The Tables of Gubbio: a historical mystery?
by Mario Farneti and Bruno Bartoletti
from Hera nr. 47 - november 2003
Giacomo Devoto, renowned linguist, described them as “the most important ritual text of the classical age”, we are talking about the Tables of Gubbio: seven bronze tables of different sizes, dating back to a period between 200 and 70 B.C., whose script describes the complex religious rituals officiated by the Brotherhood of the Atiedii Brothers in the ancient town of Ikuvium, present-day Gubbio.
The Tables of Gubbio in the Palazzo dei Consoli
The tables, partly written in the Etruscan alphabet and partly in Latin, are nevertheless written in the same language: Umbrian. An Indo-European language for which scholars, including Vittore Pisani and the aforementioned Giacomo Devoto, and more recently Augusto Ancillotti, Romolo Cerri and Simone Sisani, have provided an organic translation. The place and date of discovery of the Tables of Gubbio are not known, nor the name of who unearthed them, even though they have been examined over the last five centuries by a large group of scholars, even quoted by Leo Tolstoy in the novel Anna Karenina, illustrated, between 1616 and 1619, by Thomas Dempster in De Etruria Regali, published posthumously in 1723.
In the XVII century, an anonymous chronicler reported that they were found near the church of St. Francis, in an area standing on the ruins of Roman Gubbio “in a huge underground room paved with extremely fine mosaic, with walls covered in marble and adorned with columns in different colours, and niches full of copper statues”. The anonymous author, however, got the number wrong: he reported twelve tables and not seven. Other chroniclers (Concioli, Picotti, Bréal, Lucarelli) claim that they were found in an underground room near the Roman Theatre. Others still, misunderstanding, state that they were discovered in Scheggia, not far from Gubbio, near a temple dedicated to Juppiter Appenninus. This misunderstanding arouse from an act bearing the date of 25th August 1456 transcribed in the Riformanze of the Commune of Gubbio, then under the control of Federico da Montefeltro. The document in question is considered to be the first and only public document in which explicit reference is made to the Tables of Gubbio. It says in it that a certain Paulus Greghori of Sig.a, sold the Tables to the Commune. The abbreviation Sig.a was wrongly interpreted as Sigia or Schigia, present-day Scheggia. In other official documents it is said, however, that Paulus Greghori was from Signa de partibus Sclavonie, the present-day town of Sinij, near Split, on the border with Bosnia. He was probably a former official of the podestà of the time who, having ended his office, settled in Gubbio. If we have a quick look at the title of the deed of transfer, drawn up in Latin, we find, however, another surprise. The text reads, in fact: “Emptio certarum tabularum eburnearum facta per Comune a Paulo Sclavo”, which in English translates as: “Purchase from Paulus Sclavus (or Slav) of some ivory tables on behalf of the Commune”. Just like that: ivory tables and not bronze tables. Was it an error made by the Registrar of the Commune who wrote “tabularum eburnearum”, instead of “tabularum aenearum”?
Is it an error?
Is it possible that ser Gueriero, this was what the official who drew up the deed was called, could make such a gross mistake? A mistake which he then repeated for the second time in the drawing up of the deed itself, where it clearly says: “(…) tabulas septem eburneas variis literis scriptas latinis et segretis” (or rather “seven ivory tables written in Latin and secret letters”). Then with regard to the word segretis, which in the deed is in uncertain handwriting, the Registrar makes a reference in the margin, specifying: “Lege Egiptiis, potius Greciis”, which in English means: “Read Egyptian, better still Greek”.
The deed of transfer contained in the "Riformanze"
For the seven ivory tables, the Commune paid a considerable sum, with the transfer for two years of the proceeds of the Tax on Mountains and Pastures beginning on 1st January 1457, the equivalent of 40 gold florins. If we think the deed of transfer of 1456 is genuine, the scenario that opens up on the story is to say the least disturbing. Let’s go back to that year in the XV century. Gubbio, part of the Dukedom of Montefeltro since 1384, is under the power of Federico, born in Gubbio in the castle of Petroia in 1422 from an illegitimate union between Count Guidantonio and a noblewoman of Gubbio, Elisabetta de Acomandutiis. It’s unnecessary to dwell on the figure of Federico da Montefeltro, shrewd politician, dauntless leader and patron without equal of the Renaissance. It’s especially useful for us to know that Federico, pupil of Vittorino da Feltre, was also a fine humanist, great expert of the classical languages and keen collector of archaeological finds. At his court, experts and intellectuals by the score, the best one could have at the time, were constantly engaged in copying and studying classical works.
The “assonated” language
Starting from this preamble, the first hypothesis that comes to mind is a historical “mystery”. Federico, when he came to know of the purchase by the Commune of Gubbio of seven valuable ivory tables bearing unusual inscriptions, paid for with a nice sum of 40 gold florins, wanted to see them personally. Being the humanist and fine art collector that he was, he thought well not to give them back. He had the contents copied onto the same number of bronze tables and gave these to the people of Gubbio. The original ivory tables were then lost during the long period of vicissitudes that the Dukedom of Urbino suffered after Federico’s death. The second hypothesis, a much more revolutionary one, also has the Urbino sovereign as its protagonist. However, in this case, there weren’t seven tables found in Gubbio and written in the Umbrian language, but objects brought from his country of origin by the same Paulus Sclavus. A fair family patrimony that the public official wanted to earn once he retired. They were perhaps works of the Byzantine school engraved in ivory, a very widespread method in the East, which bore both Latin and Greek inscriptions, as is expressly written in the margin of the transfer document, if not even Cyrillic ones. It was at that time that Federico could have been struck by an idea, mad for any ordinary man, but not for a rich, intelligent and unscrupulous ruler: to take possession of the ivory tables and make them disappear, entirely inventing, instead, the story of the seven bronze tables passed on by the Ancients that could bring prestige to Gubbio, the town that had been his birthplace and to which he was bound by a deep blood tie and which for this very reason could only be a town of royal origins. It wouldn’t have been difficult for him to give a group of philologists from his court the task, on the basis of their knowledge of languages and classical works and of the many Etruscan and Latin inscriptions that had come to light until then, to create from nothing a language that had never existed, assonated, as well as with the local dialect, with Latin and Greek and linked to these languages through analogous grammatical rules and therefore consistent and credible. In an era when emulation of the classics was daily bread for artists and literary men, and the wall between true and false was often evanescent, it wasn’t unthinkable for someone to want to give a voice to an extinct and forgotten people like that of ancient Ikuvium, by reinventing its language.
On the other hand it’s not as difficult as it seems to construct “in the workshop” an artificial language. Without mentioning the linguistic experiments performed from the Renaissance onwards by experts such as Thomas More, René Descartes, George Dalgarno, John Wilkins, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, it’s enough to think that towards the end of the XIX century a Jewish ophthalmologist from Warsaw, called Lejzer Ludovik Zamenhof invented Esperanto which, in its intentions, should have become the universal language. In the XX century remarkable success was had in a similar venture by Professor John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, teacher of English Language and Literature at Oxford, famous author, among other things, of the novel The Lord of the Rings, who already during his youth created various artificial languages by borrowing them from old North European languages and Greek.
“Seven ivory tables…”
At this point one should reason by inverting cause with effect also as far as the references are concerned, which many experts have thought to recognise in the text of the Tables, through the present-day Feast of Ceri which is celebrated in Gubbio every year on 15th May. References which could be, in fact, intentional and instrumental by possible forgers, in order to confirm their authenticity and link with tradition, like also for example the curse formulas against Tadino, today’s Gualdo Tadino and against the Etruscans, in other words the inhabitants of Perugia, in the Middle Ages troublesome and powerful enemies of Gubbio. In any case, there is a gap of 74 years: from the date of the deed registered in the Riformanze (1456), to the first reproduction with manual impression made in 1530 for Leandro Alberti. An interval of a very long time during which nothing is known for certain about the real appearance of the Tables of Gubbio.
If the extreme hypotheses we have put forward were to prove, ab absurdo, to be sound, the entire outline of studies on the Umbrian language could be upset, almost completely cleared. One fact, however, is established and incontrovertible: a public act declares, until there is proof to the contrary, that in 1456 the Commune of Gubbio bought from ser Paulus Sclavus “seven ivory tables” and not of bronze, written partly in Latin, partly in Greek. Before a possible jury called to issue a verdict of authenticity, in the absence of any other contrary public attestation, the only document that would attest would be the very deed contained in the Riformanze, and once established that the existing tables are bronze and not ivory, the jury should, officially, set up an inquiry to determine their authenticity. The only way to retract, today, the 1456 deed could come from modern technology. Only an archaeo-metallurgical analysis, in fact, would be able to date, with a minimum margin of error, the seven Tables of Gubbio and prove that the good ser Gueriero, who perhaps liked his drink, on that 25th August 1456 confused dark bronze with white ivory.
Copyright © 2003 by Mario Farneti & Bruno Bartoletti - All rights reserved