Magdalen's skull: allegory and iconography in 'Heptameron' 32

Renaissance Quarterly, Spring, 1994 by Francois Rigolot

Reference

(1)Tomlinson, 191.

(2)This is especially true in Day IV of the Decameron, devoted to lovers whose passion leads to tragic adventures. For instance, eating one's lover's heart becomes an extreme form of punishment for infidelity. In IV, 9 William of Roussillon kills Guardastagno, his wife's lover, and has her unknowingly eat the victim's heart. After she learns the truth, she throws herself out of a window and dies. Another analogue can be found in IV, 1 in which Tancredo kills his daughter's lover and sends her the victim's heart in a golden goblet.

(3)Numerous studies have been devoted to the theme of death in the Renaissance. See especially Aries 1975, 1978, 1983. For an updated bibliography on the subject, see Blum, 2:814 ff.

(4)Marguerite de Navarre, 1984, 332-33. This translation will be used, sometimes with a fair degree of modification, throughout this paper. Italics are mine. "Pour ce que le crime de ma femme me semble si grand [...] je luy ordonnay une peyne que je pense qu'elle a plus desagreable que la mort: c'est l'enfermer en la dicte chambre ou elle se retiroit pour prandre ses plus grandes delices et en la compaignye de celluy qu'elle aymoit mieulx que moy; auquel lieu je lui ay mis dans une armoyre tous les os de son amy, tenduz comme chose pretieuse en ung cabinet. Et, affin qu'elle n'en oblye la memoire, en beuvant et mangeant, luy faictz servir a table, au lieu de couppe, la teste de ce meschant." Marguerite de Navarre, 1967, 243-44. The page reference to either French and English texts will be given between round brackets throughout this paper.

(5)First, in the story itself the husband confides to Bernage: "I think that she [my wife] has [a punishment] more painful than death" (332); "Je pense qu'elle [ma femme] a [une peine] plus desagreable que la mort" (243). Second, after the story has been told, the devisants discuss whether "the punishment [was] worse than death" (334); "la punition [etait] pire que la mort" (245). Third, in his summary of the plot Claude Gruget, the editor of the 1559 text, writes: "A punishment more rigorous than death, [imposed] by a husband on his adulterous wife" ("punition, plus rigoureuse que la mort, d'un mary envers sa femme adultere" 476, n. 538).

(6)"Et ainsy que la viande fut apportee sur la table, [Bernage] veid sortir de derriere la tapisserye une femme, la plus belle qu'il estoit possible de regarder, mais elle avoit la teste tondue, le demeurant du corps habille de noir a l'alemande" (242).

(7)"Le seigneur de Bernaige la regarda bien fort, et luy sembla une des plus belles dames qu'il avoit jamais veues, sinon qu'elle avoit le visaige bien pasle et la contenance bien triste" (242).

(8)"Quant il [Bernage] fut retourne devant le Roi son maistre, luy feit tout au long le compte que le prince trouva tel comme il disoit; et, en autres choses, ayant parle de la beaulte de la dame, envoya son painctre, nomme Jehan de Paris, pour luy rapporter ceste dame au vif" (245).

(9)What is important here is that repentance does not have to alter beauty any more. This move may remind one, mutatis mutandis, of the shift from Donatello's Magdalen to Titian's. I wish to thank Rona Goffen for communicating this parallel to me. On Donatello's and Titian's Magdalens, see Ingenhoff-Danhauser, 8, 44-51.