The Iconographic Tradition--Compasses as an Attribute

In the iconographical tradition the compass is used mainly as an attribute of mythic or allegorical personifications. The oldest figure with compasses is Urania, one of the Muses, who patronizes astronomy. In the Greek and Roman iconography, however, Urania is usually with a rod for measuring. This rod was changed for compasses only in later ages.

Then it is understandable that some allegorical personifications, especially those who personify scientific disciplines to which the use of compasses is essential: Astronomy, Geometry and Mathematics have compasses. In the Gothic façade, such personifications have compasses, though some of them are already destroyed (Mâle 85).

The medieval artist tried to realize the description of Geometry by Martianus Capella:
The Latin word "radius" means a rod or a staff, such as Urania has, but probably in the Middle Ages it was taken to mean compasses.

It is not necessary to say that those figures who represent scientific disciplines have compasses and that instruments surrounding them are taken from real workshops, as a picture of an astronomer shows. Other professionals depicted with compasses are astronomers, mathematicians, astrologers, master builders, geographers (cartgraphers), and so on. The cartographer used compasses and they came to appear on maps. It may be difficult to associate Plantin the printer with compasses. Sometimes an amatuer astronomer is so depicted. An architect naturally has compasses as his instrument. In the title page of a 16th-century book of cosmography, both personificatins and human professionals appear together: for example, Hipparchus, a mathematician, with a quadrant and Geometria with compasses and measures on the left; and Polibius --who is Polibius?--with a cross-staff and Astronomia with an armillary sphere on the right. And there is one more person with compasses, who is Marinus, an almost legendary Greek cosmographer considered to be the predecessor of Ptolemy.

The compass also appears as an attribute with personifications of mental activity: Ripa produces rather plenty of those personifications: Judgment, Parsimony, Perfection, Theory, and Practice, besides Mathematics, Astronomy, Geography, Chorography, Horography. Ripa's Theoria has compasses upside-down on her head. His Beauty in his edition as well as that in the first illustrated edition of 1611 has compasses upside-down on a ball. It is a very curious picture. The compass is not used to measure a ball or draw a circle; it stretches from the ball or the head. Comparing Theoria and Practica, we see the directions are just opposite; Ripa himself explains clearly: In theoria the compass is not in a hand, but stuck in the head; it can be taken to be a visualization of Cusanus' metaphor for the intellectual function of the mind, especially, that of measuring its own dimension: Real persons are often represented as an allegorical figure with compasses: Luise of Savoy poses as Prudentia. This realistic description leads to the similar expression of an allegorical figure; a 17th-century Geometria seems to be a real person. In contrast, Countess Arundel is a real person, but she seems to be an allegorical or professional figure not only with compasses, but also with an armillary sphere. In Pietro Longhi's Geography Lesson there is no more allegorical implication in spite of the similar stance of the lady with compasses; here the focus is turned to another globe: that in the breast of the lady. (Paulson 109)

Why does Dürer's female figure in Melancolia I, then, have a pair of compasses? Is it an attribute ? Then she should be Geometry. Klibansky and others answer Yes and No. Surrounded with mainly geometrical apparatus, however, she "is doing nothing with any of these tools for mind or hand, and that the things on which her eye might rest simply do not exist for her." (316) She lacks something of intellectual concentration which is associated with Geometry. Hence she is not "Geometria" but "Melancolia," who is yet of a new type. When Dürer here puts Melancholy "in a new unity," Although Dürer introduced a new way of associating the figure with its attributes, a pair of compasses as an attribute does not go farther away from its normal use, but the figure with whom it is associated is put into another plane: the compass appears as an attribute of the Creator. The holy Spirit's hand has a pair of compasses and a scale in the early eleventh century illustration. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance as well Christ is often depicted as the Creator with compasses. "As creator of the world, Christ with extended compasses has just set aside a portion of the abyss so that creation may proceed" (Heninger 171).

The Creator's compasses have a distinguishing feature from those which appear as attributes in allegorical figures: the compasses are used to draw a circle in the former, while they are used mainly to measure in the latter. Therefore the divine compasses have a strong association with the form of circle, which leads us to another tradition: the circle imagery tradition.

Before we go on to the circle imagery tradition, it might well be referred to Blake's famous illustrations which apparently show some influence of the picture of the creator with compasses. Blake's creator called "the Ancient Day" extends the two compass-like rays, and Newton measures the world with compassses.
  • Circle Imagery Tradition
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