Conjectures about the “man without attributes” ( f85r2 )

[bi3mw]

her other hand is problematic because she holds a  barking dog's head ....
   

A miniature of the Liberal Arts from the Hortus deliciarum of Herrad of Landsberg (d. 1195), has at least part of a dog (Fig. 1). Lady Dialectica is dressed elegantly in courtly fashion, wearing a yellow hood and a green gown with enormous sleeves, her right hand pointing, her left hand holding a dog's head (caput canis) with bared teeth. The inscription reads: "Argumenta sino concurrere more canino" ("I allow arguments to clash - or to follow each other - in canine manner"). The art historian Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich speaks of a hundeköpfige Schlange (a serpent with a dog's head) in the lady's hand (1392) - bad eyesight or wishful thinking? He expected to find, if not the whole, at least part of the more usual serpent. In 1979 Karl-August Wirth corrected the mistake in a thorough study of the iconography of the Artes liberales (73). He argued that more canino, like growling and barking (latratus), could be interpreted in malam partem as loud, aggressive, rude, and sophistical but also in bonam partem as symbolising the zealous and vigilant orator and preacher fighting valiantly for the truth in the duellum logicae.

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