Prometheus: Titan of fire, creator of humanity, and cultural symbol

In the Middle Ages, the educated of Western and Central Europe knew relatively little of the myth, because the main sources (Hesiod, tragedy, Plato, Lucian) were not accessible to them; at least some scholars knew considerable parts of the material handed down in ancient manuals. Prometheus was understood as a historical person. He was considered a great explorer, and the first plastic images of the human body were attributed to him. His role as a philanthropic adversary of the deity, which fitted poorly into the Christian worldview, was largely ignored. In mythography, the legend was interpreted symbolically. There Prometheus appears as an exceedingly clever naturalist, and the devouring eagle symbolizes the toil of excessive effort in studying the movements of the heavenly bodies. It was believed that the tale of the theft of fire in the heavens arose because Prometheus had found out the cause of the lightning; thanks to his understanding of this celestial fire, he had introduced the use of fire.

A special case is the scholar Alexander Neckam, who around 1200 wrote a grammatical and lexical manual entitled Corrogationes Promethei (Collections of Prometheus). There he described himself as the new Prometheus; he saw himself as a bringer of culture who, with his work, gave diverse instruction to the uneducated. With this self-description, a man claimed the role of the Titan for himself for the first time. Here we can see the beginning of a development that led to Prometheus becoming a figure of identification, a model for human history and the current lives of people.

In the early Renaissance, the Italian humanists showed interest in the material from about the middle of the 14th century. Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) knew a version of the myth in which Prometheus is tormented not by an eagle but by a vulture; it is a variant that is already attested in Roman imperial times and was often received in modern times. Petrarch believed that the legend had a historical core, which consisted in the fact that Prometheus had sought out the solitude of the Caucasus in order to solve the riddles of the world in his tireless quest for knowledge. The feeding bird symbolizes the effort of the explorer, which weakens him. This view was shared by Petrarch's friend Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), who in his Genealogia deorum gentilium presented a detailed description and novel interpretation of the myth. Boccaccio assumed a "double" Prometheus, since two different persons were mixed up in the mythical tradition. The first Prometheus was God as the creator of "natural" man. He breathed life and intellect into his creature, but did not impart education to him. Therefore the natural man was ignorant and lived like an animal. The originator of civilization was the second Prometheus, a wise man who decided to end the barbarism of mankind. By the fire was to be understood the clarity of knowledge which this bringer of culture had obtained from God and brought to mankind. With the foundation of civilization he had, as it were, created man anew. In reality, the second Prometheus had not been chained in the Caucasus as punishment after procuring the "fire", but had voluntarily stayed there before his great deed in order to pursue studies in solitude. By the tormenting eagle, he says, is meant the strenuous thoughts with which he had plagued himself there. Boccaccio's consistently positive image of the humanized cultural hero Prometheus proves him to be a forerunner of later Renaissance humanists such as Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who glorified the spirit of the wise, creative, and insofar quasi-divine man. The writer Filippo Villani, a younger contemporary of Boccaccio, thought similarly. He saw in Prometheus the symbol of the great artist. Visual art imitated nature and was thus a re-creation based on the model of God's work. This idea underlies the ancient legend of the creating Prometheus.

The philosopher Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), who followed the tradition of ancient Platonism, interpreted the torment of Prometheus, tormented by the vulture, as a symbol of the general situation of man. As an earthly being, man is bound to matter, strives in vain to solve the mysteries of the world, and suffers from his spiritual inadequacy. It is true that man has come into possession of the heavenly fire of reason, but it is precisely this that makes him unhappy, since the ultimate truth nevertheless remains hidden from him. Ficino's patron, the Florentine statesman and poet Lorenzo il Magnifico (1449-1492), expressed a similar opinion. He glorified the mythical Golden Age, which Prometheus had put an end to because he had wanted to know too much. With his intemperate urge to explore, he had disturbed mankind and deprived it of its former happy existence.

• Wolfgang Storch, Burghard Damerau (eds.): Mythos Prometheus. Texts from Hesiod to René Char. Reclam, Leipzig 1995, ISBN 3-379-01528-8