Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of Natural Philosophy, Religion and Art

by Raymond Klibansky, Erwin Panofsky, Fritz Saxl

Saturn and Melancholy has been out of print for a long time. Following requests from scholars in many countries the book is now made available again. Much could be added to it, especially in the light of recent studies in the history of ancient medicine. However this would hardly be possible without affecting the balance of the whole. Since neither of my co-authors is alive - Erwin Panofsky died in March 1968 - I considered it best to leave the work in the form in which it first appeared fifteen years ago. --Preface to reprint, Raymond Klibansky, Oxford, February 1979

Genres: Philosophy, Art, History, Nonfiction, Religion, Astrology, Art History

429 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Raymond Klibansky, CC GOQ (October 15, 1905 – August 5, 2005) was a German-Canadian historian of philosophy.

Born in Paris, to Rosa Scheidt and Hermann Klibansky, he was educated at the University of Kiel, University of Hamburg and Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, where he received a Ph.D. in 1928. From 1927 to 1933 he was an assistant at the Heidelberg Academy and from 1931 until 1933 he was a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. In 1933 he was no longer able to teach since he was a Jew.

In 1933 he moved with his family to Italy and then to Brussels finally setting in Oxford, where he was a lecturer at Oriel College, Oxford from 1936 until 1946. He became a British citizen in 1938, and during the Second World War was attached to the Political Warfare Executive, based at Woburn Abbey. He worked at first on Germany, then on preparation for the allied invasion of Italy, and after the war on the denazification programme in Germany.

In 1946 Klibansky became the Frothingham Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at McGill University; he also lectured at the Université de Montréal.

From 1966 to 1969 he was President of the International Institute of Philosophy, and subsequently its honorary president. He was a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford from 1981 to 1995 and thereafter an honorary fellow of that college.

In 1999 he was made a Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec. In 2000 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in recognition for being "one of the greatest intellectuals of our time".

The Raymond Klibansky Prize is awarded each year for the best books in the humanities that have received support from the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme (ASPP), part of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. One prize each is awarded to the best English book and the best French book. (wiki)

Reviews

[Wythe Marschall · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Well, mine's the hardback, English edition, borrowed from Brooklyn College, but same book.) Saxl et al document the medical development of "melancholy" as an ambivalent humor (inspiring both sluggishness and divine madness) as well as the mythopoetic rise of Saturn as the dread Star of Genius.

Saturn and Melancholy is perfect for anyone interested in the Graeco-Roman concept of Kronos/Saturnus, in the Islamic Golden Age and how great physical/medical thinkers in Baghdad and great religious thinkers in Sevilla and Cordoba kept Greek traditions alive during a thousand years of Catholic isolation, and in genuinely wacky "nonfiction" ala Borges (the endlessly recursive essay, the zahir, the great Argentine's own obsession with the Qabbalah and its intermingling with Anglo-Saxon poetry).

Personally, I'm amazed with each new subchapter. It's as if these three German historians--fleeing the Nazis, writing their almost obscure-by-choice magnum opus--called me up and asked what they should write about... And I was like, "Well, I'm writing a comic book involving Saturn--start with him. But add some Avicenna--ooh, and compare the 'Melancholy Englishman' of Shakespeare, later, Keats with the 'Melancholy Spaniard' of the Baroque."

And they was like, "Hell yeah, money. We GOT this."

4 mai Tru Bibliophiles out there. Check it out.

[شمس · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is Saturn who leads the mind to the contemplation of higher and more hidden matters.
__________
He is the lord of secret contemplation, foreign to all public affairs . . .—Agrippa, Occulta philosophia
__________
Significantly, in astrological literature since late antiquity, Kronos, like his Roman counterpart Saturn, was also recognised by many different faces; for Tycho Brahe as for Burton after him, he was still the ruler of melancholy. This god, punished by his own son, brings misfortune to the “children of Saturn”, that is, those born under his sign. At the same time, in the platonic tradition Saturn is—as the highest planet—the god of philosophers. Furthermore, because he was identified with Chronos, he is also “Time”, who devours his children. Finally, in the astrological tradition that goes back to the end of Hellenism and is later strengthened by the Arabs, he becomes, because of his ominous characteristics, the patron of the infirm and of highwaymen, and yet sometimes also, of the deep thinker (bathyphrōn). —Klibansky, Preface to the German Edition

__________
After finishing my reread of Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, I decided to pick this up, not knowing much about it.

This frankly outstanding work is split into 4 parts:

I. The Notion of Melancholy and Its Historical Development
-Melancholy in the Physiological Literature of the Ancients
(Covers the doctrine of the four humours the notion of the melancholy as revolutionised by the peripatetics (including a translation of Aristotle’s Problem XXX, I), said development after the peripatetics including as an illness, and melancholy in the system of the four temperaments.)
-Melancholy in Medieval Medicine, Science, and Philosophy
(Covers the survival of the Aristotelian notion of melancholy in the Middle Ages, and, as above, melancholy as an illness, and in the system of the four temperaments.)

II. Saturn, Star of Melancholy
-Saturn in the Literary Tradition
(Covers the notion of Saturn in Aarabic astrology, Saturn in ancient literature, and Saturn in Medieval literature
-Saturn in the Pictorial Tradition
(Covers Saturn in various pictorial traditions including: ancient art, medieval art, text-illustration and oriental influence, mythographical illustrations of the late Middle Ages, and in Humanism)

III. “Poetic Melancholy” and “Melancholia Generosa”
-Poetic Melancholy in post-Medieval Poetry
(Covers melancholy as a subjective mood in poetry, “Dame Merencolye”, and melancholy as a heightened self-awareness)
-“Melancholia Generosa”
(Covers the glorification melancholy and Saturn in Florentine neoplatonism and the birth of the modern notion of genius.)

IV. Dürer
-Melancholy in Conrad Celtes
-Dürer’s Melancolia I
(Covers the historical background, traditional motifs, traditional images in the composition, the new meaning (including new forms of expression, new notional content, and its significance.)
-The Artistic Legacy of Melancolia I
(Covers portraits of melancholy as as single female figure in the manner of Dürer, portraits of melancholy in late Medieval almanacs, and melancholy in portraits of Saturn or of his Children.)

This edition also includes a large amount of supplementary material including copious notes (unfortunately, largely in Latin) appendices, additions to notes, an addendum, an afterword, and 150 Illustrations, which are mainly referenced in part IV.

Not only is the scholarship excellent, but this is one of those rare books which is a real joy to read; it has a silent, scholarly, contemplative air.

If you enjoyed Burton’s Anatomy, or if the themes of Melancholy and its relation to Saturn, and/or Artistic representations of melancholy including and after Dürer sound of interest to you, definitely pick this up.

A rare combination of scholarly excellence and enjoyability. Highly recommended.
_____
Thanks to my friend Dean who introduced me to this by recommended it to me on here last year.
__________
The perfect combination was, first, that in which all the elements were equally apportioned; secondly, that in which the elemental units—as we should say, the atoms—of the combination were neither too many nor too few in quantity, neither too coarse nor too fine in quality. This perfect combination produced the man with the largest understanding and the keenest wit. If all the elements were not equally apportioned, the man would be a fool. If the number of the apportioned atoms was either too great or too small, the man produced would be either gloomy and lethargic, or hot-blooded and enthusiastic, but incapable of sustained effort. And if the combination was more perfect in one part of the body than in another, this would produce individuals with marked specific talent—orators, for instance, off the “crisis” of the tongue, artists if that of the hands, was especially good.

Nourishment brought substances into the body which, thanks to the digestion, were partly made use of (that is, turned into bones, flesh, and blood), but were partly indigestible; and from the latter arose the “surplus humours”, the notion of which had developed very similarly to that of the cosmic primary elements. Euryphon of Cnidus had assumed an indefinite number of such humours, which rose to the head and generated illnesses; Timotheus of Netapontus believed they were caused by a single acid salty fluid; and Herodicus of Cnidus distinguished two such fluids, one sour and one bitter. These were the two humours which later received the names phlegm, and bile.

Probably as early as with the Pythagoreans, the four seasons had been matched with the Four Ages of Man, the latter being counted either as boyhood, youth, manhood, and old age; or, alternatively, as youth till twenty, prime till about forty, decline till about sixty, and after that old age. A connexion could therefore be established without more ado between the Four Humours (and later the Four Temperaments) and the Four Ages of Man—a connexion which held good for all time and which was to be of fundamental significance in the future development of both speculation and imagery.

On the other hand, these very substances, though regarded as in themselves causes of illness , or at the least as predisposing factors, were paired with the universal (and hygienically neutral) qualities, cold, moist, warm, and dry. Each gained the ascendancy once a year without necessarily causing acute illnesses; and since the absolutely healthy man was one who was never ill at all (so that he must be as like every other absolutely healthy man as tropes in a pod, the right combination of the humours being ne alone and permitting no divergencies), the physician, of all people, could not avoid the conclusion that this absolutely healthy man represented an ideal hardly ever met with in reality.

Thus, in such a tradition, what had of old been symptoms of illness came gradually to be regarded, at first unconsciously, as types of disposition. Complete health was only an ideal, approximated but never in fact attained.

This spiritual singularity of the natural melancholic was due to the fact that the black bile possessed one quality lacking in the other humours, namely that it affected the disposition.

Just as wine, according to its temperature and the amount drunk, produced the most varied emotional effects, making men cheerful or sad, or garrulous or taciturn, or raving or apathetic, so black bile too produced the most varied mental conditions. The main difference from the effects of wine was that the effects of black bile were not always temporary, but became permanent characteristics, wherever the black bile had a natural ascendancy and was not merely morbidly chilled or inflamed.

There was also the very important fact that the black bile, like stone or iron, could be powerfully affected by heat and cold. Naturally cold, it could become immoderately so, as well as immoderately hot.

The deviation from the normal, distinguishing every melancholic, does not of itself include a capacity for outstanding intellectual achievements.

If the black bile is entirely cold it produced lethargic weaklings or dull fools, if entirely hot it produces mad, lively, erotic, and otherwise excitable people, who (since the seat of the black bile lies near the seat of reason) are prone to trances and ecstasies like the Sibyls and soothsayers, or those poets who only produce good work when in an ecstasy.

The final answer to the question put at the beginning reads that the amount of melancholy humour must be great enough to raise the character above the average, but not so great as to generate a melancholy “all too deep”, and that it must maintain an average temperature between “too hot” and “too cold”. Then and only then is the melancholic not a freak but a genius.

It is at both extremes that black bike (melancholia) is powerful, as if it got its stability from a sort of unity of its fixed nature. This extreme character doesn’t happen for the other humours. —Ficino, De vita triplici

Problem XXX, I, stands therefore at a point in the history of thought where Platonic and Aristotleianism interpenetrate and balance one another.

The treatment of al this illnesses was based far less on the use of medicaments and surgery than on dietary and, most important of all, on psychological remedies. These remedies were: living in rooms full of light (as opposed to the old view that darkness was soothing); avoidance of heavy food; moderation in the drinking of wine, especially of strong wines; massage, baths, exercises, and (if the patient was strong enough) gymnastics; fighting insomnia (not with medicaments but by gentle rocking to-and-fro, or by the sound of running water); change of surroundings, and long journeys; especially, strict avoidance of all frightening ideas’ cheering conversation and amusements; gentle admonition; sympathetic treatment of any fixed ideas; discussion in which the patient should be brought into a different frame of mind more by unobtrusive suggestion than by open contradiction; and, most important of all, music, whose physiatrics use, first suggested by Theophrastus, had finally been systematised by Asclepiades—we even know which modes be recommended for the various forms of mental illness. [the sad are to be cheered by the Phrygian mode, the frivolous sobered by those in the Dorian —Caelius Aurelianus]

According to him, the conspicuous symptoms of melancholy were: dark skin, puffiness, bad odour, greed coupled with permanent leanness, depression, misanthropy, suicidal tendencies, true dreams, fears, visions, and abrupt transitions from hostility, pettiness and avarice, to sociability and generosity. If mere melancholy turned to downright madness, the symptoms were: various hallucinations, fear of “daimons”, delusions (the educated launching into fantastic astronomical or philosophical theories or artistic activities supposedly inspired by the Muses, the uneducated, however, believing themselves extraordinarily gifted in other fields), religious ecstasy, and curious obsessions such as the compulsive belief that one was an earthenware jar.

The author whom Constantius copied, however, was Isḥâq ben Amrân (said to have been executed at the beginning of the tenth century)_ whose work on melancholy a thirteenth-century Arabic medical historian already extols as “incomparable”.

The close and fundamental connexion between melancholy and Saturn, together with the corresponding connexions between the sanguine disposition and Jupiter, the choleric and Mars, and the phlegmatic and the moon or Venus, seems to have been definitely established for the first time by certain Arab writers of the ninth century.

In this remarkable work, which embraces all the tendencies with we have hitherto been able to follow only one by one, Ficino chooses the second of the two ways open to him. Melancholy comes from Saturn, but is in fact a “unique and divine gift, even as Saturn is now not only the mightiest star, but also the noblest.

Hence also those thinkers who indulge in the deepest speculation and contemplation suffer most from melancholy. “Planetarum altissimus”, Saturn “investigantem evehit ad altissimo”, and produces those outstanding philosophers whose minds are so far withdrawn from outward stimuli, and even from their own bodies, and so much drawn towards all that is transcendental, that they finally become instruments of things divine.

Ficino is convinced that not only are children of Saturn qualified for intellectual work but that, vice versa, intellectual work reacts on men and places them under the dominion of Saturn, creating a sort of selective affinity between them:
“Always remember that already by the inclinations and desires of our mind and by the mere capacity of our “spiritus” we can come easily and rapidly under the influence of those stars which denote these inclinations, desires, and capacities; hence, by withdrawal from earthly things, by leisure, solitude, constancy, esoteric theology, and philosophy, by superstition, magic, agriculture, and grief, we come under the influence of Saturn”
Thus all “studiosi” are predestined to melancholy and subject to Saturn; if not by their horoscope, then by their activity.

Thus Ficino’s system—and this was perhaps its greatest achievement—contrived to give Saturn’s “immanent contradiction” a redemptive power:” the highly gifted melancholic—who suffered under Saturn, in so far as the latter tormented the body and the lower faculties with grief, fear, and depression00 might see himself bu the very act of turning voluntarily towards that very same Saturn. The melancholic should, in other words, apply himself of his own accord to that activity which is the particular domain of the sublime star of speculation, and which the planet promotes just as powerful as it hinders and harms the ordinary functions of body and soul—that is to say, to creative contemplation, which takes place in the “mens”, and only there as enemy and oppressor of all life in any way subject to the present world, Saturn generates melancholy; but as the friend and protector of a higher and purely intellectual existence he can also cure it.

But in the last resort Ficino considers all these are mere pabliatatives. Ultimately the Saturnine man can do nothing else—and certainly nothing better—than to embrace his fate, and resign himself heart and soul to the will of his star: . . . but those who escape the baneful influence of Saturn, and enjoy his benevolent influence, are not only those who flee to Jupiter but also those who give themselves over with heart and soul to divine contemplation, which gains distinction from the example of Saturn himself. Instead not earthly life, from which he is himself cut off, Saturn confers heavenly and eternal life on you. —Ficino, De vita triplici

[Víctor Sampayo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Luego de que en la década de 1920 Erwin Panofsky y Fritz Saxl publicaran una erudita investigación acerca de Melencolia I, quizás el grabado más célebre y misterioso de Durero, Raymond Klibansky se integró al proyecto de reeditar aquel ensayo monográfico, con lo que se transformó en un delicioso y concienzudo estudio acerca de la evolución de la melancolía y su relación tanto mitológica como simbólica con Saturno, el planeta situado en la esfera más exterior del cielo.
El seguimiento de la melancolía va desde el Problema XXX, pequeño texto atribuido a Aristóteles en el que se resaltan las relaciones entre la melancolía y la creatividad, la genialidad y la locura, pasando por la antigüedad tardía, en donde se la empieza a ver como un vicio relacionado con la pereza o la acedia, y se trataba de curarla con música o latigazos; o como uno de los cuatro temperamentos (sanguíneo, colérico, melancólico y flemático) que constituían las personalidades y las complexiones humanas, y la manera en que va degenerando en las concepciones árabes y de la Europa medieval, incluida la poesía, hasta que el Renacimiento la recupera en su relación platónica con la sabiduría para resaltar la genialidad y la visión filosófica.
El estudio sobre Saturno enfoca las relaciones astronómicas (el planeta más lento en el cielo, de ahí que se le asocie con el tiempo y la vejez) y astrológicas (se le consideraba frío y terroso, a veces también acuoso y eso era transferido a ciertas personalidades humanas), de ahí se va generando una suerte de definición acerca de los hijos de Saturno que, tanto en la sabiduría popular como en la filosófica, se vuelven inseparables de la melancolía.
En fin. A pesar de ser una lectura compleja (hay infinidad de referencias bibliográficas e iconográficas, como corresponde a un estudio de tan amplios alcances), Saturno y la melancolía resulta una experiencia deliciosa.
Y además se queda para la consulta constante.

[Cobertizo · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Hay, en efecto, cuatro humores en el hombre, que imitan a los diversos elementos; aumentan en diversas estaciones, reinan en diversas edades. La sangre imita al aire, aumenta en primavera, reina en la infancia. La bilis imita al fuego, aumenta en verano, reina en la adolescencia. La melancolía imita a la tierra, aumenta en otoño, reina en la madurez. La flema imita al agua, aumenta en invierno, reina en la senectud. Cuando no se apartan ni por más ni por menos de su justa medida, entonces el hombre está en todo su vigor”.

[Dosi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hace algún tiempo escuchaba el programa de radio de Ikram Antaki y mencionaba este libro con gran admiración. Me puse a buscarlo, aunque fue complicado. Cuando al fin lo obtuve me sumergí en su lectura. Sus páginas están cargadas de citas en griego, latin, etcétera , abarca temas de filosofía, arte y literatura. Su gran rigor y erudición no le quita su amenidad. Si usted logra conseguirlo guárdelo en caja fuerte, no lo preste ...ni para sacarle fotocopias.

Esta obra SI que es legendaria.

[J. W. Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half, dealing with melancholy in medicine and philosophy, is far more engaging than the second, sadly. It's a very thorough examination of its subject, but unfortunately gets tedious towards the end. As Frances Yates noted, the analysis of Durer's Melencolia I is overly romantic and a little arbitrary, not to mention a lot longer than seems necessary.

[Christina Gimlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Panofsky and I was very happy to see this book in a new edition. It's not light reading and much of the discussion has fallen out of favor in terms of focus on iconography and iconology, but overall, those things are not the focus, and the three authors create a comprehensive history, assessment, and interpretation of the figure of Saturn, and specifically within the context of Albrecht Dürer, who spent his life developing his understanding of ancient and current mythologies and religious beliefs, art and artistic expression of those ideologies, and his own psyche and purpose in the renaissance world he lived in, privileged and incredibly gifted as an artist but with a responsibility to deliver appropriate moral content.

[Joëlle Dumais-Allard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like

[Jethro Tull · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nevjerojatno eruditsko djelo! Od svih "humora" koji teku kroz naše tijelo, "crna žuč" stvara kod čovjeka posebnu duhovnu dispoziciju koja se pokazala stimulativnom za razne oblike stvaralaštva. Melankolik iz svoga očaja izvlači najdublje filozofske uvide i najjače umjetničke snage. Klinička slika melankokije jest depresija. Vuče čovjeka ili prema dolje, u ponor ništavila, ili prema gore: u stvaralačke vrhunce. Najveći pisci ili slikari bili su melankolici. Njihova djela su istinski darovi melankolije.

[Maša · Rating 5 out of 5]

prekrasno

[Marko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad but a bit generic, lot of information but in the end it gets a bit boring