Des bains en Bourgogne
Master of Anthony of Burgundy (active 1460-1490)
Additional titles
A bathhouse
Scene of a bathhouse
- Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz
[Museum inv. no.: Ms. Depot Breslau 2, vol. 2, fol. 244]Information on the manuscript: Valère Maxime, Facta et dicta memorabilia, translated by Simon de Hesdin and Nicolas de Gonesse under the title "Faits et dits mémorables", ca. 1470.
Item location
Description
Interior scene, showing a man in courtly garment and a king (Hannibal?), both observing excesses in a bathhouse. In addition to nude men and women involved in debauchery, a fully dressed musician playing the lute and a dancing dog are depicted.The text of the manuscript is from an ancient source, i.e. "Factorum et dictorum memorabilium libri novem", a collection of 9 volumes with approximately a thousand short stories about famous people of ancient Rome that was written by Valerius Maximus during the reign of Tiberius (42 BCE – CE 37), most probably in the first century CE. The link between the illumination and the ancient text consists in the written account of Hannibal’s troops engaged in excessive eating, drinking, and fornication with prostitutes in Roman bathhouses.
Iconclass
31A5451public baths
Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)
Lute [3394]RIdIM images
Image URLs
image link 4Image and description in Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index hosted by The University of Iowa Libraries
Bibliographic references
Kren, Thomas and Scot McKendrick. Illuminating the Renaissance: the triumph of Flemish manuscript painting in Europe (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003) 76, 264-74.Otis, Leah Lydia. Prostitution in medieval society: The history of an urban institution in Languedoc (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009) 98.
Winter, Johanna Maria van. "Medieval opinions about food and drink in connection with bathing", Spices and comfits: Collected papers on medieval food, ed. Johanna Maria van Winter (Totnes: Prospect Books, 2007) 389-98.
James, Ker. "Roman repraesentatio", The American Journal of Philology 128/3 (2007) 341-65.
Brovarone, Alessandro Vitale. "Notes sur la traduction de Valère Maxime par Simon de Hesdin", 'Pour acquerir honneur et pris': Mélanges de moyen français offerts à Giuseppe Di Stefano, ed. by Maria Colombo Timelli and Claudio Galderisi (Montréal: CERES, 2004) 183–91.