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Chapter 3 Specificatio The first gloss writer who thought of painting within the explicit framework of specificatio is Placentin, writing about the Institutes. However, one should not forget that, for him, specificatio was a category subsumed into accessio, and most particularly into “accessio discreta de re ad personam,” which ranked specificatio on a par with the progeny of animals and slaves and with the islands born of the sea. Placentin incarnates a defense of art and technique that is not often present in the debate. Envisaged within the framework of the rules of accessio, painting characteristically inverts the principle by which things that exist regardless of their support dominate, for, on the contrary, painting absorbs its support (conversely, the principle of superficies solo cedit governs writing, to the extent that writing gets incorporated into the parchment). However, if envisaged under the logic of that particular form of accessio that is Placentin’s specificatio , painting must be ruled by the media sententia, that is, according to a logic of irreducibility of the raw material in its original state, which allocates ownership of the icona or imago to the painter, as specificanti: “Sed nobis media sententia placuit; ergo pictor, cum dominus sit picturae, directo poterit iconam ab omni possessore vindicare”(But we favor the intermediary opinion; the painter, as he is the owner of his painting, will be able to propose a rei vindicatia directa [the owner’s typical act]).”1 Those two terms, icona and imago, used by Placentin to designate the tabula picta, do not appear in the text of the quaestio, but imago is used in the D.50.16.13 and 14. Placentin envisages the value of a painting in terms of dignitas; and it necessarily partakes in the creation of a new species, but under certain conditions. Before conceding that painting produces a new species, it is necessary to evaluate its subject, the materials used, and probably the technical skills used in its making. The dignitas is the condition of specificatio. For Placentin, the union of colors to a surface has not in and of itself the power to produce a new species. Only the dignitas of the subject represented, Specificatio 39 the quality of the colors, and the careful crafting of the finished work can lead to the existence of a radically new thing, irreducible to the sum of its parts. Placentin’s arguments will be endorsed by Odofredo, who emphasizes the subject of the representation, and these arguments bring the word dignitas closer to one of the meanings proposed by Du Cange: Dignitas “idem quod Majestas, imago et effigies alicujus Sancti” (Dignitas has the same meaning as Majestas; it designates the image and the representation of a Saint).2 Nonetheless , it is true that, even if there is no new species, the painter must retain the icona, not by right of specificatio, but because it is impossible to separate the painting from its support without destroying it. Scripta, licet sint aurea, cedunt chartae [. . .] Si quis in aliena tabula pinxerit, quidam dicunt picturam tabulae cedere, sicut litera chartae (quia nec litera sine charta, nec pictura sine tabula esse potest) alii putauerunt semper picturae tabulam cedere, propter dignitatem picturae [. . .] In summa notandum est: cum sit pictura non fieri speciem; ergo licet possit abrasa redire in tabulam, non tamen icona domini tabulae sed pictoris fiet; maxime: cum id sine laesione fieri non possit; vel si concedatur factam esse speciem, dicatur in pictura speciale: meo iuditio, pictura hic intelligitur, si quis depinxerit hominem non ursum uel leonem. Item; meo iuditio, ita intelligatur , si pictura non de calce uel encausto conficiatur, sed de coloribus uariis confectis depingatur. [The writings, be they in gold, appertain to the charta . . . If someone painted on someone else’s board, some say the painting appertains to the board, just as the letters appertain to the charta (because the letters cannot survive without the charta, nor the painting without the board); others think the board always appertains to the painting by reason of the dignity of the painting . . . In sum, one must note the following: even though a painting is at issue, there is no new species; thus, even though the scraped board may become a board again, the icon must belong to the painter, and not to the owner of the board, all the more so that it cannot be done without damage; but if we admitted that a new species was produced, we would say so about a particular painting , and to my mind...

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