Seasons, Planets and Tempetaments in the Work of Maarten Van Heemskerck Cosmo-Astrological Allegory in Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish Prints

Seasons, Planets and Temperaments in the Work of Maarten van Heemskerck Cosmo-Astrological Allegory in Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish PrintsAuthor(s): Ilja M. VeldmanSource: Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 11, No. 3/4 (1980), pp.149-176Published by: Stichting voor Nederlandse Kunsthistorische PublicatiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3780568 .

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'49

Seasons, planets and temperaments in the work of Maarten van Heemskerck Cosmo-astrological allegory in sixteenth-century Netherlandish prints*

Ilja M. Veldman

The classification of human character and physical features in relation to cosmic phenomena has been a popular intellectual pursuit since classical times, and it has provided artists with a fertile source of inspiration.

One such artist was Maarten van Heemskerck (I498- 1574), who in the space of six years produced designs for three series of prints: Thefour seasons, The seven planets and Thefour temperaments.

My reason for discussing these three series within the framework of a single article will immediately be appar- ent. Medieval thought, which was based on classical concepts, held that the macrocosm and the microcosm formed a single, homogeneous entity. Its constituent parts, which included the elements, the seasons, the ages of man, and human physical and mental characteristics, were regarded as being subject to the positions of the stars and planets. Consequently, the element linking all the prints in these series is the prominent display of one or more signs of the zodiac in the sky above each scene. The activities taking place below them, on earth, are

* Unless otherwise stated, the photographs in this article are from the printroom of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Translated from the Dutch by Michael Hoyle. i Ever since Aby Warburg's famous 1912 speech on the frescoes in

the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara (printed as "Italienische Kunst und internationale Astrologie im Palazzo Schifanoia zu Ferrara," in Aby M. Warburg, Ausgewahlte Schriften und Wiirdigungen, ed. D. Wuttke, Baden-Baden 1979, pp. 173-99), there has been a growing number of publications on astrological representations. They include A. Hauber, Planetenkinderbilder und Sternbilder: zur Geschichte des menschlichen Glaubens und Irrens, Strasbourg 1916, and C. Bezold & F. Boll, Sternglaube und Sterndeutung: die Geschichte und das Wesen der Astro- logie, Leipzig & Berlin I919. An excellent introduction to the subject will be found in Jean Seznec, The survival of the pagan gods: the mythological tradition and its place in Renaissance humanism and art, New York 1963 (ed. pr. 1940), especially pp. 37-83: "The physical tradition."

largely ruled by these signs. The complex system underlying cosmo-astrological

themes has already been analyzed at length in art-historical literature.1 The figure of Saturn, who appears in Heemskerck's Temperaments and Planets, has also been discussed in detail by Klibansky, Panofsky and Saxl,2 so I will be restricting myself to only the most essential information on this planet god and his role. My main object will be to show how Heemskerck decided on the design of his prints, to pin down his literary or visual sources, to identify his own, original contributions to the themes, if any, to determine the function of the prints wherever possible, and to discover what influence they had on other artists. The personified seasons are dealt with at rather greater length than the other two series, the reason being that so little attention has so far been devoted to this theme in art-historical literature.

THE FOUR SEASONS (I563) (figs. I-4) These prints,3 which were engraved by Philips Galle, show four large

2 R. Klibansky, E. Panofsky & F. Saxl, Saturn and melancholy: studies in the history of natural philosophy, religion and art, Cambridge (Mass.) 1964.

3 Thomas Kerrich, A catalogue of the prints which have been engraved after Martin Heemskerck, Cambridge (Eng.) 1829, pp. 99-100; F.W.H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts, ca. I450-I700, vol. 8, Amsterdam n.d., p. 245, nrs. 353-56. There are sets of these prints in the printroom of the Rijksmuseum, Amster- dam, the printrooms in Leiden, Copenhagen and Dresden, and in the Albertina in Vienna. Drawings for two of the prints have survived, and both are dated I562. The drawing for Spring is in the Fondation Custodia (F. Lugt collection), Institut Neerlandais, Paris (inv. nr. 1773), and that for Summer is in the Uffizi in Florence (Leon Preibisz, Martin von Heemskerck: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Romanismus in der niederlindischen Malerei des XVI. Jahrhunderts, Leipzig I9I , p. 85, nr. 24; exhib. cat. Disegnifiamminghi e olandesi, Florence (Gabi- netto disegni e stampe degli Uffizi) 1964, p. 27).



ILJA M. VELDMAN

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Philips Galle after Maarten van Heemskerck, Spring, nr. I of a series of Four seasons ( 563), engraving

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2 Philips Galle after Maarten van Heemskerck, Summer, nr. 2 of a series of Four seasons (I563), engraving

male personifications in a landscape. Floating in the sky are the three signs of the zodiac appropriate to each season, while down on earth people are seen engaged in activities associated with the time of year. At the bottom of each print is a four-line Latin verse. The signature on the first print shows that the verses were composed by the philologist and town physician of Haarlem, Hadria- nus Junius, who provided the inscriptions for many of Heemskerck's prints. These verses, which were included with only a few alterations in spelling in Junius's posthumous Poematum liber primus ( 598),4 give a fairly precise description of each scene. This suggests that Heemskerck's preliminary drawings served as the im- mediate models for Junius's texts.5

Junius's celebration of Spring (fig. I) runs as follows. "A young man garlanded with leaves, his knees bare, adorned with a quiver, moving lithely in his trappings, his bearing proud: that is the appearance of Spring. Vigor of mind and physical effort are in full bloom. Pails overflow with milk, and the canes are around the vine."6 The young man also carries a falcon and a bow. Floating in the sky above his head, from right to left, are the signs of Aries, Taurus and Gemini.7

Summer (fig. 2) is under the signs of Cancer, Leo and Virgo. The personification and his attributes are described as follows. "There stands Summer, unclad, with a wreath of corn on his head, his features those of a full- grown man, holding heavy ears of corn. The cornstalks

4 Hadrianus Junius, Poematum liber primus: pia et moralia carmina, Leiden (Louis Elsevier) 1598, pp. 157-58.

5 For further information on Junius as a composer of verses for Heemskerck's prints see Ilja M. Veldman, Maarten van Heemskerck and Dutch humanism in the sixteenth century, Maarssen & Amsterdam I977, PP. 97-II2.

6 Fronde comans, nudusque genu, pharetraque decorus, Procinctuque agilis iuvenis, nisoque superbus, Veris hic est habitus. Fervent geniusque laborque. Lacte fluunt mulctrae, vitemque statumina valiant.

I am greatly indebted to Dr. C.L. Heesakkers for his assistance in translating the Latin in this article.

7 Strangely enough, changes were made in the position of the signs of the zodiac between the design stage and the final execution. In Heemskerck's drawing, Aries, with which spring begins, is in the center flanked by Taurus (the next sign) on the left and Gemini on the right. In the drawing of Summer, Heemskerck drew the signs of Cancer, Leo and Virgo from right to left. It seems that Philips Galle, either acting on the suggestion of the designer or on his own initiative, decided to opt for consistency. In Spring he engraved the signs in the copper from left to right in the chronological order, and in Summer he reversed the order in which they are found in the drawing. The result is certainly consistent, but it would perhaps have been more logical (and in view of the drawing for Summer, this may have been what

I50



Seasons, planets and temperaments in the work of M. van Heemskerck

fall to the scythe, the grass in the meadow is mowed, and the hored ram yields up the glory of his fleece."8

Autumn (fig. 3), escorted by Libra, Scorpio and Sagit- tarius, is depicted as an older man. "But you, Autumn, your head wreathed in vine-tendrils bearing bunches of grapes, and rich beyond compare with a fertile horn of plenty; what riches do you not shower about you? Bear- ing new, young wine and bedewed fruit, you entrust grain to the furrows of the field as the hope of the year."9

Winter (fig. 4) is accompanied by Capricorn, Aqua- rius and Pisces. "Cold Winter, you have taken on the guise of an emaciated graybeard. Your bristly beard is stiff from the cold, and you have covered your temples with a fur hat. A cloak of double thickness covers your body, and boots your feet. The fire from a flickering brazier warms your bloodless hands."'0

The four seasons were frequently depicted as personifications in classical times. Initially they were presented as female figures, horae, and had more or less fixed attributes: flowers for Spring, ears of corn for Summer, and grapes and other fruit for Autumn. Winter was well wrapped up against the cold, often with her head covered, and carried twigs, ducks or a hare." In later im- perial times the seasons were also represented as male winged genii, chiefly on sarcophagi and triumphal arches. They have the same attributes as the horae, but are garlanded with flowers, ears of corn and vine leaves.12

Heemskerck intended) if the twelve signs had been arranged so that they could be read in one continuous sequence from left to right across the four prints.

8 Spicea serta gerens Aestas nuda astat, adulti Ora viri referens, gravidas tendentis aristas. Falce cadunt segetes, tondentur gramine campi. Corniger atque aries lanae deponit honorem.

9 At tu pampineis redimite Autumne racemis, Foecundoque super rerum ditissime cornu, Quas non fundis opes? Fers musta, et roscida poma, Spemque anni sulcis cerealia semina mandas.

so Effoeti mentire senis speciem algida Bruma. Hispida barba riget; pellitus tempora cudo, Corpus abolla duplex operit, plantasque calones. Exanguesque manus foculus fovet igne coruscus.

1 For a detailed discussion of personifications of the four seasons in classical antiquity see G.M.A. Hanfmann, The Season Sarcophagus in Dumbarton Oaks, 2 vols., Cambridge (Mass.) 195I.

12 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 2I5-I9, with examples of a sarcophagus in the Palazzo Mattei (Rome), fig. 31; two in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, figs. 30 and 33; the Arch of Septimius Severus, figs. 21-24; and the Arch of Constantine, fig. 71. See also Table III in James Fowler, "On mediaeval representations of the months and seasons," Archaeologia 44 (873), pp. I73-224 (pp. I94-97).

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4 Philips Galle after Maarten van Heemskerck, Winter, nr. 4 of a series of Four Seasons ( 563), engraving

I5I



ILJA M. VELDMAN

Although Ovid does not speak specifically of male figures (adhering to the Latin gender of the seasons, as one might expect), it does seem that a passage from his Metamorphoses (2 :27-30) was responsible for this vari- ant. In a description of the palace of the Sun, Phoebus is seated on his throne flanked by personifications of the day, the month, the year, the century and the four seasons. "Young Spring was there, wreathed with a floral crown/ Summer, all unclad with garland of ripe grain/ Autumn was there, stained with the trodden grape/ and icy Winter with white and bristly locks."13

In early medieval times the depiction of the four seasons gave way to that of the twelve months, the origins of which can be traced to late antiquity. The months are represented by human figures engaged in activities appropriate to each month, ranging from religious ceremo- nies to laboring in the fields.14 These scenes are the forerunners of the traditional "labors of the months," which first appeared in the thirteenth century in church doorways and on calendars, often with the appropriate signs of the zodiac. Here the human figures are seen solely in the context of working the land, partly due to the influence of a passage in Vincent of Beauvais's

I3 Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Frank Justus Miller, 2 vols., Cam- bridge (Mass.) & London 1960-64, vol. I, p. 62:

Verque novum stabat cinctum florente corona, stabat nuda Aestas et spicea serta gerebat, stabat et Autumnus calcatis sordidus uvis et glacialis Hiems canos hirsuta capillos.

Hanfmann, op. cit. (note II), vol. i, p. 140 identifies the source of Ovid's passage as a poem written at the court of Alexandria with a description of a parade for Ptolemy II in which Phaeton and personifications of different time spans take part.

14 See D.Levi, "The allegories of the months in classical art," The Art Bulletin 23 (1941), pp. 25I-91, and J.C. Webster, The labors of the months in antique and mediaeval art to the end of the i2th century, Princeton I938. There were also attempts to depict work on the land within the context of the four classical personifications, an example being the milking of a sheep in spring and binding up corn sheaves in summer on the sarcophagus in Dumbarton Oaks; see Hanfmann, op. cit. (note I ), fig. 2.

15 Emile Male, The gothic image: religious art in France of the thirteenth century, New York, Evanstone & London 1958, pp. 64-66. See also Fowler, op. cit. (note 12), and Julien Le Senecal, "Les occupations des mois," Bulletin de la Societe des antiquaires de Nor- mandie 35 (1924), Caen, Rouen & Paris.

16 Hanfmann, op. cit. (note I I), vol. i, p. 269 describes an illustration in the Octateuch manuscript of the eleventh or twelfth century (Vatican, ms. 747, fol. 30). Spring running and half naked; Summer is nude and is gathering in the harvest; Autumn is a satyr-like figure with a wineskin; Winter, dressed in a fur coat, is warming himself by a fire.

Speculum doctrinale (I:9), in which manual labor was presented as the ideal way for man to free himself of the necessities to which his body had been subject since the fall.15

On the rare occasions in the middle ages when the four seasons are depicted as personifications they are generally presented as quasi-classical half figures. Spring, Sum- mer and Autumn have retained the traditional attributes of flowers, ears of corn and grapes, while Winter is represented by wind or snow, or is shown as a man sitting by a fire, the form in which the months of December and January were depicted from the ninth century onwards.16 Fire as the characteristic attribute of Winter can be found as far back as Ovid's Remedia amoris (Ii :I87-88), together with flowers for Spring, the harvest for Summer, and fruit for Autumn.17

Heemskerck's personifications lack the wings and the youthful appearance which were the main characteristics of the classical genii. Spring and Summer, however, are wearing their garlands of flowers and corn, so it would appear that his model was not so much classical sculpture as the text of Ovid's Metamorphoses, which was very widely known in the sixteenth century. Hadria-

An illustration in an eleventh-century manuscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris (ms. 7028, fol. 154), reproduced in Seznec, op. cit. (note i), p. 63, shows the four seasons as busts: Spring with flowers, Summer with a corn sheaf, Autumn apparently with bowls of grapes or wine, and Winter with the disembodied head of a wind. The bust form is also found in Ambrogio Lorenzetti's frescoes in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena: Spring with flowers, Summer with a scythe and ears of corn, Autumn with grapes, and Winter with snowflakes (see Paolo d'Ancona, L'uomo e le sue opere nelle figurazione italiane del medioevo, Florence 1923, p. 92 and fig. 35 [Summer and Autumn]). See also the iconographic conventions for Byzantine art in the Manuel d'iconographie chretienne grecque et latine, Paris (M. Didron) 1845, pp. 408-09, where Spring is described as a seated man surrounded by flowers with a floral garland on his head and with a harp as an attribute; Summer as a man in a hat wielding a scythe; Autumn as a man cutting down a tree; and Winter as a figure wrapped in a fur coat and with a cap on his head, warming himself by a fire. The examples of cathedral sculpture cited by Fowler, op. cit. (note 12), p. 178 and pp. 180-82, are either too fragmentary or too debatable to be used for comparison. For depictions of December and January as an old man by a fire see Webster, op. cit. (note 14), nr. 24, fig. Io; nr. 25, fig. i; nr. 32, fig. i6, et seq.

17 Ovid, The art of Love, and other poems, trans. J.H. Mozley, Cambridge (Mass.) & London I969, pp. I90-9I: "Poma dat autumnus: formosa est messibus aestas, Ver praebet flores: igne levatur hiemps" (Autumn brings fruits, Summer is fair with harvest, Spring brings flowers, Winter is relieved by fire). This passage follows a description of the customary agricultural labors for each season.

152




nus Junius's verses are a clear pointer to the influence of the Metamorphoses. His "spicea serta gerens Aestas nuda astat" (there stands Summer, unclad, with a wreath of corn on his head) differs very little from Ovid's "stabat nuda Aestas et spicea serta gerebat" (Summer, all unclad, with garland of ripe grain). His "fronde comans" (garlanded with leaves) is a very minor variation on "cinctum florente corona" (wreathed with a floral crown); his "algida Bruma" (cold Winter) is a synonym for "glacialis Hiems" (icy Winter); and his "hispida barba" (bristly beard) is virtually the same as Ovid's "hirsuta capillos" (bristly locks).

Heemskerck also incorporated a number of elements from medieval representations of the months, possibly because he had exhausted the stock of iconographic ideas provided by Ovid. Examples include Winter's brazier and Spring's falcon and bow and arrow. The falcon belongs to the month of May, the traditional hunting season, which was frequently represented by a horseman or a standing figure with a falcon from the twelfth century onwards.18 Although the bow and arrow are clearly associated with hunting they do not, to my knowledge, appear as such in medieval calendar illustrations. It is possible that they were derived from the classical custom of associating each month with a deity, which is also mentioned in Giraldi's De annis et mensibus (I54I). The god for the month of May was Apollo.19

The elements in Heemskerck's prints which are clearly linked with the traditional medieval program of the labors of the months are the signs of the zodiac and the backgrounds, in which the labors for each month are condensed into four scenes. Although the iconography

i8 For a horseman with falcon see Webster, op. cit. (note 14), nr. 64, and nr. 76, fig. 48; nr. 90, fig. 56; nr. 93, fig. 59; nr. 95, fig. 6I, and nr. 96, fig. 62. See also the Fontana Grande in Perugia, by Nicola and Giovanni Pisano; B. Bresciani, Figurazioni dei mesi nell'arte medioevale italiana, Verona 1968, fig. 28a and b. For a standing figure with falcon see Webster, op. cit. (note 14), nr. 92, fig. 58; and Mile, op. cit. (note 15), p. 72, fig. 36 (Notre-Dame, Paris). For remarks on falconry in late antiquity see C.W. Vollgraff, "Nieuwe opgravingen te Argos," Mede- deelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, afd. Letter- kunde 72b, Amsterdam I931, pp. 71-120 (esp. pp. Ioo-o5).

19 Menelogium rusticum colotianum: inscriptiones urbis Romae lati- nae, Webster, op. cit. (note I4), p. I04; and Lilio Gregorio Giraldi, De annis et mensibus, caeterisque temporum partibus, Basle (Mich. Isingri- nius) 1541, pp. 88-89.

20 This program persisted into the sixteenth century in both calendar illustrations and independent prints. See the series of twelve woodcuts made by Hans Sebald Beham for Luther's prayerbook (Nuremberg, 1527), which were copied on several occasions (G. Pauli,

of the labors varied, depending on the region and local tradition, it can be said that the planting of young vines in Heemskerck's Spring stands for March, milking for April and hunting for May. The haymaking in Summer represents June, sheep-shearing July, and harvesting August. The grape-picking in Autumn stands for Sep- tember, harrowing and sowing for October, and the slaughter of livestock for November. The scenes of people warming themselves by a fireplace and feasting around a covered table in Winter are traditionally associated with December, January and February.20

There is yet another element in Heemskerck's Four seasons that can be traced back to a classical literary source, and that is the merging of the four seasons with the four ages of man. Spring, as we have seen, is depicted as a young man, Summer as a man in the prime of life, Autumn as a man of advanced years, and Winter as a graybeard.

Giraldi gives Pythagoras as a source of this synthesis.21 The authorities he cites include Ovid (Metamor- phoses I5 :I99-213), who also mentions Pythagoras as a source when he says of the seasons: "Then again, do you not see the year assuming four aspects, in imitation of our own lifetime ? For in early spring it is tender and full of fresh life, just like a little child [...] After spring has passed, the year, grown more sturdy, passes into summer and becomes like a strong young man [...] Then autumn comes, with its first flush of youth gone, but ripe and mellow, midway in time between youth and age, with sprinkled grey showing on the temples. And then comes aged winter, with faltering step and shivering, locks all gone and hoary."22

Hans Sebald Beham: ein kritisches Verzeichniss seiner Kupferstiche, Radirungen und Holzschnitte, Strasbourg 1901, nrs. II99-I2IO; for reproductions see F.W.H. Hollstein, German engravings, etchings and woodcuts, ca. I400-i700, vol. 3, Amsterdam n.d., p. 239).

21 Giraldi, op. cit. (note 19), p. 70. 22 Ovid, op. cit. (note 13), vol. 2, pp. 378-79: "Quid? Non in

species succedere quattuor annum adspicis, aetatis peragentum imita- mina nostrae? Nam tener et lactens puerique simillimus aevo vere novo est [...] Transit in aestatem post ver robustior annus fitque valens iuvenis [...] Excipit autumnus, posito fervore iuventae maturus mitis- que inter iuvenemque senemque temperie medius, sparsus quoque tempora canis. Inde senilis hiems tremulo venit horrida passu, aut spoliata suos, aut, quos habet, alba capillos." See also an emblem by Bartolomeus Anulus, Picta poesis, ut pictura poesis erit, Lyons (Mat- thias Bonhomme) 1552, p. 26, "Aeterna hominum natura" (Man's eternal nature), in which the four seasons are associated with the four ages of man (A. Henkel & A. Schone, Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des 16. und 7. yahrhunderts, Stuttgart 1967, pp. 48-50).

I53



ILJA M. VELDMAN

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8 Jacob Matham after Hendrick Goltzius, Winter, nr. 4 of a series of Four seasons (I589), engraving

I54




There are no examples in classical art of scenes of the four seasons incorporating the four ages of man. In the middle ages, though, according to the encyclopedic tradition, varying numbers of ages were being depicted in conjunction with other cosmic scenes.23 The age of Growing Youth was often shown as a young man with a falcon,24 and appears to have derived much of its iconography from that of the months. However, as far as I know, these prints by Heemskerck are the earliest examples of such a complete synthesis of the seasons and the ages of man.

Heemskerck's place in the development oJ the theme Hen- drick Goltzius, who also lived in Haarlem and was a pupil of Dirck Volkertsz. Coornhert, one of Heems- kerck's first and most productive engravers, designed a series of Four seasons (I589; figs. 5-8) which clearly shows that he knew of Heemskerck's version of the theme. These four prints, which were engraved by Jacob Matham,25 also show standing male personifications which fill the entire height of the scene. Goltzius, however, omitted attributes not specifically mentioned by Ovid, such as the bow, arrow and falcon, and Au- tumn's horn of plenty. Goltzius's Summer (fig. 6) gives every appearance of being directly modelled on Heems-

23 Didron, op. cit. (note 16), pp. 409-I; Emile Male, L'Art reli- gieux de la fin du moyen-age en France, Paris 1908, pp. 324ff; R. van Marle, Iconographie de l'art profane au moyen-age et i la renaissance: allegories et symboles, The Hague 1932, pp. 53ff;F. Boll, "Die Lebens-

alter," Neue Jahrbiicher fur das Klassische Altertum: Geschichte und deutsche Literatur I6 (I9I3), pp. 89-154.

24 Boll, op. cit. (note 23), pp. I02-04 and figs. 3 and 4; van Marle, op. cit. (note 23), fig. I88; Klibansky, Panofsky & Saxl, op. cit. (note 2), figs. 58 and 79. In Guillaume de La Perriere's La morosophie, contenant cent emblemes moraux, Lyons (Mace Bonhomme) 1553, nr. 57, a young man with a falcon, representing Spring and Youth, stands opposite an old man with a stick, representing Winter and Old Age. An example from netherlandish art is a woodcut of the wheel of life, which was printed in Kampen in 1558, and is reproduced in M. de Meyer, Populare Druckgraphik Europas: Niederlande, vom 15. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, Munich 1970, fig. 91.

25 Hollstein, op. cit. (note 3), vol. II, p. 230, nrs. 300-03. Adam Bartsch, Le peintre-graveur, vol. 3, Vienna 1803, pp. 166-67, nrs. 140- 43.

26 Giraldi, op. cit. (note 19), p. 70. Hanfmann, op. cit. (note iI), vol. I, p. 155 states that this system combined with the four elements originated with Antiochus of Athens.

27 i) Vere reflorescens vestitur frondibus arbor, Vestitur tellus versicolore coma. Concentuque avium, resonat nemus omne, Ariesque Mitior aurato vellere tingit humum.

(In Spring the budding tree is covered in foliage, the earth is clothed

kerck's version. His Winter (fig. 8) has similarities in clothing. The signs of the zodiac in all four prints appear to be straightforward borrowings. Goltzius, too, adopted the synthesis with the four ages of man, but he also introduced a new element: a wind characteristic of each season, derived from the association of the seasons with a particular wind direction, which was established in classical times and was reported by Giraldi. Spring was associated with the south (and thus the south wind), Summer with the east, Autumn with the north, and Winter with the west.26

The landscape scenes are no more than a passing reference to the season's activities, and Goltzius has replaced the labors of milking and planting out young vines with the pleasures of eating and love-making. The Latin verses by Franciscus Estius,are more a lyrical description of the cycle of nature and the influence of the signs of the zodiac than a detailed commentary on the personifications.27

Goltzius and Matham also produced a second, smal- ler series of Four seasons.28 The scenes are set in ovals decorated with strapwork, and once again they consist of male personifications with similar attributes, the signs of the zodiac, the four winds, and work on the land. These prints, however, are undated and have no inscriptions.

with multi-colored leaves. The whole forest resounds to the chorus of the birds, and the gentle Ram colors the earth with his golden fleece.)

2) Aestas maturis fecundat frugibus annum, Illius exornant spicea serta caput. Illius adventu Cancer terrasque salumque Illustrat, Cereri rustica turba litat.

(Summer fertilizes the year with his ripe fruits; his head is garlanded with grain. At his coming the Crab shines on earth and sea, and the farmers sacrifice to Ceres.)

3) Pomifer Autumnus turgentibus uvidus uvis, Mi pleno cornu copia large fluit. Et lautis mensis bellaria bella ministro Aequat dum nocti pendula Libra diem.

(Fruit-bearing Autumn is suffused with tender grapes. Rich abun- dance flows for me from his full horn of plenty. I load the sumptuous tables with splendid fruit, while the suspended Scales make day equal to night.)

4) Alget et ante focum torpescit Bruma nivalis, Pellita cingens frigida membra toga. Anni babentis [abeuntis?] senium Capricorne reducis Te radiante stupet terra sepulta rive [nive?].

(He is cold, snowy Winter, and sits rigid before the fire, his freezing limbs wrapped in a fur coat. And as you, 0 Capricorn, transform the age of the departing old year [to the youth of the new], the earth lies buried in snow while you shine down.)

28 Hollstein, op. cit. (note 3), vol. I I, p. 230, nrs. 296-99. There is a set of these prints in the printroom of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

I55



ILJA M. VELDMAN

9 Master A.P., Summer (from a series of Four seasons), woodcut (photo: British Museum, London)

The theme of four personified seasons also seems to have appealed to other sixteenth-century Netherlandish

print designers. In order to make a proper assessment of the iconography of Heemskerck's prints and of Golt- zius's related versions it is necessary to compare them

briefly with other, more or less contemporary depictions of the theme.

The earliest Netherlandish example of a quartet of

personifications is, as far as I know, the series of woodcuts by the Master AP, who was active around 1536.29 In this series the scenes are designed as triumphal proces-

29 Wouter Nijhoff, Nederlandsche houtsneden I500-I550, The Hague 1933-36, p. 28 and figs. 153-60. Hollstein, op. cit. (note 3), vol.

13, pp. 12-13 (with reproductions). 30 Flora's presence is based on her association with spring flowers

(see Julius S. Held, "Flora, goddess and courtesan," Essays in honor of Erwin Panofsky, New York 1961, pp. 201-I8, esp. p. 203). Ceres is the

sions. Standing on the canopy above each triumphal car is the season: Spring as a young woman with flowers in

her/gown and in her hair; Summer as a scantily-dressed woman garlanded with corn stalks and holding up a wreath of corn (fig. 9); Autumn as a man in half-length armor holding grapes and garlanded with vine leaves; and Winter as an old woman with a brazier on her head. Seated in the place of honor of the cars, however, are mythological deities associated with each season: Flora, Ceres, Pomona and Janus.30 The cars are surrounded by crowds of classical gods and personifications represent-

goddess of agriculture, and has the attribute of ears of corn, which makes her a good representative of summer (see also p. 159). Pomona is found representing autumn in the Eclogue (2) of Ausonius; see Webster, op. cit. (note 14), p. io8 (E). Janus is the symbol of January (which is named after him) in classical texts (Webster, pp. 104 (B), o06 (C), 107 (D), et seq.) and in medieval depictions (Webster, nrs. 28, 31, 35, 40 et seq.).

I56




ing conditions and characteristics appropriate to that particular season.31 The crowds in each scene are also holding up three banners with the signs of the zodiac and the names of the months. In the background we see the labors of those months and the temperaments associated with each season.32 Each woodcut also has a line from Ovid's Metamorphoses (2 :27-30), which certainly seems to be the source for the attributes depicted.

Notwithstanding the evidence of the inscriptions, however, the Master AP seems to have drawn his ideas for the design of the series from the more contemporary source of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499), particularly in his use of the triumphal car, which is rare in the iconography of the seasons. The description and illustration of the seasons in the Hypnerotomachia is immediately preceded by a woodcut showing the triumphal procession of Vertumnus and Pomona.33 Here too the car, which is drawn by fauns (goats in the Master AP), is accompanied by a crowd of people carrying three banners. The master has incorporated Pomona's attribute of the cornucopia as an independent element in his allegorical figures of Copiecornu and Abundancia.

The Master AP's use of mythological figures to represent the seasons seems to have inaugurated a new pictorial tradition, and one which was to generate more imitations than Heemskerck's purer Ovidian personifications.

In 1568, four years after the appearance of Heems- kerck's series, Hieronymus Cock published a series of Four seasons by Lambert Lombard, which consists of two female and two male personifications (figs. Io-i3).34 Lombard clearly seems to have been inspired by the Hypnerotomachia, with its description and illustration of the four seasons set on a marble altar (figs. 14-I7).35 In

31 In Spring they include Mercury, Orpheus, Pan, Liber Pater, Apollo and the Nine Muses; in Summer: Phoebus, Sitis, Aestus, Pilunus, Saturn, Labor and Maturitas; in Autumn: Copiecornu, Pal- las, Priapus, Bacchus, Abundancia, Silenus, Infirmitas, Nausea and Morbus; and in Winter: Aeolus, Vulcan, Anacharsis, Desidia, Som- nus, Crapula, Frigus, Horror, Tenebre, Podagra, Paupertas and Defectus.

32 Spring (youth) is the time of the Sanguinici, summer (maturity) that of the Cholerici, autumn (middle age) that of the Melancholici, and winter (old age) that of the Phlegmatici (see also p. I70).

33 Francesco Colonna (?), Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, ubi humana omnia non nisi somnium esse docet, Venice (Aldus Manutius) 1499. J. W. Appel, The dream of Poliphilus: fac-similes of one hundred and sixty- eight woodcuts in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, [London] 889, fig. 66.

34 Adolph Goldschmidt, "Lambert Lombard," Preussisches Jahr-

his Spring (fig. io), Lombard adopted the "very beauti- ful goddess" (fig. 14) with her "garland of roses and other flowers" (which are described but not depicted in the Hypnerotomachia), together with her companion, the "winged and handsome little lad with his wounding attributes" (i.e. bow and arrow), but omitting the doves and the classical sacrifice urn. The "lady of virginal appearance, crowned with ears of corn, carrying a horn with ripe grain in her hand and with a corn sheaf at her feet," who stands for Summer (fig. 15), appears in the same form in Lombard's print (fig. II), with the omis- sion of the boy with ears of corn, who is not mentioned in the text. There is a very striking similarity between Lombard (fig. 12) and the Hypnerotomachia (fig. i6) in the depiction of Autumn, "a nude god with grapes and vine tendrils, and a long-haired goat." Winter (fig. 17) appears in the Hypnerotomachia as a king with scepter and crown, wearing an animal skin and set against a cloudy sky heavy with rain and snow. Lombard (fig. I3) has retained the motif of a king, together with the classical sandals mentioned in the text of the Hypneroto- machia, but has given him two faces and has added four disembodied heads puffing out the winds, and the traditional winter attribute of the brazier.

The one-line Latin inscriptions on Lombard's prints tell us nothing about the personifications, but turn out to be each of the four lines of an epigram from the Antho- logia Latina which is attributed to Vomanius and describes the effects of the different seasons. "Spring paints the burgeoning meadows in varying hues / Burn- ing summer clothes the fields with Ceres's ears of corn / Autumn plucks the swollen grapes from the vine / In winter the heavens are chilled by the snow-laden cloud."36

buch 40 (1919), pp. 206-40 (esp. p. 240); Hollstein, op. cit. (note 3), vol. II, p. 93, nrs. 19-22. Lombard's signature was removed in the specimens reproduced here, which are from the Royal Library, Brus- sels.

35 Colonna, op. cit. (note 33); Appel, op. cit. (note 33), figs. 67-70. 36 Ver pingit vario gemmantia prata colore.

Ignea vestit agros culmis Cerealibus aestas. Vitibus autumnus turgentes detrahit uvas. Frigore at hyberna est gravibus nive nubibus aether.

For the epigram see Poetae Latini minores, ed. Aemilius Baehrens, vol. 4, Leipzig 1882, pp. 13I-32 (section "Carmina duodecim sapientium de diversis causis: VII Tetrasticha de quattuor temporibus"). In that version, however, the fourth line begins with the words "Frigidus hiberno." The "Frigore at hyberna" on the print should probably be read as "Frigore et hyberna."

157



I58 ILJA M. VELDMAN

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10-I3 Lambert Lombard, a series of Four seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter (1568), engravings (photos: Royal Library, Brussels)

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14-I7 Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, woodcuts from the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499)

The text of the Hypnerotomachia is also silent on the identities of the gods, with the exception of Winter, for which the inscription reads: "hyemi aeoliae .s." (dedi- cated to the Aeolian winter), telling us that this must be Aeolus, the master of the winds. However, the various attributes leave little doubt that the other figures are Venus and Cupid, Ceres, and Bacchus. These gods, including the king of the winds, were being associated with the seasons back in classical times, as is clear from an epigram attributed to Euphorbius in the Anthologia Latina. "In spring, golden Venus rejoices in garlands of blooming flowers / Yellow Ceres rules in summer / Your power, O Bacchus, is at its height during wine-bringing autumn / In winter the scepter passes to the cold, bitter winds."37

37 Ibid., vol. 4, p. 132: Vere Venus gaudet florentibus aurea sertis. Flava Ceres aestatis habet sua tempore regna. Uvifero autumno summa est tibi, Bacche, potestas; Imperium saevis hibero frigore ventis.

38 See note 30.

What is so striking is that Lombard has depicted Winter as a blend of Aeolus and Janus. Apart from his appearance in the Winter of the Master AP, Janus was the symbol of January in classical and post-classical literature, and he was also depicted as such in illustrations of the months from the tenth century onwards.38

The popularity of the epigrams on the four seasons in the Anthologia Latina, all of which are variations on the four well-known lines in Ovid, is also clear from a series of Four seasons which Hieronymus Cock commissioned from engraver Pieter van der Heyden in 1570.39 Spring and Summer (fig. 18) are after designs by Pieter Bruegel dated I565 and I568 respectively,40 and Autumn and Winter are after Hans Bol. These four prints continue the tradition of the labors of the months, albeit in four

39 Hollstein, op. cit. (note 3), vol. 9, pp. 30-31, nrs. 63-66. Rene van Bastelaer, Les estampes de Pieter Bruegel rAncien, son oeuvre et son temps, Brussels I905-07, nrs. 200 and 202.

40 The drawing for Spring is in the Albertina, Vienna, and the drawing for Summer is in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg; see Ludwig Miinz, The drawings of Bruegel, London 1961, nrs. 151-52.

I59



ILJA M. VELDMAN

I8 Pieter van der Heyden after Pieter Bruegel, Summer

(1570), engraving

rather than twelve scenes, in that they depict people working on the land and omit any kind of personification or allegory. What makes this series all the more remark-

able, and at the same time says a great deal for the

persistence of the classical and allegorical basis of the

theme, is that each print not only has an inscription comparing it to the four corresponding ages of man (a motif totally absent in the prints themselves), but also a line of verse from the Anthologia Latina, which seems to have escaped the notice of previous commentators. Sur-

prisingly enough, though, those four lines do not come from one but from four different epigrams on the seasons. Spring has the first line from the epigram by Euphorbius quoted above ("In spring, golden Venus

rejoices in garlands of blooming flowers"). Summer has

41 Poetae Latini minores, cit. (note 36), pp. I32, 133-34 and 131 respectively:

I) Vere Venus gaudet florentibus aurea sertis. 2) Frugiferas arvis fert aestas torrida messes. 3) Dat musto gravidas autumnus pomifer uvas. 4) Vis hiemis glacie currentes alligat undas.

In the print of Summer, Julianus's "messes" has been changed to "messeis."

42 An example being the Four seasons by Jan Sadeler after Dirck Barendsz. (J. Richard Judson, Dirck Barendsz. 1534-1592, Amster- dam 1970, pp. 82-84, nrs. 94-97, figs. 53-56). Cesare Ripa, Iconologia, Rome 1593 (reprint Hildesheim & New York 1970), pp. 473-76, states that the four seasons can be represented by Flora, Ceres, Bacchus or Pomona, and Aeolus or Vulcan. This is borne out by his description of the personifications of the seasons: Spring as a young girl with flowers and young animals, Summer as a young woman with a torch and ears of corn, Autumn as a matron with fruit and a bunch of grapes, and

the second line of an epigram by Julianus ("Hot summer

brings bounteous harvests to the fields"). Autumn has the third line of an epigram by Vitalis ("Fruit-bearing Autumn gives grapes pregnant with young wine"). Win- ter has the fourth line of an epigram by Basilius ("Win- ter's strength captures the flying billows in its ice").41

It seems probable that Cock was responsible for

choosing these inscriptions, and possibly for the texts on Lombard's prints as well, since Bruegel merely labelled his drawing of Spring: "De lenten, Mert, April, Meij" (Spring; March, April, May).

Towards the end of the sixteenth century it became

increasingly common to depict the seasons as mythological figures, although it is not always clear precisely who the gods and goddesses are.42 Their identity, how-

Winter as an old man or woman sitting at a sumptuous table by a fire. Pers's edition of Ripa, Iconologia of uytbeeldinghe des verstands, Am- sterdam 644, pp. 507 and 509, cites Pierus Valerianus's Hieroglyphica for a description of the seasons. In the first edition of that work ( 556), however, there is no separate passage devoted to the seasons. On fol.

405r, under the heading "de spica," the author simply states that summer can be symbolized by a bundle of ears of corn, referring to the line in Ovid (attributed by Valerianus to Virgil): "stabat nuda Aestas, et spicea serta gerebat." On fol. 68r, under "Aestas et hyems," we learn that Summer could be represented by a fertile pig and Winter by a wild boar. Attempts were made to rectify this lacuna in later editions of the Hieroglyphica. The 1602 edition (Lyons) gives four "hieroglyphic" illustrations for the seasons: a basket of flowers for

Spring, and a horn of plenty for Autumn. The printer, however, switched the symbols for Summer and Winter: a corn sheaf in a basket, and people at a covered table by a fire. New woodcuts were made for the 1604 edition (Venice), correcting this error.

i6o




f*r Aw os an*/'-!s, '-. hcv -; r: iSMaewt f7nyv Aerr= <wrM-ir

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19 Crispijn de Passe the Elder after Maarten de Vos, Spring, nr. I of a series of Four seasons, engraving

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...... ..' ,,,.. - -t,-, - .- "".r - Asrt.i6 tjw S srAr.mr* tera Lew, FkAw Cerfyws? crwywSr#c >m es Vf&s

20 Crispijn de Passe the Elder after Maarten de Vos, Summer, nr. 2 of a series of Four seasons, engraving

2I Crispijn de Passe the Elder after Maarten de Vos, Autumn, nr. 3 of a series of Four seasons, engraving

ever, is not in doubt in the Four seasons of Maarten de Vos (figs. I9-22), which was engraved and published by Crispijn de Passe the Elder.43 In this series the seasons

'~- *r.Yimrr s rmsaw rr-is CI" S .4 ditw Wir ei e ^n'

22 Crispijn de Passe the Elder after Maarten de Vos, Winter, nr. 4 of a series of Four seasons, engraving

are represented by Venus, Ceres, Bacchus and Aeolus, all of whom we know from the Hypnerotomachia. Al- though Winter (fig. 22) certainly resembles the tradi-

43 Hollstein, op. cit. (note 3), vol. 15, p. i99, nrs. 560-63.

I6I



ILJA M. VELDMAN

tional old man by the fire, his attribute of the bridle identifies him as the king of the winds, as does the title of the print.44

Another series by Maarten de Vos, engraved by Adri- aen Collaert, shows the seasons as the same four gods, but now with the rather more traditional attributes of flowers, a sheaf of corn, a sickle and fruit, a horn of plenty, vine leaves, grapes and other fruit, and winds and winter vegetables.45

In a series of Four seasons designed by Crispijn de Passe himself and dated I604,46 the mythological aspect is underlined by the presence of two figures rather than one: Venus and Adonis for Spring, Sol and Ceres for Summer, Bacchus and Pomona for Autumn, and Boreas and Orythia for Winter. All of them, however, have the usual attributes of the seasons.

So Heemskerck's iconography seems to have found little favor with other artists, with the single exception of Goltzius. In addition to the fact that personifications of the seasons often took the form of classical gods rather than allegorical figures, the foundation was also laid during this period for a quasi-realistic or genre-like conception of the theme. Bruegel's drawings (as well as his well-known series of paintings) usher in a new era in this respect, as does the work of Hendrick Goltzius himself.

In 597, eight years after the publication of the series engraved by Matham, Goltzius made drawings for another series of Four seasons, this time engraved by Jan Saenredam.47 The seasons are now represented by activities appropriate to the time of year. In Spring a man and a woman are seen making music, and are evidently em- barking on a "romance." The harvest is gathered in Summer, and in Autumn wine is drunk and fruit picked. Winter (fig. 23) is the time for enjoying the benefits of the preceding seasons: a man and a woman are seated at a table in the company of a figure garlanded with vine leaves (Autumn), and are waited on by a personification of Summer.

These four prints still retain traces of the traditional personifications of the seasons, but another series by Jan Saenredam after Goltzius is composed around a boy and girl occupied with seasonal activities.48 In spring they are seen going for a stroll, picking flowers and playing with young animals. In summer they are out with milk pails and sheaves of corn. In autumn they pick fruit, and in winter they go skating (fig. 24). In this final print the boy and girl have grown into a more or less adult couple,

.......

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23 Jan Saenredam after Hendrick Goltzius, Winter, from a series of Four seasons, engraving

44 Pers's edition of Ripa (op. cit., note 42) mentions a bridle as an attribute of Aeolus (citing Boccaccio and Virgil's Aeneid). For the bee- stung Cupid who comes complaining to Venus in the print of Spring see the emblem by Andrea Alciati, Emblematum liber, Augsburg (Heynricus Steynerus) 1531, fol. E 4V, which, as Henkel & Schone, op. cit. (note 22), pp. 1758-59, point out, is a synthesis of the story by Theocritus and an epigram from the Anthologia Graeca (9:548).

45 Hollstein, op. cit. (note 3), vol. 4, p. 204, nrs. 457-60. There is a set of these prints in the printroom of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

46 Ibid., vol. 5, p. 198, nrs. 556-59. There is a set of these prints in the printroom of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

47 Bartsch, op. cit. (note 25), vol. 3, nrs. 119-22. Hollstein, op. cit.

(note 3), vol. 23, pp. 71-72, nrs. 93-96. For the drawings see E.K.J. Reznicek, Die Zeichnungen von Hendrick Goltzius, 2 vols., Utrecht 1961, vol. i, pp. 299-300, nrs. I55-56 and figs. 303-04.

48 Bartsch, op. cit. (note 25), vol. 3, nrs. 87-90. Hollstein, op. cit. (note 3), vol. 23, pp. 67-71, nrs. 89-92.

i62




f. .. .t um . .-

24 Jan Saenredam after Hendrick Goltzius, Winter, from a series of 24 Jan Saenredam

afteour Hendrick

Goltziuasons, Wint from a series of

Four seasons, engraving

49 The verses accompanying Spring, Summer and Autumn run as follows.

I. Humanas recreo mentes, volucresque ferasque Omnia floriferi laetantur tempore veris.

(I refresh the human spirit, as I do the birds and the wild beasts: happiness is everywhere in the time of flower-bearing spring.)

2. Per me larga Seres [Ceres] densis canescit aristis Agricolasque beo foecundi frugibus anni.

(I make munificent Ceres white with the full ears of corn, and I delight the farmers with the fruits of a fertile year.)

3. En ego maturos Autumnus profero fructus, Efficioque mei ne sit spes vana coloni.

(Behold me, Autumn; I proffer ripe fruit and ensure that the husband- man does not hope in vain.)

4. (Bartsch, op. cit. (note 25), vol. 3, nr. 22) Accumulata vides totum quaecunque per annum, Exornant nostram glaciali tempore mensam.

(All that you see gathered throughout the year provides us with rich fare in the season of icy cold.)

which parallels the aging process in the more traditional versions of the theme (as does the development from "romance" to a more permanent relationship suggested in the previous series). Both series, incidentally, have the same Latin inscriptions by Cornelis Schonaeus, which is rather unusual in view of the dissimilarity between the two sets of prints. Only the verses on the two winter scenes differ, but the lesson is the same in each case (notwithstanding the skates)-winter is the time for consuming everything obtained in the preceding seasons.49

Although the first series is related to the characteristic labors of the months, which is only to be expected given the content of the theme, and the second series reflects the influence of Ripa's Iconologia,50 Goltzius, like Brue- gel, was nevertheless paving the way for the depiction of an abstract concept by means of a scene from everyday life. Before long this form would almost entirely super- sede the intellectually inspired allegory.

THE SEVEN PLANETS (figs. 25-31) Heemskerck's seven

prints of the children of the planets were engraved by Herman Jansz. Muller and published by Hieronymus Cock.51 The series is undated, but the surviving preliminary designs date from I568.52 The anonymous Latin inscriptions on the prints elucidate the scenes.

In the sky at the top of each scene the god personify- ing the planet rides on a car drawn by animals (girls, in the case of the Moon). Close by float one or two signs of

(Bartsch, nr. 90) Accumulant homines totum quaecunque per annum, Haec ego consumo, soli haec mihi cuncta parantur.

(I consume everything that people stock throughout the year; it is all prepared for me alone.)

50 See note 42. 51 Kerrich, op. cit. (note 3), pp. 96-98, and Hollstein, op. cit. (note

3), vol. 8, p. 246, nrs. 431-37. There are sets in the printroom of the

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the printrooms in Leiden and Copen- hagen, and in the Albertina, Vienna.

52 For the drawing for Mars (Vienna, Albertina) see Otto Benesch, Die Zeichnungen der niederlandischen Schulen des XV. und XVI.Jahr- hunderts, Vienna 1928, nr. 103. For the drawing of Jupiter (Amster- dam, P. de Boer collection) see Catalogus oude tekeningen: verzameling P. en N. de Boer, Laren 1966, nr. 107. The drawing for Luna (Bergues, Musee Municipal) is undated; see exhib. cat. Le seizi?me siicle euro- peen: peintures et dessins dans les collections publiques franfaises, Paris I965-66, p. 128, nr. I64.

163



ILJA M. VELDMAN

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the zodiac, these being the so-called "houses" of the Ri_

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planets. These houses are obtained by dividing the ,, .,rw> r'

W c/onc"ti celestial equator into twelve equal parts (drawing a .25 erma . .tr horoscope), each part being occupied by a sign of the

4* i?- ,f, F:, *_zodiac and being governed by a planet. Mercury, Venus, ii ,j =Mars, Jupiter and Saturn rule over two houses or signs

of the zodiac, a day house and a night house. The Sun has one house, for the day, and the Moon one for the night.

.. . .

In the lower section of the prints, down on earth, are 26 Hema Jansz. ' " r Hc-u ..ofa 3orth the "children" of the planets. Since classical times the

series of Seen plets egaiSun, Moon and the planets have been credited with an t ?. .""."' 5 . . influence which largely determines the character and

, -U |?@,S a physical constitution of the people born under them.53 Heemskerck has depicted these children engaged in activities characteristic of their personalities or profes- sions.

?-. t oQ~, 4,?L~R a.a, . . a, , a a_ , " j-, The sequence of the series follows the order of the

concentric celestial spheres surrounding the earth. This 25 Herman Jansz. Muller after Maarten van Heemskerck, Luna (the Moon), nr. Ptolemaic system survived virtually unchanged through I of a series of Seven planets, engraving the middle ages and into the Renaissance.54 The sphere

closest to the earth is that of the Moon, which is the :**~, ""'t+i: starting-point for Heemskerck's series. It is followed by

-tj ~'~ .'~ ..... Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and the series closes with Saturn.

The Moon (fig. 25) rules the sign of Cancer. People .-.. , . born during this period all appear to have something to

do with water, being seamen, fishermen, or people who simply enjoy swimming. The inscription explains this as

_ _ _.~~ _ - ]follows. "Those whose mistress is the Moon pass their lives as if in water, due to their innate wateriness,

_ b K!working either in ships or in fishing. Many are prone to , , ,N1f t_' ~ ~ ~ S i;P;l~l&,~-~~~paralysis."55

Mercury (fig. 26), which rules Virgo and Gemini, i?t_y,': ?ii-iB,. spawns a learned and artistic company of musicians,

t 2~ ~. painters, sculptors, writers, scholars and a doctor. How- 4 - ever, there is also a merchant, who is seen counting his

>~?~~ _ __~-~_ coins. "Mercury makes intelligent, shrewd, ambitious

w otrssu frZir 1Lcf i rs jlplgrnu}~rc, II4;so .Wdero, -di fe0rors, evni7rr

rwOp:f J~lft lS JCgt~f; akrrE;rr gzfn=N ho'wsis, 'rt pos tropraedt' wrakfi!rf

26 Herman Jansz. Muller after Maarten van Heemskerck, Mercury, nr. 2 of a 53 For the theme of the children of the planets see especially series of Seven planets, engraving Hauber, Bezold and Boll, and Seznec, op. cit. (note i).

54 See S.K. Heninger Jr., The cosmographical glass: Renaissance diagrams of the universe, San Marino (Calif.) I977, pp. I7-2I and fig. IOg, pp. 34-39 and fig. 28.

55 Qui Lunae habent geniturae dominam, ob innatam illis humidi- tatem vitam fere in aquis degunt, nauticam exercentes, aut piscationi- bus operam dantes. Paralysi obnoxij sunt.

I64




and generous children who are skilled in mathematics and whose wishes are all fulfilled. They are visionaries, slim of build, pale, with honest eyes and to be admired for their moderation in drinking."56

Venus's signs are Taurus and Libra (fig. 27). Her children appear to be enjoying life to the full: making love, eating, making music, bathing, drinking and stroll- ing-leading a lotus-eater's existence, in other words. This is explained in the inscription. "Venus is ac- counted one of the benign planets. Those who are born under her will be charming, and famous for their success with the fair sex. They indulge their whims, and will suffer stomach trouble and must take care in what they drink."57

The children of the Sun (fig. 28) enjoy sports and

gymnastics. Those born in the sign of Leo engage in sword fighting, ball games, handstands, wrestling and acrobatics. "The Sun is the life of all that lives, and he bestows fortune in everything on those born under him: business acumen. His children are lively and healthy, and so leave this life without a lingering sickbed."58

Mars (fig. 29) is a less cheerful planet altogether. The houses he occupies are Scorpio and Aries. The earth is the scene of rape, pillage, death, arson and war- fare. "Mars makes powerful, warlike, crafty and strong people, blindly savage, raging and wild, who hurl themselves into danger on the slightest pretext. They are given to primal reaction, lively, thriftless, hotheaded and tyrannical."59

Jupiter (fig. 30), with Sagittarius and Pisces, has a more benign influence, and his children are shown as men of rank. An emperor is being crowned by the pope in the presence of a small army of bishops and cardinals. A king dispenses justice from his throne, and in the background there is a deer hunt, an eminently aristo- cratic pursuit. "Those who are ruled by Jupiter are just,

56 Mercurius filios facit intelligentes, sagaces, aemulatores, benefi- cos, mathematicos, voti compotes, coniectore[s], corpore graciles, pallentes, oculorum intuitu honestos, et potus temperantia mirabiles.

57 Venus inter salutaria sydera numeratur; qui sub ea nati fuerint, gratiosi erunt, et mulierum gratia celebres, genio indulgentes, labora- bunt stomacho, et malis potionibus obnoxij erunt.

58 Sol vita viventium, dat nato felicitatem in omnibus rebus, agili- tatem in rebus agendis, alacres et sani ut plurimum vitae huius curriculum citra morborum affectiones finientes.

59 Mars facit potentes, bellaces, versutos, validos, stolidae feroci- tatis, insanos, indomitos, ob levissimam causam se periculis obijcien- tes, promptos, alacres, prodigos, iracundos, tirranos.

27 Herman Jansz. Muller after Maarten van Heemskerck, .enus nr.. 3 of a 7 Heries of Seven panetssz. Mullengravingus,

nr. 3 of a series of Seven planets, engraving

ef /.,; ,t f r ;, t rf h ,Aurrw itra ..r* no sk tftu f,,s. -

28 Herman Jansz. Muller after Maarten van Heemskerck, Sol (the Sun), nr. 4 of a series of Seven planets, engraving



ILJA M. VELDMAN

--w - 7"-,r' I~rz-- r r ' I

29 Herman Jansz. Muller after Maarten van Heemskerck, Mars, nr. 5 of a series of Seven planets, engraving

*us " -T' e -7.. fi,8 v f _

30 Herman Jansz. Muller after Maarten van Heemskerck, Jupiter, nr. 6 of a series of Seven planets, engraving

honest, lovers of truth, devoted to their friends, punc- tilious in carrying out obligations towards members of their family and the poor, and are by nature very judi- cious and well-disposed towards all."60

The final category of people, those born in the signs of Aries and Aquarius, are governed by Saturn (fig. 31), and their birth horoscope looks anything but favorable. We see invalids, the poor, the hungry and pilgrims, all

subsisting on charity. Outside a jail a gentleman is seen

lecturing a prisoner. In the background is a gallows field. Various figures are seen working in the fields and tend-

ing livestock. "Those born under Saturn are jealous, idle, melancholic, avaricious and deceitful. They are

dogged by bodily ills like dropsy, quartan fever and tumors, and meet their deaths by drowning, poison or suffocation."61

Heemskerck's series of The seven planets, or Children of the planets, broadly follows the content and compositional program of the theme evolved in the fifteenth

century, which enjoyed great popularity. Klibansky, Panofsky and Saxl compare Heemskerck's prints with the pen drawings by the Hausbuch Meister in Schloss

Wolfegg, and refer in particular to Saturn's children, who they say are "grouped and characterized in exactly the same way as the corresponding pictures in the Hausbuch."62 Although it is true that some of Saturn's children are engaged in the same activities in the Haus- buch, there is no feeding of the hungry, the sick and

pilgrims, the scene which occupies the most prominent position in Heemskerck's print. Moreover, the planets in the Hausbuch do not appear in a classical (or quasi- classical) guise, but are unequivocally medieval, being shown as nobles, warriors and fair damsels. Their only attribute is a banner, and they ride on horses rather than on cars.63

60 Iovem qui dominum habent, iusti sunt, honesti, philalethes, amicitiae studiosi, in fratres cognatos et pauperes pij, natura tempera- tissimi, erga omnes benigni.

6I Saturni sunt invidi, pigri, tristes, avari, fraudulenti, i[i]s sequun- tur morbi ex aqua intercute, quartana febris, canceres, mortes in aquis, venena, suffocationes.

62 Klibansky, Panofsky & Saxl, op. cit. (note 2), p. 397. 63 These drawings (Schloss Wolfegg, Fiirstlich Waldburgsche

Sammlungen) are reproduced in Alfred Stange, Der Hausbuchmeister: Gesamtdarstellung und Katalog seiner Gemalde, Kupferstiche und Zeich- nungen, Baden-Baden & Strasbourg 1958, nr. I04, figs. 109-I5.

I66




There is, however, another print series which is re-

markably similar to Heemskerck's Seven planets. It is a series of seven woodcuts, and is attributed to Hans Sebald Beham or Georg Pencz.64 The prints, which were published by Albrecht Glockendon, are dated

August i, 153 I, and have inscriptions consisting of four brief lines of German verse giving the bare outline of the characters of the children of the planets and the period in which each planet goes round the heavens. The planet gods, dressed in medieval costume as in the Hausbuch Meister, are riding on cars travelling from right to left. The associated signs of the zodiac are not floating in the

sky, but decorate the wheels of the cars. The main points of similarity between the two series

are details of the children and their activities. Since these details are iconographically unimportant, and could easily have been changed by a draftsman without

affecting the content or the compositional program, I believe that they indicate that Heemskerck used the Beham/Pencz woodcuts as the direct models for his own series.

Mercury's car, which is drawn by two cocks (fig. 32), travels in the opposite direction in Heemskerck's print (fig. 26), as do all the other cars. Mercury's outstretched hand (the right hand in Beham/Pencz, the left in Heems-

kerck) suggests a direct borrowing. The lower part of Heemskerck's print is also a more or less mirror-image reproduction of the woodcut. Noteworthy details include the organ player, with his assistant tending the two

bellows, the astrologers indicating a spot on the celestial

globe and making measurements with compasses, the doctor with one hand on a book, who is turning round and peering at a urinal, the scribe, the merchant count-

ing his money, the sculptor and, in the background, the

painter with his assistant.

Jupiter (fig. 33) admittedly has fewer classical attributes in Beham/Pencz (an arrow instead of a bolt of

lightning and an eagle), but one of the two peacocks drawing his car is looking back, as in Heemskerck (fig. 30). The uncommon motif of the servant holding out a

64 For reproductions see W. Niemeyer, Die Planeten: sieben Origi- nalholzschnitte von Hans Sebald Beham: die Lebensalter der Menschen: zehn Holzschnitte des Monogrammisten MB nach Zeichnungen von Tobias Stimmer, Berlin n.d. See also Pauli, op. cit. (note 20), pp. 371- 77, nrs. 904-10; Hollstein, op. cit. (note 20), vol. 3, p. 219 (under Beham); H. Rottinger, Die Holzschnitte des Georg Pencz, Leipzig I914, p. 36, nr. 4.

.S-a .r,,w. /W wi Tjr' WS af-i* ulw fS Fr^f; isU rf l[ P ?Y 4

udlr;Jr. turfaan f/rfir r.aittr'r , rw?i; 7i r 4q*:T 1f<i' WMW . raf' pz i ees

31 Herman Jansz. Muller after Maarten van Heemskerck, Saturn, nr. 7 of a series of Seven planets, engraving

Dc inl~l ouri nt wrh'nlt|?rcMid' t m .:." d s italm/ 9iit?ba?itf(rt|r rbl arul gg1idt Vi b:gnidmd nta9 *M9 *n

32 Hans Sebald Beham or Georg Pencz, Mercury, from a series of Seven planets ( 531), woodcut (photo: Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg)

I67



ILJA M. VELDMAN

33 Hans Sebald Beham or Georg Pencz, Jupiter, from a series of Seven planets ( 53 ), woodcut (photo: Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg)

bowl filled with money or gold has been retained. The similarities between the lower sections of the prints-an emperor's coronation, the dispensation of justice, and deer hunting-are made all the more obvious for the observer by the fact that there has been no visual rever- sal.

Saturn (fig. 34) is remarkably similar in Heemskerck's print (fig. 31) in the way he is devouring the child. The boy on the box seat is also clasping his head in despair, and there are two dragons as draft animals. Once again, a "prison visitor" is addressing a man in the stocks, a second prisoner is peering through the bars, a monk is ladling out gruel from a large caldron for pilgrims and the poor, a child grasps hungrily at a piece of bread, pigs are being slaughtered, a figure is ploughing a field, and

34 Hans Sebald Beham or Georg Pencz, Saturn, from a series of Seven planets ( 531), woodcut (photo: Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg)

in the background is the gallows field. Heemskerck has merely placed the well further into the background, substituted threshing for wood-cutting, and omitted the pig's carcass and the activities on the river bank.

The other woodcuts also display similar points of agreement. One of Heemskerck's "major" departures from the Beham/Pencz series is in his print of the Moon (fig. 25), where he has added a fishing boat and fishermen, which he borrowed from Raphael's Miraculous draft offishes. Other elements in the series which are due to Heemskerck's stay in Rome (1532-36) are the gods' attributes and their general appearance, which is closer to the classical model.

Since Heemskerck based his iconography almost ex- clusively on the Beham/Pencz series, there is little point

I68

lltmt lwgrttAtqi ; n: Proig IRnK bnbt& /;l;dP - rolflcntat i> Wailli bsstliHatf# 1: t fli iRCdIiimif!?tff?tlbM(.-f




in making an iconographic analysis of such elements as the animals pulling the various cars.65 The woodcuts of the Children of the planets were reprinted regularly after 1531, but with varying inscriptions. The composition of that series is itself based on a series of Florentine engravings attributed to Baccio Baldini.66 The drawings of the Hausbuch Meister are very free renderings of a German series of Seven planets in block-book form which, with certain alterations, is also traced back to the Florentine engravings.67

This was not the first time that Heemskerck drew his inspiration from German prints. His Triumphs of Petrarch, which was engraved by Philips Galle from preliminary designs made in I565, is based on a series of prints of the same name by Georg Pencz, and is also very close in the minor details.68

It is noteworthy that the texts on Heemskerck's Seven planets, which would not really be out of place in a modern illustrated magazine, are not so much descriptions of the visual elements of the prints as of the character traits of the children, generally combined with information on their appearance and state of health. This is precisely the sort of "medical" information that one encounters in the popular astrological literature of the day.69

One such planetary booklet is Een nyen complexie- boeck of 1564 (Antwerp, Jan Roelants), which is a virtually unaltered reprint of the Nieu complexie boeck issued by the same publisher in I554.70 The book contains a detailed guide to a person's appearance and character, and foretells his or her future. The first chapter deals with physiognomy, which apparently has some pretty ominous implications for a person's character. The

65 Most of the gods' attributes and their draft animals can be found, with or without an explanation, in Carel van Mander's Uutlegghing op den Metamorphosis Pub. Ovidij Nasonis and his Uutbeeldinge derfigue- ren, Haarlem (Paschier van Westbusch) I604: fol. 53r for the Moon (Diana); fols. 9r and I27r for Mercury; fol. 3or for Venus; fol. I3v for the Sun; fol. t26v for Mars; fols. 6r and i26v for Jupiter; and fol. 4r for Saturn (in the case of Saturn see also Klibansky, Panofsky & Saxl, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 198-214). It seems that van Mander's information is based on pictorial examples as well as on the traditional mythological ideas enshrined in the Ovide moralise and in works such as Natale Conti, Mythologiae, sive explicationesfabularum, ed. pr. 155 .

66 F. Lippmann, Die sieben Planeten, Berlin 1895, p. I3. The long inscription found in one of the German editions of Beham/Pencz is also apparently based on the inscriptions on the Florentine engravings.

67 Ibid., p. 12.

second chapter is a guide to a person's constitution and character (men and women being dealt with separately) on the basis of the month of birth. The third chapter provides similar information, but this time based on the seven planets. Anyone reading the present article who was under the impression that it was possible by taking one's birthday to identify one's planetary "parent" on the basis of the houses of the planets in Heemskerck's prints is in for a disappointment. Things are a little bit more difficult than that, or at least according to the Nyen complexie-boeck they are.

First one has to write down one's own forename and that of one's father, both in the Latin form. One then turns to a table, which gives a number for each letter. Next sum all the figures and divide the result by nine. The remainder left after division is then looked up in another table, where it corresponds to the name of one of the planets. Just to make matters even more compli- cated, the following chapter sets out a similar procedure (this time using the mother's name and employing another divisor) for discovering the sign of the zodiac one was born under, this being important for foretelling the future. Predictions concerning money, health and success are found in the next chapter, which is devoted to the thirty-six constellations. This is followed by a section on the four temperaments, but this can better be left to the discussion of the next series of prints by Heems- kerck.

THE FOUR TEMPERAMENTS (I566) (figs. 35-38) A person's mental and physical constitution could also be determined on the basis of the four temperaments, the definitions of which were laid down in classical

68 See Veldman, op. cit. (note 5), p. Io6. For Heemskerck's Triumphs ofPetrarch see Kerrich, op. cit. (note 3), p. 8i, and Hollstein, op. cit. (note 3), vol. 8, p. 244, nrs. 341-46. For Pencz's Triumphs of Petrarch see Bartsch, op. cit. (note 25), vol. 8, pp. 357-58, nrs. I 17-23.

69 See Hauber, op. cit. (note I), p. 269 for the titles of some German planetary booklets and some sales figures.

70 Een nyen complexie-boeck der menschen natuere, gheboorte, seaen, ghelaet, ghevaer ende gheneygentheden: uut de physionomie ende den VII planeten, uut die XII teekenen ende de XXXVI beelden des hemels, ooc na die XII maenden: van de vier complexien der menschen; een cort bericht uut die astronomie, Antwerp (Jan Roelants) I564. There is a copy of this booklet, which is unpaginated, in the University Library, Amster- dam. The greater part of the booklet will also be found in the Planeten- boeck, Amsterdam (Herman Jansz. Muller) 1528, amplefied with information on various other subjects, including palmistry.

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ILJA M. VELDMAN

35 Herman Jansz. Muller after Maarten van Heemskerck, The sanguine temperament, nr. I of a series of Four temperaments ( 566), engraving

../(hwSbib n, Ln^^^^^^SI^Sa^^wtf fmn, PbWKmum,e L*?AgON

36 Herman Jansz. Muller after Maarten van Heemskerck, The choleric temperament, nr. 2 of a series of Four temperaments (1566), engraving

times. The system was based on the four kinds of fluid, or humors, secreted by the human body: blood, choler, black bile and phlegm. Depending on the relative pre- ponderance of these humors one spoke of a person having a sanguine, choleric, melancholic or phlegmatic temperament. Specific physical characteristics were associated with each type, and with the rise of astrology in the middle ages each temperament was supposed to give rise to certain character traits as well.71

Heemskerck's series of Four temperaments was engraved by Herman Muller, who also produced his Seven planets. The series is dated 1566, but there is no mention of the publisher.72 As in the case of the Four seasons, it appears that Hadrianus Junius was the author of the two lines of Latin verse at the bottom of each print.73

The order of the prints follows the traditional, classical system, which also embraced the seasons and the elements: sanguine/spring/air/warm and damp; choleric/summer/fire/hot and dry; melancholic/autumn/ earth/cold and dry; and phlegmatic/winter/water/cold and damp.

As noted by Klibansky, Panofsky and Saxl, if the prints had not been provided with titles and inscriptions one would almost think that the subjects were children of the planets.74 The composition is remarkably similar to that of the previous series. A planet is seen up in the clouds, three signs of the zodiac float in the sky, and

71 For an excellent treatment of the doctrine of the temperaments in antiquity see Elisabeth C. Evans, Physiognomics in the ancient world, Philadelphia 1969 (Transactions of the American Philosophical Soci- ety, vol. 59, new series). My thanks to H.W. van Helsdingen for drawing my attention to this work. See also Klibansky, Panofsky & Saxl, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 3-66 (for the classical period) and pp. 67-123 (for the middle ages).

72 Kerrich, op. cit. (note 3), p. 99; Hollstein, op. cit. (note 3), vol. 8, p. 246, nrs. 438-4I. There are sets of this series in the printroom of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the printroom at Dresden, and in the Albertina in Vienna. The preliminary drawing for The choleric temperament, which is dated 1565, is in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven (see Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin 30, nr. 2 (i965), p. 12, and E. Haverkamp Begemann & Anne Marie S. Logan, Euro- pean drawings and watercolors in the Yale University Art Gallery i5oo- i9oo, vol. i, New Haven & London 1970, pp. 178-79, nr. 328. The drawing for The phlegmatic temperament, which is also dated 1565, was auctioned at Sotheby's on March 23, 1963, and is now in the collection of Mrs. Harms Schaeffer, New York.

73 Junius, op. cit. (note 4), pp. 158-59, under the title "In quaternas pinaces hominum temperaturas complexas" (The human constitution contained in four illustrations).

74 Klibansky, Panofsky & Saxl, op. cit. (note 2), p. 397.

I70




down on earth people are engaged in activities specific to their temperament.

Venus and Jupiter dominate the Sanguine temperament (fig. 35), along with the signs of Libra, Gemini and Aquarius. Sanguine people are evidently fond of the same pastimes as Venus's children. They dance, go for strolls, make music, court, eat, drink and bathe. The Latin gloss on the scene is succinct. "Those who engage in choral dance and seek the delights of secret love, it is righteous Jupiter who cherishes them, as does graceful Venus."75

Those of a Choleric temperament (fig. 36) follow Mars's banner. Their signs are Aries, Leo and Sagitta- rius, and like Mars's children their occupation is war. "The frenzy of the warlike rabble, fire, battle and slaughter, these belong to the realm of Mars, their heart- rending and bloody master."76

The Melancholic temperament (fig. 37) is governed by Saturn, with the signs of Taurus, Virgo and Aries. How- ever, people of a melancholy disposition do not follow the pattern of "true" children of Saturn, whose interests are agriculture and livestock, or who are poor, ill or in prison. Here they are scientists, notably geometers and astrologers, and they are prone to suicide by hanging (and here there is a parallel with the inscription on Heemskerck's Children of Saturn). Junius is less than flattering. "Surveyors and poets, and those who have not one iota of common sense, it is they who are chosen by the scythe-bearing Saturn."77

The Moon dominates the Phlegmatic temperament (fig. 38), which has the signs of Cancer, Pisces and Scorpio. As was the case with the children of the Moon, the scene is dominated by water and watery activities. "O Moon, in your realm the one sets his knotty nets for fish, the other snares for birds, and yet another ploughs the briny deep."78

In contrast to the theme of the children of the planets, the pictorial program of the four temperaments under-

75 Qui choreas agitant et dulcia furta petessunt Juppiter hos aequus fovet, ac Citheraea venusta.

76 Armorum rabies, incendia, praelia, strages Luctiferum agnoscunt Martem, dominumque cruentum.

77 Mensores terrae, vates Saturnus adoptat Falciger, et quibus est sana nulla uncia mentis.

78 Luna tuo in regno, nodosa hic retia pandit, Piscibus hic volucri pedicas, ille aequora sulcat.

37 Herman Jansz. Muller after Maarten van Heemskerck, The melancholic temperament, nr. 3 of a series of Four temperaments (1566), engraving

38 Herman Jansz. Muller after Maarten van Heemskerck, The phlegmatic temperament, nr. 4 of a series of Four temperaments (1566), engraving

I7I



ILJA M. VELDMAN

went considerable change down the centuries. As a result of their affinity with the virtues and vices they were generally depicted in the tradition of Vincent of Beauvais's Speculum morale. There were two types: a single figure whose posture, age, facial expression or attributes identified the temperament, or a scene with more than one figure (often a man and a woman) carrying out an activity specifically associated with the temperament.79 The characteristics of each temperament were based on standard formulae, particularly in the fifteenth century. The sanguine type is pleasant, lov- able, and is fond of the pleasures of life, the choleric person is short-tempered and pugnacious, melancholy people are sad and jealous, and the phlegmatic type is sluggish and lazy.

Heemskerck deviates from this program by placing the temperaments under the spheres of influence of the planets. In both content and form the series is very close to the theme of the children of the planets.

As already noted, the association of a temperament with a planet was due to the astrological ideas of the day. For example, it is explained in the Opus mathematicum of Johannes Taisnier (Cologne I562), which provided a detailed guide to physiognomy, palmistry, planets and temperaments, that a person's temperament is partly governed by the dominant planet at the time of birth, or by the ascendant in that person's horoscope.80

The signs of the zodiac accompanying the temperaments in Heemskerck's prints do not correspond, as they sometimes do,81 with the appropriate season, nor are they dictated by the position of the moon during bloodletting, as Klibansky, Panofsky and Saxl have stated.82 They are simply arranged according to the traditional system of air, fire, earth and water signs, and correspond to the element belonging to each temperament.

79 Klibansky, Panofsky & Saxl, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 291-303 and

figs. 84-90; E. Panofsky & F. Saxl, Dirers Melencolia I: eine quellen- und typengeschichtliche Untersuchung, Leipzig 1923 (Studien der Bi- bliothek Warburg), and E. Panofsky, Albrecht Diirer, Princeton 1948, pp. 158-60 and figs. 210-20.

80 Ioannes Taisnerius, Opus mathematicum, octo libros complectens innumeris propemodum figuris idealibus manum et physiognomiae, Co- logne (Ioannes Birckmannus and Wernerus Rickwinus) 1562, pp. 522ff(Joh. Indagine, "In librum de pernoscendis planetis horoscopo- rum et signorum ascendentium ex quatuor complexionibus, 1552"), a copy of which is in the library of the Warburg Institute, London.

Heemskerck's choice of planet gods, however, is not so straightforward. According to the Nyen complexie- boeck, the temperaments are governed by the planets which have their "house" in the signs of the zodiac appropriate to each element. As a result, sanguine people are under the influence of Mercury, Venus and Saturn, choleric people are under Mars, the Sun and Jupiter, melancholy people are under Venus, Mercury and

Saturn, and phlegmatic people are under the Moon, Mars and Jupiter.

Heemskerck, though, seems to have chosen his planet gods on the basis of the properties they have in common with the elements. Those properties also correspond to the characteristics of their children, as described above. Choleric people, who are associated with the element of fire and the property of hot and dry, are represented by Mars, which was regarded as a searing and desiccating planet whose children had the pugnacious temperament traditionally associated with the choleric type. Phleg- matic people, who are coupled with water and the property of cold and damp, were best served by the Moon, which astrologers regarded as a moistening celestial body. Heemskerck's phlegmatic temperament consequently differs little from the children of the Moon. The

sanguine type, warm and damp and associated with air, is best represented by Venus, a warming and moistening planet. Venus's high-spirited children correspond close- ly to the traditional, amorous sanguine type, and there- fore have the same characteristics. What is less clear is

why Venus should be accompanied by Jupiter. This may be explained by Jupiter's nature as an equable planet, which fits in well with the traditional conception of the healthiest of the temperaments. Another possible explanation is that Jupiter, as we have seen, was the patron of the more genteel type of person and of those who enjoy life, as Heemskerck's sanguine types do. It

The foundation for this theory was laid by Marsilio Ficino's De vita triplici; see Klibansky, Panofsky & Saxl, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 254-74.

8I See, for example, E. Jeanselme & L. Oeconomos, "Des signes du zodiaque et de leur influence sur les quatre humeurs de l'organisme," Aesculape, new series i6 (1926), pp. Io8-io.

82 Klibansky, Panofsky & Saxl, op. cit., (note 2), p. 397, note 72. The practise of bloodletting was, however, governed by the relationship between the signs of the zodiac and the four elements. When blood was let from a melancholy person, for which the element is earth, the moon had to be in one of the earth signs: Taurus, Virgo or Capricorn.

172




should be noted that sanguine people were often depicted as aristocrats, who were certainly in a better position to enjoy life than the lower classes.

Melancholy people are associated with the element of earth and the property cold and dry. This traditionally placed them under the influence of Saturn, who was conrsidered to be cooling and moderately desiccating, and who was also the god of agriculture. In this case, though, Heemskerck has not based his depiction on that of the children of Saturn. People feeding beggars and the sick and working the land have made way for geographers, astrologers and suicides.

Heemskerck's choice of geographers and astrologers as representatives of melancholy was rather advanced for the day. In their discussion of Diirer's Melencolia I, Panofsky and Saxl have dealt at length with the altered view of the melancholic temperament after i500.83 Saturn's position as the paramount planet (in the sense that it occupied the outermost planetary sphere in the Ptolemaic system) and the oldest of the gods accounts for his positive role in stimulating intellectual perfor- mance. When Saturn was in conjunction with Jupiter in a horoscope his influence could lead to outstanding artistic and scientific achievements.84 The main representative of science in the melancholic temperament is the typus geometriae described by Marsilio Ficino and Agrippa von Nettesheim, in which the association of Saturn with agriculture (part of which involves the measurement and subdivision of land) also played a role.

The intellectual representative of the melancholic temperament was evidently not favored in the more popular treatment of the theme. The Nyen complexie- boeck adheres to the traditional type of person: ailing, avaricious, sad, unfaithful, dishonest, sluggish, with a sensitive stomach and too fond of drink. Although the melancholy person may not have been "sexually pro- miscuous," his was still "the least noble of the humors." According to the Nyen complexie-boeck, melancholy people have the same appearance and nature as the children of Saturn, who "seldom come to a good end." This also explains why people are shown hanging themselves in Heemskerck's print, which is due to the basic sadness of the melancholic type.

83 Panofsky & Saxl, op. cit. (note 79). 84 Klibansky, Panofsky & Saxl, op. cit. (note 2), p. 278, and

Taisnerius, op. cit. (note 80), p. 532.

So there is no mention of the positive side of the melancholic temperament in the type of Dutch planetary book described here, and since the entire visual program of Heemskerck's Four temperaments is based on a pictorial model (his Seven planets), it seems that he must have taken the idea for his geographers and astrologers from other depictions. In addition to Diirer there are prints of the melancholic temperament by the Master AC, Hans Sebald Beham (I539), and Virgil Solis, all of which contain depictions of these scientists or of their attributes: compasses, sextant, quadrant, and terrestrial and celestial globes.85

Hadrianus Junius's verses are neither a popular nor a scientific treatment of the theme (and as a doctor he was certainly fully acquainted with the medical significance of the humors), but are merely a brief description of the visual element.

Given the fact that the design of Heemskerck's Four temperaments was inspired by his Seven planets, one would imagine that the latter was created first. The reverse, however, is the case. The drawings for the Four temperaments date from 565, and those for the Seven planets from 1568. Clearly, then, Heemskerck must have known of the Beham/Pencz woodcuts for some years before he actually started on his own depictions of the planets.

Some remarks on the junction oJ the prints Neither the Four seasons nor the Four temperaments have a publisher's imprint, and these happen to be the two series with verses by Hadrianus Junius. Their iconography is also far more distinctive and original than that of the Seven planets. This suggests that both series were published in Haarlem, either by Heemskerck himself or at an unregistered print publishing house (possibly at the "print shop" run by Philips Galle).86

The Seven planets was published by Hieronymus Cock, and it seems very likely that it was he who commissioned the series. It is difficult to assess what effect this might have had on the iconography. Muller's engravings appear more slipshod than those which he made for the Four temperaments. The inscriptions are not in verse, and merely provide the viewer with fairly

85 Klibansky, Panofsky & Saxl, op. cit. (note 2), figs. 14, I15 and 19-22.

86 See Veldman, op. cit. (note 5), pp. io6-o8.

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ILJA M. VELDMAN '74

basic information in dog-Latin. The traditional design of Heemskerck's Seven planets, which was imitated and varied at will throughout the sixteenth century, might indicate that Cock intended the series as a visual guide for analyzing character and health, along the lines of the popular planetary booklets. It would certainly have been a commercially attractive proposition, and the artistic work involved would not need to have been of the highest quality.

However, a print series of this sort may well have been more than just a straightforward description of character and appearance. We learn from the foreword to the Nyen complexie-boeck (a paraphrase of which was included in the Planeten-boeck of I628), that descriptions of temperaments and children of the planets could have an educational and moralistic significance (as was so often the case in the sixteenth century). This is illustrated by a story taken from Aristotle. It seems that Hip- pocrates's pupils had a portrait made of their teacher. They showed it to Philemon, a philosopher experienced in the reading of physiognomy, who immediately described Hippocrates as a fraud and a voluptuary. The pupils indignantly told their teacher of this, but Hippo- crates told them that Philemon was absolutely right. However, he went on, it was entirely due to his reason that he was able to suppress his "natural tendencies and evil desires" and to benefit from "good advice and instruction."

The anonymous author then consoles those born under an evil star by emphasizing that these negative traits are merely inborn, and that they can be overcome by exercise of one's reason, which is why God has given man a soul. So we must not judge a person too harshly simply because of the evil in his stars, for he can improve himself. On the other hand, it is not permissible for a thief to plead in mitigation that he is a thief by nature (i.e. blaming it on his stars). Since the booklet is patently intended to provide "advice and instruction," it may well be that this aspect is not entirely absent from Heemskerck's Seven planets and Four temperaments.

Subsequent development oJ the themes Heemskerck's imitative series of Seven planets is one of the last examples of this iconographic form. As an artistic exercise it declined in popularity compared to a theme like the Four seasons. In 1581 Adriaen Collaert designed a series of Seven planets after a design by Maarten de Vos. In

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39 Adriaen Collaert after Maarten de Vos, Saturn, nr. 7 of a series of Seven planets ( 581), engraving

this series the planets are presented as representatives of the seven ages of man (and this is emphasized on the title sheet of the series), beginning with Luna as Infancy (Infantia) and ending with Saturn (fig. 39) as Decrepit Old Age (Senecta et decrepita). In each print, b/elow the planet gods floating in the clouds, there are two striking figures who personify the appropriate age of man and its distinctive feature. The traditional activities of the children of the planets are only depicted in the back-




ground, but the inscriptions make no reference to them.87

Once again, however, it was Goltzius who came up with a new compositional program in which the planets appear in a remarkably realistic setting. In a series of Seven planets engraved by Jan Saenredam and dated i596,88 Goltzius replaced the-gods floating in the sky with classical statues on pedestals. The people depicted at the feet of the sculptures appear to be involved more or less by chance in activities which harmonize with the setting, and only the signs of the zodiac floating in the sky identify. the subject as the specific spheres of influence of heavenly bodies. It is noteworthy that Goltzius's Children of Saturn (fig. 40) display none of the saturnine characteristics, either positive or negative, described above. They are happily working on the land, thus fully reflecting the original significance of Saturn as the god of agriculture. Schonaeus's inscription refers to the golden age under Saturn.

The same is in effect true of Heemskerck's version of the Four temperaments. Despite his introduction of a formal program which is novel for the theme, the close affinity with the form of the children of the planets was decidedly old-fashioned, and the series appears to have generated few imitations. Once again, the allegorical ap- proach, with its echoes of the fifteenth-century program of pairs of figures, gave way to a genre-like treatment. Artists continued to depict the temperaments in association with the elements of water, air, fire and earth, but omitted the signs of the zodiac lest they should mar the "realistic" effect.

An example of this is the series of Four temperaments engraved by Pieter de Jode I after Maarten de Vos,89 in which each temperament is represented by a man and a woman either of a particular profession or carrying out a particular action. The merry duo of sanguine types (whose dress identifies them as members of the more

87 This series, which is hardly mentioned in the literature, was bought by the printroom of the Rijksmuseum in February I981. I will be devoting a separate article to this series in a forthcoming issue of the Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum.

88 Hollstein, op. cit. (note 3), vol. 8, p. 135, nrs. 358-64 (the date "1569", though, should be regarded as a printing error). There is a set of these prints in the printroom of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. For the drawings see Reznicek, op. cit. (note 47), nrs. 143-46.

89 Hollstein, op. cit. (note 3), vol. 9, p. 205, nrs. IOI-05. There is a set in the printroom of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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40 Jan Saenredam after Hendrick Goltzius, Saturn, from a series of Seven planets ( 596), engraving

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41 Pieter de Jode I after Maarten de Vos, The melancholic temperament, from a series of Four temperaments, engraving

I75



176

prosperous classes) are making music. The choleric couple, who are governed by fire, are presented as a warrior and a female sutler, and the two phlegmatic types, who are associated with water, are depicted as a fisherman and a fishwife. The Melancholic temperament (fig. 41) is illustrated as an older man offering money and jewelry to a listless young woman lost in thought.90

The Four temperaments of Jacob de Gheyn II also appear at first sight to be "scenes from everyday life."91 A lute-player, a soldier and a fisherman represent the sanguine, choleric and phlegmatic temperaments respectively. Only Melancholy, the temperament which gave rise to the greatest iconographic variation, deviates from the earthly setting. Instead we see a huge, majes- tic Saturn, enthroned on the globe, leaning his head on one hand and holding compasses in the other.

-The conclusion is perhaps a little disappointing. Despite his introduction of a number of new iconographic elements, Heemskerck evidently set no trends with his cosmo-astrological allegories, nor do the prints display any deep scientific knowledge of the themes. With the possible exception of the personifications of the four seasons and their dual function as ages, Heemskerck was clearly more interested in visual presentation than in literary concepts. Given the large editions (most of the major printrooms have one or more of these three series) and the general esteem in which Heemskerck's contem- poraries held his graphic art,92 there can be no doubt that his prints were popular with the sixteenth-century public. True iconographic innovation, however, was reserved for later artists.

INSTITUTE FOR ART HISTORY

UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM

90 Klibansky, Panofsky & Saxl, op. cit. (note 2), p. 396 believe that the man's action suggests an ill-matched couple. In my opinion, though, the dilapidated alchemical equipment beside the woman can equally well be an allusion to a fruitless request by the man to have the money and jewels transformed into gold. The listless woman would then represent the frustrated genius of alchemy, along the lines of Diirer's Melencolia I. I have been unable to inspect a second series of Temperaments mentioned by the authors. That series was engraved by Jan Sadeler after Maarten de Vos.

91 Hollstein, op. cit. (note 3), vol. 7, p. 134, nrs. 125-28; Klibansky, Panofsky & Saxl, pp. 398-99.

92 In 1570 Heemskerck was granted dispensation from paying municipal tax by the Haarlem authorities "propter artem graphicam in qua excelluit ("in recognition of his graphic art, in which he ex- celled"), Theodorus Schrevelius, Harlemum sive urbis Harlemensis, Leiden (Severinus Matthai) I647 (dedication). See also Veldman, op. cit. (note 5), p. i6.



Documents

Seasons, Planets and Tempetaments in the Work of Maarten Van Heemskerck Cosmo-Astrological Allegory in Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish Prints