The right-hand tympanum of the western front of Chartres Cathedral, designed or built at around the time Thierry of Chartres was compiling his magisterial Heptateuchon, is a fine, even unique, demonstration of the link between human wisdom and divine wisdom, and the place of the seven liberal arts in the attainment of divine understanding. A full, if diffuse, account is provided in Katzenellenbogen (1959) pp. 15–24 and see also his (1961) publication. The curious volume J.K. Huysmans The Cathedral (N.Y.: Hippocrene Books, 1989; first published 1898) could also be consulted for a general idea of the Cathedral, presented in a curious way, though it is hard to find anything specific about this portal. Further useful information is to be found in Robert Branner, ed. Chartres Cathedral: illustrations, introductory essay, documents, analysis, criticism (N.Y.: Norton, 1969). Fig. 34 in this latter publication gives a fair view of rhetoric holding up her skirt and haranguing (an audience, presumably!). The central tympanum contains theological presentations, of divine wisdom (the Christ child on his mother’s knees) and the incarnation of Christ, whilst in the archivolts around the edges of the tympanum are presented the liberal arts and, underneath the arts, their chief practitioners (Thierry had selected for his Heptateuchon Priscian, Aristotle, Cicero, Boethius and Ptolemy in particular). There are six arts and their masters in the outer archivolt. Grammar is the easiest to recognise at the lower right (Katzenellenbogen [1959] fig.24 and p. 24). According to Katzenellenbogen we have from the lower part of the left hand outer archivolt Aristotle, and above him Dialectic, then Cicero and above him rhetoric, speaking out in a forthright manner, then Euclid and at the top geometry and opposite geometry arithmetic, below which we find Boethius, below whom is astronomy looking skywards and below astronomy Ptolemy, followed by Grammar and Priscian and on the inner archivolt, at the right, music and Pythagoras. Whilst the arts are doing what they should, all the masters, observes Katzenellenbogen, ‘are meditating or writing’ (p. 21). This is as it should be, for medieval scholars could not have learned the arts had not the ancients written down their expositions of them.
The reader should here be reminded that the archetypical characterization of the female figure of rhetoric was provided by Martianus Capella (Stahl, Johnson and Burge pp. 156–57). For further illustrative material, the following manuscripts contain potentially interesting items (miniatures of figures, etc) and can be checked in the Short Census on-line for further details: Bologna BU 2644 fol.1r; s’Gravenhage Koninklijke Bibliotheek Lat. 441 xv, esp f.12v; Laon Bibliothèque Municipale 453 xv; Leiden Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit Lips. 44 xii; Leiden Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit Voss.Lat. Q 33-I x–xi f.1v; British Library Add. 11,917 xiv; London British Library Add. 11,921 xv f.2r; London British Library Lansdowne 831 xv; Lucca Biblioteca Statale (formerly Biblioteca Governativa) 1405 xii f.1r; Modena Biblioteca Estense (e Universitaria) alpha P.8.12 (lat.198) xv f.1r; Olomouc (Olmütz, in the former Czechoslovakia) Státní Vedecká Knihovna (formerly Universitní Knihovna) M II 73 (1 VII 1 – I g 1) xv f.1r; Oxford (U.K.) Bodleian Library Barlow 40 (SC 6480) xii ; Paris Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal 1133 (22 B.L.) xv; Paris Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 7699 xiii fols 1 and 1v; Paris Bibliothèque Nationale Lat. 7740 xii f.1r; Sevilla Bibliotecar Capitular y Colombina 83-8-16 (formerly Z.137.34) xiv (1344); Vaticano, Città del Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Vat. Lat. 1698 xii; Venezia Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana XI, 143 (4118) xiv (1335–38); Venezia Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana XIII, 59 (4540) xv; Venezia Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana Z.L. 421 (XCVIII.6 rec. XXIV; 1910) xiv; Wolfenbüttel (Germany) Herzog August Bibliothek 183. Gud. lat. 4o (G. Koehler-Milchsack, Die Handschriften der Herzoglichen Bibliothek zu Wolfenbüttel #4487) xv.