NO. 8 BARTOLOME BERMEJO FRIEDMANN 13 



phyrio, especially to the Isagoge of this 3d-century writer (ca. 233- 

 304 a.d.). The Isagoge had heen translated with a commentary by 

 Boetius, and this became one of the favorite textbooks of the early 

 sermonizing scholastics (Sarton, 1927). Porphyrio was originally 

 named Malchos, but his teacher, Longinus, considered him worthy 

 of a nobler name and called him Porphyrio, "the purple clad" It 

 may thus be that the bird porphyrio, watching the writing Isidore, 

 is also a remembrance of one of his sources, the author of the 

 Isagoge. 



Furthermore, in his Etymologiae (libro VI, "de la retorica y dia- 

 lecta," capitulo xiv) Isidore describes the quill pen by saying "Se 

 llama calamo porque pone la tinta sobre el papel" (it is called calamo 

 because it places the dye [ink] on the paper). Calamo (really a 

 quill), a Spanish word no longer in use, was apparently still a part 

 of conversational vocabulary in Bermejo's time. Thus the common 

 name of the gallinule in Spanish, calamon, may have served to reflect 

 the very act in which the saint is engaged in our painting. 



It must be admitted that although Isidore describes and discusses 

 a number of kinds of birds in the Etymologiae (libro 12, capitulo 7 , 

 "de las aves") he does not mention the gallinule or refer to the names 

 calamon or porphyrio. Nor was the porphyrio used emblematically 

 by such "source authors" as Ripa or Camerarius, although it was by 

 Alciati. 



Boetius's translation and commentary on Porphyrio's "Isagoge" 

 or "Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle" served as a major 

 force in the introduction into the cultural, intellectual life of western 

 medieval Europe of the basic concepts and data of much of Aristote- 

 lian philosophy. Taylor (1938, p. 45) refers to the Isagoge as a "cor- 

 ner-stone of the early medieval knowledge of logic." That Por- 

 phyrio's writings were so thoroughly accepted and absorbed into 

 the compilations of ecclesiastical encyclopedists like Isidore of Seville 

 is all the more noteworthy since Porphyrio was not only a pagan, 

 non-Christian writer of the early centuries of Christianity but was 

 also known as the author of an admittedly rational and penetrating 

 book directed against the Christians and their beliefs. In spite of 

 this probably uncomfortable fact it was recognized that in some of 

 his discussions he reached heights as truly spiritual as those of any 

 "safer" authors secure within the embrace of the Church. His idea 

 of sacrifice is a case in point. In one passage ("De abstinentia," ii, 

 34) he wrote (translated by Taylor, 1938) that the perfect sacri- 

 fice is to disengage the soul from passions. Chastity and asceticism 

 were adhered to rigorously by him. The use of the purple gallinule 



