. Ormuz était un centre important pour ce commerce. Il existait également un réseau dense de routes commerciales en Méditerranée, permettant aux pays musulmans de commercer entre eux et avec des puissances européennes telles que Venise et Gênes.
À cette époque, Canton (Khanfu en arabe), un port de 200 000 habitants du sud de la Chine, compte une forte communauté de commerçants venant des pays musulmans.
Et lorsque l’Empereur chinois Yongle décide à envoyer une flottille de navires en Afrique, il choisit l’amiral Zheng He (1371-1433), eunuque à la cour et d’origine musulmane. Et lorsqu’en 1497 le capitaine portugais Vasco de Gama atteint la ville kényane de Malindi, il s’y procure un pilote arabe qui le conduit directement à Kozhikode (Calicut) en Inde. En clair, un navigateur sachant naviguer sur les étoiles.
Renaissance scientifique et culturelle
Vue d’artiste de la vie culturelle à la Cour des Abbassides de Bagdad.
Sous le califat d’Hâroun al-Rachîd et de son fils Al-Ma’mûn, Bagdad et les Abbassides connaîtront un véritable âge d’or, aussi bien dans les sciences (philosophie, astronomie, mathématiques, médecine, etc.) que dans les arts (architecture, poésie, musique, peinture, etc.).
Pour l’écrivain britannique Jim Al-Khalili,
la fusion du rationalisme grec et l’islam mutazilite fera naître un mouvement humaniste d’un type qu’on ne verra guère avant l’Italie du XVe siècle.
Un sage explique le songe du Roi. Illustration de Kalila et Dimna.
Dans le domaine des sciences s’opère très tôt une assimilation des doctrines astronomiques hellénistiques, indiennes et perses antérieures. On vit la traduction de plusieurs écrits sanskrits (*5) et pehlevis (*6) en arabe.
Des ouvrages indiens de l’astronome Aryabhata (476-560), savant de premier plan de la Renaissance Gupta en Inde, et du mathématicien Brahmagupta (590-668) sont cités très tôt par leurs homologues arabes. Une célèbre traduction en arabe paraîtra vers 777 sous le titre de Zij al-Sindhind (ou Tables astronomiques indiennes).
Les sources disponibles révèlent que ce texte fut traduit après la visite d’un astronome indien à la cour du calife abbasside Al-Mansur en 770. Les Arabes adopteront également les tables de sinus (héritées des mathématiques indiennes) qu’ils préfèrent aux tables des cordes employées par les astronomes grecs. De la même époque date un recueil de chroniques astronomiques compilées sur deux siècles dans la Perse des Sassanides et connu en arabe sous le nom de Zij al-Shah (ou Tables Royales).
Dans le domaine de la musique, on peut citer entre autres le musicien arabe d’origine perse Ishaq al-Mawsili (767-850). Compositeur d’environ deux cents chansons, ce chanteur fut également un virtuose du oud (sorte de luth à manche court mais dépourvu de frettes). On lui attribue le premier système de codification de la musique arabe savante.
Mort de Mahomet, enluminure du Siyar-i Nabi, Istanbul, 1595.
Dans le domaine de la peinture, précisons d’abord que, contrairement à l’opinion dominante, le Coran n’interdit pas les images figuratives. Il n’existe aucune « interdiction » expressément déclarée et universellement acceptée, des images dans les textes légaux islamiques. Par contre, tout comme d’autres grandes religions, l’Islam condamne l’adoration d’idoles.
Du VIIIe au XVe siècle, de nombreux textes historiques et poétiques, sunnites autant que chiites, dont bon nombre ont été conçus dans des contextes turcs et persans, incluent d’admirables représentations du prophète Mahomet.
L’objectif de ces images n’était pas seulement de louer et rendre hommage au Prophète, elles représentaient aussi des occasions et des éléments centraux pour la pratique de la foi musulmane.
A ce titre, le livre de l’historien d’art allemand Hans Belting, au titre accrocheur Florence & Bagdad, l’art de la Renaissance et la science arabe (2011) est non seulement mensonger mais proprement scandaleux. Belting y présente « l’islam » comme une foi aniconique (bannissant toute représentation humaine ou animale) alors que les images figuratives représentent une partie essentielle de l’expression artistique islamique, à coté d’une calligraphie exquise et de motifs géométriques en quête d’infini.
A cela s’ajoute que d’autres religions ont connu de fortes poussées d’iconoclasme. Par exemple, et c’est une des raisons pour laquelle on sait si peu de la peinture grecque ancienne, entre 726 et 843, l’Empire byzantin a ordonné la destruction systématique des images représentant le Christ ou les saints, qu’il s’agisse de mosaïques ornant les murs des églises, d’images peintes ou d’enluminures de livres.
Dès lors, Belting, pour qui l’islam est par essence une civilisation aniconique, a bien du mal à démontrer ce qu’il annonce dans le titre : l’influence des recherches arabes (notamment Ibn al-Haytam sur la vision humaine) sur la Renaissance à Florence (en particulier sa théorisation de « la » perspective géométrique).
Dans les faits, se présentant comme un érudit, Belting conforte la thèse belliqueuse d’un supposé « choc » des civilisations, tout en prétendant le contraire.
Fresques du château du désert de Qusair Amra (VIIIe siècle, Jordanie actuelle).
Les premières manifestations de l’art pictural dans le monde arabo-musulman remontent à l’époque omeyyade (660-750). C’est de cette époque que datent les célèbres « châteaux du désert », comme celui de Qusair Amra, dans le désert de l’Est jordanien.
Couverts de peintures murales, ces palais reflètent un apport des modes de représentation byzantins, mais également perses sassanides. Ainsi, dans le palais de Qusair Amra, utilisé comme lieu de villégiature par le calife ou ses princes pour le sport et le plaisir, les fresques décrivent des constellations du zodiaque, des scènes de chasse, des fruits et des femmes au bain.
Dans le domaine des lettres, Al-Rachîd constitue une vaste bibliothèque comprenant une collection de livres rares ainsi que des milliers de livres que les rois et les princes de l’ancien monde lui ont offerts. Ces livres sont traduits et illustrés.
Illustration d’une traduction arabe des fables indiennes Kalila et Dimna.
Par exemple, Kalila et Dimna, également connu sous le nom de Fables indiennes de Bidpaï, une des œuvres les plus populaires de la littérature mondiale. Compilées en sanskrit il y a près de deux mille ans, ces fables animalières, dont Esope et La Fontaine puiseront, ont été traduites de la Chine à l’Ethiopie.
Traduites en arabe vers 750 par Ibn al-Muqaffa, elles seront richement illustrées dans le monde arabe, persan et turc. La plus ancienne copie arabe illustrée a sans doute été produite en Syrie dans les années 1200. Le paysage est symbolisé par quelques éléments : une bande d’herbe, des arbustes aux feuilles et aux fleurs stylisés. Hommes et bêtes sont représentés avec des couleurs vives et des traits simplifiés.
Véritable manuel d’éducation pour les rois, une des fables évoque l’idée
de créer une université affectée à l’étude des langues, anciennes et modernes, et à la préservation, sous des formes renouvelées, du patrimoine du genre humain…
Et à la fin de son récit, le sage Bidpaï met en garde le jeune roi Dabschelim :
Je dois insister sur ce dernier point : mes histoires ne demandent, à ce stade, aucun commentaire, aucune élucubration, aucune analyse de votre part, de la mienne ou de quiconque. De toutes les habitudes, la pire serait d’en gaspiller la substance active en recettes de comportement. Il faut résister obstinément à la tentation de les assortir de gentilles petites rationalisations, de formules percutantes, de résumés analytiques, de marques symboliques ou toute autre commodité de classement. L’encapsulage mental pervertit le remède et le rend inopérant. Il revient en fait à court-circuiter le véritable but du conte, car expliquer, c’est oublier. C’est aussi une forme d’hypocrisie – quelque chose de toxique, un antidote à la vérité. Ainsi, laissez les histoires dont vous vous souviendrez agir d’elles-mêmes par leur diversité même. Familiarisez-vous avec elles, mais n’en faites pas un jouet…
A noter également, Les séances du poète et homme de lettres Al-Hariri (1054-1122 (*7), rédigé à la fin du Xe siècle et qui connaît une formidable diffusion à travers tout le monde arabe. Le texte, qui raconte les aventures du brigand Abu Zayd, se prête tout particulièrement à l’illustration.
Al-Ma’mûn et les Maisons de la Sagesse (Bayt al-Hikma)
Les Maisons de la Sagesse, lieu et mouvement d’éducation populaire.
Après une violente dispute avec son frère qui cherchait à l’écarter du pouvoir, Al-Ma’mûn, le fils cadet d’al-Rachîd, devient en 813 le huitième calife abbasside. Il s’intéresse particulièrement aux travaux des savants, surtout ceux qui connaissent le grec. Il réunit à Bagdad des penseurs de toutes croyances, qu’il traite somptueusement et avec la plus grande tolérance. Tous écrivent en arabe, langue qui leur permet de se comprendre mutuellement. Il fit venir de Byzance des manuscrits pour enrichir la vaste bibliothèque de son père.
Ouverte aux savants, traducteurs, poètes, historiens, médecins, astronomes, scientifiques et philosophes, ce qui deviendra la première bibliothèque publique sera la base des Bayt Al-Hikma (les « Maisons de la Sagesse ») associant des activités de traduction, d’enseignement, de recherche et même de santé publique, et ceci bien avant les universités occidentales. C’est là que furent regroupés pour l’étude tous les manuscrits scientifiques connus de l’époque, en particulier les écrits grecs.
A Bagdad, ce bouillonnement culturel ne restera pas confiné à la Cour mais descendra dans la rue comme en témoigne cette description de Bagdad d’Ibn Aqul (mort en 1119) :
Il y a d’abord le grand espace nommé place du Pont. Puis le marché des Oiseaux, un marché où l’on peut trouver toutes les sortes de fleurs et sur les côtés duquel se trouvent les boutiques élégantes des changeurs. (…) Puis celui des traiteurs, celui des boulangers, celui des bouchers, celui des orfèvres, sans égal pour la beauté de son architecture : de hauts bâtiments avec des poutres de teck, supportant des pièces en encorbellement. Puis il y a le marché des libraires, immense, qui est aussi le lieu de rassemblement des savants et des poètes, puis le marché de Rusafa. Sur les marchés de Karkh et de la porte de l’Arche, les parfumeurs ne se mélangent pas avec les marchands de graisse et de produits aux odeurs désagréables ; de même les marchands d’objets neufs ne se mélangent pas avec les brocanteurs.
La Perse, les nestoriens et la médecine
Vestiges de Gondichapour, Iran.
Comme modèle de ces Maisons de la Sagesse, on évoque souvent l’influence et les précédents perses. Il est vrai que les Barmécides, famille d’origine perse (*8), avaient une grande influence auprès des premiers califes abbassides. D’ailleurs, le précepteur d’Al-Ma’mûn était Jafar ben Yahya Barmaki (767-803), un membre de cette famille et le fils du vizir persan de son père al-Rachîd. L’élite perse qui conseillait les califes abbassides portait un vif intérêt aux œuvres des Grecs, dont la traduction avait commencé lors du règne du roi sassanide Khosrô Ier Anushirvan (531-579). Ce dernier fonda l’Académie de médecine de Gondichapour (aujourd’hui en Iran). De nombreux scribes et savants nestoriens (chrétiens) (*9) s’y étaient réfugiés après le Concile d’Éphèse de 431. La langue liturgique des nestoriens était le syriaque, un dialecte sémitique (*10).
Comme les juifs, ces chrétiens nestoriens possédaient une culture cosmopolite et une connaissance des langues (le syriaque et le persan) qui leur permit d’agir en tant qu’intermédiaires entre l’Iran et ses voisins. Et grâce à leur accès à la sagesse de la Grèce ancienne, ils furent souvent employés comme médecins. (*11)
L’Académie de médecine de Gondichapour (*12) avait connu son apogée au Ve siècle grâce aux savants syriaques chassés de la ville d’Edesse. Dans cette école, on enseignait la médecine à partir des traductions du savant et médecin grec vivant à Alexandrie, Claude Galien. Ces enseignements étaient mis en pratique dans un grand hôpital, tradition reprise dans le monde musulman.
Cette école était un lieu de rencontre entre savants grecs, syriaques, perses et indiens, dont l’influence scientifique était réciproque. Héritière du savoir médical grec d’Alexandrie, l’école de Gondichapour forma plusieurs générations de médecins à la cour des Sassanides et plus tard à celle des Abbassides musulmans.
Dès 765, le calife abbasside Al-Mansur, qui règne de 754 à 775, consulte le chef de l’hôpital de Gondichapour, Georgios ben Bakhtichou, en l’invitant à Bagdad. Ses descendants travailleront et y enseigneront la médecine. Bien après l’implantation de l’islam, les élites arabes continueront à envoyer leurs fils à cette école nestorienne chrétienne.
En arabe, la médecine s’appelle al-tibb et un médecin tabib. Le mot « toubib » s’est introduit très tôt en français grâce aux voyageurs.
La première décision du Patriarche nestorien Timothée Ier fut le transfert du siège catholicosal de Séleucie-Ctésiphon à Bagdad, où il devait rester jusqu’à la fin du XIIIe siècle, nouant ainsi des liens privilégiés entre les catholicos nestoriens et les califes abbassides.
Céramique chinoise d’un marchand sogdien sur les Routes de la soie.
Timothée Ier (727-823) fut le patriarche chrétien de l’Église d’Orient (« nestorienne ») entre 780 et 823. Sa première décision fut d’installer le siège de son église à Bagdad, où elle devait rester jusqu’à la fin du XIIIe siècle, nouant ainsi des liens privilégiés entre les nestoriens et les califes abbassides.
Ayant une bonne maîtrise du syriaque, de l’arabe, du grec et éventuellement du pehlevi, Timothée jouit de la considération des califes abbassides Al-Mahdi, Al-Rachîd et Al-Ma’mûn.
Durant ses quarante-trois ans de pontificat, l’Église d’Orient vécut en paix. Par ailleurs, les nestoriens ont joué un rôle majeur dans la diffusion du christianisme en Asie centrale jusqu’en Chine par la Route de la soie.
En Asie centrale, avant l’arrivée de l’islam, c’était le sogdien, (langue iranienne de la Sogdiane et sa capitale Samarcande) qui servait de lingua franca sur la Route de la soie. (*13)
A Bagdad et Bassorah, dans les Maisons de la Sagesse, furent traduits et mis à la disposition des savants, les histoires et les textes recueillis après l’effondrement de l’empire d’Alexandre le Grand, textes collationnés et traduits du syriaque en persan sous l’égide des empereurs sassanides.
L’historien et économiste arabe Ibn Khaldoun (1332-1406), issue d’une grande famille andalouse d’origine yéménite, rendra hommage à cet effort de préservation et de diffusion du patrimoine grec :
Que sont devenues les sciences des Perses dont les écrits, à l’époque de la conquête, furent anéantis par ordre d’Omar ? Où sont les sciences des Chaldéens, des Assyriens, des habitants de Babylone ?… Où sont les sciences qui, plus anciennement, ont régné chez les Coptes ? Il est une seule nation, celle des Grecs, dont nous possédons exclusivement les productions scientifiques, et cela grâce aux soins que prit Al-Ma’mûn de faire traduire ces ouvrages.
Planche du Livre des mécanismes ingénieux, inventaire de nouvelles technologies, écrit par les frères Banou Moussa pour les Maisons de la Sagesse à Bagdad.
Ces premières traductions rendent alors accessibles au monde arabo-musulman des centaines de textes de philosophie, de médecine, de logique, de mathématiques, d’astronomie, de musique grecs, pehlevis, syriaques, hébreux, sanskrits, etc., dont ceux d’Aristote, de Platon, de Pythagore, de Sushruta, d’Hippocrate, d’Euclide, de Charaka, de Ptolémée, de Claude Galien, de Plotin, d’Aryabhata et de Brahmagupta.
Elles s’accompagnaient de réflexions, de commentaires, et ont donné lieu à une nouvelle forme de littérature. Selon le patriarche nestorien Timothée Ier, c’est à la demande du calife al-Mahdi, qu’il traduisit Les Topiques d’Aristote du syriaque en arabe. Il écrivit aussi un traité d’astronomie intitulé le Livre des étoiles, aujourd’hui perdu.
Féru d’astrologie et d’astronomie, Al-Ma’mûn posa un jour comme condition de paix avec l’Empire byzantin la remise d’une copie de l’Almageste, l’œuvre principale de Ptolémée supposée résumer tout le savoir grec en astronomie.
En 829, dans le quartier le plus élevé de Bagdad, il fait construire le premier observatoire permanent au monde, l’Observatoire de Bagdad, permettant à ses astronomes, qui avaient traduit le Traité d’astronomie du grec Hipparque de Nicée (190-120 av. JC.), ainsi que son registre d’étoiles, de surveiller méthodiquement le mouvement des planètes.
Voici ce que nous dit Sâ’id al-Andalusî (1029-1070) au sujet de l’intérêt pour l’astronomie d’al-Ma’mûn et de ses efforts pour la faire progresser :
Dès que Al-Ma’mûn devint calife, sa noble âme fit tout pour accéder à la sagesse et pour ce faire il s’occupa en particulier de philosophie ; par ailleurs, les savants de son temps étudièrent en profondeur un livre de Ptolémée et comprirent les schémas d’un télescope qui y était dessiné. C’est ainsi qu’Al-Ma’mûn rassembla tous les grands savants présents à travers les régions du califat, et il leur demanda de construire le même genre d’instrument afin qu’ils observent les planètes à la manière dont Ptolémée l’avait fait et ceux qui l’avait précédé. L’objet vit donc le jour, et les savants l’amenèrent dans la ville d’al-Chamâsiyya qui se trouvait dans la région de Damas dans le Châm, et ce, en 214 de l’Hégire (829) ; à travers leurs observations ils déterminèrent la durée précise d’une année solaire ainsi que l’inclinaison du soleil, la sortie de son centre et la situation de ses diverses faces, ce qui leur permit de connaître l’état et les positions des autres planètes. Puis la mort du calife al-Ma’mûn en 218 de l’Hégire (833) mit fin à ce projet, mais ils achevèrent néanmoins la lunette astronomique et la nommèrent ’le télescope ma’mûnique’
Voici quelques astronomes, mathématiciens, penseurs, lettrés, savants et traducteurs ayant fréquenté les Maisons de la Sagesse :
Al-Jahiz (776-867). La démarche encyclopédique de ce mutazilite est conçue comme « un collier réunissant des perles » ou encore comme un jardin qui, avec ses plantes, son organisation harmonieuse et ses fontaines, représente en miniature l’univers entier. Il anticipe le principe d’une évolution des espèces ;
Al-Khwârizmî (780-850), (en latin Algoritmi). Ce mathématicien et astronome perse, zoroastrien converti à l’islam selon certains, aurait été un adepte du mutazilisme. Il est surtout connu pour avoir inventé la méthode de résolution des problèmes mathématiques, appelée algorithme, laquelle est toujours utilisée de nos jours. Il a étudié pendant un certain temps à Bagdad mais il est également rapporté qu’il fit un voyage en Inde. Al Khawârizmî inventa le mot algèbre (signifiant, en arabe « réduction d’une fracture », « réunion (des morceaux) », « reconstruction », « connexion », ou encore « restauration »), présenta le système numérique indien au monde musulman, institutionnalisa le système décimal en mathématiques et formalisa la vérification des hypothèses scientifiques à partir d’observations ;
Sahl Rabban al-Tabari (786-845), astronome et médecin juif dont le nom veut dire « Le fils du rabbin du Tabaristan ». Son fils Ali sera le précepteur d’Al-Razi (865-925) (francisé en Rhazès). Alchimiste devenu médecin, il aurait isolé l’acide sulfurique et l’éthanol dont il fut parmi les premiers à prôner l’utilisation médicale. Il a largement influencé la conception de l’organisation hospitalière en lien avec la formation des futurs médecins. Il fut l’objet de nombreuses critiques pour son opposition à l’aristotélisme ;
Al-Hajjaj (786-823) rédigea la première traduction arabe des Éléments d’Euclide depuis le grec. Il traduisit également l’Almageste de Ptolémée ;
Al-Kindi (801-873) (Alkindus), considéré le père de la philosophie arabe était un mutaziliste. Auteur prolifique (environ 260 livres), il explore tous les domaines : géométrie, philosophie, médecine, astronomie, physique, arithmétique, logique, musique et psychologie. Avec ses collègues, Al-Kindi est chargé de la traduction des manuscrits de savants grecs. Après la mort d’Al-Ma’mun en 833, il est considéré comme trop mutaziliste, tombe en disgrâce et sa bibliothèque est confisquée ;
Les frères Banou Moussa (« enfants de Moïse »), trois jeunes fils d’un astrologue décédé, ami du calife. Mohammed travaillera sur l’astronomie ; Ahmed et Hassan sur les canaux reliant l’Euphrate au Tigre, gage de la maîtrise et de l’optimisation de leurs crues respectives. Ils publieront le Livre des mécanismes ingénieux, un inventaire des nouvelles techniques et machines (*14) ;
Hunayn ibn Ishâk (808-873) (dit Iohannitius). Ce chrétien nestorien fut chargé par Al-Ma’mun de veiller à la qualité des traductions ; lui-même médecin, il traduisit certaines œuvres du médecin grec Claude Galien ;
Qusta ibn Luqa (820-912), un médecin byzantin grec, également philosophe, mathématicien, astronome, naturaliste et traducteur. Chrétien de l’Église melkite, il parlait aussi bien le grec (sa langue maternelle) que l’arabe, et aussi le syriaque. Considéré avec Hunayn ibn Ishâq, comme l’un des personnages-clefs de la transmission du savoir grec de l’Antiquité au monde arabo-musulman. Traducteur d’Aristarque de Samos pour qui la Terre tournait autour du Soleil et auteur d’un traité sur l’astrolabe ;
Ibn Sahl (940-1000), dans les pas d’Al-Kindi, écrit vers 984 un traité sur les miroirs ardents et les lentilles, en exposant comment ils peuvent focaliser la lumière en un point. Ses travaux furent perfectionnés par Ibn Al-Haytam (965-1040) (nom latin : Alhazen), dont les écrits arrivèrent jusqu’à Léonard de Vinci, en passant par les Commentaires de Lorenzo Ghiberti. Chez Ibn-Sahl, on trouve la première mention de la loi de la réfraction redécouverte plus tard en Europe sous le nom de loi de Snell-Descartes.
Ces savants travailleront souvent en équipe dans un esprit totalement interdisciplinaire. Al-Ma’mûn, constatant les contradictions apparues suite aux traductions des sources grecques, perses et indiennes, fixera avec les savants les grands défis scientifiques à relever :
obtenir, grâce à des observatoires astronomiques plus performants, des tables d’éphémérides astronomiques (*15) plus précises que celles de Ptolémée ;
calculer avec précision la circonférence de la Terre avec des méthodes plus avancées que celle de l’astronome grec Ératosthène ;
produire une mappemonde intégrant les dernières connaissances géographiques concernant les distances entre les villes et la taille des continents ;
déchiffrer les hiéroglyphes égyptiens qu’Al-Ma’mûn avait entrevus lors de son voyage dans ce pays.
Traduction de Platon
A gauche, Socrate, le maître de Platon, perdu dans ses pensées, et deux disciples enturbannés à la mode arabe qui l’interrogent. (Bibliothèque Topkapi, Istanbul.)
En affirmant que c’est la redécouverte d’Aristote et sa méthode purement empiriste qui a fait avancer la science à cette époque, on oublie l’apport majeur que fut la redécouverte de Platon, dont la méthode dialectique et d’hypothétisation est bien plus essentielle.
L’implication intense d’Al-Kindi dans la tradition platonicienne se traduit par la rédaction de résumés de l’Apologie et du Criton, et par ses propres œuvres qui paraphrasent le Phédon ou s’inspirent du Ménon et du Banquet. Pour sa part, Ibn al-Bitriq, un Syrien membre du cercle d’Al-Kindi, a traduit le Timée.
Le médecin Hunayn ibn Ishaq et son cercle traduisirent surtout des commentaires du médecin grec Claude Galien sur le Timée, notamment Sur ce que Platon a dit dans le Timée de manière médicale ainsi que Sur les doctrines d’Hippocrate et de Platon. Et d’après les propres œuvres de Hunayn, nous savons que certains de ses élèves ont traduit les résumés perdus de Galien sur le Cratyle, le Sophiste, le Parménide, l’Euthydème, La République et Les Lois. Enfin, le médecin al-Razi a présenté et commenté le traité de Plutarque Sur la génération de l’âme dans le Timée.
Dialogue interreligieux : possible pour les uns, compliqué pour les autres
En Occident, le nom d’Al-Kindi est surtout connu en association avec L’Apologie d’Al-Kindi, un texte anonyme de l’époque. Il s’agit sans doute d’un dialogue fictif entre deux fidèles, l’un musulman (Abdallah Al-Hashimi), l’autre chrétien (Al-Kindi), chacun faisant l’apologie de sa religion et invitant l’autre à le rejoindre ! Ce dialogue aurait eu lieu à l’époque du calife Al-Ma’mûn. Ce que l’on sait de l’ouverture d’esprit du Calife ne vient pas contredire cette assertion. Le plus ancien commentaire sur cette Apologie appartient à Al-Biruni (973-1048).
Le manuscrit de L’Apologie d’Al-Kindi fut traduite en latin en 1142 à la demande de Pierre le Vénérable (1092-1156), abbé de l’abbaye de Cluny, la plus puissante et la plus importante de l’Europe latine. La même année, après avoir visité Tolède, il conçoit l’idée d’une réfutation systématique de la religion musulmane qu’il considère comme hérétique et errante.
Voici comment il explique la traduction qu’il vient d’ordonner du Coran (la Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete) par une équipe de traducteurs (dont un Arabe) constituée à l’occasion :
Qu’on donne à l’erreur mahométane le nom honteux d’hérésie ou celui, infâme, de paganisme, il faut agir contre elle, c’est-à-dire écrire. Mais les latins et surtout les modernes, l’antique culture périssant, suivant le mot des Juifs qui admiraient jadis les apôtres polyglottes, ne savent pas d’autre langue que celle de leur pays natal. Aussi n’ont-ils pu ni reconnaître l’énormité de cette erreur ni lui barrer la route. Aussi mon cœur s’est enflammé et un feu m’a brûlé dans ma méditation. Je me suis indigné de voir les Latins ignorer la cause d’une telle perdition et leur ignorance leur ôter le pouvoir d’y résister ; car personne ne répondait, car personne ne savait. Je suis donc allé trouver des spécialistes de la langue arabe qui a permis à ce poison mortel d’infester plus de la moitié du globe. Je les ai persuadés à force de prières et d’argent de traduire d’arabe en latin l’histoire et la doctrine de ce malheureux et sa loi même qu’on appelle Coran.
Accusée donc « la langue arabe qui a permis à ce poison mortel (l’islam) d’infester plus de la moitié du globe »…
Cette déclaration de guerre était sans doute essentielle pour motiver les troupes. Rappelons que Eudes de Châtillon, le grand prieur de l’abbaye de Cluny, qui deviendra le pape Urbain II en 1088, sera, en 1095, à l’origine de la première croisade, conduisant les bandits qui ravageaient la France à aller guerroyer ailleurs.
Le déclin et Al-Ghazali
Enluminure du Kitab Mukhtar al-Hikam wa-Mahasin al-Kilam d’Al-Mubashir – XIIIe s. Ms Ahmed III N° 3206, Bibliothèque Topkapi, Istanbul. Le philosophe semble plus regarder son doigt que l’astrolabe dont il est supposé expliquer l’emploi aux élèves, situation qui inquiète ces derniers.
Revenons aux Abbassides. Comme nous l’avons dit, avec l’arrivée au pouvoir d’Al-Mutawakkil en 847, le mutazilisme est écarté du pouvoir et les Maisons de la Sagesse réduites en simples bibliothèques. Ce que n’empêcha pas un voyageur, décrivant sa visite à Bagdad en 891, de rapporter que la ville renfermait plus de cent bibliothèques publiques. Suivant le modèle Bayt Al-Hikma, des petites bibliothèques furent fondées à chaque coin de rue de la cité…
Empêtrée dans des débats théologiques sans fin entre experts et gagné par le sectarisme, l’élite mutaziliste se coupe d’un peuple qui perd confiance et finira par accueillir avec un sentiment de soulagement la doctrine obscurantiste acharite d’Al-Ghazâlî (1058-1111) (nom latin : Algazel), le pire ennemi des mutazilites.
Al-Ghazâlî propose une solution radicale : la philosophie n’est dans le vrai que lorsqu’elle s’accorde avec la religion – ce qui, d’après lui, est rare. Cela le conduit donc à radicaliser sa position, et à attaquer de plus en plus la philosophie gréco-arabe, coupable, à ses yeux, de blasphème.
Là où quelqu’un comme le perse Ibn Sina (980-1037) (nom latin : Avicenne), auteur des Canons ou Préceptes de médecine (vers 1020), croisait philosophie grecque et religion musulmane, Al-Ghazâlî veut désormais filtrer la première par la seconde.
D’où son ouvrage le plus célèbre et le plus important, L’incohérence des philosophes, rédigé en 1095. Il y dénonce « l’orgueil » des philosophes qui prétendent « réécrire le Coran » à travers Platon et Aristote. Leur erreur est avant tout une erreur logique, comme l’indique le titre même de l’ouvrage qui souligne leur « incohérence » : ils veulent compléter le Coran par la philosophie grecque alors que, venant après elle dans l’histoire, le Coran n’a nul besoin d’être complété. Il promeut ainsi une approche beaucoup plus littérale du texte coranique, alors que Ibn Sina en défendait, prudemment il est vrai, une approche métaphorique. En vérité, c’est l’aristotélisme et le nominalisme qui triomphent. La doctrine s’opposant au mutazilisme sera l’Acharisme.
Pour les Ascharites, parler de la justice et de la rationalité de Dieu est un double blasphème, parce que cela revient à limiter sa toute-puissance. Si Dieu était, comme le disent les mutazilites, contraint de vouloir ce qui est bon, alors il serait … contraint, ce que les Ascharites trouvent théologiquement inacceptable. Par conséquent, les croyants ne doivent pas admettre l’idée que Dieu veut le bien, mais se soumettre au principe que tout ce qu’Il veut est bien parce qu’Il le veut.
De même, il est blasphématoire de chercher dans la nature des « causes secondes », c’est-à- dire des lois scientifiques. Le monde existe parce que Dieu, à chaque instant, veut qu’il existe. Toute recherche scientifique, toute tentative d’appliquer la raison et l’analyse, est une offense à la toute-puissance divine.
Pour Sébastien Castellion, le rejet de la raison par l’école ascharite – et à sa suite par une grande partie de la civilisation musulmane – ne fut pas un processus implicite et souterrain, mais une décision explicite fondée sur des principes théologiques. Le grand juriste Ibn Hanbal, dont l’école est prédominante aujourd’hui en Arabie Saoudite, disait ainsi que « tous ceux qui se livrent à des raisonnements par analogie et à des opinions personnelles sont des hérétiques (…). Acceptez seulement, sans demander pourquoi et sans faire de comparaisons ».
La chute de Bagdad
A partir du XIe siècle, les Abbassides, dont l’Empire se morcelle, feront appel aux princes turcs seldjoukides pour les protéger contre les Chiites, soutenus par le califat fatimide du Caire.
Progressivement, les troupes turques et mongoles, venues d’Asie centrale, finissent par régenter la sécurité du calife abbasside, tout en le laissant exercer son pouvoir religieux.
Puis, en 1258, ils destitueront le dernier calife et confisqueront son titre de successeur du Prophète, ce qui leur donnera le pouvoir religieux sur les quatre écoles du sunnisme. Pour soumettre les populations arabes et perses, les Turcs seldjoukides créeront la madrasa (école coranique) où l’on enseigne la doctrine conservatrice du sunnisme acharite, à l’exclusion de la théologie dialectique mutazilite, considérée comme une menace idéologique pour l’autorité turque sur les Arabes.
L’empire abbasside déclinera sous l’effet de l’incurie administrative, de l’abandon de la maintenance des canaux, des disettes provoquées par les inondations, des injustices sociales, des révoltes d’esclaves et des tensions religieuses entre chiites et sunnites. A la fin du IXe siècle, les Zendj, esclaves noirs (de Zanzibar) qui travaillent dans les marais du bas-Irak, se révoltent à plusieurs reprises, jusqu’à occuper Bassorah et menacer Bagdad. Le calife rétablira l’ordre au prix d’une répression d’une violence inouïe. Les révoltés ne seront écrasés qu’en 883 au prix de très nombreuses victimes, mais l’empire ne s’en remettra pas.
En 1019, le calife interdit toute nouvelle interprétation du Coran, s’opposant radicalement à l’école mutazilite. C’est un coup d’arrêt brutal au développement de l’esprit critique et aux innovations intellectuelles et scientifiques dans l’empire arabe dont les conséquences se font sentir jusqu’à nos jours.
ASTRONOMIE
Depuis la nuit des temps (c’est le cas de le dire), l’homme a essayé de comprendre l’organisation des astres dans l’environnement proche de la Terre.
Des installations comme Stonehenge (2800 av. JC) en Angleterre permettaient aux premiers observateurs d’identifier les cycles qui déterminent l’endroit et le jour exact où se lèvent certains astres. Toutes ces observations posaient des paradoxes : autour de nous, la terre apparaît relativement plate, mais la Lune ou le Soleil que nous percevons avec les mêmes yeux nous semblent sphériques. Le Soleil « se lève » et « se couche », nous disent nos sens, mais où est la réalité ?
Il semblerait que Thalès de Milet (625-547 av. JC) ait été le premier à s’être réellement posé la question de la forme de la Terre. Il pense alors qu’elle a la forme d’un disque plat sur une vaste étendue d’eau. Ce sont ensuite Pythagore et Platon qui imaginent une forme sphérique jugée plus belle et plus rationnelle. Enfin Aristote rapporte quelques preuves observationnelles comme la forme arrondie de l’ombre de la Terre sur la Lune lors des éclipses.
Le scientifique grec Ératosthène, libraire-en-chef de la bibliothèque d’Alexandrie, calcule ensuite la circonférence terrestre. Il avait remarqué qu’à midi, le jour du solstice d’été, il n’y avait aucune ombre du côté d’Assouan. En mesurant l’ombre d’un bâton planté à Alexandrie au même moment et en connaissant la distance qui sépare les deux cités, il déduit la circonférence de la Terre avec une précision assez étonnante : 39 375 kilomètres contre quelque 40 000 kilomètres pour les estimations actuelles.
Entre l’Almageste de Ptolémée et le De Revolutionibus de Copernic, nous l’avons dit, l’astronomie arabe constitue « le chaînon manquant ».
Le titre original de l’œuvre de Ptolémée est « La composition mathématique ». Les Arabes, très impressionnés par cet ouvrage, le qualifièrent de « megiste », du grec signifiant « très grand », auquel ils ajoutèrent l’article arabe « al », pour donner « al megiste » qui devint Almageste.
Il est important de savoir que Ptolémée n’a jamais eu l’occasion de relire son traité comme un tout. Après avoir écrit le premier des treize livres de son œuvre, celui sur « Les postulats fondamentaux de l’astronomie », Ptolémée le passe aux copistes qui le reproduisent et le diffusent largement sans attendre l’achèvement des autres douze livres…
Après l’Almageste, Ptolémée, confronté à des observations remettant en cause ses propres observations et afin de rectifier ses erreurs, écrira une autre œuvre intitulée les « Hypothèses planétaires ». Astrolabe d’al-Shali (Tolède-1067) – Musée archéologique national de Madrid.
L’auteur y revient sur les modèles présentés dans son précédent ouvrage tout en apportant des modifications concernant les mouvements moyens (des planètes) pour tenir compte de nouvelles observations.
Pour autant, ses Hypothèses planétaires allaient au-delà du modèle mathématique de l’Almageste pour présenter une réalisation physique de l’univers comme un ensemble de sphères imbriquées, dans lesquelles il utilisait les épicycles de son modèle planétaire pour calculer les dimensions de l’univers.
Enfin, l’Almageste contient également une description de 1022 étoiles regroupées en 48 constellations. Ptolémée y présente la projection stéréographique inventée par Hipparque, la base théorique dont se serviront ensuite les astronomes arabes pour construire l’astrolabe.
Aristarque de Samos utilisa la trigonométrie pour tenter de mesurer les distances entre la Terre, la Lune et le Soleil. Ce grand mathématicien fut le premier à affirmer que le Soleil était le centre de l’Univers. Archimède disait de lui : « Aristarque avance l’hypothèse que le Soleil et les étoiles fixes sont stationnaires, que la Terre est entraînée sur une orbite circulaire autour du Soleil… et que la sphère des étoiles fixes, avec son centre au Soleil, a une extension si grande que l’orbite terrestre se trouve à la distance des étoiles comme le centre de la sphère à sa surface ».
Au IXe siècle, lorsque les Arabes s’ intéressent à l’astronomie, la connaissance repose sur les principes suivants résumés dans l’œuvre de Ptolémée :
Ignorant les affirmations d’Aristarque de Samos (310-230 av. JC) pour qui la Terre tournait autour du Soleil, Ptolémée reprend au IIe siècle de notre ère la thèse d’Eudoxe de Cnide (env. 400-355 av. JC) et surtout d’Hipparque (180 à 125 av. JC) affirmant que la Terre est une sphère immobile placée au centre de l’univers (géocentrisme) ;
Ptolémée s’accorde avec Platon, qui s’inspirait de Pythagore, pour affirmer que le cercle étant la seule forme parfaite, les autres corps tournant autour de la Terre le font selon des trajectoires circulaires et uniformes (sans accélération ni ralentissement) ;
Tous savent pourtant que certaines planètes ne suivent pas ces règles parfaites. Au VIe siècle, le philosophe néo-platonicien Simplicius, écrit dans son Commentaire à la Physique d’Aristote : « Platon pose alors ce problème aux mathématiciens : quels sont les mouvements circulaires uniformes et parfaitement réguliers qu’il convient de prendre pour hypothèses, afin que l’on puisse sauver les apparences que les astres errants présentent ? » ;
Afin de rendre compte de la rétrogradation apparente de Mars, Hipparque introduira d’autres figures parfaites secondaires, encore des cercles. L’articulation et l’interaction de ces « épicycles » donnaient l’apparence de coller avec les faits observés. Ptolémée reprend cette démarche ;
Cependant, plus la précision des mesures astronomiques s’améliore, plus on découvre des anomalies et plus il faut multiplier ces épicycles imbriqués, ce qui devient vite très compliqué et inextricable ;
L’Univers se divise en une région sublunaire où tout est créé et donc périssable, et le reste de l’univers, supra-lunaire, qui est impérissable et éternel.
Hipparque de Nicée
L’Almageste de Ptolémée (reprenant les épicycles d’Hipparque), traduit en arabe.
Les astronomes arabes, pour les raisons aussi bien religieuses qu’intellectuelles que nous avons évoquées en début d’article, vont initialement découvrir et ensuite, sur la base d’observations de plus en plus poussées, contester les hypothèses d’Hipparque à la base du modèle ptoléméen.
Hipparque, dont Ptolémée est l’exécuteur testamentaire, imagine un système de coordonnées des astres basé sur les longitudes et les latitudes. On lui doit également l’usage des parallèles et des méridiens pour le repérage sur la Terre ainsi que la division de la circonférence en 360° héritée du calcul sexagésimal (qui a pour base le nombre 60) des Babyloniens.
En astronomie, ses travaux sur la rotation de la Terre et des planètes sont nombreux. Hipparque explique le mécanisme des saisons en constatant l’obliquité de l’écliptique : inclinaison de l’axe de rotation de la Terre. En comparant ses observations avec d’autres plus anciennes, il découvre la précession des équinoxes due à cette inclinaison : l’axe de rotation de la Terre effectue un mouvement conique de l’Orient vers l’Occident et de révolution complète tous les 26 000 ans. Ainsi dans quelques millénaires, le pôle Nord ne pointera plus vers l’étoile polaire mais vers une autre étoile, Véga.
D’Hipparque, les Arabes reprennent, en l’améliorant, un instrument de mesure de positions important : l’astrolabe. Ce « joyau mathématique » permet de mesurer la position des étoiles, des planètes, de connaître l’heure sur Terre. Plus tard, l’astrolabe sera remplacé par des instruments plus précis et plus simples d’emploi, comme le quadrant, le sextant ou l’octant.
Avec les manuscrits dont ils disposaient dans les Maisons de la Sagesse et les observatoires de Bagdad et de Damas, les astronomes arabes eurent des textes d’une incroyable richesse mais souvent en contradiction flagrante avec leurs propres observations des mouvements de la Lune et du Soleil. C’est de cette confrontation que naîtront les découvertes ultérieures. Les Arabes introduiront abondamment les mathématiques pour résoudre les problèmes, en particulier la trigonométrie et l’algèbre.
Les astronomes arabes
Afin de présenter les principaux astronomes arabes et leurs contributions, voici un extrait de l’article remarquable de J. P. Maratray L’astronomie arabe.
Al-Khwârizmî (783-850) dit Algoritmi Mathématicien, géographe et astronome d’origine perse, il est membre des « Maison de la Sagesse ». C’est l’un des fondateurs des mathématiques arabes, en s’inspirant des connaissances indiennes, en particulier du système décimal, des fractions, des racines carrées… On lui doit le terme « algorithme ». Les algorithmes sont connus depuis l’antiquité, et le nom d’Al-Khwârizmî (Algoritmi en latin) sera donné à ces suites d’opérations élémentaires répétées. Il est aussi l’auteur du terme « algèbre », qui est le titre de l’un de ses ouvrages traitant du sujet. Il est aussi le premier à utiliser la lettre x pour désigner une inconnue dans une équation. Il est surnommé « le père de l’algèbre ». Il écrit le premier livre d’algèbre (al-jabr) dans lequel il décrit une méthode systématique de résolution d’équations du second degré et propose un classement de ces équations. Il introduit l’usage des chiffres que nous utilisons encore aujourd’hui. Ces chiffres « arabes » sont en fait d’origine indienne, mais furent utilisés mathématiquement par Al-Khwârizmî. Il adopte l’utilisation du zéro, inventé par les Indiens au Ve siècle, et repris par les Arabes par son intermédiaire. Les Arabes traduiront le mot indien « sunya » par « as-sifr », qui devient « ziffer » et « zephiro ». Ziffer donnera « chiffre », et zephiro, « zéro ». Al-Khwârizmî établit des tables astronomiques (position des cinq planètes, du Soleil et de la Lune) basées sur l’astronomie hindoue et grecque. Il étudie la position et la visibilité de la Lune et ses éclipses, du Soleil et des planètes. C’est le premier ouvrage astronomique totalement arabe. Un cratère de la Lune porte son nom.
Al-Farghani (805-880) dit Alfraganus. Né à Ferghana dans l’actuel Ouzbékistan, il écrit en 833 les Eléments d’astronomie, basés sur les connaissances grecques de Ptolémée. Il est l’un des plus remarquables astronomes au service de Al-Ma’mûn, et membre de la Maison de la Sagesse. Il introduit des idées nouvelles, comme le fait que la précession des équinoxes doit affecter la position des planètes, et pas seulement celle des étoiles. Son ouvrage sera traduit en latin au XIIe siècle, et aura un grand retentissement dans les milieux très fermés des astronomes d’Europe occidentale. Il détermine le diamètre de la Terre qu’il estime à 10500 km. On lui doit également un ouvrage sur les cadrans solaires et un autre sur l’astrolabe.
Al-Battani (850-929) dit Albatenius. Il observe le ciel depuis la Syrie. On le surnomme parfois « le Ptolémée des Arabes ». Ses mesures sont remarquables de précision. Il détermine la durée de l’année solaire, la valeur de la précession des équinoxes, l’inclinaison de l’écliptique. Il constate que l’excentricité du Soleil est variable, sans aller jusqu’à interpréter ce phénomène comme une trajectoire elliptique. Il rédige un catalogue de 489 étoiles. On lui doit la première utilisation de la trigonométrie dans l’étude du ciel. C’est une méthode beaucoup plus puissante que celle, géométrique, de Ptolémée. Son œuvre principale est Le livre des tables. Il est composé de 57 chapitres. Traduit en latin au XIIe siècle par Platon de Tivoli (en 1116), il influencera beaucoup les astronomes européens de la Renaissance.
Al-Soufi (903-986) dit Azophi. Astronome perse, il traduit des ouvrages grecs dont l’Almageste et améliore les estimations des magnitudes d’étoiles. En 964, il publie Le livre des étoiles fixes, où il dessine des constellations. Il semble avoir été le premier à rapporter une observation du grand nuage de Magellan (une nébuleuse), visible au Yémen, mais pas à Ispahan. De même, on lui doit une première représentation de la galaxie d’Andromède, probablement déjà observée avant lui. Il la décrit comme « un petit nuage » dans la bouche de la constellation arabe du Grand Poisson. Son nom (Azophi) a été donné à un cratère de la Lune.
Al-Khujandi (vers 940- vers 1000). Il est astronome et mathématicien perse. Il construit un observatoire à Ray, près de Téhéran, comportant un énorme sextant, fabriqué en 994. C’est le premier instrument apte à mesurer des angles plus précis que la minute d’angle. Il mesure avec cet instrument l’obliquité de l’écliptique, en observant les passages au méridien du Soleil. Il trouve 23° 32’ 19’’. Ptolémée trouvait 23° 51’, et les indiens, bien plus tôt, 24°. Jamais l’idée de la variation naturelle de cet angle ne vint aux Arabes. Ils dissertèrent longtemps sur la précision des mesures, ce qui fit avancer leur science.
Ibn Al-Haytam (965-1039) dit Alhazen. Mathématicien et opticien né à Bassorah dans l’Irak actuel, il est sollicité par les autorités égyptiennes pour résoudre le problème des crues du Nil. Sa solution était la construction d’un barrage vers Assouan. Il renonça devant l’énormité de la tâche (le barrage fut construit en 1970 !). Devant cet échec, il feignit la folie jusqu’à la mort de son patron. Il fait un bilan critique des thèses de Ptolémée et de ses prédécesseurs, et écrit Doutes sur Ptolémée. Il dresse un catalogue des incohérences, sans toutefois proposer de solution alternative. Parmi les incohérences qu’il relève, on peut citer la variation du diamètre apparent de la Lune et du Soleil, la non uniformité des mouvements prétendument circulaires, la variation de la position des planètes en latitude, l’organisation des sphères grecques … et, observant que la Voie Lactée n’a pas de parallaxe, il place cette dernière très éloignée de la Terre, en tous cas plus loin que la sphère sublunaire d’Aristote. Malgré ses doutes, il conserve la place centrale de la Terre dans l’univers. Ibn Al-Haytam reprend les travaux des savants grecs, d’Euclide à Ptolémée, pour lesquels la notion de lumière est étroitement liée à la notion de vision : la principale question étant de savoir si l’œil a un rôle passif dans ce processus ou s’il envoie une sorte de fluide pour « interroger » l’objet. Par ses études du mécanisme de la vision, Ibn Al-Haytam montra que les deux yeux étaient un instrument d’optique, et qu’ils voyaient effectivement deux images séparées. Si l’œil envoyait ce fluide, on pourrait voir la nuit. Il comprit que la lumière du soleil se reflétait sur les objets et ensuite entrait dans l’œil. Mais pour lui, l’image se forme sur le cristallin… Il reprend les idées de Ptolémée sur la propagation rectiligne de la lumière, accepte les lois de réflexion sur un miroir, et pressent que la lumière a une vitesse finie, mais très grande. Il étudie la réfraction, déviation d’un rayon lumineux au passage d’un milieu à un autre, et prévoit une modification de la vitesse de la lumière à ce passage. Mais il ne put jamais calculer l’angle de réfraction. Il trouve que le phénomène du crépuscule est lié à la réfraction de la lumière solaire dans l’atmosphère, dont il tente de mesurer la hauteur, sans y parvenir. Déjà connue dans l’antiquité, on lui doit une description très précise et l’utilisation à des fins d’expériences, de la chambre noire (camera obscura), pièce noire qui projette une image sur un mur en passant par un petit trou percé sur le mur d’en face. Le résultat de toutes ces recherches optiques est consigné dans son Traité d’optique qu’il mit six ans à écrire et qui fut traduit en latin en 1270. (*16) En mécanique, il affirme qu’un objet en mouvement continue de bouger aussi longtemps qu’aucune force ne l’arrête. C’est le principe d’inertie avant la lettre. Un astéroïde porte son nom : 59239 Alhazen.
Al-Biruni (973-1048). Certainement l’un des plus grands savants de l’islam médiéval, originaire de Perse ; il s’intéresse à l’astronomie, à la géographie, à l’histoire, à la médecine et aux mathématiques, et à la philosophie en général. Il rédige plus de 100 ouvrages. Il sera aussi percepteur des impôts, et un grand voyageur, en particulier en Inde, où il étudie la langue, la religion et la science. A l’âge de 17 ans, il calcule la latitude de sa ville natale de Kath (en Perse, actuellement en Ouzbékistan). A 22 ans, il a déjà écrit plusieurs ouvrages courts, dont un sur la cartographie. En astronomie, il observe les éclipses de Lune et de Soleil. Il est l’un des premiers à évaluer les erreurs sur ses mesures et celles de ses prédécesseurs. Il constate une différence entre la vitesse moyenne et la vitesse apparente d’un astre. Il mesure le rayon de la Terre à 6339,6 km (le bon chiffre est 6378 km), résultat utilisé en Europe au XVIe siècle. Lors de ses voyages, il rencontre des astronomes indiens partisans de l’héliocentrisme et de la rotation de la Terre sur son axe. Il sera toujours sceptique, car cette théorie implique le mouvement de la Terre. Mais il se posera la question : « Voilà un problème difficile à résoudre et à réfuter ». Il estime que cette théorie n’entraîne aucun problème sur le plan mathématique. Il réfute l’astrologie, arguant que cette discipline est plus conjecturale qu’expérimentale. En mathématiques, il développe le calcul des proportions (règle de trois), démontre que le rapport de la circonférence d’un cercle à son diamètre est irrationnel (futur nombre Pi), calcule des tables trigonométriques, et met au point des méthodes de triangulations géodésiques.
Ali Ibn Ridwan (988-1061). Astronome et astrologue égyptien, il écrit plusieurs ouvrages astronomiques et astrologiques, dont un commentaire d’un autre livre de Claude Ptolémée, la Tetrabible. Il observe et commente une supernova (SN 1006), sans doute la plus brillante de l’histoire. On estime aujourd’hui sa magnitude, d’après les témoignages qui nous sont parvenus, à -7,5 ! Elle est restée visible plus d’un an. Il explique que cette nouvelle étoile avait deux à trois fois le diamètre apparent de Vénus, un quart de la luminosité de la Lune, et qu’elle se trouvait bas sur l’horizon sud. D’autres observations occidentales corroborent cette description, et la place dans la constellation du Loup.
Du XIe au XVIe siècle. Après une première phase, des observatoires plus importants sont construits. Le premier d’entre eux, modèle des suivants, est celui de Marâgha, dans l’Iran actuel. Leur but est d’établir des modèles planétaires, et de comprendre le mouvement des astres. (…) L’école ainsi constituée aura son apogée avec Ibn Al-Shâtir (1304-1375). D’autres observatoires suivront, comme celui de Samarcande au XVe siècle, Istanbul au début du XVIe siècle, et, en Occident, celui de Tycho Brahé à Uraniborg (Danemark d’alors) à la fin du XVIe. Les nouveaux modèles ne sont plus d’inspiration ptoléméenne, mais restent géocentriques. La physique de l’époque refuse toujours de mettre la Terre en mouvement et de l’enlever du centre du monde. Ces modèles s’inspirent des épicycles grecs, en conservant les cercles, mais en les simplifiant. Par exemple, Al-Tûsî propose un système comprenant un cercle roulant à l’intérieur d’un autre cercle de rayon double. Ce système transforme deux mouvements circulaires en un mouvement rectiligne alternatif, et explique les variations de la latitude des planètes. En outre, il rend compte des variations des diamètres apparents des astres. Mais pour aller plus loin, il faudra changer de système de référence, ce que les Arabes se sont refusés de faire. Ce changement interviendra avec la révolution copernicienne, à la Renaissance, dans laquelle la Terre perd son statut de centre du monde.
Al-Zarqali (1029-1087) dit Arzachel. Mathématicien, astronome et géographe né à Tolède en Espagne, il discute la possibilité du mouvement de la Terre. Comme d’autres, ses écrits seront connus des Européens du XVIe et XVIIe siècle. Il conçoit des astrolabes, et établit les Tables de Tolède, qui furent utilisées par les grands navigateurs occidentaux comme Christophe Colomb, et serviront de base aux Tables alphonsines. Il établit que l’excentricité du Soleil varie, plus exactement que le centre du cercle sur lequel tourne le Soleil s’éloigne ou se rapproche périodiquement de la Terre. Un cratère de la Lune porte son nom, ainsi qu’un pont de Tolède sur le Tage.
Omar Al-Khayyam (1048-1131). Connu pour sa poésie, il s’intéresse aussi à l’astronomie et aux mathématiques. Il devient directeur de l’observatoire d’Ispahan en 1074. Il crée de nouvelles tables astronomiques encore plus précises, et détermine la durée de l’année solaire avec une grande précision, au vu des instruments utilisés. Elle est plus exacte que l’année grégorienne, créée cinq siècles plus tard en Europe. Il réforme le calendrier persan en y introduisant une année bissextile (réforme Djelaléenne). En mathématiques, il s’intéresse aux équations du troisième degré en démontrant qu’elles peuvent avoir plusieurs solutions (il en trouve certaines géométriquement). Il écrit plusieurs textes sur l’extraction des racines cubiques, et un traité d’algèbre.
Al-Tûsî (1201-1274). Astronome et mathématicien, né à Tus dans l’Iran actuel, il fit construire et dirigea l’observatoire de Maragha. Il étudie les travaux de Al-Khayyam sur les proportions, s’intéresse à la géométrie.Côté astronomie, il commente l’Almageste et le complète, comme plusieurs astronomes (Al-Battani…) avant lui. Il estime l’obliquité de l’écliptique à 23°30’.
Al-Kashi (1380-1439). Mathématicien et astronome perse, il assiste à une éclipse de Lune en 1406 et rédige plusieurs ouvrages astronomiques par la suite. C’est à Samarcande qu’il passe le reste de sa vie, sous la protection du prince Ulugh Beg (1394-1449) qui y a fondé une université. Il devient le premier directeur du nouvel observatoire de Samarcande. Ses tables astronomiques proposent des valeurs à 4 (5 selon les sources) chiffres en notation sexagésimale de la fonction sinus. Il donne la manière de passer d’un système de coordonnées à un autre. Son catalogue contient 1018 étoiles. Il améliore les tables des éclipses et de visibilité de la Lune. Dans son traité sur le cercle, il obtient une valeur approchée de Pi avec 9 positions exactes en notation sexagésimale, soit 16 décimales exactes ! Un record, puisque la prochaine amélioration de l’estimation de Pi date du XVIe siècle avec 20 décimales. Il laisse son nom à une généralisation du théorème de Pythagore aux triangles quelconques. C’est le théorème d’Al-Kashi. Il introduit les fractions décimales, et acquiert une grande renommée qui fait de lui le dernier grand mathématicien astronome arabe, avant que l’occident ne prenne le relai.
Ulugh Beg (1394-1449). Petit fils de Tamerlan, prince des Timourides (descendants de Tamerlan). Vice-roi dès 1410, il accède au trône en 1447. C’est un remarquable savant et un piètre politicien, charge qu’il délègue pour s’adonner à la science. Son professeur est Qadi-zadeh Roumi (1364-1436) qui développe chez lui le goût pour les mathématiques et l’astronomie. Il fait bâtir plusieurs écoles dont une à Samarcande en 1420 où il enseigne, et un observatoire en 1429. Il y travaille avec quelque 70 mathématiciens et astronomes (dont Al-Kashi) pour rédiger les Tables sultaniennes parues en 1437 et améliorées par Ulugh Beg lui-même peu avant sa mort en 1449. La précision de ces tables restera inégalée pendant plus de 200 ans, et elles furent utilisées en occident. Elles contiennent les positions de plus de 1000 étoiles. Leur première traduction date d’environ l’an 1500, et fut réalisée à Venise.
Taqi Al-Din (1526-1585). Après une période où il est théologien, il devient astronome officiel du sultan à Istanbul. Il y construit un observatoire dont le but est de concurrencer ceux des pays européens, dont celui de Tycho Brahé. L’observatoire est ouvert en 1577. Il dresse les tables « Zij » (La perle intacte). Il est le premier à utiliser la notation à virgule, plutôt que les traditionnelles fractions sexagésimales en usage. Il observe et décrit une comète, et prévoit qu’elle est le signe de la victoire de l’armée ottomane. Cette vision se révèle fausse, et l’observatoire est détruit en 1580… Il se consacre ensuite à la mécanique, et décrit le fonctionnement d’un moteur à vapeur rudimentaire, invente une pompe à eau, et se passionne pour les horloges et l’optique.
L’astronome Taqi Al-Din (1525-1585) et ses collègues dans l’observatoire d’Istanbul. Manuscrit de 1581, Bibliothèque Topka, Istanbul.
La destruction de l’observatoire d’Istanbul marque la fin de l’activité astronomique arabe du moyen-âge. Il faudra attendre la révolution copernicienne pour voir de nouveaux progrès, et quels progrès ! Copernic et ses successeurs se sont certainement fortement inspirés des résultats des Arabes par l’entremise de leurs ouvrages. Les voyages et les contacts directs entre scientifiques de l’époque étaient rares.
Les occidentaux ne comprenant pas l’arabe, ce sont les traductions en latin qui ont probablement influencé l’Occident, avec, il faut le reconnaître, les ouvrages de certains philosophes grecs qui avaient remis en cause la position centrale de la Terre, comme Aristarque de Samos l’avait proposé vers -280.
Les observatoires arabes
Maquette de l’Observatoire de Samarcande construit en 1420 par Ulugh Beg. A l’intérieur, avec un rayon de 40 mètres, le plus grand quadrant de 90° jamais vu. Profondément enroché afin de réduire les conséquences des séismes, l’arc est constitué de deux parapets de marbre gradués en degrés et en minutes. Il se prolongeait à l’origine jusqu’au sommet d’un édifice de trois étages.
L’observatoire moderne, dans sa conception, est un digne successeur des observatoires arabes de la fin du moyen-âge.
A l’inverse de l’observatoire privé des philosophes grecs, l’observatoire islamique est une institution astronomique spécialisée, avec ses propres locaux, du personnel scientifique, un travail d’équipes avec observateurs et théoriciens, un directeur et des programmes d’études.
Ils ont recours, comme aujourd’hui, à des instruments de plus en plus grands, afin d’améliorer constamment la précision des mesures.
Le premier de ces observatoires est construit à sous le règne d’Al-Ma’mûn (la Maison de la Sagesse) en Irak actuel au IXe siècle. Nous avons déjà parlé de l’observatoire de Ray, proche de Téhéran et deuxième ville de l’Empire abbasside après Bagdad, avec son monumental sextant mural datant de 994. Il faut y ajouter les observatoires de Tolède et Cordoue en Espagne, de Bagdad, d’Ispahan.
Enfin, celui de Marâgha au nord de l’Iran actuel, construit en 1259 avec les fonds prélevés pour entretenir les hôpitaux et les mosquées. Al-Tusi y travailla. Vint ensuite l’ère de l’observatoire de Samarcande, construit en 1420 par l’astronome Ulugh Beg (1394-1449), dont les vestiges ont été retrouvés en 1908 par une équipe russe.
Site de l’Observatoire de Marâgha aujourd’hui.
Conclusion
Destruction de Bagdad par les Mongols en 1258. Détail d’une miniature.
Bien plus que les croisades, ce seront les offensives mongoles qui ravageront des pans entiers de la civilisation arabo-musulmane.
A la grande satisfaction de certains Occidentaux, Gengis Khan (1155-1227, détruira les royaumes musulmans du Khwarezm (1218) et de la Sogdiane avec Boukhara et Samarcande (1220). La grande ville de Merv en 1221. En 1238, son fils s’emparera de Moscou, puis de Kiev. En 1240, la Pologne et la Hongrie seront envahies. En 1241, Vienne sera menacée. Avant de provoquer la chute de la Dynastie des Song du Sud en Chine (1273), les Mongols s’en prendront aux Abbassides. Ainsi, les Maisons de la Sagesse connurent une fin brutale le 12 février 1258 avec l’invasion des Mongols à Bagdad conduite par Hulagu (le petit fils de Gengis Khan), qui tua le dernier calife abbasside Al Mu’tassim (malgré sa capitulation) et détruisit la ville de Bagdad et son héritage culturel. Hulagu ordonna aussi de massacrer toute la famille du calife et tout son entourage.
Le mutazilisme fut interdit et la magnifique collection de livres et de manuscrits de la Maison de la Sagesse de Bagdad fut jetée dans l’eau boueuse du Tigre, qui devint noire pendant plusieurs jours à cause de l’encre des livres et manuscrits.
Les Mongols exterminèrent 24 000 savants et un nombre incalculable de livres furent perdus. Du mutazilisme, on ne connaissait plus sa doctrine que par les textes des théologiens traditionalistes qui l’avaient attaqué. Au XIXe siècle, la découverte des volumineux ouvrages d’Abdel al Jabbar Ibn Ahmad permirent de mieux comprendre l’importance de ce courant de pensée dans la formation de la théologie musulmane actuelle, qu’elle soit sunnite ou chiite.
Plus proche de nous, la guerre d’Irak de 2003 : jusqu’à cette date, ce pays était le plus grand éditeur mondial de publications scientifiques en langue arabe. A la suite du chaos provoqué par une guerre menée « pour la démocratie » et « contre le terrorisme », la Bibliothèque comme les Archives nationales furent pillées et incendiées.
Idem pour la Bibliothèque centrale des legs pieux, la Bibliothèque de l’université irakienne des Sciences, ainsi que de nombreuses bibliothèques publiques à Bagdad, Mossoul et Bassorah. Il en fut de même pour les trésors archéologiques du Musée irakien et sa bibliothèque.
Il faut croire que certains ont déclaré la guerre à la civilisation.
1917. Alors que Français et Allemands s’entre-tuent dans les tranchés, les troupes de sa Majesté s’emparent de Bagdad et surtout des hydrocarbures dont le contrôle était incontournable pour préserver l’hégémonie d’Empire Britannique.
Chronologie sommaire :
310-230 av. JC., vie de l’astronome grec Aristarque de Samos ;
190-120 av. JC., vie de l’astronome grec Hipparque de Nicée ;
v. 100-160 après J.-C. : vie de l’astronome romain Claude Ptolémée ;
700-748 : vie de Wasil ibn Ata, fondateur du mutazilisme ;
750 : début de la dynastie des Abbassides ;
751 : victoire abbasside contre les Chinois à la bataille de Talas (Kirghistan) ;
763 : fondation de Bagdad par le calife Al-Mansur ;
780 : Timothée Ier, patriarche de l’église nestorienne chrétienne à Bagdad ;
780-850 : vie du mathématicien arabe al-Kwarizmi ;
786 à 809 : califat pendant 23 ans d’Haroun al-Rachîd, héros légendaire des contes des Mille et Une Nuits. Développement du mutazilisme ;
801-873 : vie du philosophe mutaziliste et platonicien Al-Kindi ;
805-880 : vie d’Al-Farghani , traité sur l’Astrolabe ;
813-833 : califat d’Al-Ma’mûn (20 ans) ;
829 : création du premier observatoire astronomique permanent à Bagdad suivi par celui de Damas ;
832 : création de la bibliothèque publique et création des Maisons de la Sagesse ;
833 : peu avant sa mort, Al-Ma’mûn décrète le Coran créé et fait adopter le mutazilisme comme doctrine officielle des Abbassides ;
836 : transfert de la capitale à Samarra ;
848 : les mutazilites écartés de la cour de Bagdad ;
858-930 : vie d’Al-Battani, dit Albatenius ;
865-925 : vie du traducteur et médecin Sahl Rabban al-Tabari ;
869-883 : révolte des Zanj (esclaves noirs de Zanzibar) ;
892 : retour de la capitale des Abbassides à Bagdad ;
965-1039 : vie d’Ibn Al-Haytam, dit Alhazen ;
973-1048 : vie d’Al-Biruni ;
1095 : première croisade ;
1258 : Bagdad saccagée par les Mongoles ;
1259 : création de l’Observatoire astronomique de Marâgha (Iran) ;
1304-1375 : vie d’Ibn Al-Shâtir ;
1422 : création de l’Observatoire astronomique de Samarcande, capitale de la Sogdiane ;
1543 : l’astronome polonais Nicolas Copernic publie son De Revolutionibus ;
1917 : entrée des troupes britanniques à Bagdad ;
2003 : pillage et destruction par des incendies systématiques des bibliothèques et musées lors de la guerre d’Irak.
Bibliographie :
Mutazilisme, site de l’Association pour la renaissance de l’islam mutazilite (ARIM) ;
Antoine Le Bail, Qui sont les mutazilites, parfois appelés les « rationalistes » de l’islam ?, site de l’Institut du Monde Arabe (IMA), Paris ;
Richard C. Martin, Mark R. Woodward with Dwi S. Atmaja, Defenders of Reason in Islam, Mu’tazilism from Medieval School to Modern Symbol, Oneworld, Oxford, 1997 ;
Robert R. Reilly, The Closing of the Muslim Mind, How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis, ISI, Deleware, 2011;
Nadim Michel Kalife, Les lumières des premiers siècles de l’islam, sur le site de financialafrik.com, 2019 ;
Mahmoud Azab, Une vision de l’universalité de la civilisation arabo-islamique, Université Oberta de Catalunya, www.uoc.edu ;
Dr Subhi Al-Azzawi, La Maison de la Sagesse des Abbassides à Bagdad ou les débuts de l’Université, pdf sur internet ;
Dimitri Gutas, Pensée grecque, culture arabe. Le mouvement de traduction gréco-arabe à Bagdad et la société abbasside primitive (IIe-IV/VIIIe-Xe siècles), Aubier, Paris 2005 ;
Jim Al-Khalili, The House of Wisdom, How Arab Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance, Pinguin, Londres 2010 ;
Jonathan Lyons, The House of Wisdom, How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization, Bloomsbury, Londres 2009 ;
Pasteur Georges Tartar, Dialogue islamo-chrétien sous le calife Al-Ma’mûn, Les épitres d’Al-Hashimi et d’Al-Kindî, Nouvelles Editions Latines, Paris, 1985 ;
Al-Kindî, On First Philosophy, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1974 ;
Marie Thérèse d’Alverny, La transmission des textes philosophique et scientifiques au Moyen Âge, Variorum, Aldershot 1994 ;
Danielle Jacquart, Françoise Micheau, La médecine arabe et l’Occident médiéval, Maisonneuve, Paris 1990 ;
Juan Vernet Gines, Ce que la culture doit aux Arabes d’Espagne, Sindbad, Actes Sud, Paris, 2000 ;
Karen Armstrong, Islam, A Short History, Phoenix, London, 2002 ;
Régis Morelon, L’astronomie arabe orientale entre le VIIIe et le XIe siècle, dans Histoire des sciences arabes, sous la direction de Roshdi Rashed, Vol. 1, Astronomie, théorique et appliqué, Seuil, Paris, 1997 ;
George Saliba, Les théories planétaires en astronomie arabe après le XIe siècle, dans Histoire des sciences arabes, sous la direction de Roshdi Rashed, Vol. 1, Astronomie, théorique et appliqué, Seuil, Paris, 1997 ;
Roshi Rashed, L’optique géométrique, dans Histoire des sciences arabes, sous la direction de Roshdi Rashed, Vol. 2, Mathématiques et physique, Seuil, Paris, 1997 ;
Jean-Pierre Verdet, Une histoire de l’astronomie, Seuil, Paris, 1990 ;
J. P. Maratray, L’astronomie arabe, sur le site Astrosurf.com ;
Jean-Pierre Luminet, Ulugh Beg – L’astronome de Samarcande, 2018 ;
Kitty Ferguson, Pythagoras, His Lives and the Legacy of a Rational Universe, Walker publishing Company, New York, 2008 ;
Sir Thomas Heath, Aristarchus of Samos, The Ancient Copernicus, Dover, New York, 1981 :
A. Papadopoulo, L’Islam et l’art musulman, L’art des grandes civilisations, Mazenod, Paris, 1976 ;
Olag Grabar, Art et culture dans le monde islamique, Arts & Civilisations de l’Islam, Köneman, Cologne, 2000 ;
Christiane Gruber, Les images de Mahomet dans l’Islam, Afkar/Idées, Printemps 2015 ;
Hans Belting, Florence & Baghdad, Renaissance art and Arab science, Harvard University Press, 2011 ;
Dominique Raynaud, Ibn al-Haytham sur la vision binoculaire : un précurseur de l’optique physiologique, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2003, 13, pp.79-99 ;
Jonathan M. Bloom, Paper Before Print : The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World, Yale University Press, 2001 ;
Karel Vereycken, Jan Van Eyck, un peintre flamand dans l’optique arabe, site de S&P ;
NOTES:
Une théodicée ou « justice de Dieu ») est une explication de l’apparente contradiction entre l’existence du mal et deux caractéristiques propres à Dieu : sa toute-puissance et sa bonté.
Sumer. Le milieu naturel du pays sumérien n’était pas vraiment favorable au développement d’une agriculture productive : des sols pauvres avec une teneur élevée en sels néfastes à la croissance des plantes, des températures moyennes très élevées, des précipitations insignifiantes, et des crues des fleuves venant à l’automne, au moment des moissons, et non pas au printemps quand les graines en auraient besoin pour germer, comme c’est le cas en Égypte. Ce sont donc l’ingéniosité et l’incessant labeur des agriculteurs mésopotamiens qui permirent à ce pays de devenir l’un des greniers à céréales du Moyen-Orient antique. Dès le VIe millénaire, les communautés paysannes élaborèrent un système d’irrigation qui progressivement se ramifia jusqu’à couvrir un grand espace, profitant par là de l’avantage que leur offrait le relief extrêmement plat du delta mésopotamien, où il n’y avait aucun obstacle naturel à l’extension des canaux d’irrigation sur des dizaines de kilomètres. En régulant le niveau des eaux dérivées des cours d’eau naturels pour l’adapter aux besoins des cultures, et en mettant au point des techniques visant à limiter la salinisation des sols (lessivage des champs, pratique de la jachère), il fut possible d’obtenir des rendements céréaliers très élevés.
Le Khorassan est une région située dans le nord-est de l’Iran. Le nom vient du persan et signifie « d’où vient le soleil ». Il a été donné à la partie orientale de l’empire sassanide. Le Khorassan est également considéré comme le nom médiéval de l’Afghanistan par les Afghans. En effet, ce territoire englobait l’Afghanistan actuel, ainsi que le sud du Turkménistan, de l’Ouzbékistan et du Tadjikistan.
Au Xe siècle, dans son Livre des secrets, le savant perse Mohammad Al-Razi décrit la distillation du pétrole permettant d’obtenir du pétrole d’éclairage.
Le sanskrit est une langue de l’Inde, parmi les plus anciennes langues indo-européennes connues (plus ancienne même que le latin et le grec). C’est notamment la langue des textes religieux hindous et, à ce titre, elle continue d’être utilisée comme langue culturelle, à la manière du latin aux siècles passés en Occident.
Le pehlevi ou moyen-perse est une langue iranienne qui était parlée à l’époque sassanide. Elle descend du vieux perse. Le moyen perse était habituellement écrit en utilisant l’écriture pehlevi. La langue était aussi écrite à l’aide du script manichéen par les manichéens de Perse.
Abu Muhammad al–Qasim ibn ’Ali al–Hariri (1054–1122), homme de lettres, poète et philologue arabe, naquit près de Bassora, en Irak actuel. Il est connu pour ses Serments et ses maqâmât (littéralement modes, souvent traduits par assemblées ou séances), recueil de 50 courts récits mêlant le commentaire social et moral aux expressions éclatantes de la langue arabe. Si le genre de la maqâmat fut créé par Badi’al–Zaman al–Hamadhani (969–1008), ce sont les séances d’al–Hariri qui le définissent le mieux. Écrites dans un style de prose rimée appelée saj’ et entrelacées de vers raffinés, les histoires se veulent divertissantes et éducatives. Chacune des anecdotes se déroule dans une ville différente du monde musulman à l’époque d’Al-Hariri. Elles racontent une rencontre, généralement lors d’un rassemblement de citadins, entre deux personnages fictifs : le narrateur al-Harith ibn Hammam et le protagoniste Abu Zayd al-Saruji. Au fil des siècles, l’ouvrage fut copié et commenté à de nombreuses reprises, mais seuls 13 exemplaires existant encore aujourd’hui possèdent des enluminures illustrant des scènes des histoires. Les miniatures, reconnues pour leur représentation saisissante de la vie musulmane au XIIIe siècle, sont considérées comme les peintures arabes les plus anciennes créées par un artiste dont l’identité est connue. La popularité quasi immédiate des maqâmât parvint jusqu’à l’Espagne arabe, où le rabbin Juda al-Harizi (1165-vers 1225) traduisit les séances en hébreu sous le titre Mahberoth Itiel et composa par la suite ses propres Tahkemoni, ou séances hébraïques.
Les Barmécides ou Barmakides sont les membres d’une famille de la noblesse persane originaire de Balkh en Bactriane (au nord de l’Afghanistan). Cette famille de religieux bouddhistes (paramaka désigne en sanskrit le supérieur d’un monastère bouddhiste) devenus zoroastriens puis convertis à l’islam a fourni de nombreux vizirs aux califes abbassides. Les Barmécides avaient acquis une réputation remarquable de mécènes et sont considérés comme les principaux instigateurs de la brillante culture qui se développa alors à Bagdad.
La thèse christologique de Nestorius (né vers 381 — mort en 451), patriarche de Constantinople (428-431), a été déclaré hérétique et condamnée par le concile d’Éphèse. Pour Nestorius, deux hypostases, l’une divine, l’autre humaine, coexistent en Jésus-Christ. A partir de l’Église d’Orient, le nestorianisme est une des formes historiquement les plus influentes du christianisme dans le monde durant toute la fin de l’Antiquité et au Moyen Âge, jusqu’en Inde, en Chine et en Mongolie.
Le syriaque (une forme d’araméen, la langue du Christ) est à côté du latin et du grec la troisième composante du christianisme ancien, ancrée dans l’hellénisme mais également descendante de l’antiquité proche-orientale et sémitique. Dès les premiers siècles, dans un mouvement symétrique à celui de la tradition chrétienne gréco-latine vers l’ouest, le christianisme syriaque s’est développé vers l’est, jusqu’en Inde et en Chine. Le syriaque est toujours aujourd’hui, la langue liturgique et classique (un peu comme le latin en Europe) des Églises syriaque orthodoxe, syriaque catholique, assyrienne, chaldéenne et maronite, au Liban, en Syrie, en Irak et en Inde du sud-ouest. Enfin, c’est la branche du christianisme la plus en contact avec l’islam au sein duquel il a continué à vivre.
En Asie du Sud-Ouest, l’influence grecque restait vivace dans plusieurs villes sous influence chrétienne : Edesse (devenue Urfa en Turquie), à l’époque capitale du comté d’Edesse, l’un des premiers Etats latins d’Orient, le plus avancé dans le monde islamique ; Antioche (devenue Antakya en Turquie) ; Nisibe (aujourd’hui Nusaybin en Turquie) ; Al-Mada’in (c’est-à-dire « Les villes »), une métropole irakienne sur le Tigre, entre les villes royales Ctesiphon et Séleucie du Tigre ; Gondichapour (aujourd’hui en Iran) dont restent les ruines. A cela il faut ajouter les villes de Lattaquié (en Syrie) et d’Amed (aujourd’hui Diyarbakir en Turquie) où existaient des centres jacobites (chrétiens d’Orient, mais membres de l’Église syriaque orthodoxe, à ne pas confondre avec les Nestoriens).
L’Académie de Gondischapour était située dans l’actuelle province du Khuzestan, dans le sud-ouest de l’Iran, près de la rivière Karoun. Elle proposait l’enseignement de la médecine, de la philosophie, de la théologie et des sciences. Le corps professoral était versé non seulement dans les traditions zoroastriennes et perses, mais enseignait aussi les langues grecques et indiennes. L’Académie comprenait une bibliothèque, un observatoire, et le plus ancien hôpital d’enseignement connu. Selon les historiens le Cambridge de l’Iran, c’était le centre médical le plus important de l’ancien monde (défini comme le territoire de l’Europe, de la Méditerranée et du Proche-Orient) au cours des VIe et VIIe siècles.
Le sogdien est une langue moyenne iranienne parlée au Moyen Âge par les Sogdiens, peuple commerçant qui résidait en Sogdiane, la région historique englobant Samarcande et Boukhara et recouvrant plus ou moins les actuels Ouzbékistan, Tadjikistan et nord de l’Afghanistan. Avant l’arrivée de l’arabe, le sogdien fut la lingua franca de la Route de la Soie. Les commerçants sogdiens s’installent en Chine et les moines sogdiens sont parmi les premiers à y diffuser le Bouddhisme. Dès le VIe siècle, les dirigeants chinois ont fait appel à l’élite sogdienne pour résoudre les problèmes diplomatiques, commerciaux, militaires et même culturels, ce qui a incité de nombreux Sogdiens à migrer d’Asie centrale et des régions frontalières de la Chine vers les grands centres politiques chinois.
Le Livre des machines ingénieux contient une centaine de machines ou d’objets, la plupart dus aux frères Banou Moussa ou adaptés par eux : entonnoir, vilebrequin, vannes à boisseau conique, robinet à flotteur et autres systèmes de régulation hydraulique, masque à gaz et soufflet de ventilation pour les mines ; drague, fontaines à jet variable, lampe-tempête, lampe à arrêt automatique, à alimentation automatique ; instruments de musique automatiques dont une flûte programmable.
Ephémérides astronomiques : registres de positions d’astres à intervalles réguliers.
Ibn Al-Haytam. En 2007, lors d’une conférence à la Sorbonne, j’ai exploré l’emploi, par le peintre flamand Jan Van Eyck (début du XVe siècle), d’une perspective géométrique bifocale, qualifiée à tort de « primitive », d’erronée et d’intuitive, en réalité inspirée des travaux et des expériences binoculaires du savant arabe Ibn Al-Haytam (Alhazen). Ce dernier s’appuya sur les travaux de ses prédécesseurs Al-Kindi, Ibn Luca et Ibn Sahl. Alhazen fut largement connus en Occident grâce aux traductions des franciscains de l’Université d’Oxford (Grosseteste, Bacon, etc.). Voir biographie sommaire.
Statue du père Ferdinand Verbiest devant l’église de son village natal Pittem en Flandres (Belgique).
Le jésuite flamand Ferdinand Verbiest (1623 – 1688), né à Pittem en Belgique, a passé 20 ans à Beijing comme astronome en chef à la Cour de l’Empereur de Chine pour qui il élabora des calendriers, des tables d’éphémérides, des montres solaires, des clepsydres, un thermomètre, une camera obscura et même un petit charriot tracté par un machine à vapeur élémentaire, ancêtre lointain de la première automobile.
Verbiest, dont la volumineuse correspondance en néerlandais, en français, en latin, en espagnol, en portugais, en chinois et en russe reste à étudier, dessina également des cartes et publia des traités en chinois sur l’astronomie, les mathématiques, la géographie et la théologie.
Parmi ses œuvres en chinois :
Yixiang zhi (1673), un manuel pratique (en chinois) pour la construction de toutes sortes d’instruments de précision, ornée d’une centaine de schémas techniques ;
Kangxi yongnian lifa (1678) sur le calendrier de l’empereur Kangxi et
Jiaoyao xulun, une explication des rudiments de la foi.
En latin, Verbiest publia l’Astronomie européenne (1687) qui résume pour les Européens les sciences et technologies européennes qu’il a promu en Chine.
Bien que les jésuites d’Ingolstadt en Bavière travaillaient avec Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), Verbiest, pour éviter des ennuis avec sa hiérarchie, s’en tient aux modèle de Tycho Brahé.
Son professeur, le professeur de mathématiques André Taquet, qui correspondait avec le collaborateur de Leibniz Christian Huyghens, affirmait qu’il refusait le modèle copernicien comme l’église l’exigeait, mais uniquement par fidélité à l’église et non pas sur des bases scientifiques.
Jusqu’en 1691, l’Université de Louvain refusait d’enseigner l’héliocentrisme.
Reconstruction de la mini-automobile à vapeur inventé par Verbiest.
Dans son traité, à part l’astronomie, Verbiest aborde la balistique, l’hydrologie (construction des canaux), la mécanique (transport de pièces lourdes pour les infrastructures), l’optique, la catoptrique, l’art de la perspective, la statique, l’hydrostatique et l’hydraulique. Dans le chapitre sur « la pneumatique » il discute ses expériences avec une turbine à vapeur. En dirigeant la vapeur produite par une bouilloire placé sur un petit charriot vers une roue à aubes, il rapporte d’avoir réussi à créer une auto-mobile rudimentaire. « Avec ce principe de propulsion, on peut imaginer pas mal d’autres belles applications », conclut Verbiest.
L’observatoire astronomique de la Cour impériale à Beijing, totalement rééquipé par le père Verbiest.
L’observatoire d’astronomie de Beijing, rééquipé par Verbiest avec des instruments dont il décrit le fonctionnement et les méthodes de fabrication, fut sauvé en 1969 par l’intervention personnelle de Zhou Enlai. Depuis 1983, cet observatoire qu’on nomme en Chine « le lieu où l’Orient et l’Occident se rencontrent », est ouvert à tous.
Évangélisation et/ou dialogue des cultures ?
Lorsqu’à partir du XIVe siècle la religion catholique cherchait à s’imposer comme la seule « vraie religion » dans les pays qu’on découvrait, il suffisait en général de quelques armes à feu et le prestige occidental pour convertir rapidement les habitants des pays nouvellement conquis.
Convertir les Chinois était un défi d’une toute autre nature. Pour s’y rendre, les missionnaires y arrivaient au mieux comme les humbles accompagnateurs de missions diplomatiques. Ils y faisaient aucune impression et se faisaient généralement renvoyer dans les plus brefs délais. L’estime pour la civilisation chinoise en Orient était telle que lorsque le jésuite espagnol Franciscus Xaverius se rend au Japon en 1550, les habitants de ce pays lui suggéraient : « Convertissez d’abord les Chinois. Une fois gagnés les Chinois au christianisme, les Japonais suivront leur exemple ».
Les trois grandes figures d’un siècle de missions jésuites en Chine : de gauche à droite : Matteo Ricci, Von Schall et Verbiest.
Parmi plusieurs générations de missionnaires, trois jésuites ont joué le temps d’un siècle un rôle décisif pour obtenir en 1692 la liberté religieuse pour les chrétiens en Chine : l’Italien Mattéo Ricci (1552-1610), l’Allemand Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1591 – 1666) et enfin le Belge Ferdinand Verbiest (1623 – 1688).
Pour conduire les Chinois vers le catholicisme, ils décidèrent de gagner leur confiance en les épatant avec les connaissances astronomiques, scientifiques et techniques occidentales les plus avancées de leur époque, domaine où l’Occident l’emportait sur l’Orient. Par ce « détour scientifique » qui consistait à faire reconnaitre la supériorité de la science occidentale, on espérait amener les Chinois à adhérer à la religion occidentale elle aussi jugé supérieure. Comme le formulait Verbiest :
Comme la connaissance des étoiles avait jadis guidés les mages d’Orient vers Bethléem et les jeta en adoration devant l’enfant divin, ainsi l’astronomie guidera les peuples de Chine pour les conduire devant l’autel du vrai Dieu !
Bien que Leibniz montrait un grand intérêt pour les missions des pères en Chine avec lesquelles il était en contact, il ne partagea pas la finalité de leur démarche (voir article de Christine Bierre sur L’Eurasie de Leibniz, un vaste projet de civilisation).
Ce qui est délicieusement paradoxale, c’est qu’en offrant le meilleur de la civilisation occidentale « à des païens », les pères jésuites, peu importe leurs intentions, ont de facto convaincu leurs intermédiaires qu’Orient et Occident pouvaient accéder à quelque chose d’universel dépassant de loin les religions des uns et des autres. Leur courage et leurs actions ont jeté une première passerelle entre l’Orient et l’Occident. A nous aujourd’hui d’en faire un « pont terrestre eurasiatique ».
Matteo Ricci
Mattéo Ricci (1552-1610)
Après avoir été obligé de rebrousser chemin dans plusieurs villes chinoises où il tentait d’engager l’évangélisation chrétienne, le père italien Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) se rendait à l’évidence que sans la coopération et la protection des plus hautes instances du pays, sa démarché était condamné à l’échec. Il se rend alors à Beijing pour tenter d’y rencontrer l’Empereur Wanli à qui il offre une épinette (petit clavecin) et deux horloges à sonnerie. Hélas, ou faut il dire heureusement, à peine quelques jours plus tard les horloges cessent de battre et l’Empereur appelle d’urgence Ricci à son Palais pour les remettre en état de marche. C’est seulement ainsi que ce dernier devient le premier Européen à pénétrer dans la Cité interdite. Pour exprimer sa gratitude l’Empereur autorise alors Ricci avec d’autres envoyés de lui rendre honneur. Mais à la grande déception du jésuite, il est seulement autorisé à s’agenouiller devant le trône vide de l’Empereur. Pour capter l’attention de l’Empereur, Ricci comprend alors que seule la clé de l’astronomie permettra d’ouvrir la porte de la muraille culturelle chinoise.
L’étude des étoiles et l’astrologie occupe à l’époque une place importante dans la société chinoise. L’Empereur y était le lien entre le ciel et la terre (comparable à la position du Pape, représentant de Dieu sur terre) et responsable de l’harmonie entre les deux. Les phénomènes célestes n’influent pas seulement les actes du gouvernement mais le sort de toute la société. A cela s’ajoute que l’histoire de la Chine est parsemée de révoltes paysannes et qu’une bonne connaissance des saisons reste la clé d’une récolte réussie. En pratique, l’Empereur était en charge de fournir chaque année le calendrier le plus précis possible. Sa crédibilité personnelle dépendait entièrement de la précision du calendrier, mesure de sa capacité de médier l’harmonie entre ciel et terre. Ricci, avec l’aide des Portugais, se concentre alors sur la production de calendriers et sur la prévision des éclipses solaires et lunaires et finit par se faire apprécier par l’Empereur. Le Pei-t’ang, l’église du nord, était la résidence de la Mission catholique à Beijing et deviendra également le nom de la bibliothèque de 5 500 volumes européens créé par Ricci.
Lorsque le 15 décembre 1610, quelques mois après le décès de Ricci, une éclipse solaire dépasse de 30 minutes le temps anticipé par les astronomes de la Cour, l’Empereur se fâche. Les astronomes chinois, qui avaient eu vent des travaux sur l’astronomie des Jésuites, demandent alors qu’on traduise d’urgence dans leur langue leurs œuvres sur la question. Un chinois converti par Ricci est alors chargé de cette tâche et ce dernier engage quelques pères comme ses assistants. De façon maladroite certains Jésuites font savoir alors leur opposition à des rites chinois ancestraux qu’ils jugent imprégnés de paganisme. Suite à une révolte de la population et des mandarins, en 1617 les Jésuites se voient estampillés ennemis du pays et doivent de se réfugier à Canton et Macao.
Adam Schall von Bell
Adam Schall von Bell (1591 – 1666)
C’est seulement cinq ans plus tard, en 1622, que le père Adam Schall von Bell (1591 – 1666), un jésuite de Cologne qui arrive à Macao en 1619, arrive à s’installer dans la maison de Ricci à Beijing.
Attaqué au nord par les Mandchous, les Chinois, non dépourvus d’un fort sens de pragmatisme, feront appel aux Portugais de Macao pour leur fournir des armes et des instructeurs militaires. Du coup, les pères Jésuites se retrouvent protégés par le ministère de la défense comme intermédiaires potentiels avec les Portugais et c’est à ce titre qu’ils obtiennent des droits de résidence. Lorsqu’en 1628, les calculs pour l’éclipse lunaire s’avèrent une fois de plus erronés, Schall est nommé à la tête de l’Institut impérial d’astronomie.
Tant de succès ne pouvait que provoquer la fureur et la jalousie des astronomes chinois et musulmans qui furent éloigné de la Cour et dont les travaux étaient discrédités. Ils feront pendant des années campagne contre Schall et les jésuites. Au même temps Schall se faisait tancer par ses supérieurs à Rome et les théologiens du Vatican pour qui un prêtre catholique n’avait pas à participer dans l’élaboration de calendriers servant l’astrologie chinoise.
Vu le faible nombre d’individus – à peine quelques milliers par an – que les pères jésuites réussissaient à convertir au christianisme, Schall se résout à tenter de convertir l’Empereur en personne. Ce dernier, qui découvre que Schall a des bonnes notions de balistique, le charge en 1636 de produire des canons pour la guerre contre les Mandchous, une tache que Schall accompli uniquement pour préserver la confiance de l’Empereur. Les Chinois perdent cependant la bataille et le dernier Empereur des Ming met fin à sa vie par pendaison en 1644 afin de ne pas tomber aux mains de l’ennemi. Les Mandchous
Les Mandchous reprennent sans sourciller les meilleures traditions chinoises et en 1645 Schall est nommé à la tête du bureau des mathématiques. L’Empereur le nomme également comme mandarin. En 1646 Schall reçoit et commence à utiliser les « Tables rudolphines », des observations astronomiques envoyés par Johannes Kepler à la demande du jésuite suisse missionnaire Johannes Schreck (Terrentius) lui aussi installé en Chine. Avec l’aide d’un élève chinois, ce dernier fut le premier à tenter de présenter au peuple chinois les merveilles de la technologie européenne dans un texte intitulé « Collection de diagrammes et d’explications des machines merveilleuses de l’extrême ouest ».
En 1655 un décret impérial ordonne que seules les méthodes européennes soient employées pour fixer le calendrier.
En Europe, les dominicains et les franciscains se plaignent alors amèrement des Jésuites qui non seulement pratiquent « le détour scientifique » pour évangéliser mais se sont livrés selon eux à des pratiques païens. Suite à leurs plaintes, par un décret du 12 septembre 1645, le pape Innocent X menace alors d’excommunication tout chrétien se livrant aux Rites chinois (culte des anciens, honneurs à Confucius). Après le contre-argumentaire du Père jésuite Martinus Martini, un nouveau décret, émis par le Pape Alexandre VII le 23 mars 1656, réconforte de nouveau la démarche des missionnaires jésuites en Chine.
Ferdinand Verbiest
Ferdinand Verbiest (1623 – 1688).
Ce n’est en 1658, qu’après un voyage rocambolesque que le Père Ferdinand Verbiest arrive à son tour à Macao. En 1660, Schall, déjà âgé de 70 ans, fait venir Verbiest – dont il connait les aptitudes en mathématiques et en astronomie — à Beijing pour le succéder. Les controverses alors se déchainent. L’Empereur Chun-chih était décédé en 1661 et en attendant que son successeur Kangxi atteigne la majorité, quatre régents gèrent le pays.
Ces derniers n’étaient pas très favorables aux étrangers. Les envieux chinois attaquent alors Schall, non pas pour son travail en astronomie, mais pour le « non-respect » des traditions chinoises, notamment la polygamie. Un des détracteurs dépose plainte au département des rites, et alors que Schall, ayant perdu la voix suite à une attaque vasculaire cérébrale, a bien du mal à se défendre, Schall, Verbiest et les autres pères se font condamner pour des « crimes religieux et culturels ». Schall est condamné à mort.
La « providence divine » fait alors en sorte que plusieurs phénomènes naturels jouent en leur faveur. Etant donné qu’une éclipse solaire s’annonçait pour le 16 janvier 1665, les régents mettent aussi bien les accusateurs de Schall que Schall lui-même au défi de la calculer. Schall et Verbiest emportent la bataille haut la main ce qui fait naître le doute chez les régents. Le procès fut rouvert et renvoyé devant la cour suprême. Cette dernière confirma hélas le verdict du tribunal. Nouvelle intervention de dame nature : une comète, un tremblement de terre et un incendie du Palais impériale inspirent les pires craintes chez les Chinois qui finissent par relâcher les pères de prison sans pour autant les innocenter.
A l’exception des « quatre de Beijing » (Schall, Verbiest, de Magelhaens, Buglio) qui restent en résidence surveillé, tous sont forcés à l’exil. Schall meurt en 1666 et Verbiest travaille sur des nouveaux instruments astronomiques.
L’Empereur Kangxi
L’Empereur chinois Kangxi (1654-1722)
C’est en 1667 que le jeune Empereur Kangxi prend enfin les commandes. Dynamique, il laisse immédiatement vérifier les calendriers des astronomes chinois par Verbiest et oblige Chinois et étrangers de surmonter leurs oppositions en travaillant ensemble. En 1668 Verbiest est nommé directeur du bureau de l’Astronomie et en 1671 il devient le tuteur privé de l’Empereur ce qui fait naitre chez lui l’espoir de pouvoir un jour convertir l’Empereur au Christianisme.
Comme Schall, Verbiest sera en permanence sous attaque des « marins restés à quai » à Rome. Pour se défendre, Verbiest envoi son coreligionnaire, Philippe Couplet (1623-1693) en 1682 en Europe. Ce dernier s’y rend accompagné d’un jeune mandarin converti, Shen Fuzong qui parlait couramment le latin, l’italien et le portugais. C’est un des premiers Chinois à visiter l’Europe. Il suscite la curiosité à Oxford, où on lui pose de nombreuses questions sur la culture et les langues chinoises.
L’audience à Versailles est particulièrement fructueuse. A la suite de l’entrevue qu’il a avec Couplet et son ami chinois, Louis XIV décide d’établir une présence française en Chine et en 1685, six jésuites*, en tant que mathématiciens du roi et membres de l’Académie des Sciences, seront envoyés en Chine par Louis XIV.
C’est avec eux que Leibniz, lui-même à l’Académie des Sciences de Colbert, entrera en correspondance.
Dans son Confucius Sinarum philosophus, le collaborateur de Verbiest Couplet se montre enthousiaste : « On pourrait dire que le système éthique du philosophe Confucius est sublime. Il est en même temps simple, sensible et issu des meilleures sources de la raison naturelle. Jamais la raison humaine, ici sans appui de la Révélation divine, n’a atteint un tel niveau et une telle vigueur. »
A Paris, Couplet publie en 1687 le livre (dédié à Louis XIV) qui le fait connaître partout en Europe : le Confucius Sinarum philosophus. Couplet est enthousiaste :
On pourrait dire que le système éthique du philosophe Confucius est sublime. Il est en même temps simple, sensible et issu des meilleures sources de la raison naturelle. Jamais la raison humaine, ici sans appui de la Révélation divine, n’a atteint un tel niveau et une telle vigueur.
Verbiest diplomate
A la demande de l’Empereur, Verbiest apprend la langue Mandchou pour lequel il élabore une grammaire. En 1674 il dessine une mappemonde et, comme Schall, s’applique à produire avec les artisans chinois des canons légers pour la défense de l’Empire.
Verbiest sert également de diplomate au service l’Empereur. Par leur connaissance du latin, les Jésuites serviront d’interprètes avec les délégations portugaises, hollandaises et russes lorsqu’elles se rendent en Chine dès 1676. Ayant appris le chinois, le jésuite français Jean-Pierre Gerbillon est envoyé en compagnie du jésuite portugais Thomas Pereira, comme conseillers et interprète à Nertchinsk avec les diplomates chargés de négocier avec les Russes le tracé de la frontière extrême-orientale entre les deux empires. Ce tracé est confirmé par le traité de Nertchinsk du 6 septembre 1689 (un an après la mort de Verbiest), un important traité de paix établi en latin, en mandchou, en mongole, en chinois et en russe, conclu entre la Russie et l’Empire Qing qui a mis fin à un conflit militaire dont l’enjeu était la région du fleuve Amour.
C’est lors de son séjour en Italie, de mars 1689 à mars 1690, que Leibniz s’entretient longuement avec le jésuite Claudio-Philippo Grimaldi (1639-1712) qui résidait en Chine mais était de passage à Rome. C’est lors de leurs entretiens qu’ils apprennent la mort de Verbiest. Ce dernier était tombé de son cheval en 1687 avant de mourir en 1688 faisant de Grimaldi son successeur à la tête de l’Institut impérial d’astronomie.
Comme Schall avant lui, la Chine offre à Verbiest des funérailles d’Etat et sa dépouille mortelle reposera aux cotés de Ricci et Schall à Beijing et en 1692, L’Empereur Kanxi, sans doute en partie pour honorer pour Verbiest, décrète la tolérance religieuse pour les chrétiens.
La querelle des Rites
La réponse du Vatican fut parmi les plus stupides et le mandement de 1693 de Monseigneur Maigrot fait exploser une fois de plus la « Querelle des Rites ». Il propose d’utiliser le mot « Tian-zhu »** pour désigner l’idée occidentale d’un Dieu personnifié, concept totalement étranger à la culture chinoise, d’interdire la tablette impériale*** dans les églises, interdire les rites à Confucius, et condamne le culte des Ancêtres. Et tout cela au moment même où Kangxi décrète l’Édit de tolérance.
Parmi les Jésuites et les autres ordres de missionnaires, les avis sont partagés. Ceux qui admirent Ricci et sont en contacts avec les élites sont plutôt favorables au respect des rites chinois. Les autres, qui essayent de combattre toutes sortes de superstitions locales, sont plutôt favorables au mandement.
Ce qui est certain, c’est que les Chinois n’apprécient guère que des missionnaires s’opposent à leurs rites et traditions. Un décret de Clément XI en 1704 condamnera définitivement les rites chinois. Il reprend les points du Mandement. C’est à ce moment qu’est instauré par l’empereur le système du piao : pour enseigner en Chine, les missionnaires doivent avoir une autorisation (le piao) qui leur est accordée s’ils acceptent de ne pas s’opposer aux rites traditionnels. Mgr Maigrot, envoyé du pape en Chine, refuse de prendre le piao, et est donc chassé hors du pays.
L’empereur Kangxi, qui s’implique dans le débat, convoque l’accompagnateur de Mgr Maigrot et le soumet à une épreuve de culture. Ce dernier ne réussit pas à lire des caractères chinois et ne peut discuter des Classiques. L’empereur déclare que c’est son ignorance qui lui fait dire des bêtises sur les rites. De plus, il lui prête plus l’intention de brouiller les esprits que de répandre la foi chrétienne. Et lorsque l’Empereur Yongzheng succède à Kangxi, il fait interdire le christianisme en 1724. Seuls les Jésuites, scientifiques et savants à la cour de Pékin, peuvent rester en Chine.
C’est contre la querelle des rites que Leibniz dirigea une grande partie de ces efforts. Cette fragilité d’une entente globale entre les peuples du continent eurasiatique à de quoi nous faire réfléchir aujourd’hui. Est-ce que la nouvelle querelle des Rites provoqué par Obama et les anglo-américains contre la Russie et la Chine servira une fois de plus au parti de la guerre de semer la discorde ?
Les tombes des jésuites venus en Chine sont localisées au Collège Administratif de Pékin (qui forme les cadres du Parti communiste de la ville). Les tombes de 63 missionnaires ont été réhabilitées, 14 portugais, 11 italiens, 9 français, 7 allemands, 3 tchèques, 2 belges, 1 suisse, 1 autrichien, 1 slovène et 14 chinois. Les trois premières sont celles de Matteo Ricci, Adam Schall von Bell et Ferdinand Verbiest.
L’auteur, Karel Vereycken, dans la cour du Collège Ferdinand Verbiest à Leuven en Belgique.
* Jean-François Gerbillon (1654-1707), Jean de Fontaney (1643-1710), Joachim Bouvet (1656-1730), Louis Le Comte (1655-1728), Guy Tachard (1648-1712) et Claude de Visdelou (1656-1737).
** Peut-on désigner le Dieu des chrétiens par les termes tianzhu (du bouddhisme) ou tiandi (du confusianisme) ? Est-ce que pour les Chinois le mot Ciel (tian) contient également l’idée d’un principe suprême ?
*** Les Chinois plaçaient dans leurs églises, en symbole de sa protection, des tablettes calligraphiées offertes par l’Empereur.
