Philologie und Erkenntnis

Beitrage zu Begriff und Problemfruhneuzeitlicher >Philologie<

Herausgegeben von Ralph Hafner

Max Niemeyer VerlagTubingen 2001

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58 Peter N. Miller

teenth and seventeenth centuries and often remains, as Bernays observed, thepoint of reference for modern scholarship inavariety of fields.3

Rigault, Selden, Aleandro, and their many friends had no >scholarly litera-ture< to fall back upon for answers to basic questions of dating, provenance, andstyle. They often had littlemore to work with than the ancient texts and objectsthemselves. >Comparison< helped them establish secure knowledge in this sea ofuncertainty. Laterin the century, the English antiquary, John Aubrey, wrote that»by comparing those that I have seen one with another, and reducing them to akind of Aequation« he was able »to make the stones give evidence for themselves^ This was especially necessary when dealing with antiquities that werenot discussed in books - such as Stonehenge. »This inquiry«, in Aubery's words,»I must confess is a groping in the dark [...] These antiquities are so exceedingold, that no books do reach them: so that there is no way to retrieve them but bycomparative antiquity, which I have writ upon the spot, from the monumentsthemselves, Historia quoque modo scripta bona est«.* Because of its open-endedness - what could not be compared with something else? - comparisonwas a perfect tool for an age whose horizons were constantly being expanded,outwards in space as well as backwards in time.5 For travellers to new worldswho described their encounter with the unfamiliar in familiar terms were also

demonstrating how inevitable wasthe recourse to comparison.6

3 The classic work on the subject is Arnaldo Momigliano: »Ancient History and the Antiquarian^ in: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes XIII (1950), pp. 285-315;»L'eredita della filologia antica e il metodo storico«, in: Secondo Contribute alia Storiadegli Studi Classici, (Rome, I960), pp.463-80. More recently there has been an intensification of interest from scholars in different fields. See Ancient History and the Antiquarian:Essays in MemoryofArnaldo Momigliano, eds. M. H. Crawford andC. R. Ligota(London,1995); AnthonyGrafton: Defenders of theText: The Traditions of Scholarship in an Age ofScience 1450-1800 (Cambridge, MA, 1991); idem.: Joseph Scaliger. A Study in theHistory of Classical Scholarship, (Oxford, 1983, 1993), 2 vols; Bruno Neveu: Erudition etreligion aux XVIIC ct XVIIIe siecles (Paris, 1994); Francis Haskell: History and its Images:Art and the interpretation of the past (New Haven and London, 1993); Alain Schnapp: LaConquSte du passe\ Aux origines de I'archdologie, (Paris, 1993); Krzysztof Pomian:Collectionneurs, amateurs et curieux. Paris-Venise, XVT-XVIIf siecle, (Paris, 1987;StuartPigott: Ruins in a Landscape. Essays in Antiquarianism (Edinburgh, 1976); Cassiano dalPozzo. Atti del Seminario Internazionale di Studi. Napoli, 18-19 dicembre 1987, ed.Francesco Solinas, (Rome, 1987);and Ingo Herklotz: »Das Museo Cartaceo des Cassianodal Pozzound seine Stellungin der Antiquarischen Wissenschaft des 17.Jahrhunderts«, in:Documentary Culture. Florence and Rome from Grand-Duke Ferdinand I to PopeAlexander VII, eds. E. Cropper, G. Perini, F. Solinas (Bologna, 1992), pp.81-125.

4 Monumenta Britannica or a Miscellany of British Antiquities, 2 vols. (Knock-na-cre,Miltorne Port, 1980) I, p.32). (Monumenta Britannica, I, p. 25. For further discussion ofAubrey's useof comparison, see Michael Hunter: John Aubrey and the Realm of Learning(London, 1975), pp. 180-83.

5 For an examination of the role of the >tool-kit< see Howard L. Goodman and AnthonyGrafton: »Ricci, the Chinese, and the Toolkits of Textualists«, in: Asia Major, 3rd series,III,2 (1990), pp. 95-148.

6 See, for example, Anthony Pagden: European Encounters with the New World: FromRenaissance to Romanticism (New Haven and London, 1993); Stephen Greenblatt: Marvelous Possessions: the Wonder of the New World (Chicago, 1991) and ed.: New WorldEncounters (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1993); Joan-Pau Rubiis: »HugoGrotius'sDissertation on the Origin of the American Peoples andthe Use of Comparative Methods«,

The Antiquary's Art ofComparison: Peiresc and Abraxas 59

Comparison was so central a feature in the intellectual culture of the time asto have been incorporated as the distinctive feature of the trulywise man. PierreCharron explained that the sage knew »to examine all things, to consider themindividually, and then to compare together all the laws and customs of the worldthat can be known, and to judge them in good faith and dispassionately, at thelevel of truth, reason and universal nature«.7 Its necessity was recognized byDescartes in his reformulation of contemporary practice as the fourteenth of hisRules for the Direction of the Mind. »A11 knowledge whatever«, he explained,results »froma comparison between two or more things. In fact, the businessofhuman reason consists almost entirely in preparing for this operation.^ Not bycoincidence, the contemporary skeptic seeking to overthrow this intellectualregime took as his target nothing less than the certainty of knowledge based oncomparison. Pierre Nicole, the famous Jansenist, entitled achapter of histreatiseOn Human Weakness, »The Difficulty of knowing things which one must judgeby comparison of likenesses«. It begins: »La d&ouverte du vrai dans la plupartdes choses depend de la comparaison des vraisemblances. Mais qu'y a-t-il deplus trompeur que cette comparaison?«.9

Comparison may have been ubiquitous, but calling attention to it has theadded benefit of clarifying two other aspects of seventeenth-century scholarlymethod. First, scholars regularly drew on visual, textual and material sourceswhen crafting their arguments.10 Because so much of the revival of interest inearly modern antiquaries has been led by art historians it is the use of imagesthat has attracted attention. I intend, rather, to focus on the notion of comparisonitself; how early seventeenth-century scholars understood it, and how they actually did it. Second, the importance of comparison reflects the importance attached to understanding other cultures. For while ancient Rome could be approached as a familiar, if long-lost, relative, the contemporary East and Westcould not. Here was where comparison showed its value.

in: Journal of the History of Ideas 52 (1991), pp. 221-44; idem: »New Worlds andRenaissance Ethnology«, in: History & Anthropology 6 (1993), pp. 157-97; idem:instructions for Travellers: Teaching the Eye to See«, in: History & Anthrolopology 9(1996). pp. 139-90.

7 »[...] d'examiner toutes choses, considerer apart et puis comparer ensemble toutes les loixet coutumes deTunivers que luyviennent enconoissance, et les juger [...] debonne foy etsans passion, au niveau de la veritd, de la raison et nature universelle« (Pierre Charron: Dela Sagesse, II. 8, p. 500).

8 »Omnem omnino cognitionem, quae non habetur per simplicem & purum unius rei solita-riae intuitum, haberi per comparationem duorum aut plurium inter se. Et quidem tola fererationis humanae industria in hac operatione praeparanda consistit« (Regulae ad directio-nem ingcnii, Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, 12 vols. (Paris,1986), X, p. 440).

9 Pierre Nicole: Essaisde morale,(Paris, 1715),I, p. 30.10 For the generally received view that more rigorous comparative methods were a feature of

later seventeenth-century antiquarian culture see Blandine Barret-Kriegel: Jean Mabillon(Paris, 1988); Michael Hunter: »The Royal Society and theOrigins of British archaeology«,in: Antiquity 65 (1971), p. 113; and Pomian: Collectionneurs, amateurs et curieux, p. 112,80.

60 Peter N. Miller

If comparison was the tool wielded by these »more discerning philologists«,a close look at one of the most famous of them in action offers the prospect of amore precise appreciation of its use. Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580-1637), close friend of Aleandro, Rigault, and Selden,was called by Pierre Bayle,some fifty-odd years after his death, the »procureur-gene>al« of the Republic ofLetters and by Arnaldo Momigliano, three hundred years later, »that archetype ofall antiquarians«." Few of the epoch's learned discussions or discoveries escapemention in his correspondence or notes. In what follows, I shall explore one ofthe less important, but typical, scholarly projects that left its trail in his papers,the study of the Abraxas gem, in order to show the richness of the antiquaries'artof comparison.

i. Learning to compare: Peiresc's training as an antiquary

Born nearToulon into an aristocratic, parlementary family, educatedat Avignonby the Jesuits and buried in Aix in the Church of the Dominicans, Peiresc owedhis European fame to thenetwork of friendships he forged with leading scholarsduring his trips to Italy (1600-02), the Netherlands and England (1606), andduring his residence in Paris in the entourage of the Keeper of the Seals, Guil-laume du Vair (1616-1623).12 Across the vast range of his interests, from metrology to natural history, to astronomy, Peiresc used comparison to establishmore certain knowledge.

While still a young man, Peiresc identified an unknown food served him byDu Vair as flamingo's tongue by comparing what he saw on the plate and whathe tasted, with what he knew from Martial's verse: »My ruddy wing gives me aname, but my tongue is a treat to epicures«.13 Later, he sought to establish themeaning of long-forgotten ancient weights and measures - one of his four greatprojects - by acquiring the objects and comparing them with one another and

1' Arnaldo Momigliano: The Classical Foundations of Modern Historiography (Berkeley andLos Angeles, 1990), p. 54. The first pages of chapter three, »The Rise of Antiquarian Re-search« (pp.54-57) are devoted to Peiresc.

12 Still thebest biography is Pierre Gassendi: Viri Illustris Nicolai-Claudii Fabricii de Peiresc[...] Vita, (Paris, 1641) (henceforth Peiresc); translated byWilliam Rand as The Mirrour ofTrue Nobility and Gentility (London, 1657) (henceforth Mirrour). Modern works on Peirescinclude Cecilia Rizza: Peiresc e Pltalia (Turin, 1965); Sydney Aufrcre: La Momie et latempfite. N.-C. F. de Peiresc et la »curiositd egyptienne« en Provence au ddbut du XVHCsiecle (Avignon, 1990); Peiresc. Lettres a Claude Saumaise et a son entourage, ed. AgnesBresson (Florence, 1992); and David Jaffd: »Peircsc - Wissenschaftlichcr Betrieb ineinemRaritaten-Kabinett«, in: Macrocosmos in Microcosmo, ed. Andreas Grote, (Opladen, 1994),pp. 301-22.

13 »Dat mihi pinna rubcns nomen, / sed lingua gulosis nostra sapit«; Epigrams, tr. and ed.D. R. Shacklcton Bailey, 3 vols. (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1993), XIII. 71, III,pp. 200-1). See Gassendi: Mirrour, year 1611, p. 152. (All references to this work will includethe year exceptthose which referto the non-annalistic >book 6<.)

The Antiquary'sArt ofComparison: Peiresc and Abraxas 61

with the often conflicting textual sources.14 He was able to establish that a toothsent to him byThomas d'Arcos from Tunis had not, in fact, belonged to agiantbut an elephantafter comparing it with the cast of a tooth that he had taken froman elephant passing through Toulon en route to Paris whose shape exactlymatched the one that came from Tunis.15 Peiresc collected astronomical tablesprepared by Kepler and Galileo so that »by comparing of them, the Hypothesesmight be perfected«.'6 He believed that the study ofgeography could not proceedfrom words alone; visual supplement by way of maps was necessary forconserving the »memoire Iocale«.17 Responding to the efforts of William Camden's English friends to find Welsh origins for Provencal place-names, Peirescfound more plausible explanations bycarefully examining the lay of the land andcomparing topography with toponyms.'8 Plants newly-come from Canada andthe Indies could be named, Peiresc wrote, »by comparison with other plants«."Peiresc's efforts on behalf of the Paris Polyglot Bible - acomparative project ifever there was one - were justified entirely in terms of comparison.20 The mostelaborate exampleof Peiresc putting comparison at the centre of his intellectualpractice is his effort to organise eclipseobservations across the Mediterranean soas to compare their results, calculate longitudes, and make more accurate maps.21

Peiresc's description of his regular practice of comparison verged closest onthe theoretical in a letter he wrote to a Capucin missionary in Egypt,P. Agathange de Vendome. After thanking him for a manuscript of the Evangelists in Arabic and Coptic, Peiresc declared that he had found in the prefatorynotice on the time and place of the texts »de tres belles choses aremarquer pourla vray synchronisme«.22 What is »synchronism«? This was aterm of art used byPeiresc's friend John Selden to mean strict adherence to the requirements ofchronology and context when framing an historical argument. Selden advancedthis claim most decisively in his Historie of Tithes, a book whose publicationPeiresc had anxiously awaited - and which hemust surely have possessed.23

14 Gassendi: Mirrour, year 1632, p. 83; Peiresc to Dupuy, 31 January 1633, Lettres de Peiresc,ed.Tamizeyde Larroque, 7 vols. (Paris, 1888-98), II, p.428.

15 Gassendi: Mirrour, year 1631, p. 60.16 Gassendi: Mirrour, year 1610, p. 145.17 Peiresc to Holstenius, 30 December 1627, Lettres de Peiresc, V, p. 260.18 Peiresc to P. Anastase de Nantes, 27 December 1636, Correspondence de Peiresc avec

plusieurs Missionaires et Religieux de I'ordre des Capucins, ed. P. Apollinaire deValence(Paris, 1892), pp. 283-5.

19 Peiresc to Baron d*Alegre, 22 June 1630, Lettres de Peiresc, VII, p. 21.20 Peiresc to Dupuy, 23 May 1631, Lettres de Peiresc, II, p. 231; 10 January 1633, II, pp 409-

10.

21 Gassendi: Mirrour, year 1600, p. 146; year 1612, p. 156; year 1628, p. 26; year 1635p. 132.

22 Peiresc to P. Agathange de Venddme, 10 August 1635, Correspondance de Peiresc avecplusieurs [...] Capucins, p. 162.

23 Peiresc to William Camden, 4 March 1618, Lettres de Peiresc, VII, p. 773. For furtherdiscussion, see D. R.Woolf: The Idea of History in Early Stuart England. Erudition, Ideology and »The Light of Truth« from the Accession of James to the Civil War (Toronto,1990), pp. 213-34; Paul Christianson: Discourse on History, Law and Governance in thePublic Career of John Selden 1610-1635 (Toronto, 1996).

62Peter N. Miller

When reproached by a visitor for devoting so much time and effort to obscure matters, Peiresc responded by explaining that even a broken fragmentcould help make sense of the past, and then, by »producing divers Monumentsof antiquity, he demonstrated the same; so as bythis means to clear up most ofthe obscure passages in Authors, and such places, as were by no other meansintelligible«.24 Gassendi decribed Peiresc's practice upon coming across anunusual object: »he consulted with his Books, compared it with the like thing,and called to mind what ever he had observed, that might give light thereunto;and by all possible Art, he enquired into the capacity, weight, or shapethereof«.25

How did Peiresc come to this way of thinking? Because books 1-5 of Gas-sendi's very reliable biography are strictly chronological we can follow thedevelopment of Peiresc as ascholar. At the age of fifteen hediscovered agoldencoin of Arcadius on the family property in Belgentier. His uncle rewarded hisinterest with books and other ancient coins. »And from this time forwards«,Gassendi wrote, »hismostcurious mindbegan to burn like fire in awood for hebegan eagerly to seek out, and collect all the ancient Coines which he couldcome by being eagerly bent to read and Interpret their Inscriptions, upon whichoccasion also hebegan to seek outall kind of Inscriptions, whether belonging tosepulchers or others, and studiously toobserve them«.26

Peiresc's fascination with artifacts and recognition of their historical valuegrew with time. In his appreciation of Peiresc's habits of mind, Gassendi attributed to him the view »that many things omitted by our Historians« could besupplied from »Charters, Letters, Seals, Coates of Arms, Inscriptions, Coins«, allof which »were incorrupted witnesses of antiquity«.27 The accounts of »ourhistorians« were, however, to be supplemented by other perspectives. Peiresc'sinterest in acquiring Arabic historians writing about events also described byEuropeans followed from the belief »that, at least, by comparing both together, amore probable narration might be framed«.28 Peiresc pursued this same activityaway from home, too. When travelling, he carried ancient coins to help himlearn to identify sculptures, »searching out the Age of every one, and for themost part discerning the hand of the Workman for his Acuteness was such thathe could discern in a moment what was truly ancient, and what only by imita-

24 Gassendi: Mirrour, bk. 6, pp. 204-5.25 Gassendi: Mirrour, bk. 6, pp.206-7.26 Gassendi: Mirrour, Year 1595, p. 13; later, hecollected Imperial Roman coins and matched

the portraits to the catalogue of legislation that he compiled to assist his legal studies(Mirrour, Year 1597, p. 16 and bk. 6, p.201).

27 Gassendi: Mirrour, bk. 6, p. 203. On the seventeenth-century use of charters as historicalsources see H. A.Cronne: »The study and use of charters by English scholars in the seventeenth century: Sir Henry Spelman and Sir William Dugdale«, in: English HistoricalScholarship in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Arecord ofthe papers delivered ata Conference arranged by the Dugdale Society to commemorate the tercentenary of thepublication of Dugdale's »Antiquitics of Warwickshire«, ed. Levi Fox (Oxford, 1956),pp. 73-92.

28 Gassendi: Mirrour, bk. 6, p. 203.

The Antiquary's Art ofComparison: Peiresc and Abraxas 63

tion«. Already the arch connoisseur, Pereisc claimed to know coins »as men arewont to know the Lion by his claw«.29

As a teenager studying in Avignon, Peiresc first came into contact with theworks of Hubert Goltzius (1526-1583).30 Goltzius had set out in 1563 to reconstruct the history of the Roman emperors »from ancient coins«. He offered aclassic justification of their historical value as both a more contemporary andmore trustworthy type of evidence than that provided by historians who generally lived later than the events they described and whose works depended onunreliable human transmission in order to reach their audience.31 In the prefaceto a reconstruction of Roman festivals and triumphs, Goltzius insisted upon theutility for the modern historian of ancient objects and images whose textualdescriptions had not survived.32 »There is nothing whatever memorable«,Goltzius declared, »that is not expressed in coins, and other ancient monuments,andset beforethe eyes to be seenas if in a painted pictures33

Goltzius's lesson was reinforced through Peiresc's friendship with the antiquary and numismatist Pierre-Antoine Rascas de Bagarris (1562-1613), whowas later called to Paris by Henri IV as the first keeper of the royal collection.Both Gassendi, and surviving correspondence, paint the picture of a relationshipbetween teacherand student that evolved into one between colleagues.34 Bagar-ris's view of the historical value of coins and medals is set forth in La Necessitede I'usage des medailles dans les monoyes (1611), originally delivered as anaddress before the king." As Goltzius before him had suggested, Bagarris ar-

29 Gassendi: Mirrour, year 1600, p. 32, 34. For comparison and connoisseurship, see CarloGinzburg: »Morelli, Freud andSherlock Holmes: Clues andScientificMethod«, in: HistoryWorkshop 9 (1980), pp.5-36 esp.15-23; for the affinity between the practice of theantiquary, the connoisseur, and the inter-disciplinary cultural historian see Ginzburg:»Vetoes and Compatibilities^ in: The Art Bulletin 77 (1995), pp. 534-36. Determiningauthenticity was an important issue in the earlymodern scholarly world and was directlyrelated to the practice of comparison. On this see Anthony Grafton: Forgers and Critics:Creativity andDuplicity in Western Scholarship (Princeton, 1990).

30 Gassendi: Peiresc, year 1598, p. 18.31 Hubertus Goltzius: C. Iulius Caesar sive Historiae Imperatorum Caesarumque Romanorum

ex antiquis numismatibus restitutae (Bruges, 1563), sigs. C2v-C3r. This is the argumentthat Momigliano singled out in his 1950 article as the core of the antiquaries' historicalideology.

32 Hubertus Goltzius, Fasti magistratuum et triumphorum romanorum ab urbe condita adAugustiobitum(Bruges, 1566), sig.C4f.

33 Goltzius: Fasti, sigs. C4r"v: »Nihil est usquam memorabile, quod non in numismatibus,aliisque antiquitalis monumentis exprimatur, & tanquam in tabula picta spectandumproponatur.«

34 Gassendi: Mirrour, pp. 16-17. Fourteen letters from Bagarris to Peiresc were published byTamizey de Larroque as fascicle XII of his LesCorrespondants de Peiresc, 2 vols. (Geneva,1972, rpt.), II, pp. 749-862.

35 The oration wasdelivered in 1608. According to Tamizeyde Larroque (LesCorrespondantsde Peiresc, I, p. 765nl) the copy in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, is a unicum. Fordiscussion see Thierry Sarmant: Le Cabinet des Mddailles de la Bibliotheque Nationale1661-1848 (Paris, 1994), pp. 11-12; Mark Jones: »ProofStones of History: the Status ofMedals as Historical Evidence in Seventeenth-century France«, in: Medals and Coins fromBud6 to Mommscn, eds. M. H. Crawford, C. R. Ligota and J. B. Trapp (London, 1990),pp. 53-55.

64

Pet

erN

.M

ille

r

gued

thatc

oinsw

ereles

same

nable

tofor

gery

beca

uset

heir

shee

rnum

berm

ade

itea

syto

spot

tampe

ring.3

6Co

insoff

ered

histor

icale

viden

cesim

ilar

to»th

atwh

ichis

repr

esen

tedin

book

sby

disco

urse

s«.

As»a

bridg

ed«

histor

ies,t

hey

spok

e»as

much

throu

ghpo

rtrait

urea

sthr

ough

writ

ings

"Ba

garri

s'sdi

scus

sion

ofco

ins

and

meda

lsfoc

used

onthe

irut

ility

asdo

cum

ents

ofpu

blic

histo

ry,a

ndth

eva

lue

ofim

ages

asev

iden

ce.B

uthe

also

knew

agr

eatd

eal

abou

teng

rave

dge

msan

dam

asse

dan

exten

sive

colle

ction

.Unli

keco

ins

and

med

als,

whi

chw

ere

publ

icdo

cum

ents,

gem

ssh

edlig

hton

the

histo

ryof

priva

telif

e.M

oreo

ver,

beca

uset

hey

lacke

dbo

thth

eof

ficia

lcha

racte

rofc

oins

and

their

intri

nsic

chro

nolo

gica

lord

erin

g,ge

ms

forc

edth

eco

llect

orto

deve

lop

ane

wta

xono

my.

Baga

rris'

sge

ms

were

orga

nise

dun

der

the

follo

wing

head

ings

:an

cient

relig

ious

ritua

ls(in

cludi

ngas

trolo

gica

lim

ager

y),m

ythol

ogica

lfig

ures

and

hero

es,p

oliti

call

eade

rs,his

torica

leve

nts,

impo

rtant

famili

es,i

nven

tors

ofar

ts,pr

inces

ses

and

famou

swo

men,

lawgiv

ers,

philo

soph

ers

and

poets

,leg

alcu

stoms

,the

hier

oglyp

hsof

ancie

ntpe

oples

,and

early

Chris

tian

mater

ial.38

Ifco

ins

offe

red

ano

n-lit

erar

ype

rspe

ctiv

eon

anci

entp

oliti

cs,g

ems

offe

red

acce

ssto

cultu

re.T

heor

gani

zatio

nof

Baga

rris'

sco

llecti

onre

sem

bles

the

class

ifica

tion

sche

mesu

gges

tedby

Justu

sLi

psiu

sin

afra

gmen

ton

»how

tore

adan

cient

histo

-ria

ns«

pres

erve

din

Peire

sc's

pape

rstha

tis

ash

orter

and

rear

rang

edve

rsio

nof

them

esde

altw

ithin

aw

ell-k

now

nse

t-pie

ceby

Lips

ius

onhi

storic

alm

etho

din

ale

tter

addr

esse

dto

Nich

olas

Hac

quev

illiu

s.39

Baga

rris'

sge

ms

also

fell

into

Lip

sius'

four

categ

ories

ofm

emor

abilia

,ritu

alia,

polit

icoan

deth

ica.

Itha

s,of

cour

se,b

een

know

nfor

som

etim

eth

atth

eor

gani

satio

nalp

rincip

lesof

late

sixtee

nth-

cent

ury

syllo

gae

ofin

scrip

tions

serv

edas

the

prot

otyp

efor

ava

riety

ofta

xono

mic

sche

mes

,inc

ludi

ngco

llect

ions

and

com

mon

-pla

cebo

oks.4

0In

Mar

chof

1603

Baga

rris

sent

Jose

phSc

alig

er,i

nLe

iden

,ske

tche

sof

thirt

y-six

ofhi

sfa

vour

itege

ms

for

Scal

iger

'sde

lect

atio

n.In

abr

avur

are

spon

seth

atBa

garri

sdes

crib

edto

Peire

scas

»plu

stost

unco

mmen

taire

oudis

cour

squ

emi

s-

36Pi

erre

-Ant

oine

deRa

scas

deBa

garri

s:La

Nece

ssitd

deI'u

sage

des

med

aille

sda

nsles

mon

oyes

(Par

is,16

11),

p.7.

37Ra

scas

deBa

garr

is:N

eces

sitd,

p.12

.38

Curio

sitez

pour

laco

nfirm

ation

etI'o

rnem

entd

eI'h

istoi

re,t

antG

recq

ue&

Roma

ine,q

uede

sBa

rbar

es&

Got

hs,c

onsis

tans

enan

cienn

esM

onno

yes,

Med

aille

s,&

pierre

spr

ecieu

ses,

tantg

ravie

sen

crcu

x,qu

etail

ldese

nba

sreli

ef(A

ix,n

.d.),

pp.2

9-35

.39

»Quo

modo

legen

diau

ctores

«,in:

Via

acmc

thodu

sleg

endi

cum

fructu

histon

am.J

.Lips

ioau

ctB

NM

S.Du

puy

488,

fols.

104r

-106

v;for

comp

ariso

nse

eJu

stiLi

psii

Epist

olar

um(A

ntwer

p,16

18),

Cent.

Ill,no

.Ixi,

pp.4

51-5

7.1tha

nkAn

thony

Graft

onfor

thisr

eferen

ce.

See

also

Graf

ton:

»The

new

scien

cean

dth

etra

ditio

nsof

hum

anism

«,in:

The

Cam

brid

geCo

mpan

ionto

Rena

issan

ceHu

manis

m,ed

.Jill

Kray

e(Ca

mbrid

ge,1

996)

,pp.

219-

20.

40Se

cG.

B.de

Ross

i:»D

elle

sillo

giep

igra

fiche

dello

Smez

ioe

del

Panv

inio

«,in:

Anna

lide

ll'Ins

titut

odi

corri

spon

denz

aar

cheo

logica

,54

(186

2),p

p.22

1-44

;Ida

Calab

iLim

entan

i:»N

ote

sucl

assif

icaz

ione

edin

dici

epig

rafic

ida

lloSm

ezio

alM

orce

lli:

antic

hita

,re

tonc

a,cr

itica«

,in:

Epigr

aphic

a49

(197

7),p

p.17

7-20

2;An

nBl

air:»

Huma

nistI

deas

inNa

tural

Philo

soph

y:Th

eCo

mmon

place

Book

«,in:

Jour

nal

ofthe

Histo

ryof

Ideas

53(1

992)

,pp

.541

-51;

Antho

nyGr

afton

:Co

mmerc

ewi

ththe

Clas

sics:

Ancie

ntBo

oks

and

Ren

aiss

ance

Rea

ders

(Ann

Arb

or,

1997

).

The

Ant

iqua

ry's

Art

ofC

ompa

rison

:Pe

iresc

andA

brax

as6

5

sive«

,Sc

alig

erga

vea

rem

arka

ble

dem

onstr

atio

nof

conn

oiss

eurs

hip.

41In

tere

stin

gly,

Baga

rris

obse

rved

toPe

iresc

that

heth

ough

tSc

alig

erha

ddi

fficu

ltyin

anal

ysin

gw

hath

eto

okto

beea

rlyCh

ristia

nge

ms

beca

use

his

relig

ion

mad

eit

diffi

cult

toap

prec

iate

the

cont

inui

tybe

twee

nCh

ristia

nan

dpa

gan

imag

ery.4

2A

copy

ofSc

alig

er's

disc

ours

ewa

sse

ntby

Baga

rris

toPe

iresc

for

hisj

udge

men

t.If

Pei

resc

lear

ned

muc

hab

outb

eing

anan

tiqua

ryfr

omBa

garr

is,

hele

arne

dfro

mSc

alig

erho

wph

ilolo

gyla

yth

efo

unda

tion

for

cultu

ral

histor

y.43

Thei

rpe

rson

alre

latio

nshi

pbe

gan

inPa

dua

in16

02.

Peire

scha

ppen

edto

bein

the

hom

eof

the

just

-dec

ease

dG

ian-

Vinc

enzo

Pine

lliw

hen

ale

tter

ofSc

alig

er's

arri

ved

whi

chhe

took

itup

onhi

mse

lfto

answ

er.T

heir

exch

ange

ofle

tters

was

espe

cial

lypr

ized

byPe

iresc

,who

struc

kthe

pose

ofho

nore

dcl

ient

,and

they

had

aw

arm

,ifr

athe

rbiza

rre,

mee

ting

inLe

iden

in16

06.44

Itw

asno

neot

her

than

Scal

iger

,acc

ordi

ngto

Gas

send

i,w

hopr

ovid

edPe

ires

cw

ith

ale

tter

ofi

ntro

duct

ion

toA

brah

amG

orla

eus

(154

9-16

09),

the

fam

edge

mco

llect

orin

Del

ft,th

ough

surv

ivin

gm

inut

esof

ale

tter

ofF

ebru

ary

1606

,pr

ece

ding

his

trip

toth

eLo

wCo

untri

es,s

how

Peire

scal

read

ym

akin

gco

ntac

twith

the

olde

rm

an.

Itw

asth

epl

easu

rehe

had

expe

rien

ced

atse

eing

the

Dac

tylio

-th

eca,

and

Gor

laeu

s'pu

blis

hed

invi

tatio

nto

hisr

eade

rsto

supp

lyhi

mw

ith

fur

ther

info

rmat

ion

that

had

enco

urag

edhi

mto

write

.45

Thi

sst

udy

oft

heim

ages

onan

cien

trin

gsan

dse

als

cont

ains

astr

ongl

ypr

ogra

mm

atic

asse

rtion

ofth

eva

lue

ofco

mpa

rison

.Th

ism

akes

itan

impo

rtant

sour

cefo

run

ders

tand

ing

the

con

cept

ualf

ound

atio

nsof

Peire

sc's

own

study

ofan

cient

mat

eria

lrem

ains

.»Th

us«,

Gor

laeu

sw

rote

,»no

tonl

yw

illw

em

ostd

ilige

ntly

com

pare

our

antiq

uitie

sw

ithhi

story

,co

ins

with

rings

and

rings

with

gem

sbu

tin

divi

dual

item

sw

ithon

ean

othe

r...w

ew

illt

akec

are

that

from

this

dilig

entc

ompa

riso

nof

two

thin

gs,r

ings

and

coin

s,a

third

isbo

rn,t

hefu

lllig

htof

histo

ry«.

46

41Sc

alig

er:

Opu

scul

ava

riaan

tehac

non

edita

(Par

is,16

10),

pp.5

74-8

2.Th

issa

me

letter

surv

ives

ina

late

rm

anus

crip

tcop

yin

the

Bibl

ioth

eque

Mej

anes

wit

hPe

iresc

give

nas

the

adre

ssee

(Aix

-en-

Prov

ence

,Bib

lioth

eque

Mcj

anes

,MS.

212

(103

0)p.

46).

42».

..il

ddto

rque

am

onad

vis,

mai

sce

laje

Icdo

nne

aux

fond

emcn

sde

sare

ligio

nqu

in'

advo

uent

pas

I'ant

iqui

tdde

sim

ages

«(B

agar

risto

Peire

sc,M

arch

1603

,Les

Corr

espo

nda

nts

deP

eire

sc,f

asc.

XII

,p.4

9).

43Fo

rthi

slar

geth

eme

see

Graf

ton:

Jose

phSc

alig

er,v

ol.I

,ch.

7:»F

rom

philo

logy

tocu

ltura

lhi

story

«.Fo

rPe

iresc

'sre

latio

nshi

pto

Scal

iger

see

this

auth

or's

»An

Antiq

uary

Betw

een

Philo

logy

and

Histo

ry:

Peire

scan

dth

eSa

marit

ans«

,in:

Histo

ryan

dth

eDi

scip

lines

:Th

eRe

-org

aniza

tion

ofKn

owled

gein

Early

Mod

ern

Euro

pe,e

d.Do

nald

R.Kc

lley

(Roc

heste

r,N

Yan

dL

ondo

n,19

97),

pp.

163-

84.

44G

asse

ndi

reco

unts

thee

xtra

ordi

nary

tale

ofho

wPe

iresc

visi

ted

the

grea

tman

indi

sgui

se,

bear

ing

alet

terof

reco

mm

enda

tion

from

Peire

sc.A

fter

alo

ngco

nver

satio

nan

dm

uch

exam

inat

ion

ofbo

oks

Peire

scas

ked

for

pen

and

pape

rto

take

som

eno

tes.

Onc

ehe

bega

nto

write

Scali

ger

reco

gnise

dth

eha

ndwr

iting

and

the

ruse

was

enjo

yed

hear

tily

byth

embo

th(M

irro

ur,

year

1606

,p.

102)

.45

Peire

scto

Gor

laeu

s,15

Febr

uary

1606

,Car

pent

ras,

Bibl

ioth

eque

Ingu

imbe

rtine

,M

S.18

09fo

l.4

51

r.46

»Ibi

nam

que

non

antiq

uita

tesm

odo

cum

histo

riano

stra,

num

ismat

acu

man

nulis

,ann

ulos

cum

gem

mis,

sed

&sin

gula

inter

sedi

ligen

tissim

eco

nfer

emus

.Cum

cnim

nuda

ere

rum

haru

mco

nsid

erat

ionc

spe

rse,

veln

ihil

quib

usda

m,v

elpa

rum

adpl

enio

rum

auth

orum

utri-

usqu

clin

guae

intel

lectu

mco

nfer

revid

eant

ur,o

pcra

mda

bim

usut

exha

cdu

arum

reru

m,nu

mm

orum

annu

loru

mqu

e,di

ligen

tico

mpa

ratio

nete

rtiu

mqu

idna

scat

urHI

STOR

1ARU

MLU

Xpl

ena.«

»Abr

aham

usG

orla

eus

Cand

ido

Dac

tylio

thec

aeSu

aeLe

ctori«

,Abr

aham

Gorla

eus:

66 Peter N. Miller

The Roman antiquary Lelio Pasqualini was another older scholar - Peiresccalled him the unquestionably the prince of Italian antiquaries^7 - with whomhe studied images and who influenced the younger man's practice. It was hewho had reminded Peiresc, in a letter of 1608, that »there is a very great difference between learning something from writers or seeing the thing itself«, andthat long-running disputes among the »grammarians« could swiftly be resolvedby an antiquary examining a few artifacts.41 Chief among the objects they discussed were those with images requiring analysis, such as found on coins orgems.49 A long discussion of Charlemagne's appearance involving comparisonof coins, manuscript paintings and mosaics shows how seriously Peiresc wasengaged in this particular practiceand also the extent of his interest in medievalhistory, unusual among his contemporaries.50 To Pasqualini, he wrote that hewished to obtain medals of the early French rulers (Merovingian and Carolin-gian) but especially »those others which the antiquaries call Gothic«. He wasmost attracted to those »of such poor workmanship« that they could only beidentified after comparison with other, similar pieces.51 Peiresc, like othercon-

Dactyliothecaseu annulorumsigillarium quorum apud priscostarnGraecos quam Romanosusus (Antwerp, 1601),sigs. *2v-*3r. For further information on Gorlaeus see Archaologieder Antike. Aus den Bestanden der Herzog August Bibliothck 1500-1700. Wiesbaden,1994. This same image of >the light of history< is also used by Gassendi to describe thepurpose of antiquarian research in his dedication of the Vita Peireskii to Louis de Valois:»Similis enim crepusculo vespertino est rerum fama, quae initio clarissima, ita paulatimevanescit, ut abeat tandem in tenebras; opusque adeo historia est, quae facis instar illamproducat« (sig. *3r).

47 »Simulque ectypos duos Roma ad me missos a R. D. Lelio Pasqualino inter rei antiquariaein Italia peritos facile principe [...].« (Peiresc to Camden, 2 May 1608, Bodleian LibraryMS. Selden Supra 108, fol. 1970.

41 »Insomma se per poter trattar delle cose antiche bastasse lostudio, sarebbe pazzia, non checosa superflua il radunar tante cose et spendere tanti denari in anticaglie, ma e troppo grandifferenza dall'imparare una cosa dalli scritori o veder la cosa stessa: vegga V. S. percortesia quantaquestione 6 fra gramatici nostri circa la forma del Tripode d'Apollo; et conmeno di due quelli se ne da sentenza finale dalli antiquari;« (Pasqualini to Peiresc, 3 June1608, Carp. Bibl. Inguimb. MS. 1831, fol. 60").

49 David Jafft: »Aspects ofGem Collecting in theEarly Seventeenth Century: Nicolas-ClaudePeiresc and Lelio Pasqualini«, in: Burlington Magazine 135 (1993), pp. 103-20 is the besttreatment of their intellectual relationship.

50 Peiresc to Pasqualini, 2 November 1608, Aix Bibl. Mejanes, MS. 209 (1027), pp. 86-98.The discussion of Charlemagne is found in this copy and the autograph draft on which it isbased (Carp. Bibl. Inguimb. MS. 1809, fols. 300r-305v; it follows the end of the letter andwas marked by Peiresc for insertion in the body of the text) but not in the letter as sent(Montpellier, Bibl. de I'Ecole de Mddecine, MS. H. 271 vol. I, fol. 7V; was it simply forgotten or a Peireskean afterthought?). See also Peiresc's letters to Aleandro of 5 September1617(Correspondance de Peiresc & Aleandro, eds. Jean-Francois Lhote and Danielle Joyal,2 vols (Clermont-Ferrand, 1995), I, p. 132) and 6 February 1625 (Vatican City, BibliotccaApostolicaVaticana, MS. Barb.-Lat. 6504, fol. 189"). On Peiresc's >medievalism< see JeanSchopfer: »Documents relatifs a Tart au moyen fige contenus dans les manuscrits deN. C. Fabri de Peiresc a la bibliotheque de la ville de Carpentras«, in: Bulletinarcheologique du comit6 des travaux historiques et scientiflques 20 (1899), pp. 330-95;Edward S. Peck: Peiresc Manuscripts Aiding the Reconstruction of Lost Medieval Monuments, Unpubd. Ph.D,(Harvard University, 1964).

51 Peiresc to Pasqualini, 2November 1608, »In scambio di che hodapregaro V. S. M. III." dimandarine de gli impronti di tutte le monete 6 medaglie d'oro et d'argento che potranno

The Antiquary's Art ofComparison: Peiresc and Abraxas 67

noisseurs, seems to have adapted the practice of Apelles, who collected a bevyof beauties in order to combine their best parts to make the »perfect« woman,except that he sought misshapen examples to explain other wretched ones. Thus,in a letter to Peter-Paul Rubens two decades later, Peiresc explained that he wasparticularly interested in those medals »of that sort which the antiquaries callGothic, which are ordinarily ofsuch poor workmanship that it is necessary to seethem sometimes more than 5 or 6 times in order to understand the intention ofthe artist«.i2

Where no texts survived knowledge could only be made by comparing objects with other objects. And this meant that the purpose of collecting wasstretched from the beautiful or wondrous to the historically valuable thoughpossibly ugly. This helps to explain why Momigliano's »Age ofthe Antiquaries«was also the great age of collecting. The larger the collection the greater thenumber of objects that could be compared and, therefore, the more certain theresulting conclusions.53

The most acute problem involving comparison was also raised in the Peiresc-Pasqualini correspondence. »Since the material of antiquity is so vast andvague«, Peiresc wrote, »to treat it in an orderly way one would need to encompass an infinite number ofthings for which, perhaps, public and domestic occupations would not allow time, apart from many other impediments.«54 This waswork with no obvious end; as a contemporary theorist of philology - and acquaintance ofPeiresc - put it: »The task is one of immense, infinite and most

ritrovarsi in man sua, 6 delli suoi amici battutte a'tempi delli nostri Re Francesci dellaprima et seconda Famiglia, et non solo di quelle, ma ancora di certe altre che gli Antiquariisogliono chiamare Gothiche delle quali havendone io radunato piu di docento fra oro,argento, et rame, ho comminciato di cavarne qualche costrutto, ma non hardisco palesiarlo,Ch'io non ne habbia messo insieme maggior quantita, per maggior confirmatione del mioconcetto. Massime sendo alle per lo piu di sigoffa maestria che niente apieno difficilmentevi si pu6 riconoscervi niente a pieno senza haverne tre 6 quatro simili con le istesseimpronte et inscrittioni« (Montpellier, Bibliotheque de I'Ecole de Midecine, MS. H. 271vol.l, fol. 5"). Peiresc was using this term as early as 1602. In aletter to Marcus Welser, forexample, Peiresc explained that because his Phoenician coins were of»si goffa maestria peril piu bisogna indovinare, il che non so ne posso farc« (Peiresc to Welser, 31 January 1602,B N. Nouvelles acquisitions francaises, MS. 5172, fol. 21r).

52 »[ ]di quella natura che gli antiquarii chiamano Gothiche, le quali sono ordinariamente diassai goffa maestria, in maniera che bisogna vederne talvolta piu di 5o 6 per sorte perriconoscere I'intentione dello scoltore« (Peiresc to Rubens, 26 November 1621, CodexDiplomaticus Rubenianus. Correspondance de Rubens et documents epistolaires concer-nant sa vie etses oeuvres, ed. Charles Ruelens and Max Rooses, 6 vols. (Antwerp 1887-1909) H, p. 295 (henceforth Rubens Correspondance). Charles Patin: Histoire desmddai'lles'ou introduction ala connaissance de cette science (Paris, 1695, p. 111) noted that»Ce mot Gothique est assez commun chez les Curieux, et e'est ainsi qu'on appelle tout cequi paralt ancien et mal fait« (quoted in Pomian: Collectionneurs, amateurs et curieux,p. 326 note 212.

53 Momigliano: »Ancient History and the Antiquarian«, p. 68.54 »Imperoche e si ampia c vagga la materia dell'antiquita, che per trattarla con ordine,

bisognerebbe abbracciare infinite cose insieme di che non le darebbono forse il temponeccssario le sue occupationi publiche, e domestiche, oltre molte altre impediments(Peiresc to Pasqualini, 20 December 1609, Montpellier, Bibl. de I'Ecole de M6dectneMS. H. 271 vol. I, fol. 130-

08 Peter N. Miller

uncertain labour, and one needs more than an Ariadne's thread to emerge fromit«.»

This particular problem was a concern of another of Peiresc's early teachers,the Vicentine emigre" legal scholar and Aristotelian philosopher, Giulio Pace.56Peiresc was his student at Montpellier in 1603, lived in his household, and became a lifelong friend of both Pace and his son.57 The question which Paceanalyzed was strikingly similar to that articulated by Peiresc: if Roman law wasto be understood as a product of historical circumstances, as the French schoolof interpretation taught, would adjudication be held hostage to the endless pursuit of an ever-thickening historical context?

In Dejuris methodo, an inaugural lecture delivered at Heidelberg in 1585,Pace sought to reconcile historical research with thedemands of present-day use,and more specifically,the mos Gallicus with the status of Roman Law as the lawof the land.58 It could not be denied that there were difficulties with the text ofthe Corpus Juris as it had been transmitted, and Pace offered three general explanations. First, the laws were fixed in antiquity and in an age of great discoveries - rerum novarum inventio - their application became increasingly peril-

55 »Res est immensi, infmiti et incertissimi operis, opusque est filo plusquam Ariadnaeo, ademergendum« (Alexandre Fichet: Arcana Studiorum, quoted in Helmut Zedelmaier:Bibliotheca Universalis und Bibliotheca Selecta. Das Problem der Ordnung des gelehrtenWissens in der fruhen Neuzeit (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna, 1992), pp. 295-96 note 900).Fichet actually knew Peiresc, havingtaught philosophy at Aix-en-Provence. He dedicatedto him avolume of spiritual treatises. Theoriginal dedicatory letter was soembarrassing toPeiresc that he had it omitted from later copies, though Gassendi reproduces it in part:»Your Table, your House, your Study, are a Starry firmament of all wits, wherein theHeavenly Constellations, the Stars of all Learning and learned men do briefly shine; so thatall things therein are not guilt with Gold or Silver, but shine as Stars: the Desks are filledwith Stars, where theBooks stand likeConstellations; andyourself sittingin the midst,andembracing all, give light to all, add grace to all, bestow lifeasit were, and eternity upon all;so that to youall well-writ Books throughout theWorld, asthesacred fires of good minds,dostrive to mount as to their heaven, to receive light from you, and shine again upon you,&c.« (Gassendi: Mirrour, year 1627, p. 24). Two letters from Fichet to Peiresc are found inB. N. MS. Fonds francais9540, fols. 153r, 154r.

56 For biographical information see: M. Revillout: »Le jurisconsulte Jules Pacius de Berigaavant son dtablissementa Montpellier 1550-1602«, in: Academie des sciences et lettres deMontpellier. Mlmoires de la section des lettres, 7 (1886), pp. 251-78; F. Lampertico:»Materiali per servire aliavita di Giulio Pace giureconsulto et filosofo«, in: Atti del RealeIstituto vcneto di scicnze, lettere ed arti, ser.VI, 4 (1885-86); A. Franceschini: Giulio Paceda Beriga e la giurisprudenza dei suoi tempi. Memorie del RealeIstituto venetodi scienze,lettere ed arti, 27, 2 (Venice, 1903) and Alfred Dufour: »Jules Pacius de Beriga (1550-1635) et son De Juris Methodo (1597)«, in: Geneve et l'ltalie, ed. Luc Monnier (Geneva,1969), pp. 113^7.

57 Peiresc later tried to obtain for Pace ateaching position at the University in Aix and Pacededicated his Institutionum imperialium analysis (1605) to the youngPeiresc.

58 This approach is often seen as areflection of Pace's study with Jacopo Zabarella in Padua.See Cesare Vasoli: »GiuIio Pace e la diffusione europea di alcuni temi aristotelicipadovani«, in: Aristotelismo veneto e scienza moderna, ed. Luigi Olivieri, 2 vols (Padua,1983), II, pp. 1009-34, and Helmut Coing: »Zum Einfluss der Philosophie des Aristotelesauf die Entwicklung des romischcn Rechts«, in: Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung furRechtsgeschichte, Rom. Abt. 69 (1952), pp. 24-59.

The Antiquary's ArtofComparison: Peiresc andAbraxas 69

ous.59 Second, the fact that all things in the world were in a constant state of flux- rerum mutatio - made it difficult to work with a fixed canon.60 Finally, thesimple fact of >normal< historical change - circumstantiarum varietas - riskedturning Roman Law into one great anachronism.61 The only way to deal with theproblem of historical change, Pace thought, was to seek out the original intent ofa law. If the same purpose were served by its modern application, even underunanticipated conditions, the law could be used according to the rule ubi eademratio, idem jus. Establishing clear intent, however, required detailed philologicalresearch into the usage of the time. This required the broad erudition that ledPace to appropriate for legal scholars the title of »polymathes«.62

Peiresc's interest in antiquities began and advanced in step with his legalstudies and the relationship between antiquarian and legal scholarship was aclose one.63 Peiresc felt constrained to justify to his father andunclethe utilityofantiquities for his legal studies, and Gassendi thought the »confession« worthconserving:

And that he likewise knew, that the study of antiquities was not unuseful towards theknowledge of the Lawes, seeing without that, most places of the Digests and the Codescould not be understood; and that they themselves might find so much by experience,seeing for example sake Interpreters knew not what tomake of those Viriolas exSmargadisoften mention'd by Ulpianus and Paulus which himselfcould understand, by meanes ofsome which hehad gotatRome outof certain Ruines, and which hewould send to them: Athing which had not been seen now for many Ages together.64

According to Gassendi, Peiresc believed that there were many passages in Roman legal texts that could no longer beunderstood without the help that antiquitiesoffered, such as weights, measures, jewlery, and clothing.65

Letters writtento his family from Montpellier show that Peiresc found Pace'smethod congenial. In a letter of late October 1602 to his uncle, the lawyer,whose seat in the parlement he was to occupy for the rest of his life, Peiresc

59 All references are to G. Pace: De iuris methodo libri II (Speyer, 1597). The example ofartillery and printing is found at p.47.

60 The depreciation ofcurrency, asubject that was to fascinate Peiresc (see Gassendi: Mirrour,year 1609, pp. 131-33; year 1624, p. 17) is found at pp. 48-49. Peiresc also copied outexcerpts from »Julii Paci J. C. tractatibus de mutatione monetarum« (Carpentras MS. 1775,fols. 283-34).

61 Pace: De juris methodo, p. 49. Even discerning change was made more difficult by thetradition of glossing that required the historically oriented reader first topeel offa layer ofmedieval comment and another of late antique language before theoriginal Roman contextstood revealed (pp. 51-3).

62 De juris methodo, pp. 57-58, 62-65, 70. On polymathy see Zedelmaier: BibliothecaUniversalis, ch. 4;Luc Deitz: »Ioannes Wower of Hamburg, Philosopher and Polymath. APreliminary Sketch of his Life and Works«, in: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 58 (1995), pp. 132-51.

63 For the relationship between antiquarianism and legal scholarship see J. G. A. Pocock: TheAncientConstitution and the Feudal Law(Cambridge, 1986, 2nd edition revised; 1stedn.1957); Donald R.Kelley: The Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship (New York,1970).

64 Gassendi: Mirrour, year 1602,p. 69.65 Gassendi: Mirrour, year 1604,p. 80.

/u Peter N. Miller

enthusiastically described Pace's method.66 The latter's insistence on historicalcontext, he wrote, offered ajustification for the antiquary's practice since manypassages of Roman Lawthat had become impenetrable with the passage of timecouldbe recovered with better understanding of daily life in ancient Rome. Andso, uponthe occasion ofhis doctorate of law in January 1604 Peiresc lectured onthe history of academic ceremonial garb »out of innumerable other Monuments;he shewed how the use of these ornaments came from the Greeks to the Latines,and so down to us... All which he confirmed by frequent Citations ofCouncells,Fathers, Poets, Historians, and Orators«.67 Of course, to suggest that polymathywas the >solution< to the problem of an expanding horizon of information onlybegged the question of how onecouldknow everything.

ii.Abraxas, Mithras andthe survival of ancient religion

Looking over an antiquary's shoulder can help us appreciate the sophisticatedconstructionof contexts and formulation of questions that constituted his scholarlyactivity and marked his originality. Peiresc's glyptic studies have received agreat deal of attention in recent years; in what follows, we will look overPeiresc's shoulderas he andhis friends studied the bizarre gem calledAbraxas.61

The Abraxas, or Abrasax, gem (inscriptions use both spellings) depicted astrange figure with the head of a cock, the torso of a soldier in body armor, andthe legs of a serpent, holding a whip in one hand and a shield bearingthe Greekletters IAH in the other. The numerological value of the Greek characters addedup to 365, suggesting a solar theme. Fathers of the Church, Jerome, Irenaeus,and Epiphanius, in particular, provided the most comprehensive contemporaryexplanation of the imagery and its meaning. They identified the gems as tokensproduced by Gnostics in order to propagate their ideas, a sort of ideologically-charged advertising. The question of whether these followers of the second-century heretic Basilides were Christians who borrowed from paganism or pagans who borrowed from Christianity, or whether their teaching was theology,philosophyor magicwas, andremains, a matterof debate.69

66 Peiresc toCallas, October 1602, in: Lettres dePeiresc, VI, pp. 6-7.67 Gassendi: Mirrour, year 1604, p. 77.68 See Marjon van der Meulen: »NicoIas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc and Antique Glyptic«, in:

Engraved Gems: Survivals and Revivals, ed. Clifford Malcolm Brown (Washington, D.C.,1997),pp. 194-227; idem: Petrus Paulus Rubens Antiquarius (Alphen aander Rijn, 1975),esp. ch. 2; idem: Rubens' Copies after the Antique (London, 1994), 3 vols.; David Jaffe:»Reproducing and Reading Gems in Rubens Circle«, in: Engraved Gems: Survivals andRevivals, pp. 181-93; idem: »Peiresc and New Attitudes to Authenticity in the SeventeenthCcntury«, in: Why Fakes Matter. Essays on Problems of Authenticity, ed. Mark Jones(London, 1993), pp. 157-73; idem: »Aspects of Gem Collecting in the Early SeventeenthCentury: Nicolas-Claude Peiresc and Lelio Pasqualink, in: Burlington Magazine 135(1993), pp. 103-20.

69 For discussion of these gems, called >gnostic< or >magical< for reasons similar to thoseinvoked by Scaliger and Bagarris, see P. Post: »Le gdnie anguipede a!ectro-c6pha!e: unedivinitd magique solaire; une analyse des pierres dites Abraxas-gemmes«, in: Bijdragen,

The Antiquary s Art oj Comparison: feiresc ana Aoraxas /1

Peiresc seems to have been interested in these gems for his whole life. Why?In part, of course, the obscurity and complexity of the gem and its peculiargraven image made it a challenging peak for the great connoisseur to conquer.But the presumed late antique, Egyptian provenance of the Abraxas also accounts for its importance in an age particularly fascinated by Egyptian symbolism. Peiresc's letters to older luminaries such as Vincenzo Contarini, UlisseAldrovandi and Marcus Welser dating from his Italian trip show an early interestin the language and religion of the ancient Near East, in hieroglyphs, the »mys-tica di Egitti«, and Phoenician coins struck in Tyre.70 Peiresc's pursuit of theconnection between the languages and religions of the eastern Mediterranean inhis maturity shows that his interest did not flag. The study of Abraxas must beseen as part of this broader focus. Yet, reconstructing the history of Peiresc'sAbraxas-studies is most valuable for the glimpse it affords us of an antiquary'scomparison of texts, objects,and images.

By the time he left for Italy Peiresc seems already to have made himselfsomething of an expert in these gems, and evidence scattered through his surviving papers shows that his collection of, and familiarity with, these gemsrivalled, if it did not surpass, that of his older contemporaries. Bagarris, it will berecalled, had sent Peiresc a copy of Scaliger's >commentary< on some of hisgems. This had included a discussion of the Abraxas. Bagarris, after reviewingScaliger's interpretations, differed precisely on the attribution to them of a magical, rather than a broadly philosophical, content. »M. de la Scala l'estime talisman; je la croiroy plus tost philosophique, comprenant soubs ce mot tout lesubjectou dessains qu'on y a enclos, physique ou naturel, moral ou embtemati-que et historique ou fabuleux«. Bagarris also asked Peiresc for sketches of someof hisgems, »mesme leschrestiennes magiques«.7'

Gassendi describes how, during his visit to Rome in October of the JubileeYear 1600,the twenty-yearold Peiresc lectured an »astonished« Cardinal Baro-

Tijdschrift voor filosofie en Theologie 34 (1980), pp. 173-210; Campbell Bonner: Studiesin Magical Amulets, chiefly Graeco-Egyptian (Ann Arbor, 1950); A. A. Barb: »Abraxas-Studien«, in: Hommage a Waldemar Deona, Collection Latomus 28 (Brussels, 1957); idem:»Diva Matrix: a Faked Gnostic Intaglio in the Possession of P. P. Rubens andthe Iconologyof a Symbol«, in: Journal of theWarburg and Courtauld Institutes 16(1953), pp. 193-238;Peter Zazoff: Die antiken Gemmen (Munich, 1982), ch. 13 »>Gnostische< Gemmen(Magische Amulette)«; Roy Kotansky and Jeffrey Spier: »The Horned Hunter on a LostGnostic Gem«, in: Harvard Theological Review, 88 (1995), pp. 315-37.

70 Mention of the »mystica di Egitti« occurs in the postscript of one letter to Aldrovandi (28November 1601, Carp. MS. 1809, fol. 379*), »lettere Hieroglyphiche« in a second (30October 1601, fol. 379*), the Phoenician inscription on a Tyrian medal in letters to Contarini (21 October 1601, B. N., N.a.f. MS. 5172, fol. 21A0 andWelser (31 January 1602,N.a.f. MS. 5172, fol. 210r_v) with a full discussion in »Della Colonne d'Hercole in medagliedi Tyro. Discorso di N. F. a Monsig. L. P. [Lelio PasqualiniR Carp. Bibl. Inguimb.,MS. 1809, fols. 277-82; Aix Bibl. Mejanes, MS. 209 (1027), pp. 117-24. A description ofPeiresc's >Tyrian< medals is found in B. N. MS. Latin 9340, fols. 38-40.

71 Baggaris to Peiresc, 13 January 1605, in: LesCorrespondants de Peiresc vol. I, fasc. 12,p.56. Peiresc seems to have adopted something of Scaliger's typology. Writing to Thomasd'Arcos in Tunis, he noted that the nativeswere proneto belief in the occult powerof engraved stones »which they take nearly all for Talismans« (Lettres de Peiresc, 10May 1631,VII, p. 97).

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nius on this engraved gem, which Baronius had used to illustrate his discussionof the history and theology of Gnostics in the second volume of his AnnalesEcclesiastici (1597). Peiresc showed Baronius the collection of Basilidian andValentinian gems that he had put together and which he believed offered afirmerdocumentary foundation than the single amethyst that Baronius had reliedupon.72

Gassendi mentions that the substance of Peiresc's remarks to Baronius was

preserved in a letter to Natalitio Benedetti, a well-known gem collector fromFoligno whom he had met on that Italian trip. A copy of this letter, which Gassendi summarized, survives in draft. Peiresc provided Benedetti with a pottedversion of the account found in patristic heresiologists like Epiphanius." Theletters they exchanged over the next decade offer tantalizing traces of an extensive commerce in Gnostic gems.74 Peiresc sought, for a long time after Bene-

72 Baronius: Annales Ecclesiastici, II, year 120, paragraphs vii-xxvi; here parag. xvii. IngoHerklotz has pointed to the importance of Baronius's use of coins for the genre of ecclesiastical history (pHistoria Sacra und mittelaltcrliche Kunst wahrend der zweiten Halfte des16. Jahrhunderts in Rom«, in: Baronio e I'arte. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi,eds. Romeo Maio et al. (Sora, 1987), pp. 23-74, esp., p. 64). For Baronius as scholar seethe essays in: Baronio storico e la Controriforma, eds. Romeo de Maioet al. (Sora, 1982),and now Stefano Zen: Baronio storico. Controriforma e crisi del metodo umanistico(Naples, 1994). For the amethyst of Abraxas used by Baronius see Pierre de Nolhac: »Lescollections de FulvioOrsini«, in: Melanges d'archeologie et d'histoire 4 (1884), p. 154.

73 »Fuerror mio lo scriver a V. S. che'l primo autore della parola ABPACAE fosse vissuto atempi di Giuliano, poscia ch'eglimod sotto Hadriano, e si chiam6 Basilides. e benvero chela sua heresia repulluld in que'tempi, e durd anco fin a Valentiniano e piu abasso.accresciuta di quelle de'Nicolaiti, Gnostici, Carpocratiani, Valentiniani, Heracleoniti,Ophiti, Arcontici, Heusiani, Samrasaei, Bardesianisti, Cathari, Marcosij, e molte altre, lequali nacquero tutte quasi in medesimo tempo, e se beneci eraqualche diversita tra loro,volevano nondimeno tutti che'l mondo fosse fatto da gli Angeli, 6 da certe potentieangelichc imaginate da loro, e battezatto di certi nomi Barbari, tratti quasi tutti, in sensoocculto, d'alle fintioni poetiche di Hesiodo, e degli altri Greci, e moltevolte osservando lamaniera del parlare Ebreo 6 Syriaco. Insomma, sarei troppo longo se volessi raccontarleminutamente gli articoli delle loro heresie sara meglio che V. S. vegga lei stessa tutto il2,3,4 tomidi Epiphanio contra le 80 Heresie« [Epiphanius: Contra octaginta haerescs opus,Panarium appellatam] (Peiresc to Benedetti, 8 March 1602, Carp. Bibl.Inguimb.,MS. 1809, fol. 396r. Gassendi's summary is in: Mirrour, year 1600, p. 28).

74 The following letters survive: from Peiresc to Benedetti, 8 March 1602,26 November 1612,3 April 1613,14 August 1613,29 October 1613,25 March 1614,6 June 1614 (Carp. Bibl.Inguimb., MS. 1809, fols. 397-405), 13 October 1614 (MS. 1872, fol. 254), and fromBenedetti to Peiresc 1 March 1613; 20 May 1613; 24 January 1614; 12March 1614 (B. N.F. fr. 9542, fols. 149-54). Amongthe >intagli antiqui< thathe sentto Benedetti on 26 November 1612 was a »Iaspo verde con1'Erictonio, a capo humano, pedibus serpentini &c.«(Carpentras MS. 1809, fol. 397^. At the end of his letter of 3 April 1613 Peiresc sketched,amid a secretary's transcription, oneof thegems he sent, a bearded canopus surrounded bystars and letters with a reverse showing»instrumenta varia geometrica« (4001). This gemwas reprinted inIoannes Chifflet's Abraxas Proteus (1657), p. 123, with acommentary thatlinked it to theone primordial Creator intheBasilidian cosmogony. It isnowbelieved to bea seventeenth-century forgery. (I thank Jeffrey Spier for this information.) Benedetti sentPeiresc a numberof stoneson 25 January 1614 (received 12 March), including four whosesurviving descriptions by Peiresc seem to identify them with the magical-gnostic amulets:three were typical animal-headed, serpent-footed and lAQ-inscribed, while a fourth, ingreen jasper, was described as »Sarapidis caput cum inscriptionibus Basilidianis« (B.N.MS. F. Fr. 9530, fol. 232'.This list is followed by another which included four additional

The Antiquary's Art ofComparison: Peiresc and Abraxas 75

detti's death, to obtain sketches of the stones in his collection." Abraxasretained enough of a hold on Peiresc's imagination for him to record the chancediscovery, in a Church while on other business, of one such gem incorporatedinto a reliquary.76

Peiresc's relationship with Benedetti bore fruit almost immediately. LorenzoPignoria warmly acknowledged Peiresc's assistance in his Vetustissimae tabulaeaeneae...explicatio (1605), a study of the famed Mensa Isiaca that draws extensively on ancient gems for iconographical evidence and is a model of antiquariancomparison.77 Pignoria specifically acknowledged Peiresc's help in obtainingfrom Benedetti gems that illustrated Epiphanius's and Irenaeus's observationson ancient Christiansects. These had inspired Pignoria to add an Auctarium andthe engravings at the rear of the volume.78 Pignoria argued, following Baronius(to whom the book was dedicated), but with more support from visual evidence,that Abraxas and its makers, including Basilides, were part of an ancient andnative Egyptian tradition of idolatry. The Basilidian and Valentinian heresieswere to be understood as late antique manifestations of that still-fertile imagination.79 Pignoria's engravings of Abraxas gems were crude, but represented more

Abraxas gems, fol. 234). Peiresc seems to have most prized the amethyst of »Mercurycovered in letters with a branch and serpent« (Peiresc to Benedetti, 14 August 1613 Carp.Bibl.Inguimb, MS. 1869 fol. 400") that Peiresc thoughtunusual enough to draw alongsidethe list [Fig. 1]. The serpent with lion head is the Egyptian solar god Chnuphis and theseven vowels referto the seven heavens.The Mercury bears the inscription IACO CABACOAACONEI, invoking the Gnostics' typical use of Hebrew names of God (B. N.,MS. F. fr. 9530 fol. 2320-A moreprecise drawing is at fol. 220r [Fig. 2].

75 Sec Peiresc to Pignoria 20September 1616 (Carp MS. 1875 fol. 33O; Peiresc to Aleandro4 November 1620 (Correspondance de Peiresc & Aleandro, II, p. 223); Peiresc to ClaudeMenestrier25 April 1629(Lettres de Peiresc, V, p. 569).

76 Observed in the Church of the Dames Religieuses de St. Louis of the order ofSt. Dominique, Carp. Bibl. Inguimb. MS. 1791, fol. 71v.

77 Its subtitle tellingly located this case study within the framework of early seventeenth-century accounts of comparative religion, such as Pignoria's own addition to VincenzoCartari's lmagini delli dei de gli antichi (1615): »in qua antiquissimarum superstitionumOrigines, Progressiones, Ritus ad Barbaram, Graecam, Romanamque Historiam illustran-dam enarrantur«.

78 »[...] eidem Fabricio acceptum ferri debet omne id quod e Natalitii Benedecti preciosisloculis evulgamus. e quibus Auctarionostracum robore & incremento spiritus accessit. eaenim omnia, quae ad illustrandam Epiphanii, Irenei, & aliorumPatrum historiam Sectariosantiquos exagitantem attulimus, inde profectasunt« (Vetustissimae tabulae aeneae [...] explicate, Venice, 1605, fols. 8v-9r; also quoted by Gassendi for the year 1602). Some ofthese gems may have remained in Pignoria's collection where their presence was recordedin the inventory of Pignoria's Museum: »Gemmaeannulares insignes non paucae, sive expromiscuo signandi usu, sive ex mysteriis Aegyptiorum & veterum haereticorum.«(J. P. Tomasini: Laurentii Pignorii Vita, Bibliotheca & Museum, found in the late seventeenth-centuryreprint of Mensa Isiaca (Amsterdam, 1669), p. 88 separately paginated). Aletter from Pignoria to Peiresc of 17 May 1602, the period in which he was working onMensa Isiaca, contains a postscript >De IAQ< that discusses sources including »Theoretus[sic] in sermone secundo de principiis in Porphyrio«, Diodorus Siculus, bk. II, ch. 5»Moses ab Iaco, quern Deum vocant«, and Bellarmine's reference in his Hebrew Grammarto Clement of Alexandria's Stromateis bk. 5 and Macrobius' Saturnalia bk. 1, ch. 18 (AixBibl. Mejanes, MS. 209 (1027), p. 343).

79 »Sectariorum veterum Hicroglyphica, nugas verius, adiunxi permotus doctorum Virorumadhortatione, & impulsusexemplo Illustrissimi Viri Caesaris Baronii Card, qui historiam

76 Peter N. Miller

types than had thus far been published.80 Peiresc, in any event, had his own wayof increasing their precision: by coloring in Pignoria's engravings in their appropriate shades of red, green and grey.81

Abraxas was a relic of the pagan background of early Christianity. Peirescwas also very familiar with the most elaborate contemporary attempt to retrievethis complex intellectual context made concrete in the image. Jean L'Heureux,>Macarius< (1540-1614) was among the pioneers of archaeologia sacra in theRoman circle of Alfonso Chac6n, along with his countryman Philips vanWinghe and the young Antonio Bosio.82 His work went well beyond Pignoria'srather simplistic category of >idolatry<. We know from published correspondencethe respect which Peiresc had for the younger, and more famous, Antonio Bosio.In a letter to Paolo Gualdo of 1615, long before Roma Sotterranea (1632) wasfinally published, Peiresc asked after Bosio, pledged his service andacknowledged that he had been inspired by him to make his own investigationsof the Alyscamps in Aries, where he had found many marble tombs along withrelics »con note del Paganesimo piuttosto che del Christianesimo«.83

Peiresc's unpublished and unexamined correspondence with Macarius showshow familiar he was with the work of the other members of this first generation

anni CXX scalpta huius generis Amethysto exornatam voluit, & locupletalam. & saneplerique Principes eius scolae, qui nomine tcnus Christiani olim iurarunt in magistri Dia-boli verba, Aegyptij natione fuerunt. in his Marcus, qui Hispanias infecit; Basilides ma-gister luxuriae, turpissimorumque coplexum; &Carpocrates inquinati, &coenosi dogmatisassertor. alij Aegyptiorum doctrinis imbuti, ut Cherintus pestilens ille novator. ut minimeminim videri debeat si Lotum, Harpocratem, & reliqua Aegyptiorum somnia in eorundemsymbolis conspiciamus. ncc defuerunt qui Pythagorae & Platonis axiomata ex Aegyptoplurimum exportata in usus converterent dogmatum insanorum« (Pignoria: Vetustissimaetabulae aeneae, fols. 42v-43r). This is thekernel of theargument for thediffusion of culturefrom Egypt that Pignoria elaborated inthe Seconda Parte delle Imagini de gliDei Indian!Aggionta al Cartari (Venice, 1615), p.361.Gorlaeus's Dactyliotheca has only two representations of the Abraxas gem: ring no. 183and pt. II, no. 137. The tremendous increase inknowledge about these gems over the courseof the seventeenth century is reflected in the quantity in which they are found in JacobGronovius's expanded version ofDactyliotheca (1695). Drawing on published material headded many more illustrations. See Dactyliothecae. Pars Secunda, seu variarum gemmarumquibus antiquitas in signando uti solita, scalpturae, triplo quam fuerint, partim antehacineditarum, partim ex scriptis eruditorum, virorum collectarum numero locuplatiores cumsuccinta singularum explicatione, nos. 325, 328, 331, 332, 333, 334, 336, 338, 340, 342,344, 361, 362, 364. By the late seventeenth century even a courtesy book (albeit onedestined for learned aristocrats) included a chapter on Abraxas. See Baudelot de Dairval:De I'utilite des voyages, et I'avantagc que larecherche des antiquitez procure aux scavans,2 vols.(Paris, 1686), vol. I, pp. 323-31.Peiresc's copy of Pignoria's book is in Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Res. J. 1302. Thiswas not unusual for him: see Peiresc to Valavez, 14 June 1626, in: Lettres de Peiresc, VI,pp. 555-56; Peiresc to Pasqualini, 26 January 1622, quoted in van der Meulen: »NicoIas-ClaudeFabri de Peiresc and Ancient Glyptic«, p. 211.See Gisela Wataghin Cantino: »Roma sottcranea. Appunti sulle origini dell'archeologiacristiana«, in: Rivista di storia dell'arte 10 (1980), pp. 5-14 and the appended bibliography;Barbara Agosti: Collezionismo e Archeologia Cristiana nel Seicento (Milan, 1996).Peiresc to Paolo Gualdo, 30 November 1615, in: Lettere d'uomini illustri, che fiorino nelprincipio del sccolo decimosettimo, non piu stampate (Venice, 1744), pp. 255-56. See IngoHerklotz: »Cassiano and the Christian Tradition«, in: Quaderni Puteani 2 (Milan, 1992),pp. 31-48 onBosio's tangled posthumus publication history.

/ ne Antiquary s Art oj comparison: reiresc ana Aoraxas it

of sacred archaeologists, Macarius and van Winghe. In the summer of 1611Macarius sent Peiresc a copy of his Abraxas, seu Apistopisti, the most substantial study of the gem yet attempted. Peiresc acknowledged its receipt in a letter toJe>6me de Winghe, Philips' brother, a canon at the cathedral of Notre-Dame deTournai, whom Peiresc had met there on his Grand Tour. Peiresc promised toreply as soon as possiblewith »some curiosities a propos his Abrasax«.84

Nearly a year passed before Peiresc wrote directly to Macarius. He belatedlyand apologetically acknowledged receipt of the discourse and conveyed hisdesire to reply in kind with engravings of some of his own gems and with theobservations that he had prepared some time before. Yet, his professional andpersonal responsibilities had prevented him from doing this and made him feel»more embarrassed than I ever was«. JeYdme had informed him of Macarius's

desire to recoverthe manuscript as soon as possible and so he was returning itwithout the learned commentary that he hoped, eventually, to include. In themeantime, Peiresc wanted Macarius to know how much pleasure he had taken inthe »clarifications ofone ofthe most obscureand rare piecesofantiquity«.85

Macarius replied immediately, thanking Peiresc for reading his Abraxas andhoping one day to have the opportunity to discuss his observations in person.Macarius was sorry both that Peiresc did not visit him when in the Low Countries, and that they had not met in Rome since he, too, was a frequent guest inthe house of Lelio Pasqualini, where Macarius thought he might once have seenhim. Macarius concluded by mentioning that he had composed his discourse on

Peiresc to de Winghe, 17 September 1611,Carp. Bibl. Inguimb., MS. 1876, fol. 680': »J'ayenftn receu les discours de Mr Macarie ou j'ay bien prins de plaizir. Je luy remercyeray aupremier jour avec quelques curiossitls a propos de son Abrasax ou je m'assure qu'iltreuveraquelque goust, s'il plaista dieu.« I follow Peiresc'susage in referring to Jdrdme byhis French name.Peiresc to Macarius, 28 July 1612, Carp. Bibl. Inguimb., MS. 1876, fols. 659"v: »Jepansoystousjours treuverle loisirde ranger une centaynede Graveurs antiques que j'ay dumesme temps avec des Inscriptions convenables a ce que disent les anciens peres de cespremiers heretiques basilidians, valentins gnostiques & aultres quy ont tant donnd de trouble a la primitive esglize meslans des misteres du judaisme & de cristianissme dans leurpaganisme & esperoys parmesme moien d'y pourvoir adjouster quelques petites observations que j'y avoys faict dessus aultreffois: Mais les occouppations du Palais & les afferesdomestiques m'ont insensiblementconduict jusques a ceste heure sans que je me soy ac-quitte* de ce debvoyr. & le prix est que je me treuveen ceste cour le plus embarrass^ que jefeust jamais de sortequ'il me seroytdu tout impossiblea ceste heured'y satisfere. Je voussupplie done d'avoyr agreable que je le differe jusques a ce que je sois de retour en Prou-vence. Cepandant parce que Mr Winghe m'escript que vous desiriez recouvrer vostre discoursje le vous renvoye avec mille remerciemens d'aultant plus grandzque j'avoys moinsmerits ceste faveur envers vous ne pouvantvous en dire aultrechoze si ce n'est que i'y y aytrouve de si belles // & curieuses recherches & de si beaux esclaircissemens d'aulcunes desplus obscures et plus rares pieces de PAntiquitte que je ne pouvoys que prendre unsingullier plaisir a la lecture de tant de eruditions This letter was sent to de Winghe, asPeiresc explained to him in the letter that accompanied it, »parce que je ne scay pas sesquallitez ny bonnement de lieu de sa residence je vous supplie d'adjouster lesdictes qual-litez au dessus de mon pacquet & de le luy faire tenir seurement parce que son discours yest enclos auquelj'eusse adjoustd vollonticrs quelque choze. Mais mon malleur ne m'a paspermis d'en treuver le loisir a mon trez grand regret«(Peiresc to de Winghe, 29 July 1612,Carp. Bibl. Inguimb., MS. 1876, fol. 684*).

78

Pete

rN

.M

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wish

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know

Peire

sc's

view

ofth

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rres

pond

ence

.86In

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iresc

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atit

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ix,B

ibl.

Mej

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,M

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1610

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see

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18D

ecem

ber

1632

,in:

Lettr

esde

Peire

scIII

,p.

396

and

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i1(1

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.316

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nth

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pend

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ofa

man

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ctob

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12,

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ibl.

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MS.

1876

,fol

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*).

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ms

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nged

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iresc

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prob

ably

ente

red

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mar

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sc,

who

was

fam

iliar

with

both

men

and

thei

rco

llect

ions

.Th

epo

sthum

ous

inve

ntor

yof

Peire

sc's

pape

rslis

tsM

acar

ius's

Abra

xas(

Carp

.Bib

l.In

guim

b.,

MS.

1870

fol.

292*

).Io

anne

sM

acar

ius:

Abra

xas,

seu

Apis

topi

stus

;qu

aees

tant

iqua

riade

gem

mis

Basil

idia

nis

disq

uisit

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erp,

1657

),I.

9.Al

lsub

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oman

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iqua

ry's

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ompa

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scan

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as7

9

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blem

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ain

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llan

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oon,

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eha

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lyse

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man

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II.

15).

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plex

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etis

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plet

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1605

,th

ough

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until

1617

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dde

clar

edby

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iglia

noto

bea

pion

eeri

ngef

fort

inco

mpa

rativ

ere

ligio

n,Jo

hnSe

lden

seto

utto

docu

men

tw

hat

man

y,lik

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acar

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only

impl

icitl

ysu

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ted:

that

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man

ypa

gan

gods

wer

eve

rsio

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aon

eG

odw

how

asw

orsh

ippe

dun

der

diffe

rent

nam

esan

dat

trib

utes

indi

ffere

ntpl

aces

atdi

ffere

nttim

es.92

Seld

endi

scus

ses

the

Abra

xas

gem

inhi

sac

coun

tofT

erap

him

,the

smal

lfa

mily

idol

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len

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from

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tter

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alig

erto

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ubon

(»Ve

tere

sha

ereti

cipr

aese

rtim

Vale

ntin

iani

&M

arco

siani

mul

taeiu

smod

ireli

quer

unt,

quae

hodi

ein

Antiq

uario

rum

vocu

lisas

serv

antu

rcu

meo

rum

Deo

Abra

sax«

)an

dsu

mm

aris

edth

em

ajor

patri

stic

auth

oriti

es,n

otin

gin

pass

ing

StJe

rom

e's

iden

tific

atio

nof

Abra

xas

with

Mith

ras

inhi

sC

omm

enta

ryon

Amos

.93

Inde

ed,

Mac

ariu

s'scl

aim

that

Mith

raic

relig

ion

shar

edw

ith

Chr

istia

nity

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ritua

lsof

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ism

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hari

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surr

ectio

n,no

tto

men

tion

its

one

>in

vinc

ible

<go

d(II

I.12

),ra

ised

the

poss

ibili

tyof

apa

gan

mon

othe

ism

with

impl

icat

ions

for

the

unde

rsta

ndin

go

fnat

ural

relig

ion

too

com

plex

toen

teri

nto

here

.A

fter

Mac

ariu

s'de

ath

in16

14hi

spa

pers

pass

edin

toth

eca

reo

fJer

ome

deW

ingh

e,w

ith

who

mPe

iresc

had

mai

ntai

ned,

all

thes

eye

ars,

anac

tive

corr

esp

onde

nce

dom

inat

edby

bota

nica

lqu

estio

ns.

Ina

lette

rto

Peire

scof

8Ju

ly16

18,d

eW

ingh

eex

plai

ned

that

Mac

ariu

s's

exec

utor

sha

dse

nthi

mth

ete

xto

fAb

raxa

sfo

rpu

blic

atio

n.D

eW

ingh

esu

gges

ted

that

itbe

publ

ished

alon

gw

ithPe

ires

c'sow

nco

mm

enta

ryon

the

gem

s.If

Peire

scth

ough

tth

atA

brax

asw

asw

orth

publ

ishi

ng,

othe

rw

orks

byM

acar

ius

had

also

been

deli

vere

din

tohi

spo

sses

sion

.P

eire

sc's

filin

gno

teon

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flyl

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fthe

lette

rsu

mm

ariz

edit

sco

n-

Lor

enzo

Pig

nori

apu

blis

hed

one

oft

hese

»alta

rs«

whi

chhe

clai

med

toha

vese

enin

Rom

ein

1606

onth

eCap

itolin

eH

illin

hiss

uppl

emen

tto

Vinc

enzo

Car

tari'

sim

agin

idel

lide

ideg

lian

tichi

(161

5).

For

Mith

ras

and

itsi

mag

ery

see

F.Sa

xl:

»Mith

ras.

The

Hist

ory

ofan

Indo

-Eu

rope

anD

ivin

ity«,

inhi

sLe

ctur

es(L

ondo

n,19

57),

I,pp

.13-

44;

Lero

yC

ampb

ell,

Mith

raic

Icon

ogra

phy

and

Ideo

logy

(Lei

den,

1968

).91

Mac

arius

:Abr

axas

,XI.

19:»

uttan

dem

veru

msit

,Abr

axam

instar

esse

equi

Troia

ni,qu

iut

Her

oes

Gra

ecos

uter

oge

reba

t,it

aAb

raxa

sut

ero

cond

atom

nium

Deo

rum

fam

ilias

,se

u>

€gyp

tii,

seu

Gra

eci,

&L

atin

i,&

Per

sici

«.92

See

A.M

omig

liano

:»L

anu

ova

storia

roma

nadi

G.B.

Vico

«,in:

Sesto

cont

ribut

oali

ast

oria

degl

ist

udic

lass

ici

ede

lmon

doan

tico

(Rom

e,19

80),

p.19

7.93

John

Selde

n:De

diis

Syris

(Lon

don,

1617

),p.

viii,

xx,

p.37

.Co

mpar

ison

with

Max

Web

er's

rem

arks

onth

eTe

raph

im(A

ncie

ntJu

dais

m,t

r.H

ans

H.G

erth

and

Don

Mar

tinda

le(N

ewY

ork

&Lo

ndon

,19

52),

p.13

8)sh

ows

how

the

antiq

uary

'sto

ols

and

visi

onha

dch

ange

din

bein

gmad

ein

toso

ciol

ogy.

G.J

.Vos

sius

brie

flylis

tsth

elo

ciof

anci

ent

disc

ussio

nsof

Abr

axas

inD

eTh

eolo

gia

Gen

tili,

(Am

ster

dam

,16

41),

bk.I

,ch.

8,p.

60.

80

Pete

rN

.M

ille

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tent

sas

:»E

ditio

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I'Abr

asax

deM

acar

ius«

.94

On

22A

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repl

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ale

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ires

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Mea

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ew

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p.95

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few

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acar

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Tour

nai.9

7In

May

1619

,de

Win

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stil

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king

Peire

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s»n

otes

sur

Abra

xas«

.91

Ina

posts

crip

tto

that

lette

rof

July

1618

deW

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em

entio

ned

the

exist

ence

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othe

rm

anus

crip

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Mac

ariu

s,H

agio

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Ash

eha

din

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ariu

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rese

tab

oute

xpla

inin

g

94De

Win

ghe

toPe

iresc

8Ju

ly16

18,B

.N.M

S.F.

fr.95

39,

fol.3

1r:»

Mon

sieur

,[...]

ceste

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dire

,que

lesEx

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men

taire

sde

feuM

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2Au

gust

1618

,B.N

.M

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fr.95

39,

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sieur

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avis

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me

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vous

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it6.«

96De

Win

ghe

toPe

iresc

,20

Sept

embe

r16

18,B

.N.M

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fr.95

39fol

.34':

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ray

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publ

ic.«

97In

alet

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Pign

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dated

25.vi

i.161

8in

which

here

ports

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findi

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the

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arp.B

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S.18

75fol

.352

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ol.47

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rede

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notes

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affin

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iem

'enpu

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ir[?]

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ele

perm

ettez

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r[?]

l'Abr

axas

dufeu

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s.rL'

heur

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sub

tuo

no

min

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ry's

Arto

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imag

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orthi

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tast

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epa

ints

with

words

,the

other

speak

swith

color

sand

lines«

.«»Tr

ying

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cariu

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mine

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asBu

rgess:

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onAn

tiquit

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1782

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32.»

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ly16

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1876

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s]

84 Peter N. Miller

In this last letter Peiresc amplified his disappointment atthe news that publication of Macarius's works was deferred, referring to his »great esteem for theconceptions and observations of this author«. Nevertheless, he noted that theywere never close friends. Peiresc suggested, in a typical illustration of how heused comparison as atool, that the publication of these ancient images could bemade even more useful if accompanied byothers from an ancient manuscript ofGenesis, referring here to RobertCotton's codex which Peiresc hadborrowed onbehalf of Fronton le Due and which also had not yet been returned."5 But herecognised that the number of illustrations and the cost of such a project militated against its being undertaken."6 It took Peiresc two more years to returnPhilips van Winghe's notebook."7 Macarius's Hagioglypta would remain unpublished until 1856. Van Winghe's Inscriptiones isstill in manuscript.

Peiresc's long familiarity with the iconographical research of two pioneers ofsacred archaeology not only contributed to the shaping of his own method butalso brought him into close contact with the syncretic world of late antiquereligion that Macarius revealed behind the image of Abraxas. At the same timethat he was exchanging letters with de Winghe, Peiresc had been correspondingwith his Roman eyes-and-ears, Girolamo Aleandro. In 1616 Aleandro had published an essay interpreting a solar relief that marked the beginning of an exchange of letters between them about the survival of paganism in general, andsolar cults like Mithras in particular."* The following year, the same one inwhich Selden published his treatise on solar worship in ancient Syria, De diisSyris, Peiresc mentioned to Aleandro that he had seen a Mithraic figure of >Cro-nos< among drawings of Roman antiquities by one »Stephano du Perac« which

que moyauquel cas je travaillerois envain et puis je nescay pas comment se pourroit en-chasser mon discours sijenevois l'image des figures sur lesquelles il lepeult attacher.«

1' Peiresc received the priceless tome in March 1618 and returned itin the spring of1622. SeeSchuddeboom: Philips van Winghe, p. 69 n279; Linda van Norden: »Peiresc and theEnglish Scholars«, in: Huntington Library Quarterly, 12 (1948-49), p. 386. Gassendi alsodescribed it as »written inthe dayes ofTheodosius« (Mirrour, year 1618, p. 158).

116 Peiresc to de Winghe, 6 October 1621, fol. 693-694v: »Et suis bien marry d'entendre leretardement de I'Edition de Agioglyptes de Mr Macarius que je vouldrois bien voir impri-mezpour lagrande estime que je fais des conceptions etobservations dece personage avecI'humeur et inclination duquel je me recontrois en toutplain dechose. Sy j'eusse eu le biende le voir jamais je pense que nous eussions estd merveilleusement grands amys. SiI'imprimeur qui a entrepris cette edition la avoit assez de courage pour entreprandrel'edition des figures ancienncs de toutte laGenese. L'un nesevendroit possible pas malai-scment avec I'aultre et 1'ouvrage seroit bien curieux car ce sontdes figures d'un manuseritfait comme Pon croit du temps de Theodose oules habillements et facons de faire respondent fort fidellement a la vraye antiquitd d'ou il se peult tirer d'infiniment belles consequences et notions deI'Histoire etc. Mais lenombre estgrand, et degrandes despences.«On 22 July 1623 Peiresc recorded sending a letter »a M' Winghe avec son livre« (Paris,B.N. MS. N.a.f. 5169 fol. 50- De Winghe's last letter to Peiresc was dated 4 February1622.

1,8 G. Aleandro: Antiquae tabulae marmoreae solis effigie symbolisque exculptae accurataexplicatio. Qua priscae quaedam mythologiae, ac nonnulla praeterea Vetera monumentamarmorum, gemmarum, nomismatum illustrantur, (Rome, 1616;Paris, 1617).

The Antiquary's Art of Comparison: Peirescand Abraxas 85

he had come across only »these past days«. Peiresc identified this Duperac as thecreator of a »dissegno dellaRoma Antiqua«."9

This Mithraic figure is one of several found in a collection of Dupdracdrawings that has long been known, butwhose relation to Peiresc has not.120 Itcan now with certainty be identified and it aspires to be a handbook of ancientreligion documented by visual material. The full title of Bibliotheque Nationale,MS. Fond francais 382, Illustration des fragmens anticques, appartenant a lareligion et ceremonie des antiens romains, presents the collection as the visualanalogue to other sixteenth-century works such as Guillaume Du Choul's Discours de la religion des anciens romains (1556).121 The first book containsEgyptian imagery, including a drawing of the Abraxas gem, and the secondRoman objects, including several Mithraic figures [Figs. 3aand 3b]. The collection's very structure makes a historical argument through images about culturalexchange in the ancient Mediterranean. But what marks its antiquarian aspirations is the introductory text that offers a brief history of Egyptian and Romanreligion. Duperac worked closely with Pirro Ligorio and Onofrio Panvinio,though this earned his antiquarian skills nomore respect from Peiresc. In a letterto Lelio Pasqualini discussing the appearance of the Porta Trajana, depicted byDupe>ac in one of his already available engravings, Peiresc wrote: »Et non faregran conto di quello ch'ha stampata indritto, Stephano du Perac Architetto, bench'egli affermi che sia curatiss.™ delineato (iuxta antiqua vestigia)«.122

119 Peiresc to Aleandro 28 March 1617, in: Correspondance de Peiresc & Aleandro, I, p. 87:»Io viddi questi giorni passati un libro curiosissimo di molte Anticaglie, raccolte etdissegnate in Roma, da Stephano du Perac, assai celebre Architetto et Antiquario, authoredel dissegno della Roma Antiqua, che sitrova communemente intagliata inrame sotto'l suonome. In questo libro tra I'altre cose e'eun foglio nel quale e dissegnata una figura humanacircondata da un serpe, con i vestigij di certi segni celesti, et altre cose che puonno serviredi supplemento, al fragmento di quella che ftl trovata in Aries, che le mandai ultimamente.«

120 For a summary of the received view, see Jean-Louis Ferrary: Onofrio Panvinio et lesAntiquitis Romaines (Rome, 1996), pp. 136-7 nl03; Lhote and Joyal: Correspondance dePeiresc &Aleandro, vol. I, pp. 86-9 nn86-89.1 am grateful toIngo Herklotz for discussingthis point with me.

121 Twoof Peiresc's inventories, the first from 1623 and hisreturn from Paris to Provence, andthe other posthumous, list a»Livre des antiquites de Rome de Perac« (Carp. Bibl. Inguimb.MS. 1869, fol. 941) and a»recueil des antiquitez de Rome par Duperac en 2 cayers« (Carp.Inguimb. MS. 1870, fol. Ill*)- This copy, unlike the very similar one in the Louvre,contains prefatory remarks, presumably byDuperac, summarising the theology and deitiesofthe Egyptians and the Romans. Bound into the rear ofthis volume are pages ofdifferentsize and shape with drawings of two nesting bowls that belonged to Peiresc and areidentified in his handwriting (fols. 100, 101, 104). The drawing of a giant stone phalluswith a note describing its discovery is dated »July or August 1636« (fol. 90*). Peirescpresumably bound this additional material at the rear of the volume as was his custom. Acopy of Duperac's preface to Bk. I, on Egyptian antiquities, is also found in Carp.MS. 1789, fols. 426-31.

122 Peiresc to Pasqualini, 20 December 1610, Montpellier Bibl. de I'Ecole de M^decineMS. H. 271 vol. I, fol. 13.

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The Antiquary's Art of Comparison: PeirescandAbraxas 87

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Peiresc's exposure to the world of Mithras continued the following yearwhen Aleandro presented him with another example of comparative scholarshipon ancient Mithraic religion, a >discorsetto< that sought to identify the god calledInvictus in a poem by the third-century Christian writer Commodian. This briefessay, on a text that would be published by one of Bernays's heroes, NicolasRigault, in 1650, is another demonstration of comparison, using epigraphy,objects and images to explain a hitherto obscure poem.123

Aleandro drew on the existence of inscriptions bearing the legend >Deo Soli,Invicto Mithrae< and literary identifications of the sun with Mithras to identifypositively Sol Invictus as Mithras. Invincibility was often ascribed to both thesun and the lion, hence the monstrous nature of the deity referred to by the poet.The image is made concrete with the sketch of a coin showing the Deus Invictuswith his lion head.12,4 Invoking the theory that the gods reflected natural properties, Aleandro explained that just as Demeter referred to the grain harvest,Dionysus to the grape, and Isis to both, so Mithras' sun stood for fire and itsprocreative force.125 In his immediate reply, Peiresc declared that he »could notadmire enough the felicity of his concepts and the justness of his conjectures« inthis »most erudite discoursesl26

Comparison with the interpretation of >Invictus< produced by an intellectualgiant of the preceding generation, Abraham Ortelius, offers another opportunityto mark off the methodological advance represented by the work of Macariusand Aleandro. In his study of ancient gods depicted on ancient coins, Deorumdearumque capita (Antwerp, 1602), Ortelius gave two interpretations of theclaim that the sun was invincible. The first, referring to a coin of Constantine,identified the sun with Christian justice and, therefore, with invincibility. Thesecond, assuming the coin to antedate Constantine's conversion, explained that

123 Acopy ofCommodiani veteris scriptoris versus quidam prolati in iis quaesitum quis fueritDeus Invictus was sent to Peiresc (Aleandro to Peiresc, 18 September 1618, Correspondance de Peiresc & Aleandro, I, p. 222) and is conserved in B. N. MS. Dupuy 746fols. 217'-220v. The original is found in B. A. V. MS. Barb.-Lat. 1987, fols. 3-6 and arough draft is in Barb. Lat 2036, fols. 42-46. Peiresc mentions this »observation concerning Sol lnvictus« in a letter to Jerome Bignon of 6 December 1623 and describes it as»extrememcnt gentile ct rare« (Peiresc Correspondance, VII, p. 630). G. H. Halsberghc, TheCult of Sol Invictus (Leiden, 1972) omits Commodian from his reprint of ancient sourcesmentioning Sol Invictus. Bernays would, no doubt, have smiled at the irony of the modernscholar >forgetting< precisely that source which early modern scholars had used to make thedefinitive identification on which the modern's work is founded.

124 Aleandro: Commodiani, fols. 217V, 218r_v.123 Aleandro: Commodiani, fol. 218v: »Nemini non est cognitum, fabulosa ilia veterum

mysteria ad res naturalcs respexissc, veluti Eleusinia ad stationcm frugum, &germinationem, Bacchica ad vendemiam, Isiaca ad utrumque. Itaque & Mithriaca ad ignemreferri videntur, eiusque, ut sic dicam, procreationem. Ignem enim persac deorum primum& praecipuum venerabantur«.

126 Peiresc to Aleandro, 23 October 1618, in: Correspondance de Peiresc & Aleandro, vol. I,p. 226. Aleandro was delighted by this response and felt comfortable enough to proclaimhimself satisfied »d'havcr dimostrato alibi, Deum, qui apud Romanos Invictus dicebatur,Mithram esse Persarumu (11 December 1618, Correspondance, vol. I, p. 250).

TheAntiquary'sArt ofComparison: Peiresc and Abraxas 89

the sun was called invictus because it never tired from its constant course.127 Therange of textual sources is limited to Homer and Virgil, there are no referencesto epigraphy or archaeology, and only a lone engraving ofa man crowned by thesun's rays. Ortelius communicated no sense that understanding the image mightrequire first understanding the culture and society in which it was produced.

The originality ofMacarius and Aleandro, and their intellectual accomplishments, did not, however, go unnoticed. In Filippo del Torre's early eighteenth-century study of the inscriptions of Antium there is a long discussion »De Mithraejusque tabulis symbolicis«, in which Aleandro's >discorsetto< is cited as thefirst account to explain correctly the meaning of>Invictus<.128 Del Torre reprinteda large chunk ofAleandro's essay, commenting that he hoped that this worthywork would soon be published in its entirety.12" Having upheld Aleandro'sidentification of >Sol Invictus< with Mithras, he then explicitly endorsedMacarius's interpretation ofAbraxas in terms ofMithraic theology.130 Del Torreargued that while Mithras began as a Persian deity, the cult soon spread undermany different names, »unde explicantur gemmae Basilidianorum«.131

The ancient religion made accessible through artifacts like the Abraxas gemblurred the difference between pagan and Christian.132 If the Basilidian Gnosticsrepresented a survival of the pagan in the early Christian, late Christianityseemed to some of its scholars to preserve traces of this paganism. In his firstletter to Benedetti, Peiresc had sketched a genealogy of heresy from Basilides tothe Cathars that seemed to represent Gnosticism as an undying heresy. This>structuralist< framework seems to inform an exchange of letters with Rubensfrom the late summer of 1623.1" He informed Rubens that »La nuova di quei deBasilidiani di Seviglia non era ancora pervenuta sino a me«. But in the followingsentence he reported having information about »certi altri sectarii nuovi dellaRosea Croce, assai celebre in Germania, che forzi son gli medesimi di Sevi-

A. Ortelius: Deorum dearumque capita, ex antiquis numismatibus collecla, ed. F. Sweerts(Antwerp, 1602), sig. C4V: »Solem autcm invictum appellari crediderim, cum quod, etsidiuturno nocturnoque cursu laboret, tantoque hactenus tempore laborarit, indefatigabilispermanet«. Peiresc's copy is in Houghton Library, Harvard University, shelf-mark Typ 63002.657.

Filippo del Torre: Monumenta Veteris Antii hoc est Inscriptio M. Aquilii ct tabula solisMithrae variis figuris &Symbolis exsculptam (Rome, 1700), p. 163: »At Hicronymus Ale-ander Junior in prima ex dissertationibus philologicis quae manu ipsius exaratae, ut alibimemoravi, extant in Bibliotheca Barberina, Invictum hunc deum esse Mithram pro certohabct«.

Del Torre: Monumenta Veteris Antii, p. 163: »Ita Alcander: cujus opera incdita licet brevilucis usuram adeptura speramus [...]«. He reprints Aleandro's essay from fol. 218V to theend (220v).DelTorre, Monumenta Veteris Antii,p. 171.Del Torre, MonumentaVeteris Antii, p. 161.See, forexample, Peiresc's comments on ancient Roman calendars in letters to Aleandro of25 July 1618 (Correspondance de Peiresc & Aleandro, vol. I, p. 198) and 18 December1620 (II, p. 252). For a discussion of this theme with specific reference to theAbraxas seeBruno Nevcu, »Archeolatric et modernite" dans le savoir ccclesiastique au XVII" siecle« inhis Erudition et religion aux XVIIe et XVII1C siecles (Paris, 1994), pp. 365-84.For a modern version ofthis argument sec loan Coulianou: Tree ofgnosis. Gnostic theologyfrom ancient Christianityto modern nihilism (New York, 1992).

90Peter N. Miller

glia«.IM Rubens, in his reply, noted that the decree of the Inquisition against the»Basilidiani in Sevilla« had not reached him either.135 By the middle ofSeptember, Peiresc could report that he had finally received »una relatione minutissimadi tutti gli interrogatorii fatti dagli inquisitori alii Adombradi [sic] o Denudi diLisboa« who performed obscene acts under the cover ofpiety, and by February1624 he had sent Rubens the document on the »Ahmbrados«.m Peiresc's assimilation of the Alombrados and Rosicrucians to the Basilidians reflects thecontinuing power of patristic heresiologies and, more broadly, historia sacra,with its typological or structural bias.

Peiresc's own, growing collection ofGnostic gems testifies to his continuinginterest in the world oflate antique paganism - orearly Christianity.137 Survivingnotes and letters provide amore detailed and nuanced picture'of the motives forexpanding his collection. In comments on the tetragrammaton preserved asreading notes filed under the heading L'ESCHASSIER (the Scottish-Gallican jurist,Jacques), Peiresc wrote that the third letter, vau, was the origin of»le diphthongeZEUC et IOV1S, a quoy j'adjousterois le tao) des Basilidiens & Gnostiques«(underlinings in original).138 A second memo, drawing on papers belonging toJacques-Auguste de Thou and describing a funerary urn, noted that »Mithra estle soleil en Langage Persan«.139 The link between Jove, the Basilidian IAQ, and

134 Peiresc toRubens, 3August 1623, in: Rubens Correspondance, III, p. 221.135 Rubens toPeiresc, 10 August 1623, in: Rubens Correspondance, III, p.228.136 Peiresc to Rubens, 17 September 1623, in: Rubens Correspondance, III, p. 244; 11-12

February 1624, III,p. 277.137 By 1621 Peiresc already owned 80 ofthese gems (Peiresc to Rubens, 26 November 1621,

in- Rubens Correspondance, II. p. 293). The number remained constant through the 1620s(Peiresc to Aleandro, 26 October 1628, B. A. V. MS. Barb.-Lat. 6504, fol. 224'), but by1633 it had climbed to200 (Peiresc toSaumaise, 14 November 1633, in: Peiresc Lettres aClaude Saumaise. p. 33). In the discussion ofPeiresc's collection ofantiquities that passesas aposthumous descriptive inventory, gems were treated under the second heading, »con-cerning stones« (Francois Chapard: Fabriciani Cimeliarchii promptuanum triceps (Aix,1647) p 8 The three parts were texts, stones and metallica. This is avery rare piece: 1citefrom the copy in the Bibliotheque Nationale, J. 5057). These, in turn, were divided intostones ofpublic or private commission with gems among the latter. Many ofthe piecesmentioned in the Pasqualini and Rubens correspondence appear, along with »alnsque humsgeneris quamplurimi Deorum Dearumque facies & symbola referentes, veluti Isidis,Osiridis, Apollonis, Bachi: Hcroum praeterea veterum &Hcroinarum nomma &epithctasculptaque animalia quamplurima sacris AEgyptiorum simulachris adhiben solita, quibuspriscarum superstitionum ritus ad Barbaram, Graecam, Romanamque historiam contincnturexpressi [...] Multa tandem ccrnuntur amulcta, bonis (si fas sit credere) comparandis. malisautem avcrruncandis aptissima, Copticis, Arabicisque characteribus insigmta, quorumethymon vulgatum fecit Talismani vocabulum [...] Et quidquid veterum falsis nummibus obancillantium mentibus indidit superstitiosa rcligio; quibus annumerantur portcntosaBasilidanorum amuleta«. (Carp. Bibl. Inguimb. MS. 1870 fol. 38v describes the content ol»Unc petite boittc quarre cotte Basilidis« as engraved gems and copies of inscriptionsfrom engraved gems.) _

138 »Lc Vav de la troisiesme lettre, est prononcc\ tantost en demis consonnante, d V, tantost envoyclle U, ou diphthongue OV. ou bien un co.Omcga. d'ou vient le diphthonge zaJC etipvis, a quoy j'adjousterois le iaco des Basilidiens &Gnostiques« (Carp. Bibl. Inguimb.MS. 1864, fol. 252').

139 B N MS Latin 8957 fol. 178': »Mithra est le soleil en Langage Persan, I urnc est ck.crystal faicte a I'antique, remplie des oz bruslez, & des cendrcs dudit Kyndonax, et

TheAntiquary's Art ofComparison: Peiresc and Abraxas 91

Mithras describes the arc from Persia to Egypt to Rome that directed theresearches of scholars for the next two centuries.

Peiresc's letters to Rubens from the period in which they planned to publish abook of ancient gems are full of references to Abraxas.m In a letter of 1627, forexample, Peiresc used a particular gem with its image of a winged Jove as thejumping-off point for a broader assessment of the ancient Near Eastern pantheon. He claimed to possess a gem showing a deity clearly recognisable as Jovebut with the inscription lAO »under which name was confounded the Jehova ofthe Hebrews, and under this mask those early heretics confounded the divinityworshipped by the Hebrews and Christians with that of the Baal or Balsamen oftheTyrians and orientals and thatof Jupiter and Saturn«.141 A subsequent digression on the polymorphousness of ancient Near Eastern paganism and the all-inclusive character of solar worship, underlined how, for Peiresc, as for Macarius, Selden, and Aleandro, Mithras could have taken on the Egyptian features ofAbraxas}*2

For antiquaries like Peiresc, the history of religion was linked to the historyof language. The way in which the Abraxas gem prompted Peiresc's connectionbetween the two illustrates the larger questions that often impinged upon thenarrower domain of the connoisseur. Letters dating from the Autumn of 1628show a marked intensification of Peiresc's interest in the history of the languages of the ancient Near East, stimulated, in part, by the beginning of thePolyglot Bible project in Paris.143

I'inscription est gravee au tour de la pierre qui enferment le vase./E schedis Jacobi AugUStiThuani«.

140 See Peiresc to Rubens, 26 November 1621, in: Rubens Correspondance. II, p. 295; Peirescto Rubens. 9 June 1622, in: Rubens Correspondence, II, p. 435; Peiresc to Rubens, 10August 1623, in: Rubens Correspondance, III, p. 233; Peiresc to Rubens, 13 November1623, in: Rubens Correspondance, III, p. 261; Peiresc to Rubens, 25 May 1624, , B. N.MS. N.a.f. 5172, fol. 119; Peiresc to Rubens, 4 June 1624, N.a.f. 5172, fol. 120v-121'; Peiresc to Rubens, 16 August 1624, N.a.f. 5172, fol. 125'. The glyptic, though not Mithraic,content of their correspondence has been examined by van der Meulen: Petrus PaulusRubens Antiquarius, csp. ch. 2; Nancy T. de Grummond: »A Seventeenth-Century Book onClassical Gcms«, in: Archaeology 30 (1977), pp. 14-25); David Jaffe": »The BarberiniCircle:Some exchanges between Peiresc, Rubens and their Contemporaries«, in: Journal ofthe History of Collecting 1 (1989), pp. 119-47. Jaffe" is preparing an edition of the as yetunpublished correspondenceof Peirescand Rubens.

141 Peiresc to Rubens, 7 June 1627, MS. N.a.f. 5172, fol. 141v: »Et io ho vislo fra gli intagli dique'Basilidiani & gnostici unafigura d'un Giovc con il fulmino in mano la barba promissa& ale grandissime con inscrittionc IAQ sotto le cui nome confondevano il Jehova de gliHebraei, & sotto la cui persona que'primi heretici confondevano la divinita adorata da glihebraei & christiani quclladel Baalo Balsamen dcgli Tyrii & oricntali & quelle di Giove diSaturno & molte altre. Et'l peggio e che cotesti heretici passavano allora quasi tutti sottoI'nome di Christiani come si vedc in S. Epiphanio & altri St. Padri antiqui et che sivalevano detti heretici spesse volte di arti magichc dellequali si accusavano poi similmentei Christiani senza distinguerli da quelliscelerati.«

142 Peiresc to Rubens, 19May 1628, in: Rubens Correspondence, IV, p. 414.143 For Peiresc's Samaritan studies see my »An Antiquary Between Philology and History:

Peiresc and the Samaritans«; for his Coptic studies see Francis W. Gravit: »Pciresc et lesetudes copies en France au XVIIe sieclc<(, in: Bulletin de la socicte d'arch<5ologie coptc, 4(1938), pp. 1-22; Agnes Bresson: »Peiresc ct les crudes coptes: proldgomcncs au dechif-frement des hieroglyphcs«, in: XVIIC Siecle 158 (1988), pp. 41-50.

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ence

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cted

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ism

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ith

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rin

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mid

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besa

tisfie

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scui

t.T

his

was

the

fate

ofa

llth

ose

who

wis

hed

»to

have

unin

terr

upte

dno

tice

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thi

story

and

prov

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ry,

publ

icau

thor

ity«.

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rePe

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India

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uan

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her

thin

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th,

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ase

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view

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ithpl

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reby

the

grea

test

and

mos

tcu

rious

,an

dw

ithgo

odre

ason

...Is

ayall

this

toex

cuse

my

delig

htin

thes

ego

fferie

and

spec

ifi-

148Pe

iresc

toSa

umai

se,

14N

ovem

ber

1633

,in:

Lettr

esa

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deSa

umai

se,p

.33.

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ar16

05,p

.93.

cally in the Christian or pseudo-Christian intaglios from which we can deriveinformation about things most obscure in Epiphanius and other ancients.«151

»Ma bisogna nondimeno tal volta ricorrere a tal violenza quando mancano cose migliori ctconlcntarsi dcH'alimento del pane biscotto quando si sta in mezzo al mare et che nonpuonno havere alimenti piu dclicati, se si vuol havere notitia non intcrrotta delle historicantique ct fame la prova con publica autorita contemporanea, il che non e di poco diletto achi si da quella prima violenzadi cavarne il primo gusto. Io haveva havuto altre volte quasiil medesimo fastidio di molte cose di goffa maestria, non per la medesima caggione diquello di V. S. ch'io non haveva la capacita di giudicare ne stimare le cose buonc omigliori, anzi per dcbolczza d'ingegno, bastandomi ogni cosa buona per trattcnermi senzalasciarmi tempo di cssaminare dcH'altrc, ma si come facendo il viaggio ch'io feci altre voltein cotcste bande, ne trovandovi del vino che s'accomodassc alia mia sanita, fu costretto dimcttcrmi alia biera, la quale se ben mi riusci da principio di gusto tanto acerbo che miconveniva turarc le narrcne per beverla come sc fosse stata una medecina. Fra pochi giorni,sendomi avezzato, la trovai piu gustosissima; di maniera che da quel tempo in poi, I'hotenuta in delitiis et quasi sopra ogni sorte di vino di piu eccellenti, come non ce ne mancain qucstc bande. Cosi appunto quando per sorte mi furono capitate certe antiquita di goffamaestria, che mi convenne serbare qualchc tempo, per rispetto di certi mici parcntich'avevano voluto ch'io le tcnessi per amor loro, m'avennc un giorno d'indovinare a casocerto particiolare che mi diede qualche diletto ct m'apri talmcntc la strada a passar piuoltre, che m'ha quasi fatto perdere la dilcttione delle piu nobili, allc quali non mancanopadroni che le tengono in prctio ct le sanno far valere, accio non rcstino del tuttoabbandonatc qucstc povcrettc, delle quali si ponno riempire ct rcstituire molte lacunedell'historia antiqua ne'secoli piu barbari et non cogniti [...] Cosi c certo che molte coses'hanno da stimare nonostante qualsi voglia goffezza di maestria, per essempio le vestedelli Barbari dell'India et del Peru, o dcll'Africa, le quali sono di scorza d'alberi, o dipenne, o di pelli, o altre cose di pochissimo momento, non lasciano d'esscr vedutevolcntieri dalli piu grandi et piu curiosi, et con molta raggione [...] Questo si a dctto perfarmi scusare nella dilettatione di quelle goffcric et specialmentc di que'tagli christiani opseudo-christiani dalli quali si cava la notitia di cose oscurissimc in Epiphanio et altrianliqui« (Peiresc to Rubens, 23 December 1621, in: Rubens Correspondence, II, pp. 317-18).

Ralph Hafner

Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philologie um 1700

Zum Verhaltnis von Polymathie und Aporetik bei Jacob FriedrichReimmann, Christian Thomasius und Johann Albert Fabricius*

Johann Albert Fabricius (1668-1736), der Hamburger Philologe und langjahrigeProfessor am Akademischen Gymnasium, legte im Jahr 1718 eine Ausgabe derWerkedes spatantiken Gelehrten Sextus Empiricus (fl. 180-200 n. Chr.) vor, dienoch weit ins 19. Jahrhundert hinein verbindlich bieiben sollte. Die editorische

Leistung, die man seit je daran bewunderte, verdeckt aber leicht die besonderendenkgeschichtlichen Bedingungen, die ihn veranlaBten, sich mit einem Schlus-seltext der antiken Skepsis iiber Jahre hinweg zu beschaftigen. Wenn Fabriciusinder Einleitung seinen Autordem Leserso nachdrilcklich empfahl, weil der umdie antike Philosophic bemUhte Gelehrte kaum irgendwo mehr lernen k5nne,' sozeugt diese Aussage von einem tiefen Interesse an der Dogmengeschichte derantiken Wissenschaften, in dem sich zwei sehr unterschiedlich akzentuierteKonzeptionen gelehrter Erkenntnis verbanden: Die polyhistorische Verzeich-nung des Wissens, wie sie seit den frUhesten antiken >Blutenlesen< und zumalseit Isidor von Sevilla auch fur die christliche Polymathie bestimmendgewordenwar, trat hier in ein produktives Verhaltnis zu einem von neuem erwachten Interesse an der Traditionsgeschichte der uberliefertenLehrmeinungen.

Die Darstellung der diachronen Abfolge philosophischer Dogmen konnte,solange sie die historischen PersCnlichkeiten und ihre Werke zum Gliederungs-kriterium erhob, ebenfalls auf eine Tradition zurtlckblicken, die mindestens biszu des Diogenes Laertios Geschichte berUhmter Philosophen zuriickreichte.Insbesondere seit dem 17. Jahrhundert erschien eine groBe Anzahl derartigerGeschichten antiker Philosophen und Gelehrter; man denke an einschlagigeWerke von Gerhard Johann Vossius, Georg Horn oder Thomas Stanley.2 1659veroTfentlichte Johannes Jonsius seinen Traktat De scriptoribus hisioriae philo-sophicae, mit dem sich der junge Fabricius selbst in einer Entgegnung kritischauseineinanderzusetzen hatte.

Die vorliegendc Abhandlung isl die Ubcrarbcitete Fassung cines Vortrags, den ich imRahmen des vonChristopher Ligota geleiteten Forschungsscminars »History of Scholarship(from the Renaissance onwards)« am 10. November 1995 im Warburg Institute, London,zur Diskussion gcstellt habe. Ilerm Dr. Christopher Ligota bin ich hierfur zu herzlichemDank vcrpflichtct.Vgl. Johann Albert Fabricius: »Ad lcctorem«, in: Sextus Empiricus: Opera, graece& latinc[...], Leipzig 1718, nicht paginiert: »[...] licet pauci exstant scriptores e quibus studiosusveteris Philosophiac plura disccre, atque si sano judicio instructus ad lectionem ejus acce-dat, majorem fructum capere possit.«Vgl. Mario Longo: Mistoria philosophiac philosophica. Tcorie e metodi della storia dellafilosofia tra Scicento c Setteccnto, Mailand 1986.

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme

Philologie undErkeimmis: Beitragezu Begriff und Problem frtthneuzeitlicher>PhiloIogie< / hrsg. vonRalph Hafner. - Tubingen: Niemeyer, 2001

(Fruhe Neuzeit; Bd. 61)

ISBN 3-484-36561 -7 ISSN 0934-5531

© Max Niemeyer Verlag GmbH, Tubingen 2001DasWerk einschlieBlich allerseinerTeile ist urheberrechtlich geschtltzt. JedeVerwertung auDerhalbder engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulassig undstrafbar. Das gilt insbesonderefQr Vervielfaltigungen, Ubersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und dieEinspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Printedin Germany.Gedruckt auf alterungsbestandigem Papier.Satz: Carsten Behle, Hamburg, und Ralph Hafner, BerlinDruck: AZ Druck und Datentcchnik GmbH, KemptcnEinband: Buchbinderei Koch, Tubingen

Inhalt

Vorwort VII

I. ANTIQUARIANISMUS,KRITIK, SKEPSIS 1

Luc Deitz

Gerhard Johann Vossius' De philologia liberund sein Begriff von »Philologie« 3

Lorenzo Bianchi

Erudition, critique et histoire chez Gabriel Naud6 (1600-1653). .

Peter N. Miller

The Antiquary's Art ofComparison: PeirescandAbraxas

Ralph HafnerDas Erkenntnisproblem in der Philologie um 1700. Zum Verhaltnisvon Polymathie, Philologie und Aporetik bei Jacob FriedrichReimmann, Christian Thomasius und Johann Albert Fabricius ....

II. Epistemologie, Sprache, Grammatik.

Constance Blackwell

Vocabulary as a Critiqueof Knowledge.Zabarella and Keckermann - Erastus and Conring:Eclipses, Incantations, Hieroglyphics, andthe History of Medicine.

Herbert Jaumann

Iatrophilologia.Medicus philologusund analoge Konzepte in der frtihen Neuzeit..

Florian Neumann

Zwei furiose Philologen: PaganinoGaudenzio (1595-1649)und Kaspar Schoppe (1576-1649)

Helmut Zedelmaier

DerUrsprung der Schrift als Problem der frtihen Neuzeit.Die These schriftloser Uberlieferung beiJohann Heinrich Ursinus (1608-1667)

35

57

95

129

131

151

177

207

VI Inhalt

III. Philologie, Humanismus, Platonismus 225

Paul Richard Blum

Was ist Renaissance-Humanismus?

Zur Konstruktion eines kulturellen Modells 227

DouglasHedleyThe Platonick Trinity:Philology and Divinity in Cudworth's Philosophy of Religion 247

Wilhelm Schmidt-BiggemannDie philologische Zersetzung des christlichen Platonismusam Beispiel der Trinitatstheologie 265

IV. Patristik und Konfessionalismus 303

Jean-Louis QuantinLa philologie patristique et ses ennemis: Barthlllmy Germon, S. J.,et la tentation pyrrhonistechez les anti-jans^nistes 305

Martin Mulsow

Gegen die Falschung der Vergangenheit.Philologie bei Mathurin Veyssiere La Croze 333

Ralph HafnerPhilologische Festkultur in Hamburg im ersten Dritteldes 18. Jahrhunderts: Fabricius, Brockes, Telemann 349

V. INDICES 379

Namen 381

Sachen 389

Vorwort

Mit der gertngfUgigen Emendation eines Satzes, den Immanuel Kant 1766Blick auf die Bestimmung von dem »Begriff eines Geistes« formulierte, k(Jiman wohl sagen: >Von der Erkiarung, was der Begriff eines Philologen enthist der Schritt noch ungemein weit zu dem Satze, dafi solche Naturen wirkliclauch nur mOglich sein.< Man konnte einwenden, dafi schon das schiere Vorldensein von Xoyot, von geschriebenen oder gesprochenen WOrtern und Reauf das Dasein von Liebhabern schliefien lasse, die sich eben diese XoyoiObjekt ihrer Begierde ausersehen haben, ja dafi die >Hochzeit Merkurs undPhiIologie< nur als rechtskraftiger Akt naturlicher Personen begriffen wekOnne; allein die Frage, welche Merkmale zur Bestimmung des BegriffsPhilologie wesentlich erfordert werden, wenner nichtUberhaupt (wie nach 1der des Geistes) »eine Art von Undenklichkeit« enthalte, ist durch den Bedes Gegenstandes, mit dem sich der Philologe zu beschaftigen pflegt, niweniger als gelOst. Man mufi nicht so weit gehen wie der Jesuit Jean Hard<der annahernd die gesamten Xoyoi der Antike als Falschungen13. Jahrhunderts ausgab und damit den Philologen in der Tat in jenes »Pandes Phantasten« verbannte, der sich in nicht endender Produktivitat ein »S<tenreich« der Fiktionen errichtet - und in welchem Kant den unerfreuli-

Anblick des Geistersehers gewahrte -: wenn aber Eunapios den Rhetor Lowegen einer vielfaitigen Gelehrsamkeit als »lebendige BibIiothek« preisen dund Plotin von demselben behauptete: »Philologe ist Longin wohl, Philoaberauf keine Weise«, so gab er mit dem Zusatz, dafi Longin ein »Meiste:Beurteilung« (KpixiicrfraxTOc;) sei, eine prazise Anzeige ftir einen wesentliund wahrscheinlich den hervortretendsten Charakterzug des PhilolcDemnach ginge in den Begriffdes Philologen zuerst undvorallem gar nichbestimmter Gegenstandsbereich ein, er begriffe sich vielmehr selbst dure!gewisses sich-Verhalten zu den Dingen, das Plotin durch das Merkmal dertik< auszeichnend charakterisiert hatte.

Der vorliegende Band versammelt die Beitrage, die anlafilich der Internnalen und interdisziplinaren Tagung »ZuBegriffundProblem der Philologie1580-ca. 1730)« vom 19. bis 23.Juli 1998 in WolfenbUttel zur Disku?gestellt wurden. Bei aller sachorientierten Zerstreuung ist es das MerkmaKritik, das die Abhandlungen - durch unterschiedlichste ideen- und g(schaftsgeschichtliche Kontexte maandrierend - wie ein gemeinsames 1durchzieht. Die Einsicht in das >kritische< Verhalten zu den >Dingen<, dasPhilologen gegenUber dem Rhetor, Sophisten, Theologen etc. offenbar ausz