(Know thy God Himself, Who is the Son of God.)
Beneath her feet a label records her name, and the fact that she is mentioned by Chrysippus in his Book of Divination. We find[40] that this figure was executed in 1482 by Giuliano di Biagio and Vito di Marco, who probably also made the design for the work, as the payment they received was 579 lire 10 soldi. We may compare this amount with the sum paid in 1866–69 for the restoration of the same Sibyl. It was 2,341 lire 17 c.
The Cumaean Sibyl.
It is not clear why this Sibyl is so named, especially as it provokes confusion with the more celebrated “Sibilla Cumana.” Apparently the Cimmerian Sibyl is intended. Ferdinand Piper tells us that she was sometimes styled the Italian Sibyl,[41] and mentions other variations of the name: “Cymea, Chymerea or Chimica.” According to the label, supported behind her by two charming putti, she is said to have been mentioned by Piso in his Annals. Here she is represented as an excited-looking woman, with loose hair scattered over her shoulders. She bears in her hand a tablet, with the following words inscribed upon it:
ET MORTIS FATVM FINI
ET, TRIVM DIERVM SO
MNO SUSCEPTO TUNC
AMORTVIS REGRESSVS
INLUCEM VENIET PRIM
VM RESURRECTIONIS
INITIVM OSTENDENS.
(He shall accomplish the fate of death, having undergone a sleep of three days. Then being returned from the dead, he shall come into the light, showing the first beginning of the resurrection).
This design is said to be the work of Luigi di Ruggiero, called l’Armellino, and Vito di Marco;[42] but, except a notice dated 1482[43] of payments to the first-named worker for marble cut by him for work on “li spazi di Duomo e per le Sibille,” we have no further record as to the author of this particular design, or its cost. We find, however, that in the restoration above referred to, it cost 2,581 lire 80 c.
The Cuman Sibyl.
This Sibyl is famed in poetic story as having been visited by Æneas: an interview described with much graphic minuteness by Virgil, in Book VI. of the Æneid. Endless legends have accumulated in connection with her, and her presence is associated with many spots in and around Naples. Ferdinand Piper states that the names of Amalthea, Demophile, and Herophile have been given to her by different writers,[44] and that Justin Martyr asserts that she was daughter of Berosus, and came from Babylon to Campania. She is said to have lived for a thousand years; and to have been the ancient prophetess, who offered the Sibylline Books to Tarquin. These books, the oldest collection of which was, according to tradition, made about the time of Solon and Cyrus, by the Sibyl of Marpessus (the Erythraean Sibyl), at Gergis, on Mount Ida, found their way thence to Erythrae; from there to Cumae; and so to Rome. In 83 B.C. they were burned; but fragments of their contents continued to exist orally until A.D. 12, when they were collected and revised by the Emperor Augustus, and were surviving in 363. In the year 400 they were again destroyed by Stilicho; and the present so-called Sibylline books are a spurious invention of Jewish and Christian writers.
Here she appears as a somewhat severe old woman, with a veil wound round her head. In her right hand she carries the mistletoe bough of the Virgilian story; and with her left she clasps to her three books. Piled on the ground to her right, and burning, are six more, representing those destroyed by her in the Tarquinian legend; and above her left shoulder two flying cherubs bear a tablet, with the following inscription: