The Amorous Heart Page 20

  In his prayers he begged Jesus to take him: Anselm of Canterbury, The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm, trans. Benedicta Ward (London: Penguin, 1973), 224.

  He stretched out his hand toward her and said: This and the following quotations are from Gertrude d’Helfta, Œuvres Spirituelles, Tome II, Le Héraut (Livres I et II), ed. Pierre Doyère (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1968), 228, 230, 248, 250, 138, 140, and 288 (my translations).

  In Gertrude’s other prayers, meditations, litanies, and hymns: The following quotations are from Gertrude the Great of Helfta: Spiritual Exercises, trans. Gertrude Jaron Lewis and Jack Lewis (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1989), 33, 35, 38, 40, 48, 68, 74, 77, 81, and 91.

  She was comfortable mentioning Venus several times: Madeleine Grace, CVI, “Images of the Heart as Seen in the Writings of Beatrice of Nazareth and Gertrude the Great,” in Cistercian Studies Quarterly 37, no. 3 (2002): 269.

  After a mystical experience when she was about twenty-one: Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1987), 246. See also Martin Kemp, Christ to Coke: How Image Becomes Icon (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 101–102.

  Once in a vision, when she asked Jesus why: Catherine of Siena, The Letters of St. Catherine of Siena, vol. I, trans. Suzanne Noffke (Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Tets and Studies, 1988), 254.

  Fouquet’s miniature shows Jesus’s heart: “Les Heures d’Etienne Chevalier,” Louvre, département des arts graphiques, R.F. 1679.

  Another striking Sacred Heart from a Book of Hours: Morgan Library, MS M.7, f. 24r.

  Chapter Seven: Caritas, or the Italianized Heart

  “Then beauty appears in a virtuous woman”: Robert Pogue Harrison, The Body of Beatrice (Baltimore, MD, and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 50.

  “She is the best that nature can produce”: Ibid., 39.

  The sonnet ends with lines that follow the route of love: Ibid., 43.

  As the Italianist Robert Harrison eloquently puts it: Ibid., 44.

  What follows next is shocking: “In one hand”: Milad Doueihi, A Perverse History of the Human Heart (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1997), 57.

  Siena, too, boasts a Caritas fresco: For photos of these Caritas figures see Doris Bietenholz, How Come This Means Love? (Saskatoon, Canada, 1995), and Vinken, The Shape of the Heart, 34–41.

  In Madonna with Caritas, painted by the Master of the Stephaneschi: Vinken, The Shape of the Heart, figure 25, p. 35.

  Somehow, with all that traveling and a wife who bore him: Antoine Thomas, Francesco da Barberino et la Littérature Provençale en Italie au Moyen Age (Paris: Ernest Thorin, Editeur, 1883), 9–20.

  Red hearts painted in one manuscript, black and white hearts: Vatican Library manuscripts Barb., nos. 4076 and 4077.

  And if we still have any doubts about the items: Francesco da Barberino, I Documenti d’Amore (Milan: Archè, 2006), 411.

  The great art historian, Erwin Panofsky, called attention: E. Panofsky, “Blind Cupid,” in Studies in Iconology, 1962, 95–128; Vinken, The Shape of the Heart, 44–45; and Jean Canteins, Francesco da Barberino: L’homme et l’oeuvre au regard du soi-disant “Fidèle d’Amour” (Milan: Archè, 2007), 217–301.

  Panofsky likened the bandolier across Cupid’s body: Panofsky, “Blind Cupid” (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 115.

  In the lower portion of the miniature a kneeling woman: J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (Bath: Cedric Chivers Ltd. [1911], 1972), plate xxxix.

  Chapter Eight: Birth of an Icon

  One of its illustrations has the distinction: The Romance of Alexander, Bruges, 1344. Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms. 264.

  The heart icon became visible not only on the pages: James Robinson, Masterpieces: Medieval Art (London: British Museum Press, 2008), 223–224.

  Artisans in Parisian workshops carved ivory heart offerings: Koechlin, Ivoires gothiques, vol. I (Paris, 1924), 440–441.

  The two figures stand surrounded by hummocks: Richard H. Randall, Jr., The Golden Age of Ivory: Carvings in North American Collections (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1993), no. 213. A more elaborate French mirror case with a carved heart offering, circa 1400, is in the Cluny Museum in Paris (OA 119).

  To head off any confusion in interpreting this scene: Reproduced in Bietenholz, illustrations 43 and 44.

  If so, perhaps they and their descendants: Leonie von Wilckens, Museum der Stadt Regensburg. Bildteppiche (Regensburg, 1980), 8. See also Martin Angerer (Hg.), Regensburg im Mittelalter. Katalog der Abteilung Mittelalter im Museum der Stadt Regensburg (Regensburg, 1995), 147–149.

  The heart became especially popular as a love motif: Marian Campbell, Medieval Jewelry in Europe 1100–1500 (London: Victoria and Albert Publishing, 2009).

  One from fourteenth-century Italy bears a heart-shaped ruby: Sandra Hindman, Take This Ring: Medieval and Renaissance Rings from the Griffin Collection (Verona: Les Enluminures, 2015), 87, www.medieval-rings.com.

  Two Italian heart-shaped manuscripts have also been preserved: The Italian heart-shaped books preserved in Pesaro are discussed in Jager, The Book of the Heart, 84–85.

  Sala’s tiny book was meant to be held in the palm: Christopher de Hamel, Manuscript Illumination: History and Techniques (London: British Library, 2001), 35.

  In an engraving by Baccio Baldini, an elegantly clad: This and the following Italian references are reproduced in Andrea Bayer, ed., Art and Love in Renaissance Italy (New Haven, CT, and London: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2008), 92 and 89.

  Even more macabre, a wooden casket made in Basel: Historisches Museum, Basel, reproduced in Michael Camille, The Medieval Art of Love (New York: Harry Abrams, 1998), figure 102, p. 115.

  Symbols were so common to the medieval mentality: Michel Pastoureau, Une histoire symbolique du Moyen Age occidental (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 2004), 11.

  The Anglophone world got its four suits: Timothy B. Husband, The World in Play: Luxury Cards 1430–1540 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016), 9.

  Chapter Nine: A Separate Burial for the Heart

  A recumbent statue of Charles was laid out: Andreas Bräm, “Von Herzen: Ein Betrag zur Systematischen Ikonographie,” and Murielle Gaude-Ferragu, “Le coeur ‘couronné’: Tombeaux et funérailles de coeur en France à la fin du Moyen Age,” in Micrologus, XI, Il cuore, The Heart, 175, 255–256, and figure 14.

  His epitaph read, “Here lies the body”: Gaude-Ferragu, “Le coeur ‘couronné’,” 246.

  And to make certain that viewers understood: Ibid., 256.

  It was an eminently political act, affirming Anne’s rule: Claire de Lalande, “L’écrin du coeur d’Anne de Bretagne,” Anne de Bretagne, L’Objet d’Art, Hors-Série, no. 75 (2016): 20–21.

  One of the students at La Flèche was none other: Doueihi, A Perverse History of the Human Heart, 128.

  That was sold to an artist, to be ground up and used: John Rogister, “Born to Be King: The Life, Death, and Subsequent Desecration of Louis XIV,” Times Literary Supplement, August 5, 2016, 25.

  All of James’s remains were destroyed: “James II of England,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_II_of_England.

  Chapter Ten: The Independent Heart

  For the first time in Western literature the heart: Per Nykrog, “Literary Tradition,” in René of Anjou, The Book of the Love-Smitten Heart, trans. Stephanie Viereck Gibbs and Kathryn Karczewska (New York and London: Routledge, 2001), xiv.

  “The other day I went to see my heart”: Charles d’Orléans, Poésies, ed. Pierre Champion (Paris: Honoré Champion Editeur, 2010), Ballade XXXVII, vol. I, 98 (my translations).

  The poet vainly tries to put out the fire: Ibid., Poésies, Ballade XXVI, 88.

  He acts as the heart’s interpreter in their joint prayer: Ibid., Poésies, Ballade LV, 117.

  Charles’s split personality, torn
between his loving heart: See A. B. Coldiron, Canon, Period, and the Poetry of Charles of Orleans (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 61–73.

  Of course, the Heart’s quest was directed toward: This and the following quotations are from René of Anjou, The Book of the Love-Smitten Heart, 9 and 267.

  And, as with the better-known Dukes of Burgundy: The most famous is Vienna National Library Codex Vindobonensis Ms. 2597. Another beautiful manuscript is the French National Library Ms. Fr. 24399.

  The manuscript of The Love-Smitten Heart now: René d’Anjou, Le livre du coeur d’amour épris, ed. and trans. Florence Bouchet (Paris: Livre de Poche, 2003), 53.

  Villon’s down-to-earth portrayal of the lover’s deception: François Villon, Poems, trans. David Georgi (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2013), 4–25.

  “I’ve nothing more to say. That suits me fine”: Villon, Poems, trans. Georgi, 186–189.

  Chapter Eleven: The Return of Cupid

  Within such mixed company the heart’s amatory message: A section of this fresco is reproduced in Alain Gruber, ed., The History of Decorative Arts: The Renaissance and Mannerism in Europe (New York, London, and Paris: Abbeville Press, 1994), 223.

  Here the heart simultaneously represents: This woodcut from the Château de Panat, Aveyron, is reproduced in Orest Ranum, “The Refuges of Intimacy,” in A History of Private Life: Passions of the Renaissance, vol. III, eds. Philippe Ariès and Georges Duby (Cambridge, MA, and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1989), 233.

  Two Italian editions of the poet Petrarch’s sonnets: Vinken, The Shape of the Heart, figure 62, p. 73.

  Those surviving from this period are exquisitely detailed: A cordiform map produced by the German humanist Petrus Apianus in 1520 is one of the first maps to bear the name America.

  This book paved the way for several similar publications: Otto Vaenius, “Introduction,” Amorum Emblemata, ed. Karel Porteman (Aldershot Hants, England, and Brookfield, VT: Scolar Press, 1996), 1.

  Each of these engravings, except one, features: John Manning, The Emblem (London: Reaction Books, 2002), 170.

  Consider the following exemplary headings: Vaenius, Amorum Emblemata, 22, 30, 32, 34, 64, 80, 208, and 236.

  Specific advice for the male lover was spelled out: Ibid., 78, 98, 106, 126, 130, 132, and 234.

  The text tells us that this little god of love: This and the following quotations are from ibid., 34–35, 160, 152.

  With sixty-two etchings and matching poems: Marc van Vieck, “The Openhertighe Herten in Europe: Remarkable Specimens of Heart Emblematics,” Emblematica. An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies 8, no. 1 (Summer 1994): 261–291.

  To play, “one keeps the little book shut”: This and the following quotation are from van Vieck, “The Openhertighe Herten in Europe,” 266–267 and 278.

  Chapter Twelve: The Reformation and Counter-Reformation

  In a letter of July 8, 1530, he explained why: For the original German of this letter and insightful comments on Luther’s seal see Klaus Conermann, “Luther’s Rose: Observations on a Device in the Context of Reformation Art and Theology,” Emblematica: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies 2, no. 1 (Spring 1987): 6.

  It appeared on the title pages of his published works: Conermann, “Luther’s Rose,” figures 1 to 12.

  Whereas the Reformation destroyed many traditional: Slights, The Heart in the Age of Shakespeare, 101.

  And if one has any doubts as to its meaning: Reproduced in Peter M. Daly, Literature in the Light of the Emblem (Toronto, Buffalo, NY, and London: University of Toronto Press, 1979), 86.

  This literal trial by fire suggests that the Christian heart: Slights, The Heart in the Age of Shakespeare, 59–60.

  In another, Jesus takes up a broom and brushes out: Mario Praz, “Sacred and Profane Love,” Studies in Seventeenth Century Imagery (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1964), especially figure 61, p. 153.

  Puritans in particular were ever conscious that: Cited by Erickson, The Language of the Heart, 13.

  As medical science advanced, some pictures: Scott Manning Stevens, “Sacred Heart and Secular Brain,” in Hillman and Mazzio, The Body in Parts, figure 13, p. 262.

  “I saw in his hands a long golden dart”: St. Teresa of Avila, The Collected Works, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1987), 252.

  She described in her autobiography how Jesus revealed: This and the following quotation are from Emily Jo Sargent, “The Sacred Heart: Christian Symbolism,” in The Heart, ed. James Peto (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, Wellcome Collection, 2007), 109–110.

  Many of their exquisite works, ranging from paper drawings: Gérard Picaud and Jean Foisselon, A tout coeur: L’art pour le Sacré Coeur à la Visitation (Paris: Somogy éditions d’art, 2013).

  Chapter Thirteen: How Shakespeare Probed the Heart’s Secrets

  Sidney’s version of the exchange of hearts carried: See Stanley Wells, Shakespeare, Sex and Love (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

  It has been estimated that the word heart appears: Stephen Amidon and Thomas Amidon, The Sublime Engine: A Biography of the Human Heart (New York: Rodale, 2011), 81.

  In England, with the establishment of the Anglican Church: Marilyn Yalom, A History of the Wife (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), ch. 3, 97–145.

  Indeed, some critics believe that this late play: Amidon and Amidon, The Sublime Engine, 85.

  But in the real world the longing to love to one’s: “Such is the Fulnesse of my hearts content,” Henry VI, Part II, Act I, Scene 1, and “I wish your Ladiship all hearts content,” The Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene 4.

  Chapter Fourteen: Heart and Brain

  Though Galen recognized the unusual muscular strength: Kemp, Christ to Coke, 87.

  In this interconnected system between humans: Heather Webb, “The Medieval Heart: The Physiology, Poetics and Theology of the Heart in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Italy” (PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 2004), 48; Webb, The Medieval Heart (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010).

  Leonardo conducted many of his dissections on animals: Francis Wells, “The Renaissance Heart: The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci,” in Peto, The Heart, 80–81.

  Men and women have an equal number of ribs: Famous Scientists, www.famousscientists.org.

  Indeed, a 1522 publication contained the image of: Isagoge, by Jacobus Carpensis Beregarius. This image is reproduced in Bette Talvacchia, ed., A Cultural History of Sexuality in the Renaissance, vol. II (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2011), figure 1:19, p. 32.

  In the 1560s an English midwifery manual described: Cynthia Klestinec, “Sex, Medicine, and Disease: Welcoming Wombs and Vernacular Anatomies,” in Talvacchia, Cultural History of Sexuality in the Renaissance, 127.

  Indeed, Vesalius himself was responsible for: Ibid., figure 6:3, 124.

  Descartes in France and Hobbes and Locke in England: Fay Bound Alberti, “The Emotional Heart: Mind, Body and Soul,” in Peto, The Heart, 125–142.

  Classical authorities, like Plato and Galen, had placed: Jager, The Book of the Heart, 152.

  It is rather the innermost part of the brain: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2.3 The Passions of the Soul, https//plato.stanford.edu/entries/pineal-gland.

  As for love, Descartes wrote that when one sees a love object: René Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, trans. Stephen Voss (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1989), article 102, p. 74.

  The rivalry between heart and head only quickened: Geraldine Caps, “Diffusions, enjeux et portées de la représentation mécaniste du corps dans la médecine du second XVIIe siècle.” In Europe XVI/ XVII: Réalités et Représentations du Corps (I) (Nancy: Université de Nancy, 2011), 142–157.

  Hobbes, in his groundbreaking Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. A. R. Waller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1904), xviii, emphasis original.

&nb
sp; Eric Jager, in his fine Book of the Heart, concludes: Jager, The Book of the Heart, 155.

  Chapter Fifteen: Exposing the Female Heart

  In so doing, novelists placed women center stage: G. B. Hill, ed., Boswell’s Life of Johnson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950), ii, 49.

  Pamela was a media sensation unlike anything: Samuel Richardson, Pamela: or Virtue Rewarded, eds. Thomas Keymer and Alice Wakely (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), xxii–xxiii.

  She invokes it more than two hundred times: This and the following quotations are from ibid., 31, 14, 22, 244, 245, 249, and 251.

  She, too, is the victim of “assaults to her heart”: Erickson, The Language of the Heart, 207. I am indebted to Robert Erickson for his careful reading of Clarissa, something I could not tolerate for the entire fifteen hundred pages.

  The urgency of her refusal comes from something: This and the following quotations are cited by Erickson, The Language of the Heart, 208, 211, and 225.

  As he states to his friend Belford, “I think”: Samuel Richardson, Clarissa: or the History of a Young Lady (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1985), 1383–1384.

  His philosophical essay L’art de jouir: These comments on La Mettrie were inspired by Natalie Meeker, “French: Eighteenth Century,” Encyclopedia of Erotic Literature, vol. I, eds. Gaëtan Brulotte and John Phillips (New York and London: Routledge, 2006), 484; and “La Mettrie, Julien Offray de,” vol. II, 745–746.

  Determined research turned up Boucher’s Amours des Dieux: These are from Boucher’s 1758 series “Les amours des Dieux,” La Cible d’Amour [The Target of Love], Collection Louis XV, Louvre.

  Chapter Sixteen: The Heart in Popular Culture

  Swiss maidens embroidered hearts on textiles: H. J. Hansen, ed., European Folk Art in Europe and the Americas (New York and Toronto: McGraw Hill, 1967), 179 and 217.

  These were written in Fraktur, a distinctive artistic: Donald Shelley, The Fraktur Writings or Illuminated Manuscripts of the Pennsylvania Germans (Allentown: Pennsylvania German Folklore Society), 1961.