CHAPTER EIGHT #2
Everyone sunk in their seats at the idea of being taught by the philosophy professors.
Professor Helmut Wulfram was a mountainous, bearish man with a prolific beard, and pale-white skin, built like a lumberman.
Wulfram adhered himself to Stoicism and its emotional mastery.
He didn’t believe in the modern mindset.
He wore his chitōn with a himátion, the heavy cloak mantled over his garment as though he were Socrates in the Republic, and whenever he hunted in the stark winter, he draped woolen chlamys or burrus over his chitōn as though it was the age of Antiquity.
Wulfram relished terrifying the students with deliberate references to past hibernal deaths or grisly implications of imminent deaths, yet the philosophy students loved him ferociously.
One could hardly get the students to leave the mountains willingly.
The philosophy students studied in his cave as he chopped wood, stoking large fires like a modern Prometheus, where Elliott heard he lulled your mind into a false pretense of comfort with the amiably cozy fireplace, but his axe was a terror as he railed through Socratic seminars and rigorous Marcus Aurelius lectures that drained the mind until he’d thoroughly sifted through it.
He strived to instill hard work ethic and learn the strategic thoughts of his students in readings of Thucydides and Xenophon of Athens as though they were young conscripts drafted in a war.
He pillaged the concepts of existentialism in the winter.
He purged the mind of everything except fatalism discourses throughout the hibernal week.
Thankfully, Professor Hexley embraced the heart of his students.
He was beloved for that reason. There were students that slept on the stone ledges with blankets that weren’t even part of Hexley’s caves, and several huddles of students spilled in from the hallway, because his classroom was a safety blanket itself.
His steady timbre was a safe haven, even at his most intoxicated.
He would never surrender his students to Professor Wulfram.
As Perrineau stormed out in protest, Professor Hexley set aside the conspectus without a single look at it. He knew intrinsically what would keep his students distracted from the hibernal. “Let’s debate Titian’s Allegory of Prudence.”
Elliott had studied the oil-on-canvas crafted by the Italian Renaissance painter Tiziano Vecellio for weeks by then.
There were three heads depicted: an elderly man with a grizzled expression positioned to the left, a matured man with his dark eyes bearing slightly forward, and a youthful boy expressionlessly aimed to the right.
Each faced a different direction believed to be signaling three separate stages of life in a man’s past, present, and future over his lifetime.
However, there were three animal heads symbolized beneath each man: a dark wolf beneath the elder man; a golden lion beneath the matured man; and a bright dog beneath the youthful boy.
Lyra was the first to raise her hand with her usual pile of books on the corner of her ledge.
She always sounded like a textbook to Elliott.
“The themes of the Renaissance Era in Italy, specifically circa 1550-1565, were considered the Dark Ages. The main symbolisms were religious themes of sin and regret.” She paused ruminatively for a moment.
“Perhaps it’s exactly what everyone believes…
that the man committed sin as a youth when he was more of a dog, then he graduated to more ferocious sins as a lion, and in the end, he became a weary wolf of regret as a wrinkled old man.
The pain in the lion’s eyes alone is unmistakable. ”
Isa Herrera sipped her thermos and shook her head, straightening in her seat, before she raised a hand. “There’s no Holy cross, halo, or religious symbolism of the time anywhere to be seen on the painting. I don’t think it’s meant to be religious.”
Professor Hexley nodded in her direction, not a nod of assent, but a nod for her to expound on her rationale.
Isa expanded her thoughts as she crossed one leg over the other.
“After all, Titian titled the work An Allegory of Prudence, perhaps he wasn’t ‘prudent’ as a young man when he was a dog, sure, instead, he was ruthless as a grown man with the mindset of a lion, before he learned to become shrewd and calculated like a wolf.
It’s the progression of intellectual maturity as a man. ”
Isa mentioned that the Latin inscription in the painting translated to: ‘Learning from Yesterday, Today acts prudently lest by his action he spoil Tomorrow[2].’
A young man in the back unwrapped a piece of gum.
“It might be religious. Pierio Valeriano’s Hieroglyphica included An Allegory of Prudence with a serpent in 1556.
” The young man, Callum Han, stuck the gum in his mouth casually.
“I interpreted it as a temptation of men to sin when they’re young and later regret it when they’re older in age.
Men spoiled their lives over sin and temptation in the puritanical framework of its historical time period.
Think of the serpent as the temptation in the garden of Eden; the temptation of men. ”
Isa remained firm in her assessment. “No, the serpent is due to ancient mythology more than the Catholic interpretation of serpents as an evil entity, there was a popular rediscovery of hieroglyphics at the time, specifically The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo. Instead, take Serapis for example–a creature depicted with the head of a lion, a dog, and a wolf encompassed in a serpent.”
Callum countered, “That’s still a religion at the time. Hellenistic religion.”
Isa pressed on with a note of perspective.
“It’s not religious at all. If you look at Titian’s Self-Portrait circa 1562, he wears the same red cap as the elderly man, so the argument could be made that it’s Titian himself in his elder years.
It’s not invoking religion, it’s self reflection.
” Her point made Elliott’s head rise and he found himself nodding whenever Isa spoke, even though he didn’t know anything about hieroglyphics.
Isa took another careful sip of her silver thermos, steam curling over the lid.
“I’ve heard that the younger men are his son and nephew respectively, therefore, it’s not likely that he’s claiming they’re all living in sin and regret.
He’s expressing the significance in their stages of life. It’s self reflective.”
Elliott agreed with her, and for a rare moment, he interjected in class.
“Morbicus’s Saturnalia depicts a three-headed creature in a similar structure of the head of a dog, a lion, and a wolf.
Serapis represents time itself, and it’s a direct reference of time, in my opinion.
” Elliott explained further, “The Saturnalia pre-dates the Catholic religion of the time, so I don’t think it was referring to Catholic sin and regret in that sense.
I think it’s a mythological reference to represent the passage of time in a man’s life.
Saturn was the literal Roman god of time–”
Callum refuted him as he shrugged off his cashmere sweater despite the cold draft from the caves.
“It’s more likely religious, it’s not about time itself.
The Saturnalia holiday in honor of the god Saturn wasn’t a sex ritual of debauchery with sin, or a human sacrifice ritual with immorality, it was a season of offerings and gift-givings that later on became Christ’s Mass itself, Christmas, based on Jesus Christ. Saint Francis of Assisi’s nativity scene was in 1223 AD.
That was celebrated by the later time of Titian, so it might’ve centered on Catholic sin after all.
Catholicism permeated everything, including Titian’s work. ”