A non-Ovidian myth in the Ovidius Moralizatus: the double parthenogenesis of Pallas and Vulcan according to Petrus Berchorius

This paper focuses on analysing fable II of Book IV of Ovidius moralizatus written by Petrus Berchorius (c. 1290-1362), in order to enlighten its uniqueness. I will discuss how Berchorius combined three mythological motifs – Juno’s gynogenesis of Vulcan as a direct response to the parthenogenesis of Pallas from Jupiters’ head, Vulcan’s fall at Lemnos, and his marriage to Venus – and how he allegorically interpreted them. The first part of the essay will adress the literary fortune of these three motifs. The survey of textual souces demonstrates that Berchorius combined a minor mythographic tradition with two more successful ones, resulting in a original narrative absent in both the Ovidian Metamorphoses, and Barchorius’s predecessors and contemporary moral commentaries. Secondly, I will explore the figurative tradition of the fable, unveiling the interrelation between text and images. In particular, I will focus on the illuminated Gotha and Bergamo manuscripts, which translated the Bersurian fable into images. After studying the iconographical fortune of these motifs, I will argue that the above-mentioned miniatures are the only medieval iconographical sources of the non-Ovidian myth of double parthenogeneis, thus testifying the undeniable originality of the case study.