by Cesare Ripa, Giovanni Zaratino Castellini
Justifying the two different shoes at the feet of the personification of Decorum (the coturno on the right, the sock on the left), Castellini plunges into a historical and literary treatise that is not easy to read, but that highlights his remarkable qualities as a scholar. A scholar who quotes the great authors of the past as men of their own time, repositories of practical notions to be rediscovered and analyzed in order to correct the interpretative distortions that have occurred in subsequent eras. Castellini's philology shapes a complex, multifaceted figure in which appearance and substance are intimately linked. The grandeur of tragedy and the concreteness of comedy are the two complementary registers to which Coturnus and Sock refer, combining nobility and practicality, refinement and common sense. Balance, the ability to synthesize, and a sense of reality emerge as the founding characters of the allegory of Decorum. See C. Ripa, Iconologia, Eredi di Matteo Florimi, Siena 1613, pp. 176-181. Notes to the text are editorial.
Hitherto we have spoken of decorum in doing & speaking, but now we will also say something of decorum in going & in the conversation with other people. Wherefore he has on his leg a stately cothurnus; having on his left leg, a common sock. For all, Hercules in Aristophanes, ridicules Bacchus because he carried a lion’s skin & club with cothurni on his legs, as things which did not agree together: the Lion’s skin being the spoil of a valiant man; thinking that cothurnus were fit only for uxorious persons. Wherefore Hercules said to Bacchus:
Sed non potens sum, arcere risum,
Videns pellem Leonis in croceo positam,
Qua mens? Quid cothurnus, & clava conveniunt? 〈1〉
But the cothurnus agree very well with Bacchus, whom we must not esteem to be a softly weak man. For these cothurni were worn by the heroes; as Isidorus relates, whose authority, we will relate hereafter a little larger. From this it is, that they used the same in tragedies; because in tragedies, there appeared also great personages, heroes & princes, for this cause, it is held by the poets that they were fittest for heroes. Plutarchus relates in his Quaestiones convivales 〈2〉, that cothurni were worn by the hebrew priests: Primum enim arguit hoc Pontifex Max. qui sestis diebusmitratus ingreditur hinnuli pellem auro contectam indutus, tunicamque; ad talos pertinentem gestans, & cothurnos, multa autem tintinabula dependent de veste, quae inter ambulandum strepitum edunt, ut & apud nos 〈2〉. By these likenesses of the clothes, Plutarchus shows, as also Tacitus, very imprudently to be deceived, that he was also a priest of Bacchus. Also those garments in those times, were worn by heroes and priests with great estimation. Bacchus, who was held by the poets for a figure of a divine Spirit, and for a man of the Muses, & the first hero who had triumphed, might justly, with the club and lion’s skin, wear also the heroic cothurnus, & therefore is he, in the rhymes and old sculptures, figured out with cothurnus. Virgil invites, in George 11th, Bacchus to the grape harvest; saying that he shall dip his naked legs in the new wine, having taken off his cothurni.
Huc pater o lenae veni, nudataque; musto
Tinge navo mecum, direptis crura cothurnis. 〈3〉
Upon which place Probus said, that the cothurni were a certain sort of footwear, which the hunters used; wherewith they covered and strengthened their legs, of which you may see the form in the figures of Bacchus & Diana. Which place of Virgil, and Probus his ancient expounder 〈4〉, we did not quote, as if the poets did not describe Bacchus with cothurni; but to make you understand that the cothurni were made like buskins or boots, which went round about the leg and above the calf, just as Virgil states in the seventh Eclogue in which he imagined Diana the huntress as a statue of smooth marble with red cothurnus.
Levi de marmore tota
Puniceo stabis suras evincta cothurno. 〈5〉
And this I say, because many writers of our time hold that the cothurnus which was worn by heroes, princes, and great personages in tragedies, was high: like the high pattens, after the use of Rome, Spain, Venice, Naples, and other people; but especially of Italy, as Carlostefano says in Baif’s De re vestiaria 〈6〉, when he quotes the first book of Virgil’s Aeneid.
Virginibus Tyriis mos est gestare pharetram.
Purpureoque alte suras vincire cothurno. 〈7〉
Some would like to read Purpureasque; this is an inappropriate definition under suras, i.e. red leg pulps as beautiful, because here nothing has to do with the idea expressed by Horatius in Book four, first Ode: Purpureis ales oloribus 〈8〉. And the poet of the Elegy in Death of Maecenas: Bracchia purpurea candidiora nive 〈9〉. In fact, Virgil intends to define “purple” the cothurnus, not the calf of the leg. Proof of this can be found, in the seventh Egloga, with the Puniceo coturno 〈10〉. The color is pleasing to Diana and all women, according to Turnebo lib. (28, ch. 16). Carlostefano would prefer to read Alto instead of Alté, believing that the coturno was high above the ground. However, the coturno is high from the foot to the calf, which is precisely why Virgil writes Alte suras vincire coturno 〈11〉. Turnebo confirms this in the aforementioned place, noting that, as a huntress, Diana dressed skimpily with her robe above her knee. Since Virgil says that Venus gathered her robe above her knee, Aeneas thought it was Diana the Huntress and asked her if she was Phoebe’s sister. An Phoebi soror 〈12〉. That is precisely why he wore high cothurni: to hide his legs. Cum autem supra genua esset sublata vestis, ideo altos gerebet cothurnos, ne cruribus nudis cerneretur 〈13〉. Therefore, the cothurnus was like a buskin, covering the calf in height and thickness, as Scaliger explains in the Poetics book first ch. 13, saying that the size of the cothurnus was such, that with its height it equaled the size of the heroes, & adds that if this had been the cothurnus, in no way could Virgil have made the hunter wear it, who had to move very fast. Si talis fuerit cothurnus, quomodo venatricem, eo calceati Virgilius, quam decet esse expeditissimam? 〈14〉. As if Virgil did not know how cothurni were made, which at that time were seen in theaters and circuses, and were often used in public performances of the best tragedies. Moreover, Virgil not only mentions the cothurnus, but describes it in the above three situations, and attributes it to female hunters, so that it could not have been as tall as women’s wooden slippers, but as he himself explains, it dressed and encircled the leg up to the calf: that he was not referring to the cothurnus in the form of a boot is clear from the Elegy in Death of Maecenas already quoted, attributed by some to Gaius Pedo 〈15〉, in which Bacchus’ coturno is called a sandal, also made like a buskin.
Argentata tuos etiam sandalia talos
Vinxerunt certe: nec puto, Bacche negas. 〈16〉
And Philostratus in imagine 9 of the Amores gives Cupid the gilded sandal instead of the cothurnus 〈17〉. The author of the Adagia in the proverb Cothurno versatilior〈18〉, claims that it was tall, feminine & that to wear it comfortably it had four corners, but I don’t know which cobbler told him this, because without an ancient author as a witness, it’s not credible, especially since the explanation he gives for this proverb, that the cothurnus is versatile, easy to turn and twist, in that it’s good for the left as well as the right foot, for men as well as for women, is misleading. It is true that the cothurnus fits every foot, and, as Servius says in the Proem of the Aeneid 〈19〉, it fits both the male and the female foot, as Suida 〈20〉 reports, but that is not why it is said Cothurno versatilior, for if it were so, it could be said Socco versatilior, for the clog also fits every foot, right & left, men & women can wear it. That the clog was for women is well known, since the Authors speak of it in the feminine. Apuleius tells of one who, to resemble a woman, wore a silk robe, long hair, & golden clogs 〈21〉. Emperor Vitellius took a clog from Messalina, to carry it with him, & often kiss it. Pliny blames female luxury in lib. 9. ch. 35, saying that they wore jewels in their slippers, & in their clogs, & in lib. 37. ch. 2 Super omnia muliebria socculos induebat is margaritis 〈22〉. That men also wore them is suggested by Seneca, who says that Caesar held out his left foot to Pompey to kiss it and show the gilded and jewel-studded hoof he wore 〈23〉; and Suetonius in chapter 52 tells of Caligula, who wore now the cothurnus, now the clog, see then the same author in the Life of Claudius chapter 8, where he tells of the pranks played on that emperor by impudent young guests 〈24〉 and, according to Sabellico 〈25〉, while he slept during the day, they used to put clogs in his hands so that when he woke up suddenly, he would rub his face with them: since it is worn by both men and women, it can be called Socco versatilior, but it can also be said Cothurno versatilior, that is, more comfortable than a cothurnus, more wearable than an ankle boot, because the cothurnus, like the ankle boot, fits any leg, can be easily turned around, while the female slipper cannot be adapted to a man’s foot, but only to a woman’s foot, and therefore it cannot be said of it: Versatilior. It is also true that every slipper is good either in the right or in the left foot, for those fit every foot, more than the tall ones, & more easily without danger of falling: much less then could the word Versatilior be applied to the cothurnus, if it were tall, & large, like a woman’s clog, though Juvenal once says in the sixth Satire.
Breviorque videtur
Virgine Pygmea nullis adiuta cothurnis 〈26〉.
But it does not follow from this that the tragic cothurnus had been as high as a woman’s clog, because the poets usually understood the coturno worn by great, & supreme personages, in their symbolic height & grandeur, while Juvenal in this case wished to emphasize the material height, meaning that the woman in question, without the addition of some thickness, appears shorter than a pygmy. To prove that it was not a coturno tall as the woman’s clog, in addition to three quotes from Virgilio, there is the authority of Probus, who in his comment to the Georgiche says: Cothurni sunt calciamentorum genera Venatori apta, quibus crura etiam muniuntur, cuius calciamenti effigies est in simulacris Liberi, & Dianae 〈27〉. Et Servius, who in the first of the Aeneid states that they are hunting boots. Cothurni sunt calciamenta venatoria 〈28〉. It follows that they were not as high as women’s clogs, because then it would be impossible to walk on hills, stony & thorny places. From Pliny’s Book seventh chapter 20 〈29〉 we also learn that they were not as thick as women’s slippers, where he relates that he saw the actor Athanatus, a man of fifty, appear on the stage to flaunt his strength in an armor of lead & with heavy cothurni. Such heavy cothurni would have made a bad impression if they were as big, tall and ostentatious as women’s clogs, instead, they were shaped like a buskin, open, high on the calf to be more comfortable on the leg & had to be especially proportioned to the armor, as it is easy to see in the ancient statues of heroes and princes, of boot-shaped cothurni, clog-shaped high, & squared at the corners, as Alexander says, ab Alexandro 〈30〉, there are none, while the other type can be seen in very many statues of emperors, muses, Diana, & Bacchus, and besides the authors mentioned above, Velleius Paterculus also mentions the coturno of Bacchus in his last book, where he tells of Mark Antony, who wished to resemble Bacchus, & for this reason wore, among the things belonging to Bacchus, the cothurni. Cum autem nouum esse Liberum patrem appellari iussisset, cum redimitus hedera, coronaque; velatus aurea, & Thyrsum tenens, cothurnisque; succintus, curru velut liber pater vectus est Alexandriae 〈31〉. And Tacitus in the eleventh book of the Annals, says that Messalina, wife of the emperor Claudius, celebrated the feast of the grape harvest at home, & that in the guise of a bacchante, with her hair down, shaking the tyrant in the wake of Silius crowned with ivy, she wore the coturni, & turned her head with a chorus of bacchantes clamoring around. Ipsa crine fluxo, Thyrsum quatiens, iuxtaq; Sylius Hedera vinctus, gerere cothurnos, iacere caput serpente circum, procaci, choro 〈32〉.These Bacchantes wearing cothurni, are seen in the ancient marbles of Rome, and they could not have jumped, & run furiously in the bacchanalia, if the coturno had been as high as the woman clog, very much raised, as some say, with cork, or with some other kind of wood. Leaving aside huntresses & bacchantes, if the cothurnus had been high & raised from the ground, someone explain to me how they could have fought over mountains, countryside & forests the Amazons who fight with crescent-shaped shields & coturni, as Plutarch relates in the Life of Pompey. In hac pugna Amazones a Montibus Thermodonti fluvio accubantibus profesta auxilio venisse perhibentur Barbaris, quippe a proelio, dum spolia Barbarorum legunt Romani Peltas Amazonicas, cothurnosque; reperiere 〈33〉. Of course, it is impossible to fight with stilts on the feet as much for men as for women, who when they play hide-and-seek, in the most difficult steps, or when they want to walk fast or run, take off the flats, even if they are low in cork: it follows that the cothurnus should have had the form of a buskin without any thickness under the foot, & if Isidore of Seville in the 19th book chapter 34. says that they had the form of slippers, in this he is wrong, but he is right when he says that the tragedians used it in theaters & the heroes. Cothurni sunt quibus calciabantur Tragoedi, qui in Theatro dicturi erant, et alta intonantique; voce cantaturi, est enim calciamentum in modum crepidarum, quo Heroes utebantur 〈34〉. In this passage he speaks in the past, Calciabantur, utebantur. As if he had not seen them in the theater in his time. Therefore, if the tragic authors used them for the heroes in the theater, it is obvious that Virgil saw them several times & knew what they looked like, much better than modern authors, & that they were exactly like those he described, boot-shaped, so that modern authors are accustomed to call cothurnus the buskin. That is why we wanted to present our image of decorum in this way, against the opinion of modern authors who did not see the cothurni at the time they were used, as Servio, Probo & Virgil saw them, who says that Diana’s cothurni were purple, & this color is particularly suitable for tragic representations, both because bloody cases are told in it, & because emperors, kings, princes, & noble people to whom purple suits them, therefore the poets assigned the coturno to prestigious personages, the socco on the other hand, to working people, commoners & less important.
〈1〉 «I can't stop laughing - look at that lionskin on top of your little yellow number. What's the idea? Why these cothurni and club?». Aristophanes, The Frogs, prologue, 47. 〈2〉 «In the first place, the high Priests proves this, who upon festival days, with a mitre enters; having a young dear skin put upon him, set with gold; having his coat to the ankles, and cothurni: there hang also many bellson his garment, which in going make a sound, as by us». Plutarchus, Quaestiones convivales, I, 6, 2. 〈3〉 «Come hither, Lenaean sire, strip off your cothurni and with me plunge your naked legs in the new must». Virgil, Georgics, II, 7-8. 〈4〉 Marcus Valerius Probus (1st century AD), Roman philologist, biographer and commentator of Virgil (“Pseudo-Probus”). 〈5〉 «Full-lenght in polished marble, ankle-bound with purple cothurnus, shall thy statue stand». Virgil, Eclogues, VII, 31-32. 〈6〉 Charles Estienne (Italianized as Carlostefano; 1504–1564), a french physician, humanist and publisher, adapted Lazare de Baïf's (1496-1547)De re vestiaria. 〈7〉 «It is the custom of tyrian girls to carry their quivers and bind their calves with purple cothurni». Virgil, Aeneid, I, 336-337. 〈8〉 «With thy purple cygnets fly». Horace, Odes, IV, I, 10-11. 〈9〉 «Splendid arms whiter than snow». Anonymous, Elegy in Death of Maecenas, I, 62. 〈10〉 See note 5. 〈11〉 See note 7. 〈12〉 «Or Phoebus’s sister? », Ibidem, I, 329. 〈13〉 «Not reaching the robe to cover his knees, he wore high coturni so as not to show his legs». Castellini quotes from an unidentified writing by Adrien Turnèbe or Tournebeuf (1512-1565), Turnebo in the Italianized version, a French humanist mentioned just above. 〈14〉 «If such is the cothurnus, how can Virgil make a hunter wear it, who must move as fast as possible?» Julius Caesar Scaliger, Poetices libri septem, Antoine Vincent, Lyon 1561, I, 13. 〈15〉 Gaius Albinovanus Pedo (1st century BC - after 15 AD), Roman poet of Ovid's circle. 〈16〉 «It must have been silver sandals that bound your feet: I do not think, Bacchus, you will deny it». Anonymous, Elegies in Death of Maecenas, I, 65-66. 〈17〉 Philostratus the Elder (c. 190 - ?), Greek writer, author of the Images, a work consisting of sixty-four descriptions of pictorial works, real or imagined, exhibited in a villa near Naples. 〈18〉 Adagia is a collection of proverbs in Greek and Latin, edited by Erasmus of Rotterdam and first published in 1503. 〈19〉 Servius the Grammarian (4th century AD), roman philologist, author of several commentaries on Virgil's works. 〈20〉 Suda (or Suida) is the title of a byzantine encyclopedic collection dating back to the 10th century. 〈21〉 Castellini refers to Apuleius' Metamorphoses. 〈22〉 «Who, among other effeminacy, wore sandals of pearls». Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, XXXVII, 6. 〈23〉 Seneca (4 BC - 65 AD), Roman philosopher and dramatist. 〈24〉 Castellini refers to Suetonius' Lives of the Twelve Caesars. 〈25〉 Marcantonio Coccio (or Cocci), known as Sabellico (c. 1436 - 1506), Italian historian. 〈26〉 «Without the cothurni, she seems shorter than a pigmy maiden». Juvenal, Satires, VI, 505-506. 〈27〉 «Cothurni are a type of footwear suitable for hunters, which also protects the legs. They are represented in the statues of Libero and Diana». Pseudo-Probus. 〈28〉 «Cothurni are hunting footwear». Servius the Grammarian, Commentary on the Aeneid, I, 337. 〈29〉 Castellini refers to Pliny the Elder's Natural History. 〈30〉 Alessandro Alessandri, also called Alessandro ab Alexandro (1461-1523), Italian humanist and jurist, author of the Geniales dies. 〈31〉 «After he had surnamed himself the new Liber Pater, and had himself brought in a chariot to Alexandria, like that god, with his head girded with ivy, wearing a saffron robe trimmed with gold, with a tyrant in his hand and cothurni on his feet». Velleius Paterculus, Roman History, II.82.1. 〈32〉 «She herself was there with dishevelled tresses and waving thyrsus; at her side, Silius with an ivy crown, wearing the cothurni and tossing his head, while around him rose the din of a wanton chorus». Tacitus, Annals, XI, 31. 〈33〉 «In this battle it is said that there were also Amazons fighting on the side of the Barbarians, and that they came down from the mountains about the river Thermodon. For when the Romans were despoiling the Barbarians after the battle, they came upon Amazonian shields and cothurni». Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Pompey, XXXV. 〈34〉 «Cothurni were the footwear worn by tragic actors, who in the theater had to recite verses with a high voice and intonation; it was in fact a type of footwear similar to crepid, used by heroes». Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, XIX, 34. Homepage; Decorum, graphic elaboration of the table illustrating Cesare Ripa's "Iconologia", Motte, London 1709. Below; reproduction of pages 176-181 from Cesare Ripa's "Iconologia", Eredi di Matteo Florimi, Siena 1613. (www.archive.org).