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An Early Use of Devices: René Bertaut de la Grise, La Penitence Damour

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

D. L. Drysdall*
Affiliation:
University of Waikato (Hamilton, New Zealand)

Extract

In the period before Claude Paradin's Devises Héroïques (1551) and Paolo Giovio's Dialogo dell'Imprese (1555), our knowledge of the theory and use of devices is somewhat fragmentary. There are some well known cases: Maurice Scève's use of devices as a framework for his Délie, though he called them “emblesmes“; Rabelais’ device for Gargantua consisting of the Platonic androgyne with the motto “Charity seeketh not her own“; Erasmus's figure of Terminus and “Concedo nulli”. The author of the little known French version of the Penitencia de amor was probably concerned mainly with the religious and moral ideas which he develops at some length in his adaptation, but his second interest is clearly the fashion for devices, which he introduces and uses, together with some extensive colour symbolism, apparently to enhance the impact of his didactic additions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1985

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References

1 Penitencia de amor co[m]puesta por don pedro manuel de urrea (Burgos, Fadrique Aleman de Basilea, 1514). References are to the edition by Foulché-Delbosc (Bibliothèque hispanique, no. 10 [Barcelona and Madrid, 1902]), who published at the same time in the Revue hispanique, 9, 200-215, an article which devotes some space to the French translation, but which fails to connect either Urrea or Bertaut with Juan de Flores. See also Menéndez Pelayo, M., Orígines de la novela, IV (1915; rpt. Madrid, 1961), 814 Google Scholar.

For Urrea's Penitencia de amor as an imitation of the Celestina see Bataillon, Marcel, “La Célestine” selon Fernando de Rojas (Paris, 1961)Google Scholar and de Malkiel, María Rosa Lida, La Originalidad artística de “La Celestina” (Buenos Aires, 1962)Google Scholar. Another view of the genre and nature of the work is to be found in Webber, E. J., “The Literary Reputation of Terence and Plautus in Medieval and Pre-Renaissance Spain,” Hispanic Review, 24 (1956), 191206 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Juan de Flores, see Barbara Matulka, The Novels of Juan de Flores and their European Diffusion (1931; rpt. Geneva, 1974)—with the texts of the first editions. For the Celestina in France see the introduction of “La Celestine” in the French Translation (1578) by Jacques de Lavardin, ed. D. L. Drysdall (London, 1974), and for the relationship between Bertaut and Urrea “The French Version of the Penitencia de amor,” Celestinesca, 9, no. I (1985), 23-31.

In quotations, abbreviations have been written out, and consonantal i and u rendered as j and v; final é has been given a regular accent.

2 It is Verdier, Antoine Du, Bibliothéque françoise (Lyon, 1585), p. 1116 Google Scholar (in the 1772 edition, V, 439-440), who identifies this “R. B . “ with Rene Bertaut de la Grise, the translator of Guevara's works. One other isolated reference to Bertaut is to be found in Guiffrey, G., Dianne de Poitiers. Lettres inediles (Paris, 1866), p. 14 Google Scholar, note 2; it speaks of “un bon de cent livres tournois delivre le 10 septembre 1537 a Rene Bertault dicte [sic] la Grise ‘pour avoir servy les moys d'avril & juing en plusieurs voyages & en son etat & office’ (Ms.fr. 3120, f. 132).” For Gabriel de Gramont, see the Gallia Christiana (1917), I, cols. 1180 and 1239 (“Gabriel de Acro-monte“), II, cols 1203-4; Catalogue des Actes de Francois Ier (1887-1908), I, 591, VI, 61 (with a correction, VIII, 799), VIII, 612, IX, 40 and 61: Correspondance du Cardinal Francois de Tournon (1 $21-62), ed. M. Francois (Paris, 1946), nos. 16, 35, 70, 73. The work, or the first part of it, was probably written before 26 March 1534, since Bertaut does not refer here to his master as the “feu seigneur cardinal,” as he does in 1540.

3 [a i r0] La penitence Damour

[a i r0] La Penite[n]ce Damour en la quelle sont plusieurs Persuasio[n]s & respo[n]ces tresutilles & prouffitables, Pour la recreatio[n] des Esperitz qui ueulle[n]t tascher a ho[n]neste conuersation auec les Dames, Et les occasions que les Dames doibue[n]t fuyr de co[m]plaire par trop aux pourchatz des Hommes, & importunitez qui leur sont faictes soubz couleur de Seruice, Dont elles se trouuent ou trompees, ou Infames de leur Honneur.

R. B.

Auec priuilege.

Ms. on r0 of flyleaf: Exemplaire de Méon, le seul connu, no 2924. La marque de I'Icare qui est sur le titre est la iere de Denis de Harsy imp. à Lyon. V. le Bulletin de Morgand p. Janv. 1888, p. 524. Il y a de plus Sic in fatis.

At the end (n vii r0):

Cy fine la Penitence Damour nouuellement Imprimee

Mil.D.xxxvii.

(In-16, 1048).

On the verso of folio n vii there is a woodcut of a man in armour with a sword at his belt, carrying a club in his left hand and a shield in the shape of a man's face in his right (the print is reversed). A fifteenth-century woodcut, not otherwise identified by the author who reproduces it, shows a very similar figure as the constellation Orion, but no dictionary I have so far consulted describes Orion with this shield as an attribute.

The only known copy is in the Bibliotheque Nationale (Rés. p Y2257), and bears neither place nor printer's name. The printer's mark on the title page is a figure referred to by Du Verdier and others as Icarus, which should perhaps be identified as Daedalus, since it represents a winged and bearded man; his left hand points up, his right down, and the device includes the motto “Ne hault, ne bas, Médiocrement,” and the words “Sic in fatis.” This mark is one of those used by Denys de Harsy, and is to be found in several other works, equally anonymous, but including an edition of Jacques Colin d'Auxerre's translation of Castiglioni, Les quatre Livres du Courtisan (slna), where on the last page of the privilege, we read: “Du consenteme[n]t dudict Iehan Longis a esté & est permis à Denys de Harsy Imprimeur de Lyon de Imprimer & mectre en vente le diet livre appellé le Courtisan Soubs semblable Privilege ottroyé audict Longis cy dessous Inseré & avec des Inhibitions que dessus” (BN: *E.3486 and Rés.E.649). De Harsy printed several books of emblems, including La Perrière's Théâtre des bons engins, Corrozet's Hécatomgraphie, and Le Fèvre's French rendering of Alciati's Emblemata, all undated. See the Bulletin de Damascène Morgand (Jan. 1888, p. 524.no. 1451); Sylvestre, Marques typographiques, no. 274; Brunet, Manuel du libraire (5th ed.), I, col. 1630, II, cols. 299 and 1295, III, cols. 830 and 1486, and IV, cols. 477-478; de la Perrière, Y., Supplément provisoire à la “Bibliographic lyonnaise” du Président Baudrier (Paris, 1967), pp. 125 Google Scholar. The only account of the work, other than Du Verdier's, before Foulché-Delbosc (see above, note 1) is an item by Mercier de Saint-Léger in the Magasin encyclopédique, IVe année, tome 2 (Paris, an VI, i.e. 1798), 99-102, which Foulché-Delbosc reproduced almost completely.

4 See Matulka, pp. 357-358: “yo quisiera que consideraras … quien me hoazara supplicar por otro.”

5 Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, ed. M. Criado de Val and G. D. Trotter (Madrid, 1965), p. 56, ll.23-25; An Edition of the First Italian Translation of the Celestina by Kathleen V. Kish (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1973), p. 73; Celestine. A Critical Edition of the First French Translation, ed. Gerard J. Brault (Detroit, 1963), p. 49. Rojas was perhaps also thinking of devices when he used the expression “pintar motes” in the same speech. One of the best modern translations, that of Pierre Heugas (Paris, 1963), renders this expression regularly as “peindre des devises” (pp. 175, 183, 331).

6 Gargantua, ed. M. A. Screech (Geneva, 1970), pp. 65-76. See the articles by Schwartz, Jerome, Yale French Studies, 47 (1972), 232242 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Etudes rabelaisiennes, 14 (1978), 265-275. The “dyament faulx” and its inscription, in Pantagruel, ch. XV, is another example of a rebus, but is not described with a particular term.

7 Champfleury (1529), fol. XLII v0.

8 In the Spanish the mottos are regularly in verse; in the French, most of the mottos seem to be intended as verse, though the printer has divided some lines incorrectly.

9 Erasmus, in a letter to Alfonso de Valdés dated 1 Aug. 1528, concerning his own device: ”… in huiuscemodi symbolis captari etiam obscuritatis aliquid quod coniecturas intuentium exerceat … “ And later: “quod geminam haberet gratiam; alteram ex allusione ad priscam ac celebrem historiam, alteram ex obscuritate quae symbolis est peculiaris.” Opus epistolarum, VII, ed. P. S. Allen and H. M. Allen (Oxford, 1928), no. 2018, pp. 430-432. Rabelais, Gargantua, 65-76 and ch. VIII.

10 “Et n'est poinct ceste significance par imposition humainé institue [sic], mais repceue par consentement de tout le monde, que les philosophes nomment jus gentium, droict universel, valable par toutes contrées” (ch. IX).

11 BN, Ms. fr. 5091, f. 15 v0; the picture is reproduced by André Maurois in Histoire de la France (Paris, 1957), p. 44. Pliny (XI. 17: “Illud constat, imperatorem aculeo non uti“) and Seneca (De dementia, 1.19.3) are also sources for Alciati's emblem “Principis dementia” (1546, f.37 r0; see also the commentaries in the 1621 edition, no. CXLIX). A different meaning for bees is to be found in Ammianus Marcellinus (XVII.4-II and Horapollo (1505; 1.62).

12 In the Cárcel de amor (1492), the three figures atop the tower are “leonado,” “negro,” and “pardillo“; these colours are said to represent respectively “tristeza,” “congoja,” and “trabajo.” Diego de San Pedro, Obras completas, II, ed. Kieth Whinnom (Madrid, 1971), 85 and 90.

13 Pp. 276-282. The episode of the symbolic tomb in the Grimalte y Gradissa, which represents a common tradition of contemporary Spanish poetry, is the work of a collaborator of Juan de Flores, one Alonso de Córdova. It may have inspired the house described by Bertaut and thus be another element connecting him to Flores's works.

14 The Blason des couleurs, quoted, with contempt, by Rabelais (ch. VIII), gives “fermeté” for blue, but Rabelais insists on “choses celestes.”

15 Ed. A. Scoumanne (Geneva and Lille, 1959). Henri Baude lived from 1430 to somewhere between 1496 and 1519. The BN ms. (Ms. fr. 24461) dates from the period 1509-1514. The murals of the castle of Busset, mentioned below, were probably painted in the 1530's. See Bohat-Regond, Annie, “Les Peintures murales de la Renaissance au chateau de Busset (Allier),” Bibliothèque d'Humnanisme et Renaissance, 41 (1979), 245253 Google Scholar, and Russell, Daniel, “Alciati's Emblems in Renaissance France,” Renaissance Quarterly, 34 (1981), 534554.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 The epigram as an inscription for an existing work, of course, has a long history. In our period it may be seen as another manifestation of the preoccupation with combinations of the visual and the verbal. A curious example is the Epigramme des enseignes des Veniciens e(n]voyés a sai[n]ct denis par le roy nostre sire co[m]posé par F[rère]J[ean] olivier croniqueur dudit seigneur translaté de latin enfiancoys par ung familier serviteur de ladicte abbaye (slna, 40, 6ff. Musée Condé, III.F.45). This is not moralizing verse, but a eulogy of Louis XII, written as an inscription for the Venetian lion and unicorn brought back to St. Denis after the battle of Agnadello (1509). The 14 distichs of the Latin are printed in the margins alongside the 64 octosyllables, in huitains and dizains, of the French. Jean Olivier, author of several works of learning, was Grand Aumônier and Vicaire Général of St. Denis and later bishop of Angers (La Croix du Maine - 1772 - 1.563-564). He is probably also the author of another short work bound with the above: L'Epitaphe de feutres-hault, tres-puissant et redouté prince Phelipe d'Autriche, roy des Castilles which must date from 1506. See also Brunet, IV, cols. 181-182 and Supplement, II, col. 73.

17 Sic; sonner? The Spanish has “tañer” (p. 22).