Monkeys appear throughout the margins of medieval illuminated manuscripts masquerading as priests and nobles, misusing devotional objects, and breaking the fourth wall of pictured space. Artisans, who were referred to in popular culture as simiae naturae (apes of nature), embraced the monkey as an avatar through which to explore the endless possibilities and pitfalls of imitatio (imitation), a central concept in medieval understandings of art. How does this figure reflect ideas about art and image-making? How have additional culturally-based meanings around the monkey influenced its symbolic association with art? THE FOLD is a research project that explores the monkey's association with art in the West. Based primarily on imagery from illuminated manuscripts, the following archive


!["The metaphorical use of simia is frequent in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. ...
[It] can be applied not only to persons but also to abstractions and artifacts which assume the appearance of being something they are not."
Ernst Robert Curtius, “The Ape as Metaphor,” European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1953), 538-40.](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/0aa25a_e07fd6bb31ed4603b9778321743bda70~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_271,h_425,q_90/0aa25a_e07fd6bb31ed4603b9778321743bda70~mv2.jpg)



![This half-page miniature from the ninth-century Stuttgart Psalter depicts the Israelites in the desert confronting two figures representing Egyptian gods - a monkey seated atop a mound and a satyr standing below. The satyr conventionally symbolizes the devil, but all eyes are on the monkey, which is labeled in the singular, feminine declension (simia). Its form is rendered with the contours of its face and back repeated, or doubled like a hologram. This doubling could be read as a sign of "simiolatry," a concept from early western theology that refers to the representation of "false idols" or "graven images." Perhaps the spectral effect conveyed by this form was intended to bring to mind the Apostle Paul’s well-known teaching that “[a]n idol is nothing” (1 Corinthians 8:4), a verse that was referenced often in the writings of Origen and Hrabanus Maurus. The Stuttgart artist here seems to be experimenting with the question of how to represent "nothing" - an illusion, a ghost, a false image.
Stuttgart Landesbibliothek, Cod.bibl.fol.23., The Stuttgart Psalter (Saint-Germaine-des-Pres, c.820-30), folio 93v. Text from Psalms 77:51-54.](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/0aa25a_c41198bb2a0b4220b4e0d5649a2b42de~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_189,h_270,q_90/0aa25a_c41198bb2a0b4220b4e0d5649a2b42de~mv2.jpg)

![This “roundel” is somewhat unusual among others of its kind, which tended to have circular, rectangular, or heraldic frames that broke the diagonal pattern of the common window lattice. The frame has an inharmonious relationship to the angles of the tabletop, bench, trestles, and hunched bodies of the apes. These interior shapes are arranged centrifugally around an empty center in contrast to the altar-like structure typical of interior scenes constructed over the checkered floor.
Encountering the piece at the Cloisters, with the courtyard garden visible through the window, one might sense an aura of studio activity in its asymmetrical play of forms. The Cloisters Collection catalogue notes that, “with its serif-like corners, the tabletop resembles the letter ‘I’." It poses the question, "Are the apes in the process of deconstructing an alphabet?”[1]
New York Met Museum Cloisters, Roundel (stained glass) with Three Apes Building a Trestle Table (German, 1480-1500)
1. Mirror of the Medieval World, ed. Wixom, William D. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999), 202.](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/0aa25a_77f80468d45c46718e3e7c8a62a20b96~mv2_d_1453_1517_s_2.jpg/v1/fill/w_150,h_156,q_90/0aa25a_77f80468d45c46718e3e7c8a62a20b96~mv2_d_1453_1517_s_2.jpg)













