A non-Ovidian myth in the Ovidius Moralizatus: the double parthenogenesis of Pallas and Vulcan according to Petrus Berchorius

Abstract

This paper focuses on analysing fable II of Book IV of Ovidius moralizatus written by Petrus Berchorius (c. 1290-1362), in order to enlighten its uniqueness. I will discuss how Berchorius combined three mythological motifs – Juno’s gynogenesis of Vulcan as a direct response to the parthenogenesis of Pallas from Jupiters’ head, Vulcan’s fall at Lemnos, and his marriage to Venus – and how he allegorically interpreted them. The first part of the essay will adress the literary fortune of these three motifs. The survey of textual souces demonstrates that Berchorius combined a minor mythographic tradition with two more successful ones, resulting in a original narrative absent in both the Ovidian Metamorphoses, and Barchorius’s predecessors and contemporary moral commentaries. Secondly, I will explore the figurative tradition of the fable, unveiling the interrelation between text and images. In particular, I will focus on the illuminated Gotha and Bergamo manuscripts, which translated the Bersurian fable into images. After studying the iconographical fortune of these motifs, I will argue that the above-mentioned miniatures are the only medieval iconographical sources of the non-Ovidian myth of double parthenogeneis, thus testifying the undeniable originality of the case study.