Editing Pope Sylvester II (section)

==Legacy==
[[Image:SylvestreII aurilac.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Statue of Pope Sylvester II in Aurillac, France]]
Gerbert of Aurillac was a noted humanist. He read [[Virgil]], [[Cicero]] and [[Boethius]]; he studied Latin translations of [[Porphyry (philosopher)|Porphyry]] and [[Aristotle]]. He had a very accurate classification of the different disciplines of philosophy. He was the first [[French pope]].

Gerbert was said to be one of the most noted scientists of his time. Gerbert wrote a series of works dealing with matters of the [[quadrivium]] ([[arithmetic]], [[geometry]], [[astronomy]], [[music]]), which he taught using the basis of the [[trivium (education)|trivium]] ([[grammar]], [[logic]], and [[rhetoric]]). In Rheims, he constructed a [[hydraulic]]-powered [[Organ (music)|organ]] with brass pipes that excelled all previously known instruments,<ref name="darlington 473">{{harvtxt|Darlington|1947|p=473}}.</ref> where the air had to be pumped manually. In a letter of 984, Gerbert asks [[Lupitus of Barcelona]] for a book on [[astrology]] and [[astronomy]], two terms historian S. Jim Tester says Gerbert used synonymously.{{sfnp |Tester|1987| p=132}} Gerbert is sometimes credited with the invention of the first [[mechanical clock]] in 996, though it was perhaps only an elaborate [[water clock]], as the [[verge and foliot]] does not appear to have been invented until the 13th century.<ref>Becker, Barbara J. "[https://faculty.humanities.uci.edu/bjbecker/spinningweb/lecture6.html Lecture 6.  Measuring Time]." [[University of California, Irvine]]. Accessed 6 February 2024.</ref> Gerbert may have been the author of a description of the [[astrolabe]] that was edited by [[Hermannus Contractus]] some 50 years later. Besides these, as Sylvester II he wrote a dogmatic treatise, ''De corpore et sanguine Domini''—On the Body and Blood of the Lord.

===Legends===
[[File:Silvester II. and the Devil Cod. Pal. germ. 137 f216v (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|upright|Pope Sylvester II and the Devil in an illustration of {{Circa|1460}}]]

The legend of Gerbert grows from the work of the English monk William of Malmesbury in ''[[De Rebus Gestis Regum Anglorum]]'' and a polemical pamphlet, ''Gesta Romanae Ecclesiae contra Hildebrandum'', by [[Beno of Santi Martino e Silvestro|Cardinal Beno]], a partisan of [[Emperor Henry IV]] who opposed [[Pope Gregory VII]] in the [[Investiture Controversy]].{{Citation needed|reason=Lacks citations of secondary sources||date=April 2017}} According to the legend, Gerbert traveled to Spain in order to further his knowledge of the lawful arts, as defined by the quadrivium. Gerbert quickly became more knowledgeable than anyone around him in mathematics, astronomy, and astrology. This is the point in William of Malmesbury's testimony where Gerbert is said to have begun learning the dark arts.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=of Malmesbury |first=William |title=William of Malmesbury's Chronicle of the Kings of England |publisher=J. A. Giles |date=December 2015 |edition=[eBook #50778] |pages=173}}</ref> During Gerberts time in Spain, he was said to live with a Saracen philosopher, who was responsible for giving this knowledge to Sylvester. This knowledge was first obtained through using money and promises as bartering chips for the philosoper's books, which Gerbert translated and learned from.<ref name=":0" /> Despite his efforts, there was one book that Gerbert was not able to coax from the philosopher.<ref name=":0" /> This book was said to contain all of the knowledge the Saracen philosopher had on the dark arts. After resorting to using wine, and intimacy with his daughter, Gerbert was able to steal the book from under the philosopher's pillow while he slept.<ref name=":0" /> Gerbert fled, pursued by the victim, who could trace the thief by the stars, but Gerbert was aware of the pursuit, and hid hanging from a wooden bridge, where, suspended between heaven and earth, he was invisible to the magician.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Shmarakov |first1=Roman |author-link1=Roman Shmarakov |title=Книжица наших забав |date=2019 |publisher=ОГИ |isbn=978-5-94282-868-4 |language=ru}}</ref>

[[File:II Szilveszter pápa a Szent Gellért templom előtt.JPG|thumb|right|200px|Statue of Pope Sylvester II in [[Budapest]], Hungary]]

Gerbert was supposed to have built a [[brazen head]]. This "robotic" head would answer his questions with "yes" or "no".  He was also reputed to have had a [[pact with the devil|pact]] with a female demon called Meridiana, who had appeared after he had been rejected by his earthly love, and with whose help he managed to ascend to the papal throne (another legend tells that he won the papacy playing dice with the Devil).<ref>{{cite book |author-link=E. M. Butler |first=E. M. |last=Butler |title=The Myth of the Magus |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1948 |page=157 }}</ref>

According to the legend, Meridiana (or the bronze head) told Gerbert that if he should ever read a [[Mass (liturgy)|Mass]] in Jerusalem, the Devil would come for him. Gerbert then cancelled a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but when he read Mass in the church [[Santa Croce in Gerusalemme]] ("Holy Cross of Jerusalem") in Rome, he became sick soon afterwards and, dying, he asked his cardinals to cut up his body and scatter it across the city.  In another version, he was even attacked by the Devil while he was reading the Mass, and the Devil mutilated him and gave his gouged-out eyes to demons to play with in the Church. Repenting, Sylvester II then cut off his hand and his tongue.

The inscription on Gerbert's tomb reads in part {{lang|la|Iste locus Silvestris membra sepulti venturo Domino conferet ad sonitum}} ("This place will yield to the sound [of the last trumpet] the limbs of buried Sylvester II, at the advent of the Lord", mis-read as "will make a sound") and has given rise to the curious legend that his bones will rattle in that tomb just before the death of a pope.<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/Lanciani/LANPAC/5*.html#sec21 |chapter=Papal Tombs |title=Pagan and Christian Rome |first=Rodolfo |last=Lanciani |publisher=Houghton, Mifflin |location=Boston |year=1892 }}</ref>

The story of the crown and [[papal legate]] authority allegedly given to [[Stephen I of Hungary]] by Sylvester in the year 1000 (hence the title '[[apostolic king]]') is noted by the 19th-century historian Lewis L. Kropf as a possible forgery of the 17th century.{{sfnp |Kropf|1898| p=290}} Likewise, the 20th-century historian Zoltan J. Kosztolnyik states that "it seems more than unlikely that Rome would have acted in fulfilling Stephen's request for a crown without the support and approval of the [[Holy Roman Emperor|emperor]]."{{sfnp |Kosztolnyik|1977| p=35}}

Though the testimony of William of Malmesbury did much to discredit and defame Gerbert, there were many important intellectual distinctions made from it.<ref name="Celestial Divination">{{Cite journal |last=Truitt |first=E.R. |date=April 2012 |title=Celestial Divination and Arabic Science in Twelfth-Century England: The History of Gerbert of Aurillac's Talking Head |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23253761 |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |volume=73 |issue=2 |pages=201–222 |doi=10.1353/jhi.2012.0016 |jstor=23253761 }}</ref> For example, the legend of Gerbert of Aurilac's talking head helped to describe the line between prohibited and permitted knowledge. Gerbert did work in music theory, mathematics, geometry, and several other fields accepted and taught in the quadrivium.<ref name="Celestial Divination" /> All of the works he did related to these subjects were not brought into question and were accepted as well as appreciated. But works done outside of the accepted liberal arts was condemned, including things learned from bird's songs and flight patterns, as well as the necromancy he was rumored to have taken part in.<ref name="Celestial Divination" />

===Honours===
Hungary issued a commemorative stamp honouring Pope Sylvester II on 1 January 1938,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://colnect.com/en/stamps/list/country/6955-Hungary/year/1938|title = Hungary : Stamps &#91;Year: 1938&#93; &#91;1/5&#93;}}</ref> and France honoured him in 1964 by issuing a postage stamp.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://colnect.com/en/stamps/list/country/2626-France/year/1964/page/4|title = France : Stamps &#91;Year: 1964&#93; &#91;4/6&#93;}}</ref>