Teodulfo de Orléans y las Artes Liberales

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to comment a medieval poem called De septem artibus liberalibus in quadam pictura depictis, whose author, Theodulf of Orléans, was a bishop, politician, writer and, above all, the most eminent poet in carolingian Court. The poem's subject is an alegorical description of Wisdom and the Seven Liberal Arts, a recurrent motiv in the medieval iconographic art, due to the influence of writers as Prudentius, Capella or Boethius. Our purpose in this work is to go deep into the symbolic interpretation of the images used, to set up the literary sources which have probably influenced the poem and to explain the author's opinion in relation to the role the Liberal Arts played in order to acquire the true wisdom or vera sapientia.