Martianus Capella

Martianus Mennius Felix Capella, often referred to simply as Martianus, wrote, in the early 5th century, the most popular Latin guide to the liberal arts during the early Medieval period, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury), a work of combined prose and verse.

The first two books relate the tale of the god Mercury taking Philology as his bride. Then follow seven books, each narrated by a servant given to Philology (from the Greek; literally, "love for the word," in Martianus' time meaning education or scholastic pursuits generally, and in our time usually referring to the study of ancient Greek and Latin) as a wedding gift by Mercury, and each incorporating one of the liberal arts. And by the way, take a look at the seven liberal arts as defined by Martianus and consider how the meaning of the phrase "liberal arts" has changed: for Martianus, and for Western education in general for a very, very long time, the seven liberal arts were grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy and harmony. In Martianus' book, much of what is discussed under the heading of geometry is what we would call geography, which may not be so strange when one considers that the literal meaning of the geometry, from the Greek, is "measuring the world."

Like Apuleius, the 2nd-century author of various works including the widely-read and much-loved novel referred to as either the Metamorphoses (not to be confused with Ovid's poem of the same name) or The Golden Ass in which the narrator spends much of the book trapped in the body of a donkey, Martinaus was a native of the town of Madaura, in the Roman province of Africa and in present-day Algeria. Martinus clearly imitates Apuleius' writing style, which can be a good or a very bad thing, depending upon one's opinion of Apuleius. Opinions of Apuleius diverge to a great extent. Some modern critics have verbally abused Martianus for imitating Apuleius all too well, or for reproducing Apuleius' worst excesses while failing to approach his strong points. Others, apparently less disturbed by drastic departures from conventional Classic Latin style, have professed to have been entertained by Martianus.

Very little is known about Martianus' life, other than that he was a lawyer, and apparently did not make much money at it.

However, from his own time until the Aristotelian revolution in education in the 13th century, Martianus' book seems to have been very highly thought of. John Scotus Erigena was among those who wrote commentaries on it. Notker translated the first two books into German in the early 11th century. Martianus was used as the model for school curricula all over Latin Europe. At the present time, over 250 manuscripts of Martianus are known, including 11 from the 9th century and a 12th manuscript from the 10th century, a very impressive number of such early manuscripts. However, a note reproduced in many manuscripts, dated to the year 534, indicated that already at that early date a certain Securus Melior Felix, who intended to make an edition of Martianus, found the existing manuscripts to be hopelessly full of errors, a complaint which, unfortunately, seems to be borne out by the state of the surviving manuscripts today. Two 20th-century Teubner editions, by A Dick (1925) and James Willis (1983) struggle admirably with the difficulties of the text.