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ART AND ARcHITECTURE

AROUND

1400

GLOBAL AND REGIONAL

PERSPECTIVES

Zdenko Balog

THE CONSOLE WITH A SCYLLA IN THE COUNTS OF

CILLI CHAPEL IN CELJE THE QUESTION OF HOMERIC
MOTIFS IN STYRIAN GOTHIC SCULPTURE

The church of Saint Daniel with the annexed Chapel of the Sorrowful Mother of God is found in
one of the oldest and most beautiful towns in Styria, Celje. The chapel was built as the family chapel of
the Counts of Cilli, in the last third of the 14th century, and was vaulted at the beginning of the 15th
century. It was built in the tradition of the Upper Styrian and Lower Styrian family chapels of the 14th
century. In the rich architectural sculpture preserved in the chapel, there is a cycle of 21 (or 20) consoles
that supported sculptures under high baldachins. 13 of the original consoles have survived. The cycle of
Celje is especially significant because of the engraved legends that describe the iconographic content.
Even though there are only three preserved legends, they are of vital importance: as well as undoubtedly determining the iconographic motives, they also create a starting point for determining commonly
disputed motives, such as the sea monster, the Scylla.
The poor degree of preservation of the iconographic cycle of the consoles in the Chapel of the
Sorrowful Mother of God means that we can only reconstruct it by approximation: it is possible to talk
about the covered thematic cycles, about the basic content guideline which combines the iconographic
motifs, and of course, about the specific motifs on the consoles and the contextual problems that they
open. We will focus our attention on one of the consoles that is marked and described with an inscription. On the position of the sixth console from the right, there is a winged half-bird half-woman and
next to this console, there is an inscription:
EIN MERWND HAIZZET SCILLA DAS HAT AUT / DI GUERTEL EIN SCHON INNCHVRAUEN GESTALT / VU DAZ AND TAIL GAR FRAIZSAM I DEM GAR / GROZEEN VNG
WITER RECHET IS DEN EZAGEL / AUF DER IST ALZ EIN SEGEL VND HEHT SICH AN
/ DIE CLIIEL VND TRENEHET DEN DEM TUET DIE / VALSCH WERLT GELEICH DIE
TRENCHT MANIGE.1
1

Hans Petschnig, ber einige Kirchen in Steiermark, Mittheilungen der K.K. Central Commission zur Erforschung und Erhaltung der
Baudenkmale X (1865), p. 203.

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Zdenko Balog

1. Celje, the Chapel of the Sorrowful Mother of God, the Console

with Scylla (photo: Z. Balog)

2. Celje, the Chapel of the Sorrowful Mother of God, the Console

with Siren (photo: Z. Balog)

The form is of a woman with a feathered crown on her head. [Fig. 1] The lower part of the body,
from the waist down, belongs to a bird of prey, which is, with respect to the frontal position of the upper
body, turned laterally. The human part of the figure is armored with a knights armor, which consists of
a vest and sleeves, and behind her back, the wings are pointing outwards, turned awkwardly. The right
hand is raised for attack, and as the position of the fist indicates, some kind of pointed weapon is being
held (spear, javelin or similar). The inscription defines her as the water monster, the Scylla.
On the facing wall, left from the entrance, the first console in the (preserved) row shows another
hybrid half-human creature: a long-haired naked girl, with a curved fish tail from the waist down, while
behind her shoulders stretches a pair of wings. [Fig. 2] The half fish half-girls are recognizable as Sirens:
sea virgins that have been dragged through almost three thousand years of mythology and literature,
changing features and even names. There are several reasons the girl-fish from Celje has been indentified as a Siren, something we will discuss in more detail later. But let us go back first of all to the Scylla.
The Scylla is a character from ancient mythology and literature (The Odyssey), which is very
rarely found in the iconography of medieval churches, in contrast to the Siren, for example, whose

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The Console with a Scylla in the Counts of Cilli Chapel in Celje the Question ...

3. Neuberg an der Mrz, the Cistercian Monastery, the Console with Ulysses and Siren
(photo: Z. Balog)

appearance is more familiar. The Siren appears in various characters; it

undergoes a transformation from a
hybrid half-bird, half-woman, to a
woman with one or two fish tails. The
Scylla appears in ancient visual arts as
a sea monster: one half as a beautiful
naked girl, and from the waist down
as a water snake. The dog heads that
grow out from around the waist are
also characteristic of this figure.

While the Siren preserves the

figure of the half-bird throughout
the classic arts and the transformation into the sea girl with fish tail took place during the early Middle Ages, the Scylla, it seems, has
undergone this transformation in reverse. The ancient monuments consistently hold the iconography of
the sea Scylla a naked beauty with fish or snake lower body, but in the medieval arts the characters of
the Scylla appear as half-bird, as seen in the examples of Celje and Neuberg an der Mrz. [Fig. 3, 4, 5]
It seems that the similarity of names and transformations of the siren, with which she somewhat took
the place of the Scylla, create confusion between the motifs of the Scylla and the Siren.
To understand this issue more clearly, we must go beyond the established sources of medieval iconography, the Physiologus and the texts of church scholars, and set out to answer the following question:
is there a specific iconography of the Scylla in the arts of classical Greece?
The Scylla is represented by fairly consistent iconography in classical Greek arts. Although there
are regular colloquial mentions of the Scylla and the Charybdis as an inseparable pair, the representations of the Scylla are familiar, while the Charybdis is only a literary term, without known interpretation
in the arts.2 The Scylla is shown with consistently determined elements: often the Scylla is a hybrid of
the half-human body. The upper part is a naked beauty, with a weapon in her hand, which could be a
spear or a javelin, and rarely a sword. She uses this weapon to attack Odysseus where the display illustrates an event from the Odyssey. The lower part of the Scylla is much more imaginative: the body of a
sea snake that ends in the form of a fish tail and a belt consisting of wild dogs (!) disclose her demonic
2

Karl HAUCK, Hagen KELLER, Nicolaus STAUBACH, Iconologia sacra. Mythos, Bildkunst und Dichtung in
der Religions- und Sozialgeschichte Alteuropas. Festschrift fr Karl Hauck zum 75. Geburtstag, Berlin 1994, pp.
348-349: Beide Ungeheuer sind frh sprichwrtlich zusammen genannt (...) Charybdis spielt nur eine literarische
Rolle. Bildliche Darstellungen sind nicht bekannt.
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Zdenko Balog

4. Neuberg an der Mrz, the Cistercian Monastery, the Console with Ulysses and Siren,
detail (photo: Z. Balog)

nature. Classic representations of the Scylla are unusual;

5. Neuberg an der Mrz, the Cistercian Monastery, the
however, the most familiar and undoubted representation
Console with Ulysses and Scylla (photo: Z. Balog)
of the Scylla are linked with these elements.3 The most
beautiful classic depiction of the Scylla is undoubtedly the
Tor Marancia mosaic, a well preserved black and white mosaic with a representation of a scene from the Odyssey.4 It is interesting that Oddyseus is represented in
the scene as tied to the mast, which is an element from the scene with the Sirens. This detail bears witness to the confusion between the representations of the Scylla and proves that the Siren is much older
than the medieval transformations. There is also the coin, Akragas Tetradrachm, with the representation
of the Scylla and the Crab, Asteas Krater, and with the representation of the abduction of Europa accompanied by the Scylla and Triton,5 the Louvre Krater.6 In this last portrayal, the Scylla is swinging a
sword in her hands, and there are three dog heads peeping out of her waist. The golden bowl of Hasanlu
(Azerbaijan) can be considered as the archetype of the iconography of the Scylla, which represents an
unknown water deity.7 The snake-fish lower body of the deity is divided into three tails ending in dog
heads. Christian writers refer to the Scylla, although less than they do to the second of Odysseuss chape-

George M. A. HANFMANN, The Scylla of Corvey and Her Ancestors, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1987).

HANFMANN 1987 (note 3), p. 257, ill. 3.

HANFMANN 1987 (note 3), p. 257, ill. 4, 6.

Annie DUNMAN HUNT URE, Boeotian Vases with Womens Heads, American Journal of Archeology 57 (1953), ill. 6-b.

HANFMANN 1987 (note 3), pp. 259-260, ill. 8.

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The Console with a Scylla in the Counts of Cilli Chapel in Celje the Question ...

rons, the Siren; for Ambrose, the Scylla is as dangerous and destructive as heresy.8 Jerome warns of the
danger of the dual nature of the Scylla: above, an attractive and smiling girl, and below, a deadly monster.9 It is interesting to mention that Jerome completely identifies the Scylla and the Siren. According
to his explanation, the graceful song (Siren) calms the individuals fears, leaving them to be torn apart
by beasts, in particular Scyllas dogs.10
In classical arts, with the exception of the Tor Marancia mosaic, there is no confusion between
the representations of the Scylla and the Siren. While the Scylla is a sea monster, pre-Middle Ages
the Sirens were regularly depicted as only partly humanized birds with human heads but rarely with
hands and musical instruments.11 In the main they did not have a weapon they attack their prey
with their claws and hands, when they have them, are used to hold musical instruments. The naked
girl with fish-like legs is the product of the medieval arts, which appeared somewhere around the 8th
century. One of the first known representations is the one from the so-called Physiologus of Bern. In
this text, the Siren is additionally described in the classical manner as a bird with human attributes,
while in the enclosed illustration a girl with part fish body is shown.12 However, it will be a long time
before the fish legged girl displaces her namesake; they will appear at the same time and in parallel, or sometimes even together.13 However, the various depictions of these figures should not cause
confusion once we trace their appearance in the context of time and purpose. The Sirens function
perfectly in Christian interpretations of the Odyssey as the perilous and dangerous journey of the human soul, as well as the seductive and misleading earthly charms, which are the subject of the weak.14
This leads them, of course, to rapid and immediate perdition. Because the Christian authors of mor8

Ambrosius, De fide, 16, 46: Et ideo quoniam communiter adversus Ecclesiam Dei, quibus inter seipsos non convenit, conspirarunt, communi
nomine haereticos, quibus respondendum est, nominabo. Haeresis enim, velut quaedam Hydra fabularum, vulneribus suis crevit: et dum saepe
reciditur, pullulavit, igni debita, incendioque peritura: aut velut quaedam monstruosi Scylla portenti in varias formas distincta perfidiae, velut
supervacuum Christianae sectae nomen obtendit: sed quos in illo impietatis suae freto miseros inter naufragia fidei reperit fluctuantes, belluinis
succincta prodigiis, tetri dogmatis saevo dente dilacerat. Quoted after: HAUCK, KELLER, STAUBACH 1994 (note 2), p. 349, quote 29
(Odyseus und Hercules in der karolingischen Kunst).

Philip SCHAFF (ed.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series II, volume 6: The Principal Works of St. Jerome, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/
schaff/npnf206.html (30th September 2010), p. 79.

10

HAUCK, KELLER, STAUBACH 1994 (note 2), p. 349, quote 29 (Odyseus und Hercules in der karolingischen Kunst).

11

DUNMAN HUNT URE 1953 (note 6), ill. 8-b; A. BARB, Antaura. The Mermaid and the Devils Grandmother: A Lecture, Journal
of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 29 (1966), pp. 1-23, ill. 2/d-e; William TRAVIS, Of Sirens and Onocentaurs: A Romanesque
Apocalypse at Montceaux-lEtoile, Artibus et Historiae 23/45 (2002), pp. 44-45, ill. 14-15.

12

Helen WOODRUFF, The Physiologus of Bern. A Survival of Alexandrian Style in a Ninth Century Manuscript, The Art Bulletin 12/3
(1930), p. 238, ill. 22; TRAVIS 2002 (note 11), p. 44, ill. 16.

13

TRAVIS 2002 (note 11), p. 31, ill. 2. In the Romanesque church in Montceaux-lEtoile the Siren appears as a bird with a head of a girl,
just as in Autun, p. 37, ill. 11, while in Vzelay, the Siren is a naked half girl, half fish, p. 36, ill. 10. Both of these shapes appear together
in the cloister of Elne, p. 44-45, ill. 17.

14

According to Ambroses Commentary of Luke, Odysseus is a soul that wonders on the sea of this world, while Christ provides him help,
so that he will not be lost. All elements from the Odyssey are harmoniously incorporated in this basic hyperbola. More: TRAVIS 2002
(note 11), p. 38. Similar Homeric parallels are used by the same author in his work De fide (see note 8).

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Zdenko Balog

6. Pula, old City Hall, Romanic Siren with two tails (photo: Z. Balog)

al texts regard the Siren as a paradigm of a womans

seduction,15 which is the main obstacle on the way
to holiness, the transformation of the repulsive and

7. Celje, the Chapel of the Sorrowful Mother of God, the

Console with Onocentaur (photo: Z. Balog)

fearsome bird of prey towards a seductive naked girl

is completely comprehensible. The familiar fish-like
Siren did not merely survive in church architecture;
the beautiful Romanesque Siren with two fish tails dominates the facade of the communal palace in
Pula. [Fig. 6]
The third character that is perhaps related to the same iconographic context as the Scylla and the
Siren is to be found in the chapel in Celje, located among the left-hand series of consoles, right next
to the Siren - the Onocentaur. [Fig. 7]
This, nowadays, less known hybrid animal is depicted in Celje as a naked mature woman to the
waist and below the waist as an ass. The similarity and connection to the Siren is not only reflected
in the fact that the motif of the hybrid with the body of a woman is repeated, but the context is
much broader. Both animals are described in the same chapter of all the editions and translations of
the Physiologus, and their explanation is identical. This is the dual nature of man, only half-human,
15

In his letters to sister Fabiola Saint Leander of Seville describes the Sirens as a metaphor for women. Unlike other authors, who only called
prostitutes and adulteress the Sirens, for Leander, women are divided into nuns and Sirens. In other words, he calls all women outside
the monastery Sirens. More: TRAVIS 2002 (note 11), pp. 38-39.

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The Console with a Scylla in the Counts of Cilli Chapel in Celje the Question ...

warning us that there is always a danger of slipping into carnality and animal behaviour. The Siren
and the Onocentaur had been socializing centuries before the Physiologus. In one of the classic translations of the Bible, The Septuagint, a paragraph of Isaiah says:
Isa 13:21-22
wild beasts will lie down
empty echo will resonate in the houses
Sirens will live there,
The demons will dance.
Onocentaurs will reside there,
And hedgehogs in their courts.
Isa 34:11-14
They shall possess the land, birds and snakes,
Ibis and the raven shall dwell in it.
Thorns will sprout in the deserted land, and Onocentaurs will find their home.
There will be no masters of the land
Because her kings and captains and rulers will be destroyed
Nettle will flourish in towns and in the land
Villages will be inhabited by Sirens, and houses will be filled with sparrows.
Ghosts will meet with the Onocentaurs,
They will shout to one another;
Onocentaurs will make a stop there
Because they would find rest there.16.
These paragraphs are translated similarly in Jeromes Vulgata.17 The translations clearly demonstrate that the Onocentaur, as well as the Siren, was a present and familiar term which did not require
additional justification. The Sirens and the Onocentaurs appear together in Romanesque churches; the
context, it seems, is an emerging eschatological theme. Based on the apocalyptic vision of the prophets,
Isaiah, according to early Greek and Latin translations of the Bible, meets with these two animals a
demon in deserted lands.18 On the portals in the church of Montceaux-lEtoile, there are figures of the
Siren, the Onocentaur, the archangel Michael who defeats Satan and Saint John the Evangelist. Lets
pause at this last character: the last book of the New Testament, the Apocalypse, was attributed to John
the Evangelist. Just as every Old Testament scene in the Bible predicts and mirrors some scene of the
16

Quoted after: TRAVIS 2002 (note 11), pp. 33-34.

17

Ibid., pp. 34-35.

18

More: TRAVIS 2002 (note 11). The author finds similar examples in churches in Montceaux-lEtoile, Vzelay, Autun and Cluny.

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Zdenko Balog

New Testament (prefiguration), so the eschatological vision of the prophet Isaiah was seen as nothing more than a prefiguration of the last events described in the Apocalypse. Thus, we can interpret
the presence of John the Evangelist in this Romanesque portal, which depicts characters from Isaiahs
eschatological vision.
Christian iconography and symbolism used mythological and pagan motifs and characters very
liberally so that it could defend the true doctrine. Moreover, it seems that it has freely filled any gaps it
encountered by inventing and devising new mythological characters. One such additional compilation
was the Onocentaur. An elusive character without mythological origin, it appears at the end of the Old
era, perhaps for the first time in the translation of the Old Testament of the Septuagint, and between
the character depictions on the mosaic in Palestrine. If he were not identified as an Onocentaur (OnosCentaur = Ass Centaur), we would probably recognize him as a Sphinx. The figure depicted is a quadruped that could equally be a lion as well as a horse or an ass with a human head, residing in the upper
section of the large mosaic composition that depicts the Nile with various imagined and real animals.
The Siren and the Scylla, beside the strong relation to the church texts, are nevertheless mainly
linked to the literary Homeric context. If we recall the links between Celje and Neuberg, then the
Homeric theme is accentuated. The scene of the Siren and the Scylla in Neuberg appear successively,
just as the scenes that follow each other in the Odyssey do. The phenomenon of the pagan cycle in
a Christian sanctuary, we recall, should not be considered surprising if we remember just how much
the Middle Ages were infused with ancient motifs and myths, and how possible it is to apply acceptable meanings in Christianity to mythological characters, such as the Sirens, the Scyllas and the
Onocentaurs. It seems that the border between Christian doctrine and paganism is blurred in the
world of symbol and iconographic meaning.
According to Wlattnig, the main link to the iconographic cycle of the consoles in Celje would
be the late Antic manuscript, the Physiologus, in which we find descriptions of real and mythological
animals, and some plants.19 Wlattnig recognizes in the rearrangement of the figures the fight between
virtues and vices, the so-called Psychomachia, in which opposing figures represent the contrast of vices
and virtues, earthly and heavenly, etc.20 The Pelican and the Ostrich serve as an example of such a pair;
one sacrifices for the offspring while the other abandons the eggs in the sand and forgets about them.
This explanation is certainly possible, especially if we take into account the moralizing verses that stand
in the plates which undoubtedly complemented all the consoles (or at least those in the lower part of the
19

Edward Payson EVANS, Anymal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture, London 1896, http://bestiary.ca/etexts/evans1896/evans1896.htm
(30th September 2010), pp. 32-92; Jost GIPPERT, Physiologus. Die Verarbeitung antiker Naturmythen in einem frhchristlichen Text,
Studia Iranica, Mesopotamica et Anatolica 3 (1997); Mary Allison ARMISTEAD, The Middle English Physiologus: A Critical Translation and
Commentary, Blacksburg 2001; Alexandre VERMEILLE, Physiologus. Del Orient lOccident, Neuchtel 2006.

20

Robert WLATTNIG, Dreiknigskapelle in der Abtskirche s. Daniel in Celje (um 1400). Eine Stiftung der Grafen von Cilli, manuscript, 1998.

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The Console with a Scylla in the Counts of Cilli Chapel in Celje the Question ...

church, where believers gather). However, it is not necessarily contrary to the notion of the Homeric or
the eschatological grouping of individual consoles.
Still, we cannot take the Physiologus as the basis of the iconographic meaning of one cycle; it is
primarily a catalogue of templates, an encyclopedia of animals and monsters. Its purpose is to provide
artists with information on animals, on how to depict them and interpret their meaning.
The Cycle from the Physiologus, the eschatological drama and Homers Epic are thematic wholes
which can be seen in the heterogeneous layout of the consoles in Celje. These are not the only possible
interpretations; in recent times, a number of interesting parallels to the cycle have been presented in
illuminated manuscripts. Still, the emergence of two chronilogically and spatially close Homeric cycles
in Celje and in Neuberg cannot be considered accidental. Therefore, the question of the relationship between the master (or client) towards the modern interpretation of the Odyssey as a Christian paradigm
must be examined with the same seriousness as the other possibilities.
The question of the presence of the Homeric cycle in the appearance of a Scylla in the chapel in
Celje, we conclude, stays open to interpretation. Perhaps the missing consoles contain additional Homeric motifs, although this need not be so, because the Neuberg cycle, which is completely preserved,
also contains only two Homeric motifs. As some of the most prominent episodes of Homers Odyssey,
the Scylla and the Siren become highlights of the transformation of a pagan Epic into Christian morality, in which the Siren and the Scylla occupy a central place among the symbols of the material world
of sin which impede the path to salvation. In this way, the Christian transformation of the Homeric
myth simultaneously fits into the symbolism of the Physiologus, which interprets equally ancient preChristian mythological and real animal symbols through Christian morality.

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Zdenko Balog

Konzola z upodobitvijo Scile v kapeli alostne Matere boje v Celju

k vpraanju homerskih motivov v tajerski gotski plastiki
Cerkev sv. Danijela s prizidano kapelo alostne Matere boje se nahaja v Celju, enem od
najlepih in najstarejih mest na tajerskem. Zgrajena je bila v zadnji tretjini 14. stoletja kot
druinska kapela grofov Celjskih, obokali pa so jo na zaetku 15. stoletja. Kapela je zgrajena
v tradiciji zgornje- in spodnjetajerskih druinskih kapel 14. stoletja. K bogati arhitekturni
plastiki v kapeli je sodil tudi cikel 21 (ali 20) konzol in baldahinov, pod katerimi so bila nameena kiparska dela. Ohranjenih je trinajst konzol. Celjski cikel je posebej pomemben zaradi
vklesanih napisov, ki opredeljujejo ikonografske motive. Ohranili so se zgolj trije napisi, ki pa
so nadvse dragoceni: nedvomno opredeljujejo ikonografsko zasnovo in ustvarjajo temelj za
doloanje motivov, ki so velikokrat predmet diskusije; med njimi je tudi morska poast Scila.

52