Campbell – Siena: City of the Virgin
Siena: City of the
Virgin
Lecture Prepared for Catholic University of Argentina
Dr. William F. Campbell
Emeritus Professor of Economics
Louisiana State University
I thank the Catholic University of Argentina very much for
inviting me to give these two lectures on Siena and Florence to such
distinguished audiences. Before
getting under way, let me point you to a very useful introduction to the broader
context of Scholastic economic thinkers provided by Alejandro Antonio Chafuen in
his book, Christians for Freedom: Late-Scholastic Economics.
Trained in Argentina, Alejandro was inspired by Dr. Oreste Popescu of
Catholic University, helped by E.S.E.A.D.E., taught at Catholic University, and
is currently the President of the Atlas Foundation in the United States.
I would like to thank the Atlas
Foundation for the funding which made these lectures possible.
Without their help and kind assistance at various stages, they would not
have been possible.
You have all heard some version of
the quote that says, “An Argentine is an Italian who speaks Spanish and thinks
he is British.” Although I don’t speak Spanish, I will be mixing up
the other categories. Drawing most
heavily on Italian experience to show similar patterns to British liberal
economic thought, I will make occasional side-glances at Argentine patterns of
economic and political thought.
These mixtures of cultures reminds
me of the so-called American philosopher, George Santayana, who was born in
Spain, lived there for nine years, came to America,
taught at Harvard, and left the U.S. for good in 1912 to die
in Rome Italy in 1952. His
first-hand understanding of American culture and Protestant New England combined
with a critical eye formed in the less harsh southern European view or what he
called, “the genuine human, Mediterranean, non-hypocritical world.”
Of all the states in the United States, my Louisiana comes closest to
this “genuine human, non-hypocritical world.”
While in Rome Santayana surely
visited the Piazza Navona; Argentinians do not have to be told about Bernini’s
famous fountain of the Four Rivers. It
is the Rio de la Plata that represents the Americas, not the mighty Mississippi
which goes through my native city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
At the time of Bernini, the river of economic liberalism could have gone
to either continent. Although there
was a great outpouring of liberalism and the rule of law in the Argentine 19th
century that culminated in the Golden Age lasting until the 1920s, it did not
sustain itself.
My approach to the theme of the Future of Economic
Liberalism is to take a good long hard look at the past.
Economic liberalism in Argentina needs a useable past which can appeal to
persons of religious, and in particular, Catholic sensibilities.
Neither a utilitarian nor a positivistic defense of economic liberty is
enough. Since the term neoliberalism
is very misleading and confusing, let us review an older form of liberalism
which, to create a word, we shall call paleoliberalism.
This kind of liberalism is an older and earlier version of
liberalism which surfaced in Italy during the 13th-15th
centuries. It has its roots in the
Scholasticism of St. Thomas Aquinas, but its economic thinking flowered in San
Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444) and St. Antonino of Florence (1389-1459).
If the readers’ ancestry is more Spanish than Italian, then we could do
a lecture on the Spanish liberalism of the school of Salamanca.
But that comes later in history and we do not have the time in this
lecture to develop that fascinating thread of the tradition.
In addition to the explicitly religious Italian Scholastic
roots, there was also a more secular civic humanist tradition of these
city-states that provided a clear and hardheaded defense of private property
rights, freedom of exchange and trade in a context that does not make a God out
of the Market. One of the
outstanding economic historians, Raymond
de Roover, has argued, "Any investigation into the origins of capitalism
should concentrate on Italian practices. There is in America a tendency to
overrate the importance of England." Raymond
de Roover, “The Commercial Revolution of the Thirteenth Century,” reprinted
in Enterprise and Secular Change, ed. Frederic C. Lane and Jelle C.
Riemersma, Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., p. 82.
The secular side of the civil
order is represented by men we can loosely call “civic humanists.”
To avoid confusion, let me explain the term humanists.
Humanism and secularism today in the United States have come to mean,
perhaps misguidedly, something atheistic or anti-religious.
It is a big mistake to take this understanding back to the 13-15th
centuries. A humanist was a man of
humane letters and usually not a churchman or cleric.
He was educated in the learning of this worldólaw, medicine, and the
ancient traditions of Greece and Rome. Most
of the humanists wished to achieve a union between Christianity and the liberal
arts. They thought properly that
they could widen the scope of Christianity to include the everyday world.
Probably the best metaphor is that they wished to combine the virtues of
the two saints, Mary and Martha. In
the scriptural story, Mary is the contemplative order and Martha is the active
life.
Although there were tensions
between the religious schoolmen and the secular humanists, they were both
fundamentally Christian. But, in
both camps, there were men sympathetic to the market economy, private property,
enforcement of contracts, and the rule of law.
Justice was part of the rule of law, but what is often today called
“Catholic Social Justice” is not the same as the “distributive justice”
and “commutative justice” we shall encounter in the Palazzo Publico and in
the writings of the Scholastics.
Both the Scholastics and the civic
humanists blended religion and economics. But
let me be careful to add that not all Italian heritages of mixing religion and
economics are equally valuable. Confusions
arise because there are many who would like to equate Scholastic economic
thought with a corporatist model.
Much of the earlier history of economic thought, including
Amintore Fanfani’s work, interpreted Catholic teaching in a very
anti-classical liberal tradition which was incorrect both as a scholarly
enterprise and incorrect as a good guide to public policy issues.
If all roads lead to Rome, not
everything that comes out of Rome is worth preserving.
Mussolini’s “March on Rome” in 1922 led to intellectual exports
that were not so desirable.
To what extent Mussolini’s corporatism was derived from
Latin Americaóremember that Mussolini’s full name is Benito Juarez
Mussolinióremains to be determined. But
the United States during the early New Deal under Franklin D. Roosevelt barely
escaped an American version of the corporative state.
Mussolini’s ideas of the corporate state and the kind of entrenched
labor relations and labor laws are not good models for any economy, much less
for an Argentina which even before PerÛn was already prone to such mistakes.
The corporativism of a PerÛn enshrined his justicialismo with
pseudo-mystical-religious trappings.
The only thing worse than a
Mussolini Fascist Corporate state model would be the other totalitarian
temptation, Liberation Theology, which is based on Marxism and has been so
popular in South America. The same
combination of statism, hatred of the bourgeoisie, and mystical materialism
characterized Liberation Theology as it did earlier anti-market clerical
thinking. I would alert you to the
excellent work of Michael Novak on these issues.
The Church in Latin America has
always suffered from threads which were fundamentally anti-market and
anti-liberal. Frederick B. Pike
described the negative attitudes of 19th century clerics toward the
winds of change coming from economic and social reforms: “Most New World
clerics reacted in dismay to ideas of progress based on individual enterprise
and the quest of personal profit. They
equated any stimulus to economics liberalism with an assault on the church’s
traditional attempt to regulate the economy in line with scholasticism’s
social justice philosophy.”
Pike’s description of the
attitudes of many churchmen are still accurate today even if he incorrectly
equates scholastic social teaching with modern ideas of “social justice” and
a highly regulated economy.
It is tempting to think that the
proper response to all these forms of collectivism is some form of extreme
individualism ‡ la Hayek, Mises, or Friedman.
In 1946 Jorge Luis Borges made a marvelous observation dear to the hearts
of many classical liberals in Argentina:
the “ArgentineÖdoes not identify with the State.
This is attributable to the circumstance that the governments in this
country tend to be awful, or to the general fact that the State is an
inconceivable abstraction.
One thing is certain: the Argentine is an individual, not a
citizen.” He elaborates that
“The world, for the European, is a cosmos in which each individual personally
corresponds to the role he plays; for the Argentine, it is a chaosÖIt may be
said that the traits I have pointed out are merely negative or anarchic; it may
be added that they are not subject to political explanation.
I shall venture to suggest the opposite.
The most urgent problem of our time (already denounced with
prophetic lucidity by the near-forgotten Spencer) is the gradual interference of
the State in the acts of the individual; in the battle with this evil, whose
names are communism and Nazism, Argentine individualism, though perhaps useless
or harmful until now, will find its justification and its duties.
Without hope and with nostalgia, I think of the abstract possibility of a
party that had some affinity with the Argentine people; a party that would
promise (let us say) a strict minimum of government.
Nationalism seeks to captivate us with the vision of an infinitely
tiresome State; this utopia, once established on earth, would have the
providential virtue of making everyone yearn for, and finally build, its
antithesis.”
But when a well-known Argentinian
labor leader, Victor De Gennaro can still say in the year 2001 that his main
struggle is against “individualism” that should be a signal that any attempt
to defend liberalism in terms of radical individualist terminology may be
intellectually satisfying, but it will not win the hearts of young, socially
minded Argentinians.
What both North Americans and
South Americans need to learn is that we must ground our understanding of the
market and a free society in a political framework which encourages the
development of intermediary groups and a responsible citizenry.
I wish to modify Borge’s acid and wryly sceptical temper
grounded in historical experience with the hope of a revival of civic virtue and
civic consciousness grounded in Catholic and natural law principles.
By choosing earlier Catholic
prototypes, I also wish to avoid the overly-simplistic view of Lawrence
Harrison. Lawrence Harrison’s
explanation of what he calls the “Pan-American nightmare” is to pit the
Anglo-Protestant tradition of the North to the Spanish-Catholic heritage of the
South. I wish to offer a cultural
Third Way which is grounded in an Italian-Catholic heritage.
I will not overlook a very strong pro-poverty tradition in Italy along
with its pro-wealth and pro-market side. Although
we are stressing here the pro-market side of Italian economic thought, it is
worth noting the monastic and mendicant origins of the anti-capitalist
tradition. In fact, one can
understand better the claims of capitalism when one places them in counterpoint
against the stoic and monastic traditions treating poverty as an ideal.
But, properly understood the pro-wealth and pro-poverty positions are not
in contradiction. It is important
to remember that the monastic vows of chastity do not negate the idea of
marriage as a sacrament. They are
different kinds of vows, both proper in their chosen context.
The same is true for the monastic vows of poverty.
Let me explain the method of
presentation used in the lectures. I
showed a slide show of individual persons and works of art.
After the audience was acquainted with the building blocks, I then wove
many of the pictures into a musical video where the music is important for its
lyrics and for its ability to capture the mood of the subject matter.
For the integrated videos, you can access them at http://pages.prodigy.net/campbellw1.
My purpose was to draw the listener imaginatively
into the worlds of San Bernardino of Siena and St. Antonino of Florence.
I desired to make the civil societies of Siena and Florence in their
prime a lived reality and not just an abstraction.
I hoped to provide a feast of the mind comparable to the splendid
celebrations and feasts days associated with both Siena and Florence during the
period surrounding my visit from May 20 to June 24.
There were many Saints’ days to celebrate during
those dates that tied in with my lecture. It
begins with St. Bernardino of Siena on May 20, Savonarola’s hanging and
burning at the stake on May 28, and culminates on June 24 with the Feast of John
the Baptist.
tab-stops:160.65pt”>Why am I, an economist,
trying to engage your imagination with beauty instead of building mathematical
models? Economists are too prone to
understanding the market in purely abstract terms with mechanical analogies.
They wish to pry mathematically into the bare parts of some economic
machine. They think that the
“efficiency” of economic arrangements is just as determinate as the economic
“efficiency” of a steam engine.
But human beings have hearts and
souls. The beauty of art and music
will in the long run trump economic efficiency.
My name, Campbell, could be expanded into the Italian, Campo Bello
(beautiful field). We start our
tour of Siena with the main square in Siena, called Il Campo.
In the campo is
the campanile the word for belfry or bell tower.
A more effective defense of the market and private property rights
emerges from campanilismo, the word which implies “localism” or
“patriotism” at its lowest levels rather than what you might expect
from an economist, capitalismo. Capitalism
is a vague abstraction which does not engender loyalty whereas one’s city,
bell towers, and public squares do. The
campo also contains the Palazzo Publico or the town hall, the frescoes of
which we shall analyze in some detail.
Many pictures of the campo and
the Palazzo Publico show the nine sections of the pavement.
This was a further burst of localism in the sense that it represented the
nine different sections in which Siena was divided with fierce loyalties and
competition between them. This has
survived to this day in terms of the institution which I am sure is quite well
know to Argentinians with their love of horses: the annual palio (the
horse races around the campo which are held twice a year).
The fiercely competitive horse
races can be understood as the sublimation of aggressive conflicts, a substitute
for bloody war. The tournaments and
jousts were entertainments that aped and/or mocked the aristocratic pleasures of
the knights. This was a civic
substitute in both Siena and Florence for the feudal order which relished
bloodshed and conflict. The
vitality of the merchant or bourgeois classes understood the importance of
peace, no matter how difficult it was to achieve under their concrete
circumstances.
But Siena was the city of the Virgin Mary above all.
It was dedicated to the Virgin Mary whose purity and fertility
were simultaneously celebrated.
Buenos Aires shares this in common with Siena.
The very name of Buenos Aires (“Favorable Winds”) was linked by the
explorer Mendoza to the Virgin Mary.
The refreshing breezes blowing over the area were thought to be caused by
the Virgin Mary.
The Virgin’s beauty can be seen
directly in paintings that are taken from the Biccherna tablets.
These tablets were the public ledgers in which they kept their records.
For centuries, they were lavishly bound and lovely paintings adorned
their covers. One of the Biccherna
tablets of 1482 depicts the offering of the keys of the city to the Virgin Mary
in the Cathedral. One can see
Duccio’s Maest‡ in the background.
The employment contract for
Duccio’s, Maest‡, drawn up on October 4, 1308 stipulated that it
should all be by one hand, the artist “must undertake the task with all the
skill and ingenuity that God has granted him,” and the artist must work
uninterruptedly accepting no other jobs. He
had to swear on the Gospel to abide by the agreement bona fide, sine fraude.
The painting was carried to the Cathedral in a great procession around
the Campo in June 9, 1311.
This was a communal exercise in a fully adorned public
square, since the Commune paid part of the expenses for the “players of
trumpets, bagpipes and castanets.”
The emphasis on trust and the
enforcement of contracts shows the rule of law that must accompany any market
order. St. Bernardino believed
firmly in private property for prudential and ethical reasons.
People would take better care of the property that they individually
owned than if they held things in common.
There are many paintings from the
Biccherna tablets which show the city of Siena as it looked in the late medieval
period. At the top of them all
would be the Virgin Mary protecting her city.
A lovely oil painting by Giovanni di Lorenzo Cini, 1528, in the Church of
San Martino, Siena, shows the Virgin Mary as a Madonna Protecting Siena
during the Battle of Camollia.
But why should the beauty and
fertility of Mary be so important? Many
Sienese and Florentine Annunciation paintings celebrate her great assent.
If she had said, “No,” the salvation of man would not have been
possible. We are saved through the
mercy of Jesus Christ.
But there are other narrower
economic themes that are drawn from Mary’s fertility.
To understand the Scholastics’ teaching on usury one has to
go back to Aristotle’s term of barren money.
The Scholastic teaching was not opposed to profit making, but only to
usury which was earning something from a dead thingómoney was barren.
Since I am preparing a full-blown lecture and video on the subject of
usury drawing on the frescoes by Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, I will
refrain from going beyond the connections to Siena in this most complex of all
medieval economic teachings.
Iris Origo in her
beautiful book, The World of San Bernardino, points out that that the
usurer “was forbidden to live ëin the most public or beautiful parts of the
city’ (i.e. ëin any house or palazzo adjoining the Campo…or in the streets
adjoining it’) because his presence was a direct insult to the Patron of the
city, the Virgin Mary; and he was denied, even if he was a Christian, the
Sacraments and burial in holy ground–a ruling of which Fra Bernardino
approved."
San Bernardino
was no libertarian. His hostility
to usury and all the machinations connected with it were very strong.
He did not mince his words in his sermons, De Evangelio Aeterno:
“all the saints and all the angels of paradise cry then against him, saying,
ëTo hell, to hell, to hell.’
Also the heavens with their stars cry out, saying, ëTo the
fire, to the fire, to the fire.’ The
planets also clamor, ëTo the depths, to the depths, to the depths.'”
Bernardino was a sturdy moralist first and
foremost. His dedication to private
property and freedom of contract were always subject to moral and legal
judgments. Freedom was not the
highest good, but only one good among others which had to be kept in a state of
balance. San Bernardino also
appealed to the Augustinian dictum that trade is sometimes licit and sometimes
illicit. This teaching had
infiltrated the Canon Law of the Decretum which reminds us that: "To
fornicate is always forbidden to anyone, but to trade is sometimes allowed and
sometimes not." (Decretum: Dist. LXXXVIII, C.10). The verb fornicari
is used in the strict theological sense to refer to any sexual intercourse
outside the bonds of marriage. In
fact San Bernardino as a youth once punched in the chin a man who had made
dishonest overtures to him.
Businessmen then
as businessmen today are flawed and never live up to the standards of the time.
The bigger the businessmen the more likely it was that he lived in
sophisticated circles that would overlook his sins.
According to Raymond De Roover San Bernardino "deplored…the fact
that so many merchants stayed abroad for long periods of time, separated from
their wives, and defiled themselves by living in carnal sin or even in
ëfilth’ with infidels as well as with believers.
There is no doubt that misbehavior in this respect was very common and
was regarded with so much indulgence that it did not stand in the way of a
successful business career.” There are similar moral patterns when we one
looks at the Medici operations in Florence and their factors abroad.
Iris Origo also
points out that San Bernardino saw these difficulties in international trade.
"He was, however, much troubled–not as an economist, but as a
moralist–by one consequence of foreign trade: the long absence of husbands from
their wives.
ëYou place your wife in danger of great scandal at the
least…and she is in danger of falling into sin, so are you…and as I see the
danger to be very great, do you know, women, what I suggest unto you?
Each time that your husband must go far away for a long time, see to it
that you go with him.’
But that this counsel of perfection was often taken, does not
appear."
The general principle here is that there is a time
and a place for everything. There
is a time and a place for sexual relationships; there is a time and a place for
trade. These are different types of
things and have different types of public consequences.
The spirit of civic virtue allows that these can be properly regulated by
the community for the public good.
Appeal to libertarian solutions or generalized
ideas of the virtues of the freedom of economic activity or general recognition
of the virtues of private property did not paralyze the proper organization of
the police powers.
The same pattern of thinking can be found in the
United States during the post-Civil War period. Substantive Due Process
jurisprudence which promoted economic freedom was kept in balance by the
traditional understanding of police powers as established by state and local
authorities who bold”>were close to the
people.
De Roover shows
the parallels between the Scholastic views on the matter and the types of
government regulations that we still have. "San Bernardino, as one might
expect, also disapproved of desecrating Sundays and holy days by doing business
instead of attending services. He
does not mention, however, the multiplication of holy days which became such a
nuisance–finally people had one day off out of every three–that the
Reformation reacted vigorously by abolishing most of them.
Being a devout man, San Bernardino stresses that churches are places of
worship where it is forbidden to transact business.
To bolster his argument, he does not fail, of course, to mention that
Christ drove the money-changers from the Temple.
The problem still exists today, although it has lost its religious
aspect: it is unlawful to do business in certain restricted areas, for example,
to open shop or to establish a factory or even to erect an apartment building in
a residential area of private homes."
We should not leave Siena and the
Virgin without noticing a larger painting,
a Madonna della Misericordia by Benvenuto di Giovanni in 1481.
Here is the Virgin Mary flanked by San Bernardino and St. Catherine of
Siena.
St. Anthony of Padua and Mary Magdalene are on the other side.
Why was this
painting, Madonna della Misericordia, the Madonna of Mercy, commissioned?
It was painted by Benvenuto di Giovanni in 1481 and was the first
painting commissioned by the Monte dei Paschi, founded in 1472.
Here was a major effort on the part of the Church to acknowledge some of
the negative consequences of its teaching on usury and provide a licit
alternative so that small loans could be provided at non-usurious interest
rates. The Virgin Mary is shown
with her cloak extended to protect the poor and simple persons of Siena.
An interesting
modern parallel is the manner in which Eva PerÛn portrayed herself as the
Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene all rolled into one.
In the words of Frederick Pike, she was “a
larger-than-life, succouring mother of the poor” who “demonstrated her
purported sanctity through social work, in the tradition of a long line of
notable colonial beatas whose passion for charity had helped earn them
sainthood.”
Evita compared her husband to Christ and she as the mediatrix
between the humble and her husband.
The first video
of about five minutes starts with an aerial view of modern Siena and then draws
on some of the slides we have walked through.
Siena has not changed much since the Renaissance.
You will see the campo, campanile, the palazzo publico and
many of the paintings inside the buildings of Siena.
The music
lyrics are perfectly appropriate for this part of the lecture.
It is “Sancta Maria, Succurre Miseris” composed by Tom·s Luis de
Victoria, and performed by the Choir of Westminster Cathedral, David Hill
Conductor. The lyrics in English
are:
“Holy Mary, help thou the suffering, strengthen the
fainthearted, comfort the sorrowful, pray for the people, entreat for the
clergy, intercede for all womankind vowed unto God: may all acknowledge the help
of thy prayer who celebrate thy holy festival.”
The second video revolves around the fresco by Ambrogio
Lorenzetti portraying “Good Government and Bad Government.”
There are many beauties of the countryside, cityscape, and symbolical
references to justice, peace, order in the city-state, and the fruits of those
virtues in the peaceful commerce and tranquil atmosphere which is so visibly
shown in these remarkable frescoes.
These frescoes appear in the
Palazzo Publico which is right next to the bell tower in the campo.
To show the city the benefits of a just and peace-loving government and
perhaps to justify their strict decrees, thc Council in 1337 ordered two murals
for a room in the Town Hall to be painted by the artist Ambrogio Lorenzetti,
portraying ‘good government’ (il buon governo) and ‘bad government’ (il
cattivo governo), with scenes setting forth their contrasting effects on
public life. The Council’s intention, in accordance with the attitude of the
mercantile government, can be summed up in the words:
It is not warlike fame, but peace, that makes a city’s strength and
wealth.
The frescoes show overwhelming
portrayals of justice and all the other virtues, both cardinal and theological,
which underlay a sound social order. There
are even portrayals, labeled as such, of Commutative and Distributive Justice.
If you don’t have justice in the
enforcement of contracts, then you will end up with Tyranny.
The tyrant is ruled by Avarice the materialistic desire for more which
can never be fulfilled, what the ancients would have called pleonexia.
Our best guide to the frescoes is
St. Bernardino. That he was a media
phenomenon with great entertainment value is evident by a painting which shows
this great fiery preacher of the Franciscan order preaching sermons to
enthusiastic listeners. Although a
member of the Observant side of the Franciscan Order, and himself deeply
ascetic, San Bernardino is one of the putative, if unlikely, founders of the
science of economics.
San Bernardino was literally a
fiery preacher in that he was responsible for his own “bonfires of the
vanities” long before the more famous events in Florence with Savonarola.
First and foremost a moralist he preached against the sins of usury as we
saw earlier but also gambling. But
a perhaps apocryphal story recounted in Butler’s Lives of the Saints shows
how sensible Bernardino could be: “In Bologna, which was overmuch addicted to
games of hazard, he preached with such effect that the citizens gave up gambling
and brought their cards and dice to be burnt in a public bonfire.
A card-manufacturer who complained that he was deprived of his only means
of livelihood was told by St. Bernardino to manufacture tablets inscribed with
I.H.S., and so great was the demand for them that they brought in more money
than the playing-cards had ever done.”
Close to a hundred years after the completion of
the frescoes, St. Bernardino preached to the still divided citizens exhorting
them to reconciliation and referred to the two murals by Lorenzetti in the
following words. ”…While I was
preaching outside Siena on War and Peace those pictures came to my mind, which
were painted for you, and which offer indeed a wonderful lesson. When I turn
towards the picture of Peace, I see merchants buying and selling, I see dancing,
the houses being repaired, the workers busy in the vineyards or sowing the
fields, whilst on horseback others ride down to swim in the rivers; maidens I
see going to a wedding, and great flocks of sheep and many another peaceful
sight. Besides which I see a man hanging from the gallows, hung there in the
cause of justice. And for the sake of all these things men live in peace and
harmony with one another.
But if I turn my eyes to the other picture I see no
commerce, no dancing, only man destroying man: the houses are not repaired but
demolished and gutted by fire; no fields are ploughed, no harvest sown, no
riders go down to bathe in the river, nor is the fullness of life in any wise
enjoyed. Beyond the gates I see no women, no men, only the slain and the raped;
no flocks are there except those which have been plundered; man kills man in
mutual betrayal; Justice lies in the dust, her hands and feet fettered and her
balance broken apart. And wherever man goes, he goes in fear and
trembling."
One of the most difficult iconographical themes in
the fresco to explain is the dancing to which St. Bernardino refers.
To properly interpret it, I am drawing on the work of Quentin Skinner.
There are two difficulties: 1. are
they men or women? 2. why are their outfits covered with moths and worms?
To unravel the latter, we have to
go back to the Book of Proverbs, “Just as much as a moth destroys a garment
and woodworm destroys wood, so despair (tristitia) destroys the
heart of man.” The best weapon
against despair is joyfulness (gaudium).
One of the legal commentators, Albertano of Brescia, points out that a
“heart which is gaudens or joyful makes for a flourishing life, while a
spirit which is tristis or despondent dries up the bones.”
An ordered civil society with
trade, exchange, and commerce taking place needs joyful or thankful hearts.
These are the fruits of the Holy Spirit and were even recognized by the
ancient pagan commentators like Seneca.
The dance is therefore probably a group of young men taking part in the tripudium,
a solemn festival dance in which the dancers move in stately triple time.
It was a manly dance in the virile style.
The music used for this video is
an Italian dance called “Basse Dance la Magdalena,” performed by the Ulsamer
Collegium in a CD entitled, Terpsichore.
Appropriate for the images you have seen is the description of
the Basse Danse by the first Italian choreographer, Domenico da Piacenza (c.
1390-c. 1470), “I am the Basse Danse, the Queen of Measures, and worthy of
wearing the crown. With me but few
are successful, and he who dances and plays me well must surely have received a
gift from heaven.” The second
piece of music is Giovanni Gabrieli’s “Canzon Per Sonare No. 1” performed
by the Boston Brass Ensemble and E. Power Biggs on the organ.
The spirit of the music and the
fresco can also be captured in a piece of music with which all academics are
familiar, Gaudeamus Igitur. It
has been used by Berlioz in his Damnation of Faust, Brahms in his Academic
Festival Overture, and Sigmund Romberg in The Student Prince.
The history of the song is long and complicated.
It is possible that it goes back to the medieval period, the spirit being
similar to the Carmina Burana. The
English lyrics are:
Gaudeamus Igitur
Let us rejoice therefore
While we are young.
After a pleasant youth
After a troublesome old age
The earth will have us.
Where are they
Who were in the world before us?
You may cross over to heaven
You may go to hell
If you wish to see them
Our life is brief
It will be finished shortly.
Death comes quickly
Atrociously, it snatches us away.
No one is spared.
Long live the academy!
Long live the teachers!
Long live each male student!
Long live each female student!
May they always flourish!
Long live all maidens
Easy and beautiful!
Long live mature women also,
Tender and loveable
And full of good labor.
Long live the State
And the One who rules it!
Long live our City
And the charity of benefactors
Which protects us here!
Let sadness perish!
Let haters perish!
Let the devil perish!
Let whoever is against our school
Who laughs at it, perish!
The youth of Argentina are in need of such a tonic.
We used to have a campaign button in the United States that said,
“We’ll Sing and Dance the New Deal Away!”
Right now you are suffering from an economic decline caused by the fact
that private property rights are not respected, the rule of law has been
abrogated, the State has played an overintrusive role, taxes are excessively
high, New Deal and Fascist types of labor policy have crippled the flexibility
of your economy, and there is general distrust.
The antidote is the healthy
respect for the market and civil society that we found in medieval Siena.
Markets, rule of law, justice, and enforcement of contracts require a
moral and religious order which nurture gratitude toward the Creator and the
giver of good gifts. The fresco of
Lorenzetti clearly shows the theological virtues above the cardinal virtues.
Early republican Siena is still a worthwhile model for both the U.S. and
Argentina to follow.
Representative
Bibliography
Chafuen, Alejandro. Christians
for Freedom: Late-Scholastic Economics. San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986
De Roover, Raymond. San
Bernardino of Siena and Sant’Antonino of Florence: The Two Great Economic
Thinkers of the Middle Ages.
Boston: Baker Library, 1967.
Origo, Iris. The
World of San Bernardino. New
York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1962.
Pike, Frederick. “Latin
America” The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity, ed. John
McManners, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Skinner, Quentin. “Ambrogio
Lorenzetti’s Buon Governo Frescoes: Two Old Questions, Two New
Answers,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, LXII, 1999,
pp. 1-28.