Who are the Sibyls?
Today, the sibyls are known as oracles, such as the Delphic oracle from Delphi, Greece. Other famous oracles include the Cumaean (Italy), Tiburtine (Italy), Cimmerian (Troy, Italy), Erythraean (Asia Minor, Samos), Hellespontine (Troy), Samian (Samos), Phrygian (Asia Minor, Turkey), Libyan (Libya, Egypt, Africa), and Persian (Persia, today Iran). The word sibyl comes from the Greek word sibyl, meaning prophetess or seer. Sibyls are legendary wise-women who prophesied from c. 650 BC to c. 394 AD. They were powerful women at a time when the majority of women had no civil rights in society and lived a cloistered life.
Early Literature about Sibyls
Fig. 15. Aeneas and Sibyl in the Underworld. Jan Brueghel the Elder (1593).
The Sibylline Books were written in Greek hexameters by sibyls and circulated in Greece in the sixth century BC (no longer extant, but never forgotten by Greeks and Romans). The Sibylline Oracles were written by Jewish and Christian theologians (150 BC-180 AD), based on research of the Sibylline Books that were lost. These books were kept at the temple of Capitoline Jupiter in Rome and consulted in times of crisis. The first printed edition (Greek) appeared in 1545 (Basel, Switzerland).
Virgil, a Roman poet, wrote the Aeneid (37-19 BC). The Cumaean Sibyl is a character in this book. It was one of the first books to be printed in Venice and it influenced countless artists to draw, engrave, paint and sculpt figures of sibyls. In Fig. 15, a Trojan hero named Aeneas, is led into the underworld by the Cumaean Sibyl in order to see his father who died. The Aeneid is about the founding of Italy after the fall of Troy.
Tiburtine Sibyl - History & Legend
Fig. 16. Augustus & the Sibyl, Rogier van der Weyden, left wing of a triptych (1444-59?).
A sibyl named Albunea was from Tivoli, formerly Tibur, where people were known as Tiburtines. She presided over a shrine on the Tibur River in Rome about 4 A.D. The Mirabilia or Marvels of Rome was written in 1143 and printed in 1499. In this book, the author (believed to be a canon of St. Peter's named Benedict) describes the vision of Augustus and the Tiburtine Sibyl, as follows. On the day of the Nativity, as the Sibyl (left side of Fig. 16) was revealing the future to the Emperor Augustus (kneeling in Fig. 16), an apparition appeared in the sky of the Virgin and Child seated on a heavenly altar, known as the Aracoeli. After this miracle occurred, Augustus would not allow his subjects to call him "Lord," and he built an altar on the Capitoline Hill. [1] In the 13th century, the Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli was built on the site. Even today, it is the city church of Rome. This theme of Augustus and the sibyl began in Italian art and spread to art in other parts of Europe and Fig. 16 is a perfect example. Rogier van der Weyden was the official painter in Brussels, Belgium when he painted his "Augustus and the Sibyl." Compare this to the Italian and German examples in Figures 17-19 below.
Fresco Series: Famous Men and Women
Fig. 26. Sibyl, Linda Cicarella (1999), after Andrea Castagno (1450).
The sibyl in this painting is the Cumaean Sibyl. She is wearing a diadem and carrying a book, which are Sibylline attributes. Turbans, scrolls and banderoles (long scrolls) can also be used to identify sibyls in art.
Andrea Castagno was commissioned to decorate the walls of the Villa Carducci at Legnaia (near Florence) with frescoes of famous men and women (no longer extant). In Italian, this familiar theme is called uomini e donne illustri. This fresco series included the Cumaean Sibyl with important literary figures such as Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, who wrote about the Cumaean and Erythraean sibyls. Boccaccio said the Erythraean Sibyl, Herophile, was the "most renowned," and "she is worthy of reverence above all other women of antiquity." [2]
During the Renaissance in Europe there was a revival of classical literature about sibyls, which supported the humanist movement. Many patrons of the arts adopted this philosophy, which emphasized classical learning. Scholars studied the prophecies of the sibyls, which came from literary sources, including the Sibylline Oracles, Divine Antiquities by Marcus Varro, the Metamorphoses by Ovid, the Aeneid by Virgil, the Divine Institutes by Lactantius, Marvels of Rome, Boccaccio's Concerning Famous Women, and Filippo de Barbieri's book, On the Discord between Jerome and Augustine.... Barbieri was a Humanist Dominican friar (and later an Inquisitor) from Sicily. His book (printed in 1481) is illustrated with woodcuts, including 12 sibyls and their prophecies. It was one of the first illustrated books printed in Rome, and it was "the primary literary source for the iconography of the sibyls, used during the Quattrocento [or fifteenth century]." [3] As copies were printed and read throughout Europe, sibyls became more popular than ever in sixteenth century (Cinquecento) Christian art. At that time, the theme was carried to the New World.
Pictures of the pagan sibyls could be blended into Christian art because of their prophecies about Jesus Christ in the Sibylline Oracles. It was generally understood (by Christians) that sibyls were pagans through no fault of their own because most of them lived before Christ was born.
Cumaean Sibyl
Fig. 41. Cumaean Sibyl, Giovanni di Stefano, Siena Cathedral, 1482-1483.
In this picture, the Cumaean Sibyl is holding a golden bough and she has a stack of books that she is about to set on fire. During the Renaissance, the Cumaean Sibyl with a golden bough referred to Virgil's Aeneid, and symbolized the "golden age" which meant that the Cumaean Sibyl had predicted the Birth of Christ during the reign of Augustus, when Virgil wrote the Aeneid.
Giovanni Boccaccio wrote, Concerning Famous Women in 1359. It was first printed in 1487. Boccaccio saw the sibyl's "marvelous temple" in Cumae, Italy near Lake Avernus and the village was named after her. In Chapter XXIV, Boccaccio describes a famous Roman legend, which tells how she offered to sell King Tarquinius Priscus (ruled early Rome, 6th c. BC) nine of the Sibylline Books. When he refused to give her the amount she asked for, she burned six books. The King eventually bought the remaining three at the original price. Compare Fig. 41 (1483) to Fig. 34 (1473). The legend is well known by 1483, so the king can be excluded from the picture.
Over the centuries, there was more than one Cumaean Sibyl and numerous Delphic Oracles. Boccaccio explains that the Cumaean Sibyl's name was Amalthea, but some call her Deiphobe. He doubts they were the same person and he read that Deiphobe died in Sicily. In fact, there still is a famous grotto in Marsala, Sicily where the "Sicilian Sibyl" or "Sibyl Lilibetana" prophesied.