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Pseudo-Seneca

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Pseudo-Seneca bust recovered from the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum MANN 5616

ThePseudo-Senecais a Roman bronze bust of the late 1st century BC that was discovered in theVilla of the PapyriatHerculaneumin 1754, the finest example of about two dozen examples depicting the same face. It was originally believed to depictSeneca the Younger,the notableRomanphilosopher, because its emaciated features were supposed to reflect hisStoic philosophy.However, modern scholars agree it is likely a fictitious portrait, probably intended for eitherHesiodorAristophanes.It is thought that the original example was a lost Greek bronze ofc. 200 BC.The bust is conserved in theMuseo Archeologico Nazionale,Naples.

"Pseudo-Seneca"is also used for the uncertain authors of various antique and medieval texts such asDe remediis fortuitorum,which purport to be by the Roman author.[1]At least some of these seem to preserve and adapt genuine Senecan content, for example SaintMartin of Braga's (d. c. 580)Formula vitae honestae,orDe differentiis quatuor virtutumvitae honestae( "Rules for an Honest Life", or "On the Four Cardinal Virtues" ). Early Mss. preserve Martin's preface, where he makes it clear that this was his adaptation, but in later copies this was omitted, and the work became thought fully Seneca's work.[2]

History[edit]

The type of this bust was first given its identification as a "genuine" contemporary portrait of Seneca byTheodor Galle,called Gallaeus, in an Antwerp republication ofFulvio Orsini'sImagines et Elogia Virorum Illustrium et Eruditor ex Antiquis Lapidibus et Nomismatib[us]...[3]at a time when the exemplary image of the great man was more inspiring than the quality and character of the work of art that embodied it. By the 17th century, about a dozen examples of the intense and haggard "Pseudo-Seneca" had been discovered, and as many more have been discovered since.[4]

Roman bronze bust, the so-calledPseudo-Seneca,now generally identified as an imaginative portrait of eitherHesiodorAristophanes(Museo Archeologico Nazionale,Naples)

Following the example ofCicero,who had decorated his study with busts, or of theimagines illustriumthat peopled the villa atSorrentoof Pollius Felix, described byStatius,[5]gentlemen and scholars of the 16th and 17th centuries[6]were avid to have examples of the great writers ofClassical Antiquityconstantly before their eyes: "the learned all over Europe looked with awe and devotion at theStoicphilosopher, emaciated, even uncouth, disdainful of the luxury and corruption ofNero's court, and soon to commit suicide ".[7]An early 17th-century version of the head now among theArundel marblesat theAshmolean Museumwas probably owned by the court painterPeter Paul Rubens.[8]

Of the Herculanean version of thePseudo-Seneca,as it is still widely known, the outstanding quality was quickly recognized byWinckelmann,though he already began to doubt that the bust was that of Seneca as early as 1764.[9]An engraving of it was published in the magnificently-produced series of folios that appeared under the royal patronage ofFerdinand I of the Two Sicilies,Le Antichità di Ercolano(vol. V, 1767).

In 1813 a Roman image of Seneca was found on an inscribed marble herm portrait, which showed a man with quite different features.[10]Since then, the bust has been conjectured to represent many other people, includingAesop,Archilochus,Aristophanes,Callimachus,Carneades,Epicharmus,Eratosthenes,Euripides,Hesiod,Hipponax,Lucretius,Philemon,andPhilitas of Cos.[11]Gisela Richtersuggested that Hesiod seemed to be the most acceptable,[12]a suggestion that other commentators have endorsed.[13]

Bust of Seneca, part of thedouble hermdiscovered in 1813 (Antikensammlung Berlin)

Erika Simon believed that it represented Hesiod and that the lost original was created in the circle ofKrates of Mallosand the frieze-sculptors of thePergamon Altar.[14]The online presentation of theMuseo Archeologico Nazionale,Naples[15]describes the state of discussion in the following way:

Nowadays the prevailing interpretation is that the head is a portrait of a dramatist due to the presence, on a copy now at theMuseo delle Termeat Rome, of an ivy wreath, the prize for theatrical contexts: some scholars specifically identify him as Aristophanes, because the type in question is associated, in a double herm ofVilla Albani,with the portrait ofMenander;according to other experts, it could be a portrait of Aesop, Hesiod, Callimachus or Apollonius of Rhodes. We can therefore be quite certain that the person depicted must have been extremely famous, as is proven by the large number of copies to survive, which number a total of forty. From the qualitative point of view, the head displays excellent workmanship; rather than a copy, it might well even be the original from which all the others are reproduced, and should be regarded as a portrait of reconstruction in which the accentuated wrinkles and folds of the face and forehead of the man, the intentionally unruly locks and the wrinkly neck contrast openly with the unwavering, penetrating gaze. The original should be ascribed to the trend of realistic virtuosity, dateable to between the third and second century BC.

References[edit]

  1. ^"A large corpus of apocrypha - viz. falsifications, false attributions and extracts - compiled during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages has been connected to Seneca..."
  2. ^The Cardinal Virtues in the Middle Ages: A Study in Moral Thought from the Fourth to the Fourteenth Century,pp. 55-57, Brill, 2011
  3. ^Printed in Rome, 1570. Gallaeus' title wasIllustrium Imagines ex Antiquis Marmoribus Nomismatib[us] et Gemmis Expressae...(Antwerp 1598). Noted by Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny,Taste and the Antique: the Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900(1981), p 52 and note 67.
  4. ^Haskell and Penny,Taste and the Antique: the Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900(1981), p 52.
  5. ^Silvae2.2, discussed by Claudia J. Hough, "The Surrentine Villa of Pollius Felix" (on-line text).
  6. ^Fulvio Orsini'sImagines et elogia virorum illustrium(Rome, 1569),Paolo Giovio's "Giovio Series",Jean-Jacques Boissard'sIcones Virorum Illustrium(1597) andAntonio Francesco Gori'sImagines virorum illustrium et deorum(1731-32) are familiar exemplars of the perennial cultural theme.
  7. ^Haskell and Penny 1981:52.
  8. ^M. Vickers, "Rubens' 'Seneca'?"The Burlington Magazoine119(1977).
  9. ^Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums,1764 inWinckelmann's Werke,Bk. 10, chap 3, 201f, §4.
  10. ^Now in theStaatliche Museen,Berlin.
  11. ^Delphine Fitz Darby (1957). "Ribera and the blind men".The Art Bulletin.39(3). College Art Association: 195–217.doi:10.2307/3047713.JSTOR3047713.
  12. ^Gisela Richter(1965).The Portraits of the Greeks.London: Phaidon. pp. I, 58ff.
  13. ^Commentators agreeing with Richter:
    • Prinz, Wolfram 1973. "The Four Philosophers by Rubens and the Pseudo-Seneca in Seventeenth-Century Painting"The Art Bulletin55.3 (September 1973), pp. 410-428. "...one feels that it may just as well have been the Greek writer Hesiod..."
    • Robertson, Martin Review of G, Richter,The Portraits of the GreeksThe Burlington Magazine108.756 (March 1966), pp 148-150. "...with Miss Richter, I accept the identification as Hesiod"
  14. ^Erika Simon (1975).Pergamon und Hesiod.Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern.
  15. ^Museo Archeologico Nazionale: Portrait head of so-called SenecaArchived2012-03-12 at theWayback Machine


External links[edit]

Media related toPseudo-Senecaat Wikimedia Commons

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