Hermathene

Engraving of a Hermathene (1816)

As hermathena ( Greek  Ἑρμαθήνη ) are Hermen head of the Greek goddess Athena or Doppelhermen with the heads of Hermes called and Athena.

Antiquity

Hermathen were set up mainly in high schools and palaces . Cicero set up a Hermathene at the gymnasium in Tusculum and considered it to be a suitable ornament for the academy . Another Hermathene was on the Capitol in Rome. In Greek mythology , Hermes appears occasionally as a companion to Athena, which explains the allegorical connection between the two deities.

No antique copy of a Hermathene has survived.

Renaissance

Hermathene. Emblem in the Symbolicarum quaestionum of Achille Bocchi (1574)

The humanist Achille Bocchi follows on from Cicero in his Symbolicarum quaestionum de universo genere (1555). He designed the emblem of the academy as Hermathene, since it combines the speed of Hermes with the deliberation of Athena in accordance with the maxim festina lente (hurry with time), an idea that can already be found in Marsilio Ficino . Vincenzo Cartari describes the Hermathene in Imagini colla sposizione degli dei degli antichi (1556) as a hermaphrodite, Federico Zuccari depicts Hermes and Athena on a fresco in the Palazzo Farnese in Caprarola (around 1570) with their respective attributes enthroned with two bodies and a pair of legs .

literature

• Heinrich Wilhelm Stoll : Hermathene . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1,2, Leipzig 1890, Col. 2342 ( digitized version ).
• Wilhelm Gundel : Hermathene and Hermerakles. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume VIII, 1, Stuttgart 1912, Col. 725 f.
• Johann-Karl Schmidt , On Vignola's Palazzo Bocchi in Bologna, in: Communications from the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz , XIII, 1967
• Hans-Karl Lücke , Susanne Lücke: Ancient mythology. A manual. The myth and its transmission in literature and fine arts . Marix-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005. ISBN 3-86539-046-3 , p. 432.

Web links

Commons : Hermathene  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cicero epistulae ad Atticum 1, 1, 5; 1, 4, 3.
2. ↑ Homer Odyssey 11, 626; Library of Apollodorus 2, 42.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Hans-Karl Lücke, Susanne Lücke: Ancient mythology. A manual. The myth and its transmission in literature and fine arts . P. 432.
4. ↑ Achille Bocchi: Symbolicarum quaestionum de universo genere . Edition 1574, 102.
5. ^ Marsilio Ficino : Commentary on Plato's Politeia , preface to Federico da Montefeltro . In: Opera omnia pp. 855, 1294.