Luciana Cuppo Csaki
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http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/9891
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Crockett" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 1:38 PM
Subject: Image of St. Benedict
my guess is that, while there *may* be one or two which actually *are*
unfinished (not a particularly rare event in mss, though not at all a common
one, either), they will be unambiguously so; e.g., they will be incomplete
at,
say the filling in stage, while the composition will totally laid out in
pencil or inked in or partially painted. such is not the case here: the
whole
thing is finished in all its stages.
and, if the fellow had wished to realise a "complete" scene depicting st
benny
with both feet firmly set terra firma he could have simply made the whole
composition smaller to fit the space, for example.
c?
"holding up" his outer garment specifically to keep it out of the water
--seems like a common enough pose, for the period, the viewing of Sacred
Underwear being a favorite passtime, en ces temps la.
as a last resort, perhaps we should consider that the Text might have
something to do with the illumination;
<Truer words were never spoken, Crockett -
but that's for the less
palaeographically and latiniacally challened than i.
Who could resist your (ever so suave) challenge, so here I am:
[Benedict] 'aetatem quippe moribus transiens', the lad was, we are told, 'in
his morals, well beyond his years'.
The 'water' (kinky, icy stream) is, however, the challenging part. Precisely
because the miniature goes with the text, indeed 'flows' into it (lovely,
lovely, lovely, and how true) we should think that it is water, of course of
the symbolic kind (not so crass and materialistic and literally-minded,and
blind and deaf to the supernatural, 'cause if I ainn't seen it and touched
it, then it does not exist, right?)
It is the water of grace, which through Benedict flows into the world; there
fore, quite appropriately, the illustratio is placed at the very beginning
of the Vita, because it does not describe a specific episode, but sums up
Benedict's mission.
If the water is seen, as it should, in connection with the staff which
Benedict holds in his hands, and with the concept of 'conversio', a
challenge to us, but bread and butter of the Benedictine spirituality, then
we have a clear reference to Psalm 21.3-4, which says (Vulgate):
Super aquam refectionis educavit me,
animam meam convertit.
Benedict was no bishop, so technically he should not hold a staff in his
hands, but he was a shepherd of souls, who brought his monks to conversion
and led them (with the shepherd's staff, as in Ps. 21) to the nourishing
waters (aquam refectionis) of divine life (if you are really challenged, you
might read the dialogue between Christ and the Samaritan woman in St. John's
Gospel - that is the blueprint for much of the water imagery in medieval
culture.
"...quippe moribus transies[?] nulli animum uoluptati dedit."
best to all from here,
<Crockett made me do it. Best to you, cheers,
Luciana
christopher
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