|
Natale Conti or Latin Natalis Comes, also Natalis de Comitibus and French Noël le Comte (1520–1582) was an Italian mythographer, poet, humanist and historian. His major work ''Mythologiae'',〔In full ''Mythologiae sive explicationis fabularum libri decem, in quibus omnia prope Naturalis & Moralis Philosophiae dogmata contenta fuisse demonstatur''〕 ten books written in Latin, was first published in Venice in 1567〔A supposed 1551 edition is a phantom, as Barbara Carman Garner has demonstrated (see Garner, "Francis Bacon, Natalis Comes and the Mythological Tradition", ''Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes'' 33 (1970), pp. 264-291. A publication date of 1551 is still cited frequently, though erroneously, in scholarship of the late-20th and early-21st centuries.〕 and became a standard source for classical mythology in later Renaissance Europe. It was reprinted in numerous editions;〔H. David Brumble, "Let Us Make Gods in Our Image: Greek Myth in Medieval and Renaissance Literature," in ''The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology'' p. 420 (online. )〕 after 1583, these were appended with a treatise on the Muses by Geoffroi Linocier. By the end of the 17th century, his name was virtually synonymous with mythology: a French dictionary in defining the term ''mythologie'' noted that it was the subject written about by Natalis Comes.〔Jean Seznec, ''The survival of the pagan gods: the mythological tradition and its place in Renaissance humanism and art'', translated by Barbara F. Sessions (Princeton University Press, 1935, 1995), p. 308, note 69.〕 Conti believed that the ancient poets had meant for their presentations of myths to be read as allegory, and accordingly constructed intricate genealogical associations within which he found layers of meaning.〔Arthur B. Ferguson, ''Utter Antiquity: Perceptions of Prehistory in Renaissance England'' (Duke University Press, 1993), p. 37 (online. )〕 Since Conti was convinced that the lost philosophy of Classical Antiquity could be recovered through understanding these allegories, "The most apocryphical and outlandish versions of classical and pseudo-classical tales," notes Ernst Gombrich,〔Ernst Gombrich, "The Subject of Poussin's Orion," in ''Symbolic Images: Studies in the art of the Renaissance II'' (1972), p.120 ()〕 "are here displayed and commented upon as the ultimate esoteric wisdom." Taking a Euhemeristic approach, Conti thought that the characters in myth were idealized human beings, and that the stories contained philosophical insights syncretized through the ages and veiled so that only "initiates" would grasp their true meaning. His interpretations were often shared by other Renaissance writers, notably by Francis Bacon in his long-overlooked ''De Sapientia Veterum'', 1609.〔Charles W. Lemmi, ''The Classic Deities in Bacon: a study in mythological symbolism'', 1933: Bacon "accepted Natale Conti as the leading light on the subject", p. 45; F.H. Anderson, ''The Philosophy of Francis Bacon'', 1948, p. 57; Paolo Rossi (Sacha Rabinovitch, tr.) ''Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science'' (1957) 1968.〕 In some cases, his interpretation might seem commonplace even in modern mythology: for Conti, the centaur represents "man's dual nature," both animal passions and higher intellectual faculties.〔Jonathan Bate, ''Shakespeare and Ovid'' (Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 195, note 34 (online. )〕 Odysseus, for instance, becomes an Everyman whose wanderings represent a universal life cycle: Despite or because of its eccentricities, the ''Mythologiae'' inspired the use of myth in various art forms. A second edition, printed in 1568 and dedicated to Charles IX, was popular in France, where it served as a source for the ''Ballet comique de la Reine'' (1581), part of wedding festivities at court. The ''Ballet'' was a musical drama with dancing set in an elaborate recreation of the island of Circe. The surviving text associated with the performance presents four allegorical expositions, based explicitly on Comes' work: physical or natural, moral, temporal, and logical or interpretive.〔Frances A. Yates, ''The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century'' (Taylor & Francis, 1948, 1988), pp. 237–240 (online. )〕 The allegorization of myth was criticized during the Romantic era; Benedetto Croce said that medieval and Renaissance literature and art presented only the "impoverished shell of myth." The 16th-century mythological manuals of Conti and others came to be regarded as pedantic and lacking aesthetic or intellectual coherence.〔Stephen Campbell, ''The Cabinet of Eros: Renaissance Mythological Painting and the ''Studiolo'' of Isabella d'Este'' (Yale University Press, 2004), p. 7 (online. )〕 Nor were criticisms of Conti confined to later times: Joseph Scaliger, twenty years his junior, called him "an utterly useless man" and advised Setho Calvisio not to use him as a source.〔Jean Seznec, ''The survival of the pagan gods'', p. 232 (online. )〕 Conti, whose family (according to his own statement) originated in Rome, was born in Milan.〔''Mythologiae'' III 17 (see (p. 205 )).〕 He described himself as "Venetian"〔For example, on the title page of his translation of Athenaeus' ''Deipnosophists'': "''Athenaei Dipnosophistarum sive coenae sapientium libri XV, Natale de Comitibus Veneto nunc primum e Graeca in Latinam linguam vertente''" (Venice, 1556).〕 because his working life was spent in Venice. ==Notes== 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Natalis Comes」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|