«Paine pour joie». The motto of Pere de Portugal, a prince of the late middle ages

Abstract

The motto arose at the end of the fourteenth century in order to overcome the limitations of the heraldic system, subject to a too rigid code and conceived exclusively to transfer dynastic and lineage concepts. This study proposes a careful dissection of the authentic literary and aesthetic «alter ego» chosen by the nobleman Pere de Portugal, ephemeral king of Catalonia (1464-1466). The cartography of its motto, present in all kinds of architectural spaces and personal and institutional objects, reveals that it made an extraordinarily intensive use, first in Portugal and later in Catalonia. After most of these manifestations, the desire for legitimacy and a strong aesthetic sense palpitate. But above all the will to express a moral maxim, connected with chivalrous or speculative literature, inspired, among others, in the currents of pagan moral philosophy (Seneca and Boecius) and the humanists of the Trecento Italian. Only in this way can we understand that the motto Paine pour joie, like other similar emblematic formulas, is the result of the intellectual interests and anxieties of a late-medieval knight rather than the reflex-sublimation of his biographical experiences.