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Contradictory Impulses in Montaigne's Vision of Rome

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Contradictory Impulses in Montaigne's Vision of Rome Renaissance Studies Vol. 4 No. 4 Contradictory impulses in Montaigne’s vision of Rome MARGARETMCGOWAN In a celebrated passage in the Journal Montaigne describes the Rome he saw in 1580 as ‘rien que son sepulchre’. This notion, the city as a tomb, has been interpreted’ as if Montaigne considered ancient Rome as ‘com- pletely dead and buried’, and that the city per se no longer possessed any reverberative power. This view seems to me misguided. Both in the Jour- nal and the Essaz3, ancient Rome represents a major, active force in Mon- taigne’s thinking. Rome was both a source of inspiration and a point of reference which provoked contradictory impulses. To characterize an author’s emotional and intellectual response by concentrating on a single image is unwise, especially as the metaphor ‘tomb’, by the time Mon- taigne was writing, had become something of a literary convention. Du Bellay’s Antiquitez (Sonnets IV and XXIX) and his Latin Elegies (Romae descnptio, line 130) had developed the image which was much copied by later French poets such as Jacques Gr6vin in his play Cbar (c.1561)and in the Sonnets sur Rome (IV, VII, VIII, XIV), by N. Ellain (Les Sonnets, 1570), and by Pierre de Brach (Pokmes, 1576). Du Bellay might also have inspired in Montaigne that paradoxical sense of the physical absence and yet of the intellectual companionship he felt for those Romans who were long dead. This complex feeling of absence/presence, acutely remem- bered in the ESsais,* might also explain Montaigne’s double vision of Rome as described in the Journal - the progressive nature of Rome’s destruction and the greatness that is lost. Le monde, ennemi de sa longue domination, avoit premierement brid et fracas6 toutes les pieces de ce corps admirable; et, parce qu’encore tout mort, ranverse et defigure‘, il lui faisoit horreur, il [le monde] en This article is a revised version of a lecture given at The French Studies Conference (Glasgow, 1988). It is important to note that I am not concerned here with Montaigne’s response to sacred ceremonies (see L. Pertile, Bzblzothbque d’Humanzime et Renaissance, 50, no. 3 (1988), 637-59); nor with the influence of Latin Roman writers (for this approach, see Dorothy G. Coleman, The Gallo-Roman Muse, Cambridge, 1979). All references to the Essais are to the Presses Universitaires Francaises edition of 1965. ’ See Roland Mortier, La poitique des ruznes en France (Geneva, 1974), 69-83, and Zachary Schiffman, ‘Montaigne’s perception of ancient Rome: biography as a form of history’, in Rome in the Renaissance, ed. P. A. Ramsay (MRTS, Binghampton, 1982), 345-53. * For an excellent analysis of similar paradoxes in Du Bellay’s Antzquztez, see G. Tucker, ‘A Frenchman’s Rome: a reappraisal of Joachim Du Bellay’s ‘Antiquitez de Rome’ in the light of his poetic development’, D.Phi1 thesis, 1987. 0 1990 The Societyfor Renaissance Studies, Oxford University Press Montaigne’s vision of Rome 393 avoit enseveli la ruine mesme . c’estoit la fortune qui les avoit con- servees pour le tesmoignage de cette grandeur infinie que tant de sigcles, tant de fus [feux], la conjuration du monde reiterees 2 tant de fois P sa ruine, n’avoint peu universelemant esteindre . c’estoit une expresse ordonnance des destinees pour faire santir au monde leur con- spiration B la gloire et B la preeminance de ceste ville, par un si nouveau extraordinere tesmoignage de sa grandur . In this eloquent statement of how the world and fortune - at war with each other - have both destroyed and preserved Rome’s greatness, Mon- taigne balances the active and co-ordinated determination to destroy - underlined by insistent verbs such as ‘brise et fracasse”, ‘ranverse et dCfigur6’ - against his admiration which he does not attempt to disguise: ‘cette grandeur infinie, la gloire et preeminance de ceste vilie, par un si nouveau extraordinere tesmoignage de sa grandur’. The admiration preserves the impression of greatness but also brings into play Mon- taigne’s sense of loss, two simultaneous yet contrasting notions which are also transmitted in the description of the crumbling Forum which is shown as though its marble blocks were still as fresh and as awe-inspiring as rocks on a mountain: A voir seulement ce qui reste du temple de la paix, le logis du Forum Roman-, duquel on voit encore la chute toute vifve, comme d’une grande montaigne, dissipee en plusieurs horribles rochiers. In exploring Montaigne’s actual experience of Rome, it is necessary to recall both the preparations he made for his journey there and the expec- tations he might already have formed from available printed or pictorial sources. To judge from the books he owned, Montaigne’s knowledge of Roman history was considerable. His affection for literary works6 in- spired by Rome - those of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Catullus, Propertius, and so on - was also profound: while the aspect of actual buildings and ’ All references to Montaigne’sJournal are to the Garnier edition published by Maurice Rat in 1955; the citation can be found at pp. 103-4. It is to be noted that Montaigne, here and in the Essais (111, 9, 960), takes up the words ‘ordonnance fatale’ and the sentiments of Du Bellay, Antiquitez, VI, lines 11-14. ‘Jouml, 104. ’ He owned Antoine AlEgre’s lives of the Emperors (Paris, 1567); Claude de Seyssel’s translation of Appian’s history of Roman civil wars; a 1546 edition of Denys of Halicarnassus’ ten books on Roman antiquities; Dion Cassius History and that of Eutropius; Nicolas Grouchy’s De comztzis Romanorum to which he refers in De l’lnstitution des enfaw (I, 26); the historical work of Salluste and Streinnius (1559); Suetonius’ Twelve Caesars; the Annals of Tacitus; the Roman Histories of Livy; the 1536 translation of Vegetius, Frontinus and Aelian; and Xiphilin’s Rerum romanorurn. See Pierre Villey Sources et duolution des Ejsais de Montaigne (2 vols, Paris, 1933), I, 59 ff. The copy of Dion Cassius with Montaigne’s signature can be found in Eton College Library; I would like to thank Rhys Robinson for drawing my attention to this volume which had not hitherto been noticed by scholars of Montaigne. * For his collection of Roman authors, see relevant entries by Villey, Sources, and the remarks of D. Coleman. Gallo-Roman Muse. 394 Margaret McGowan ancient ceremonies would have been familiar through the many French imitations of Roman monuments, reconstructed for royal entries and for princely palaces such as Meudon or F~ntainebleau.~The sights of Rome had, since the mid-century, been frequently engraved and painted: in the prints issued from the Roman workshops of La Frery, in the works of Androuet du Cerceau, Sebastiano Serlio and Jean Goujon, and in the paintings of Antoine Caron. Caron’s Les Massacres du Triumvirat (1561), for example, depicted all the principal surviving ancient monuments in Rome. Montaigne’s own observations of the neglected landscape of Rome - ‘Les avenues de Rome, quasi partout, se voient pour la plupart incultes et steriles’ (Journal, p. 119) - correspond closely to the pen drawings and sketches made by contemporary artists such as Etienne du Phac. It is clear from the Journal that however winding and apparently ir- resolute was Montaigne’s journey to Rome in 1580 as he sought to prolong the pleasure of arriving,’ when he was almost in sight of the city, his eagerness to set foot there could hardly be contained: ‘Nous en partimes [from Rossiglione] lendemain trois heures avant le jour, tant il [Mon- taigne] avoit envie de voir le pave de Rome’ (p. 93). In preparation for his inspection of the city, Montaigne had purchased a number of books to supplement his popular guide - Lucio Mauro’s Le Antichitit de la citta di Roma (Venice, 1558), which took the reader through the city hill by hill and palace by palace, each object of interest being briefly indi~ated.~ The specialist information which Montaigne found there was less secure, however, than in the works he purchased in Venice: Onufrius Panvinius’ Principum et eorum quarum maxima in Italia imperia fuerunt (Basle, 1558) provided a convenient source of reference, listing dates, titles and genealogies of all the emperors from Augustus to Charles V; while the same author’s compendious Repu blicae Romae commentarium (Venice, 1558) furnished descriptions of Rome (pp. 1-195), its principal civic offices (pp. 296-645), causes of decline (pp. 646-57), organization of Empire (pp. 658-807), and activities of the Roman legions (pp. 808-66). Additionally, Montaigne had a copy of Guillaume du Choul’s Discours de la religion des Romains (Lyon, 1556), a work written by order of Francois Ier and based on the author’s own vast collection of antique medals and upon engravings of marbles and monuments found in Rome - such as the figure taken from Vespasian’s triumphal arch showing the Temple of ’ For further details on the influence of Rome on French art, see my discussion in Ideal Forms in the Age of Ronsard (Berkeley, Calif, 1985), 133-43. His ‘secretary’reported how his companions were impatient with Montaigne’s wayward pro- gress, while Montaigne himself teased them thus: ’Et quant P Rome oh les autres visoint, il la desiroit d’autant moins voir que les autres lieus, qu’elle estoit connue d’un chacun’, p. 65. For purposes of comparison, see Rabelais’s undisguised excitement at the prospect of seeing Rome for the first time, A. Heulhard, Rabelais, ses voyages en Italie, son exil b Meti (Paris, 1891), 43. The literature on guide books to Italy in the Renaissance is immense; G. Dickinson, Du Bellay in Rome (Leiden, 1960), offers a good orientation.
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