"Silver spires threaten the skies.” - any classicists among us?

May 29, 2013 5:15 PM

Silver spires threaten the skies.” - I’m looking for a source and some context. I jotted this sentence down years ago on a piece of paper which I subsequently lost. I believe it was a comment by a critic (or observer?) of the building boom begun by the Roman Emperor Augustus. I want to say the comment was made by Livy, but he might be too early for a source. Any classicists out there? Thanks in advance…
posted by janey47 to Writing & Language (3 answers total)

Best answer: This book seems to indicate it's by Petrarch:

"What a shame to see these people raising magnificent palaces resplendent with gold, and superb towers which threaten the skies in this new Babylon, whilst the capital of the world lies in ruins."

I wasn't able to find a better cite, though.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:26 PM on May 29, 2013

I couldn't find the exact quote Chrysostom cites, but here's two places where Petrarch uses similar phrases. First, in Italian, in Sonnet 137 of his Il Canzoniere:

Gl' idoli suoi sarranno in terra sparsi,
et le torre superbe, al ciel nemiche,
e i suoi torrer' di for come dentro arsi.^[1]

(Babylon's idols will be scattered on the ground,
and her proud towers, threatening heaven,
and her guards burned as they burn within.^[2])

Second, in Latin, in Letter X of his Liber sine nomine, a collection of letters critical of the Avignon papacy:

Et suus hic, michi crede, Nembroth, potens in terra et robustus venator contra Dominum ac superbis turribus celum petens^[3]

That description of Nimrod echoes Genesis 10:8-9 (e.g., the Vulgate: Porro Chus genuit Nemrod: ipse cœpit esse potens in terra, et erat robustus venator coram Domino^[4]), so I wonder if the bit about the towers is also a quote, or a quote-ish. I guess there must be lots of Tower of Babel stories that he could be alluding to.
posted by stebulus at 12:45 AM on May 30, 2013

Oh, and the quote Chrysostom found sounds like it would fit right in in Liber sine nomine, which is apparently all "Avignon sucks, Rome rules", and which constantly compares Avignon to Babylon, but I couldn't find it in there.
posted by stebulus at 12:50 AM on May 30, 2013