Re-examining Whether Acedia and Melancholy Refer to the Same Condition

Is Acedia Melancholy?
A Re-examination of this Question in the Light of Fra Battista da

Crema's "Della cognitione et vittoria di se stesso" (1531)
Author(s): NOEL L. BRANN
Source: Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Vol. 34, No. 2 (APRIL
1979), pp. 180-199
Published by: Oxford University Press
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Is Acedia Melancholy? A Re-examination of this
Question in the Light of Fra Battista da Crema's
Delia cognitione et vittoria di se stesso (1531)
NOEL L. BRANN
S the spiritual fault traditionally diagnosed by the Chris

tian monastic and Scholastic moral theorists as acedia
(from the Greek aked'ia = non-caring) the equivalent
of the humoral disorder traditionally diagnosed by the
corporeal physicians as melancholy? The overriding as
sumption of intellectual historians through the years has
been that the two aberrant conditions, acedia (or, alternatively spelled,
accidia) and melancholy, are indeed essentially the same psychological state
viewed through two independently evolved conceptual frameworks. The
first framework, adhered to by the ecclesiastical writers and their lay fol
lowers, consists of seven principal or capital vices-the vitia capitalia septem
(mnemonically signified by the neologism SALIGIA in accordance with
their initial letters): superbia (pride), avaritia (avarice), luxuria (lust), in
vidia (envy), gula (gluttony), ira (wrath), and acedia (a combination of
sloth and sorrow). The second framework, subscribed to by the Hippo
cratic-Galenic medical writers, consists of four basic physiological infir
mities brought about through an imbalance among the four primary body
humors: sanguine or blood, yellow bile or choler, black bile or melan
choly, and phlegm.1
1. For the history of the capital vice scheme in general see Morton W. Bloomfield, The seven deadly
sins (East Lansing, Mich., 1951), and for the history of the concept 'acedia' in particular, Siegfried
Wenzel, The sin of sloth: acedia in medieval thought and literature (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1967). The pio
neering study of the theme of melancholy in the history of ideas was published early in the present
century by the art historians Erwin Panofsky and Fritz Saxl under the title: Dürers
Diirers 'Melencolia I': Eine
quellen- und typengeschichtliche Untersuchung (Leipzig, 1923), subsequently enlarged and translated into
English by Raymond Klibansky as: Saturn and melancholy: studies in the history of natural philosophy,
religion, and art (New York, 1964). For an outline of the overall humoral theory forming the context
of their monograph on melancholy by Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl see Saturn and melancholy, pp.
3-15. A typical expression of the view that acedia and melancholy are essentially identical is furnished
by André
Andre Chastel, 'Le mythe de saturne dans la Renaissance italienne,' Phoebus, 1946,1,125-134, note
12: 'On sait que l'acedia est le nom scholastique de la mélancolie.'
inclaucolie.'
[ 1§o ]
Brann : Is Acedia Melancholy? 181
So far it does not seem to have occurred to anyone to put the hypothesis,
that acedia and melancholy are one, to any kind of rigorous test. Yet the
most casual comparative assessment of the two states cannot help but bring
to our attention certain discrepancies between them casting some doubt
on the correctness of this hypothesis. In order better to appreciate what is
at issue beneath these discrepancies we need to review briefly the two etio
logical systems, theological and medical, within which they are observable.
Coming first in chronological sequence, the medical scheme of the four
humoral dispositions received one of its more memorable expressions
within a Christian context by an anonymous twelfth century writer:
For there are four humors in man. These simulate the different elements, increase
in different seasons, and rule in different phases of a lifetime. The blood simulates
the air, increases in the springtime, and rules in childhood. Choler simulates fire,
increases in the summer, and rules in adolescence. Melancholy simulates the
earth, increases in autumn, and rules in adulthood. Phlegm simulates water, in
creases in winter, and rules in old age. When these abound neither more nor
less but in just proportion, a man is in vigorous health.2
By an astrological convention these four primary humoral types corre

spond to four variant planetary dominations, with the hot and moist san
guine governed by Jupiter, the hot and dry choleric by Mars, the cold and
dry melancholic by Saturn, and the cold and moist phlegmatic by the
moon.3 The pathological manifestations of these dispositions come into
evidence, according to the writers schooled in this medical outlook, when
one or another humor succeeds in disrupting the normal humoral balance
by unduly predominating over its three companions. The disorder of mel
ancholy in particular among these maladies results, as the theory passed
down from Hippocrates to his heirs has it, 'if fear and sorrow [phobos
kai dusthumîë] persevere for a long period.'4
The moral scheme of the seven capital vices, on the other hand, coming
into being in the first Christian centuries alongside but entirely indepen
dendy of the foregoing physiological scheme of the four humoral disposi
tions, is based at its very bottom on a pathological conception of human
behavior. The classic definition of acedia for western writers up to the
2. Anon., De mundi coelestis terrestrisque constitutione liber, in Jacques Paul Migne, Patrologiae cursus
compUtus. Series Latina, 221 vols. (Paris, 1844-1905), xc, 881. For a citation of this passage in its
original Latin see Klibansky et al., Saturn and melancholy (n. 1), p. 3.
3. Klibansky et al., Saturn and melancholy (n. 1), p. 127.
4. Galen, De locis affectis, m, 10, in Karl Gottlob Kühn, ed., Claudius Galenus: Medicorum Graecorum
opera quae extant, 20 vols. (Leipzig, 1821-33), vm> 188.
i82 Journal of the History of Medicine : April 1979
time of St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) was provided by the fifth century
monk John Cassian (d. ca. 435), taking his lead from the eastern desert
father Evagrius Ponticus (d. 399), in the words: 'tedium or solicitude of
heart' (taedium sive anxietas cordis).5 Then, directly pointing the way to St.
Thomas's reformulation of the Cassianic definition, St. Gregory the Great
(d. 604) found acedia to be sufficiently similar to a near-neighbor in the
monastic vice scheme, tristitia or sorrow, to warrant their coalescence as
one vice.6 Accepting St. Gregory's fusion of the two species of turpitude,
St. Thomas recast Cassian's definition of acedia as 'sorrow concerning a
spiritual good' (tristitia de bono spirituali).7 The great Italian poet Francesco
Petrarca (d. 1374) in his turn, who with St. Thomas and Dante Alighieri
(d. 1321) may be credited with liberating the traditional 'monk's disease'
from its confinement in the cloister and making it the common currency
of lay as well as of ecclesiastical writers, served to further the Gregorian
Thomistic version of acedia (in his spelling, accidia) by identifying this
admitted affliction of his own with the ancient Stoic moral infirmity
termed by Cicero aegritudo and by Seneca tristitia.8
5- John Cassian, De coenobiorum institutis libri XII, x, l, in Migne, Patrologiae Latina (n. 2), xxrx,
359—63 : 'Sextum nobis certamen est, quod Graeci akèdlan vocant, quam nos taedium sive anxietatem
cordis possumus nuncupare.' Initially conceived as eight rather than seven in number, the capital vices
as listed by Evagrius in his Perl tön oktö logismön (=De octo vitiosis cogitationibus), Jacques Paul Migne,
Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Graeca, 162 vols. (Paris, 1857-1912), XL, 1271, and restated for the
use of western monks by Cassian in his Instit., v-xn, and Collationes, n, in Migne, Patrologiae Latina,
xiix, 20iff., 611, are the following: gluttony (gastrimargia, gula); lust (poméia, fornicatio); avarice
(philargyrla, avaritia); sorrow (lupe, tristitia); wrath (orge, ira); sloth (akêdia, acedia); vainglory (keno
doxla, inanis gloria); and pride (huperèphania, superbia). On the Evagrian origin of the vice scheme and
its Cassianic transmission to the west see Bloomfield, Sins (n. 1), pp. 45, 69-71; and Wenzel, Sloth
(n. 1), pp. 3-5, 18-19.
6. St. Gregory the Great, Libri moralium in Job, xxxr, 45, in Migne, Patrologiae Latina (n. 2), lxxvi,
'De tristitia, malitia, rancor, pusillanimitas, desperado, torpor circa praecepta, vagatio mentis erga
illicita nascitur.' It is principally to St. Gregory that we owe the reduction of the eight-vice list of
Evagrius and Cassian to seven vices, thereby bringing the vice scheme into line with the traditional
seven virtues and with the other various 'sevens' (the seven planetary spheres, the seven days of the
week, the seven liberal arts, and so on) characterizing medieval Christian numerology. In its recon
structed form as Septem vitia capitalia the Gregorian list reads: vainglory (inanis gloria); envy (invidia);
wrath (ira); sorrow (tristitia); avarice (avaritia); gluttony (ventris ingluvia); and lust (luxuria). Thus
St. Gregory collapsed pride with vainglory as well as sloth (acedia) with sorrow (tristitia), adding
envy (invidia) to the Evagrian-Cassianic list to make up the required seven vices. On St. Gregory's
reformulation of the vice scheme see Bloomfield, Sins (n. 1), pp. 72-73; and Wenzel, Sloth (n. 1)
pp. 23-28.
7. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, n, n, q. 35, a. 3. On St. Thomas's adoption of the Gre
gorian vice list cf. S.T., 1, n, q. 84, and see Bloomfield, Sins (n. 1), pp. 87-88, and Wenzel, Sloth (n.
1), pp. 44-46.
8. Francesco Petrarca, Secretum meum, n, ed. Enrico Carrara, in G Martellotti et al., eds., Francesco
Petrarca: Prose (Milan, 1955), p. 106: 'Habet te funesta quaedam pestis animi, quam accidiam moderni,
veteres egritudinem dixerunt.' The imaginary speaker, accusing Petrarca of this vice, is St. Augustine.
On Petrarca's description of his infirmity in the Secretum see Wenzel, 'Petrarch's accidia,' Studies in
That the body humors have some kind of bearing on the vicious dis
positions of man has long been a self-evident byword of many Christian
authors. Thus did the twelfth century French Cistercian monk Alanus de
Insulis (=Alain de Lille, d. ca. 1202) observe in a penitential handbook,
for example, that 'in accordance with the different complexions one man
is impelled more to a particular sin than is another man. For if he is a
choleric he is impelled more to anger; if he is a melancholic, more to
hatred; and if he is a sanguine or phlegmatic, more to lust.'9 But when it
has come down to the hard task of assigning specific vices to humors the
Christian ecclesiastical writers have tended to divide along two different
lines, depending on which version of acedia, the earlier Evagrian-Cassianic
version exclusive of tristitia or the later Gregorian-Thomistic version in
clusive of tristitia, has been the prominent one in their minds. One set of
authors, which owing above all to Petrarca's extensive depiction of his
affliction in a manner reminiscent of modern 'Romantic melancholy' or
Weltschmerz has taken the position finding by far the greatest favor among
contemporary observers of the medieval vice scheme, has linked acedia
principally with the melancholy humor. But another set of authors, focus
ing upon the markedly defective nature of acedia in inducing sloth and
lethargy, which distinguishes it from its affective associates in the vice list,
has instead linked acedia primarily with the phlegmatic humor, likewise
chiefly distinguished from its affective accomplices by its inherently de
bilitative character.10
Curiously, few writers have embarked upon a systematic effort to cor
relate the humor with the vice scheme. Yet in that rare instance when a
given writer is seen to draw up a one-to-one correspondence between
humors and vices it is inevitably the latter option aligning acedia with
phlegm, rather than the former more popularly exhibited option aligning
acedia with melancholy, which is shown to gain the upper hand. The ex
the Renaissance, 1961, 8, 36-48; and idem, Sloth, pp. 155fr. On the ancient Stoic affliction identified by
Petrarca with his condition see Cicero, Tusc., m, ii, 24fr. and m, x, 22-23, and Seneca, De tranquillitate
animi, esp. xii, 1, and Epistulae morales, 85,2. On Dante's earlier version of acedia, apparently derived
from St. Thomas, see W. H. V. Reade, The moral system of Dante's Infemo (Oxford, 1909), p. 300;
and Wenzel, Sloth (n. 1), pp. 128-135.
9. Alanus de Insulis, Liber poenitentialis, in Migne, Patrologiae Latina (n. 2), ccx, 287.
10. For representative listings of these two separate traditions, one associating acedia principally
with melancholy and the other principally with phlegm, see Wenzel, Sloth (n. 1), Append. A, pp.
191-194. Examples of the tendency to construe Petrarca's accidia as a Renaissance forerunner of
modern Romantic melancholy or Weltschmerz are Arturo Farinelli, 'La malinconia del Petrarca,'
Rivista d'ltalia, 1902, 5, 5-39; André Chastel, 'La Melancholie de Pétrarque,' Cahiers du Sud, 1953,
38, 25-34; and J. A. Scott, 'Petrarch and Baudelaire,' Revue de Littérature, 1957, 21, 550-562.
184 Journal of the History of Medicine : April 1979
planation for this situation is obvious. Once the melancholy humor has
been set off against a particular turpitude in the vice list, most commonly
tristitia but also sometimes another choice such as wrath or avarice, the
phlegmatic humor is still left begging for a vicious analogue. The writer
who is desirous of coming up with a suitable candidate among the vices to
fill this vacuum has little alternative but to reach in back of the Gregorian
Thomistic fusion of acedia and tristitia to the Evagrian-Cassianic notion
of acedia envisaged as bordering on, but nevertheless radically independent
of, tristitia.
A noteworthy illustration of this more schematic approach to the rela
tionship of humors to vices is furnished by the philosopher-cardinal Nich
olas Cusanus (d. 1464), who in the way of conjuring up vivid analogies
for conceptualizing the ideal Christian polity in his De concordantia catholica
compares the king both to 'a luteplayer who well understands... how to
preserve harmony . . . and how to tune the string neither too high nor
too low, so that through the combined tone of them all a companionable
harmony sounds,' and to a wise physician of the body who is well versed
in maintaining 'right proportion' among the corporeal humors. In the lat
ter regard Cusanus notes that distemper in the State, just as in the human
body:
may occur through an excess of covetous melancholy [vel propter abundantem

avaritiosam melancoliam], which gives rise to the most varied pestilences in the
body—usury, fraud, deceit, theft, pillage, and all the arts by which great riches
are won not by work but only by a certain deceitful craftiness, which can never
exist without doing harm to the State; or again it may occur through choleric
dissensions, wars, factions and schisms, or through sanguine ostentation, excess,
debauchery and suchlike, or through phlegmatic sloth in all good works [aut
flegmaticis acediositatibus in cunctis bonis operibus], in the daily toil for existence and
in the defence of the fatherland. Then the body becomes paralysed, feverish,
swollen up or bled dry. . . .n
Nor need we rely solely upon passing references like this one to confirm
our suspicion that it is the humoral disposition of phlegm rather than that
of melancholy to which the traditional ecclesiastical vice of acedia more
accurately corresponds. For further corroboration that phlegm more truly
than melancholy fulfills the humoral requirements of acedia in its root
sense of'non-caring,' we can do no better than consult a sixteenth century
il. Nicholas Cusanus, Opera, 3 vols. (1514; facs. ed., 1962), fol 75v, cited and translated by Kli
bansky et al., Saturn and melancholy (n. 1), pp. 119-120. On possible alternative associations of mel
ancholy with wrath (ira) see Wenzel, Sloth (n. 1), Append. A, p. 193.
ascetic handbook for contemplatives which makes a methodical attempt
to integrate the theory of the corporeal humors with that of the spiritual
vices, the extremely rare Delia cognitione et vittoria di se stesso (1531) com
posed by the Milanese Dominican friar Battista da Crema (=Carioni, d.
1534)-12
Today the name of Fra Battista da Crema is better known through his
personal spiritual guidance of certain figures, who subsequently played key
roles in the Catholic reform movement, most notably the founder of the
Theatines, S. Gaetano de Thiene (d. 1547) and the founder of the Barna
bites, St. Antonio Zaccaria (d. 1539), than through his own few surviving
books. Thus, though now relatively obscure in his own right, Battista
should nevertheless be appreciated for exerting upon the subsequent course
of history an impact which is far more significant than the ensuing eclipse
of his reputation would suggest.13 But by no means should the influence
of Battista upon posterity be viewed as limited to this indirect sort via his
disciples. Influence of a more direct sort is attested by the immediate popu
larity of his ascetic writings, led by the Delia cognitione, before he posthu
mously fell afoul of the Roman Inquisition in 1552 for alleged heretical
tendencies.14 The popularity of the Delia cognitione in particular was greatly
facilitated by its translation into Spanish by the Castilian Dominican Mel
chior Cano (d. 1560) and by its reduction into a brief compendium, cau
tiously purged of the offending articles causing the original text to be
12. Battista da Crema, Opera utilissima, delta cognitione et vittoria di se stesso (Venice, 1548). I have
used the Vienna copy. The Cognit. et vitt. was first published at Milan in 1531, and received two sub
sequent impressions: one at Rome in 1545 and this one at Venice in 1548. On the author's life and
literary output see Luigi Bogliolo, La dottrina spirituale di Fra Battista da Crema, O.P. (Torino, 1952),
with a brief bibliography, p. 120. By Bogliolo's own acknowledgement much of the ground was
broken for his study of Fra Battista by Orazio Premoli, Fra Battista da Crema secondo documenti inediti
(Rome, 1910) and Storia dei Bamabiti nel cinquecento (Rome, 1913).
13. Premoli, Bamabiti (n. 12), p. 4 and note, pp. 4-5; Bogliolo, Battista da Crema (n. 12), pp. 8,
noff.; Pierre Pourrat, Christian spirituality, tr. W. H. Mitchell et al., 4 vols. (Westminster, Md.,
1953-55). 230. Further religious figures of the Reformation era influenced to a greater or lesser
degree by Battista were Serafino Aceti da Fermo, Melchior Cano, Lorenzo Davidico, Luis de Gra
nada, and the anonymous author of the Combattimento spirituale (traditionally ascribed to the theatine
Lorenzo Scupoli).
14. Bogliolo, Battista da Crema (a. 12), 'La Questione della Condanna,' pp. 10-14. Appearing to
touch on the heresy of Semi-Pelagianism (in reaction to the predestinarian tendencies of Luther) and
on certain heresies of the defunct Beghard-Beguines and Poor Men of Lyons, the writings of Battista,
including the Cognit. et vitt., were posthumously condemned by the Inquisition in 1552, sixteen years
after proceedings were first initiated by Pope Paul II, and were placed by Paul IV on the newly formed
Index in 1559. After emendation some of Battista's tracts were allowed to be published during the
Council of Trent, but were wholly removed from the Index only in 1900.
i86 Journal of the History of Medicine : April 1979
condemned by the Church donee prodeat emendatum, by Serafino da Fermo
(=Aceti, d. 1540).15
As we might well expect, Battista's detachment of acedia from melan
choly among the four humors hinges upon a corresponding detachment
of acedia from tristitia within the vice list itself. The prestige of his great
Dominican predecessor St. Thomas notwithstanding, there were two fore
most reasons why Battista could not readily accept the Gregorian-Tho
mistic conflation of acedia and tristitia. The first is that, as a conscious
admirer of John Cassian, Battista deliberately set out in the Delia cognitione
to restore the primal Evagrian-Cassianic meanings of both concepts in
their initial independence from one another.16 The second reason lies in a
parallel consideration within the humoral scheme. As an adherent of the
idea circulating throughout Europe in his day from the wellspring of the
Florentine Platonic Academy that melancholies are generally capable of
greater feats than the normal run of men, Battista could not bring himself
to entrust the same license to the langorously debilitated victims of'phleg
matic' acedia. Not so constrained in his mind, however, was 'melancholic'
tristitia, which St. Paul (n Cor. 7:10) dichotomized into two separate
forms, a positive as well as a negative one, corresponding to a like di
chotomy within the concept of melancholy as portrayed by the Florentine
Neoplatonists.17 The first Pauline form of tristitia, forthrightly diabolical
tristitia seculi, is held to have as its goal despair and eventually infernal per
dition. But the second Pauline form of tristitia, penitent tristitia secundum
Deum, is contrarily held to have as its goal the purification of the soul so
that it may be made worthy of entrance into Heaven.
By furnishing the second positive form of tristitia as well as the first
lj. Ibid., p. 18. Cano's translation, under the title Tratado de la victoria de si mismo (n.p., 1550), is
reprinted in the Biblioteca de autores espaüoles, LXV (Madrid, 1873), pp. 301-324, and has been re
translated into French by M. Legendre as La victoire sur soi-même (Paris, 1923). Battista's Cognit. et
vitt. was also translated into Spanish by Cano's contemporary Buenaventura Cervantes y Morales.
Serafino's compendium of the Cognit. et vitt., collapsing its 215 folios into 25, was subsequently in
cluded in his Opere spirituali alia Christiana perfettione . . . (Piacenza, 1570), pp. 32iff., and Latinized,
together with the rest of this collection the same year, as De suipsius atque victoria. . . . Serafino also
composed an Apologia on Battista's behalf. On Serafino's relationship with Battista see Gabriele Feyles,
Serafino da Fermo: la vita, le opere, la dottrina (Torino, 1942), pp. 57-60.
16. Bogliolo, Battista da Crema (n. 12), p. 108. Apparently, also brought out by Bogliolo, p. 10, it
was Battista's faithfulness to Cassian which was largely responsible for the accusation that he had
succumbed to Semi-Pelagianism, a doctrine defended by Cassian and closely identified with his name
both before and after it was condemned as heretical in 529.
17. Klibansky et al., Saturn and melancholy (n. 1), pp. 254fr. The locus classicus for the concept of
'noble melancholy,' the natural humoral counterpart of the Platonically conceived, supernatural furor
divinus, is the Aristotelian Problemata, xxx, 1, rendered in parallel columns of Greek and English in
Saturn and melancholy, pp. 18-29. On Battista's absorption of the philosophical currents radiating out
from the somewhat earlier Florentine Neoplatonic circle see Bogliolo, Battista da Crema (n. 12), p. 26.
negative form with a humoral counterpart in the black bile, Battista in
effect permitted the Pauline concept of tristitia secundum Deum to be alter
natively expressed as melancholia secundum Deum, the natural or material
analogue of mystical ecstasy. As for tristitia's superficial look-alike within
the vice scheme, however, Battista recognized that it would be a stark
absurdity to attempt its comparable ennoblement as acedia secundum Deum,
just as the Florentine Neoplatonist who was chiefly behind the revaluation
of melancholy as a potentially beneficial agent of spiritual ascent, Marsilio
Ficino (d. 1499), had adamantly refused to extend a comparable dignity to
humoral phlegm with its similarly purely debilitative nature. For though,
as this way of thinking goes, at its worst phlegmatic acedia may indeed
assume a physiognomy making it virtually indistinguishable from the cor
respondingly inferior form of melancholic tristitia, at its best phlegmatic
acedia cannot even begin to approach the sublime heights accessible to
melancholic tristitia in its exalted form. The reason for this fundamental
incongruity between the two states is that acedia, unlike tristitia, is de
prived at its core of the spark of ekstasis, the spiritual complement of the
feature of combustibility setting off melancholy from phlegm in the hu
moral setting. To comprehend this principle in a more thoroughgoing
fashion we will now consider Battista's sequential treatments of these two
'vices' in the Delia cognitione, the first, devoted to tristitia, taking up book
six and the second, devoted to acedia (in its variant spelling as accidia),
taking up book seven.
* * ♦
It goes without saying that before we may properly grasp the full sig
nificance of Battista's recovery of the original Evagrian-Cassianic division
between acedia and tristitia—and thus, by the same token, also between
acedia and the humoral aberration of melancholy in tristitia's company—
we need first to grasp the basic conceptual framework within which that
delicate surgical operation was carried out. As previously indicated, the
underlying organizational apparatus of the Delia cognitione consists of the
traditional seven capital vices of monastic and Scholastic religious theory,
individually specified by Battista, respectively, as greed (gola), lust (lus
suria), avarice (avaritia), anger or wrath (ira), sorrow or grief (tristitia),
sloth (accidia), and pride (superbia).18 These seven theologically conceived
l8. Cognit. et vitt., lib. i: 'Delia Cognitione et Vittoria di se stesso in generale,' fol. irff. Books
n-vm are given over to a detailed assessment of each of the seven capital vices in its turn, with the
concluding ninth book, repeating the title of the first one, comprising a summary. On the structure
and publishing history of the Cognit. et vitt. see Bogliolo, Battista da Crema (n. 12), pp. 18-20.
i88 Journal of the History of Medicine : April igyg
attributes are distributed by Battista among three philosophically con
ceived faculties derived by the friar, through the mediation of St. Thomas,
from Aristotle. The first is reason (laparte razionale), the second irascibility
(la parte irascibile), and the third concupiscibility (la parte concupiscibile). In
keeping with the overall scheme of integration between vices and physio
logical faculties worked out by Battista, pride is assigned to the rational
faculty and operates directly upon the soul through the will without ma
terial assistance; greed, lust, and avarice are assigned to the concupiscible
faculty and chiefly employ the senses as material agents; and wrath, sloth
(accidia), and sorrow (tristitia) are assigned to the irascible faculty and are
primarily dependent upon the humors for material aid.19
'Just as vicious wrath [ira vitiosa] has for its material cause the natural
choleric complexion,' so Battista makes the needed transition from the
fifth to the sixth book of the Delia cognitione, '. . . in like manner sorrow
[tristitia] has as its natural cause in man the melancholy complexion, and
thus when a person remains very sad and of ill disposition [di mala voglia]
we say that he is melancholy.' It follows, accordingly, that he who would
wish to inquire 'why God has implanted this portion of melancholy hu
mors in man, which are exceedingly difficult to cure and perilous in the
extreme if they exist in superabundance,' will first be prompted to go for
his answer to the man best known for his expertise in this field, the cor
poreal physician. In reply to the man's queries the physician:
will give him the reason for this, and will show him, among other causes, that
the melancholy humors are required in man so that he may conserve his natural
heat, just as ashes are required by that man who wishes to conserve a material
fire, and that the melancholy humors are the more gross and earthy humors,
just as ashes are the more earthy and gross part of the wood.20
It follows from this physiological interpretation of the matter at hand,

then, that a man's melancholic disposition is not necessarily a sign of his
wickedness. Declares Battista in explicit confirmation of this principle: 'It
19- Cognit. et vitt., lib. i, cap. l, fol. ir; lib. rx, cap. 3, fol. 199'. Cf. Aristotle, Ethica nicomachea, n,
5; St. Thomas, S.T., 1, n, q. 23, a. 4. Following Aristotle, St. Thomas terms the concupiscible and
irascible faculties 'appetites,' and further distinguishes eleven 'passions,' six located in the appetitus
concupiscibilis and five in the appetitus irascibilis. Assigned to the concupiscible appetite are three pas
sions circa botium (amor, desiderium, and delectatio) and three passions circa malum (odium, fiiga or
horror, and tristitia), and to the irascible appetite two passions circa botium (spes and desperatio) and
three passions circa malum (audacia, timor, ira). Thus it will be noted that by placing tristitia, together
with its close consort acedia, in the irascible rather than in the concupiscible faculty Battista departs
slightly from the Aristotelian-Thomistic scheme of the passions.
20. Cognit. et vitt., lib. VI, cap. 1, fols. I2lv-l22r.
is not a vicious impiety before God if you are of a melancholy tempera
ment.' What constitutes a true vice is not the melancholy disposition per
se, but the failure of the melancholic to moderate the more extreme pro
clivities of his disposition 'in accordance with reason, just as a person ought
to regulate choler and the other passions within himself.'21 So long as a
melancholic is exclusively concerned with his natural complexion in sepa
ration from the deeper spiritual question of the free will with its God
given ability either to acquiesce to or to control the humoral inclinations,
Battista acknowledges, he rightfully remains within the province of the
corporeal physician. But once his concern has shifted from the humoral
disposition itself to the inherently free will which has been placed by God
in man for the regulation of the bodily inclinations, Battista equally insists,
the melancholic is no longer adequately served by the merely corporeal
physician, but must then place himself under the regimen of the loftier
spiritual physician or theologian.
Being himself a full-fledged member of the latter profession, Battista is
full of dire warnings about what may come to pass if the will, working
upon the soul through the agency of reason, does not succeed in imposing
the necessary restraints upon the melancholy temperament. The causa finalis
of such melancholy which is allowed to rage out of control, Battista cau
tions, 'is called despair.'22 At stake, accordingly, is not only the health of
the body, but also the salvation of the soul. Those who feel that they are
especially vulnerable to this affliction, therefore, are urgently counseled by
the fHar:
to join me out of common hatred for this savage beast, so that together we may
kill and divide it into four quarters and scatter them as food before the spiritual
birds, that is to say, before the demons, who enjoy and feed on such sullen
victuals. For these creatures, full of sorrow, are never able to maintain happy
hearts, a condition brought about by their torments and by their sullen nourish
ment or food.23
From this vivid picture we can easily understand why Battista's patristic
model Cassian saw tristitia in close proximity to acedia, thereby setting
the stage for their fusion by St. Gregory and St. Thomas. Reminiscent of
St. Thomas's definition of acedia as tristitia de bono spirituals Battista notes
that when carried to an extreme tristitia 'has so weakened you and borne
21. Ibid., fol 122e.

22. Ibid., fol. 122v.
23. Ibid.
190 Journal of the History of Medicine : April lgyg
away your powers that you appear to be impotent for effecting the good.'24
In this enervative capacity tristitia is compared by Battista to a deadly
venom which slowly saps its victim of all his strength until he is no longer
able effectively to exert his will. Should this condition persist indefinitely
the victim will eventually fall into complete despondency from which he
will be unable to extricate himself, thus assuring his ultimate damnation.
In certain other respects, however, Battista's version of tristitia can be
observed to diverge sharply away from the set of symptoms assigned in
the next book of the Delia cognitione to acedia, thereby preventing the per
fect congruity of the two states. The feature of tristitia which more than
any other insures that it will never truly converge in complete conformity
with acedia consists of its intrinsic ability, as pointed out by St. Paul to the
Corinthians, to become transformed into a highly favorable tristitia secun
dum Deum. For this reason Battista finds it imperative to qualify his strin
gent warnings against tristitia with an all-important distinction. 'And
when I say that on no account ought we to be sad,' he stresses, 'I always
mean by this the wicked kind of tristitia, because one finds another kind of
tristitia which is not blameworthy, which is not evil but good.'25
In elaboration of this crucial qualification of his counsel against tristitia
Battista observes that sometimes tristitia manifests itself as 'a wicked act,
operation, or habit through the corruption of an ill will,' whereas at other
times tristitia assumes a more propitious form as 'a virtuous act and opera
tion (atto, et operatione virtuoso) proceeding from a good will, which is the
result of the displeasure a man feels by reason of his offenses against God.'
Bringing the two different modes of tristitia into outright confrontation
with one another, Battista observes: 'And of this good tristitia Christ de
clared that his soul was sorrowful unto death. If you partake of this you
will be good. But if you partake of the other you will be bad.'26
Quite obviously, then, it is of utmost urgency for him who hopes to
improve his spiritual status to learn how to tell the two types of tristitia
apart. To this end Battista addresses himself to various 'signs' (segni) by
means of which good and evil tristitia can be differentiated. Whereas,
'good tristitia is ruled by reason and is quiet, lucid, and moderate,' evil
tristitia is contrarily held to act against the constraints of reason and is
turbulent, obfuscatory, and immoderate.27 Or again, whereas 'good tris
24- Ibid., lib. vi, cap. 2, fol. 123'.

25. Ibid., fol. 123V.
26. Ibid., lib. vi, cap. 3, fol. 123V.
27. Ibid.
titia is always attendant upon the wish to do something of merit or to
impede something wicked,' on the reverse side of the coin 'bad tristitia is
attendant upon the wish to impede some good or upon the wish to com
mit some wicked act.'28 Yet a third segno offered by Battista for distin
guishing the two modes of tristitia is indicated in the avowal that:
good tristitia is not swallowed up and suffocated by those things over which a
person becomes sad, but with sorrow receives a great consolation, such as in a
true penitent who becomes sorrowful on account of the offenses committed
against God, yet who becomes joyful through the hope that he possesses of being
able to gain remission of his error. . . . And thus good tristitia is still joyful.
But on the other side bad tristitia bestows neither consolation nor refreshment
to the mind, but is thoroughly afflicted by pain. And this is very blameworthy.29
The critical importance of the development of criteria for the differentia

tion of the two states is underscored by Battista in his warning of the great
skill with which the Devil is capable of deceiving his sullen victims into
the mistaken belief that their wicked tristitia is really the beneficial form,
thereby undermining their resolve to cast it out of their souls.
It logically follows that the same dual character belonging to spiritual
tristitia in keeping with the Pauline distinction may also be claimed by
tristitia's causa materialis, the melancholy humor. Far from having been
implanted in man with the sole purpose of serving the Devil, Battista em
phasizes in this connection, the melancholy humor was placed in man by
God 'for many of our benefits' (per mold nostri beneficii).30 In particular
Battista specifies two outstanding qualities of melancholy which make it
of possible advantage to the soul in its advancement to a higher spiritual
level. The first quality consists of melancholy's inborn tendency to pro
mote compassion in its possessor, of paramount consequence in facilitating
spiritual contrition on the part of the repentant sinner. The second quality
consists of melancholy's peculiar affinity for solitude, a trait held to have
utility in promoting contemplative activity in its possessor away from the
distracting influences of society.
In explanation of the first of these two potentially beneficial qualities of
melancholy Battista maintains that melancholies more than men under the
sway of the other humoral dispositions 'are easily moved by pity and com
passion, and by virtue of this quality are greatly inclined to acts of piety
28. Ibid., fol. 124t.

29. Ibid., fol. 124V.
30. Ibid., lib. vi, cap. j, fol. 12jv.
which are so pleasing to God.' Through the agency of melancholy, that is
to say, God 'has made us to be of a naturally merciful and sorrowful heart
so that we can be quickly readied to perform perfect deeds.' And in ex
planation of the second potentially salutary quality of melancholy Battista
declares: 'He who is saturnine and melancholic is unable to remain with
other men, but rather always remains alone unto himself [sopra di se s(e55o].'
Hence natural melancholy, Battista insists, stands out among the humors as
the special property of religious solitaries. In direct consequence of questa
naturale solitudine induced by the melancholy humor 'a man is easily able
to give himself over to the meditation of things which are good and
holy and . . . makes himself very diligent in the loftiness of sweet con
templation.'31
For these two reasons above all, then, the inducement of compassion by
natural melancholy and its promotion of solitary contemplation, melan
cholies are exhorted by Battista to cease with their complaints against God
for their sorrowful condition and instead to express their gratefulness for
a disposition which, when understood better, promises considerable utility
in their lives. Far from lamenting their disposition these natural melan
cholies should rather 'give thanks to God, and exult in joy that He has
given you a very suitable complexion and made you inclined to such good
virtues.' To the contrary of morosely smarting under the sway of their
affliction such natural melancholies should 'be joyful in Christ that you
have the easy opportunity of fleeing, without resistance, all the worldly
dissipations, triumphs, and pomp.'32 For to melancholies are accorded
more fully than to those under the domination of the alternative humoral
temperaments 'the facility and disposition toward works of virtuous mercy,
... an aptitude toward interior delight and compunction, and... dexterity
in producing the fruits of contemplation.'33 In light of these advantages
melancholies will be well advised that 'God has thus made you of such a
sad and melancholy nature in order that you may moderate it by following
reason, and in order that you may conquer over that by which, in failing
to be moderated, many are overcome and drawn into various vices, ex
cusing themselves afterwards by their melancholy nature.'34
The inherently ambivalent character of tristitia and of its natural coun
terpart, melancholy, is summarized by Battista in the maxim: 'A saturnine
31. Ibid., fols. i26r-T.

32. Ibid. 126V.
33. Ibid., fols. I2öv-I27r.
34. Ibid., fol. I27r.
is either an angel or a demon' (Un saturnino overo è un angelo, overo è un

demonio). Or as Battista expresses the same idea diversely: 'O you who are
melancholy by nature: it is necessary that you be either an angel clothed
with flesh or else it is necessary that you be a demon incarnate!' In relation
to the second half of this either-or proposition Battista freely acknowl
edges that 'the demon assigned to this disposition, melancholic and sad,
delights in casting you down from that lofty place which you have already
achieved or else [prevents you from attaining that lofty height] to which
you would like to be able to go, in so doing making you even more abject
than is he himself.' But in relation to the first half of this dual proposition
Battista counsels the melancholic on a much more positive note that he
should not lose heart by reason of his naturally wistful disposition since,
though he may well be more vulnerable than the majority of men to the
wily contrivances of the Devil, by the same token he is better endowed
than the majority of men with a ready means of overcoming his vicious
inclinations through penitent sorrow.35
Concerning this favorable version of melancholy upheld by Battista in
the Delia cognitione it may truly be said that the Pauline doctrine of purga
tive or penitent sadness has perfectly converged and been made one with
the Aristotelian doctrine of the divinely inspired furor melancholicus of the
Florentine Neoplatonists, and consequently that contrite tristitia secundum
Deum, when designated by its primary humoral constituent, is alternatively
expressible as melancholia secundum Deum. A very different story emerges,
however, in Battista's treatment of the next 'vice' in his list, accidia. For
whereas melancholic tristitia, displaying at its core the spark of fiery com
bustibility, is endowed by Battista with the capability of ascending as well
as descending the spiritual ladder, phlegmatic accidia, deprived at heart of
the power of combustibility, is endowed by Battista with no comparable
ability within the limits of its intrinsic nature to raise itself out of the
spiritual depths.
* * *
"We have now to consider another spirit so monstrous and horrible that
its countenance instills great horror in everyone.' With these words Bat
tista passes from his exposition of the capital vice tristitia, in book six of
the Delia cognitione, to his exposition of its close relative accidia in book
seven. Much like tristitia, accidia is determined by Battista to impede vir
3J. Ibid., lib. vi, cap. 8, fol. ^o1.
194 Journal of the History of Medicine : April igyg
tue: the former 'to impede the highest degree of virtue [il sommo grado di
virth],' and the latter 'to impede the means and end of all the virtues [il
mezzo, & fine di tutte le virtu].'36 But whereas 'the spirit of tristitia, spoken
of above, is disguised under the nature of melancholy,' the corresponding
'spirit of accidia' exclaims through the mouth of its lethargic victim: 'I am
of a phlegmatic disposition, and am neither very agile nor mobile. ... I
am unable to complete a thing which has been begun.'37
The basic definition of accidia laid down by Battista, representing a
conscious decision on his part to return to its original Cassianic meaning
before it became absorbed into the neighboring vice of tristitia, is 'tedium
or loathing in the doing of good' (tedio, o fastidio del ben operare).38 Taking
lead from this primary definition, then, Battista declares that 'it is vivacity
of mind which batters accidia to the ground.'39 In the prior case of tristitia,
backing himself up with the Florentine Neoplatonic theory of'noble mel
ancholy,' Battista located the potential for such vivacitâ di animo at the cen
ter of the vicious disposition itself. But with respect to the considerably
less flammable nature of phlegmatic accidia, Battista is clearly of a mind
to view dubiously the prospect of locating a cure within the confines of
the vice itself and to lay accent instead upon the need to seek a remedy for
accidia in a source entirely extrinsic to the condition to which it is to be
applied.
This lesson is brought home with special vividness by Battista in his
personalized depiction of two among seven progeny born from the womb
of accidia, tepidity (la tepidita) and negligence (la negligentia). Addressing
the fifth in the list of accidia's seven offspring, madonna la tepidita, Battista
bombards her with the following barrage of questions concerning her
identity and character:
Who is your mother and father? Who are your guardians and nurses? Who are
your servants and companions? Tell me where your habitation is for most of the
time! What is your office? And finally, tell me if you are curable, because you
appear to be so sick and debilitated that you do nothing.40
36. Ibid., lib. VD, cap. 1, fol. 133'.

37. Ibid., fol. 133V.
38. Ibid., lib. vn, cap. 3, fol. 136r.
39. Ibid., lib vn, cap. 5, fol. i39r.
40. Ibid., lib. vn, cap. 10, fols. I4iv-i42r. The seven 'children' (figlioli) of accidia listed and de
scribed by Battista, lib. vn, cap. 7-13, fols. I39v-i46r, are in order: suspicion and rash judgment
(sospitione, & temerario giudicio), cultivation of bad company (beatificatore de gli huomini cattivi), the
sowing of discord (riportare à Seminare zizanie), deception of good men (truffatore de gli buoni), tepidity
(tepidita), apostasy (apostasia), and negligence (negligentia).
The languorous personage of tepidity responds to these queries one by one.
As to her parentage tepidity replies 'that my mother is accidia, who by
remaining full of idleness was made pregnant by the Devil, so that together
they are called my mother and father.' Her nurse 'is the practice of living
from the toil and inheritance of other men without my own labors.' Her
servants and companions 'are the buffoons, bosom comrades, and hand
some prattlers with whom I carry on long discourse, because they are
diverting and very loquacious.' She is at home in all the world 'but espe
cially those places where is wanting fervor and fire so that I may dare to
come into their proximity.' Her office 'is divided into various roles and
functions, all dedicated to losing time.'41 Only the last question thereupon
remains to be answered, that of whether tepidity is curable.
If we should believe the words of madonna la tepiditâ herself we would
conclude that her malady is completely incurable. 'I am so weak and infirm
in my tepidity,' she owns, 'that I wear the crown of eternal damnation;
hence if a man seeks to cure me of my idleness I do not respond to his
medicine.' But fortunately we do not need to rely for a true picture of
this state solely upon the self-portrait furnished by tepidity, whose an
nounced objective, after all, is to discourage all further effort on the part
of the accidioso to propel himself out of his idle lethargy. It is the physician
of the soul, not the physician's patient, to whom we must turn if we wish
a trustworthy answer to this query. And on a much more optimistic note
than is indicated by tepidity's self-assessment the wise physician counsels
the victim of this affliction: 'But still, O tepid one, do not despair of God,
because God has sometimes liberated some of these [subject to tepidity]
even though they do not merit it.' The final lesson to be taken away from
this last-named inquiry into the character of tepidity, then, is not one of
despair but of hope, since though 'tepidity does not deserve to be cured by
God,' nevertheless, out of the infinite treasury of His mercy, 'God rewards
those whom He wishes by curing them.'42
Battista goes on to identify the feature of tepidity so central to accidia
with the lukewarm condition charged by God against the Laodiceans (Rev.
3 :i6) in the rebuke: 'Because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot,
I will spew you out of my mouth.' Every man, Battista observes in re
membrance of this Scriptural passage, inclines to one or the other of three
calorific states: hotness, coldness, or tepidity lying between these. When a
man becomes 'warm with the desire of perfection' heat feeds upon heat
41. Ibid., lib. vn, cap. io, fol. I42r.

42. Ibid., fob. I42v-i43r.
and the man is greatly accelerated in his Heavenbound journey. But if, for
some reason, this heat should be withdrawn, the same man 'for the most
part becomes tepid, like water which, if it does not have an increase of
fire under its kettles, diminishes in its heat and begins to grow tepid.'43
Should this condition of vapid tepidity be allowed to persist indefinitely
the man eventually succumbs to the icy frigidity of outright despair.
Battista's characterization of accidia's offspring negligence follows along
similar lines. But whereas tepidity is depicted by Battista as acting directly
upon the will and indirectly upon the mind, negligence is conversely de
picted as acting directly upon the mind and indirectly upon the will. For
by virtue of this effect of accidia, the more deeply a man becomes im
mersed in his sins all the less aware he becomes of his dissolution. The
primary peril of this trait known as 'the forgetfulness of sin through negli
gence' resides in the ironclad principle that before pardon is to be obtained
for sin it must first be recognized by the offender that sin has been com
mitted. And if a man forgets a sin in his own heart he should assume that
God will also forget it, not in the sense of obliterating it from His mind in
the last judgment, which allows no sin of whatever magnitude to go un
detected, but in the sense of refusing to bring His infinite treasury of mercy
to bear upon the negligent sinner. But if, on the other hand, a man remem
bers his sin and does something to repair its damage he can count upon
God also to remember his sin and, as a prerequisite of his salvation, to
cure him of its attending infirmity.44
To help underscore the uniformly debilitative and lethargic nature of
phlegmatic accidia—a picture of the vice which, in spite of certain external
resemblances, is thus seen to contrast sharply with the inherently ambiva
lent character of melancholic tristitia—Battista offers yet another person
alized simile. Accidia, he suggests, can be imagined in the form of an old
and senile woman appointed as doorkeeper to the memory. Though more
often than not asleep at her job, accidia does her best to hide her sloth
from her virtuous handmaidens. When, then, the neglectful doorkeeper
notices a given handmaiden, 'either of prayer, or of sobriety, or of the
love of chastity, or of the other virtues,' entering the chamber of the
memory to urge the soul to a more exalted level of virtue, she immediately
jumps up from her station and enters the chamber herself so as to counter
mand any beneficial advice by the handmaiden with ostensibly sagacious
counsel of her own. 'Like a haughty old lady' she may be observed to
admonish the occupant therein, for example: 'If you remain so long in
43- Ibid., lib. vn, cap. 11, fol. i43r.

44. Ibid., üb. vn, cap. 13, fols. i4Jr-v.
prayer you will not be able to carry out other works of charity,' thereby
interrupting the continuity and diminishing the fervor of his prayers. Or
again, seeing that the occupant is taking undue delight in works of charity,
'this old and prattling doorkeeper' sternly reprimands her charge that 'it
is not necessary to give so much to others that you fall short of things
for yourself.' And so does accidia behave 'with regard to every virtue,
since she does not wish for a person to be led to perfection.' Battista does
not mince words in recommending what to do when we come across the
negligent doorkeeper. 'Therefore let the man who sees that this lame old
woman is impeding the perfection of every good,' he urges, 'seize such a
wretched, debilitated, artificially embellished, and slothful (accidiosa) hag
and thrash her soundly, whether in the stable or in any other place where
things are put for treading under foot.'45
For a so thoroughly languished disposition Battista prescribes as the ap
propriate antidote, not the same state inwardly transformed into a dynamic
form secundum Deum as in the case of accidia's sister tristitia, but a com
bination of two remedies imposed from without the perimeters of the
vice: 'self-violence' (violentia di se stesso) and 'obedience and subjection'
(obedientia et soggiettione). Regarding the first of these remedies Battista asks
the rhetorical question: 'Tell me, if you have a slow and lazy horse, how
can you impose your will on him if not by the violence of strong spurs
upon his sides? Likewise, if you are accidioso and slow in the performance
of good how do you think that you will complete your work without
violence?'46 And regarding the second remedy Battista strongly advises
the victim of accidia against subjecting himself in obedience to those who
are no less tepid and negligent of soul than is the sick man himself. Genuine
obedience, Battista exhorts, is to be exercised 'only on behalf of the pure
honor of God, in such wise that you refrain with all your might from
submitting yourself to the tepid, because these men cannot cure accidia.'47
On both of these counts Battista envisages the opposite of accidia in
fervor of soul. For whereas phlegmatic accidia 'relaxes fervor, diminishes
the powers, and dissipates that little merit which we have already earned,'
on the opposite side of the spectrum:
when a man has achieved and feels himself to be confirmed in perpetual fervor,
so that he believes that he is growing in the love of every perfection and that
this desire of his is continuing and increasing, not for a day or a month only,
4J. Ibid., lib. VE, cap. 14, fol. 146*.

46. Ibid., lib. vn, cap. lj, fol. I47r.
47. Ibid., lib. vn, cap. 16, fol. i48r.
198 Journal of the History of Medicine : April lgyg
but for a long time in continuous exercise—when, I say, you feel yourself to have
this sign, then exult, because you have been released from accidia, which has
the effect of discouraging you from every perfection.48
Thus, just as fervor of the soul represents an unequivocal sign that accidia
has successfully been purged from the soul, conversely, 'when you do not
feel in yourself an abundant fire which grows to the summit of perfection,
this is a sign that you are not liberated but are in great danger.'49
* * *
From the foregoing examination of the two books of Battista da Crema's

Delia cognitione relevant to the present inquiry, the sixth book addressed to
tristitia and the seventh to accidia, we are led to conclude that in spite
of certain similarities in their outward physiognomies tristitia and accidia
are essentially two different vices with completely independent etiological
constitutions. Though within the larger framework of the soul's passions
located by Battista in near proximity to one another in the irascible faculty,
tristitia and accidia are assigned by the friar fundamentally variant roles
within the vice scheme and furnished with separate humoral auxiliaries to
assist them on a physiological level, tristitia with melancholy and accidia
with phlegm. If one core principle can be distilled out of the extensively
described portraits of the two states to drive a sharp wedge between their
natures, it must be said to be that of ecstatic combustibility.
Even as tristitia and accidia are placed by Battista alongside of one an
other in the irascible faculty, their third companion being wrath (ira), ran
corous accidia is removed by Battista from its irascible bedfellows tristitia
and wrath in a crucial respect. Whereas wrathful choler and sorrowful
melancholy can claim powers of dynamic combustibility, the first in ac
tuality by virtue of its intrinsically hot nature and the second in potentiality
when an external source of heat is applied to it, slothful phlegm, like mel
ancholy cold in its natural state, by reason of its accompanying moist
quality thoroughly resists all effort by the physician to induce enkindle
ment and combustion. On a spiritual level, in corresponding fashion, mel
ancholic tristitia is conceived by Battista as containing at its center a divine
spark essential to the act of ecstasy, whereas phlegmatic accidia is deprived
by Battista of such a spark.
From a philosophical point of view, accordingly, Battista had no diffi
culty in accepting and echoing in his Delia cognitione the theory given
widespread currency by the quattrocento Neoplatonist Marsilio Ficino
48. Ibid., lib. vn, cap. 17, fols. i50r-v.
49. Ibid., fol. ijov.
that melancholy is capable of being inwardly converted from an ignoble
disease inducing abject despondency into a noble mark of exceedingly ex
ceptional powers of the mind. By the same token he realized that it would
be the height of absurdity to attribute a comparably dual capacity to the
phlegmatic humor, which once and always leaves its victims weighed
down by sloth and lethargy. And from a theological point of view Battista
received and re-expounded from the ancient monastic father John Cassian
a parallel contrast within the scheme of aberrant spiritual dispositions
known as the seven capital vices, with tristitia pictured as transmutable
from a most ignoble cause of despair into its very desirable look-alike
secundum Deum and accidia, contrarily, portrayed as the vice par excellence
of idle indolence without any intrinsic ability to reverse itself.
Fusing philosophical and theological theory into a unified framework
for evaluating human behavior, Fra Battista concluded that the melan
cholic saturnine 'is either an angel or a demon.' But Battista perceived no
analogously dual possibility to be resident in phlegmatic accidia, an un
equivocally demonic influence upon the soul. Not that, as Battista viewed
the matter, the Devil will hesitate for a moment to encourage vicious tris
titia with the same end in mind with which he encourages vicious accidia,
enervation of soul to the extent that it is no longer able to withstand suc
cessfully the Evil One's assaults. But in so doing the Devil is cognizant
that his safer course is through accidia, which unlike tristitia does not bear
its potential remedy within itself but must reach for that remedy to a
source existing outside of its boundaries.
Between these two peccati viziosi as described by Battista in books six
and seven of the Delia cognitione, tristitia and accidia, it is far and away
accidia materially grounded in the phlegmatic humor which more effica
ciously prepares the way to despair with a minimum of hindrance. Tris
titia, on the other hand, though as capable as its sister-vice accidia of cata
pulting the soul into despair and its resulting state of eternal damnation, by
reason of its internally volatile nature is just as readily capable of impelling
the soul upward as downward on the spiritual ladder. For in its divinely
appointed role as a stimulus to contrition, assisted in this capacity by the
highly combustible melancholic humor with its similarly dual character,
tristitia is potentially convertible into that supremely exalted form of tris
titia secundum Deum praised by St. Paul as being at heart more of a piece
with the joy of eternal beatitude than with that true sorrow leading to
despair.
Department of History
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Re-examining Whether Acedia and Melancholy Refer to the Same Condition

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Re-examining Whether Acedia and Melancholy Refer to the Same Condition

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Is Acedia Melancholy?

A Re-examination of this Question in the Light of Fra Battista da

S the spiritual fault traditionally diagnosed by the Chris

By an astrological convention these four primary humoral types corre

may occur through an excess of covetous melancholy [vel propter abundantem

It follows from this physiological interpretation of the matter at hand,

21. Ibid., fol 122e.

24- Ibid., lib. vi, cap. 2, fol. 123'.

The critical importance of the development of criteria for the differentia

28. Ibid., fol. 124t.

31. Ibid., fols. i26r-T.

is either an angel or a demon' (Un saturnino overo è un angelo, overo è un

3J. Ibid., lib. vi, cap. 8, fol. ^o1.

36. Ibid., lib. VD, cap. 1, fol. 133'.

41. Ibid., lib. vn, cap. io, fol. I42r.

43- Ibid., lib. vn, cap. 11, fol. i43r.

4J. Ibid., lib. VE, cap. 14, fol. 146*.

From the foregoing examination of the two books of Battista da Crema's

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