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Spring 2016 Volume 42 Issue 3 Spring 2016 Volume 42 Issue 3 341 David Foster Holbein and Plato on the Quadrivium 367 Nelson Lund A Woman’s Laws and a Man’s: Eros and Thumos in Rousseau’s Julie, or The New Heloise (1761) and The Deer Hunter (1978) 437 Thomas L. Pangle Socrates’s Argument for the Superiority of the Life Dedicated to Politics Review Essays: 463 Liu Xiaofeng How Philosophy Became Socratic: A Study of Plato’s “Protagoras,” “Charmides,” and “Republic” by Laurence Lampert 477 Matthew Post The Meanings of Rights: The Philosophy and Social Theory of Rights, ed. Costas Douzinas and Conor Gearty; Libertarian Philosophy in the Real World: The Politics of Natural Rights by Mark D. Friedman; The Cambridge Companion to Liberalism by Steven Wall An Exchange: 495 Tucker Landy Reply to Antoine Pageau St.-Hilaire’s Review of After Leo Strauss: New Directions in Platonic Political Philosophy 497 Antoine P. St-Hilaire Strauss’s Platonism and the Fate of Metaphysics: A Rejoinder to Tucker Landy’s Reply Book Reviews: 501 Rodrigo Chacón Arendtian Constitutionalism: Law, Politics and the Order of Freedom by Christian Volk 507 Ross J. Corbett Scripture and Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls by Alex P. Jassen 513 Bernard J. Dobski On Sovereignty and other Political Delusions by Joan Cocks; Freedom Beyond Sovereignty: Reconstructing Liberal Individualism by Sharon Krause 521 Lewis Fallis On Plato’s “Euthyphro” by Ronna Burger 525 Hannes Kerber Political Philosophy: What It Is and Why It Matters by Ronald Beiner 531 Pavlos Leonidas Western Civilization and the Academy by Bradley C. S. Watson Papadopoulos 543 Antonio Sosa Democracy in Decline? by Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner 551 Dana Jalbert Stauffer Making Religion Safe for Democracy: Transformation from Hobbes to Tocqueville by J. Judd Owen 557 John B. Tieder Jr. The First American Founder: Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience by Alan E. Johnson 563 Shawn Welnak The Political Is Political: Conformity and the Illusion of Dissent in Contemporary Political Philosophy by Lorna Finlayson ©2016 Interpretation, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of the contents may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. ISSN 0020-9635 Editor-in-Chief Timothy W. Burns, Baylor University General Editors Charles E. Butterworth • Timothy W. Burns General Editors (Late) Howard B. White (d. 1974) • Robert Horwitz (d. 1987) Seth G. Benardete (d. 2001) • Leonard Grey (d. 2009) • Hilail Gildin (d. 2015) Consulting Editors Christopher Bruell • David Lowenthal • Harvey C. Mansfield • Thomas L. Pangle • Ellis Sandoz • Kenneth W. Thompson Consulting Editors (Late) Leo Strauss (d. 1973) • Arnaldo Momigliano (d. 1987) • Michael Oakeshott (d. 1990) • John Hallowell (d. 1992) • Ernest L. Fortin (d. 2002) • Muhsin Mahdi (d. 2007) • Joseph Cropsey (d. 2012) • Harry V. Jaffa (d. 2015) International Editors Terence E. Marshall • Heinrich Meier Editors Peter Ahrensdorf • Wayne Ambler • Marco Andreacchio • Maurice Auerbach • Robert Bartlett • Fred Baumann • Eric Buzzetti • Susan Collins • Patrick Coby • Erik Dempsey • Elizabeth C’de Baca Eastman • Edward J. Erler • Maureen Feder-Marcus • Robert Goldberg • L. Joseph Hebert • Pamela K. Jensen • Hannes Kerber • Mark J. Lutz • Daniel Ian Mark • Ken Masugi • Carol L. McNamara • Will Morrisey • Amy Nendza • Charles T. Rubin • Leslie G. Rubin • Thomas Schneider • Susan Meld Shell • Geoffrey T. Sigalet • Nicholas Starr • Devin Stauffer • Bradford P. Wilson • Cameron Wybrow • Martin D. Yaffe • Catherine H. Zuckert • Michael P. Zuckert Copy Editor Les Harris Designer Sarah Teutschel Inquiries Interpretation, A Journal of Political Philosophy Department of Political Science Baylor University 1 Bear Place, 97276 Waco, TX 76798 email [email protected] Holbein and Plato on the Quadrivium 341 Holbein and Plato on the Quadrivium David Foster Ashland University [email protected] [A] city could never be happy otherwise than by having its outlines drawn by the painters who use the divine pattern. —Plato, Republic When Niccolo Machiavelli argued that a prince must know how to use force as well as law (Prince, chap. 18), he put his distinctive spin on the venerable argument that political rulers must be educated both for war and for peace. A pictorial variation on this important theme is presented by Machiavelli’s near contemporary Hans Holbein the Younger, in The Ambassadors, his famous double portrait of a soldier and a priest. The scientific instruments and other objects that occupy the center of the painting have been carefully studied, but scholars have had less to say about the significance of the two men depicted in it, and still less about the connection between the objects and the men. Yet, unless we know how the objects, or the arts and sciences suggested by them, are related to the pairing of a soldier and a priest, we cannot understand the painting as a whole. This essay explores that relation against the background of the curriculum developed in Plato’s Republic for the education of the philoso- pher king. Plato’s curriculum is strongly echoed in the painting, and although Holbein did not paint a philosopher king, Plato’s account suggests that The Ambassadors can be understood as a reflection on the education of leaders. The differences between the philosopher and the painter, on the other hand, suggest how Holbein might have understood the sixteenth-century Renais- sance, particularly in its implications for the Christian faith. © 2016 Interpretation, Inc. 342 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 42 / Issue 3 The Ambassadors was created in 1533, soon after Machiavelli’s Prince was printed and Martin Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses, and ten years before Copernicus published his attack on Ptolemy. Two sumptuously attired men are shown standing on either side of a what-not table gazing calmly at the viewer.1 Arranged on the table’s shelves are meticulously rendered scien- tific, mathematical, and musical instruments, several books, and globes of the earth and of the zodiac. The floor is beautifully tiled in a complex inter- locking geometric pattern and in the background hangs a luxuriant green tapestry. The dominant impression given is of two friends at the peak of their powers showing off the intellectual accomplishments made possible by great wealth and leisure. The men seem perfectly at ease in their luxury and learn- ing and, with a calm alertness, accept the admiration they know to be their due. Their friendship seems to consist in mutual mastery and enjoyment of the arts and sciences suggested by the objects depicted. They are “Renais- sance men,” a type the painting seems to celebrate. At first glance the two men look alike. Their facial features are remark- ably similar and, standing at either end of the table, they frame the picture as its dominant vertical elements. In posture, too, they mirror one another: each has one arm casually resting on the top shelf of the table, the other hanging down to the side. There, however, the similarities end. Jean de Dinteville, on the left, is a soldier, or perhaps a statesman in whom the military aspect pre- dominates. His right hand rests on a dagger in a gold scabbard (upon which is inscribed his age: twenty-nine years) and just visible at his left side is the grip of a sword. His fashionable rose-red satin doublet covers a massive chest and shoulders, which are further accentuated by the construction of his black velvet coat. Hanging around his neck on a large gold chain is the medallion of the order of St. Michael, which depicts the saint slaying a dragon. De Dinteville’s companion, by contrast, is not half so large or colorfully attired. Unlike de Dinteville, whose athletic legs are visible, Georges de Selve wears a full-length, almost monkish brown coat. He bears no ornament. Even de Dinteville’s hat has gold tassels; de Selve’s is the plain square hat of a cleric (he was in fact soon to be consecrated bishop of Lavour). Similarly, both men gaze at the viewer, but they convey very different moods. De Dinteville’s coat is open, both his hands are relaxed and open, and the fashionable tears in his shirt hint at a powerful, active body beneath. De Selve, by contrast, is almost entirely closed and covered up. His left hand grasps closed his coat; his right 1 The National Gallery of London has an excellent reproduction of the painting with a zoom feature: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/hans-holbein-the-younger-the-ambassadors. Holbein and Plato on the Quadrivium 343 holds a pair of gloves, as if he would prefer not to show even his hands.2 In comparison to de Dinteville, de Selve is retiring and austere, almost defensive. Suitably, as the patterned floor makes evident, the former steps forward one half step ahead of the latter. In short, while the two men appear to be broadly equal, the military or political man is in fact more prominent or assertive than the somewhat defensive man of faith. This depiction reflects the priority given to politics and war over faith in the thought of men like Machiavelli. We view, then, a soldier and a religious scholar, or perhaps a statesman and a priest. If the painting is a celebration of the Renaissance man, there seem to be two versions of him. That they are friends, everyone agrees,3 but what makes them both Renaissance men, that is, what unites them or what do they have in common? Almost every student of the portrait has admired the beauty and amazing detail of the objects in the picture and felt that they must have some symbolic significance.4 Resting on the table linking the two men, these objects, or the education and the arts and sciences they represent, seem to be a common possession.
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