Tableau de la Vie, dessine par Marian, d'apres le Dialogue de Cebes
- Title:
- Tableau de la Vie, dessine par Marian, d'apres le Dialogue de Cebes
- Alternate Title:
- Tableau de la Vie, dessine par Marian, d'apres le Dialogue de Cebes
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Valentin, Henry August, after Matthaus Merian
- Date:
- 1844
- Date 2:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2377.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2377_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1800 - 1869
- Subject:
- Allegorical
Conduct of Life
Pictorial - Measurement:
- 21 x 15 on sheet 30 x 20 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- This map illustrates the “Tabula Cebetis” (Cebes’ Painting), the Greek philosophical allegory describing the path of life, the course of moral conduct necessary to attain fulfillment. (For other allegorical maps of this kind, see Subject > Conduct of Life.) Although the Tabula was purportedly written by one “Cebes,” the name of a known Theban follower of Socrates in the late 5th century BC, modern scholars generally date it to the Hellenic period, around the 1st century AD. Squire 2014, 287-88; Trapp 1997, 160; Dwyer 1976, 295. The earliest surviving manuscript dates to the 11th or 12th century (Parsons 1901, 6), and printed editions first appeared in 1496 (Greek) and 1497 (Latin). Trapp 1997, 172, n.41. The Tabula “was one of the most reedited works of philosophy in the sixteenth century, . . . translated into French, English, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch and Polish.” Peters 2004, 205. Numerous editions were published up to the beginning of the 20th century, often with the Enchiridion of Epictetus. Ibid; Parsons 6-8.
The Tabula is a work of prose, a dialogue between a group of young men confused by a strange painting they see at a Temple of Chronos and an older narrator who explains it to them. The painting shows three concentric walled enclosures filled with scores of confusing images, and the textual elucidation is lengthy and complex. As summarized by Trapp (1997, 160-61), the old narrator explains that the entire painting represents “Life, which is delimited by the outermost of the enclosures; the smaller enclosures within it designate the various existential conditions that different choices in life bring about: Hedonistic Indulgence, Retribution, False Culture [Education], True Culture, and Happiness. The figures to be seen standing and moving about in and between these locations represent two different classes of entity. One set stands for individual human beings, making their different ways through life, via the various staging-posts and to the different destinations represented by the enclosures. The other, and larger set of (almost exclusively female) figures stand for the conditions and inner psychological states in which these travellers find themselves at different points in their lives. . . . Opinions, Desires, and Pleasures; Fortune; Indulgence, Profligacy, Insatiability, and Flattery; Retribution, Grief, Sorrow, Lamentation, and Despondency; Repentance; False Culture; Self-mastery and Perseverance; True Culture, Truth and Persuasion; Knowledge, Courage, Justice, Goodness, Moderation, Propriety, Freedom of Spirit, Self-mastery, and Gentleness; and Happiness. The only figures that stand slightly apart from this array . . . are to be found at the gate of Life itself: first the Divinity (Daimon), who instructs all humans, on the threshold of birth, what road to walk in life if they hope for Salvation; then Deceit, who the next moment forces them to drink her draught of Error and Ignorance, which effaces Divinity's commands to a greater or lesser degree, and thus sends them into the world in a state in which they are easy prey for false opinions and deluded ideas of the right path to fulfillment.”
The narrator sets out “a whole series of . . . abstract, emblematic accounts of lives lived well or badly, as depicted by the different routes followed by the figures within the picture. . . . The main focus . . . is on the life that achieves ultimate happiness only after a false start, represented by the individual whose rise to material prosperity (by the gift of capricious fortune) leads him first into a life of sensual indulgence, thence into crime, punishment and repentance, and only then, via a brief acquaintance with conventional culture, to the laborious cultivation of moral virtue and the attainment of happiness. Since, however, each stage through which this traveller passes can be for others a finishing-place in itself, other possible courses in life are also envisaged: the life that ends with unrepented crime and its consequences; the life that ends in false (conventional) culture, unaware that there is anything higher to aspire to; and the life that aspires to true virtue, but fails to achieve it, either through faintness of heart, or through some ineradicable moral flaw.” Finally, the old man explains one final route: “that of the individual who, accepting the goods of fortune in a proper spirit of indifference, spurns the blandishments of hedonism, and makes instead directly for culture, without the pernicious detour through dissolution and crime.”
The Tabula has fostered extensive debate among scholars of philosophy and the classics. Among many other issues, “the explicit moralizing of the text (not to mention its talk of True Paideia [Education]) has made it all too tempting to approach the Tabula Cebetis as a straight-forward antecedent to Christian parable.” Squire 2014, 316. Indeed, the surface similarity to John Bunyan’s religious work of the 17th century has led some to call the Tabula “the Greek Pilgrim’s Progress,” and scholars have noted its relationship to the Christian iconology of the “broad and narrow gates” on the path of life. Dwyer 297; see, e.g., ID #1040 (“The 3 Roads to Eternity”). Nevertheless, “it is a mere perversity to use the concept of religion to make the Tablet into an exposition of anything other than moral doctrine.” Trapp 1997, 162.
There is no surviving visual representation of the “tabula” (painting; picture) produced before about 1500. Dwyer 1976, 295. There are two surviving 16th century drawings of a fragment of a marble relief from classical antiquity that appears to illustrate the Tabula Cebetis, but “neither the provenance of the relief nor its present whereabouts are known.” Trapp 1997, 172. The first printed representation appeared in 1507, and many editions thereafter include illustrations of the painting, often as fold-out plates. Among the artists who have produced paintings or plates illustrating the Tabula are Hans Holbein the Younger, Jacob Matham (after Hendrick Goltzius), Hans Durer, Erhardt Schoen, Hieronymus Vietor, Philip Galle (after Frans Floris), David Kandel, Matthew Merian, Nicholas Visscher, Joris van Schooten, Gerard Audran and Romijn de Hooghe. Schleier 1973, plates; Dwyer 1976, 296. Galle was apparently the first the recognize that the painting was “a kind of map” (Reitinger 2007, 445-46), entitling his large 1561 engraving, “Tabula Cebetis, Carta Vitae,” the Map of Life.
This illustration of the Tabula was produced in 1844 by the French artist Henry Augustin Valentin, after a 1638 version by the distinguished Swiss engraver and mapmaker Matthew Merian the Elder. Instead of the more traditional horizontal “landscape” view, Merian showed the Tabula as a steep mountain, and provided a numbered code to assist the viewer. At the bottom, as the children approach “L’entrée de la Vie” (#1), they are first enlightened by Divinity (here “La Genie,” #2) and then immediately misled by Deceit (here “L’Imposture/La Seduction,” #3). The gate to the second enclosure, “La Fausse Instruction,” is plainly marked (#20), as is the gate to the final enclosure, “La Vraie Instruction” (#34). At the peak, the successful “Voyageur” is crowned by “La Felicite” (#46).
For a very different, more earthy version of the Tabula, see ID # 2376 (Romyn de Hooghe, 1670).
Cornell University Library is pleased to present this digital collection of Persuasive Maps, the originals of which have been collected and described by the private collector PJ Mode. The descriptive information in the “Collector’s Notes” has been supplied by Mr. Mode and does not necessarily reflect the views of Cornell University. - Source:
- Le Magasin Pittoresque, Paris, January 1844, p.5.
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.