Renaissance Studies Vol. 3 No. 2

Poetry in ruins: the literary context of d u Bellay’i cycles on Rome

RICHARD COOPER

Critical study of du Bellay’s Roman cycles in general, and of the Anti- quztez in particular, has tended to take for granted two preliminary assumptions: the one that du Bellay is a great innovator, an isolated phenomenon in France, the first in France to write poetry about anti- quities in French or Latin; ’ and the second that his poems are not visual, are not really about ruins per se, but about transience, mortality, form and matter, transferred neurasthenia, and so on.’ By replacing these poems in the context of a French Renaissance rhetoric about antiquities, this article will discuss whether some qualification of the above views is needed.

Received wisdom attributes to the Italians the rediscovery of eloquent poetic meditation on ruins, and suggests that on his arrival in Rome du Bellay was inspired by reading his Petrarch, Sannazaro, Janus Vitalis, Castiglione, even his Buchanan, to go and do likewise. The enigmatic manuscript, BN.ms.fr.2870, might thus appear to be an anthology of the poetic reading of Jean du Bellay’s household in the early 1550s, a com- monplace-book, containing as it does possible neo-Latin sources and models of the Antiquitez and the Poemata.

Such an ex nihilo view tends to overlook an abundance of French humanist writing on classical antiquities, including, in the 1540s and 1550s, a lively French output of poetry on the subject. There is no need to go as far back as Hildebert de Lavardin’s twelfth-century poetic medita- tions on the ruins of Rome. The intellectual and literary climate in which du Bellay was formed in France had a strong antiquarian slant: Cham- pier, Sala, du Choul and Bellitvre in Lyon; Bude‘, Grolier and Lazare de BaTf in Paris; Jean Bouchet in Poitiers. French travellers were recording the antiquities of Italy, Greece and the Near East; sylloges of inscriptions were being compiled; Wunderkammern established; statues collected:

’ For instance: H. Chamard, Joachim du Bellay, 1522-1560 (Lille, 1900). 298; J. Vianey, Les Regrets de Joachim du Belhy (Paris, 1930). 72. T h i s view has been questioned by R. Mortier, La podtique des ruines en France (Geneva, 1974). 21, 61-2.

’ Chamard, Joachim du Belluy, 290; V. L. Saulnier, Les ‘Antiquitez de Rome’ de Joachim du Bellay (Pans, 1961). 45-8, 56-8; M. A. Screech (ed.), Les Regrets et autres oeuvres poetiques (Geneva, 1966), 32; R. Griffin, Coronation of the poet (Berkeley, Calif. and Los Angeles, 1969). 120; Mortier. op. at., 63. By contrast G. Saba, La poeszia diJoachim du Belluy (Messina-Florence, 1962), 126-7 stresses the influence on the poet of direct vision of the ruins.

0 1989 The Society for Renaissance Studies, Oxford University Press

The literary context of du Bellay’s cycles on Rome 157

and archaeological remains and discoveries on French soil were fanning the flames of both French nationalism and local civic pride.’

This cult of antiquity spilled over into poetry. In 1539 Corrozet published a Blason du Cabinet which contains medals and other ‘curieuses antiquailles / De marbre, de Iaphe & Porphire’.‘ The Dilie contains numerous insufficiently excavated references to the antiquity of the city, and its poet was involved in planning the 1548 Entry with its an- tiquarian dCcor. Du Bellay admired the Dilie and met Sceve in Lyon en route for Rome. Charles Fontaine, transplanted to Lyon, celebrates in 1557 the abiding antiquity of the city, the resistance of its ruins to time:

Les arcs antiques bien liez De fort ciment qui mille am dure, Ne creignent les vents desliez, La pluye, ny la gresle dure. En erain et marbre on peut voir Belles Romaines escritures, Et des morts merveillew manoir, Les fortes clauses

La Tour d’Albenas, better known for his celebration of Rabelais’ nose, published in 1556 an epigram praising the antiquities of Nfmes, noting the parallels with Rome: seven hills, a temple of Diana, an amphitheatre, a Basilica, arches, obelisks.’

In 1550 we find similar praise from Richard Roussat of the antiquity of Langres,’ whilst Francois Perrin reflected on the ruins of Autun, now overrun by Nature but being brought to light by the plough:

Quand je voy de la charrue Le soc fich6 bien avant Au champ oti le bouvier sue Qui souloit estre une rue Bien peuplee au par avant: Quand je voy P la dorique Cent pilliers en terre epars, Autant P la ionique Et plein un vase antique De monnoye des Cesars . . .9

’ See R. A. Cooper, ‘Humanistes et antiquaires Possenti and G. Mastrangeli (Rome, 1988). 159-74. ‘ G. Corrozet. Les blacons domestzques (Paris, G . Corrozet, 1539), 16’. fols 3OV-S1‘.

Lyon’, in I1 Rinascimento a Lione, ed. A.

Oeuvres, ed. Chamard,, 11, 288. C. Fontaine, Ode de I’Antiquitk et excellence de lo ville de Lyon (Lyon, 1557; repr. by W.

’ B. de la Tour dAlbenas, Choreide, autrement, louunge du Bal (Lyon, J. de Tournes, 1556).

’ R. Roussat. Livre de Ikstat et mutation des temps (Lyon, G. Roville, 1550), 8O, 120-3.

Poidebard, Soci6tC de Bibliophiles Lyonnais, Lyon, 1889).

36.

A. de Charm-, ‘Francois Pemn, poete autunois du seizisme siecle et sa vie par Guillaume Colletet’, in Mimoires de la Soci6te‘ Wuenne, 15 (1887).

158 Richard Cooper

More closely connected to du Bellay is the 1549 excursion of the brigude to Arcueil, where the Roman aqueduct leading to the baths of the rue Saint-Jacques passed over the Bihre." Dorat's ode on the visit confines itself to reflecting on the origin of the name of Arcueil, taking it either from the ruined arches, or from Hercules whose double pillars were recalled by the two main arches over the river," a theme taken up by Ronsard in his Bucchandes. Unlike the popular tradition which associated the arches with the Saracens, Dorat recognizes the masonry as Roman, but fails (as does Ronsard) to identify it as an aqueduct, although the fact that Dorat correctly attributes the work to Julian the Apostate makes us suspect he knew what it was. Only Baif amongst the brigade openly makes the link between the ruins at Arcueil and the underground conduits discovered in 1544 by the Porte Saint-Jacques:

Moi qui de l'eau fresche conduite Par une rigole construite De ciment, oeuvre des Romains Souloit abreuver vostre ville. ''

If du Bellay went to Rome at a period of growing French interest in anti- quities, and into the household of a fanatical collector, who at his death possessed a large area of the Baths of Diocletian containing over 230 statues, apart from his collection at Saint-Maur, how much is this anti- quarian flavour carried over into his Roman poetry?

It is commonly held that the visit to Rome added no new visual topographical dimension: that the poems are no more archaeologically specific than his odes written in France in 1549 on the fall of empires. One of these odes observes:

Par course subite: Theatres, Colosses En ruin= grosses Le tens precipite. Que sont devenuz Les murs tant congnuz De Troye superbe? Ilion est comme Maint palais de Romme CachC dessoubz l'herbe.

A. k g u i n e , Arcueil et les poztes du X U e sizcle (Pans [1950]).

Ronsard, Oeuvres compl&es, ed. Laumonier, III, 209, 11. 463-74. ' I J. Dorat, Les odes lafines, ed. 0. Dememn (Clermont-Ferrand. 1979), 49-53.

" J . A. de Baif, Oeuvres en rime, ed. Marty-Laveaux (Paris, 1881-90). 11, 438-41. " J. du Bellay, Oeuvres poifiquesfrangab, ed. H . Chamard (repr. Paris, 1961). III, 18.

The literary context of du Bellay’s cycles on Rome 159

And in a second ode he speaks of

Les grandes citez & superbes maisons Mises par terre, & les ruines grosses Des vieux Palaiz, Theatres & Colos~es.’~

These are indeed archetypal ruins, used as props, as d6cor painted on a backcloth for the enactment of an Ubi sunt morality; Christine de Pisan did much the same for the ruins of Troy; Jean Marot wrote as much for the Voyuge de Venise. Such symbolic ruins appear throughout the Anti- quitez in the obsessive form of braves pahis, vieux arcz, braves murs, pointes, pouldreux tumbeaux, or even vieilles ruines. A line such as ‘Ces murs, ces arcs, ces thermes & ces temples’ or the great list in Regrets 181 is scenography in the taste of the Songe de Poliphile, not topography after the manner of Marliani and Luca Fauno.

But it is not true to say that seeing the ruins made no difference. In the Deffence he had already alluded to Rome’s Capitole, to the thermes and to her magnqiques pahiz;’6 once in Rome his archaeological excursions with Louis de Bailleul” gained him detailed knowledge of the city, much more of which comes through in his Roman poetry than is commonly acknowledged.

The Antiqui’tez contain no certain reference to a particular Roman monument, although the evocation of Diana of Ephesus in Antiquitez 6 may owe something to the celebrated statue in the Palazzo Farnese;’* I also take the otherwise unexplained reference in sonnet 10 to ‘du Soleil l’une & l’autre maison”’ to allude to the two temples of the Sun in Rome, whose imposing ruins were visible in du Bellay’s time, one in the Forum, in the garden of S. Maria Nova, and the other in the garden of Palazzo Colonna, where Jean du Bellay lived in 1547-9.20 The Regrets have a few more details. Sonnet 107 chooses certain landmarks in the view over the city: the Capitol in the centre; to the east the Baths of Diocletian; to the south those of Caracalla which he calls by their correct name, Thermae Antoninianae; also to the south the Porta Ostiensis to which he gives its modem name Podu Sun Paolo; and away to the extreme north the Pons Miluius which he semi-Italicizes as Ponte-mole.” Sonnet 108 speaks of Pasquillus and 109 of the Cloaca maxima.22

I ’ Ibid. 111. 48. l 6 J. du Bellay, La Deffence et illustration de la langue francoyse, ed. H. Chamard (Paris, 1966).

183-4. J. du Bellay, Oeuvres poitiques, ed. G. Demerson (Paris, 1984). VII, 97-9. I 7

‘I Antiquitez 6, 1-4; U . Aldroandi, ‘Delle statue antiche che per tutta Roma, in diversi luoghi et case si veggono’, in L. Mauro. Le antichitir de la cilth di Roma (Venice, G. Ziletti, 1562). 8O, 149.

’’ Antiauitez 10. 8. S. B.* Platna’and T. Ashby, A Topographical Dictionaly of Ancient Rome (Oxford, 1929),

491-3. ” Regrets 107, 1-4. *’ Regrets 108, 1-8 and 109, 1-4.

160 Richard Cooper

However, the Songe contains precise references to classical antiquities and to the topography of Rome not identified in critical editions. Sonnet I1 describes the destruction by earthquake of a vast Doric temple on a hill, no doubt that of Jupiter on the Capitol, under whose foundations were found the caput of Antiquitez 8.23 Sonnet IV recounts the collapse of a triumphal arch, with winged Victories on the front and surmounted by a quadriga: the poet appears to have drawn on the well-known sestertius of Trajan to imagine the appearance of a triumphal arch before its destruction. 24 Sonnet VIII turns the seven-headed Belvedere statue of the Nile into an all-devouring monster.2J Sonnet I11 is a similar fantasy based on the toppling by lightning of the Vatican obelisk, the ugugliu di Sun Pietro, in fact the only obelisk still standing in Rome at the time;26 the gilt ball on top was popularly believed, as du Bellay observes, to con- tain the ashes of Julius Caesar.” Sonnet IX describes a recumbent statue of the Tiber, in this case the one in the Belvedere, leaning on a she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus mentioned both in this sonnet and sonnet V1.” Sonnet XV portrays an allegorical statue of Rome wearing a helmet, holding a trophy, with captive kings at her feet:29 this might seem a composite or a fantasy vision, but for the famous large statue in Car- dinal Cesi’s palace of Roma victrix with two captive kings and with trophies on the base.30 It is clear that this collection of dream visions is more firmly rooted in reality and antiquity than has been thought.

His Latin poetry has a stronger antique flavour still. Three poems, for instance, are set out in imitation of Roman inscriptions.” The Romae descriptio gives a highly detailed survey of the antiquities of the city which du Bellay says archaeology is bringing to light every day:

Multaque praeterea veteris miracula Romae, undique defosso nunc rediviva

The only specific references in the first part of the elegy are to the Mausoleum of Hadrian, the Aqua Virgo and the Pantheon, unless you follow Genevieve Demerson in taking aurutos domos to be Nero’s Golden House: it seems to me to mean rich palaces.33

Songe 11, 1-11 and Antiquitez 8, 13. ‘‘ Songe IV, 1-8. H. Mattingly, Coins ofthe Roman Empire in the Brilzih Mweum (London,

” Songe VIII, 1-8. ” Songe, 111, 1-11. ’’ R. Cledina, ’Rabelais et l’aiguille de Virgile i Rome’, in Rev SeixiSme Sdcle, 16 (1929). 122-32. ’* Songe VI, 1-4 and IX, 1-12. *’ Songe xv, 4-10. ’’ Aldroandi, 126. ” Du Bellay, Oeuvres cit., VII, 197 and VIII, 51, 55. ’’ Ibid. VII, 39, 11. 37-8. ’’ Ibid. VII, 39, 11. 29-36.

1936), III. 177 and pl. 31.

The literary context of du Belluy's cycles on Rome 161

But the climax of the elegy lists a host of sculptures in private collec- tions, not all identified by C h a m a ~ d . ~ ~ From the Belvedere collection we have the Laocoon,35 the Belvedere Apollo and the Venus of Cnidus,36 the Tiber with the wolf, Romulus and Remus," the Nile3' and the sleeping Ariadne, which du Bellay, like all his contemporaries, calls Cleopatra. 3 9

In Cesi's collection we see the helmeted statue of Rome crushing enemies40 and another of a satyr teaching a child to play the pipes, which the suspicious du Bellay interprets as an attempt at ~eduction.~' From the Capitol come the boy (Vivus in aere) plucking a spine from his the Capitoline Wolf,43 the bronze and an equestrian statue, pro- bably Marcus A ~ r e l i u s . ~ ~ On the Quirinal we see the horse-tamer~;~~ elsewhere statues of Mars and Venus,47 of a wounded Adonis4' and endless heads of emperor^.'^ The enthusiasm of the poet for these statues is manifest, and particularly for their lifelikeness which he declares makes marble and bronze breathe: Venus seems to weep, infants to play with the wolfs nipples, the cavaspina to concentrate on his task, the horses to rear, Adonis' wound to bleed.

If the ancient world comes to life in these sculptures, du Bellay tries to roll back history by imagining Rome filled with people: he pictures the theatres once overflowing, but now desolate and silent; he traces the route by which a triumphal procession preceded by lictors went through the Forum to the Capitol, passing the rostra and the Cunu Hostilia founded by Tullus; he imagines the forum swarming with crowds, and now empty. 5 0

Du Bellay's attitude to these ruins in the Antiquitez, the Songe and the Poemata is not consistent. Is the city alive or dead? In the Romue descn9- tio he asserts that although ruined the city walls still exude antiquus m i w , a phrase which echoes Janus Vitalis." In his elegy to d'Avanson he develops the idea of survival, observing how much of ancient Rome lives on: the Capitol, the temples, the columns, the palaces: 'Aspice . . .

~

" Chamard, Joachim du Belhy, 288-9. 'I

36 oeuvres, VII, 41, 11. 79-80; Aldroandi. 118-20. " Oeuvres. VII, 41. 1. 93; Aldroandi, 116; cf. Songe IX, 1-11. I' Oeuvres, VII, 41, 1. 94; Aldroandi, 115-16. " Oeuvres, VII, 41, 11. 95-6; Aldroandi, 117-18. " Oeuvres, VI1, 41, 11. 81-2; Aldroandi, 126; cf. Songe x v . " Oeuvres, VII, 41, 11. 101-2; Aldroandi, 129.

Oeuvres, VII, 41. 11. 85-6; Aldroandi, 274. " Oeuvres, VII, 41, 11. 83-4; Aldroandi. 275. " Oeuvres, VII, 41, 11. 87-8; Aldroandi, 273. " Oeuvres, VII, 41, 11. 89-90; Aldroandi, 268. ' 6 Oeuvres, VII, 41-3, 11. 99-100; Aldroandi, 310-11. " Oeuvres. VII, 41, 11. 97-8. " Oeuvres, VII, 43, 11. 103-4; in the collection of Francesco da Norcia in piazza Farnese,

" Oeuvres, VII, 41, 11. 91-2. '' fbid. VII. 43, 11. 109-22.

Oeuvres, VII, 41, 11. 77-8; Aldroandi. 119.

42

Aldroandi, 163-4.

Ibid. VII, 37. 11. 19-20.

162 Richard Cooper

quam nunc similis Roma sit ipsa sui.’ Rome lives on in the monuments, in the same way that the statues breathe life, and as a tree which has been severely pruned regrows. ’’

The enthusiasm seen here for Roma rediviva, reminiscent of Petrarch, is perpetuated elsewhere in his poems. In Regrets 181 he lists the sights of the city, describing them as

. . . tout cela que Rome a de nouveau, De rare, d’excellent, de superbe, & de beau.53

Certain sonnets of the Antiquitez echo this theme of survival of greatness despite the ruin. Sonnet 13 denies that war, fortune, time, the Tiber floods, or the gods themselves have laid Rome so low

Que la grandeur du rien, qu’ilz t’ont la id , Ne face encore esmerveiller le monde, 5 4

and sonnet 28 describes fallen Rome as the most honoured amongst all cities, including modern cities.” It is presented as the summit and storehouse of ancient civilization, 5 6 greater glory than which could never exist again. 5 7 The mission of the poet is to imagine the city as complete, to recreate it in verse for the king:

J’entreprendrois, veu l’ardeur qui m’allume, De rebastir au compas de la plume Ce que les mains ne peuvent ma~onner .~~

Thus the Songe pictures the magnificence of monuments before their fall, in the same way that Duperac will engrave both a particular ruin and its imaginary reconstruction.

This favourable, enthusiastic view has to be taken together with lines which express admiration (rather than the more commonly suggested scorn) for modern Rome. Antiquitez 27 shows how archaeological finds serve as models for modern architecture, whilst at the same time con- tributing to the reconstruction of the ancient city:

Rome fouillant son antique djour, Se rebatist de tant d’oeuvres diviness9

The R o m e descrz3tio describes the life of the modern city, the beauty of the women, the fertility of Italy, with no hint of criticism.60 Du Bellay mixes praise here for old and new, and describes the partially built St

Ibid. VII, 49, 11. 65-72. ” Regwts 181, 1-10. ” Antiquitez 13, 13-14. ” Antiquitez 28. 12-14. s6 Antiquitez 2, esp. 13-14 and 29, 1-12; Oeuvres cit., VII, 41, 11. 67-73. ” Antiquitez 6, 9-14; Oeuvres cit., VII , 49, 1. 78.

Antiquitez 25. 12-14. Antiquitez 27. 7-11.

6o Oeuvres, VII, 39-41, 11. 39-74.

The l i teray context of du Belluy’s cycles on Rome 163

Peter’s as the finest building in all Italy, no less, and commends Julius 111’s new villa Giulia.6’

Such admiration for ancient and modem Rome is rare among French writers of his generation; one might think of a parallel in Germain Audebert, who took his notes on Rome in the 1530s and 40s, but did not publish his poem until 1585.62 The idea that the greatness of a city lives on in its ruins is however commonplace among French writers speaking of French cities, Dorat writing of A u t ~ n , ~ ~ Chasseneux on Bo~rges,~‘ Bouchet on Poitiers,65 Sala, Champier and du Choul on Lyon,66 Bertrand on T o u l o ~ s e , ~ ~ Vigneulles on Metz,68 and others besides.

Much more typical of the standard French attitude is du Bellay’s ex- actly contrary view, within the same poem cycles, of Rome as dead and buried, a necropolis, a featureless waste haunted by spooks. This view is the one commonly associated with du Bellay, neglecting the laudatory poems: moral decadence led to ruin, the city’s ancient wealth has been pillaged, the seven hills have been piled upon the corpse of Rome, nature has taken over, nothing is left but a tomb, and so

But, in the many commentaries on this theme, what seems to be missed is that du Bellay’s is a fiercely nationalistic viewpoint, which goes right back to the quarrel between Petrarch and Jean de Hesdin, which the poet may have known first-hand or through Symphorien Champier’s rekind- ling of it half a century before.” Whilst we have seen du Bellay expressing some of the favourable views of Rome advanced by Petrarch, he also, within the same cycles, echoes Hesdin’s denunciation of the ancient city as a bone-yard and a sink of corruption. Champier had cited some curious rhyming Latin verses which formed part of Hesdin’s polemic with Petrarch and which anticipate du Bellay:

Rhome sceptra iacent, et celsa palatia ceno. Cesaris alta domus nunc fit casa vilis egeno. Rhoma mod0 nihil est, nihil est Rhome nisi signum. Cesar in urbe sua nil cernit Cesare d i g n ~ m . ~ ’

Oeuvres, VII, 37-9, 11. 23-8. 6z G. Audebert, Roma (Paris, J. du Puys, 1585). 4O. ” J . Dorat, Odes cit., 91. “ B. de Chasseneux, Catalogus gloriae mundi (Lyon, G. Regnault, 1546), fols 293”-96. 6 5 J. Bouchet. Annules d’ricquitaine (Poitiers, E. de Marnef and J. Bouchet, 1524), fol., fols ivy-

rii . “ P. Sala, Antiquitez de Lyon, BN.ms.fr.5447; S . Champier, ‘De antiquitate Ludguni’ in his De

qwdruplicivilae (Lyon, J. de Campis, 1507), 4O, fols Eii-Eiii. and his Galliae Celticae ac antiquitatu Lugdunemi czvitatir cam@ (Lyon, M. and G. Trechsel, 1537), fol.; G. du Choul, Des antiquitis romaies premier livre (Turin, Bib. Reale, ms.Var.212). ‘’ N. Bertrand, Les gestes des Tholosaim (Lyon, 0. Amoullet, 1517), 4O, fols bii’-biv. “ P. de Vigneulles, La Cronique, ed. Bruneau (Metz, 1927-93). I, 11-15 and IV, 435-6. ‘’ Regrets 181, 6-8; Antiqllitez 3, 1-8; 4, 7-14, 5, 9; 29, 13-14; Oeuvres, VII, 43, 11. 127-30. ” S. Champier, ‘Trophaeum Gallorum’, in Liber de quudruplicivila (Lyon, J. Deschamps, 1507),

” Ibid. fol. Fiv. 40.

1 64 Richard Coofier

To complete this indictment it was necessary to vilify modem Rome, which Hesdin and Champier did, and du Bellay after them at great length.’* As for the Roman claim to be rebuilding the ancient city, restor- ing the ancient glory, bringing back the Empire, du Bellay here dismisses this in terms similar to Champier’s, viewing the modem Romans as mere apes of their predecessors (from whom, according to Champier, they have inherited all the vices and none of the virtues73); they are not restoring Rome but pillaging it, dressing up in borrowed weeds, as du Bellay ironically observes in Regrets 107 and el~ewhere.~‘

This anti-Roman reaction is also seen in those who go so far as to ques- tion the pre-eminence of Rome in the Ancient World, which, as we have seen, du Bellay himself was still prepared to concede. The time-honoured formula of the tramlatio from Greece to Rome to Paris/Florence/ Venice/London (depending on who is paying the piper) is too simple. Some will argue that the Romans were surpassed by the Egyptians: Belon goes to Egypt in 1547 and observes: “’en deplaise aux ouvrages et anti- quitez Romaines, elles ne tiennent rien de la grandeur et orgueil des Pyramides.’ Indeed where the Romans excel they are merely apes of the Egyptians. transporting obelisks, copying sphinxes. 7’ Other travellers like Gilles make similar remarks. There is also an abundant literature, stem- ming from Annius of Viterbo and from his French literary agent Jean Lemaire, which exults in Gallo-Greek civilization and seeks to prove that most of the cities of Gaul, including Paris and Lyon, were founded hun- dreds of years before the upstart parvenu Rome.76 This fits in of course with an elaborate rhetoric about the Gallo-Celts as the repeated con- querors of Rome and Italy, and which would make the subject of another paper.77 Sufficient to cite here the entry of Henri I1 to Rouen in 1550, where the poet not only evokes the Celtic capture of the Capitol, but also rejects as objects worthy to immortalize the king’s deeds either the pyramids or especially the triumphal arches of the Romans, who were cruel where Henri brings peace.78

’* Apart from the satirical poems in the Regrets, see also the Deffence. ed. cit.. 184-5, 196. ” Ibid. fols Fvii”-Fviii. ” Regrets 107, 12-14; Antiquztez 7, 8 and 30, 11-14. ” P. Belon, Les o b s m t w m de plweurs singularitex trouvees en Grece et autres pay (Paris, B.

Prevost for G. Corrozet and G. Caveilat. 1553). 4”. fols 96. 113, 115”. ’ 6 See material from Annius inJ. Lemaire, Les illustrations de Gaule et singulantez de Troye. in

his Oeuvres, ed. J. Stecher (Louvain, 1882-91); S. Champier, Duellum eprjtolare [Lyons or Venice], J. Phiroben and J. Divineur for J. F. Giunta, 1519), 8’; G. Corrozet and C. Champier, Le cathalogue des uilles 8 citez &es es t roy Gaules (Paris, A. Bonnemerre, 1559) 8’. ” For instance: S. Champier, ‘Trophaeum’ cit., fois Av-vi; S. Champier, De monarchah Gallorum

campiaurei(Lyon, M. and G. Trechsel. 1537), fol., fols b, biii. ” L. de Merval (ed.), L’Entr6e de HenriIIRoide France b Rouen au moic d’octobre 1550 (Rouen,

1868), fols ii, vii-vii”.

The literay context of du Bellay's cycles on Rome 165

The notion of translatio, however oversimplified, does however provide a key to one aspect of du Bellay's thinl~ing.'~ When Charles VIII went to Rome his chronicler AndrC de La Vigne recorded his tour of the sights of the city, the aiguille de Virgille, the walls, the Caste1 Sant'Angelo. He writes admiringly of the Coliseum,

Qui est si grande et si bien devisee Qu'en six palais de Paris tant pour tant, Comme il me semble, de pierre n'a autant, Certainement et ainsi ie le croy; Ce neantmoins, ainsi qu'on dit pourtant, Elle appartient et est de droit au ray.*'

Charles VIII is seen as the new conqueror of Rome, worthy successor of the all-conquering Gallo-Celts; the military mantle of Rome has passed to France. But from this vision springs a further idea that, if Rome is ruined and dead, its glory can be recreated in France. This is the leitmotif of the Antiquitez, as the opening sonnet A u Roy unequivocally shows:

Que vous puissent les Diem un jour donner tant dheur, De rebastir en France une telle grandeur.

Indeed the same poem opens with the regret that the poet cannot pre- sent the king with these all these ouwages antiques for Saint-Germain and Fontainebleau. * ' Behind this lies the programme, often overlooked here, aimed at rebuilding Rome in France, and in Fontainebleau in particular. Francois Ier starting collecting ancient statues and copies in the 1520s: the gift in 1530 of an ancient statue of Venus sparked off a chorus of poems in French and Latin by a dozen poets including Marot, BSze, Germain de Brie, Guillaume du Bellay and Gilbert Ducher.82 Even before Primatic- cio's trawl of statues and moulds in the early 1540s, Germain de Brie was likening Fontainebleau to the new Rome, soon to be followed in a similar piece by Paolo Pietrasanta.83 Jean du Bellay himself wrote poems on the adding of imperial statues to the royal (whilst others were praising his own collection at Saint-Maur), and Chappuys in his Discours de la cour of 1544 argued that none of the wonders of the ancient world, including the Pantheon, can compare with Fontaineblea~.~~ The Latin

7 9 See G. Demerson, Du Bellay: le songe et le sem des po2mes romaim, to be published in the acts of the conference Le Songe h la Renaissance of the Association &Etudes sur 1'Humanisme. la Reforme et la Renaissance, Cannes, 29-31 May 1987.

'O A. La Vigne. Le vergier d'onneur (Pans, n.d.), fol. Fv.

I2 E. Picot, 'Sur une statue de Venus envoy& par Renzo da Ceri au roi Francoh I='', in Rev Archeol. 3rd series, 41 (1902). 223-31; C. Marot, Les E@'&arnmes, ed. C . Mayer (London. 1970), 117-18.

I3 G. de Brie, Fontis Aquue bellae, que vulgw Fontainebleau dicitur, prosopope&, BN. ms.fr.22558, fol. 63; P. Pietrasanta, Di Fontanbleo a Francesco Re di Franc&, BN.fonds ital.1043.

14 J. du Bellay, Poemata, in S. Macrin, Odarum libn' tres (Paris, R. Estienne. 1546), 8O, 108. I' C. Chappuys, Discours de la court (Paris, A. Roffet, 1543), 8O, fols Ciii-iii".

Antiquitex, 'Au Roy', 1-2, 9-11; cf. Regrets 138 in praise of Pans.

166 Richard Co oper

poems of Michel de L’Hospital are unaccountably neglected: he tries repeatedly (whilst Joachim is there) to lure Jean du Bellay back from Rome, and cannot understand why the cardinal remains in the deserta moenia of Rome, neglecting Paris and his collection of statues at Saint- Maur, where his estate is overgrown with butcher’s-broom, bur and thistles (rather like Rome). What, he asks, is so novel about Rome? Paris surpasses it in every way, as the Seine surpasses the Tiber. Surely the car- dinal had gone to Rome to excavate and to bring the finds back home to France; but de L’Hospital cannot understand why this mercurial prelate, an admirer of Rome, is now building himself a villa near Ostia, and is showing every sign of taking root there.86

Our own du Bellay not only praises Saint-Germain and Fontainebleau but, in a Latin poem to Charles de Lorraine, enthuses about the grotto at Meudon filled with antiquities.” In a poem to Diane de Poitiers he praises the building of Anet, in which the same qualities of mimesis and of renewal of the ancient are evident: ‘Rapportant de l’antiq’ le plus par- fait exemple’.’’ If Marguerite de France is a miracle effacing all the wonders of ant iq~i ty , ’~ so too the work of Lescot on the Louvre brings an- cient architecture back to life,

renouvelant dun hardy frontispice La superbe grandeur des plus vieux monuments,

and even du Bellay’s poems themselves are likened to ‘Un palais magnifi- que 3 quatre appartemens’ composed of four orders of architecture representing the four literatures which underly his poetry. 90

So we have two rhetorical theses presented by du Bellay. One is the Petrarchan view, shared by Jean du Bellay, of Rome seen as alive, still great in its ruins, and being currently rebuilt in her former splendour: the statues continue to breathe the life of the ancient world: the poet im- agines what buildings were like before their fall, and presents the king with a pen portrait. In the contrary Hesdin view also expressed by du Bellay, Rome is seen as dead, irreparably decayed, and the poet portrays what Francoise Joukovsky calls ‘une absence de ruined, 9 1 a desolate plain; but the combined efforts of importing ancient sculptures and of building royal palaces after classical models lead to the conclusion that Rome may well be dead, but she is alive and well and living in France.

Brasenose College, Oxford

O 6 M. de L‘Hospital. Oeuvres compl2tes (Paris, 1825), III , 7-11, 60-1, 135-8, 272-4. a’ J. du Bellay, Oeuvres cit., VIII , 41, 11. 51-8.

O 9 Ibid. 181. *’ Ibid. 157. 1-4, 7-14.

Regrets 159, 1-4, 9-11.

9 ’ F. Joukovsky, La gloire &m la pobie franqaise et n6olatine du X V I e sdcle (Geneva, 1969), 112-13.