Bruegels Land van Kokanje

Bruegel, Het Land van Kokanje (Luilekkerland), 1567, olieverf op paneel, 52 x 78 cm, München, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, inv. 8940

"Duidelijk geïnspireerd door een ets uit circa 1560 van Pieter Balten, met wie hij in 1551 als jonge kunstenaar had samengewerkt en die op menig gebied zijn artistieke ontwikkeling heeft beïnvloed, werkt Bruegel het populaire thema van het Luilekkerland verder uit."

Pieter Baltens, Het Land van Kokanje, ca. 1560, gravure, 22,3 x 30,5 cm

"Het 1567 gedateerde paneel is, in samenhang met de verzen onder Baltens ets en onder de gravure die Pieter van der Heyden naar Bruegels schilderij maakte [zie verder], tamelijk eenvoudig en eenduidig te begrijpen.

Vertegenwoordigers van drie verschillende standen hebben zich in Luilekkerland neergevleid onder een boom: de krijgsman, de landarbeider en een geleerde, allen makkelijk te herkennen aan hun attributen [op het schilderij wordt nog de ridderstand toegevoegd, met de gehelmde figuur die onder het taartendak ligt (...) 'De figuren zijn opgesteld rond de boom, zoals de spaken van een wiel, zodat het lijkt of een geheim mechanisme hen een draaiende beweging oplegt' (Roberts-Jones 1997, p. 238-239)]. Om voedsel en drank te bemachtigen hoeven zij niets te doen, het is allemaal in overvloed aanwezig: [varkens lopen met een mes rond, klaar om gesneden te worden, gebraden vogels vliegen je letterlijk de mond in, een gekookt ei op pootjes loopt met mes en al etensklaar rond en overal is eten: vlaaien als dakpannen en worsten als schutting (Sellink 2012)] en de liggende schrijver hoeft maar zijn mond open te doen om drank uit de kruik boven hem op te vangen. Achteraan rechts is

trouwens te zien wat, volgens de legende, de enige manier is om dit begerenswaardige land te bereiken: men moet zich een weg eten door een berg van boekweitbrij. Dat bewijst het komische detail van een man die met de lepel nog in zijn hand uit zijn zelf gegeten gang tuimelt. [Het dynamische element blijft beperkt tot een paar details, zoals het varken dat met een mes in zijn rug rondloopt. Het dier benadrukt een van links naar rechts lopende beweging die verdergezet wordt in de lijn van de gebogen boom en de cactus vol koeken. Dezelfde gebogen lijn wordt hernomen, maar dan van rechts naar links, in de jas van de geestelijke, de rug van de boer en het lichaam van de soldaat. Tegengesteld aan de algemene sfeer van luiheid, is er dus een onderliggende aanzet tot beweging,

gecombineerd met de inspanning van het kleine mannetje, dat uit het deeg kruipt. (...) 

Een tekst uit 1546 luidt: 'massa's varkens lopen in dit land, lekker geroosterd, met een mes in hun rug. Als iemand trek heeft, kan hij er meteen een stuk uitsnijden en nadien het mes terugsteken'. (Roberts-Jones 1997, p. 239-242)] ["Die daer luij en lacker sijt boer crijsman oft clercken / die gheraeckt daer en smaekt claer van als sonder wercken / Die tuijnen sijn worsten die huijsen met vlaijen / cappuijnen en kieckens tvliechter al ghebraijen."]: de verzen onder de gravure, net als die onder de prent van Balten, beschrijven dit alles in positieve, ja zelfs stimulerende woorden. Maar waarschijnlijk kan dit tafereel, naast de humor en het appelleren aan het diep gewortelde menselijk verlangen naar een land van melk en honing, ook nu weer niet helemaal los gezien worden van een moraliserende context. Vraatzucht en luiheid waren hoofdzonden, en dat bleven ze ook in het Land van Kokanje.

Dat blijkt althans uit een anonieme Vlaamse tekst over Luilekkerland uit 1546, die vanwege de vele overeenkomsten met Baltens ets en Bruegels paneel vaak als bron wordt gezien (zie L. Lebeer, '"Le Pays de Cocagne (Het Luilekkerland)'", Musées des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bulletin 4 (1955), pp. 199-214). ["Van 't Luye-leckerlandt / twelcke is een seer wonderlijck / over schoon ende costelijck Landt vol van alder gheneuchten / ende wellustichheeden. Ende is nu eerst ghevonden int jaer doemen schreef duysendt Suycker koecken / vijfhondert Eyer-vladen / ende ses en veertich

gebraden Hoenderen / in de Wijn maent / doe de Pastyen wel smaeckten. Ende is seer ghenoechlijck om te lesen." Zo zijn vermeld 'de seer hooghen ende langhen Berch van Boecwytenbry' waardoorheen degenen die in Luilekkerland willen komen, zich 'voor eerst moeten door-eeten', de huizen met leckere Panne-koecken / ende Vladen ghedeckt'; de 'tuyn' dit is de afsluiting van 'ghebraden Lever-worsten / ende sommighe van Met-worsten / ofte andere t'samen gevlochten'; verder nog de rivier 'van enckel soete Melck', het gebraden gevogelte enz. (...) Luilekkerland werd, volgens de tekst, ontdekt door 'Deugh-nieten'. Dit oord is wel bekend en vermaard 'sonderlinghe byden Onverlaten / ende den gheenen die alle deugt ende eerbaerheyt te rugghe ghestelt hebben'. Er is in dit land 'gheen meerder schanden dan dat hem yemant deuchdelijck / redelijck / eerbaar / ende manierlijc hout / ende met sijn handen geerne zijn cost winnet / wandt die hem alsoo deughdelijc / ende eerlijck aenstelt / die wort van alle man gehaet / ende ten lesten uyt den landen gebannen'.(Marijnissen 1988, pp. 333-334)] Er wordt expliciet gewaarschuwd: 'Luy en lecker en veel te meughen, dat zijn drie dinghen die niet en deughen ... Dit landt is tot noch toe niemant bekend geweest, dan alleene den Deugh-nieten, diet alder eerst gevonden hebben, ende het is gheleghen ... na by die Galghe.' Vooral met die laatste verwijzing onderstreept de schrijver dat wie zich al te zeer overgeeft aan luieren en lekker eten, uiteindelijk een zware rekening zal moeten betalen.

[Zover men weet is deze tekst pas in 1600 in druk verschenen, namelijk in de Veelderhande Geneuchlycke Dichten, Tafelspelen ende Refereynen. Toch ligt het nagenoeg voor de hand dat Bruegel hem rechtstreeks of onrechtstreeks als literaire bron heeft gebruikt, maar uiteindelijk hoeft men aan deze vraag geen al te groot gewicht hechten. Het thema zelf is veel ouder. De betrokken Nederlandse tekst gaat terug op Hans Sachs' l530 gedateerd Vom Schlauraffenland.

In 1538 verscheen een Franse versie, toegeschreven aan Denis Johannot: Le voyage et navigation que fist Panvrge disciple de pantagruel aux isles incongnues & estranges de plusieurs choses merveilleuses & difficiles a croire, qu'il dict auoir veues, dont il faict narration en ce present volume & plusieurs aultres ioyeusetez, pour inciter les lecteurs & auditeurs a rire. De tekst werd als vergelijkingsmateriaal opgenomen in de Rabelais-uitgave van Marcel Guilbaud (1957, pp. 240-282). Via een Engels Land of Cokaygne en de l3de-eeuwse Li fabliaus de Coquaigne kan men opklimmen

tot Loukianos. En na Bruegel is het tot aan de 'mannekensbladen' meegegaan.

Het onderwerp was dus in 1567 geenszins nieuw want behorend tot het patrimonium van  eeuwenoude wensdromen over een kommerloos bestaan. De herhaalde jammerklachten over de woekerprijzen van het koren laten vermoeden hoe scherp de gevolgen van een mislukte oogst werden gevoeld in een ekonomie die vooral op de plaatselijke produktie was gebaseerd. De wensdroom over een land waar elkeen kan eten buik-sta-bij, lijkt historisch dermate normaal dat men de inhoud van het schilderij zonneklaar zou willen noemen. (Marijnissen 1988, p. 334)]

De combinatie van een komische en verleidelijke wereld waar alles anders is en het besef van de zondigheid van dat verlangen, is typerend voor de beeldtaal van Bruegels tijd, met name

in de prentkunst. Met regelmaat is geprobeerd Het Land van Kokanje - zoals alle werken van

Bruegel uit de woelige jaren 1565-68 - in een specifieke politieke context te plaatsen, het meest recent en het minst overtuigend door Ross Frank. Nog minder dan in andere werken is hier enige concrete aanleiding of enig historisch bewijs voor te vinden.

Pieter van der Heyden, naar Bruegel, Het Land van Kokanje, na 1570?, gravure, 20,9 x 27,7 cm, Antwerpen, Stedelijk Prentenkabinet, Museum Plantin-Moretus, inv. 13800

De gravure zonder signatuur of datering roept veel vragen op, des te meer omdat ook het adres van de uitgever ontbreekt. Stilistisch sluit het werk goed aan bij de techniek van Pieter van der Heyden, die in nauwe samenwerking met Bruegel de meeste gravures naar diens ontwerp heeft gesneden. Na de

dood van Hieronymus Cock in 1570 ontstond er gedurende korte tijd een leemte op de Antwerpse uitgeversmarkt voor dergelijke grafiek, en misschien heeft Van der Heyden daarvan willen profiteren door zelf prenten uit te geven. Het lag voor de hand dat hij in dat geval een compositie van Bruegel zou kopiëren, wiens werk hij immers heel goed kende. Maar omdat de gravure rechtstreeks van het schilderij lijkt te zijn gekopieerd, kan toch ook niet worden uitgesloten dat de - helaas onbekende -

eerste eigenaar van het schilderij Van der Heyden opdracht heeft gegeven om zijn trotse bezit in prent te brengen, zoals ook Ortelius deed met Het sterfbed van Maria."

(Sellink 2011, pp. 242-243)

Taal en het Land van Kokanje: intoxication by verbal accumulation

In the Land of Cockaigne - revelation of the mundus inversus ('world turned upside down') - the happy time returns; indeed, it is blocked in. It reappears in an immobile circle, just as the rhymed and obsessive words of the propitiatory lullabies, spells and litanies compose bits of repeating, calming, sedating and drugging words. In this verbal dimension, the consoling word of the minstrel is utilized by the poor as a surrogate for the frustrations of psychic and bodily miseries: as an opiated word which, even across the anaphoric techniques of repetition - the wheel of words returning like the wheel of time - tears itself from the ordinary, opening fleeting but necessary parentheses of consolations glimpsed in dreams, of phonic and verbal surrogates for existential sadnesses and bodily miseries. The dream of plenty magically suspends, subdues and soothes the pangs of unsatisfied bowels.
Many people, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, were reduced to living mainly on beau langage and feasting on names instead of tasting things.  For them, these 'succulent' enumerations were like a little compensation for everyday poverty. But let us note well: this compensation obtained by force of words is only possible if a certain intoxication first attenuated the feeling of distance which separated the dream from the reality, and intoxication cannot here be but the fruit of verbal accumulation. Each term in these enumerations, taken in isolation, is nothing but a desire or a lie; it is the magnificent abundance, the uninterrupted flow of words charged with captivating flavours that create the illusion. In this state of euphoria provoked by the juggling of words, one ends up believing that one has played with things. (R. Garapon, La fantasie verbale et le comique dans le théâtre français du moyen âge à la fin du XVIIe siècle (Paris: Colin, 1957), p. 87)
The artifice of the word opens up consoling horizons to the starvation and catatony of the listener. The histrio turpis ('deformed actor') - man of filth, contaminated mediator - assumes the mask of consoler and therapist. Not by accident the minstrel, at a certain moment in his historical course, is attributed with demonic characteristics, to the point of almost perfectly resembling the lunatic."
(Camporesi 1996, '6. The World Turned Upside Down', pp. 79-81)

Bread of Dreams - Digest: '6. The World Turned Upside Down'

"If winter was always very difficult for the poor, existence became all the more trying in the years of famine, and the most defenceless found themselves 'lying on the ground, poor and wretched'. They sought refuge inside the straw, on refuse and manure. Tormented by chilblains, racked by coughs, infested by lice and ringworm and emanating intolerable smells - wandering dung-heaps, who in 'their own dung even grow fat / I as if they were beetles or worms', unsatiated stomachs 'where the dung both leaves and enters' (Baldassare Bonifacio) - they slowly came back to life when the warm weather arrived and the pangs of hunger lessened; famine seemed in retreat. The exultation of the survivors fed the unjustified illusions of future health, strength and vigour. The discouraging images of prostration and starvation were put away." [...] The resurrection of the famished beggars - the 'half dead' with ashen and dried-out skin - and the abandoning of the bed of dung and the wrapping of straw, indicated the first part of a return to a more humansocial dimension. [...] The disasters of a hunger epidemic, of a seven-year famine (like the one which raged in much of northern Italy between 1590 and 1597), left marks too profound to be wiped out from one day to the next. [...] The accelerated deterioration of physical and mental health during the years of stupefying starvation was for many people an irreversible process towards intellectual disorderand degradation that the return to 'normal' - to the low level of daily undernourishment - would not succeed in wiping out."
(Camporesi 1996, '6. The World Turned Upside Down', pp. 78-79)

"The image of the world, seen from below, appears uncertain, flawed, ambiguous, unbalanced and unhomogeneous, as in the visions of the drugged and the possessed. [...] The natural and divine order is broken up and altered: chaos takes priority over a rational design that presupposes a centre towards which the whole immense periphery converges in unity. The 'expanded conscience' overflows everywhere. The same articulation of time changes the frame of reference:
'time outside of time' is posed as the anti-model of 'time that is within time'. The progressive is nullified in the regressive.
The city of Balordia (literally, 'folly'), kingdom of the idle, lives in a mythology of ebb and flow, unanchored in historical time. This compensatory dream projected from the popular utopia conquers ever more extensive territories in which 'superior' rationality no longer finds a place. [...]
The pauper/slacker lives in the 'time of laziness': the metahistorical time of predictability and insecurity institutionalized in security, set loose from working time, the risk of the future and the fear of history.

Bruegel, Het Land van Kokanje (Luilekkerland), 1567,  olieverf op paneel52 x 78 cm, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, München, inv. 8940

The Land of Cockaigne, in the drugged logic of the impossible, becomes a driving image, able to penetrate the mental cosmos in which the natural (and the real) have been supplanted by the artificial and the unreal. In this dream universe, the mechanical and physical laws no longer make sense: macaroni falls from heaven like edible rain; the earth, no longer worked, miraculously produces pre-cooked foods; the trees do not toss down buds and leaves, but hams and clothes; the animals, their own butchers, spontaneously roast themselves for the comfort of men's stomachs. Work is abolished, time suspended, fatal old age staved off by the fountains of youth, and the women, in their bodily splendour, are triumphant over their straddled and subjected husbands.
But this dismal land of idleness - from which risk has been banished, untouched by the storms of history, without fear and without future - appears sunk in a perspective that is not only dream-like but positively funereal, in a world where plenty is reflected in the negative face of sterility: where nature, overturned, forms inhuman and monstrous landscapes, beyond every possible logic and far from every perspective of life. A 'nature' where the artificial has destroyed the natural, turning it upside down, altering its biological laws, the periods for the maturation of produce and even the time of animal gestation. [...]
(Camporesi 1996, '6. The World Turned Upside Down', pp. 79-80)

"Poverty and madness eventually coincide, in the way that the face of a child struck by athrepsia (a diseased condition caused by malnutrition), undernourishment or the mal dal simiot ('monkey disease', as it was known in Modena), his worn-out skin all wrinkled, appeared similar to that of an old senescent monkey.
The double face of puer/senex, dear to the mystic religions, was utilized at the popular level as the concrete image of the overturning of the natural order. The tiny malnourished senescent was placed on a baker's peel, put in the lukewarm oven and taken out three times with the incantation:

'Into the oven you go, and out
you come, so that the monkey
may remain inside.'

The ambiguous, enigmatic, entangled and reversible logic of popular mental stereotypes presents itself as a cultural anti-model which, because of its subtle attraction, also contaminates the rationalistic Aristotelian culture. In the folk vision of the world, preceded by ingenious anachronism, space is presented as a dimension of time and the universe as a place of ordered chaos where the possible and the impossible dwell together in the same percentage of probabilities. Time is either still or is measured with the unabstract metre of sweat and toil. The land that can be ploughed with a pair of oxen from dawn to sunset becomes a day: a unit of time substitutes for a unit of surface area. The years are counted in terms of empty and full, the seesaw of famine and plenty. The 'year of hunger' is placed in the centre of the calendar of the poor. The 'longest day' is the one during which one does not eat. Time becomes an expandable and shrinkable variable, articulated by the stomach's pulsations, the gut's thinning out or filling up and the fatigue of labour. The popular ceremonial of eating also reproposes a different use of time, alternating long days of the most frugal nourishment - a regimen of survival bordering on starvation - with interminable ritual excesses, dietary orgies and colossal feasts, disorder and drunkenness quite different from the noble banquet based entirely on the aesthetic values of food, a visual cuisine to be displayed."
(Camporesi 1996, '6. The World Turned Upside Down', p. 82)

"It is in this social panorama, traversed by profound anxieties and fears, alienating frustrations, devouring and uncontrollable infirmities and dietary chaos that adulterated and stupefying grains contributed to delirious hypnotic states and crises, which could explode into episodes of collective possession or sudden furies of dancing. The forbidden zones, those most contaminated by the ambiguous, ambivalent magic of the sacred, seemed to emanate perverse influences and unleash dark energies. Psychological destitution, together with the torment of an ailing body, acted as detonator of the epileptic attacks and tumultuous and surging group fits, in which men were attracted and repelled by centres of powerful fascination and places of sacrifice, like the altar. The pathological trance into which entire groups fell [...] forms the alarm call originating from a feverish world: a social body altered in its physiological and psychic equilibrium, where 'marvel' could be confused with 'miracle', which in its turn could appear as 'trickery', 'enchantment' or 'diabolical invocation'.
The horrible dances of the sick inside churches, where the troubled presence of the contaminated and the impure was united with the consecrated and the supernatural, resulted in spectacular, bewildering performances. [...]"
(Camporesi 1996, '6. The World Turned Upside Down', pp. 83-84)

"At Ferrara in 1596, according to the Modenese chronicler Giovan Battista Spaccini, it is believed that the cause of many illnesses, of which numerous people even die, is the bad breads which the people eat, namely that of beans, cabbage and plain oil'. (G. B. Spaccini, Cronaca modenese (1588-1636), ed. G. Bertoni, T. Sandonnini and P.E. Vicini (Modena: Ferraguti, 1911), I, p. 38)
The dark spectre of food poisoning and the crisis (even fatal) of 'evil' breads weighed heavily on
the cities of the Duchies and Papal Legations. Because of the criminal intervention of cynical speculators, 'vulgar' bread could sometimes hide destructive traps. Or else, as happened at Modena in 1592, it could lead to a dangerous slide into the dull and delirious senselessness of intoxification.
Adulterated breads had been put into circulation by the untori of the Public Health: criminal attacks orchestrated by the 'provisionary judges' who were supposed to oversee the well-balanced  provisioning of the public-square.

'On the 21st, a Sunday, with Monday approaching, Master ...
[blank in the manuscript] Forni, Judge of provisions in the square
of Modena, was arrested, along with the bakers, for having had
forty sacks of bay leaf ground to be put in the wheat flour to make
bread for the square, where it caused the poverty to those who
bought it to worsen, so that for two days there were many people
sick enough to go crazy, and during this time they could not work or
help their families.'  (Spaccini, Cronaca modenese, I, pp. 3-4)"

(Camporesi 1996, '6. The World Turned Upside Down', pp. 84-85)

"Temporarily losing their reason or permanently weltering in hunger, many peasants preferred to leave home and turn to begging rather than helplessly witness their children's agony. Changed into a 'house of death', the hut becomes a murderous trap and tomb for the least protected:

'a few days ago [April 1601] in the town of Reggio . . . a peasant,
along with his wife, so as not to see their three sons perish from
hunger in front of their eyes, locked them in the house and set out in
the name of heaven. After three days had passed the neighbours,
not having seen them, decided to knock down the door, which they
did. And they found two of the sons dead, and the third dying with
straw in his mouth, and on the fire there was a pot with straw inside
which was being boiled in order to make it softer for eating.'
(Spaccini, Cronaca modenese, II (1919), p. 117)"

(Camporesi 1996, '6. The World Turned Upside Down', p. 85)

Bread of Dreams - Digest: '8. Night-time'

"The general mentality was imbued with magic, occult beliefs, unreal suggestions, 'voices' and 'rumours' (the untori (plague spreaders), for example), 'errors' and 'prejudices'. [...] Apparitions and strange noises foretold the deaths of great personages.

[An illustruous example of this is] the late sixteenth-century treatise by Loys Lavater of Zurich, De spectris, lemuribus et magnis atque insolitis fragoribus, varrisque praesagitationibus, quae plerumque obitum hominum, magnas clades, mutationesque imperiorum praecedunt, 1570.

Ludwig Lavater

[Ludwig Lavater (4 March 1527; Kyburg (castle) – 5 July 1586 in Zurich) was a Swiss Reformed theologian working in [...] Zurich. [He] was a prolific author, composing homilies, commentaries, a survey of the liturgical practices of the Zurich church, a history of the Lord's Supper controversy, as well as biographies of Bullinger and Konrad Pellikan. His work on ghosts (De spectris ...) was one of the most frequently printed demonological works of the early modern period, going into at least nineteen early modern editions in German, Latin, French, English and Italian. (Wikipedia, dd 07/06/2016)]

Ludwig Lavater of Zurich, De spectris, lemuribus et magnis atque insolitis fragoribus, varrisque praesagitationibus, quae plerumque obitum hominum, magnas clades, mutationesque imperiorum praecedunt, 1570
[free e-book]

frontispiece of the 1683-edition

"The Discours des spectres [...] by Le Loyer dates from 1586; [the second edition of 1605 is the most complete:
The work is divided into eight books dealing with the marvelous visions and prodigies of several centuries and the most celebrated authors, sacred as well as profane, who have dealt with occult subjects. It discusses the cause of apparitions; the nature of good and evil spirits; demons; ecstasy ; the essence, nature, and origin of souls; magicians and sorcerers and the manner of their communication; evil spirits; and imposters.

(Gallica, dd. 07/06/2016)

The first book deals with specters, apparitions, and spirits; the second with the physics of Le Loyer's time, the illusions to which the senses are prone, wonders, and the elixirs and metamorphosis of sorceries and of philters; the third book establishes the degrees, grades, and honors of spirits, gives a résumé of the history of Philinnion and of Polycrites, and recounts diverse adventures with specters and demons; the fourth book gives many examples of spectral appearances, of the speech of persons possessed of demons, of the countries and dwelling-places of these specters and demons, and of marvelous portents; the fifth treats the science of the soul, of its origin, nature, its state after death, and of haunting ghosts; the sixth division is entirely taken up with the apparition of souls, and shows how the happy do not return to earth, but only those whose souls are burning in purgatory; in the seventh book the case of the Witch of Endor and the evocation of the soul of Samuel are dealt with, as is evocation in general and the methods practiced by wizards and sorcerers in this science; and the last book gives some account of exorcism, fumigations, prayers, and other methods of casting out devils, and the usual means employed by exorcists to destroy these. 
The work, though disputatious, throws considerable light upon the occult science of the times. Although often credulous, Le Loyer was most skeptical about alchemy, of which he wrote: "As to transmutation, I wonder how it can be reasonably defended. Metals can be adulterated but not change ... Blowing [the bellows], they may exhaust their purses, they multiply all into nothing. Yes, I do not believe, and may the philosophers excuse me if they wish, that the alchemists can change any metal into gold." (Wierus, dd. 07/06/2016)]

[Pierre Le Loyer, sieur de la Brosse, est un Démonologue né le 24 novembre 1550 à Huillé, village de l'Anjou, près de Durtal. Il décède à Angers le 27 janvier 1634 (Wikipedia, dd. 08/06/2016)]


"'Terrible noises', 'violent and repeated' and 'unusual' rumblings were said (and written) to have come from the sepulchre at Ferrara of the Blessed Beatrice d'Este II, born perhaps in the third decade of the thirteenth century, and who, with the passing of years, became devoted to the 'preservation of her most serene nobility'; diligent in predicting the events of the family and in warning of the calamities which struck her city. Private oracle for the family and public barometre, anticipator of calamitous history, the rumblings of 1709 and 1711 for the arrival of foreign armies was considered notable ... as for that of the famous inundation of all her lands, or for the death of the animals; or, finally for several famous fires which occurred in recent years. 
[Anonymous, Vita della Beata Beatrice seconda d'Este fondatrice dell'insigne monastero di S. Antonio in Frrara della regola di S. Benedetto (Ferrara: G. Rinaldi, 1777), p. 125. The book is a reprint, with several modifications and additions, of the Vita written by Girolamo Baruffaldi, noted archpriest of Cento, published at Venice in 1723.]
Occasionally the tombstone of the Beata was not content to produce the 'usual clamour' but 'as took place in 1504 and 1505, for some time its colour changed and it became red and everywhere exuded liquid in great abundance. ' [ibidem, p. 124]
In the Vita of this glorious saint of the house of Este (mentioned by Ludovico Ariosto), [...] the vocal messages of the Benedictine virgin are carefully selected and interpreted.

'She was wont to make this clamour heard in different ways, according to the gravity of the cases that were predicted by her. At times she is heard by all the nuns, other times by many, and sometimes by a few of the nuns whose rooms are close to the altar. Whoever happens to view the said altar when it is rumbling will see its stone move and tremble as if for an earthquake; and those who see or hear it feel no fear at all, but rather a sudden jubilation, accompanied by some wonder, and by this they understand it to have been the clamour produced by the Beata, and not something accidental or fortuitous which produces that tremor. If it were something else, like what is usually created suddenly, it would certainly frighten them all. Although it is not really known what event it is that she predicts with such crashing, none the less by the diversity of ways of beating (by means of the ancient practice and tradition of the nuns), it can usually be conjectured without mistake. If the misfortune is deadly for the Este family, or if some great death is about to take place in the city or convent, and especially if the blow is to strike some superior, the clamour is like an overturning of stones, in the way that a cart, hurrying along filled with them, overturns everything at the end of the run. If she then wants to announce some common gladness, whether to her family or to the convent, a sort of violent, rattling explosion of artillery is heard in the air throughout the entire convent. And finally, if the pre-announced accident is not of a death, just a roar and shaking is heard which causes the earth to tremble like a running cart, but in the end no other rumbling occurs similar to the overturning of stones. This appears on the most remarkable occasions. At times for long periods, and repeated often at times three or four days before, and only once; and finally, on some other occasions she makes herself heard on the day just preceding the event, now by day, now at night, but most often during the hours of matins, nones and compline.' [ibid., pp. 119-121]"

Veneto, Bartolomeo - Beata Beatrice II d'Este - 1510s

[Saint Beatrix d'Este (died 1262) [...] was betrothed to Galeazzo Manfredi of Vicenza, but he died of his wounds after a battle, just before the wedding day. His bride refused to return home, but attended by some of her maidens, devoted herself to the service of God, following the Benedictine rule, at the convent of Sant'Antonio in Polesine, at San Lazzaro just outside Ferrara. (Wikipedia, dd. 09/06/2016)]

Beata Beatrice d'Este (Panoramio, dd. 09/06/2016)

tomb ('Tomba originaria della Beata ora fonte dello stillicidio')
(Holywar, dd. 09/06/2016)

altar stone ('Stillicidio di acqua che scaturisce dalla pietra-altare')
(Holywar, dd. 09/06/2016)

"All it took was a ghost - a supposed masked apparition - to throw a city into confusion and fear. It could happen that the fear of a spirit, put in motion by another deeper anxiety, provoked a collective trauma - so immense was the power of the imaginary - not in some remote Apennine village, but in a ducal city of the plain: Modena. Not in the 'barbaric' centuries of the 'dark' Middle Ages, but in a [...] century, [...] on the path of the pre-Enlightenment."
(Camporesi 1996, '8. Night-time'', pp. 92-94)


"'Nightime' drew an impalpable but very clean line between Apollonian, virtuous, luminous and active time, and demonic time, which dwelt under the sign of the divinities of the night, disorder and the protector of thieves, Mercury. As Sabba Castiglione apprehensively warned in his Ricordi overo ammaestramenti of 1554:

'You will be on your guard when walking at night, if not out of extreme necessity, firstly against  scandals, inconveniences and dangers which lurk there continuously; then against the various and diverse infirmities which are often generated in human bodies by the night air... It is certain that going out at night without need is nothing other than disturbing nature's order. '

[Fra' Sabba da Castiglione was a man of Church, of letters and humanist, member of the order of the Knights Hospitaller (the Order of the Knights of Jerusalem (later called Knights of Malta)), his moral and intellectual testament are his “Ricordi” (Memories), a collection of didactic precepts addressed to his nephew and published in their final version in 1554 in Venice by Paolo Gerardo; this work had a great success, with twenty-five editions up to 1613, date after which it was never published again. (Borgo Durbecco, Wikipedia dd. 15/06/2016)]

The night realm belonged to ruffians, low-lifes and those in a bad way; to the dubious presences which the darkness covered in its deep, faceless anonymity; to ghosts, spirits of the dead returned among the living, incubi, goblins, and witches, who silently glided to suck the blood of children or, atop brooms and pitchforks, went to the witches' sabbath.

'Certain girls, slaves of Satan, seduced by the demon of illusions, believe in and are promised during the night hours to Diana, goddess of the pagans, or Venus, to ride among great numbers of women, and to perform various wicked deeds... to pull away children from their mothers' breast, to roast and devour them; to enter into houses by the chimneys or windows and disturb the inhabitants in various ways.' (Martino d'Arles, Tractatus de superstitionibus, contra maleficia seu sortilegia quae hodie vigent in orbe terrarum (Rome: Vincentium Luchinum, 1559), fol. 9r.)" (Camporesi 1996, '8. Night-time'', pp. 95-96)

boek online beschikbaar

[Martinus de Arles y Andosilla (1451?–1521) was doctor of theology and canon in Pamplona and archdeacon of Aibar, author of a 'Tractatus de superstitionibus, contra maleficia seu sortilegia quae hodie vigent in orbe terrarum' (1515), a work on demonology in the context of the Early Modern witch-hunts. Martin believed witches (sorginak) to be particularly numerous among the population of Navarra, and the Basques of the Pyrenees in general. He recommends stern measures of an inquisition against this. His depiction of witchcraft is, however, based on sources predating the Malleus maleficarum, arguing against its simplistic depiction of witchcraft (falsa opinione [...] credentes cum Diana vel Herodia nocturnis horis equitare, vel se in alias creaturas transformare). The work was printed in Paris in 1517, and in Rome in 1559 (142 sextodecimo pages).

The work was not widely received and is now very difficult to find. Nicolas Rémy in his 1595 Demonolatry writes: "I am aware that Peter of Palude and Martin of Arles have said that when demons go about this work, they, as it were, milk the semen from the bodies of dead men; but this is as ridiculous as the proverbial dead donkey's fart." (trans. Ashwin 1929) (Wikipedia, dd. 15/06/2016)]

"The peasants, who saw in the dark like cats, loped along silently, feeling the articulations, divisions and fragments of the nocturnal hours almost physically, measuring them by the stars with an awareness so precise as to appear astonishing today.
After sunset they wandered along footpaths shadowed by the night, living almost a second life, finally free of every control: hunting with a reflecting lantern [...], of the kind used in night fishing. The anonymous author of the De natura rusticorum [15th C] speaks of them in terms of nocturnal animals, children of the devil, 'cursed dragons', mobile like birds in their movements.
'Vagabundi sunt ut oves' ['They are vagabonds like the birds'], stirring in the shadows and softly breathing, with their cloaks hovering like owls: 'Nocte vadunt ut bubones' ['At night they make their way like owls'].
They went to secret enclosures in order to abandon themselves to forbidden games and dances. 'They are to be found at licentious threshings and prohibited games,' anathematized the members of the curia, obsessed by that ghost of the agrarian orgy, the demonic sabbath (the 'licentious threshings'), and its lunar variant, entrusted to the authority of the Lady of the Night."

"The night, experienced as a time of anguish, was held in sharp contrast to the solar day: a kind of day à l'envers. It was a criminal time that filled every statute, and which jurisprudence (medieval as well as seventeenth century) took into consideration in order to stiffen the punishments for certain crimes perpetrated after sunset. 'It is not by chance that medieval legislation punished crimes committed at night with an extraordinary force.' [J. Le Goff, quoted in J.-L. Goglin, Les misérables dans l'Occident médiéval (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1976), p. 204)] For nocturnal stercoratio ('defecating') on walls and doors the 1567 statutes of Ferrara provided severe punishments."
(Camporesi 1996, '8. Night-time'', p. 98)

Cicogna, Strozzi. Del palagio de gl’incanti,
& delle gran meraviglie de gli spiriti, &
 di tutta la natura loro. Diviso in libri
XXXXV. & in III. prospettive.
Spirituale, celeste, et elementare.
Vicenza, Roberto Miglietti, 1605,

Strozzi Cicogna

[In 1605 Strozzi Cicogna published Palagio degli Incanti, a Thomistic treatise. In this work, the author affirms that to "defeat" demons we should look for their past, be it angelic or demonic. It is an attempt to reconstruct the demons' biography in order to find out its connections with human beings. (Project Muse, dd. 17/06/2016)(zie ook Armando Maggi. In the Company of Demons: Unnatural Beings, Love, and Identity in the Italian Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006)]


"Terrifying apparitions, ghosts, goblins, spells and collective hallucinations spread by uncontrollable rumours, disturbed the nights (difficult and uneasy like the days) of 'modern' age men: un-sought-after supplements of shivers and frights that were added to the terror of plague, hunger and war ('a bello, peste e fame libera nos Domine'; 'from war, plague and hunger deliver us O Lord'). The spirits of evil were the masters of the elements: arbiters of the meteorological and climatic mysteries. The subterranean goblins conspired to increase human anguish with earthquakes. Demons, spectres and angels roamed about the streets of the city in the heart of darkness:
'All the people,' recounted Strozzi Cicogna, 'saw every night with their own eyes one of these spectres who wandered about the city at midnight with an angel.' [Cicogna, Strozzi. Del palagio de gl’incanti, & delle gran meraviglie de gli spiriti, & di tutta la natura loro. Diviso in libri XXXXV. & in III. prospettive. Spirituale, celeste, et elementare. Vicenza, Roberto Miglietti, 1605, p. 275]

The angels who brandished swords were threathening signals of imminent calamities. Several of Pompeo Viz[z]ani's [1540-1607] pages offer a not exhaustive yet strongly indicative sampling of the natural scourges and imaginary fears that tormented the existence of other times. A page of the Bolognese chronicle relating to 1504 told how:

'already a great living famine had begun... where cries and laments were heard everywhere. Furthermore, the citizens were sorrowful because they oftentimes saw several fearful signs, which indicated impending ruin: since there blew strong and violent winds which destroyed many houses and uprooted quite a few trees; and from the sky descended water and storm in such quantity and accompanied by so much lightning, thunder and flashing that everyone was left dumbfounded. Still another amazing thing appeared in the so-called 'Sala' fields twelve miles from Bologna: at midday in those fields several shadows were seen from afar which, caused by meteorological impressions, seemed to be eighteen or twenty men dressed in white, red and black, and they seemed to be fighting among themselves. And when anyone approached to try and see them at close range, they saw nothing at all; and to those who remained far away it seemed as if those who had approached were conversing with the ghosts, which appeared for a good many days, during which time many curious citizens went to see them. It was during this time that certain Observant Friars, who lived in the monastery of Saint Paul of the Observance, located in the Apennines two miles from the city, related that they had seen an Angel, who, situated above Bologna, threatened the people with his unsheathed sword in hand. While the citizens were full of bewilderment because of these things, Giovanni Bentivogli was waiting to celebrate.
During this year in the month of December it seemed as if sweet spring wanted to appear, since the weather was so pleasing and the air so mild that the trees began to bloom and send forth their flowerlets, and everywhere was seen roses, lilies, violets and other flowers and many fruits that usually appear at the beginning of spring. But prudent men did not have a very good opinion of this; in fact, they doubted whether this unusual novelty did not threaten some great ruin. Nor were they exactly misled in their thinking, because on the last day of that year the earth began to tremble during the night, and that trembling lasted for around a quarter of an hour, causing much damage and ruin to the houses throughout the whole city, where the citizens were very much afraid. And so with everyone frightened of the coming of the year 1505 and the earthquake often becoming stronger, it lasted for forty days, so that every hour there were seen new ruins and ravages of churches, towers, palaces and finally, of almost all the citizens' houses, who, in attempting to escape death... lived outside the houses, in gardens and other uncovered places, under awnings and canopies, and many even in wine barrels...
At the same time the living famine continued to grow in such a way that many poor men died of hunger, not being able to find nourishment for themselves. And when some bakery occasionally made bread to sell, the magistrates had to supply an armed guard for its defence, otherwise it was put to the sack by the famished populace. Even the peasants, who suffered the same hunger, were forced to eat the roots of herbs, and other less nourishing things... With the oats beginning to ripen in the month of June, the famine began to let up little by little; and finally, because of the very good harvest, there was an abundance of everything.
But, since the plague had been discovered in many cities of Italy, and in the end in Bologna as well, the citizens could not live without much difficulty, because of this as well as another disease called the hammer sickness... Of this disease died not only a very large number of commoners but sixteen doctors as well, all of them important. [P. Viz[z]ani, Diece libri delle historie della sua patria (Bologna, 1596) (ch. 7, n. 6), pp. 452-5. For the 'symptoms of collective anguish', cf. B. Farolfi, Strutture agrarie e crisi cittadina nel primo Cinquecento bolognese (Bologna: Patron, 1977), pp. 41 ff. For 'signs' and prophetic omens, cf. O. Niccoli, 'Profezie in piazza. Note sul profetismo popolare nell'Ialia del primo Cinquecento', Quaderni Storici, 14 (1979),: Religioni delle classi popolari, ed. C. Ginzburg, pp. 300-39.)]

Murderous wolves in winter, and in summer swarms of mosquitoes, flies and fleas (spreaders of the plague) tormented the poveri homini of the Apennine villages like those in Friuli. At least until the eighteenth century the image of the wolf as slaughterer of children and assassin of men (other than of sheep) was a fairly common nightmare everywhere. Numerous Friulian preenti ('spells') survive in Inquisitorial trials begun against those who searched for a magical defence against those beasts and, in general, against the hostile forces of incomprehensible nature. The plague was continually lying in wait, along with cholera and intestinal fevers. Medicine and magical practices (hellebore root cut and applied to the extremity of the limbs) confusedly attempted to keep away the diseases of unknown aetiology. One of the pages written by Dr Spinelli in 1598 offers a striking picture of the merciless harshness of living.

'At Cividale del Friuli wolves had killed abandoned animals, children and men during the winter; in summer, with the heat and dryness at their worst, along with many apricots, there were gnats,

fleas and many flies, and recurring fevers with rashes grew strong and continuous, as well as diarrhoea and cholera which were soon treated with minor cutting of a vein [blood-letting] or purgation. With summer and the real heat increasing, burning fevers, rashes, worms, diarrhoea and vomiting raged, although veins were repaired surgically. Children marked by rashes and spots, despite having bad symptoms, were almost all saved. At the beginning of autumn the plague appeared, with its agonizing and putrid fever, accompanied by worms and abundant diarrhoea. Those whose pulses were strong at the beginning suffered from watery urine and most severe headaches: looking like owls, their pains were always assuaged in cavernous gloom. Hellebore root [zie onder] had to be cut and fixed to certain peoples' extremities before the flesh benefited. Suffering from urine on the third day, as from most disorders, on the fourth day one finally died, pulse indistinct and weak: neither bezoar [zie Bread of Dreams - Digest: '5. 'They Rotted in Their Own Dung'']  nor Armenian stone [zie onder] was of any use. This plague was milder at the beginning; the meaner and viler of the oppressed were afflicted. [quoted in Moreali, Della febbri maligne e contagiose [ca. 1746] (ch. 3, n. 30), p. 117.)]'

19th century illustration of Helleborus niger

"In the early days of medicine, two kinds of hellebore [nieskruid] were recognized: black hellebore, which included various species of Helleborus, and white hellebore, now known as Veratrum album, which belongs to a different plant family, the Melanthiaceae. Although the latter plant is highly toxic, containing veratrine and the teratogens cyclopamine and jervine, it is believed to be the "hellebore" used by Hippocrates as a purgative.
"Black hellebore" was used by the ancients in paralysis, gout and other diseases, more particularly in insanity. "Black hellebore" is also toxic, causing tinnitus, vertigo, stupor, thirst, a feeling of suffocation, swelling of the tongue and throat, emesis (vomiting), catharsis, bradycardia (slowing of the heart rate), and finally, collapse and death from cardiac arrest. Although Helleborus niger (black hellebore) contains protoanemonin, or ranunculin, which has an acrid taste and can cause burning of the eyes, mouth, and throat, oral ulceration, gastroenteritis, and hematemesis, research in the 1970s showed that the roots of H. niger do not contain the cardiotoxic compounds helleborin, hellebrin, and helleborein that are responsible for the lethal reputation of "black hellebore". It seems that earlier studies may have used a commercial preparation containing a mixture of material from other species such as Helleborus viridis, green hellebore." (Wikipedia, dd. 19/06/2016)

"De Helleborus soorten zijn vaste winter- of lentebloeiende planten met vlezige wortels, soms rizomen (Helleborus vesicarius). De oudere wortels zijn dikwijls donkerder, zelfs zwart. (...) De naam nieskruid danken de planten aan de medicinale toepassing. De gedroogde en tot poeder vermalen wortels zorgen bij opsnuiven ervan dat er flink geniesd moet worden. De wortel is zeer giftig door het aanwezige helleborine, dat een diglycoside is en bitter smaakt. Verdere aanwezige gifstoffen zijn saponine en protoanemonine.
Door de Grieken werd het wortelpoeder gebruikt bij krankzinnigheid en aanvallen van epilepsie. Laxeermiddelen bevatten nog wel eens bestanddelen van de wortel van het nieskruid. Alexander de Grote (356 v.Chr. tot 323 v.Chr.) is mogelijk overleden aan een overdosis Nieskruid. Zekerheid is er niet, maar men speculeert al eeuwen over zijn eventuele overmatig gebruik van nieskruid." (Wikipedia, dd. 19/06/2016)]

"Lapis armenus, also known as Armenian stone or lapis stellatus, in natural history, is a variety of precious stone, resembling lapis lazuli, except that it is softer, and instead of veins of pyrite, is intermixed with green. "The Armenian stone" is so nearly identical to lapis lazuli that it has often not been distinguished from it;[...] British History Online defines lapis armenus as "Armenian stone, or azurite, a naturally occurring basic COPPER carbonate, originally from Armenia, but later from Germany, from which BLUE BICE was prepared. It was often found in association with another copper carbonate, malachite from which GREEN BICE was prepared (...) [Jo Kirby of the National Gallery London notes the occurrence of the pigment bice in three grades in an account of Tudor painting at Greenwich Palace in 1527. In this case, the three grades indicate the use of the mineral azurite rather than a manufactured blue copper carbonate. Similarly, green bice in other 16th century-records may sometimes have been the mineral malachite. Ian Bristow, a historian of paint, concluded that the pigment blue bice found in records of British interior-decoration until the first half of the 17th century was azurite. The expensive natural mineral azurite was superseded by manufactured blue verditer (Wikipedia, dd. 19/06/2016)] 
Herman Boerhaave believed it rather to rank among semi-metals, and supposed it was composed of both metal and earth. He added that it only differs from lazuli in degree of maturity, and that both of them seem to contain arsenic.
The Encyclopedia Perthensis of 1816 notes that Armenian stone "was anciently brought of Armenia"  [...]  It has been found in Tirol, Hungary, and Transylvania, and used [...] both in mosaic work, to make the blue color azure, and as a treatment of melancholia. (Wikipedia, dd. 19/06/2016)"

'Bracketed between the brief and rare moments of anxious and astonished tranquility, as soon as one scourge let up or disappeared, another still more terrifying punctually made its appearance, in a perverse alternation of illusory mirages of calm followed by pitiless gusts of horrible calamities. The demonically wicked direction of human events added the extra of an almost permanent social marasmus to the tangled situation. To the 'brawls, disputes, [and] killings' in the cities corresponded exactly the 'continuous killings, burning down of houses, rapes, thefts and thousand other sorts of despoiling' in the countryside, tormented by the bloody struggles and feuds of peasant gangs and clans: by 'evil killers', 'ruffians', and by 'cutthroats, by thieves and by bandits'. [Viz[z]ani, I due ultimi libri delle historie della sua patria, (ch. 7, n. 2), pp. 81-2]

The douceur de vivre of the ancien regime was a myth enjoyed solely by a few privileged aristocrats, [...] or by the scerni del villaggio ('village idiots'), luckily graced with the sad privilege of insanity, the only one available to the wretched poor.'"

(Camporesi 1996, '8. Night-time'', pp. 99-102)