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Pieter Bruegel's Magpie on theGallowsAnne Simonson aa School of Art & Design , San Jose State University , SanJose, CA, 95192–0089, USAPublished online: 01 Sep 2008.

To cite this article: Anne Simonson (1998) Pieter Bruegel's Magpie on the Gallows ,Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History, 67:2, 71-92

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Pieter Bruegel's Magpie on the Gallows

ANNE SIMONSON

The Magpie on the Gallows (Fig. 1) is an enigmaticpainting. Two observers at left foreground surveya tree-framed panoramic river valley landscape.At the center of the composition stands a gallowswith a magpie perched on the crossbeam; thegallows is flanked to the right by a cross withbricks scattered around it and to the left by a pairof crossed trees, tall enough to appear above thedistant horizon line. Groups of peasants danceand walk up towards the gallows from the leftmiddleground village; to the right a tiny figurecrosses a bridge leading into the watermill.A shadowy figure defecates in the immediate leftforeground. Continuing across the foregroundare a second magpie on a tree stump and anequine skull situated in line with the left andright vertical posts of the gallows. How mightBruegel's contemporaries have explained this cu-rious composition or read its diverse elements?

An examination of the intellectual climate ofmoral maps and emblems developing in the 1560soffers some clues. Bruegel's friends, patrons, andprofessional associates1 included Abraham Orte-lius, the great geographer, scholar, and collector;Christopher Plantin, the prominent Antwerpprinter;2 and humanists, artists, and writers. Aunique document for assessing their intellectualmilieu is provided by the friendship book, theAlbum Amicorum, which Ortelius circulated from1574 to 1596 and in which he wrote, "with tearsin his eyes," a posthumous entry about his friendPieter Bruegel. Participants in the Album projectwere men, and one woman, highly conversant inclassical Latin language and literature, occasion-ally knowledgeable in Greek and Hebrew. Awareof developing emblematic imagery, they wereinterested in multilingual displays and theirvisual equivalents.3

In memory of his friend, Ortelius gatheredtogether a series of classical prototypes:

The painter Eupompus, asked which of his pred-ecessors he should take for a model, is said to havementioned numerous names and finally replied thatit is Nature herself that should be imitated, not theartist. This applies to our Bruegel, whose pictures,as I always say, bear the stamp of Nature rather than

This Bruegel painted many things that cannot bepainted, as Pliny said of Apelles, In all his worksmore is always communicated than is actuallypainted. According to Iamblichus,5 Eunapius saysthe same of Timanthes. Painters who paint hand-some models in the flower of their age and who seekto introduce to the picture a charm and grace oftheir own distort the total portrait and are equallyuntrue to the model and to the true form. OurBruegel is free from this fault.6

Thus, in proper humanist fashion, Ortelius ex-tended his comparison beyond the standardApelles7 to encompass Eupompus8 and Timanthes,contemporaries of the fifth-century painterZeuxis. The cluster of these complicated refer-ences would, like Bruegel's paintings, have per-mitted the average Antwerp Latinist to movebeyond the literal, to assemble a variety of mentalpictures, and to imagine the contemporary painterin a classical milieu.

Ortelius must have had in mind Pliny's de-scription of the famous painting of Iphigeniaawaiting her doom: Timanthes showed the at-tendants overwhelmed with sorrow while hidingthe face of Agamemnon and leaving his grief tothe viewer's imagination.9 Cicero, too, referred toTimanthes and Apelles as models who knewprecisely how far to go in their art and identi-

© Scandinavian University Press 1998.ISSN 0023-3609

Konsthistorisk Tidskrift, LXVII, Hafte 2, 1998

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72 Anne Simonson

Fig. 1. Pieter Bruegel, Magpie on the Gallows Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt.

fied impropriety as the greatest fault which apainter or poet could commit.10 The observationthat Bruegel consistently communicated morethan is painted sets up his work as a puzzle to bedeciphered, with final interpretation open toeach viewer. Bruegel's humanist treatment in theAlbum Amicorum probably reflects the painter'sown erudition, and the ironies and multivalentreadings permitted by his work place Bruegelsmoral landscape in the vanguard of contempo-rary interests.11

The Album Amicorum, also its individual en-tries and, for that matter, Bruegel's Magpie on theGallows, are analogous to any number of six-

teenth-century endeavors. Christopher Plantin'sgreat project for the Biblia regia or Biblia polyglottais indicative of both the contemporary interestin finding many ways to say the same thing andthe conflicts diversity invited.12 Erasmus's Ad-ages, collected from as many authors as possible,was explained in terms of the "literal and figura-tive use" and the "custom or legend or geographi-cal or historical fact" at the root of each saying.13

Such practices constituted a transition betweenthe four-fold meanings of the exegetical traditionand the new emblematics. And it was the sensustropologicus, the "significance of things and factsfor the individual and his destiny, for his path to

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Pieter Bruegel's Magpie on the Galhws 73

salvation and conduct in the world," which ulti-mately dominated.14

An emblem could demand the reconciliationof opposites. Conversely, any given element mightimply the need for moral choices and hence theobservation that everything in Nature could beinterpreted in terms of its inherent good or evilqualities.15 When in 1566 Marcus Antonius Gillistranslated Sambucus's Emblemata from Latin intoDutch for the Antwerp reader, he explained thegenre in a remarkably clear manner. He introducedthe Greek origin of "emblems" as ornaments:

In order that these ornaments please not only theeye by their artful and precious glamour, but enter-tain also the beholder's mind with sharp-wittedmoral edification, some have in addition inventedcertain signs and figures, accompanied by few wordsto urge the human mind to ponder on what thesemight mean. This is one reason why they made themin such a manner that they were not so clear andsimple as to be understood by everyone, howeverstupid and uncivilized; on the other hand, however,not all that obscure and ingenious either, so thatevery intelligent human being may understand themthrough his own reflection. This understanding,which is brought about on the basis of differentmedia, procures all the more pleasure to the humanmind because this specific form of cognition isproper to him alone.16

Gillis, again, placed final responsibility for inter-pretation on the viewer.

Bruegel's work of the 1560s correspondedchronologically to the introduction of emblembooks.17 The Magpie on the Gallows, usually re-garded as the painter's last work and strikinglydifferent in basic composition from his earlieroeuvre, was, I would suggest, designed for anewly developing audience. Contemporary em-blem theory described the pictura and the motto("luttel woorden") as well as the subscriptio("veerssen") which clarified the obscurity of com-bined word and picture.18 The proportion ofimage to text, of course, differentiates Bruegel'swork from emblems, but the organizing princi-ples and expected viewer response are analogous.

In Bruegel's experiment, recognizable but pe-

culiarly juxtaposed iconographical schema sub-stituted for a written text. The change in ap-proach fooled Karel Van Mander, our documen-tary source for the painting.

Many of Bruegel's strange compositions and comi-cal subjects one may see in his copper engravings.But he has made many skillful and beautiful draw-ings; and he supplied them with inscriptions which,at the time, were too biting and too sharp, andwhich he had burned by his wife during his lastillness, because of remorse, or fear that disagreeableconsequences might grow out of them. In his will heleft his wife a picture of "A Magpie on a Gallows."By the magpie, he meant the gossips which hedelivered to the gallows. In addition he had painteda picture in which Truth triumphs. According to hisown statement, this was the best thing painted byhim.19

Van Mander, then, connected the Magpie to theworks with inscriptions while also linking thepainting syntactically to an allegorical or em-blematic representation of Truth.20 Proverbially,excessive chattering of the bird was like babblingsomeone onto the gallows: "(iemand) aan de galgklappen."21 Curiously, this proverb appears no-where else in Bruegel's extant repertoire. Al-though Van Mander's literal recounting of thetitle is insufficient to explain the painting, hecharacterized the verbal/visual interplay that un-derlies the scene.

Contemporary sources demonstrate the ad-vantages of ambiguity and careful behavior.22 By1563 Bruegel had already left the cosmopolitanAntwerp for Brussels which had only one-fifththe population.23 He established a shop inHoogstraat, in the elegant Spanish quarter wherethe Duke of Alva lived after his arrival in 1567and close to the palace of Orange-Nassau.24 Theanticipated iconoclastic riots broke out in 1566in Antwerp and elsewhere.25 Plantin, who hadsettled in Antwerp in 1549 and established a solidreputation as printer/publisher by 1549, was in1562 accused of having printed a heretical book;three of his assistants were arrested, and Plantinescaped prison only by fleeing to Paris.26 Othermembers of Ortelius's friendship group main-

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74 Anne Simonson

tained delicate balances between court appoint-ments and, as exemplified by Marnix de Saint-Aldegonde's 1570 The Beehive of the Holy RomanChurch, a scathing attack on Catholicism, theexpression of opposition views.27 Recent work onBruegel has focused on the artist's social andpolitical commentary that avoided the specificitysure to have given him trouble.28 In the Magpie onthe Gallows, however, Bruegel abandoned thelarge proverbial figure groups characteristic ofthe Beekeepers, the Land of Cockaigne, or theBlind Leading the Blind, all dating from shortlybefore, in favor of two small observers seen fromthe back; this is a painting designed to be exam-ined in a different spirit.29

Iconographical elements in the Magpie and thepainting's compositional structure are the visualequivalents of words and syntax for the sixteenth-century humanist, and no one reading of thepainting could be true to "the total portrait"Ortelius described. Indeed, multiple overlays ofmeaning and the viewer's conscious choice of apath among them are critical to a contextualreading. We might "ponder on what these mightmean" (as would students of Sambucus'sEmblematd) and explore possible threads of asixteenth-century discussion.

The Magpie

Van Mander started here and took a proverbialroute. The conjunction of opposites seen in thebird's striking plumage might have been anotherstarting point for talking about the painting. Theblack and white could be read as a mix of goodand evil, as in the opening of Parzifal,i0 or be seento invoke a traditional Christian context for goodand evil, as in illustrations of Genesis31 or theApocalypse.32 Yet the bird herself might be seen asevil, a thief.33 The bestiary tradition, however,still popular in early printed books, in polemicalprints,34 and then incorporated into emblems,35

was generally positive:

The word PICAE (magpies) stands for "poeticae"(imitators) because they can imitate words in adistinct voice like a man. Even if they are not able to

speak real talk, as they hang down through themiddle of the tree branches uttering their unseemlychatter, yet they do imitate the sound of the humanvoice.36

The related woodpecker,

which gets its name from Picus, the son of Saturn,because he used the creature in auguries. For theysay that this bird is something of a soothsayer by thefollowing evidence, viz: in the trees on which itbuilds its nest, one cannot stick a nail where it sat,or anything else that remains for a long time, with-out its falling out at once.37

The humanist interested in rhetoric or the artist"born under Saturn" may have felt natural affini-ties for these birds and turned to Pliny for thedescription of a colleague:

A certain kind of magpie is less celebrated [than theaforementioned parrot] because it does not comefrom a distance, but it talks more articulately. Thesebitds get fond of uttering particular words, and notonly learn them but love them, and secretly ponderthem with cateful reflection, not concealing theirengrossment. It is an established fact that if thedifficulty of a word beats them this causes theirdeath, and that their memory fails them unless theyhear the same word repeatedly, and when they are ata loss for a word they cheer up wonderfully if in themeantime they hear it spoken. Theif shape is unu-sual, though not beautiful; this bird has enoughdistinction in its power of imitating the humanvoice.38

Both woodpecker and magpie had long beenvenerated for their predictions and prophesies;39

indeed, for warning people of the world's ap-proach, the magpie was still honored in the nine-teenth century by a bunch of heath and laurel tiedto the top of a high tree. Talking, foretelling, andespecially warning of evil in the world all areimportant senses here. Van Mander's reading ofgossips, in other words, was not the only one.

Two contexts for birds, often magpies, prevailin the wotk of both Bosch and Bruegel: cagedbirds (or the trapping of birds) and magpiespaired with owls.40 Bosch's Tree Man (Fig. 2)

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Pieter Bruegel's Magpie on the Galbtvs 75

drawing in Vienna has two instances of owlsbeing mobbed by birds that appear to be magpies.The Owl's Nest in Rotterdam shows the samemobbing motif more naturalistically, yet the gib-bet to the left and cross and live tree to the rightdemonstrate the polarized motifs found else-where in Bosch's work: owl/magpie; dry/greentree; gibbet or gallows/cross.

The magpie on the gate in the Rotterdam

Wayfarer panel belongs to another polarity sincea second magpie, caged, can be seen near thetavern entrance. The bird, as a caged soul impris-oned in the body or in the worldly life, is a long-lived theme that can be traced in emblems to thetime of Francisco Goya.41 The paired birds inBruegel's painting, on the other hand, are notcaged but free in the world.

Fig. 2. Bosch, The Tree Man (drawing) Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina.

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76 Anne Simonson

Fig. 3. Hieronymus Bosch, Prodigal Son Rotterdam, Boymans-van Beuningen Museum.

The Travelers at the Crossroads

Bosch's Rotterdam Wayfarer (Fig. 3) shares centerstage with a curious, freestanding gate. The di-agonal line of the gate's bracing leads the viewer'seye from the magpie at its lower right to the owlin the tree at upper right. Gate and tree werecarefully aligned, and just above the horizon linethe tree can be seen to fork into a Y with a broaderbranch to the left, narrower one to the right.Bosch used a similar tree in the exterior wings ofthe Haywain (Fig. 4) triptych, vertically aligningthat tree above a forked, Y-shaped branch whichsupports a railing of the bridge upon which thetraveler will step next. However we might chooseto identify the Rotterdam traveler — and thepresence of an animal looking much like St.Luke's familiar ox argues for a portrait of the artist

— his context invokes the interrelated themes of theY (upsilon) of Pythagoras and the Christian pil-grimage of life. Bruegel reiterated, yet transformed,these themes in the Magpie on the Galhws.

As a motif, the Pythagorean Y is recognizablein the braced timbers of Bruegel's gallows. Moreimportant, however, this device provided an or-ganizing principle for the composition that splitsinto two paths. The broad path, with musicianand dancers recalling those of Bosch's Haywainexterior, leads to the village on the left; thealternative route leads over a narrow bridge to themill at right. The Y-compositional structure wouldhave been familiar to late-sixteenth-century view-ers from contemporary prints and emblems and,indeed, occurs elsewhere in Bruegel's own oeuvre.The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins (Fig. 5)of 1564/5, for example, was designed with an

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Pieter Bruegel's Magpie on the Galhws 77

Fig. 4. Bosch, Haywain Triptych: exterior. Madrid, Museo del Prado.

emphatic Y format for the open and closed gatesof Heaven.42 And in the Magdalen Poenitans en-graving a crossroads is visible between the tinygallows and cross on the center horizon.43 The Ycomposition in the Magpie on the Gallows is lessobvious than in the more narrowly didactic printsbut invokes a similar choice between gallows andcross. And this allegorical landscape belongs to atradition which Falkenburg credited to JoachimPatinir.44

This tradition included the parable of thebroad and narrow paths in Matthew, Augustine'sDe Civitate Dei, the "Littera Pythagorae," the so-called "Prodikos fable" of Hercules at the Cross-roads, Hesiod's metaphor of the two paths lead-ing to Vice or Virtue, and Vergil's Aeneid VI: 540-545.45 The Tabula Cebetis motif is related to thisgroup.46 The interdependent themes — the Chris-tian one from Matthew, Hercules (or a substitute,at the Crossroads, and the Y of Pythagoras —

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} D M T NOMÏ DE OLEO V6STJtD,QVIA.IÀ«PAJ)Î*NOSTRA,EXTnaGVl(^ SB^OQVAM., NBQVAKDO H3N SVFÏKÏA.T NOBIST E T VDBK "ubj

Fig. 5. Bruegel, Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins (engraving) Copyright Bibliothèque royale Albert 1er, Bruxelles(Cabinet des Estampes).

identifiable in Bruegel's painting, were not ob-scure metaphors for the sixteenth-century viewer.Rather, they were familiar enough to be confusedwith each other and subject to endless variation.The two paths, like the black-and-white magpies,opened doors to discussion.

Matthew 7:13-14 describes the strait gate andnarrow way which lead to life and the wide gateand broad way which lead to destruction. LikeBosch's gate with the magpie in the Rotterdampainting, Bruegel's gallows apparently functionsas a gate, anything but strait/straight. The sup-ports are clearly twisted.47The merrymakers stum-ble and dance up the hill towards it;48 the cornerfigure defecates in response (?) to it;49 through itcan be seen the horse's skull of superstition andfolly. Contemporary illustrations of the parableinclude "The Broad and Narrow Gate" engravedby Hieronymus Cock's shop50 or, from the more

emblematic work of Georg Hoefnagel, a sym-metrical Y device with a world globe at its base, abanderole inscribed "Vita via est-felix cui non-estdevia vita," with the light of God above andflanking, paired groups of dove/cherubshead/olive and owl/deathshead/holly.51 Vondel's "DenGulden Winckel" combined the broad/narrow gatetheme from Matthew with another theme for con-temporary engravings, Hercules at the Crossroads.52

Contemporaries would have known Cicero'stext wherein Hercules chose between virtus andvoluptasP In paintings, prints, and tapestries ofthe sixteenth-century, possible scenarios multi-plied wildly such that the hero might otherwisechoose between Minerva and Venus or Labor andVoluptas or Virtue and Vice.54 In variants uponthe basic theme, Hercules might be representedin front of a cross or with the Pythagorean Ysuspended above his head. He might otherwise be

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Pieter Bruegeïs Magpie on the Gallows 79

Fig. 6. "The Choice of Two Paths: The Y of Pythagoras" Engraving from Zacharias Heyns, Emblemata, EmblèmesChrestienes et Morales San Marino, CA, The Huntington Library.

replaced by a youthful "everyman" or be absentfrom the scene altogether without changing itsessential connotation.55 In emblems, polaritiesstill associated with Hercules included Divineand Profane Love or Christ and the "Dressed-upWorld."56 As Moseley pointed out, the motif ofHercules and his choice was frequently used"precisely because it could not only call up awhole moral process but could also be made tovalue and apply to a multiplicity of present issuesand dilemmas."57 Van Mander's mention of thelost Bruegel painting "in which Truth triumphs"is indicative of the abstract and universalizingquality of mid-sixteenth-century themes.58

Truth of the wrong type could, after all, lead tothe gallows. But Choice of any kind impliedhuman Free Will, an important, if difficult, is-sue.59 Erasmus, at mid-century one of the most

condemned but also most widely-read authors,assumed a certain moral neutrality in humannature: that good and evil remain a consciouschoice even if humans be naturally inclined to sinor at least to folly.60 Bruegel's engraved series onVices and, especially, the series on Virtues suggesta similar view.

The "Pythagorean letter" (Fig. 6) provided aneasily drawn symbol for the theme of choice. Asdescribed by Isidore of Seville:

Pythagoras of Samos was the first to form the letterY as an example of human life. For its lower shaftsignifies early age in its uncertainty, which has notyet given itself either to the vices or the virtues. Thebivium, however, which is above, starts with adoles-cence; its right side is steep but reaches to the blessedlife; the left side is easier but leads down to fall andruin.61

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Petrarch, whose works were widely read in the LowCountries, commented on the visual tradition:

The two-horned form of the letter [is] of exemplaryvalue... with its right horn, though it is narrower,the letter reaches to the stars, whereas on the left sidethe letter is broader but, through the curve of thehorn on that side, is bent toward the earth.62

Bosch's Rotterdam and Madrid trees follow thisconvention which became a popular emblem.63

Indeed the device was something that Bruegel'scontemporaries could draw themselves, as wit-ness the Y device with flame to the left and crownto the right drawn by Guillaume Charke forOrtelius's Album Amicorum. The Greek inscrip-tion, "by the narrow path," was accompanied bya Latin one citing Plautus's Amphitryon.6*

The device may also have had political impli-cations. The program of the "Spelen van sinne"performed at the 1561 Lantjuweel in Antwerpand published in 1562 mentions "De mensche,op het antycx, hebbende inde hant litteramPythagorae."65 And while the rhetoricians weremistrusted by church and civic authorities andsubject to charges of heresy, their calculatingwordplay was a vital source for the new emblem-atic understanding.66 The Magpie on the Gallowsbelongs to a transitional way of thinking withBruegel's paired observers, like the paired mag-pies, at a crossroads.

The Traveler through the ProverbialWorld

The two travelers at lower left in the painting,who overlook both a panoramic view and a pecu-liar combination of human activities, may haveevoked for viewers the prospects of an epic moraljourney, at once classical and Christian. Aeneas'sjourney past the fork in the road to Elysium andTartarus, the traveler in the Pèlerinage de la viehumaine passing through a virtual encyclopediaof vices, Bosch's wayfarer in a sinful world, allanticipated the narrative structure which becamethe dominant theme in emblem books: the uni-versal threat of danger from all sides.67

As Bruegel's travelers, equipped with somedegree of free will, move through the painting,they will be faced with a series of enigmaticelements, including the defecating figure, thepile of the bricks, and the gallows. The image ofthe magpie on the gallows, for that matter, hasthat pithy, oddly unrelated quality often charac-teristic of proverbs and a hallmark of the newlydeveloping emblem.68 Is this a painting of apseudo-proverb (or really an emblem) which couldtrigger Van Mander's "by this he meant..."? For in1567/8 Bruegel looked back to the same sectionof the Netherlandish Proverbs (Fig. 7) for materialwhich appears in both the BlindLeading the Blindand the Magpie on the Gallows, but he treated thatmaterial differently.

The tiny blind figures from the earlier paintingwere treated in heroic scale in the later one. Yetthe Magpie on the Gallows splits a proverb in twoor otherwise recombines proverbial elements.From the label on the identical vignette in FransHogenberg's Blue Cloak engraving of 1568 (Fig. 8)we can identify the scene in the NetherlandishProverbs: "Hij beschijt de galg." The usual inter-pretation is something like "he is a gallows bird,"69

"he is not deterred by any penalty," or "he iswilling to defy society."70 Given the proximity ofgallows and corner figure, who is indeed notshitting on the gallows in the Magpie painting,Bruegel's viewers would most likely have recog-nized the connection to the well-known proverband thus seen that the old formula was heredisconnected. Perhaps Bruegel intended anotherproverb — "Hij beschijt de geheele wereld"71 —while merely suggesting the gallows72 or perhaps,as in emblems, the idea was to remain at least onelevel distant from the obvious.

Two elements viewed by the travelers implythe age of the forked paths: the ruined stonestructures (castles? fortifications?) to both rightand left middleground in the painting and theheap of bricks at the foot of the cross. OldTestament writers customarily visualized Para-dise as a walled garden protected by a series ofgateways, a familiar motif in northern painting,and heaven as a fortified city. In the AlbumAmicorum Ortelius's nephew and heir, Jacques

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Pieter Bruegel's Magpie on the Gallows 81

Fig. 7. Bruegel, Netherlandish Proverbs Berlin, Staaliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie.

Cools, represented a fortified tower - inscribed"God" in Hebrew, with the inscription framed bya roundel reading "REFUGIUM IUSTORUM,"and an additional inscription below indicatingthe source in Proverbs 18.73 Are the ruined castlesdestinations for travelers?74

Traditional Christian access to Paradise comesthrough Christ's sacrifice on the Cross, yet at thefoot of Bruegel's cross lies not Adam's skull but aheap of bricks, a ruin, man-made folly. Particu-larly if viewers looked for (Peter) the rock ("steen")on which Christ's church was built, they wouldhave found an edifice with serious foundationproblems.75

Bruegel's friends might have recognized a morelight-hearted Pieter-brick reference: the artist'ssignature in Children's Games appears below thescraping of red dust from the new bricks made inAntwerp.76 Are the bricks in the Magpie painting

a reference to Pieter the painter? Brick makingwas an essential industry, supplying the onlybuilding material that could be produced in ad-equate quantities for sixteenth-century commer-cial expansion in the Low Countries.77 The allu-sion might have been more complex had the artistand his circle known about the Roman brickindustry.78 Bricks, then, connected Rome andAntwerp; they were also the building material forBruegel' monument to linguistic folly, the Towerof Babel.79 Did disarray in the Civitas Terrenathreaten even the Civitas Dei?

Bruegel's work often invested traditional com-positions and narratives with irony and ambigu-ity,80 and the artist played with visual formulae,expecting his viewers to make connections ontheir own. Thus, in the Magpie on the Gallows weshould observe that the cross to the right of thecentral gallows is repeated, in Nature, by the

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Fig. 8. Frans Hogenberg, Die blau Huicke (engraving) Copyright Bibliothèque royale Albert 1er, Bruxelles (Cabinetdes Estampes).

prominently crossed trees to the left. Set againsta panoramic landscape, this configuration wouldsurely have recalled the format of the Crucifixionto Bruegel's friends, many of whom knew andcollected fifteenth-century paintings.81 Contem-porary viewers, too, could have discussed the olddry and green tree duality, the "Arbor Bona'7"Arbor Mala" which were associated with thePassion but still applicable to political situa-tions.82

The addition of a Crucifixion layer to theiconographie complex of the two paths is attestedby an engraving of The BroadWay and the NarrowWay (Fig. 9) made by Hieronimus Wierix about1600.83The engraving represents the Crucifixionat the center of the composition, between the twopaths, and placed two Bruegel-like observers atlower left. The Wierix brothers were working forChristopher Plantin before 1570 and knewBruegel's work. Jean Wierix's initials appear on aBruegel-based engraving of 1568, and other com-

positions of the same period were based onBruegel's proverbs.84

The realization that religious quarrels causedone to forget the essential message of Christiandoctrine was a phenomenon of circa 1570.85

Bruegel's subtleties in introducing this motif wereobliterated by the more narrowly didactic aspectsof subsequent engravings. Yet the virtual explo-sion of visual ideas in the second half of thesixteenth century can be traced in the morepopular and accessible images which followed.ThusTheodoor Galle's 1603 engraving οι Christas a Model Carrying His Cross featured Christ asan artist's model for ten painters seated aroundhim before their easels.86 And Cornells Galle'sDivine Love Showing Different Crosses to the Soulof 1635 makes it clear that Bruegel's compositioncould indeed be read as a variant on the Crucifix-ion: in addition to the more common examples,one of Galle's crosses is a Y, next to it a gallows,and in the upper register is the X-cross.87 Ortelius

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Pieter Bruegel's Magpie on the Gallows 83

Fig. 9. Wierix/Bael, The Broad and the Narrow Way (engraving) San Marino, CA, The Huntington Library.

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wrote that Bruegel's pictures "bear the stamp ofNature rather than art." A sixteenth-century ex-planation of the crossed trees might refer tonatural mimesis, for "Nature" in a landscapepanorama was hardly neutral. Findlen hasshowed that for Renaissance naturalists, thesymbols of nature were "wordless truth" or"books and magical signs communicated by theimmense mercy of God."

The Moral Tourist

The development of sixteenth-century landscapepainting corresponded to a contemporary enthu-siasm for maps as well as for prints and books.Views and explanations were demanded by anaudience that may have regarded landscape paint-ing from a new moral perspective, "looking down"on human behavior, as Gibson observed,89 andlooking for the moral choices embedded within alandscape. The mapping tradition in general, andpanoramic views in particular, were intended lessfor designating physical routes than for illumi-nating possible paths.90 As Georg Braun wrote tothe viewer in his 1581 preface to Book III of theCivitates Orbis Terrarus:

What could be more pleasant than, in one's ownhome far from all danger, to gaze in these books atthe universal form of the earth... adorned with thesplendor of cities and fortresses and, by looking atthe pictures and reading the texts accompanyingthem, to acquire knowledge which could scarcely behad but by long and difficult journeys.91

Braun, in other words, addressed an audiencefamiliar with the literary pilgrimage tradition of"long and difficult journeys" undertaken for moraledification, concerned with the omnipresent dan-ger against which emblems cautioned, and inter-ested in acquiring knowledge through the com-bined process of looking at the pictures andreading the text provided by a skillful guide.Bruegel's Magpie on the Gallows was surely de-signed for precisely such an audience and use.The pair of observers to the left of the paintingare the key to another level of possible meaning.

Between 1564 and 1567 Bruegel's friend,

Abraham Ortelius, conceived the idea of publish-ing one-sheet maps — perhaps also the plan for abook of maps — and doubtless discussed theproject with the friends and colleagues in hisintellectual circle.92 His great atlas, the TheatrumOrbis Terrarus, published in 1570, combinedmodern maps with texts and references to theclassical authors. The Theatrum appealed to apublic interested in relationships between classi-cal and modern geography. In other words, thiswas the same audience attracted to the catalogu-ing and collecting of proverbs and emblems.This, too, was Bruegel's circle.

Acompanion project,93 or pendant, to Ortelius'sTheatrum Orbis Terrarus was the Civitates OrbisTerrarus originated by Georg Braun and FransHogenberg in 1572. The Antwerp artist JorisHoefnagel, who traveled extensively and pro-duced topographical drawings as early as 1561,94

became the most consistent contributor to theatlas. Braun, Hogenberg, and Hoefnagel were,like Pieter Bruegel, friends of Ortelius.95

The format of the Civitates is comparable tothe text/image juxtaposition found also in em-blem books. Each plate bears a legend which thetext on the reverse "translates" into a detailedexplanation with classical references.96 And theforegound of each view features some particularlynoteworthy element which has been abstractedfrom the more distant panorama. Hoefnagel's Viewof Linz from the Postlingberg (Fig. 10) is a character-istic plate. Curiously, the arrangement is very simi-lar to that of Bruegel's small painting with a treestump attached to a large boulder in the foreground,two observers at left.

In the second volume of the Civitates, it is theartist himself whom we encounter in the fore-ground. A working draftsman was a conventionof sixteenth-century town mapping, but after1576, the artist/traveler depicted was alwaysHoefnagel himself.97 After 1577 Hoefnageltraveled together with Abraham Ortelius to thearea around Naples,98 and at that point the pairedartist and publisher became the foreground guidesto their panoramic views.99 The View of Tivoli,(Fig. 11) which includes an inscription namingthese two as the travelers, utilizes a remarkable

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Pieter Bruegel's Magpie on the Galhws 85

Fig. 10. Georg Hoefnagel, View of Linz (engraving) New York, Pierpont Morgan Library.

illusionistic device. At the lower right is depictedwhat seems to be an alternative vista of thelandscape, pinned onto an original engraving ata later time. This apparent addition gives theviewer another angle of sight. Curiously, thepinned-sheet device was not drawn from life butwas a slight reworking of Bruegel's well-knownProspectus Tiburtinus engraving. Thus Hoefnagel'spanoramic view gave tribute to Pieter Bruegel:thanks to Bruegel's earlier engraving, Hoefnageland Ortelius, too, could show more than could be

seen.The artist and his companion in the Magpie on

the Gallows were, paired with magpies who couldtalk, who could extend the visual artist's domain.While picae in the bestiary tradition might standfor "poeticae" because they can imitate words ina distinct voice like a human, Bruegel's contem-poraries might have recalled the phrase "picae,

quasi poeticae" from the fable of the Piérides, thenine daughters of Pierus who were defeated bythe Muses and turned into magpies. What betterattributes for an artist named Pieter?100 And rec-ollection of Ovid's tale might have launchedBruegel's circle of friends into discourse aboutmetamorphosis, muses, and artists. Or his audi-ence may have known Martial, whose Epigram-maton libri was published by Plantin in 1568:

Pica loquax certa dominum te voce saluto.Si me non videas, esse negabis avem.101

Within the framework of a humanist debatebetween poetry and painting, between words andimages, the magpie might be contrasted with anartist who could show what might not be said,particularly in an era when the printed wordmade one subject to the gallows.

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Fig. 11. Hoefnagel, Tiburtum vulgo Tivoli (engraving) Brussels.

The magpie continued to give words to theartist in the later emblematic tradition. Thus thebird in the foreground of Goya's Portrait of DonManuel Maria Osorio de Moscoso y Alvarez deToledo holds the artist's calling card in its beak.Goya relied on emblematic sources to base hisimage on the picaza as "magister artist" and,indeed, to characterize his magpie as "proto-poet" or, rather, the artist himself.102 Already bythe seventeenth century the magpie had taken onthe positive emblematic sense of "sharp witted,"an appropriate self-reference by a clever artist.103

Why might Bruegel's small painting have somany overlaid references? This is essentially amodern question, not a sixteenth-century one.An emblem was intended to be clever, to be bothsubtle and difficult, to permit readers to demon-strate their knowledge and considerable educa-tion.104 Just as Ovid's Metamorphoses and descrip-

tions in nature were particularly important tosixteenth- and seventeenth-century natural sci-ence,105 so emblematists, too, assumed that read-ers could move through a series of recognitionresponses, that they would see the interlockingpatterns, that they would thus remember all therelated aspects of the problem. The Magpie on theGallows, in other words, belongs to a very specificintellectual context.

His audience would have realized that Bruegelcould not only paint many things that could bepainted but also, via his poet magpies, informthem that the emblematic picture is never Teallyexplained by its texts any more than the textsexplain the image. In the later 1560s the conceptof "Poeterie" could mean not only the art ofpoetry or poetic invention but also the allegoricaland mythological development of practical moralphilosophy.106The emblem genre developing prê-

tions by Aristotle, Ovid, and Pliny of transforma- cisely at this time in the Low Countries was

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Pieter Bruegel's Magpie on the Galhws 87

Fig. 12. Francisco Goya, Don Manuel Maria Osorio de Moscoso y Alvarez de Toledo New York, The MetropolitanMuseum of Art.

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conceived as an extension of "Poeterie." ThusPieter Bruegel may, as Van Mander phrased it,have "delivered gossips to the gallows;" but oneshould hardly take this comment literally or un-equivocally.

To describe the process of interpretation in thewords of Bruegel's contemporaries, we mightconclude with the Gillis introduction to Sambu-cus's Emblemata:

It so happens I do not know whether any difficultyhas remained for the readers, in that some thingsand events that Sambucus talks about are not yetgenerally known to us. This, it seems to me, cannotbe remedied better than by the zeal and diligence ofthe reader to whom it is much more agreeable tounderstand something through his own investiga-tion, than if it were spelt out to him. The words andmaxims one finds above the picturae (as prescribed,both constitute the emblem) I have translated mostlyliterally, which makes them often lose much of theirgrace. For it happens more often than not that whatsounds correct in one language and is a familiarsaying, sounds badly and is unknown in another,while in the latter language another saying is avail-able which is equally graceful and means the samewith other words. But because of these there isamong us such a great choice, which may vary fromone area to another or indeed from town to town,that I have deemed it preferable to follow the text asit lay before me. In doing so I freely allow allintelligent readers, after they have understood prop-erly the meaning and the moral instruction, to addthereunto such a word (of their own) that seems tothem very suitable to lead the observer quickly tothe understanding of the pictura. In this mannerone can easily make two, three, or even more em-blems out of one pictura.107

Van Mander said something comparable:

In the above [two books] I have to some extentcleared the way for my young painters in order thatthey, without any special learning, can depict mat-ters of significant meaning in images which allpeoples with languages of their own, so far as theyare at all intelligent or somewhat experienced, shouldbe able to divine and understand... For, as theingenious Coornhert once remarked upon thesevery subjects and meanings: there is no gallows

standing before your door. By which he meant tosay: it is everyone's privilege to use his mind andintelligence in these matters.108

A reading of two or three or more contradictorymeanings in a given image does not come easily tothe viewer determined to "solve" the mystery ofBruegel's painting and hence to reduce the greatsophistication of the newly developing audiencefor emblems to simple polarities of Protestant/Catholic or humanist/untutored.109The polaritiesbelonged not to the audience but were embeddedin the painting itself, in meanings which Bruegelchallenged his audience to ponder. The artistserved as guide, but for his contemporaries — inart as in life — the choice of paths remained open.

Notes1. See C.DeTolnay's Pierre Bruegel l'Ancien,Brussels, 1935,

for early discussion of Bruegel's humanist connections.More recent sources include Z. Urbach, "Notes onBruegel's Archaism: His Relation to Early NetherlandishPainting and Other Sources," Acta Historiae Artium,XXIV, 1978, pp. 237-356; K.G. Boon, "Patientia dans lesgravures de la Réforme aux Pays-Bas", Revue de l'Art, 56,1982, pp. 7-25; and T.A. Riggs, Hieronymus Cock,Printmaker and Publisher, NY/London, 1977. Patronsincluded the merchant Hans Franckert from Nuremberg,Niclaes Jonghelinck (a friend of Philip II), CardinalGranvelle, and the writer Dirk Coornhert. See J.M.Hofstede, "Zur Interpretation von Bruegel's Landschaft.Aesthetetische Landschaftsbegriff und StoischeWeltbetrachtung," in Pieter Bruegel und seine Welt, andWS. Melion, Shaping the Netherlandish Canon: Karel VanMander's Schilder-Boeck, Chicago, 1991, pp. 173-184.

2. References include J. Muylle, "Pieter Bruegel en AbrahamOrtelius. Bijdrage tot de literaire receptie van PieterBruegels werk," in Archivum Artis Lovaniense: Bijdragentot de geschiedenis van de Kunstder Nederlanden: opgedragenaan Prof. Em. Dr.J.K. Steppe, Leuven, 1981, pp. 319-337,and A.E. Popham, "Pieter Bruegel and Abraham Ortelius,"The Burlington Magazine, 59, 1931, pp. 184-188.Christopher Plantin settled in Antwerp and became amember of the Guild of St. Luke in 1547 as "afzetter vanCarten" and a printer in 1555. See J.J. Murray, Antwerpin the Age of Plantin and Brueghel, Norman, OK, 1970,and C. Clair, Christopher Plantin, London, 1960, forbasic bibliography. See C. Harbison, The Last Judgment inSixteenth-Century Northern Europe: A Study of the RelationBetween Art and the Reformation, New York, 1976, pp. 53and 65, that Plantin commissioned plates fromHieronymus Cock and exported prints for him. Bruegelwas making drawings for Cock's famous publishing house,The Four Winds, by 1555. Dirk Coornhert and PhilippeGalle also were associated with Cock although Coornhertmade no prints after 1559 and Galle began in 1563 topublish his own prints. See Urbach, op. cit. (note 1), pp.237 and 252 on Ortelius's museum that was visited by allforeigners coming to Antwerp and curated by Philippe

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Galle after Ortelius's death.3. J. Puraye (ed.), Album Amicorum Abraham Ortelius, Am-

sterdam, 1969, a facsimile edition with translation andannotation of the manuscript (Pembroke College, Cam-bridge). Contributors specifically associated with Bruegelinclude Georg Braun, Dirck Coornhert, Georg Hoefnagel,Frans Hogenberg, Philippe Galle, and ChristopherPlantin. The circle also included Benedict Arius(Montanus), John Dee, Lucas De Herre, Charles del'Ecluse (Clusius), Hubert Goltzius, Justus Lipsius,Philippe Marnix de Sainte-Aldegonde, Gerard Mercator,and Frans Sweerts Younger. The woman, the poetCatherine Heyns, belonged to a prominent humanistfamily. The issue of piety is complex. For example, Orteliuscame from a Protestant family but maintained a courtappointment despite the Inquisition. Boon, op. cit. (note1), p. 22, described Coornhert as remaining Catholic "inthe feet" while abandoning the Church "in the heart" andtied him, as well as Ortelius, Plantin, and Justus Lipsius,to the ideas of Van Barrefelt, originally a disciple ofHendrick Niclaes, and the Domus Caritatis. For Coornhert,see also Harbison, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 235-148, withreferences. On religious issues in general and the interestof Ortelius, Montanus, and Bruegel in medieval religiousliterature, see Urbach (op. cit. (note 1), especially pp.250-251.

4. See Pliny (Natural History, Cambridge, MA, 1938-1980,XXXV, 61): "Lysippus of Sicyon is said... to have first gotthe idea of venturing on sculpture from the reply given bythe painter Eupompus when asked which of his predeces-sors he took for his model; he pointed to a crowd of peopleand said that it was Nature herself, not an artist, whomone ought to imitate".

5. The fourth-century neo-Platonist and Pythagorean,Iamblichus, was well known in the fifteenth and sixteenthcenturies. See J.J. Lemprière, Lemprière's Classical Dic-tionary, London, 1984 edition, p. 321, with sources onthat author's lost Life of Eunapius (also a fourth-centuryneo-Platonist). See the Short-Title Catalogue of BooksPrinted in the Netherlands and Belgium and of Dutch andFlemish Books Printed in Other Countries from 1470 to1600 now in the British Museum, London, 1965, p. 100,that De Vita Pythagorae & Protrepticae orationes adphilophiam, edited and translated by J. Arcerius Theo-doretus, 1598; W. Stechow, Northern Renaissance Art1400-1600: Sources and Documents, Englewood Cliffs,NJ, 1966, p. 37, that Eunapius's Lives of the Sophists hadbeen published by Hadrianus Junius in 1568.

6. Puraye, op. cit. (note 3), for facsimile. Translation here byC. van de Wall, in R.H. Marijnissen and M. Seidel,Bruegel, New York, 1984, p. 59 n. 50.

7. Pliny, op. cit. (note 4), XXXV, 96, accorded Apelles "awork by which he may be thought to have surpassedHomer's verses describing the same subject. He evenpainted things that cannot be represented in pictures..."Pliny, XXXV, 85, credited Apelles with originating twoproverbs.

8. See Melion, op. cit. (note 1), p. 301 n. 12, 177-178, forknowledge of Eupompus and Timanthes.

9. Pliny, op. cit. (note 7), XXV, 73-74.10. Cicero, Orator, Cambridge, MA, 1977, pp. 73-74, on

Timanthes. For Cicero's relevance to contemporary paint-ing, see E. Panofsky, "Erasmus and the Visual Arts,"Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXXII,1969, pp. 213-214, on Erasmus's Dialogus Ciceronianus.

11. See J. Sybesma, "The Reception of Bruegel's Beekeepers:A Matter of Choice," The Art Bulletin, LXXlU, 1991,pp.467-478, on the political and religious audience, and M.

Sullivan, "Bruegel's Proverbs: Art and Audience in theNorthern Renaissance," The Art Bulletin, LXXIII, 1991,pp. 430-466, on the classical component of proverbialthinking.

12. See Murray, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 79-80, and Clair, op. cit.(note 2), pp. 107-109, on the polyglot Bible and relatedInquisition issues.

13. Sullivan, op. cit. (note 11), p. 437.14. P.M. Daly, Emblem Theory: Recent German Contributions

to the Characterization of the Emblem Genre, Nedeln,1979, p. 52.

15. "In bonam partem" or "in malem partem;" see Daly, op.cit. (note 14), p. 43. E. Snow, "Meaning in Children'sGames: On the Limitations of the iconographic Approachto Bruegel," Representations, 1:2, 1983, 30, 50, and pas-sim, remarked the "incessant linking of antithetical de-tails." M.N. Solokov, "Christ under the Mill of Fortune,"Konsthistorisk Tidskrift, LII, 1983, p. 62, referring toCoornhert's thinking, described the windmill and torturewheel in the Procession to Calvary, 1564, as paired at-tributes of Fortune.

16. K. Porteman, "The Earliest Reception of the 'ArsEmblematica' in Dutch. An Investigation into Prelimi-nary Matters," in B.F. Scholz, M. Bath, and D. Weston(eds.), The European Emblem: Selected papers from theGlasgow Conference, 11-14 August, 1987, Leiden/NewYork, 1990, pp. 45-47. Sybesma's reading, in op. cit.(note 14), p.479, of the Beekeepers, concluded "its arcanecontent is deliberately open to alternative interpreta-tions... [and] play [s] with two antagonistic groups ofviewers: the Catholic Inquisition and the Flemish Protes-tants." Viewer antagonism is perhaps an inappropriateemphasis here since publishers, including Plantin, appar-ently involved themselves with materials on the prohib-ited lists not purely for business or religious reasons butout of intellectual curiosity, and Protestants found theycould profitably reinterpret Jesuit images for their ownuses.

17. See Porteman, op. cit. (note 19), pp. 33-37. De la Perrière'sLe Théatre des bons engins was translated in Antwerp in1554 and reprinted in 1556 and 1564; the Emblemata ofSambucus was published by Plantin in 1564 (and inDutch translation in 1566) and the emblem books ofAlciato and Junius in 1567.

18. Porteman, op. cit. (note 16), p. 38.19. Translation from Marijnissen, op. cit. (note 4), p. 14.20. Marijnissen, op. cit. (note 4), p. 56: "meenende met

d'Exter de clappighe tongen/de hy de galghe toe eygende:hadde verder gemaeckt/daer de waerheyt doorbreeckt."

21. D. Bax, Hieronymus Bosch, His Picture-Writing Deci-phered, Rotterdam, 1979, p. 303 n. 126.

22. See C. Koeman, The History of Abraham Ortelius and hisTheatrum Orbis Terrarum, New York, 1964, p. 11, 15,that Ortelius, who came from an old Antwerp family, waseight years old in 1535 when his father's house wasransacked by Spanish Inquisitors looking for bannedbooks. Through prudence he was later able to escape theInquisition even when employees like Jean Pourtant weretaken to the scaffold for writing satirical verses. In 1561Ortelius received a letter warning "you must avoid allpictures, engravings, etc., which might offend thereligious...send therefore Bible histories...pictures of thePassion..." See Urbach, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 238 and 252n. 10 and G.C. Stridbeck, Bruegelstudien, Stockholm,1956, p. 41.

23. G.-H. Dumont, "Histoire d'une rupture," in Bruegel:Une Dynastie de peintres, Brussels, 1980, p. 15.

24. See A. De Blaere, S.J., "Bruegel and the Religious Prob-

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lems of his Time,"Apollo, CV, 1977,p. 176. The painter wasburied a Catholic in Notre-Dame de la Chapelle, Brussels.

25. See P. Geyl, The Revolt of the Netherlands, London, 1966;De Blaere, op. cit. (note 24); Harbison, op. cit. (note 2);Murray, op. cit. (note 2); Sybesma, op. cit. (note 14);Urbach, op. cit. (note 1); and I. Zupnick, "Bruegel andthe Revolt of the Netherlands," Art Journal, XXIII, 1964,pp. 283-289.

26. See Murray, op. cit. (note 2), p. 71-72 and 76. Otherswere not so fortunate, including the Antwerp printerJacob van Liesveldt, who published Catholic as well asProtestant works. The "Liesveldtsche Bybel, "the first com-plete Bible in Flemish (based primarily on Luther's trans-lation) was ordered burned in 1536; Liesveldt, again inconflict with the authorities in the 1540s, was beheadedin 1545; his wife, who carried on the business, wasbeheaded the following year. See Clair, op. cit. (note 2),pp. 23-36, on Plantin's religious attitudes.

27. Murray, op. cit. (note 2), p. 111, and Sybesma, op. cit.(note 14), passim.

28. Sybesma, op. cit. (note 14) and R.H. Frank, "An Interpre-tation of the Land of Cockaigne (1567) by Pieter Bruegelthe Elder," Sixteenth-Century Journal, XXII, 1991, 299-329.

29. This painting also differs in size. With few exceptions,Bruegel's paintings prior to 1568/9 were mostly executedon panels of approximately 45 χ 63"; a smaller group isapproximately one-eighth that size at about 14 χ 22" butexhibits the same overall proportions. At approximately18 X 20", the Magpie is anomalous in both size and shape.Such a change might appear to indicate the loss of anearlier panel supply, but the varied dimensions of TheLand of Cockaigne, Peasant with Birdnester, and the Mis-anthrope suggest a more conceptual shift occurring in1567/8.

30. The text (translation by H.M. Mustard and C.E. Passage,New York, 1961, p. 3) reads: "If inconstancy is the heart'sneighbor, the soul will not fail to find it bitter. Blame andpraise alike befall when a dauntless man's spirit is black-and-white mixed like the magpie's plumage. Yet he maysee blessedness after all, for both colors have a share inhim, the color of heaven and the color of hell..."

31. See F.D. Klingender, Animals in Art and Thought to theEnd of the Middle Ages, London, 1971, pp. 256-7.

32. B. Yapp, Birds in Medieval Manuscripts, New York, 1981,p. 104, and Klingender, op. cit. (note 31), pp. 404ff.

33. See Bax, op. cit. (note 26), p. 296.34. See C. Anderson, "Polemical Prints in Reformation Nu-

remberg, in J.C. Smith (ed.), New Perspectives on the Artof Renaissance Nuremberg: Five Essays, Austin, TX, 1985,pp. 57-58, for Hans Sachs's "The Twelve Pure and theTwelve Sinful Birds" which paired owl and magpie as thesinful counterparts to the eagle and nightingale; in theGerman context the nightingale stood for Luther and themagpie for Catholic monks.

35. T.A.G. WilbergVignau-Schuurmann, Die emblematischenElemente im Werke Joris Hoefnagels, Leiden, 1969, vol. II,pp. 16-17, with references, and pp. 172-214, on currencyof animal symbolism. For Antonius Wierix's magpie em-blem, see M. Mauquoy-Hendrickx, Les estampes des Wierixconservées au Cabinet des Estampes de la BibliothèqueRoyale Albert 1er, Brussels, 1979, vol. II, p. 286.

36. T.H. White, The Book of Beasts, Being a Translation froma Latin Bestiary of the Twelfth Century, New York, 1954,p. 158. F. McCulloch, Medieval Latin and French Bestiaries,Chapel Hill, NC, 1960, pp. 34-38, for the addition ofmagpie and woodpecker to older Physiologus tradition inthe twelfth century.

37. White, op. cit. (note 36), p. 138. See also McCulloch, op.cit. (note 36), pp. 37-38 and R.E. Kaske, Medieval Chris-tian Literary Imagery: A Guide to Interpretation, Toronto,1988, p. 205.

38. Pliny, op. cit. (note 7), X, 59; also X, 20 on woodpeckers:"There [is]...the variety of woodpeckers called Birds ofMars that are important in taking augurIes..."

39. J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, New York, 1966, vol. 2,pp. 672-675, also for the following. Related conceptuallyto Pica/Picus was the Caladrius Bird that would foretellwhether or not illness was fatal.

40. Examples include Bruegel's Winter Bird Trap, Bird Nester,Carnival and Lent, Children's Games. See WilbergVignau-Schuurmann, op. cit. (note 35), vol. II, pL. 115, for abestiary example from 1480, a crude drawing with an owlmobbed by birds from the Dialogus creaturarum (Gouda).

41. See Zupnick, "Bosch's Representation of Acedia and thePilgrimage of Everyman," Nederlands KunsthistorischJaarboek, 19,1968, p. 130, and H. Friedmann, A Bestiaryfor Saint Jerome: Animal Symbolism in European ReligiousArt, Washington, D.C., 1980, pp. 7-10, on the soul. Foremblematic examples of Death snaring the soul see S.C.Chew, The Pilgrimage of Life, New Haven/London, 1962,p. 6 and fig. 10; C. Moseley, A Century of Emblem: AnIntroductory Anthology, Brookfield, VT, 1989, p. 52. J.F.MoffItt, "Goya's Emblematic Portrait of Don ManuelMaria Osorio de Moscosoy Alvarez de Toledo, '' KonsthistoriskTidskrift, LVI, 1988, p. 155, n. 33, on emblem 17 fromCovarrubias's Emblemas Morales, which illustrates a cagedbird and reads "NULLA IN ORBE QUIES," accompa-nied by the commentary that this sign of the "prison ofthis life" is a metaphor for the instability of the "things ofthe world."

42. A clear parallel to the older Last Judgment motif. M.Trudzinski, "Von Holbein zu Bruegel," NiederdeutscheBeitrage zur Kunstgeschichte, 23, 1984, pp. 63-116, illus-tration p. 99.

43. D. Brumble, "Pieter Bruegel the Elder: The Allegory ofLandscape," Art Quarterly, II, 1979, p. 126 and 130.

44. R.L. Falkenburg, Joachim Patinir: het landschap als beeldvan de levenspilgrimage, Nijmegen, 1985. Charon's Boat isan example of the broad and narrow path; in paintingssuch as Saint Jerome (Paris), Patinir also employed the dryand green tree motif to be discussed below.

45. Falkenburg, op. cit. (note 44), especially pp. 121-129;Xenophon's Memorabilia, I, 2 is the Prodikos source.

46. SeeJ.B. Knipping, Iconography of the Counter-Reformationin the Netherlands: Heaven on Earth, Nieuwkoop/Leiden,1974, p. 73, for Netherlandish examples, and pp. 70-78,for combined motifs.

47. Bax, op. cit. (note 21), p. 6, reads the source as Paul'sLetter to the Philippians 2:15—"That ye may be blamelessand harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in themidst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom yeshine as lights in the world."

48. For rising and declining figures see Chew, op. cit. (note41), p. 140 and R. Baldwin, "Peasant Imagery and Bruegel'sFall of Icarus," Konsthistorisk Tidskrift, LV, 1986, espe-cially pp. 107 and 114 n. 79. Zupnick, op. cit. (note 41),p. 121.

49. See Chew, op. cit. (note 41), p. 178, on the five senses aspossible companions for the Pilgrim along the Path ofLife; if uncontrolled, they could provide real peril.

50. See Riggs, op. cit. (note 1), p. 375.51. See Wilber Vignau-Schuurman, op. cit. (note 35), vol. I,

pp. 168-172, and vol. II, pl. 36.52. Knipping, op. cit. (note 46), p. 75; Brumble, op. cit.

(note 43), p. 130.

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Pieter Bruegel's Magpie on the Galhws 91

53. De Officiis, I, 32, 118; 3, 5, 25. See E. Panofsky, Herculesam Scheidewege, Leipzig/Berlin, 1930.

54. Knipping, op. cit. (note 46), p. 75.55. Knipping, op. cit. (note 46), pp. 76-77.56. Knipping, op. cit. (note 46), p. 78.57. Moseley, op. cit. (note 51), p. 62, with examples includ-

ing Shakespeare's handing of Anthony in Anthony andCleopatra and Raphael's Dream of the Knight.

58. See Knipping, op. cit. (note 46) and Chew, op. cit. (note41) for examples such as "God's Mercy," "Worldly Wis-dom," "Protestant Evil," "Fallen Humanity," etc.

59. See Boon, op. cit. (note 1) on the idea of good choicebased on free will. See J.Huizinga, Erasmus and the Age ofthe Reformation, New York, 1957, on the correspondencebetween Erasmus and Luther.

60. Clair, op. cit. (note 2), p. 107, on the 1559 ValladolidIndex of prohibited books.

61. See T.E. Mommsen, "Petrarch and the Choice of Hercules,"Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 16, 1953, p.185, and pp. 178-192 on earlier sources.

62. Mommsen, op. cit. (note 61), p. 187.63. See Chew, op. cit. (note 41), p. 177, for the "Choice of

Two Paths; the Y of Pythagoras" engraved by ZachariasHeyn's Emblemata. Emblemes Chrestienes et Morales (Rot-terdam, 1625), the device of the famous printer GeoffreyTory. See also Knipping, op. cit. (note 46), pp. 70ff., forthe broad left branch of the Y symbolizing the way of Viceand the narrower right branch the path of Virtue.

64. See Puraye, op. cit. (note 3), f. 101 and p. 78, that Charke(c. 1530-1600) was a head of the Puritan party in Englandand a coat of arms including the upsilon accorded to hisfamily in 1604. Amphitryon was the legendary father ofHercules.

65. SeeWilbergVignau-Schuurman.op.cit. (note 35), vol. I,p. 172, and vol. II,p.65,and Porteman,op. cit. (note 16),p. 41.

66. See Murray, op. cit. (note 2), p. 106, that Antoine vanStraelen who organized the 1561 Lantjeweel was be-headed in 1567, and W. Gibson, "Artists and Rederijkersin the Age of Bruegel," TheArt Bulletin,LXlll(198l),pp.426-446, on connections between visual and verbal art-ists. The introduction by Gillis to Sambucus's Emblemata,cited by Porteman, op. cit. (note 16), p. 47, aimed toconvince his audience that they could understand em-blems even if not of the Latinist class, that "the figures ofspeech which the poets usually employ in order to embel-lish their words... will be perceived and understood easilyby experienced readers because we find them daily withour rhetoricians, even if we cannot name them and knowtheir effect and properties only vaguely."

67. Vergil, TheAeneid, 536-543. See Chew, op. cit. (note41),also S. Wenzel, "The Pilgrim of Life as a Late MedievalGenre," Medieval Studies, 35, 1973, pp. 370-388, forsummaries of the genre. See Falkenburg, op. cit. (note 44),pp. 92-100, on Bosch, and WilbergVignau-Schuurman, op.cit. (note 35), vol. I, p. 173, also that Sambucus's Emblemataphrased this as "Nil omni parte securum."

68. The developing popularity of the emblem, in Antwerpand elsewhere in the Low Countries, was due particularlyto Christopher Plantin who produced a series of emblembooks beginning with the 1561 publication of Paradin'sDévises héroïques.

69. On the tiny gallows in the distance of the NetherlandishProverbs painting, Bruegel placed two birds of indetermi-nate species. A. Dundes and C.A.Stibbe, The Art ofMixing Metaphors, A Folkloristic Interpretation of theNetherlandish Proverbs by Pieter Bruegel, Helsinki, 1981,p. 28, interpreted these as crows, the proverbial "De

kraaien moeten op aas loeren," with a variety of possiblemeanings hinging on the opposition of death and life. Ifmagpies, these birds might have inspired Van Mander'sreading of the painting.

70. J. Grauls, Volkstaal en Volksleven in het werk van PieterBruegel, Antwerp/ Amsterdam, 1957, p. 116, and A.Dundes and C.A.Stibbe, op. cit. (note 69), pp. 27-28. M.Carroll, "Peasant Festivity and Political identity in theSixteenth Century," Art History, 10, 1987, p. 312 n. 87,suggests a "life-affirming gesture of defiance;" whileBrumble, op. cit. (note 43), found the action to representsin.

71. This proverb appears in the cluster of proverbial printswhich ranges from the 1558 version of Frans Hogenberg's"Blue Cloak" to Johannes Doetinchum's 1577 engravingon the same theme. See L. Lebeer, "De Blauwe Huyck,"Gentsche bijdragen tot de kunstgeschiedenis en de outheidkunde, 6, 1939-40, pp. 198-201.

72. See Lebeer, op. cit. (note 70), that each in the cluster of"Blue Cloak" engravings—but not Bruegel's NetherlandishProverbs-includes another scene with a figure shitting onthe gallows, this time accompanied by a devil: "Deseberaet hem met den duuel onder de galghe."

73. Puraye, op. cit. (note 3), p. 61; Proverbs 18:10 reads "Thename of Yahweh is a strong tower; the righteous runnethinto it and is safe."

74. See R. A. Koch, "La Sainte Baume in Flemish LandscapePainting of the Sixteenth Century," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 66, 1965, pp. 273-282, for the association of suchstructures with a variety of pilgrimage sites.

75. See Bax, op. cit. (note 21), on stone as a symbol of follyand obtuseness. Bosch's Cure for Folly, depicting the"cutting of the stone," shows at left the gallows and wheel;the sins of folly and deceit can turn a man "voor galg enrad." See Chew, op. cit. (note 41), p. 66, on the parableof the House built on the Rock and the House built onSand (Matthew 7:24-27) as a favorite reference by emblematiststo contrast the constancy of Virtue and the fickleness ofFortune. "Steen" can refer to brick as well as stone.

76. See S. Hindman, "Pieter Bruegel's Children's Games, Folly,and Chance," The Art Bulletin, LXII, p. 469, citingDürer's diary, 1520/21, on the artist's red pigment madeuniquely from this Antwerp brick dust.

77. R.A. Goldthwaite, The Buildings of Renaissance Florence:An Economic and Social History, Baltimore/London, 1990,pp. 176 and 179 n. 13, a reference suggested by S.Hindman, op. cit. (note 75).

78. Goldthwaite, op. cit. (note 76), p. 203.79. See Moseley, op. cit. (note 57), p. 6, for the connection of

the Tower of Babel to the emblematist Alciato.80. See, for example, discussion by P. Fehl, "Peculiarities in

the Relation of Text and Image in Two Prints by PieterBruegel: the Rabbit Hunters and Fides," North CarolinaMuseum of Art Bulletin, 1970, pp. 25-36.

81. See especially Urbach, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 237-253.82. See Moseley, op. cit. (note 51), for use of this motif at

Elizabeth lís entry into London in 1559.83. See Chew, op. cit. (note 41), p. 178, and Mauquoy-

Hendrickx, op. cit. (note 35), vol. II, p. 268.84. Mauquoy-Hendrickx, op. cit. (note 35), vol. I, p. xiii.85. Boon, op. cit. (note 1), p. 21.86. Knipping, op. cit. (note 46), pp. 94-95.87. Knipping, op. cit. (note 46), p. 95.88. P. Findlen, "Empty Signs? Reading the Book of Nature in

Renaissance Science," Studies in History and Philosophy ofScience, 21, 1990, pp. 511-518, especially pp. 514-515.

89. W.S. Gibson, Bruegel, New York/Toronto, 1977, p. 77.90. See J. Schulz, "Jacopo de Barbari's View of Venice: Map

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92 Anne Simonson

Making, City Views and Moralized Biography before theyear 1500," The Art Bulletin, 60, 1978, pp. 441 and 447.

91. G. Braun and F. Hogenberg, Civitates Orbis Terrarum,1572-1618 (facsimile), Amsterdam, 1965, vol. I, p. 7.

92. See Koeman, op. cit. (note 22), pp. 17-18.93. Koeman, op. cit. (note 22), p. 49. The Civitates-was first

published as 58 maps and panoramas of cities from allparts of the word and grew to be an atlas with 360 plates.

94. See L. Nuti, "The Mapped Views by Georg Hoefnagel:the Merchant's Eye, the Humanist's Eye,î Word and Image,4, 1988, p. 547.

95. Hogenberg regularly engraved Bruegel's work, includingthe Netherlandish Proverbs. Koeman, op. cit. (note 22),pp. 12 and 15ff., suggested that Ortelius, who joined theAntwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1547, may have met bothBruegel and Hoefnagel through the Guild and thatOrtelius's relationship with the brothers Frans andRemigius Hogenberg, engravers from Mechelen, mayhave developed through Ortelius's family connections inEngland where the Hogenbergs emigrated in 1550.

96. See Nuti, op. cit. (note 93), pp. 550-552 , for examples.97. Nuti, op. cit. (note 93), p. 553, and wilberg Vignau-

Schuurmann, op. cit. (note 35), vol. I, p. 8, that theinclusion of self-portraits in Hoefnagel's work follows thesack of Antwerp in 1576, at which time he became a full-time artist.

98. Nuti, op. cit. (note 93), pp. 563-564, also for the follow-ing and illustration of the View of Tivoli.

99. See, for example, the Landscape near Vellitri, southeast ofRome, from the Civitates, vol. III, plate 53, illustrated inKoeman, op. cit. (note 22), p. 10.

100. Ovid, Metamorphoses, verses 300-678.

101. "A chattering pie, I with intelligible voice salute you mymaster, If you don't see me, you refuse to believe me abird;" see McCulloch, op. cit. (note 36), p. 142 n. 102,citing the Epigrammaton libri, XIV, 73. For Plantin'spublication see Short-Title Catalogue, op. cit. (note 5), p. 129.

102. Moffitt, op. cit. (note 41), pp. 152-153 and 156 n. 34,utilizing a wide variety of emblematic sources.

103. Moffitt, op. cit. (note 41), p. 155 n. 34.104. Moseley, op. cit. (note 41), who also notes Saint

Augustineís observation that what is won with difficultyis remembered with pleasure.

105. See R Findlen, "Jokes of Nature and Jokes of Knowledge:The Playfulness of Scientific Discourse in Early ModernEurope," Renaissance Quarterly, XLIII, p. 310-314.

106. Porteman, op. cit. (note 16), pp. 35-39.107. Porteman, op. cit. (note 16), pp. 46-47.108. Stechow, op. cit. (note 5), p. 71, translation from the

Uytbeeldinghe der Figueren.109. See Koeman, op. cit. (note 22), p. v, that Bruegel's circle

understood this distinction. Braun wrote to Ortelius in1571 about the need to address both the "gheleerdeLatinisten" and the literate middle class that preferredtheir vernacular languages. Gillis (see note 66) and othersworked to develop the middle class audience for em-blems.

Anne SimonsonSchool of Art & DesignSan Jose State UniversitySan Jose, CA 95192-0089USA

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