The lynx: eyes that see through walls and a hidden stone

Italians still speak of an ‘eye of the lynx’ to mean very sharp sight, but few know that in the medieval bestiaries the lynx was famous above all for another, much less noble reason. According to a belief dating back to Greek antiquity, its urine hardened until it turned into a precious stone, which the animal hid under the sand to prevent people from finding it. From these two traits, sight and avarice, an ambiguous and very instructive moral portrait emerged.

The lynx stone

The oldest report is found in Theophrastus, Aristotle’s pupil, who in his treatise On Stones describes the lyngourion, a gem similar to amber that could attract straws and light fragments. Pliny the Elder repeats the story and adds the detail of envy: the lynx covers its urine with earth so that no one can make use of it. Pliny himself, it should be noted, expresses doubts about this stone and about the powers attributed to it.

Isidore of Seville, in Book XII of the Etymologies, takes up the report: the lynx is said to be related to the wolf family, and its urine to turn into a gem called lyncurius. Through Isidore the stone entered the bestiaries and medieval lapidaries, where it went on circulating for centuries, even though no one could say precisely which real mineral it corresponded to.

The vice of holding back

In the bestiaries the lynx is not given a Christological interpretation like the lion or the panther. It becomes instead a negative example: the image of someone who owns something good and, out of envy or greed, keeps it from others even when it is of no use to himself. Preachers could use it to condemn the miser who piles up riches without sharing them, or the scholar who jealously guards his learning.

This moral reading shows that the bestiary was not just a catalogue of symbols of Christ and the devil. Many animals stood for the vices and virtues of everyday life, offering the faithful concrete examples that were easy to remember. The lynx, covering its stone with sand, was perfect for describing the meanness of those who deny others what they could freely give.

Lynceus and the piercing eyes

The fame of its keen sight has a different origin and is largely due to a confusion of names. In Greek myth Lynceus, one of the Argonauts, had eyes able to see through the earth and through walls. His name was linked with that of the lynx, and so the hero’s marvellous sight passed to the animal. Boethius, in the Consolation of Philosophy, recalls the ‘eyes of Lynceus’ able to pierce obstacles, when speaking of the deceptive beauty of the body.

In the Renaissance this second tradition prevailed over the first. In 1603 Federico Cesi founded the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, choosing the lynx as its emblem because its members were to investigate nature with a piercing gaze. Galileo Galilei was admitted in 1611. The animal that in the bestiaries hid its treasures thus became the symbol of those who uncover the secrets of nature and make them public.

The story of the lynx neatly sums up the history of animal symbols. One and the same creature can carry opposite meanings, born from different sources and destined for different fortunes. The Middle Ages remembered above all its hidden stone, the modern age above all its gaze; and everyday language has kept only the second.