Pliny the Elder and the Matter of Memory. An Encyclopaedic Workshop

Anna Anguissola, Pliny the Elder and the Matter of Memory. An Encyclopaedic Workshop. London and New York: Routledge, 2023. ISBN 9781032056227.

Reviewed by Jazz Demetrioff, University at Buffalo (SUNY), jazzdeme@buffalo.edu.

 Pliny the Elder’s Natural History was the ultimate source for obtaining information in order to preserve traditions and knowledge during the first century CE, when free time and leisure (otium) were overshadowing business and commerce (negotium). The text was not just about collecting, however; it was also about remembering older traditions and providing future generations with answers from within the corpus. For Pliny, the theme was memory and placing the natural world (Nature) into an encyclopedic corpus. Anna Anguissola’s Pliny the Elder and the Matter of Memory takes a similar approach with her monograph centered on Pliny’s discussion of figural arts (books 33–37), a topic that has “enraptured the imaginations of its readers” (p. i) for centuries. Her overall objective is to address the ties between Nature (the natural world and its resources) and its products (worked materials), which sustain memory through material embodiment and aesthetic beauty of visual cues within the artwork or sculpture. 

To accomplish such an assessment, the book considers five questions: (1) How is Pliny’s presentation of artists and artwork affected by the perceived value, properties, and hierarchies of materials? (2) What role do technological concerns play in the evaluation of artworks? (3) What strategies, in terms of organisation and language, does Pliny use to reflect the complexities of these considerations? (4) What is the place of art within Natural History’s moral and epistemological framework? (5) What challenges have materialities and human ingenuity posed to the creator of this early encyclopedia in a period characterised by a rapidly evolving economic landscape (p. ix)? This book allows for an introduction to Nature and art as well as to wider discussions of the Romans’ use of the natural world. Further, Anguissola complements previous endeavours on this topic, including Jacob Isager’s monograph on the larger themes at play in the Natural History¹ and Sorcha Carey’s study on the cultural, artistic, and political considerations found in Pliny.²

Anguissola approaches the topic of memory within Pliny’s artistic books through two parts dedicated to “the nature of art” and “the process of art”, which are subdivided into categories (chapters) that explore a specific theme (e.g., Chapter 3 covers art and language) with case studies from Pliny’s corpus. By using Plinian anecdotes throughout, readers can appreciate what the Roman author had to say about Nature, art, and memory, by “placing Man in the position of spectator or, at most, the entity who recognises the potential of Nature’s work and adapts it to use” (p. 19). What Anguissola, and by extension Pliny, means is that we (my emphasis) are the deciding factors as to what makes art memorable and how artistry may produce odes to Nature through the raw materials used, the artist’s style, or the underlying meaning of the artwork. Readers will gain not only insights into the ethics and meaning behind Roman art but also how the Romans, and Pliny appreciated Nature vis-à-vis worked materials. I would deem Anguissola’s analysis in this book to be her own ode to Pliny’s love for the natural world within his corpus; it is this world that Man should appreciate in all contexts. 

Pliny the Elder believed that leisure and freedom should provide an opportunity for Romans to take up educational hobbies (Natural History pr. 16), including the reading of various texts. This would include his own corpus, as it examines what the world extra intra cuncta conplexus in se, idemque rerum naturae opus et rerum ipsa natura (“embrace[s] [in] all things that are without and within, at once the work of nature and nature herself”).³ Anguissola returns to this notion often, emphasizing that the world of art is a conglomerate of Nature, its virtues, and its memory. Moreover, this appreciation is something that Pliny highlights within his volumes on art on many occasions; in sum, cherishing art is an appreciation of the natural world and its contents.

I do not intend to meticulously evaluate all the chapters of Anguissola’s text here. Rather, I would like to emphasize aspects within each chapter that, as a reader, I found to be the strongest examples applying her questions to the case studies. Chapter 1 begins by addressing the preciousness of stones in relation to art and skill (ars) and the organization of their so-called order within Natural History’s later books. Anguissola agrees with several scholars that the latter half of the encyclopedia becomes complex with its intrusive and extensive introductions to various subjects.⁴ The selection of stones (for example, obsidian) that bear significance for Nature in their value as materials and placement within the encyclopedia is thoughtfully explored, with Anguissola focusing on select stones that emphasize her questions and their significance to memory. One such example is the role between the formation of stones from liquid to solid forms (p. 17). Pliny, at times, affirms that using certain gemstones in art, such as for signet rings, is sacrilege owing to their original beauty in their natural state, which Anguissola explores further in Part II of the book. Some of Pliny’s descriptions of gemstones, however, lack further details, which is a common Plinian writing style that Anguissola agrees affects the reader’s outlook on the subject, causing frustration with the unknown. What Anguissola attempts to do here and throughout the remaining chapters is to unravel Pliny’s lack of clarity by focusing on two significant aspects, that of Nature’s purpose and the role of memory in art (pp. 17–19).

Chapter 2 explores the ethics of sculptors and their artistic works, opening with the Apoxyomenos and Tiberius’s infatuation with its beauty. Anguissola’s choice to begin the chapter with this famous (and fantastical) historical event creates a jumping-off point for the remainder of the chapter. It also drives the significance of ethics: Romans’ fondness for collecting art was unethical as these “patterns of behaviour…[were ruled] by man’s insatiable avidity for…natural resources” (p. 34). The Tiberian example bears weight in the history of Rome’s expansion and the general Roman interest in otium. The Romans are well known to have removed artworks from their original contexts, which inherently eliminates their original meaning and relationship with the viewer. Anguissola points out that, as in the case of the Apoxyomenos, these works were often removed from public settings and placed into private homes, so that the Romans—namely the elite—could appreciate them, restricting the possibility of a more widespread audience. These now-out-of-context works of art, as Pliny points out, become illegitimate as they lose their cultural significance, in a new home that, surprisingly, can still bear meaning and memory. Does the understanding of art change when it is viewed out of context? Certainly.⁵, Indeed, works of art during the Imperial period were further removed from their original context by elevating them from their original grandeur. One example that Anguissola emphasizes is Nero’s gilding, “which undermine[s] the natural relationship between materials and value” (p. 37). Anguissola is correct to classify these incidents as dualistic in nature; both in the sense of the original work’s meaning and the memory of political propaganda that followed. As she argues, it is the decision of the spectator to appreciate these values, whether displayed in its natural context or worked into sculpture. I would argue that this chapter is the pinnacle of the book, as it evaluates the role of art and ethics, namely the debasement of the material’s natural state for imperial pleasure, something that Pliny appears to oppose. This chapter wonderfully summarizes this massive topic so that the reader may well appreciate art and Nature and thus understand Rome’s infatuation with memory depicted in art and sculpture. 

The third chapter covers the internal language of art, symmetry, and the rhythm of carved lines. Using several artists as examples, such as Polyclitus, Myron, and Pythagoras, Pliny asserts that art carries its own language that aligns with Nature’s language. Anguissola emphasizes that this balance arises once a work is complete, but that incomplete works, too, can bear their own language. For instance, the inability of Apollodorus and Callimachus to be pleased with their final products is explored by Pliny through the significance of grace and diligence as they pertain to language and symmetry in art (pp. 51–53) This concept also affirms the role of art’s value among the populace, for those who appreciate something’s original or worked state can then acknowledge the thoroughness and vision of the artist. Anguissola also discusses the centrality of competition in this chapter: Pliny is aware that competition could arise during the phases of an artwork’s development, especially when more realistic sculptures were in vogue (pp. 53–55), which is then followed by the art of imitation. Rivalry, which Anguissola makes clear in the final paragraphs of this chapter, was an important part of Pliny’s discussion on the language of art.

Chapters 4–6 take a different approach to art via its processes in discovery, creating, and admiring works produced. The flow of the chapters allows for themes and ideas raised in the introduction and first part of the book to intersect with one another. Chapter 4 emphasizes Pliny’s reservations between technological innovations of the Empire’s pursuit of knowledge and Republican indifference to research. One of the notable highlights is her discussion on the relationship of progress and political history. Anguissola skillfully explores the heart of the matter—knowledge—in relation to Pliny’s history of art in the capital, as “technological progress constituted a consequence of political circumstances and the state of society” (p. 65). Chapter 5 explores innovations through the creation of artistic masterpieces, including incomplete works, which instilled the artist’s identity as the creator (p. 81). Chapter 6 discusses the opposite side of the spectrum, the role of the spectator, whose gaze instilled the “museum-like enjoyment of art” (p. 91). These recurring themes of discovery, creating, and admiring in the second half of Anguissola’s book opens the reader to the possibility of political interference in art and the knowledge of art’s influencing role on history and a key player in forming Roman identity. Anguissola addresses Pliny’s possible bias in this situation, allowing readers to consider “what is missing” from the compilation. Anguissola argues that though the artist’s job is that of so-called perfection, it is the private/public boundaries and the observer that have the final say in the overall meaning of a work of art. I agree with Anguissola’s overall goal in this book, which is to assess art’s memory, as described by Pliny, through its materials, visual qualities, and the meanings that it conveys for the spectator. As Pliny maintains, the natural world ought to be appreciated in all its forms as it contains the memory of its original state and details the memory of the artist and the subject.

One point that I tend to disagree with is the uncertainty between Pliny’s organization of topics and how he gathered his research. Anguissola, at several points, mentions Pliny’s disorganized corpus, namely books 33–37. But the order in which Pliny collected his data is unknown, as well as whether or not that process was a factor in the composition of Natural History. In fact, it is well established that his sources for Natural History include lawyers, medical enthusiasts, historians, and laymen, who “know” facts about various cultures, and his organization and rhetoric style tend to put readers in a daze.⁶ It must be granted, however, that Pliny did not carry out his research as an expeditionist, which could account for the disorganization, while his admiration for Nature and instilling it in his corpus could account for the tangents. Pliny’s empiricist obsession with Nature tends to be overwhelming at times, including in his ventures on arts; however, Anguissola fittingly casts a different tone herself, arguing that there is meaning in all things, including those things that are abundant in Nature.

Pliny the Elder and the Matter of Memory highlights the relationship between Nature and the five senses, a captivating subject that Mary Beagon⁷ addresses in her work, and how the use of the senses furthers an understanding of the visual arts and beauty in stones. Moreover, the reader can appreciate the arguments that Anguissola has made regarding Pliny’s books 33–37, which provides another perspective on the overall concept of Nature. As a brevarium—though bountiful in many themes, e.g., incomplete artworks, ethics, and meaning—it is a great resource for interdisciplinary readers, including those in art history and the practice of art, museum studies (e.g., curation and preservation), Roman history, Plinian studies, and archaeology, who wish to gain further insight in the development of art through natural resources in the ancient world. The brevity of the chapters allows for its readership to appreciate the arguments while leaving room for discussion of the topics and case studies. This text would be beneficial to upper-year undergraduate and graduate students as it condenses the scholarship of years past and provides an outlook on Pliny’s concept of Nature in the world of artistic processes and memory. A relatively inexpensive text, it includes black and white images, thorough endnotes, and several indices for further reference to Natural History, other Greek and Latin works, and a general locus. In essence, this petite book is large in scale as Anguissola considers different aspects of Pliny’s books on natural resources and their magnificence in art, encapsulating a further ode to “Nature…as the supreme artifex” (p. 26).

Table of Contents

Introduction (1–10)
Part 1: The nature of art
1. Art and material (13–30)
2. Art and ethics (31–45)
3. Art and language (46–58)
Part 2: The process of art
4. Discovering art (61–76)
5. Making art (77–88)
6. Looking at art (89–104)
Conclusion (105–10)

Notes

1.. Jacob Isager, Pliny on Art and Society: The Elder Pliny’s Chapters On The History Of Art (London and New York: Routledge, 1991).

2. Sorcha Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture: Art and Empire in the Natural History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

3. Pliny the Elder, Natural History 2.1.2, translated by H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library 330 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949).

4. For instance, Pliny’s medical books (i.e., 28–30) bundle a plethora of information together, with the result that it is easy for the reader to get lost within the subject matter.

5. Consider Constantine’s original colossus, fragmentary today, in comparison to the newly (February 2024) constructed copy now standing tall in gardens of the Capitoline Museums (https://apnews.com/article/italy-rome-constantine-b1c5418d16b4911c0c623acdcc80c7a2).

6. Pliny the Elder, Natural History book 1, translated by H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library 330 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949); Trevor Murphy, Pliny the Elder’s ‘Natural History’ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Aude Doody, Pliny’s Encyclopedia: The Reception of the ‘Natural History’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

7. Mary Beagon, “The Curious Eye of the Elder Pliny,” in Pliny the Elder: Themes and Contexts, ed. Roy K. Gibson and Ruth Morello (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), pp. 71–88, at 77.