Wooden sculpture of the “Musseta” (“little she-mule”),
made in the XIV century and kept in the Church of Santa Maria in Organo,
Verona, Italy. According to the legend, the statue had been stranded
on the banks of the Adige river, in front of the church. It contained,
in its interior, the skin of the donkey that Jesus rode when he entered
in Jerusalem. The donkey statue was brought in procession on the day
of Palm Sunday, which was called “dies festus de mulula”
(“the day of the feast of the mule”), in an carnivalesque
and joking atmosphere, which created some embarrassment for the ecclesiastic
authorities, and for this reason the celebration of the feast was prohibited.
The donkey assumes, in Christian symbolism, the meaning of an animal
which expresses the qualities of patience and endurance, and of humility,
which associates it to the figure and the message of Christ. The prophecy
of Zachariah (9,9), predicting the arrival of a new king, who should
manifest himself in humility riding a donkey, had been realized, according
to the Gospels, with Jesus’ entrance in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday,
the Sunday which preceded the Jewish feast of Pèsach, an ancient
spring festival.
But in the Old Testament some episodes, like that of Balaam’s
she-donkey, which had the faculty of seeing angels and of speaking to
its master (Numbers, 22, 22-35), regard the donkey as an animal able
to see what is invisible. On the other hand, in the Greek world the
donkey was found often in the company of Dionysos, where it was the
mount of the god who induced into his worshippers the ecstatic folly,
both through the drinking of wine and the music and dance. The appearance
of the donkey, which was introduced into the churches during the medieval
Feasts of the Fools, was not simply an act of derision and of reversal
of roles, but revealed the permanence of ancient beliefs regarding this
animal, lived by popular religiosity in all its concreteness and joyfulness.
Marius Schneider, in his research on the musical symbolism in medieval
art, has recognized a correlation between the donkey and the Fool, who
is called by him “the Buffoon”. The latter is characterized
by a fundamental ambiguity and duality, placing himself in an interstitial
space between reason and folly, between wisdom and foolishness, between
human knowledge and the understanding of divine things. “The animal
which better corresponds to the Buffoon is the donkey. The Buffoon’s
trumpet is called “donkey’s fart”. To the dual nature
and to the voice of the Buffoon correspond the two cries so typical
of the donkey, whose braying is produced through the continuous shift
in the register of the voice” (Schneider 1986, p. 282). The headdress
of the Fool is often surmounted by a pair of donkey’s ears, but
this does not only mean a symbol of foolishness and ignorance. The big
ears of the donkey, indeed, “allow it to hear – that is
to know – everything. For this reason the donkey is regarded also
as a great master and, in a later tradition, takes the role of judge
in the musical competitions (that is in the cosmic order)” (Schneider
1986, p. 283).
The most well-known donkey is that appearing, alongside the ox, in the
traditional iconography of Nativity, where it is already present since
the oldest representations of it, though in the evangelical texts there
is no mention of these two animals. Both were associated with mildness
and patience, but donkey and ox were differently valued in the medieval
texts. While the donkey assumed also negative associations, as a symbol
of ignorance and stubbornness, the ox was valued more positively, because
it was meeker in the work, more resistant and faithful companion of
man in the fatigue of the fields.
[Image: http://www.veja.it/2009/06/20/verona-la-muletta-di-santa-maria-in-organo/]