Gabriel Móger or Mòger was a Majorcan painter, sculptor, and poet. He was employed primarily for work on retable

Retable

A retable is a framed altarpiece, raised slightly above the back of the altar or communion table, on which are placed the cross, ceremonial candlesticks and other ornaments....

s and altarpiece

Altarpiece

An altarpiece is a picture or relief representing a religious subject and suspended in a frame behind the altar of a church. The altarpiece is often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for two,...

s by the churches of Majorca. Though Móger's active painting career can be dated to 1426–38 on the basis of surviving documents, his poetic encounter took place some years earlier. A document of 8 March 1404 calls him minor xxv annis et maior tamen xx (less than twenty-five years old and greater than twenty). By 2 January 1414 he was married and the poem was most likely composed between those dates.

Móger painted an "angel concert"-themed altarpiece, with two musicians on the lute

Lute

Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....

 and rebec

Rebec

The rebecha is a bowed string musical instrument. In its most common form, it has a narrow boat-shaped body and 1-5 strings and is played on the arm or under the chin, like a violin.- Origins :The rebec dates back to the Middle Ages and was particularly popular in the 15th and 16th centuries...

, in an unknown year. In 1438 Móger was commissioned to incorporate an Early Netherlandish

Early Netherlandish painting

Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists active in the Low Countries during the 15th- and early 16th-century Northern renaissance, especially in the flourishing Burgundian cities of Bruges and Ghent...

 imago pietatis into the predella

Predella

A predella is the platform or step on which an altar stands . In painting, the predella is the painting or sculpture along the frame at the bottom of an altarpiece...

 of the retable of the high altar in the church of Santa Eulàlia in the Ciutat

Palma de Mallorca

Palma is the major city and port on the island of Majorca and capital city of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. The names Ciutat de Mallorca and Ciutat were used before the War of the Spanish Succession and are still used by people in Majorca. However, the official name...

. The painter Gabriel Móger is easily confused with another Majorcan artist of the same name, who flourished between 1460 and 1509.

Móger composed a poetic debate, or tenso

Tenso

A tenso is a style of Occitan song favoured by the troubadours. It takes the form of a debate in which each voice defends a position on a topic relating to love or ethics. Closely related genres include the partimen and the cobla exchange...

, with Gabriel Ferruç in the Ciutat. The poem opens with Móger's line Seny'En Ferruç, vos qui tenit procura. The heart of the debate is Ferruç' badmouthing Majorcan ladies, whom Móger intends to defend. The women are so angry, he alleges, that they want to kick Ferruç to death with their cork shoes. Ferruç responds that he will not recant, even if it means death, since the ladies of the city would be only further vilified for killing a man who spoke the truth. Móger reminds Ferruç that the ladies he is insulting are distinguished women with the lonch cap diformat, some type of hat, probably a kind of divided hennin

Hennin

The hennin was a headdress in the shape of a cone or "steeple", or truncated cone worn in the late Middle Ages by European women of the nobility. They were most common in Burgundy and France, but also elsewhere, especially at the English courts, and in Northern Europe, Hungary and Poland. They...

 like those Vicent Ferrer condemned in his sermons. Ferruç alludes to Móger's occupation when he responds that at least his adversary can comprehend his reasons sense pintura ... larch presich (without being painted a long sermon). The women look to him like cogulhades ab lur cap mal pastat. This is the crux of the debate: Ferruç finds the Majorca headwear makes the women look like crested lark

Crested Lark

The Crested Lark, Galerida cristata, breeds across most of temperate Eurasia from Portugal to northeast China and eastern India, and in Africa south to Niger...

s (cogulhades). The debate concludes on a violent note, unusual for tensos of its time but in keeping with its general tone.

External links

• Seny'En Ferruç, vos qui tenit procura, edited original-language texts