The representation of philosophers in the art of Salvator Rosa

Tarot Kl texte. de ‚Renaissance 2622. Da LANG DON MH. Helen Langdon ZI \_\ The Representation of Philosophers in the Art of Salvator Rosa gf Fig. 1: Salvator Rosa, The Philosophers’ Wood, c. 1641 - 43, Oil on canvas, 147 x 221 cm, Florence, Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti (Luigi Salerno, L'Opera completa di Salvator Rosa, Milan 1975, fig. XXII). In his Life of Salvator Rosa Filippo Baldinucci, who rian sources, yet astonishingly vital; he shows the anknew the painter well, included this memorable decient philosophers as beggars, in torn and ragged closcription — “An overriding love and thirst for glory crething, bizarrely patched together, and utterly absorated in him, from his early years, a passionate desire bed in the world of the mind. They have much of the to appear in all his words and deeds a true philosophhumour of Lucian’s dialogues, one of the most popuer. His thoughts were always full of dreams of walking lar 17°" century sources for lively descriptions of the beneath the spacious porticoes of Athens in the comancient philosophers. pany of the ancient Stoics”.[1] Scenes from the lives Ribera's philosophers remain, throughout of the ancient philosophers, rare subjects before the Rosa's career, a constant presence in his art. In the 17h century, form a major part of Rosa’s production. 1640s he was court painter to the Medici in Florence, In this essay | shall concentrate primarily on those and here he encountered fresh sources of inspiration. from Rosa’s final years, from 1660 to his death in The mood of much Florentine Seicento painting is 1673, when he responded to strains of contemporary witty thought and feeling very different from those which Florence Giovanni da San Giovanni's decorations of had inspired him in his early career. the summer apartments of the Palazzo Pitti had just and irreverent, and when Rosa arrived in A brief look at these early philosopher painbeen completed. Here, in one fresco, blind Homer tottings, however, will serve to heighten this difference. ters forth from Mount Parnassus, whilst on the oppos- Rosa was born in Naples in 1615, and trained in the ite wall Lorenzo, at the feet of Plato, volumes of philostudio of the Spanish artist Juseppe de Ribera, at presophy piled up beside him, enjoys the company of cisely the moment, in the mid 1630s, when the Spapoets and scholars at the academy of Careggi.[2]_ nish artist was making a speciality of galleries of half There is more than a hint of mockery of Raphael’s length portraits of philosophers. Ribera’s are learned stately fresco of the Schoo/ of Athens (Rome, Vatican, works, full of details culled from classical and antiqua- Stanza della Segnatura) and Rosa picked up some-

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Helen Langdon The Representation of Philosophers in the Art of Salvator Rosa kunsttexte.de 2/2011 - 2 thing of Giovanni da San Giovanni’s light hearted yet who throws himself into Mongibello (Etna) and learned tone. one into the sea, the first because he could not More important than the Medici court was understand the movement of the tides, and the the world of the Florentine literary academies. Rosa next to seek out the origins of the volcanic himself founded an academy, the Accademia dei Perflames. Pythagoras turns into a hundred beasts cossi, which attracted many of the most brilliant […]. Xenocrates is of marble, without sense, Florentine literary men, scholars, high churchmen and Diogenes a dog, Epicurus an animal, Democritscientists. Here Rosa nurtured his ambitions as satirus a madman who always laughs, Heraclitus ical poet as well as painter, and swiftly became the desperate, and always weeping.[5] centre of the Florentine literary world, whose double laurels made him celebrated. Of especial importance Bartoli encourages the intellectual to furnish his mind in this world were two writers whose works often read with knowledge, with history, literature, and the saylike a rich source for Rosa’s iconography, the Jesuit ings of ancient sages. He was interested in Rosa and, scholar Daniello Bartoli, and the moral philosopher as we shall see, provided a brilliant description of one Paganino Gaudenzio. They shared an interest in Dioof his most unusual philosopher paintings. rd Paganino Gaudenzio gives a contrary view. century AD) whose popularity grew in the 17th cen- In 1640 Gaudenzio had moved from Barberini Rome tury, and especially in the novel eccentricities of the to take up a post as professor of eloquence at the Cynics and Stoics. In 1645 Bartoli published his imuniversity of Pisa; his Del Seguitar la Corte o no mensely successful Man of Letters (Uomo di Lettere), preaches that the intellectual has a duty fully to partiwhose fame rapidly spread throughout Europe, and cipate in the world of the court.[6] Indeed Gauden- Queen Christina of Sweden was to ask for a copy.[3] zio’ s works illuminate the concerns of the élite intel- The Florentine edition of this work was dedicated to lectual and courtly circles for which Rosa painted; he Rosa, who in his letters expresses his interest in Barwas an immensely prolific and successful author, who toli’s writings.[4] The book is a passionate defence of experimented with many genres and wrote on many the intellectual life, and of the joy which the study of themes, amongst them poetry, philosophy, theology, letters brings to humankind. Bartoli does, however, history, political science, and eulogies in both Latin believe that this study must be undertaken in solitude, and Italian. He wrote histories of both patristic and far from the corruption of the court, and his heroes Roman philosophy, and lamented the dominance of are the early philosophers, Socrates, Diogenes, Aristotle in the universities, recommending that Plato, Crates, and Pythagoras; the melancholic headings of the Stoics and the Pythagoreans should also be studmany of his chapters, the Wise Man Ill, the Wise Man ied. His ground breaking history of Roman philosophy in Prison, the Wise Man in Exile, the Wise Man in argued for a new method of study, in which not only Poverty, convey his gloom about the place of the literthe thought of the ancients should be studied, but ary man in contemporary society. His writings are rich also their lives and deeds, and the historical contexts in echoes of Seneca and anecdotes from Diogenes in which they worked, and he encouraged an interest Laertius, and he describes with comic relish the best in the lives of the philosophers generally.[7] As in the loved antics of those ancient philosophers who had writings of Bartoli, they spring to vivid life in his prose so spectacularly resisted the lures of worldly success and both may have encouraged painters to take up and wealth. similar themes. One of Gaudenzio’s first works had genes Laertius’ Lives of the Ancient Philosophers, (3 been a small treatise on the transmigration of souls, Wonder at the ancient philosophers […]. One the De Pythagorea animarum transmigratione (1640), who throws his riches into the sea, making in which he paid homage to Galileo; there followed himself a beggar, in order not to avoid poverty the Della peregrinazione filosofica (1643), where he [...], one who lives in a barrel, like a dog in its discusses the legends and superstitions which had kennel, rather than man in his residence. One accumulated around the earliest philosophers. Both

Helen Langdon The Representation of Philosophers in the Art of Salvator Rosa kunsttexte.de 2/2011 - 8 Plutarch only insinuates Pythagoras’ belief in was often mentioned by libertin philosophers, and remetempsychosis, but it was a subject much debated ligion as imposture or deceit is a traditional topos in by Rosa’s learned contemporaries, and the painting libertin writing. It recurs obsessively in the writings of would have stimulated debate on this subject and on Gabriel Naudé, who had been Christina’s librarian in all the famed oddities of Pythagoras’ diet. It was a 1650-1651, and who in 1624 had published his Aposubject that fascinated Queen Christina, who, a paslogie pour les Grand Hommes Soupçonnez de Magie , sionate admirer of Lucretius, was deeply interested in an attempt to peel away many of the legends of spells atomism, and the doctrine of the World Soul. In 1650 and magic that had blackened the reputations of she had read Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, his great many of the early philosophers. In 1639 Naudé had poem on atomism, in the new edition by Michel de followed this with his Considerations Politiques, many Marolles, which was dedicated to her.[36] Marolles times republished in the 17th century, in which he exhad argued that Lucretius’ primary aim was to refute plores the theme of religion and fear, and the role of Pythagoras’ belief in the transmigration of the soul. secrecy and deceit in maintaining power. He sums up Her interest was sparked by this and other works, and a long passage on this with the comment that all in 1652 she had commissioned Johannes Schaeffer to princes treat religion in the manner of charlatans, and write a commentary on the Pythagoreans in the tradimake use of it as of a drug to ensure the splendour of tion of Diogenes Laertius and this appeared as De their role.[41] In the Apologie he had likened Py- Natura et Constitutione Philosophicae Italicae seu Pythagoras to other great religious tricksters, such as thagoricae in 1664, very close in date to Rosa’s paint- Mahomet, who was reputed to have hidden one of his ing. Schaeffer pays great attention to the doctrine of companions down a well, and then, through a sarmetempsychosis, and to the inclusion of women in bacane, have caused him to yell “Mahomet is the the Pythagorean great prophet sent by God on earth”.[42] Rosa may academies.[37] So fascinated was the Queen in these fundamental doctrines of the first have known the story through Paganino Gaudensubjects that later, in 1676, Leibniz, planned a diazio, who in his Della Peregrinazione Filosofica of 1643 logue in which Christina was to argue with Descartes had recounted Ermippo’s telling of Pythagoras’ stay in on the Soul of the World, a dialogue which was to inan underground grotto. But, he concludes, this was clude Pythagorean arguments on the transmigration probably an invention of Ermippo; Pythagoras, in the of souls.[38] account of Ovid, absolutely denies the realms of The pendant shows Pythagoras’ other per- Pluto, so surely he would not claim to have been in sona, in which, as the sceptic Timon of Philiasos hell, and in the realms of the underworld?[43] Here wrote in the third century, “Down to a juggler’s level Gaudenzio clearly reveals himself as a disciple of he sinks with his cheating devices, laying his nets for Gabriel Naudé, who, as we have seen, wrote in supmen, Pythagoras, lover of bombast”.[39] Its subject is port of his work. Probably around 1659 the anonym- Pythagoras’ supposed descent into Hades, an anecous tract Theophrastus Redivivus was published, dote related by Diogenes Laertius. Pythagoras, he which similarly attacks the deceits of religion, whilst tells us, hid below ground for a long period, employdefending absolutism as the only way in which the ing his mother to keep him informed about events wiseman could live according to nature. The author, above. He then ascended, “withered and looking like who recounts the Pythagoras’ story at length, sees its a skeleton […]. And declared he had been down to implications, and the way in which the idea of a Hades”. His followers wept and wailed, and called feigned resurrection had implications for the resurrechim divine; they sent their wives to him for instruction, tion of Christ. He concludes his narration with a pasand they became know as the Pythagorean Women. sage debunking the very concept of resurrection, and [40] Here he emerges from the cave with a truly adds this comment: “Thus it is clear that all legislators wicked grin on his face, in sharp contrast to the grand and princes are cheats and dissimulators, religion is figure in the companion piece. nothing other than a way of dominating a credulous This ruse, the claiming of divinity by a trick, people.”[44]

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Helen Langdon The Representation of Philosophers in the Art of Salvator Rosa ment on the overweening folly of the philosopher’s desire, rooted in Tertullian’s negative remarks on him in De Anima. Here Tertullian makes merciless fun of the philosopher, laughing at his belief in transmigration, and his claim to have once been a fish (why not a tasty melon, mocks Tertullian); he chose Etna for his grave, where he truly roasted like a fish.[73] These three poems together capture the spirit of the debates that clustered around Empedocles.[74] And perhaps Rosa’s painting, too, was intended to be ambiguous, and to provoke this kind of discourse. Here Rosa abandons the classical structure that had characterised even his wildest landscapes of the 1650s and early 1660s. Sky, rocks and fiery crater are brought close to the frontal plane, and the entire surface seems shifting, unstable, threatening to engulf the spectator. It may be that Rosa saw not only Kircher’s illustrations but also the drawings and watercolours which Kircher took from nature, and the vertical shaft, with the pools of flame at its base, is close to these sources; the painting seems to be the first painted representation of a volcano in eruption. [75] Against the crater the tiny figure of Empedocles seems heroic, and the painter evokes the wonder and mystery of this legendary figure from the earliest era of human knowledge. But he does include the golden slipper, evidence of Empedocles’ cheating, a device which links him to Pythagoras the trickster with a golden thigh, and provokes a kind of lingering unease in the mind of the viewer; it is possible to see the batlike, sprawling figure of Empedocles as comic, as Crates before him had been. It is these ambiguities, the ways in which this deeply read painter reflects so many strains of thought and feeling that provides the lasting fascination of Rosa’s philosopher subjects. He suggests a 17th century passion for novità and meraviglia, yet looks forward to the 18th century sublime, with its passion for the awesome grandeur of nature. kunsttexte.de 2/2011 - 14 Endnotes Filippo Baldinucci, Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua, ed. Ferdinando Ranalli, 6 vols., Florence 1671-1728, repr. Paola Barocchi, Florence 1974-1975, p. 497: “Da tale suo soverchio amore e appetito di gloria era ancora nato in lui fin da un gran tempo un fervente desio d’apparire in ogni suo fatto e detto un vero filosofo: e pare che il passeggiare per gli spaziosi portici d’Atene in compagnia degli antichi Stoici fosse continova occupazione de’suoi pensieri”. 2. On these frescoes see Elizabeth McGrath , From Parnassus to Careggi: a seventeenth celebration of Plato and Renaissance Florence, in: Sight and insight: essays on art and culture in honour of E.H. Gombrich at 85, ed. John Onians, London 1994, pp. 191-220. 3. John Renaldo, Daniello Bartoli: a Letterato of the Seicento, Naples 1979, p. 41. 4. On this dedication see Floriana Conte , Salvator Rosa tra Roma e Firenze. Vecchie questioni e nuovi materiali , in: Metodo di ricerca e ricerca del metodo: storia, arte, musica a confronto , Atti del convegno di studi Lecce 21-23 May 2007, ed. Benedetto Vetere, Congedo 2009, p. 247. 5. Daniello Bartoli, L’Uomo di Lettere , Bologna 1646, pp. 112-113: “Mirate gli antichi filosofi…Chi butta le ricchezze in mare, e si fà mendico, per non diventare povero. […] Chi vive in una botte, più come un cane nel suo nido, come che un’ huomo nel suo albergo. Chi si butta nel Mongibello, e chi nel mare, l’uno perche non intende la cagione di que’movimenti, l’altro perche non rintraccia l’origine di quelle fiamme. Pitagora si trasforma in cento bestie. […] Senocrate è un marmo sensa senso, [...] Diogene un cane, Epicuro un’animale, Democrito un pazzo, che sempre ride, Eraclito un disperato, che sempre piange.” 6. Paganino Gaudenzio, Del seguitar la corte o no, Pisa 1645. On Gaudenzio see Caroline Callard, Le Prince et la République, Paris 2007, pp. 98-99 and 164-171. 7. Paganino Gaudenzio, De Philosophiae apud Romanos initio e progressu volumen, Pisa 1643. On this see Ilario Tolomio, Il Genere ‘Historia Philosophica’ tra Cinquecento e Seicento, in: Storia delle Storie Generali della Filosofia, ed. Giovanni Santinello, Brescia 1981, vol. 1, pp. 119-123. 8. Paganino Gaudenzio, La Galleria dell'Inclito Marino Considerata vien dal Paganino Con alcune composizioni dell'istesso Paganino, Pisa 1648, p. 183. 9. For recent research on Rosa in Pisa see Franco Paliaga , Pittori, incisori e architetti pisani nel secolo di Galileo, Pisa 2009. 10. For Diogenes throwing away his bowl see Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, with an English translation by Robert Drew Hicks, London 1970, II, p. 39, VI.37, and for Crates throwing his Money into the sea ibidem, p. 91, VI.87. 11. Bartoli 1646, L’Uomo di Lettere, p. 39; “reliquie del secol d’oro”, on this passage in Bartoli see Helen Langdon, Relics of the Golden Age: the Vagabond Philosopher, in: Others and Outcasts in early Modern Europe: Picturing the Social Margins, ed. Tom Nichols, Burlington VT 2007, pp. 157-178. 12. Traino Boccalini, I Ragguagli di Parnaso, with an English translation by Henry, Earl of Monmouth, London 1649, p. 100. 13. Antonio Santacroce, La Secretaria di Apollo, Venice 1653, pp. 438-439. For Rosa’s admiration of Santacroce see Salvator Rosa, Lettere, ed. Gian Giotto Borelli, Naples 2003, p. 170. The book was first published in 1650. 14. For the poem see Leandro Ozzola, Vita e Opere di Salvator Rosa , Strasburg 1908, pp. 225-228. 15. For this painting see Salvator Rosa, Bandits, Wilderness and Magic, ed. Helen Langdon, London, Dulwich Picture Gallery and Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, 15 September 2010 – 27 March 2011, pp. 218-219. 16. For this engraving by Crispijn van Passe see : Fortune: “All is but Fortune”, ed. Leslie Thomson, Washington DC, Shakespeare Library, January 18th – June 10th 2000, p. 30, cat. no. 43. 17. Christies, London, King St; Old Master and 19th century Art, sale December 8th 2009 lot 27. 18. Luigi Salerno, L’Opera completa di Salvator Rosa, Milan 1975, Tav. XXXIX.

Helen Langdon The Representation of Philosophers in the Art of Salvator Rosa 19. For these etchings see Richard Wallace, The Etchings of Salvator Rosa, Princeton, New Jersey 1979, cats. 104, 103 and 108. 20. Wallace 1979, The Etchings, cat. 109. 21. Paganino Gaudenzio, Della Peregrinazione filosofica Tratatello di Paganini, Pisa 1643, p.10. 22. Rosa 2003, Lettere, p. 326. 23. Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, V 3. 24. Daniello Bartoli, La Tensione e la Pressione, Rome 1677, pp. 114. I am grateful to Floriana Conte for this reference. 25. Bartoli 1677, La Tensione e la Pressione , p. 1: “un venerando vecchio, in portamento all’antica, e in abito alla filosofale: di gran persona, e di maestoso aspetto, ma temperato soave, con altrettanta giocondità; e sopra tutto con due occhi d’aquila in capo, sì vivi, e spiritosi, che parlano: tener disteso il braccio, la mano, il dito in atto di comandare ad un villanello, che pochi passi fuor della porta d’una città gli si tien fermo inanzi, e a’suoi piedi ha disposto un fascio di legna”. 26. Bartoli 1677, La Tensione e la Pressione , p. 1: “Tutti erano fusti, ò barbi, e radici di piante salvatiche, i rami che componevan quel fascio: perció bistorti, e curui; pieni di groppi, e di sproni, e di giunture storpie, nodose, stravolte: ma con tanta maestria d’ingegno accoppiati e commessi, così strettamente raggiunti, e stivati, col far che ne’ difetti dell’uno entrasser gli eccessi dell’al tro, e tutti scambieuolmente si ubbidissero al riceversi, all’adatarsi, a ben formare un tutto”. 27. Bartoli 1677, La Tensione e la Pressione , p. 3: “v’ho figuralmente rappresentato qul ch’è la Natura, e quel che de’essere il Filosofo naturale intorno ad essa”. 28. Bartoli 1677, La Tensione e la Pressione , p. 13: “questo nuovo stil di sapere”. 29. Bartoli 1677, La Tensione e la Pressione, p. 14: “Quella propone il fatto, questa ne rinviene il perche”. 30. Rosa 2003, Lettere, p. 294: “Ho concluso i due quadri che stavo lavorando, i sogetti de’quali sono del tutto e per tutto nuovi, nè tocchi mai da nessuno. Ho dipinto in una tela […] Pitagora lungo la riva del mare cortegiato dall sua setta, in atto di pagare ad alcuni pescatori una rete che stanno tiranno, a ciò si ridia libertà ai pesci, motivo tolto da un opuscolo di Plutarco. L’altro è quando il medesimo, doppo esser stato un anno in una sotterranea abitazione, alla fine d’esso, aspettato dalla sua setta, cosi d’uomini come di donne, uscì fuori e disse venire dagl’Inferi e d’haver veduto colà l’anima d’Homero, d’Esiodo, et altre coglionarie appettatorie di quei tempi così dolcissimi di sale”. Letter of 29 July 1662. As translated Eckhard Leuschner, The Pythagorean Inscription on Rosa’s London Self Portrait , in: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute, LVII, 1994, p. 280. 31. Rosanna De Gennaro, Per il collezionismo del Seicento in Sicilia: l’inventario di Antonio Ruffo Principe della Scaletta , Pisa 2003, pp. 93, 111, 140. For a full history of the painting see Langdon 2010, Salvator Rosa, p. 206. 32. For this anecdote see Plutarch’s Moralia, with an English translation by Edwin Minar Jr., Francis Henry Sandbach and William C. Helmbold, London / New York 1961, IX 729D. 33. Plutarch, Moralia VIII.8, IX, 173, 185. 34. Ovid, Metamorphoses, with an English translation by Frank Justus Miller, Cambridge / London, repr.1994, vol. IV, XV.165-175, p. 377. 35. Ovid 1994, XV.81-82. For a comparison of Rosa and Rubens see: Helen Langdon, Salvator Rosa: his Ideas and his development as an artist, unpublished PhD thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, London 1974, p. 345. For Rubens’ iconography see Elizabeth McGrath, Rubens: Subjects from History, London 1997, vol. II, pp. 48-52. 36. Susanna Akerman, Queen Christina of Sweden and her Circle , Leiden / New York / Kǿbenhaven / Kőln 1991, pp. 73-74; Michel de Marolles, Le Poete Lucrèce, Paris 1650. 37. Akerman 1991, Queen Christina of Sweden, p. 97. 38. Akerman 1991, Queen Christina of Sweden, p. 84. 39. As given in Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, Measuring Heaven. Pythagoras and his Thought and Art in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Ithaca / London 2006, p. 21. 40. Diogenes Laertius 1970, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, II, p. 357, VIII 41. kunsttexte.de 2/2011 - 15 41. Gabriel Naudé, Considerations sur les Coups d’Estat , Rome 1667, p. 275. 42. Gabriel Naudé, Apologie pour les grands hommes soupçonnez par magie, Amsterdam 1712, pp. 160-162. For a discussion of this theme see Lorenzo Bianchi, Rinascimento e Libertinismo, Naples 1996, pp. 127-136. 43. Paganino Gaudenzio, Della Peregrinazion filosofica, Pisa 1643, pp. 42-43; “il che forsi tutto fù inventato, e finto da Ermippo. Certamente Pitagora appresso Oviddio, pare che neghi assolutamente i regni di Plutone. Come dunque s'asserisce che Pitagora disse di venir da gl'infernali, e sotterranei regni?” 44. “Unde manifestum est omnes legislatores et principes esse deceptores ac simulatores, religionemque qua populos trahunt nihil esse quam astutiam et commentum ad dominatus utilitatem.” As cited in Tullio Gregory, Theophrastus Redivivus: erudizione e ateismo nel Seicento, Naples 1979, p. 106. 45. Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Histories, with an English translation by Harry Carter, London 1962, I.75, p. 33. 46. Athanasius Kircher, Mundus Subterraneus, Amsterdam 1665, vol. I, pp. 233-234 for description and illustrations. 47. Athanasius Kircher, Latium, Amsterdam 1671, p. 140: “sub ponte profundissima voragine, quam ex horrendo spectaculo inferni fauces diceres, partim extra urbe per altissimam rupem in communem aquae voraginis abyssum dilapsus, per alios aliosque subterraneos cuniculos totidem aliis Catarractis committitur”, as given in Joscelyn Godwin, Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of the World, London 2009, p. 136. 48. Kircher 1671, Latium, pp. 141-142. 49. Godwin 2009, Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of the World, p. 187. 50. Aspasius Caramuelius, Ioco seriorum naturae et artis, sive magiae centuriae tres, Frankfurt 1667, p. 226. 51. Herodotus 1962, Histories, I.85, p. 38. 52. Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, X, 12.8 -10. 53. For the reception of Archytas in the Renaissance see Anthony Grafton, Conflict and Harmony in the Collegium Gellianum, in: The Worlds of Aulus Gellius , eds. Leofranc Holford Stevens and Amiel Vardi, Oxford 2004, pp. 318-342. 54. Giorgio De Sepibus, Romani Societatis Jesu Musaeum Celeberrimum etc, Amsterdam 1678, pp. 2-3 lists Kircher’s machines. The dove of Archytas is no.15. 55. Gaspar Schott, Mechanica hydraulico-pneumatica, Frankfurt 1657, p. 243; Grafton 2004, Conflict and Harmony, p. 342. 56. Athanasius Kircher, Magnes: sive de arte mechanica opus tripartitum, Rome 1654, p. 264, fig. 23. For a description of this model see Athanasius Kircher: Il Museo del Mondo, ed. Eugenio del Sardo, Rome, Palazzo Venezia, 28 th Feb – 22 April 2001, pp. 253-255 and Grafton 2004, Conflict and Harmony, p. 341. For an illustration, p. 254. 57. Horace, The Complete Odes and Epodes: with the centennial Hymn, with an English translation by William G. Shepherd, London 1983, Book I, p. 28. 58. Grafton 2004, Conflict and Harmony, p. 339. 59. Theodoor Galle, Illustrium Imagines, ex antiquis marmoribus, numismatibus, et gemmae expressae, Antwerp 1606, illus no 27. For a discussion of the sources on Archytas, including Horace’s ode, see p. 17. For a discussion of likenesses of Archytas see Gisela Richter, Portraits of the Greeks, London, 1965, II, p. 179. 60. Guercino’s painting is known through a drawing in Princeton University Art Museum. For a fuller discussion of Rosa and Ruffo see Xavier Salomon and Helen Langdon, Of Men and Mechanical Doves: Salvator Rosa’s Archytas for Don Antonio Ruffo, in: Boletin del Museo del Prado, forthcoming. 61. For Etna in ancient and Renaissance literature see Dominique Bertrand, Mythologies de l’Etna, Clermont-Ferrand 2004. 62. Pindar, The Odes of Pindar, Cambridge / London 1978, p. 157. 63. Paganino Gaudenzio, Della Filosofica Peregrinazione, Pisa 1643, pp. 62-64. 64. Emanuele Tesauro, Il Cannochiale Aristotelico, Turin 1655, p. 449. 65. Athanasius Kircher, Mundus Subterraneus, Amsterdam 1665, preface, chap. III, unpaginated; “craterem cum jam obtinuissem, horrendum dictu, totem igne illuminatum vidi cum intolerabili sulphuris & bituminis ardentis mephiti. Hic prorsus ad inusitatum rei spectaculum attonitus, inferorum domicilium me intueri cre-

Helen Langdon The Representation of Philosophers in the Art of Salvator Rosa debam, in quo praeter daemonum horrenda phasmata, nil adeò aliud deesse videbatur. Horrendi percipiebantur montis mugitus & fremitus, putor inexplicabilis, fumi subfuscis ignium globis mixti, quos ex undecim diversis locis, tam fundus, tam latera montis continuò eructabant, identidem me illud eructare cogebant”, as given in Godwin 2009, Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of the World, p. 133. For the illustration see preface. 66. Kircher 1665, Mundus Subterraneus, vol. I, pp. 186-188. 67. Diogenes Laertius 1970, Lives of Eminent Philosophers , pp. 383384, VIII. 69. 68. Naudé 1712, p. 193. 69. Paganino Gaudenzio, Considerazioni Accademiche, Florence 1631, p. 87: “Plinio l'autor della storia naturale, per osservare l'incendio del monte Vesuvio, a se cagiona la morte. Aristotile, non ritrovando perche s'aggiri l'Euripo, si getto in esso. La cagione della morte d'Omero fu il non sapere sciorre un'enigma.” 70. Irene Baldriga, Lo sgomento della morte di Plinio , in: Rome et la science moderne: entre Renaissance et Lumières, ed. Antonella Romano, Rome 2008, pp. 418-421. 71. Gaudenzio 1643, Della Filosofica Peregrinazione, p. 43. 72. Paganino Gaudenzio, De Pythagorea Animarum Transmigratione, Pisa 1642, pp. 298-299. 73. Tertullian, De Anima, XXXII. I. 74. Paganino Gaudenzio, Nuovo Poema in Sonnetti, Pisa 1648, pp. 26-28. 75. For these drawings see del Sardo, Athanasius Kircher 2001, figs. 78, 79 and 80. The originals are owned by the Museo di Geologia Università degli Studi di Roma ‘La Sapienza’. kunsttexte.de 2/2011 - 16 Fig. 10: Salvator Rosa, Archytas of Tarentum, 1668, Oil on canvas, 134 x 97 cm, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado (Helen Langdon, Salvator Rosa - Dulwich Picture Gallery, London 2010, p. 125). Fig.11: Theodoor Galle, Illustrium Imagines, ex antiquis marmoribus, numismatibus, et gemmae expressae, Antwerp 1606, ill. no 2. Fig. 12: Salvator Rosa, The Death of Empedocles, c. 1665 – 1670, Oil on canvas, 135 x 99 cm, Private collection (Helen Langdon, Salvator Rosa - Dulwich Picture Gallery, London 2010, p. 213). Fig.13: Athanasius Kircher, Mount Vesuvius in Eruption (Mundus Subterraneus, 1664, vol.1, opposite p. 200). Summary Salvator Rosa longed to be considered a philosopherpainter, and to win a reputation for his learned representation of novel subjects. This essay traces the development of this kind of subject matter in his art, from the satirical paintings of Cynics and Stoics which date from his years in Florence (1640 – 1649) to philosopher paintings of the 1660s, when he chose instead the pre-Socratics, such as Pythagoras and Empedocles, and natural philosophers and magicians. It Figures Fig. 1: Salvator Rosa, The Philosophers’ Wood, c. 1641 – 1643, Oil on canvas, 147 x 221 cm, Florence, Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti (Luigi Salerno, L’Opera completa di Salvator Rosa, Milan 1975, fig. XXII). sets these paintings in their intellectual contexts, in Florence in the world of the literary academies, in which Rosa played a key role, and in Rome in the scientific world of Athanasius Kircher, Daniello Bartoli Fig. 2: Salvator Rosa, Crates throwing his Riches into the Sea, c. 1641 – 1643, Oil on canvas, 146 x 216 cm; Skipton, Boughton Hall (Helen Langdon, Salvator Rosa - Dulwich Picture Gallery , London 2010, fig.12). and Queen Christina of Sweden. The essay aims to il- Fig. 3: Crispijn van de Passe, Homo Vanitatis et Fortuna ludibrium , in Stirpium, insignium nobilitatis, Basel 1602? (Leslie Thomson, Washington DC, Shakespeare Library, January 18th – June 10th 2000, p. 30). and, by studying the treatment of such subjects in Fig. 4: Salvator Rosa, Fortuna, 1640 – 1642, Oil on canvas, 254 x 144,8 cm, Private collection (Helen Langdon, Salvator Rosa - Dulwich Picture Gallery, London 2010, fig. 35). luminate the strains of contemporary thought and feeling to which these paintings so deeply appealed, contemporary poetry and literature, to suggest how they may have been read. It argues that much of their appeal may have lain in their ambiguity, and in the power that they had to stimulate discussion. Several of Rosa’s subjects are extremely rare in painting, but, Fig. 5: Salvator Rosa, Democritus and Protagoras, c. 1660 – 1663, Oil on canvas, 185 x 128 cm, St Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum (Helen Langdon, Salvator Rosa - Dulwich Picture Gallery , London 2010, fig. 76). as in the case of two paintings of Pythagoras, they are Fig. 6: Salvator Rosa, Pythagoras instructing the Fishermen, 1662, Oil on canvas, 132 x 188 cm, Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie (Luigi Salerno, L’Opera completa di Salvator Rosa, Milan 1975, fig. LI). but as subjects central to 17th century philosophical Fig. 7: Salvator Rosa, Pythagoras emerging from the Underworld ; 1662, Oil on canvas, 131,1 x 189 cm, Texas, Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum (Photograph by Robert La Prelle). Fig. 8: Salvator Rosa,Thales causing the river to flow on both sides of the Lydian army, c. 1663 – 1664, Oil on canvas, 73,5 x 97 cm, Adelaide, Art Gallery of South Australia (Gift of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide). Fig. 9: Athanasius Kircher, Origin of Rivers, Mundus Subterraneus 1664, vol. 1, p. 254. subjects common in literature. They would not have been seen as odd and eccentric, as now they seem, debates. Author Helen Langdon is an art historian with a special interest in Italian 17th century art. She was formerly Assistant Director of the British School at Rome, and subsequently Research Fellow there; she has been short term research scholar at the Getty Institute in Los Angeles, and Visiting Fellow at Yale University. In