DISTAT ENIM QVAE/SYDERA ...

273 has he who is DISTAT ENIM QVAE wisdom, brave, lucky nobility and fine breeding; he can even SYDERA TE EXCIPIANT sew onto his black shoe the senator's crescent moon.6 The lucky man is also a he lintel of one of the two doors in the orator-and javelin-thrower-first-class Sala dei Venti (or Sala dello Zodiaco) of and sings well even when he's caught a the Palazzo del Te in Mantua' bears the incold. For it makes all the difference just scription: DISTAT ENIM QVAE/SYDERA what stars are there to take charge of you TE EXCIPIANT (P1. 63a). This inscrip(distat enim quae/sidera te excipiant) the tion is clearly related to the astrological moment you utter your first cries, still red scheme of decoration painted on the vaulted from your mother's womb. If Fortune so ceiling and in the roundels on the walls pleases, you will rise from being rhetorician (P1. 63b). In his detailed exposition of their to consul; if again she pleases, you will be subjects, E. H. Gombrich demonstrated that turned from consul into rhetorician. What these frescoes were inspired by the fifth book do Ventidius' and Tullius8 prove? Nothing as well as by the of Manilius's Astronomica other than the influence of their stars and Libri VIII of Firmicus Maternus.2 Matheseos the wondrous powers of a hidden destiny. Gombrich also pointed to the fresco cycle's The Fates will grant kingdoms to slaves, 'general didactic character, reminding the and to captives a triumph. beholder of the manifold influences to which man is subject, the many stars that may yet An awareness of the original context of the 'lay hold of him' as the inscription says .. .'3 inscription clearly helps illuminate the The source of this inscription, however, he 'mystery'9 of Giulio Romano's astrological was unable to specify.4 cycle; and we can easily understand why the The Latin verses which form, as it were, programme's inventor found Juvenal's verses the titulusto the whole decorative scheme of an appropriate titulus. They certainly fit well the Sala dei Venti, as presumably intended with the scheme as set forth by Gombrich. by the inventor,5are in fact taken from And perhaps the inscription has a further, Juvenal (Satires,vii, 11. 194-5). The context more playful application-the word te (you) of the satire from which they derive (11.190- suggesting a pun on the name of the palace 201) is appropriately a passage on how the (Te), whose fortunes, like that of man, fortune of man is apparently subject to the depend on the good influence of its lucky star. sign under which he is born. RODOLFO SIGNORINI . . The lucky man is both handsome and Mantua
1For the most recent bibliography on the Palazzo del Te see E. Verheyen, The Palazzo del Te in Mantua. Images of Love and Politics, Baltimore/London I977, pp. 146-52. 2 E. H. Gombrich, 'The Sala dei Venti in the Palazzo
6 A kind of C which patricians used to wear on their shoes; and which, according to Isidore of Seville, was related to the oo senators elected by Romulus: 'Luna autem in eis non sideris formam, sed notam centenarii numeri significabat, quod initio patricii senatores cendel Te', this Journal, XIII, 1950, pp. 189-201; reprinted in his Symbolic Images. Studiesin theArt of theRenaissance, tum fuerint' (Orig., xix, 34). Martial too (Epigr., ii, 29) mentions such a badge in connection with a slave London 1972, pp. I09-i8. whom fortune later dressed in purple and made fra3 E. H. Gombrich, loc. cit. n. 2 above, p. 195. The astrological interpretation of the decorations was grant with perfumes: 'Non hesterna sedet lunata lingula planta /Coccina non laesum pingit aluta pedem, /Et suggested, though not clearly defined, by R. Toscano, numerosa linunt stellantem splenia frontem. /Ignoras Edificationedi Mantova, Mantua 1587, p. 26: 'Nel Palazzo di fuor, che'l Te s'appella /Vi son dipinte le quid sit? Splenia tolle, leges.' Probably Juvenal means nozze d'Amore /Et i segni celesti, e quale stella /A noi that he who is lucky can rise even to the rank of senator trs. J. Dusaulx, Paris 1826, p. 38). (cf. Satiresde Juve'nal, malignasia, qualeinfavore': (my italics.) [In the Palace outside the town, which is called 'Te', are painted the 7 Ventidius Bassus, sometime prisoner and mulewedding of Amor and the heavenly signs; and which dealer, became a tribune of the people, then praetor, he celePontifex Maximus and later consul (43 star is luckyand which is unlucky for us.] Aulus Gellius, brated a triumph over the Parthians. B.c).); 4 E. H. Gombrich, loc. cit. n. 2 above, p. 189, n. 2. Noc. Att. xv, 4, mentions such rare good fortune, calling Neither has Verheyen (op. cit. n. I above, p. 27), who quotes and translates the inscription, found its source. it portentum. 8 Servius Tullius, the sixth King of Rome, was said 5 Gombrich suggests this was the humanist and to be the son of a female slave (Livy, Ab U.C., i, 39)astrologer Luca Gaurico (loc. cit. n. 2 above, 9 Gombrich's own term (loc. cit. n. 2 above, p. 196). pp. 199-201).

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/ COSMAS AND DAMIAN

63

a-Detail

of P1. 63b (p. 273)

b-Sala dei Venti (or Sala dello Zodiaco). Mantua, Palazzo del Te (p. 273)

c-(?)

Study for the Tomb of the Magnifici. Paris, Louvre (p. 276)