1 Labarre, Sylvie, Le manteau partagé: Deux métamorphoses poétiques de la Vie de saint Martin chez Paulin de Périgueux (v^e s.) et Venance Fortunat (vi^e s.) , Collection des études augustinennes, série antiquité, 158 (Paris, 1998), 19–20, dates Paulinus's poem to the 460s. Paulinus also versified, in a sixth book, a collection of posthumous miracles of Martin made by Bishop Perpetuus of Tours. Unless otherwise noted I cite Fortunatus's Vita Sancti Martini (VSM) from the edition of Solange Quesnel, Venance Fortunat, oeuvres: Tome IV, Vie de Saint Martin, Collection des universités de France (Paris, 1996), with occasional minor changes in spelling and punctuation. For books 1–8 of Fortunatus's poems I use Reydellet, Marc, ed., Venance Fortunat: Poèmes, vols. 1 and 2 (Paris, 1994–96), and for books 9–11 and the Appendix the edition of Friedrich Leo, Venanti Honori Clementiani Fortunati presbyteri Italici opera poetica, MGH, Auctores Antiquissimi (henceforth, AA), 4.1 (Munich 1881). Paulinus of Périgueux is cited from the edition of Michael Petschenig, Paulini Petricordiae quae supersunt, CSEL, 16 (Milan, 1888), 1–190, and Sedulius from Huemer, Johann, ed., Sedulii opera omnia, CSEL, 10 (Vienna, 1885). Hereafter I will cite Labarre's book solely by the name of the author and the editions of Leo and Quesnel by the names of the editors.Google Scholar

2 Fortunatus here confuses Paulinus of Périgueux with Paulinus of Nola. Gregory of Tours (Liber in Gloria Confessorum [GC] 108, Libri de virtutibus Sancti Martini [VM] 1.2) makes the same mistake.Google Scholar

3 For a list of textual parallels see Labarre, 247–51. Numerous other passages, as she says, display clearly the influence of Paulinus.Google Scholar

4 For the VSM as a hagiographical epic see Roberts, Michael, “The Last Epic of Antiquity: Generic Continuity and Innovation in the Vita Sancti Martini of Venantius Fortunatus,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 131 (2001): 257–85. I will frequently refer to Paulinus of Périgueux's poem as a point of comparison, but my focus is on Fortunatus. For a systematic comparison of the two that focuses equally on both see Labarre.Google Scholar

5 See Van Dam, Raymond, Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul (Berkeley, 1985), 137, and Roberts, Michael, “St. Martin and The Leper: Narrative Variation in the Martin Poems of Venantius Fortunatus,” Journal of Medieval Latin 4 (1994): 82–100, at 83–84 and 95–100. Van Dam quotes Vita sancti Romani abbatis 46 (Sources Chrétiennes 142:290), and Gregory of Tours, VM 1.19.Google Scholar

6 See Roberts, Michael, “Martin Meets Maximus: The Meaning of a Late Roman Banquet,” Revue des Études Augustiniennes 41 (1995): 91–111. Paulinus's account of the banquet stresses the theme of ambitio (3.10, 31, 40, 53). Book 1 of Paulinus's poem covers Martin's pre-episcopal career; book 2 begins his life as a bishop.Google Scholar

7 Labarre, , 114–19. She lists six omissions common to both poets, seven omissions only in Paulinus, and five confined to Fortunatus.Google Scholar

8 Carm. 1.16.38–39, 3.7.51–52, 5.3.37–38, 6.5.215–30, 8.3.163, 10.14.3, Appendix 21.13.Google Scholar

9 For a comparison of the two works episode by episode see Labarre, , 89–108. Fontaine, Jacques (Naissance de la poésie dans l'occident chrétien: Esquisse d'une histoire de la poésie latine chrétienne du iii^e au vi^e siècle [Paris, 1981], 270) and Labarre (153) both comment on the concision of the VSM. Google Scholar

10 Fortunatus's account shows many verbal parallels with Sulpicius. Italicized words occur also in the prose original, either in the same form or as cognates. I use for Sulpicius's Life of St. Martin the edition of Fontaine, Jacques, Sulpice Sévère, Vie de Saint Martin , 3 vols., Sources Chrétiennes, 133–35 (Paris, 1967–69), and for the Dialogues that of Karl Halm, Sulpicii Severi libri qui supersunt, CSEL, 1 (Vienna, 1866).Google Scholar

11 Lausberg, Heinrich, Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik: Eine Grundlegung der Literaturwissenschaft (Munich, 1960), 1:435.Google Scholar

12 Italics indicate coincidences in language with the Vulgate text.Google Scholar

13 For examples see Roberts, Michael, Biblical Epic and Rhetorical Paraphrase in Late Antiquity (Liverpool, 1985), 168–71. The poet frequently reacts to the events he is describing in the first person; see, too, Mazzega, Michael, Sedulius, Carmen paschale, Buch III, Chrêsis: die Methode der Kirchenväter im Umgang mit der antiken Kultur, 5 (Basel, 1996), 39–45.Google Scholar

14 I have adopted Leo's emendation here refractus for the refrictus of the manuscripts; the manuscript reading is printed by Quesnel.Google Scholar

15 For more details and a fuller analysis of this passage see Roberts, , “St. Martin,” 95–100.Google Scholar

16 Lieslelotte Kötzsche in Weitzmann, Kurt, ed., Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century (New York, 1979), 500–501. The dating of the diptych is controversial. Volbach, Wolfgang Fritz, Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters, 2d ed. (Mainz am Rhein, 1976), 137, puts it in the Carolingian period. For a fifth-century dating see Beckwith, John, The Andrews Diptych (London, 1958). Fortunatus was later to write epigrams to accompany pictures of Martin's miracles for the newly restored cathedral of Tours (Carm. 10.6). The majority of these center on gestures rather than words.Google Scholar

17 Technically these lines are an example of the figure interpretatio (theme and variation). They linger over the same event, reflecting its various aspects. Such passages depend on lexical variation (synonymy and metonymy): in this case the verbs praecisa … pependit, resorbet, obhaesit, and the noun sequences vox, clamorem, fragor and ore, fauce, gutture. Google Scholar

18 For the tendency in the VSM to end episodes with such sententiae see Quesnel, , xlv. The clustering of rhetorical figures at the end of the episode is a feature also of Sedulius. Ancient rhetoricians comment on the tendency to end narratives with a sententia (Theon, , Progymnasmata 5; cf. Quintilian 8.5.2). This practice gives each episode something of the quality of a self-contained epigram.Google Scholar

19 Mazzega, , Sedulius , 31–32, cites this passage to explain Sedulius's choice of subject matter. (The CP begins with a book of Old Testament miracles.) It also sheds light on the poet's practice within the individual narrationes that make up the CP. Google Scholar

20 Lausberg, , Handbuch , 1:415. Rhet. Her. 4.28.38: “Interpretatio est quae non iterans idem redintegrat verbum, sed id commutat quod positum est alio verbo quod idem valeat, hoc modo: ‘Rem publicam radicitus evertisti, civitatem funditus deiecisti.’ Item ‘Patrem nefarie verberasti, parenti manus scelerate attulisti.’ Necesse est eius qui audit animum commoveri, cum gravitas prioris dicti renovatur interpretatione verborum.” Google Scholar

21 Quintilian 8.3.61–71 and 9.2.40–44; cf. Roberts, Michael, The Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989), 39–47. The key principle that generates the metonymic series is that a subject should be described “not as a whole, but in parts” (nec universa, sed per partis, 9.2.40).Google Scholar

22 For examples illustrating the contrasting techniques of Paulinus and Fortunatus see Roberts, , Jeweled Style , 136–42.Google Scholar

23 For Fortunatus the vision is umbra, imago, larva (“ghost”); in Sulpicius Severus and Paulinus of Périgueux it is only a “shade,” umbra. Google Scholar

24 In book 1, lines 82, 85, 105, 185, 255, 273, 351, 413, 422, 446, 448, 513 (cf. 60, 61).Google Scholar

25 In book 1, lines 58–62, after the division of the cloak, 84–87, 119–22, 218–19, 341–44, 351–53, 444–49 (cf. 2.220–21, 354–57; 3.119–20, 205–8, 244–46, 428–29; 4.301–4, 400–401, 485–88); Labarre, , 138–43.Google Scholar

26 Cf. Labarre, 147–59, on the two poets' treatments of the episode of the divided cloak.Google Scholar

27 Cf. VSM 4.32–33, 240, 470, 605–6; Paulinus of Nola, Carm. 16.35–37; Paulinus of Périgueux 2.184–85 and 5.77–82; Arator, , Historia Apostolica 1.824–25.Google Scholar

28 See also Augustine, , Enarrationes in psalmos 38.11 ne forte, cum vis esse praedo, sis praeda , and ThLL 10:585.74–81.Google Scholar

29 The forms of via and vita always rhyme in Fortunatus (twice leonine rhyme). Some of the passages refer to Jesus' saying ego sum via et veritas et vita (John, 14:6). The pun on the two senses of mundus is found in Avitus, De virginitate (= Carm. 6) 157 mundanas odisse vias, percurrere mundas; cf., Augustine, De agone christiano 31.33 [isti sunt qui] … mundanos se potius quam mundos vocarent. Google Scholar

30 Isidore, in fact, gives this etymology: “Latro, insessor viarum, a latendo dictus,” Orig. 10.159.Google Scholar

31 The language of the later miracle in the VSM shows parallels with the passage at the beginning of book 2. Compare especially et restricta fluens redit in fontem unda cruoris (4.265) with 2.15.Google Scholar

32 App. 5, addressed to the young king Childebert, is an exception to this rule. It is a paronomastic tour-de-force. Google Scholar

33 See Roberts, , “Last Epic,” 281–82.Google Scholar

34 See Roberts, , Biblical Epic , 166–71. For the appropriateness of expressions of emotion to a narratio see Cicero, , Part. Or. 9.32; for their placement at the end of the narratio Quintilian 4.3.5.Google Scholar

35 When there is a sequence of rhetorical questions or exclamations or a sustained apostrophe, I count each passage only once.Google Scholar

36 App. 23 is a rare exception. I suspect it was written at another's (Radegund's) instigation.Google Scholar

37 Roberts, , “Last Epic,” 261–62.Google Scholar

38 For examples of viscera as “womb” in Fortunatus's verse see Carm. 6.5.33 and 79, 8.3.325 and 338 (Roberts, , “Last Epic,” 280; cf. Labarre, , 140–41).Google Scholar

39 E.g. Manitius, M., Geschichte der christlich-lateinischen Poesie bis zur Mitte des 8. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1891), 446.Google Scholar

40 Ultimately, as I argue in the previous paragraph, the distinction between figures of thought and figures of diction is difficult to maintain. The significant point is that figures like exclamation, rhetorical question, and apostrophe do not in themselves throw into prominence the verbal surface of the text, whereas antithesis and paronomasia, particularly combined with Fortunatus's fragmented (commatic) verse structure, do.Google Scholar

41 Herzog, Reinhart, “La meditazione poetica: Una forma retorico-teologica tra tarda antichità e barocco,” in La poesia tardoantica: Tra retorica, teologia e politica (Messina, 1984), 75–102. He is following Martz, Louis L., The Poetry of Meditation: A Study in English Religious Literature of the Seventeenth Century (New Haven, 1954), especially 1–39. I am somewhat sceptical about the threefold structure Herzog sees in many of Sedulius's episodes. I can imagine other ways of analyzing the particular passage he discusses (4.66–81, Christ and Mary Magdalene).Google Scholar

42 Labarre, , 233.Google Scholar

43 Quoted by Martz, , Poetry of Meditation , 15.Google Scholar

44 Steadman, John M., Redefining a Period Style: “Renaissance,” “Mannerist” and “Baroque” in Literature (Pittsburgh, 1990), 147.Google Scholar

45 Ong, Walter J. S.J., “Wit and Mystery: A Revaluation in Medieval Latin Hymnody,” Speculum 22 (1947): 310–41.Google Scholar

46 Ibid., 312.Google Scholar

47 Contrast the devil who is perfidus (1.449) and when expelled from a possessed cook must leave through the bowels because Martin's fingers prevent him from leaving by the mouth. The demon is “filthy” and leaves behind the “filthy traces of his actions” (foeda ministerii foedus vestigia linquens, 1.469).Google Scholar

48 In particular Richard Crashaw paraphrased (very freely) Fortunatus's Vexilla regis, as well as other medieval hymns. His Latin epigrams on sacred themes show a striving for paradox, often reinforced by antithesis and polyptoton and more rarely paronomasia. See Herzog, , “La meditazione poetica,” 83–85. The comparison with metaphysical poetry is useful in that it points up the positive aspects of Fortunatus's stylistic preferences. But it is important to stress the differences. Fortunatus lacks the strong intellectualizing emphasis of the metaphysical poets nor does he draw his metaphors from as wide a range of subjects. Finally, the absence of the first person of the poet reacting to the events described and the scarcity of figures of thought — exclamation, apostrophe, rhetorical question — distinguish the VSM from the lyric turn of Fortunatus's own hymns to the Holy Cross and from the tradition of lyric meditation on scriptural or hagiographic narratives or religious doctrines.Google Scholar

49 The language is frequent throughout Fortunatus's religious poetry. For a particularly sustained example of agricultural cultivation as a metaphor for missionary activity see VSM 3.160–70. Line 169 messe in tam multa veniens operarius unus incorporates a biblical citation (Matt. 9:37 = Luke 10:2).Google Scholar

50 Athleta : 1.114, 4.377; corona: 4.598 (only here of Martin, and in a nonnarrative passage).Google Scholar

51 See Roberts, , “Last Epic,” 270–74.Google Scholar

52 For the language used of the church as mother and bride of Christ see Blaise, Albert, Le vocabulaire Latin des principaux thèmes liturgiques (Turnhout, 1966), 496–97.Google Scholar

53 He did, though, write two largely unoriginal works of prose exegesis, on the Lord's Prayer (10.1) and the Creed (11.1). The former uses the word typus (10.1.48).Google Scholar

54 The exception is explained by the particular appropriateness of felix exercitus to a martyred legion.Google Scholar

55 Not only diabolical possession but also other miracles of healing fit this pattern. So Sedulius (CP 3.189–91) describes Jesus' healing of a blind and mute man (Matt. 12:22) as a confrontation with “that slippery serpent who, reviving his ancient arts and discolored by the gall of black venom, rejoices to grow fat on human corruption.” (It is a common pattern in works of religious edification for compositional units at a certain level of generality to be semantically equivalent; Roberts, Michael, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs: The Liber Peristephanon of Prudentius [Ann Arbor, 1993], 76.)Google Scholar

56 For example, arma veneni (Carm. 5.6.12 and VSM 3.117), felle veneni (Carm. 2.3.3 and VSM 2.179) — the latter phrase is Virgilian (Aen. 12.857; cf. Prudentius, Cathemerinon 9.89, Perist. 5.379, Orientius, Commonitorium 1.457, and Sedulius, CP 3.190).Google Scholar

57 The fundamental paper is Jakobson, Roman, “Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances,” in Jakobson, Roman, Language in Literature , ed. Pomorska, Krystyna and Rudy, Stephen (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), 95–114.Google Scholar

58 Lodge, David, The Modes of Modern Writing: Metaphor, Metonymy, and the Typology of Modern Literature (Chicago, 1977), applies these categories to the analysis of the modern novel. He sees them as providing “a common descriptive terminology for classifying and analysing types of literary discourse” (123).Google Scholar

59 For a fuller analysis of this passage see Roberts, , Jeweled Style , 139–42.Google Scholar

60 Fortunatus favors the architectural metaphor in his prose hagiography: Vita Germani 37.107 and 45.126, De Virtutibus sancti Hilarii 3.8. In speaking of the cure he received from Martin in Ravenna for a disease of the eyes he uses the metaphor of windows, oculorum … fenestris, VSM 4.695.Google Scholar

61 Fortunatus's account of the weapons of spiritual warfare employs a metonymic sequence to contribute visual immediacy to the Pauline image (VSM 3.397–402; Eph. 6:14–17). On occasions the style of Fortunatus's closing sections to books 2, 3, and 4 occurs earlier in a book, normally with panegyric intent (e.g., the praise of Hilary [1.134–38] and the description of the jewels that appeared on Martin's arm when he was performing the Eucharist [4.321–27]).Google Scholar

62 E.g. Virgil, , Aen. 9.700; Valerius Flaccus 6.573 (sanguinis undam); Silius Italicus 10.244–45 (unda / sanguinis).Google Scholar

63 Mazzega, , Sedulius , 139.Google Scholar

64 Roberts, , “Last Epic,” 278–80.Google Scholar

65 Fortunatus generally is sensitive in his poetry to the sufferings and emotions of women. In three poems (6.5, 8.3, and App. 1) he speaks in the voice of a woman separated from a loved one, after the manner of Ovid's Heroides. Suzanne Fonay Wemple (Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister, 500 to 900 [Philadelphia, 1981], 150–51), comments that in his account (in 8.3) of the pains of childbirth and of the sorrow caused by a child born dead or by the death of a husband Fortunatus shows a better understanding of feminine psychology than the western fathers. In 4.26 there is a touching account of the death of a woman in childbirth. In the VSM Fortunatus twice departs from his original to express the love of a parent for a child: a father for his paralytic daughter who is near death (1.394–409) and a mother for her dead son (3.178–86).Google Scholar

66 Blomgren, Sven ( Studia Fortunatiana , 2 vols. [Uppsala, 1933–34], 1:6–7, n. 2, and 2:13–16), gives some examples, but they could be vastly expanded.Google Scholar

67 Blomgren, Sven, “Fortunatus cum elogiis collatus: De cognatione, quae est inter carmina Venantii Fortunati et poesin epigraphicam Christianam,” Eranos 71 (1973): 95–111.Google Scholar

68 Book 4 is entirely made up of epitaphs (so, too, 9.4, 9.5, and App. 8). In 10.6 there are two sets of tituli for paintings in Gregory's newly restored cathedral in Tours, and 1.5 is also a titulus for Martin's cell by the cathedral. Other poems of Fortunatus on churches have elements in common with tituli, though they were probably intended for recitation rather than inscription.Google Scholar

69 Of the examples cited by Blomgren, , “Fortunatus,” 95–99, pacis amator (1.482) and spes fida (2.9) are expressions of piety, and crudeli funere raptum (1.180) a periphrasis for death; iure sacerdoti (3.391), culmen apostolicum (3.449), and pastor ovili (1.420) connote praise or status. Many of the expressions derive from or occur in noninscriptional poetry: crudeli funere raptum is Virgilian (Ecl. 5.20, Aen. 4.308); iure sacerdoti and pastor ovili Sedulian (CP 1.357 and 1.83 repectively); pacis amator occurs in Prosper (Epigr. 101.1). All the phrases but spe fida occur also in Fortunatus's elegiac poetry. Verse epigraphy shares with poets like Sedulius and Fortunatus a certain basic poetic koine. Such language encodes discourse as poetic. Fortunatus occupies a middle position between the freer Sedulius and the inscriptions. He makes creative use of the predictable rehearsal of epigraphic commonplaces to claim for the subjects of his verse an assured place in the social and cultural order.Google Scholar

70 Colafrancesco, Pasqua and Massaro, Matteo ( Concordanze dei carmina latina epigraphica [Bari, 1986]) give the provenance of all but CLE 795 as Rome; CLE 795 is from Gallia Narbonensis.Google Scholar

71 Martini mentis: 1.6.7, 5.1.11 (v. 1), 5.4.1, 10.6.67, 10.7.4, App. 19.4; Martinus mentis: 3.3.23, 10.6.32.Google Scholar

72 Fortunatus tells Gregory that during the harvest season he was not able to do or complete everything he wanted: in opere messium, id est ipsa messe … nec expedire licuit nec tentare singula. Later in the letter (3), if the manuscript reading is to be retained (see Quesnel, 106, ad loc.), he speaks of a six-month period of composition.Google Scholar

73 For the rhetoric of predictability in late antiquity see Cameron, Averil, Christianity and The Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse (Berkeley, 1991), 81–84, and Brown, Peter, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Madison, 1992), 39–40.Google Scholar

74 The phrase is used by Damasus (Epigrammata 72.1.7), Paulinus of Nola (Epistulae 32.12), Prudentius (Cath. 3.101), and Fortunatus (VSM 1.89), as well as CLE 858.5. Both the Damasus and Paulinus poems are tituli. Google Scholar

75 But just as the reader can rediscover the metaphorical sense of a faded metaphor if the language of the context reactivates that sense, so a poetic cliché can regain its allusive capacity if the original text is sufficiently well known (as Virgil would be) and if the new context prompts the recognition of a similarity with the source text.Google Scholar

76 Rumpe moras occurs first in Virgil and then is common among the first-century poets, Ovid, Lucan, Calpurnius Siculus, Valerius Flaccus, Silius Italicus, and Martial, and in late antiquity Claudian; bibulas harenas (or variations thereof) occurs in Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Statius, Claudian, Prudentius, and Sedulius.Google Scholar

77 Labarre, , 181–201.Google Scholar

78 For maleficent forces in both poems see Aen. 7.338 and VSM 2.163 (mille nocendi artes), though the allusion is already in Sulpicius and the phrase is commonly used of the devil and his agents in Christian Latin poetry (Courcelle, Pierre, “Mille Nocendi Artes [Virgile, Aen., VII, 338],” in Mélanges de philosophie, de littérature et d'histoire ancienne offerts à Pierre Boyancé , Collection de l'École française de Rome, 22 [Rome, 1974], 219–27). Also, not noted by Labarre, feile veneni (Aen. 12.857 and VSM 2.179, but also in Prudentius, Orientius, and Sedulius [n. 56 above]).Google Scholar

79 Labarre, , 199–200. As Thraede, Klaus, “Epos,” RAC 5:1035, insists, the epic/Virgilian interpretation of Christian subject matter also involves a corresponding Christian reinter-pretation of epic.Google Scholar

80 As index of this, Paulinus omits the story of the monk exposing himself before the fire, presumably on the grounds of its indecency, and treats very briefly the miracle of the woman with the flow of blood (eight verses, as opposed to twenty-one in Fortunatus).Google Scholar

81 See n. 65 above.Google Scholar

82 See the conspectus of textual parallels drawn up by Max Manitius in an appendix to Krusch, Bruno, ed., Venanti Honori Clementiani Fortunati presbyteri Italici opera pedestria , MGH, AA 4.2 (Berlin, 1885), 132–37.Google Scholar

83 Quesnel, , 115–16, and Labarre, , 225–26, both discuss this passage.Google Scholar

84 Flamma camini also appears at VSM 3.293.Google Scholar

85 Note the similar line ending in Sidonius's version, which probably owes something to Sedulius. For ros in the fiery furnace see Dan. 3:50 et fecit medium fornacis quasi ventum roris flantem; Paulinus of Nola, Carm. 26.270; Sedulius, , CP 1.235; Dracontius, , De Laudibus Dei 3.178. The line ending flamma camini also occurs in Dracontius, De Laudibus Dei 3.175, and Avitus, , De Spiritalis Historiae Gestis 3.64; cf. Statius, Silv. 1.5.32 (flamma caminos, of the baths of Claudius Etruscus), and Heptateuchos, Genesis 559 (flamma camino).Google Scholar

86 For the raising of the catechumen see Roberts, , Jeweled Style , 139–42; for the healing of the leper n. 15 above and context.Google Scholar

87 Quesnel, , 83. Quesnel also records the parallel with Sedulius in line 264, but hesitates to speak of influence. Paulinus treats the same story very briefly, perhaps because of some embarrassment about the subject matter (see n. 80 above; Quesnel speaks of “concision pudique”). He does not refer to the Gospel text directly but his explanation that saints can perform such miracles because they are limbs and Christ the head (5.614–15) presupposes the parallel.Google Scholar

88 Cf. Blomgren, , Studia Fortunatiana , 1: 160–61; ThLL 5:20.43–49.Google Scholar

89 For Martin's simultaneous presence on earth and in heaven while alive see 2.122–31, 398, 407, 3.52, and 4.33. Note that when speaking of the concluding section to book 4 I mean only 4.572–620. I do not include the address to the book (4.621–712), which serves as an epilogue to the whole poem.Google Scholar

90 The full phrase is ornata aeternae fert poma perennia vitae, 2.445. Although it could be translated “he wins the fair and enduring fruits of eternal life,” the sustained metaphor of a fruit tree (442–45) guarantees that fert here has the sense of “bear fruit.” Fortunatus probably also has in mind the common motif of saints and martyrs bringing offerings to the court of heaven that represent their deeds on earth.Google Scholar

91 “Cuius [sc. Christi] arnica fides tantum tibi contulit arcis / ut solem radiis et lunam cursibus aeques, / qui splendore nitens pulcher quasi lucifer exis / ac fulgore Dei vir fulgidus ipse coruscas, / tegmine vir niveus, miro diademate fulvus” (4.589–93). At the end of book 3 (506–8) Fortunatus compares the apostles Peter and Paul with the morning star and the sun. His language in book 4 then implies a similar status for Martin in accordance with the saint's standard characterization as “apostle of Gaul.” Google Scholar

92 The Latin sequence is anuli, armillae, zona, cycladis, palla, monile, vitta, and diadema — shoes and earrings are represented by parts of the body (pedibus, 463, and auribus, 471); the jewels are jasper, topaz, emerald, hyacinth, Chrysoprase, beryl, amethyst, and pearl. Fortunatus is describing Mary here (cf. egregiam pretiosa luce Mariam, 459), not the sponsus of line 461, as Quesnel reads the passage (70 and 152). The details of dress are specifically female and are very similar to those worn by the holy virgin of 8.3.263–76. See Koebner, Richard, Venantius Fortunatus: Seine Persönlichkeit und seine Stellung in der geistigen Kultur des Merowinger-Reiches (Berlin, 1915), 89–90.Google Scholar

93 I follow Leo's punctuation (Quesnel begins a new sentence at 446), except for introducing a strong break after 450.Google Scholar

94 On the two styles of S. Maria Maggiore and their sources see, for instance, Brenk, Beat, Die frühchristlichen Mosaiken in S. Maria Maggiore zu Rom (Wiesbaden, 1975), 151–52, and Deichmann, Friedrich Wilhelm, Ravenna: Haupstadt des spätantiken Abendlandes (Wiesbaden, 1969–76), 2:189–91, and Einführung in die christliche Archäologie (Darmstadt, 1983), 228–30. For possible origins in manuscript illumination see Herbert Kessler, in Weitzmann, Kurt, ed., Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century (New York, 1979), 468–69.Google Scholar

95 Brenk, , Die frühchristlichen Mosaiken , 152.Google Scholar

96 Deichmann, , Einführung , 230–31. For instance, he sees a disparity between the styles of wall mosaics in the presbytery and in the apse of San Vitale, in Ravenna, and between the panels on the front of Bishop Maximian's throne (also from Ravenna) and the narrative side panels, with scenes from the life of Joseph.Google Scholar

97 Deichmann, , Ravenna , 190, makes the comparison with the styles of rhetoric; see Cicero, , Orat. 29.101 “is erit igitur eloquens … qui poterit parva summisse, modica temperate, magna graviter dicere.” Google Scholar

98 For the mosaics in the church of La Daurade, Toulouse, see Woodruff, Helen, “The Iconography and Date of the Mosaics of La Daurade,” Art Bulletin 13 (1931): 80–104, and Mâle, Emile, “Les mosaïques de la Daurade à Toulouse,” in Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire offerts à Charles Picard (Paris, 1949) 2:682–87. For the portico of St. Genevieve see the Vita S. Genovefae virginis Parisiensis, 56.Google Scholar

99 The illustration is on fol. 26r. See Hahn, Cynthia, “Seeing and Believing: The Construction of Sanctity in Early-Medieval Saints' Shrines,” Speculum 72 (1997): 1080, who reproduces the image.Google Scholar

100 See also Paulinus, , Ep. 13.15, and Leo, , Sermones 35.4.Google Scholar

101 On Victorinus of Pettau's exegesis of Revelation see Matter, E. Ann, “The Apocalypse in Early Medieval Exegesis,” in The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages , ed. Emmerson, Richard K. and McGinn, Bernard (Ithaca, N.Y., 1992), 38–40.Google Scholar

102 Quesnel, , 152. See n. 92 above for the identification of the figure in the VSM as Mary.Google Scholar

103 See MacMullen, Ramsay, “Some Pictures in Ammianus Marcellinus,” Art Bulletin 46 (1964): 447, and Janes, Dominic, God and Gold in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 1998), 27–31.Google Scholar

104 For the figure on the triumphal arch of Santa Maria Maggiore as Maria regina see Brenk, , Die frühchristlichen Mosaiken , 50–52, and for the challenge to this identification Spain, Suzanne, ‘“The Promised Blessing’: The Iconography of the Mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore,” Art Bulletin 61 (1979): 530–40.Google Scholar

105 On the image in Santa Maria Antiqua see Spain, , “Promised Blessing,” 530. For the date of the church of La Daurade, probably dedicated to the Virgin, see Woodruff, , “Iconography,” 96–104 (fifth or sixth century); Mâle, , “Les mosaïques,” 686–87, and Davis-Weyer, Caecilia, Early Medieval Art, 300–1150: Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1971), 59–60 (sixth century); Spain, 532, n. 67 (late sixth century).Google Scholar

106 For the date see Brennan, Brian, “Deathless Marriage and Spiritual Fecundity in Venantius Fortunatus's De Virginitate,” Traditio 51 (1996): 73–74. Labande-Mailfert, Yvonne (“Les debuts de Sainte-Croix,” in Histoire de l'abbaye Sainte-Croix de Poitiers: Quatorze siècles de vie monastique [Poitiers, 1986], 37–38), would date Agnes's consecration to the early 570s, but the evidence is inconclusive. The event must have taken place some time between Fortunatus's arrival in Poitiers (567/568) and the death of Bishop Germanus (576).Google Scholar

107 Cameron, Averil, “The Theotokos in Sixth-Century Constantinople,” Journal of Theological Studies 29 (1978): 105–8, reprinted in Continuity and Change in Sixth-Century Byzantium (London, 1981); for Fortunatus's connections with Constantinople see ibid., 90–91. Cameron, 91, does not take into account the lines in the VSM devoted to Brennan, Mary., “Deathless Marriage,” 94, compares the prologue to Caesarius of Arles's Regula virginum, where the nun is described as inter pretiosissimas ecclesiae gemmas micantem. The contrast is striking with two slightly earlier verse treatments of Mary. Avitus (late fifth century) proposes her as a model for the Christian virgin (Carm. 6 [=De uirginitate] 201–16), Ennodius (early sixth century) composes a hymn in her praise (Vogel, F., ed., Magni Felicis Ennodi Opera, MGH, AA, 7 [Berlin, 1885], 350). Both emphasize her role as mother and virgin, but there is nothing comparable to the ornate language of Fortunatus. I have not considered the In laudem Sanctae Mariae, included among spurious works of Fortunatus by Leo, because of its doubtful authenticity (see Blomgren, , Studia Fortunatiana, 2:3–26, who opts, somewhat hesitantly, for its genuineness).Google Scholar

108 For fuller discussion see Roberts, , “Last Epic,” 269–70; on the nautical metaphor see also Braidotti, Cecilia, “Una metafora ripetuta: Variazioni sul tema nautico nella ‘Vita S. Martini’ di Venanzio Fortunato,” Giornale Italiano di Filologia 45 (1993): 107–19. Christian poets regularly aspired to achieve salvation through their poetry (Juvencus, , pr. 22–24; Prudentius, , Praefatio 43–45, Perist. 2.573–84, 6.160–62, 10.1136–40; Paulinus of Nola, Carm. 22.29–34; Paulinus of Périgueux 5.7–10). Fortunatus, in accordance with traditions of literary modesty, stresses his inadequacy and the flawed nature of his offering to Martin (VSM 2.472–76, 3.525–29, 4.617–20). He consistently asks pardon (venia) for his narrative (relatus, 2.476, 4.617–19), identifying it by verbal play with sinfulness (reatus, 3.525).Google Scholar

109 Horace, , Epist. 1.20, Ovid, , Tr. 1.1 and 3.1, Martial 1.3 and 70, 2.1, 3.2, 4, and 5, 4.86 and 89, 7.84 and 97, 8.1 and 72, 9.99, 10.104, 11.1, 12.2, Optatianus Porfyrius, Carm. 1, Ausonius, , Epistulae. 12, Sidonius, , Carm. 24. Sulpicius Severus ends his third Dialogue with an exhortation to spread the fame of Martin throughout the Christian world. Fortunatus's concluding journey, though more restricted geographically, plays compositionally a similar role, though recast in the poetic form of an address to the book.Google Scholar

110 Quesnel, , 100, citing Carm. 11.6.7–8 and 7.9.7–12, asks pertinently why Fortunatus never returned to Italy. He dismisses the Lombard invasion of Italy and the difficulties of communication as sufficient reasons.Google Scholar

111 For the relation between style and location in the church see Deichmann, , Einführung , 230. The now lost frescoes and mosaics of San Paolo fuori le mura in Rome showed the same distinction in style and subject matter between nave and triumphal arch (Kessler, Herbert, “Pictures as Scriptures in Fifth-Century Churches,” Studia artium orientalis et occidentalis, 2 [1985]: 20–28).Google Scholar

112 Van Dam, , Leadership and Community , 240–55; Sauvel, Tony, “Les miracles de Saint-Martin: Recherches sur les peintures murales de Tours au v^e et au vi^e siècle,” Bulletin monumental 114 (1956): 157–59; Pietri, Luce, La ville de Tours du iv^e au vi^e siècle: Naissance d'une cité chrétienne, Collection de l'école française de Rome, 69 (Rome, 1983), 804–22.Google Scholar

113 Le Blant, Edmond, ed., Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule antérieures au viii^e siècle (Paris, 1856–65), 1: no. 177 = Pietri no. 12. Pietri prints the inscriptions relating to Martin from Marmoutier and Tours preserved in the so-called Martinellus in an appendix (800–12).Google Scholar

114 Le Blant, 1: no. 180.2 = Pietri no. 15.2.Google Scholar

115 “Unde (sc. a caelo) vocat populos qui praevius ad bona Christi / sidereum ingressus sanctificavit iter (Le Blant, 1: no. 170.9–10 = Pietri no. 5.9–10).Google Scholar

116 von Simson, Otto G., Sacred Fortress: Byzantine Art and Statecraft in Ravenna (Chicago, 1948), 115–18. The quotation is from 117. He compares the layout of Diocletian's palace at Split, where the main street leads up to an impressive pedimented façade and beyond to imperial chambers. But see Wilkes, J. J., Diocletian's Palace, Split: Residence of a Retired Roman Emperor (Sheffield, 1986), 65–69.Google Scholar

117 “Fronte sub adversa gradibus sublime tribunal / tollitur, antistes praedicat unde Deum” Perist. 11.225–26). For a fuller discussion see Roberts, , Poetry, 163–64.Google Scholar

118 For a full discussion of the metaphor of jewels as applied to literary style in late antiquity see Roberts, , Jeweled Style. Google Scholar

119 See, for instance, Von Simson, , Sacred Fortress , 59, on Sant' Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna.Google Scholar

120 For this dazzle effect see Roberts, , Jeweled Style , 73–75, and Roberts, , “Last Epic,” 281–82. For the allegorical interpretation given to precious ornament in the second line of the titulus compare Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres 1769 “Virginis aula micat variis decorata metallis, / sed plus namque nitet meritis fulgentior amplis” (from Sant' Agnese, late sixth century).Google Scholar

121 Fortunatus goes on to emphasize that the miracles he appeals to were performed while Martin was still alive, clothed in fragile flesh (carnis adhuc fragilis … sub imagine, 2.486).Google Scholar

122 “Cuius gemmata est tunc dextera visa beati, / vos simul et vestros protegat ilia manus” (10.7.47–48) and “qui de peste domum salvam dedit esse Lyconti, / haec domus incolumis floreat huius ope” (10.7.55–56).Google Scholar

123 The full passage is “Martini si quaeris opem, trans aethera resurgens / tange polum, angelicum scrutatus in aethere coetum,” 9–10.Google Scholar

124 The text is ambiguous whether the miracles in question are those performed posthumously here and now by Martin or those pictured on the walls of the basilica.Google Scholar

125 Inter et ipse Deum atque reum mediator adesto , 4.604; cf. inter me ac Dominum mediator adesto benigne, 2.480.Google Scholar

126 See above, n. 108.Google Scholar

127 On the literary tradition of the sphragis, or “seal,” by which an author acknowledged authorship by giving his name at the end of a work see Fraenkel, Eduard, Horace (Oxford, 1957), 362–63. Fraenkel sees the autobiographical details that conclude Epistles 1.20 as playing the role of a sphragis, though without actually naming the poet. Fortunatus combines both elements, giving his name and communicating autobiographical details in an address to his book.Google Scholar

128 In book 4 the poet frequently introduces comments on the progress of his poem (98–100, 173, 233, 251, 331–32, 426, 489, 520–21). (Only one such passage occurs elsewhere in the body of the work [3.72–73]). It is possible that they serve to identify the reader more closely with the poet (two passages, 4.98–100 and 331–32, contain the language of movement or a journey). Alternatively perhaps they are evidence of the haste with which Fortunatus completed the VSM according to the dedicatory letter to Gregory.Google Scholar

129 E.g., Manitius, , Geschichte , 446; Koebner, , Venantius Fortunatus, 91; Tardi, D., Fortunat: étude sur un dernier représentant de la poésie latine dans la Gaule mérovingienne (Paris, 1927), 185–87.Google Scholar

130 Tardi, ibid; cf. Ebert, Adolf, Allgemeine Geschichte der Literatur des Mittelalters im Abendlande bis zum Beginne des xi. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1889), 539.Google Scholar

131 See above, n. 9, and Fontaine, Jacques, “Hagiographie et politique, de Sulpice Sévère à Venance Fortunat,” Revue de l'histoire de l'église de France 62 (1976): 121–22 and 125–26. Koebner, , Venantius Fortunatus, 88–91, is an exception to this rule. He criticizes Fortunatus for often writing only versified prose and his poem for being “an artistically and rhetorically contrived and therefore formless product of poetic craftsmanship” (91). The two judgments are apparently contradictory, but both respond to real stylistic qualities of the VSM. In my paper I have tried to propose a more sympathetic evaluation of Fortunatus's stylistic variety.Google Scholar

132 Pietri, , Ville de Tours , 745–47, speaks of the VSM as an unoriginal literary exercise; cf. Van Dam, Raymond, “Images of Saint Martin in Fifth- and Sixth-Century Gaul,” Viator 19 (1988): 9, who describes the VSM as “self-consciously classical, and therefore sometimes sterile.” Manitius, , Geschichte, 445, dismissed the VSM as only of literary-historical importance, while Brunhölzl, Franz, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, vol. 1 (Munich, 1975), 126, questions whether the more extended form of the epic suited Fortunatus's poetic temperament.Google Scholar

133 Herzog, Reinhart, Die Bibelepik der lateinischen Spätantike: Formgeschichte einer erbaulichen Gattung (Munich, 1975), 124–54, is the classic exposition of the importance of Christian edification and devotion in the reformulation of classical epic into new Christian subgenres. He is writing of biblical epic but the same process, allowing for the particular nature of the cult of the saints, is at work here in hagiographical epic.Google Scholar