CAPELLA, MARTIANUS MINNEUS FELIX, Latin writer, according to Cassiodorus a native of Madaura, in Africa, flourished during the 5th century, certainly before the year 439. He appears to have practised as a lawyer at Carthage. His curious work, entitled Satyrical, or De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii et de septem Artibus liberalibus libri novem, is an allegory written in a mixture of prose and verse. The style is involved, loaded with metaphor and verbose. The first two books contain the allegory proper—the marriage of Mercury to a nymph named Philologia. The remaining seven contain expositions of the seven liberal arts, represented as courtiers of Mercury and Philologia. The work was an encyclopaedia of the culture of the time, and was in high repute during the middle ages. The author's chief sources were Varro, Pliny, Solinus, Aquila Romanus, and Aristides Quintilianus. His prose resembles that of Apuleius, but is even more difficult. The verse portions are in imitation of Varro and are less tiresome. A passage in book viii. contains a clear state ment of the heliocentric system of astronomy. It has been sup posed that Copernicus, who quotes Capella, may have received from this work some hints towards his own new system.
Editio princeps, by F. Vitalis Bodianus (1499) ; the best modern edition is that of F. Eyssenhardt (1866) ; for the relation of Martianus Capella to Aristides Quintilianus see H. Deiters, Studien zu den griechischen Musikern (1881) . In the 11th century the German monk, Notker Labeo, translated the first two books into Old High German.