Emblematica : an interdisciplinary journal for emblem studies [15] 0404647502, 0404647650, 9780404647650

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EMBLEMATICA Лп Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies V o l u m e 15

Managing Editor Daniel Russell Guest Editor

Mara R. Wade

Editors P e t e r M. D a l y

David Graham

Michael Bath Editorial

Assistant

Alison Vort Halasz

I'MHI.l МЛ Tl( Л ISSN ()885-ЧМХ Manuscript submissions and other editorial correspondence sliould be addressed to David Graham. Books for review should he addressed lo Michael Bath; however, no obligation is recognized to review or return any book received. Articles and essays should conform to the house style sheet which is available upon request. General guidance may be obtained from the MLA Handbook for Writers and the Chicago Manual of Style. Authors should submit their work in duplicate, and will be expected to provide a computer file of their accepted article and high-quality glossy prints for any illustrations. Any text to be returned to the author should be accompanied by return postage. Subscriptions and remittances should be sent to the publisher: AMS Press, Inc., Brooklyn Navy Yard, 63 Flushing Avenue - Unit #221, Brooklyn, NY 11205-1005, USA.

Camera-ready copy of this volume of EMBLEMATICA was produced at the University of Pittsburgh.

Volume 15: Series ISBN: 0-404-64750-2 ISBN-10: 0-404-64765-0 * ISBN-13: 978-0-404-64765-0

C o p y r i g h t © AMS Press, Inc., 2007 All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

LMBLI'MATICA Ли Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem

Studies

r.mblcituitnii p u b l i s h e s o r i g i n a l articles, e s s a y s , a n d s p e c i a l i z e d b i b l i o g r a p h i e s in nil a r e a s of e m b l e m s t u d i e s . In a d d i t i o n it r e g u l a r l y c o n t a i n s r e v i e w articles, r e v i e w s , r e s e a r c h r e p o r t s ( w o r k in p r o g r e s s , i n c l u d i n g t h e s e s , c o n f e r e n c e r e p o r t s a n d a b s t r a c t s of c o m p l e t e d theses), n o t e s a n d q u e r i e s , notices ( f o r t h c o m i n g c o n f e r e n c e s a n d p u b l i c a t i o n s ) , a n d v a r i o u s t y p e s of d o c u m e n t a t i o n . It is n o w p u b l i s h e d a n n u a l l y .

Managing

Editor

Daniel Russell Department of French and Italian University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA 15260 U.S.A. Editors Michael Bath Keview Editor I h'partment of English Studies University of Strathclyde Glasgow G l 1XH United Kingdom

P e t e r M. D a l y McGill University Department of German Studies 680 Sherbrooke Street W. Montreal, PQ, H3A 2M7 Canada Editorial

David Graham Dean, Arts and Sciences Concordia University 7141 Sherbrooke St. W. AD Building, Office 328 Montreal, PQ, H4B 1R6 Canada

Board

B a r b a r a C. B o w e n Vanderbilt University

D i e t m a r Peil Ludwig Maximilians Uni.f Munich

P e d r o F. C a m p a University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Karel P o r t e m a n Katholieke Universiteit,

Paulette Chone Universite de Bourgogne

Stephen Rawles University of Glasgow Library

(Dijon)

B e r n h a r d F. S c h o l z Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

John Cull College of the Holy Cross D e n i s L. D r y s d a l l University ofWaikato

(New

Leuven

'Zealand)

M a r y Silcox McMaster University

Wolfgang Harms Ludwig Maximilians Uni., Munich

J. B. T r a p p The Warburg Institute,

K a r l Josef H o l t g e n Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg

Egon Verheyen George Mason University

Lubomir Konecny Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic

Florence Vuilleumier Laurens Ecolc Pratique des Hautes Etudes, IVe Section, Paris

Jean Michel Massing University of Cambridge

Alan Young Acadia University

Sabine Modersheim University of Wisconsin at Madison

London

EMBLEMATICA An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies

Volume 15 Preface

xi

Mara R. Wade Emblems in the Twenty-First Century

1

Michael Bath Embroidered Emblems: Mary Stuart's Bed of State

5

Seraina Plotke Emblematics and Visual Poetry from a Semiotic Perspective: Two Different Kinds of Bimediality

33

Jane Farnsworth A Monstrous Fish Tale: Broadside Pictures and the Emblem in Sixteenth-Century England

55

К. С Elhard Harsdorffer's Librarian

69

Yona Pinson Le triumphe de Haulte folie: Emblematic and Misogynist Discourses

83

Willi Vmi Попоен

A Torrid T h r e e s o m e : Investigating Го mi .mil I'liiulion of the Tripartite Emblem Struct Lire in M i d - T w e n t i e t h - C e n t u r y American Paperback C o v e r s

1 I I

Michael}. Giordano Gilles Deleuze's C o n c e p t of Emblematics in Le Pli: Leibniz et le Baroque

145

Sonia Lagerwall On the Act of Reading: The Emblem and Michel Butor's Novel La Modification

171

Articles Robert Cummings Alciato's I l l u s t r a t e d E p i g r a m s

193

Judi Loach Emblem Books as A u t h o r - P u b l i s h e r Collaborations: The Case of M e n e s t r i e r a n d Coral's P r o d u c t i o n of the 1662 Art des Emblemes

229

Els Stronks Jan Luyken's First Emblem Book and the Revival of the D u t c h Love Emblem

319

Documentation Lubomir Konecny H a b s b u r g Imprese in Tele

345

Ki'vifvv iintl Criticism Ri'oinus Alison Saunders and Peter Davidson, eds., Visual Words and Verbal Pictures. Essays in Honour of Michael Bath, by Jean Michel Massing

357

Andrea Alciati, A Book of Emblems. The "Emblematum Liber" in Latin and English, by Denis L. Drysdall

361

Dorigen Caldwell,The Sixteenth-Century Italian Impresa in Theory and in Practice, by Denis L. Drysdall

369

Jean-Jacques Boissard, Emblematum liber. Emblemes latins, by Peter M. Daly

372

Alison Saunders,The Seventeenth-Century French Emblem. A Study in Diversity, by Daniel Russell

374

Nicolas Milovanovic, Du Louvre a Versailles, lecture des grands decors monarchiques, by Sophia Pickford

378

Yvan Loskoutoff, L'Armorial de Calliope: L'oeuvre du Pere Le Moyne S. J. (1602): litterature, heraldique, spiritualite, by Alison Saunders

381

Paulette Chone and Benedicte Gaulard, eds., Flore au paradis: Emblematique et vie religieuse aux XVIe et XVIIe siecles, by Laurence Grove

384

Peter M. Daly, ed., Emblem Scholarship Directions and Developments: A Tribute to Gabriel Hornstein, by Malcolm Jones

386

Gerhard F. Strasser and Mara R. Wade, eds., Die Donimien des Emblems: Ausserliterarishe Anwendungen der Emblematik, by Patricia D. Hardin 'У)

I

Research Reports, Notes, Queries, and Notices Michael Bath Emblems into Art: The Paintings of Lorna Mcintosh

399

Volume Index

411

. \ I'li'lncc

to volume

fifteen

This volume opens with a substantial first sampling of papers from I he seventh international conference of the Society for Emblem Mmlies, organized by Mara R.Wade at the University of Illinois atUrl>.ma-Champaign in the summer of 2005. This group of papers has I мчм1 selected and edited by Mara Wade, who is serving as guest editor lor this part of the volume. The rest of the volume contains the usual mix of documentation, arl icles, reviews, and notes. Of particular interest for students of the hisiory of the book is a long and important in-depth study by Judi Loach D1 C.-F. Menestrier and his relations with his printers in sevenleenth-century Lyons. As many of you know, I have recently retired from the University of ri I tsburgh and no longer can count on the same level of support I have received in the past. So for the past two or three years the editors of I'.mblematica have been planning a change of editorial management. 1 lenceforth, David Graham of Concordia University in Montreal will be the managing editor of the journal, and all editorial correspon­ dence should be sent to him at the following address. David Graham, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Science, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada [email protected] As in the past, other correspondence, including orders for subscrip­ tions and the like, should be directed to our publisher, AMS Press in New York. So this is the last volume I will put together as managing editor. As I close Volume 15,1 would like especially to thank my co-editors, Peter M. Daly, Michael Bath, and David Graham for their critical acumen and support over the years. At the same time, my thanks go out as well to the members of the editorial board who have solicited good articles XI

XII

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for the journal, helped with the process ol' assessing submissions, «mil sometimes published their own work in Hiiiblcmiiliai. Without their enthusiastic collaboration, the journal would not be as strong or inter­ esting as it is today. Finally, I would like to thank our publisher, Gabriel Hornstein of AMS Press, for his understanding of the needs of a specialized aca­ demic journal, his support and friendship over the years. At my home institution, the University of Pittsburgh, I have received generous production and technical support for twenty years from the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences. Professor Michael Spring, of the School of Information Sciences, introduced me to desktop publishing in the late eighties, and he has never failed to provide guidance and solve problems I encountered producing high quality camera-ready copy. My deepest gratitude goes out to all these friends and colleagues as well as to the institutions they represent. Daniel Russell Managing Editor

Emblems in the Twenty-First Century MARA R. WADE University of Illinois at Urhana-Champaign

The first scholarly fruits of the Seventh International Conference of I he Society for Emblem Studies 2005, "Emblems in the Twenty-First ( Vntury: Materials and Media/' held 24-31 July 2005 at the University о I" Illinois at Urbana-Champaign begin to appear in this issue. Three select groups of papers, reflecting the three main divisions in the organi/ation of the conference, are planned: emblematic readings of Re­ naissance genres and modern emblematic forms; traditional emblem studies; and digital emblematics. The latter cluster of papers under­ scores the growing importance of emblem digitization with the em­ bedded state-of-the-art conference, "Portals, Tools, and Data: Con­ ducting Digital Research with Renaissance Texts and Images," on em­ blem digitization. A deliberate intent of the conference was to open emblem studies wide for the discussion of broadly conceived interpretations of emblematics. The goal is to move well beyond book and applied emblematics in the traditional sense and focus on Renaissance cul­ tural forms which appeared alongside emblems and were part of the context of the developing emblematic genre. Simultaneously, the aim is to investigate postmodern emblematics, particularly works whose authors consciously interrogate and instrumentalize emblematic forms and structures. Therefore, the conference organizers con­ sciously sought papers that also broadly engage with readings of printed works and art from both the early modern and the modern pe­ riod which sharpen the definition of what an emblem is, point to new nuances in emblematica, and contextualize the visual and material culture of emblematic forms. The conference targeted papers that ac1

2

I M i l l I МЛ1 К.Л

tively promote new approaches and work wilhm * I i-.t«»u rsi»s, for ex­ ample, of gender theory, reader response, and semiotics, carefully ad­ vancing new interpretations about the deep slniclures o\ emblems through nuanced readings and comparisons of Iheir lexis and con­ texts. By studying modern forms of emblem-like genres, scholars can develop new perspectives on contemporary genres and perhaps raise new issues important to the traditional study of emblems. Con­ versely, modern research can profit from having rigorous lines of tra­ ditional inquiry applied to contemporary forms. This reciprocal ques­ tioning of modern and pre-modern cultural artifacts should enhance the study of both. The articles presented here thus bring to bear an array of disci­ plines in their interrogation of the emblematic form, and they range from the magisterial contribution by Michael Bath resulting from his many years of immersion in Scottish material culture of the Renais­ sance to the papers by Yona Pinson, Jane Farnsworth, Seraina Plotke, and К. С Elhard, who pose deceptively simple questions of Renais­ sance texts and images, compelling us to reconsider what is, and is not, emblematic and to reassess the cultural context of the emblem. The contributions by Wim van Dongen, Michael J. Giordano, and Sonia Lagerwall challenge postmodern notions of text and images, suggesting that emblems are still very much alive in the modern world and that emblematic forms continue to evolve and develop. Michael Bath positions his study at the interstices of decorative arts, material culture, emblems, and politics. His close reading of groups of emblems, their culture, and their often new cultural context over time documents the development of a heretofore unrecognized, consistently applied court iconography for Mary Queen of Scots, whose personal devices accrued considerable political potency. Bath's dazzling command of his material sets a new benchmark for future studies of this kind which employ both print and applied emblematics in a broadly conceived interrogation of court culture. The papers by Plotke, Farnsworth, Elhard, and Pinson demonstrate that emblems were embedded in a rich context of related gen­ res—broadsides, illustrated books, collections of adages, and objects of visual and material culture. Their investigations push the bound­ aries of what is traditionally accepted as emblematic and illuminate the divisions and overlaps between emblems and their related genres. Farnsworth and Plotke both undertake the study of the emblem from comparative perspectives. On the one hand, Plotke reads a German Baroque pattern poem by Theodor Kornfeld against an emblem by

МЛКЛ К

WADI

3

I,i asmus Francisci, demonslraling the» ways in which these two highly popular genres of the (ierman Baroque period work within very simi­ lar visual and textual structures. Her careful juxtaposition of the two genres illuminates and defines the emblem in its cultural and literary historical context. On the other hand, Farnsworth examines English broadsides, tracing the development of ever greater emblematization ,ilong a continuum of the merely descriptive through the symbolic aiul moralistic to the emblematic. Her approach is deceptively simple лт\ visibly charts the trajectory from the merely pictorial toward the emblematic. In a detailed visual analysis of a Renaissance icon, К. С I;.lhard attends to subtle variations in proportion, apparently mean­ ingless changes in detail, and minute alterations in the composition between Arcimboldo's well known // Librarian ,/ and the "Buchermensch" [book-man] by G. P. Harsdorffer, who was known in the premier German language academy of the day as "der Spielende" [the playing one]. Her suggestion that Harsderffer engaged in the playful, but nevertheless intellectual, manipulation of form and content de­ scribed as the "emblematic game" paves the way for future study of this important author of emblems and emblematic treatises in Ger­ man. Elhard relates both Arcimboldo's and Harsdorffer's images to Sebastian Brant's Buchernarr [Book-Fool] and thereby complements Yona Pinson's detailed study of Renaissance fool's literature in the wake of Brant's Narrenschiff(1494:). Pinson surveys the iconography of Le triumphe de Dame Folie, not only focusing on this important German predecessor and a succession of French models, but also highlighting the gendered aspects of the female fool in the wake of Erasmus's Praise of Folly, situating them all in the context of illustrated French imprints in the sixteenth century. Three papers by Wim van Dongen, Sonia Lagerwall, and Michael J. Giordano showcase modern and postmodern emblematics from his­ torically grounded, twenty-first century perspectives. Wim van Dongen recalls Corbett and Lightbown's The Comely Frontispiece with his postmodern investigation of the American paperback cover and makes readers aware of emblematic structures in the modern world. Situated at another breakthrough in printing history —the develop­ ment of paperback books —he convincingly demonstrates that fea­ tures of the American paperback cover parallel the Renaissance em­ blem. He further engages scholarly interest by viewing these artifacts of twentieth-century innovation from the perspectives of gender and race. The two contributions by Lagerwall and Giordano respectively concentrate on a modern French novel and a philosophical work that

4

I MM I I МЛМСЛ

consciously employ emblematic Ira meworks .n I heir narrative slinc tures. In spite of the inherent difficulty l shulyinj» IOIIJ^IT prose works against the compact form of the emblem, these scholars make compelling arguments for the presence of emblematic practices in a novel by Butor andDeleuze's commentary on Leibniz. Giordano's in­ tellectually rich article investigates, and considerably amplifies, pas­ sages from Gilles Deleuze in which he himself explores and reworks Leibnitz's thought to clarify our understanding of the Baroque. Relying on earlier emblem studies by Daniel Russell, Lagerwall ex­ plores the fragmentation and reconstitution, the bricolage of the mod­ ern novel, providing a useful discussion of the concepts of amplitude, proliferation, and frame-breaking that were characteristic of the much earlier emblem genre. She ably demonstrates that Riffaterre's notion of "ungrammatically" can usefully be applied to the emblem. Together these papers present new perspectives on emblems from both Renaissance and postmodern points of view, enriching scholars' engagement with the genre and helping to refine future research while simultaneously opening the field to broader inquiry. As guest editor of this section of Embelmatica 15, I would like to thank my graduate research assistants Kathleen Smith and Molly Markin for their practical and editorial assistance. My great thanks go to Daniel S. Russell in shepherding these papers though the publica­ tion process and sharing his profound knowledge of emblems with me, both in the work on this volume and especially during our team-taught constorium seminar on the European emblem at the Newberry Library, Chicago, in Fall 2005.1 would also like to thank the entire editorial board of Emblematical Michael Bath, David Graham, and Peter Daly for their work on this volume.

Embroidered Emblems: Mary Stuart's Bed of State MICHAEL BATH University of Strathclyde

In 1618 playwright Ben Jonson walked all the way from London to Scotland and back, a round trip of more than 800 miles. Jonson weighed in at around eighteen stone (250 lbs), and we don't know why he walked all the way, though we do know that he got as far as Darlinglon before he had to buy a new pair of boots. While he was in Scotland, he spent some time with the Scots poet, William Drummond of I Iawthornden, with whom he had some famous literary conversations. On his return Jonson wrote a thank-you letter to Drummond, recording that King James himself had welcomed him back to London and expressed a keen interest in a book Jonson proposed to write about his majesty's native Scotland. 1 In the letter Jonson reminds Drummond of a number of things that Drummond had promised to send him for this book, including information about Loch Lomond and about the government of Edinburgh. "I most earnestly sollicit you," he also writes, "for your Promise of the Inscriptions at Pinky." One looks in vain for any explanation of this reference to "Pinky" in Herford and Simpson's Works of Ben Jonson or, to the best of my knowledge, anywhere else in Jonsonian literature. It is now possible to explain this, however, as the earliest reference to the painted ceiling

1.

Jonson 1925,1: 207. Exactly what type of book this was to be is unclear, though in his "Conversations with Drummond" we are told that "he heth intention to writt a fisher or Pastorall play & sett the stage of it in the Lowmond Lake" (143, and cf. Herford and Simpson's editorial note on this, 168-69).

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EMBLEMATICA

Pig. 1. Musselburgh, Pinkie House, long gallery ceiling painted with emblems and inscriptions dating from 1613 for Alexander Seton, 1 s t Earl of Dunfermline and Chancellor of Scotland. © Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.

which Chancellor Seton, Earl of Dunfermline, had installed in the remarkable long gallery at Pinkie House in Musselburgh in 1613. As I noted in my book on Renaissance Decorative Painting in Scotland, this ceiling is full of emblems and Latin inscriptions copied from Otto Vaenius's Emblemata Horatiana (1607) and from Denis Lebey de Batilly's Emblemata (1596), creating a neo-Stoic painted gallery (fig. I). 2 In response to Jonson's letter Drummond sent a packet later that summer containing the requested information on Loch Lomond, with a map, together with a description of the government of Edinburgh,

М1СМЛ1 I HATH

7

",md lhe Method of the Colleges of Scotland" (Jonson, I: 208). As far as "inscriptions" are concerned, he makes no mention of Seton's em­ blems at Pinkie, but rather launches into a very full account of "the Imprcssncs and Emblemes on a Bed of State wrought and embroidered .HI with gold and silk by the late Queen Mary mother to our sacred Sovereign, which will embellish greatly some pages of your Book." lonson never got around to writing his book, as far as we know, so I irummond's letter of July 1619 has remained, until now, our only re­ cord of this Bed of State embroidered with emblems by Mary Queen of Scots. Drummond's description has frequently been cited by students of the emblem, and is now recognized as one of the more interesting accounts of the way emblems were used in sixteenth-century applied «irts.3 It is also well known to writers on the history of textiles, and on Mary's surviving embroideries in particular—that is to say, the fa­ mous "Oxburgh Hangings" executed while Mary was in the custody of the Earl of Shrewbury and his wife, Bess of Harwick, during the fi­ nal nineteen years of her life (see Swain 1973). The actual Bed of State described by Drummond has not survived. Drummond describes a total of thirty different imprese on the bed hangings, quoting the motto together with a description of the pictura of each and, where appropriate, identifying its bearer. It has long been recognized that a few of the imprese he describes — in fact just six — cor­ respond to devices recorded in Claude Parading Devises heroiques, and it has seemed quite likely that this was Mary's source; we know that she used Paradin as her pattern for a number of details on the Oxburgh Hangings (Leisher, 281, 285). Drummond offers no very clear impres­ sion of the actual make-up of the State Bed—he does not tell us how many valances or side-curtains it consisted of; evidently his, or Jonson's, interest centered on the "inscriptions" and the iconography. He does conclude, however, by mentioning that it included the arms 2. Bath 2003, chapter 4. Among the people Jonson met in Edinburgh, whom he asks to be remembered to in his letter of 10 May 1619, is a certain "Mr James Wraith, his Wife, your Sister/' Herford and Simpson (I: 208) identify Wraith as an Edin­ burgh lawyer who was not only a relative of Drummond's but also recorded as "servitor" to Alexander Seton, Earl of Dunfermline, who commissioned the painted ceiling at Pinkie House. The connection may well explain how the sub­ ject of this ceiling with its "inscriptions" came up in conversation with Drummond.

3.

See, for instance, Palliser, 234-39; Leisher, 276-86.

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EMBLEMATICA

of Scotland, England, and France. "The workmanship is curiously done, and above all value, and truly it may be of this Piece stiid Materiam superabat opus" ([The workmanship was even better than the material used], Jonson I: 210). A number of documents have recently come to light which tell us more about the make-up and iconography of Mary's State Bed, however, and my aim is to identify some of these and to begin the work of showing just what they tell us about Mary's motives and meanings in the emblems she chose to embroider on one of the most significant artefacts to use emblems in the material culture of early-modern Scotland. This new evidence is of various kinds. Firstly, no fewer than three manuscripts, all earlier than Drummond's 1619 letter to Ben Jonson, have recently come to light which describe the same bed hangings. These not only identify many of the same emblems which Drummond himself describes, but also quite a few emblems not mentioned by Drummond, some of which can be found on the surviving Oxburgh Hangings, forcing us to reassess just what those famous embroideries were designed for and how they were used. Secondly, there are quite a few other artefacts associated with Mary which, as we shall see, use the same emblems. These include coins and medals, a silver handbell and a pocket watch, which suggest that the needlework was part of a wider emblematic program in which her role as queen of Scotland and, eventually, Catholic martyr was developing in an extended process of Renaissance self-fashioning. Emblems (or, strictly speaking, imprese) play a key role in this fashioning. Finally, the new sources and documents include several accounts of the way what I propose to call "incriminating" emblems were cited as evidence in English state trials at this period, in order to secure the conviction of more than one of Mary's friends or supporters. These include one of the most important state trials of the Elizabethan period, in which England's premier earl, the Duke of Norfolk, got his head chopped off. The decorative arts have never been more deadly. . . . Two of the new manuscript sources are preserved among the Hawthornden papers in the National Library of Scotland. The first is an undated inventory of forty-three "Devyces" preserved amongst the papers of William Fowler, but unsigned and not in Fowler's hand. 4

4.

National Library of Scotland, Hawthornden Mss, vol. xii, Fowler's Papers and Scrolls, fols. 50-52.

М1СИЛ1 I НА 1 M

9

The1 second is a numbered list of thirty-one devices, headed "5 April IMKl after [he King's departure 1 did observe these devyses vpon the »|ueens his mother's bed," and signed by Fowler at the end (fol. 21). lowler was a leading poet at the court of James VI/I, and secretary to his queen, Anne of Denmark. Author, among other things, of a verse I ia nslation of Petrarch's Trionfi for which the king himself wrote some enm mendatory verses, he also wrote the program for the 1594 baptism ol Prince Henry, filling it with processions and set pieces displaying learned imprese; this highly emblematic ceremony, celebrating the birth of the future heir to the thrones of both Scotland and England, deserves further study of its iconography and themes. 5 The Fowler pa­ pers also include notes taken from Italian impresa treatises by Giulio ( «lpaccio and by Giovanni Palazzi and a list of "My Works" which ineludes an "art of impreses" as well as of "maskarades" and an "art of memorye," none of which he seems to have completed —at least, they have not survived. 6 Fowler remains one of the major unresearched sources for emblem studies in early-modern Britain; he has gone un­ noticed in published research on the emblem in Britain hitherto. 7 The reason why William Fowler's papers are preserved amongst I he Hawthornden papers in Edinburgh is that Fowler was Drummond of Hawthornden's uncle, brother to Fowler's mother, Susanna, nee l;owler. He evidently saw Mary Stuart's State Bed in Edinburgh shortly after King James had progressed south to London following the Union of the Crowns in 1603. This is certainly the bed which was ordered to be delivered by Andrew Melvin to King James shortly after Mary's execution, since the Inventory of Mary's possessions, made up at Fotheringay in February 1587, includes, among items in the custody of Melvin, "Furniture for a bedd wrought with needleworke of silke, silver and golde, with divers devices and armes, not throughlye fin­ ished"; a marginal note records that this is "To be delivred by him to the Kinge of Scottes." 8 Unlike some of the Queen's more personal be­ longings, bequeathed to her servants and others, these were evidently 5. See Fowler, III: 169-94, for his 'True Reportarie of the Baptisme of Prince Henry/' Lynch has a useful study of the baptism in the context of Scottish court ceremony.

6. See Fowler, HI: i, xxvii, xliv.

7. I have published some preliminary findings on Fowler, and on the Bed of State, in Bath 2004.

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EMBLEMATICA

Fig. 2. Illustration of Horapollo's hieroglyphic of the lion that produces only a single cub which may well have supplied the p a t t e r n for Queen Mary's "Unum quidem sed leonem" embroidery. Horapollo, Hieroglyphica. Paris: Kerver, 1551. © Glasgow University Library, Stirling Maxwell Collection.

thought of as state furnishings which should be returned to her son and successor in Edinburgh. We know that the same bed was sent down to London for rep a i r s in p r e p a r a t i o n for the king's one and only return to Scotland, his state visit of 1617, just a year before Ben Jonson's northerly excursion. Evidently King James felt that for this visit he needed to be surrounded by the proper state furnishings, which he therefore had cleaned up and repaired. 9 These, then, are the circumstances which supply the essential context for both William Fowler's and his nephew William Drummond's interest in the State Bed of the late Mary Queen of Scots in the early years of the seventeenth century. So what did these emblems that Queen Mary embroidered for her State Bed look like, and what did they mean? We might start with the emblem Drum-

8. The inventory is printed in Labanoff, VII: 254, see also Calendar of State Papers Scotland, IX: 304 (cited under Anon.) 9. The Privy Council of Scotland in 1616 ordered John Auchmowtie, Master of the Wardrobe, to send four beds to England "thair to be mendit and providit with furnitour answerable and sutable to the beddis, and that thairefter they may be returnit and send home with diligence." The beds are identified as "ane bed of the labouris of Hercules/' a bed of crimson and gold, and "ane bed of embroiderit worke of gold, silver, and silk, contening the rooffe, with three pandis hingand as it wer, with three fute pandis" and a fourth bed, "incompleete, sewit be his Majesties mother, of gold, silver, and silk." See Masson, 624-25.

М1СИЛ1 I НАШ

11

mond describes as showing "a big Lyon and a young Whelp beside I if i " with the motto Urium quidem sed leonem [One only, but that one a I mn | (Jonson, 1: 209). Drummond adds the comment, one of a number in his letter which not only describe the emblem but also comment on Ms significance, "This for her self and her son." Horapollo had already ..iiulioned the idea that a lioness only produces a single lion cub, and I or I hat reason it was used in the priestly writing of the Egyptians as an hieroglyphic for a woman who has only conceived once (fig. 2). V.ileriano, in his hugely expanded 1556 Hieroglyphica, places the lion .il I he head of his animals, in Book I, where he confirms that it '.v mbolizes "A woman who gives birth only once/ 7 and takes it back to I he Aesopic fable of the lioness and the fox, which tells how a vixen congratulates herself on the fact that foxes always produce a good litler of cubs, to which the lioness replies that, although she only proII uees one cub, at least it is a lion and n o t a fox: Unum quidem sed leonem.

Drummond's comment that Mary adopted this device on her bed hangings to refer to herself and her only son, James VI of Scotland, gives the impresa an interpretation that is both personal and political. She would be likely, in her years of captivity in England, to have drawn comfort from such an emblem, particularly since it might re­ in i nd her that although she had produced only one child, Elizabeth of England had failed to produce any and, as a result, it was Mary's royal issue, not Elizabeth's, that was increasingly likely to succeed to her ri­ val's throne. And the lion is, of course, the regal beast of Scotland as I igured on the royal arms. Moreover, we have independent witness to the political interpretat ion that was placed on this emblem at the time, for in 1585 the CathoI ic Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, was captured while attempting to sail into exile. In the account of his State Trial, published later, we are told of the part which emblematic devices played in his prosecution: Then was produced an emblematical piece found in the earl's cabinet, which had on the one side a Hand bitten with a Serpent shaking the Serpent into the Fire, about which was written this Poesie, Quis contra nos? and on the other side, a Lion Rampant, with his chops all bloody, with this poesie, Tamen Leo (Hargrave, I, col. 166). The hand shaking a snake into the fire is an emblem which had been illustrated in Claude Paradin's collection of Devises heroiques (1551) with the motto Quis contra nos? based on the biblical account in Acts

12

EMBLEMATICA

28: 1-6, of St. Paul's visit to Malta where a viper fastens onto his finger as he puts sticks on a fire, but which the apostle shakes off and suffers no harm; the motto quotes Romans 8: 31, "If God is with us, who can be against us?" (fig. 3). Paradin does not identify any existing bearer of this impresa. The same device was also used, as it happens, on a medal signed by the Italian medallist Jacopo Primavera showing Queen Elizabeth I in profile and the reverse with a hand shaking a serpent into the fire with the motto NOCEBIT NIHIL CVI NON Fig. 3. Claude Paradin, Devises heroiques. NOVISSE DEBET ACTO Lyons de Tournes, 1557, p.187. © Glas- XXVIII [Nothing will harm him gow University Library, Stirling Maxwell whom nothing should harm, Collection. Acts xxviii] (fig. 4).10 Records of the trial of Philip Howard do not tell us what form this "emblematical piece" took and it may not have been any kind of embroidery, nor does the prosecution allege that these incriminating emblems had any connection with Mary Queen of Scots. However, the fact that both correspond to emblems used in her embroideries suggests that this may well be where the imprese originated. Philip Howard was the son of the Duke of Norfolk, in whose trial one of Mary's most famous embroideries was to be cited as evidence, as we shall see, and some years earlier, shortly after his marriage to Anne Dacre, Mary had sent Anne a piece of embroidery in silk and silver "made and contrived by herself" using emblems designed to rec-

10. The medal is illustrated by Strong 1963, no.10, and by Pollard, fig. 6. Strong dates the medal to ca.1600, though it has been argued to celebrate the Queen's recovery from smallpox in 1572. Primavera also designed a uniface medal of Mary Queen of Scots, undated but ca. 1578, see Scher, 191-92. Primavera seems to have been active chiefly between 1569 and 1585, and is presumed to have died around 1600.

М1СИЛ1 I ИЛ111

13

niwili* I In* young bride U) wh.il was turning out to be a Jillieult marriage. A manu-nipl preserved in the Nor­ folk archives recounts the 11 ves of these two members of l he English Catholic nobility. \V i i I ten by the priest who evidenlly served in the Count• "is's household before her ile.uh in 1630, it appears to be I he only record of this emluoidery, and it records that I he emblematic motifs ineluded two doves perched on Fig. 4. Reverse of medal of Queen Elizabeth ,i tree of which one branch of England by Primavera, ca. 1572. © British bore two or t h r e e leaves Museum. while the other was bare: . . . over the top of the tree were these words wrought in sil­ ver, Amoris forte pares [Perhaps equal in love]. Signifying: that herself and the Countesse represented by those two turtles were alike in their affections to the two persons of the same family; the Duke of Norfolke, and the Earl of Sur­ rey. (Howard, 266) It is not my purpose to explicate the meaning or intention of this em­ blem any further, but we should note the fact that its pictura featured a tree with a flourishing branch on one side, and a bare branch on the other. We shall see lots of examples of this motif elsewhere in the em­ blems and embroideries associated with Mary Queen of Scots. Most famously it is featured on what is probably the best known of all the surviving emblematic embroideries, the centerpiece to the Oxburgh "Marian Hanging/' showing a hand pruning a vine with the motto VIRESCIT VULNERE VIRTUS [Virtue flourishes from its wounds] (fig. 5). We can easily read this as a consolatory and personal impresa in the circumstances of Mary's exile, although in its own day it was interpreted as a political emblem when, at the trial of the Duke of Norfolk in 1572, the prosecution alleged that Mary had sent an em­ broidered cushion cover with this device to Norfolk, England's pre­ mier earl, to whom she had plighted her troth in what would have

14

EMBLEMAIICA

Fig. 5. Mary Queen of Scots's embroidery panel VIRESCIT VULNERE VIRTUS from the Oxburgh Hangings, Oxburgh Castle, Norfolk. ©Victoria and Albert Museum

been the fourth of her royal marriages. Elizabeth, who at one time had favored such a match for her cousin, recognized the dangers that any such marriage would provoke for the Protestant Reformation and the likely succession to the English throne, and resolved to obtain the evidence that would allow her to chop off Norfolk's head. This emblem was cited as part of that evidence. Mary, the court was told, had sent a cushion to Norfolk Wrought with the Scotts Queen's own armes, and a devyse upon it, with this sentence, VIRESCIT VULNERE VIRTUS, and a hand with a knife cutting down the vines, as they use

15

М1СНЛ1 I И Л И !

in spryn^e tyme; al which work was made by the Scots Ouecn's own hand (Murdin, 51).

I he stale papers do not tell us exactly how the iconography was read •.и as lo validate this incriminating message, but a letter to William i n i l , Lord Burghley offers the following interpretation: "declarynge I hereby her courage, and wyllinge the Duke by suche a watch senh*iu4\ to take good harte unto him" (57). 11 we examine the emblem we see that it shows two Nourishing trees, with Mary's m o n o g r a m by the I ell-hand tree, and the royal arms of Scotland on t h e i ij'Jit. These are not the two trees of Scotland and Eng­ land, t h e r e f o r e , a n d t h e scythe is not cutting either I ree; it is instead pruning the vine below. That p r u n i n g m ight well be seen as a piece of "potential facticity" if we really wanted to preserve I hat concept from the em­ blem theory of the 1 9 6 0 s -

Fi

S- 6 - R e v e r s e oi jeton of Mary Queen of

Scots

showing

her

you prune over-leafy vines to make them more fruitful.

VIRTUS emblem

VIRESCIT VULNERE ' P™bably s t r u c k in France

We might well accept the reading Offered by Susan

shortly after the death of Francis II in 1559.© Glasgow University, Hunterian Coins Col-

Watkins: "The message to l e c t l 0 n Norfolk was clear: the un­ fruitful branch of the Tudors (Elizabeth) was to be cut down, so that the vital branch (Mary) would flourish" (187). Read that way, both its propriety as a gift to her intended spouse (a potential marital em­ blem), and its continuity with what I am tempted to call the bitchiness of the UNUM QUIDEM SED LEONEM emblem becomes apparent. But then, the ability of any queen to produce a son and heir was top of the list of priorities for every monarchy. The vine in the embroidery certainly has two branches, though it may not be clear at first sight what the difference is between them. It is not the case that one is with-

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I Mill I М Л М С А

ered whereas the other is flourishing; rather it is the right branch alone that bears fruit, while the lef I one has only leaves. A medal using this same device bears no date, though its obverse shows the arms of France and Scotland impaled, suggesting a date be­ tween July 1559 and December 1561 when she was Queen of both countries (fig. 6). The inscription around the obverse, however, allows us to be more precise, for MARIA D.G. SCOTOR[UM] REGINA FRAN[CORUM] DOI means "Mary by the grace of God Queen of Scots and Dowager of France/' dating this to some time after the death of Francois II in 1560 but prior to her marriage to Darnley in 1565, though Mary occasionally used the "dowager 77 title thereafter. In 1636 Jacques de Bie produced the first printed book describing and illus­ trating the medals of France under the title La France metallique, and in it he illustrates a variant of this same medal or jeton which, he says, showed on its obverse a portrait bust of Mary, and on the reverse not only the hand pruning the vine but the date 1557; "Temps qui a son rapport peu auparavant le mariage de ceste vertueuse reinne avec le Monarque de la France" (187). What these medals or jetons tell us is that, whatever the date, Mary's VIRESCIT VULNERE VIRTUS em­ broidery is using a device that had already been circulating in her courtly iconography for many years. She was not, therefore, inventing an impresa that would express her treasonable intentions vis-a-vis Elizabeth of England —although she may well have been implying or adapting its application to her current circumstances. As it appears on her medal or jeton as Dowager of the late king Francis, the intended application was far more likely to be that of a mourning or funerary device; the virtuous queen can recover from the wounds of bereave­ ment, perhaps. 11 Moreover, what we are witnessing is the development, over a com­ paratively long period, of a set of devices whose purpose was, evi­ dently, to construct a courtly iconography for Mary. The devices she

11. As I noted in my Renaissance Decorative Painting in Scotland, the device of the hand pruning a vine with the same motto was used as the heraldic crest of the Burnetts as early as 1550, when they raised an action in the Court of the Lyon King of Arms, Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, to defend their title to the crest; Bath 2003, 37. Virescit vulnere virtus was also adopted in Scotland as the heraldic motto of Bishop William Stewart of Aberdeen and can be seen, dated 1545, carved with the other coats of arms on the walls of King's College Chapel; see Geddes, col. PL X (a).

М1СИЛ1 I И Л И !

17

|чМ on her bed hdn^in^s are nol so much a set of private .mil p e r s o n a l t o k e n s — Munich the question "What would this have meant to Mary?" remains perfectly \.i I id — but rather a body of i «vo^nized symbols which are meant to define her pub­ lic persona. That they had lli.il status is suggested by a ii'i'ord of t h e VIRESCIT VULNERE VIRTUS emblem in «l manuscript of // Devises ,/ collected in the early sevenleenth century by Hector le hreton, royal herald under I,ouis XIII, who records it as I he device of "La royne marie D ' e s c o s s e D o u a i r e r e de I ranee/ 7 confirming its appli­ cation to the circumstances of Mary's first widowhood Fig. 7. J. D o r at, Recueil de devises, which we have already noted Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal MS. 3184, owned by royal herald Hector le Breton who died in (lig.7).i2 1652. © Paris, Bibliotheque nationale. The device was also used on Mary's silver handbell. This is almost certainly the same handbell that is recorded in several inventories of Mary's possessions —shortly before her death it is de­ scribed, for instance, as "Une clochette d'argent de sus la table de Sa Majeste."13 Here the shape of the vine branches and positioning of the

12. For Breton, see Sider, no. 176.

13. Labanoff, VII: 247. The handbell has descended without interruption in the pos­ session of the family of Lord Balfour of Burleigh, and was discussed as long ago as 1858 by Way; it is illustrated in Gibb, The Royal House of Stuart, London, 1890, 113, and was exhibited in the tercentenary exhibition commemorating the execu­ tion of Mary Queen of Scots, catalogue: Tercentenary of Mary Queen of Scots, exhi­ bition, Peterborough 1887, no. 84.

18

I МШ LMAIICA

Fig. 8. Mary Stuart's silver handbell, detail showing the VIRESCIT VULNERE VIRTUS emblem © M. Bath.

Fig. 9. Mary Stuart's silver handbell, detail showing the emblem SA VERTU M'ATTIRE © M. Bath.

hand holding the pruning knife are very close to the way they are shown on the early medals, which is not surprising (fig. 8). It puts the associations of the hand pruning the vine into a whole new context, Г suggest, if we bear in mind that this was an emblem that Mary had be­ side her on her table, and held in her hands whenever she rang the bell to summon her servants. Moreover, this is not the only engraved em­ blem on this silver bell, for next to it we find engraved Mary's favorite monogram, used indeed on the vine-pruning embroidery, consisting of an M for Mary and a Greek phi for her husband, Francis II, late king of France. The monogram is encircled by a motto that turns out to be highly relevant: SA VERTU MATIRE is an anagram of Mary's name, and it means "its power attracts me" (fig. 9). Mary had this monogram, with its reminder of her first marriage, engraved on her signet ring, now in the British Museum (fig. 10). The monogram is inside the ring, closest to her finger, and is encircled with a white enamel band bearing the remains of the lettering; this has to be read as a marital device. Mary uses this motto in several other places —in fact the surviving embroidery panel now immediately above the VIRESCIT VULNERE VIRTUS centerpiece to the Marian

М1СНЛ1 I ИЛ111

19

I l.mj'.in)», at O x b u r g h s h o w s an• И1нт m o n o g r a m of M a r y ' s n a m e r m i r c l o d by t h i s v e r y s a m e iiinllo. And the m o t t o d o e s corre• |U>IKI, as it h a p p e n s , to the very Mr.I of the devices that William I ' i t i m m o n d describes on M a r y ' s Mnl of State, w h e r e , h e tells u s , it was associated w i t h the i m a g e of ,i loadstone t u r n i n g t o w a r d s the I'olo s t a r : " T h e f i r s t is t h e I o.ulstone t u r n i n g t o w a r d s the Го1е: t h e W o r d h e r M a j e s t y ' s n a m e t u r n e d i n t o an a n a g r a m Marie Stuart, sa vertu m'attire which is n o t m u c h inferior to Veritas armata" (Jonson, I: 208). As we shall see, the m o t t o w a s also u s e d w i t h t h i s d e v i c e on Mary's d e c o r a t e d pocket w a t c h . D r u m m o n d ' s alternative anaI'.mm, Veritas armata, is itself re­ c o r d e d e l s e w h e r e , for in 1615 William C a m d e n p u b l i s h e d his Annates on the "Royal H i s t o r y of I he famous E m p r e s s e Elizabeth." In 1584, he tells us, an a t t e m p t was m a d e to p e r s u a d e Elizabeth I hat Q u e e n Mary, just t h r e e years Fig. 10. Mary Stuart's signet ring, as il­ before her execution, s h o u l d be lustrated in Way, 256. r e m o v e d f r o m t h e E a r l of Shrewsbury's custody into a stricter r e g i m e . To this end, he says, "certaine s u s p i t i o n s were col­ lected of s o m e d e s i g n e s for her delivery, t h r o u g h certaine Emblemes which w e r e sent to her." These included a d e p r e s s e d p a l m tree that rises a b o v e its o p p r e s s i o n , Ponderibus virtus innata resistit [The strength w e are b o r n w i t h resists o p p r e s s i o n ] ; again the m o t t o uses that k e y w o r d virtus. These allegedly i n c r i m i n a t i n g e m b l e m s also in­ cluded the a n a g r a m w e h a v e just seen William D r u m m o n d refer to. "That a n a g r a m also gave m u c h distate," writes C a m d e n , "ARMATA VERITAS [truth is a r m e d ] MARIA STVARTA" (1625: 72). So we have

20

I МИ I I МЛ I И.Л

yet more e v i d e n c e of the way these personal ilevuv.'. s u r r o u n d i n g Mary Stuart w e r e used as political p a w n s . С 'amilen i crlainly knew all about a n a g r a m s , since he w r o t e an essay on Ihem in his Remains of a Greater Work, Concerning Britain; those " R e m a i n s " also include an es­ say on the art of the impresa. Before w e leave Mary's silver h a n d b e l l , it is w o r t h n o t i n g one fur­ ther e n g r a v i n g on it, not on the o u t s i d e of the bell this time but, rather unexpectedly, on the in­ side w h e r e the clapper swings (fig. 11). T h e i n s c r i p t i o n is C L A M A T SVAS [It calls h e r own]. "Her own what?" we m i g h t ask. Resting on her table, as described in the 1586 inven­ tory of Mary's possessions, the h a n d b e l l w o u l d d o u b t l e s s be u s e d to s u m m o n her servants, h o w e v e r we m i g h t also see the inscription as affording the cap­ tive a n d exiled q u e e n some as­ Fig. 11.Mary Stuart's silver handbell, de­ s u r a n c e that, in the h o u r of her tail showing the inscription CLAMAT n e e d , she c o u l d s u m m o n her SUAS inside the bell, as illustrated in other s u p p o r t e r s to her assis­ tance. Once again w e can find Way, 261. an association of the political w i t h the p e r s o n a l in these de­ vices. We r e t u r n , finally, to Mary's m e d a l s . In 1579, ten years after she fled to England, at least t h r e e m e d a l s or jetons w e r e m i n t e d of which two have e m b l e m a t i c reverses c o r r e s p o n d i n g to devices D r u m m o n d de­ scribes on her b e d hangings. 1 4 One s h o w s a version of the same image found on the VIRESCIT VULNERE VIRTUS e m b l e m , a vine stem of two b r a n c h e s , one flourishing the other w i t h e r e d . A h a n d in the sky

14. Medals minted for Mary Queen of Scots are key artefacts for any study of the ico­ nography of her reign, and of the embroideries in particular. They are not well known, however, and have been largely ignored in previous studies; the stan­ dard reference work remains Cochran-Patrick, 6-16, which lists twenty-two dif­ ferent medals. Some of these are also illustrated in Burns, II: 346-48.

М1СМЛ1 I НА 1 M

21

h o l d s , (his linn», noi «i p r u n i n g I-Nile bill a pot (fig. 12). The* motto г. MI'A SIC Mil II PROSUNT [Thus ,мг mi no profitable t o m e ] . It is only when we read D r u m m o n d ' s de.(liplion that we can u n d e r s t a n d Ми* e m b l e m a t i c point of this: "A Vine tree w a t r e d w i t h Wine, which instead to m a k e it s p r i n g a n d grow, m.iketh it fade, the W o r d , Mea sic niilii prosunt." Clearly w e cannot It'll from the p i c t u r e t h a t the waterin); pot h o l d s w i n e r a t h e r t h a n wa­ i n , and w e h a v e to c o n c l u d e that Fig. 12. Reverse of medal minted 1579 not o n l y D r u m m o n d b u t a l s o showing the emblem MEA SIC MIHI I o w l e r a n d t h e e a r l i e s t of t h e PROSUNT, the vine being watered newly d i s c o v e r e d d e s c r i p t i o n s of with wine. © National Museum of I he Bed of State —an a n o n y m o u s Scotland. I r e n c h i n v e n t o r y b e a r i n g the date If> r u m m o n d h a s " A n a p p l e tree g r o w i n g in a t h o r n " a n d the m o t t o evi­ dently refers to the grafting of fruit trees; PONDERIBVS VIRTVS INNATA RESISTIT [Innate virtue resists o p p r e s s i o n ] : a palm tree; VT SVPERIS VISVM [As it a p p e a r s to those above]: a tree on a hill a p p a r ­ ently bent by the w i n d w i t h t w o scythes below; this is n o t recorded on I he State Bed by D r u m m o n d , b u t the three other m a n u s c r i p t s all in­ clude the m o t t o w i t h a pictura described v a r i o u s l y as t w o scythes, a I ree b l o w n d o w n in the w i n d , or a smaller b u s h g r o w i n g u p beside it; l-RVCTVS C A L C A T A DAT AMPLVM [When t r a m p l e d on it gives out greater fragrance]: a flowering s h r u b b e t w e e n t w o castles; IPSA SIC LVMEN Q U O D INVIDET AVFERT [She takes from herself the light I hat she envies]: a terrestrial globe, w i t h an eclipse of the sun and moon. Unfortunately, n e i t h e r of the two m a n u s c r i p t s d e s c r i b i n g this watch tell u s w h o o b s e r v e d or copied its details, a n d the watch itself has not s u r v i v e d . It is, h o w e v e r , r e m a r k a b l e that all eight of its devices

18. National Archives, SP 53/10, item 76. A copy of the same document in The British Library is MS Cotton Caligula С V, no. 40, fol. 62.1 am grateful to Sir Roy Strong for drawing my attention to this important document and for permission to re­ produce his illustration, and to John Guy for identifying the call-numbers for both documents at a very late stage in the preparation of this article.

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should correspond to emblems that we can now documenl on ihe em­ broideries for her bed hangings which have also now disappeared. Just how closely the engravings on her watch matched those on her bed hangings can be judged by looking at the 1576 sketch of the em­ blem on the watch showing an eclipse of the sun, for it has a curious conical shadow drawn through a terrestrial globe showing cities on land and boats at sea, as in a map. Fowler's account of this emblem on the bed hangings describes it thus: "Luna super umbram columnarem terra marique circumscripta cum hoc titulo. Ipsa sibi lumen, quod invidet aufert. Glancing as I think at Queene Elizabeth," which trans­ lates: "The moon above a columnar shadow drawn over earth and sea .. .," which is clearly describing the same shadow, while his interpre­ tive comment may well signal his awareness of the political reading which would have led Walsingham or his agents to ferret out informa­ tion about the devices Mary had engraved on her pocket watch thirty years earlier. It seems only natural that, when executing her embroi­ deries, Mary would have used the emblems she already had on other artefacts, such as her watch and her silver handbell, using them as her patterns. It follows that these rough sketches on a document obtained by the English authorities remain the best evidence we have for the appearance of some of the more elusive of the emblems on her missing embroideries. Such recycling of motifs and materials in a variety of different objects and media is what we are witnessing. What I hope to have shown is how that process was working in the gradual evolution of a courtly iconography surrounding Mary Queen of Scots —an iconography that was both deeply personal and yet also a process of public self-fashioning. Mary undoubtedly played her part in that inventive process, though it is also clear that the design and production of these courtly artefacts must also have involved sympathizers and supporters at home and abroad. While Mary was quite capable of selecting or designing the devices that figure in her embroideries (though we should also bear in mind that she kept a pro­ fessional brodisseur on her staff right up to the end of her life), she is unlikely to have designed the various medals that were struck during the years of exile. We do know that as early as 1553 two Scottish gold­ smiths, John Acheson and Nicolas Emery, were granted licenses to make dies in Paris with portraits of Queen Mary and jetons with her coat of arms (see Franks, 1872). I have not been able to discover who it was that designed similar jetons and medals, almost certainly in France, as late as 1579 when Mary herself was in exile and could her­ self have played no role in their production. Nor is it easy to say how

М1СМЛ1 I l i A l II

27

IIH'V circulaled, or exactly whal p u r p o s e they served. H o w e v e r , it d o r s seem that t hry were designed, like her bed h a n g i n g s , to construct ,i public image of the persecuted q u e e n , her values, ambitions, and inIrniions, that w o u l d outlast her, w h i c h is d o u b t l e s s w h y she a n d her •.upporters w e n t on p r o d u c i n g them even after any realistic prospect и! regaining her o w n court a n d k i n g d o m h a d effectively vanished. That process was to continue, even after her death, in the continu­ ing efforts, in w h i c h the survival a n d m a n u f a c t u r e of relics p l a y e d its pari, to construct her as a Catholic m a r t y r . The d e v e l o p e d iconogra­ phy of her e m b r o i d e r e d Bed of State p l a y e d its p a r t in that construcl ion too, as we can see from the o p e n i n g s t a n z a s of the p o e m which Je•ai i I priest a n d poet, Robert Southwell, w r o t e following her execution. I n l i t l e d "Decease release," its Latin s u b t i t l e c o r r e s p o n d s to the m o t t o ol .in impresa: D U M MORIOR ORIOR [In d y i n g I rise]. 1 9

The p o u n d e d spice both tast a n d s e n t d o t h please In fading s m o k e the force d o t h incense s h e w e The p e r i s h t kernell springeth w i t h e n c r e a s e The l o p p e d tree doth best and s o o n e s t g r o w e . G o d s spice I w a s and p o u n d i n g w a s m y d u e In fadinge b r e a t h my incense s a v o r e d best Death was the m e a n e my kyrnell to r e n e w e By l o p p i n g e shott I u p p to h e a v e n l y rest. (11.1-8) Southwell's elegy on queen Mary is a h i g h l y e m b l e m a t i c p o e m that has gone u n n o t i c e d to date in s t u d i e s of l i t e r a t u r e in the light of the emblem. H o w e v e r , I think we n o w k n o w just w h e r e Robert South­ well's images of the " p o u n d e d spice" t h a t gives g r e a t e r savor a n d the " l o p p e d t r e e " t h a t springs u p afresh are c o m i n g from. They are com­ ing from a d e v e l o p e d iconography t h a t M a r y a n d her s u p p o r t e r s in-

19. Southwell, 394-95; I have preferred to cite a better text of this poem, from the Waldegrave MS Stonyhurst A.v.27, as circulated in recusant households and scribally one remove from Southwell himself. The same Latin motto is used a hundred years later by Pierre LeMoyne in his Del'ari des devises (326-27), a Jesuit emblem book which perpetuates its Catholic usage. I am indebted to Anne Swee­ ney for first drawing my attention to Southwell's "Decease release" and to Peter Davidson for much inspiration and help with this research, including the Stonyhurst text.

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corporated into a variety of different artefacts and media in which em­ blematic composition played a central role. It is hardly surprising that they outlived her to play their part in the definition of her posthu­ mous place in Catholic martyrology, or as Southwell puts it in his poem: Alive a Queene now dead I am a Sainte Once M. calld my name nowe Martyr is From earthly raigne debarred by restraint In Hew whereof I raigne in heavenly blisse (11.13-16) It is not difficult to show where Southwell might have gained the knowledge and understanding of this set of Marian imprese that he needed in order to write his elegy on the martyred Queen of Scots, whose execution took place only ten months after he had arrived at the start of his Jesuit mission to England. We have seen how many of these Marian imprese were also associated in some way with the Earl and Countess of Arundel, and it was Anne Dacre, wife of Philip Howard, who had asked Southwell in November or December 1586 to become her resident chaplain at Arundel House in The Strand, Lon­ don, where Southwell spent the first period of his mission in a small secluded room with access to the Countess's private apartments. Anne was on her own at this time, Philip Howard having been locked up in the Tower in 1585, which he was not to leave until his death ten years later, but the relationship between the Countess and her hidden priest was evidently very close, for we are told that on her own death­ bed she suddenly said "Oh, Blessed Father Southwell/ 7 and asked for a priest. 20 Southwell appears to have written "Decease, Release" immedi­ ately after Mary's execution on 8 February 1587 since a manuscript copy of it among the papers of Anthony Bacon at Lambeth Palace is marked in French, "Some verses by Mr Southwell on the Scottish Queen, received the month of February, 1586" (i.e., new style 1587).21 Bacon was a cousin of the Southwells, resident in France at this time,

20. On Southwell and the Howards, see Janelle, 41-44; Devlin, 131-37; see also the references to Southwell in the biography of Anne Dacre written by the priest who was his final successor as her chaplain: Howard, 134,137,142,145,147,151, 158, 196, and 222; on page 196, Southwell is described as the Countess's "spiri­ tual Director/'

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29

which is w h e r e In* musl have received and e n d o r s e d the d o c u m e n t usii»)', the old style dating, which began the new year in March. If we can ti ust this a n n o t a t i o n , as we almost certainly can, it m e a n s not only that t here can be no d o u b t a b o u t "Decease, Release" being an elegy to Mary (Jueen of Scots a n d not, as one or t w o earlier e d i t o r s h a d t h o u g h t , to '.nine other person, 2 2 b u t w e also h a v e to conclude that Southwell wrote it within w e e k s of his a p p o i n t m e n t as the C o u n t e s s of A r u n ­ del I's chaplain a n d w i t h i n d a y s of M a r y ' s execution. Clearly, if he w a s not already familiar before he arrived in E n g l a n d w i t h the evolving iconography s u r r o u n d i n g Mary Stuart which w e h a v e e x a m i n e d in this article a n d which he uses to articulate his elegy, he m u s t h a v e learned e n o u g h a b o u t it from the C o u n t e s s herself d u r i n g their few hou rs of conversation in these weeks w h e n he w a s acting as her "spirilual Director." The k n o w l e d g e they both s h a r e d of the i c o n o g r a p h y A\M\ significance of her personal imprese then found its w a y directly into his p o e m . The c o r r e s p o n d e n c e s may extend, I think, still further in the poem, w h i c h continues: My life m y griefe my d e a t h h a t h w r o u g h t m y joye My frendes m y foyle m y foes m y Weale p r o c u r ' d (11.17-18) A l t h o u g h no e m b l e m a t i c pictura is s u g g e s t e d in this case, the senti­ ment in "My frendes m y foyle" is precisely that w h i c h we witnessed in the MEA SIC MIHI PROSUNT emblem s h o w i n g the vine being wa­ tered with w i n e . P e r h a p s Southwell m i g h t h a v e seen the m e d a l with this device on its reverse even before he arrived in England; the m e d ­ als were certainly circulating on the continent w h e r e Catholic, if not

21. Devlin, 147, citing the Bacon Papers, Lambeth Palace Library, MS.655.

22. W. J. Walter first made the connection with Mary Stuart when he printed the poem for the first time in 1817; at least one manuscript leaves the name blank in line 14, quoted above, but Anthony Bacon's note on the copy he apparently re­ ceived within weeks of its composition leaves no room for further editorial doubt; one editor's perverse opinion that it might refer to Anne of Denmark since one copy of the poem has the name "Anna" in line 14 and Queen Anna was cer­ tainly a crypto-Catholic may be dismissed as a piece of pure editorial silliness, if only because the alliteration of "Mary" and "Martyr" is required in this line, con­ firming the beautiful parallelisms on which not only the poem's two titles but also its whole structure rests. See Southwell, lxxx and 143, for this editorial con­ fusion.

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I M i l l I MATICA

specifically Jesuil, invol v c m r n l in their p r o d u c t i o n or circulation is al least a possibility. Such e v i d e n c e as this will nol help us to r e m a k e the Q u e e n of Scots' bed. It will, h o w e v e r , d e m o n s t r a t e h o w its i c o n o g r a p h y was participating in a w i d e r a n d m o r e extensive set of objects a n d m a t e r i a l s w h o s e significance w a s a p p r e c i a t e d by at least a few of her c o n t e m p o raries. The fact t h a t this i c o n o g r a p h y w a s d e v e l o p i n g a r o u n d her even d u r i n g the y e a r s in exile, w h e n she h a d no court, is certainly s u r p r i s ing, t h o u g h s o m e of it w a s already in place, as w e h a v e seen, before this time. The few e x a m p l e s I h a v e concentrated on in this article are b u t a small fraction of the full total that she e m b r o i d e r e d on h e r Bed of State. If the r e m a i n d e r t u r n o u t to h a v e a n y t h i n g like the complexity of interlinking significance I h a v e explored in this article, it w o u l d constitute w h a t one could only describe as a r e m a r k a b l e e x a m p l e of the way e m b l e m a t i c devices could s t r u c t u r e a courtly i c o n o g r a p h y in the early m o d e r n p e r i o d . Works Cited Anon. Calendar of State Papers (Scotland). Vol. 9. 1586-88. Glasgow, 1915. A n o n . Tercentenary of Mary Queen off Scots. Exhibittion, cat. P e t e r b o r o u g h , 1887. Bath, Michael. " M a r y Stuart's Bed of State." In Living in Posterity: Essays in Honour of Bart Westerweel. Eds. J. F. van Dijkhuizen, P. Hoftijzer, et al. H i l v e r s u m , 2004. Pp. 29-37. . Renaissance Decorative Painting in Scotland. E d i n b u r g h , 2003. . Speaking Pictures: English Emblem Books and Renaissance Culture. London, 1994. Burns, E d w a r d . The Coinage of Scotland Illustrated from the Cabinet of Thomas Coats Esq. E d i n b u r g h , 1887. Caldwell, D o r i g e n . The Sixteenth-Century Italian I m p r e s a in Theory and Practice. N e w York, 2004. C a m d e n , William. Annales: The True and Royal History of the famous Empresse Elizabeth. Trans. A b r a h a m Darcie. L o n d o n , 1625. . Remaines, Concerning Britaine. L o n d o n , 1614. Cochran-Patrick, R. W. Catalogue of the Medals of Scotland. E d i n b u r g h , 1884. de Bie, Jacques. La France metallique. Paris, 1636. Devlin, C h r i s t o p h e r . The Life of Robert Southwell Poet and Martyr. London, 1956.

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I owlcr, William. The Work* of William Fowler, lids. Henry Meikle, |,imcs Craigie and John Purves. 3 vols. E d i n b u r g h , 1914-1940. I i.mks, A u g u s t u s W. "Notice of Permissions given at Paris to John Acheson to m a k e Dies with the Portrait of Mary Q u e e n of Scots." In Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. 1872-73. Pp. 4)6-07. < .cddes, Jane, ed. King's College Chapel, Aberdeen, 1500-2001. Leeds,

< .ibb, William. The Royal House of Stuart. L o n d o n , 1890. I Lirgrave, Francis. A Complete Collection of State Trials. 7 vols. L o n d o n , 1776-1781. I loward, D u k e of Norfolk, ed. The Lives of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, and of Anne Dacres, his Wife, Edited from the Original MSS by the Duke of Norfolk. L o n d o n , 1857. lanelle, Pierre. Robert Southwell the Writer. L o n d o n , 1935. lonson, Ben. Works. Eds. С. Н. Herford a n d Percy Simpson. Oxford, 1925. I.abanoff, A l e x a n d r e . Lettres, instructions et memoires de Marie Stuart, reine d'Ecosse. 7 vols. London,1844. I -eisher, John F. Geoffrey Whitney's Choice of E m b l e m e s and its Relation to the Emblematic Vogue in Tudor England. N e w York, 1987. I ,ynch, Michael. " C o u r t C e r e m o n y and Ritual d u r i n g the Personal Reign of James VI." In The Reign of James VI. Eds. Julian G o o d a r e and Michael Lynch. E d i n b u r g h , 2000. Pp. 71-92. Masson, David, ed. Register of the Privy Council of Scotland. Vol. 10, 1613-1616. E d i n b u r g h , 1891. M u r d i n , William, ed. A Collection of State Papers Relating to Affairs in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth ...Transcribed from Original Papers ... Left by William Cecil Lord Burghley, and Reposited in the Library at Hatfield House. L o n d o n , 1759. Palliser, Mrs. Bury, Historic Devices, Badges and War-cries. L o n d o n , 1870. Pollard, J. G. " E n g l a n d a n d the Italian M e d a l . " In England and the Con­ tinental Renaissance: Essays in Honour of ]. G. Trapp. Eds. E d w a r d Chancy and Peter Mack. W o o d b r i d g e , 1990. Russell, Daniel S. The Emblem and Device in France. Lexington, KY, 1985. Scher, Stephen, ed. The Currency of Fame: Portrait Medals of the Renais­ sance. L o n d o n , 1994. Sider, Sandra. Bibliography of Emblematic Manuscripts. Montreal, 1997.

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Southwell, Robert. The Poems of Robert Southwell. M s . Nancy Pollard Brown a n d J a m e s M c D o n a l d . London, 1967. Strong, Roy. Portraits of Queen Elizabeth 1. Oxford, 1963. . " ' M y w e e p i n g stagg I c r o w n e ' : The Persian Lady Recon­ sidered." In Bath, M a n n i n g , a n d Young, e d s . The Art of the Emblem: Essays in Honor of Karl Josef Holtgen. N e w York, 1993. Pp. 103-42, repr. Strong, The Tudor and Stuart Monarchy: Pageantry, Painting, Ico­ nography. Vol 2: Elizabethan. W o o d b r i d g e , 1995. P p . 303-24. Strong, Roy, a n d Julia Trevelyan O m a n . Mary Queen of Scots. L o n d o n , 1972. Swain, M a r g a r e t . The Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots. N e w York, 1973. Watkins, Susan. Mary Queen of Scots. L o n d o n , 2001. Way, Albert. "The Signet-ring a n d Silver Bell of M a r y Q u e e n of Scots." The Archaeological Journal 15 (1858): 253-66.

Emblematics and Visual Poetry from a Semiotic Perspective: Two Different Kinds of Bimediality SERAINA PLOTKE University of Basel

Visual poetry and emblematics are bimedial genres that are characterized by the use of both verbal-linguistic and pictorial means to generate meaning. 1 This distinguishes them fundamentally from the great majority of literary genres that use only one medium, namely the verbal-linguistic one. Seen semiotically, using the relevant terminology as it has developed since Charles Sanders Peirce, we can assert that, while conventional texts use only the symbolic sign-type, emblems and picture poems use both symbolic and iconic signs to constitute meaning. 2

1. The English translation of this paper is by Hope Hague, Madison, Wisconsin. 2.

Semiotics since Charles Sanders Peirce generally distinguishes three types of signs: the icon, the index, and the symbol. This triad is still valid in contemporary semiotics, although individual authors have expanded the number of sign types. It should be noted here that whenever in the following we speak of symbols or symbolic signs, we always mean the semiotic concept of the symbol which should not be confused with thepoetological concept of the symbol. In order to avoid misunderstandings, the terms linguistic-symbolic or verbally dis-

33

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EMBLEMATICA

Iconic and symbolic signs are fundamentally distinct in the way they relate to the objects they designate. With Thomas A. Sebeok we call a sign iconic "when there is a topological similarity between a signifier and its denotata/' 3 A symbol, on the other hand, is a sign "without either similarity or contiguity, but only with a conventional link between its signifier and its denotata"(Sebeok, 134). The opposition between similarity and conventionality, then, is fundamental. Indeed, the criterion of similarity has been the subject of some discussion in semiotic research, as when Umberto Eco inquires into the similarity between a nose and the representation of a nose and comes to the following conclusion: "The nose is three-dimensional, whereas the picture of the nose has only two dimensions. Seen in close view, the nose has pores and small irregularities; in contrast to the nose in the portrait, its surface is not smooth, but irregular. And finally, the nose has two holes at its extremity, the nostrils. But the picture has only two black spots in that position, and there are no holes in the canvas." 4 Eco (213) concludes that it is not the object itself that resembles the image; instead, it is our perception, conditioned by culture and convention that either produces the resemblance between the signvehicle and its denotation —in an iconic sign —or does not do so. Eco notes: "Insofar as the iconic sign has qualities in common with anything, then not with the object, but rather with the perceptual model of the object. It is constructible and recognizable on the basis of the same intellectual operations we carry out in order to construct the precept independent of the material in which these relationships are realized" (213). The differentiation of iconic and symbolic signs using the distinction between similarity and conventionality must accordingly be broadened by the addendum that "that sign can be called an iconic sign which seems to reproduce for us a few characteristics of the represented object."5 Iconic signs differ, then, from symbolic signs insofar as the recursive signs will be used to designate symbolic signs in the semiotic sense. In cases when we mean the poetological symbol, this will be explicitly noted.

3.

Sebeok, 128. It is important to note here that iconic signs need not be visual signs per se, but that iconicity also exists elsewhere (for example, acoustic or even olfactory iconicity). But since the great majority of icons are visual representations, and the term iconic sign is often meant to mean optically received iconic signs, and in the following the term "icon" will also mean the visual icon.

4.

Eco 1994a, 200. Translated from German original by H. Hague.

:,1 КЛ1ГЧЛ И O I K I

:i!>

reiver perceives in tIn* lirsl case «in a p p a r e n t similarity with the d e 110U4I objects, w h e r e a s in the second case the r e l a t i o n s h i p w i t h the d e n o t a t a a p p e a r s a r b i t r a r y or o b v i o u s l y set by c o n v e n t i o n . 6 The identification, a n d t h e n also t h e t y p i n g , of a p a r t i c u l a r sign is t h u s a q u e s t i o n of p e r c e p t i o n . 7 In the figure o, g i v e n t h e a p p r o p r i a t e context, we generally recognize immediately the alphabetic letter. ()nce recognized as a grapheme, the figure still has no meaning; it ac­ quires meaning as a component of the words—the symbolic signs—of which it is a part. 8 The significance of the sign-constituent о lies then i n i ts value, given to it by convention, as an element that differentiates meaning. In the form itself, in this case, we generally see no meaning. In another context we will provide the signifier о with the denotation "circle" or " s p h e r e / ' or sometimes even "sun" or "full moon." The se­ ries could be almost infinitely expanded, especially in the case of this particular sign. Up to this point we have been speaking of signs —iconic signs and symbolic signs — but to be precise, this is rather inexact, or even incor­ rect. Instead, we should have been using the terms "sign functions" or "modes of signification." 9 As demonstrated by the example just men­ tioned, it is not the sign itself—the signifier —that is iconic or sym-

5.

Eco, 213 (emphasis in the original).

6.

Rudi Keller, for instance, has shown that arbitrariness and similarity are not mu­ tually exclusive; see Keller, 146ff. On the problem of iconicity of language see also Simone, Fischer, and Muller.

7.

See Gross 1994, 3, 48, and 54ff.

8.

The various semiotic approaches recognize a variety of sign definitions. De­ pending on the approach, graphemes may already be treated as signs or only seen as a part of a sign located on the level of morpheme or word. Regarding this question a fundamental distinction can be made between proponents of the view that writing is an autonomous sign system and the representatives of the heteronomy thesis. See Noth, 360. Those who see writing as secondary to spoken language (for example, Ferdinand de Saussure in "Cours de linguistique generale") also see graphemes as signs for phonemes. On the other hand, sup­ porters of the autonomy thesis (such as Uldall) define graphemes solely as ele­ ments that differentiate meaning.

9.

In semiotics generally, the conventionalized term "sign" is used to designate the complex „Einheit aus Inhaltsform und Ausdrucksform" |unity of form of con­ tent and form of expression]; see Hjelmslev, 61.

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EMBLEMATICA

bolic. Rather, it is the receiver who understands a sign iconically or symbolically. 10 Often, one and the same sign vehicle can unproblematically be understood as both iconic and symbolic, and in both cases be provided with the pertinent —and often completely differ­ ent—denotata. Then the со- and context normally determine how the sign vehicle should be decoded: со- and context guide the reception and indicate which mode of signification is meaningful. When we noted in the example of the signifier o, decoded as a grapheme, that it served to distinguish meanings without itself hav­ ing a meaning; we touched upon a further difference between iconic and verbal-discursive signs that is dealt with in semiotics under the heading "double versus single articulation." Double articulation is considered one of the most important determinants of human lan­ guage in both its oral and written-alphabetic forms. 11 Speech units carrying meaning, the linguistic signs, are assigned to the first articu­ lation level—here words or the parts of words that carry meaning. 12 The second articulation level consists of phonemes in oral speech and graphemes in written language. These are distinctive, but not signify­ ing elements. By contrast, iconic signs have only one level of articula­ tion.13 The importance for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of this distinction between double and single articulation can only be men­ tioned briefly here. The similarity relation between the iconic sign and the object of its denotation, and its single articulation, mean that

10. See also Gross 1990, 231-46. 11. The concept was introduced by Andre Martinet; see Martinet, 1-41, especially 8.

12. So for example the word "unlearnable" has three parts that each carry meaning (un-learn-able); the word "cityscape" has two. Martinet calls these units that constitute the first level of articulation monemes; in linguistics they are more generally called morphemes.

13. Although semioticians have often attempted to define a second level of articula­ tion for pictures as well, and to record minimal units that differentiate meaning without themselves carrying meaning, nonetheless things like texture, color, light contrast, certain forms, etc. cannot generally be seen only as distinctive ele­ ments of a picture. For a brief overview of the various positions regarding this question, see Noth, 478f.

:;i KAINA и

OIKI

'M

rvcn receivers who arc unfamiliar wi Ih I he* language or alphabet can ilrroili 1 icons or, in a more careful formulation, are more likely to de­ code Ihem better. The depiction of a horse, at least in the western cullural context, is easily linked to its denotata. But only someone pos­ sessing the appropriate language or reading competence can assign meaning to the signifiers/Pferd/, /cheval/, /horse/, or /equus/. If we consider how strong the desire was in the seventeenth century to find .1 way back to the Adamic language from the Babylonian confusion of longues (see Eco 1994b and Coudert), we can understand more fully I In» possible significance of bimedial genres for the poets of that time and their receivers. In a certain sense, the iconic sign-function pro­ vides access to the lingua Adamica.u As a further fundamental distinction between iconic and linguislic-symbolic signs, we will draw on the criterion of density elabo­ rated by Nelson Goodman. Goodman, a sharp critic of the similarity or resemblance theory (3-45), sees in it the difference par excellence between analog systems, which include images, and notational or "approximately notational systems/' under which he subsumes writ­ ten texts.15 For Goodman, a scheme is "syntactically dense if it pro­ vides for infinitely many characters so ordered that between each two there is a third" (136). This criterion of density can be illustrated usi ng the image of a mountain. A pictorial representation of a mountain can have varying degrees of slope. Between every two gradations there is another. The same is true of the mountain's coloration. The mountain's every shade, every color, every degree of slope can carry meaning. Goodman sees the opposite of density in differentiation and disjunctivity. The oppositional pair for the iconic and the ver­ bal-symbolic signs, then, is "dense" versus "differentiated" and "disjunct." 16 The letters of the Latin alphabet are distinguished by the 14. This is true of all images. But especially the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century genres that combine text and image - emblems, imprese, pattern poems - with their systematic forms, are predestined for such an approach.

15. Ibid., 159, 207, and 225-26. However, Goodman did not solve the similarity prob­ lem with the criterion of density, but merely made an elegant detour around it. He gives no conclusive answer to the question why we denote the representation of a table with "table" and not with "floor lamp."

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EMBLEMATICA

fact that they are differentiated and disjunct -Goodman (1Г>1Ж.) uses the term digital —and thus require "yes-no decisions: in any given context, a letter either is or isn't a d" (Gross 1990, 242). As long as we receive the sign-vehicle as a grapheme, it does not matter whether it is printed in red, blue, or green, whether it has an oval or round shape, or whether the typeface is antiqua or Gothic. 17 The advantage of differentiated and disjunct schemes, in Good­ man's view (161), is that they provide "distinctness and repeatability of readings." Dense or analog 18 systems, by contrast, offer "greater sensitivity and flexibility"(161). For these reasons the interpretation of digital signs can easily be automated, whereas in the case of analog signs, "familiarity is never complete and final; another look may al­ ways disclose significant new subtleties" (260). The familiar expres­ sion "A picture is worth a thousand words" should therefore be seen in connection with the quality of density. Goodman (253)makes a sim­ ilar statement concerning the quality of ineffability, often attributed to pictures, which "upon analysis, turns into density rather than mys­ tery As concerns the iconic level in picture poems, the receiver is deal­ ing not with a painting, but with relatively simple forms in black printer's ink. It is also sometimes the case with emblems that the pictura is limited to depiction of a single object. It could be suggested that the pictorial portion of emblems and pattern poems should be un­ derstood as digital and not as analog signs, since a more precise shap­ ing of the iconic level has no relevance and its interpretation requires 16. Goodman himself generally writes "differentiated" when he actually means "fi­ nitely differentiated" and "dense" to designate "dense throughout." See Good­ man, 153. 17. This statement is really only valid when we place the focus on the letter as a digi­ tal signifier. Once again it appears not to be the sign material that is analog or digital, dense or differentiated, iconic or symbolic, but rather the mode of recep­ tion in each case. See Gross 1990, 243. 18. It should be noted here that in Goodman's terminology, scheme and system are not used synonymously, and thus it is no accident when, in this context, he some­ times uses the term system, and sometimes scheme. Goodman uses the term "scheme" when regarding signs in their syntactic aspect, and "system" when considering syntactic and semantic criteria. Pictures are both syntactically and semantically dense; human language is only syntactically dense throughout and disjunct. See Goodman, passim.

:;i KAINA lм O I K I

;и)

only a simple yes-no decision in (he m o d e "this either does or does not i4*present an altar." It is actually the case that the criterion o f d e n м1у in Ihe interpretation of the iconic signifier is m u c h less i m p o r t a n t in pallern p o e m s than in e m b l e m s . H o w e v e r , in p r i n c i p l e , it is neces­ sary w i I h every e m b l e m or p a t t e r n p o e m to look a n d to ask to w h a t exkii! I lu» potential d e n s i t y of the iconic signs has relevance for the un­ d e r s t a n d i n g a n d m e a n i n g of any configuration. N e l s o n G o o d m a n himself c o n c e d e s t h a t t h e b o u n d a r y b e t w e e n d e n s e a n d differenti­ ated schemes is "a m a t t e r of degree/'19 The c o m p a r i s o n of iconic a n d symbolic signs says a lot about the commonalities of e m b l e m a t i c s and visual poetry, since both genres use both of these different sign systems, and b o t h connect them. 2 0 Ihey accomplish this connection in different w a y s , however, and at I his point w e h a v e c o m e to the critical difference b e t w e e n emblem­ atics and visual p o e t r y as seen from a semiotic p e r s p e c t i v e . While e m b l e m s j u x t a p o s e iconic a n d l i n g u i s t i c - v e r b a l signs, t hereby creating a m e a n i n g f u l entity in w h i c h w o r d a n d image relate to one a n o t h e r consecutively, p a t t e r n p o e m s are d i s t i n g u i s h e d by the I act that one a n d t h e s a m e sign, the a r r a n g e m e n t of w o r d s on the surlace of the p a g e , can be d e c o d e d both as iconic a n d as verbal- discur­ sive. In p r i n c i p l e , t h e n , it is inexact to say that visual poetry unifies linguistic a n d pictorial signs. Rather, in this g e n r e it is always the same signifier t h a t h a s distinct sign functions or m o d e s of significa­ tion. 21 On the basis of this genre-specific factor, visual poetry distin­ guishes itself from o t h e r entities that b r i n g t o g e t h e r i m a g e and text. I ; or t h r o u g h w h a t m i g h t be called the fusion of b o t h m e d i a , a

19. Ibid., 230 (original italics). Through this argument one clearly sees, by the way, that "dense" versus "digital" and "similar" versus "conventional" cannot be made consistently dependent upon one another; thus the pictorial level of a pat­ tern poem can be fully understood digitally, but in spite of that the mode of signi­ fication remains iconic (which again shows that the similarity problem is not solved using Goodman's criterion of density, and that much more useful in this question is Eco's view, which we favor, that the similarity between the iconic sign and its denotata is not objective, but exists within the context of our percep­ tual model).

20. Further distinctive differences between the media text and picture as they ap­ pear in emblems and pattern poems could be elaborated, but space limitations prevent it. More on this can be found in Plotke.

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EMBLEMATICA

text-image relationship results in a fundamentally different quality than the one that arises in emblems, imprese, and so on, based on the coexistence of text and picture. The fusion of the two media in the pattern poem can reveal horizons of meaning not accessible through the text, the picture, or the juxtaposition of image and text as we know it from the other bimedial genres. Emblems, in turn, are distinguished from pattern poems by the fact that their pictorial level generally presents much more complicated iconic signs, so that the characteristic of density in iconic signs presents itself more strongly in emblems, and the pictura of an emblem clearly contributes more to constituting the meaning of the total configuration than does the pictorial level of a pattern poem. A general comparison of emblematics and visual poetry as we have presented it so far can delineate their similarities and differences in rough outline. It is obvious that such a comparison must remain to a degree particular, not leading to specific, generally valid standards of differentiation for the two genres. Just as particular text-image relationships are constituted in each pattern poem which can, at best, be systematized in tendency only, likewise emblems exhibit the greatest formal variation in regard to pictorial and textual media. The situation is made still more difficult by the circumstance that the genre and its specificity can hardly be clearly conceptualized, given such variable manifestations. In spite of that, however, the comparison of individual examples can highlight certain fundamental characteristics of the two genres. However, to show in greater detail the expressive capabilities derived by the two genres from bimediality, only an analytical comparison of two examples and their text-image relationships can illuminate specific parallels and differences between them. For this comparison we have chosen a pattern poem by Theodor Kornfeld and an emblem of Erasmus Francisci. Both of these

21. The exact same material, functioning as sign-vehicle, can be understood, on the one hand, as iconic in the pattern poem, and, on the other, as a series of verbal-linguistic signs; that is to say, it can be both read as a discursive text and viewed as an image. See Gross 1994. A special case in this regard is the grid-poem type and its further development as Imago-poem. There one cannot generalize that one and the same sign has different modes of signification, since the accentuation through color becomes relevant to the differentiation between iconic and verbal decoding. The observations made here, then, are essentially valid for the outline poem variant as it appeared mostly.

Irx! i m a ^ e c o n l i g u r a l i o n s have similar themes and for ,ill prtHtical p u r p o s e s w e r e produced at the s a m e time. The p i c t u r e p o e m " E i n Nand-Uhr" [An H o u r g l a s s ] comes from Theodor k o r n f e l d ' s 1685 p o e t i c s Sclbst-Lehrende Alt-Neue I'tH'sie Oder Vers-Kunst der I'd ten Teutschen-HeldenSprnche . . [Self-Teaching O l d - N e w P o e t r y or V e r s e A r t of t h e N o b l e G e r m a n - H e r o i c - L a n g u a g e . .] (See Kornfeld, 83). This is one of 15 e x e m p l a r y p o e m s illustrating the visual poetry g e n r e in t h e c h a p t e r " V o n denen Arthen und Gedichten / so g e n a n t n a c h der eusserlichen Form und Figur,/ [Concerning the Types a n d P o e m s / n a m e d according to external form a n d figure]; t h e p a t t e r n p o e m s presented there h a v e no conn e c t i o n to o n e a n o t h e r . Kornfeld h a d a l r e a d y p u b Fig. 1. Erasmus Francisci, Die brennende lished m a n y of t h e m in ear- Lam-pen der Klugen, Nurnberg 1679. Univerlier w r i t i n g s (place a n d date sity Library Basel. of o r i g i n a l p u b l i c a t i o n are noted in the poetics), a n d m a n y of t h e m are occasional p o e m s (casual carmina).22 W h i l e t h e r e are n o c o m m e n t s s u g g e s t i n g t h a t "Ein

22. See Kornfeld, 69-83. The pattern poems printed here have the greatest variety of outlines. In addition to the "Sand-Uhr" [Hourglass], there is a "Creutz" [Cross], a "Pocal" [Goblet], a "Baum" [Tree], a // Busch ,/ [Bush], a "Laute" [Lute], a "Glaft oder Romer" [Glass or Wine Glass], a (not shown but mentioned) "Kloster" [Cloister], a "Hertz" [Heart], a "Licht aufn Leuchter" [Light on a Candelabra], an

42

ЕМ В U М Л П С Л

Sand-Uhr" was published earlier,it could also date from before publi­ cation of the poetics, which would make it even closer in time to the emblem of Erasmus Francisci. The emblem to be contrasted with Kornfeld's "Ein Sand-Uhr" comes from what seems to be a completely different context, but based on thematics it can easily be compared with the pattern poem.2-* The emblem chosen for analysis appeared in Francisci's devotional work Die Brennende Lampen der Klugen [The Burning Lamps of the Wise], published in 1679, and is found at the beginning of the chapter entitled "XI. Bedencken" [Eleventh Reflection] (fig. 1). This chapter has an additional caption, "Der Vorboten unseres Todes/ und taglichen Vor-Sterbens" [The Harbinger of our Death/ and Daily Dy­ ing]. The emblem, as we shall see, is thematically attuned to the con­ tent of this chapter, which extends over more than seventy pages. Al­ though the emblem is to that extent related to the text of the following chapter, we can nonetheless justify analysis of the emblem without any detailed consideration of the chapter's details. Two circum­ stances speak for this view: first, the reader, on seeing the emblem, does not yet know the contents of the chapter to come, and second, the emblem appears on a separate, unnumbered page external to the flow of the text. The image in Francisci's emblem is easily recognizable as a man holding a scythe and standing on an hourglass; visible at the base of the hourglass are flowers and grass. These are the denotata of the pic­ ture, which the reader must interpret in their relationship to the motto, the chapter title, and the content of the eleventh "Reflection." It should be emphasized at this point that the scene represented here is a carefully chosen combination of single elements, and not a "realis­ tic" scene taken from the everyday world. The pictorial component presents several individual objects which the receivers must relate to "Apffel"[Apple], a "Denck- und Danck-Seule des Wienischen Siegs" [Remem­ brance and Thanks- Column of the Viennese Victory], a // Pyramis ,/ [Pyramid], a "Berg Parnasius, oder Pindus, oder Helicon" [Mount Parnassus, Pindus, or Helicon], and two egg-poems.

23. Basically, the place of publication given in Kornfeld's poetics suggests no closer context. On the contrary, most of the poems printed here to exemplify visual po­ etry are explicitly taken from another context. Some come from a reli­ gious-edifying context, which would also include "Ein Sand-Uhr," to judge by its content.

SI KAINA Г! O I K I

43

ипг ,mother «mil also (o the verbal discursive s e g m e n t s t h r o u g h their nwii process of interpretation. Typically, at this point in the reception pmeess, il can not yet be d e t e r m i n e d w h a t w e i g h t the analog qualities ol the iconic signs —their density —will have for the discovery of meaning: it is still not k n o w n , for example, to w h a t extent the clothing ol I In» man, and the species of the flowers a n d grass, are significant. Hased on their clear symbolic content (symbol no longer used here in ils semiotic m e a n i n g ) , the pictorial c o m p o n e n t s also i m m e d i a t e l y evoke —in a d d i t i o n to their d e n o t a t i o n s —connotations. 2 4 The reader ol that era w o u l d i m m e d i a t e l y associate the h o u r g l a s s with tranч е п с е and d e a t h ' s inevitability in the course of h u m a n life. The topoi ol ciuiitas a n d memento mori were firmly a n c h o r e d in the t h o u g h t of I hat time. 2 5 The scythe, b r i n g i n g d e a t h to all living t h i n g s t h r o u g h its constant m o w i n g , is a n o t h e r symbol of death, w h i c h , since the Re­ n a i s s a n c e , h a s often a p p e a r e d in c o m b i n a t i o n w i t h a s k e l e t a l "reaper." But aside from its suggestion of death, the scythe can also •.i^nal a g o o d h a r v e s t a n d , m o r e generally, the fruits a n d profits that h u m a n s m a y gain from their lives. 26 The connection w i t h the m o t t o "Bey jedem Schnitt w e n i g e r " [With haeh Cut Less] shifts the picture's h o r i z o n of m e a n i n g by a n u a n c e , since n o w t r a n s i e n c e as a p a s s a g e from life to d e a t h is n o longer the central m e s s a g e of the e m b l e m . Instead, the r e a d e r is confronted with I he message that life is a g r a d u a l process of d y i n g . In the interpreta­ tion process, a d y n a m i c e l e m e n t has been i n t r o d u c e d into the static

.4. It is basically true of all signs that they can show denotative as well as connotative coding. Denotation appears as the primary signification of a signifies con­ notation is constituted only through the mediation of a particular denotation. In this sense we can speak of connotation as a secondary coding. If we take, for ex­ ample, the verbal signifier /dog/, then the corresponding denotata is the seme "dog," the barking mammal; possible connotations are "pet," "shepherd," and "protection." See Eco 1987,103-04. Eco defines connotation as "the totality of all cultural units brought into play by an intentional definition of the significans; it is thus the sum of all cultural entities that the signifier can institutionally call to mind in the recipient. This "can" does not refer to psychic possibilities, but to cultural availability." See Eco 1994a, 108. It is also characteristic that the second­ ary coding of a sign follows the denotation and comes from cultural knowledge; see also Titzmann, 381. 25. See van Ingen; Picinelli, 194; Henkel, 1339ff.

26. See, for example, Lauretus, 425. For the idea of death as reaper see Jeremiah 9:21.

44

1...МШ I МЛПСЛ

image through the link between pictura and motto. Although tin» man holds the scythe firmly, and no cutting movement is represented (though possibly one might be suggested), the receiver, influenced by the motto, imagines the constant movement of the scythe, which, though not dealing with death directly, shortens life with every swing. The movement of time —and life —passing away is not repre­ sented on the page, but is reconstructed in the reader's mind in a pro­ cess of synthetic interpretation. Likewise, the sand trickling from top to bottom of the hourglass measures life's ebbing away in a dynamic process not visible in the static pictura, but which must be imagined. And so the emblem serves to remind its reader of an aspect of tran­ sience signaled not by death as life's termination, but rather by a fu­ ture death brought closer in each moment—by each swing of the scythe —in a constant progression. This reading is then reaffirmed and heightened by the immediately following chapter caption of the eleventh Reflection: "The Harbinger of our Death/ and Daily Dying." The symbolic content of the scythe image, when combined with the motto and the hourglass, carries the reader to a further level of mean­ ing, which is, in a sense, a moral appeal, and it concerns the fruits each person must draw from life. Through the arrangement of text and im­ age, the receiver is admonished that time, in constant flux, must be put to good use, since death is drawing closer with each passing mo­ ment. It would have been obvious to the seventeenth-century reader of edifying literature that the good use and the rich harvest meant a re­ ligious life, pleasing to God, that would open the way to paradise. The emblem analysis so far has examined the individual parts of the picture not in terms of the significance derived from their analog qualities, but rather as signs in the sense of pictograms, in order to un­ cover the meaning of the whole structure. 27 But as we penetrate fur­ ther into the hermeneutic circle, the special iconic quality of density, that is, the specific formation of the represented objects, becomes rele­ vant in several ways. The man in the pictura who is holding the scythe appears to be, in light of his posture, a powerful person unmarked by illness; the flowers at the foot of the hourglass, if we look closely, are in full bloom.

27. Scholz 2002, 347, notes that emblematic images are to be "read" as "character in­ scriptions in a quasi-notational sign scheme" (and similarly: Scholz 1984, 72).

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45

These examples indicate the possible levels of interpretative releto which analog signs give access. Though the expressiveness ol the uncolored engraving is limited to the etched lines, it can still re­ produce significant distinctions, such as a flower that is blooming as opposed to one that is wilted. In a pzcfwra-painting like the ones popu­ lar in the festival and church architecture of the seventeenth century, coloration could also have been used to add significance, though it would not necessarily have added new horizons of meaning. If the pnlurn of Fransisci's emblem were a painting, the lush green color of I he grass could be decoded as meaningful, but the color of the flower would not necessarily contribute more to the picture's meaning. Likewise, the coloration of the man's clothing might or might not be de­ coded as significant. These variations in the small gradations of meaning are features of iconic signs that have been discussed above. 28 The man depicted is not old, but appears to be in his prime, and a I so the lushness of the greenery intensifies the dynamic aspect of the emblem, as described above, which comes about through the re­ ceiver's interpretative process, and on the basis of an oscillation bel ween textual and pictorial elements. Both images, in connection with the hourglass, underline the continuous passing of all living things. While the flowers and grasses in themselves are a momentary image of vital life not at all suggestive of death and decay, the placement of the hourglass amidst the thriving grasses "temporizes" the moment and delivers it up to impermanence. The visualization of the sand trickling through the hourglass and marking the passage of time awakens the association with nature's gradual withering; the receiver no longer sees the static image of verdant grass, but rather, as if before the mind's eye, a filmic vision of nature as it matures and declines into autumn. Further appurtenances of the emblem's pictura and verbal seg­ ments overlap onto this level of the emblem's meaning: the scythe in­ tensifies the thought that all living things die, since it is capable of ^ cutting the grass at the peak of its vitality; the motto delivers move­ ment by thematizing dying, not as an irreversible cutting, but —in connection with the pictura's symbolic contents —as a gradual proV'.IIHV

28. As it concerns emblematics specifically, Scholz 2002, 360ff., has shown to what extent in the picture "marks of the signs of two symbol systems that is to say, of one thatisquasi-notational, and of another thatissemantically and syntactically dense, can overlap"(360; and similarly: Scholz 1984, 78ff.).

46

EMBLEMATICA

cess. Similarly, the apparent youth of the man, indicated by his posture and clothing, becomes significant, reinforcing the readers' sense of their own mortality, manifesting itself not only in old age and death, but already with each passing moment in the bloom of life, or, as the chapter title suggests, in "daily dying/ 7 At this point, the representational principle of the pictura becomes especially clear. It is characterized by the juxtaposition of various objects with no necessary relation to one another, 29 which together become the set pieces in the interpretative scenario. The receiver must discover their relation to the emblem's verbal-discursive segments in order to arrive at a meaningful interpretation of the configuration as a whole. The emblem's horizon of meaning is constituted, then, from the connections the reader makes, during the reception process, between the individual pictorial segments as well as between the pictorial segments and the various discursive parts —whether between motto and subscriptio, or motto and other verbal elements, such as here the chapter caption. This representational principle explains what might at first appear strange to readers today: namely, that the figure holding the scythe appears to be the grim reaper in person, but, to judge by his clothing, is unambiguously on the side of life, not death. Indeed, only in the receiver's imagined film, as mentioned above, does the vital man in his prime turn into the skeleton of death through the play of interpretation, creating relationships among various pictorial and textual elements, and the dynamization process that goes along with it. The content of the chapter immediately following the emblem, "Reflection XL The Harbinger of our Death/ and Daily Dying," completely confirms this interpretation. Especially in the early pages of the chapter there is talk that birth is the beginning of death, that humans die daily, since with every moment another portion of life is taken away (see Francisci, 318f.), and that ebbing time mows the field of the physical body, just as the reaper mows the grain with every swing (ibid., 320-21). The chapter continues, giving further examples of human mortality. At the close of "Reflection XI," the quintessential message is an appeal to the reader to remain always cognizant of death and never to forget the soul, "because temporal death can do

29. Peter Daly, in connection with such pictura types, speaks of "unusual, strange combinations of motifs"; see Daly, 90-102.

SI КЛ11ЧЛ 14 O I K l

47

nothing to you, but must give you up, not dead, to immortal­ ity" (ibid., 391). The chapter text, I hen, also functions in place of a g £i« got »trg$ Q U O © *?m(>i'rbios caslcllanos, 1624), both of whom are included in thebibliogi.11>11у. Additional bibliographical entries suggest that the next three Libels refer to Thomas Erpenius (Adagia arahica, 1623), Jan Drusius (Apoplillicgmata еЬггсогит ас arabum, 1612), and loachimus Zehnerus (Adagia sacra, 1601). "C. Lehman" likely refers to Christoph Lehmann (llorilcgiiim politicum), and though the bibliography does not include Lehmann, it does have a corresponding entry for the next book by Martin Antoine Del Rio (Adagialia Sacra Veteris et Novi Testamenti, I () 14).9 The two large books at the bottom of the pile seem to be identiI ied as works by Paulus Manutius (an editor of Erasmus's Adagia) and Ambrosius Calepinus, the author of the monumental Dictionum laliriarum. ITarsdorffer's readers could peruse the play and consult the bibli­ ography in order to identify the book labels and interpret the book-man image. In this, Harsdorffer's print fits well within the con­ ceptual construct of the "emblematic title page" explicated by Margery Corbett and Ronald Lightbown. The emblematic title page could be a "vehicle for the thoughts of the author on his work, but m ight also seek to give an indication of its scope, and include pictorial representations which could be understood only by perusing the book, thus stimulating the reader's curiosity" (35). Beyond being dec­ orative, the emblematic title page could be employed "to epitomize the book and glorify its author and his work. Such title pages do more than illustrate the contents of the book; they can have an independent message of their own" (46). Considered as a whole, Harsdorffer's book labels do not just provide information about a literary corpus of particular authors and titles; they also celebrate Harsdorffer's famil­ iarity with and mastery of proverbial literature in a diversity of lan­ guages, as demonstrated by the play which follows. 10

8. The publication dates provided here are those given in Harsdorffer's bibliogra­ phy. 9. The bibliographical entries also give an indication of the books' sizes (fol., 8, 4o, etc.) roughly corresponding to the books in the picture.

10. The message of Harsdorffer's print is also discussed in an intriguingly cryptic poem on the verso and is indirectly addressed by Harsdorffer's introductory commentary on his translation. To explore sufficiently the implications of the poem and the play's introduction is beyond the scope of this paper.

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Differing Dusters: Fools and Foxtails Another striking difference between the two images is the form of the book duster. The duster in Harsdorffer's print is a feather duster with a carved handle, but the duster in Arcimboldo's painting is composed of a staff with animal tails hanging from it. It is important to observe that the form of Arcimboldo's duster is quite reminiscent of a certain type of fool's staff. Depictions of fools sometimes included the accoutrement of a staff with a foxtail hanging from the end. The foxtail was associated with the negative traits ascribed to foxes, such as cunning, deception, flattery, and hypocrisy. This emblem from the collection at the University of Illinois features a multiplicity of foxtails a n d i n c l u d e s a scene with a foolish flatterer acting out the German proverbial expression den Fuchsschwanz streichen or mit dem Fuchsschwanz streichen [to stroke (with) the foxtail] (fig. 3).11 The negat i v e c o n n o t a t i o n s of Fig. 3. Emblem from Johann Theodor de Bry, Arcimboldo's furry duster Proscenivm vitse hvmawe, sine Emblematvm would have been inapprosecvlarivm . . . (Frankfurt, 1627). Used with per- p r i a t e for H a r s d o r f f e r ' s mission of The Rare Book & Manuscript Li- purposes, prompting Harsbrary of the University of Illinois, Urbanadorffer to make significant Champaign. modifications to Arcimboldo's anthropomorphic illusion. 12 With respect to 11. For a discussion and images of foxtail staffs and foxtail dusters, see Jones, 176-89, and Scribner, 77-78.

К. С. I I HARD

(he s c h o l a r s h i p on Arcimboldo's Librarian, the tradi­ tional i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of the [Minting as a caricature of LaziIIS does not seem to account for I he concepts apparently cenIr.ilized in A r c i m b o l d o ' s duster. Sebastian Brant's Narrenschiff [Ship of Fools] offers some in­ sight with regard to the association of the book duster with tools and deception. First pub­ lished in 1494, the illustrated poem Narrenschiff"became an int e r n a t i o n a l best-seller (Van Cleve, 19). Leading the parade of the book's crew of fools is a book collector, whose descrip­ tion is ironically entitled "Vow unnutze buchern" [Of Useless Books]. The short verse above this fool's woodcut reads,

77

Fig. 4. The book fool from Sebastian Brant, Stultifera nauis (Basel, 1497). Used with permission of The Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

In dunce's dance I take the lead, Books useless, numerous my creed, Which I can't understand or read. 13 Below, a bespectacled collector is depicted in his private library, feather duster in hand (fig. 4). One might assume that this is a stu12. I have not been able to identify confidently the object resting horizontally above the feather duster in Harsdorffer's depiction. Harsdorffer's "mustache" may also be a common type of duster made from a single animal tail, whichHarsdorffer differentiated formally and conceptually from the fool's staff. This hypothesis offers a functional connection between this object and the feather duster as well as a formal connection between Harsdorffer's book-man and Arcimboldo's Librarian.

13. Brant, 62. Den vordantz hat man mir gelan/ Dann ich on nutz vil buecher han/ Die ich nit lyfi/ und nyt verstan.

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EMBLEMATICA

dious man of letters intently reading in his priv.ilr library, but the poem contradicts this interpretation. Brant describes this fool as an ignorant imposter who obsesses over his large collection of unread books and delights in feigning the appearance of a scholar. 14 With the widespread success of the Narrenschiff, this deceptive character's image and description became famous throughout Europe and would have been well known to Arcimboldo and to any audience of the painter's work. 15 Arcimboldo's Librarian likely evoked thoughts of the collector "Of Useless Books," given the painting's similarities to the depiction of Brant's book fool. The flopping, jangling book fool's cap appears literalized in The Librarian's book-hat, with its hanging ties and bookmarks. In both pictures, the prominent duster emphasizes the physical nature of the collection and the materialistic focus of the collector. However, Arcimboldo enhances the instructive morality of Brant's message and visually reinforces the deceptive nature of this collector's folly through a modified duster with proverbial associations—associations unsuitable for Harsdorffer's new context. Other visual elements connecting Arcimboldo's painting to Brant's book fool have been altered in Harsdorffer's print. The round-ended bookmarks hanging from The Librarian's book-hat to some degree echo the bells on Brant's fool's cap; they are gone from Harsdorffer's image. Harsdorffer's books have been assigned relevant names and titles, d i s a s s o c i a t i n g t h e m from the b o o k fool's i g n o r a n c e . Harsdorffer's books display evidence of having been well read. This is made apparent by the inclusion of signs of wear, seen particularly in the creased spine of the large book by Erasmus on the left, and there are additional bookmarks scattered throughout the books in the pile. (They are no longer relegated to forming a discrete "hand" as they are in Arcimboldo's painting.) It is also significant that the arrangement of Harsdorffer's book pile is casually irregular, unlike Arcimboldo's neatly pristine, triangular stack.

14. Alciato's emblem "In Silentium," including the image of a man in his studiolo holding his finger to his lips, indicates that fools can pretend to be wise by hiding their ignorance through silence.

15. ' T h e first German literary work to demonstrate the mass-market potential of the new printing technology, Das Narrenschiff achieved such unprecedented domestic and international popularity that it has been called the most famous work of German literature before the time of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe" (Van Cleve, 15).

К. С. ELHARD

The Two Compositions and the Pons

79

Asinorum

The composition of Arcimboldo's painting is based on the strict symmetricality of the isosceles triangle. Though Harsdorffer's print «llso features a triangular composition, it is not an isosceles triangle. The peak of Harsdorffer's triangle is slightly tipped to the right (fig. f'S). This m o d i f i c a t i o n , t h o u g h s m a l l , effectively d i s t a n c e s Harsdorffer's book-man from another fool-related reference in Arcimboldo's painting. During Ihe Middle Ages and into the Re­ naissance, the isosceles triangle was associated with a geometri­ cal principle regarded as an intel­ lectual watershed. The fifth prop­ osition of the first book of Euclid states that if two sides of a trian­ gle are equal then the angles op­ posite those sides are also equal. This foundational principle of mathematics was used to cull out the students who were incapable of c r o s s i n g t h a t c o n c e p t u a l "bridge" to continue on in their formal education (Honderich, 702). For this reason, the proposi­ tion became known as the pons asinorum [ b r i d g e of asses or bridge of fools]. Arcimboldo's Li­ brarian is based on a multiplicity of nesting and overlapping isos­ celes triangles, a subtle reference to the pons asinorum. The painting Fig. 5. The composition of the book-man is linked both thematically and from G e o r g P h i l i p p H a r s d o r f f e r , Frauenzimmer Gesprechspiel[e], vol. 2 structurally to this concept. The (Nuremberg, 1657): 311. Diagram by the book fool would rather decep­ author; image used with permission of tively hide behind the accoutre­ The Rare Book & Manuscript Library of ments of a scholar than cross the the U n i v e r s i t y of Illinois, Urbana"bridge of l e a r n i n g " t h r o u g h Champaign. reading and study. Harsdorffer's book-man avoids the negative

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c o n n o t a t i o n s of the pons asiuoruni through ils slij;hl but -si^nil'ii'.ml slant to the right. In a multiplicity of w a y s , Harsdorffer's b o o k - m a n features llu* "riches" of A r c i m b o l d o ' s invention, while Harsdorffer's " a d e q u a h ' a n d suitable" e m b e l l i s h m e n t s m a k e the b o o k - m a n a p p r o p r i a t e in it:, n e w context ( H u i s s t e d e , 244). An e x a m i n a t i o n of these embellish m e n t s also p r o v i d e s an o p p o r t u n i t y to reassess the significance of the copia of A r c i m b o l d o ' s Librarian.16 The m e t h o d o l o g i c a l potential of em ploying the " e m b l e m a t i c g a m e " as an i n t e r p r e t i v e strategy u n d e r scores the i m p o r t a n c e a n d relevance of e m b l e m scholarship in tins t u d y of o t h e r artistic g e n r e s c o n t e m p o r a r y with the emblem phe nomenon. Works Cited Alfons, Sven. " G i u s e p p e A r c i m b o l d o : en biografisk och ikonografisk s t u d i e . " In Symbolister. Ed. R a g n a r J o s e p h s o n , N i l s G o s t a S a n d b l a d , a n d K a r l E r i k S t e n e b e r g . Vol. 2. T i d s k r i f t for k o n s t v e t e n s k a p . M a l m o , 1957. . "The M u s e u m as I m a g e of the World." In The Arcimboldo Effect: Transformations of the Face from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century. Ed. P o n t u s H u l t e n . N e w York, 1987. Pp. 66-87. Brant, Sebastian. The Ship of Fools. Trans. E d w i n H e r m a n n Zeydel. N e w York, 1962. Brandhorst, H a n s , a n d Peter van H u i s s t e d e . "Festina Lente: A b o u t the Emblematic Game." Mnemosyne, http://mnemosyne.org/research/festina_lente (accessed October 5, 2006). Corbett, Margery, a n d R o n a l d L i g h t b o w n . The Comely Frontispiece: The Emblematic Title-Page in England, 1550-1660. L o n d o n and Boston, 1979. H a r s d o r f f e r , G e o r g P h i l i p p . Frauenzimmer Gesprachspiele. N u r e m b e r g , 1641-1649, 1657. Reprint, T u b i n g e n , 1968-69. Selected images from the Frauenzimmer Gesprachspiele are also available dig­ itally on the University of Illinois Library G e r m a n Emblem Data­ base Web site: h t t p : / / i m a g e s . l i b r a r y . u i u c . e d u : 8 0 8 1 / u ? / e m blems,325.

16. See also Michael Giordano's discussion of "amplitude" in this volume.

К. С. I I МЛШ)

Н1

! I r v . , IVIcr. "( ;,i perback era, just in the same way as the '1531 edition of Andre,i Alciato's Emblematum Liber is regarded as the beginning o( the em blem genre. The publishing company, Pocket Books, was especially founded for this new idea. Existing book publishers, formerly involved in maga­ zine and pulp publishing, followed the lead of bringing out paper­ backs and within a couple of years many publishers like Avon Books, Penguin Books, Popular Library, Dell Books, Bantam Books, and Sig­ net Books, to name the most important ones, were all trying to get a piece of the market. Prelude To get a better understanding of the situation in which the paper­ back came into being in 1939, we turn 100 years back in time. From the middle to the close of the nineteenth century, story magazines with short stories and the so-called dime novels in England known as Penny Dreadfuls, became popular, mainly because of three mutually reinforcing trends: increased mechanization of printing, easier trans­ port because of more efficient rail and canal shipping, and the steadily growing rates of literacy. The first dime novel to appear was Ann S. Stephens's The Indian Wife of the White Hunter, New York, 1860 (fig. 1). The Dime Novels were aimed at youthful, working-class audiences and distributed in massive editions at newsstands and dry-goods stores. Genres represented were Westerns, tales of urban outlaws, detective stories, working-girl narratives of virtue defended, and costume ro­ mances, complete with lurid cover illustrations (from 1900 onwards in full color). 4 Leipzig his own series of paper-bound books, the Tauchnitz Editions. The series, mainly reprints of English and American works, became popular in Europe and found even a market in South America and the Middle East (Schreuders, 5).

3.

In 1829 the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge began printing inex­ pensive paper-bound books, and started their American Library of Useful Knowl­ edge in 1831. In 1839, New York journalists, Benjamin and Griswold, started a weekly magazine, Brother Jonathan. Each issue included a complete British novel in paperback form (Schreuders, 13).

4.

Popular literature found itself undervalued by the educated class. G. K. Chesterton came to its justification in his "A Defence of Penny Dreadfuls":

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Slory papers, weekly eight-page tabloids, covered much the same ground, but often combined material and themes to appeal to the whole family. The chief among them had national circulations greater lhan any other newspaper or magazine, some selling 400,000 copies per issue. Unlike the dime novels, which generally confine illustra­ tion to the cover, the story papers integrate text and illustration (in I lu* form of wood engravings) throughout. 5 Decline of the Dime Novel Around the turn of the century the young readers who made up the audience for dime novels found new interests. In the late 1890s early silent movies provided sensational entertainment at the bargain price of five cents per show. Young audiences preferred to go to the nickelodeon and spend their pennies watching the new heroes of the silver screen rather than reading about the latest adventures of their all-too-familiar dime novel heroes. With dime novel sales declining, a number of enterprising publishers developed a new genre —pulp fic­ tion, which was aimed specifically at adult readers. By 1920, pulp fic­ tion was readily available at newsstands around the country and achieved a readership much larger than that of dime novels in their heyday. The early attempts of paperbound publishing and later dime nov­ els, story magazines, and pulp fiction formed the climate in which pa­ perbacks came into being, just like collections of epigrams, imprese, "Among these stories there are a certain number which deal sympathetically with the adventures of robbers, outlaws and pirates, which present in a dignified and romantic light thieves and murderers like Dick Turpin and Claude Duval. That is to say, they do precisely the same thing as Scott's Tvanhoe/ Scott's 'Rob Roy/ Scott's 'Lady of the Lake/ Byron's 'Corsair/ Wordsworth's 'Rob Roy's Grave/ Stevenson's 'Macaire/ Mr. Max Pemberton's 'Iron Pirate/ and a thou­ sand more works distributed systematically as prizes and Christmas presents. . . . In the case of our own class, we recognize that this wild life is contemplated with pleasure by the young, not because it is like their own life, but because it is different from it." In The Defendant. London 1902. 5. The Stanford University Library of Stanford University, СЛ, has an extensive dime novel and Story Paper collection consisting of over 8,000 individual items, and includes long runs of the major dime novel series and equally strong hold­ ings of story papers. See http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/dp/pennies/home .html.

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devices, insignia, hieroglyphs, and emblematic printers' in,irks mailc up the environment for the birth of the emblem book. Tripartite Structure Clearly, there is neither a direct nor indirect link between seven teenth- and eighteenth-century emblem books and mid-twentieth century paperbacks. It is apparent, though, that emblematic forms and conventions from the Renaissance have influenced art and litera­ ture in subsequent years and decades. Especially the tripartite struc­ ture of motto, pictura, and subscriptio, and the relationship between the three elements, can be found in more bi-medial genres. Examples are illustrated fables, pamphlets, and political and humorous car­ toons. 6 The illustrated fable is considered closely related to the emblem, since the tripartite structure is present, and sometimes functions in the same way. The same holds for pamphlets that deal with local and political situations. The image goes beyond mere illustration and re­ fers, sometimes in an allegorical way, to specific people and circum­ stances. Pamphlets on political issues often relate easily to our mod­ ern political and humorous cartoons. In some modern humorous car­ toons, visual metaphors from the emblem era seem to have survived, as on a contemporary postcard that uses the same visualization for Kurschatten, adultery, as in emblem 20 (fig. 2) from Person, Symbolica in Thermas and Acidulas Reflexio.7 Techniques of verbal and visual communication as present within the tripartite structure of emblems definitely exist in modern adver­ tising (fig. 3). In this example for a women's magazine the motto reads: "Feeling, for that you have to be a woman/ 7 and the authoritative quo­ tation of feminist Benoite Groult as subscriptio explains: "One day men should be aware that the fate of women is also their fate/' 8

6.

See the articles by Pinson, Farnsworth, and Elhard in this volume.

7.

Postcard Der Kurschatten. See van Dongen, 250-52, and Luijten and van Dongen.

8.

The ad for the magazine Feeling was found on the website of ZORRA, a media watchdog for gender role portrayal in advertising and media in Flemish Belgium (http://www.zorra.be). The website is an electronic collection of people's reac­ tions (complaints and compliments) on gender role portrayed in the media. ZORRA brings these reactions to the attention of the advertising agencies and

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The Paperback

I'or designing the cover of a paperback, the publisher contracted ,m arlisl to make a painting. This was the general practice in the first two decades of the paperback era. Slowly this way of working died mil towards the end of the 1950s. After 1960 covers were more and more frequently designed by the publishers' art designers and/or photo studios, which resulted in far less interesting covers. 9 The outside of an average paperback usually consists of the following main elements: cover image, title, author, and publisher. AddiI ional elements that could be present in varying combinations are: tille blurb —most of the time a strong one-liner; author blurb, series name, series number, edition blurb, cover artist's name, price, review citations, and various typographical characteristics. The back of the paperback could show additional lines about the book, additional reviews, sometimes even additional images, or even a complete new image like the ones to be found on the famous and highly collectible Dell Mapbacks, 10 "Complete with Crime Map on Back Cover" (fig. 4).11 Three of these elements are the most important ones: the image, the title, and the one-liner or title blurb, which form together a sort of three-fold structure to be found on almost every paperback cover (fig. 5). It surely looks similar to the tripartite structure in emblems: the title compares to the motto, while the one-liner, or title blurb, is the subscriptio that clarifies to a certain extent the not always comprehensible relationship between cover picture and title. This tripartite structure of the cover tries to persuade the viewer. It is not the kind of persuasion one could expect from emblems, like repentance, vanitas vanitatis, and memento mori.12 Just like in advertising, the cover tries to

promoting companies. There are many cases recorded where complaints led to the change or complete removal of ads or commercials. The Feeling ad won the ZORRA Audience Award 2004 as the most female-friendly and gender stereotype-breaking printed ad. The jury report states (my transl.): The eggs can refer equally to real eggs, female egg cells or male testicles; the hand that carries them can refer equally to fondling or coarse treatment or the power to decide on these two options One gender obviously can't live without the other; care has to be responded with care or else both genders will be nipped in the bud. 9.

The process of cover production is described in detail in Schreuders, 118-33.

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persuade the v i e w e r to b u y , in this case nol the p r o d u c l p r o m o t e d , luil the book itself.

More Similarities The cover artist and the writer of the book were never the same pri­ son, just as in most cases in the emblem genre, and more similarities seem to exist with regard to developments within both genres. Mm blems can be categorized in different groups like religious emblems, love emblems, heart emblems, realistic emblems, and humanistic em blems. Each group has its own characteristics and use of symbols in the pictura: love emblems have cupids, heart emblems have hearts, and so-called realistic emblems have artifacts from daily life. Also, pa perbacks can be categorized in groups that come with their own at tributes on the cover: westerns have powerful one-liners, cowboys, horses, rifles, and guns; thrillers and mystery titles have detectives who are hard-boiled sleuths with an attitude who have to deal with a 11 kinds of murder weapons, corpses, hoodlums, and gangsters either for the rescue of beautiful damsels in distress or for hanging out with ruthless and wicked, but sexy, women. Juvenile delinquency titles have gangs, knives, needles, drugs, and fast cars; science fiction

10. The undisputed expert on Dell Books was William H. Lyles, whose two volumes constitute a massive and thoroughly researched history, analysis, and bibliogra­ phy of Dell paperbacks. Because of persistent financial hardships William Lyles was forced in 1994 to sell his entire Dell paperback collection to Stanford Univer­ sity (see note 5). 11. For the best introduction to the famous Dell Mapbacks and the life of William H. Lyles, see Schreuders 1997, brilliantly produced in authentic Dell style with many exciting illustrations. Examples of Dell Mapbacks can also be found on Wini's Dell Mapbacks: (http://www.blackmale.netfirms.com); the actual Mapbacks appear when moving the mouse over the covers (the author's e-mail refer­ ence will bounce since it is out of date).

12. Karel Porteman writes about emblematics as a "bimedial" method of persua­ sion: "to represent and to comment, to show and to interpret in a pleasing man­ ner. The artistry of the emblem lay however not only in the quality of illustrations and poems. The subtler the emblematic edification, the greater was its artistic and persuasive effect. This could among other things be achieved by endowing the combination of motto and illustration with an enigmatic quality. The poem then frequently functions as a corroborative solution" (Porteman, 14).

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•.hows space ships, olher planets, and monsters; nonfiction titles (Science, I lislory, Social Issues) have more serious covers with g r a p h s , symbols, etc. Romance titles have hearts, doctors a n d n u r s e s , somelimes even c u p i d s ; and finally, adult r e a d i n g titles h a v e , almost with* nil exception, half or completely n a k e d female b o d i e s , w h i p s , chains, handcuffs, and so forth. In addition to these specific elements there is a h e a v y use of a t m o s p h e r e - e n h a n c i n g a t t r i b u t e s in fore- a n d b a c k g r o u n d , like keyholes (I \}\. 6), w i n d o w s , s h a d o w s , males s m o k i n g cigarettes ( m e a n i n g they .ire tough cookies), females s m o k i n g cigarettes ( m e a n i n g they are b.ul, willing, b u t at the s a m e time h a r d to get), m i r r o r s , h a n d s , darkness, and d i s t r a c t i n g p o i n t of views. In e m b l e m research w e are familiar w i t h the practice in the sevenleenth and e i g h t e e n t h centuries of copying the picturae of e m b l e m s for re-editions, t r a n s l a t i o n s , a n d even n e w titles. Cover images of paperbacks w e r e u s e d n o differently. They w e r e copied a n d pirated over and over again for re-editions, n e w titles, a n d t r a n s l a t i o n s (fig. 7). These similarities b e t w e e n the picturae of e m b l e m s a n d the cover images of p a p e r b a c k s are b r o u g h t forward here in o r d e r to a r g u e that m e t h o d s of research a p p l i e d to e m b l e m s could also be used for the s t u d y of p a p e r b a c k cover images. The ability of the cover artist to use a certain e l e m e n t in a subtle way e n h a n c e s the s t r e n g t h of the w h o l e cover. 13 On Guilty Bystander (1958) the string of pearls in the s h a p e of a noose is quite p r o m i n e n t on the cover (fig. 8). The m a n is h o l d i n g a g u n and s m o k i n g , hence he is a h a r d - h i t t i n g type. The beautiful, willing b l o n d e is involved w i t h him a n d seems to d o her u t m o s t to pers u a d e him to d o s o m e t h i n g , most likely kill s o m e o n e , m a y b e her h u s b a n d . The n o o s e , a n o t h e r i n s t r u m e n t for m a k i n g a corpse, is clearly a w e a p o n related to the w o m a n since it is m a d e from a string of pearls. From this cover it looks like she is going to use the m a n to commit m u r d e r , w h i l e she r e m a i n s a guilty b y s t a n d e r . H e r m u r d e r w e a p o n , the noose of pearls, will not incriminate her, but will be the downfall of the m a n .

13. The same mechanism applies to the typical Humanist activity of "constructing" the emblematic pictura: ". . . esteemed were various ways of making the illustration take part in the explanation, for example, the repetition of visual metaphors or explanatory elements in the background. The skill of the combination also helps to increase its persuasive power . . . " (Portcman, 14).

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In Money to Burn (1950) we see a noose of pearls «ij;ain (fij;. S). ()hvi ously the woman is the heir to the million dollars since the Mile letter ing is in the same color as her dress: she is the one who has "money to burn" since she is lighting the man's cigarette with a hundred dollar bill. The unresolved question is whether the pearl noose around her neck indicates that in the end she will be the victim or the killer. The curious reader must purchase the paperback to discover the plot. Censorship Following the development of the cover design over the years, one cannot but help notice increasingly daring cover images: women on the covers of normal paperback editions are ever more scantily clad, but always clad to a certain extent. The special category "adult read­ ing" had always been much more explicit in text and cover, but these titles were only for sale in special "for adults" shops or by mail order. Showing bare bottoms, breasts, and nipples on a normal cover was definitely not acceptable, that is, when women with a Caucasian com­ plexion were involved; women of color could be depicted like that without causing any problem (fig. 9). In 1952 the Truman administration decided that the limit had been reached and the U. S. Congress appointed the Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials, better known as the Gathings Com­ mittee. Their hearings and final report created a climate of fear in the publishing industry by threatening fines and jail terms for those who refused to embrace the Committee's vision of morality. 14 This resulted in a general toning down of sexual content in paperbacks, particularly in their cover art, and in a greater emphasis on stories that drove home the generally tragic consequences of straying from a straight and nar­ row path. 15

14. While emblems do not appear to have ever generated such governmental atten­ tion, the article by Michael Bath in this collection confirms the important politi­ cal dimensions of emblematics during the time of their flourishing

15. While none of the committee's proposals became law, the hearings gave encour­ agement to local groups and police censors' actions in removing from the news­ stands paperback titles they found offensive. Catholic organizations frequently took the lead in these actions, and court victories by publishers in New Jersey and Ohio in 1953 did little to deter them.

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Л unique example o( this "zipping up" of a cover is Fools Die on Fridiii/ (I^M), 1 " where two years after the first publication not only the p.iinling had to be changed, but also the one-liner had to be rewritten (lig l()).17 However, the practice of depicting naked, non-white women continued after the publication of this report without raising objections. 18 Queer Pulp The aforementioned "straying from a straight and narrow path" refers specifically to the practices of so-called "queer people," a col­ lective name for everyone who was involved in anything other than a standard heterosexual relationship: bisexuals, gays, lesbians. Covers of books with these themes are very interesting because there was a lot to "cover up." The excitement started with Tereska Torres's Women's Barracks (1950),19 an absolute lesbian bestseller (fig. 11). Two of the four

16. See A. A. Fair, with cover paintings by Robert Stanley. A. A. Fair was one of the pseudonyms of Erie Stanley Gardner. 1.7. The U.S. Government's fight against everything in print they opposed (explicit language, lurid covers, sleaze, vulgarisms, eroticism, lesbians and gays, etc.) did not stop after the Gathings committee. Many more committees and commissions were installed (most renowned is The President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography); the Granahan bill of 1958 (named after congresswoman Kathryn Granahan) reinforced the U. S. Post Office's role as judge of moral righteousness, to "seize and detain the mail of anyone suspected of trafficking in obscenity" (adult material was for the main part sold by mail order); the police raided dis­ tributors, the FBI and IRS went after writers and publishers who were brought before the U. S. Supreme Court to stand trial. These practices went on until the end of the 60s and are vividly reported in several articles published in Daley by Gertz, Gertzman, Parfrey, and Silverberg. Further reading on this topic should also include Gross. To acquire an insight in the history of the gay revolution and its relation with paperbacks, see Banis. 18. There was one other exception where nudity could be used on paperback covers without getting into trouble: covers depicting historical figures or representa­ tions of (classical) paintings were safe to produce. Cover artists and publishers tried to push this rule to the limit. Earl K. Bergey painted covers for Popular Li­ brary. His cover for John Erskine's The Private Life of Helen of Troy became famous as "the nipple cover" or "the cover with the nipples that launched a thousand ships."

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women are smoking on this cover, but especially Ihe way (he two women in the front are looking at one another gives the theme away for the trained eye of a cover art collector. That this was "The frank au tobiography of a French girl soldier" was a relief for many, since lui rope was far away and had a reputation of its own. 20 Many more titles came after this one, and they were not seized for obscenities only be­ cause all authors complied with the restriction that the story could not have a happy ending: either the lesbian woman breaks down, be­ comes psychotic, and ends in an asylum for the insane, or the homo­ sexual man either commits suicide or otherwise ends up in The Right Bed (1959) at the end (fig. II). 21 The attitude towards lesbian love was quite different from that to­ ward a gay relationship. On the one hand, after all, the problem of a lesbian woman was that she just had not found the right man yet. Gays, on the other hand, were feared since Alfred Kinsey's Report on Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (1948) had shown that most men were not 100% heterosexual or homosexual but somewhere in be­ tween, so there was always the fear of some gay inclination lurking around the corner. The many lesbian books and covers that appeared did not necessar­ ily create the stereotypical representation of lesbian couples, but it certainly made the stereotype widespread. On these covers there is al­ ways a Butch and a Femme, the "male" and the "female," one woman with short hair, the other with long; one blonde hair and the other bru­ nette, or one with dark and the other with red hair; one is wearing trousers and sometimes boots, the other wears a dress (fig. 12).22 Such

19. Cover painting by Barye Phillips.

20. "Torres's book struck a cord with readers of every gender and sexual orienta­ tion, selling over a million copies in 1950. . . . By 1952 the book had achieved enough notoriety to be singled out for condemnation by the Gathings Committee ... Alth ough members of the committee had read Women's Barracks, they refused to quote it in their Report of the Select Committee into Current Pornographic Mate­ rials, claiming that its lesbian passages —which were actually quite re­ strained—were too graphic to be included in a government document/' See Stryker, 51. 21. The cover blurb on this title reads: "At the threshold of his decision to take the twilight life, her hands were there to help —to guide him back to the right bed

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\!civoly|H\s find iheir way back in our d a y s in an ad for Skyy Vodka, published in a m a g a z i n e targeted for lesbian readers (fig. 12). In gen«*t .11 (hough, one can say that the portrayal of lesbian w o m e n by cover ,II lists was clearly d o n e with the male r e a d e r in m i n d (and this h o l d s also I or California-based advertising agency Lambesis t h a t p r o d u c e d Mir Skyy a d ) . " Another e x a m p l e w o r t h analyzing is the p a i n t i n g on the cover of 77/r Tormented (1956), a b i s e x u a l - t h e m e d book w i t h similar cover I r r a l m e n t (fig. 13). "A s u r g i n g novel of f o r b i d d e n l o v e / ' as the atibscriptio r e a d s here, could, in combination w i t h the m o t t o , The Tormented, still indicate w e are dealing w i t h a " n o r m a l " story of adultery involving t w o m e n a n d one w o m a n . The pictura h o w e v e r clearly indicates that there is a q u e e r relationship b e t w e e n the m e n . The w o m a n s t a n d i n g in the b a c k g r o u n d , striking a sultry pose in a sexy red dress, is completely o v e r l o o k e d by the t w o m e n in the f o r e g r o u n d , w h o have eyes only for each other. The black line r u n n i n g across the cover further s e p a r a t e s her from them. Note, too, that the black area surr o u n d i n g the title is a Rorschach inkblot, an a d d i t i o n a l suggestion of psychological a g o n y (Stryker, 32-36).

22. An excellent introduction to and overview of lesbian cover art can be found in Zimet.

23. The ad for Skyy Vodka (titled 'The Proposal") was found on the website 'The Commercial Closet," its aim to bring LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) sensitivity to corporate advertising (http://www. commercialcloset, org). The description there reads: "Gay marriage is starting to wend its way into ads, as Skyy Vodka's modern twist of an old-fashioned marriage proposal shows. At the bottom of the cocktail is an enormous diamond ring. Though still a glamorous male ideal of lesbians in high heels and bright red lipstick, these women are not interacting in the presence of men as many other such parings do." Although Skyy Vodka ads are renowned for their sometimes 'controversial' character, "The Proposal" is regarded as a positive portrayal of LGBT equality. The Commercial Closet Association comments further on this ad that "after generations of invisibility, in these commercials guys actually get their guys and gals get their gals. Kisses and affectionate displays are enjoyed by same-sex couples in the imagery, transgendered persons are a non-issue, Gay Pride is celebrated and some commercials even seem to sell the idea of being "gay" more than the product. These ads exceed Commercial Closet's Best Practices."

Visual Metaphors In conclusion it seems that the tripartite structure as we know il from the emblems can also be seen in American paperback covers. The three elements (cover painting, title, and blurbs) interact with each other in order to titillate the prying eyes of the potential readers who have to buy the book in order to satisfy their curiosity. And that was the main function of many lurid covers, that is, persuasion to buy, especially in the display racks of the newsstands on street corners where the competition with all the other publishers' seducers, or rather seductresses, was tough. 24 In modern advertising much research has been done on visual metaphors and their effect on target groups. The problem advertisers have to tackle is not so much to come up with the right visual or verbal metaphor, but to be sure that they are comprehended as intended. Figure 14 is a page from a catalogue of Wehkamp, a big Dutch mail order company, promoting a four poster with the text: Dreams come true at Wehkamp ("Dromen worden werkelijkheid bij Wehkamp"). The whole image of the lady sitting on the bed, playing the cello, bears clear reference to the image from Incogniti Scriptoris Nova Poemata; Nieuwe Nederduytsche Gedichten ende Raedtselen, Leiden 1624 (fig. 14), where in the accompanying sonnet the playing of the wooden string instrument is used as a metaphor for the love game. While we cannot 24. The function of the cover as a marketing tool goes back to the origins of book printing. The title-page or decorative borders or frontispiece was not a display of the printer's skill but a mere marketing tool, so "not a direct response to the technological change that printing embodies, but to the economics implicit in the technology/ 7 See Smith, 12. Manuscripts were produced by scribes on commission and one at a time, whereas printing from movable type implies producing multiple copies at the same time for a number of still unknown future buyers and that was a speculative venture or a financially risky investment. Most books were sold in unbound sheets, so consequently luxuriously engraved title-pages or frontispieces were a useful tool for the publisher to attract the interest of a potential buyer. As Georg Philipp Harsdorffer puts it: "Bey dieser Zeit, ist fast kein Buch verkaufflich/ ohne einen Kupfertitel/ welcher dem Leser desselben Inhalt nicht nur mit Worten/ sondern auch mit einem Gemahl vorbildet." [These days it is nearly impossible to sell a book without an engraved title page which portrays to the reader the contents of the book, not only in words, but also with an image.] See Harsdorffer, Vol. 6, Vorrede paragraph 10. For an excellent overview of this "second language" of title pages and frontispieces, see Corbett and Lightbown.

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il IIiiiI i l l u s i o n is also the e n c o d e d message from W e h k a m p , we i\m be confident that if so, the average W e h k a m p c u s t o m e r will nol he able to d e c o d e it. 25 In a recent article on the c o m p r e h e n s i o n of m e t a p h o r s in ads, the conclusion was that "the p r e s e n t a t i o n of a m e t a p h o r i c a l c o m p a r i s o n Mipported by a visual image e n h a n c e s the c o m p r e h e n s i b i l i t y of the m e t a p h o r and h e l p s m e m o r i z i n g the i n t e n d e d m e s s a g e / ' 2 6 That s o u n d s like old n e w s to e m b l e m researchers a n d the conclusion seems to be s u p p o r t e d by an advertiser's a w a r d - w i n n i n g p r o m o t i o n ca m paign for the Volkswagen Golf. 27 The m e s s a g e there is that in case n\ a collision, you h a d better be sitting in the Golf (fig. 15). The image does not need m o r e text t h a n the w o r d Golf'under the right pot. The visual m e t a p h o r o b v i o u s l y is strong e n o u g h to s u r v i v e over centuries, as c o m p a r i s o n w i t h e m b l e m D l r of A n d r e a Alciato's Emblematum Liber and e m b l e m I, 50 of Roemer Visscher's Sinnepoppen clearly shows. 2 8 IM* SIIIV

Conclusion The above a t t e m p t s h o w s that the tripartite s t r u c t u r e , familiar to the s e v e n t e e n t h - a n d e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y e m b l e m genre, also occurs in c o n t e m p o r a r y a d s a n d o n p a p e r b a c k c o v e r s f r o m t h e m i d - t w e n t i e t h century. Some m o d e r n a d s can be r e g a r d e d m o r e or less as p r e s e n t - d a y e m b l e m s , and, as s h o w n here, there are a d s that

25. There exists a similarity between the creative task advertising agencies have to accomplish and the assignments pupils of Jesuit colleges in the seventeenth century had to fulfill. The Jesuits introduced emblems in their college curricula as part of the rhetorical doctrine of tropes: "The exercises consisted in 'emblematising' a set subject: the emblematice scribere or representation in the form of an emblem. The task was not the decoding of emblems, but the encoding" (Porteman, 22-23).

26. "The message is in the metaphor: Assessing the comprehension of metaphors in advertisements," (Morgan and Reichert, 5). 27. See Luijten. The ad for the Volkswagen Golf won the Silver Lion on the International Advertising Press and Poster Festival in Cannes, 1993. 28. Alciato, 1531, emblem Dlr; Alciato,1581, emblem 165, 574; and Visscher, emblem I, 50.

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use visual m e t a p h o r s derived from e m b l e m s . " ' The remaining c|iies tion is w h e t h e r p a p e r b a c k cover artists used e m b l e m a t i c material. The Robert Jonas cover for Carson McCullers's The Heart is n I .ouch/ Hunter (1946) b r i n g s to m i n d Alciato's e m b l e m " P a u p e r t a t e m sum mis ingeniis obesse ne p r o v e h a n t u r " [Poverty h i n d e r s the greatest talents from a d v a n c i n g ] 30 or, as Wither says, "My Wit got Wings, and, high h a d flowne; But, Poverty did keepe me d o w n e " ( f i g . 16). 31 For some confirmation on this r e s e m b l a n c e w e t u r n to Robert Jonas himself w h o has m a d e h u n d r e d s of covers for P e n g u i n Books and Mentor Books. He once said that this w a s his favorite cover. W h e n asked why, he said: "I can't explain it. You have to feel it, you h a v e to u n d e r s t a n d i t at a s u b c o n s c i o u s level, like poetry h a s to be u n d e r s t o o d or felt at a subconscious level. Certain things in the cover are obvious, like the fist, that's the militant worker, the militant p e o p l e of the whole world . . . and the eagle, the s y m b o l of the freedom w e w e r e willing to fight for. At the left there's a p o o r boy— you know, a s y m b o l of world pov­ erty. The w r i t e r w a s actually talking a b o u t c o m p l e t e l y different things in t h a t book, b u t still, poverty, that's its u n i v e r s a l theme. But ex­ plaining this k i n d of thing, that goes against m y grain, because if you need to explain it, then it h a s n ' t worked." 3 2

29. Previous work on emblematic advertising includes: Vinken, Wurfel, and Daly, 1988,1993, 1996, and 2002.

30. See Alciato 1531, emblem on A7v and Alciato, 1536, emblem on 19. The subscript™ reads: "Dextra tenet lapidem, manus altera sustinet alas: Utme pluma levat, sic grave mergit onus. Ingenio poteram superas volitare per arces, Me nisi paupertas invida deprimeret. [My right hand holds a stone, my other hand bears wings. As the feathers lift me, so the heavy weight drags me down. With my in­ tellect I could be soaring among the highest peaks, if envious poverty did not pull me down]. 31. Wither, emblem 42, Book 3, 176.

32. Cited from Schreuders, 1981,44-45. Robert Jonas, who was befriended and influ­ enced by Willem de Kooning, declares further: "Bauhaus influenced me in ev­ erything. They showed me a way to do what I felt I had to do with my covers, to present a strong and effective impression of the contents of the book. I always in­ sisted on looking for the positive side, positive with regard to the world. My whole life I've been balancing art and social consciousness — and that's some bal­ ancing act! I've never believed in elitist art; I believe in art for the people" (43).

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Works Cited Alci.Ho, Andrea. Emblemata Libellus. Lyons, 1551. r.niblcmntuni Libellus. Paris, 1536. . I'jnblcmalum liber. Augsburg, 1531. li.mis, Victor J. Spine Intact, Some Creases: Remembrances of a Paperback Writer. Genoa, 2004. Ilonn, Thomas L. UnderCover, An Illustrated History of American Mass-Market Paperbacks. New York, 1982. Chesterton, G. K. "A Defence of Penny Dreadfuls." In The Defendant. London, 1901. Corbett, Margery, and Ronald Lightbown, The Comely Frontispiece: The Emblematic Title-Page in England, 1550-1660. London and Boston, 1979. I )aley, Brittany A., Hedi El Kholti, and Earl Kemp, eds. SIN-A-RAMA: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties. Los Angeles, 2005. I )a ly, Peter M. "Adam and Eve in The Garden of Advertising." In European Iconography; East and West. Ed. Gyorgy E. Szonyi. Leiden, 1995. Pp. 77-88/ . "Modern Illustrated Advertising and the Renaissance Emblem." In Word and Visual Imagination: Studies in the Interaction of English Literature and the Visual Arts. Eds. Karl Josef Holtgen, Peter M. Daly, and Wolfgang Lottes. Erlanger Forschungen, Reihe A, Geisteswissenschaften, Vol. 43. Erlangen, 1988. Pp. 349-71. . "The Nachleben of the Emblem: Emblematic Structures in Modern A d v e r t i s i n g and P r o p a g a n d a . " In Polyvalenz und Multifunktionalitat der Emblematik. Eds. Wolfgang Harms and Dietmar Peil. Frankfurt am Main, 2002. Pp. 47-69. . "Telling Images in Emblems, Advertisements and Logos." In Telling Images: The Ages of Life and Learning. Ed. Ayers Bagley and Alison M. Saunders. New York, 1996. Pp. 109-20, Pp. 151-55. Dongen, Wim van. "The Case of the Curious Cure. Vices and Virtues D e p i c t e d in H o t Water E m b l e m s . " In Polyvalenz und Multifunktionalitat der Emblematik, eds. Wolfgang Harms and Dietmar Peil. Frankfurt am Main, 2002. Pp. 231-54. Fair, A. A. Fools Die on Friday. New York, 1951. Dell Books #542. Fair, A. A. Fools Die on Friday. New York, 1953. Dell Books #1542 Gertz, Stephen J. "West Coast Blue." In SIN-A-RAMA: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties. Eds. Brittany A. Daley, Hedi El Kholti, and Earl Kemp. Los Angeles, 2005. Pp. 27-35.

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G e r t z m a n , Jay. "Softcore P u b l i s h i n g : The Last C'oasl Seem 4 ." In SIN-A-RAMA: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties, hcls. Briltany Л. Daley, H e d i El Kholti, a n d Earl K e m p . Los Angeles, 2005. Pp. 14- ?b, Gross, Michael R. Young Lusty Sluts! A Pictorial History of Erotic Pulp Fiction. L o n d o n , 2004. Harsdorffer, G e o r g P h i l i p p . Frauenzimmer Gesprachspiclc, Vol. (>. N u r e m b e r g , 1646. Der Kurschatten. (Scherz 191 a n d 95) Lubeck: Verlag Schoning & Co. u n d Gebr. Schmidt, [n. d.]. Kyne, Peter B. Money to Burn. N e w York, 1950. Dell Books #467. L i n d o p , A u d r e y Erskine. The Tormented. N e w York, 1956. Popular Li­ brary #G160. Luijten, H a n s . "Gezien of gelezen? Realia en o n t l e n i n g e n in Jacob Cats' Sinne- en minnebeelden." In Drie edities, drie verhalen. Lezingen gehouden tijdens het symposium teksteditie op 2 december 1994. Eds. Leo Jansen, H a n s Luijten, Jacqueline de Man. A m s t e r d a m , 1995. Pp. 35-77. L u i j t e n , H a n s , a n d W i m v a n D o n g e n . " H e i l z a m e b r o n n e n en v e r k w i k k e n d e b a d e n . Emblematisch k u r e n met N i k o l a u s Person/ 7 In De zeventiende eeuw 15.1 (1999): 141-56. Lyles, William H. Dell Paperbacks, 1942 to Mid-1962: A Catalog Index. Westport, CT, 1983. . Putting Dell on the Map: A History of the Dell Paperbacks. Westport, Conn, a n d L o n d o n , 1983. McCullers, C a r s o n . The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. N e w York, 1946. Pen­ guin Books #596. Miller, Wade. Guilty Bystander. N e w York, 1958. Signet Books #1482. Morgan, Susan E., a n d Tom Reichert, "The Message is in the Meta­ phor: Assessing the C o m p r e h e n s i o n of M e t a p h o r s in Advertise­ m e n t s . " The Journal of Advertising 28 (1999): 1-12. O'Brien, Geoffrey. Hardboiled America, Lurid Paperbacks and the Masters ofNoir. 2 n d e x p a n d e d edition. N e w York, 1997. Parfrey, A d a m . "The S m u t P e d d l e r s . " In SIN-A-RAMA: Sleaze Sex Pa­ perbacks of the Sixties. Eds. Brittany A. Daley, H e d i El Kholti, and Earl K e m p . Los Angeles, 2005. Pp. 8-9. [Person, N i c o l a u s ] . Symbolica in Thermas and Acidulas Reflexio. Mainz, [ca. 1690] Porteman, Karel. Emblematic Exhibitions (affixiones) at the Brussels Je­ suit College (1630-1685). Brussels, 1996. Schreuders, Piet. Paperbacks U.S.A., A Graphic History, 1939-1959. San Diego, CA, 1981.

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. I'lie Ih'll "Mapbucks." Rotterdam, 1997. '•ilvcrbrrg, Robert. "My Life as a Pornographer." In SIN-A-RAMA: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties. Eds. Brittany A. Daley, Hedi El kholti, and Earl Kemp. Los Angeles, 2005. Pp. 10-17. '•inilh, Margaret M. The Title Page. Its Early Development 1460-1510. London, 2000. Mcphens, Ann S. Malaeska: The Indian Wife of the White Hunter. New York, 1860. Mryker, Susan. Queer Pulp: Perverted Passions from the Golden Age of the Paperback. San Francisco, 2001. Torres, Tereska. Women's Barracks. New York, 1950. Gold Medal Book //132. V i n ken, Pierre J. "The Modern Advertisement as an Emblem." Gazette 5 (1959): 234-43. Visscher, Roemer. Sinnepoppen. Amsterdam, 1614. Walters, Lee. The Right Bed. Fresno, CA, 1959. Saber Books #SA14. Wurfel, Bodo. "Emblematik und Werbung." Sprache im technischen Zeitalter 79 (1981): 158-78. /imet, Jaye. Strange Sisters: The Art of Lesbian Pulp Fiction 1949-1969. With a foreword by Ann Banon. New York, 1999.

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Fig. 2. Postcard Der Kurschatten (Scherz 191 and 95). Liibeck: Verlag Schoning & Co. und Gebr. Schmidt, [n. d.]. [Nicolaus Person], Symbolica in Thermas and Acidulas Reflexio. Mainz, [ca. 1690], no. 20.

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Fig. 4. George Harmon Coxe, Murder for the Asking. New York, 1944. Dell #56.

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П A gun bias? rocks the Harlem night. A big white man plows through the crow* drug-crazed hoodlum on his heels. Scream* surround them and the crowds begin to follow. A teen-age gang wearing bright green turbans joins the chase, yelling encouragement to the fleeing man and his pursuer.

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Another shot echoes down the neon streets, and the white man pitches forward with a bullet in his head. His pursuer stands over him with a smoking gun. laughing fit to kill. Two detectives. Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones, arrive to wrap it up—and discover that the killer's gun is loaded with blanks!

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e ing linked hi .in mu "miles led ivnli'i', then the m o d e r n p a r a d i g m presents us wilh I ragmenl.ilion, change and instability, and competitive perspectives challenging one an other. The e m b l e m a t i c m o d e s p r a n g out о I this shi 11 and as such is well suited to h e l p b r i n g Leon to a better u n d e r s t a n d i n g of both his own time and the past. 2 9 However, sitting in the train c o m p a r t m e n t , Leon is still very far from g r a s p i n g h o w the m a n y t h r e a d s i n t e r t w i n e a n d h o w his attrac­ tion to Cecile is confused w i t h the d r e a m of a mythical Rome —as ar­ ticulated t h r o u g h the illusionist p a i n t i n g a n d architecture that so fas­ cinate him. Sensing the n e e d to explore the links b e t w e e n art, ideol­ ogy, and p e r s o n a l life in detail he decides to b e c o m e a reader: the reader, as it w e r e , of his o w n story, since the m i n u t e he arrives in Rome he will sit d o w n a n d w r i t e a novel a b o u t the trip (Butor, 236). As em­ pirical r e a d e r s we u n d e r s t a n d that this text may well be the book we are h o l d i n g in o u r h a n d s , a novel t h u s w r i t t e n w i t h the intention that its fictional a u t h o r m a y better c o m p r e h e n d the significance of the journey by d o i n g exactly w h a t we are doing: r e a d i n g a b o u t it. The di­ dactic stance of the text is overt. But if it is, as I c o n t e n d , t h r o u g h the references to the visual arts that the r e a d e r of La Modification is pre­ sented with specific r e a d i n g strategies allowing for the R o m a n t h e m e to be circumscribed, w e are dealing w i t h a didacticism of a highly po­ etical kind. 3 0 A reader i n t r i g u e d by the m a n y verbal t r a n s f o r m a t i o n s of images in the novel h a s a s t r o n g chance of b e c o m i n g p u z z l e d by certain similari­ ties in the t h r e e e p i s o d e s I n o w w a n t to look at briefly.

29. Russell stresses that the emblem "came into existence at a time when the appear­ ance in Western culture of contrasting systems of thought and conflicting sys­ tems of signs made . . . a logocentric approach to the reading of a given sign problematic in the extreme ,/ ; Russell, 172. Moreover, he emphasizes that "the emblems express the general or the universal. The human figure in the emblems is important because that figure stands for the entire human condition: the em­ blem in such cases is an example of synecdoche" (147). In that it presents "a soci­ etal understanding of the human condition" (152) and describes "some aspect of Man" (147), the emblem, then, seems a highly pertinent mode of discourse cho­ sen for Leon Delmont's quest, a quest in many ways epitomizing that of modern man.

30. For a full discussion and analysis of La Modification as an emblematic iconotext, see Lagerwall 2002.

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Пнтс ,пч' по visiml images in La Modification; the visual code is so­ ld Med by the verbal code alone, through ekphrasis, iconicity, or l»n lorialism. ч The image thus comes across as the Other code, draw\\\}\ attention to itself as a strange and unexpected element of disi nurse. As such, it is well suited to play the role of these ungramm,localities Riffaterre (6) speaks about, the "stumbling blocks' 7 within the smooth grammar of the text that push the reader from the mimetic level of reading to the semiotic level. This is not the place to •.how how, through a range of reoccurring themes and motifs, the i eailer is led to establish connections among the three episodes that I will briefly discuss; I have shown this in detail elsewhere. 32 For the I MI rpose of the present argument, we need only note that the three ep­ isodes all have in common the evocation of pictures. The first episode takes us to the Paris museum, the Louvre, and one nil, eon's favorite art works: it is the description, found in the novel's I i rst part, of a seventeenth-century diptych painted by an Italian artist who became famous in Rome as the leading painter of real and imaginary views of the city, Giovanni Pannini (Butor, 55f.; 58f.). We learn that the panels depict two similar picture galleries in which visi­ tors move about among art works. The two paintings, respectively entitled Picture Gallery with Views of Ancient Rome and Picture Gallery with Views of Modern Rome, present two collections of Roman art, one from Antiquity and one from the Catholic Baroque. The visual motifs 31. Ekphrasis, defined by James Heffernan as "the verbal representation of visual representation," makes an explicit reference to the visual arts, while pictorialism and iconicity are of a more allusive nature. Heffernan discusses pictorialism in the following terms: "Pictorialism generates in language effects similar to those created by pictures, so that in Spenser's Faerie Queene, for instance, John M. Bender has found instances of focusing, framing, and scanning . . . . But in such cases Spenser is representing the world with the aid of pictorial techniques; he is not representing pictures themselves," Heffernan, 3. Finally, Heffernan defines the term iconicity as follows: "visual iconicity is a visible resemblance be­ tween the arrangement of words or letters on a page and what they signify Like pictorialism, visual iconicity usually entails an implicit reference to graphic representation. The wavy shape of an iconically printed line about a stream, for instance, will look much more like Hogarth's line of beauty than like any wave one might actually see from a shore. But once again, iconic literature does not aim to represent pictures; it apes the shapes of pictures in order to represent nat­ ural objects" (3-4). See also Nanny, 199-208.

32. Lagerwall2006.

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Views of Modern Rome, present I wo collections of Roman «irl, one from Antiquity and one from the Catholic Baroque. The visual motifs cle picted in the canvases of the galleries correspond to many of the works that Leon and Cecile have admired together in situ in Rome. The second episode has the train compartment for its setting: the protagonist is seated looking out the windows while thinking about the two women in his life. Pictorialist strategies in the description of the dynamic landscapes passing suggest to the reader analogies with static paintings. The third episode, finally, is a dream sequence taking place before the Last Judgment fresco painted by Michelangelo in the Sistine Cha­ pel. Leon must stand trial and defend his position on Rome (206-24). To a reader on a mimetic level, these three episodes obviously come across as unrelated, perfectly separate textual segments. Pointing to a diversity of extra-textual realities, they present more heterogeneity than unity. But what on a mimetic level is apprehended in its referen­ tial function is made strange in the text in order to integrate another system and level. What was a painting in the Louvre, a simple train window, or a famous Michelangelo fresco on the first level becomes a new sign on the semiotic level where it can be perceived as part of a lesson on seeing, as a syntagm in a discourse on the need for the single perspective to become multiplied. For the Pannini work in the Louvre is, of course, a diptych; and so are the views through the train win­ dows - seated in-between the two windows the traveler turns his eyes from the view on the right to the view on the left, while letting his mind wander from his Parisian wife to his Roman mistress and back again. Finally, in the dream sequence, what the dreamer first thought was a unique setting, the Sistine Chapel, turns out to be a diptych as well when the Chapel is suddenly projected onto the Golden House of Nero, the splendid palace that the Emperor Nero built for himself with walls covered with illusionist paintings in a Pompeian style. An Emblematic Mode of Composition Once readers have found and adjusted the point of view that per­ mits them to superimpose these three episodes and read them to­ gether, they will find how crucial aspects of the novel's Roman theme are being addressed and examined through them, in a series of varia­ tions, variations too beautifully complex to approach in detail here, but ones that allow the reader Leon to realize, at last, how love, art,

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,iinl ideology have1 been closely interconnected in his life, in linking ••rllinj'.s in Paris and Rome and the train that runs between the cities, Мм* unit condenses the novel as a whole. In the sense that each scene hoih mirrors and comments on the others, allowing the expansion of an invariant through successive variants, the scenes are constructed a h >nj; what may be called an emblematic mode of composition. 33 Presrnling a fictional author who believes in the salutary effect of readin)»,, Hutor's novel, I suggest, has an emblematic unit inscribed in it that condenses the whole spectrum of aspects associated with the myth of Rome that the novel is built around and expands upon. By varying the theme of visual representation and seeing in different ways, the three diptychs allow Leon to see the hidden analogies beIwcen dimensions in his life that until now he wanted to keep perIcctly separate. 34 The choice of the diptych form is no coincidence, of course, no more than are the references to visual arts; the journey is a lesson in seeing. The diptych emphasizes the need for complementary per­ spectives, while the visual arts integrated into the verbal discourse stress the complementary function of sign systems in human cogni­ tion. Like the emblem, Butor's novel presents a highly static and con­ densed narrative. The frequency of blanks and gaps is so important that one could expect this writing to proclaim the sole hegemony of the reader. In this article I have argued, instead, that the didactic use of the verbal transformations of images in La Modification allows for textual strategies to guide the reader towards an emblematic reading

33. "[C]haracteristic of the emblematic mode," Russell reminds us, is "the play of transposition or substitution" that arises as a result of the combination of the dif­ ferent parts and media (171). Active principles thus seem to be concentration and expansion, principles that, as Judith Leibowit/. has shown in Narrative Purpose in the Novella, also govern short prose genres like the novella and, in fact, any text composed along poetic lines. 34. See Riffaterre, 6: The reader "comes to recognize, by dint of comparisons or sim­ ply because he is now able to put them together, that successive and differing statements, first noticed as mere ungrammaticalities, are in fact equivalent, for they now appear as variants of the same structural matrix. Tlu* text is in effect a variation or modulation of one structure thematic, symbolic, or whatever — and this sustained relation to one structure constitutes the significance."

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process, in which the novel's Roman theme is simull.inrously inlrnsi fied and e x p a n d e d . In h i g h l i g h t i n g the similarities between the e m b l e m , on Ihe one h a n d , and the p o e m a n d the literary text, on the other, I have stressed that both r e a d i n g processes hover between recognition and estrange­ ment, with the text offering the reader g u i d a n c e in h o w to assemble the material m a d e s t r a n g e . Moreover, I h a v e e m p h a s i z e d the work of r e a d i n g t h a t is necessary in o r d e r for each text to be fully concretized by a reader, one as a m o r a l c o m m o n p l a c e , the o t h e r as an aesthetic work of art. In the sense t h a t Butor t u r n s to the c o m b i n a t i o n of w o r d and image in order to p o i n t the r e a d e r t o w a r d s possible w a y s of creating m e a n ­ ing out of a labyrinth-like text, La Modification can p e r h a p s be said to celebrate an old e m b l e m a t i c tradition in France. Works Cited A g r e l l , B e a t a . " D o c u m e n t a r i s m a n d T h e o r y of L i t e r a t u r e / 7 In Documentarism in Scandinavian Literature. Eds. Poul H o u e and Sven H a k o n Rossel. I n t e r n a t i o n a l e F o r s c h u n g e n zur Allgemeinen u n d Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft 18. A m s t e r d a m , 1997. Pp. 36-76. Bazin, L a u r e n t . De la fureur des symboles a V empire des signes: Le recit emblematique en France de 1928 a 1970 (Breton, Gracq, Butor). Diss. Universite de Paris IV - Sorbonne, Paris, 1994. . " Vanite d u s y m b o l e : Pour u n e lecture e m b l e m a t i q u e de Michel Butor. " In La Creation selon Michel Butor. Ed. Mireille Calle-Gruber. Paris, 1991. P p . 151-61. Butor, Michel. La Modification. Paris, 1957. . Portrait de Vartiste en jeune singe. Paris, 1967. . Vanite. Paris, 1980. G r a h a m , D a v i d . '"Voiez icy en ceste histoire . . / : Cross-Reference, Self-Reference a n d Frame-Breaking in Some French Emblems." Emblematica 7.1 (1993): 1-24. Heffernan, J a m e s A. W. Museum of Words: The Poetics of'Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery. Chicago, 1993. Iser, Wolfgang. The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Balti­ more, 1980. L a g e r w a l l , S o n i a . " Q u a n d les m o t s f o n t i m a g e : U n e l e c t u r e iconotextuelle de La Modification de Michel B u t o r / ' Diss. Univer­ sity of G o t h e n b u r g , S w e d e n , 2002.

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"Л Reading oi Michel I3utorxs La Modification as an Emblematic Iconotexl " In Writing and Seeing: Essays on Word and Image. Eds. Uui Cavalho Homem and Maria de Fatima Lambert. Amsterdam, ?0()6. Pp. П9-29. I .cibowitz, Judith. Narrative Purpose in the Novella. Paris, 1974. McC'ormick, Kathleen. The Culture of Reading and the Teaching of Eng­ lish. New York, 1994. Menhennet, Alan. Grimmelshausen the Storyteller: A Study of the "Simplician" Novels. Studies in Literature, Linguistics, and Cul­ ture. Columbia, 1997. Niinny, Max. "Iconicity in literature/ 7 Word and Image: A Journal of Ver­ bal/Visual Enquiry, 2:3 (1986): 199-208. Penkert, Sibylle. "Grimmelshausens Titelkupfer-Fiktionen: Zur Rolle der Emblematik-Rezeption in der Geschichte poetischer Subjektivitat." In Emblem und Emblematikrezeption. Vergleichende Studien zur Wirkungsgeschichte vom 16. bis 20. Jahrhundert. Ed. Sibylle Penkert. Darmstadt, 1978. Pp. 257-85. Ricardou, Jean. Pour une theorie du Nouveau Roman. Paris, 1971. Riffaterre, Michael. Semiotics of Poetry. Bloomington, IN, 1978. Russell, Daniel S. The Emblem and Device in France. Lexington, KY, 1985. Shklovsky, Victor. "Art as Technique/ 7 In Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. Ed. David Lodge. London, 1988. Pp. 16-30.

Alciato's Illustrated Epigrams ROBERT CUMMINGS University of Glasgow

This paper addresses the question why it should have been I bought desirable — whatever part Alciato himself played in the business—to have attached illustrations to his Latin epigrams, why it should have been thought appropriate to turn them into what we now recognize as ''emblems/' 1 In the much quoted letter to Francesco Calvi (9 January 1523), Alciato says he has "put together a book of epigrams for which I have made up the title Emblemata."2 His "emblems" are, as Hessel Miedema insists, a special kind of epigram (Miedema 1968, 238). I do not propose here to go into what makes them special; I should like instead to look at what makes them epigrams, and why simply by virtue of being epigrams —without being "special" — they might welcome pictorial illustration. Miedema says a tradition was available by the 1540s whereby it had become conventional to present emblems as a trio of caption-figure-epigram, though "people were still aware that an emblem was really an epigram" (247). My argument is that the form of the emblem is more than a convention, and that its traditions, recent as they may be, have a logic to them, and that it is in the nature of the epigram that it was

1.

A version of this paper was delivered at the l-ourth International Emblem Conference, held at the Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven. Thanks are due to anonymous readers for this journal who suggested corrections and improvements.

2.

Barni, 46, no. 24, there dated 9 December 1522, rather than c) January, 1523: "libellum composui epigrammaton, cui titulum feci Emblemata."

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understood to attach itself to pictures, to serve liter,illy as an inscrip­ tion, to be inscribed on something. "I have not seen anything by Alciato apart from his Lniblcnw," says Scaliger (meaning, presumably, of his verse), "but they are such as to stand with any production of genius: sweet, pure, elegant, but sinewy [non sine neruis] as well." 3 With talk of "sinewiness" Scaliger is mak­ ing a point about Alciato's Latinity; but the "sweetness" is Greek. His virtue is in not being just Roman, and comparison with the Greek epigrammatists is the comparison that Alciato courts. He is, of course, heir to the achievement of the Greek epigrammatists in the sense that he pillages their work; but he is also disposed by talent or circum­ stances to write epigrams of the same stamp. The Greek epigram is an emblem avant la lettre. "I find many ancient poets in the Greek Anthol­ ogy/' says Tesauro in his chapter on model emblems, "composing moral epigrams, done with marvellous elegance and wit, on images drawn from historical sources or fabulous sources, making true em­ blems." 4 And again a little later: "if you read these collections of Greek authors, you will come across many epigrams on different im­ ages drawn from fabulous sources or from historical ones, and which constitute really witty emblems. They will make you see that this is not a new art, but that modern wits have followed where the ancient masters led." 5 What follows is a supplement, but with an eye on the manner more than the fact of the dependency, to the accounts written by James Hutton, Mario Praz, and Alison Saunders of Alciato's debt to the Greek Anthology.6 3.

Scaliger, 307 (VI.iv): "praeter Emblemata, nihil mihi videre contingit, ea vero talia sunt, vt cum quovis ingenio certare possint. Dulcia sunt, pura sunt, elegantia sunt: sed non sine neruis/ 7

4. Tesauro, 697: "io trouo, che molti antiqui Poeti nella Greca Antologia composero Epigrammi Morali sopra alcune Imagini Historiche 6 Fabulose, con ingegno & eleganza mirabile, che formano verissimi Emblemi." 5. Tesauro, 699: "Et cosi se tu leggerai le dette raccolte degli Scrittori Greci, ti verranno alle mani molti e molti Epigrammi sopra diuerse Imagini fauolose, od Historiche, lequali formando verissimi, & argutissimi Emblemi; faranti vedere quest' Arte non esser nuoua; anzi da quegli antiqui Maestri hauer preso lume i moderni Ingegni."

6.

Neither Hutton nor Praz are focused on Alciato, though Hutton's is the fullest account of specific debts. Saunders remains the standard critical account of

К О Ш K l CUMMINGS

19!)

Aldato's Verses and the Planudean Anthology

Л brief rehearsal of the facts may be helpful. At the time of his most '.fiimis engagement with verse composition in the earlier 1520s, Alei.iU) could announce he had in hand four books of epigrams. 7 These are contemporary with two satirical comedies, one a version of Ai islophanes's Clouds, the other, the Philargyros, a fable about the evils of litigation. These comedies survive, still unedited, but the / our Hooks are now lost. The likelihood is that they were made up, like I he so-called Fifth Book described by Bianchi, of miscellaneous odes and elegies as well as epigrams. 8 Throughout his career he used epigrams as an ornament of his prose, most by far in translation from I he Greek Anthology, which he knew in its Planudean recension. 9 The earliest specimen of his verse (one he was eventually content to see piibl ished), is a translation of Antipater's epitaph on Aristomenes (in I he modern Palatine numbering, 7.161; Planudean book and chapter 1.5) and is datable to before 1508. He was then at most seventeen. The latest precisely datable (though it predates the first publication of the So emblems of the 1546 edition), on the jurist Ulrich Zazius, was writ­ ten when he was almost fifty and, on his own account, could "only reAlciato's use of the Anthology. See also Callahan for coverage of Latin versions by Alciato and More. Laurens (1989) treats the reception of the Anthology in neo-Latin poetry generally, and develops the opposition of grace and point on which I rely.

7. Barni, 58, no. 31 (to Calvi), 26 April 1523, and 59, no. 32 (to Amerbach), 10 May 1523, give the details. 8.

Bianchi, 90-116, describes the comedies; he gives samples of the epigrams and odes 83-89. Miscellaneous MS Trivulziano n.1168, scaff.84, palch. 7 contained the so-called "Epigrammatum liber quintus." This item was probably a casualty of the 1939-45 war: I owe thanks to the kind offices of Dr. Marina Litrico of the Trivulzian Library and to Avv.Gian Giacomo AttolicoTrivul/.io, who attempted to facilitate its rediscovery.

9.

It was from Alciato's early published prose that Soter collected the specimens that appear in the Epigrammata Graeca: see Mutton, 206. Two other epigrams ap­ peared in the 1544 edition of Soter, both taken from Cornarius. I Iutton, 206-07, lists fifty-one allusions to the Anthology, most of them complete, most accompa­ nied by Latin versions, and nineteen of them in books published long after his apologetic exchanges with Amerbach.

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luctantly turn to such trifles in verse, and rarely wrole poetry now t h a t the v e i n for it w a s all d r i e d u p . " l ( ) E r a s m u s called him iurisperitorum eloquentissimus, but he a b a n d o n e d early any distinc­ tively literary ambitions. 1 1 The Emblemata a p a r t , the only verses w h o s e p u b l i c a t i o n Alciato a u t h o r i z e d w e r e the Anthology transla­ tions in the Selecta Epigrammata of J a n u s C o r n a r i u s . The various edi­ tions of the Emblemata absorb some of these t r a n s l a t i o n s and a d d oth­ ers; a n d their m a n n e r colors the collection. Of his p u b l i s h e d e p i g r a m s Alciato is resolutely, if n e r v o u s l y , protective. It is true that he con­ s i g n s t h e m to h i s y o u t h : t h o s e to be c o l l e c t e d in t h e Selecta Epigrammata w e r e w r i t t e n , he says to his friend Boniface Amerbach, w h e n he w a s still " u n d e r the r o d " ; those collected in the Emblemata were c o m p o s e d , h e p r o t e s t s to Bembo, w h e n he w a s a mere pupil. 1 2 Bembo professes to be d e l i g h t e d with Alciato's "gift of verses written in y o u r y o u t h . " 1 3 But B e m b o ' s tone is h a r d to catch, a n d of m a n y of Alciato's v e r s i o n s it will certainly be true that they b e l o n g to a school context. The habit of relatively low-level a c a d e m i c e m u l a t i o n sur­ vived r e m a r k a b l y late. A n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y w i t n e s s r e p o r t s a master at W i n c h e s t e r g i v i n g his class A m m i a n u s ' s satirical e p i t a p h on N e a r c h u s (11.226; Planudean 2.40) along with the conclusion of Mar­ tial's e p i g r a m on Philaenis (9.29), the versions of A m m i a n u s by Alciato and Sleidan, and one of his o w n : the b o y s w e r e s u p p o s e d to

10. Laurens and Vuilleumier, 90, report the appearance of the epitaph in the Vatican manuscript of Alciato's collection of Antiquitates, a draft of the Dresden version, dated 1508; the poem on Zazius and the note on his poetic exhaustion is given in Barni, 180-81, no. 113 (to Amerbach), 11 February 1540: "non sane libenter ad poeticas nugas me convertam, rarissime carmina componam, iamque vena omnis exaruerit." 11. Erasmus so describes him in the Ciceronianus (Erasmus, 226), adapting Cicero's praise of Quintus Scaevola (Brutus, 145). Alciato's early nervousness of adopt­ ing the title of poet is confessed in Barni 80, no. 45 (to Amerbach), 22 November 1528.

12. Barni, 82, no. 47, 3 February 1529: "nempe pleraque ab adolescente composita, cum sub ferula adhuc eram;" and Barni, 156, no. 93, 25 February 1535: "composueram praetextatus."

13. Bembo, 267-68: "Epistola tua cum munere uersiculorum abs te adolescente conscriptorum, quos emblemata appellas, mihi missa magnopere sum delectatus."

К О И ! \.'! 83, Planudean 4.12) d o e s this. So d o others with no o b v i o u s or di­ rect Greek source: Emblem 44, In Simulacrum Spei [On the Image of I lope], or E m b l e m 114, In Statuam Amoris [On Love's S t a t u e ] , or Em­ blem 197, In Pudoris Statuam [On Shame's Statue]. More commonly, I he motto m a y specify a line of i n t e r p r e t a t i o n d e r i v e d from the piclure: Emblem 8, Qua Dii vocant eundum [Whither the g o d s call, fol­ low] on a t e r m i n u s , or Emblem 22, Custodiendas Virgines [Virgins must be g u a r d e d ] on " t h e true likeness" of Pallas, or Emblem 67, Superbia [Pride] on a statue of Niobe, or E m b l e m 104, In Astrologos | Astrologers] on a b r o n z e of Icarus, or Emblem 196, the u n g a i n l y Mulierisfamam nonformam vulgata esse oportere [That a w o m a n ' s repu­ tation, not her beauty, s h o u l d be p r o c l a i m e d ] on Phidias's image of Venus. W h e t h e r or not the thing r e p r e s e n t e d w a s ever m e a n t to be il­ lustrated, it is the stable c o m p o n e n t in the e n s e m b l e , p r e s e n t and available, or readily i m a g i n e d if only by a coterie a u d i e n c e . The " t h i n g " is commonly, as in all the e x a m p l e s just cited, an artefact. Of the e x a m p l e s just cited t w o come from the fourth Book of the Planu­ dean Anthology (devoted to descriptions of " i m a g e s [agalmata] of gods, stelae of m e n , s h a p e s of animals"). Both Emblem 67, Superbia ("Behold a s t a t u e of a statue, marble carved from marble") is from 16.129, and E m b l e m 104 In Astrologos ("Now the same wax and the b u r n i n g fire raises y o u u p again, so that by your e x a m p l e you may p r o v i d e sure t e a c h i n g " ) from 16.107 rely for the point on our imagin­ ing an a r t w o r k r e p r e s e n t i n g Niobe in the one case, Icarus in the other. I'.I.IIII

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The epideictie e p i g r a m s collected in Plmimirmi Hook I (1'alulinc Hook 9), o v e r w h e l m i n g the most quarried of the Anlholo^i/'s resources, seem often to h a v e been i n t e n d e d as c o m p l e m e n t a r y to manuscript and other p a i n t i n g s , to p o r t r a i t busts and other s t a t u a r y . In Alciato, the e p i g r a m ' s account of the art work is s o m e t i m e s only allusive, as in E m b l e m s 67 and 104, on Niobe and Icarus. It may be sys­ tematic, elaborately in E m b l e m 25, In Statuam Bacchi, or with brevity as in Emblem 106, Potentissimus Affectus Amor [No feeling is stronger t h a n l o v e ] , c l o s e l y i m i t a t e d from M a r c u s A r g e n t a r i u s (9.221; Planudean 1.27), or E m b l e m 107, Potentia Amoris [Love's Power], imi­ tated from P a l l a d a s (16.207; Planudean 4.12), or even in a single cou­ plet as in E m b l e m 108 Vis Amoris [Love's m i g h t ] : "Aligerum fulmen fregit Deus aliger, igne / D u m d e m o n s t r a t uti est fortior ignis A m o r " [The w i n g e d god has b r o k e n the w i n g e d t h u n d e r b o l t , a n d s h o w s that love is a fiercer fire t h a n fire] imitated from an a n o n y m o u s Greek (16.250; Planudean 4.12). It m a y involve itself so m u c h with detail at the expense of the e n s e m b l e as to d e m a n d illustration. So in Emblem 16 (Nephe kai memnes apizein. arthra tauta ton phrendn [Be sober and re­ m e m b e r n o t to be too rashly c r e d u l o u s ; these are the limbs of the m i n d ] : "Ecce oculata m a n u s credens id q u o d videt: ecce / Pulegium antiquae sobrietatis o l u s " [See here a h a n d with an eye, believing w h a t it can see. See the p e n n y r o y a l , the plant of ancient soberness]; or Emblem 191, In /idem uxoriam [On wifely faith]: "Ecce puella, viro quae dextra i u n g i t u r : ecce / Ut sedet, ut catulus lusitat ante p e d e s " [See here a girl, her right h a n d clasping her h u s b a n d ' s . See h o w she sits, how a p u p p y plays at her feet]. Alciato's d e s c r i p t i o n s are not con­ sistently i n a d e q u a t e as literary iconographies, b u t they often are; and where they are it signifies not so m u c h that a picture w o u l d be r e d u n ­ dant but that it is actually required. Kohler (40-41) says that no em­ blematic p i c t u r e is called for in Emblem 152 (In Humanam vitam); b u t his objection to Alciato's e p i g r a m , as c o m p a r e d w i t h its Greek original (Palatine 9.148; Planudean 1.13), is precisely to its relaxation of a purely literary e c o n o m y of antithesis, a complaint m i s p l a c e d in as far as an­ tithesis is in fact p r o m i n e n t in the pictura. The i m a g e s of the w e e p i n g and l a u g h i n g p h i l o s o p h e r s , like comic and tragic m a s k s , o p p o s e two ways of d e a l i n g with h u m a n folly, a n d Alciato w o u l d have taken as a d e q u a t e or even p a r a m o u n t the o p p o s i t i o n of t h i n g s rather than w o r d s . The p i c t u r e focuses w h a t is only diffuse in the essentially sec­ o n d a r y e p i g r a m or, rather, it establishes an antithesis unfolded in the w o r d s that follow.

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217

( (inclusion

The del iciency of the epigram is remedied by resort to the picture. Л leialo's epigrams, taking their inspiration from deficient Greek pro­ lyl у pes, are free to lack point and to revert to the character of inscrip­ tions, explanatory (in however attenuated a sense) of whatever they ,n г attached to. Lessing wanted to derive the interest of the epigram, »»i the structure of our interest in it (the arousal of expectation fol­ lowed by the satisfaction of curiosity), from the sort of interest we look in inscriptions. The identification of the boundary on the pillar •.el up by Theseus functioned for him like the conclusion of an epi};r.im by Marital. He blamed Scaliger because in an inscription he "s.iw nothing beyond a simple notice of a person or an event/' and in­ sisted that an epigram, in which there is a deduction from certain premises and in which therefore two distinct parts are perceptible, was something essentially different from an inscription. 53 There is truth in I .essing's charge. "The simple indicatory function/' Scaliger says, "is illustrated in the inscriptions attached to offerings —for votive )»)ifls always carry an inscription ... But there are epigrams, which are composite, and which infer from stated premises something else —greater or lesser, or similar or different, or clean contrary." 54 And in the end Scaliger promotes this second kind, and the notion of the epigram properly speaking as composite, writing of it as ideally sibi instans [pressing on itself] (171). "The refined perception did not occur to him," Lessing opines, that "what carries the inscription con­ tributes its share to the effect; that what carries the inscription corre­ sponds to that part in the epigram proper which he calls the premise, while the inscription itself answers to what is inferred from it."55

53.

Lessing, 185: "nichts, als die blosse einfache Лп/.eige einer Person oder Handlung/'

54. Scaliger, 170 (Ill.cxxvi): "Est simplex indicalio rei, vl anathemntis. Donaria namque non sine inscriptione . . . Alia vero composite sunt que deducunt ex propositis aliud quiddam, idque aut maius, nut aequale, nut diuersum nut contrarium."

55.

Lessing, 186: "Die Subtilitat fiel ihm nicht bei, dass bei jenem, bei der eigentlichen Aufschrift, zu der Wirking desselben das beschriebene Werk selbst das Seine mit beitrage, und folglich bei dem andern, dem eigentlichen

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But Lessing is unfair to Scaliger, who is puzzled by the rather obvi ous fact that, while calling them by the same name, we do distinguish brief identificatory descriptions from epigrams. But he is well aware of the fuzziness of the distinction. Perhaps, he surmises, the only "epi grams" properly so called are those writings which were inscribed on statuary, on triumphal monuments, or on funerary images (170), or perhaps poems amounted to no more than their titles. Martial turned that possibility to a joke: "if you ask why titles [lemmata] are added, Г11 tell you it's so that, if you like, you can read the titles only" (14.2); and he had already identified the liveliness of the epigrams he might pro­ duce with the liveliness of their lemmata (11.42). But Scaliger is vexed by it: the chapter following that on the epigram is taken up entirely with the business of how titles work. Meanwhile he pondered the complementarity of the poem and its title, the inscription and what it identifies. Their relative status, it turns out, is reversible: "if you transfer the poem to a book [from a statue or whatever], then . . . the statue serves as a title for the poem —not the actual statue of course, but the image of a statue, or of another image." 56 This title, explicitly and limitedly referential —is here assumed to be pictorial: the exam­ ple Scaliger gives is Ausonius's In Statuam Rufi.57 As an inscription on the statue, the little poem would be an epigram; but transferred to a book the "image of the statue," — the title — serves as an inscription for the poem. These are, however, as he says, matters for refined wits: he will not go as far as Lessing was to go. Like the epigram which is part of an emblematic composite it is alio instans [pressing elsewhere]. The poems that function like monuments are given point only by their supplied titles, even if we have to supply them ourselves. Scaliger evi­ dently admired the epigram he quotes from Cicero on Ennius, its sub­ stance "drawn out on the simplest of threads" and its point delivered only by our imagination of the statue it celebrates: "See, fellow citi­ zens, how old Ennius was sculpted: he put in verse your fathers7 greatSinngedicht, das, was er Vorausschickungen nennet, dem beschriebenen Werke, so wie das, was aus diesen Vorausschickungen hergeleitet wird, der Aufschrift selbst entspreche."

56. Scaliger 170 (Ill.cxxvi): "ac sane ita est, vt ipsum Poema sit statuae inscriptio. Vbi vero in librum transfertur, e contario sit. Ipsa enim statua inscriptio est Epigrammatis." 57. Ausonius writes several epigrams on Rufus and his statue. Scaliger presumably refers to Epigram 48 commented on later (Scaliger, 360, VI.v).

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,M

i".I d r c d s . " Ami almost like Lessing he recognizes it as possibly I'vni a Iruer kind ol e p i g r a m , truer at least to w h a t characterized the r|4)',r.im in its origins. Its virtue w o u l d consist in the s t a t e m e n t of i nnneelions to a context o u t s i d e itself. Extended, such e p i g r a m s eas­ ily d e g e n e r a t e into descriptive banality, like E m b l e m s 25 (In Statuam lUh'fhi |C)n Bacchus's Statue"] or 187 (Dicta Septem Sapientum [The '••lyings of the Seven Sages]). Scaliger is unlikely to h a v e been im­ m u n e to the a t t r a c t i o n s of the specifically e m b l e m a t i c e p i g r a m . The reversibility e n t e r t a i n e d by Scaliger is a p p o s i t e l y invoked here. When Alciato w a n t e d Boniface A m e r b a c h to k n o w w h a t em­ blems were like he sent him (10 May 1523) "a c o u p l e of specimen leaves" for w h i c h A u r e l i o Albuzzi a n d A m b r o g i o Visconti seem to have been jointly responsible, one for the p o e m a n d the other for the "in vention." 5 9 The " i n v e n t i o n " here m u s t be the lemma, the p r o p o s e d subject, w h i c h w e can a s s u m e to be a figure; the p o e m m u s t be the re­ sponse to it. But A m e r b a c h w o u l d h a v e taken the s p e c i m e n leaves in what order he chose. D a v i d G r a h a m , a r g u i n g recently for the m u t u a l d e p e n d e n c y of w o r d a n d image in La Perriere's Theatre, exposes a confusion in La Perriere's o w n m i n d a b o u t w h e t h e r the images illusl rated his e p i g r a m s or vice versa. We read Alciato's Emblemata n o w in I he tripartite format established by Steiner, b u t if w e w e r e to read the poems before t u r n i n g to the a c c o m p a n y i n g image, the a c c o m p a n y i ng image m i g h t well s u p p l y the kind of r e a s s u r a n c e t h a t we get from t he " p o i n t " in a c o m p o s i t e e p i g r a m , the sense: " O n c e the final signifi­ cance is g r a s p e d , " as Scaliger has it, " t h e r e s h o u l d be a sense of satis-

58. Scaliger 171 (IILcxxvi, Appendix), "simplicissimo filo deducatur . . . narratio," out of Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, I.xv.34: "Aspicite , о cives, senis Enni imaginis formam: / Hie vestrum panxit maxuma fata patrum."

59. Barni, 59, no. 32: "carminis auctor est Albutius, inventionis Ambrosius Vicecomes ex primariis patriis. Eius argumenti ct ipse libellum carmine composui, sed res meas cum alienis miscere nolui: divulgabitur inter caetera nostra epigrammata/' Leeman interprets "inventio" as "picture"; so alsoScholz (1986, 226, note 18); Miedema (1968), 237, prefers "idea"; Drysdall (1989, 390, note 14), translating Amerbach's reply to Alciato's letter, prefers "subject mat­ ter." Alciato's Emblem 143 (first published in 1531) is declared to be Aurelio Albuzzi's, but it is to be dated to 1529 and cannot be the one in question here. Drysdall, 384, quotes Amerbach's reply thanking Alciato for the specimens of Albuzzi's verse: he calls them "carmina" and says even if "the wit of the design" ("inventionis acumen") is left aside, they speak well for their author.

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faction, and no i m p e r t i n e n t inclination to look I U I I I H T " (171). The o d d l y r a n d o m and inconsequential progress of Alcmlo's first e p i g r a m on the a r m s of the Duchy of Milan, with its talk of coiling s e r p e n t s a n d e m e r g i n g infants and its asides on Alex­ a n d e r or on Pallas, is given conclusive direction only by its title (hardly a m o t t o ) or by the a c c o m p a n y i n g picture of the a r m s of Milan w h i c h it d e s i g n a t e s . Appendix A The Anthology p o e m s translated by Alciato for Cornarius's Selecta Epigrammata (1529) are listed here w i t h m o d e r n (i. e. Loeb) n u m b e r i n g , b u t u n d e r the relevant book a n d chapter n u m b e r s a n d titles, a n d in the order, in which they a p p e a r in the Planudean Anthology. The p a g e n u m b e r s are t h o s e of Cornarius's collection. Book 1 (epideictic, 66 poems) Chapter 1 (on athletics and athletes): 9.357, p . 1 (also in Soter), Archias "On the four g a m e s , " 9.391, p . 2, D i o t i m u s "On Hercules a n d A n t a e u s " ; 9.557, p . 3, A n t i p a t e r " O n Aries [the athlete]"; 16.3, p . 3 (also in Soter) Simonides; Chapter 4 (on the m a i m e d ) : 9.12-13, p. 7, L e o n i d a s a n d Plato the Younger; Chap­ ter 5 (on g r e a t n e s s a n d great men): 16.4, p p . 9-10, A n o n y m o u s ; 9.291, p. 10, C r i n a g o r a s ; 9.279, p . 11, Bassus; 9.523, p. 11, A l p h e u s of M i t y l e n e ; Chapter 7 (on t h r e a t s ) : 9.39, p . 13, Musicius or Plato; Chapter 11 (on musicians a n d dancers): 9.248, p. 15, Boethus; Chapter 12 (on self-sufficiency): 10.26, p. 18a, Lucian; 10.93, p. 18b, Palladas; Chapter 13 (on h u m a n life): 9.111, p. 19, Archias; 9.148, p . 20, A n o n y m o u s ; 10.58, p . 28, Palladas; 10.84, p . 30, Palladas; Chapter 14 (on children ): 9.259, p. 33, Bianor; Chapter 15 (on marriage): 9.133, p . 34, A n o n y ­ m o u s ; 9.444, p . 3 5 , P a u l u s S i l e n t i a r i u s ; 1 1 . 5 0 , p . 36, A u t o m e d o n ; Chapter 16 (on age a n d the old): 1.16, p . 37, Bizantinus; Chapter 17 (on l a n g u a g e teachers): 9.173, p. 40, Palladas; Chapter 18 (on a pen) 9.162, p . 40, A n o n y m o u s ; Chap­ ter 19 (on w o m e n ) : 9.165-67, p. 42, Palladas; Chapter 22 (on jus­ tice): 9.155-6, p . 43, A n o n y m o u s ; 9.223, p p . 43-44, Bianor; 9.339, p p . 44-45, Archias; 9.410, p . 46, Tullius G e m i n u s ; Chapter 23: 9.150, p p . 48-49, A n t i p a t e r ; 9.158, p. 49, A n o n y m o u s ; Chap­ ter 25 (on h o p e ) : 9.146, p. 50, and again p p . 50-51, A n o n y m o u s ;

КОШ Ш

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( Iniplcr .V (on love): Ч.\Ь, р. 52, Meleager; 9.15, p. 52, A n o n y m o u s ; •' 1,4), p. Ы), Antipater; 9.456, p. 61, A n o n y m o u s , " P a s i p h a e ' s speech Itil.nvr when she desired the bull"; 9.497, p. 62, A n o n y m o u s ; 9.221, p. i',\ Argenlarius; Chapter 28 (on piety): 9.52, p . 63, C a r p y l l i d e s ; Chaplei U) (), w h e r e a s the biennial jctons were usually struck in bion/.e as well (Tricou, and Loach 1995b). II, as seems most likely, the copper-plate u s e d in the Art des I nihlcnics had not been e n g r a v e d especially for it, then it was proba­ bly commissioned before the medal itself p r o c e e d e d b e y o n d design ••l.ij'.e, and no d o u b t before the entree w a s cancelled. 3 8 In this case the engraved plate w o u l d therefore have r e m a i n e d u n u s e d , so that the I >i i n ler or bookseller w h o h a d c o m m i s s i o n e d it w o u l d h a v e been parlieu larly keen to find an alternative application for it. Since the entree would have been c o m m i s s i o n e d by the city rather t h a n by the college, one might expect G u i c h a r d Jullieron, as imprimeur de la ville, to have been c o m m i s s i o n e d to p r i n t the a c c o m p a n y i n g relation, for which the e n g r a v i n g of this m e d a l is m o s t likely to h a v e been i n t e n d e d , except I hat he lacked any experience of i n c l u d i n g e n g r a v e d illustrations in his work (Merland & P a r g u e z 2000,273-75). It is therefore most likely I hat this c o m m i s s i o n w o u l d h a v e p a s s e d either to G u i l l a u m e Barbier or Benoist Coral. Barbier's skill in such p r i n t i n g is d e m o n s t r a t e d by a series of q u a r t o pieces by Menestrier, r a n g i n g from twelve to twenty pages in length, which he p u b l i s h e d the following year, all including e n g r a v i n g s of e m b l e m s or devices (Menestrier 1659a-d). Coral, just I wo years later, received the commission for the illustrated relation lor the city's official celebration of the Franco-Spanish peace treaty (Menestrier 1660b), a series of firework displays m o u n t e d by each qu artier [district] u n d e r the general title "Reiouissances de la Paix," and for which M e n e s t r i e r h a d been a p p o i n t e d as organizer. Of these two options, the latter seems most likely, since if Coral h a d indeed won this c o m m i s s i o n from the city he w o u l d h a v e h a d the requisite plate in his possession, and he w o u l d h a v e been keen to exploit it. Coral's g a i n i n g of that commission w o u l d also explain both Barbier's a t t e m p t s at publicizing his own expertise in illustrated printing by publishing w o r k of this kind by Menestrier in 1659, w i t h o u t external financial backing, 3 9 a n d his s u b s e q u e n t u n d e r h a n d counterfeiting of 38. The identity of the plate's engraver is unknown but he may have been the same person responsible for translating the equally unknown artist's drawn design into an engraving from which to make the mould used for casting the medal.

39. Barbier evidently commissioned these pieces from Menestrier but then never re­ imbursed him for the expenses he had incurred in fulfilling the commission (let­ ter from Menestrier to Guichenon, 12 April, 1660, transcribed in Л11 u t, 294), and perhaps it was this issue that began the souring of relations between Menestrier and Barbier.

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the 1660 relation for which Coral had gained the commission and con sequently held the privilege. M e a n w h i l e , from Menestrier's point of view, while a medal or jclon was not exactly an e m b l e m , its reverse constituted a related genre ol w o r d - i m a g e h y b r i d —indeed one m e n t i o n e d in his text, in parallel with the imprese for w h i c h he u s e d the other t w o e n g r a v i n g s as i11 LIS trations —and w a s therefore equally susceptible of inclusion here. In a d d i t i o n , since his d e s i g n h a d not b e e n struck as a m e d a l b u t only a jeton, it h a d n o t s e c u r e d as p r e s t i g i o u s a d e m o n s t r a t i o n of his ability i n this field as he h a d h o p e d . H e m i g h t well therefore h a v e grasped this o p p o r t u n i t y for publicity, belated as it was. If, as s u g g e s t e d above, the two imprese for Louis a n d his m o t h e r h a d likewise been commissioned for the entree b u t , w h e n Louis declined this honor, n o t used at the time of the royal visit, the parallel exploitation h e r e of M e n e s t r i e r ' s impresti for A n n e of A u s t r i a a n d of his medal/jeton design seems m o r e likely. In the S h a d o w of Les Reiouissances de la Paix: Providing Book Illus­ trations by Converting Records of Festival Machines into Emblems A l t h o u g h M e n e s t r i e r ' s o w n copy of the Art des Emblemes includes only three small e n g r a v i n g s , the text itself, c o m p l e t e d in the s u m m e r of 1660 (Loach 2002b, 239-44), w a s w r i t t e n so as to exploit the full-page plates which w e r e then inserted prior to publication. Never­ theless, the text is w r i t t e n so as not to d e p e n d u p o n their inclusion, as if the ability to finance t h e m r e m a i n e d uncertain. 4 0 This is a strategy evident in a n o t h e r of M e n e s t r i e r ' s b o o k s from this p e r i o d , his Temple de In Sagesse, p u b l i s h e d by Jean Molin's b r o t h e r A n t o i n e in 1663. In that case, h o w e v e r , the b o o k w a s p u b l i s h e d w i t h o u t its illustrations, which seem never to h a v e p r o g r e s s e d b e y o n d d r a w i n g s , carefully c o m p o s e d to fit octavo format. 4 1 Since these d r a w i n g s w e r e executed 40. Admittedly, some other publishers had provided alternative editions —illus­ trated and unillustrated —of emblem books: Denis de Harsy, for example, had produced unillustrated editions of Alciato, La Perriere and Corrozet, but in a much earlier period. Nevertheless, in seventeenth-century Lyons such a practice seems to have been confined to relations and associated genres, rather than being used for treatises (as indicated above). The fact that Coral had already included three engravings within the text of this edition supports this hypothesis that he had never wished to publish an unillustrated edition. 41.

JUDI l ОЛСИ

2M

by Г и т п ' - Г т Н Sevin, the s a m e artist responsible for the transforma­ tion of I hi» principal c o u r t y a r d of the town college into a "Temple de I,» S,u;esse" [Temple of W i s d o m ] , in other w o r d s for the p e r m a n e n t ili'comli ve scheme which they n o w served to r e p r e s e n t in two dimen'.lonal form, minimal e x p e n s e w o u l d h a v e been i n c u r r e d in compari'.on with that of their s u b s e q u e n t e n g r a v i n g . The fact that in both c.ises e n g r a v e d illustrations w o u l d h a v e been p r i n t e d apart and then inserted separately into the text —the m o s t u s u a l practice at the time, d u e to the use of different p r e s s e s for these t w o processes —made it possible to p r o c e e d with p r i n t i n g the text before d e c i d i n g w h e t h e r or not to include the illustrative p l a t e s . The different o u t c o m e s in these I wo cases m a y be d u e to the long p e r i o d b e t w e e n C o r a l ' s acceptance o\ Menestrier's m a n u s c r i p t for the Art des Emblemes a n d his publicaI ion of it as a book, with the u n e x p e c t e d delay in clearing its permis­ sion a l l o w i n g time for raising t h e necessary financing. The publicaI ion of the Temple de la Sagesse, h o w e v e r , could not be held u p to this degree, as it h a d to a p p e a r in conjunction with the Trinity Sunday feslival of 1663 (which i n c l u d e d t h e ballet of that title). Yet the differ­ ence may well lie m o r e w i t h t h e difference b e t w e e n booksellers, as Antoine Molin lacked Benoist C o r a l ' s ambition to p r o d u c e illus­ trated p u b l i c a t i o n s (Merland 2004, 177ff.). As with the re-use of the impresa devised for A n n e of Austria, pi­ racy may h a v e p r o v i d e d an a d d e d incentive for the original pub­ lisher to re-use these plates. I n d e e d , in the case of Coral's production of Les Reiouissances de la Paix, t h e existence of the counterfeit edition is clear, a n d since it was p r o d u c e d w i t h i n Lyons it w o u l d have quite drastically cut Coral's a n t i c i p a t e d profits, especially as it actually w e n t on sale earlier. A l t h o u g h s u r v i v a l alone can never be taken as conclusive evidence for relative p r o d u c t i o n , it is w o r t h noting that neither e d i t i o n is particularly rare. 4 2 G u i l l a u m e Barbier, the city's imprimeur du roi, b r o u g h t out a m o r e flashy version, in folio as op-

The extant drawings, preserved in one of Sevin's sketchbooks, evidently would have provided about half the illustrations required for the text: "Recueil de Dessins de Paul Sevin —1650-," Collection Chennevieres (20 May 1878), Pcole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, inv no. В 1000.1518, plates 14-17, 17b, 18, 20-31. For further details see Loach 1987, Vol. 3, Illus. Nos. 27-80 and pp. 214-20.

42. This observation is based on my own unpublished research combined with that of Stephen Rawles, Alison Adams, and Alison Saunders.

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p o s e d to o c t a v o I'ormdl (Menestrier 1660c). It was by not waiting for the design o! the machine [ephemeral arti­ fact] for the concluding fire­ work display to be finalized before he went to press that he h-< was able to get his book on sale before Coral's. 43 Having obtained both Menestrier's text and the illustrations de­ vised to accompany it, no doubt by some less than hon­ est means, Barbier had to have the latter redrawn and en­ graved anew in order to fill his folio format (Table 1). In so doing he made them more eye-catching, vividly depict­ ing the dynamic event of each firework display, rather than just its static machine: each background is now filled with fireworks shooting out of the machine in all d i r e c t i o n s , Fig. 4. Machine erected by the Quartier St. while the machines themselves Nizier for "Les Rejouissances de la Paix," are made more realistic by 1660, as illustrated in Coral edition, fol. 64 r e n d e r i n g them more per(Bibliotheque Municipale de Lyon, Fonds spectivally (fig. 4; cf. fig. 5). Anciens, R313959). Yet, despite the more ex­ pensive format in which they appear, these e n g r a v i n g s , produced by less able engravers, are cruder than Coral's. This is clear­ est in the rendition of background rocks and vegetation throughout Wl Щ

43. Filling only fifty folio pages as against Coral's 150 in octavo, it also omits the cov­ erage of the related performances in the town college, as Coral's full title implies: Les Reioiiissances de la Paix, avec un recueil de diverses pieces sur cesujet: Dedie a Mes­ sieurs les Prevost des Marchands & Eschevins de la ville de Lyon. The last phrase was equally pointed, since the firework display omitted by Barbier was that financed by the Consulate.

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• iiul in architectural o r n a m r n l s , which often be( ими' indistinct and s o m e I lines u n r e c o g n i z a b l e . 4 4 I'lie laces and d r a p e r y of hj'iires in the f o r e g r o u n d Miller likewise, lacking the delicacy inherent in i Oral's plates a n d at t i m e s becoming lifeless or even downright clumsy.45 Moreover, Barbier's p l a t e s less a c c u r a t e l y r e p r e s e n t I he text w h i c h they are in­ tended to illustrate, as if his e n g r a v e r s w e r e r u s h ­ ing to p r o d u c e their im­ ages w i t h o u t c o n s i d e r i n g what these w e r e s u p p o s e d lo convey. For instance, in t h e machine for the Quartier de la fontaine St. Marcel (fol. 25), the i m a g e d isappears from the shield held by the personification of t h e A g e of I r o n (cf. Fig. 5. Machine erected by the Quartier St. Coral's illustration: M e n e - Nizier for "Les Rejouissances de la Paix," 1660, strier 1660b, fol. 58), w h i l e as illustrated in Barbier edition, fol. 28 [second in that for the Q u a r t i e r d u plate so numbered] (Bibliotheque Municipale port d u T e m p l e (fol. 31), de Lyon, Fonds Anciens, R210160). t h e w a t e r f l o w i n g from C o n t r a r i e t y ' s u r n inexplicably d i s a p p e a r s (cf. C o r a l ' s illustration:

44. E. g., the trophies on the machine for the Quartier de la rue Paradis become indis­ tinct, while the lions'heads on its altar are barely recognizable (fol. 31); in themtfchine for the Quartier St. Pierre, a dignified piece of drapery becomes a bunch of grapes dropping out of a lion's mouth (fol. 28)!

45. E. g., the limp, effeminate plumes on Alexander's helmet in the machine for the Quartier de la rue Merciere (fol. 30); the winged figures supporting the coat of arms on the plinth of the machine for the Quartier de la rue Paradis (fol. 31).

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Meneslrier I ЫЛ)Ь, I'ol. (>8; iig. o, cl. fig. 7). Likewise in the machine lor the Quartier de la rue Paradis (fol. 31), a figure of Renown holds a lily in lieu of an olive branch and fails to carry the crown of ol­ ive explicitly mentioned in the text, even though this is evidently one of the most significant ele­ m e n t s from an i c o n o g r a p h i c standpoint, serving to invite "les conquerans a quitter leurs l a u r i e r s p o u r r e c e v o i r cette guirlande" [conquerors to dis­ card their laurels to receive this garland] (cf. Coral's illustration: Menestrier 1660b, fol. 70) (fig. 8, cf. fig. 9). Furthermore, all the plates have been hastily pro­ duced, as is evident from detailed examination of them: traces of the print from facing pages are often v i s i b l e . M o r e o v e r , t h e y are printed on poorer quality paper, with the result that the printing Fig. 6. Machine erected by the Quartier on previous pages shows Port du Temple for "Les Rejouissances through. de la Paix," 1660, as illustrated in Coral Although Coral's reactions to edition, fol. 68 (Bibliotheque Muni­ the appearance of Barbier's ille­ c i p a l de L y o n , F o n d s A n c i e n s , gal counterfeit edition of a title R313959). for which he held the privilege can only be imagined, Menestrier's have come down to us, through his correspondence with one of Barbier's authors, Samuel Guichenon, where this appears in the con­ text of a whole range of complaints against this printer-bookseller, both on his own behalf and that of close colleagues. Among Barbier's offenses are cited his attempts to blacken Menestrier's reputation in the eyes of the Prevot de Marchands (a potential client for future festi­ vals) and his threats to charge Menestrier for losses made on a work Barbier had himself commissioned from the young Jesuit, as well as his undermining Coral's hopes for publishing the Histoire de Lyon, for

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which he had bought ex­ pensive plates, and his Г having badly treated T h o m a s B l a n c h e t , the U: '0 p a i n t e r w h o h a d de­ signed the d e c o r a t i v e m scheme for the Hotel de Ville following a rhetori­ cal program devised by Menestrier and fellow Je­ suits. 46 In the Art des Emblemes, the cost of including illus­ trations, both with the en­ gravings printed within the text pages and with the plates inserted later, was minimized by reus­ ing existing ones, in the latter instance d r a w n from the aforementioned relation of the "Reiouissances de la Paix." In the search for e n g r a v i n g s with the p o t e n t i a l for reuse in his emblems trea- Fig. 7. Machine erected by the Quartier Port du tise, this set of p l a t e s Temple for "Les Rejotiissances de la Paix/' 1660, would have sprung to the as illustrated in Barbier edition, fol. 31 [first of mind of author and pub­ t w o p l a t e s s o - n u m b e r e d ] ( B i b l i o t h e q u e lisher alike. For Mene­ Municipale de Lyon, Fonds Anciens, R210160). strier, these plates each il­ lustrated a machine which was rigorously emblematic in conception, comprising a figure —in the form of a three-dimensional statue or scene —mounted on a plinth bearing the complementary motto and epigram; as such they were the most emblem-like images devised by Menestrier to have been published so far. Moreover, he was actually working on the two projects at exactly the same time, writing his Art des Emblemes in par46. Menestrier letters toGuichenon, 12 April and 26 July 1660 (transcribe'd in Allut, 293-96 (294) and 305-07 (305).

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Fig. 8. Machine erected by the Quartier rue Paradis for "Les Rejouissances de la Paix," 1660, as illustrated in Coral edi­ tion, fol. 70 (Bibliotheque Municipale de Lyon, Fonds Anciens, R313959).

allel with devising I In» firework displays for tin» "Kcioiiissancc's dc la Paix," actually finalizing his text for the former while waiting for the engravers to complete the illustrations for the latter's rela­ tion. Furthermore, in Menestrier's own theory, the emblem's "body" (corps) consisted of the figural ele­ ment alone while its invisible in­ ner meaning constituted its com­ plementary "soul" (ame); within this context the verbal elements became inessential, being reduced to interpretative aids in the search to discern the emblem's "soul" hidden within its "body" (Loach 2002a). Consequently the verbal elements of these emblematic ma­ chines do not appear in the plates illustrating them but only in the accompanying text, which is so comprehensive as to render the il­ lustrations unnecessary, such de­ tail perhaps having been included in case the printing of plates could not be financed. The inherent am­ biguity of images where meaning is concerned, and the lack of words to clarify the meaning originally intended by these images, facili­ tated the plates' re-use with alter­ here through the new accompany­

native interpretations, presented ing text. As their original publisher, Coral already possessed the copper plates from which to print these illustrations, and having used them only in a publication commemorating an ephemeral event, would have been keen to reuse them, as in the case of the devise chiffree for Anne of Austria, likewise exploited as an illustration in the Art des Emblemes. Moreover, since Barbier's counterfeit edition had cut the re-

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(urn lu» had anticipated when initially investing in these plates, Coral may already have been on the lookout for a way to reuse them. % Such a process of re­ couping the considerable investment entailed in il­ lustrating records of fes­ •с tivities—in other words, in producing relatively ephemeral publica­ tions—was common­ place in the early modern period, and can be ob­ served across Menestrier's own career. In t h e 1680s, h a v i n g moved to Paris, he was inv o l v e d in t h e a n n u a l Ouverture des Classes [Opening of Classes] cer­ emonies at the College Louis- le-Grand for the beginning of the school year, devising the explic­ Fig. 9. Machine erected by the Quartier rue itly emblematic decora­ Paradis for "Les Rejouissances de la Paix," 1660, tions which were custom­ as illustrated in Barbier edition, fol. 31 [second arily produced to com­ plate so-numberedl (Bibliotheque Municipale p l e m e n t t h e o r a t i o n de Lyon, Fonds Anciens, R210160). around which these events revolved (Menestrier 1683); the only permanent graphic re­ cord of such decorations was in published form, where the designs for colored paintings are reconfigured to become black and white en­ graved ornaments in a different format, in this case the frontispiece and bandeaux accompanying the text (Loach 1995,158-61). At the end of his career, in 1701, Menestrier's publication of the decorations and complementary recitations presented by pupils at the Jesuit-run town college at Grenoble for the visit there by the petits Dauphins (the Dauphin's sons) employs a similar strategy, again transforming the

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colored paintings enlivening a public sp.не into monoiiiromr line» il­ lustrations comparably enlivening the printed page (Menestrier 1701). In this case, the college courtyard had been hung with paintings especially executed for the event, in front of which schoolboys de­ claimed complementary poems; each painting consisted of an em­ blem's figure and motto, the latter contained within the pictorial frame, which in the printed version appeared immediately above the poem, while a detailed explanation of its application to the achieve­ ments of Louis XIV filled the opposite page. As early as the end of the 1660s, just as Menestrier was about to leave Lyons for good, he and Coral had commissioned the engraver Conrad Lauwers to rework fragments from Thomas Blanchet's permanent decoration of the Grande Salle in the Hotel de Ville at Lyons to form the engraved ban­ deaux (decorative headers) for Menestrier's own Eloge Historique de la Ville de Lyon (Galacteros, 470-71), in which the fullest account of that scheme appears (Menestrier 1669, Pt. Ill, Chap. V). At the colleges in Paris and Grenoble, the decorations had been conceived explicitly as emblems for which figure and motto were rendered visually, but whose epigram was delivered orally. In all three cases the publica­ tions concerned —the Eloge published in Lyons in the 1660s, the rela­ tions for the "Ouverture des Classes" published in Paris in the 1680s and the Sept Miracles du Dauphine in the 1700s —are so autonomous that their debt to decorative schemes was overlooked from shortly af­ ter the events for they were commissioned until recently, even though these publications had in no way been attempting to deny their deco­ rative elements' origins, in the last two cases being within this ephem­ eral world of dramatized performance and festal decorations. In reusing the plates from the Reiouissances de la Paix, Menestrier and Coral reworked them extensively in order to enable these illustra­ tions to relate better to their new context (Table 2).47 The fact that the plates were printed separately, in contrast to text pages, meant that Menestrier did not need to change his text —which there is every rea­ son to believe was already set, and indeed printed —in order to make his illustrations fit. Furthermore, the inscriptions on the machines for the firework displays, although reproduced in full in the relation, never appeared in the depictions of these machines on the plates illus47. Comparison of Coral's edition of Les Reiouissances de la Paix (Menestrier 1660b) and the 1662 Art des Emblemes (Menestrier 1662b) which he published, shows that the self-same plates are certainly being used in both instances.

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tmting thtMTi, making the reinr~* Л / tx* Irrprctation of these illustra­ tions a much easier task. In the first case, a figure of Renown, which had appeared as the machine erected in the Q u a r t i e r de la rue P a r a d i s (Menestrier 1660b, fol. 70r./p. 70; fig. 8), 48 is reused to an­ nounce the collection of em­ blems which follows. To serve this new end, the cloth (echarpe) hanging from Renown's trum­ pet is changed, the arms of France and Spain which had hitherto decorated it now being replaced by the inscription "Recueil" so as effectively to turn the plate into a title page (Menestrier 1660b, fol. 70; fig. 10).49 Meanwhile, the coat of a r m s on t h e p l i n t h , w h i c h passes unremarked in the origi­ nal relation and the treatise on emblems alike, is pointedly changed from that of France to that of the House of Aglie, in Fig. 10. Plate announcing "Recueil" other words to that of the trea­ section, Art des Emblemes, 1662, fol. 121 tise's dedicatee, Philippe de St. (Special Collections, Glasgow Univer­ Martin d 7 Aglie, a member of sity Library, SM753). the Savoyard royal family. This alteration will turn out to be indicative of the way in which all the

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48. The verse is missing from the illustration here, as indeed it is in all cases. The de­ scription also omits to mention the coat of arms of France, which appears above the opening in the arch, with winged women supporting it on either side.

49. According to the related text (p. 70), an inscription rather than a coat of arms ap­ peared in this position, but the illustration contradicts this (Menestrier 1662b, fol. 70, fol. 121). The plinth was actually in the form of a triumphal arch, which neither text mentions.

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re-used plates are now interpreted, quietly dropping or replacing not only references to the peace treaty they originally celebrated but also those to the French monarch, in all but a couple of cases.40 This is con­ sistent with other work by Menestrier in the 1660s, which reflects a certain disillusionment in Lyons, after Louis XIVs visit to the city in 1658 failed to bring the anticipated rewards in privileges and the like.51 In the text which follows, Menestrier states that he cannot think of a better way to conclude a treatise on the practice of emblems than with a collection of some of the cleverest (plus ingenieux) and most correct (plus iuste) examples found in practice (Menestrier 1662b, 121).52 He has taken these— having seemingly noted them down in the course of his reading, and perhaps in some cases from firsthand observation 53 — from funerals (pompes funehres), descriptions of royal entries, re­ verses of modern medals, and decorative schemes in public rooms (Salles) and galleries (Menestrier 1662b, 121). Menestrier thus justifies reusing these plates exclusively within his final section, that con­ cerned with practice as opposed to theory. As far as images are con­ cerned, he is drawing upon his own work alone to illustrate a section which he claims to be informed by wide reading, a claim which such il­ lustration therefore fails to support; nevertheless, it seems particu­ larly appropriate that Menestrier uses plates here which present his own practice in devising emblems. Moreover, by illustrating his ideas through examples of his own work (which local readers would imme­ diately recognize as such), he also reminded potential employers of his proven ability in this field, in anticipation of attracting future com­ missions. This strategy simultaneously endowed his treatise with greater authority than might otherwise have been accorded to the writings of a mere student. 50. Louis XIV is referred to in the exemplars only for emblems drawn from history, under the figure of Alexander (Menestrier, 1662b, 136), and for those drawn from fiction, under the figure of Hercules (ibid., 142-43). 51. On the effect on the principal decorations in the Hotel de Ville, see Loach 1999b, 47-51 (summary) and Loach 1987, Vol. 1, 73ff. (NB 85-87) and 125ff.; on its impact on the entry mounted for the papal legate in 1663, see Loach 1998, 272-75.

52. Owing to an error, the pagination repeats 121-22; this reference is to the first oc­ currence of these numbers.

53. His use of the word "remarquez" would seem here to mean recording details in a livre or cahier des remarques, in other words, a commonplace book.

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Menestrier states that his collection is arranged in six ordres (or classes) according to the figures [images], or corps, of emblems: nuturels, ideels or allegoriques, historiques, symboliques, fabuleux (from fables, or fiction), and particulieres (emblems associated with "personnes celebres" [famous people]) (Menestrier 1662b, 121). He had defined the first five of these classes in an earlier chapter, "De la division des Emblemes ou de leurs Especes differentes" [On the dividing up of emblems or on their different species] (Menestrier 1662b, 30-33).54 Those whose figures were drawn from nature, history, fiction and allegory, he also addressed in another chapter, on the practice of devising emblems ("De la maniere de f aire les Emblemes" [On the manner of making Emblems]; Menestrier 1662b, 104ff.). Menestrier uses a plate to introduce each category, each time presenting an emblem exemplifying that category and then, in an accompanying explanation, spelling out how the emblem functions. In each case, the rest of the section then consists of a series of further examples cited in abbreviated form: a single line description of the figure together with its motto. 55 These examples arranged by category are followed by a longer, miscellaneous collection, entitled "Emblemes meslez" [Mixed emblems], introduced by two plates. Each of those remaining plates from Les Reiouissances de la Paix, as reused in the Art des Emblemes, becomes the figura or image element in a new emblem. Each thus becomes an emblem's "body" (corps), accessible to the physical senses, in order to offer a means of acceding to its inner meaning or "soul" (dme), otherwise inaccessible to the mind, since such access depends upon sense data being perceived by these physical senses. The second plate so reused is introduced to exemplify Menestrier's first category of emblems, "natural" ones, those which he had defined earlier as having their images drawn from things normally seen in nature (Menestrier 1662b, 30). In this case, 54. This also includes two classes omitted here, "artificiels" (like "naturels" but derived from "instruments & inventions des Arts") and "chimeriques" (derived from apologia).

55. E. g., "Une Chouette sur une base de Statue consacree a Minerve, & des oiseaux, qui volent en Fair. Lucem habeant aliae, modo sim sacrata Minervae. Pour une Personne, qui laisse l'eclataux autres se contentant de 1'estude, & de la retraite" (Menestrier, 1662b, 123).

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the emblem operates in the same» way as an imprcsa, by referring (o the "natural" (or intrinsic) "property" of the thing represented, the emblem thus being differentiated from the impresa by the didactic c h a r a c t e r of its function (Menestrier 1662b, 30). The image's "bodily" role of representing visibly the emblem's immaterial and p h y s i c a l l y i n v i s i b l e meaning or soul is paralleled by the way in which Nature itself is t r e a t e d w h e n it b e c o m e s the source of the "body" element in an emblem: the devisor is to look at, but also through, the material "thing" to discern its essential "properties" {proprietez), qualities which likewise are invisible to the eye, and indeed to any physical senses. It is by evoking these immaterial properties that a material image can function as an emblem, again using a physical object as Fig. 11. Machine erected by the Quartier the vehicle for accessing an immaS. Marcel for "Les Rejouissances de la terial subject, this time moral Paix," 1660, as illustrated in Coral edi- teaching. tion, fol. 58 (Bibliotheque Municipale For the image element of his exde Lyon, Fonds Anciens, 357362). emplary emblem of this "natural" sort (Menestrier 1662b, fol. 121, pp. 121-22),56 Menestrier chose the plate depicting the machine set up by the Quartier de la Fontaine St. Marcel, arguably the best known one since it had been erected in the Place des Terreaux, in front of the new town hall (fig. 11). This had represented the overthrow of the Age of Iron by the Age of Gold; the latter personified —conventionally —as Astraea (crowned with stars and bearing a cornucopia) stood —unconventionally—on top of a beehive. In this context, the hive had si56. This is the second plate and second set of pages so numbered.

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in u 11 i i n r o u s l y r e p r e s e n t e d £Jldulcis Jub Pace labor. I luce ideas, all specific to this festival: this machine's theme of I hi1 G o l d e n A g e ' s r e t u r n ( l h a n k s to p e a c e b e t w e e n Trance and Spain) referred to I he "sweetness" (douceur) of earliest t i m e s , t h r o u g h the honey hidden within the hive; I he festival's overall theme, of peace, referred to the equally crucial yet invisible bees, a "community" whose behavior symbolizes the civil government of a well-regulated city (Menestrier 1660b, pp. 58-59); the occasion's theme, of concord (traditionally represented by a hive), the royal marriage. In re-using this figure now to serve as an exemplar of "natural" emblems, Menestrier changes the plate strikingly. First, he entirely removes the lower figure representing the Fig. 12. Plate acting as figure to exemAge of Iron, thus reflecting the plary emblem in "natural" category, Art absence of any reference to the des Emblemes, 1662, fol. 121 [second plate Ages of Gold or Iron in the new so n u m b e r e d ] (Special Collections, text (where the only remaining Glasgow University Library, SM753). allusion might be discerned in the final paragraph's mention of the flowering of Arts and Sciences in times of Peace). Second, he adds a swarm of bees, in order that the plate serves asfigura to the new emblem, entitled "Les Abeilles" [Bees]. At the same time the altered plate provides visible expression for an invisible quality (a "body" for the inner "soul"), sweetness, which is evoked since it is the property associated with bees because of the honey they produce (fig. 12). This element of the figure on which the emblem's "natural" character now depends —the bees— had already been present, albeit only implicitly, so that the substantial modification effected to the plate does not serve to change its inner meaning; instead, the changes have been

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made in order to alter the viewer's perception, ami therefore reading, of the plate, by ensuring that attention is focused on the* single ele ment within it that embodies the emblem's "soul." In this way, the em blem created here also exemplifies that genre of symbolic imagery in the sense most crucial for Menestrier as a student of theology: a mate­ rialized "body" capable of touching our physical senses and thereby leading us to its "soul," or immaterial inner meaning, whose intent is our moral edification (Loach 2002a, 48ff; Menestrier, 1662b, 50). In order to convert this plate from a record of an ephemeral event or its associated decoration into a more universally applicable emblem, Menestrier also adds a title — "Les Abeilles" [Bees] —in the text, and a motto —"Est dulcis sub pace Labor" [Labor under peace is sweet] —in the "sky" of the image. 57 The motto suited equally well the occasion for which the machine had been designed originally, the Franco-Span­ ish peace treaty; from this it becomes apparent that in altering the plate he allows its original meaning to continue in the emblem it has now become. This is confirmed by the long explanatory passage (two whole pages: Menestrier 1662b, 121-22)58 provided by Menestrier — equivalent to the explanation appended in this position in many em­ blem books —elaborating in detail how bees have long been taken as a model of well-policed republics and cities.59 It concludes by elucidat­ ing the new emblem created from this reworked image as indicating that the arts and sciences flourish under peace because the "fruits" then produced are so "sweet" that the labor required to cultivate them becomes unnoticeable. This confirms how the justification for chang­ ing the plate lies in the shift in intent, the image now serving to exem­ plify the "natural" element, and therefore needing to emphasize the capacity of Nature to provide visual images that can relate to moral teachings in such a way as to communicate them allegorically (Menestrier 1660b, 104). 57. The title, "Les Abeilles/' takes the place allocated elsewhere to the category of emblem, which in this case would have read "Emblemes naturels." 58. Owing to the same mispagination as before, this is the second set of pages so numbered.

59. This idea of the parallel between human society and that of bees had been elabo­ rated in the sermon delivered on Trinity Sunday 1655 at the College de la Trinite, Lyons (BB211, 198-203, Archives M u n i c i p a l s de Lyon).

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T h r o u g h tin* interpretation which he offers of this firstemblem exn n pi i lying a category, Menestrier i n t r o d u c e s the r e a d e r at the outset I») a way of " r e a d i n g " imagery —implicitly in an allegorical m o d e winch he will expect to be followed in s u b s e q u e n t e x a m p l e s ; this ap­ proach is consistent w i t h that in other w o r k s he authored. 6 0 Else­ where in the Art des Emblemes he p r o c e e d s directly from explaining the allegorical o p e r a t i o n of the " n a t u r a l " type of e m b l e m —its rela­ tion of a physical i m a g e to an essential b u t invisible p r o p e r t y —to the h u m a n instinct for d i s c e r n i n g m e a n i n g s i n h e r e n t in any image, an in­ stinct u p o n w h i c h e m b l e m s d e p e n d in o r d e r to fulfil their defining p u r p o s e of m o r a l teaching: un h o m m e spirituel a p p l i q u e o r d i n a i r e m e n t toutes choses a la d e v o t i o n , & a la p r a t i q u e de la vertu. . . . L'Inclination cause en n o u s cette facilite, que l ' h a b i t u d e r e n d r a p l u s universelle, & p r o p r e de toutes sortes de suiets. [A m a n of the spirit, or m i n d , n o r m a l l y a p p l i e s all (physi­ cal) t h i n g s to d e v o t i o n , a n d to exercising v i r t u e . . .. We are inclined t o w a r d s such a capacity, w h i c h practice will m a k e m o r e all-embracing, a n d suited to all m a n n e r of sub­ jects.] In this w a y N a t u r e serves as "le g r a n d livre d u m o n d e ou [sic] les Saints & les sgavants se sont instruits." [the great b o o k of the world, w h e r e saints a n d scholars find their training] (Menestrier 1662b, 105). In other w o r d s , Menestrier, as a Jesuit, is p r o m o t i n g the same a p p r o a c h to looking, a c o n t e m p l a t i v e one, as is d e v e l o p e d t h r o u g h Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises. Both derive from the Jesuits' theologi­ cal s t a n d p o i n t , w h i c h w a s Thomist a n d t h u s Aristotelian, therefore a s s u m i n g t h a t any m e a n i n g (forma) could express itself, and then be c o m p r e h e n d e d by h u m a n s , only t h r o u g h b e c o m i n g matter (materia) (Loach 2002a, 38-43). It was at about the time that Menestrier was w r i t i n g the Art des Emblemes and d e v i s i n g "Les Rciouissances de la Paix" that this belief in the necessity of finding images spirit ucllcs [im­ ages g e n e r a t e d by the esprit, the mind or spirit] —"signs and figures" a p p a r e n t to the physical senses to express ideas —led him to elabo60. E. g., in his explanation of the scheme of painted decorations which lie devised for the Grande Cour of the College de la Trim te in Lyons: see Loach 2001, 155-58.

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rate his own "Philosophic dcs Images"; this culminated in his cnu meration of all the genres of symbolic imagery (including heraldry, emblems and imprese) and festivals ("images for the eyes and spirit") for which he intended to produce treatises (Menestrier \Ь7?\ "Avertissement," [n2]r-[n8]v).61 Through the exemplar for his first category of emblem —the "natu­ ral" one —Menestrier established the pattern for the following sec­ tions. An exemplary emblem is described and explained in detail, fol­ lowed by many further examples, each summarized in a brief one- or two-line description of the emblem's figure, citation of its motto, and finally specification of the person for whom it would be suitable. At the same time, and no less significantly, he had established a way of reading emblems —discerning the moral teaching, or "soul," embod­ ied in the image —a method assumed, and refined, through the exem­ plars which follow. Menestrier's next class of emblems, "Ideels ou Allegoriques," con­ sists of those whose images, invented by a given emblem's own au­ thor, represent abstractions (virtues, vices, passions, qualities and the like) by means of human figures clothed and bearing attributes recog­ nizable from conventional symbolism, 62 as itemized in works such as Cesare Ripa's Iconologia (Menestrier 1662b, 33). To introduce this cate­ gory, he re-uses the plate for the machine erected near the Customs House (Donne [sic]), in the Quartier de la rue de Flandres (Menestrier 1660b, fol. 54, text on p. 54). This depicted Bellona with a shield in­ scribed "Non ultra" [Not beyond] (the mot or devise of the Spanish monarch), chained to two columns of Hercules, one decorated with fleur de lys, the arms of France, the other with castles and lions, the arms of Spain. 63 This image is indeed an original one, newly conceived by its author, but whose constituent figures can all be interpreted by reference to conventional iconography. Bellona, identified by her cus­ tomary dress and attributes, represents war; the columns of Hercules, 61. Although his "Philosophie des Images" appears in a book not published until 1673, it is introduced by a statement that it had been elaborated some fifteen years earlier (Menestrier 1673, [a2] г.).

62. This class also included comparable personifications of sentences or proverbs.

63. Neither the base nor the inscription mentioned in the text appear in the engrav­ ing, while the text fails to mention that Bellona is standing on a rocky outcrop.

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wilh their intrinsic references both to his final Labor, and to their re­ use by the S p a n i s h c r o w n ( w h o s e m o t t o also a p p e a r s h e r e on Uellona's shield), are n o w decorated with the a r m s of France and Spain. In this instance, no significant alteration to the plate is reipiired b e y o n d a d d i n g the m o t t o r e q u i r e d to c o n v e r t the figure into an emblem, " N o n u l t e r i u s " [No further b e y o n d ] , this time intro­ duced as an inscription on the plinth previously s u p p o r t i n g the ma­ chine (Menestrier 1662b, fol. 129). As before, the n e w l y created em­ blem refers back to the e v e n t for w h i c h the machine w a s originally de­ vised, with the lengthy explanation n o w p r o v i d e d p r e s e n t i n g Louis as o u t d o i n g b o t h his Spanish c o u n t e r p a r t a n d H e r c u l e s himself (Menestrier 1662b, 129-30), a n d thereby implicitly e v o k i n g his role as Gallic H e r c u l e s . Menestrier h a d defined his class of "historical" e m b l e m s as those whose i m a g e s are d r a w n from history, a d d i n g t h a t it could include those p o r t r a y i n g not only famous events b u t c u s t o m s from past times, including funerals, marriages and other ceremonies (Menestrier 1662b, 3 1 , 105, 107-08). As M e n e s t r i e r h a d explained with regard to m a t e r i a l t h i n g s in " n a t u r a l " e m b l e m s , h e r e depictions of events a n d c u s t o m s serve to express i m m a t e r i a l realities, in this case passions, vices a n d v i r t u e s (Menestrier 1662b, 105). Such actions are to be read ("II . . . lit ces actions" [He . . . r e a d s these actions]), and then carefully reflected u p o n , so as to discern n o t only the virtues and vices r e p r e s e n t e d b u t also their c o n s e q u e n c e s , in order to d r a w out moral lessons to g u i d e one's o w n actions (Menestrier 1662b, 105-06). Menestrier is, in fact, reiterating ideas e l a b o r a t e d at greater length in an earlier c h a p t e r — " M e t h o d e de lire 1'histoire" [Method for read­ ing h i s t o r y ] —of t h e s a m e c o u r s e (and m a n u s c r i p t s ) ("Idee de l ' E s t u d e d ' u n h o n e s t e h o m m e " ) [Plan for an homiclehommc's studies] in which his initial "Traicte des E m b l e m e s " had a p p e a r e d / ' 1 Here he accords a major place to history, n o t h i n g less than "the primary sub­ ject for an honnete homme to s t u d y " ("la p r i n c i p a l e e s t u d e de L h o n n e s t e h o m m e " ) . Evidently this is because the* final purpose (////) of history is to enable u s to "form political and moral ideas from ex64. Chapter5: MS. 1514, fols. 15r-16r; MS. Arsenal, fols. 124r-12(>v; MS. Baudrier, pp. 52-58.

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am pies I rom past centuries" ("lornu'r шн1 idee de politique et de mo i"iili* sur les exem pies des siecles passes"), that this is "(he great I'ruil ol reading history" ("le grand fruict de la lecture de I'histoire"). Л1 one level this means reading history so as to see beyond "certain deeds ol those great men which are known to us" ("des actions de ces grands homines que nous cognoissons") to discern "the character of their lives" ("le caractere de leurs vies") which they manifest. At another level this entails moving beyond passive reading to a more active re­ sponse of our own, "to draw out universally applicable maxims from these specific actions, and to make [from them] one's own ideas of du­ ties and forms of government" ("former des maximes generales sur les actions particulieres, et se faire des idees des charges et des gou vernements"). Menestrier was evidently writing with civic duties in mind, as he was also to some considerable degree in his Art des Emblemes, since he concludes: En ramassant toutes les particularites on forme une idee achevee/actuelle d'un magistrat accomply. II faut examiner les causes, les circonstances, et les suittes d'une action. Comme il n'en est aucune ou quelque vertu, quelque vice ou quelque passion ne domine, elle en peut faire un exemple. Comme le pardon de Cinna, de la clemence d'auguste. [In gathering together all these specificities a full picture is created of a consummate magistrate. One must examine the causes, circumstances and outcomes of any deed. For each action may serve as an example of some virtue, some vice or some passion, as there is no action in which one such does not dominate. Like the pardon of Cinna by the clem­ ency of Augustus].

Thus history performs the same didactic function as does the emblem, one of specifically moral instruction, and not instruction merely for personal edification but rather to guide one's actions within civil soci­ ety. Just as Ripa's Iconologia had been recommended as the primary ref­ erence for devising emblems based on allegory, so the "grand Theatre de la vie h u m a i n e " —presumably Theodor Zwinger's Theatrum

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Пнппишс Vilni' (Basel, 1571)"'' —was r e c o m m e n d e d for devising "his­ torical" e m b l e m s , since it p r o v i d e s a thematically a r r a n g e d c o m p e n ­ d i u m of h i s t o r i c a l e x a m p l e s ( M e n e s t r i e r 1 6 6 2 b , 106). A g a i n Menestrier not only conceived of e m b l e m s as didactic objects per se bul as vehicles for teaching h o w to read material i m a g e s so as to dis­ cern the invisible m o r a l lessons e m b o d i e d in them, ones h i d d e n from physical senses u n l e s s these are e m p l o y e d in t a n d e m w i t h the m i n d : Ce livre p e u t servir d ' i d e e a ceux, qui c o m m e n c e n t , qui a p r e s un exercice assidu de q u e l q u e s iours t r o u v e r o n t , q u ' i l s n ' o n t p l u s besoin d ' a u c u n e aide p o u r faire ces r e f l e x i o n s . C e t t e m a n i e r e de lire l ' h i s t o i r e f o r m e le i u g e m e n t , i m p r i m e p l u s fortement d a n s la m e m o i r e les belles actions, instruit a regler les m o e u r s & les estats, & fait u n h o m m e sgavant. (Ibid., 106) [This book can p r o v i d e an idea for those, w h o are begin­ ning, w h o after several d a y s r i g o r o u s practice will find that they n o longer h a v e any need of h e l p in o r d e r to m a k e such reflections. This w a y of r e a d i n g history m o u l d s one's j u d g e m e n t , i m p r i n t s w o r t h y actions m o r e s t r o n g l y in one's memory, teaches one h o w to o r d e r one's behavior, a n d m a k e s one wise.] To exemplify this category Menestrier took as figura the plate de­ picting the machine which h a d been erected in the Q u a r t i e r de la rue Merciere, the p r i n t e r s ' district (fig. 13), thereby i n g r a t i a t i n g himself with its p a t r o n s , w h o i n d e e d c o m m i s s i o n e d him to design a major firework d i s p l a y for t h e m the year after the "Reiouissances de la Paix" (Menestrier 1661c). This machine p o r t r a y e d A l e x a n d e r cutting the G o r d i a n knot, p r o b a b l y because this was the plate whose subject came closest to a n y t h i n g historic (Menestrier 1660b, fol. 66/pp. 65. Menestrier had already recommended this title as the prime source when devis­ ing emblems of this "historic" sort (Menestrier 1662b, 106). I'lictitruiu Vilnc was a common title at the time, butZwinger's seems most likely here, si nee it besl fits Menestrier's description, providing examples drawn from history arranged ac­ cording to subject (in an elaborate ordering system closely resembling a theolog­ ical summa); its multiple indices (Vol. V) facilitated usage, further fitting it to Menestrier's purpose here. Indeed, Menestrier would later recommend it specif­ ically (Menestrier 1704, 92).

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66-08), despite the more than du­ bious historicity of this event in our eyes. This time the plate is considerably altered, by the addi­ tion of several soldiers around the plinth supporting the machine, as well as his usual engraving of a motto in it, this time reading "Virtuti nihil insuperabile" [Nothing is insurmountable for Virtue] (Menestrier 1662b, fol. 135/pp. 135-36) (fig. 14). The motto is drawn from an ancient text well k n o w n at the time, O v i d ' s Metamorphoses, where these words are uttered by the Sibyl to Aeneas (Ovid, Metamor­ phoses, 14); they also closely re­ semble several lines in works by Seneca, one of the most widely read antique writers in seven­ teenth-century France. As before with the bees, the insertion of the soldiers is not essential to the Fig. 13. Machine e r e c t e d by the meaning which the newly created Q u a r t i e r r u e M e r c i e r e for " L e s emblem is intended to convey. In­ Rejoiiissances de la Paix," 1660, as illus­ stead, striking poses and wearing t r a t e d in C o r a l ' s e d i t i o n , fol. 66 (Bibliotheque Municipale de Lyon, the kind of military uniform sup­ p o s e d to h a v e been c o m m o n Fonds Anciens, R313959). among their counterparts in Ro­ man antiquity, 66 serving to fulfill Menestrier's secondary definition of this class, as if he realized the in_

66. For similar costume see, Du Choul 1581a, NB medals of Mars (222-23), but also Du Choul 1581b. For a similar composition, see Du Choul 1581b, 76 (Consul in his camp) and 104 (Consul addressing his soldiers).

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«ippropriateness of the legendary nature of the event depicted here (o illustrate his ''historic'' class of emblem. In addition, the choice of this image might be motivated by the same desire as is seen elsewhere in this treatise to curry favor with potential clients. In this case these would be not only the leading citizens of the rue Merciere district, namely the printers, but also the city's Consuls. The scene evokes one in the recently completed mural decoration of the Grande Salle of the Hotel de Ville, which like the machine for the "Reiouissances de la Paix" used Alexander cutting the Gordian Knot to repre- Fig. 14. Plate acting as figure to exemsent Louis XIV's achievement of plary emblem in "historic" category, peace. Menestrier describes these Art des Emblemes, 1662, fol. 135 (Special wall paintings, including this one, Collections, Glasgow University Liin the Art des Emblemes, brary, SM753). (Menestrier 1662b, 39-40, NB 40) presenting them as "Emblemes Heroiques du Roy" [the king's heroic emblems] (Ibid., 39). In this context, the resemblance between the wall painting of 1658-60 and the machine of 1660, both certainly devised by Menestrier and (certainly in the first case, and probably in the second case) designed by Blanchet seems more than coincidental.67 67. Galacteros noticed this resemblance (Galacteros, p. 92), and intended to present the sketch for this scene in the mural decoration (Galacteros, fig. 65) beside the engraving for this machine (Galacteros, fig. 66), as is clear from the captions, the latter giving its source as "Menestrier, Les Reioiiissances do la Paix, p. 135." The image she reproduces, however, is not the illustration from that relation, in which the corresponding image actually appears on fol. 66 (the plates are numbered as folios, separately from the paginated text into which they are inserted);

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MencstrU'r seems lo define IIS next class, "symbolic" emblems, as those where each element can be deciphered separately; his in­ clusion here of antique statues suggests that he is thinking in terms of figures with attributes, as were habitually employed in the ars memoriae (Menestrier 1662b, 32). His examples indicate that his statement that such em­ blems are hieroglyphic in charac­ ter ("tiennent de la nature du hieroglyphe"; ibid.) should be understood as signifying that their interpretation is not ratio­ nal but "enigmatic" (ibid., 33). In fact such meanings were conven­ tional, derived from dictionaries compiled from supposed exam­ ples of hieroglyphics together Fig. 15. Feu de joye dresse sur le Pont with accepted interpretations, a de Saone on the eve of St. John the Bap­ genre advanced by Renaissance tist's Day, 1660, as illustrated in Coral's neo-Platonism. 68 For this cate­ edition, fol. 75 (Bibliotheque Munici­ gory Menestrier reuses the plate p a l de Lyon, Fonds Anciens, 357362). depicting the firework display for the feast of the city's patron saint, St. John the Baptist (Menestrier 1660b, fol. 75/pp. 75-80; fig. 15), funded annually by the city's magistrates, thus again currying favor with potential employers. In this case the firework display is therefore ш*.

instead the image reproduced is the altered plate from the Art des Emblemes, where it is fol. 135. 68. The indicative publications were Horapollo's Hieroglyphica (first published by the Aldine press in 1505), and in particular Piero Valeriano Bolzani's book of the same name (first published in Bale, in 1556), whose indices transformed it into an iconographic handbook for designers, from which one could easily find the ob­ ject which had supposedly represented a given quality, vice, or virtue in Egyp­ tian hieroglyphics. Its integration into Christian iconography is perhaps most clearly demonstrated through a book authored by a Jesuit, Nicolas Caussin's De Symbolica Aegyptorum Sapientia (1618).

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nol one of those commissioned lor I he celebrations of the peace Irr.Uy in March 1660, but one th.H took place three months I,Her. The depiction of a machine designed only after Barbier's edition of the Reiouissances de la Vaix went to press may be intended to highlight the counterlei t edition's deficiency, at least to local readers. The original machine had represented Hercules victorious over a variety of monsters —the H y d r a of L e r n a a n d t h e Nemaean lion, Cacus, Anthaios, Geryoneus, and Busiris —all arranged on a large rock, symbolizing a mountain, at whose summit an olive tree, growing out of Hercules' club, was hung with trophies. This machine had been devised so as to be read both as a single figure with an overall Fig. 16. Plate acting as figure to exemmotto (or tiltre general), "Ex plary emblem in "symbolic" category, lauro, pacis oliva" [From the Art des Emblemes, 1662, fol. 139 (Special laurel, the olive of peace] —rep- Collections, Glasgow University Liresenting the triumphs of war brary, SM753). being transformed into that of peace—but also with a series of mottoes, each applying to different elements within it: the olive tree, the monsters, and the torch of Prometheus (whom Hercules had freed).69 To use this image as the figure in an exemplar of ''symbolic" emblems, Menestrier a m p u t a t e s the wings from one figure (Menestrier 1662b, fol. 139; fig. 16), which had tacitly referred to one of the least commonly known myths about Prometheus: how he had made man in the form of a small statue upon which Athene bestowed a soul (in Greek, psyche) by bringing a butterfly (also psyche), alluded 69. The text in pages 78-80 records inscriptions, none of which appear in the figure.

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to here by the wings. In addition, attention is shifted I mm I his centi a I figure to the crowning one, the single feature containing I he meaning of the composition as a whole, namely Hercules' club as transformed into an olive tree; the single one-line description of the plate, which appears immediately below the section title ("Emblemes Symboliques"), ensures that this element becomes the paramount one in the reader's interpretation of this plate: "La Masse d'Hercule changee en Olivier sur un Rocher ou paroissent les despouilles des Monstres qu'il a terrassez" [Hercules' Club changed into an Olive Tree on the Rock where the remains of the Monsters that he has overcome are seen]. The detailed explanation which follows breaks the overall compo­ sition down into its constituent elements, ensuring that they are read separately, and takes the reader around the plate as if on a guided tour around a picture gallery: "Vous у voyez les Serpents. . . ." [There you see the Snakes]; "Aussi ce Rocher escarpe . . ." [Also this steep-sided Rock]; "L'Olivier qui paroitau plus h a u t . . ." [the Olive tree which ap­ pears at the top]; "Ses armes victorieuses sont attachees . . ." [His vic­ torious weapons are attached (to it)]. En route these features are indi­ vidually interpreted: the rock symbolizes Hercules' virtue, the olive tree (from which crowns of peace are made) is the instrument through which he achieves his ends, its first fruits tasting bitter but becoming a sweet (douce) drink through labor, and so on (Menestrier 1662b, 138-39). These "hieroglyphic" readings endow the explanation with a sense of initiatory journey, which culminates at Hercules' club trans­ formed into an olive tree. This arrival is immediately preceded by in­ troducing a motto —"Unde labor iam fructus erit" [Thence labor will now bear fruit] —so as to reveal the picture's inner meaning. This motto, introduced here as applying specifically to the olive tree (in whose bark, Menestrier suggests, it could appropriately be inscribed) is simultaneously that engraved on the plate as applying to the com­ position as a whole. Nevertheless, a different motto had appeared above the extended explanation —"Merces laborum pacis aeternae decus" [The reward of our labors is the glory of eternal peace] —and the reader is left to deduce its significance. Menestrier's last generally applicable category of emblem, the "fabuleux" (meaning that derived from fable, or fiction), was similar to his historic class except that it drew its themes from antique myth and legend ("l'ancienne Theologie des Payens" [the ancient Theology of the Pagans]) as opposed to historic fact (Menestrier 1662b, 32). As with other categories of emblem, this one provides Menestrier with an

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opportunity lor reiterating that the moral and didactic function of emblems extends beyond the lessons which they convey individu­ ally to a way of reading which they collectively induce in us as we progressively practice reading them. In this case we should therefore also use the images to "tascher de penetrer lesmysteres des Anciens, & de decouvrir la cause de leurs ceremonies" [try to penetrate an­ tique mysteries, and to discover the rationale behind antique cere­ monies] (Menestrier 1662b, 106), in other words once again to discern meanings hidden within images. Indeed Menestrier's purpose here is evidently to teach us not merely how to "read" the meaning within a given emblem but rather, by instilling an emblematic way of read­ ing, how to discern the inner meaning inherent in any thing or action (Menestrier 1662b, 106-07). For his exemplar of the emblem derived from fiction, Menestrier turns to the machine from the Quartier St. Pierre, another in the Terreaux district, lying in fact between the main square and the Je­ suit-run town college. This once more depicted Hercules, this time with the hydra alone, with inscriptions paralleling this achievement with Louis' recent victories in Flanders (Menestrier 1660b, fol. 63/pp. 63-64).70 Since the subject self-evidently fulfills Menestrier's require­ ments for this class of emblem, no major change is made to the plate beyond the addition of the motto, "Unius hostis multiplex victoria" [Multiple victory from one enemy]. This not only revealed the mean­ ing embodied in the image but reinforced it though its tacit allusion to cognate lines in antique texts well known at the time, and the ideas evoked through them: Quintus Curtius's portrayal of Alexander the Great (Quintus Curtius, Book 4), and then Livy's of Augustus (Titus Livy, Book 2), which presented the Roman emperor as overcoming a thousand armies more formidable than Alexander's. By implication the reigning French monarch was thereby raised to, or even above, the level of the two greatest military commanders in antiquity. Menestrier seems conscious that readers might feel yet another use of Hercules as example to be excessive, so justifies his choice somewhat defensively, implying that this hero is exceptional in offer­ ing material for many of the classes of emblem he has defined: 70. An inscription —none is shown in the plate —uses a line from Seneca to link Her­ cules' lion skin with Louis 7 victories in Flanders, while a second inscription re­ cords the joy of citizens in seeing war "terrassee" (felled) by "nostre (our) Hercules/ 7

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II ne faut pas s'estonner que ce Hems fasse le sujet de I an I d'Emblemes, puisque sa vie a este celuy de tant do travaux extraordinaires, l'equipage que la fable luy donne est tout Mysterieux, & son histoire est toute pleine de merveilles. Les Poetes ont si souvent parle de luy, & la peinture Га represente de tant de sortes, qu'il est difficile de trouver u n modele plus grand & plus iuste des legons Morales & politiques, sa vie fut meslee de biens & de maux, de vices & de vertus, par ceux-la il peut servir d'exemple de la bonne & de la mauvaise fortune, par ceux-cy il peut fournir des regies a suivre, & des maximes a corriger. (Menestrier 1662b, 141-42) [It is not surprising that this Hero becomes the subject of so many emblems, since his life was that of so many extraordi­ nary labors, the attributes given to him by fiction are ut­ terly Mysterious, and his story is quite full of wonders. Poets have so often spoken of him, and painting repre­ sented him in so many ways, that it is hard to find a greater and more appropriate model for Moral and political les­ sons, his life was a mixture of good and evil, of vices and virtues, and by the former he can serve as an example of good and bad fortune, while by the latter he can provide rules to follow, and maxims for correction.] This justification thus also serves to explain why such an image can exemplify "emblemes fabuleux," no longer by offering a detailed ex­ planation of the particular image but now, after offering several such explanations for the preceding exemplars, by pointing readers quite explicitly to a way of "reading" — fiction being presented as the most obvious source from which to draw moral lessons —and encouraging them to have confidence in their own reading. Once again the emblem created here proclaims the same message as had the machine from which it derives, glorifying Louis for having banished war (Menestrier 1662b, fol. 141/pp. 141-43). It is worth not­ ing that, in all these examples, in converting the image of an ephem­ eral machine designed to commemorate a specific event, and incorpo­ rating locally specific references, into an effective exemplar of a par­ ticular type of emblem, the image's original meaning is never obliter­ ated, although its emphasis may be modified. Such adjustment also contrived to make the example appropriate for the wider audience en-

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visa^ed lor this theoretical t realise, as opposed to the more local one l the initial relation; in so doing Menestrier displays his expertise in devising symbolic imagery to proclaim the kind of message not only required in his own native city but equally beyond, no doubt a strat­ egy employed here with a view to securing commissions further .ilield. Moreover, in this way these exemplars demonstrate different ways in which various sorts of emblem can fulfil the same didactic purpose characteristic of emblems; this is comparable to the way in which Menestrier's model, Tesauro (Loach 1986), treats examples in I he final chapter of his Cannocchiale Aristotelico, where a single theme is successively treated in terms of different types of symbol. 71 Again this could be a useful ploy for securing desired patrons, by demon­ strating the breadth and variety of one's work. The final category, "Emblemes particuliers" [emblems relating to individuals] (which he also describes as "Emblemes affectez a des Tersonnes celebres" [emblems dedicated to famous People] or "De quelques Personnes illustres, & de quelques Families 7 ' [Concerning some illustrious Individuals, and some Families]) (Menestrier 1662b, lol. [145]/p. 145), is the only one not covered in the earlier chapter where Menestrier had defined his various classes of emblem. 72 Per­ haps he added it to attract individuals who might commission em­ blems or emblematic decorations from him, as opposed to the offices and corporate bodies for whom the previous examples were mainly designed. By including examples of emblems devised for no less than two dozen individuals (as compared with the mere handful of exam­ ples offered for any other category) he seems to be addressing the greatest possible range of potential clients. For the exemplar for this category Menestrier takes the plate de­ picting the machine erected in the Quartier de la rue Lanterne (again in the Terreaux district, this time at the far end of the new square from the Hotel de Ville), depicting a victorious Cupid standing on the tomb of Mars in order to hang a trophy from a nearby cherry tree. The explanation accompanying the machine had interpreted it with re­ gard to an individual, the cherry tree (cerisier) referring to this dis­ trict's captain, a Monsieur Cerise (Menestrier 1660b, fol. 60/p. 60); not surprisingly, this local worthy, no doubt unknown outside the town, 71. "Essemplaredi unaTema successivamentc transformala in lultelc Argutezzedi Simboli, e di parole" (Tesauro, 567ff.).

72. Chapter 4, "De la division des Emblemes ou de leurs Especes differenles."

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is no longer mentioned when the picture appears in I he Ail tlca Emblemes. In reusing this plate Menestrier sees no need lo idler il, sim ply adding the requisite motto (in the form of an inscription on the tomb, this format again evoking a sense of the personal, as opposed to the collective): "Non toti morimur/ vivit post funera/ virtus" [We shall not die entirely —virtue lives on beyond death]. 73 Furthermore he neither specifies the lesson which the resultant emblem is devised to convey, presumably deeming this self-evident, nor explains how this emblem illustrates the category it is intended to exemplify; per­ haps, by this point, he felt that he had taught his readers how to read emblems, so that they no longer needed such detailed elucidations. 7 ^ Instead Menestrier uses his text as an opportunity to deal with a theoretical problem that he foresees better-read members of his audi­ ence raising, namely that individuals are conventionally represented by imprese rather than emblems. He argues —somewhat less than con­ vincingly—that while imprese should be used to represent a person, emblems can be used to communicate their ideas (no doubt an implicit reference to the concept of the potential of an emblem's "body" to lead us to its "soul"), and invokes Paolo Giovio and other (unnamed) theo­ rists in support of such use of emblems in a domain usually reserved for imprese (Menestrier 1662b, 145). He then, however, seems to con­ tradict himself in the example he cites, of the emblem devised for Pi­ erre Scarron, Bishop of Grenoble, in that this refers to his person, and specifically to his rather exceptional holding of both ecclesiastical and secular offices (Ibid., 145): Scarron was conseiller au parlement de Paris from 1607, then bishop and prince of Grenoble 1620/1-1667/8 (Moreri, Vol.9, 226).7S No doubt mention of this great supporter of the Jesuits is meant to flatter him. Scarron had succeeded only recently (1651) in obtaining for them the right to found a college in this town with not only a signif73. This was a common tag, but one with a particular resonance in 1660s Lyons, where it was then the motto in the marque of the bookseller Rigaud. As men­ tioned above, Menestrier had already cited the marque for the booksellers Borde, Arnaud, and Rigaud as an example in his chapter on "Emblesmes allegoriques/ , 74. On this concept of Menestrier's use of such a text as a didactic instrument, see Loach 2001, 155-58; for comparable practices in the work of his colleagues see Loach 1995, 164-66. 75. The emblematic decoration of Scarron's episcopal palace had been cited in chap­ ter 5 ("Signification et Pratique") in the manuscript treatise.

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и .ml Calvinisl p o p u l a t i o n but nlso an existing Catholic college, run by Ibe Jesuits's rivals, the Dominicans. 7 6 Moreover, the m o n d a i n Hishop of CIrenoble, half-brother of the b u r l e s q u e poet Paul Scarron .iiul himself a patron of one of the m o s t licentious salons in the land, most r e n o w n e d for his cabinet de curiosites, a n d decried by certain ('.Hholic clergy for his refusal to i m p l e m e n t the h a r s h e r d e m a n d s of tin* Council of Trent, 7 7 a p p e a r s here a m o n g M e n e s t r i e r ' s potential clients (from m u n i c i p a l a u t h o r i t i e s to influential g r o u p s of artisans) л\\Л accordingly is m e n t i o n e d flatteringly. M e n e s t r i e r w o u l d h a v e been a w a r e that the Jesuits were consolidating their position in (irenoble, as a center from which to c o n d u c t missions in the Calvinist valleys of D a u p h i n e , d o i n g so u n d e r the protection of a b i s h o p less favorable to rival Catholic orders; following the c o m p l e t i o n of per­ manent college b u i l d i n g s there (in 1666, a n d so, n o w i m m i n e n t ) they would be able to increase their n u m b e r s there, a n d in 1665 Menestrier was m o v e d to G r e n o b l e , w h e r e he then a r r a n g e d festivities for the uncloistered c o n v e n t of D o m i n i c a n ladies at Montfleury (Pra, 343ff.; Maillefaud, 62ff.), no d o u b t a commission secured for h i m t h r o u g h Scarron, their chief d e f e n d e r against d e m a n d s for stricter obser­ vance. In this e x e m p l a r of e m b l e m s for i n d i v i d u a l s the m o t t o does not ap­ ply to a specific i n d i v i d u a l : neither to the p e r s o n originally desig­ nated by the i m a g e (Monsieur Cerisier) nor to the one d o m i n a t i n g the explanatory p a s s a g e (Bishop Scarron). Instead, it combines a com­ m o n saying ("vivit post funera virtus") with a p h r a s e of Senecan res­ onance ("Non toti m o r i m u r " ) 7 8 to deliver a m e s s a g e of w i d e r rele­ vance. Yet, by a p p e a r i n g in the form of an e p i t a p h inscribed into the tomb in the image, it s e e m s to speak to the i n d i v i d u a l e n c o u n t e r i n g it, alone, in this case the solitary reader of the book in w h i c h it a p p e a r s . It a d d r e s s e s its v i e w e r in the m a n n e r of a memento mori,79 m a k i n g him 76. The Dominicans had only gained control of the town college in 1606. The Jesuits established a residence in 1623, but did not obtain any right to a college until 1651, and even then the Dominicans retained exclusive rights to the teaching of philosophy and theology (Emery, 129-30). 77. On Pierre Scarron, see Emery, 120-23. 78. The phrase "an toti morimur" recurs in Seneca's works; it appears with the nega­ tive ("non . . . an toti morimur") in his poem "Death has no terror."

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or her the individual to whom this emblem proffers a moral lesson. Its innately funereal spirit arouses a sense of closure, appropriate at the conclusion of Menestrier's series of emblems exemplifying his six cat­ egories. At the same time, however, it serves as a link to the collection of miscellaneous emblems ("emblemes meslez") that follows, since the first exemplar here is entitled "Typus humanae vitae" [The Type of human life] (translated in the text as "L'Image Emblematique de la vie" [The Emblematic Image of life]) (Menestrier 1662b, fol. 153/pp. 153-54). For each of his six categories Menestrier has shown how an emblem can communicate moral instruction by giving such ideas visi­ ble and material expression in the form of an image to whose inner meaning the viewer is directed through a complementary motto. In arriving at the concluding collection of emblemes meslez [mixed em­ blems], however, he deals, albeit tacitly, with a kind of emblem found throughout all three categories, that whose image's inner meaning is so self-evident as not to require a motto but simply a title (cf. Menestrier 1662b, 72-73). For this emblem Menestrier uses the plate for the machine erected in the Quartier du Port du Temple, adjacent to that of rue Merciere 80 and 79. It is worth comparing Menestrier's image with two relatively recent paintings by the most eminent French painter of the day, Nicolas Poussin: 'The Arcadian shepherds/' of с 1628-29 (Verdi, 170-71 and pi. 13) and ca. 1638-40 (Verdi, 218-19 and pi. 38). Each of the three acts as a memento mori (Panofsky) by juxtaposing a tomb, symbolizing death, with components evoking life and love: in Menestrier's image a tree laden with fruit and a cupid; in Poussin's paintings rudely healthy young shepherds and, at least in his earlier version, a daringly decolletee shepherdess. This earlier version, owned by the eminent Roman cardi­ nal Camillo Massimi, might well have been known to Menestrier, most probably through sketches made by Thomas Blanchet, whose decoration of the Hotel de Ville at Lyons with Menestrier drew heavily on similar decorative work in Ro­ man palaces, notably by Perin del Vaga and Giulio Romano, both of whom worked on the Palazzo Massimi; in fact certain themes there depicted by these artists —notably a Salotto Celeste and a "Fondazione di Roma" —relate uncan­ nily to certain Menestrier-Blanchet themes at Lyons: the zodiac cycle dominat­ ing the Grande Salle and the Roman "Re-establishment of Lyons" in the same room.

80. Menestrier opens his description of this machine by explicitly making this point: "Le quartier du port du Temple . . . est celuy qui se presente d'abord apres celuy de rue Merciere" [The district of Port du Temple ... is that which appears straight after that of rue Merciere] (Menestrier 1660b, 68).

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lluis whose* i n h a b i t a n t s albeit to a lesser extent —again included printers and booksellers. 'Y\\\s machine, a tower r e p r e s e n t i n g the Fort ol Contrariety, s u p p o r t e d a personification of C o n t r a r i e t y , dressed partly in black and partly in white, h o l d i n g fire in o n e h a n d a n d wa­ ter in the other, with a pair of wheels at her feet (Menestrier 1660b, lol. 68). Once m o r e M e n e s t r i e r refrains from altering the plate be­ yond a d d i n g an inscription, here a title, while this time changing the meaning to be r e a d from it, the female figure n o w personifying Life. Menestrier describes this e m b l e m as resembling " u n Enigme difficile a dechiffrer" [an e n i g m a difficult to d e c i p h e r ] , s u g g e s t i n g the enig­ matic n a t u r e of life itself. For c o n t e m p o r a r i e s , the reference to e n i g m a s w o u l d h a v e evoked another g e n r e of e r u d i t e image which, like the e m b l e m , was espe­ cially associated w i t h a c a d e m i c contexts. The e n i g m a w a s always presented as a p u z z l e for which the preferred i n t e r p r e t a t i o n w a s given only after all contestants h a d s u g g e s t e d i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s of their own. A l t h o u g h M e n e s t r i e r p r o c e e d s here to explain in detail h o w each tier of t h e tower r e p r e s e n t s a successive age in one's life, a n d thus p r e e m p t s r e a d e r s from d r a w i n g their o w n i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , the way in w h i c h he m e n t i o n s e n i g m a s w o u l d h a v e b r o u g h t to m i n d the a m u s i n g yet m i n d s t r e t c h i n g competitions associated w i t h them, and t h u s implied t h a t the r e a d e r likewise can no longer expect to be given the entire i n t e r p r e t a t i o n but, at this a d v a n c e d stage in Menestrier's // course , / in r e a d i n g e m b l e m s , m u s t n o w actively c o n t r i b u t e to it. Since a detailed e x p l a n a t i o n of s e p a r a t e features is in fact p r o v i d e d , the reader is left instead to conjecture as to M e n e s t r i e r ' s i n t e n d e d sig­ nificance in inserting this particular e m b l e m after d e a l i n g with all six categories. At o n e level the account offered by M e n e s t r i e r —notably his i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of the figure of Life as b a l a n c i n g precariously on the wheels of time —continues the memento mori t y p e of reflection in­ cited by the t o m b a n d funereal m o t t o in the p r e v i o u s e m b l e m . At an­ other level, his i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of the fire and water as symbolizing the spiritual a n d material aspects of h u m a n i t y respectively (Menestrier 1662b, 154) m i g h t have r e m i n d e d r e a d e r s of his earlier, and funda­ mental, discussion of the emblem's o w n bipartite n a t u r e , as "soul" and " b o d y " (Ibid., 57ff.; Loach 2002a, 48-52). Menestrier m a r k s the transition from this final e x p l a n a t o r y pas­ sage to the m i s c e l l a n e o u s collection that follows with a colophon, the figure c u s t o m a r i l y u s e d to indicate the end of a section, reflecting the same playful a n d witty spirit, by taking the form oi an u p t u r n e d tri­ angle ( s t a n d i n g on its apex), in turn composed of inverted flairs de

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EMBLEMATICA

Fig. 17. Machine erected by the Quartier de l'Herberie for "Les Rejoiiissances de la Paix," 1660, as illustrated in Coral edi­ tion, fol. 65 (Bibliotheque Municipale de Lyon, Fonds Anciens, R313959).

/i/s. Coral's possession by this date of more than one type for a c o n v e n t i o n a l colophon — not least evident in his edition of the Reiouissances de la Paix (basket of flowers: Menestrier 1660b, 80 and 106; basket of fruit: ibid., 98),81 whose plates he is reusing in this very part of the Art des Emblemes — implies that this is not accidental, the consequence of needing to improvise due to lack of material resources. De­ spite the apparent lack of rela­ tion between text and colophon, the appearance of renverser [to upturn] as the last word before the colophon, signals that this is a deliberate juxtaposition; it demonstrates the same kind of contrived but playful wit as be­ fore, but here it depended upon close collaboration between au­ thor and printer, indeed to the extent that it could not have b e e n r e a l i s e d w i t h o u t the printer's active contribution. Menestrier then selects a final illustration in order to introduce the concluding miscellany of ex­ amples, the plate illustrating the

81. On several occasions in this work he alternatively, but quite conventionally, uses rows of decorative characters, so as to resemble headers, in place of colophons in order to separate subsections (Menestrier 1660b: mix of 2 abstract forms: 15, and then between each machine description, 47-73; vertical fleurs de lys: 85-89; paired horizontal fleurs de lys: 90; paired vertical fleurs de lys: 91,107; combination of vertical and horizontal pairs of fleurs de lys: 99, 115). Different characters are used for headers before new sections (Ibid., 1, ' Т а Conduite des Feux d'Artifice," 1; "Rejouissances . . . faites dans les colleges/' 1 and 41).

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machine erected for the Quartier ili1 I'llorberie (fig. 17) (again near rue Merciere), which depicted an obelisk, with a helmet perched on its summit while at its base a soldier has fallen a s l e e p on t o p of h i s a r m s (Menestrier 1660b, fol. 65).82 As with the illustration selected as the image for the last emblems, both the last in the series of six and that following it, so this one selected for the last exemplar of all carries intimations of mortality, of life's e n d , t h i s time through its resemblance to a catafalque. The motto, "Sic sensim sine sensu arctatur vita" [Thus life is g r a d u a l l y c o n t r a c t e d without sense], nurtures such an interpretation, and recognition of its a n t i q u e s o u r c e —in Cicero's t r e a t i s e on old age (Cicero, 11), a work well known in M e n e s t r i e r ' s day —would have sustained this further, its Fig. 18. Plate acting as figure to exemown subject being life's end. The plary emblem in "mixed" category, Art original engraving underwent des Emblemes, 1662, fol. 155 (Special Colconsiderable modification in lections, Glasgow University Library, this case: the helmet has been SM753). erased (in the process making space for the motto) and all the candles, which had formerly lined the edges of the obelisk from top to bottom, have been removed as well (fig. 18). The helmet's disappearance is more than solely pragmatic given this element's allusion to Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, its 82. Only one soldier appears in the plate, but the text states that there were three (Menestrier 1660b, 65), the other two presumably being hidden behind the obelisk.

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absence thus articulating a translation of sine sensu as "without thought" or "without understanding." This time Menestrier offers no explanation whatsoever, leaving the reader to puzzle out the intended meaning entirely alone (Menestrier 1662b, fol. 155/p. 155);83 one suspects that —given the witty spirit in which emblems were usually devised and employed in France at this time —he expected his readers to impute an alternative translation of sine sensu, as "without meaning," thus alerting them to the fact that his silence here is deliberate. Consequently, this emblem effects a fitting conclusion to his course in learning how to read emblems —a metatext running through the entire series covering his six categories, and be­ yond—thus providing a complementary appendix to the final chap­ ter, itself largely a list of published emblem treatises ("Les Auteurs, qui ont compose des Emblemes, avec un recueil des plus beaux sur di­ vers suiets" [Authors, who have devised Emblems, with a collection of the most handsome ones on several subjects]). In other words, the published sources of examples for study (the list of authors) are fol­ lowed by instruction in how to study them (the series of exemplars), and then examples that can be used as the material for exercises in such study (the collection of emblems). The educational strategy of exploiting concrete images and inciting the reader to engage actively with them reflects the mechanism by which the emblem itself was be­ lieved to act: instructing by presenting an image accessible to the physical senses (its "body") and then leading viewers through to an inner meaning inaccessible to them (its "soul"). By returning the reader to this essential bipartite nature of the em­ blem in general, the final emblem provides an appropriate conclusion not only to this "course" in reading emblems but to the entire treatise on emblems. In the motto the reader's attention is drawn to the word sensu, by exploiting alliteration —it appears as the fourth successive word beginning with "s" —and by the play set up between it and an aurally related word, sensim (meaning "gradually," but with an ar­ chaic meaning of "perceptibly"). The import of directing the reader's focus to this word lies in its multivalency, simultaneously connoting sense in corporeal and mental terms, and thereby signifying at once physical sensation (as in perception or feeling), the domain of the em­ blem's "body," and intellectual or emotional sensing (understanding or sentiment), the domain of the emblem's "soul." The alterations 83. The related text simply reads: "Emblemes meslez/Une Pyramide/Sic sensim sine sensu arctatur vita/'

JUDI I ОЛСН

УН1)

nude lo Ilu* plate clearly depict both: the removal of the candles, the sources of illumination necessary for vision, enables the plate to rep­ resent the corporeal meaning of "sense," or rather lack of sense per­ cept ion (sine sensu); and, through the removal of these and of Mi­ nerva's helmet, attention is focused upon the soldier at the obelisk's base, asleep and therefore insensitive to such physical stimuli as im­ ages. The removal of Minerva's helmet, an attribute characteristic of I he goddess of wisdom, and of all the lights, evocative of intellectual en I ightenment, enables the mental meaning of lack of sense to be rep­ resented. Furthermore, the word sensus can also carry meanings of "signification" and of "moral sense," both of which are fundamental in emblems. Finally, sensus can also mean a sentence or common­ place—in other words a motto such as that in which it appears here —or a thought expressed verbally, thus again reflecting the "body-soul" relationship essential in Menestrier's understanding of the emblem. From congreganiste to honnete homme, from congregation Meeting Room to salon. When M e n e s t r i e r rewrote the treatise — "Traicte des Emblesmes" —recording his semi-public course for publication as a manual for personal use — V Art des Emblemes — he found it necessary to transform its presentation quite radically, above all by integrating images. This obvious and visible change, however, may divert us from apprehending a more profound shift in the manner of instruc­ tion, as becomes most apparent in the series of exemplary emblems now appended to the main text: this no longer resembles a teacher's transcribed lecture or even a treatise derived from it, but instead something more playful and witty, akin to a series of games for rather sophisticated adults, in which a solitary reader is invited to play a progressively more active part. In transforming his course for a virtu­ ally captive audience of congregation members into a book for sale on the open market, Menestrier was no longer working alone but in a partnership, led by a bookseller who was more aware of the current commercial situation and therefore of how to prepare a publication so as best to appeal to potential customers: principally the habitues of fashionable salons and assemblies. The consequent move away from textbook or treatise format towards a more innovative genre of printed entertainment, as epitomized by educational games, reflects not only a general understanding of the culture now fashionable in

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leisure circles but Coral's specific response* U> I his, his particular ex ploitation of the material resources —author, plates, and engrav ers —available to him personally. In fact, the presentation of the six emblems exemplifying Menestrier's categories seems close in spirit to the instruction booklet accompanying Fine de Brianville's card game for learning heraldry, whose text had led to Coral's first engagement of Menestrier. The evidence of Menestrier's first independent publications 84 thus suggests that Coral was gradually helping him to rethink his work on symbolic imagery, orienting it not towards the schoolboys and devout artisans whom he taught personally but towards a wider and less im­ mediate circle, of those frequenting salons and academies. In the pro­ cess, this work would attract a greater number of potential customers for the product in which Coral was investing. Menestrier's first trea­ tise, his Veritable Art du Blason, had distinguished itself from previous treatises on the subject through its systematic treatment of its subject, an aspect emphasized in its title, which ends "ou les regies des armoiries sont traitees d'une nouvelle methode" [where the rules of heraldry are dealt with according to a new method]. Jesuits were con­ currently engaged in reordering college textbooks in a more system­ atic way, in order to respond to the success of Port Royal's innovative courses; but in this specific case the innovations may be due less to the Jesuit Menestrier, who had only prepared a first draft, than to the pub­ lisher Coral, who undertook its final revision. Menestrier's subse­ quent treatise on heraldry —his Abbrege methodique des principes keraldiques, commissioned by Coral presumably in response to the commercial success of his first one— moves much further in this di­ rection, presenting the subject more clearly and systematically, and elaborating upon the previous treatise through a corresponding in­ crease in number of sections. The appropriateness of this format for its intended market was proven by the fact that this book realized greater commercial success than any of Menestrier's other early titles, with no fewer than five reprints. 85 These effectively kept it in print until the late 1680s, when it was superseded by his Methode de blason raisonnee, 84. Many of his early works were effectively commissioned by his community: Menestrier 1658a-d and 1659a-d.

85. Coral issued reprints in 1665, 1669, 1672, and 1677, and Thomas Amaulry, his son-in-law and successor, issued another in 1681. Another, issued in 1683 by Si­ mon Воё of Bordeaux, is likely to have lacked the permission (privilege ) legally required for publication.

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this lime in «1 form reminiscent of a catechism, a sequence of ques­ tions and answers facilitating memorization, and thus again evi­ dently devised with fashionable society in view. 86 The acute appreci­ ation of the market implied here again suggests that the author was guided by someone well aware of it, in this case Coral; in any event, t his publisher's pro-active stance had been proven not only in his re­ working of Menestrier's draft for the Veritable Art du Blason but in his pu rchase of high-quality plates to produce a deluxe history of Lyons, and his commissioning of an entire series of treatises on heraldry from Menestrier. Within this context, it seems likely that Coral made a significant contribution to the development of the Art des Emblemes. Another Art des Emblemes: Collaboration

A Different Author-Publisher

An emblem book is a collaboration between author and publisher. Consequently the 1662 Art des Emblemes produced by Menestrier and Coral is markedly different from the book of the same title which ap­ peared in 1684, again written by Menestrier but this time with a dif­ ferent publisher, the Parisian Robert Jean-Baptiste de la Caille.87 Il­ lustration was still deemed essential for a treatise on this word-im­ age hybrid, and again recourse was made to pre-existing images. This time, however, for most of the cuts a single source was mined, yielding small-format woodcuts instead of mainly full page copperplates; but several dozen were now employed, and the de­ signs were mainly due to no less an artist than Bernard Salomon. It is striking that Menestrier, by now resident in Paris for nearly fifteen years, uses blocks originally designed in Lyons; moreover, he was taking images over a century old, but drawn from Jean de Tournes's celebrated publications, not only of Alciato's Emblematum liber88 (as might have been expected in an emblems treatise) but also of Aesop's fables89 and the Metamorphose d'Ovide figuree,90 together with some 86. A l t h o u g h this first a p p e a r s , in 1688, u n d e r Parisian p u b l i s h e r s (Htienne Michallet a n d M i c h e l G u e r o u t ) , s its a p p e a r a n c e in Lyons the following year u n ­ d e r A m a u l r y ' s a u s p i c e s l e a d s o n e to suspect thai Ihe s a m e p u b l i s h e r s ( A m a u l r y b e i n g C o r a l ' s s u c c e s s o r ) w e r e r e s p o n s i b l e for cominissioiunj', both the Abbic^c a n d theMethode. A m a u l r y then p u b l i s h e d M e n e s l r i e r ' s Nouvcllc niclhoilc in 10%; this p r o v e d to b e the m o s t successful of all his h e r a l d r y treatises, with r e p r i n t s or n e w e d i t i o n s in 1701, 1718, 1723, 1728, 1734, 17r>(), I7!VI and 17Ы.

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biblical scenes less directly derived from Salomon's illustrations." 1 Certain details (notably shading in the sky and the number of birds depicted, and also shadows on the ground) indicate that the woodcuts employed here by Menestrier are not the actual blocks published by de Tournes but nonetheless early copies made in Lyons or Paris, prob­ ably in the 1550s or 1560s. In looking for the motives which may have lain behind re-use here, one may begin with the fact that in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen87. Robert Jean-Baptiste de la Caille (1645-1707) was a printer-bookseller in a dy­ nasty of that name, son of Jean I de la Caille (imprimeur du roi) and brother of Jean II de la Caille (Renouard, 227). He was Menestrier's principal publisher from 1680-86, with further publications in 1689 and 1692, a total of around two dozen separate titles; from these it becomes apparent that he was capable of illustrated work, but was mainly used by Menestrier for relations rather than illustrated treatises. 88. De Tournes published Alciato from 1547 in Latin and from 1548 in French up to 1639 (Adams, Rawles and Saunders, F.019, F.022, F.023, F.025, F.034, F.035, F.036, F.037, F.040, F.048, F.055, F.066, F.068 and F.072). On the de Tournes edi­ tions, see also Cartier.

89. Menestrier 1684, e. g. pp. 27ff., 40, 42, etc. De Tournes published Aesopi Phrygis Fabulae in several editions, in French from 1547, Greek and Latin from 1551, Latin alone from 1556, or Latin and French in 1607. See also Epee for details of sources for specific images used by Menestrier, in de Tournes's editions of Aesop.

90. Menestrier 1684, e. g. pp. 25-26, 36ff. etc. De Tournes published Metamorphose d'Ovidc figuree in 1557, illustrated by 178 woodcuts by Salomon and in 1559 in Italian, La Vita el Metamorfoseo d'Ovidio, reusing these woodcuts plus new ones by a lesser artist. See also Epee for details of sources for specific images used by Menestrier, in de Tournes' editions of Ovid. 91. Salomon drew the illustrations for a Bible and New Testament which were pub­ lished by de Tournes in several different languages and formats; there were two different series, a small set of cuts published in La Sainte Bible of 1553 and a larger set, the Quadrins historiques and Le Nouveau Testament of the same year, followed by a Latin Biblia Sacra in 1554. One or two of the cuts in Menestrier 1684 owe something indirectly to Salomon, for example the illustration to the Parable of the Sower, which is however now presented in landscape instead of portrait for­ mat. Other religious cuts in Menestrier 1684 date from the seventeenth century and have nothing to do with Salomon. It is worth noting that in the 1680s, at the time when Menestrier published his new Art des Emblemes, Samuel de Tournes, great-grandson of the Lyonese printer, was republishing the original woodcuts. I am grateful to Peter Sharratt for this information, and for more general advice on Salomon's presence in the 1684 Art des Emblemes.

JUDI I ОЛСИ

?8К!1) ami lulmuiul A r w a k e r s ' s Pia desideria (1686) —it seems that attention to its Dutch equivalent is also in order. 3 Well over a d e c a d e before the appearance* of Ayres's a n d A r w a k e r s ' s books, L u y k e n h a d revived the interest in the love e m b l e m . N o w , the question " h o w did he go about it" has emerged. Possibly, too little attention h a s been p a i d in the past to Luyken's role in the second flourishing period of the Dutch love emblem d u e to the fact that Jezus en de ziel w a s mostly v i e w e d as an offshoot of the love e m b l e m t r a d i t i o n ; in particular, of the early s e v e n t e e n t h - c e n t u r y tradition established by Otto Vaenius's Amorum emblemata and Amoris divini emblemata, a n d H e r m a n H u g o ' s Pia desideria.4 Only with his later e m b l e m a t i c w o r k s w o u l d Luyken leave his m a r k on Dutch love emblematics. 5 W h e n we consider the degree in w h i c h Luyken derived his picturae in jezus en de ziel from Vaenius's a n d H u g o ' s emblematic w o r k s , such a v i e w p o i n t s e e m s accurate. A b o u t t w o - t h i r d s of the il­ lustrations in L u y k e n ' s Jezus en de ziel — the first b o o k for which he, then a b e g i n n i n g etcher, created his o w n picturae — could again be traced back to e x a m p l e s from Vaenius's Amorum emblemata and Amorum divini emblemata, a n d H u g o ' s Pia desideria.6 In a d d i t i o n , Luyken's Jezus en de ziel, as well as his Duytse Her (1671), a songbook with e m b l e m a t i c e m b e l l i s h m e n t s , 7 have been s t u d i e d from the per­ spective that they constitute revelations a b o u t the a u t h o r ' s religious See Westerweel 1997, 189: here, he states that Freeman and Bath erroneously speak of an "exhausted late-flowering" in connection with the appearance of Ayres's book. Also see Daly 2003,1047. The request to reassess Arwakers's book, which according to Westerweel is an adaptation of Hugo's Pia desideria, follows this statement (Westerweel 2003,11-15). In his article "On the European Dimen­ sion of Dutch Emblem Production" in which he discusses this so-called "revival" of the English love emblem, Westerweel does not pursue the revival of the Dutch love emblem.

4.

See Praz 1977, 166-68 and 199, Van 't Veld 2000, 112, and Manning 2002, 179.

5.

In particular, see Porteman 1992a and Gelderblom 2000.

6.

Of the forty picturae, twenty-three can be retraced to examples from Vaenius's and Hugo's emblematic works. Please visit http://emblems.Iet.uu.nl/lul685 .html for the exact references.

7.

See Porteman 1992b for this characterization of Luyken's Duytse Her.

I I S SIUONKS

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beliefs. Initially, (he Prolestant Luyken was positioned a m o n g the Hohmenisls, while in recent studies the Reformed characteristics were being s t u d i e d and discussed. 8 Within this framework, it is important to a c k n o w l e d g e the impact of the Jesuit O r d e r on the develo p m e n t of the P r o t e s t a n t spirituality t h r o u g h their e m b l e m books and auxiliary t e c h n i q u e s of meditation. 9 When we look into p r e v i o u s research on the confrontation and interaction b e t w e e n literature written in the N e t h e r l a n d s from within different confessional positions, it becomes a p p a r e n t that most studies primarily e m p h a s i z e d the differences a n d a d o p t e d a strict separation of views. N o w that that framework h a s been b r o a d e n e d , it o p e n s u p the possibility of a reevaluation of the position of Luyken's first religious e m b l e m b o o k w i t h i n the context of the total c o r p u s of Dutch love e m b l e m b o o k s . With this article, I h o p e to give the initial i m p e tus and reassess the position of Luyken's book by focussing on two structural features of the picturae of Jezus en de ziel — i.e., indicators of Luyken's m e t h o d of w o r k i n g w h e n he a d a p t e d several of Vaenius's and H u g o ' s w o r k s into his o w n . I will discuss v a r i o u s plates from Luyken's jezus en de ziel. The Corpus of Dutch Love Emblem Books In the p r e s e n t article, I will a d d r e s s the question r e g a r d i n g the position of L u y k e n ' s Jezus en de ziel within the c o r p u s of the D u t c h love emblematics against the b a c k g r o u n d of the activities involving the Emblem Project U t r e c h t (henceforth referred to as EPU). The main focus of the EPU is twenty-five Dutch love e m b l e m b o o k s , religious as well as secular, w h i c h w e r e p u b l i s h e d between 1600 and 1725 in the Low Countries. 1 0 The a p p e a r a n c e of Daniel Heinsius's Quaeris quid sit amor [You w a n t to k n o w w h a t love is] in 1601 p r o v i d e d the first stimu l u s t o w a r d a t r a d i t i o n of the Dutch love e m b l e m . O n e m u s t realize, however, that the poet-artist Vaenius and his e m b l e m book Amorum emblemata (1608) played the largest part in the d e v e l o p m e n t of the Dutch love e m b l e m . That is, Vaenius's e x a m p l e inspired Heinsius to 8.

See Vekeman 1984 and Van 't Veld 2000, respectively.

9. In particular, see Young 2000.

10. This brief overview is based on Porteman 1977, 87-1 17 and Porteman 1994, passim.

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r e p u b l i s h his Qnacris, which in \Ы)У/Н Ihen *»t41niri»cl (he и.шн' Emblemata amatoria. Several years later, Pieler Cornells/.. I lool'l pub­ lished his Emblemata amatoria (1611). The p r e v i o u s l y m e n t i o n e d emblem books all have their roots in the Petrarchan t r a d i t i o n ; they share a general t h e m e of u n r e q u i t e d love t o g e t h e r w i t h m a j o r m o t i f s s u c h as a l a m e n t i n g lover a n d a cold-hearted g o d d e s s . W h e n in 1618 Jacob Cats p u b l i s h e d his work Silenus Alcibiadis (later titled: Sinne- en minnebeelden [Emblems of Mo­ rality and Love]), he f o u n d e d a n e w tradition w i t h i n the love emblem genre. In his w o r k s , Cats i n t r o d u c e d realism a n d aspects of everyday life in an a t t e m p t to c h a n g e the Dutch outlook on love and marriage. For example, he r e u s e d the a m o r o u s - t h e m e d e m b l e m s of the first part of his book in b o t h the second and third part, b u t n o w with an addi­ tional moral and religious explanation. The love e m b l e m h a d already o b t a i n e d a r e l i g i o u s d i m e n s i o n w h e n V a e n i u s ' s Amoris divini emblemata w a s p u b l i s h e d in 1615. At that time, Vaenius h a d rewritten his earlier secular e m b l e m s into religious ones. N u m e r o u s poets then followed in his w a k e ; it s e e m e d that Vaenius's i d e a s h a d gained cur­ rency in Catholic as well as P r o t e s t a n t circles. Between 1630 a n d 1670, only reprints a n d a d a p t a t i o n s of earlier love emblem b o o k s a p p e a r e d in the N e t h e r l a n d s . Then in 1671, the tradition w a s b r o u g h t back to life by Luyken, w h o d e s e r v e s credit not just for this reason. 1 1 It is, in particular, his skills as a poet and etcher which d e s e r v e attention; Luyken created his o w n texts and illustra­ tions, and w r o t e both secular and religious love e m b l e m books. L u y k e n ' s Duytse

Her and Jezus en de ziel

For his s o n g b o o k with e m b l e m a t i c e m b e l l i s h m e n t s , Duytse Her (of which seven r e p r i n t s a p p e a r e d in the seventeenth a n d eighteenth cen­ turies) L u y k e n b o r r o w e d a n d a d a p t e d nine picturae from Vaenius's Amorum emblemata. Or rather, L u y k e n derived his picturae from the 11. Neither in Dutch nor in international emblem research has Luyken received the attention he should be entitled to in view of his position and production —ac­ cording to the index in Landwehr's bibliography (Landwehr, 176-92), he pro­ duced twelve emblem books in total. Dutch research in the field of Luyken's works mostly deals with questions regarding Luyken's religious position, and when his conversion took place (among others, see Vekeman 1981, Van 't Veld, and Meeuwesse 1977), and also concentrate on Luyken's later emblematic works after 1694 (among others, see Gelderblom 2003).

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32 'A

,mllu)lo)',y of I he book (haI was published in 1618 by the A m s t e r d a m publisher Willem Jansx. Blaeu, u n d e r the title Emblemnta aliquot selection! miuiloria. In 1618, Michel leBlon a d a p t e d V a e n i u s ' s original illustrations so that these w o u l d fit into t h e smaller book format. 1 2 Without avail, a t t e m p t s h a v e been m a d e to discover in Duytse Her re­ ligious profundity t h a t is said to be characteristic of L u y k e n ' s later works. G r a n t e d , L u y k e n ' s interpretation of the illustrations differs slightly from that of V a e n i u s ' s original r e a d i n g of 1608. In L u y k e n ' s work, they a c q u i r e d a m o r e serious tone, since he e m p h a s i z e d the im­ portance of m a r r i a g e as the u l t i m a t e goal of love even more than Vaenius h a d d o n e . In his dedicatory p o e m in Duytse Her to A n t o n i d e s van de Goes, L u y k e n w r o t e , "I sing of love a n d love making," 1 3 which is exactly what he did. The nine parts of the Duytse Her relate the power of love (for man and woman), arguments in favor of marital love (i. е., support and procreation), and touch upon the rising sexual tension before marriage, respectively (see Luyken, 2-3). One could argue that, under Luyken's vision, the field of secular love emblematics matured —that is, after earlier initiatives taken by Vaenius and also even by Heinsius, since they also saw marriage as the ultimate goal of love.14 That same interest in the bond of marriage, specifically the bridal mysticism between Jesus and the believer, also characterizes Jezus en de ziei15 At a single glance, the title and frontispiece demonstrate the 12. Vaenius's original was printed in quarto format; Blaeu's book was printed in duodecimo format.

13. "Ik zing van Liefde en Min." 14. See Boot and Stronks, and Porteman 1993-1994, 217.

15. Vekeman (1986, 175) finds a connection between Luyken's and Bohmc's ideas when it comes to the dominance of the marriage motif. The question, however, is whether Luyken's fascination for this subject stems from the love emblem tradi­ tion or from something else. With sermons about the Song of Songs by Bernard of Clairvaux in the twelfth century AD, Sernwucs in cmilicn aiiiliconmi, the reading of this book as an interpretation of the religious marriage between God and the believer became well established in the Western cultural history. This interpre­ tation then served as a guiding principle for many authors and artists (among others, see Rodter, 61). In addition, in Thofner 2002, it is assumed that in Vaenius's Amoris divini emblemata the connection between Jesus and the soul is also regarded as a marriage. Luyken could, therefore, have taken his inspiration

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us's Amoris divini emblemata, H u g o ' s Pia desideria (1624), and Serrarius's Goddelycke aandachten (1653) [Divine thoughts] —three books which Luyken had most likely consulted when he wrote Jezus en de ziel. While Luyken derived many of his ideas for his picturae from Vaenius and Hugo, Serrarius demonstrated how the meditative bias of Hugo's book could be rewritten so as to contain a mystical mode. 16 from these sources as well.

16. From Hugo (whom he might have recognized in the Dutch adaptation of Justus de Harduwijn, or via the later adaptation made by Serrarius), Luyken also derived the trinity of penance, consecration, and unification in his emblems. From Serrarius, he derived the descriptive titles, the component of a "divine answer" and the bias towards a reader's own experience as a means of coming closer to God — "He who has not experienced it / will not be able to understand it" ("Die't niet bevonden heeft / en kan 't ook niet verstaan") —which is characteristic of a mystical frame of mind (Van der Wall, 143). Serrarius's picturae were not derived from B. Bolswert, as was the case with Hugo's and Harduwijn's, but were derived from a later, poorer quality edition by Hugo (Van der Wall, 140 and 146; Van 't Veld, 110 —here again, an assessment of Luyken's illustrations in }ezus en de ziel as being "far from original" ["verre van origineel"]; that same judgment was passed by Van 't Veld, yet now not only concerning the illustrations but rather the entire book [112]). Serrarius grafted the third part of his emblems, in

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32!)

In the first sentence of his preface to jezus en de ziel, Luyken made a state­ ment about his duty to the existing tex­ tual tradition. His emblematic texts are I not isolated; they are firmly embedded within the emblematic tradition: "No опе, who has ever been in this court of emblems, believes that it all blossomed solely from our soil/' 17 Can the same be said for his picturae? We will now take a closer look at the origin of the picture that Luyken chose for the frontispiece of Jezus en de ziel. A female believer is portrayed opposite the worldly, man-like figure of Jesus. With this image, Luyken managed to combine the familiar with the unfamil­ iar. The depicted scene is obviously at­ tached to the eighth emblem of the sec­ Fig. 3. J. Luyken, Iesus en de ziel. ond part of Hugo's Pia desideria. The Amsterdam, 1685, title page. positions of the figures, the fact that these figures are connected to one an­ other, the two intertwined trees, and the reference to the Song of Songs are all aspects which Luyken adopted from Hugo with which he made the opening statement in his book. Luyken changed some aspects of the illustrations he took from his examples —the soul is positioned on the left of the emblem and the person she is following is on the right. In Vaenius's and Hugo's origi­ nal emblems, this is the other way round. Was this due to the fact that Luyken etched according to his examples, which then resulted in mirror images? Or should we not view this as a consequence of an etching technique, but rather assign it a meaning: the positioning of the two figures could refer to the custom whereby, with married cou­ ples, the woman is usually portrayed on the left and the man on the right (see e. g. Rodter, 37-38). Considering the reference to the Song of

•

Й

particular, onto the Song of Songs (Van der Wall, 144), while Luyken opted for a coordinating approach of this particular motif in his book.

17. The original Dutch reads: "Niemant, die in het Hof dezer Sinnebeelden komt, dencke, dat al dese Bloempjes uyt onze eygen Grondt gewassen zijn."

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Songs in the frontispiece, such a symbolic meaning seems plausible. Should we view the frontispiece as a first indication of Luykcn's attitude towards Hugo and Vaenius? If indeed the title page offers a first indication, then it is only a small clue. I would now like to consider a pair of aspects oijezus en deziel which I believe will visualize some of the details of Luyken's working method. A Full and Credible Marriage between Jesus and the Soul Not only pictura eight in the second part of Hugo's Pia desideria, but also Vaenius's Amoris divini emblemata left its mark on Luyken's frontispiece. When, in 1615, Vaenius used love emblematics in a religious analogy, he substituted the place of Cupid from his Amorum emblemata with that of an angelic, childlike figure complete with wings and halo in his work Amoris divini emblemata. In the second emblem of Amoris divini emblemata, the identity of this figure is indicated by the words: 'Amor Divinus" [divine love]. In order to compare the frontispiece with this figure, two aspects are of importance: first, the precise identity of this angelic figure, and second, his outward appearance (Kirschbaum, col. 113-16 and 139). Let us first consider the aspect of identity. Although the words "Amor Divinus" appears to be fairly straightforward, the complete title Amoris divini emblemata still seems to leave some room for an interpretation other than "divine love." In the book, textual elements can be found which suggest that this "Amor Divinus" is actually Christ himself.18 In the preliminary pages ("Carmen de Amore"), Vaenius wrote about the vivifying love of Christ ("Viuificans Amor est Christus"). In addition, in a few emblems, the angelic figure is indicated as such in the subscription. In the pictura of the thirty-eighth emblem, we see the soul embracing "Amor Divinus." 19 (fig. 4)

18. Also see Buschhoff, 252-53. Buschhoff observes that Vaenius has his Amor Divinus operate on two different levels: "as the love for God ... as the love of God for the human soul" ("als die Liebe zu Gott . . . als die Liebe Gottes zur menschlichen Seele"). Yet, she claims that "a direct equivalence of the love of God and the Son of God" (original quote in German: "eine unmittelbare Gleichsetzung von Liebesgott und Gottessohn") is out of order, seeing as they appear together in a number of picturae (e. g., emblem 3 and 18). Vekeman (1981, 59) too, mentions the incidental appearance of the Christ figure in Vaenius's Amoris divini emblemata without pursuing the matter further.

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1

In the Dutch subscriptio, we iwid: "Wat isser dat kan hebben macht/Om ons van Christus liefd' U1 scheyden?" [What exists that has the power / to separate us from Christ's love]. In similar passages, the dividing line between Christ and divine love is so thin that it consequently resulted in different possible interpretations. Agnes Guiderdoni-Brusle came to a similar conclusion in her article about the outward appearance of this "Amor Divinus" figure: in Vaenius's works (and later also in Hugo's), this angelic figure exhib-

Fig.

its m a n y s i m i l a r i t i e s w i t h e x i s t -

emblemata, Antwerp, 1615, emblem38.

4. Q . Vaenius, Amoris divim

ing, sixteenth-century conventions for depicting (baby) Jesus. Therefore, identification of "Amor Divinus" with Jesus in Amoris divini emblemata and Via desideria seems obvious. It appears that the two possible interpretations were of importance at the reception of Vaenius's Amoris divini emblemata. Whoever believes that "Amor Divinus" is not only a representation of divine love, but of Jesus as well, can develop a mystical reading of Vaenius's emblems. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Jan Suderman, one of Luyken's peers and followers, produced a Dutch adaptation of Vaenius's example in a book titled De godlievende ziel, which, at the same time, also contained a Dutch adaptation of Hugo's Pia desideria. It was also this contemporary of Luyken who described the abovementioned line of reasoning, explicitly, in his preface to "Den Godlievenden lezer" [The devout reader]. He observed the angelic figure in Vaenius's Amoris divini emblemata as playing two different roles:

19. An image which Vaenius may have possibly derived from G. de Montenay's Emblemes ou devises chrestiennes (1571), "Per multas afflictiones," emblem lxvii.

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A l t h o u g h in O. van Veen's first moralistic emblem Hivinc Love, in fact, s e e m s to imply God's Love for I he SOLI I, it is not quite so u n a m b i g u o u s ; therefore, I considered myself free to i n t e r p r e t Divine Love also as the Love of the soul for God. 2 0 According to S u d e r m a n , Vaenius i n t r o d u c e d "Amor D i v i n u s " as the e m b o d i m e n t of God's love for the soul; yet, S u d e r m a n continued by saying that Vaenius also p r e s e n t e d the figure as a personification of the soul's love for God. In this latter role, "Amor D i v i n u s " acts as the mediator, as w a s t r a d i t i o n a l l y the role of Jesus. Again, this allows for a mystic i n t e r p r e t a t i o n . With some diffidence, S u d e r m a n acknowl­ e d g e d that the angelic figure r e p r e s e n t s the m e r g i n g of the soul with God ("unio mystica"): 2 1 A n d verily, the spiritual u n i o n of God a n d the soul, and of the soul a n d God is so completely internal that the holy Bible writ k n o w s of no other accurate d e s c r i p t i o n (if I may express myself thus) than to just say that they are one. . . . And rightly so, this is w h a t p r o d u c e d the e x p r e s s i o n s to lose one's self in God, to sink into God, to become one and united with

20. "Alhoewel in hot Eerstc Zinnebeeldt van O. van Veen de Goddelyke Liefde eigenllyk schynt te beduiden Godts Liefde tot de ziel, zoo gaet dat daer vervolgens niet allezins door; om welke reden ik ook gemeent hebbe de vryheit te mogen gebruiken van door de Goddelyke Liefde dikwyls de Liefde der ziele tot Godt te verstaen." 21. Here, Suderman felt he must defend his claims; he used the word "vereeniging" [union] and associated this with the term "mystic." This latter term could now evoke the wrong associations: "Ik zegge niet dat 'er geene dweeperyen loopen onder sommigen die zich den naem van Mystiken geven, maer ik zegge dat men onderscheit moet maken tusschen Mystikendie met goede redeneringen de vereeniging der ziele met Godt uitdrukken, al zyn de woorden by wylen wat ingewikkelt, en anderen, die door zwakheit van verstant het rechte spoor des inwendigen Godtsdiensts niet wel bewandelen [I do not allege that there are no fanatics among those claiming themselves to be Mystics. Yet, I argue that one should differentiate between the Mystics who, by means of logical reasoning, ex­ press the union between the soul and God — albeit every now and then in sophis­ ticated phrasing —as compared to those who, by their own weakness of mind, do not walk in the ways of an inner belief].

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{'•oil. Hecause, no matter the level of criticism against these expressions, or even the amount of mockery, I do not see that these, when considered in a spiritual context, as they should be, are any more concrete than the Word of our Lord Jesus Christ that we must eat his flesh, drink his blood for us to abide in Him and He in us. . . . It is undeniable then that the true Religion exists between God and our soul, which is something the world does not understand and therefore mocks. 22 Shortly after this passage, Suderman describes the implication of this mystic reading: Man already acts upon the outward appearance; thus man will misunderstand the importance of the inner self. The soul needs to look within one's self to find God; only this would allow one to find one's self in God.23 These words can be said to be an exact echo of Luyken's view in Jezus en de ziel. Earlier research states that in Luyken's emblems, realistic representations, as well as reflections of the reader's own inner world, invite the reader to reflect upon the eternal, the divine. In this view, earthly and human beauty offers a glimpse of God's eternal beauty. Karel Porteman posited that, in Luyken's view, man and na­ ture are not a reflection of the divine, but rather a part of it. Con­ sidering both readings can lead to a better feeling for God's 22. "En waerlyk de geestelyke vereeniging van Godt met de ziele, en der ziele met Gode is zoo allerinwendigst, dat de H. Schrift daer van geene naeukeuriger beschryving weet te maken (op dat ik het zoo uitdrukke) dan met ons te zeggen dat zy een zyn. . . . Hier van komen dan billyk de spreekwyzen van zich te verliezen in Godt, wegh te zinken in Godt, een en vereent te zyn met Godt. Want, wat men ook tegen deze wyze van spreken inbrenge, en zelfs daer mede spotte, ik zie niet dat zy, geestelyker wyze verstaen wordende, gely к zy moet, harder is, dan het zeggen van onzen Heere Jezus Christus zelven dat ivy zyn vleesch eten, zyn bloet drinken moeten om deel aen Hem te hebben . . . ' t i s /ekerder dan zeker dat de ware Godsdienst bestaet tusschen Godt en on/.c ziel, en dat is iets 4 geen de weerelt niet kent en daerom bespot."

23. "Men wil al naer het uiterlyke en dus begrypt men het inwendige niet: De ziel moestGodt in zich zoeken en dan zou zy zich in Godt vinden." This is basically a Bohmenist view. See Vekeman 1984, 224.

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presence. 2 1 In the third emblem of Jezns en de ziel, Luyken wrote I he following: "This visible world is just an external birth of the inner world; e v e r y t h i n g that w e see here is also inside the invisible."" 1 In L u y k e n ' s later v o l u m e s , events and objects from e v e r y d a y life also served as m a t e r i a l to illustrate the divine, as d e m o n s t r a t e d by Arie Jan Gelderblom (2000). In the v o l u m e Het menselyk bedryf (1694) [ H u m a n enterprise], L u y k e n illustrated this m e s s a g e with e m b l e m s concern­ ing Dutch t r a d e s . For e x a m p l e , artisans w h o are depicted in their w o r k s h o p s p l y i n g their t r a d e s , which —as the v i e w s from the work­ s h o p s out into the o u t s i d e w o r l d suggest —offer a p e r s p e c t i v e on eter­ nal life. Overall, it can be said that with his e m b l e m s , L u y k e n strove to e n c o u r a g e the r e a d e r to u s e the visible w o r l d as a s t i m u l u s for his or her o w n spiritual j o u r n e y . In ]ezus en de ziel, this search for God a n d the c o m m u n i o n with His w o r l d is a l w a y s c o m p a r e d with the quest of the b r i d e for her bride­ groom in the Song of Songs. 2 6 This particular reference is instantly rec­ ognizable on the frontispiece; L u y k e n u s e d an a d a p t a t i o n of a pictura from H u g o ' s Via desideria, and a quotation derived by H u g o from the Song of Songs. In the " V o o r - z a n g h " [Introductory h y m n ] of the vol­ ume, this image is s t r e n g t h e n e d w h e n L u y k e n a d d r e s s e d the soul: "You r b r i d e g r o o m , the finest one alive / call to him, with his a r m s w i d e open." 2 7 Then in 1685, Luyken wrote a prose a d d i t i o n to the last em­ blem of Jezus en de ziel, titled "Van 't Ewige V a d e r l a n d t ; en desselfs v r e u g d e " [Of the Eternal C o u n t r y ; a n d equal bliss], in which the " m y s t e r i o " [mystery] of the creation of m a n k i n d in God's image and likeness, a n d the c o m m u n i o n with heaven is h i g h l i g h t e d . With this 24. See Porteman 1992,191-196. Porteman ascribed this vision to Bohme's influence on Luyken. However, later this is contested by Van 't Veld (467: he claims Luyken used Bohmenist terminology; yet it did not come to a systematic repre­ sentation of Bohme's body of thought. In turn, Van 't Veld positioned Luyken in the Reformed-pietistic tradition [468]).

25. "Dese sichtbare werelt is niet anders als een uytgeboorte van de inwendige werelt; al wat wy hier sien dat is ook inwendig in 't onsichtbare/'

26. In his later works, which were under the influence of Bunyan's works for whom he made illustrations, Luyken represented the worldly life more and more as a pilgrimage to God. See Van 't Veld, 469. 27. "Uw Bruydegom, de schoonste die daar leeft//Roept u tot hem, met bey zijn armen open." See Luyken 1685, A4r.

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addilion, the IIUMIU1 of communion is, in effect, arranged. Luyken grafted the partner of the soul onto Vaenius's example, but used the space for interpretation, which "Amor Divinus" offered in Amoris div'uiis emblemata, to provide his example with a mystical interpretation that represented the union between Jesus and the soul. The depiction of the marital union between Jesus and the soul is explored more deeply and more logically in Luyken's works than in Vaenius's and Hugo's, in the sense that it is represented more realistically. This brings me to the second aspect in the comparison of the frontispiece with "Amor Divinus"— the outward appearance. Luyken adapted the appearance of both leading figures so as to create a conceivable marital scene. While Vaenius and Hugo portrayed "Amor Divinus" and the soul as childlike figures (Manning, 179), Luyken portrayed them both as young adults. He was not the first to do so. In Amoris divini et humani antipathia, a love emblem book containing works of several (unknown) authors which appeared in Brussels in 1626 for the first time (and which would be reprinted with numerous adaptations in the years to come), an adult Jesus and adult soul make their appearance once in a while. However, these appearances are but random occurrences; therefore, we cannot speak of a programmed whole. In contrast, Luyken throughout Jezus en de ziel, painted the picture of two young people in search of appropriate marriage partners. Only the halo around Jesus's head —as a symbol of the holiness of the portrayed figure, which in Luyken's day had fallen into disuse (Van 't Veld, 352) —is a reminder of Vaenius's and Hugo's examples; yet other than that only differences attract the attention. Vaenius's and Hugo's divine figure is adorned with wings resulting in a direct visual parallel to Cupid. Moreover, he has a childlike shape, which makes at least the idea of the physical aspects of a marriage between Jesus and the soul in Vaenius's and Hugo's works less obvious. 28 Luyken opted for a different representation. 29 One 28. The discrepancy between, on the one hand, the textual descriptions of the marriage between Christ and the soul, and on the other, the childlike nature of the images Dambre attributed to the inability of the engraver Bolswert to work "in den geest vanhetboek" [according to the nature of the book|. Pra/. (1977, 167) erroneously writes that Luyken let "the infant Je/.us" act in Jczus en tie z/Vl. Buschhoff ( 175 and 178) declares that Vaenius purposefully portrayed a figure resembling the baby Jesus that would allow the reader to disregard "Amor Divinus" in the erotic sense. According to Buschhoff (163), Luyken adapted the

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could argue that he took a different approach by not choosing a charming angelic figure, but rather a man, Jesus, as the image of di­ vine love. This decision apparently required some explanation in the preface: In this rose garden, you generally see JESUS and the SOUL depicted in the illustrations; but while reading, the reader should (when it comes to the Eternal Deity) never imagine that we, with this illustration, mean anything else than a physical portrayal of Christ in his assumed form of a Ser­ vant, as he walked here on Earth, a man among men, a visi­ ble and tangible appearance for our outer Eyes and Hands to relate to [i. е., the human senses — therefore, the ability to see and touch Jesus does not necessarily affect one's inner person]. For his eternal Deity may not and cannot be de­ picted. 30 childlike "Amor Divinus" into the "Jesuskind" [Christ child] . Also Rodter ( 99) argued that with Hugo there are no signs of a mystical union — "einer mystischen Vereinigung . . . soweits nichts zu erkennen." Rodter (17) infers that all Jesuit emblem literature that is grafted onto Hugo's example likewise contains "Kind-Je/.us-DarstcIlungen" [representations of the infant Jesus]. Nevertheless, Rodter (135) believes that in Hugo's twenty-fifth emblem, in which the soul searches for her bridegroom in the vicinity of her bed, "diesmal eine frauliche anirnn -Figur" [this time a female anima -figure] could be seen as opposed to the young girl in the other picturae. But I do not share this view. Rodter ( 98) argues that the representation of "Amor Divinus" and the soul are "in der Tradition erotischer gedeuteter Figuren" [traditionally interpreted as erotic figures], yet she does not provide any arguments —presumably she characterizes the figures as human beings in general, without taking age and/or physical appearance into account. Incidentally, it seems that Cupid had already provided secular love emblematics with a light erotic connotation: "a certain fascination with erotic love was not far removed from this genre" (Porteman 1993-94, 216). 29. See, for example, in the 1628 edition: http://emblems.let.uu.nl/adl628040.html.

30. "In deezen Roozenhof ziet gy meest doorgaans JEZUS en de ZIEL, in prent uitgebeeld; maar den Beschouwer moet zich onder 't leezen (wanneer'er van de Eeuwige Godheid gesprooken word) nooit verbeelden dat wy met deze prentverbeelding iets anders meenen, als alleen de lichaamelyke beeldelycke Menschheid van Christus, in zyne aangenomen Knechtelyke gestalte, zo als hy hier op Aarden, by ons Menschen, heeft gewandeld, zichtelyk [=zichtbaar] en tastelyk [=tastbaar], voor de uitterlyke Oogen en Handen [=de menselijke zintuigen]. Want na zyn Eeuwige Godheid en mag noch kan hy niet uitgebeeld

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:ш

To counteract (In* impression that he was e n c o u r a g i n g physical wor­ ship of (he ( h u m a n ) figure of Jesus, Luyken gave explicit instructions in which he g u i d e d the reader to the correct i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of the ft id и rue in his e m b l e m s . At the same time, L u y k e n strove to represent the physical i m p r i n t s of the ( h u m a n ) figure of Jesus so as to visualize I he marriage b e t w e e n him a n d the soul in a m o r e t r a n s p a r e n t man­ ner. 11 The a n n o t a t i o n s in the preface to Jezus en de ziel are striking for an­ other reason as well. Being a Protestant, L u y k e n lived a n d w o r k e d in a tradition t h a t dictated reserve with r e g a r d to i m a g e r y in the percep­ tion of faith; yet he himself was not completely averse to it. Con­ sidering the fact that L u y k e n did not p r o v i d e an a p o l o g y for displayi ng images in his religious v o l u m e , one could a s s u m e that he — like so many of his fellow believers —took a d v a n t a g e of the tacit a g r e e m e n t in utilizing i m a g e s as an aid to the believer's m e m o r y — a so-called di­ dactic aid. P r o t e s t a n t e m b l e m a t i s t s s e e m e d to h a v e started with the notion that the i m a g e "serves as a necessary b u t i n a d e q u a t e sign of the invisible." I m a g e s could not reveal the c o m p l e t e d i v i n e truth be­ hind the visible, b u t still p r o v i d e d the believer — m o r e t h a n the w o r d s did — with an (imperfect) impression of the divine (Diehl, 60). Excep­ tionally here, L u y k e n asked the r e a d e r not to look any further than w h a t is visible on the p a g e . The Significance of N u m b e r s A second e x a m p l e of Luyken's a t t i t u d e t o w a r d s his exemplars Vaenius a n d H u g o in Jezus en de ziel is the choice he m a d e in con­ structing the v o l u m e a c c o r d i n g to a specific n u m e r i c pattern. Jezus en de ziel consists of forty e m b l e m s , including the frontispiece. Already from the first print, this n u m b e r —e. g., as a r e m i n d e r of the forty years the p e o p l e of Israel h a d spent in the desert, or of the forty days b e t w e e n Jesus's crucifixion a n d His ascension (Vekeman 1984, 231-32) —is indicated m o s t clearly on the title page. W h e r e a s H u g o , in his Via desideria, classified three g r o u p s of fifteen e m b l e m s each, Luyken o p t e d for three g r o u p s of thirteen e m b l e m s each, plus one. This occurrence of the n u m b e r "forty" could be coincidental. It could well have b e e n Luyken's publisher w h o a d d e d this n u m b e r on the tiworden." (ed. Amsterdam 1714, sig. A3v).

31. See Dekoninck for an overview of the Roman-Catholic views on this matter.

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tie pa^e. In any case, it is not easy to explain the three uni­ ties of thirteen emblems in Jezus en de ziel. What hidden meaning could the number "thirteen" have? M o r e con­ vincing, in l i g h t of the claim that LuyFig. 6. Н. H u g o , Pia ken composed desideria. Antwerp, 1624, Jezus en de ziel emblem 14. Fig. 5. J. Luyken, Jesus en de ziel. Amsterdam, 1685, emblem 3.

according to a specific nu­ meric pattern, is the fact that Luyken chose to picture Je­ sus on the title page and then did not have him ap­ pear again until the seventh emblem. Neither in Vaenius, nor in Hugo do we find such an emphasis on the number seven —a biblical symbol representing the union be­ tween God and the world, as well as the number of per­ fection (Genesis 7:2-4; Reve­ lation 1:20). Significant here is that Luyken's picturae of Fig. 7. J. Luyken, Jesus en de ziel. Amsterdam, the first six emblems are im­ 1685, emblem 5. possible, or near impossible, to trace back to examples from Vaenius and Hugo. In these six picturae,

I I S SI HONKS

ЗЗГ)

I uykiMi wi*nl to work himsoll and introduced a niiilc figure adorned by a pair of donkey's ears repre­ senting "old," sinful mankind, and the conspicuous absence of jesus. One of the first six picturae could possibly be traced to an ex­ ample from Hugo, but many key elements (the gate, the s w o r d - w i e l d i n g skeleton) are still missing so that in actuality one cannot speak of a derivation: One could even make a reason­ able case that Luyken took inspi­ ration from a source other than Vaenius or Hugo when he created the pictura for another of these first six emblems, emblem no. 5. The figure climbing the mountain b e a r s , for i n s t a n c e , r e s e m b l a n c e to t h e l o g o t y p e of t h e N o r t h e r n

Fl

g- 8. Anonymous, De listige vryster. Amsterdam, 1707, titlepage

D u t c h p o e t ' s s o c i e t y Nil Volentibus Arduum (NIL),32 which the society used from 1676 and with which Luyken was acquainted (Van 't Veld, 343). When in emblem 7 Jesus finally makes his reappearance, Luyken pre­ sumably based it on an example taken from Hugo's works. In the latter's forty-fourth emblem we can see a very similar image: Evidence for the assumption that this is no coincidence comes in the form of a 1714 reprint of Jezus en de ziel. Shortly before his death in 1712, Luyken produced a second series of illustrations that were to be published posthumously in 1714.33 To underline the connection of 32. Derived from a 1707 edition from the farce De listige vryster [The cunning spin­ ster]. See http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Ceneton/Facsimiles/NVAListige Vrysterl707/source/lvl70702.htm

33. The first series of illustrations for Jezus en de ziel belongs to I.uyken's early en­ gravings—he started engraving in 1677. Presumably, he wanted to provide the volume with new illustrations seeing as, the longer he worked as an etcher, his engraving skills increased. In the 1714 edition, no comments on this can be

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t lu1 л p p r a rance o! Jesus on the frontis­ piece and his reappearance in emblem 7, Luyken added seven angels to thepictura: The n u m ­ ber seven proves to be of great impor­ tance in other places in Jezus en de ziel as Fig. 10. H. H u g o , Pia desideria. Antwerp, 1624, well. Appar­ ently, in the emblem 44. prose part of Fig. 9. J. Luyken, Jesus en de ziel. "Van 't Ewige Vaderlandt; en desselfs Amsterdam, 1685, emblem 7. vreugde" [Of the Eternal Country; and equal bliss], the seven angels play a leading role as representatives of the seven planets and of the seven divine limbs and qualities ( // Quelgeesten ,/ —[Plagues], Bohme; see Van 't Veld, 154-56). Luyken's Development until 1714 In many respects, the second series of illustrations for the 1714 edi­ tion of Jezus en de ziel shows enlargements and accentuations of the quest for one's inner world and the world about us. In this second se­ ries, the theme of // looking ,/ received a prominent position through the fact that Jesus and the soul seem to observe each other more often, more intensely, and more meaningfully; additional details reveal more elements of the texts within the pictures, and additional viewing holes (looking out into the distance, the heavenly) invite the reader to further study. When we consider, for example, the changes the frontisfound, but it remains evident that the illustrations of the second series link up with the artistic development Luyken went through at that time —less empty space in the engravings, and a finer lineation.

E'-.l.S S1RONKS

Fig. 11. J. Luyken, Jezus en de ziel. Amsterdam, 1714, emblem 7.

337

Fig. 12. J. Luyken, Jesus en de ziel. Amsterdam, 1685, title page.

piece underwent during the "remake," the new approach should be evident. In 1714, Luyken distanced himself even more from his examples, Vaenius and Hugo: Jesus and the soul observe one another more often, Hugo's two conifers are replaced by a single palm tree, and seven angels are added because, in Luyken's vision, they play an important role in the conciliation between Jesus and the soul. 34 The same distance between the examples from Vaenius and Hugo on the one side, and Luyken on the other, can also be observed in the last picturae oi Jezus en deziel. Apparently, Luyken derived his idea of a wall having a symbolical relation with faith from Vaenius's "Amor 34. I discuss the second series of illustrations which contain Luyken's adaptations in great detail in "Alkijkend reistde ziel naar God. 'Nieuwe plaaten' voor Luykens eerste religieuze embleembundel," Nederlandse Letterkundc 10 (2005): 161-73. In that article, I placed Luyken's adaptation techniques within the semiotic framework sketched by Scholz (2003) in his interesting article in which he discussed the nineteenth-century adaptation of Cats's Silenus Alcibiadis.

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Fig. 13. J. Luyken, Jezus en de ziel. Amsterdam, 1714, title page.

emblemata, Antwerp, 1615, emblem36.

aedificat" in his Amoris divini emblemata.35 And from Hugo, Luyken derived the idea of a barrier between Jesus and the soul. As it turned out, in Luyken's work, the wall does not function as a symbol of faith, but rather as a representation of the barrier between Je­ sus and the soul —i. е., the human body. In the text accompanying this pictura, Luyken already wrote in 1678 about the damaged state in which the human body should find itself in order to seek rapprochement with Je­ sus. In the 1714 edition, the imperfect state of the human body and of the possibility to seek contact beyond the wall is represented more aptly than in the 1678 edition —in the 1714 Fig. 15. H. Hugo, Pia edition, the wall is in a very poor state, and a desideria. Antwerp, 1624, emblem 42.

35. This is a central theme, the so-called "Erbauungsliteratur." See Rodter, 16: "Das Ziel der aedificatio ist der devotio"

I I S STRONKS

Fig. 16. J. Luyken, Iesus en de ziel. Amsterdam, 1685, emblem 39.

339

Fig- 17. J. Luyken, Jezus en de ziel Amsterdam, 1714, emblem 39.

crevice at eye level invites the soul to connect with her Bridegroom. If we take stock of these aspects, then these examples alone already provide us with insight into Luyken's method of working that went into writing Jezus en de ziel. Firmly fixed in the tradition of love emblematics, Luyken already chose his own means when he turned in a new direction in 1678. It is precisely his new direction that we find represented stronger and more clearly in the 1714 edition. Possibly, this means that the revival of the Dutch love emblematics had, generally speaking, its own character at the end of the seventeenth century and is, therefore, deserving of further research into the field. Also the influence of heart emblematics on the Dutch love emblem should be investigated. What was the importance of authors such as Van Haeften and Poirters for Luyken's work? With regard to Luyken's work, another conclusion can be drawn. He was not only a follower of the tradition, but also a trendsetter. It appears he implemented the Southern Dutch, Roman Catholic religious love emblematics in the Protestant North. In addition, he seems to have become an example to a number of Northern Dutch

;ио

I МИ I I MAI К Л

emblematises, w h o a r o u n d 1 700 b r o n c h i a b o u t the* second successlul w a v e o f t h e D u t c h l o v e e m b l e m , H i e s (I l o o g s l r a l e n , l l u i ^ e n , S u d e r m a n , D e n Elger, H o ( h ) b u r g ) . *" l ; u r l h e r research s h o u l d ascer tain the t e n a b i l i t y of this assertion.

Works Cited Boot, Peter, and Els Stronks. "Digitale edities en letterenonderzoek: een verkenning."Neerlandstiek.nl 0208 (2002), see http://www .neerlandistiek.nl/02.08/. Buschhoff, Anne. Die Liebesemblematik des Otto van Veen. Die Amorum emblemata (1608) und die Amoris divini emblemata (1615). Bre­ men, 2004. Daly, Peter M. "The Printing History of Philip Ay res's Engraved Books of Love Emblems, and the Connection With the Low Countries." In De steen van Alciato. Liter atuur en visuele cultuur in de Nederlandcn. The Stone of Alciato. Literature and Visual Culture in the Low Countries. Ed. M. van Vaeck, H. Brems, G. H.M. Claassens. Leuven, 2003, 1045-62. Dambre, Oscar. De dichter Justus de Harduijn (1582-1641). Een biographische en letterkundige studie. The Hague, 1926. Dekoninck, Ralph, Ad Imaginem. Statuts, fonctions et usages de I'image dans la litterarure spirituelle jesuite du XVIIe siecle. Geneva, 2005. Diehl, H. "Graven Images: Protestant Emblem Books in England." Re­ naissance Quarterly 39 (1986): 49-66. Gelderblom, Arie J. "Jonge zieltjes vlucht tot trouwen! Een nieuwe interpretatie van Jan Luykens Duytse Lier." In A. J. Gelderblom, Mannen en maagden in Hollands tuin. Interpretatieve studies van Nederlandse letterkunde 1575-1781. Utrecht, 1991. See also: http://www.dbnl.nl/tekst/geld008jong01/geld008jong01_001.htm . "Binnen en buiten. Symboliek in de emblemen van Jan Luyken." Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde te Leiden 1998-1999. Leiden, 2000: 18-35.

36. Hoogstraten's volume can be characterized as an adaptation of L. van Leuven's Amoris divini et humani antipathia from 1629 (among others, see Raasveld, 63); Huigen's Beginselen van Gods Koninkrijk from 1689 was illustrated by Luyken; Suderman's De godlievende ziel from 1724 is an adaptation of Vaenius's Amoris divini emblemata and of Hugo's Pia desideria.

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341

"Li'iT/iiiim luiisnuul, vol van vuur." In De steeu van Alcialo. Lileraluur en visuele cultuur in de Nederlanden. The Stone of Alcialo. Lilcralurc mid Visual Culture in the Low Countries. Ed. M. van Vaeck, I I. Brems, and G. H. M. Claassens. Leuven, 2003. P p . 901-22. ( i u i d e r d o n i - B r u s l e , A g n e s . "La P o l y s e m i e d e s f i g u r e s d a n s I ' e m b l e m a t i q u e sacree." In Emblems and Art History: Nine Essays Edited by A. Adams. G l a s g o w , 1996. P p . 97-114. Kirschbaum, E. Lexikon der Christlichen Ikonographie. R o m e / F r e i b u r g , 1968-1976. Landwehr, John. Emblem and Fable Books Printed in the Low Countries 1542-1813: A Bibliography. Utrecht, 1988. Lewalski, Barbara K. Protestant Poetics and the Seventeenth-Century Religious Lyric. Princeton, 1979. Luyken, Jan. Duytse Her. Ed. A. J. Gelderblom, A. N. P a a s m a n , and J.W. Steenbeek. DBNL, 2002. See: h t t p : / / w w w . d b n l . o r g / t i t e l s / t i t e l .php?id=luyk001duyt01. M a n n i n g , John, K. P o r t e m a n , and Marc van Vaeck, e d s . The Emblem Tradition and the Low Countries: Selected Papers of the Leuven International Emblem Conference 18-23 August, 1996. I m a g o Figurata, Studies, vol. IB. T u r n h o u t : Brepols, 1999. M a n n i n g , John, a n d M a r c van Vaeck, eds. The Jesuits and the Emblem Tradition. I m a g o Figurata, Studies, vol. 1A. T u r n h o u t : Brepols, 1999. M e e u w e s s e , K a r e l . Jan Luyken als dichter van de Duytse Her. G r o n i n g e n , 1977. Praz, Mario. Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery. Rome, 1975. P o r t e m a n , Karel. Inleiding tot de Nederlandse emblemataiiteratuur. G r o n i n g e n , 1977. P o r t e m a n , K a r e l . " D e n a t i o n a l e b e n a d e r i n g van het e m b l e m a . R o e m e r V i s s c h e r e n J a n L u y k e n . " In Niederlandistiek und Germanistiek. Tangenten und Schnittpunkte. F r a n k f u r t , 1992. Pp.179-96. . " E m b e l l i s h e d w i t h Emblems. A b o u t the Incorporation of E m b l e m s in O t h e r Genres in Dutch Literature." In The Emblem in Renaissance and Baroque Europe. Leiden, 1992. P p . 70-88. . "From First Sight to Insight." In The Low Countries. Arts and Society in Flanders and the Netherlands. A Yearbook. 1993-1994. Pp. 212-22. Raasveld, Paul. Pictura, poesis, musica: Een onderzoek naar de rol van de muziek in de embleemliteratuur. D o r d r e c h t , 1995.

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Rodlvr, Gabriel le I). Via pine auimac. CitnnHngcnuiilcr^in'liimg v.m emblcmatischen Vcrkni'ipfung von Bild und Wort in den "Pin desidcrin" (1624) des Herman Hugo S./. (1588-1629). Frankfurt a/Main, IW2. Scholz, B e r n h a r d F. "Jacob Cats's Silenus Alcibiadis in 1618/1627 and in 1862: O b s e r v a t i o n s on a M i d - N i n e t e e n t h - C e n t u r y A t t e m p t at Mod­ e r n i z i n g an E a r l y - M o d e r n Book of E m b l e m s . " Emblemalica 13 (2003): 267-302. Thofner, M. ' " L e t y o u r desire be to see G o d ' : Teresian Mysticism and Otto van Veen's Amoris Divini Emblemata." Emblematica 12 (2002): 83-103. Veld, H e n k van 't. Beminde broeder die ik vand op 's werelts pelgrirns wegen. Jan Luyken (1649-1712) als illustrator en medereiziger van John Bunyan (1628-1688). Utrecht, 2000. Vekeman, H. "Jezus en de ziel. De e m b l e m a t a b u n d e l als levenskunst." In Eer is het lofdesdeuchts. Opstellen aangeboden aan dr. Fokke Veenstra. A m s t e r d a m , 1986. Pp. 169-77. "Jezus en de Ziel. De z i n n e b e e l d e n I en V " De nieuwe taalgids 74 (1981): 54-70. . "De d u i s t e r n i s van L u y k e n en het licht van B o h m e . " In Icga daer ic hebbe te doene. Opstellen aangeboden aan prof. dr. F. Lulofs. G r o n i n g e n , 1984, Pp. 223-32. . "Taufe in Feuer u n d Wasser. Jan Luyken u n d Jacob Bohme." In Wort und Bild in der niederldndsichen Kunst und Eiteratur des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Ed. H. Vekeman et al. Erftstadt, 1984. P p . 162-72. Young, Alan. " P r o t e s t a n t M e d i t a t i o n and Two 1647 English Transla­ tions of Jeremias Drexel's Zodiacus christianus." In Emblematik und Kunst der Jesuiten in Bayern: Einfluss und Wirkung. Ed. Peter M. Daly, G. Richard D i m l e r & Rita H a u b . T u r n h o u t , 2000. P p . 251-68. Wall, E r n e s t i n e v a n d e r . De mystieke chiliast Petrus Serrarius (1600-1669) en zijn wereld. D o r d r e c h t , 1987. Westerweel, Bart. " O n the E u r o p e a n D i m e n s i o n of Dutch Emblem P r o d u c t i o n . " In Emblems of the Eow Countries. A Book Historical Per­ spective. Glasgow, 2003. Pp. 1-15. . "Philip Ay res a n d the Love Emblem Tradition." In Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Field of the Emblem. L e i d e n / N e w York/Keulen, 1997. Pp. 189-212.

DOCUMENTATION

Habsburg Imprese in Tele LUBOMIR KONECNY Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic

Of the monuments of Renaissance art in the Czech lands, the Tele chateau is among those that have always merited considerable attention not only from tourists, but also historians of art. 1 Above all it has been noted for its architecture, as well as numerous decorative elements on the exterior and interior, such as the coffered ceiling of the Golden Hall and the stuccoes of the chateau's chapel. In contrast, the paintings in the first five vaults of the arcade that separates the chateau garden from the city have not received much attention in scholarly literature. The unknown and probably unidentifiable painter from the period of the second building stage of the chateau complex (1566-1580) created there symbolic images without human figures. It is evident that they are so-called imprese (Caldwell) in accord with one of the five rules established by Paolo Giovio in 1555 —that there be no human figure represented. 2 The vogue for imprese in the second half of the sixteenth century spread from Italy to the rest of the European lands and was not contained by the natural boundary of the Alps. Our understanding of this material is affected by the absence of printed books that would document the spread of imprese among local aristocrats, as had been done by Giovio for the Italian scene. Therefore, of great importance in this regard is the large collection of engravings, Imagines gen lis Ausfriacae,

1. The bibliography on Chateau Tele is rather rich. See Kratinova and Samek, 177-80; and more recently Kfi/ova and Kulich. Also Muchka, p. 132, no. 3.064. 2.

Giovio, pp. 37-38: "Quarta [condizione], non ricerca alcuna forma umana."

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the a u t h o r of which is r r a n c e s c o Terzio, w h o was con г I painler lor a r c h d u k e F e r d i n a n d П of Tyrol in the years 1553-1572 (llg, Tistoi, Kropacek, C a r m i n a t i ) . This collection in five parts contains 74 figures of H a b s b u r g princes, their wives, close relatives and fabled ancestors placed w i t h i n e l a b o r a t e architectonic frames and accompanied by p e r s o n i f i c a t i o n s , a l l e g o r i c a l s c h e m e s , c e l e b r a t o r y c a p t i o n s , and also — Eccolafarinal — their imprese. Elisabeth Scheicher, w h o has stud­ ied this a l b u m t h o r o u g h l y , reached the conclusion that Tersio did not start work on it earlier t h a n the second half of the sixteenth century and g r a d u a l l y e n l a r g e d it. The first edition of Terzio's Imagines was published in 1558; the second edition carries on the title page the year 1569, and the final v i g n e t t e is d a t e d 1573. We will see that these dates are not i n c o n s e q u e n t i a l for the d a t i n g of the p a i n t i n g s in Tele. First we will verify t h a t the m o d e l s u s e d w e r e Terzio's e n g r a v i n g s . (1) Maximilian II (figs. 1 & 2). As on all the other sheets, the impresa is located centrally in the lunette above the cornice above the head of the ruler. In this case it is a globe, u p o n which an eagle alights, with the motto " D O M I N V S PROVIDEVIT" (cf. Gen. 22: 8: " P r o v i d e b i t " ) . 3 (2) F e r d i n a n d I (figs. 3 & 4). According to Terzio, F e r d i n a n d ' s impresa w a s a globe w i t h two b a n n e r s and a t w o - h e a d e d eagle, accom­ panied by the text "CHRISTO DVCE ET AVSPICE." (3) Charles V (figs. 5 & 6). U n d o u b t e d l y one of the m o s t widely k n o w n imprese of the H a b s b u r g rulers of the sixteenth century, which is the two c o l u m n s of H e r c u l e s t o p p e d by Imperial c r o w n s (in lieu of capitals) joined by a ribbon w i t h the inscription "PLUS ULTRA." 4 (4) Maximilian I (figs. 7 & 8). One of Maximilian's imprese w a s a wheel pierced t h r o u g h w i t h s w o r d s , above w h i c h there is an imperial apple, and b e l o w a p o m e g r a n a t e . This image is a c c o m p a n i e d by a m o t t o taken from Virgil (Aeneid, 1, 204): "PER TOT DISCRIMINA" (Lhotsky, 77, n o t e 10). (5)Friedrich III [(figs. 9 & 10). The father of Maximilian is p r o v i d e d by Terzio with an impresa s h o w i n g a h a n d h o l d i n g a s w o r d on an open book and the m o t t o " H I C REGIT ILLE TVETVR."

3.

As pointed out by Scheicher, 54, note 66, a very similar pictura with the motto "DOMINVS PROVIDEBIT" can be seen in Camerarius, no. 2 (Henkel and Schone, col. 760).

4. The sources and meaning of this impresa were thoroughly analyzed in a series of articles by Earl S. Rosenthal.

I i m O M l K KONI «''NY

;и/

1

Wilhoul «my doubl, these live paintings were created after Ter/.io's Imagines ^ciilium Austrincne in that they represent personal imprest' of the (then) last five Habsburg rulers, from Friedrich III to Maximilian II. Since the series finishes with the latter, who ruled 1564-76, this means that the paintings originated some time during the second stage of building of the chateau Tele under Zacharias of Hradec (1556-1580). It is likely, but not quite certain, that the painter used as a model the second edition of Terzio's collection, the first pages of which were published in 1569,5 from which five pages have been re­ produced here. It is therefore necessary to interpret these rather in­ conspicuous and undistinguished paintings as an expression of Zacharias's loyalty and respect for Emperor Maximilian II and his Habsburg ancestors. This research note could not have been written without the efficient help of Marie Mzykova. As on several previous occasions, in critical moments I have benefitted from the technical assistance extended to me by my colleague and friend Ivo Purs, to whom I owe my heartfelt thanks. Works Cited Caldwell, Dorigen. "Studies in Sixteenth-Century Italian Imprese." Emblematica 11 (2001): 1-257. Camerarius, Joachim. Symboloriim et emblematum ex volatilibus et insectis desumtorum centuria tertia. Nuremberg, 1596. Carminati, Marco. "Terzio, Francesco/' In Dictionary of Art. Ed. Jane Turner. London, 1996. Vol. 30: 519. Giovio, Paolo. Dialogo dell'imprese militari e amorosi. Ed. Maria Luisa Doglio. Rome, 1978. Henkel, Arthur, and Albrecht Schone, Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. und XVII. jahrhunderls. Stuttgart and Weimar, 1996.

5.

Mostof the extant copies of Terzio's J/7Mg//7i\s' arc dated to 156е). Moreover, as one is able to discern in no. 3 of the 1558 edition as reproduced by Scheicher, 56, fig. 33, Ferdinand's impresais lacking there the two flags flanking an eagle seated on the globe, which can seen both in Tele and the 1569 edition.

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Ilg, Albert. "Francesco Terzio, dor Hofmaler HrzhcMv.og Ferdinands von Tirol." Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhochsten Kaiserhauses 9 (1889): 234-373. Kratinova, Vlasta, Bohumil Samek and Milos Stehlik. Tele, historickc mesto jizni Moravy. Prague, 1992. Kropacek, Jifi. "Francesco Terzio: Notes on his Style and Iconogra­ phy." In RudolfII, Prague and the World: Papers from the International Conference, Prague, 2Л September 1997. Ed. Lubomir Konecny with Beket Bukovinska and Ivan Muchka. Prague, 1998. Pp. 278-80. . "Francesco Terzio, pittore di Bergamo a Praga." In Italia e Boemia nella cornice del Rinascimento europeo. Ed. Sante Graciotti. Florence, 1999. Pp. 347-52. . "Malif Francesco Terzio: Okolnosti jeho pf ichodu do Prahy." In Ars baculum vitae: Sborni к studii z dejin umeni a kultury к 70. narozenindm Prof. PhDr. Pavla Preisse DrSc. Ed. Vit Vlnas and Tomas Sekyrka. Prague, 1996. Pp. 92-98. Kfizova, Kveta and Jan Kulich. Tele zdmek a mesto, no place, 1998. Lhotsky, Alfons. Festschrift des Kunsthistorischen Museums zur Feier des funfzigjahrigen Bestandes. Vol. II/l: Geschichte des Sammlungen. Vi­ enna, 1941-45. Muchka, Ivan Prokop. Renesancni architektura, Prague, 2001. Pistoi, Mila. "Francesco Terzi." InlPittori Bergameschi dal XIIIal XVIII secolo, vol. II: II cinquecento. Bergamo, 1976. Pp. 591-637. Rosenthal, Earl S. "The Invention of the Columnar Device of Emperor Charles V at the Court of Burgundy in Flanders in 1516." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 36 (1973): 198-230. . The Palace of Charles V in Granada. Princeton, 1985. Pp. 245-64. . "Plus Oultre: The Columnar Device on the Alhambra." In Hortus Imaginum: Essays in Western Art. Ed. Robert Engass and Marilyn Stokstad. Lawrence, KS, 1974. Pp. 85-93. . "Plus ultra, Non plus ultra and the Columnar Device of Em­ peror Charles V." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 24 (1971): 204-28. Scheicher, Elisabeth. "Die Imagines gentis Austriacae des Francesco Terzio." Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien 79 (1983): 43-92.

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Fig. 1. Painted impresa of Maximilian II in chateau Tele (Czech Republic).

Fig. 2. Impresa of Maximilian II in Francesco Terzio, Imagines gentium Ausfriacae, 1569.

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Fig. 3. Painted impresa of Ferdinand I in chateau Tele.

Fig. 4. Impresa of Ferdinand I in Francesco Terzio, Imagines gentium Austriacae, 1569.

LUBOMlR KONECNY

351

Fie. 5. Painted impresa of Charles V in chateau Tele.

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Fig. 6. Impresa of Charles V in Francesco Terzio, Imagines gentium A ustriacae, 1569.

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EMBLEMATICA

Fig. 7. Painted impresa of Maximilian in chateau Tele.

Fig. 8. Impresa of Maximilian I in Francesco Terzio, Imagines gentium Austriacae, 1569.

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Fig. 9. Painted impresa of Friedrich III in chateau Tele.

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Fig. 10. Impresa of Friedrich III in Francesco Terzio, Imagines gentium Auslrincne, 1569.

Reviews ALISON SAUNDERS and PETER DAVIDSON, eds., Visual Words and Verbid Pictures. Essays in Honour of Michael Bath. Glasgow Emblem Sludies, Special Number. Glasgow: Glasgow Emblem Studies, 2005. Pp.223. ISBN 0 85261 814 X. The recipient of this Festschrift, Michael Bath, a key figure in the most recent renewal of interest in emblematics in the late 1970s, needs no introduction to readers of this periodical. In his opening essay, Peter Davidson follows Michael from birth in Hertfordshire in 1942 to studies in Keble College and Keele University, principally on nineteenth- and twentieth-century English literature, which led to his appointment at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow at the end of the 1960s. His doctoral research dealt with the symbolism of the stag; The Image of the Stag: Iconographic Themes in Western Art was published from it in 1992. It was this enquiry into the significance of the animal in texts and images that first sparked an interest in imprese and emblems, a fortunate development as the University of Glasgow houses the extraordinary collection of manuscripts and emblem books bequeathed by Sir John, the son of the great Scottish antiquarian and collector Sir William Stirling Maxwell. With Speaking Pictures: English Emblem Books and Renaissance Culture (1994), Michael went on to consider the English emblem book and its content within a wide framework, both in terms of visual and cultural scope. As a tribute to his adoptive country he embarked on a project of decoding the emblematic iconography of Scotland, which culminated in his Renaissance Decorative Painting in Scotland of 2003, a remarkable survey that ranges from wall paintings and ceiling decorations to gravestones and over-door inscriptions. Altogether, his publications provide a systematic and often fundamental coverage centered on English and Scottish symbolism, and above all on emblems. His current research project, provisionally titled Emblems for a Queen: The Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots aims to place the famous embroideries associated with Mary within the symbolic language of their time. The essays in his honor are written by friends and colleagues. Alison Adams provided "New Light on the 1691 Edition of Claude Francois Menestrier's Histoire du Roy Louis Le Grand/' comparing it 357

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with the ciliiio princcps of l(>tt()and s h o w i n g thai it w.is a pirated publi cation, as M c n e s t r i e r himself claimed in 1693, manifesting a critical at titude to Louis XIV, a P r o t e s t a n t bias and a specific interest in the I ,ow Countries. T h i s is reinforced by the presence of the five extra plates il­ lustrating h o w the aim of the 1691 edition w a s to glorify William III of O r a n g e . The p i r a t e d v o l u m e is provisionally a t t r i b u t e d to Nicolas Chevalier, a F r e n c h Calvinist living in exile in the N e t h e r l a n d s . In the next article, Dieter Bitterli deals with the "Imago Sancti Judoci: An Un­ k n o w n Cycle of A p p l i e d E m b l e m s in Central S w i t z e r l a n d / ' The ceil­ ing of H e r g i s w a l d (1654), with its three h u n d r e d a n d t w e n t y e m b l e m s conceived by t h e C a p u c h i n friar L u d w i g von Wyl and painted by Kaspar M e g l i n g e r is well k n o w n t o d a y , b u t the e m b l e m a t i c w i n d o w s of the C h u r c h of St. J o d o c u s at Blatten, d a t e d 1656 or 1657 and only a few miles from H e r g i s w a l d , h a v e r e m a i n e d u n s t u d i e d . Nineteen out of t h e t w e n t y picturae of t h e c a r e f u l l y d e s c r i b e d e m b l e m a t i c stained-glass w i n d o w s are s h o w n to be based on the Imago primi sacculi Societatis Jesu p u b l i s h e d by Balthasar M o r e t u s at A n t w e r p in 1640. The h a l o e d figure of St. Jodocus (or Josse) is s o m e t i m e s a d d e d , to conform to the n e w context. The Jesuit connection stems from the fact that J o s e p h A m r h y n , w h o almost certainly c o m m i s s i o n e d the w i n d o w s , w a s e d u c a t e d at the Jesuit College of St. Francis Xavier in Lucerne —in a d d i t i o n to erecting the n e w chaplaincy b e t w e e n 1654 and 1657, he w r o t e a booklet on the history of the c h u r c h , including an account of t h e life of the saint. The next contribution, by Peter Daly, deals with " T h e Political Injtertextuality of W h i t n e y ' s C o n c l u d i n g Emblem," the u b i q u i t o u s Temp us omnia terminat s h o w i n g a setting sun and h o w even old oak trees d o not last forever (1586); he links the mes­ sage to Q u e e n Elizabeth and the Earl of Leicester, in a rich analysis of symbolic a l l u s i o n s . Peter D a v i d s o n contributes one of the most a p p o ­ site p a p e r s of this nicely focused v o l u m e , on " M u t e E m b l e m s and a Lost Room: G a r d y n e ' s H o u s e , D u n d e e , " for he takes u p a challenge set by Michael Bath to m a k e sense of the texts of s o m e inscribed b e a m s from a d e s t r o y e d Scottish b u i l d i n g ; these were b a s e d on the 1635 Emblemes of Francis Q u a r l e s a n d r e p r o d u c e d in the Dundee Advertiser of 21 s t F e b r u a r y 1887. D a v i d s o n sets o u t to r e c o n s t r u c t the original context a n d the t h o u g h t process of the p a t r o n , either A l e x a n d e r Kid or m o r e probably Patrick Bower, w h o w a s probably a Catholic. The con­ clusion is t h a t the inscriptions express a sense of loss after the second exile of C h a r l e s II, the C r o m w e l l i a n siege a n d the fall of D u n d e e . "Pic­ tures Speaking, Pictures Spoken to: G u i l l a u m e de La Perriere and Emblematic ' I l l u s t r a t i o n ' " from David G r a h a m looks at the French

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c m b l e m a l i s l ' s t e r m i n o l o g y , i n c l u d i n g the u s e of t h e w o r d s "illuslralilz" and "illustrez," reflecting the d e b a t e on w h e t h e r the lexis illustrate the w o o d c u t s or vice versa. Earlier e x a m p l e s of lext/image r e l a t i o n s h i p are taken into consideration, including two interesting p a s s a g e s from the Bestiaire d'amours moralise (Paris, ca. 1527) and illustrated A e s o p editions. The a u t h o r c o n c l u d e s that in an emblem "the text is as necessary to the image as the image is to the text." In the e n d , "for t r u e e m b l e m a t i c r e a d i n g to occur, each m u s t both speak a n d be s p o k e n to." L a u r e n c e Grove looks at " E m b l e m s with Speech B u b b l e s " ; he d i s m i s s e s Francois Du M o u l i n ' s " p r e - e m b l e m a t i c m a n u s c r i p t " in G l a s g o w (SMM6) for h a v i n g no such bubbles, a l t h o u g h it d o e s i n d e e d h a v e a few (see m y article, "A N e w Work by Francois Du Moulin a n d the Problem of Pre-Emblematic T r a d i t i o n s , " r e p u b l i s h e d in my Studies in Imagery, Vol. I: Texts and Images, L o n d o n 2004, p . 215, fig. 2), before focusing on H e n r y Baude's Dictz moraulx pour/aire tapisserie, w h i c h has some striking examples. O t h e r s are G e o r g e t t e de M o n t e n a y ' s Emblemes, ou devises chrestiennes (Lyons, 1571), a p p a r e n t l y the first p r i n t e d e m b l e m book e m p l o y i n g the device, a n d an interesting a n t h o l o g y of e m b l e m s by Jean Baudoin, H e n r y H a w k i n s , a n d A n t o i n e Sucquet all using bandeaux with w o r d s ; the tradition of course stretches back to m e d i e v a l m a n u s c r i p t s and paintings. Judi Loach a d d r e s s e s "Walls That Speak T h r o u g h W o r d s and Images: The Boston Public Library," a b u i l d i n g in its time called one of the m o s t beautiful in the w o r l d , a t e m p l e to e d u c a t i o n and learning. The m o t t o "Free to all" above the central d o o r and other al­ lusions stressed that the e d u c a t i o n of the p e o p l e is the safeguard of o r d e r and liberty. I n s i d e are p a i n t i n g s , by P u v i s de C h a v a n n e s a m o n g others, d e p i c t i n g personifications of the arts and sciences, the main c o m p o s i t i o n s h o w i n g "Les M u s e s inspiratrices acclament le genie, m e s s a g e r de la l u m i e r e , " illustrating the overall scheme of in­ tellectual e n l i g h t e n m e n t . For Loach the b u i l d i n g is "an emblem of the democratic institution that it s i m u l t a n e o u s l y a c c o m m o d a t e d physi­ c a l l y a n d r e p r e s e n t e d s y m b o l i c a l l y . " "La p a i x d o u z e fois representee. Les puncten poetiques au landjuwccl anversois (1561)" is K a r e l P o r t e m a n ' s contribution, s t u d y i n g the rhetorical contest which started in A n t w e r p on S u n d a y 3 A u g u s t 1561 and lasted for weeks. The rederijkers u s e d such occasions to display their talents in honor of their city. The rich p a g e a n t r y included a p a r a d e of decorated chari­ ots. The w i n n e r s , the Marien Cransken g r o u p from Brussels, p r o d u c e d m o r e than t h r e e h u n d r e d lavishly d r e s s e d h o r s e m e n and seven chari­ ots. In that year the t h e m e of the p a r a d e w a s peace a n d the prologen

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— little plays of less than two hundred verse.,uul played hy no more than three actors —were centered on the usefulness o! honest busi­ nessmen to society. The major theme of the morality plays the sjiclcn van sinne — was what drives men to the arts. The competilion had strict rules and puncten, which seem to have been either tableaux vivanls or three-dimensional artistic inventions (the woodcuts in Willem Silvius's 1562 Spelen van sinne vol scoone moralisacien lutleggingen endc bediedenissen do not help with the question). Porteman sheds light on the whole literary contest and its rich symbolism partly explained by the stanzas attached to each of the punkten. "Wives and Widows: The Emblematics of Marriage and Mourning in France at the End of the Re­ naissance (1560-1630) " is the subject of Daniel Russell's essay which looks particularly at wedding festivities and funeral decor —starting with the device taken by Catherine de Medici after the accidental death of Henry II, "Ardorem extincta lacrimae testantur vivere flamma" [After the flame has died out, the tears testify to the ardor that lives on], a device found in a number of contexts. Russell also in­ troduces medals and their symbolism, same of it, of course, related to emblems. Emblematic allusions are found in the use of acrostics, ana­ grams, as well as on broadsheets and even in Rubens's Medici cycle in the Louvre. The result covers a rich range of topics and interpreta­ tions. Some basic rules for the characterization of emblematic implica­ tions in prints and paintings are also provided —Sir Ernst Gombrich' s introduction to Symbolic Images (1972) might also be recalled in this context, with his primacy for genre and the avoidance of what he called the dictionary fallacy. The next article of the Festschrift, by Jane Stevenson, deals with "The Emblem Book of Margareta Van Godewijck (1627-1677)." The autograph manuscript contains 28 em­ blems copying the mottoes, engravings and Latin distichs from em­ blems in Gabriel Rollenhagen's Nucleus emblematum (1611-13), plus her own Dutch verses. Margareta 7 s choice of emblems reflects moral and didactic themes with, often, a clear Calvinist message, on peni­ tence or trust in God. The article not only introduces the author and her contribution (in MS. 1024 in the Gemeente Archief, Dordrecht) but ends with a transcription of the work. The last essay, by Marc van Vaeck, deals with the work of another, more famous Dutch female writer, "Moral Emblems Adorned with Rhymes: Anna Roemers Visscher's Adaptation (1620) of Roemer Visscher's Sinnepoppen (1614)." It appears that Willem Jansz. Blaeu aimed to republish the 1614 copperplates of the Sinnepoppen so he had the work updated, and Anna did what Margareta Van Godewijck had done a few years be-

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lore, .Hiding a I Hitch d istich u n d e r each picture so as to accentuale the4 didactic and Christian implication for a wider, less cultivated public. Also a d d e d then w e r e Minnepoppen based on Roemer Visscher's love e m b l e m s . In his s t u d y M a r k Van Vaeck discusses in great detail the structure of the book in relation to its p r o t o t y p e a n d h o w the n e w em­ blems a d d e d by A n n a often reflect Neo-Stoic a n d Christian values. Altogether the c o n t r i b u t i o n s of the Festschrift form a w o r t h y acco­ lade to a fine scholar w h o h a s m a d e an i m p o r t a n t contribution to em­ blem s t u d i e s . JEAN MICHEL MASSING King's College, Cambridge

ANDREA ALCIATI, A Book of Emblems: The "Emblematum Liber" in Latin and English. Translated a n d edited by John F. Moffitt. Jefferson, N o r t h Carolina, a n d L o n d o n : McFarland a n d C o m p a n y Inc., 2004. The preface tells us t h a t the p u r p o s e of this w o r k is to m a k e avail­ able to all E n g l i s h - s p e a k i n g p e r s o n s interested in the arts an accessi­ ble translation of the Emblematum liber, rightly a c c o u n t e d a necessary tool for the u n d e r s t a n d i n g of h u m a n i s t culture. The complete c o r p u s of Alciato's 212 e m b l e m s is p r e s e n t e d with Latin text, translations, a n d i l l u s t r a t i o n s . T h e l a t t e r are t a k e n from B e r n a r d i n o D a z a Pinciano's edition, p r o d u c e d by Rouille a n d B o n h o m m e in 1549, but no source is given for the Latin text. The s e q u e n c e followed is gener­ ally that of 1621, a n d includes the two e m b l e m s not found in the Daza edition: Doctorum agnomina, which did not a p p e a r until 1550, is at no. 96; it is no. 97 in 2622, b u t from no. 80 on the n u m b e r i n g does not cor­ r e s p o n d to 1622 b e c a u s e Adversus naturam peccantes is placed in an ap­ pendix w h e r e it is a c c o m p a n i e d by the c o m m e n t a r y of Thuilius. The a u t h o r describes his p r o c e d u r e for interpreting art w o r k s in which he has found the e m b l e m s useful and his a p p r o a c h to translation. The in­ troduction deals w i t h the persistence of medieval allegory into the Renaissance, the links with c o n t e m p o r a r y heraldry, devices and h i e r o g l y p h s , the characteristic forms and application of the emblem, and the " m e n t a l i t e " w h i c h lay behind the prevalence 1 of this tradition, concluding w i t h brief biographical and bibliographical information, reference to the exegetical tradition of the c o m m e n t a r i e s , the impor­ tance of the Anthology and the Adagia of E r a s m u s as coexisting

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sources, and of Brant's Niirrenscliifffov Ihr physic.il lorm.il. There is a useful select bibliography and an index. While this may be a broadly ranging introduction to the emblem, il proves in some respects to be superficial and misleading. In the case о I the relationship with heraldry, devices, and imprese, for example, the introduction of Giovio gives the impression that the distinction had already been made by the 1520s. In fact, the first five decades of the sixteenth century are a period in which various sorts of symbols are often undifferentiated in practice and in theory; words like insignia and emblema in Latin, "devises" in French and "simbola" in Italian are used to refer to various sorts of symbols. There is no discussion of the fact that the meaning of the term (incorrectly represented in Greek on p. 7) shifts in the early period and among various later authors from the verse (Covarrubias) to the picture (Mignault). In the case of hieroglyphs, one needs to make a distinction, before talking of Alciato's reference to them, between those who understood them as "real" or platonic signs, and those who treated them more as conven­ tional metaphors. (Alciato, incidentally, was probably not a student of Fasanini [6], who was teaching rhetoric and poetry at Bologna while Alciato was studying for his doctorate in law, and it was pope Paul III, not II [11], who appointed him apostolic notary.) The account of the evolution of the work from the arbitrary order of the first editions (2532, 1534, 1546) to the common-place note-book order introduced by Aneau, is also misleading, with references to the former as "a rather disorganized jumble" and to the latter as "definitive" and "ca­ nonical" (14). Elsewhere there are references to what is presumably one of Aneau's editions as the "first" (1) and to the present work as presenting "the essential organic order of the original" (3). The editor's description of Alciato's compositional technique as re­ sembling the shaking of poker chips in a sack (3) is hardly fair and, as an explanation of the difficulties of translation, tends to shake one's confidence. The word order of the Latin verse may seem arbitrary to one seeking the conventional and apparently logical order of prose in an analytical language like English, but it is determined by Alciato's expert knowledge of the exigencies of Latin versification, a consider­ able sensitivity to emphasis and phrasing and a remarkable concise­ ness of expression, much admired by his contemporaries. Regarding the text, the most troubling problem is the absence of any indication of the source of the Latin; several variants are puzzling and some errors could have been corrected against a consistently used critical text. In some cases the translator does seem to have referred to

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I lit* \b2\ edition (or lo the Imlcx l.mblcmnlicus), ato t h e r times one of Ihe Kouille and H o n h o m m e editions seems to be used. To assess the texts and translations, the first twenty e m b l e m s h a v e been taken as a sample. The following are the resulting c o m m e n t s : I The title d o e s not c o r r e s p o n d exactly to any edition available to me. The t r a n s l a t i o n is generally a d e q u a t e , b u t u n n e c e s s a r i l y loose. 1. 5: sat am s h o u l d be satum. I. 7: Ore exit. . . " T h e infant exits t h r o u g h the m o u t h . . ." s h o u l d read "He has been b o r n t h r o u g h the m o u t h . . ." — the first case of several mistaken r e n d e r i n g s of verb tenses (for exit as perfect tense, see Lewis and Short). II 1. 7: the v a r i a n t lam niger is, as far as I know, u n a t t e s t e d , b u t is followed in the t r a n s l a t i o n ("black"). All e d i t i o n s available to me have Laniger, "fleecy." 1. 3: The translation of Quam Mediolanum sacram dixere puellae is incor­ rect. W h o are "the m a i d e n s " in "The m a i d e n s called this sacred land M e d i o l a n u m " ? Puellae is not n o m i n a t i v e plural, subject of dixere, but dative singular w i t h sacram. It s h o u l d be "This region, Milan, they said was consecrated to a m a i d e n [Minerva]." III 1. 2: the transliteration of the Greek is incorrect. 1. 3: sit for sic; 1. 5: differe for differre; 1. 6:fiet for siet are p e r h a p s all ty­ pos; the translation is correct. IV This e m b l e m is n o t e d as "A d i a l o g u e " t h o u g h it is not catego­ rized as such in any edition I have seen. The translation is unsatisfactory; the use of the verb " t a k e " three times in the English is extremely weak. The title (In Deo laetandum), with the g e r u n d , is e q u i v a l e n t to an i m p e r a t i v e a n d s h o u l d therefore be "We s h o u l d rejoice in God," not "About taking joy in God." 1. 2: "son of I l l i u m " [sic] w o u l d be better as "Trojan boy." ibid.: summa per astra s h o u l d be " u p t h r o u g h the highest h e a v e n " [in the classical c o s m o l o g y ] , not "to the d i s t a n t stars." I. 3: the r e n d e r i n g of Quisne . . . crednt ? as " W h o would have be­ lieved ?" i n s t e a d of " W h o can believe ?" s h o w s the all-too-common d i s r e g a r d for tenses. II. 5-6: Consiliu, mens atque Dei cui gaudia praestnnt I Creditur is suninio raptus adesse lovi, w o u l d be better translated as "I le for whom the j u d g m e n t a n d counsel of God are the greatest joys is believed to have been caught u p to be with Jupiter on high," rather than "It is believed that he w h o takes joy in God's j u d g m e n t and mind is taken away [in r a p t u r e ] . . ." The Greek in the picture is not explained; the s u p p o s e d etymology of

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" G a n y m e d e " is relevant to the u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the emblem one o! the cases s u g g e s t i n g that the few e x p l a n a t i o n s s u p p l i e d in square brackets are i n a d e q u a t e . V The title of e m b l e m IV is not biblical, but this (Sapientin linnimiu stultitia est apud Deum) certainly is (I Cor 3:19); an indication of such references s e e m s necessary, like the classical allusions. 1. 3: summis sine partibus unguis; not " a n d a s e r p e n t in the rest" but "a serpent w i t h o u t u p p e r p a r t s , " in o p p o s i t i o n to sine pedibus, " w i t h o u t feet." 1. 5: pedit a n d eructavit are perfect tense, describing the picture ("has farted" a n d " h a s belched o u t " ) . VI I. 1: residens, "reclines u p o n , " n o t " r e s i d e s u p o n . " " p u r p l e p e p l u m , " w i t h o u t e x p l a n a t i o n , is unsatisfactory for r e a d e r s w i t h o u t Latin. Moreover, t h o u g h purpureo a n d insignem are certainly trans­ ferred e p i t h e t s , Purpureo insignem gestat honore peplum is surely better r e n d e r e d as " t h e s p l e n d i d robe of imperial office" r a t h e r than "the p u r p l e p e p l u m of h o n o r " ? 1. 4: Atcircum cubitans ebria turba iacet, "And s t r e w n a r o u n d her lies the d r u n k e n t h r o n g " conveys the picture m o r e exactly t h a n " a n d all a r o u n d her the m o b falls d o w n d r u n k . " VII 1. 3: erga s h o u l d be ergo, a n d translated as "Therefore . . ." 1. 5: Ast asinus tan turn praestari credit honorem s h o u l d read "But the ass a s s u m e d that all this h o n o r . . ." not "the h o n o r s w e r e only . . ." 1. 8: "half-baked" in the translation is not justified by the Latin. VIII 1.2: Dei effigies, " i m a g e of G o d " is m i s l e a d i n g , if not actually wrong, "the figure of a g o d " avoids the risk. 1.3: Mercurii . . . tumulus; not "the t o m b of M e r c u r y " b u t "a m o u n d [raised] to Mercury." 1. 3: the p u n c t u a t i o n in the Latin is unsatisfactory. The comma after tumulus s h o u l d be a full stop (as in 1550) or at least a colon (as in 1621). 1. 4: monstret. The p r e s e n t subjunctive ("so that he m a y s h o w " ) sug­ gests the 1621 edition, since 1531, 1534, and 1551 h a v e the indicative monstrat ("who s h o w s " ) . The translator's "will s h o w " risks being u n ­ derstood as a future. 1. 6 fallimur is p r e s e n t tense: not " w e will t u r n to e r r o r " b u t " w e are [constantly] d e c e i v e d . " IX I. 2: nuda . . . Veritas; "the N a k e d Truth" is m i s l e a d i n g ; "Truth w h o is n a k e d " w o u l d be better. (The picture of this e m b l e m , in all edi­ tions, is unsatisfactory: Truth is not depicted as n a k e d , and H o n o r should be m a l e . Truth therefore should "hold his right h a n d . " ) 1. 4: Dione, strictly Venus's mother, here probably identified with Ve-

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nus, mother ol С lipid. II. 5-(>: l'idcm, Rcvercnlia Honoris I Quam fovet, alii Amor, parturitque Veritas, "These s y m b o l s represent together Fidelity which r e g a r d for I lonor cherishes, Love n o u r i s h e s and Truth b r i n g s forth." The trans­ lator's w o r d o r d e r m a k e s it impossible to read his r e n d e r i n g as a cor­ rect translation. Can "feeding Love a n d b i r t h i n g T r u t h " m e a n "fed by I ,ove and born by T r u t h " ? X The d e d i c a t i o n , Ad Maximilianum, Mediolanensem Ducem, again suggests 1621. All the w o r d - p l a y of chorda, fides, concors, harmonia, and even concha is certainly difficult, if not impossible, to bring out in translation. 1.1: a difficult line, correctly translated, except that haleutica m e a n s "a fishing-boat," n o t "oceanic." I. 2: Musa Latina is p r o b l e m a t i c , b u t may m e a n , as the Le Fevre transla­ tion suggests (1536 n o . 2), the "Italian m u s e . " II. 9-10: concors I Nil est quod timeas, si tibi constet amor. Concors is an ad­ jective ("if love r e m a i n s u n i t e d for you, you h a v e n o t h i n g to fear"). 1. 11: " v i d a m o s " for videmus is p r e s u m a b l y a t y p o of Spanish origin. XI 1. 1: "from the wise m e n " s h o u l d be either "from the wise," or "from wise m e n . " The translation fails on several occasions to ob­ serve idiomatic u s e of the articles in English. 1. 4: " E g y p t i a n H a r p o c r a t e s [or god of silence]." The explanation is in­ a d e q u a t e since it gives little or no idea of the i m a g e of foolishness in­ h e r e n t in the allusion. Some reference is n e e d e d to Erasmus's adage IV i 52 Reddidit Harpocratem and Catullus's e p i g r a m 59. XII Title: consilia, " d e l i b e r a t i o n s , " as in I. 6, rather t h a n "secrets" "Secrets are not to be d i v u l g e d " is a p l a t i t u d e . 1. 4: nitent signa superba, "the p r o u d s t a n d a r d s glitter with . . ."; not "signs of a r r o g a n c e shine forth from . . ." 1. 5: debere Ducum secreta latere is a general m a x i m ; the translation s h o u l d be " t h e secret deliberations of l e a d e r s " not "of the leaders." XIII Title: Nee quaestioni qiiidem cedendum. " N o t even to torture should one y i e l d " ; n o t " O n e m u s t never yield u n d e r questioning." S o m e a c c o u n t of or r e f e r e n c e to the s t o r y of I l a r m o d i u s and Aristogeiton is called for. 1. 2: the p u n c t u a t i o n of the Latin is unsatisfactory and does not corre­ s p o n d to any edition available t o m e (an ncscishospes? should be in pa­ renthesis, a n d arnica s h o u l d not have a capital), but the translation is correct. There is a t y p o in the translation: " C e r o p e s " [sic]. XIV Title: fortiores, "the powerful" rather than "the s t r o n g e r " 1. 2: Lycii. . . monstra soli. " Lycian m o n s t e r s " is unnecessarily incom-

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plete; " m o n s t e r s of the Lycian soil." 11. 3-4: Pegaseis .. . pennisj Cousilioque, " P e g a s u s ' s w i n g s , / a n d by inlrl ligent j u d g m e n t . . . " rather than " w i n g s of P e g a s u s . As well counseled by the intellect " ibid.: petis a n d domas are p r e s e n t indicative; "can rise u p , " "can tame" are not justified. The verse seems to a d d r e s s s o m e o n e w h o actually achieves the feat, a n d the e m b l e m m a y be i n t e n d e d as a device for an individual. XV The p u n c t u a t i o n in all editions I have seen, except 1621, is un­ satisfactory. Firstly, 11.1-3 s h o u l d read: "A cock, b e c a u s e he heraIds a pp r o a c h i n g d a w n w h e n he crows and calls toiling h a n d s to new labor; and a b r o n z e bell, b e c a u s e it recalls the wakeful m i n d to heavenly things, are [objects] r e p r e s e n t e d on church t o w e r s . " Secondly, the cock and bell are p r e s e n t e d as a factor on the one h a n d , while the lion is a factor on the other; the translation of the last sentence with "also" fails to b r i n g this out. The full force of sed is seen if, as 1621, there is a full stop after vigilem, a n d no p u n c t u a t i o n in the p h r a s e Est leo sed custos . . . That is: "But [on the other h a n d ] there is a lion . . . " (The bell is not s h o w n in any illustration I have seen.) XVI Title: different editions p r e s e n t different texts. The variant used here s u g g e s t s one of the Rouille or B o n h o m m e editions of 1548-1551, n o t 1621. The transliteration of the Greek is incorrect and incomplete. 1. 2: erunt, t r a n s l a t e d as p r e s e n t tense, is future indicative and equiva­ lent to an i m p e r a t i v e : "shall b e . " I. 4: puleium, " p e n n y r o y a l , " not "mint." II. 5-6: turbam . . . tumida seditione gravem, "a great m o b seething with revolt," defines the situation more exactly than " t h e m a d d e n e d m o b b u r s t i n g into frenzied revolt," which seems to e x a g g e r a t e . XVII Title: again, different editions p r e s e n t v a r i a n t titles. Here the text s u g g e s t s , as before, the Rouille or B o n h o m m e editions of 1548-1551, n o t 1621, w h i c h a d o p t e d Erasmus's version of the expres­ sion (Lapsus ubi? quid feci? aut officii quid omissum est? — Adagialllx 1), b u t the English of the second p h r a s e seems to t r a n s l a t e Quid feci? " W h a t have I d o n e ? " n o t Quid admisi? " W h a t h a v e I p e r m i t t e d , p e r p e ­ trated?" The transliteration of the Greek is incorrect in at least three points. 1. 1: " a u t h o r " is u n n e c e s s a r y and i n a p p r o p r i a t e : "The very famous founder of the Italic sect from Samos . . ." 1. 2: carmine, "[line of] v e r s e " rather than " e p i g r a m . " 1. 3: the t r a n s l a t i o n of the tenses is inaccurate; Quo praetergressus? Quid

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nyj^: Onnl c///////'s agendum? "Win114» /mw you t r a n s g r e s s e d ? What mc you doing? What are you leaving out that you s h o u l d d o ? " I. 4: sibi, "to himself" not translated. I. 5: didicisse . . .

Uiuii'xlioiicx (Лпиг Kolet) or I'iero Valeriano's 15.% Ilicro^h/jtluiui (Slephane kolet) or indeed themes within emblem books and their Moral applications —the Virgin Mary (Emilia M o n t a n e r ) or the Gar­ den of Eden (Virginie Ortega-Tillier). G e o g r a p h i c location can be the g u i d i n g factor, for e x a m p l e F r a n c h e - C o m p t e in the s e v e n t e e n t h cen­ tury (Benedicte G a u l a r d ) or the Jesuits of the Belgian p r o v i n c e (Kalphe Dekoninck). A n d w h e r e a s most of the s t u d i e s explore em­ b l e m s for e m b l e m s ' s a k e , t h e r e a r e a l s o e x a m p l e s of a p p l i e d iMnblematics: Spanish s e v e n t e e n t h - c e n t u r y literature, particularly Lope de Vega, the sense of smell and floral e m b l e m s (Christian B o u z y ) , t h e J e s u i t - i n f l u e n c e d t e x t / i m a g e g a r d e n in R a c c o n i g i (Sa voye) as d o c u m e n t e d by E m m a n u e l e Tesauro a n d c o m p a r e d to the Versailles Labyrinth (Judi Loach), a n d p a i n t i n g s by Lorenzo Lotto and Titian in the light of the motif of scattered flowers (Francois Quiviger). As well as this variety of p a t h w a y s leading to the central flower theme, the v o l u m e p r o v i d e s scholarship on a r a n g e of national cul­ tures (although E n g l a n d and G e r m a n y are absent), d r a w i n g u p o n a diversity of disciplines t h r o u g h a u t h o r s of assorted b a c k g r o u n d s . F u r t h e r m o r e , the brief outline of contents given above does not do justice to the i n t e r c u l t u r a l range of e r u d i t i o n within the individual chapters, as a u t h o r s c o m p a r e with other traditions, e m b l e m writers, and forms, such as the e p i g r a m or n u m i s m a t i c s . Within these indi­ vidual c h a p t e r s further variety is e v i d e n t t h r o u g h the r a n g e of meth­ odologies a n d discursive styles e m p l o y e d , from Claude-Frangoise Brunon's quasi-empirical table of Capaccio's plants, their source, and their symbolic m e a n i n g and Valerie Hayaert/s a p p e n d i c e s of Pierre Coustau's texts, to Paulette Chone's delightfully evocative discussion of the h e l i o t r o p e that m e a n d e r s from Ficino to D a r w i n before taking us past the g r e a t n a m e s of secular, religious, and political emblem works. If there is a g u i d i n g approach within the twelve chapters it is a tendency t o w a r d s n o n - t h e o r y based erudition with close description and analysis of p r i m a r y sources. N o n e t h e l e s s beyond the given sub­ ject matter and its interest per se, the v o l u m e also s t a n d s as a w i n d o w on the current state of e m b l e m studies and some* oi the a p p r o a c h e s it can engender. Like C u p i d a n d the Bees, the conference formal that brings such enjoyable eclecticism is also the source of the volume's shortcomings. W i t h a s u b j e c t as p r e c i s e as t h e floral motif w i t h i n r e l i g i o u s emblematics, one m i g h t have h o p e d for some a t t e m p t at a universal work of reference. It is not just a question of inevitable g a p s in subject

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coverage —the manuscript tradition, lor example, receives virtually no mention —but a lack of acknowledgement of what has been achieved and what there remains to achieve in the area. Perhaps an in tegrated bibliography, drawn from the copious footnotes, would have solved the problem. The volume's organization into three sec tions —symbolic gardens, types of religious expression via flowers, and analysis of specific floral motifs —may seem logical enough, bul in reality several of the papers could have fitted any or indeed none ol the sections. And at times the individual papers stray from the vol ume's albeit precise subject matter. In the context of Titian's Venus d'Urbin Francois Quiviger gives a penetrating and enjoyable account of the perfume associated with female self-stimulation and that of the rose, but the link with emblematics is not always clear. In short, one is often left with the distinct impression of the book being made to fit the papers on offer, rather than the papers being adapted to the needs ol the book. These qualms should not overshadow the fact that this is an impor­ tant addition to the corpus of French-language emblem criticism. It is a well-illustrated and well-presented work of solid scholarship, whose variety will outweigh its gaps if it is appropriately referenced with the usual search engines. LAURENCE GROVE University of Glasgow PETER M. DALY, ed. Emblem Scholarship Directions and Developments: A Tribute to Gabriel Hornstein. Imago Figurata Studies, 5. Turnhout: Brepols, 2005. Pp. 264 + xii. ISBN 2-503-51736-6. This tribute to Gabriel Hornstein, the far-sighted publisher of the journal Emhlematica, contains ten essays by leading scholars in the field, and "sets out to document some of the more fruitful approaches to emblem studies employed today." Of necessity, I cannot detail all ten contributions here, but the editor usefully summarizes each in his Introduction, which opens with a remarkably succinct conspectus of the achievements of scholars in this field to date. Michael Bath's study of Harvey's School of the Heart (1647) considers an English example of the fashion for heart-emblems. Apart from the three by William Marshall, the rest of the plates were engraved by the relatively unknown Dutch artist Michel van Lochom who, the author

\

"I he ion si i m l ion о I an emblem" (222). Sli asser shows through a dis­ cussion ol I he evolul ion of these works that I3uno became aware that images «Hone could not convey meaning nor produce the desired mnemonic effect without a written text. Once the text was read, the meaning of the image would become clear and the image could then serve as a trigger for memory. Memoriale Institutionum Juris repre­ sents Buno's masterwork for his emblematic teaching method since he was able in this work to elevate his use of emblematic images to as­ sist in the learning and memorization of dates/facts to "the learning and memorization of codified content" (220). Strasser also lists a few of Winckelmann's works written during the same period which were mnemonically based and had images associated with their texts, and he concludes that both Winckelmann and Buno shared a common emblematically-based pedagogical technique in their works. Jochen Becker begins his essay by presenting the criticisms lodged against emblematic images by the eighteenth-century au thors Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Johann Jacob Volkmann. Becker contends that these criticisms were made not against sixteenth- and seven­ teenth-century emblem-book images but rather against what those images had become by the eighteenth century and shows that the highly esteemed emblematic images of the sixteenth and seventeenth century had evolved by the eighteenth century into mainstream and common usage in children's books and popular texts. Therefore, as Becker concludes, it is not surprising that authors of the eighteenth century, with their preference for the classics and reasoning, turned against the hackneyed emblem images of their time. Karl-Joseph Holtgen masterfully deciphers a number of emblem­ atic title pages to present significant events from English history be­ tween 1549 and 1651, thereby proving the ability of emblems to com­ municate, in a succinct and compact form, a wealth of complicated, and at times hidden, information. Emblematic images were used, he demonstrates, to express specific political theories; even seemingly insignificant details within a title page could have conveyed highly charged theological or political meaning. Through this collection of essays addressing the inclusion of emblematics across such a wide range of applications, the editors have provided a great service to the field of emblem studies. Several underlying themes emerge: these essays reinforce the truth that the ability to decipher and interpret applied emblematic devices, derives principally from a full knowledge and understanding of the time, place, and culture in which they occurred. The range of different ap-

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plications identified by the c o n t r i b u t o r s to this collection confirms our sense of the p e r v a s i v e n e s s of e m b l e m a t i c applications in the early m o d e r n c u l t u r e s of v a r i o u s E u r o p e a n countries. PATRICIA D. H A R D I N Lexington ,VA

RESEARCH REPORTS, NOTES, QUERIES, AND NOTICES

Emblems into Art: The Paintings of Lorna Mcintosh MICHAEL BATH University of Strathclyde Historians of the emblem have occasionally directed our attention to some of its modern survivals or revivals. The claim that the emblem is a resilient, if not exactly an archetypal form, whose history has outlasted its historical practitioners, has become quite familiar in recent emblem studies. 1 Martin Escher, Ian Hamilton Finlay and, more recently, Hugh Buchanan and Peter Davidson are names that have been invoked as evidence that the emblem is still alive and kicking.2 Somewhat more diverse and difficult to identify than such manifest revivals, however, are creative artists whose work may not at first sight seem to resemble the style or format of a traditional emblem in any of its many historical guises, but which turn out nevertheless to have been inspired or influenced by emblems in more elu-

1. See, for instance, Manning, 22, 107-09. 2.

Russell, 335, "Over the last thirty-five or forty years . . . the emblem has made a certain comeback." For Buchanan and Davidson see Alastair Fowler's review in Emblematica 9,1 (1997): 201-03 . Manning, 109, identifies a number of further recent books which make some claim to be received as "emblem" books. Recent claims by Peter Daly (2002, 2004) for the persistence of emblematic topoi or word/image structures in modern advertising might be seen as suggesting some kind of archetypal status. The recent collection of Glasgow Emblem Studies, Emblematic Tendencies in the Art and Literature of the Twentieth Century, ed. Ingrid Hopel and Susan Sire, offers to address the issue of emblematic revivals more comprehensively.

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sive ways.* Tin» work o! Edinburgh artist Lorna Mcintosh represents a notable example of such inspiration. A graduate of Edinburgh College of Art, and winner of prizes inc l u d i n g the A l a s t a i r Salvesen Travel Scholars h i p from the Royal Scottish Academy, the same Academy's Robin Philipson Memorial M e d a l , and Glasgow Arts Club Prize, Mcintosh has exhibited at The Open Eye Gallery (Edinburgh), Glasgow Arts Club, the McLellan Galleries (Glasgow), and McManus Gallery (Dundee). Some of her Fig. 1. Whitney, " Omnis caro foenum," A Choice of work is characterized Emblemes (1586) p. 217. © Glasgow University Li- by a fascination with brary. transformations, particularly of organic plantforms, foliage, and vegetation, sometimes into strangely unexpected combinations and associations. Her use of emblems is a recent development and was occasioned not so much by early emblem books themselves as by their use in the painted ceilings of her native Scotland, to which she was alerted, she tells me, by discussion of the emblems from Whitney on a ceiling at Culross, Fife, in a recent book, Re-

Contemporary creative renewals of the emblem were the subject of the 1994 exhibition at Yale University: Reinventing the Emblem: Contemporary Artists Recreate a Renaissance Idea, see Russell, 345-46; Russell discusses the work of such artists as Ronald Jones, Erika Rothenberg, Megan Jenkinson, and Peter Gauld in some detail (247-56). Viennese artist Harald Gsaller produced his 104 Embleme in 2002.

Fig. 2. Culross, Fife, The Palace, detail of first-floor painted ceiling ся.1597, "Omnis caro foenum." © Historic Scotland.

naissance Decorative Painting in Scotland, written by the author of the present article. 4 In a personal communication she explains, I am interested in trying to reinterpret the Culross em­ blematic works, just as the restorers, in error, reinter­ preted the work of the Culross artist; just as the Culross artist, in turn reinterpreted Whitney; and just as Whitney, in turn, reinterpreted Alciato and Paradin. Two examples from Whitney at Culross which are discussed in some detail in my book have preoccupied Mcintosh so far: Omnis caro foenum and Mihi pondera luxus, and these seem to have caught the art­ ist's imagination in ways which I could never have predicted when writing my book. Sir George Bruce's late-sixteenth-century house at Culross in­ cludes Omnis caro foenum [All flesh is grass] (fig. 1), but reworks

4. Bath 2003, the relevant chapter builds on work first published in Emblcmatica, 1993.

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Whitney's woodcut (1586, p. 217) so as to show a seated female figure holding two large vases of flowers (fig. 2). The only detail which is copied from the woodcut is a rather indistinct bunch of foliage on a tall, thin pole on the left hand side of the painting. Earlier descri ptions of this ceiling mistakenly identify this as a palm tree, and it was only the identification of its s o u r c e t h a t revealed that this is not a palm tree but rather a bunch of hay hung on a pole (pp. 59-62). Whitney's s o u r c e , P a r a d i n , explains it as the badge of Romulus, known as a manipulus and used by the Roman legions in order to remind them that they —unlike the grass — would never wither. There can be no doubt that the a n o n y m o u s Culross artist used Whitney as his source since his subscriptio q u o t e s W h i t n e y directly; but whether he —or i n d e e d Whitney—recognized this as the Roman manipulus or Fig. 3. Lorna Mcintosh, Four Palms, monotype on legionary bunch of hay paper, 22.5 x 16 cm, collection author. identified by Paradin rem a i n s in doubt. This very dry scholarly quibble over the handling of historical sources is what, surprisingly, has seized the imagination of this young contemporary artist working in Edinburgh. She uses this misinterpreted emblem in three or four of her recent works which feature either palm trees, the manipulus, or the idea of fleshly decay. Indeed, the Culross emblem, and more specifically the discussion of it in my book, becomes an indispensible key to the monotype entitled Four Palms for, despite the title, what we see are three palm trees and the bunch of hay hung from a pole (fig. 3). Very

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Fig. 4. Lorna Mcintosh, Three Ferns, monotype on paper, 27.5 x 24.5 cm, collec­ tion artist.

similar in its iconography is the painting, oil on linen, showing three shadowy palm-trees in a muted landscape on either side of an out­ lined bunch of hay hung from the same pole that we see in Paradin's and Whitney's woodcut, but with the title Imposter, a title that would clearly be inexplicable to any viewer who had not read the Culross chapter in my book. As we shall see, Mcintosh's choice of title for her pictures is often teasing or enigmatic, and in these recent works based on emblems it has some of the challenge that we are accus­ tomed to find in emblem mottoes —indeed these titles can only be un­ derstood by a viewer with access to the artwork's emblematic sources. Mcintosh returns to this reinterpretation of "All Flesh is Grass" in a very similar monotype entitled Three Ferns, where what we see are two tree-ferns and the manipulus hay-on-a-pole (fig. 4). How does a palm-tree become a tree-fern? In much the same way, we may now answer, that a bunch-of-hay becomes a palm tree. Mcintosh herself has explained the process of creative mistakes to me as follows: I found the palm/manipulus mix up particularly interest­ ing. I visited the Royal Botanic Gardens here in Edinburgh

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where I knew from previous trips, dating back to when I was at Edinburgh College of Art, there was a fantastic col­ lection of palm trees in the glasshouses. I was keen to work from life if possible as well as use the established emblem­ atic imagery. I made several sketchbook drawings of the palm trees but also got slightly carried away and drew sev­ eral large tree ferns as well, mistakenly thinking they were palms. When I realised this I decided to use those drawings in my work anyway — the depiction of a fern that is actually meant to be a palm that is actually meant to be a manipulus .

Fig. 5. Lorna Mcintosh, Burden, oil on linen, 28.5 x 33 cm, private collection.

My own discussion in Renaissance Decorative Painting of how we recognize palm trees may have prompted this foray, arguing as I do (p.62) that "palm trees do not look like this [i. е., the Culross

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Fig. 6. Culross, Fife, The Palace, detail of first-floor painted ceiling ca.1597, "Mihi pondera luxus." © Historic Scotland.

manipulus] either in real life or Renaissance pictures; they have thick trunks covered in scales or bracts/' as shown in Whitney's emblems on pp.118,193, and 216 of his Choice. If that prompt was all it took to send an artist who was "keen to work from life" back to one of the United Kingdom's leading botanical collections, then it was surely a fortunate if wholly unanticipated consequence. Mcintosh's painting entitled Burden (fig. 5) takes its cue from Whitney's emblem, also from Paradin, Mihi pondera luxus [Excess is a burden tome] (fig. 6). Whitney's woodcut shows a wheatsheaf whose stems are bent down and broken by the weight of the ears of corn. Mcintosh places Whitney's (or Culross's) overburdened wheatsheaf on a pair of scales, as if to supply a literal figuration of the word pondera. The muted tonality and shadowy outlining of the seales with their emblematic wheatsheaf is counterbalanced by a much more vividly painted sprig of blackberries (Scots "brambles") on the oppo­ site scale. The painting thus balances or contrasts the emblematic

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Fig. 7. Lorna Mcintosh, Interior Luxury, monotype and pencil, 20.5 x 30.5 cm, private collection.

shadowing of its allegory with the opacity of its still life; and above the ghostly kitchen scales is a shelf full of everyday objects which, the artist tells me, are part of her personal belongings. In the painting Burden, related to the emblem "Excess is a Burden," I brought together objects in my studio (to symbolize excess) with a sketchbook drawing of a set of scales from Newton Stewart Museum (Dumfriess and Galloway) . . . and the image of a sheaf of corn from Whitney/Culross. The resulting image is my own personal take on "Excess is a Burden," specific to my experiences, using my belongings and referring to my bank of imagery. The painting can be read as an emblematic image if you know what to look for and recognise the reference in the title; however, it can also be seen as purely a still life. Moreover, to cap its enigmatic title, this picture confirms its emblematic structure by including Whitney's motto in a scroll, like

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Fig. 8. Lorna Mcintosh, Leave to Love, oil on linen, 25.5 x 30.5 cm, private collection.

Culross's, beneath the scales. This is a truly emblematic painting insofar as it includes both emblematic pictura and Latin motto. Burden's branch of blackberries can perhaps be read as a homely substitute for the bunch of grapes which the seated figure representing Excess in Culross's Mihi pondera luxus holds in her left hand, a detail that Mcintosh has worked into a number of further paintings where it typically functions as moral comment on otherwise unemblematic subject matter. In a painting called Plenty, for instance, there is a thinly sketched bunch of grapes with a similar cornucopia, the only discernible features on an otherwise very empty sheet of paper, scuffed and soiled in mixed media to look very unlike the image of excess. The theme is continued in a drawing entitled Interior Luxury where the same sheaf of overburdened wheat stands, somewhat incongruously, on an extremely elaborate baroque/antique sideboard (fig. 7). Surrounding details, as in a page from the artist's sketchbook, confirm the theme of elaborate interiors, where the incongruity of the posed wheatsheaf, occupying a space where one would expect to find an elaborate ornament, not only makes the moral point on luxus

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which its association, lor the knowing viewer, with the Milii pmnlcvii luxus emblem has invested it, but also returns to an ambiguity which has exercised Lorna Mcintosh in several of her recent paintings which play with interior/exterior oppositions and paradoxes. Thus, the titlepiece to her most recent Open Eye Gallery exhibition (June-July 2005) shows an interior with an assortment of everyday tables and stools amongst which there sprouts up a growth of different plant stems, seed-heads and branches. The title Clearing sums up the ambi­ guity for the otherwise puzzled viewer, though this is not an emblem. However, the oil painting entitled Leave to Love certainly is emblem­ atic (fig. 8). The title quotes part of the two-line subscriptio which Culross abstracts from Whitney's epigram to the emblem In amove tormentum: "Then leave to love, or love as reasone will,/ For lovers lewde doe vailie languische still." Whitney's emblem uses Hadrianus Junius's picture of the lighted candle surrounded by flies; Mcintosh's painting transforms this into a candelabra which evidently holds more personal associations for the artist. In the painting Leave to Love, related to the emblem "The Torments of Love," I brought together my candelabra (a present from my sister) painted from life in my studio, with a postcard scene of Vesuvius erupting (from my travel scholarship in Italy in 1997) and butterflies from my natu­ ral history collection. This is a modern artist whose painting is quite heavily reliant on, and keeps returning to, personal collections of significant objects which evidently have something of the function for her own creativity of a Renaissance Wundevkammev or cabinet of curiosities: My work in recent years has centred round collections: col­ lections of artefacts in museums; my own collection of mis­ cellaneous objects; natural history displays; religious icons and so on. I work from life and also refer to my sketch­ books, of which I have several. They are an archive of draw­ ings of everything that has caught my attention —from embroidery in a Polish museum of religious artefacts to some dried herbs in a Hungarian apothecary museum and as such are invaluable. In my drawings in particular I try to bring together different details from my sketchbooks.

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The relations between emblem books and Wundcrkammcr have not won much recognition in emblem studies, but 1 note that John Manning recognizes the overlap in early printers 7 lists and humanist productions. All emblematists, to a greater or lesser extent, had to be ex­ pert iconographers, interpreting the symbolic parapher­ nalia that adorned ancient statues. Little wonder, then, that emblematic volumes would advertise themselves on their title-page as a 'Repositorium' or 'Cabinet' or 'Schatzkammer,' containing works of art by painters, sculptors, glassmakers and engravers, designed to delight the eye and the soul. (Manning, p.115) If Manning is right, it should not surprise us that an artist who works as Lorna Mcintosh does should have found "reading about emblems very inspiring" (as she writes to me) or that she should now have added emblems to the collections of objects, both natural and artificial, from which she draws her inspiration. I suggest that we should neither oversimplify the ways in which contemporary artists work nor underestimate the potential sources of their creativity: these are always likely to surprise us in truly original work. From time to time emblems may become a part of those creative sources in wholly unpredictable ways. Works Cited Bath, Michael. "Applied Emblematics in Scotland: Painted Ceilings, 1550-1650." Emblematica 7 (1993): 259-305. . Renaissance Decorative Painting in Scotland. Edinburgh: Na­ tional Museums of Scotland, 2003. Daly, Peter M. "The European Impresa: From Fifteenth-Century Aristocratic Device to Twenty-First-Century Logo." Emblematica 13 (2004): 303-32. . "The Nachleben of the Emblem: Emblematic Structures in Mod­ ern A d v e r t i s i n g a n d P r o p a g a n d a . " In Poh/valence iind Multifunktionalitdt der Emblematik. Ed. Wolfgang Harms and Dietmar Peil. Frankfurt-am-Main: Peter Lang, 2002. Pp. 47-69. Gsaller, Harald. 104 Embleme. Vienna: Triton, 2002. Manning, John. The Emblem. London: Reaktion Books, 2002 Russell, Daniel. "Icarus in the City: Emblems and Postmodernism" Emblematica 13 (2004): 333-58.

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W h i t n e y , Geoffrey. Л Choice of Eniblemes. Raphelengius, 1586.

Leiden: E n n u i s

EMBLEMATICA An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies

Volume 15

Volume Index

Volume Index Articles by Author Bath, Michael. Embroidered Emblems: Mary Stuart's Bed of State Cummings, Robert. Alciato's Illustrated Epigrams Klhard, К. С Harsdorffer's Librarian Farnsworth, Jane. A Monstrous Fish Tale: Broadside Pictures and the Emblem in Sixteenth-Century England Giordano, Michael J. Gilles Deleuze's Concept of Emblematics in Le Pli: Leibniz et le Baroque Lagerwall, Sonia. On the Act of Reading: The Emblem and Michel Butor's Novel La Modification Loach, Judi. Emblem Books as Author-Publisher Collaborations: The Case of Menestrier and Coral's Production of the 1662 Art des Emblemes Pinson, Yona. Le triumphe de Haulte folie: Emblematic and Misogynist Discourses Plotke, Seraina. Emblematics and Visual Poetry from a Semiotic Perspective: Two Different Kinds of Bimediality Stronks, Els. Jan Luyken's First Emblem Book and the Revival of the Dutch Love Emblem Van Dongen, Wim. A Torrid Threesome: Investigating Form and Function of the Tripartite Emblem Structure in Mid-Twentieth-Century American Paperback Covers Wade, Mara R. Emblems in the Twenty-First Century

5 193 69 55 145 171

229 83 33 319

111 1

Articles by Title On the Act of Reading: The Emblem and Michel Butor's Novel La Mod i f ication, by Sonia Lagerwall Alciato's Illustrated Epigrams, by Robert Cummings 413

171 193

414

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Emblem Books as A u t h o r - P u b l i s h e r Collaborations: The Case of M e n e s t r i e r and Coral's Production of the 1662 Art des Emblemes, by Judi Loach Emblematics a n d Visual Poetry from a Semiotic Perspective: Two Different K i n d s of Bimediality, by Seraina Plotke Emblems in the Twenty-First Century, by M a r a R. W a d e E m b r o i d e r e d E m b l e m s : Mary Stuart's Bed of State, by Michael Bath Gilles Deleuze's C o n c e p t of Emblematics in Le Pli: Leibniz et le Baroque, by Michael J. G i o r d a n o Harsdorffer's Librarian, by К. С Elhard Jan Luyken's First E m b l e m Book a n d the Revival of the Dutch Love E m b l e m , by Els Stronks A M o n s t r o u s Fish Tale: Broadside Pictures and the Emblem in S i x t e e n t h - C e n t u r y England, by Jane F a r n s w o r t h A Torrid T h r e e s o m e : Investigating Form and Function of the Tripartite Emblem Structure in M i d - T w e n t i e t h - C e n t u r y American Paperback Covers, by Wim Van D o n g e n Le triumphe de Haulte folic: Emblematic and M i s o g y n i s t Discourses, by Yona Pinson

229 33 I 5 145 69 319 55

111 83

Documentation Konecny, Lubomir. H a b s b u r g I m p r e s e in Tele

345

R e v i e w and Criticism Reviews Alciati, A n d r e a , A Book of Emblems. The " E m b l e m a t u m Liber" in Latin a n d English, by Denis L. D r y s d a l l Boissard, Jean-Jacques, E m b l e m a t u m liber. Emblemes latins, by Peter M. Daly Caldwell, D o r i g e n , The Sixteenth-Century Italian Impresa in T h e o r y a n d in Practice, by Denis L. D r y s d a l l Chone, Paulette a n d Benedicte G a u l a r d , eds., Flore au p a r a d i s : E m b l e m a t i q u e et vie religieuse aux XVIe et XVIIe siecles, by L a u r e n c e Grove

361 372 369

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I )«)ly, IVlrr M., n l . , Emblem Scholarship I )ii44lions cuul I ) e v e l o p m e n l s : A Tribute to Gabriel 1 lornstein, by Malcolm Jones Loskoutoff, Yvan, L'Armorial de Calliope: L'oeuvre du Pere Le M o y n e S. J. (1602): litterature, h e r a l d i q u e , spiritualite, by Alison S a u n d e r s Milovanovic, Nicolas, Du Louvre a Versailles, lecture des g r a n d s decors m o n a r c h i q u e s , by Sophia Pickford S a u n d e r s , Alison, The S e v e n t e e n t h - C e n t u r y French E m b l e m . A S t u d y in Diversity, by Daniel Russell S a u n d e r s , Alison a n d Peter D a v i d s o n , eds., Visual Words and Verbal Pictures. Essays in H o n o u r of Michael Bath, by Jean Michel M a s s i n g Strasser, G e r h a r d F. a n d Mara R. Wade, eds., Die D o m a n e n d e s Emblems: Ausserliterarishe A n w e n d u n g e n der Emblematik, by Patricia D. H a r d i n

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381 378 374

357

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Research Reports, N o t e s , Queries, and Notices Bath, Michael, E m b l e m s into Art: The Paintings of Lorna M c i n t o s h

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