Vexillology

Vexillology (pronounced vek-suh-lol-uh-jee)

The study of and the collection of information about flags.

1957 (and in print since 1959): The construct was vexill(um) + -ology.  Vexillum (the plural vexilla) was from the Latin vēxillum (flag, banner), from the Proto-Italic wekslolom (and synchronically a diminutive form of vēlum), from the Proto-Italic wekslom, from the primitive Indo-European wegslom, from weg- (to weave, bind) and cognate with the English wick.  The Latin vexillum translated literally as “flag; banner” but in English was used to mean (1) a flag, banner, or standard, (2) in military use a formation company of troops serving under one standard, (3) the sign of the cross, (4) in botany, the upper petal of a papilionaceous flower and (5) in ornithology, the rhachis and web of a feather taken together.  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism etc).  Vexillology, vexillologist vexillographer, vexillophilia, vexillophile & vexillolatry are nouns, vexillological & vexillologic are adjectives; the most common noun plural is vexillologists.

A vexillographer is one who designs flags, standards & banners, a vexillophile is (1) someone who collects and displays flags and (2) one who studies flags, their history and meaning.  Although there are vexillophiles, there is in medicine no recognized condition known as vexillophilia (which would be a paraphilia describing the sexualized objectification of flags (ie flag) although following the convention established in recent revisions to the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) (DSM-5 (2013) & DSM-5-TR (2022)), the correct clinical description would now be "flag partialism"; vexillophiles anyway prefer to describe themselves as "flag nerds".  Nor is there any record of there being instances of vexillophobia (a morbid fear of flags); there are those opposed to what flags represent  but that's not the same as being a vexillophobe which would be something specific about this type of bunting in general.  In political science, there is the word flagophobe (also as flagphobe), a derogatory term used usually by those on the right (and other nationalists) as a slur suggesting a want of patriotism in an opponent they’ve usually already labelled as “liberal”.  It's based on a metaphorical connection between a national flag and pride in one's country and is thus not a reference to a fear of flags in general.  To vexillize (or vexillate) can mean (1) to gather or to lead an army under a flag, (2) to organize or to lead people under a common cause or goal, (3) to make a flag (sewing, printing, digitally distributing etc), (4) to design a flag or (5) to introduce a specific depiction on a flag.

Wrapped: Vexillologist Lindsay Lohan and the stars & stripes.  The phrase “wrapping themselves self in the flag” is used of politicians who attempt to disguise their self-serving motives by presenting something as being in the national interest or being done for patriotic reasons.  The companion term is “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”, a observation made in 1775 by Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) of the hypocrisy of William Pitt (1708-1778 (Pitt the Elder); First Earl of Chatham & UK prime-minister 1766-1768).

Quite when the first flag was flown is not known but so simple is the concept and so minimal the technology required for fabrication that as forms of identification or communication they may have been among the earliest examples of symbolic representation.  Although the nation-state as its now understood is a relatively new creation (barely a thousand years old), prior to that there had for millennia been organized settlements with distinct identities and there is evidence from surviving works of art and drawings that something like a flag existed in the Mediterranean region as long ago as the fourth century BC and it’s possible such things were in use in China even earlier.  The familiar concept of the national flag evolved as the modern nation state emerged in Europe in the late Middle Ages and early modern period and traditionally, Denmark's Dannebrog is cited as the oldest national flag extant, having being in continuous use (though not always as the symbol of state) since the thirteenth century.

An array of Denmark's Dannebrog (usually translated as "the cloth of the Danes") on flagpoles.

The legend is that during a battle on 15 June 1219 in what is modern-day Estonia, the Danish army was on the defensive and defeat seemed imminent when suddenly, a red banner with a white cross fell from the sky.  As a result, the fortunes of war shifted, the Danish army won the battle and Denmark gained a flag.  The implication was of course the symbol was a "sign from God" and countless armies have rallied from difficult positions if soldiers can be persuaded victory can be won "with God on our side". 

Inherently, a small piece of colored glass three metres in the air can have no effect on a passing car yet the use of red, amber & green traffic lights is what makes modern road systems function as efficiently as they do.  They work because people (usually) respond as they should through the lens of semiotics, the signifier being the color of the light, the signified the instructions conveyed (green=”go”; amber=”prepare to stop or proceed with caution” & red=”stop”) and the referent the physical need to go, proceed only with caution or stop.  The power of the glass lies wholly in its symbolism and the implied consequences of ignoring its message.  Flags, mere pieces of fabric, have no inherent political or military force yet have for millennia been among the most valued and contested of symbols; men have died defending pieces of bunting which could have been replaced with a tick of a supply sergeant’s pen, simply because of the symbolism.  Because so much of the structure was fake, symbolism was integral to the appeal of Nazism (and fascism in general) and by the early summer of 1942, on a map, the military position of Nazi Germany looked impressive, its forces still maintaining a presence in North Africa, control extending to the Arctic Circle, most of Western Europe occupied from Norway to the south of France and the territorial gains from Operation Barbarossa (1941) reaching well into the Soviet Union.  However, the map substantially reflected the gains which had been made in 1941 and by mid-1942 it was clear to the German military they had under-estimated the ability of the Soviet armies to absorb losses and recover.  It was clear Germany no longer had the strength successfully to advance along the massive front created by Barbarossa and even Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) realized that, at least temporarily, more modest strategic aims would have to be pursued.

What Hitler set in train was a multi-pronged operation which would have been strategically sound had (1) the resources been available to sustain it and (2) there had not been such a gross under-estimation of the available Soviet military capacity.  Originally, the plan had been to advance on the Caucasus after the encirclement and destruction of the defending forces in the Stalingrad region and the occupation of the city itself.  This was changed, splitting the attacking force to allow the city and the Caucasus simultaneously to be conquered and the area envisaged was vast, including the eastern coast of the Black Sea, the forbidding Caucasian mountain passes and the oil fields of Grozny & Baku, far to the south.  The German generals didn’t need much more than the back of an envelope to work out it simply couldn’t be done and that rather than undertaking sound planning based on reliable intelligence, the Führer was indulging in little more than wishing & guessing.  “Wishing & guessing” was General George Marshall’s (1880–1959; US Army chief of staff 1939-1945) critique of Winston Churchill’s (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) dabblings in military matters and the comment wasn’t unjustified but the difference was that while the Allied high command was able to restrain (and if need be, veto) the prime-minister’s romantic (essentially Napoleonic) adventurism, the Wehrmacht’s generals and admirals had by 1942 long been dominated by Hitler.  The German army was however generally the most effective ground force of the war and remarkably, achieved some early tactical gains but such were the distances involved and the disparity of forces available that the offensive was not only doomed but culminated in the loss of some 230,000 troops at Stalingrad, a calamity from which the army never quite recovered and among the German people damaged the prestige of the regime to an extent no previous setback had done.

Third Reich War Flag, Mount Elbrus, August 1942.

Hitler, at least in 1942, wasn’t delusional and understood he was running a risk but his gambler’s instincts had for twenty years served him well and he still clung to the belief a strength of will could overcome many disadvantages, even on the battlefield.  Early in the war, that had worked when he was facing divided, unimaginative or weak opponents but those days were over and he was well-aware (regardless of what he told the generals) he was playing for high stakes from with a bad hand.  That he was under great pressure and wracked by uncertainty (whatever might have been his outward displays of confidence) was probably the cause of a celebrated over-reaction to what was one of the war’s more trivial incidents: the planting of the Nazi war flag on the peak of Mount Elbrus, at 5,642 m (18,510 feet) the highest point in Europe.  Hitler thought pursuits like mountain climbing and skiing absurd but, like any practical politician, he liked a good photo-opportunity and had in peacetime been pleased to be photographed with those who had raised the swastika on some mountain or other (something which dedicated Nazis had been doing since the 1920s, long before the party in 1933 plotted and swindled their way into office).  On 21 August 1942, the Third’s Reich’s war flag, along with the divisional flags of the 1st and 4th Divisions fluttered in the wind on the roof of Europe and news of the triumph was transmitted to FHQ (Führer Headquarters).

In the throes of the offensive driving towards Stalingrad and the Caucases, the alpine troops who climbed the peak to plant the flag doubtless though they were “working towards the Führer” and providing him a priceless propaganda piece.  They probably expected medals or at least thanks but Hitler was focused on his military objectives and knew he needed every available man to be devoted to his job and upon hearing two-dozen soldiers had decided to ignore their orders and instead climb a hill of no strategic value, just to climb down again, his reaction was visceral, recalled in his memoirs by Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945), then at FHQ:

“I often saw Hitler furious but seldom did his anger erupt from him as it did when this report came in. For hours he raged as if his entire plan of the campaign had been ruined by this bit of sport. Days later he went on railing to all and sundry about “those crazy mountain climbers” who “belong before a court-martial.” They were pursuing their idiotic hobbies in the midst of a war, he exclaimed indignantly, occupying an idiotic peak even though he had commanded that all efforts must be concentrated upon Sukhumi.”

The famous (and subtlety edited) photograph of the Soviet flag being raised over the Reichstag on 30 April 1945 during the Battle of Berlin (actually a staged-shot  taken on 2 May).

The Germans never made it to Sukhumi and the high-altitude sideshow by a handful of troops of course in no way affected the campaign but the reaction at FHQ was an indication of the pressure felt by Hitler.  The planting of a symbolic flag was also though symptomatic of the arrogance which had permeated the German military under the Nazis and it anyway proved a pyrrhic act of conquest, the standard torn down and replaced by the Soviet flag within six months; that the Russian army took the trouble to do that amid the clatter of war illustrates potency of national flags as propaganda devices.  One of the most famous photographs of the conflict was that of the Soviet flag in May 1945 being placed over the Reichstag in Berlin, a symbol of defeat of Nazism.  Interestingly, so important to the Kremlin was the image that the act was actually re-staged the next day, this time with a photographer in place to shoot a roll of film so the perfect shot could be selected and the Russians are not the only ones to have re-staged famous flag raisings.

A banner used in Croatia between 925-1102 (left), the current Croatian flag adopted after independence in 1990 (centre) and the Croatian naval ensign (1990).

One of the most ancient symbols to endure in modern nation flags is the red & white checkered pattern used to this day on the flag of Croatia.  The oldest known example dates from 925 and the pattern was used (with the odd interruption) for centuries, even when the country was a non-sovereign component of supranational states such as the Habsburg Empire.  A red star was used instead when Croatia was a part of comrade Marshall Tito’s (1892-1980) Jugoslavija (Yugoslavia) between 1945-1990 but the red & white checks were restored when independence was regained in 1990.

Applied vexillologist Ivana Knoll at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

Noted Instagram influencer Ivana Knoll (b 1992) was a finalist in the Miss Croatia beauty contest in 2016 and for her appearances at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, chose a number of outfits using the national symbol of the red and white checkerboard (matching the home strip worn by the team), taken from the Croatian national flag.  By the standards of Instagram, the design of the hoodie she donned for Croatia's game against Morocco at the Al-Bayat stadium wasn't particularly revealing but it certainly caught the eye.  As if Gianni Infantino (b 1970; president of FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football) since 2016) doesn't have enough to ponder, the former Miss Croatia finalist tagged FIFA in her posts, fearing perhaps the president may not be among her 600,000 Instagram followers and her strategy seems to have had the desired effect although whether the design which, does cover her hair, shoulders and legs really was sufficiently demur to satisfy the local rules may have been contested by some imams.  The guidance provided by FIFA indicated non-Qatari women don’t need to wear the abaya (the long, black robe), tops must cover their midriff and shoulders, and skirts, dresses or trousers must cover the knees and clothing should not be tight or reveal any cleavage.  In accordance with the rules or not, Ms Knoll proved a popular accessory for Qatari men seeking selfies.

Four Citroën GS “Drapeaux” on the 400 metre athletics track at the Olympic Stadium, Munich, FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany) 1949-1990) for the 1971 “The Car Without Borders” press event.

National flags sometimes appear on cars and while that’s done usually with badges, the bunting represented either in the singular (including the Triumph TR6 (1968-1976)) or in multiples for that “international flavour” (such as Cutlass Ciera emblem used by Oldsmobile between the mid-1970s and mid-1990s), in 1971 Citroën used the whole car as a harlequinesque canvas.  Based on mechanically standard GS hatchback and station wagon (Break) models, the flags which adorned the bodywork were those of the twelve nations which participated in voting for the 1971 (ECotY) European Car of the Year, won by the GS.  As well as the four created for the event in Munich, a number of replica GS Drapeaux were built (it’s not clear how many but it may have been as many as 24) for a continent-wide promotional tour, co-ordinated with Citroën dealers.  The voting for the 1971 ECotY was undertaken by a jury of 44 journalists and while not exactly a kind of “automotive Eurovision”, when the numbers were tallied the GS had received a majority in Czechoslovakia, Denmark, the FRG, the Netherlands and the UK, enough to take the title.  The French drapeaux was the plural of drapeau (flag), from the Old French drapel.  In the French dialectical form spoken in Louisiana, a drapeau was a diaper (nappy).

1971 Citroën GS 1220 Club Break in “Drapeaux” trim.

That the ECotY’s jury is made up of specialist automotive journalists has always tended to slant things towards the technically interesting which accounts for winners or place-getters including the NSU Ro80 (1967-1977 and the Wankel-engined winner in 1968 which effectively bankrupted its maker), the Jensen FF (1966-1974 and the first production road car with ABS & AWD (all-wheel-drive and then still called 4WD (four-wheel-drive)) and third in 1967) and the Oldsmobile Toronado (1965-1978 in its original configuration and third in (1966 despite using a 425 cubic inch (7.0 litre) V8 with FWD! (front-wheel-drive) and being as unsuited to the European market as just about anything ever made)).  The ECotY award winners haven’t always been a success in the market but did reflect the sort of machines which appealed to the particular profile of automotive journalists, a breed quite different from those who actually buy new cars.  Nor were the winners necessarily the “best” (admittedly a difficult quality to define), illustrated by the 1990 award when the outstanding Mercedes-Benz R129 (1988-2001) was runner up to the dreary Citroën XM (1989-2000).  By historic standards the GS (1970-1986) was a pretty good choice because not was it only an inspired design but also one which proved a success over a long period, unlike the runner up Volkswagen K70 (1970-1974) and third-placed Citroën SM (1970-1975).  The K70 had actually been inherited by VW when the moribund NSU was absorbed but the many troubles of the SM contributed to Citroën’s bankruptcy though probably not to the same extent as the GS Birotor (1973-1975 and known also as the CX) which used a Wankel engine. 

Flag of Mozambique (left) and flag of the Hezbollah (right).

The flag of the Hezbollah (right), the public display of which is banned in some jurisdictions where both the organization's political & military wings are listed as "terrorist organizations" includes a depiction of  Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle but that of Mozambique (left) is the only national flag to feature the famous weapon and the Africans fixed a bayonet to the barrel which was a nice touch.  Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in 1975 although the flag wasn’t officially adopted until 1983 as a modified version of what was essentially the battle flag of the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO, the Mozambique Liberation Front, the Marxist (later styled “democratic socialist”) resistance movement which fought a war of liberation (1964-1974) against the Portuguese colonial forces).  Artistically, just as Marxism (notably often in Stalinist form) had been politically influential in post-colonial Africa, the hammer & sickle exerted an artistic appeal.  The flag of Mozambique has an AK-47 crossed by a hoe sitting atop an open book and is the only national flag upon which appears a modern firearm, the handful of others with guns all using historic relics like muskets or muzzle-loaded cannons.  The Angolan flag has a machete crossing a half gear wheel and both these African examples follow the symbolic model of the hammer and sickle, representing variously the armed struggle against repression, the industrial workers and the peasantry.

Intertwingle

Intertwingle (pronounced in-tur-wing-guhl)

(1) To confuse or entangle together; to enmesh, to muddle.

(2) As intertwingularity, in computing and systems analysis & organization (of documents, data etc), to interconnect or interrelate in a complex way which appears to a user simple and lineal.

Late 1800s: Thought to be a portmanteau word, the construct being a blend of intertw(ine) + (interm)ingle and of interest to students of linguistics because it appears independently to have been coined at different times in different places.  The prefix inter- was from the Latin inter- (between, amid), a form of the prepositional inter (between).  Twine was from the Middle English twyn, twine & twin, from the Old English twīn (double thread, twist, twine, linen-thread, linen), from the Proto-West Germanic twiʀn (thread, twine), from the primitive Indo-European dwisnós (double), from dwóh (two).  The construct of mingle ming (from the From Middle English mingen & mengen, from the Old English mengan (to mix, combine, unite, associate with, consort, cohabit with, disturb, converse), from the Proto-West Germanic mangijan (“to mix, knead”), from the primitive Indo-European menk- (to rumple, knead)). It was cognate with the Dutch mengen (to mix, blend, mingle), the German mengen (to mix), the Danish mænge (to rub), the Old English ġemang (mixture, union, troop, crowd, multitude, congregation, assembly, business, cohabitation)) +‎ -le (a frequentative suffix of verbs, indicating repetition or continuousness).  It was cognate with the Dutch mengen (to mingle, mix) and the German mengen (to mingle, mix).  Interwingle is a noun & verb, intertwingling & intertwingularity are nouns and intertwingled is an adjective; the noun plural is intertwingularities.  By implication, the nouns intertwinglism & intertwinglist should exist but seem not to have been used.

Lindsay Lohan, who has led an intertwingled life.  The publicity shot for Just My Luck (2006) was wholly serendipitous and did not come from a session.

Intertwingle was used by Manmatha Nath Dutt (1855–1912) in The Dharma Sastra (Volume 1, 1896), one of his collections of translations into English of ancient Sanskrit & Hindu texts; under the Raj, he was a prolific translator and author and his use appears to the first known coining.  As a comic device, it was used by Montgomery Gordon Rice of Bradley Polytechnic Institute in a performance of Esmeralda (a fictional character in Victor Hugo's (1802–1885) novel Notre-Dame de Paris. 1482 (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, 1831)) conducted during the April 1901 graduation ceremony and many instances of use have been jocular.  As a noun, the author Henry James (1843–1916) applied it as a nickname for a group of his Emmet female cousins (all of who were painters) and the use in that sense was in the vein of the way Admiral Lord Charles Beresford (1846-1919) would use “the souls” of some female acquaintances he thought discussed their feelings entirely too much.  For the US portraitist John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) it was his nickname for his early twentieth century genre paintings of his nieces, the Ormond sisters.  Sargent’s reference was to “element interchangeability”: his use of shawls as a motif and the easy substitution of one model for another, their artistic presence defined less by individual identity than the convoluted poses.  Coincidentally, as well as being one of Henry James’ “intertwingles”, the US artist Jane Emmet de Glehn (1873–1961) was one of Sargent’s muses. )

As the twentieth century progressed and in a number of fields there emerged a new literature exploring the concept of “everything being connected to everything else” and Tracy Baldwin Augur (1896-1974) found it handy (apparently as an eye-catching linguistic novelty) in a 1954 paper discussing urban planning, a discipline where truly there is much intertwingling.  Between 1933-1948 Augur had been principal planner for the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) and by the 1950s he was working for the URA (Urban Renewal Administration) and HHFA (Housing and Home Finance Agency), the proliferation of the alphabet soup of acronyms which had begun under the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, US president 1933-1945) not slowing in the post-war years.  In the discipline of town-planning the phrase “inextricably intertwined” was used in many contexts so perhaps the appearance of intertwingle was inevitable.

The use in IT and the analysis & organization of documents, data and such was in 1974 described as “intertwingularity” and defined as the deep and complex interconnection or interrelation of digital objects of any kind, and in a teleological sense the purpose was to make the connections permanently stable and accessible to users in a way which would seem seamless and lineal.  The noun intertwingularity was coined by US sociologist Dr Theodor Holm "Ted" Nelson (b 1937) and it appeared first in his book Computer Lib/Dream Machines (1974) which discussed the complexity of interrelations in human knowledge.  Dr Nelson’s most enduring legacy is Project Xanadu which, remarkably, has been in development since 1960, the objective (which evolved eventually) being a kind of macro-network, unifying all data, accessible through a simple, intuitive user interface.  Conceptually, that does of course sound like the vision imagined when the www (world wide web) was bolted onto to the internet but Dr Nelson’s critique of that sprawling, ubiquitous thing is that its “web page” approach is inherently flawed because, as IRL (in real life) when pages can be thrown away, deleting a page means a dozen or a billion hyperlinks once active around the planet are rendered instantly “broken”; what’s lacking is global content management to keep track of it all.  The project’s roots in 1960 envisages what would later be understood as hypertext but acceptance of Dr Nelson’s ideas took some time because he was speculating about hardware and software which did not then exist and would not for decades attain critical mass and the landmark Computer Lib/Dream Machines, while fleshing out the details, did so in a discursive manner better suited to modernist experimental fiction.

Conceptual illustration of intertwingling from Computer Lib/Dream Machines (1974).

Dr Nelson seems always to have liked the word “everything” (although he does allow that for some things, “most” is better”) and the most intriguing speculation, built on the notion of “everything being intertwingled”, was tied up with quantum entanglement which suggests connectivity need not be based on proximity or visible connection.  In this theory, what is now described as “dark energy” (the thus far undetectable stuff in the universe which the math of what has been detected suggests must exist) is thought potentially to be “time” itself, the universe’s most fundamental framework where it’s not so much that everything is “entangled” but that everything is (on a grand scale) a singularity and everything is happening at the same time with only the operation of (distance-based) relativity creating an observer’s perception of difference.

Applied Intertwingling: In fields like political science or organizational behaviour, the intertwingling of objects is often illustrated in ways which depict not only the existence but also the nature of a relationship.

Intoxicatingly simple in concept, the practical implications of the Xanadu resulted in something which became more complex as layers were implemented because each made obvious that more layers still were needed.  Lacking resources, Dr Nelson, cognizant of developments in computer networking, announced Xanadu should be thought a mechanism for handing information (regardless of physical location) as if existed in a unified repository.  While he didn’t use the phrase “virtual library” that seems to be how it would now be understood and in an interesting harbinger of how Facebook would in the twenty-first century describe its curated macro-space, he described Xanadu as a “docuverse”.  That was an interesting vision but development required cubic money and it wasn’t until the early 1980s when the adoption by business of the original IBM PC (1981) as a kind of corporate standard that funding was found, building on a file addressing system based on “tumblers” which were an implementation of transfinite numbers.  Transfinite numbers exist in the branch of set theory, a fundamental area of mathematical logic that studies collections of objects; set theory is the formal framework onto which infinity can be mapped.  For Xanadu to be scalable to an infinite number of documents, the numbers in use needed to be infinite but because one layer of the process was indexing, those numbers needed to be distinct in size and order, thus the utility of the transfinite.  Except in some vague conceptual sense, it’s really only (some) mathematicians who understand all this.

Xanadu’s original 17 rules

(1) Every Xanadu server is uniquely and securely identified.

(2) Every Xanadu server can be operated independently or in a network.

(3) Every user is uniquely and securely identified.

(4) Every user can search, retrieve, create and store documents.

(5) Every document can consist of any number of parts each of which may be of any data type.

(6) Every document can contain links of any type including virtual copies (“transclusions”) to any other document in the system accessible to its owner.

(7) Links are visible and can be followed from all endpoints.

(8) Permission to link to a document is explicitly granted by the act of publication.

(9) Every document can contain a royalty mechanism at any desired degree of granularity to ensure payment on any portion accessed, including virtual copies (“transclusions”) of all or part of the document.

(10) Every document is uniquely and securely identified.

(11) Every document can have secure access controls.

(12) Every document can be rapidly searched, stored and retrieved without user knowledge of where it is physically stored.

(13) Every document is automatically moved to physical storage appropriate to its frequency of access from any given location.

(14) Every document is automatically stored redundantly to maintain availability even in case of a disaster.

(15) Every Xanadu service provider can charge their users at any rate they choose for the storage, retrieval and publishing of documents.

(16) Every transaction is secure and auditable only by the parties to that transaction.

(17) The Xanadu client-server communication protocol is an openly published standard. Third-party software development and integration is encouraged.

By the early 1990s it was clear Xanadu “worked”, at least at the scale existing hardware made possible but the emergence of the www (World Wide Web) diverted the industry’s attention and by 1995 when it was clear the Web had gained critical mass, the view seemed to be Xanadu might be a slightly better or slightly worse mousetrap and soon comparisons were being with the “OS (operating system) war” between Microsoft’s Windows NT and IBM’s OS/2.  Dr Nelson however was not deterred and successive releases of implementations of parts of the Project Xanadu model were in the twenty-first century released until OpenXanadu was in 2014 made available on the Web.  Explaining how it differed from hypertext as it was done on the Web, Dr Nelson claimed HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) was inherently flawed because, the metaphor being one of bound pages, it was so prone to broken links as one page was torn off, that meaning collectively an array of dozens (or millions, trillions etc) of dead links to other dead pages.  What tumblers did was provide an address able to maintain linkages to not merely a single object (which HTTP envisages as a “piece of paper”) but an infinite set of links, achieved because transfinite numbers can handle what can be visualized as a cascade of information, the linkages between which are unlimited; this was the inheritance of the “docuverse”.  Those impressed by both the potential and drawbacks of the Blockchain will be struck by the overlaps.

Knowledge Nation, which at the time seemed a good idea but wasn’t suited to the banality of modern politics.

For the 2001 federal election in Australia, a part of the opposition Australian Labor Party’s (ALP) platform was “Knowledge Nation”, a summary of its education policy, developed by polymath and former minister for science Barry Jones (b 1932).  During the campaign, what was substantive in Knowledge Nation was little discussed because the government immediately attacked the illustrative chart which was a representation of the many components connected within the education system.  Derided as “Noodle Nation”, it was an example of why it’s no longer wise for politicians to offer anything much beyond a TWS (three word slogan).  The reaction today to a political party circulating something like The Federalist (a collection of 85 articles and essays (1787-1788) advocating the ratification of the Constitution of the United States) would be something like the “noodle nation moment”.  These days, intertwingling is best neither seen nor heard.

Psyche

Psyche (pronounced sahyk or sahy-kee)

(1) In the mythology of Ancient Greece and Classical Rome, the personification of the soul.  The beautiful nymph was originally a mortal princess who later married Eros (Cupid, the god of love), was deified and bore him a daughter Hedone (Voluptas).

(2) In the popular imagination, the human soul, spirit, or mind.

(3) In psychology & psychoanalysis, the mental or psychological structure of a person, especially as a motive force (as opposed to the pure physicality of the body).  The psyche is the centre of thought, feeling, and motivation, consciously & unconsciously directing the body's reactions to external influences (the social and physical environment).

(4) In philosophy (in neo-Platonism), the second emanation of the One, regarded as a universal consciousness and as the animating principle of the world.

(5) A variant of the noun, verb & adjective psych (mostly in colloquial use as a clipping of psych(ology)).

(6) In cosmology, a main belt asteroid.

(7) A female given name.

(8) A small white butterfly, Leptosia nina, family Pieridae, of Asia and Australasia; a taxonomic genus within the family Psychidae (bagworm moths).  The butterfly was the symbol of the waif Psykhē, thus the frequency with which depictions of a “departed soul, spirit, ghost” were rendered as winged creatures with some resemblance to butterfly.

(9) As “psyche knot”, a technique of knotting up a woman's hair, said to be imitative of the style used in Ancient Greece but because so many of these notions were based on depictions by Medieval and Renaissance artists, the historical efficacy is dubious (known also as the Grecian knot).

(10) As “psyche mirror”, a tall (originally free-standing, framed & mounted between two posts which allowed vertically to pivot) mirror.  Psyche mirrors are still used as decorative pieces although most full-length mirrors are now wall-mounted or function also a wardrobe doors.  The name was gained from the idea that because it reflected the whole body, it symbolized introspection.  The alternative name is “cheval glass”.

1650s: The seventeenth century adoption of “psyche” as an expression of the notion of “animating spirit, the human spirit or mind” reflected the understanding of the time of what was described as “the soul, mind, spirit; life, one's life, the invisible animating principle or entity which occupies and directs the physical body; understanding, the mind (as the seat of thought), faculty of reason”; something which inhabited and controlled the body yet was something separate.  It was used also of the “ghost, spirit of a dead person” although there were differences in interpretation between the religious and secular.  What has long been a puzzle is the extent of the influence of psȳ́chein (to blow, breathe; to cool, to make dry”.  The Ancient Greek ψυχή (psukhḗ) (“soul, spirit” and literally “breath”) was a derivative of psȳ́chein (thus the uses connected with “to live”), the construct being ψῡ́χω (psū́khō) (I blow) +‎ -η (-ē) but the problem is this seems ever to have enjoyed the meaning “breath”, even in the writings of Homer.  More than one etymologist has been recorded as being “tempted” by the long documented connection with the primitive Indo-European root bhes- (to blow, to breathe) which was the source of the Sanskrit bhas- (thought probably imitative).  However, all admit the existence of a link is scant and the theory is thus a conjecture.  Psyche is a noun & verb, psyched is a verb & adjective and psyching is a verb; the noun plural is psyches.

Psych (never psyche) was used as US student slang for the academic study of “psychology” (later extended to references in various senses) by 1895.  Psychology was from the French psychologie, from the Renaissance Latin psychologia, emulating the Greek construct ψυχή (psukhḗ) + -λογία (-logía) (study of), thus in English as psych(o)- +‎ -ology.  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism etc).

Just as Eros (Cupid) was smitten, the word “psyche” seems to have seduced all whoc wrote on the subject of the soul (however understood).  There was much sense development in Platonic philosophy theological writing, especially that written under Jewish influence; in Biblical use the Greek word was used of (1) “the soul as the seat of feelings, desires, affections etc”, (2) “the soul regarded as a moral being designed for everlasting life” and (3) “the soul as an essence which differs from the body and is not dissolved by death.”  In English, the meaning “human soul” dates from the mid-seventeenth century while the modern sense in psychology of “mind” is said only to have some into use after 1910 which seems surprisingly late.  By 1914 the profession was using the verb “psych” to mean “to subject to psychoanalysis” (ie a shortened form of to “psychoanalyse” and the jargon entered general use, from 1934 used as the term “psych out” (to to outsmart) in baseball, (US) football and also in commerce.  In 1952 it was documented in the card game bridge as meaning “to make a bid meant to deceive an opponent” (bridge players thinking their game too complex for the poker player’s mere “bluff”.  By the early 1960s “psych out” had the general meaning “to unnerve” while to “psych (oneself) up” emerged a decade later, building on “psyched up” (stimulate (oneself), prepare mentally for a special effort) first appeared in newspapers in the US in 1968.

The psyche knot

The Hairdo Handbook: A Complete Guide to Hair Beauty (1964) by Dorothea Zack Hanle (1918-1999); the psyche knot was discussed in Chapter XVIII: Handling and Styling Long Hair.  It would be a different, more difficult, world without the "invisible hairpin".

Although Dorothea Zack Hanle was for some time editor of HairDo magazine, she’s remains best remembered for her food writing, her career including a long tenure as an editor at Bon Appetit, several cookbooks and being one of the founders of Les Dames d'Escoffier, an international women's organization that promotes fine dining and wine.  Ms Hanle had quite a journalistic range, he publications including The Surfer's Handbook (1968), Cooking With Flowers (1971), Cooking Wild Game (1974) and the co-authored children's cookbook, The Golden Ladle (1945).  Additionally, she published also on subjects as diverse as gardening, diet and exercise.

The psyche knot (known also as the Grecian knot) was said to be imitative of the style used in Ancient Greece but because so many of these notions were based on depictions by Medieval and Renaissance artists, the historical efficacy is dubious.  Psyche (alone or with Eros (Cupid), her sisters or others) was a popular subject and while in many paintings her hair is stacked high, it was also not unusual for her tresses to be shown flowing as the German illustrator and painter Friedrich Paul Thumann (1834-1908, Berlin) chose for Cupid and Psyche (1900, left).  In Psyche showing her Sisters her Gifts from Cupid, (circa 1753 (centre)) Jean-Honoré Fragonard, (1732–1806) even showed her “having her hair styled”, presumably with an eponymous knot.  In his Expressionist Cupid and Psyche (1907, right), Edvard Munch (1863-1944) decided she deserved a knot.  Now hung in the Munch Museum in Oslo, it’s of interest because it was painted early in the period when Munch had begun to paint human figures, something which would later make him famous, Cupid and Psyche one of 22 works in his collection called The Frieze of Life.  Ominously, the painting was loaned to Musée d'Orsay (Museum d’Orsay) in Paris where it was part of the Crime and Punishment exhibition, organized to emphasize to the population those crimes attracting a death sentence.

The technique used to tie the psyche know wasn’t new in the 1920s but it was then it became a thing.  At that time, the “bob” had become a popular style among bright young things and their many imitators, part of a trend which was both an aesthetic call and a marker of first-wave feminism, a reaction to previous fashions in which clothing had been constricting and voluminous.  Then, called the “garçonne” (a feminized version of the French garçon (boy)), it now remembered as the “flapper style”, distinguished by an angular, slender silhouette, the irony of the look (for all but the genetically lucky) that having abandoned corsets during World War I (1914-1918), most were compelled to seek the help of girdles, garments rather less comfortable than modern shapewear.  Short hairstyles (the bob or the shingle) were an essential part of the “boyish look”, albeit offset by the deliberately obvious application of rouge, eyeliner and lipstick which was famously red.  Some women however wanted “a bob each way” (as it were), liking the short-hair look but wanting to retain the flexibility to display a mane when circumstances demanded or an opportunity was presented.  The solution can be thought of as the “faux bob” and while there were a number of ways to achieve this (including the famous “side-pods”), the psyche know was the simplest to execute and, done properly, would survive an evening’s dancing without the dreaded, annoying “flyaway bits”

The psyche mirror

La Psyché (known in English as The Psyche Mirror, 1876, left), oil on canvas by the French artist Berthe Morisot (1841-1895), Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid, Spain shows a woman before a classic “psyche mirror” (known originally as a “psyche glass” (looking-glass still the preferred form among a certain subset (the one in which at cards a jack is called a knave)).  Lindsay Lohan (right) illustrates this generation’s use of the psyche mirror for full-length selfies.  Ms Lohan was with child when this selfie was snapped in New York during 2022 (note the comfortable shoes).  The original psyche mirrors were tall, free-standing, framed & mounted between two posts which allowed them vertically to pivot), the advantage being it made it possible for the subject to view herself in a greater aspect range.  The free-standing designs are still sometimes used as decorative pieces but most full-length mirrors are now wall-mounted or function also a wardrobe doors.  The name was gained from the idea that because it reflected the whole body, it symbolized introspection.  The alternative name is “cheval glass”, from the French form chevel glace (mirror).  Chevel was from the French cheval (horse, supporting frame), from the Middle French cheval, from the Old French cheval, from the Late Latin caballus (horse), from the Classical Latin caballus (pack horse) of uncertain origin.  The term thus deconstructs as glass (mirror) mounted in a supporting frame.

Cupid, Psyche and the Nectar of the Gods

In Greek mythology, Psyche was the youngest and loveliest of a king’s three daughters.  So haunting was Psyche’s beauty that people travelled from afar to pay homage, neglecting the worship of Venus (Aphrodite), the goddess of love and beauty, instead venerating the nymph.  Venus became enraged at finding her altars deserted, men instead turning their devotions to the young virgin, watching as she passed, singing her praises and strewing her way with chaplets and flowers.

Indignant at the exaltation of a mortal, Venus began her righteous rant.  "Am I then to be eclipsed in my honors by a mere mortal girl?  In vain then did that royal shepherd, whose judgment was approved by Jove himself, give me the palm of beauty over my illustrious rivals, Pallas and Juno. But she shall not so quietly usurp my honors. I will give her cause to repent of so unlawful a beauty."  Venus summoned her winged son, the mischievous Cupid and telling him of Psyche, ordered her revenge.  "My dear son, punish that contumacious beauty; give your mother a revenge as sweet as her injuries are great; infuse into the bosom of that haughty girl a passion for some low, mean, unworthy being, so that she may reap a mortification as great as her present exultation and triumph."

Obediently, Cupid set to his task.  In the garden of Venus lay two fountains, one of sweet waters, the other of bitter.  Cupid filled two amber phials, one from each fountain and suspending them from the top of his quiver, hastened to the chamber of Psyche, finding her asleep.  He shed a few drops from the bitter fountain over her lips and although though the sight of her moved him almost to pity, touched her side with the point of his arrow.  At the touch she awoke and her eyes gazed upon the invisible Cupid which so enchanted him he became confused and pricked himself with his own arrow.  Helplessly in love, his only thought now was to repair the mischief he had done and he poured the balmy drops of joy over all her silken blonde ringlets.

Psyche, henceforth frowned upon by Venus, gained no benefit from her charms.  While all cast covetous eyes upon her and all spoke her praises, not prince, plebeian or peasant ever asked for her hand in marriage.  Her two sisters had become betrothed to princes but Psyche sat in solitude, feeling cursed by the beauty which had failed to awaken love.  The king and queen, thinking they had incurred the wrath of the gods turned for guidance to the oracle of Apollo who answered: “The virgin is destined for the bride of no mortal lover. Her future husband awaits her on the top of the mountain. He is a monster whom neither gods nor men can resist."

Her parents, distraught, abandoned themselves to grief but Psyche was fatalistic, saying "Why, my dear parents, do you now lament me? You should rather have grieved when the people showered upon me undeserved honors, and with one voice called me a Venus. I now perceive I am victim to that name.  I submit.  Lead me to that rock to which my unhappy fate has destined me."  Accordingly, amid the lamentations of all, she was taken to the peak of the mountain and there left alone.  When the tearful girl stood at the summit, the gentle Zephyr raised her from the earth and carried her on the breeze, bringing her to rest in a flowery dale where she laid down to sleep.  When she awoke, refreshed, she looked around and beheld nearby a grove of tall and stately trees.  Entering the forest, she discovered in its midst a fountain from which bubbled crystal-clear waters and nearby, a splendid palace, so magnificent she knew it the work not of mortal hands, but the retreat of some god.  Drawn by admiration and wonder, she ventured to enter the door.  Amazed at what she saw, she walked along a marble floor so polished it shimmered, golden pillars supported a vaulted roof, walls were enriched with carvings and paintings of fantastic beasts.  Everything upon which her eye fell delighted her.

Soon, although she saw no one, she heard a voice.  "Sovereign lady, all that you see is yours. We whose voices you hear are your servants and shall obey all your commands with utmost care.  Retire, should you please, to your chamber, recline upon your bed of down and when you see fit, repair to the bath.  Your supper awaits in the alcove”.  Psyche took her bath and seated herself in the alcove, whereupon a table appeared laden with extraordinary delicacies of food and nectarous wines.   While she ate, she heard the playing of lute and harp and the harmony of song.

That night she met he husband but he came only in the darkness, fleeing before the dawn, but his words and caresses were of love and inspired in her a like passion.  Often she would beg him to stay so she might behold him in the light but he refused, telling her never to attempt to see him, for no good would come of it and that he would rather have her love him as a man than adore him as a god.  This, Psyche accepted but the days grew long and lonely and she began to feel she was living in a gilded cage.  One night, when her husband came, she told him of her distress, her charms enough to coax from him his unwilling acquiescence that her sisters could visit.  Delighted, she summoned the obedient Zephyr who brought them to the mountain and in happiness, they embraced.

The splendor and celestial delights of Psyche’s palace astonished her sisters but also aroused their envy and they began to pepper her with questions about her husband and she told them he was a beautiful youth who spent his days hunting in the mountains.  Unconvinced, the soon drew from her that she had never seen him and they began to fill her mind with dark suspicions, recalling the Pythian oracle had declared her doomed to marry a direful and tremendous monster.  Psyche protested but they told her the folk living in the valley say the husband is a terrible and monstrous serpent, amusing himself while nourishing her with dainties that he may by and by devour her.  They told to one night to take with her a lamp and sharp blade so that when he slept she might light the lamp and see his true form.  If truly he is a monster they told her, "hesitate not and cut off its head".

Psyche tried to resist her sisters’ persuasions but knew she was curious and that night she took to bed a lamp and a long, sharp knife.  When he had fallen to sleep, silently she arose and lit her lamp, beholding but the most beautiful of the gods, his golden ringlets falling over his snowy neck, two dewy wings on his shoulders whiter than snow, with shining feathers like the tender blossoms of spring.  Entranced, as she moved her lamp better to see his face, a drop of hot oil fell on the shoulder of the god and startled, he opened his eyes and fixed them upon her.  They both were frozen for a few seconds, then suddenly and without a word, he spread his wings and flew out of the window.  Psyche, crying in despair, in vain endeavored to follow but fell from the window to the ground below.

Hearing her fall, Cupid for a moment paused in his flight and turned to her saying, "Oh faithless Psyche, is it thus you repay my love? After I disobeyed my mother's commands and made you my wife, will you think me a monster and would cut off my head?  Go, return to your sisters, who you trust more than me.  I punish you no more than to forever leave you for love cannot dwell with suspicion."  With those words, he flew off, leaving poor Psyche crying into the earth.  For hours she sobbed and then looked around, but her palace and gardens had vanished and she found herself in a field in the city where her sisters dwelt.  She repaired thither and told them her story at which, though pretending to grieve with her, the two evil sisters inwardly rejoiced for both thought as one: that Cupid might now choose one of them.  Both the next morning silently arose and snuck secretly to the mountain where each called upon Zephyr to bear them to his lord but leaping up, there was no Zephyr to carry them on the breeze and each fell down the precipice to their deaths.

The devastated Psyche meanwhile wandered.  Day and night, without food or rest, she searched for her husband and one evening saw in the distance a magnificent temple atop a lofty mountain and she felt her heart beat, wondering if perhaps there was Cupid.  She walked to the temple and there saw heaps of corn, some in loose ears and some in sheaves, mingled with ears of barley.  Scattered about, lay sickles and rakes, the instruments of harvest, without order, as if thrown carelessly from the weary reapers' hands in the sultry hours of the day.  This unseemly confusion disturbed the neat and tidy Psyche and she put herself to work, separating and sorting everything and putting all in its proper place, believing she ought to neglect none of the gods, but prove by her piety to prove she was worthy of their help.  The holy Ceres, whose temple it was, finding her so religiously employed, thus spoke to her, "Oh Psyche, truly your are worthy of our pity, though I cannot shield you from the frowns of Venus, I can teach you how best to allay her displeasure. Go, then, and voluntarily surrender yourself to your lady and sovereign, and try by modesty and submission to win her forgiveness, and perhaps her favor will restore you the husband you have lost."  Filled with both fear and hope, Psyche made her way to the temple of Venus.

Venus met her with anger.  "Most undutiful and faithless of servants," said she, "do you at last remember you have a mistress or have you come to see your sick husband, the one injured by the wound given him by his worthless wife?  You are so ill favored you can be worthy of your lover only by showing industry and diligence.  I shall put you to work".  She led Psyche to temple’s storehouse in which sat vast piles of wheat, barley, vetches, beans and lentils, the food for her birds.  “Separate these grains, put them all in sacks and have it done by night” she commanded, leaving her to the task.  Shocked, Psyche sat silent, moving not a finger.  While she despaired, Cupid ordered an ant, a native of the fields, to bring all ants from the anthill and they gathered on the piles.  Quickly and with the efficiency of their breed, they took grain by grain, making perfect parcels of each and when done, vanished from sight.  As twilight fell, Venus returned from a banquet of the gods and seeing the sacks neatly stacked, became enraged.  "This is no work of yours, wicked one, but his, whom to your own and his misfortune you have enticed."  So saying, she threw her a piece of black bread for her supper and stormed off.

Next morning Venus ordered Psyche to be called and said to her, "Behold yonder grove which stretches along the margin of the water.  There you will find sheep feeding without a shepherd, with golden-shining fleeces on their backs.  Go now, fetch me some of that precious wool gathered from every one of their fleeces."  Standing on the riverbank, wondering at the difficulty of her task, Psyche was about to cross but river god made the reeds speak, telling her "Oh maiden, tempt not the dangerous flood, nor venture among those rams for as long as the sun shines, they burn with a cruel rage to destroy mortals with their sharp horns or rude teeth.  But when the noontide sun has driven them to the shade, and the serene spirit of the flood has lulled them to rest, you may then cross in safety, and you will find the woolly gold sticking to the bushes and the trunks of the trees."  Psyche did as they said and returned with her arms full of the golden fleece but Venus was not pleased.  "Well I know it is by none of your own doings that you have succeeded I do not believe you are of use but I have another task for you.  Here, take this box and go your way to the infernal shades, and give this box to Proserpine and say, 'my mistress Venus desires you to send her a little of your beauty, for in tending her sick son she has lost some of her own'.  Be not too long on your errand, for I must paint myself with it to appear this evening at the circle of the gods."

Psyche now believed her own destruction was at hand and, with no wish to delay what was not to be avoided, dashed to the top of a high tower, preparing to cast herself headlong, thus to descend the shortest way to the shades below.  But then, a voice from the tower said to her, "Why, poor unlucky girl, do you design to put an end to your days in so dreadful a manner? And what cowardice makes you sink under this last danger when you have been so miraculously supported in all your former?"  Then the voice told her how by a certain cave she might reach the realms of Pluto, and how to avoid all the dangers of the road, to pass by Cerberus, the three-headed dog, and prevail on Charon, the ferryman, to take her across the black river and bring her back again. But the voice also cautioned, "When Proserpine has given you the box filled with her beauty, you must never once open or look into the box nor allow your curiosity to pry into the treasure of the beauty of the goddesses."

Encouraged, Psyche obeyed the advice and travelled safely to the kingdom of Pluto. Admitted to the palace of Proserpine, she delivered her message from Venus and soon, she was handed the box, shut and filled with the precious commodity. Then she returned the way she came, glad once more to be in the light of day.  But as she walked along the path, a longing desire overcame her, an urge to look into the box for, as she imagined, a touch of the divine beauty would make her more desired by Cupid so, delicately, she opened the box.  But in there was nothing of beauty but only an infernal and truly Stygian sleep which, being set free from its prison, took possession of her, and she fell in the road where she stood, plunged into a deep sleep, lying there without sense or motion.

But Cupid was now recovered and could no longer bear the absence of his beloved Psyche and slipping through a crack in the window, he flew to where Psyche lay.  He gathered up the sleep from her and closed it again in the box, waking her with the gentlest touch of one of his arrows. "Again," said he, "have you almost perished by the same curiosity.  But now perform exactly the task imposed on you by my mother, and I will take care of the rest."  Then Cupid, as swift as lightning, presented himself before Jupiter with his supplication.  Jupiter was impressed and so earnestly did he plead the cause of the lovers that he won the consent of Venus and on hearing this, sent Mercury to bring Psyche up to the heavenly assembly, and when she arrived, he handed her a goblet ambrosia saying, "Drink this, Psyche, and be immortal; nor shall Cupid ever break away from the knot in which he is tied, but these nuptials shall be perpetual."  Thus Psyche became at last united to Cupid, and in time, born to them was a daughter whose name was Pleasure.

Wedding Banquet of Cupid and Psyche (circa 1517) by Raphael (1483–1520).

The story of Cupid and the OCD Psyche is told by the Roman writer Apuleius (circa 124-circa 170) in three chapters in his rather risqué picaresque novel, The Metamorphoses of Apuleius (which Saint Augustine dubbed Asinus aureus (The Golden Ass (by which it’s today known)).  The Golden Ass is notable as the only full-length work of fiction in Classical Latin to have survived in its entirety and is a work with aspects which would be regarded as novel centuries later, including fantastical imagery, passages like fairy tales and elements which would now be called magic realism.  Like many modern fairy tales, there is a moral to the story and for Apuleius it was that it is love which makes to soul immortal and there was no need for subtlety, Cupid the son of the goddess of desire and Psyche's name originally meant soul.

With the re-discovery (and some re-invention) of much of antiquity during the Renaissance, the story gained much popularity and attracted the interest of artists and from Raphael’s (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, 1483–1520) studio came the best known evocation.  One of the scenes is the wedding feast, painted in the form of a hanging tapestry.  Psyche’s guest list was a roll-call of the gods, Ganymede, Apollo, Bacchus and Jupiter are all at the table, the Graces and the Hours in attendance.  The artists (for some the work was executed by professional painters under Raphael’s guidance) do have some fun, very much in the spirit of Apuleius for above the flying Mercury sits, artfully arranged, a suggestive conjunction of certain vegetables and fruits.

The Wedding Feast of Cupid and Psyche (1532) by Giulio Romano.

The romance of Cupid and Psyche drew other artists including the Italian Giulio Romano (Giulio Pippi, circa 1499-1546), a student of Raphael whose influence permeates.  While not highly regarded by critics and better remembered as an architect, Romano is of note because he was among the earliest of the artists whose work can be called Mannerist and certainly his wedding feast painting includes the mythological, a staged and theatrical setting, eroticism and an unusual sense of perspective; all characteristic of Mannerist art although he remained entirely naturalistic in the callipygian rendering of Psyche’s buttocks.

In Shakespeare's late drama The Winter's Tale there’s an allusion to Romano as “that rare Italian master” but despite the bard’s apparent admiration, historians of art treat him as little more than a footnote; the shadow Raphael cast was long.  Some critics seem determined to devalue his work, the Catholic Encyclopaedia (1913) noting it was “prolific and workmanlike, always competent…” but with “…no originality; as a painter, he is merely a temperament, a prodigious worker. His manual dexterity is unaccompanied by any greatness of conception or high moral principle.  His lively but superficial fancy, incapable of deep emotion, of religious feeling, or even of observation, attracted him to neutral subjects, to mythological paintings, and imaginary scenes from the world of fable. Therein under the cloak of humanism, he gave expression to a sensualism rather libertine than poetical, an epicureanism unredeemed by any elevated or noble quality.  It is this which wins for Giulio his distinctive place in art.  His conception of form was never quite original; it was always a clever and bookish compromise between Raphael and Michelangelo.  His sense of color grows ever louder and uglier, his ideas are void of finesse, whatever brilliancy they show is second-hand. His single distinctive characteristic is the doubtful ease with which he played with the commonplaces of pagandom.  In this respect at least, paintings like those of the Hall of Psyche (1532) are historical landmarks.  It is the first time that an appeal is made to the senses with all the brutal frankness of a modern work”. 

Damning with faint praise perhaps.  Grudgingly, the editors did concede that despite being “…distinguished by such characteristics and marked by such defects, Romano occupies nevertheless an important place in the history of art. More than any other, he aided in propagating the pseudo-classical, half-pagan style of art so fashionable during the seventeenth century. It’s mainly through his influence that after the year 1600 we find so few religious painters in Europe”.

One could hardly expect The Catholic Encyclopedia (sub-titled An International work of reference on the constitution, doctrine, discipline and history of the Catholic Church), to find much worthy in a mannerist (or perhaps anything modern).  Mannerism, novel in some ways as it was, was rarely original in form or content.  It was a reaction against the perceived perfection of the neo-classicism of the High Renaissance and artists from Romano on were drawn to Greek mythology, characters like Psyche and Echo able simply and unambiguously to represent the psychological problems muddied by Christian theology.