The Illuminated Choir books of Lasso's Penitential Psalms:

A Virtual theatrum sapientiae

Paper given at the

61st Annual Meeting of the

Renaissance Society of America

Berlin, March 26–28 2015

by

Andreas Wernli

1 Introduction 3

2 Inscriptiones and Declarationes 3

2.1 Inscriptiones 4

2.2 Declarationes 7

2.2.1 The Lasso Declaratio 7

2.2.2 The de Rore Declaratio 10

3 A contemporary witness: Massimo Troiano 10

4 The Lasso manuscripts and the theatrum sapientiae 11

4.1 Topics according to the classes of the Inscriptiones 12

4.2 Topics placed throughout the entire manuscripts 12

5 Conclusion 13

6 Bibliography 14

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1 Introduction

Orlando di Lasso's Septem Psalmi Poenitentiales of ca. 1559 are famous not only for their outstanding musical qualities but also for the sumptuous manuscript in two volumes in which they are notated, illuminated ca. 1560–1570 by the Munich painter Johannes Mielich.1 They are accompanied by the Declaratio, a two volume commentary of the pictures written by the Belgian humanist Samuel Quicchelberg.2 As in the past the music has been held in far higher esteem than the painting, the Psalmi Poenitentiales have primarily been the territory of musicologists who were basing their work mainly on the print of 1584. Even if the manuscript of the 1560's has always been praised for its out-standing beauty, apart from a few art historians3 no one has investigated it further. This is changing now with two forthcoming papers by the art historian Andrea Gottdang on Mielich's work4 and a third one by the musicologist Christian Leitmeir on the production of the manuscript5.

That the complex of the Lasso manuscripts is more than just a collection of music and pictures and biblical stories was first recognized, but only in a general way, by the art historian Katharina Urch who in 1994 called it a "pictorial inventory of the Kunstkammer under construction and therefore a Theatrum mundi"6. Leitmeir took up this term in con-nection with the layout of the pages systematically described in Quicchelberg’s com-mentary. None of the two, however, specifically linked it to a "theatrum sapientiae"; to establish this link is the scope of the following paper.7

This makes it necessary to take a closer look at Samuel Quicchelberg as well as at a related musical manuscript, a book with motets by Cipriano de Rore, illuminated by the same Johannes Mielich ca. 1557–1559 and commented upon in another Declaratio by the same Samuel Quicchelberg.8

2 Inscriptiones and Declarationes

The Belgian-born humanist Samuel Quicchelberg9 came to stay at the Bavarian Court of Albrecht V in 1559 when he was thirty years old and remained in the duke's service until his premature death in 1567.10 What his functions at court exactly were, is not

known, but he must have been some sort of a mastermind, active in various fields, as a glance at his different pre-Munich professions reveals: 1550 tutor of Anton Fugger's son Jakob, 1555 personal physician to Anton Fugger himself and 1557 librarian of Johann Jakob Fugger. His writings reflect the same versatility: several books on medicine; col-laboration on an big manuscript on plants; two manuscripts on genealogy and two prints on theology.

The body of Quicchelberg's works which are of interest here are on the one hand the Inscriptiones vel tituli theatri amplissimi, begun about 1563 and printed in 156511, and on

1 Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Mus.ms. AI(1 and AII(1. 2 Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Mus.ms. AI(2 and AII(2. 3 Schütz, Urch. 4 Gottdang 2012 and 2014. 5 Leitmeir. 6 Urch, p. 23. 7 I thank Anne Smith, Zurich, for her invaluable help with my English. 8 Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Mus.ms. B(1 and B(2. 9 To the different ways of spelling cf. Zäh; here the one of the NDB is used. 10 A contemporary source for Samuel Quicchelberg’s life is Pantaleon, p. 506. See also Diemer, p. 346–349,

Meadow, p. 7–12 and Roth, p. 3–11. 11 Inscriptiones.

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the other hand his three manuscripts of Declarationes. We shall look at the first two of them, the Declaratio of the de Rore manuscript (1564; de Rore Declaratio) and the Declaratio of the first volume of the Psalmi Poenitentiales (1565; Lasso Declaratio). As to the Declaratio of the second volume, begun in 1565 and, after Quicchelberg had died, finished by others, its preface does not serve our purpose as it was written only in 1570 and is an abridged copy of the 1565 preface with neither a dedication nor a conclu-sion as in the former work.

2.1 Inscriptiones

The title of the Inscriptiones has been called more than just a title or table of content, but an actual program12:

INSCRIPTIONS OR TITLES OF THE MOST AMPLE THEATER That Houses Exemplary Objects and Exceptional Images of the Entire World, So That One Could Rightly Call It a: Repository of artificial and marvelous things, and of every rare treasure, precious object, construction, and picture. It is recommended that these things be brought together here in the theater so that by their frequent viewing and handling one

12 Kaltwasser, p. 29.

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might quickly, easily, and confidently be able to acquire a unique knowledge and admirable understanding of things.13

"Most Ample Theatre" means here an exhibition of simply everything there is in this world by means of exemplary objects. And what Quicchelberg is setting up is nothing less than a system of arranging these objects or a classification of the world. Pantaleon calls the book "a short Theatre, in which the entire Philosophy is contained".14 There is more in the book than just that, but for our purposes the theatrum is the core topic.

For Quicchelberg, to look at things is the ideal way to learn – he writes about it most enthusiastically:

And thus for the aspiring leader in a theatre of the kind I have just planned to set up, with an eye for practical matters […] – if he contemplates the names given to all the present objects […] and if he […] is familiar with a certain style of learning, and has examined what things should be considered as similar, different, oppo-site, […] it cannot be but that in the shortest time, without great exertions or dan-gers or troubles (which would in general have to be faced in the investigation of things), he will acquire unbelievable practical knowledge regarding everything and a manifestly divine wisdom. For while books are the other equipment of all disciplines, here – through the observation of paintings, the examination of ob-jects, and the display of the world of instruments, assisted by the tables of divisions and reliable synopses – everything becomes clearer and more comprehensible.15

Quicchelberg’s set-up consists of a list of five classes with ten or eleven inscriptions each and in each inscription a number of criteria and categories, partly probably the "tituli", by which the corresponding objects are to be displayed.

We need not go further into the details of this classification – the shell of a theatrum sa-pientiae –, but take a quick look where it came from. Quicchelberg himself gives us several hints as to its ancestry: He is aware of the fact that even the richest person, such as Albrecht V, cannot collect everything. Still he set up a classification to encompass all possible matters. And he continues:

[…] it has been necessary here to describe everything in full so that at least in the general enumeration there is nothing to be desired. […] I wanted with this most complete and universal enumeration to add these things to the considerations of men, just as Cicero did with regard to the complete orator. Thus on the basis of these classes they might measure the magnitude of their knowledge of all things, and they might be stimulated to imagine and investigate other matters in turn.16

The mentioning of Cicero’s complete orator is the clue to mnemonic methods, where the brain is organized like a kind of a storehouse where one systematically places things to be able to access them in the shortest possible time. In his Confessions Augustin writes about the "spacious halls of memory, where are stored as treasures […] countless images […]."17.

Quicchelberg refers also to Giulio Camillo, whose L’Idea del Teatro, which had ap-peared in 1550, he quotes mostly to set himself apart from Camillo's philosophical, met-aphoric approach:

13 English translation in Meadow, p. 61; title page from Roth, p. 35. 14 Pantaleon, p. 506; English by AW. 15 Meadow, p. 91; Latin in Roth, p. 160 / line 826ff. (with German translation on each opposite page). 16 ibid. p. 74; Roth, p. 90/33ff. 17 Augustin X, 8, 12.

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Because here we are not dividing up for philosophers, precisely in line with nature itself, all natural objects; rather we are sorting out for princes, into certain uncom-plicated orderings, objects that are mostly pleasant to observe. Nor was it even possible to divide up individual objects according to the seven planets, as these philosophers might have been able to do in imitation of Vitruvius and Camillo […].18

Much more appealing to Quicchelberg’s practical approach is the idea of a theatre as a solid wooden construction, as Camillo conceived it, but was realized only as a model at the French court around 153419:

Here it is necessary to mention that the museum of Giulio Camillo, on account of his semicircular construction could also properly be called a theatre.20

Quicchelberg’s ideal theatrum seems to be that which was built in Munich. And it comprised much more than just the Kunstkammer alone:

[…] due to this most illustrious Prince Albrecht – in addition to his enormous theatre {i.e. the Kunstkammer} […] – there is also in Munich a recently founded collection of books called the ducal library. Moreover, there is a newly constructed printing press, set up for printing very large musical scores together with full-sized Latin let-ters. {There is also to be seen […] this extraordinary invention of a press for stamp-ing coins.} There is a dedicated space set aside especially for musical instruments. There is a most pleasing turner’s workshop.21

In addition there are the Duchess’s "laboratory for ointments and cures" and her "enor-mous aviary" with "a great many species of birds" while the duke’s mother had already before installed a pharmacy and "a separate chamber for portraits" of her relatives and courtiers, especially the young women of the entourage of the Bavarian court.22

This seems quite a hodgepodge of various activities; Quicchelberg insists, however, that he is not "in mentioning these things in any way digressing from the planning of our the-atre"23.

But what has all this got to do with the manuscript of the Penitential Psalms? Comparing Albrecht’s multiple achievements in the area of Kunstkammern, Quicchelberg states, that his prince surpassed others by far. And he continues:

He also {assembled} biblical illuminations in the several thousands, as said above, painted by the hand of Hans Mielich of Munich, in those most sumptuous music books to such splendor of theirs, that {all this together} would seem to constitute, as if a library, a storehouse of pictures unto themselves.24

"As said above" refers to a previous passage in a discussion about containers in which to store all objects of a Kunstkammer. Here Quicchelberg mentions the wonders of the world in antiquity and in his own days:

{I think that I have paid no little attention to the fact} that my prince, Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria, has been the foremost to initiate the introduction of new won-ders of the world, in addition to {the} books of sacred images, many thousands of

18 Meadow, p. 78; Roth, p. 110/62ff. 19 Roth, p. 26. 20 Meadow, p. 78; Roth, p. 106/29f. 21 Meadow, p. 76; additions and changes in translation by AW in {}; Roth, p. 98/171ff. 22 ibid. p. 76f; Roth, p. 100f/188ff. 23 ibid. p. 77; Roth, p. 102/223ff. 24 ibid. p. 100; Roth, p. 196/497ff.

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which have been exclusively painted for the prince by the hand of Hans Mielich of Munich. Anyone who has seen these books will think that the wondrous theater is all the more distinguished on their account alone.25

No surprise that Quicchelberg has "paid no little attention" having already written two of the three volumes commenting on the illuminated books. And no surprise that the notion of the "wonders of the world" and the theatrum sapienitae is to be found in those writings as well.

2.2 Declarationes

Quicchelberg’s work on the first two of the three Declarationes must have started in the early 1560’s. In 1564 he finished the de Rore Declaratio, which was commissioned by Duke Albrecht sometime after the completion of the de Rore manuscript in December 1559. By then Lasso had composed the Penitential Psalms, as he states in the print of 1584, where he gives "more or less 25 years ago"26 as their date of composition. Quic-chelberg tells us that

At the moment these seven Penitential Psalms and two psalms ‘Laudate’ had been composed by Orlando, they so much pleased this serene prince, who alone among today's princes has the faculty to judge music, that he ensured that they be written down on august parchment and decorated with a wealth of pictures […].27

Assuming that the work on the first volume of the Lasso manuscripts started in 1560 at the earliest, after the de Rore one had been completed and the music of the psalms composed, Quicchelberg must have been working simultaneously on the de Rore Dec-laratio and the Declaratio of the psalms 1–4. The difference was that with the motets the body of pictures had already been completed, while with the psalms he was taking part in the process of creating the manuscript, although just in what way is not yet clear.

If we recall that both the Lasso Declaratio and the Inscriptiones appeared in 1565, and that Quicchelberg must have started writing the latter before or around 1563, when moreover the construction of the Kunstkammer also began, we see that during those few years, the theatrum sapientiae in its broadest sense must have been the main topic he was pursuing through various kinds of activities.

2.2.1 The Lasso Declaratio

The basic text about how the Declarationes work is found in the Declaratio of the first volume of the Penitential Psalms. Already at the bottom of the title page of the Lasso manuscript we find an indication as to the existence and purpose of the Declaratio:

If the benevolent beholder of the present pictures might wish to have something explained, he shall know that there exists an explanation of the entire work ac-cording to pages and illustrations, in which all sacred stories (not without some-

25 ibid. p. 90; Roth, p. 156/763ff. 26 s. Lasso (ed. Leuchtmann), p. liv. 27 Lasso Declaratio, fol. v: […] psalmi isti VII poenitentiales, et duo psalmi Laudate, cum iam essent ab Or-

lando compositi, adeo probata [sc. carmina] sunt Illustrissimo principi, cuius solum inter nostri seculi prin-cipes musicam est iudicare, ut curarit ea in augustissimis membranis exscribi, et imaginibus locupletissimis exornari. (English by AW).

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times being commixed with some profane matters) being quoted with their bibli-cal text and indication of chapters, are splendidly made clear.28

In the Declaratio itself Quicchelberg reveals for whom it is written: namely for us. In his time, it was Duke Albrecht who did the explaining to his princes, noblemen and distin-guished persons of trust29 yet

this benefit had to be extended and propagated to the ones, who after many centuries will again and again be drawn to all this with a very great desire of their mind […].30

28 Lasso manuscript, p. 1: Benignus inspector imaginum praesentium si quid forte explicari sibi desideret, sciat

universi operis secundum paginas et figuras extare declarationem, in qua omnes sacrae historiae (nec enim ulla fere admista sunt prophana) citato textu biblico et diligenter indicatis capitibus pulchre dilucidantur.

29 Lasso Declaratio, fol. ii. 30 ibid. : illud equidem commodum extendi ac propagari ad eos etiam debuit, qui post multa saecula, ea omnia

maiore subinde animi desiderio sunt appetituri […].

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In an elaborate dedication to Duke Albrecht and a preface "To the beholders of the pictures and readers of the explanations"31 Quicchelberg touches on all the pertinent points mentioned before in connection with the Inscriptiones. The most important one of these is expressed – in wording almost identical to the Inscriptiones – when he writes of the manifold manifestations of Duke Albrecht's activities and the wonders of the world:

[…] when we are comparing the same books of psalms with the rest of the elabo-rate buildings, the archives of all kinds of pictures, the storehouses of numerous books, then the entire Christian population has to praise your Highness not only as a founder of one single library or college, but proclaim you to be the foremost in-ventor of new wonders of the world.32

This is followed by the crucial passage:

Because the project of these books alone [namely the Lasso manuscript] or what I add here, the foundation of a theatrum sapientiae, is far more excellent than ei-ther the pyramids of Memphis […] or the tomb of Mausolus, after which several mausoleums have been named […]: because the splendor of those wonders of the world is […] due to their proud massiveness, while these, of the same dimen-sion, are produced in books, to the glory of God the Almighty, from biblical stories […].33

Only a little later he again hints at the fact that from such theatra "there is to be ob-tained knowledge of very many things and divine as well as human wisdom"34.

Except for the passages in the dedication, where Quicchelberg addresses Albrecht personally, the remark about the theatrum sapientae is one of the rare instances, where he writes in the first person: it seems, that the remark about the theatrum sapientiae is made off the record. From this I conclude that for Albrecht this aspect had to yield to the psalm exegesis, and that Quicchelberg sort of smuggled it in, because it was of principal concern to him.

The idea to incorporate a painted theatrum sapientiae into the manuscript must have originated while working together with Albrecht and Mielich on the psalms, although Quicchelberg is very discreet about his part in this; in the very beginning of the Lasso Declaratio he claims to have done no more than taken down

the explanation of the pictures on your venerable Highness's demand and with your instruction and help and according to the opinion of the painter.35

31 ibid. fol. iv: Ad imaginum inspectores et explicationum lectores. 32 ibid. fol. ii'f.: quando cum his ipsis psalmorum libris reliqua comparanda sunt artificiosa aedificia, imaginum

omnis generis promptuaria, numerosorum librorum reconditoria, debeat universus populus Christianus Tu-am Celsitudinem non iam unius fundatorem bibliothecae, vel collegij praedicare, sed novorum orbis miracu-lorum primum inventorem proclamare.

33 ibid. fol. iii: Longe enim excellentius est horum solum librorum institutum, aut quod hic coniungo, sapientiae theatri fundatio, quam vel Memphitici pyramides […] vel Mausoli sepulchrum, a quo plurima quondam Mausolea sunt denominata […]: Illa enim orbis miracula superba sua mole […] splendebant: haec quantum ad libros, in gloriam Dei optimi maximi, ex historiis divinis […] producta sunt. (underlining by AW).

34 ibid.: […]ex quibus […] cognitio rerum plurimarum, ac sapientia divina simul et humana acquiri posse videatur.

35 Lasso Declaratio, fol. ii: (haec volumina) quorum imaginum explanationem ego iussu, instructione, et auxilio amplissimae Celsitudinis Tuae adhibita et pictoris eiusdemque inventoris sententia conscripsi […].

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Yet it is unthinkable that he should not have taken part in the overall conception as well as in the production of the single images. This still has to be verified. At least, and under-standably so, his language in the Declarationes has much in common with the one of the Inscriptiones.

2.2.2 The de Rore Declaratio

Since Quicchelberg wrote the de Rore Declaratio during the same period as the In-scriptiones and the Lasso Declaratio, the question arises, whether there are any traces of the theatrum sapientiae in de Rore, too. There is no explicit use of the term. But when giving an extensive classification of the different kinds of pictures used in the manu-script, Quicchelberg touches en passant on the topic of "everything" and "help in un-derstanding":

Paintings are just all things whichever refer in a way to things which find them-selves high up or low down in the framework of the whole world and to the divine and human actions, be it perceived in reality, be it imagined by the mind. […] To distinguish this more precisely, it is necessary to go over to fields of knowledge, sci-ences and all arts such as theology, medicine, history, mathematical and all other studies which can be adorned and be helped by paintings.36

And at the end of this section:

Here, too, the paintings reveal through themselves the framework of the whole world such as of cities, of regions, mountains, woods, gardens and finally also of actions and every activity which is set up and organized under the sky and even in heaven itself.37

Obviously the theatrum sapientiae is not yet an issue in the de Rore Declaratio, even though it is present in Quicchelberg's thinking. Surprisingly, however, he twice alludes to the Lasso volumes, so we see that those are already in his focus. First he mentions "Jo-hannes Mielich, the most famous Munich artist, […] whose services in painting books of this kind the most illustrious prince Albrecht used still later on during many years"38. And later on that Albrecht ensured that de Rore's motets "and other most excellent Orlan-dinian works were produced."39

3 A contemporary witness: Massimo Troiano

A further contemporary source is the testimony of a man who had seen the manu-scripts: Massimo Troiano. He was a musician in Lasso's chapel and in 1569 published a detailed account of the wedding of Albrecht's son William to Renée, Duchess of Lor-raine, which had taken place in Munich in February 1568 – a festivity of European di-mensions that lasted for two weeks. In his book in dialogue-form, Troiano, the totally

36 de Rore Declaratio, fol. 3'f.: Picturae sunt generaliter ea omnia, quaecunque uspiam de universae mundi

machinae superis inferisque rebus, de divinis humanisque actionibus quantum mens hominis assequi potest, tam vere spectata, quam ingeniose excogitata […]. Ad quae quidem latius distinguenda transire oportet ad facultates, disciplinas, et artes universas. Ut theologiam, medicinam, historias, mathemata et omnia alia studia, quae picturis exornari et iuvari possunt.

37 ibid. fol. 6': Sed et hic sese patefaciunt universi mundi machinae picturae ut urbium, regionum, montium, silvarum, hortorum, denique et actionum, negotiorumque omnium quae uspiam sub caelo et in ipso quoque coelo constituuntur et figurantur.

38 ibid. fol. 3: Johannes Muelich Monacensis artifex celeberrimus […] cuius opera Illustrissimus princeps Al-bertus in posterum quoque multis annis in huius generis libris depingendis usus est.

39 ibid. fol. 13: [Albertus …] et alia eius generis Illustrissima opera Orlandina confici curavit.

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informed, tells his interlocutor, the totally uninformed, among other things, that he has seen these manuscripts – de Rore as well as Lasso volume 1, volume 2 at that time still being in production. When boasting about them, he uses language similar to Quic-chelberg's Declarationes in such a way, that he must have either read them or at least echo what was said about them at court. First he refers to the pyramids of Memphis, saying:

I am more content to have looked at and leafed through these [manuscripts] than [if I had seen] the great pyramids of Memphis.40

And then he states that in these manuscripts everything is to be seen:

Images after nature, antique colossuses, high arches, eerie ravines, decayed buildings, precious trophies, blossoming plants, charming hills, green pastures, pleasant forests, tame and wild animals, birds in flight, the dark of the night and the light of the day, and finally all the beautiful things that are offered by the sky, the earth, the sea and hell.41

And his interlocutor replies:

Now, you have told me so much about it that envy smothers my heart […] be-cause you have seen the most perfect there is to see in this art.42

4 The Lasso manuscripts and the theatrum sapientiae

In the Inscriptiones Quicchelberg calls the "most sumptuous music books […] a store-house of pictures unto themselves"43 what connects them to Augustine's notion of memory44. This illustrates the tendency of those years "to superimpose mental and phys-ical places, to reach perfect congruence of the map of the mind with the map of things"45. And if it is impossible to represent certain things in a Kunstkammer by exempla-ry objects, then at least images can serve as their substitutes.46 Even if Quicchelberg gives no more than a hint that the Lasso manuscripts contain a theatrum sapientiae made of pictures, there must be some evidence which supports this statement and may serve as a point of departure to further investigation. In the Lasso Declaratio, there are no more explicit references to it nor to the Inscriptiones. But there are different trac-es in the manuscripts themselves.

40 Troiano, p. 389: […] più mi contento di haver visto e voltati quelli, che le gran Piramide di Menfi […]. (En-

glish by AW). 41 ibid., p. 96: […] le naturali effigie, gli Antichi colossi, gli alti Archi, gli orribili Burroni, li dirupati edifici, li

ricchi trofei, le fiorite herbette, gli ameni colli, li verdi piani, le dilettevoli selve, le mansuete e fiere belve, li volatili uccelli, il Buio de la notte e'l chiaro del giorno, e finalmente quanto ha di bello il Cielo, la terra, il mare, e l'inferno.

42 ibid., p. 389: Voi m'havete detto tanto c'hormai l'invidia, m'ha soffocato il core […] che voi visto havete, quel che di perfetto, di quella arte, veder si puote.

43 cf. above, p. 7. 44 cf. above, p. 6. 45 Bolzoni, p. 361. 46 The relationship between objects and their representation through images in Quicchelberg's Inscriptiones

and the Munich Kunstkammer is discussed in detail in Pilaski, chapter 4. The Lasso manuscripts, however, are not mentioned.

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4.1 Topics according to the classes of the Inscriptiones

The main principle of organization is through the illustrations of the psalms which are commented upon verse by verse. This corresponds insofar to the first inscription of the first of Quicchelberg's classes in his Inscriptiones as it contains sacred stories.47 For a book of psalms this is self-evident, but it is brought up nonetheless, because in his com-mentary to this inscription, Quicchelberg almost apologizes for starting with religion in-stead of honoring the patron, assuring:

Immediately next, I add the founder's genealogy, portrait, and other objects to which some preference is owed here.48

The Lasso manuscripts, on the contrary, do begin with several non-musical pages dedi-cated to the founder/patron – as does the de Rore one – according to:

Inscription 2: "The genealogy of the theater's founder"49

− Vol. I, p. 2: Albrecht V surrounded by the eight coats of arms of his Bavarian, Habsburgian and other ancestors.

Inscription 3: "Portraits of the theater's founder […] of his parents, kinsmen and of his former predecessors in office […]"50

− Vol. I, p. 2: portrait of Albrecht V

− Vol. II, p. 3 and 4: the male and female members of his family and court;

− Vol. I, p. 4: Albrecht's predecessors back to Otto II (1206–1253);

− Vol. II, p. 6–9: coats of arms of Bavarian noble families.

Inscription 4: "[…] a chart of the region or territory of the founder […]"51

− Instead of maps the region is represented in vol. I, p. 3, by the coats of arms of the 86 monasteries and other ecclesiastical places, 35 earldoms, 34 towns and 79 market places, to a total of 234 locations within the territory of Bavaria.

I am convinced that many Bavarian scenes can be found in the Lasso-manu-script, but this has not been investigated yet. In contrast, such scenes appear in the de Rore manuscript, e.g. Munich and Landshut on the bottom of pp. 257 and 258.

4.2 Topics placed throughout the entire manuscripts

As a rule the theatrum sapientiae seems to be distributed throughout the manuscripts. The question of a possible underlying system still needs to be investigated, whether or not it is related to the classes and inscriptions of the theatrum. The presence of hun-dreds if not thousands of animals can be taken as just one random fraction of an ex-ample. They play an important role in different ways:

They are used as symbols, through which they represent aspects of human characteris-tics. Each of the seven psalms is assigned to one of the seven capital sins, and on the bottom of the first opening of each psalm we find the allegory of the sin and its virtuous

47 Meadow p. 62; Roth, p. 40/43. 48 ibid., p. 78; Roth, p. 108/49ff. 49 ibid., p. 62; Roth, p. 40/57. 50 ibid.; Roth, p. 40/67ff. 51 ibid.; Roth, p. 42/78.

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opponent, as for instance at the beginning of the third psalm, a prayer against glut-tony, vol. I, p. 98. The Declaratio, fol. 47, lists the following animals representing gluttony's aspects: her mount, a mystical predatory creature, half cat, half dragon; on the shield she carries the rapacious pike, on the helmet the hen-stealing fox and in the banner the voracious wolf. On the same page there is gluttony's opponent, temperance: she rides a graceful deer, willing to work; on the shield she carries the otter, which eats only little fish, the young ravens on the helmet represent psalm 147: "God gives food to the animals – even to the baby ravens when they cry out." And on the banner there is a glimpse into the world of medicine, one of Quicchelberg's many professions: two snakes, because the saliva of a fasting person is an antidote to snake poison.

Animals are furthermore used to represent human faculties as in vol. I, p. 78, in the de-piction of the five senses, or rather their absence according to the verse: "in quibus non est intellectus". Each one is accompanied by the animal with the keenest perception of the respective sense – another glimpse, this time into zoology – following a distich that reads:

The boar surpasses our hearing, the lynx our vision, the monkey our taste, the vulture our smell and the spider our touch.52

Finally there is again the sheer joy of showing everything as in the "Gloria patri", vol. I, p. 37: according to Genesis 2,19 "the Lord God formed from the fertile land all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky and brought them to the human to see what he would name them. The human gave each living being its name." A welcome occasion for a beautiful page with a wealth of animals and birds.

5 Conclusion

Only a few scholars have taken notice of Quicchelberg's remark about the theatrum sapienitae, and according to their respective point of view they associated it with the library53 or with the Kunstkammer54 or thought of it as the latter's pictorial inventory55. Reading it from an unbiased perspective, there is no doubt that the manuscript itself is called the foundation of the theatrum sapientiae. This yields an entire new dimension of this overwhelming monument, for the Lasso manuscript is no longer just a magnificent work of art – music and painting at one and the same time –, but also an impressive picture-encyclopedia of its time. In addition to the ongoing research in the fields of aes-thetics and manuscript-production, which will hopefully be supplemented in the future by psalm exegesis, politics and more, this vast universe of knowledge is now a wide-open subject of investigation as well.

52 Lasso Declaratio, fol. 113':

Nos aper auditu: lynx visu: simia gustu Vultur odoratu praecellit, aranea tactu.

53 Diemer, p. 362. 54 Kaltwasser, p. 29. 55 Urch, p. 23.

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6 Bibliography

6.1 Sources

6.1.1 Manuscripts in the Bavarian State Library Munich

Orlando di Lasso: Septem psalmi poenitentiales. (Vol. 1)1565. – Mus.ms. AI(1 http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0003/bsb00035007/images/

Samuel Quicchelberg: Declaratio psalmorum poenitentialium et duorum psalmorum Laudate. 1565. – Mus.ms. AI(2 http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0003/bsb00035012/images/

Orlando di Lasso: Septem psalmi poenitentiales cum duobus psalmis Laudate. 1570. (Vol. 2) – Mus.ms. AII(1 http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0003/bsb00035009/images/

Samuel Quicchelberg et. al.: Declaratio imaginum secundi tomi psalmorum poenitentialium… 1570. – Mus.ms. AII(2 http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0003/bsb00035013/images/

Cipriano de Rore: [Liber motetorum]. 1559. – Mus.ms. B(1 http://daten.digitale-sammlung-en.de/~db/0003/bsb00037180/images/index.html?id=00037180&fip=qrswxdsydyztsfsdreayasdas&no=2&seite=1

Samuel Quicchelberg: Declaratio picturarum […] in libro motetorum […] Cypri-ani de Rore. 1564. – Mus.ms. B(2 http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0003/bsb00035317/images/

6.1.2 Prints

Giulio Camillo: L’Idea del Teatro. Florence 1550 http://books.google.ch/books?id=vBU8AAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0# v=twopage&q&f=true

Heinrich Pantaleon: Der dritte und letste Theil Teutscher Nation Heldenbuch. Basel 1570 http://www.e-rara.ch/doi/10.3931/e-rara-19682

Samuel Quicchelberg: Inscriptiones vel Tituli Amplissimi Theatri. Munich 1565. Ed. and Tr. cf. Roth

Dialoghi di Massimo Troiano. Venice 1569. Ed. and Tr. H. Leuchtmann, Munich 1980 (= Studien zur Landes- und Sozialgeschichte 4)

6.2 Literature and Editions

Augustinus: Confessions. Tr. A. Cutler. London 1955 http://www.ccel.org/a/augustine/confessions/

Lina Bolzoni: La chambre de la mémoire. Modèles littéraires et iconogra-phiques à l'âge de l'imprimerie. 2Geneva 2005

Peter Diemer et al.: "Ausgewählte Quellen zur Münchner Kunstkammer 1565–1632". In: W. Sauerländer (Ed.): Die Münchner Kunstkammer. Vol. 3, Mu-nich 2008, p. 345–379

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Andrea Gottdang: "NotenBilderTexte. Der Busspsalmcodex von Hans Mielich und Orlando di Lasso als intermediales Projekt" (2012). In: E. Oy-Marra, K. Pietschmann, G. Wedekind (Ed.): Intermedialität von Bild und Musik (forthcoming)

Andrea Gottdang: "Hans Mielich und die Seitengestaltung des de Rore-Chorbuchs […]. Neue Impulse für die Buchmalerei als Medium höfischer Repräsentation" (2014). In: J. A. Owens, K. Schiltz (Ed.): Cipriano de Rore at the Crossroads, Turnhout (forthcoming)

Franz Georg Kaltwasser: Die Bibliothek als Museum. Wiesbaden 1999 (= Beiträ-ge zum Buch- und Bibliothekswesen 38)

Orlando di Lasso: Die Sieben Busspsalmen mit der Motette Laudes Domini. Ed. H. Leuchtmann, Kassel etc. 1995 (= Orlando di Lasso. Sämtliche Werke. Neue Reihe 26)

Christian Leitmeir: "Design or Disaster? A Concert of Images, Words and Music in the Penitential Psalm Codices" (2013; forthcoming)

Mark A. Meadow and Bruce Robertson: The First Treatise on Museums. Samuel Quiccheberg's Inscriptiones 1565. Los Angeles 2013

Katharina Pilaski Kaliardos: The Munich Kunstkammer. Art, Nature and the Rep-resentation of Knowledge in Courtly Contexts. Tübingen 2013

Cipriano de Rore: Motets. Ed. B. Meier, American Institute of Musicology 1975 (= Cipriani de Rore Opera Omnia VI)

Harriet Roth, ed.: Der Anfang der Museumslehre in Deutschland. Das Traktat "Inscriptiones vel Tituli Theatri Amplissimi" von Samuel Quiccheberg. Berlin 2000

Liselotte Schütz: Hans Mielichs Illustrationen zu den Busspsalmen des Orlando di Lasso. Munich 1966

Katharina Urch: "Das Busspsalmenwerk für Herzog Albrecht V." In: H. Leucht-mann, H. Schaefer, Ed.: Orlando di Lasso: Prachthandschriften und Quel-lenüberlieferung. Tutzing 1994, p. 19–25.

Helmut Zäh: Art. "Quicchelberg, Samuel". In: Neue Deutsche Biographie 21 (2003), p. 44–45. [Online version: http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/ppn119331535.html]