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CAPELLA, MARTIANUS MINNEUS FELIX

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Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 249 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CAPELLA, MARTIANUS MINNEUS See also:FELIX , Latin writer, according to See also:Cassiodorus a native of Madaura in See also:Africa, flourished during the 5th See also:century, certainly before the See also:year 439. He appears to have practised as a lawyer at See also:Carthage and to have been in easy circumstances. His curious encyclopaedic See also:work, entitled Satyricon, or De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii et de septem Artibus liberalibus libri novem, is an elaborate See also:allegory in nine books, written in a mixture of See also:prose and See also:verse, after the manner of the Menippean satires of See also:Varro. The See also:style is heavy and involved, loaded with See also:metaphor and bizarre expressions, and verbose to excess. The first two books contain the allegory proper—the See also:marriage of See also:Mercury to a nymph named Philologia. The remaining seven books contain expositions of the seven liberal arts, which then comprehended all human knowledge. See also:Book iii. treats of See also:grammar, iv. of dialectics, v. of See also:rhetoric, vi. of See also:geometry, vii. of See also:arithmetic, viii. of See also:astronomy, ix. of See also:music. These abstract discussions are linked on to the See also:original allegory by the See also:device of personifying each See also:science as a courtier of Mercury and Philologia. The work was a See also:complete See also:encyclopaedia of the liberal culture of the See also:time, and was in high repute during the See also:middle ages. The author's See also:chief See also:sources were Varro, See also:Pliny, See also:Solinus, See also:Aquila See also:Romanus, and See also:Aristides Quintilianus. His prose resembles that of See also:Apuleius (also a native of Madaura), but is even more difficult. The verse portions, which are on the whole correct and classically constructed, are in See also:imitation of Varro and are less tiresome.

A passage in book viii. contains a very clear statement of the See also:

heliocentric See also:system of astronomy. It has been supposed that See also:Copernicus, who quotes Capella, may have received from this work some hints towards his own new system. Editio princeps, by F. Vitalis Bodianus, 1499; the best See also:modern edition is that of F. Eyssenhardt (1866); for the relationof Martianus Capella to Aristides Quintilianus see H. Deiters, Studien zu den griechischen Musikern (,88,). In the 11th century the See also:German See also:monk See also:Notker See also:Labeo translated the first two books into Old High German.

End of Article: CAPELLA, MARTIANUS MINNEUS FELIX

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