L'Écriture du Scepticisme chez Montaigne: Actes des journées d'étude (15-16 novembre 2001)by Marie-Luce Demonet; Alain LegrosReview by: Bernd RennerThe Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Fall, 2005), pp. 876-878Published by: The Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20477527 .

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876 Sixteenth Century Journal XXXVI/3 (2005)

in two creative universes: in painting and in theater. She analyzes the setting of the situations, simultaneous actions, and movements as they appear in paintings by Ripa, Leonardo da Vinci,Wronese, Nicholas Poussin, and others. She explores the evolution of playwriting and painting during the sixteenth century, a period that appeared to be a turning point in artistic creation although most of the ideas of the sixteenth century did not reach full development until the eighteenth century and the age of Diderot.

In exploring the question of whether an artist should imitate the environment or ide alize a vision of humanity, Henin discusses the theoretical contribution of many influential analysts and Italian philosophers from the sixteenth century, including Maggi, Lombardi, and Trissino, who revisited Aristotle's principles on art and mimesis. They also had all translated the Greek word eikdn as imago, a concept that could be understood as both portrait and image (65). Many sixteenth-century Italian authors proposed their own interpretations ofAristotle's

works on poetics, as did Castelvetro in 1570 (67). Other commentators from the Renais sance, such as Robortello, a critic ofAristotle (599), introduced in 1548 a theoretical notion still in use today, namely the habitus, which in this case describes the natural attitude of a character (586).

The book is divided into three parts. First, we see how drama and acting on stage were conceived of as make-believe, with illusions of feelings and imitations of nature, in a study employing concepts such as mimesis and diegesis (26).The second part focuses on the stage action, the spectator's gaze, and its scenic perspective. The third part concentrates on the representation of passion in theaters and on paintings, bringing emotions to the creative artist and for the audience. The tragedies and comedies shown in theaters and imagined in paintings had to conform to rules, moral limits, and norms for the sake of decorum (434). According to this concept of the spectacle, a fable had to be clear, understandable, likeable, believable, and these conditions had by then coincided with the definition of decorum (434). Consequently, H&nin devotes an entire chapter to catharsis (485ff.). Imitations and caricatures of nobles could be sketched by artists, but only within certain limits. In her conclusion, Henin repeats that she does not want to insist on the influences between two art forms, namely theater and painting, but she rather wants to illustrate that there is theater (drama, actions, movements, settings) featured in Renaissance paintings, and elements of visual art and art design were present in the scenery, costumes, and settings in sixteenth century theaters (614). Plates 8, 9, 14, and 15 show how a stage could be conceived during that era in Italy.

A valuable effort, Ut pictura theatrum is rich in historical detail, based on archival work and many secondary sources, and supplemented by seventy sketches (for costumes and scen ery) and paintings reproduced in black and white; there are more than a thousand footnotes. Henin's meticulous work is intended for specialists of aesthetics or sixteenth-century French literature; it requires the reader to be fluent in French and familiar with theories of poetics.

L'Ecriture du Scepticisme chez Montaigne: Actes des journees d'etude (15-16 novembre 2001). Ed. Marie-Luce Demonet and Alain Legros. Geneva: Droz, 2004. 347 pp. SF 92.00. ISBN 2-600-00898-5.

REVIEWED BY: Bernd Renner, Brooklyn College, City University of NewYork

The topic of Montaigne's skepticism has always been one of the most intriguing and most popular fields of investigation with regard to his Essais as well as his other writings. In

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Book Reviews 877

light of the multitude of contributions to this topic, thoroughly examining the question from various angles-see for example Marie-Luce Demonet's "A plaisir": Se'miotique et scepticisme chez Montaigne (reviewed in SCJ 35:272-74)-the readers are likely to ask themselves in which way this collection can contribute to this complex discussion. Any such initial reservations are quickly dissipated, however, as the overwhelming majority of the volume's nineteen essays succeed in the attempt to approach the topic in an original and enlightening fashion.While the question of semiotics remains central to most of the articles, the dialogism inherent in the question of skepticism takes center stage, as it is not only discussed in detail but is even reflected in the choice of the contributors, who consist of scholars of philosophy and of literature. The dialogue between the two fields that develops across the articles underlines the interdisciplinary nature of an investigation that is conveniently divided into four main parts: (1) "Traits," which consists of close readings of selected Essais (five articles); (2) "Conferences," which seeks to establish links to the writings of other sixteenth-century humanists, theologians, and jurists (six articles); (3) "Dogmes," which deals with the interpretation of Montaigne's skepticism in the context of the history of philosophy and the history of ideas (four articles); (4) "Experiences," which offers a biographical investigation into the origins of the essayist's skepticism outside the confines of his famous "librairie" and offers a refreshing counterpart to the certainly fundamental but maybe slightly overstated influence of bookish sources such as Sextus Empiricus's writings (four articles).Whereas each single one of these individual approaches is not exactly uncharted territory, the combination of them in one volume by a diverse cast of scholars is apt to open up the intended fruitful dialogue that is prone to shed new light on the issue at hand.

The main strength of the collection is precisely this syncretism of linguistic, literary, philosophical, and historical approaches that complete and sometimes contradict each other in a highly productive fashion. Montaigne's complex attitude toward such extreme positions as dogmatism, skepticism, pyrrhonism, or fideism is examined from a multitude of angles, an investigation that ends up demonstrating convincingly the essayist's reluctance to adopt such polarizing views. Most articles are, therefore, in agreement when it comes to making a case for the Bordelais's adherence to the Renaissance concept of mediocritas, that pragmatic median way of conduct and thinking that draws its strengths precisely from the fruitful com bination of selected aspects deriving from extreme positions such as the ones mentioned above.

The domains of religion and jurisprudence serve as main fields of investigation into this process. The call for the suspension ofjudgment, based on the weakness of human reason, is generally considered as the most conspicuous illustration of Montaigne's skepticism, but it is clearly less an expression of his extreme pyrrhonism than an acknowledgment of the unavoidable subjectivity that constitutes the basis of all judgment. Consequently, any judg ment remains highly personal and should, therefore, not be imposed on others. Montaigne thus adopts the aforementioned median position, in this case between the "diseases" of dog

matic thinking ("La 'precipitation' [propeteia] a former des jugements hatifs sur le reel, la 'pre somption' ou 'opinion' [oie'sis] de savoir, la pretention 'a saisir les res sous-jacentes aux verba," 307) and pyrrhonism, where extreme doubt makes any resolution, even a personal one, com pletely impossible. This median position would better preserve the therapeutic qualities of doubt in that equation. Hence also the respect he preserves for the law despite its obvious shortcomings; it is still preferable to the more numerous and more serious abuses that indi vidual decisions and whims are apt to cause (279) and ensures that society can still function. Such a pragmatic approach does not avert the often discussed "crisis of exemplarity," how

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878 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXVI/3 (2005)

ever, the philosophical consequence of the period's social, political, and scientific crises. Whereas Montaigne is aware of the personal and intransferable nature of experience (hence also the highly problematic status of "witnesses"), most judges are not. "After all, it is to put a very high value on our surmises to roast a man alive for them," as the essayist puts it so eloquently in "Des boyteux" (3, 11). The situation in the realm of religion is similar, as in matters of faith, too, truth escapes the capacities of human reason: "Les mysteres de l'Ancien et du Nouveau Testament, le magistere surnaturel de l'Eglise restent imp&n&trables. Le scep ticisme joue ici son role de 'pr6servatif' contre les avis trop temeraires qui clament leur pre tention a la certitude" (160).

Montaigne's modesty, pragmatism, and awareness of personal shortcomings thus fuels his "healthy" version of a skepticism marked by the values of mediocritas, a process that para doxically enables subjective judgment while criticizing human reason in a display of the phe nomenon of antiperistasis that Terence Cave recently highlighted in his Pre'-Histoires I (Geneva: Droz, 1999) and that this collection of essays succeeds in illustrating so wonderfully.

Sainte Anne est une sorciere et autres essais. Jean Wirth. Geneva: Droz, 2003. 298 pp. SF 32.00. ISBN 2-600-00526-9.

REVIEWED BY: Berenice V Le Marchand, San Francisco State University REVIEW TRANSLATED BY: David Scaer, Roanoke College

A former student at the Ecole des Chartres who earned a doctorate in art history, Uni versity of Geneva professor Jean Wirth has authored several works devoted to pictorial rep resentations and concepts in the Middle Ages. His works on iconoclasm include, among other subjects, Luther: Etude d'histoire religieuse (Geneva: Droz, 1981), L'image me'dievale: Nais sance et de'veloppements VIe-XVe siecle (Paris: M ierdiens Klincksieck,1989), L'image a' l'e'poque romane (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1999), and also La datation de la sculpture me'die'vale (Geneva:

Droz, 2004). In Sainte Anne est une sorciere et autres essais ("Saint Anne Is a Witch and Other Essays"), Wirth brings together six essays on religious history from the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the Renaissance.

Throughout his explorations into the mentalites and conceptions of the period, Wirth traces the very notion of belief throughout his essays, while bringing social change into per spective with his versatile definition of "belief" during the Reformation and Counter-Ref ormation. Religious history, as developed by historians the likes of Lucien Febvre, Pierre Chaunu, Jean Delumeau, and Robert Muchembled, gets redefined (or at least revisited) by Wirth, who calls into question its "deterministic view of history" and "well-informed gen eralizations" about rehgious ideologies in the Renaissance.

Wirth's approach, underscored by his six essays, "Libertins et epicuriens," "Sainte Anne est une sorci&re," "La naissance du concept de croyance," "Contre la th'se de l'acculturation," "Quelques pubhcations recentes sur Luther," and "Th6orie et pratique de l'image sainte a la veille de la Reforme," allows insights into the development of the cult of Saint Anne and into how Christians viewed theVirgin's mother.

With the definition of"libertine" as its point of departure, the first essay explores unbe lief in Renaissance France. Spiritual "libertines" (here meaning "heretical thinkers") were accused of masking the impiety of their writings. In order to avoid censure, these authors expressed their unbelief in veiled, dissimulated fashion. In particular, Wirth bases his argu ment on two short works: the first, Henri Cornelius Agrippa's De nobilitate atque praecellentia

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