The Island of Utopia: Holbein's Memento More-i!
By MORE, Sir Thomas [and] HOLBEIN, Ambrosius , 1518
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[Utopia]. De optimo reip. statu,deque nova insula Utopia, libellus vere aureus.Epigrammata darissimi disertissimicus viri Thomae Mori, pleraque è Græcis versa. Epigrammata. Des. Erasmi Roterodami.

  • Author: MORE, Sir Thomas [and] HOLBEIN, Ambrosius
  • Publication place: [Basel:
  • Publisher: Apud Joannem Frobenium,
  • Publication date: November-December 1518].
  • Physical description: Three parts in one volume, quarto (149 by 205mm). 163, [1, unnumbered page], 164, [2, unnumbered pages], [1, colophon, dated "Novembri MDXVIII"], [1, title-page for "Epigram"], 166-355, [1, colophon, dated "Decembri MDXVIII"] pp. Roman and Greek types. Twenty-six lines. Woodcut Utopian alphabet on b3 recto (designed by Petrus Aegidius and later used by Geoffroy Tory in the Champfleury). Title within a fine woodcut architectural border by Hans Holbein on title (repeated on c1), full-page woodcut map of Utopia on b2 verso by Ambrosius Holbein, half-page woodcut head-piece depicting John Clement, Raphael Hythlodaye, Thomas More, and Pieter Gillis by Ambrosius Holbein opening text on d1 recto, woodcut title border to More's epigrams by Urs Graf, woodcut
    title border to Erasmus's epigrams by Hans Holbein, one of three woodcut printer's devices at the end of each part, woodcut historiated initials by Urs Graf and Ambrosius and Hans Holbein; full eighteenth century English tree calf, upper cover repaired at hinge, boards tooled in gilt, gilt dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges dyed yellow, spine stamped and lettered in gilt, some scattered minor marginal stains, small marginal paper repair to leaf S, not affecting text, a few early, neat ink annotations in margin; three previous owners' bookplates on front endpapers.
  • Inventory reference: 22204

Notes

It has long been noted that the map at the front of Thomas More's 'Utopia' is one of the earliest incarnations of a literary map. It is, however, rarely acknowledged that the map in the third and fourth, 1518, editions of the work is far more sophisticated than that of the first edition: it is both the work of Ambrosius Holbein (elder brother of the more famous Hans); and in hiding the shape of a skull within the overall design reveals a "memento mori". It is also worthy of note that Ambrosius Holbein's skull predates his brother's anamorphic skull in his painting 'The Ambassadors' by some 15 years.

The Book
"'Utopia' was published in the great year of Erasmian reform, when the new enlightenment seemed about to carry all before it" (Printing and the Mind of Man).

The first edition of More's 'Utopia' was published in its original Latin text in December 1516 by Thierry Martens of Louvain. More had only completed the manuscript in September, and the publication was overseen by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, and More's new friend Peter Gilles, (or Aegidius), Town Clerk of Antwerp. This first edition was illustrated with a sketch map of Utopia attributed to the 22-year old Ambrosius Holbein, and entitled 'Utopiae isulae figura'. The present work is the second to carry Holbein's magnificent woodcut, and the fourth edition of Thomas More's 'Utopia'.

Utopia
The name 'Utopia' appears to have been coined by More, and its etymology comes from the ancient Greek words ou-topos meaning "no place" and eu-topos meaning a "good place" It seems unlikely that the overlapping meanings were lost on More as:

"There was no unemployment on the island or unequal distribution of wealth. The Utopians worked six hour days with two hour lunch breaks!

Most Utopians spent their free time furthering their education by attending public lectures. Utopians did not own private property. They wore plain clothes and gold and jewels were not considered valuable. The Utopians despised war and only engaged in it to defend themselves. There were fifty-four towns in Utopia, all built on the same plan. Shopping centers were located in the center of each town. Utopians took free food from warehouses that were located in the shopping centers" (Smith).

Ambrosius Holbein
Ambrosius Holbein (1494/5–1519/26), depending on source), was the gifted elder brother of Hans Holbein (1497–1543, known as 'the younger', as their father was also named Hans and an artist), who is the better known of the two in England, where he became Court Painter to Henry VIII in 1536. Hans painted portraits of Erasmus (1523), and of More with his family (1526).

The Map
"The map of the 1516 edition is crudely cut, and corresponds only schematically with the text, in scale bearing no relationship to it at all. Ackroyd points out that the island as described in the book has the same dimensions as England, with the number of city states corresponding to the number of counties, plus London, which latter city the main town of the island resembles. These city states are reduced to six in the map. The island's river, the Anydri, or waterless, has its source in a small waterfall (labelled fons) to the left of the map, and its mouth (ostium) opening into the landlocked harbour to the right. Its course divides the principal city of Amaurotum, (Civitae Amaurotum) which occupies the top centre, though the bridge crossing the river to link the two sections of the city is not drawn, a shame in view of the description in the text which, in the first English translation by Robynson in 1551, describes a structure: '… not of pyles or of tymber, but of stonewarke, with gorgious and substanciall archeis...' The large harbour of the island is protected, as described, by a 'great rocke' which has on it a 'faire and strong towre builded'. Three sea vessels are shown. On the left, partially obscured, one appears to be beached; on the right a small craft is scudding along with a crew member indistinctly shown, and in the foreground a ship is at anchor, its hawser tense against a very strong tidal current. A long pennant carries the enigmatic device: •N O (altered to •N•O•R on the second [1518] map)" (Bishop).

A second, unillustrated, edition of 'Utopia' published in 1517, and in March and November, 1518, the third and fourth editions were printed in Basel by Froben. These were published bound together with other works by More and Erasmus in a single large volume, on which both Ambrosius and Hans Holbein collaborated for the illustrations. These new editions contained a new woodcut map of Utopia, this time entitled 'Utopiae insulae tabula', and attributed to the younger of the two brothers.

The 1518 Edition
"The new map is a mirror image of the first... There is no evidence of pricking through, or similar mechanical transfer, even the ship in the foreground, which at first sight appears nearly identical, in fact differs in every dimension and is a free copy. The island itself has been transformed, with its visual wit bringing it up to the same standard as the text it accompanies" (Bishop).

In this second map, the anthropomorphic elements, that may or may not have been intentional in the earlier incarnation, are brought to the fore. The "ship of teeth", which remains unchanged from the 1516 map, is the best key to the image, and it is from here that the viewer begins to determine the shape of the skull. The exposition of this was made brilliantly by Bishop and is worth quoting in full. It was published, curiously, in the 'British Dental Journal' in 2005:

"The named figure of Hythlodaeus on the left provides the back of the 'neck', leading the eye down to the 'shoulders'. These shoulders, and the lower border of the jaw bone, are provided by a newly added land mass on which the figures are standing, which, as described in the text, had once been physically joined to the island by an isthmus which 'King Utopus' divided to create the island of Utopia. A male figure [...] is moved to what appears to be a most odd position to the right, with an unnatural stance, until it is realised that with the dark shadow of the ship's rudder and heavily outlined clothes he gives shape to the anterior aspect of the mandible of the skull. The third figure, of More himself, contributes both to the spinal column, and the posterior margin of the mandible and its ascending ramus. The single-masted vessel which has been transferred from the first map, and its wake (or bow-wave, the direction of travel is equivocal), now form an essential element in the composition, the craft itself resembling a flick of hair, the emphasised hull outline and dark swell of sea water providing a sweeping line from the shore of the island to Hythlodaeus. On the deck of the large ship, the single figure is transformed, becoming an elegant gentleman, facing the viewer and leaning nonchalantly against the forecastle. The mainmast with its rigging defines the nasal cavity of the skull, while the other two masts with their rigging mark the limits of the upper jaw (maxilla). The forecastle and the bowsprit cheat the eye into perceiving the right cheekbone (zygomatic arch). A similar purpose is served on the left cheek by the beached vessel, which is now barely recognisable as a boat, at a casual glance resembling a furled sail, and which doubles up as the left infra-orbital rim. On land, the harbour seen in the 1516 map has gone, and the rock which had guarded the original haven, and the fort on it, have been altered in size, orientation, and optical density, and by the addition of an 'eyebrow' hill behind, to form the right eye socket. This trickery by Ambrosius is a reminder of the clever grotesques which were brought to a peak 50 years later for the Hapsburg court by Guiseppe Arcimboldo (1537–93), where fruit, vegetables or weapons are assembled to form a human head. [...] Various rocks and buildings have been turned to face to the left (right from the viewers' perspective) to give the eye sockets and other skull features. The ribs and planking of the ship provide the teeth of a grinning death's head, the lower row of rectangles being not a third row of teeth, but the bony root prominences of the lower incisors and premolars" (Bishop).

The Memento More-i
Many scholarly articles, exhibitions, and even whole books, have been dedicated to the art and meaning of memento mori and vanitas (see, for example, Benjamin Bennett-Carpenter's 'Memento Mori in Art and Literature' in 'Death in Documentaries'; the 2002 exhibition catalogue 'Memento mori' by Kunstkammer Georg Laue; or Paul Koudounaris' 'Memento Mori: The Dead Among Us'). It is, therefore, tempting to conclude that Holbein's map holds some deep significance beyond the standard trope of the fragility of life. Indeed, as Bishop states: "Teasing these meanings out at a distance of 500 years is risky, but the sixteenth century viewer might have perceived in the image the meaning that the Humanist Reformation text of the book was a product of man's mortal mind, rather than the eternal certainty of God, and that is why it is shown originating from within the skull of a man, although this is diverted by the alteration of the second map to include the Christian symbolism which is absent in the 1516 'map'. It could equally be argued that as the Reformation took hold, the skull meant that holding such ideas as the book contained was to risk death". This is not unlikely, as the Catholic Church placed 'Utopia' on their list of banned books, and Hans Holbein, who had illustrated an edition of Luther's Bible in 1520, had had to delay the publication of his Reformation 'Dance of Death' series from 1526 until 1538.

However, whilst, like the anamorphic skull in the older Holbein's 'The Ambassadors', the full significance of the map remains something of an enigma, there remains, undoubtedly, a much lighter interpretation: the map is a visual pun based on the name of the author and the Latin for death: "Mors". As Bishop notes, this joke has lasted well, with Mori meaning both 'of More' and 'of death': "The coupling of the words memento mori 'remember death' is still current in English usage long after Latin has ceased to be the universal language in which More and Erasmus were as comfortable as their own. The exhortation had existed at least since the eleventh century when a German poem of c1050 had the title, but quite when death's heads received the generic term is uncertain. More himself made a similar pun on his own name when dealing with a man who was indebted to him. The debtor, reminding More that after death he would have little use for the money owed, finished 'memento morieris' (remember we will die) to which More replied '...you mean memento mori aeris' — remember More's money. More and Erasmus much enjoyed this sort of word play, which Erasmus had used in the title of his 'Encomium moriae' (In praise of folly) of 1509/10, completed at More's house at Bucklersbury on the Thames, and this gives weight to the suggestion that Erasmus might have primed Ambrosius [when commissioning the map]. Even in the second edition without illustrations, there is evidence of the ambiguity in the Latin where the magnificent printer's plate on the last page has the enigmatic title MORI DE R..P ('of More, concerning Rei Publicae'?)" (Bishop). Indeed, the very name "Utopia", as discussed above, is indicative of More's (and Erasmus') fondness for an in-joke, and, in the final analysis, it may well be that the form of Holbein's map was never intended to be More than a witty Latin jape.

Provenance

Provenance
1. With contemporary inscription on title "Possessor Antho. Rous 2d"; Lord Dacre, with his bookplate and inscribed by him "This Book formerly Mr Capels given me by the Revd. Mr. Collins of Ledbury his Executor D.". According to Sotheby's, who sold the present example at the George Abrams sale, London 17 November 1989, lot 194 "Possibly Anthony Rous (d1620), friend of Sir Francis Drake and one of his original executors".
2. Albert Ehrman, Broxbourne Library, with bookplate (sold Sotheby's, London 14 December 1977, lot 63).
3. George Abrams, with bookplate (sold Sotheby's, London 17 November 1989, lot 194).

Bibliography

  1. Adams, M1757
  2. Bishop, 107-112
  3. Fairfax Murray, 314
  4. Gibson, 4
  5. PMM, 47 (citing the 1516 first edition)
  6. Smith, https://blogs.loc. gov/maps/2022/08/mapping-the-land-of- utopia/.

Image gallery

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