Tea at Trianon: The Horns of Moses

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, September 12, 2009

The Horns of Moses

In medieval art. According to artist Daniel Mitsui:

It is commonly known that Moses, in mediaeval art, is depicted with horns on his head. The supposed reason for this is also commonly known; every art history teacher informs his students that the Vulgate Bible contains a mistranslation, which resulted in an absurd artistic convention. I myself am disinclined to think that St. Jerome and centuries of iconographers were all idiots.

Jeff said...: I'd like to know what the Septuagint says...; September 14, 2009 at 8:37:00 AM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: I have been googling around and there are some great online books and many references offering different opinions. I might do an article on this myself. I always understood the horns to be "horns of light, meaning Moses was a powerful prophet. In Biblical language, "horns" were a sign of power and authority, from the "horns of the altar" in the Old Testament to the horned beasts in the Book of Revelation. The priestly mitre in both the Jewish and Christian tradition is divided into "horns" of authority.

http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/cgi-bin/res.pl?keyword=Mitre&offset=0; September 14, 2009 at 8:52:00 AM EDT