Mediaeval Studies 73 (2011): 183–205. © Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.

FORBIDDEN MEMORY:

THE DEATH OF BOETHIUS AND THE CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE∗

Fabio Troncarelli

Et sunt quorum non est memoria: perierunt quasi qui non fuerint; et nati sunt quasi non nati, et filii ipsorum cum ipsis. Sed illi viri misericordiae sunt, quorum pietates non defuerunt. Eccli 44:9–10

HE Liber Pontificalis epitome commonly designated as Feliciana has handed down to us an important piece of information concerning the exe-

cutions of Boethius and Symmachus. The text, probably written shortly after the events, reports that the bodies of the two senators were hidden: “rex Theo-doricus tenuit duos senatores ex consulibus et patrici[o]s gladio interfecit, Boetium et Symmachum, quorum etiam corpora abscondi praecepit.”1 The same information is repeated in the Cononian epitome, also written close to the time of the events: “rex Theodericus tenuit duos senatores, Boethium et Symmacum patricium, gladio interfecit et abscondi praecepit.”2

∗ This article is a revised version of two lectures held on 12 and 14 May 2011 at the Centre

for Medieval Studies in Toronto and at the 46th International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo. I am very grateful to Prof. John Magee and to Prof. Philip Phillips who organized the two lectures and helped me with the translation. I am also grateful to Massimiliano Vitiello, Armando Petrucci, and Jonathan Black for their valuable advice. The article is presented in memory of Virginia Brown, Leonard E. Boyle, and Giosuè Musca.

That the bod-ies of Boethius and Symmachus were hidden is not without significance. The execution of the two illustrious representatives of the Latin aristocracy was, without doubt, a scandal of remarkable proportions. One understands there-fore the necessity of concealing the whole course of events, including the burial place.

1 Epitome Feliciana 55.5, in Gestorum Pontificum Romanorum, vol. 1: Liber Pontificalis, pars I, ed. T. Mommsen (Berlin, 1898), 261–62. (“Theoderic held in custody two Roman sena-tors—two patricians, former consuls—Boethius and Symmachus, and ordered to have them killed by sword. Then he ordered their bodies to be buried in a secret grave.”)

2 Epitome Cononiana, ibid.

T

184 F. TRONCARELLI

By withdrawing the bodies of the “martyrs” from the public eye, Theodoric was carrying out a kind of veiled damnatio memoriae, imposing a taboo that could not be violated—what John Magee has called a “conspiracy of si-lence.”3

In the meantime, however, the name of Boethius had not been forgotten. As the present article will show, we have two important but unidentified wit-nesses of it: a funerary diptych of Boethius and his grave.

The conspiracy of silence set up against Boethius and Symmachus was also maintained after the death of Theodoric, despite the implicit dis-avowal of his successors. Amalasuintha, having obtained the regency, re-turned the goods sequestrated by the king to the relatives of the two senators without public outcry, thereby avoiding any open disapproval of her father’s deeds, as Procopius’s report of the episode shows.

I. A LATE ANTIQUE PORTRAIT OF BOETHIUS The ivory diptych known as the “Diptych of the Poet and the Muse,” held in the Museum of the Cathedral of Monza, is one of the most enigmatic relics of late antiquity (plate 1).4 The diptych represents with impressive realism two figures: a middle-aged man,5 apparently lost in thought, and a woman, who is playing the harp. The man is sitting in a room within a sumptuous pal-ace, under a ceiling with scalloped niches from which hang curtains supported by twisted Corinthian columns. He is covered by a himation, which, in keep-ing with the traditional iconography of philosophers, orators, and poets, is open at the breast. In his hand he has a scroll; under his feet is an open scroll and book or wax tablets, and in both we see a few written lines. The woman playing the harp is represented in a pose traditionally associated with that of a Muse.6

3 J. Magee, “Boethius, Last of the Romans,” Carmina Philosophiae: Journal of the Inter-

national Boethius Society 16 (2007): 1–22, at 1. This is corroborated by M. Vitiello, who outlines Cassiodorius’s silence about Boethius in a letter celebrating the Anician family; “Ac-cusarentur saecula, si talis potuisset latere familia: Il fantasma di Severino Boezio nell’Italia dei Goti,” Historia: Zeitschrift für alte Geschichte 60 (2011): 343–82.

She wears a robe that extends to her feet, and her face is partially covered by a veil that is tied on the left side and covers her head. Her hair is adorned with a little crown surmounted by three feathers.

4 See P. Zanker, The Mask of Socrates: The Image of the Intellectual in Antiquity, trans. Alan Shapiro (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford, 1995), 143, 328, 395 n. 80.

5 “Funfzigjährige” according to R. Delbrueck, “Denkmäler spätantiker Kunst: Diptychon mit Dichter und Muse,” Antike Denkmäler 4 (1931): 8–10, at 8.

6 L. Paduano Faedo, “I sarcofagi romani con Muse,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römi-schen Welt II.12.2 (Berlin and New York, 1981), 65–155.

FORBIDDEN MEMORY 185

Sic et non.

The ivory was discovered in 1759 by Antonio Francesco Gori, who in his Thesaurus veterum dyptichorum proposed three possible interpretations of the characters depicted: the poets Ausonius and Claudian and the philosopher Boethius, who at the opening of his Philosophiae Consolatio is depicted as accompanied by the Muses.7

In 1794, Antonio Francesco Frisi, in his Historical Memories of Monza,

Gori surmised that Pope Gregory the Great gave the diptych to Queen Theodolinda in the belief that the man represented in the diptych was related to the Anicii, the family to which he too belonged.

8

In 1865, the identification with Boethius was vigorously taken up by Luigi Biraghi,

refuted Gori’s interpretation, arguing that it was given to Monza not by Greg-ory but by Berengar I, as reported in two ancient inventories of the Cathedral Treasury. Frisi dated the ivory to the first half of the sixth century, identifying the male figure as the prisoner Boethius and suggesting that the woman dressed as a Muse was his wife, Helpis—Boethius’s first wife according to a medieval tradition now questioned by scholars, which, if true, would make the Rusticiana mentioned by Procopius of Caesarea his second wife. The woman in the diptych is playing a harp, symbolizing poetic activity, because Helpis was reputed to have been the author of certain hymns.

9 a passionate apologist of the Catholic faith. He claimed to have de-ciphered Boethius’s name and the titles of Philosophiae Consolatio and other Boethian works in the volumes that lie open at the foot of the male figure; and he claimed to have read the name of Jesus on the scroll in the figure’s hands. Biraghi’s claims were greeted with considerable skepticism and were chal-lenged in 1877 by Theodor Mommsen and in 1891 by Hugh Fraser Stewart.10

In 1936, Richard Delbrueck proclaimed the page of the volume at the foot of the male figure as unleserlich (unreadable), publishing a photographic en-largement in support of his claim. Delbrueck’s view has been recently con-firmed by Franco Buzzi.

11

7 A. F. Gori, Thesaurus veterum diptychorum consularium et ecclesiasticorum . . . opus

posthumum . . . (Florence, 1759), 3:245–8.

According to Delbrueck, the diptych was made for a special occasion, to commemorate a personal event, and is different from

8 A. F. Frisi, Memorie storiche di Monza e sua corte, vol. 3 (Milan, 1794), 15–18. 9 L. Biraghi, Boezio, filosofo, teologo e martire a Calvenzano (Milan, 1865), 39. 10 Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 5.2, ed. T. Mommsen (Berlin, 1877), 62*, no. 661;

H. F. Stewart, Boethius: An Essay (Edinburgh and London, 1891), 139–40. 11 F. Buzzi, “L’apostolato culturale di mons. Luigi Biraghi dottore dell’Ambrosiana,” in

Monsignor Luigi Biraghi duecento anni dopo (Milan, 2002), 122–29.

186 F. TRONCARELLI

the typical diptych celebrating a consul.12

Several other scholars in the first half of the twentieth century approached the question as well, each with a different point of view. Wolfgang Fritz Wol-bach labeled the Monza ivory a “private diptych” and attributed it with greater confidence to northern Italy of the sixth century.

He argued that it is difficult to iden-tify the character represented on the diptych (although he believed that the Muse was Erato) and that it is also difficult to discern the meaning of the work, in which one may find some influence of northern Italian, late antique works, such as the Chair of Maximian in Ravenna. Delbrueck also considered it impossible to determine the date of the diptych, which he believed was probably from the early sixth century but could be older, and even a date as early as the fourth century cannot, in principle, be excluded.

13 In 1934, Kurt Weitzmann and Stefan Schultz returned to the older position of identifying the male figure with Claudian, basing their conclusion on specific historical and cultural con-siderations.14 The thesis of Weitzmann and Schultz has been reasserted re-cently in an essay by Marilena Abbatepaolo (2007), who further identifies the female Muse with Terpsichore.15

In the second half of the twentieth century (1961–89), different opinions have been put forward by Byzantine art historians such as John Beckwith, David Talbot Rice, and Margaret Frazer: leaving the question of the identifi-cation of the figures open (though Frazer did identify the female one with Calliope), they noted the presence of features typical of the art of Con-stantinople and Alexandria of the sixth century. They also discerned a close resemblance between the male figure depicted in the diptych and another represented in a plate now at the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, and dated to the age of Justinian.

16

12 Delbrueck, “Diptychon,” 8–10, at 9, and Dittici consolari tardoantichi, ed. M. Abbate-

paolo (Bari, 2009), 585 n. 68.

Two scholars whose opinions have been inex-plicably overlooked in the scholarship on the topic are Pierre Courcelle and

13 W. F. Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters (1916; 3d ed., Mainz, 1976), 57–58, no. 68.

14 K. Weitzmann and S. Schultz, “Zur Bestimmung des Dichters auf dem Musendyptychon von Monza,” Jahrbuch des deutschen archäologischen Instituts 49 (1934): 128–38.

15 M. Abbatepaolo, “Il dittico eburneo del Poeta e della Musa conservato nel Duomo di Monza,” Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Università di Bari 45 (2002): 199–225.

16 J. Beckwith, The Art of Constantinople (London, 1961), 41–43; D. Talbot Rice, “Opere d’arte paleocristiane e altomedievali,” in Il tesoro del Duomo di Monza (Milan, 1966), 26–27; M. Frazer, “Oreficerie altomedievali,” in Il Duomo di Monza. I tesori, ed. R. Conti (Milan, 1989), 37–38.

FORBIDDEN MEMORY 187

Kathleen Shelton.17

Both have shown convincing links between the scene depicted in the diptych and Roman funerary art, in which we frequently find similar encounters between a man and the Muses. Such links are important and should be carefully considered.

Mousikos Aner.

The man in this diptych appears melancholic, with an unshaven face (plate 2a), sitting on a poor mattress, old and worn, despite his powerful physique. He is the antithesis of a successful man in a triumphant literary pose at the height of his glory; instead he looks dejected and defeated, sitting on the small bed on which, we may imagine, he has been lying without comfort for several days. The Muse is also noteworthy. The presence of one or more Muses along-side a man on a marble tomb or in a mosaic is rarely assumed to signify that the man has an affinity with a specific Muse; indeed, funerary inscriptions in-cluding a man and a Muse generally suggest that the deceased was a cultured man and considered to be a Mousikos Aner, as Henri-Irénée Marrou has pointed out.18 In the case of such funerary inscriptions, often the depicted Muse was actually a portrait of the widow of the deceased, inspiring him as a true Muse would inspire the Mousikos Aner. Numerous portraits of the Muses on sarcophagi that have been carefully analyzed by Lucia Paduano Faedo show clearly the consistency of this iconographic tradition.19

When we see a sixth-century portrait of a fifty-year-old man sitting on a miserable bed, unshaven but surrounded by books, in the presence of a woman who appears to be a Muse but who could also be his wife, we can hardly resist the temptation to think of Boethius: at approximately age fifty he left behind a widow, Rusticiana, when, imprisoned and lying on a humble mattress (Phil. Cons. 1.1.7), he summoned death to put an end to his misery (Phil. Cons. 1.m1.14). We may identify the Muse with Boethius’s widow. It is true that Boethius was assisted in his lamentation by the Muses of elegy, who would be replaced by Lady Philosophy, who in her turn then assumes the role of Muse—the Muse of Philosophy; but according to the traditional iconogra-

17 P. Courcelle, “Le personnage de Philosophie dans la littérature latine,” Journal des sa-

vants (October–December 1970): 209–52, at 249–52; K. J. Shelton, “The Consular Muse of Flavius Constantius,” The Art Bulletin 65.1 (March 1983): 7–23.

18 H.-I. Marrou, Mousikos Aner. Étude sur les scènes de la vie intellectuelle figurant sur les monuments funéraires romains (Grenoble, 1938). See also P. Zanker and B. C. Ewald, Mit Mythen leben. Die Bilderwelt der römischen Sarkophage (Munich, 2004).

19 Paduano Faedo, “I sarcofagi,” 93.

188 F. TRONCARELLI

phy, it is likely that the man in the diptych has been represented as a Mousikos Aner assisted by a Muse who was in fact his widow. Scripta manent.

This interpretation should be confirmed by a written record, but it would seem that none exists, since Biraghi’s reading of the written lines on the book and the two scrolls is misleading, and the views of Delbrueck and Buzzi at first glance appear to be correct. Looking at the ivory with a light facing the images directly, we must admit that what we see on the scrolls and wax tablet is only a simulation of writing (plate 2b–c), and scholars, seeing no alpha-betical content in these simulations, have had no hesitation in proclaiming that the diptych of Monza carries no written text at all. But that is incorrect. If we look at the figures more closely, we realize that the ivory is in fact full of written records. First of all, we discover a sentence, cleverly disguised on the body of the seated figure, scattered about just beneath his collarbone in small letters and acronyms such as are found in vocabularies of ancient and medieval abbre-viations: “TA NA E. anis X” (plate 3a). The meaning of the sentence might be difficult to determine if one is unfamiliar with the peculiar style of late an-tique and medieval abbreviations. But those acquainted with them may recog-nize here some abbreviations typical of legal manuscripts and of ancient and early medieval inscriptions. More precisely, we may resolve the tachygraphs as follows: “T[utoris] A[uctoritate] N[ostr]A E[ius] an[n]is X.”20

If we look carefully at open scroll under the feet of the seated man, invert-ing it, we discover on the outer unfurled part some letters that have been erased but are nevertheless legible: “M B M GA Severini SN.” (plate 3b). The writing is in capitals except “Severini,” which is in a cursive script. In this

We will re-turn to this phrase and its meaning, but for now it is sufficient to point out that the existence of hidden letters raises the suspicion that there may well be other letters or words to find upon closer examination of the ivory.

20 “TA” for “tutoris auctoritate” is a typical nota iuris, whose most ancient examples are at

least of the fifth century; see Institutionum commentarii IV e codice rescripto Bibliothecae capitularis Veronensis, ed. P. Erman et al. (Berlin, 1820), cxxxix; see also A. Cappelli, Dizio-nario di abbreviature latine ed italiane (Milan, 2001), 371, col. 1; and W. M. Lindsay, Notae latinae. An Account of Abbreviation in Latin MSS. of the Early Minuscule Period (c. 700–850) (Cambridge, 1915), 442. It has been used also in the early printed editions of the collections on Roman Laws: cf. J. Elmes, A General and Bibliographical Dictionary of the Fine Arts (Lon-don, 1826), 2. “NA” for “nostra” is an ancient abbreviation (Cappelli, Dizionario di abbrevia-ture, 231, col. 1). “E.” for “eius” is quite common and its most ancient examples are from the Roman period (ibid., 452, col. 1).

FORBIDDEN MEMORY 189

case, again, we have traditional abbreviations: “M[ariti] B[ene] M[erentis]” (a very frequent abbreviation in Christian epigrams), “G[r]A[tia]” (a frequent abbreviation in epigraphs), and, after the personal name “Severini,” the stand-ard abbreviation “S[e]N[atus]” or “S[e]N[ator].”21

If we move to the side of the image and illuminate it obliquely from the left,

We do not know whether some other letters are missing, but what is visible can be understood as “Ma-riti bene merentis gratia Severini Senat[...].”

22

Other letters forming a name are concealed under the cuts on the right side; they are visible under infrared illumination (plate 3e).

the optical effect allows us to distinguish some letters inverted and poorly concealed under the surface of the scroll held by the sitting man (plate 3c). These letters have been masked by somebody else, first with a smooth “frottage” on the ivory which has partly ruined the original incisions, then tracing an awkward series of vertical cuts which nevertheless fail to obscure all the letters. The cuts have barely touched some letters on the viewer’s left side. We can read an S and an M topped by a smaller L and S (plate 3d).

23

The reason for both the concealment of the name and its subsequent ex-punction is not difficult to surmise: any mention of the murdered philosopher could be dangerous even if inscribed in a mere diptych, and anyone fearing implication in the persecution launched by Theodoric would have every motivation to remove from such a diptych any explicit reference to a man condemned for treason, as the fate of Symmachus demonstrates: open pro-nouncements in support of Boethius meant certain death.

It is possible to re-construct “aniciu,” i.e., the name “Aniciu[s],” and that would account for the letters M L S and S mentioned above; they stand for “M[an]L[iu]S S[eve-rinus].” The seated figure is therefore Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius. The name was inscribed in a small format, abbreviated and inverted, making it difficult to find.

If we are right, then the phrase inscribed beneath the seated man’s shoulder is in all probability to be attributed to the initiative of Symmachus and his

21 “MBM” = “marito bene merenti” (Cappelli, Dizionario di abbreviature, 478, col. 2); “GA” = “AG” = “animo grato” (ibid., 432, col. 2); “I. SN” = “in senatu” (ibid., 189, col. 2).

22 The photos have been taken by Piero Pozzi for the Fondazione Gaiani, which kindly al-lowed us to reproduce them. Aside from giving more depth to the subject of a photograph, side lighting can also be used to capture greater amounts of texture. Placing a source of light at the side of the subject of the photograph will help the camera catch more subtle details of texture and form. In the side-lighting illumination the light’s angle is near 90° from the normal point of observation.

23 This photo has been taken by Sergio Anelli for the volume Il Duomo di Monza, plate 34, with a special soft light, an infrared filter (on the spot?) and a very long exposure. I am in-debted to Luca Carrà for the information on this subject.

190 F. TRONCARELLI

daughter Rusticiana, Boethius’s widow. We know, of course, that Symmachus was Boethius’s “tutor,” and the period during which he performed that func-tion may indeed have lasted ten years (“annis x”). The birth date proposed by Martindale’s Prosopography24 for Boethius is ca. 480, and the presumed date for the death of Boethius’s natural father shortly after 487, when Boethius was still “infans” and by Roman obliged law to be under the supervision of a “tu-tor.” If Boethius assumed the “virilis toga” at around age sixteen,25 as was customary at the time, Symmachus would then have been his “tutor” for a period of ten years. Acknowledgement of that fact in the diptych had no legal significance, of course, since many years would have elapsed in the mean-time. Reference to a “tutor,” however, would have triggered deep emotional resonances, in that it would give emphasis to the supposition that the person who had commissioned the diptych had, as “tutor” or second father, a moral right or obligation to commemorate the dead. The intervention of Symmachus would date the diptych to the time immediately after Boethius’s death, i.e., to between 524 and 526, since Symmachus, Boethius’s father-in-law, was killed sometime between November 525 and March 526.26

Videmus nunc per speculum in aenigmate.

Scholars have neglected the back side of the diptych. On the wooden boards supporting the ivory are written records, faded or erased, which pro-vide some useful information, and it was indeed customary at the time of our diptych to use the back side of such artifacts for scattered notes or small sen-tences. Leaving aside a series of short phrases or single words of a religious nature, one can discern three different hands of the sixth century:

1) The oldest hand can be assigned to the first quarter of the sixth century: it left three brief notations in a graceful and fluid rustic capital, written small, with some cursive, an uncial e, and a Tironian ni. The notations are

a) On the back of the right panel (i.e., behind Boethius), within the frame, on the viewer’s left (plate 4a):

M NIUS ANICi

24 J. Martindale, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, A.D. 395–527 (Cam-

bridge, 1980), 233–36; see also 1044–46. 25 W. Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, (London, 1875), s.v. Tutor. 26 L. Obertello, La morte di Boezio e la verità storica, in Atti del Congresso Internazionale

di studi boeziani (Pavia 5–8 ottobre 1980), ed. L. Obertello (Rome, 1981), 67.

FORBIDDEN MEMORY 191

for “M[a]N[l]IUS ANICi[us].” The words have been erased. Below them another hand later added subsequently, in a rough capital, “Jesus” and some other words.

b) At the top right of the same panel, in the same hand (plate 4b):

AMeN Į SĘNI ME

for “AMeN IN SE[v]E[r]INI ME[moriam].”

c) On the back of the left panel (i.e., behind the Muse), under the frame at the top left:

MEMINI XI INDCTNE

for “MEMINI XI IND[i]CT[io]NE.” The words, written in a very small script, have not been erased. The year indicated is 1 September 532–1 September 533.

2) Another hand wrote two sentences in a very artificial capital, clearly in-fluenced by epigraphic practice, dating from about the mid-sixth century. One is on the inner edge of the panels, left and right of the central pin:

PAX TB FL

for “PAX T[i]B[i] FL[avius].” The other is in the upper right margin of the left panel (plate 4c):

FL. ILL. PBI .RC. AUI. TI. S. L. T.

This sentence, like the preceding one, seems to reflect the text of an inscrip-tion and should probably be interpreted “FL[avi] ILL[ustris] P[ro]BI, R[o-mae] C[onsulis], AVI. T[ibi] S[it] L[evis] T[erra].”27 The man indicated can be identified as the Flavius Probus, “vir illustris,” who was consul of Rome in 513 and remembered by Ennodius (Ep. 8.21) as a man of great culture.28 He was a scion of the family Petroni Probi, closely related to the Anicii,29

3) The third hand wrote a few lines in a clumsy hybrid script, in the middle of the back of the right panel. It too can be dated to the sixth century, but around

and he was probably the first to have owned the diptych. His death, sometime before the mid-sixth century, is remembered by his nephew.

27 “TSL” for “Tibi sit levis terra” is a rather common abbreviation in the epigraphs. 28 Martindale, Prosopography, Fl. Probus 9, 913. 29 L. Cracco Ruggini, “Gli Anicii a Roma e in provincia,” Mélanges de l’École Française

de Rome: Moyen Âge – Temps modernes 100 (1988): 69–85.

192 F. TRONCARELLI

the middle or second half. It is not indicative of a high level of education. In fact, it uses a mixed cursive, in which we find together letters written in a rough capital, uncials, and a cursive minuscule (plate 5a):

Himer. REM . E. X. S. REM...TIS. EI S...NT L. X. EI. SU...T EX.

I suggest that the text be read as follows:

Himer[ia] REM:30

REM: [Mille?]. T[rem]I[sse]S. EI. S[u]NT. E[cclesiae] X. S[olidi].

L[ibra] X. EI. SU[n]T. EX[emplar].31

As Jean-Pierre Caillet and Federica Rinaldi have pointed out, the name Himeria is rather rare in Italy:

32 we find only one example of it, a donation to the church of St. Helena in Verona of the late fourth century, in which the rich Himeria offers 120 feet of mosaic. There is undoubtedly a relationship be-tween this Himeria, who makes a donation to the church of St. Helena (plate 5b), and the Himeria mentioned in our diptych, three generations younger, who appears to have given a substantial donation to a church that could be the same.33

30 “Rem” means “item” in this context.

It is no coincidence that the stylized picture of a dove, with a huge belly, on the right of the script is the same type of big-bellied dove seen in the floor of the church of St. Helena, decorated by the elder Himeria (plate 5c–d). As in many similar cases, the grandchildren bearing the name of their an-

31 “HIMER.” could mean “Himerius” or “Himeria”: we prefer “Himeria,” following the opinion of J.-P. Caillet, L’évergétisme monumental chrétien en Italie et a ses marges: d’après l’épigraphie des pavements et des mosaïque, IVe–VIIIe s. [Rome, 1993], 74), who points out the occurrence of the very rare name Himeria and the absence of any Himerius in the list on the donors of money to a Church. “S.” usually means “sunt” or “solidi” (Cappelli, Dizionario di abbreviature, 336, col. 2). “E.” (with one or two dots) usually means “ecclesia” (ibid., 113, col. 2). “L.” is commonly used for “libra/librae” (ibid., 198, col. 2). “EX.” is very common for “exemplum” or “exemplar,” meaning “archetype” as well as “original document” (ibid., 126, col. 2). As regards “tremisses,” we find various abbreviations based on “T” meaning “three.”

32 J.-P. Caillet, L’évergétisme monumental, 74; Mosaici antichi in Italia. Regione decima: Verona, ed. F. Rinaldi (Rome, 2005), 171.

33 It is possible that the diptych with Himeria’s autograph of the donation has been given to the church to confirm it, like a document written on parchment.

FORBIDDEN MEMORY 193

cestors repeat their gestures as a constituent part of the collective memory and identity of a family. To perpetuate the memory of a family through donations to churches and monasteries was a hallmark of elites in Latin and Greek society of the fourth through sixth centuries. Fortunis hominum caducis.

If this reconstruction is correct, then it should be possible to represent the wanderings of our diptych in a logical and linear way. Immediately after the death of Boethius, sometime between 524 and 526, Symmachus and Rusti-ciana commissioned a skilled artist to carve a funerary diptych, in several copies, to commemorate Boethius. Ivories were customarily created as gifts for the close friends and relatives of the deceased, one of whom in this case was Flavius Probus, a man of culture like Boethius himself. The gens Proba Petronia was closely related to the gens Anicia and was very powerful and influential: among its members were famous people such as the consul Petro-nius Olybrius and Sestus Petronius Probus, who supported St. Ambrose when he was elected bishop. The diptych was the property of the Petroni Probi, as indicated by the note written by Flavius Probus’s nephew in the mid-sixth century. Earlier, how-ever, between 532 and 533, another family member recalled the death of Boethius by inscribing a note on the back of the panel. Around the mid-sixth century the diptych belonged to a wealthy matron named Himeria, probably linked to the Petroni Probi. She used the back of the diptych to indicate her intention of donating a generous sum of money to a church in Verona, perhaps the Church of St. Helena. The presence of the diptych in Verona is unsurprising, since for generations the Petroni Probi had owned properties in Verona, where Boethius defended Albinus and where, no doubt, the memory of his death was alive for centuries: it is not by chance that the Anonymus Valesianus has been preserved only in manuscripts from Ve-rona.34

It is possible that the ivory was donated to the church of Verona along with the money and was kept in the same church until the reign of Berengar I, who was the undisputed lord of Verona, the capital of the duchy of Friuli. Crowned king of Italy at Pavia in Lombardy, Berengar nevertheless maintained a resi-

34 On this work, see the following note. The two manuscripts in which the work is found

are Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Pal. lat. 927, written in the cloister of the Holy Trinity in Verona in the twelfth century, and Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Phillipps 1885, which, according to B. Bischoff, was also written in Verona; see Origo Constantini. Anonymus Valesianus, I. Text und Kommentar, ed. I. König (Trier, 1987), 1–4 and 31.

194 F. TRONCARELLI

dence in Verona. The king showed a particular fondness for Monza’s cathe-dral by presenting it with several gifts, among which our diptych must have been included.

II. BOETHIUS’S GRAVE According to the Anonymus Valesianus, Boethius was kept in a jail “near the baptistery” of a cathedral and then sent outside the city’s walls to what was called the ager Calventianus (Calventian field), where he was put to death.35

What scholars overlook is that if Boethius was transferred to a secret jail for execution, then he should have been transferred to a place distant from his prison near the cathedral, inside the city’s walls, and the ager would therefore have been completely separate from any suburban part of the city or any small neighboring village. The ager Calventianus must have been a special fortified place, situated in an open field where those approaching would be easily be detected. It cannot be by chance that the Vita Boethii authored by Cassiodorus (perhaps partially revised by his pupils but close to the original nevertheless) indicates that Boethius was held “in campania,” a technical phrase meaning

The general opinion in standard works on Boethius’s biography is that the cathedral was the ancient cathedral of Pavia, now the church of SS. Gervasio and Protasio. As regards the “Calventian field,” there are varying opinions, none of them convincing: although there are several villages in Italy called Calvenzano not far from Pavia, including a rural suburb of Pavia once known as the burgus Calventianus, it is difficult to associate a “field” with a village or with a part of a town, even on the assumption that in the past the village or suburb might have been smaller than today and the surrounding area might have been referred to as a field in some broader sense.

35 What is known regarding Boethius death is based on a very confused witness, the

Anonymus Valesianus, which is a short version of earlier chronicles, poorly put together around the seventh or eighth century. According to it, “Albinus et Boetius ducti [sunt] in custodiam ad baptisterium ecclesiae. Rex vero vocavit Eusebium, praefectum urbis, Ticinum et inaudito Boethio protulit in eum sententiam. Quem mox in agro Calventiano, ubi in custodia habebatur, [misit rex et] fecit occidi. Qui accepta chorda in fronte diutissime tortus, ita ut oculi eius cre-parent, sic sub tormenta ad ultimum cum fuste occiditur” (Excerpta Valesiana, ed. J. Moreau and V. Velkov [Leipzig, 1968], 25). (“Albinus and Boethius were brought to a jail near the church baptistry. The king summoned Eusebius, prefect of the city, to Pavia and conveyed to him a death sentence for Boethius, without a hearing. The king sent Eusebius to the Calventia-nus field, where Boethius was prisoner, and put him to the death. Boethius was tortured with a rope around his head, twisted until his eyes seemed to pop out the head; then he was beaten to death with clubs.”)

FORBIDDEN MEMORY 195

something more than ager: the “campania” was a distinct administrative area36

surrounding the ancient city, independent from it and largely wider than the ager suburbanus, which generally extended no more than three miles.

In campania.

In the Pavian campanea around eight kilometers northwest of the town towards the current Certosa di Pavia, there once existed a place called Cal-venza, near Villalunga: and indeed, even today around two kilometers from Villalunga there is a creek called Roggia Cravenza, just like the channel Cra-venza, once known as Calvenza, near the Naviglio di Pavia. Heading ten kilometers west of Villalunga we come to Villareggio, which might be connected to Boethius. This small village is generally held to com-memorate the presence of a king (“Villa regia”), on the assumption that it had been dedicated exclusively to him, and it is held that the king in question was Theodoric; the view is in fact supported by archaeological evidence insofar as important Ostrogoth artifacts have been recovered precisely from Villareggio. This is believed to be the place where Theodoric’s hunting villa stood,37 like the one that he built near Forlì in Galeata.38

During the nineteenth century a luxurious marble tombstone, now in the Musei civici at Pavia, was recovered from within the Cascina Marozzi in Villareggio, with a frieze and cipher used as paving in the kitchen. It is likely that the marble came from the zone in which it was recovered, and quite improbable that a marble slab of such proportions (1.8 m.) could have been dragged from afar as mere construction material. To carry it for kilometres from Pavia would have been both expensive and risky to its integrity, especially if the intention was to pave a mere floor that no one would notice. There is some probability to the view, then, that the slab was recovered from the neighboring fields and brought in with little effort to repair the kitchen floor, so the real question is what such a slab was doing there in the first place. Some scholars have stated that “B[ene] M[erenti] Senatori” was written on it, or “B[onae] M[emoriae] Senatoris,”

39

36 A. Castagnetti, “La campanea e i beni comuni della città,” in L’ambiente vegetale nel-

l’alto medioevo, 2 vols., Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo 37 (Spoleto, 1990), 1:137–74.

and many have thought it was the tomb of Senator, a legendary character from the era of Liutprand. Others,

37 Even in the fifteenth century, this area was appreciated as a special hunting area by the Visconti’s family.

38 P. Bolzani, Teodorico e Galeata. Un’antologia critica (Fusignano, 1994). 39 See, for instance, A. Peroni, “Il monastero altomedievale di S. Maria Teodote a Pavia,”

Studi medievali, 3d ser., 13 (1972): 1–93, in particular 84–85 and plate 30.

196 F. TRONCARELLI

however, have hazarded the surmise that the honorific title of “Senator” and such a rich and distinctive gravestone could instead be related to Boethius.40 The suggestion is inherently no more or less plausible than that of the ap-parently solid tradition of studies that places the slab in the Lombard era and connects it with Senator: at the very least, the Lombard dating contrasts completely with the slab’s graphic style. None of the epigraphs of the Lom-bard era reaches the level of the Calvenza slab, not even the most refined ones celebrating the most important characters of their times. As Eugenio Russo pointed out, the fonts, the letters, and the composition are built up directly af-ter early Christian examples.41

Michele Ansani proposed to read the possible reference to the Senator legend in a different way and to date the slab to the sixth century.

42 Doubts about the traditional dating of the slab have been advanced recently,43

and they were not lacking in the past either, as Ansani has pointed out; even some supporters of the Lombard theory stressed the the complete inconsistency of such a fine piece with contemporary Lombard production. It is our opinion that Ansani’s dating is valid and can be corroborated with new observations.

Senator.

First, it should be noted that the capitals used in the slab go back to a late antique script characterized by the rounded and elegant capitals of manu-scripts written by the middle of the sixth century such as the Orosius Lau-rentianus (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana 65.1), the so-called Forogiuliense Gospels (Cividale del Friuli, Mus. Arch., s.n.), or Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek Patr. 87 (B. IV. 21), annotated by Donatus in the Castrum

40 F. Fagnani, M. Farao, and S. Curti, Borgarello. Venti secoli di storia (Pavia, 1999), 20,

and http://www.paviaedintorni.it/temi/sguardo_nel_passato/leggende_file/boezioavillareggio_ file/testoboeziovillareggio.htm (Gianni Cattagni, administrator), including an image of the tombstone.

41 E. Russo, “Studi sulla scultura paleocristiana e altomedievale. Il sarcofago dell’arci-vescovo Grazioso in S. Apollinare in Classe,” Studi medievali, 3d ser., 15 (1974): 114–15: “i caratteri delle lettere e lo spartito compositivo si rifanno . . . più direttamente ad esempi paleo-cristiani propriamente romani.”

42 M. Ansani, “Sul tema del falso in diplomatica. Considerazioni generali e due dossier documentari a confronto,” in Secoli XI e XII: l’invenzione della memoria. Atti del Seminario Internazionale, Montepulciano, 27–29 aprile 2006, ed. S. Allegria and F. Cenni (Montepul-ciano, 2006), 9–50; R. Borgognoni, “Notizie dai Quaderni: Falsi e falsificazioni,” Quaderni storici 129 (2008): 792–93, at 793: “la lapide può essere retrodatata al VI.”

43 G. P. Brogiolo and A. Chavarría Arnau, eds., I Longobardi: dalla caduta dell’Impero all’alba dell’Italia (Milano, 2007), 72 (S. Lomartire).

FORBIDDEN MEMORY 197

Lucullanum.44 Individual letters in the slab may be compared with letters and ornamentation in sixth-century manuscripts and mosaics, and even the orna-mental side of the frieze closely resembles what appears in a sixth-century manuscript attributed to Vivarium:45

Moreover, the monogram engraved in the stone, interpreted as “Senator” or “Senatoris,” must be read in another way, one that confirms the hypothesis of a late antique dating of the plaque. The traditional reading was in fact influ-enced by the assumption that the tombstone was that of the famous Senator, whose name had therefore to be defended as the one inscribed therein. The monogram had been interpreted as “Senator” as early as the discovery of the slab in 1884; Camillo Brambilla, a well-known scholar who had been consulted by the owner of the farm, was convinced that he had found a fragment of the tomb of Senator, the founder of the monastery of Santa Maria in Pavia. Recalling the story, he wrote in Arte e storia, an important magazine of this period, “Meditating upon it, in the quiet of the study . . . I could read what I am quite sure to be the exact reading: the word SENATORIS . . . the distinguished character named Senator, who in 714 established the monastery . . . in Pavia called Senator’s Monastery.”46

The enthusiasm for the alleged discovery was so great that other scholars affirmed that the slab of the tomb of Senator came directly from the monas-tery of Pavia and not from the Cascina Marozzi: for instance, Michele Caffi

44 Codices latini antiquiores, ed. E. A. Lowe (Oxford, 1939–72), III.298; III.285;

VIII.1031. 45 The frieze on the tombstone at the Musei civici of Pavia may be compared here to

decoration in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France lat. 12190 (see F. Troncarelli, Vivarium: i libri, il destino [Turnhout, 1998], 95, for its association with Vivarium). The ornamental strokes on two of the letters may be compared to a mosaic detail from S. Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna; the B and E on the tombstone may be compared to capitals in Bamberg, Staats-bibliothek Patr. 87, fol. 79v; and the extended V in the left part of the monogram (as analyzed below) may be compared to N in St. Petersburg, Rossijskaja Nacional’naja Biblioteka Q v I, 6–10, fol. 114r, and V in Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Vat. lat. 5750, fol. 48r.

46 C. Brambilla, “A proposito di un’antica lastra marmorea,” Arte e storia 3 (1884/6): 44.

198 F. TRONCARELLI

wrote in Arte e storia that “the slab seems to be part of the burial of Bishop [sic] Senator.”47 Brambilla was therefore compelled to write to the same jour-nal recounting the circumstances of the discovery, although his statement re-mained a dead letter, and for decades scholars continued to argue that the slab (moved in the meantime to the Civic Museum of Pavia), had been found among the ruins of the monastery in Pavia and that it was part of the tomb of Senator. Only in 1987 did Donata Vicini quote Brambilla’s letter in an article, dispelling a myth that had endured far too long.48 That did not, however, call to question the false reading of the monogram devised in the excitement of discovery.49

Magis intelligi quam legi.

In order to decipher an ancient or a late antique monogram we must under-stand how it was constructed and identify with certainty its basic letters, which must be made clearly visible.50

The ancient monogram was created with the same basic principle as that of abbreviations, eliminating some letters from the entire word. Its etymology indicates that it is “one letter” in place of a longer word, summed up by the same method as that used in the initials of an acronym. The oldest Greek monograms, in coins of the fourth to third century B.C., are letters repre-senting the initials of the cities that coined money. Applying the method of the acronym and reworking it, we have the so-called suspension system of abbreviation, descending from a principle similar to that of the acronym, i.e., involving the omission of the final part of a word and leaving only the

In general, although these letters do not give us the full name but only a part of it, the compendium is essential for ascertaining the name in question. It is believed, wrongly, that the monogram is a kind of magic symbol, mysterious and intended to impress rather than communicate. Even if we can in certain cases find such a taste for mystery, we should not forget that the monogram was nevertheless an instrument of communication: although it was an unusual statement, it was still a communi-cation that had to be understood according to known rules, not unlike com-munications in Morse code.

47 M. Caffi, “Scoperte in alcune chiese lombarde,” Arte e storia 3 (1884/4): 27. 48 D. Vicini, La civiltà artistica. Architettura, in Storia di Pavia, ed. E. Gabba, 2: L’alto

medioevo (Pavia, 1987), 323 n. 22. 49 Only recently Ansani (“Sul tema del falso,” 40) has taken a step forward, noting that the

initials of the slab have been imitated in the twelfth century in the “cartula donationi” attributed to Senator, a fake in a fake, since the document is simply a medieval forgery, as has been showed by Ansani himself.

50 V. Gardthausen, Das alte Monogramm (Leipzig, 1924).

FORBIDDEN MEMORY 199

beginning. Later, in Latin script an alternative method was used which in-volved the contraction of words, removing a selection of the internal letters. Both of these methods were applied to the monogram, which became a “pluri-gram”: we find not a single letter but several letters of a word, exactly as in an abbreviation. It is essential in the case of ancient monograms, as in the case of abbrevia-tions, to identify the basic letters of the abbreviated word, and then to recon-struct it in its entirety by surmising the missing letters. In less complicated monograms the identification of the basic letters is not only relatively simple but actually facilitated by the writer. Pasquale Testini, commenting on the early Christian epigraphical monograms, notes that the simplest compositions, and therefore the most easily intelligible, place the basic letters around or within one or two key points in order to help the reader to understand them.51

Hence we must read the ancient monogram twice: first, to discern the basic letters by isolating the individual sections of each one; second, to deduce what is missing, with an imaginative exercise similar to that required for the resolu-tion of an abbreviation. This process takes place “by exploiting the vertical and horizontal rods, so that a single letter can be read in various ways and sometimes two or three times.”

This observation, inspired by de Rossi, provides the key to understanding what is found in more complex cases: authors of the most difficult mono-grams write the essential letters of names, those from which it will be possible to supply the missing letters, exactly as in an abbreviation.

52

We should bear in mind that the two phases must be strictly separate: we often tend to search for all the letters at once in an effort to reconstruct the whole word, but in so doing we fall victim to illusion. Only once we have clearly identified the basic letters can we proceed. It is an ancient problem. Symmachus (Ep. 2.12) himself once commented on his ring with the mono-gram that challenged understanding (“Magis intelligi quam legi promptum est”). But although the problem has always existed, it has always been solved in the same way as that of abbreviations: we must carefully distinguish the basic letters and then proceed to “extracting” the missing elements.

Magis legi quam intelligi.

We may now try to identify the basic letters of the Villareggio slab. After “BM,” which means “B[ene] M[erenti],” there are the basic letters of a name:

51 P. Testini, Archeologia cristiana: nozioni generali dalle origini alla fine del VI secolo (Bari, 1980), 353.

52 Ibid., 353.

200 F. TRONCARELLI

There is an S whose inferior part is, at the same time, the upper part of an R:

Under the R is a small V, and one is inclined to see an A, but that is an optical illusion:

Then, there is what appears to be a linked ET, but it is in fact an E with a small I added on and made into a horizontal stroke:

Finally, there is a small diamond O above the E. Let us dwell briefly on the basic letters in order to be sure of their identifi-cation: the linked SR is not uncommon and we find it in other monograms of the sixth century, such as the so-called diptych of Orestes, consul in 530, in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.53 The small diamond O raises no difficulties either, appearing frequently in late antique diptychs, such as that of Justinian of 526 in the Museum Trivulziano in Milan.54

The pairs E + I and R + V are more difficult to discern:

1) The E is ambiguously drawn with the upper horizontal stroke appearing to form part of a T, but in fact the upper horizontal stroke is composed of two distinct elements: on the left an I, written horizontally, and on the right the upper stroke of the E. Careful investigation confirms this, for it is evident that the upper horizontal stroke ends in different ways on the left and right, with two different kinds of ornamentation:

►▬▬<

Such a stylistic feature is not found in a written T of the fourth to sixth cen-turies: as in the modern alphabet, the upper stroke of a T in capital letters should end in the same way on the right and left: (>▬▬< or ▬▬ ). An I in a horizontal position is, however, found in other ancient monograms, e.g., in many of monograms used by Marcian, emperor between 450 and 457, or Ana-stasius, emperor between 491 and 518, or in one monogram of Theodoric,

53 Delbrueck, Dittici consolari tardoantichi, plate 32. 54 Ibid., plate 33.

FORBIDDEN MEMORY 201

king of the Ostrogoths (496–526), in which the T and I are perpendicular to the R:

2) We read a V which others have read as an A. At first glance one does have the impression of an A typical of late antique manuscripts, but this is an illusion, of which there are numerous examples in monograms similar to the Villareggio one, where the enciphered name does not have any A. A good illustration of this is offered by the monogram of Orestes, men-tioned above. This has the same linked SR that appears on the Villareggio monogram, and beneath the R we seem to see an A that cannot actually be there, since A forms no part of the name Orestes. In fact, there is an E hidden in the R,

and the apparent A is therefore the effect of an optical illusion, similar to that of our monogram. Similarly, in the monogram of “Neon episcopus,”55 a sixth-century bishop of Ravenna, the reader’s eye can make out an A that forms no part of the bishop’s name and is apparent only by virtue of the linked P and N:

(with the P and N linked: ). Other cases of a supposed A that forms no part of the encrypted name can be found among one of the different monograms used by Theodoric, including the one illustrated on the preceding page, in which the R and the horizontal T and I are composed in a way that seems to produce an A, which forms no part of the name “Theodoricus.” Another source producing the appearance of an A beneath an R is the monogram of the catacombs of Domitilla Rufina,56 where the R is in fact combined with an U and an F, for “RUFI[na]”:

A further case in which we perceive what appears to be an A beneath the R is in the monograms used by Ricimer (457–72),57

55 Ravenna, Battistero degli Ortdossi, Nicchia C.

general of Libius Severus

56 Testini, Archeologia, fig. 149. 57 A. Morello, Piccoli bronzi con Monogramma. Tra tarda antichità e primo medioevo (V–

VI sec. d.C.) (Cassino, 2000), no. 1. On this argument, see F. F. Kraus, Die Münzen Odovacars und des Ostrogothenreiches in Italien (Halle, 1928); and E. Arslan, Le monete di Ostrogoti, Longobardi e Vandal (Milan, 1978).

202 F. TRONCARELLI

(461–65); these have a horizontal line beneath the R which suggests the existence of an A, precisely as in Villareggio inscription, but A forms no part of Ricimer’s name, and the element resembling the horizontal stroke of an A is in fact a small I situated in precisely the same position as the small V beneath the R in the Villareggio monogram:

Even in some cases where an A is conceivable insofar as it actually forms part of the abbreviated name, other letters must in fact be assumed. For example, sixth-century coins with the monogram of “Ravenna” are written in such a way as to project an apparent R + A, as in the Villareggio monogram; but we have an alternate version of the same monogram in different coins, and in some cases it is certain that the basic letters of “Ravenna” are not R + A but rather R + V,58 and it is therefore logical to suppose that in the first case too there is a small V beneath the R:

Similarly, a coin issued by Odoacer in which an R is apparently accompanied by an A can more plausibly be interpreted as an R with a small V; in fact, whereas the “ODARS” cluster is ambiguous and may be interpreted equally well as an abbreviation for “Odocarus,” “Odaricus,” or “Odovocar,” the V in the cluster “ODVRS” provides a less ambiguous compendium that resolves naturally to “OD[o]V[oca]R[u]S”:

In view of these observations, it is impossible to accept an A as forming part of the Villareggio monogram: the putative A is the result of a mere illu-sion and not a basic letter of the inscription at all, exactly as in the cases of the phantom A in the other late antique monograms analyzed above. It is rather a small V deceptively situated within the gap formed by the descenders of the R. Therefore, the basic letters of our monogram are “SEVRIo,” which resolves as “SEV[e]RI[n]o”:59

58 Morello, Piccoli bronzi, n. 21. 59 The two letters in brackets here, i.e., the e and n, can be treated as suspensions.

FORBIDDEN MEMORY 203

Resurrectio memoriae.

The name that has been encrypted is that of Severinus Boethius. We know that Theodoric issued a damnatio memoriae against his victim, going so far as to hide Boethius’s body with that of Symmachus. But as we have shown, members of Boethius’s family, more precisely, his wife Rusticiana, had the courage nevertheless to commemorate his name on the diptych created in order celebrate her unjustly murdered spouse, a diptych which despite all ef-forts at erasure preserves the dedication “Mariti bene merentis . . . Severini,” like the “Bene merenti Severino” of the Villareggio funerary inscription, a stubborn as well as classical way to remember the husband. The grave was probably created hastily and in secret (although not without some sober measure of luxury). It was natural for someone to inscribe “Bene merenti Severino” on it, in an effort at least to preserve the good memory of a hero unjustly condemned to damnatio memoriae. The ancient Calvenzia at Villalunga belonged primarily to the monks of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro, who had vast holdings in the area. And in fact, the oldest extant documents, dating to 1172 and 1174, of that foundation refer several times to the “locum quod dicitur in Calventia,” sc., “in campanea civi-tatis Papiae.”60 If this was indeed the place where Boethius was murdered and his body concealed by order of Theodoric, then it would not have been at all strange for the monks who owned the territory either to have discovered the remains or to have moved them to their church in Pavia. We have no informa-tion beyond an observation made by Conrad of Hirsau († ca. 1050), which has gone unnoticed but demands our attention as the oldest extant evidence for the burial of Boethius at Pavia.61 According to the learned and scrupulous Bene-dictine there was a true relatio which recounted the burial of the remains of Boethius in San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro near the tomb of St. Augustine. It was in all probability a witness not far removed in time from Conrad and for him one more trustworthy than the legend of the miraculous “Boethius cephalopho-rus,”62

60 Le carte del monastero di San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro di Pavia, II (1165–1190), ed. E. Bar-

bieri, M. A. Casagrande Mazzoli, and E. Cau (Milan, 1984), 215, 216, 291, 292, 322.

which was widespread in medieval times.

61 R. B. C. Huygens, ed., Accessus ad auctores. Bernard d’Utrecht. Conrad d’Hirsau, Dia-logus super auctores (Leiden, 1970), 109: “Ut veridicorum relatio docet, Papiae prope sepul-chrum Augustini Ipponensis episcopi et ipse sepultus est. . . .”

62 F. Gianani, “In agro Calventiano: il luogo del supplizio di Boezio,” in Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Studi Boeziani (Pavia, 5–8 ottobre 1980), ed. L. Obertello (Rome, 1981), 46.

204 F. TRONCARELLI

Leaving legends aside, we should bear in mind that the grave has been lik-ened to a diptych,63

Under such conditions it was obviously impossible to achieve a public rehabilitation of Boethius’s memory.

and with good reason, not only aesthetically owing to its shape, which resembles that of a funerary ivory, but in virtue of the simplicity with which it expresses what the family diptych of Boethius does as well, namely, the need for a solemn commemoration—for nothing else was pos-sible. And even later, after Amalasuintha had returned the proscribed property to the relatives of the murdered philosopher, thereby implicitly rehabilitating his memory, it was impossible to transfer the body buried “in campanea” of Pavia. We know that some of the main persecutors of Boethius, such as Cyprian and Opilione, even made careers during the reign of Amalasuintha, although by returning the property to the Anicii she made an open display of dissent vis-à-vis their conviction. In fact, the faction of those fostering conflict with the Romans was not defeated and eventually managed to remove Amala-suintha, thereby precipitating the catastrophe of war in Gothic Italy.

64

Under these conditions, precluding as they did the possibility of any real triumph, the only remaining triumph, for the relatives of Boethius, was one lived in the imagination. It is no coinci-dence that during Totila’s siege of Rome in 546 someone fostered the rumor that Rusticiana had caused all of the statues in the city of Theodoric to be toppled; true or false, the suspicion was in any case fixed in the consciousness of all that the widow of Boethius was the instigator of each campaign to re-habilitate her husband and of the condemnations of those who condemned him. The suspicion was perhaps not unreasonable, given her fearless promul-gation of a diptych dedicated to the memory of her dead husband and the possibility that she secretly, but fittingly, had his remains buried.

Sapienti corona.

The stylized palm we see on the slab is not merely ornamental. Placed as it is on a tombstone, it has a clear and unequivocal meaning: an allusion to mar-tyrdom. In inscriptions and tombs, and in late antique and early Christian mosaics, palms had a precise symbolic meaning, expressing “from the fourth century . . . the victory of martyrs over those who had killed them.”65

63 G. Panazza, “Lapidi e sculture Paleocristiane e preromane di Pavia,” in Arte del Primo

millennio (Atti del II Convegno per lo studio dell’arte dell’alto medioevo), ed. E. Arslan (Turin, 1953), 211–396, at 255.

64 F. Troncarelli, “Boezio a Costantinopoli: testi, contesti, edizioni,” Litterae Caelestes 3 (2008–9): 191–225, esp. 205–25.

65 E. Urech, Dizionario dei simboli cristiani (Rome, 1995), 189.

FORBIDDEN MEMORY 205

Boethius alludes in his Consolatio to this kind of “victory” in a manner sufficiently ambiguous to divide scholars between those who perceive a touch of Christian flavour and those who deny it (Phil. Cons. 4.3). Whatever the case, it is clear that the philosopher alludes to the crown obtained in the fight against vices and in particular against the tyrants represented in the poem immediately preceding the passage of which we speak (Phil. Cons. 4.m2), and mentioned with disdain in the subsequent prose. Boethius speaks of one who runs for an immortal crown, an eternal prize.66 The crown is without doubt the “sapientis corona” mentioned also in Prov 14:24, as pointed out by Danuta Shanzer,67 although we cannot exclude the possibility of a reference—in a complex intertextual play typical of Boethius—to St. Paul,68

Regardless of what prize Boethius had in mind, those who provided the tombstone decided to put on it the palm of victory typical of the martyr. For them the philosopher was a martyr—not a saint, but a “witness” to the eternal life. For the very first time Boethius was considered a martyr: the reputation would spread over the course of the Middle Ages, coming down to Dante, who says that Boethius “came from martyrdom unto this peace” (Paradiso 10.128–29). Promulgating such a claim in the sixth century was no easy mat-ter; yet there was someone who had the courage to do it, and in the most appropriate style: by an allusion discreet and sober, exactly like the life, per-sonality, culture, indeed, the very identity of Boethius. It was an allusion possible only for those who had shared some of his silences and secrets.

who speaks of those who run for an uncorruptable prize.

Università della Tuscia (Viterbo).

66 Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae 4.3.2 (ed. C. Moreschini [Leipzig, 2005], 108): “Rerum etenim quae geruntur illud propter quod unaquaeque res geritur eiusdem rei praemium esse non iniuria videri potest, uti currendi in stadio, propter quam curritur, iacet praemium corona.” (“We may justly say that the reward of every act which is performed is the object for which it is performed. For instance, on the racecourse the crown for which the runner strives is his reward,” A. M. S. Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, trans. W. V. Cooper [London, 1902], 49.) On the Christian flavour of such Boethian passages, see J. Magee, “Note on Boe-thius, Consolatio I.1,5; 3,7: A New Biblical Parallel,” Vigiliae Christianae 42 (1988): 79–82.

67 D. Shanzer, “Interpreting the Consolation,” in The Cambridge Companion to Boethius, ed. J. Marenbon (Cambridge, 2009), 242 n. 132.

68 1 Cor 9:24–25: “Nescitis quod hi, qui in stadio currunt, omnes quidem currunt, sed unus accipit bravium? Sic currite, ut comprehendatis. Omnis autem, qui in agone contendit, ab om-nibus se abstinet; et illi quidem, ut corruptibilem coronam accipiant, nos autem incorruptam.” (“Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run like that, that you may win. Every man who strives in the games exercises self-control in all things. Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.”)