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English Pages [798] Year 1993 and 1994
Summer L993
Vol. 7 No. 1
EMBLEMATICA \irtotifirtutt4 comes
An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies AMS PRESS
EMBLEMATICA ISSN0885-968X
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Copyright © AMS Press, Inc., 1994 All rights reserved.
Manufactured in the United States of America
EMBLEMATICA An Interdisciplinary Journal for E m b l e m Studies is p u b l i s h e d twice a year, in the s u m m e r a n d winter. Emblematica publishes original articles, essays, and specialized bibliographies in all areas of emblem studies. In addition it regularly contains review articles, reviews, research reports (work in progress, including theses, conference reports and abstracts of completed theses), notes and queries, notices (forthcoming conferences a n d publications), a n d various types of documentation.
Editors Peter M. Daly McGill University Department of German 1001 Sherbrooke Street W. Montreal, PQ Canada H3A 1G
Daniel S. Russell Department of French and Italian University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA 15260 U.S.A.
John M a n n i n g Review Editor Department of English The Queen's University of Belfast Belfast, Northern Ireland U.K. BT7 INN
Advisory Board Barbara C. Bowen Vanderbilt University A u g u s t Buck Marburg and Wolfenbuttel Wolfgang H a r m s Munich John R u p e r t Martin Princeton University
Karel P o r t e m a n Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven T h o m a s P. Roche, Jr Princeton University John M. S t e a d m a n University of California, Riverside J. B. Trapp The Warburg Institute, London
Editorial Board C l a u d i e Balavoine CNRS, Paris Virginia W. Callahan Howard University, emerita P e d r o F. C a m p a University of Tennessee, Chattanooga Karl Josef H o l t g e n Erlangen-Niirnberg
Bernhard F. Scholz Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Agnes Sherman Princeton University Alan Young Acadia University Egon Verheyen George Mason University
EMBLEMATICA An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies
Volume 7, Number 1
Summer, 1993
Articles David Graham "Voiez icy en ceste histoire . . . ": Cross-Reference, Self-Reference and FrameBreaking in Some French Emblems
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Marc Van Vaeck Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Dutch "Emblematic" Fable Books from the Gheeraerts Filiation
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Ayers Bagley Some Pedagogical Uses of the Emblem in Sixteenthand Seventeenth-Century England
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Judith Dundas Ben Jonson and Van Dyck: A Study in Allegorical Portraiture
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Jane Farnsworth Robert Farley's Kalendarium Humanae Vitae: A Study in Emblematic Strategies
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Documentation
Laurence Grove Discours Sur VArt des Devises: An Edition of A Previously Unidentified and Unpublished Text by Charles Perrault
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Wendy R. Katz John Aiken's "On Emblems": The Source of an Emblematic Dialogue
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Review and Criticism
Reviews Pedro F. C a m p a , Emblemata Hispanica. An Annotated Bibliography of Spanish Emblem Literature to the Year 1700, by John T. Cull Peggy Munoz Simonds, Myth, Emblem, and Music in Shakespeare's Cymbeline: An Sonographic Reconstruction, by Marianne Novy Jean-Marc Chatelain, Livres d'emblemes et de devises: une anthologie (1531-1735), by Laurence Grove Gabriele Dorothea Rodter, Via piae animae. Grundlagenuntersuchung zur emblematischen Verknupfung von Bild und Wort in den "Via desideria" (1624) des Herman Hugo S. /. (1588-1629), by G. Richard Dimler, S. J.
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163 166
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Research Reports, Notes, Queries, and Notices Notes John Manning An Unedited and Unpublished SixteenthCentury English Translation of Some Alciato Emblems: British Library Additional MS. 61822 Alan R. Young Wither's Second Emblem Book: Divine Poems Michael Bath Joseph Thomas and John Thurston's Religious Emblems (1809)
"Voiez icy en ceste histoire . . • ": Cross-Reference, Self-Reference and Frame-Breaking in Some French Emblems DAVID GRAHAM Memorial University of Newfoundland A number of emblem scholars have in the last few years begun to elucidate questions of pictorial/textual cross-referencing techniques in the European emblem in general, and in the sixteenth-century French emblem in particular. For the most part, those who have investigated the problem have concluded that some sort of pictorial/textual cross-referencing process is at work. Jerome Schwartz has pointed out, for instance, that "[t]he epigrams and commentaries constitute a metadiscourse that provides readers with a heuristics of
1. Much basic work in this area, as in so many others, is of course Daniel Russell's, but this article is also particularly indebted to publications by Gisele MathieuCastellani, Irene Bergal, Margaret McGowan, Simone Perrier, Marion Rothstein, Bernhard Scholz, and Jerome Schwartz, whose titles may be found in the list of works cited. Despite its title, the 1986 article by Alison Saunders on this topic is a disappointment, however, being principally concerned with the expression of her personal judgements of the esthetic value of certain emblems and the question of whether or not a given emblematic picture is "essential" to the comprehension of the emblem. Whether or not a picture can ever be said to be "essential" to understanding may of course have more to do with a reader's competence than with internal factors, but the simultaneous presence on the page of figure and text is a fact, and it poses problems of analysis which must be met head on and which have nothing to do with the esthetics of a given emblem.
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the decoding of images. Without it, images alone would be enigmas whose decoding would almost never be final" ("Emblematic Theory and Practice," 308). Some writers have suggested that deictic markers are probably the mechanism which mediates the referential process. Bernhard Scholz, for example, writes that the somewhat chaotic layout of the 1531 Steyner edition of Alciato has the result that in it "the three parts of an emblem which belong together are thus only co-ordinated semantically by means of deictic and referential expressions" (252). Similarly, Irene Bergal has pointed out that "[b]esides commenting on what the picture said, the [authorial] persona may use deictic markers . . . to draw the reader's attention back to the picture" (282). These suggestions are no doubt correct. With few exceptions, however, scholars seem not to have formulated detailed general accounts of the ways in which these techniques are deployed in the emblem text in order to direct readers' attention to the desired decoding of the accompanying image, nor of the means by which emblematists contrive to persuade readers of the truth of a given emblematic lesson, when one is intended to be conveyed. In attempting to understand how exactly readers are directed to the point of a given emblem, it may be best to begin by considering the techniques traditionally employed by writers of moral fables, especially given the frequency of assertions such as that of Georges Couton, who writes, in his introduction to the Gamier edition of Jean de La Fontaine's Fables, that "Le genre de la fable est contigu a celui de
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For a contrasting (and in my opinion erroneous) view concerning La Perriere and Corrozet, see Alain Boureau's chapter on emblem books in Les usages de I'imprime. Boureau asserts that in Le theatre des bons engins and in the Hecatomgraphie, the texts are superfluous, as the pictures alone are sufficient to produce meaning; for this reason he concludes that these two collections contain not emblems, but "effigies": "Le rapport entre texte et image s'inverse: l'illustration absorbe le regard et le sens, tandis que le commentaire s'efface en simple notice; loin de se degager d'un mouvement de circulation entre le propre et le figure, la notion adhere a sa figuration; l'embleme se fait effigie" [The relationship between text and image is reversed: the illustration absorbs the gaze and the meaning, while the commentary fades into a simple caption; far from stemming from a circulatory movement between the proper and the figurative, the notion clings to its visual representation; the emblem becomes ane/jffey](361).
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l'omblfcme, au point que la distinction n'est pas toujours facile" [The fable genre is contiguous with the emblem to such an extent that the distinction is not always easy] (vii). It is well known, for example, that writers of Aesopic fables employ a limited number of well-worn struc tural, stylistic and typographical techniques calculated to ensure that the point of the story is prominently available not only to the mind but to the eye. Ben Edwin Perry, in his introduction to the Loeb Library edition of the fables of Babrius and Phaedrus, reminds us that in the beginning fables were a rhetorical genre, a source of inspirational parables for public speakers, and that on the scrolls containing them, the function of the moral (often called a "promythium" or "epimythium" to reflect its status as separate from the narrative body of the fable) was "to index the fable under the heading of its moral application for the convenience of a writer or speaker" (xv) so that speakers could skim through a scroll and readily locate the most appropriate stories simply by reading only the morals. In copying manuscript fable collections, according to Emile Chambry, scribes tended to devote particular care to give the promythium and epimythium great prominence: "ils les ecrivaient souvent tout entieres en lettres rouges; dans le Parisinus 690 elles sont т ё т е ecrites en lettres d'or" [they would often write them completely in red letters; in the Parisinus 690 they are in fact written in letters of gold] (xxxvii). In printed fable books, the moral is frequently granted some special typographical status: separated from the body of the fable, or printed in bold or italic characters, for example. Anyone who has had occasion to consult collections of Aesopic fables in Greek or in literal translation, rather than in a modern literary reworking, will know that the traditional fable, having no stylistic pretensions in its own right, often concludes with a bald formulaic assertion, or epimythium, such as "This story shows that . . . ." In other words, fable writers in antiquity had no hesitation whatsoever in explicitly revealing the didactic nature of fable discourse, so much so that at times the fable seems almost to be at pains to display its inner workings to the reader. Modern writers, in the process of transforming the fable into something of a literary genre (over the vociferous objec-
3. Typical expressions of this Aesop are 6 ХбуоС, dt\Xol... or 6 цОвоС 5T|A.OI . . ., sometimes strengthened to ойто£ о X6"yo£ . . . .
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tions of purists such as Patru and Lessing, who believed that the fable should be entirely stripped of any fancy literary garment which might lessen its moral impact), have varied the placement and introduction of the moral, sometimes to the point of disguising it entirely or dispensing with it altogether. La Fontaine's statements in this connection, which may be found in the introduction to the Fables, are of course well known to all students of French literature, as are his many elegant and graceful solutions to the problem of how to make the sense of the moral seem obvious but not trite, while frequently keeping the textual location of the moral itself as unobtrusive as possible. Not only must the sense of the fable's moral be readily apparent, however; it must also be validated if it is to be accepted by the reader. In Aesopic fables, the moral is automatically validated by the fable tradition itself and by the overarching though spurious "Life of Aesop" so often found in fable books, as well as by general introductions such as La Fontaine's which specifically seek to confer on entire collections of fables an authoritative moral stature through an appeal to the traditional Horatian admixture of utility and pleasure. Once validated, the moral must also be thoroughly credible; in the fable genre, this can readily be accomplished through a tacit or explicit acceptance by the reader of the traditional postulate that the actions of animals in fable stories are not only based on "natural" characteristics (the lion's kingly role, for example, or the savage and rapacious bent of the wolf) but are analogous to those of certain human "types." If the post-Renaissance fable writer's aim, then, is most frequently to produce an esthetically satisfying linear narrative text with a clearly defined moral, and let tradition take care of the rest, the sixteenth-century emblem writer's task is less straightforward. First of all, to begin with at least, there is no "emblem tradition" as such into which the moral can be fitted, so that credibility and validation of the moral must continually be supplied by the writer, and not simply left as an exercise for the reader. More perplexing still, though, is the problem of how the reader is to assemble the moral in the first place from a visual jumble of textual and pictorial fragments, when there can be no guarantee that readers will assimilate the parts in any particular order, or indeed that they will trouble to read all the parts of the text in the first place. The importance of the visual image in this process must never be underestimated; here Couton seems to have been prophetic in writing that "nous avons beaucoup trop oublie que ce sont d'abord des livres
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d'images" Iwe have been altogether too forgetful that these are picture books first of all] (ix). As Daniel Russell has aptly put it, ". . . by its presentation in empty typographical space, with the motto serving as a signpost towards some undetermined meaning, the picture fairly cries out for some sort of semiological interpretation. From among the numerous, but by no means unlimited possibilities, the emblematist will signal his choice of reading in the text" (174). To accomplish this signaling, I believe that emblem writers tend to make far more extensive use of pictorial/textual links than do fable writers. The associative links which exist between actual collections of emblems are now well known; they span both time and place, and perhaps make of the entire emblem corpus what can truly be called a hypertext, which a reader can enter at any point and peruse in any order, jumping from semantic node to semantic node at will, creating in the process an associative web whose structure will be different for every reader but whose overall shape and texture will be similar for all readers. This "hypertextual" layer, characterized by permissive quasi-random access to other parts of the emblem corpus, is located on the level of what may be called the emblematic macro-structure, that is to say in the individual emblem book taken as a whole or the entire corpus of emblem books. On the "micro-structural" level, however, the individual emblem functions quite differently, and writers, in the French emblem tradition at least, frequently select techniques intended to direct the reader's attention towards a specific moral by focusing his or her attention ever more closely on links among the various parts of a given emblem. On this most concrete level of all, meaning is assembled from the pictorial and textual fragments by a process which may—perhaps somewhat cryptically—be provisionally defined as "anaphoric deixis directed to visual sense perception." This definition may well stand in need of some amplification. The rhetorical term "anaphora" is used nowadays to mean two different things in rhetoric and linguistics. In rhetorical analysis, it normally designates the repetition of the same word at the head of successive clauses in a sentence, in order to achieve some rhetorical effect. In linguistic analysis, however, it tends to mean, as Greimas defines it, 4. This is the definition found in Dupriez, s. v. "anaphore.
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"une relation d'identite partielle qui s'etablit, dans le discours, sur Гахе syntagmatique, entre deux termes, servant ainsi h relier deux enonces, deux paragraphes, etc" [a relationship of partial identity which is established, in discourse, on the syntagmatic axis, between two terms, thus serving to link two utterances, two paragraphs, etc.] (Greimas and Courtes, 1:14, s.v. "anaphore"). This second meaning is the one used in the present article, with the further proviso that a typical emblematic anaphora is composed not only of textual parts, as is the case in traditional rhetorical use, but of a pictorial part and of a textual part which refers to it more or less explicitly. "Anaphoric deixis" is thus the use of a deictic token to take up, in the text, some pictorial element whose prior existence is required to justify the use of the deictic. The words "deictic" and "deixis" are themselves used with widely divergent meanings by various writers in the fields of linguistics and semiotics. The term "deictic" is commonly used to mean simply a demonstrative adjective or pronoun. In any consideration of the func tion of deixis, however, it is important to realize, as Michele Perret has recalled in an illuminating historical summary of the evolution of the term (12-21), that linguists have moved increasingly away from think ing of deictics as simple demonstratives whose function is to "point things out." Recent conceptions of deixis have included in it not only demonstratives but those other words which Roman Jakobson has called "shifters": terms whose referential meaning can be determined only with reference to the speaker. These include not only adverbs of place and time, but pronouns like "je/nous" [I/we] and "tu/vous" [thou/you] whose use tends to create the illusion of direct contact between the authorial persona and the reader. Such a conception makes the speaker the fixed point of reference for deixis, and thus does not see in deixis merely an act of showing, but rather a comparison of the speaker's and the hearer's frames of reference. In the case of the emblem, the ostensible "speaker" can be not only an openly declared author, but one of the actantial elements in the emblem picture or text: this category is not necessarily restricted to human beings, but can include animals, plants and even inanimate objects. For this reason, Irene Bergal wisely uses the term "authorial persona" rather than "author" in her discussion of pictorial/textual cross-referential techniques, thereby managing to a large extent to avoid many unresolvable questions of authorial intentionality. It may be possible to avoid resorting even to a fictitious author, however, for
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in broadening their conception of deixis to include in it all the mechanisms which permit the manipulation of multiple spatial and temporal h.imes of reference, linguists have increasingly tended to de-emphasize the role of any authorial substitute, and to see deixis as an act comprehensible only with reference to the discursive frame which generates it. In keeping with this idea, the term "deixis" will thus be used here to mean the use of linguistic tokens which permit readers to manipulate multiple spatial and temporal frames of reference, in other words all those terms which point from what we may call the "I/here/now" of the text to the "you/there/then" of the reader. I >eixis is thus what allows us as readers to situate ourselves in spacetime with respect to what many semioticians call the "instance of enunciation": the individual utterance as manifested in the text. One significant advantage of a conception of deixis based on the reference frame of the individual enunciation is that it affords us the greatest possibility of setting aside the question of authorial intentionality in order to focus as tightly as possible on the inner workings of the text itself. To say that the linking mechanism between the pictorial and textual parts of the emblem functions through the use of "anaphoric deixis directed to visual sense perception" is thus to assert that the use of certain terms in the emblematic text creates an anaphoric deixis which is fully comprehensible only by reference to the pictorial material, and which is typically made explicit through a direct appeal to the reader's visual sense. The general form of the emblematic cross-reference may
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"Deixis" will thus not designate, as it does in Greimas, the implicative relationships conveyed by certain axes of the "carre semiotique" [semiotic square]. See in particular Greimas and Courtes, 1, s. v. "Carre semiotique," "Deictique," "Deixis." While Greimas uses the term 'deictic' in its now traditional sense of "elements linguistiques qui font reference a l'instance de l'enonciation et a ses coordonnees spatio-temporelles" [linguistic elements which allude to the instance of enunciation and to its temporospatial coordinates], he confusingly uses "deixis" to refer to the entirely different phenomenon of the "positive" and "negative" implicative relationships which may be inferred from the linking of the axes of "contradiction" and "contrariety" in the semiotic square. His definition of "deixis de reference" [referential deixis] is closer to the meaning of "deixis" in the present article.
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be taken to be one of the following; particular examples illustrating these general statements are summarized in Table 1: 1.1 This [R] shows [A] that [M is true]. or 1.2 [A] sees from this [R] that [M is true]. In these statements, [R] is the referential element generated by means of an anaphora, [A] the intended audience of the emblem, and [M] that portion of the moral intended by the author to be made explicit by means of this link. The deictic acquires its peculiar strength from the fact that only the presence of the picture can explain its presence; without the picture, it would be simply an "empty pointer." The process of deixis in this case clearly has little or nothing to do with the frame of reference of any authorial persona; rather, it has meaning only within the context of the emblematic picture/text combination, and the deictic token serves to remind us that the element to which it points really is nearby, though in the pictorial rather than in the textual part of the emblem.
Table la Emblem C24 M60
Internal Reference Deictic Ceste [Di] Cest [D^icy
C24
M60
1
Anaphoric determinant enlassee de vers selon qu'il s'achemine, Marchant en mer...
|
External Transfer of Meaning
Table lb Emblem
Referential element couronne homme
Process Monstre a
Audience [Ai] chascun [AJ prince
j Moral conclusion j Que mort: [Mi] prend tout I [M2] meurtrist et pince j [M3] faict gesir les plus grans a l'envers Monstre [a] [A] Celuy qui veut j [Mi] qu'il [R] veut a vertu parvenir iusques a Christ advenir j [M2] qu'il [A] Doit tout ainsi par actes _ j vertueuxs'acheminer...
Table 1. Some Examples of Emblematic Cross-Reference.
]
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The most basic form of emblematic cross-reference, in which a pictorial element is taken up in the text through deixis and sub sequently said to "show" something to the reader or to the world at large, may be found in the subscriptio of Gilles Corrozet's "Les grans ne doibvent craindre la mort" [The great must not fear death] from the llecatomgraphie: Ceste couronne enlassee de vers, Monstre h chascun & mesmement au prince, Que mort prend tout qu'elle meurdrist & pince, Et faict gesir les plus grans к l'envers. [C24] [This crown entwined with worms, Shows everyone and likewise too the prince, That death takes all it wounds and pinches, And lays the greatest low.] Here the anaphoric expansion of the visual image is found in the words "couronne enlassee de vers" [crown entwined with worms]; these words take up and repeat the contents of the main pictorial element, and it will not be entirely obvious from the picture alone that worms, and not some other life form or even inanimate object, are intended. A somewhat more complex example appears in M60 ("In via virtuti nulla est via" [On the way to virtue there is no highway]), whose text begins as follows: Cest homme icy, selon qu'il s'achemine, Monstre qu'il veut h vertu parvenir . . . [M60] [This man here, through his way of walking on, Shows that he wishes to come to virtue.] Here, the link to the picture ("Cest homme icy" [This man here]) serves immediately to generate a broad moral statement which is then ap plied to all those seeking Christ, and where the deictic demonstrative 6. In all references to emblem texts, the following abbreviations will be used: С (Gilles Corrozet, Hecatomgraphie), G (Guillaume Gueroult, Le premier livre des emblemes), L (Guillaume de La Perriere, Le theatre des bons engins), M (Georgette de Montenay, Emblemes ou devises chretiennes). The numbers are those of individual emblems in each collection.
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is reinforced by the adverbial spatial shifter "icy" [here]. Once again, the deixis can be said to have meaning only with respect to the frame of reference of the text: the man is "icy" only in the sense that his image is juxtaposed to the text containing the deictic. Not only can a pictorial element be said to "show" something, however, for the reader is frequently invited to "see" a particular moral in the emblem picture, which then is used to determine his or her reaction. In M59, for example, "Non fastidiosa," [Not fastidious] the text begins: En contemplant ceste femme, voyez Que charite est une oeuvre excellente. [In gazing on this woman, see That charity is an excellent work.] The process of moral understanding mediated by sense perception is emphasized here by the reiteration of "contempler" [gaze on] and "voir" [see] rather than by the emphatic deixis of a repeated demonstrative as is the case with "In via virtuti nulla est via." The deixis is also reinforced, however, by means of the personal shifter contained in the verbal imperative "voyez" [see], which once again serves to establish a personal immediate relationship between author and reader. As will be seen, apostrophe of this sort is a powerful tool in the hands of emblematists. Many other similar examples of pictorial/textual cross-reference could be adduced, but in the interests of brevity it is perhaps worth noting only that the cross-reference does not always appear in its fully developed form. The referential element can be omitted, for example, as in Georgette de Montenay's "Lumine carens," [Lacking light] which begins thus: Voicy qui veut que preud'homme on le pense . . . [M55] [Here's someone who wants to be thought an upright man] In this instance, the more common construction "Cest homme" [This man], which in using the word "homme" would no doubt have detracted from the force of the word "preud'homme" [upright man], is replaced by the presentative/relative construction "Voicy qui . . . " [Here is one who . . •]. The deixis is nonetheless maintained at full strength by virtue of the fact that the word "Voicy" itself contains not
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one but two deictics, at least by implication (the imperative verbal nhil'tor "vois" [see] and the adverbial particle "-cy" [here]). I n a similar way, the demonstrative itself, while characteristic of this lorm of cross-reference, can on occasion be entirely omitted without iillocting the presence of a pictorial/textual deixis, for the deictic I u nction can readily be assumed by some other part of speech, such as llu» definite or indefinite article, as in L49, which begins L'Araigne ha belle & propre invention Quand sur sa toille elle attrape les mousches: Mais elle est foyble, & n'a protection Pour resister aux grousses & farouches. [L49] [The spider's ruse is right and good When in its web it catches flies: But it is weak, and has no protection To resist the great and fierce.] The same emblem concludes with these lines: . . . on voit par evidence, Que grosse mousche abat legiere toile. [L49] [. . . we see from evidence, That a fat fly strikes down a slight web.] The juxtaposition of this text and the picture, in which the spider's web is clearly discernible, is sufficient to form a cross-referential link, though it must be admitted that the absence of any strongly deictic term tends to make the text far more independent of the picture than would otherwise be the case. It is perhaps for this reason that the text concludes with the apparently redundant formula " . . . on voit par evidence . . . " [we see from evidence], with its double appeal to visual sense perception ("evidence" [evidence] derives of course from "videre" [to see]). In the absence of a strong deixis, the reader's visual sense must perhaps be doubly solicited by the text. Through cross-reference, the emblem writer tends to create texts which invite the reader to become a spectator, to "see" or be "shown" some pictorial element from whose correct interpretation a desirable moral conclusion should inevitably follow. In other words, the pictorial/textual relationship relies heavily on the presence of a strongly explicit visual component in the text. This is not at all similar to most traditional Aesopic fables, in which a deixis is typically used to refer
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to the narrative itself: "This story shows that . . . " ([ouro£] 6 АЛуоа 5r\kol . . . or [ойто£] 6 irO\|/o£ 5r|XoC . . . ) . The fable thus uses deixis to achieve, not cross-reference, but self-reference. Many uses of self-referential linkages can be found in emblems as well, but they tend to be fundamentally unlike those most commonly used by writers of fables in a number of ways. Any instance of self-referential discourse, as Michele Perret has written, will entail 'Tautosaturation de l'embrayeur, puisque l'espace qu'il symbolise en tant que signe est celui qu'il occupe en tant que mention" [self-saturation of the shifter, since the space which it symbolises as a sign is the one it occupies as an occurrence] (21). That the deictic is saturated means in a self-referential emblem that the textual deictic, rather than pointing to some isolated visual element which the text presents as real, and from which an immediate lesson may be learned, points either back to itself, that is to the emblem as a composite whole, or to the emblem picture conceived in its entirety. Emblematic self-reference is thus essentially a "validated reflexive deixis addressed to reason" in which the text unveils the emblem's status as an artifact, by explicitly drawing our attention to the fact that we are being shown something written or painted: a human creation. That the word "histoire," [(hi)story] like other words for story-telling, is not common in French emblems—of the four emblem books treated in this article, it seems to occur only in Gilles Corrozet's Hecatomgraphie—is perhaps symptomatic of the emblem's essentially non-narrative status. When it does occur, it can of course refer to a narrative (as in C52, drawn from an iEsopic fable), or to something entirely outside the emblem context such as ancient history (as for example in C14 and C19). It can, however mean something rather different from what a reader might expect, as in the subscriptio to "Le secret n'est к reveler" [The secret is not to be revealed]: Voiez icy en ceste histoire, Comment je tiens une esventoire Dequoy j'esvente une pensee, Qui est devant moy advancee. [C44] [See here in this history, How I hold a fan With which I fan a pansy (pun: "air a thought"), Which stands before me.]
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II seems clear from a combination of several factors—the double deixis ol "icy" |here] and "ceste" [this], the imperative of the verb "voir" [to мее!, and the physical location of the subscriptio directly beneath the picture—that the word "histoire" refers here not to a narrative per se but to the image itself. This impression is confirmed not only by the practice of other sixteenth-century French writers, but by the title page of the Hecatomgraphie, which identifies the contents of the book as "les descriptions de cent figures & hystoires" [descriptions of a hundred figures and histories]. In other words, the reader of Corrozet's work is ngain invited to become a spectator, and the emblematic picture is substituted for the fabula, in what is a transitional form between cross-reference and true self-referential emblematic expression. Emblematic self-reference is more characteristically achieved, how ever, through the use of such words as "pourtraict" [portrait], "peincture" [painting] or "ymage" [picture]. LI provides a good example of this: Embleme. Le Dieu Ianus iadis к deux visages, Noz ancies ont pourtraict & trasse, Pour demostrer que l'advis des gens sages Vise au futur aussi bien qu'au passe. [LI] [Emblem. With two faces the god Janus The ancients did portray and trace To demonstrate that the view of wise folk Looks to the future as well as to the past.] In many cases, as here, the self-referential unveiling of the depicted nature of what we are seeing makes use of one or more embedded cross-references to pictorial elements. The reference to the painted or otherwise depicted exemplum, in contrast to an isolated cross-refer ence, usually relies on a logical demonstration, and not on a direction to sense perception. In other words, the "pourtraict" or "ymage" seems analogous to a syllogism whose variously cross-referenced parts can be likened to premises and the moral to the conclusion. The following, then, may be taken to be the general statements of emblematic self-reference, of which Table 2 summarizes some particu lar examples:
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EMBLEMATICA
2.1 This [S[CRi . . . CRnJ] as validated by [V] proves to [A] that [M] is true. or 2.2. [A] understands from this [S[CRi. . . CRn]] as validated by [V] that [M] is true.
Internal Reference
Table 2a Emblem
Embedded Cross-Reference
LI
Le Dieu Ianus...a deux visages
L83
Le serpet faict en forme sphericque
G13
[CRi] Du Dieu facond la verge 6c [CRi i] caducee/ De deux serpents. .. [CR2I Formis perdants leur forme naturelle...
Table 2b 1 Emblem LI
Validation Self-referential element [S1] ont pourtraict Noz anciens [SJ [ont] trasse [Si] tel pourtraicture Les habitans de Phoenice [S2] ycelle pairicture gens sage [S\] peindre lYi] L'Antiquite en ses [S2I tableau faitz admirable [Vd [tableau] [S3] ce pourrrair sumptueux
External Transfer of Meaning Process Pou«- demostrer
L83
[Tj] signifiant [T2I expresse demonstrance
G13
[Tj] pour demonstrer [T2J faisant apparoistre
Audience ges sages [i.e. readers] [A]] toute creature [A2J nous
nous
Moral Conclusion i Que [la sagesse]: Vise au futur aussi bien qu'au passe [M]] Que prud'et qui soymesme se picque [MJ [Qu'il faut] de soymesme avoir la cognoissance [Mi] le bien ... qui peur sortir de Concorde... [M2] Que la paix fair choses petites croistre: Qui en bon heur longuement s'entretiennent
Table 2. Some Examples of Emblematic Self-Reference.
Here [S] is a reference to the emblem as a whole or to a complete part of it, [CR] refers to embedded cross-references, [V] to the authority called on to validate the self-reference and [M] to the desired moral conclusion which the audience [A] is apparently intended to grasp. The validation of self-references by some external authority is clearly required, given the otherwise entirely self-contained and therefore circular nature of the self-referential demonstration. When genuine
DAVID GRAHAM
15
external authority cannot be supplied, rhetorical means can provide .in acceptable stand-in, as in "L'image de fortune" [The picture of lortune] |C40] or frequently in Emblemes ou devises chretiennes, where ime or more axiological (or value-laden) adjectives such as "vraye" llruel, "beau" [fine] and so forth are applied to qualify the image, on which the text alone thus contrives to confer authority. In "Coinquinat" [It contaminates] [M23], for example, this technique appears to ytood effect; not only is the picture's authority validated, but its subject Is thoroughly vilified through a combination of anaphoric and self-referential deixis: Simple ignorance aucuns encor' excusent, Mais ceste-cy crasse & malitieuse, [anaphoric deixis] Crasse la dy, de ce mot duquel usent Les anciens, pour la rendre odieuse. Des apostats est ceste vitieuse [self-referential deixis] Le way pourtraict. [M23] [Simple ignorance some still excuse, But this one here, filthy and malicious, Filthy I say it is, with this word The Ancients use, to make it hateful, This vicious woman is of apostates The true portrait.] Whereas cross-reference is almost purely deictic/demonstrative, emblematic self-reference thus tends to be apodictic, as it relies on the quasi-syllogistic demonstration of a moral imperative. The moral is therefore not simply presented to the reader as true (as is the case in cross-reference) but shown to be so. The intended audience is likely to be pronominalized as "nous" [we/us], a neat rhetorical device which allows the authorial persona to include us willy-nilly in his or her own willing acceptance of the demonstration. The reader is by this means
7. Irene Bergal has also pointed this out: "The reader is not invited to participate in the decoding process; indeed, he is discouraged from doing so by the repetition of tag phrases that explicitely validate the interpretation made by the persona, phrases like: 'ce beau portrait clairement nous explique' . . . " (274).
16
EMBLEMATICA
transformed from a passive spectator to a full participant in a didactic emblematic process. In this connection, a passage in Barthelemy Aneau's preface to his translation of Alciato's Embletnata is worth calling to mind. 8 His own additions to the basic text of Alciato's emblems, he writes, include in some cases a technical term describing the rhetorical genre to which some emblems seem best to belong: D'advantaige nous у avons prefix oultre les inscriptions sommaires, l'habitude & figure de l'Embleme, que les Graecz appellent Exit1** Schema, comme quand c'est PROBLEME (c'est a dire demande auec resolution) ou DIALOGISME (c'est propos finct к deux personnages parlans) ou Apostro phe, (c'est adresse de parolle к seconde personne, (ou APODIXE, (c'est u dire EVIDENCE, ou evidente demonstration,) ou PROSOPOPOEIE, (c'est h dire fiction de personne parlant к chose sans ame) & semblables formes de dire Poeticques, & diverses de la commune forme de parler. (9-10) [Moreover we have prefixed to them, besides the summary inscriptions, the habit and figure of the Emblem, which the Greeks call ЕХЛ!^* Schema, as when it is a PROBLEM (which is to say some question with a resolution) or DIALOGISM (which is the pretended speech of two speaking characters) or Apostrophe, (which is addressing words to a second person), (or APODIXE, (which is to say EVIDENCE, or evi dent demonstration,) or PROSOPOPOEIA, (which is to say some fiction of a person speaking to a thing inanimate) and similar Poetic forms of discourse, and differing from the common manner of speech.] When one examines those emblems which Aneau has seen fit to pref ace with the heading "Evidence" or "Apodeixe," their striking simi larity is immediately obvious: these are indeed emblems with a strong self-referential element, as in "Envie" [Envy], whose text reads as follows:
8. I am indebted to Daniel Russell for reminding me of this important passage.
DAVID GRAHAM
17
Une famine est chair de serpent mangeant, Л qui les yeulx font mal, son coeur rongeant Tort palle, & maigre, & d'espineuse poincte Tient ung baston. Telle est envie pincte. (93) | Л woman is eating serpent's flesh, I Ier eyes pain her, gnawing her heart Most pale, and lean, and a thorn-tipped Stick she holds. Thus is envy painted.] What is even more striking, however, is the number of these emblems In which the author directly addresses the visual sense of a putative reader through an apostrophe, as in the case of "La puissance iP Amour" [The power of love]: Voyez amour riant doulx, & humain, Tout nud, sans feu, sans arc. Mais d'une main Des fleurs tenir, d'aultre ung poisson avoir Monstrant qu'il ha sur terre, & mer povoir. (129) [See love laughing sweet and human, All naked, with no firebrand or bow. But with one hand Holding flowers, and the other having a fish Showing he has power over land and sea.] In the final analysis, even the apodictic "evidente demonstration" of moral truth through validated self-reference may sometimes be insufficient to persuade. In such cases, emblem writers may choose to "break the emblematic frame" and appeal directly to the reader through the use of apostrophe or such related rhetorical techniques as those enumerated by Aneau, all mediated by pronominal shifters such as "je/tu" [I/thou]. The essential characteristic of apostrophic framebreaking is that in forcing the reader to take some sort of authorial voice into account, it refuses to be constrained by conventional barri ers between text and picture, and in this way strives to bridge the gulf between the printed emblematic microcosm and the macrocosmic "real world" of the reader. It thereby abolishes the distance which normally separates reader and emblem in an attempt to gain direct access to the reader's system of beliefs and values. Rather than being presented as true (as in the case of cross-reference) or being shown to be true (as in self-referential demonstration), the lesson in a frame-break ing emblem is ostensibly declaimed by characters and objects (actors)
18
EMBLEMATICA
in the emblem picture who lay claim to reality through their power of speech: they literally seem to "speak for themselves/' as in "Contre les brocardeurs" [Against mockers] [C4], where one character addresses another through the subscriptio: Petite fascheuse Arondelle, Avez vous assez caquete? Gaignez au pied, tirez de l'aelle, Fuyez vous en d'aultre coste. [C4] [Small annoying swallow, Have you chattered enough? Away with you, spread your wings, Fly away somewhere else.] In giving voice to the emblem picture, the author can frequently discard the methodical persuasive reasonableness which characterizes self-referential discourse. Frame-breaking may thus be construed as self-conscious self-reference, since the emblem not only refers to its own existence but comes to life in the process. In its most forceful avatars, emblematic frame-breaking appears to dispense with the author altogether, as when a character or object communicates a lesson directly to the reader from the picture: Je suis marry dollent & esperdu, Car a ce jeu je pers bien & chevance, Mauldicte soit la miserable chance, J'avois perdu si je n'eusse perdu. [C22] [I am sad, sorrowful and distraught, For at this game I lose goods and riches, Cursed be my miserable luck, I had lost had I not lost.] That this assumption of a speaking voice by an emblematic character is but an authorial voice in another guise is nevertheless shown by the fact that an authorial persona almost invariably resurfaces immediately. In "De tromperie pauvrete" [From deceit, misery] just quoted, the text begins as follows: Cest embleme nous faict scavoir, Qu'il n'est chance qui ne retourne Car toy pipeur qui veulx avoir
DAVID GRAHAM
19
I/or, L'argent, le bien & l'avoir IV quolque innocente personne, Los dez dedans ta main tu tourne . . . [C22]
I This emblem gives us to know That there is no luck that does not turn, For you, cheater who wants to have The gold, the silver, the goods and possessions Of some innocent person, The dice in your hand you turn . . .] I lore the authorial persona, having reappropriated for his own use the picture/text combination by means of a self-referential link contained in the first line of the text, recovers his power of speech in order to harangue the subject of the picture, whom he has once again reduced to helpless silence, and to harangue the reader too, who is, by impli cation at least, assimilated to this "pipeur de dez." Walter Ong, in The Presence of the Word, has provided some indica tion of the roots of such rhetorical practice in the contrast between the oral culture which in his view characterizes antiquity and the medie val period, and the written culture which came to preeminence during the Renaissance. In an important passage, he writes that Context for the spoken word is furnished ready-made. In written performance the writer must establish both meaning and context. This is one of the most difficult tasks in communication simply because the person or persons being communicated with are not there at all: the writer has to project them totally out of his own imagination. And they themselves, the readers, have to learn the game of literacy; how to conform to the other's projection, or at least operate in terms of it. (116-17Г 9. For Ong, "In terms of the presence of the word to man, the Renaissance is one of the most complex and even confused periods in cultural history, and by the same token perhaps the most interesting up to the present in the history of the word. An exacting devotion to the written text, a devotion which has been the seedbed of modern humanistic scholarship, struggled in the subconscious with commitment to rhetoric and to dialect, symbolic of the old oral-aural frames of the mind . . ." (61-62). It seems clear that emblem books may well be one
20
EMBLEMAIICA
It is certainly possible that the frequent reliance on frame-breaking rhetorical techniques in French emblem books may be a sign of the persistence of some of the stronger forms of oral discourse even in what was after all a quintessentially written form. In learning to create characters whose sole existence would be on the page and in the mind, it was no doubt natural that writers should hold a dialogue with the emblematic actors, or that the actors or the author should speak directly to the reading audience, particularly given the presence of a visual image and the commonly expressed feeling of some kinship between emblematics and theatricality. It is apparent in any case that in the French emblem, the "author/character/reader" relationship may be construed as a triangle from which any one apex may seem to be excluded through apostrophic frame-breaking. This exclusion is in fact illusory, for as we have seen, the character's voice is in reality revealed to be that of the authorial persona. It must be said too that just as the authorial voice is seldom banished for long from the emblematic text, the reader is always present in the text either implicitly or explicitly. Even when not openly addressed as "toy (lecteur)" [thou (reader)] or "toy (mondain)" [thou (worldling)], for example, he or she is always invited to eavesdrop on these author-character conversations. Apostrophe of the reader can of course be used not only to achieve frame-breaking, but in cross-reference, where the reader is frequently enjoined to see some pictorial element ("Voiez . . . " [See], "Tu voids (lecteur) . . . " [Thou seest (reader)]), and in self-reference, where as we have seen the text can explicitly include the reader through the use of "nous." In the case of frame-breaking, however, the apostrophe is at once more forceful and more discursive, and assumes one of the following general forms:
3.1 I [R] am (doing) [X]. or
area in which the symptoms of this "subconscious struggle" are more than usually apparent.
DAVID GRAHAM
:i.2 I |W|
remind exhort encourage
21
you [A] to do [X]. or
.4.3 I IW] point out to you [A] that [R] is (doing) [X]. where IW] is the ostensible writing/speaking voice, or the authorial persona, [A] the intended audience, [R] a cross-referenced pictorial element, and [X] some action or quality adduced as evidence in support of a desired moral conclusion. The use of frame-breaking ensures that the reader will be thoroughly drawn into the emblematic process, engaged willy-nilly in a virtual dialogue with a long-dead author (Aneau's "dialogisme"), or, paradoxically, with a character who never existed in the first place (addressing the reader through the use of Aneau's "apostrophe"), or even with some ordinarily inanimate object momentarily granted the power of speech (Aneau's "prosopopoeie"). If emblematic cross-reference is essentially deictic/demonstrative in nature, and self-reference is apodictic, then the use of frame-breaking shifters in emblematic writing can perhaps best be characterized as evangelistic. Rather than simply pointing something out to the reader (an essentially passive way to proceed), rather than presenting the reader with a logical demonstration of a moral truth, the frame-breaking emblem collars the reader and forces him or her to listen, to become not merely a spectator or a pupil but a veritable disciple. That these pictures should take voice to speak to us is the textual analog of their power to depict the paradoxical and the unreal in order to capture our visual attention, as in C15, where the image of a man literally consumed by the flames of passion cannot fail to arouse our interest, if not our sympathy. This quasi-miraculous power to summon the unreal into sudden visible and legible existence calls on us not just to see, not even to listen and reason, but to believe, to become converts of the emblem's parabolic power. 10
10. In this connection, it is worthwhile to recall Walter Ong's suggestion that "Perhaps we are too little conscious that the Latin term for faith, fides, like the corresponding Greek pistis, belongs to the old oral-aural economy in a quite specific way. It was the term which since antiquity had been used for the
22
EMBLEMAIICA
That emblem writers should have observed a hierarchy of referential techniques to combine fragments from differing codes, to validate the whole and to attempt to stamp it directly on the reader's consciousness is perhaps not surprising, in that it seems to reflect quite directly the kind of hierarchical neo-Platonist conception of human faculties common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One has only to think of Robert Fludd's drawings of the scheme of being, in which the progression from sense perception through reason to understanding is constantly reiterated. Thus Jacob's ladder, with its feet firmly planted in the elemental clay of matter, and whose top rung is labeled "Verbum," is for Fludd the perfect representation of the hierarchy of faculties, in which only the inspiration of the Word enables the human mind to bridge the infinite gulf between earth and heaven. Such conceptions were by no means restricted to eccentric devotees of the kabbalah and to hermetic neo-Platonists, however. Squarely athwart the mainstream of French literature, no less an author than Pierre Corneille succinctly expressed the aptness of this hierarchy of referential techniques through the words of his heroine Pauline; miraculously converted through the intervention of her martyred husband at the conclusion of the "tragedie chretienne" [christian tragedy] entitled Polyeucte, she exclaims "]e vois, je sais, je crois, je suis desabusee" [I see, I know, I believe, I am disabused]. To lead us successfully thus from sight to insight, from vision through understanding to faith in the truth of their moral precepts, is no doubt the frequent if not invariable ambition of many emblem writers, and their referential devices are carefully chosen to achieve that end.
conviction which the rhetorician, hierarch of the old oral-aural culture, was supposed to arouse in his audience" (285).
11. See Godwin (71).
DAVID GRAHAM
23
Works Cited Alciato, Andrea. Emblemes. Trans. Barthelemy Aneau. Lyons: (iuillaume Rouille [Printed by Mace Bonhomme], 1549. Borgal, Irene. "Discursive Strategies in Early French Emblem hooks/' Emblematica, 2.2 (1987), 273-91. Boureau, Alain. "Les livres d'emblemes sur la scene publique. Cote |.irdin et cote cour." Les Usages de VImprime (XVе-XIXе siede). Ed. Kogor Chartier. Paris: Fayard, 1987. Pp. 343-80. Chambry, Emile. "Notice sur Esope et les fables esopiques." in t.sope. Fables. Collection des Universites de France. Ed. and trans. Chambry. Paris: Societe d'Edition «Les Belles Lettres», 1985. Pp. ix-liv. Couton, Georges. "Introduction." In Jean de La Fontaine. Fables choisies mises en vers. Ed. Couton. Paris: Gamier, 1962. Dupriez, Bernard. Gradus. Les procedes litteraires (Dictionnaire). 10/18,1370. Paris: Union generale d'editions, 1977; Montreal: Presses de la Cite, 1980. Godwin, Joscelyn. Robert Fludd: Philosophe hermetique et Arpenteur de Deux Mondes. Trans. Sylvain Matton. London: Thames and Hud son, 1979; Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1980. Greimas, Algirdas Julien, and Joseph Courtes. Semiotique: diction naire raisonne de la theorie du langage. Langue, linguistique, communi cation. 2 vols. Paris: Hachette, 1979-1986. Mathieu-Castellani, Gisele. Emblemes de la mort: le dialogue de Vimage et du texte. Paris: Nizet, 1988. McGowan, Margaret M. "Moral Intention in the Fables of La Fon taine." Journal of the Warburg and Courtault Institutes, 29 (1966), 264-81. Ong, Walter J. The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History. New Haven and London: Yale Uni versity Press, 1967. Perret, Michele. Le Signe et la mention: adverbes embrayeurs ci, qa, la, ilvec en moyen franqais (XIVe-XVe siecles). Publications romanes et frangaises, 185. Geneve: Droz, 1988. Perrier, Simone. "La circulation du sens dans les Emblemes Chrestiens de G. de Montenay (1571)." Nouvelle Revue du Seizieme Siede, 9 (1991), 73-89.
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Perrier, Simone. "Le corps de la sentence: les "Emblemes Chrestiens" de Georgette de Montenay." Litterature, 78 (1990), 54-64. Perry, Ben Edwin. "Introduction." Babrius and Phaedrus. Ed. and trans. Perry. Loeb Classical Library. London: W. Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965. Rothstein, Marion. "Disjunctive Images in Renaissance Books." Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Reforme, 26.2 (1990), 10120. Russell, Daniel. The Emblem and Device in France. French Forum Monographs. Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1985. Saunders, Alison. "Picta Poesis: The Relationship between Figure and Text in the Sixteenth-Century French Emblem Book." Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 48, no. 3 (1986), 621-52. Scholz, Bernhard. "The 1531 Augsburg Edition of Alciato's Emblemata: A Survey of Research." Emblematica, 5.2 (1991), 213-54. Schwartz, Jerome. "Some Emblematic Marriage Topoi in the French Renaissance." Emblematica, 1.2 (1986), 245-60. Schwartz, Jerome. "Emblematic Theory and Practice: The Case of the Sixteenth-Century French Emblem Book." Emblematica, 2.2 (1987), 293-311.
Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Dutch "Emblematic" Fable Books from the Gheeraerts Filiation MARC VAN VAECK University ofLeuven, Belgium In 1604, Karel van Mander described in his Schilder-Ъоеск [Painter's Hook] the all-round craftmanship of the Bruges painter, drawer and richer Marcus Gheeraerts this way: Daer is . . . eenen . . . onder de vermaerde, geheeten Mar cus Geerarts, dat een goet meester is geweest, . . . wesende universael, oft in alles wel ervaren, t'zy beelden, Landtschap, Metselrijen, ordinantien, teyckenen, hetsen, Verlichterije, en alles wat de Const mach omhelsen . . . . Doe in't Jaer 1566. door de nieu Predicatien, de Const in stil-stant was, maecte en hetste hy het Boeck van de Fabulen der Dieren Esopi, dat een fraey dinghen, en wel ghehandelt is. [There was a famous man, called Marcus Geeraerts, a fine master who was universal and experienced in every thing: figures, landscapes, the representation of architec ture, compositions, drawings, etchings, the designing of prints and in everything the Art may amount to. When
K. van Mander, Het Schilder-Boeck (Haerlem, 1604); facsimile ed. (Utrecht: Davaco, 1969), fol. 258r.
25
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I MBLEMATICA
in the year 1566 Art had come to a standstill because of the new teachings, he made and etched the fable book of Aesop's animals, which was very well done indeed.] Van Mander is referring here to the fable book De VVarachtighe Fabvlen Der Dieren [The truthful fables of animals], which contained Dutch verses by Eduard de Dene, clerk to the Bruges tribunal and productive poet of the chamber of rhetoric "De Drie Santinnen." This prestigious Bruges enterprise was first and foremost an initiative of the illustrator, Marcus Gheeraerts: he designed the 107 etchings; the volume was printed at his expense and the preliminary work contains not only Gheeraerts's dedication to Hubertus Goltzius, "vermaert Schilder, Antiquarius, . . . Historiscrijuer" [a famous painter, antiquarian, historiographer] and well-known numismatist, but also a laudatory poem by the painter-poet Lucas d'Heere, Gheeraerts's fellow artist who was also acquainted with Goltzius. 2.
De Warachtighe Fabulen Der Dieren (Bruges, 1567; ed. W. le Loup and M. Goetinck (Roeselare: Den Wijngaert, 1978). See also J. Landwehr, Emblem and Fable Books Printed in the Low Countries 1542-1813. A Bibliography (Utrecht: HES, 1988), p. 96, nos 189-191a; E. Hodnett, Marcus Gheeraerts the elder of Bruges, London, and Antwerp (Utrecht: Haentjens, Dekker, Gumbert, 1971), pp. 32-33; W. B. Ashworth Jr., "Marcus Gheeraerts and the Aesopic Connection in Seventeenth-Century Scientific Illustration/' Art Journal, 44 (1984), 132-38; L. Scharpe, "Van De Dene tot Vondel," Leuvensche Bijdragen, 4 (1900), 1-59; and esp. D. Geirnaert and P. J. Smith, "Tussen fabel en embleem: De warachtighe fabulen der dieren (1567)," Literatuur, 9 (1992), 22-33. On M. Gheeraerts, see also A. Schouteet, Marcus Gerards. The 16th-Century Painter and Engraver (Bruges: Gidsenbond van Brugge en West-Vlaanderen, 1985). Biographical information on De Dene, can be found in A. Schouteet, "Eduard de Dene, rederijker," Nationaal biografisch woordenboek, vol. 1 (Brussels: Paleis der Academien, 1964), 401-04; on De Dene see also Jaarboek 'De Fonteine'', XIX-XX (1969-70), 109-249. On Hubertus Goltzius, see esp. Hubertus Goltzius en Brugge 1583-1983, ed. W. Le Loup (Bruges: Stad Brugge, 1984). For a biographical outline and a survey of the literary and pictorial oeuvre of Lucas d'Heere, see esp. W. Waterschoot, "Leven en betekenis van L. d'Heere," Verslagen en Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamsche Academie (1974), 16-126. On Pieter de Clerck, the printer of the VVarachtighe Fabvlen der Dieren, see A. Schouteet, "Documenten betreffende Brugse drukkers uit de 16de eeuw. V. Pieter de Clerck," Handelingen van het genootschap voor geschiedenis gesticht onder de benaming Societe d'emulation te Brugge, 86 (1949), 151-214, and A. Rouzet, Dictionnaire des imprimeurs, libraires et editeurs des XVe et XVIe siecles (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1975), 37-38.
MARC VAN VAECK
27
The VVarachtighe Fabvlen were very important to the later tradition (»l (lu> Dutch illustrated fable books: the superb etchings were time and ii^.iin reprinted or imitated, and the concept of the volume was also ivpi\Uedly adopted or varied. Ten years later, the Gheeraerts etchings were printed in Antwerp on the initiative of the famous engraver Philips Galle, namely in the Esbatement moral des animaux (1578). They were enlarged with "plusieurs nouuelles Figures (auec amendement & embellissement des precedentes)." The original Dutch texts «ire thoroughly adapted and rendered in French: the Bible quotations «ire replaced by other ones, and De Dene's verses are imitated freely •ind presented in the modern sonnet form. In 1579, shortly after the publication of the Esbatement moral, the same Philips Galle commis sioned Plantijn in Antwerp to edit the Mythologia Ethica: the 125 etchings of the Esbatement moral were printed again and supple mented with Freytag's Latin prose texts which were obviously in spired by the Esbatement moral Also in 1578 Plantijn printed, for the account of Etienne Perret, Les XXV Fables des animaux, a collection of, in fact, twenty-four illustrated fables. Perret's texts are very close to De Dene's version. The twenty-five new and very impressive etchings iire faithful but considerably enlarged imitations of the etchings of I567.4
3.
Esbatement moral des animaux (Antwerp, 1578), fol. A2r.
4. A survey of editions in which the Gheeraerts's etchings were used again or adapted is given in E. Hodnett, as cited in note 2, pp. 31-41; see also J. F. Heijbroek, Defabel. Ontwikkeling van een literatuursoort in Nederland en in Vlaanderen (Amsterdam: Paris, 1941), pp. 66-71; С L. Kuster, Illustrierte Aesop-Ausgaben des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts (doctoral dissertation), (Hamburg: Universitat Hamburg, 1970), 1,131-36; C. L. Kuster, "Die gedruckte Fabelillustration im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert," in Fabula docet. Illustrierte Fabelbilcher aus sechs Jahrhunderten (Wolfenbiittel: Herzog August Bibliothek, 1983), pp. 34-49, esp. pp. 47-48; and D. Geirnaert and P. J. Smith, as cited in note 2, esp. pp. 25-26 and pp. 31-33. On Philips Galle, see among others, J. J. P. van den Bemden, De familie Galle, plaetsnyders van het laetst der XVIe en de eerste helft der XVIIe eeuw (Antwerp: Buschmann, 1863); F. W. H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, ca. 1450-1700 (Amsterdam: Hertzberger, s. a.), part VII, 75-83; S. Gieben, Philip Galle s Engravings Illustrating the life of Francis of Assisi (Rome: Capuchin Historical Institute, 1977); and M. Sellink, "Philips Galle als uitgever van prenten aan het einde van de zestiende eeuw," De zeventiende eeuw, 8 (1992), 13-26. On Freytag's Mythologia Ethica and on
28
EMBLhMAIICA
Gheeraerts himself is probably the I'IMSOD Ins H i h i n ^ s were so popular in A n t w e r p in 1578-79. He had returned I'rom London in 1577 a n d had set u p as a member of the A n t w e r p Saint Luke's Guild and as a fellow artist of the engraver and editor Philips Galle. Perhaps Gheeraerts's stay in London is referred to in the dedicatory poem of the Esbatement moral, as the A n t w e r p teacher Peter Heyns mentions a double a u t h o r s h i p of the French sonnets. He clarifies this by the notice "A Londres entonnez & finiz en A n u e r s . " So Gheeraerts's share in the edition of the Esbatement moral m a y have been much more substantial than estimated so far. In the next decades, the Esbatement moral and Les XXV Fables des animaux were repeatedly reprinted and imitated. I shall mention here only the Dutch illustrated editions. In 1617, the Amsterdam Dirck Pietersz Pers, w h o h a d obviously acquired the copperplates from Galle, published a Dutch adaptation of the Esbatement moral. Also in 1617, Adriaen Gerritsen published a Dutch translation of Perret's Fables in Delft with the 1578 etchings. Some ten years later, these prints had been purchased by the Rotterdam family of publishers Van Waesberghe. In 1632-33, they released an issue of the Dutch translation of Perret's fables of 1617 which was s u p p l e m e n t e d with a new Dutch adaptation by the painter-poet and famous illustrator of Cats, Adriaen Van de Venne.
Perret's XXV Fables des animaux, see also L. Voet, The Plantin Press (1555-1589). A Bibliography of the Works Printed and Published by Christopher Plantin at Antwerp and Leiden (Amsterdam: Van Hoeve, 1980-83), part 2, pp. 954-56 (no. 1214) and part 4, pp. 1829-31 (no. 1962); Voet's note on p. 956 stating that "Freitagius is perhaps referring to a French version which did not appear in print" is incorrect; Freytag is clearly referring to the Esbatement moral des animaux. On the author and politician E. Perret, see E. de Borchgrave, "Etienne Perret," Biographie Nationale [de Belgique], part 17 (Brussels: Bruylant, 1903), cols. 65-68. 5.
Esbatement moral, fol. A2v. A detailed account of Peter Heyns's life and works is given by B. van Selm, Bronnen voor de kennis van leven en werken van Peter Heyns. Geboren te Antwerpen op 1 augustus 1537. Gestorven te Haarlem in februari 1598 (typescript; Amsterdam: Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1970).
6.
See e. g., together with E. Hodnett, as cited in note 2, pp. 33-34, Scharpe, as cited in note 2, p. 40, or A. Schouteet, as cited in note 2, p. 34.
7.
For more information on these volumes see notes 2 and 4 above.
MARC VAN VAECK
29
These Dutch fable collections with etchings by, or in imitation of, Cheeraorts are (under the influence of Tiemann's study Fabel und r.mblcm) often considered as part of the Dutch emblem corpus. When dealing for instance with the VVarachtighe Fabvlen, Kuster calls it an "omblematisches Fabelbuch." Stuiveling looks upon De Dene as the "vroegste emblemata-dichter in de Nederlanden" [the earliest emblem poet in the Netherlands] and Landwehr characterizes the work as "the first Dutch contribution to emblematics in the vernacular/' Also the other volumes in the Gheeraerts tradition are not presented in Landwehr's bibliography as part of the fable literature, but as emblem books. And recently Geirnaert and Smith have still characterized the volume in the first place as an "embleem-fabelboek" with the "triplex emblematicum" on the left and the narratio and the application of the fable on the right-hand page. Instead of attributing the status of emblem book to these works on the basis of an "idealtypischen Grundform," I would like to investigate in the first place whether, or to what extent, these books were initially conceived or received as emblem books. The preliminary pages in particular of the various volumes contain relevant information in this regard. I shall restrict my research here to the Dutch illustrated fable books in the Gheeraerts filiation.
1. De VVarachtighe Fabvlen Der Dieren (Bruges 1567). The first collection in this tradition, De VVarachtighe Fabvlen Der Dieren, appears to be an adaptation of the 1547 edition of Corrozet's Les fables d'Esope Phrygien. De Dene often stays close to the French 8.
B. Tiemann, Fabel und Emblem. Die Bedeutung Gilles Corrozet fur die franzosische Fabeldichtung der Renaissance (Munich: Fink, 1974).
9. Cf. C. L. Kuster, "Bemerkungen zum emblematischen Fabelbuch 'De warachtighe Fabvlen der dieren' von 1567," Raggi, 9 (1969), 113-22; G. Stuiveling, "Edewaerd de Dene," in De Nederlandse en Vlaamse auteurs van middeleeuwen tot heden, met inbegrip van de Friese auteurs, ed. G. J. van Bork and P. J. Verkruijsse (Weesp: De Haan, 1985), p. 166; J. Landwehr, as cited in note 2, p. 96; and D. Geirnaert and P. J. Smith, as cited in note 2, pp. 22 and 25.
10. M. Hueck, Textstruktur und Gattungssystem. Studien zum Verhaltnis von Emblem und Fabel im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Kronberg/Ts., 1975), p. 11.
30
I МИ1 I МЛ1 И Л
texts and several woodcuts I mm с O r m / r i '•» volume 4irc reversed imi tations and elaborations. As in (he IICIH h e x a m p l r copied here, each fable is distributed over a single page opening. The left-hand page contains the distich (which is often a translation ol the French prose maxim), an etching by Marcus Gheeraerts and a r h y m e d moralising passage, called "praefabulatio" in contemporary fable theory. Unlike Corrozet's volume, this "praefabulatio" is invariably provided with biblical references. The right-hand page is reserved for the rhyming fable and the clearly distinct epimythium or affabulatio, a stanza in which the fable is interpreted as an e x e m p l u m . The preliminary pages start with Gheeraerts's prose dedication in which the artist points out the "novitas" of the w o r k . 1 3 It is remark able that Gheeraerts does not at all introduce the v o l u m e , which he describes as "dees fabvlen" [these fables], as pertaining to a new genre. The work clearly fits in completely with the tradition of the illustrated fable book. In so far as the "novitas" refers to the "Figuren . . . [die nog] noyt met zulcker naersticheyt e n d e aerbeyt int licht ghecommen en zijn" [Figures, that have so far never been issued in such an indus trious and diligent w a y ] , it is the etching technique that is meant. It was indeed used here for the first time for book illustrations. Other innovations (still according to Gheeraerts) have to d o with the exten sion of the n u m b e r of fables and with the language of the poems. A fourth n e w element is also not emblematic: the fables are "verciert met schriftelicke Sententien ende leerijnghen" [embellished with written maxims and lessons taken from the Bible], which h a d not been the case in Corrozet. Ktister mistakenly used these a b u n d a n t l y and almost systematically a d d e d biblical passages to interpret the volume as a "calvinistisches Erbauungsbuch." These biblical passages, which were not a d d e d by Gheeraerts but by De Dene, should however rather be related to the openness towards the use and reading of the Bible
11. See esp. Smith and Geirnaert, as cited in note 2, p. 28.
12. Cf. Aphtonius, Progymnasmata (Amsterdam, 1649), p. 5.
13. Gheeraerts's dedication to Goltzius has been translated into English in Hodnett, pp. 31-32. 14. C. L. Kuster, as cited in note 4, p. 120.
MARC VAN VAECK
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th.it existed in these years, also in Catholic circles under the influence l the rising reformation. 15 It is not only Marcus Gheeraerts who considers the Warachtighe itibvlen to be an illustrated fable collection; Lucas d'Heere in his poem to the reader also quotes arguments largely from the usual fable discourse. In other words, he does not introduce the collection as an emblem book. This is particularly remarkable when one bears in mind that, a few years earlier, Lucas d'Heere had designed, in cooperation with Sambucus, the pictures for an edition of the latter's Emblemata. The first two stanzas of d'Heere's poem stress the utilitas of the fable: the animals can teach man "hoett met de Weerelt staet" [the way of the world] and "Watmen anhanghen moet, en schuwen sal voor quaet" I the things one should strive for or avoid]. The traditionally didactic function of the fable is corroborated here: 'Tabula docet." Quintilian says that fables are able to guide the mind ("ducere animos solent") and that in this way, as Aphtonius illustrates by means of a fable, they help the prudent to be watchful against evil, to recognize it and to escape from it ("prudentes ante pericula cavere sibi, & ea signa, quibus mala portendantur, notare, & haec effugere"). By means of the images that are often used to justify the fable, namely those of the veiling exterior of which "t'binnenste wel smaect" [the inner part tastes good] and the one of " t ' w o r m c r u u t met wat suuekers ghegheuen" [the tansy taken with sugar], d'Heere advocates the didactic value of the fable "vol zins oft verstands" [full of sense and 18
wisdom]. Also d'Heere's addresses respectively to the painters and the "Vlaemsche Poeten vroed" [wise Flemish poets] (stanzas 3 and 4) fit 15. D. Coigneau, "De psalmberijmingen van Eduard de Dene" and "De Dene: Katholiek of Hervormd?" Jaarboek 'De Fonteine', XIX-XX (1969-70), 213-41 and 243-49, esp. pp. 240-41 and 248-49.
16. Cf. W. Waterschoot, "Lucas d'Heere und Johannes Sambucus," The Emblem in Renaissance and Baroque Europe. Tradition and Variety, ed. A. Adams and A. J. Harper (Leiden/New York/Cologne: Brill, 1992), pp. 45-52. 17. Quintilianus, Institutio oratoria, Book V, 11, 19; and Aphtonius, p. 14. 18. Some examples are given in E. Leibfried and J. M. Werle, Texte zur Theorie der Fabel (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1978), pp. 3, 12, 15, 20, 125 and 126.
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EMBLEMAIICA
in with the common discourse on the illustrated fable. They do not refer to the specific relations of word and image in the emblem book, rather they concern the particular function of word and image in the illustrated fable book. Already at the time of classical antiquity, Philostratus had drawn attention to this phenomenon in his Imagines. Where Aesop, as Philostrates says, had mostly the task of providing a lesson, the fable painter was chiefly oriented towards representing the persons of the fable. The latter's art served in the first place the "relaxatio animi. Philostratus's text is an important part of six teenth- and seventeenth century-fable theory. For example, in a late sixteenth-century illustrated fable book it is stated that the recorded fables "donneront . . . recreation a la veue, ou quelque contentement к l'esprit, en les lisant." One thus understands why d'Heere in his third stanza, addressed to the painters, is especially concerned with the painterly qualities of the illustration, whereas his stanza for the poets refers to the use of maxims and to the didactic character of the poetry presented. It should be noted that in his Progymnasmata Aphtonius also mentions the use of maxims and dicta in the fable. De Dene himself emphasizes the specific function of illustrations and poems in a postscript. It was often thought that in this text De Dene declared the poems to be only a supplement to the pictures. But De Dene rather has in mind here both the artistic quality of the pictures ("vul artistisch labueren End' aerdighe cueren") and the spe cific value of fable poetry: the use of poetry ("t'bedieden in Rhetorijcken") guarantees that the pictures are not completely devoid of arguments and reason ("de Figueren . . . Niet zouden gheheel ijdel van redenen blijcken").
19. Philostratus, Imagines, Book I, 3.
20. Les Fables et la vie d'Esope, Nouuellement enrichies de plusieurs figures (Anvers, 1593), p. 5. 21. Aphtonius, p. 18: "sententias, dictaque adfingamus."
22. Cf. e. g. W. Le Loup's epilogue to his edition of De VVarachtighe Fabvlen Der Dieren (Roeselare: Den Wijngaert, 1978). 23. De VVarachtighe Fabvlen Der Dieren, fol. Eer.
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2. Vorsteliicke Warande Der Dieren (Amsterdam 1617) Forty years later, in 1617, another Dutch edition, the Vorsteliicke Warande Der Dieren [The royal garden of the animals] appeared in Amsterdam on the initiative of Dirck Pietersz Pers. The publisher Pers had already by this time established a certain reputation in the field of emblem literature: he was responsible for several editions of the Mikrokosmos and in 1610 published Coornhert's Recht Ghebruyck ende Mis-bruyck van tijdlicke Have [The right use and abuse of temporal belongings]. In 1614 his collection of songs and emblems, Bellerophon, appeared, in which Pers introduced the term "Zinne-beeld." A year before that, he had urged Vondel to adapt Moerman's version of the Mikrokosmos, and four years later the same Vondel would attend to a Dutch adaptation of the Esbatement moral. Pers himself wrote an extensive introduction to the Warande and on the basis of the German Theatrum Morum provided each fable with an exemplum "uyt de oude Historien, in Prose . . . verclaert" [from the old stories, explained in prose]. Pers did not consider the Vorsteliicke Warande Der Dieren to be an emblem book at all. His preface only dealt with the "stichtighe vermaeckelickheyd ende nutticheyd der Fabulen" [didactic amusement 24. Cf. the title-page of the Vorsteliicke Warande Der Dieren. On Pers as printer of Vondel's work, see В. Н. Molkenboer, "Vondels drukkers en uitgevers," Vondelkroniek, 12 (1941), 17-71, esp. pp. 34-64. On Pers and the Mikrokosmos tradi tion, see K. Porteman, "'D'een klapt, t'geen d'ander heelde'. Kijken en lezen in en rond Den gulden winckel (1613)/' Visies op Vondel na 300jaar, ed. S. F. Witstein and E. K. Grootes (Noorduijn, The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1979), pp. 26-59 and J. Becker's introduction to his facsimile-edition of Den gulden winckel (Soest: Davaco, 1978). On Pers and his Bellerophon, see R. van Straten, "De oorsprong van Pers' Bellerophon van 1614," Spektator, 13 (1983-84), 324-33; and B. van Selm, "Licht op de voorgeschiedenis van Dirck Pietersz. Pers' Bellerophon of lust tot wysheyd," De Nieuwe Taalgids, 77 (1984), 97-109. On the term Zinne-beeld, see K. Porteman, "Miscellanea emblematica," Spiegel der Letteren, 17 (1975), 161-93, esp. 161-63. On Vondel's Vorsteliicke Warande Der Dieren, see esp. J. Becker's introduction to his facsimile edition (Soest: Davaco, 1974) and H.-J. Raupp, "Vondel und das Problem der Fabeldichtung nach 1600. Anmerkungen zu 'Vorsteliicke Warande der Dieren'," Jetzt kehr Ich an den Rhein, ed. H. Vekeman and H. van Uffelen (Cologne: Frank Runge, 1987), pp. 245-69.
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EMBLEMATICA
and utility of fables]. The arguments he quotes can easily be related to, or illustrated by, similar statements that are part of common fable theory. The German art historian Raupp actually describes the volume as "eine Apologia, die gerade wegen der Konventionalitat ihrer Argumente besticht." And also Vondel's own preface to the volume, though it is, as Raupp demonstrates, much less conventional, sometimes repeats many traditional fable arguments, such as the topos of the irrational animals that teach rational man wisdom. In the other introductory poems, the work is also presented as a fable collection. In the poem "Tot d'aenschouwers" [To the readers], we read, for example, that animals demonstrate "Hoe zich ijder heeft te dragen" [in which way every one should behave] and the subsequent "Klinckgedicht" [sonnet] explicitly declares that "Van Dieren mogen doch de Menschen zeeden leeren" [the animals are able to teach man mores]. One could compare this with the statement of Aphtonius who says, on the authority of Priscianus, that fables "ad meliores . . . vias instituunt vitae" [help to lead a better life]. 28
3. XXV Fabvlen Der Dieren (Delft 1617) In the same year as the Warande was published, a Dutch translation of Perret's XXV Fables des animaux appeared. New in the volume is the preface of the printer-editor Gerritsen. He argues at length for the utility of the fables, which he considers as "seer soete ende profytige exempelen . . . dienende tot ondervvijsinghe van het ghemeene leven der menschen" [very agreeable and useful exempla serving the instruction of everyday life]. In his reasoning, he falls back on the usual arguments. Central is the so often quoted veracity and
25. H. J. Raupp, as cited in note 24, p. 250.
26. H. J. Raupp, pp. 248-50. 27. E. Leibfried and J. M. Werle, as cited in note 18, pp. 4, 9 and 22. 28. Aphtonius, p. 7.
29. On the printer Adriaen Gerritsz. van Beyeren, see J. G. C. A. Briels, Zuidnederlandse boekdrukkers en boekverkopers in de Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden omstreeks 1570-1630 (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1974), pp. 174-75.
MARC VAN VAECK
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wisdom of the fable. On the authority of Augustine he asserts that a fable alhoevvel die geen cracht van vvaerheyt en heeft, nochtans soodanighen ghelijckenisse ende ondervvijsinge medebrengt, vvaer door de vvaerheyt can ontdect vverden. [though it is not actually true, offers comparisons and lessons by which the truth can be revealed.] And from the poetry of Horace it appears that door de verdichtede spreucke van de onredelijcke dieren seeckere vvarachtighe beduydenisse op het leven der . .. menschen soude mogen genomen vvorden. [through the fictitious reasoning of the irrational animals some truthful references to the life of man can be discovered.] This is a very common argument indeed to justify the fable genre. As Aphtonius formulates it concisely, the fable is a "sermo falsus, veritatem effingens." Gerritsen also refers to Judges 9, "Alwaer de Boomen onder malcanderen beraetslaghen om eenen Coninck te maecken" [where the Trees confer about finding a new king]. The Bible story, "alhoevvel het een merckelijcke verdichtede vertellinghe is" [though it is a remarkable fictitious story], illustrates "[dat er] een crachtige en de bevveechlijcke beduydinge van vvaerheyt [in] uytghesproken is" [that it contains a significant truth]. Gerritsen's argument here is also unoriginal. For instance, in his introduction to an 1476 edition of Aesop Steinhowel refers to "dem buoch der richter, do di bourn ains konigs begerten" [the book of Judges where the trees desire a king] in order to demonstrate that "die fabeln Esopi uf die sitten der menschen geordnet [sint]" [that the fables of Aesop refer to the customs of men.] And Erasmus Alberus also draws on this biblical passage to show that "auch heilige Leut vnd Propheten nit schemen,
30. Aphtonius, p. 5. Cf. also with: "nullam veritatis vim continere videantur; tamen rationem habent, ut juxta earn veritatis possit manifestari" (Aphtonius, p. 9).
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in jrer lere Gleichnissen vnnd bilder zubramhen" [holy people and prophets are also not ashamed to use parables and images in their teachings.] We may conclude that the XXV Fabvlen Der Dieren is in the first place a fable collection that intends to provide wisdom and instruction and in which, according to the editor, the "groote ende schoone Figuyren seer levendich uytghedruckt" [large, beautiful and lively prints] constitute an artistic and recreational bonus for the public.
4. VVoudt Van wonderlicke Sinne-Fabvlen Der Dieren (Rotterdam 1632) In 1632, the Delft translation was the starting point for the edition of the VVoudt Van wonderlicke Sinne-Fabvlen Der Dieren [The forest of wonderful and witty fables of animals]. For this edition, the Rotterdam editors Van Waesberghe had asked for the cooperation of the painter-poet Adriaen van de Venne. The collection is again introduced as a fable book: the preface by the editor is a recapitulation of Gerritsen's text of 1617, and Van de Venne's prologue also rehearses the usual fable discourse. The preliminaries of the Vorsteliicke Warande Der Dieren probably even served as a pattern here. This is not surprising: Van de Venne had in his new volume also drawn from Pers's prose-exempla and his reference to Van Mander may also have been borrowed from the Warande. In his prologue, Van de Venne refers (as had Pers) to Plato and to the Bible to demonstrate the validity of fables. And also the image of the "VVoudt" [forest] as a "lustighe
31. Cf. E. Leibfried and J. M. Werle, as cited in note 18, pp. 5 and 12.
32. On this edition see Scharpe, as cited in note 2, pp. 30-38; and Nederlandse Emblemata. Bloemlezing uit de Noord- en Zuidnederlandse Emblemata-literatuur van de 16de en 17de eeuw, ed. P. J. Meertens and H. Sayles (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 1983), pp. 107-08 (with corrections on Van de Venne in my review of the volume in Leuvense Bijdragen, 73 (1984), 224-25). On the Van Waesberghes, see A. M. Ledeboer, Het geslacht van Waesberghe. Een bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der boekdrukkunst en van den boekhandel in Nederland (The Hague, Utrecht: Beijers, 1869). On A. van de Venne, see among others, my article "Adriaen van de Venne and his Use of Homonymy as a Device in the Emblematical Process of a Bimedial Genre," Emblematica, 3 (1988), 101-19.
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VViindel-Tuyn" [a garden pleasant to walk in] probably goes back to Vondel's representation of the fable collection as a "Warande" [garden]. In addition to this, Van de Venne's argument also deals with the specific function of this new edition of the fables. The book was indeed more than a slightly varied reprint of the XXV Fabvlen, and it is introduced as a deliberate emulation of the old art of poetry "[die] noch onghebakert, ende niet recht ghekoestert [is] gheweest" [that was not yet properly swaddled and groomed] but that just "de borsten [had] ghesoghen van vreemde ende uytlantsche onrymighe woorden" [had sucked the breasts of strange and outlandish unpoetical words]. The old texts of 1617 are then reprinted and, by way of comparison, completed by Van de Venne's new poems that are all composed of sixteen perfect iambic tetrameters. As part of Van de Venne's "soeter, ende opender" [more pleasant and perspicacious] versification, a great number of rhymed sayings are added. They make up the "Sausse van Wijsheyt" [Sauce of Wisdom] proper to both the fable genre and Van de Venne's painting and poetry It also appears from the preface that Van de Venne does not look at the conjunction of word and image in the fable collection in the light of the emblem. He considers it rather as a part of his very own ideas about his "Sinne-cunst" [Art of wit], which is pre-eminently a bi-medial art. As he puts it in the preface: "Reden-kunst, en Beelden-kunst, moeten noot-sakelick by een; ende voeghen, en moeten te samen, ghelijck de Ziel by het Lichaem" [Word and Image must necessarily be joined as body and soul]. From this short presentation of the arguments used in the prefaces to Dutch illustated fable collections in the Gheeraerts tradition, it is evident that the volumes were certainly neither presented nor received as emblem books but as specimens of the illustrated fable book. In this bi-medial genre word and image are, on the basis of the classical
33. On Van de Venne's concept of ''Sinne-cunst/' see esp. K. Porteman, "'T' is al goet wat cunste doet'. Beschouwingen bij een drukkersmerk van de gebroeders Vande Venne," De gulden passer, 61-63 (1983-85), 329-45; and K. Porteman's introduction to A. Plokker, Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne (1589-1662). De grisailles met spreukbanden (Leuven/Amersfoort: Acco, 1984), pp. 7-9. On Van de Venne's "Sinne-cunst" in relation to his grisaille-paintings, see M. van Vaeck, as cited in note 32.
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EMBLEMATICA
tradition, attributed a specific function: the illustrations provide the "relaxatio animi" and the texts aim at instruction and signification. The arguments that accompany these volumes are generally inspired by contemporary fable theory The fact that some of these arguments can also be found in emblematics does not detract from this statement. When, for example, in Pers's preface to the Vorsteliicke Warande Der Dieren fables are defined as "verbloemde en allegorische manieren van spreken" [veiled and allegorical ways of speaking], one should not, as Jochen Becker does, read this as a "Hinweis auf die Emblematik" [a reference to emblematics]. Quintilian, for instance, advocates an allegorical reading of fables ("per allegorian accipitur") and the phenomenon of veiled speaking is also a common argument of fable theory Text translated by A. de Vos.
34. J. Becker, as cited in note 24, p. VI. Quintilian, as cited in note 17, Book V, 11, 21. Cf. E. Leibfried and J. M. Werle, as cited in note 18, pp. 9.
Some Pedagogical Uses of the Emblem in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England AYERS BAGLEY University of Minnesota I Emblems and devices, as objects and as modes of thought, contributed to education during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in ways not fully understood. Rosemary Freeman, for example, knew well the degree to which English emblem books were infused with moral and didactic intent; she also knew that seventeenth-century English schoolmasters used emblems in teaching composition, but she concluded that "the main use of the emblematic picture was decorative not pedagogic/' This opposition of decorative and pedagogical uses conceptually severs the two; on one side is ornament indifferent to the enhancement of meaning, mindless in effect if not intent; on the other is pedagogy, whose object is education, which is to say, moral and intellectual substance. But how accurate, historically, is the alleged estrangement? How adequate are the implicit definitions? Not less than Freeman, perhaps more, recent scholarship has demonstrated an interest in the relations of the emblem and education. 1. Rosemary Freeman, English Emblem Books (1948; New York: Octagon, 1966), p. 90. 2.
See, for example, Johannes Kohler, Der "Emblemaium liber" von Andreas Alciatus (1492-1550). Eine Untersuchung zur Entstehung, Formung antiker Quellen und Padagogischen Wirkung im 16. Jahrhundert. Beitrage zur Historischen
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Alison Saunders's close studies, for example, have shown convinc ingly that "the sixteenth-century French emblem book . . . was essen tially moralistic and didactic, not only in its avowed intentions as expressed in the forewords of the various authors, but also—and even more markedly—in the actual content of the various works . . . ." To most French writers of sixteenth-century emblem books, Saunders concludes, "the emblem was . . . a didactic tool essentially used for teaching the path of virtue." A didactic tool is presumably a teaching tool, but those terms—"teaching" and "didactic"—like "educative" are broad and, while sufficient for some purposes, such as general classification, they conceal important differences in function. When interest centers on the pedagogical uses of the emblem, it is instructive to distinguish pedagogy from moralizing and didactics. Moralizing refers, of course, to commending right or wise conduct (and negating the wrong or foolish), i. е., preferring the narrow "path of virtue" chosen by Hercules at the crossroads of his adolescence. The didactic may encompass the moral, but in emblem books it in cludes a freight—sometimes heavy—of factual (or allegedly factual) information, e. g., about flora, fauna, or fabricated objects, or about characters, places, and events; "imparting information on any and every subject," writes Peter Daly. By contrast, pedagogical purposes range from fairly straightforward interests in developing skills in Bildungsforschung, 3 (Hildesheim: August Lax, 1986), esp. ch. 3, "Fruhe Wirkungen des Emblembuches auf Padagogen"; Gerhard F. Strasser, "17th Century Emblematic Teaching Method/' Abstracts, Glasgow International Em blem Conference 1990 (University of Glasgow, 1990), pp. 99-101. 3.
Alison Saunders, The Sixteenth-Century French Emblem Book: A Decorative and Useful Genre (Geneva: Droz, 1988), p. 27. Daniel S. Russell's conclusion is similar: " . . . the emblem was . . . an impersonal mechanism for the effective communication of moral lessons." The Emblem and Device in France (Lexington, Kentucky: French Forum, 1985), p. 160. Saunders has recently offered new insights into Aneau's pedagogical uses of his Picta poesis; see "The Bifocal Emblem Book," in Emblems in Glasgow, ed. Alison Adams (Glasgow: University of Glasgow French and Italian Publications, 1992), pp. 113-33.
4.
Ayers Bagley, "Hercules in Emblem Books and Schools," in The Telling Image: Explorations in the Emblem, eds. Ayers Bagley, Edward Griffen and Austin McLean (New York: AMS Press, 1994), pp. 69-95.
5. Peter M. Daly, Literature in the Light of the Emblem (Toronto: University of
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students, to efficient and effective means of imparting knowledge, to cultivating imagination, to complex interests in the refinement of student perception, thinking, expression, and related values. II Emblem books prepared by teachers might be expected to address pedagogical uses of the emblem, and some did. Barthelemy Aneau, for example, who taught at Trinity College (Lyons), recommended his translation (1549) of Alciato's Emblematum Liber as an aid to learning French. Writing to his dedicatee, James Hamilton, Earl of Arran (and implicitly to everyone else who might read the dedication), Aneau proposed that the complementary images and words in the book would please while instructing in good principles and virtuous examples. The emblems would also facilitate learning French, a language young James—at about age twelve—reputedly loved and desired to read and speak. Aneau explained that Alciato's emblems, with images and texts together, would "ease the way for one another, the letter giving meaning to the figure, the image declaring to the eye the sense of the word, imparting live action to the dead letter." Notable in Aneau's discussion is the asserted reciprocity of image and word directed to the purpose of achieving literacy. The reverse possibility was ignored; Aneau expressed no interest in using words as means of teaching James to become a more discriminating judge of images. Aneau's advice in the dedication pertained to the linguistic and moral, not focally to the aesthetic in language, and neither to the technical nor the aesthetic in regard to visual images. Aneau's advice assumed a student who wanted to read and speak French, not necessarily to write it. Conversely, written composition Toronto Press, 1979), p. 4. 6.
Les Emblemes d'Alciat (Lyons: Mace Bonhomme, 1549).
7. For a discussion of James's years on the Continent, see John Durkan, "James, Third Earl of Arran: The Hidden Years/ 7 The Scottish Historical Review, 65 (Oct. 1986), 154-66, esp. 156-57. 8.
Les Emblemes d'Alciat, ed. cit., A3.
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was the chief interest of seventeenth-century schoolmasters in Eng land, who recommended emblem books for use in the Latin grammar school curriculum. John Brinsley, Thomas Farneby, Charles Hoole— distinguished educators all—thought emblem books useful in teach ing rhetoric and poetics. Farnaby's list includes a dozen names: "Andr. Alciatus, Janus Chunradus Rhumelius, J. Sambucus, Ant. Fayus, Joach. Camerarius, Nicolaus Taurellus, Paul Maccius, Adrianus Junius, Jo. Catzius, Henricus Oraeus, Dionysius Lebeus Taubilliiis, Theod. Beza." Brinsley mentions only the Symbola of Reusner "wherein the Poesies or sentences of the several Emperors . . . are handled." Brinsley's aim was to provide students with subjects for "theames" and "Poesies," the latter term defined as "words or Mot toes." Reusner's work he viewed as particularly rich in moral con tent. 11 Hoole's interest, like Brinsley's, also centered on sources useful for student themes. Along with mention of Reusner, his list of recom mended books includes works by Alciato, Beza, and Quarles. For hieroglyphics, he cites Pierius [probably intending Valeriano] and Causinus; for symbols, Chartarius (i. е., Vincenzo Cartari, Images of the Gods of the Ancients), whose work appeared illustrated first in Latin, then Italian, and in 1599 unillustrated in an English edition—"naked" says the translator. Whereas Hoole's notion of emblems as means to stimulating the inventive imagination of students was framed in terms of theme writ9. Thomas Farnaby, Index Poeticus (London, 1646). The list does not appear in the Index Rhetoricus, contrary to Foster Watson's citation in Paul Monroe's entry on "Emblem Books," in Cyclopaedia of Education (New York: Macmillan, 1915). The two works were sometimes bound together, e. g., in the editions of 1646 and 1654.
10. John Brinsley, Ludus Literarius: or, The Grammar Schoole (London, 1612), p. 176; also pp. 178-79,183,188. 11. The work intended is probably Reusner's Symbolorum Imperatorium of 1588, or a later edition. 12. Charles Hoole, A New Discovery of the Old Art of Teaching School (London, 1660), pp. 158-59, 182.
13. Vincenzo Cartari, The Fountaine of Ancient Fiction (London, 1599), at A iv.
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ing, Obadiah Walker proposed oral practice in forming emblems. More than other English writers on pedagogy, Walker elaborated on the use of emblems. He recommended not only the reading of emblems and emblem books, he would incorporate emblematic constructs in thinking and discourse. His book, entitled Of Education, Especially of Young Gentlemen, passed through six editions between 1673 and 1699, yielding place finally to John Locke's Thoughts Concerning Education (1693). Walker's chapter on "Invention, Memory, and Judgment," emphasizes the importance of "practise" in moving student rhetoric from simple descriptions to elevated phrasing, which in due course may come to include similes, metaphors, allegories, parables, fables, and symbols (pp. 130-31). As an exercise, Walker suggests, for example, that teachers gather their scholars in a circle and have each choose a symbol and state a Latin motto for it, e. g., a pillar, a palm tree, an anvil, a helmet, noting the Parnassus Poetica as a source book (p. 131). Besides parables, fables, symbols and other riches in the rhetorical treasury, Walker adds "compound subjects," which, he says, "they call Emblems, of which Alciat, Sambucus, and many others have made Volums. Such are also Impresa's of great Men, a vast number whereof are collected by Typotius and others" (p. 132). Walker would have students attempt to develop an emblematic way of thinking about everyday life, making it a part of their discourse (p. 132): Another way of practise is, to apply all such things as he seeth, or as occur in his ordinary business or conversation, to somewhat of morality, policy, &c. As seeing an Ivy thrust down the wall upon which it grew, one said, that was the perfect emblem of a flatterer; an onyon having its germe covered with so many scales, representeth a man that subtily conceals his intention under many pretences and the like.
14. Obadiah Walker, Of Education, Especially of Young Gentlemen (Oxford, 1673; rpt. Menston, Eng.: Scolar Press, 1970). John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education (London, 1693; rpt. Menston, Eng.: Scolar Press, 1970).
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Visual observations are to be translated into verbal descriptions formulated in ways to insinuate moral judgments, e. g., by pointings and comparisons. How much Walker owed to continental antecedents is a subject for a more specialized study. It is fair to note, however, that Walker had traveled on the continent repeatedly, residing for periods in Basel and Rome, studying, serving as a tutor; that he was for a time in charge of seeing to the publication of Catholic books at Oxford; that he arranged the appointment of a Jesuit priest for service in a chapel maintained by University College. Menestrier's works may have been known to Walker. Might he have had knowledge of relevant practices in Jesuit schools? At least one French college—a school administered by Jesuits in Vienne (Dauphine)—offered classes in which the study of rhetoric included focal attention to emblematics, according to a tantalizing report by Judi Loach: A cours dicte for rhetoric classes . . . in 1649 contains extensive sections on symbolic images, and in particular on emblems. From their tone and context it becomes apparent that emblematics often appeared in the school curriculum, and thus formed part of the mainstream education—at least in mid-17th century France . . . . These passages . . . composed for didactic purposes and . . . aimed at young students, are in many ways far clearer than contemporary treatises in explaining the nature and role of emblems . . . at the time: Emblems—along with hieroglyphics, enigmas, etc.—are "expressive images"; the range of symbolic modes among which they fall is extremely wide, including verbal as well as pictorial forms . . . . The teaching delivered here is not, however, simply passive and descriptive but includes instruction to the student on the practical use to which he might profitably put this genre.
15. Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960), XX, 535-38.
16. Judi Loach, "Emblematics Within Mainstream Education," Abstracts, Glasgow International Emblem Conference 1990 (University of Glasgow, 1990), p. 75.
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If Walker's ideas were not informed by Jesuit precedents, his suggestions ran parallel to them. Yet it is quite possible that still older influences were at work in Walker's thinking. One of Erasmus's colloquies, "The Poetic Feast" (1523) is suggestive. Participants in a literary party retreat from their host's house to his garden. Hilary, the host, challenges his guests: "Now let's see which of us the garden will furnish the most maxims." Leon. What would so splendid a garden not do? This rosebush, for example, will suggest to me what to say: "As the rose's bloom is short, so is youth fleeting. Make haste to pluck the rose before it fades; strive the more, lest youth vanish and leave no flower behind." * * *
Car. "As among trees each has his own fruit, so among men each has his own gifts" (p. 176). Several more similitudes and analogies are offered, all of them emphasizing the importance of cultivating "good learning." Hilary, delighted, exclaims: "Hurrah, I see a host of maxims! Now for verses . . . ." Leonard obliges: The man whose garden far excels in loveliness, But who himself is foul in body and soul, And who as no cleanness of the inward parts to show Is foolish: cultivate the more important first (p. 176). Erasmus has thus offered an emblem. The garden before the eyes of Hilary and his guests (and readers of the colloquy) forms the pictura which first gives rise to mottos, then to a verse explaining the deeper significance of the image and similitudes. Walker's students gathered
17. The Colloquies of Erasmus, trans. Craig R. Thompson, 2 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 175.
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in a circle in a classroom might be practising for the kind of conversation Hilary's guests enjoyed in his garden of eloquence. Ill Another teaching function of the emblem, one having implications for pedagogy, Aneau identified in his general preface, where he recommends uses that craftsworkers might find for the graphic images in the book. Like Gilles Corrozet and Jean le Fevre before him, Aneau proposed using emblems as meaningful ornamentation on a variety of fabricated objects and surfaces, such as cabinets, house walls, stained glass, tapestries, various kinds of receptacles, rings, and so on. A German edition of the Emblematum Liber (1566), text in Latin and German, transformed the recommendation into a title-page advertisment, characterizing the work as a "Kunstbuch" for those who appreciate the liberal arts, also for painters, goldsmiths, silk needleworkers and sculptors. Not to lose the point of pedagogical use, however, it may be noted that books of emblems and devices could have served to guide the perception of those who viewed craftsworkers' products, alerting viewers to the meaningfulness of the ornamentation that inflected so many features of upper-class life-space. Interesting to view, this visually talkative environment ("par tout quasi vivement parlante") might be better understood through emblem books. Aneau, it must be admitted, does not make explicit the pedagogical potential of this aspect of emblem books.
18. Aneau, in Les Emblemes d'Alciat, ed. cit., A3. Gilles Corrozet, Hecatomgraphie (Paris: Janot, 1540), A3v. See also Alison Saunders's introductory note to the Scolar Press reprint of Corrozet's Hecatomgraphie (1974), no pagination. In her The French Emblem Book, Saunders confirms that such recommendations corresponded to actual uses in France and England, discussing also the role of emblem books in relation to triumphal entries and court celebrations (pp. 263-92).
19. Frankfurt am Main: S. Feyerabendt, 1566 [SM 45]. (Bracketed SM numbers refer to the Stirling Maxwell collection of emblem books in the University of Glasgow Library.)
20. Aneau, ibid., A4r (p. 8).
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The material culture of the sixteenth century invited a pedagogy cognizant of emblems and devices in home and garden. If Aneau did not apprehend the need, later students of the emblem were sometimes no more perceptive. Freeman, for example, while recognizing the importance Comenius attributed to the pictorial in childhood education, and allowing that pictures in emblem books might have been adapted to some instructional purposes, asserted that emblematic pictures were used mainly for decoration not pedagogy. The opposition of the decorative and pedagogic is misleading. Erasmus's recommendations to educators in De Ratione Studii suggest a different construction: . . . write some brief but pithy sayings such as aphorisms, proverbs, and maxims at the beginning and at the end of your books; others you will inscribe on rings or drinking cups; others you will paint on doors and walls or even in the glass of a window so that what may aid learning is constantly before the eye. For, although these measures seem trivial in themselves when taken singly, yet taken together they make a profitable addition to the treasury of knowledge . . . Decorating to educational purpose with the written word, not pictures, is all this text affirms. In The Poetic Feast, Erasmus had taken a step in the direction of using natural objects for didactic purposes; Hilary's garden formed the visual point of departure for the creation of spoken moral emblems. Erasmus went further in The Godly Feast,
21. Desiderius Erasmus, De Ratione Studii, in Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 24, ed. Craig R. Thompson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978), pp. 671-72. [LB I, 522c] Besides historical precedent, the practice had biblical authorization, e. g.: "Take to heart these instructions . . . Impress them upon your children . . . Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead; inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and your gates/' Reference to the hand would be compatible with rings, although Jews are said to have interpreted both hand and forehead references as suggesting phylacteries. The Torah: A Modern Commentary, vol. 5, Deuteronomy (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1983), p. 80. In the King James Version, see Deut. 11. 18-20.
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one of the best known of his colloquies, this time elaborating on the theme of a visually instructive, talkative house and garden, where things and painterly depictions of personifications and of things are considered in their emblematic aspects. Dinner guests at the home of Eusebias are greeted by an image of St. Peter at the courtyard gate. Eusebias explains (p. 50): I prefer him as porter to the Mercuries, Centaurs, and other monsters some people paint on their doors. Tim. This is more appropriate to a Christian. Euseb. My doorkeeper's no silent one, either. He greets the caller in three languages.
Tim. I see the Latin: "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the Commandments." Euseb. Now read the Greek.
Theophilus. "Repent ye, therefore, and be converted." Chrysoglottus. I'll take the Hebrew: "The just shall live by his faith."
Tim. Your herbs aren't speechless, either, so far as I can see. Euseb. Quite right. Other men have luxurious homes; I have one where there's plenty of talk . . . . As the herbs are gathered into companies . . . so each company has its banner, with an inscription. For instance, the marjoram here says "Keep off, sow; I don't smell for you," because swine
22. "Convivium Religiosum," Colloquies, ed. cit., pp. 48-78. J. M. Massing has argued that "Erasmus had a crucial role in the development of the emblematic genre" through his Adagia, Convivium Religiosum, and Convivium Poeticum. See "Erasmus and the Origin of the Emblem," Abstracts, Glasgow International Emblem Conference 1990 (University of Glasgow, 1990), p. 79.
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positively hate this odor . . . . Each kind likewise has its own label indicating the special virtue of that herb.
Euseb. In this gallery, which faces west, I enjoy the morning sun . . . . This painted grove you observe, covering the entire wall, presents a varied spectacle . . . you see . . . trees, each one represented with no little accuracy. You see . . . birds . . . . Underneath are species of quadrupeds or of those birds that live on the ground like quadrupeds. Tim. A wonderful variety . . . nothing that's not doing or saying something. What does that owl . . . tell us? Euseb. An Attic owl, i{ speaks the Attic tongue: "Be prudent: I don't fly for everyone." It bids us act advisedly, because unadvised rashness sometimes brings misfortune.
Tim. . . . Do even scorpions talk here? Euseb. Yes, and in Greek, too. Tim. What does he say? Euseb. "God hath found out the guilty." Here beside the herbs you see every kind of serpent. Look: a basilisk . . . . Tim. He, too, is saying something. Euseb. "Let them hate so long as they fear." Tim. A royal saying, clearly. Euseb. No, nothing is less royal; the saying of a tyrant, rather.
Euseb. . . . Here's a polypus—the trapper—trapped by a shellfish. Tim. What's the inscription? "The captor captive." Later, after leaving the garden and its galleries, and sitting down to dinner, Timothy observes: "So far from silent is your house that not only the walls but the cup too says something" (p. 62). Euseb. Now what does it tell you?
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Tim. "No one is harmed but by himself." Euseb. The cup speaks in defense of wine . . . [drunk in moderation]. Soph. Mine speaks in Greek: "In wine there is truth." After dinner the company adjourns to the library, said to be "furnished with choice if not numerous books." Euseb. . . . This hanging globe puts the whole world before your eyes. Here on the walls every region is painted in a larger space. On the other walls you see pictures of famous teachers. To paint them all would have been an endless task. Christ, seated on the mountain with his hand outstretched, has the foremost place. The Father appears above his head, saying "Hear ye him." With spreading wings the Holy Spirit enfolds him in dazzling light. One set of murals depicts a biblical geography selected from events in Jesus's life and works and from those of the Apostles. Place names are inscribed to orient viewers, also captions, summarizing each event: " . . . for example, Jesus' words, T will: be thou clean/ . . . ." Other murals, "to help one remember history," include named portraits of the popes and opposite them portraits of the Caesars. Erasmus had his Eusebius create a house and garden of devices and emblematic images. This vision is domestic in scope, limited to family and friends. Walls were also to be teachers in Tommaso Campanella's seventeenthcentury Utopian vision, but his are city walls and walls of public buildings. In the City of the Sun, "children come to know all the sciences pictorially before they are ten years old." Conditions were ripening in the sixteenth century for pedagogical uses of books of emblems and devices in relation to an iconographically enriched material culture. Making connections between the
23. Colloquies, ed. cit, p. 77. 24. Ibid., p. 78.
25. Trans, and introd. by Daniel J. Donno (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), p. 37.
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world around and emblematics, however, was less within the purview of grammar school masters than that of tutors whose charges were children of the prosperous bourgeoisie or aristocracy, particularly those who enjoyed living spaces articulated with inscriptions on cups, doors, and windows; whose daily life might include the sight of devices and emblems on embroideries, tapestries, cabinets, and ceilings. A pedagogy aware of its surroundings in the palais and grand manor house, not confined to the schoolroom, would find authorization in Montaigne: "Au nostre, un cabinet, un jardin la table et le lit, la solitude, la compaignie, le matin et le vespre, toutes heures luy seront unes, toutes places luy seront estude . . . ." ["to our scholler, a cabinet, a gardin, the table, the bed, a solitariness, a companie, morning and evening, and all houres shall be alike unto him, all places shall be a study for him . . ."] If any place can be study space, and if any subject can be a point of departure for philosophical reflection, then emblems and devices in surroundings should qualify, although Montaigne does not explore the prospect. By the second half of the seventeenth century, more of the pedagogical potential of emblems and devices in furnishings and architecture was explicit in Menestrier's VArt des Emblemes (1662, 1684). Daniel Russell has called attention to this point while demonstrating the false opposition of the pedagogical to the decorative: The emblem as he conceived it is quite simply an instructional tool or a pedagogical strategy. . . . Painted on mantel pieces, instructional emblems will always be available for impromptu moral lessons (1684, p. 51) . . . throughout his two books on the art of the emblem Menestrier gives examples of moral emblems decorating all kinds of public and private buildings. This decorative function of the emblem 26. See Saunders, French Emblem Book, op. cit., ch. 8, "The Usefulness of Emblem Books," relating to material culture. 27. V.-L. Saulnier, ed. Les Essais de Michel de Montaigne (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1965), p. 164; The Essayes of Montaigne, trans. John Florio, 1603 (N. Y.: AMS Press, 1967), p. 174. The ceiling beams of Montaigne's study were inscribed with "fifty-odd quotations in Greek and Latin . . . ." Donald M. Frame, Montaigne: A Biography (London: Hamilton, 1965), p. 120.
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forced it to become diverting as well as instructive (1662, p. 90), and a kind of game element no doubt helped make emblems even more effective pedagogical devices in the Jesuit schools. Moral lessons from chimney mantel pieces, Menestrier specifies for "enfans." What remains clear, however, is that the visual and aesthetic aspects of emblems were still viewed as subordinate to the verbal and moral; treated as means rather than valued in their own right. Menestrier affirmed this outlook at the opening of his treatise: "La Peinture est d e p u i s long temps l'Ecole des sages, & l'estude de souverains" [Painting has long been the school of sages and the study of rulers] (1662, p. 1); specifying further: "Le principal usage de ces peintures a este d'instruire les hommes, & de leur enseigner les bonnes moeurs" [The main use of paintings has been to instruct people and to teach them good morals] (p. 92). Emblem picturae are handmaidens to Ethica. IV Books of the world. Pedagogical uses of emblem books and certain other sixteenth- and seventeenth-century illustrated books were recommended by empirically-minded contemporaries for teaching about the natural world and human fabrications. Erasmus, no empiricist he, nonetheless suggested possibilities, making him ironically a precursor along a pedagogical path that branched with one way leading to scientific destinations alien to classical humanism. Erasmus's interests were fundamentally linguistic and moral; his ventures into the domains of nature and manufacture are best understood in those perspectives. The key suggestion is found in De Pueris Instituendis (1529): Children . . . learn their stories and fables with greater enthusiasm and remember them more easily if the contents are displayed before their eyes by means of skillful illustration, and if every story is presented through pictures. This works especially well when you are teaching children about
28. Russell, Emblem, pp. 105-06.
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trees, plants, and animals and their names and charac teristics . . . The teacher is expected to point out important features of the flora and fauna depicted, name them in Latin and in Greek, state descriptive facts, explain functions, e. g., the elephant breathes through his trunk, his tusks yield ivory "greatly valued by the rich." At this point the teacher should exhibit "an ivory comb to illustrate his point." The emphasis here is on language development in relation to natural history, a topic area selected because of children's presumed interest in animals. The pictorial aids to instruction intended by Erasmus would prob ably have been single leaf prints, not books. Still, he would have been acquainted with a new class of printed, illustrated book, titillating an appetite for knowledge of the observable world. Books of this kind had begun to appear well before the middle of the sixteenth century. Known to some as cosmographies, such works were "called in Englisshe the discription of the world," Sir Thomas Elyot explained in The Boke Named the Governour (1531). Elyot had proposed that history (and geography) studied by boys past the age of fourteen should be illustrated by means of "the sphere" and "the olde tables of Ptholomee where in all the worlde is paynted . . . " (fol. 35v; 37r). What excited him most, however, were the new cosmographies. All be it there is none so good lernynge as the demonstration of cosmographie by materiall figures and instrumentes havynge a good instructour. And surely this lesson is bothe pleasant and necessary. For what pleasure is it in one houre to beholde those realmes, cities, sees, ryvers, and mountaynes, that uneth [i. е., scarcely] in an olde mannes life can nat be iournaide and pursued; what incredible dilite is taken 29. Collected Works, ed. cit., XXVI, 337 [LB I, 510c].
30. (London, 1531; rpt. Scolar, 1970), p. 26r. Cosmographies had their origins in illustrated natural histories and encyclopedias, iconographic programs of the labors of the months, and cycles illustrating the crafts. See Benjamin A. Rifkin's introduction to Jost Amman's and Hans Sachs's Standebuch (Nurem berg, 1568), reprinted by Dover as The Book of Trades (New York, 1973).
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in beholding the diversities of people, beastis, foules, fisshes, trees, frutes, and herbes: to know the sondry manners & conditions of people, and the variety of their natures, and that in a w a r m e study or perler [i. е., parlor], without perill of the see or d a u n g e r of longe a n d payn full iournayes: I can not tell w h a t more pleasure shulde h a p p e n to a gentil witte, than to beholde in his owne house every thynge that with in all the worlde is contained [fol. 37r-v]. Having let slip his "incredible dilite," Elyot shifted immediately to practical arguments, pointing out the military usefulness of cosmog raphies. His initial motive, familiar to twentieth-century readers of the National Geographic, was pleasure in transcending the provincial and in seeing more of the world. The secondary utilitarian considera tions were the interests to which the Baconian tradition came to speak meaningfully in a rhetoric as studiously short on symbolism or emblematics as it was generous in description. The Baconian outlook. Hoole h a d recommended emblem books in the same section where he cited Orbis Pictus, for "Description of things natural and artificial." (It may be recalled that Hoole had p r o d u c e d a fully illustrated English/Latin edition of Comenius's Orbis Pictus in 1659, about the same time he was publishing subdivisions of his o w n New Discovery of the Old Art of Teaching, which was issued u n d e r one cover in 1660.) An empirical strand in seventeenth-century English pedagogical thought about emblems leads back from Hoole's transla tion of Orbis Pictus to Hezekiah Woodward, to Francis Bacon. Unlike those educators w h o saw emblems as stimulants to imagi nation, Bacon perceived them as useful for purposes of m e m o r y a n d the establishment of principles. "Emblem," he wrote in the Advance ment of Learning, "reduceth conceits intellectual to images sensible, which strike the m e m o r y more; out of which axioms may be d r a w n much better practique than in use . . ." The sensible, the useful, these are central criteria for Bacon. What is merely imaginative or pleasing in word or picture earns his disrespect: "as Hercules, w h e n he saw the image of Adonis, Venus's minion, in a temple, said in
31. Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, ed. William A. Wright, 5th ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900), book 2, xv, 3.
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disdain, 'Nil sacri es'; so there is none of Hercules's followers in learning, that is, the more severe and laborious sort of inquirers into truth, but will dispise those delicacies and affections, as indeed capa ble of no divineness" (bk 1, iv, 4). Emblems and hieroglyphics, how ever, commanded Bacon's serious attention: They are "notes of things"; and they deserve "better inquiry" (bk 2, xvi, 3). A blend of Baconian empiricism and fervent Protestantism domi nated Hezekiah Woodward's outlook in 1641 when he recommended the use of emblems and hieroglyphics in childhood education. A subtitle of his work hints at the Baconian influence as well as that of Comenius: A Gate to Sciences, opened by a Naturall Key: Or, A Practicall Lecture upon the great Book of Nature, whereby the childe is enabled to reade the creatures there. Writing with younger students in mind, pre-adolescents it seems, WoodWard urged teachers to use pictures as means of enabling youngsters to grasp the significance of general terms. The educator's challenge in helping the young to real knowl edge is this: general terms are necessary, but the general content of such terms—the abstract content—cannot be exhibited; only particular instances ("singulars") can be exhibited, and it is a practical impossi bility to exhibit all of them, as for example to show all the instances of fame, who flies fast, far and wide, but frequently is false (p. 12). What can be done to help the child learn about the nature of general terms and symbolism? "I know of no better way, then to furnish him with Emblemes," declares Woodward, "To let him observe the Aegyptian manner (that Nation was one of the most ancient schooles in the world) by Hieroglyphicks; They have the darkest interpretation, I will unfold one or two, that the Child may better conceive the use of them" (pp. 12-13). Surprisingly, Woodward names no specific emblem books or authors. He uses the terms "emblem" and "hieroglyphic" only once, does not distinguish emblems from hieroglyphics, and classes both among such other aids to instruction as globes, images, and parables (p. 14).
32. Hezekiah Woodward, Л Light to Grammar, and all other Arts and Sciences . . . (London, 1641), Part II, "A Gate to Sciences . . . " (London, 1641). A copy of the work is in the Yale University Library; a microfilm copy is in the O. Meredith Wilson Library, University of Minnesota.
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An earnest follower of Bacon, Woodward reacted against the tradition of scholastic grammarians and logicians, seeking a more responsible treatment of the sensory world. As a Baconian, he urged ample attention to the material references of terms and regretted the sparsity of adequate texts: . . . if wee had such bookes, wherein are the pictures of all Creatures, Hearbs, Beasts, Fish, Fowles, they would stand us in great stead. For Pictures are the most intelligible bookes that children can looke upon. They come closest to Nature, nay saith Scaliger, Art exceeds her (p. 15). As a devout Protestant in the seventeenth-century mold, Woodward moralized the world and pictures of it. Emblems would be welcome to this orientation, assuming two caveats. First, no nudity: "Take wee heed, they bee not such as I have seene in some neighbour Countries; naked Pictures of both Sexes, and these very ordinary . . . Pictures are children's bookes, their scope, and tendency must bee to promote good manners, and the soule of the child, they must not looke towards immodesty . . ." (p. 17). Second, there must be no exalting of images. Teachers must ever be on guard against the slightest tendency toward idolatry. Pictures, he warns, "are very bewitching things . . . ." If Woodward saw more risk in the "allure" of images than did, for example, George Wither, who emphasized their usefulness in attracting attention, both recognized the potential of well chosen images in directing curiosity to lessons of moral value. The images in Orbis Pictus evidently did not upset northern Protestants. Written by Comenius, a Moravian Bishop who was also a Baconian, Orbis represented the world in ways that were widely acceptable to Christian reformers. The units of the text were organized 33. George Wither, A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne . . . (London: Robert Allot, 1635), A2. Leading educators were not fanatically opposed to images showing generous expanses of human skin. Orbis Pictus includes small nude bodies in woodcuts illustrating several lessons. See, for examples, lessons on the "outward parts" of men and women (XXXVIII), bath (LXXIV), swimming (LXXXVII), Last Judgment (CL). Not nudity in general, but nude privities were the real issue, and even then, varying degrees of tolerance might be expected, depending on the treatment of the subject.
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as an encyclopedia and systematically illustrated. The lessons were composed in two languages (later editions added more languages) and numbers were used to interlink key corresponding words in both languages and their graphic illustrations. Orbis Pictus, first published in Nuremburg (1658), represented an effective synthesis of prior de velopments in the production of illustrated books, bringing together contributions from encyclopedias, cosmographies, books of trades (e. g., Jost Amman's Standebuch [1568]), emblem books, and other sources. In England, Samuel Hartlib and his friends, Hezekiah Wood ward among them, hoped that Comenius would be their leader in bringing about school reform consistent with the ideals of a Christian realism. V
Beyond the moralistic and didactic attributes ascribed to sixteenthand seventeenth-century emblem books, a fair number of them have included educative content pointedly pedagogical. A variety of other illustrated works from the period, some of them emblematic (or par tially emblematic or quasi-emblematic), also show permeation by mor alistic and didactic concerns. For present purposes it is not necessary to delineate boundaries between books of emblems and, for example, illustrated Aesops, cosmographies, and systematically illustrated school texts. Peter M. Daly's study of Emblem Theory has contributed fundamentally to an understanding of the theoretical problems in volved in making cogent distinctions. The present question rather is whether analysis reveals pedagogical functions of emblem books, and if so, one might add, whether any are a distinctive property of emblem books. An answer of "yes" to both questions seems war ranted. First, Obadiah Walker recognized a pedagogical function intrinsic to the emblem and emblem books. As he understood them, emblem books reflected a mode of perceiving and articulating the world; they provided models for a way of thinking that links observation of things 34. See Charles Webster, Samuel Hartlib and the Advancement of Learning (Cam bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970).
35. Wolfenbutteler Forschungen, 9 (Nendeln/Liechtenstein: КТО Press, 1979).
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with the formulation of phrases which describe a common charac teristic in seemingly unlike objects, noting similitudes that might pass unnoticed by conventional or closed-category thinking—"cats is cats, and dogs is dogs"—and find moral or allegorical meaning through the comparison. Students are directed to use emblem books as models but then to practice making new emblems on the basis of their own observation and reflection. Walker's pedagogical use of the emblem book aims at cultivating an emblematic out-look and related rhetorical capabilities. Erasmus anticipated much of this through demonstative colloquies, i. е., "The Poetic Feast" and "The Godly Feast," and through pedagogically addressed passages in De Ratione Studii and De Pueris Instituendis. Related to Walker's expansive idea, but much more modest in scope, are the uses in theme writing proposed by Brinsley, Farneby, and Hoole. Second, the notion that the emblem book might contribute to learn ing a foreign language was suggested by Aneau. Comenius's Orbis Pictus can be understood as a development of that line of pedagogy directed by a "Pansophic" vision, a correlative encyclopedic organiza tional scheme, and a ratio of factual information to moralizing heavily in favor of the descriptive over the normative. More overtly system atic, Orbis Pictus uses corresponding numbers to interlink words in two or more languages with graphic depictions of the objects named, something not seen in emblem books. Third, implied weakly in Aneau, strongly in Menestrier, is the idea that emblem books might function as guides to understanding mean ingful decoration of the architectural environment and the ornamen tation of other fabricated objects. (Erasmian anticipations are again obtrusive.) Paintings are taken seriously by Menestrier as subjects for iconologic study. The pedagogical importance of emblem books as guides to perceiving and understanding ornamentation becomes 36. G. de Santillana, ' T h e Role of Art in the Scientific Renaissance," in Marshall Clagett, ed., Critical Problems in the History of Science (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), p. 54. 37. For a discussion of emblem tradition residuals in Orbis Pictus, see Wolfgang Harms, "Worter, Sachen und emblematische 'res' im 'Orbis sensualium pictus' des Comenius," in Gedenkschrift fur William Foerste (Cologne / Vienna: Bohlau Verlag, 1970), pp. 531-42.
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clearer when compared to Orbis Pictus and like-minded works. Comenius's little encyclopedia purports to represent "all the chief things of the visible world." His reckoning of chief things proceeded partly from existing encyclopedias, perhaps partly from cosmographies, books of trade, herbals, and from his own associations, which related more to the rural and the bourgeois than to the culture of upper social strata. No mottos decorate the illustrations of architecture and furnishings in Orbis Pictus; there is no place in it for much that is inventoried in Aneau's or Menestrier's lists of fabricated objects and embellished surfaces. Fourth—a point for exploration elsewhere—emblem books, like other illustrated books and unbound prints seem to have had served to some extent in the pedagogy of art education. Such printed sheets and pages offered images to copy, to draw over, to color. The work of youthful hands is observable in many emblem books, particularly in copies of Alciato and the Orbis Pictus. Fifth, admittedly speculating now, a special pedagogical role may have been served by those emblem books representative of the hermetic tradition, works which play with more curious images than typify either Orbis Pictus or many emblem books, and which confront viewers with puzzles or cleverly veiled meanings. Here the cultivation of curiosity, the development of a sense of meaning behind surface appearances, might be proposed as a pedagogical use of the emblem for older students, although none of the works surveyed to date has provided a clear example of an author citing this as a pedagogical use. Odd collections of objects juxtaposed in emblem picturae may in some instances relate to "art of memory" systems, and to the extent that teachers participated in this tradition, it is possible that eccentric emblems were found useful for their purposes.
38. See Francis Yates, The Art of Memory (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), esp. ch. 5. See also Mary J. Carruthers, The Book of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), esp. ch. 7. Johannes Buno's books emphasized the mnemonic function in remarkably complex instructional illustrations filled with emblematic images, as for example in his Historische Bilder . . ., a history of the world (Luneberg,1672) [SM 241]. For a discussion of Buno's work, see Strasser, note 2, above.
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In sum. For humanist educators in the Erasmian tradition, emblems presupposed emblematic thinking and perceiving, which meant connecting words, things, and—as Aneau suggests—'Tessence des choses." For educators of young children, the dominant interest in emblematic images pointed to the function of making clear connections between words and things through visual aids—a preoccupation of the Baconian realists. For Latin grammar school teachers of older children, the main interest in emblems related to use in thematic composition. For some parents or tutors and their charges, books of emblems invited hands in service to the rudiments of art education.
39. Aneau in Les Emblemes d'Alciat, ed. cit., A4v (p. 8).
Ben Jonson and Van Dyck: A Study in Allegorical Portraiture JUDITH DUNDAS University of Illinois "A painter who looks beyond his palette, and extends his view beyond the narrow sphere by which his art is actually circumscribed, must naturally be desirous of a repertory; where he may find sensible images that represent with truth and precision, invisible qualities and objects." George Richardson In allegorical portraits, the painter dares to claim the freedom of the poet to suggest what cannot be described. A comment by Leonardo da Vinci in his Paragone tells us that the painter who makes use of allegorical symbols is indeed borrowing from the methods of the poet: "The poet says that he can describe in beautiful verse a thing which really stands for something else by way of simile. The painter replies that he can do the same and in this respect he too is a poet." Van Dyck, as well as Ben Jonson, uses simile and metaphor drawn from a conventional symbolic language to characterize members of the nobility. In Van Dyck's self-portrait with a sunflower (1633), which was etched by Hollar and dedicated to John Evelyn (Fig. 1), we can see the principle at work in a relatively straightforward form. The painter displays a gold chain with a medallion of the king, given him in that
1. Leonardo da Vinci, Paragone, trans. Irma A. Richter (London: Oxford University Press, 1949), p. 65.
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*3*ХЩ>*.:::
displays a gold chain with a medal lion of the king, given him in that year, 1633, by Char les I. He also holds a sunflower, an em blem familiar from such emblem books as Wither's, to rep resent the subject's d e v o t i o n to his monarch (Fig. 2). Through this sym bolic flower, the p a i n t e r turns his self-portrait into a s t a t e m e n t about himself and his
Fig. 1. Wenceslaus Hollar (after Van Dyck), Portrait of the g r a * i t u d e t o t h e kin Artist, 1644. Etching. British Museum, London. g f o r his patron age.
But it is more than likely that Van Dyck had in mind, too, the sunflower as an image of the art of painting. As the follower of the sun, which bestows color and light upon the universe, it is a fitting emblem of this art. In a prefatory poem to William Sanderson's Graphice (1658), Thomas Flatman, referring to the sun as a painter, describes it as "Heav'ns fam'd Vandyke . . . . / 'Tis He that the spicy Spring's gay birth / Makes Pensils of his Beames and paints the Earth." By describing the sun as a great painter, the poem offers us a kind of frame within which to place Van Dyck's use of the sunflower in his self-portrait; it helps to explain why he, too, is a follower of the sun.
For various interpretations of the sunflower in Van Dyck's self-portrait, see R. R. Wark, "A Note on Van Dyck's Self-Portrait with a Sunflower/' Burlington Magzine, 98 (Feb. 1956), 52-55 and J. Bruyn and J. A. Emmens, "The Sunflower Again," Burlington Magazine, 99 (Mar. 1957), 96-97.
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Our outward Hopes mil take effeS^ According to the King's 4j(£>i&.
!"LLT$TH*XXV* Fig. 2. George Wither, "Nutus ad Regis/' in A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient ant Modern, 1635, p. 159. Engraving by Crispin van de Passe. University of Illinoii Library at Urbana-Champaign.
Usually symbolic allusions play a more subordinate part in Vai Dyck's portraits, contributing sometimes almost imperceptibly to th< significance of the subject and never overwhelming it. When h< painted a portrait of his wife, Mary Ruthven, in 1639 (Fig. 3), 3 he gav< her two attributes: the oak leaves in her hair and the rosary she holds Both relate to her name and to features of character that he wishes t(
3.
The original is in the Prado. Engraved versions appeared in later editions о Van Dyck's Iconography, a collection of portraits of artists and sponsors of th< arts.
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praise. The oak was not only her family crest (she was a grand daughter of the first Earl of Gowrie), but a symbol of the Virgin Mary, whose name she bears. William Sanderson, com menting on this p o r t r a i t in his Graphice, says that the oak leaves signify something "strong and last ing." In his ad vice to a wouldbe connoisseur on how to praise a picture, he reads the counte nance of the lady as both enticing ААША VXOR О ANTOW-VANf DYCK &qy&$ and majestic. Her rosary then Fig. 3. Jan Meyssens, Mary Ruthven, Lady Van Dyck (after becomes the Van Dyck), ca. 1645. Engraving. British Museum, London. compelling im age of her virtue: "Hold Sir! Her self gives you the Ensigne of Religion: for having done her devotion, she wraps her Row of Beads about her Arm, lifting up the pendant crosse, as who should say: At end of all, Look upon this, Sir, and you shall never sinne . . . ." Whereas present-day art historians will in general limit their interpretation of 4.
Sir William Sanderson, Graphice: The Use of the Pen and Pencil (1658), p. 37.
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its significance as "a form of devotion to the Virgin," the seventeei century commentator sees a contextual value, going beyond the ter's name, Mary, to suggest a balancing of sensuous charms with Christian virtue. Happy though Van Dyck is to make use of whate associations a sitter's name offers, he takes pains to make his allusi in some way a definition of character. His method, in short, is like that of the poet Ben Jonson. Wher too has an opportunity to make a meaningful pun on a person's na he does so. It is a sign of wit in, for example, his poems on Li Countess of Bedford, the daughter of Sir John Harington and the frii of poets. Playing on her name "Lucy" as derived from the Latin i light, he eulogizes the Countess by identifying her with his dreari the ideal lady: "I meant the day-starre should not brighter rise, / 1 lend like influence from his lucent seat." In another tribute, writes, "Lucy, you brightnesse of our spheare, who are / Life of Muses day, their morning starre!" He is even able to turn her ш to good account when sending her a copy of his play Cynthias Ret "Goe little Booke, Goe little Fable I unto the bright, and amiabl Lucy of Bedford . . . / Tell her, his Muse that did invent thee / Cynthias fayrest Nymph hath sent thee . . . ." Given such a habit in seventeenth-century eulogies of seeing people's names a potential source of wit, it is not surprising that 1 Dyck likes to turn names into attributes. Like the allusions to Virgin Mary in his portrait of his wife, Mary Ruthven, the artist b reveals and conceals a dimension of his subject, the way not only emblem but a good deal of Renaissance poetry does. For those v
6. J. Douglas Stewart, '"Death Moved not his Generous Mind': Allusions Ideas, Mostly Classical, in Van Dyck's Work and Life," in Van Dyck Painti ed. Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., Susan J. Barnes, Julius S. Held (Washing National Gallery of Art, 1991), p. 72. 7.
Ben Jonson, "On Lucy Countess of Bedford/' Epigrammes, lxxvi, 11. 7-8, in Complete Poetry of Ben Jonson, ed. William B. Hunter, Jr. (New York: W, Norton, 1963). All quotations from Jonson's poetry are taken from this edit
8.
"To Lucy, Countesse of Bedford, with Mr. Donnes Satyres," Epigrammes, > 11. 1-2.
9.
"Ad Librum," in Uncollected Poetry, 8,11. 1-5.
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Fig. 4. Anthongy Van Dyck, Endymion Porter and Van Dyck, 1635. Oil on canvas. Prado Museum, Madrid.
reveals and conceals a dimension of his subject, the way not only the emblem but a good deal of Renaissance poetry does. For those who know the myth of Diana and Endymion, the portrait by Van Dyck of himself with his friend Endymion Porter (1635) suggests a tribute through an allusion to the myth (Fig. 4). Although some of the symbolic features of the picture, such as the column and the rock, have been commented on, its mythological and more mysterious qualities have been overlooked. A sky that shows the first rays of dawn is
10. Mark Roskill, "Van Dyck at the English Court: The Relations of Portraiture and Allegory," Critical Inquiry, 14 (1987), 189; Christopher Brown, Van Dyck (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 152; A. K. Wheelock, Jr., "Sir Endymion Porter and Van Dyck," in Van Dyck Paintings, p. 281. For another, more obviously symbolic, portrait of Porter, see William Vaughan, Endymion Porter: William Dobson (London: Tate Gallery, 1970).
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Fig. 5. Anthony Van Dyck, Olivia Porter, 1637. Oil on canvas. Duke of Northumberland Collection. Photo: National Gallery of Art, Washington.
still illuminated by the moon. It shines, from the right, full on Endymion as he stands against a landscape in his silver-white suit. Naturally, the beloved of the moon goddess, Diana, deserves more of her light than does the painter, whose figure is not only clothed in black but, except for his face and one hand (his painter's hand?) pointing toward his heart, remains largely in the darkness. It seems as if the figures belong to different worlds: Endymion at his ease in
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nature; the painter in the world of the artist, with a curtain and column behind him—the stage from which he represents nature. Yet both men place a hand upon a rock to symbolize the steadfastness of their friendship. The entire picture is pervaded by symbolic overtones that lend a poetic dimension to its descriptive qualities. Even more elusive in its allegory is the portrait of Endymion Porter's wife (Fig. 5), dressed in what has been described simply as Arcadian costume. Yet the colors she wears invite association with another goddess—Aurora. She wears deep red, flecked with gold, a blue cloak behind her, and she seems to be sweeping through the heavens. Only a goddess moves like this: compare the movement of
Fig. 6. Anthony Van Dyck, Venus at the Forge of Vulcan, 1630-32. Oil on canvas. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
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sance mythographers, was the friend of poets? Porter was, in fact, himself a poet of sorts—he sometimes attended Jonson's gatherings in the Apollo Room of the Devil's Tavern —and both Olivia and Endymion were friends with a number of poets, including Robert Herrick and Sir William Davenant. Not surprisingly, the poets who commemorated this couple did so in quasi-mythological terms. Davenant, for example, sent Olivia Porter a poem, as a present on New Year's Day, in which he repeatedly uses the expression "Endymion's love":
Go! Climb that rock and when thou there hast found A star contracted in a diamond, Give it Endymion's love, whose glorious eyes Darken the starry jewels of the skies. This kind of portrait is fittingly termed "masquelike," for it mythologizes the sitter much as Ben Jonson does in his masques. (In fact, Olivia Porter performed in Jonson's masque Chloridia in 1613.) He ends, for instance, his Vision of Delight with an epilogue spoken by Aurora after the night and moon have descended: I was not wearier where I lay By frozen Tithon's side tonight, Than I am willing now to stay And be a part of your delight. But I am urged by the day Against my will, to bid you come away. The Choir responds:
11. See Sir John Suckling, "A Session of Poets." Among the poems Porter wrote was an elegy for Donne, in Poems by J. D., 1633.
12. See Gervas Huxley, Endymion Porter, The Life of a Courtier 1587-1649 (London: Chatto and Windus, 1959).
13. Sir William Davenant, "For the Lady, Olivia Porter: A Present, upon a Newyeares day," in The Shorter Poems and Songs from the Plays and Masques, ed. A. M. Gibbs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 43,11. 5-8.
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The Choir responds: They yield to time, and so must all. As night to sport, day doth to action call, Which they the rather do obey Because the morn with roses strews the way. Although not in itself a particularly telling detail, it may be noted that Olivia Porter wears roses in her hair. But if we are invited simply to muse on her as Aurora, the painter-poet has chosen, in conformity with the best of allegorical art, to veil the significance, not to make of it a text for iconographical analysis. With Van Dyck's portrait of Venetia Stanley, Lady Digby (Fig. 7), we lose some of the mystery because the painter was given a program to follow. It was described by Sir Kenelm Digby to Pietro Giovanni Bellori and is recorded in his Le vite dei pittori, published in 1672. It was either shortly before or after Lady Digby's death in 1633 that Sir Kenelm commissioned the painting of his wife as a personification of Prudence—this in answer perhaps to her not quite untarnished reputation before her marriage. Even though the versions of the picture that have come down to us do not exactly match Bellori's account, the intention of the portrait is clear. The lady is shown, in Bellori's words, "as Prudence sitting in a white dress with a coloured wrap and a jewelled girdle. Under her hand are two white doves, and her other is encircled by a serpent. Under her feet is a plinth to which are bound in the guise of slaves Deceit with two faces, Anger with furious countenance, meager Envy with her snaky locks; Profane Love with eyes bound, wings clipped, arrows scattered, and torch extinguished. Above is a glory of singing angels, three of them holding the palm and the wreath above the head of Prudence as symbol of her victory and triumph over the vices; and the epigram taken from Juvenal, Nullum numen abest sit Prudentia (or "The Prudent will not look in vain for heaven's help")." Such a triumph of virtue over vice is a familiar
14. "The Vision of Delight/' Christmas, 1617, in Ben Jonson: The Complete Masques, ed. Stephen Orgel (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), p. 255,11. 221-31.
15. Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Vite dei Pittore, Scultori, ed. Architetti, 1672, p. 262. The translation is taken from A. K. Wheelock Jr., "Venetia Stanley, Lady Digby as
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Fig. 7. Anthony Van Dyck, Venetia Stanley, Lady Digby, 1633. Oil on canvas. National Portrait Gallery, London.
theme in the works of Rubens, Van Dyck's master—for example, in his Whitehall ceiling, where Hercules triumphs over Envy, and Minerva over Ignorance. It is indeed the recognized way to pay tribute to the monarch or to nobility, as Jonson's masques also demonstrate. In the masque Chloridia, to cite just one instance, Cupid, Jealousy, and Dis-
Prudence," in Van Dyck Paintings, p. 253.
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simulation are quenched by the powers of spring represented by the queen. As part of the context for understanding this painting, we may include Ben Jonson's eulogy on Lady Digby in the form of a poem addressed to the painter. Writing in this anacreontic mode, the poet begins by first dismissing the adventitious appeals of rich clothing, saying: "This beautie without falsehood fayre, / Needs nought to cloath it but the ayre." What follows may best be understood in the light of Ripa's account of "Bellezza," where he states that Beauty should be shown with her head in the clouds, signifying that she is an emanation of the divine light from the face of God and that it is difficult to speak of her with mortal tongue. Jonson accordingly proceeds to create a cosmological image, rather than a naturalistic one: Draw first a Cloud: all save her песке; And, out of that, make Day to breake; Till, like her, face it doe appeare And Men may thinke, all light rose there. Then let the beames of that, disperse The Cloud, and show the Universe; But at such distance, as the eye May rather yet adore, then spy. The Heavens design'd, draw next a Spring, With all that Youth, or it can bring: Four Rivers branching forth like Seas, And Paradise confining these. Last, draw the circles of this Globe, And let there be a starry Robe Of Constellations 'bout her horld; 18
And thou hast painted beauties world. 16. For the broader context of Jonson's advice-to-a-painter poems, see my Pencils Rhetorique: Renaissance Poets and the Art of Painting (Newark: University of Delaware Press, forthcoming in 1993). 17. Cesare Ripa, Iconologia (Rome, 1603), facsimile ed. with intro. by Erna Mandowsky (Hildesheim and New York: Georg Olms, 1970), p. 411.
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The lady is the world as it was newly created; she is beauty incarnate. But Jonson followed this poem, "The picture of the body," with a poem called "The Mind." This portrait, the particular task of the poet, is a metaphorical description of qualities that he says cannot be depicted by the painter, because he cannot draw "a thing that cannot sit." He illustrates what a painter can depict: You could make shift to paint an Eye, An Eagle towring in the skye, The Sunne, a Sea, or soundlesse Pit; But these are like a Mind, not it. Yet it is exactly what cannot be depicted that Van Dyck sets out to evoke by his use of attributes. But we cannot take literally what Jonson says about the painter. Since he is writing in the tradition of the paragone, or rivalry of the arts, this is at most a partial statement of the truth. Moreover, when he says that the painter can only give comparisons for the mind— "these are like a Mind, not it."—he is really in the same position of needing similes and metaphors for his own portraiture, as even his advice to the painter shows. It may be that Digby discussed the program for the portrait of his wife with Ben Jonson, who had already addressed a poem to Lady Digby as his Muse and had written his Eupheme, or of good fame, a poem in several parts, including the directions on how a painter should represent her. We might also consider that in Jonson's notes to some of his masques, written as an aid to Prince Henry's understanding, he cites various authorities, such as Ripa, on the assumption that correctness of depiction was essential to the validity and power of allegorical figures. If we turn to what Ripa has to say on Prudence
18. Jonson, Under-wood, 86, no. 3,11. 13-28.
19. Under-wood, 86, no. 4,11. 9-11.
20. It was Digby who, in 1640-41, published Jonson's Works in two folio volumes. 21. See E. H. Gombrich, 'Tcones Symbolicae," in Symbolic Images (London: Phaidon Press, 1972), p. 176. For Jonson's marginal glosses, see the appendix to Orgel's edition of the Masques.
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and Chastity, we learn that the serpent is an attribute of Prudence and that the turtledoves are emblems of Married Chastity, as is the vanquished Cupid. Significantly, in the portrait, these doves are differentiated, with the one under the lady's hand, probably representing herself, in the light; the other, her husband, more in the dark; the one with outstretched wings, the other with folded wings (Fig. 8). 22 It is tempting to conclude that this contrast means that Lady Digby had already made the ascent into the spiritual realm and that therefore this is a posthumous portrait.
Fig. 8. Anthony Van Dyck, Lady Digby (detail).
All these attributes and personifications belong in an allegorical milieu not unlike that envisioned in Jonson's elegy on Lady Digby: And she doth know, out of the shade of Death, What't is t' enjoy, an everlasting breath! To have her captiv'd spirit freed from flesh, And on her Innocence, a garment fresh And white, as that, put on: and in her hand 23
With boughs of Palme, a crowned Victrice stand! 22. On the two doves, see Stewart, "Allusions and Ideas in Van Dyck/' p. 71.
23. Under-wood, 86, no. 9,11. 91-96.
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i:\planatory emblems are used to draw attention to moral virtues in I hi» subject. But great art does more: it revives the authenticity of symbols by placing them in a total poetic conception.
Fig. 9. Anthony Van Dyck, Lady Digby on her Deathbed, 1633. Oil on canvas. Dulwich College Picture Gallery, London.
Very unlike the elaborate allegorical portrait of Lady Digby is the simple factual one of her on her deathbed (Fig. 9). When she died in 1633, at the age of 33, Digby immediately summoned Van Dyck, his friend, to paint her. The grieving husband wrote in a letter to his
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brother an account of what this portrait meant to him: "It standeth all day over against my chair and table . . . and all night I goe into my chamber I sette it close by my bedside, and by the faint light of a candle, me thinkes I see her dead indeed; for that maketh painted colors looke more pale and ghastly than they doe by daylight/' Van Dyck, he notes, "hath altered or added nothing about it, excepting only a rose lying upon the hemme of the sheete, whose leaves are being pulled from the stalke in the full beauty of it, and seeming to wither apace, even when you looke upon it, is a fitt Emblem to express the state her bodie was in . . . ." Similarly, Ben Jonson's elegy on Lady Digby as his Muse describes her lying in death: "As spirits had stolen her Spirit, in a kisse / From off her pillow and deluded bed; / And left her lovely body unthought dead!" Like the painter, the poet observes decorum in his depiction of the dead woman. By contrast, the allegorical painting of Lady Digby as Prudence elevates her in a kind of apotheosis, the term used by Jonson for the final part of his series of poems on Lady Digby No wonder Lessing, in his Laocoon, commented that the artist "who adorns a figure with symbols raises what was a mere figure to a higher being." Nevertheless, he condemned the practice, criticizing painters who have not "considered to what degree their art is able to express general ideas without denying its true function and degenerating into a purely arbitrary means of expression." But Van Dyck has tried to avoid the arbitrariness of conventional attributes: in a play of contrasts, the serpent and the doves are turned into the lady's pets; naughty Cupid has the lady's foot gently resting on him; Deceit, "in the guise of a slave"—to quote Bellori—cowers and is controlled by Lady Digby. She subdues everything around her, with her color, her prominence, and the help of the heavenly powers that make ready to give her the crown
24. Letter dated 19 June 1633, in Peter Murray, Dulwich Picture Gallery: A Catalogue (London: Sotheby Park Bernet, 1980), p. 56.
25. Under-wood, 86, no. 9,11. 42-44.
26. G. E. Lessing, Laocoon, trans. E. A. McCormick (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1962), p. 60. 27. Ibid., p. 5.
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о I' glory. ЛИ the attributes are harmonized in terms of the chiaroscuro of the picture. The light breaking through the clouds plays on the putti, illuminating Lady Digby's face and the upper part of her white garment; it touches Cupid where he lies like a fallen angel, while leaving Deceit in the shadows. Altogether, Van Dyck has created an allegorical world with which to manifest the spirit of the lady, some thing that Ben Jonson said a painter could not do. But, like Jonson himself, when Van Dyck uses attributes, he conceives of them, not as extraneous signs, but as illustrated metaphors to illuminate the char acter of the subject. In keeping with Leonardo's claim that the painter enjoys the same freedom as the poet, Van Dyck used a variety of means to, in Richard son's words, "represent with truth and precision invisible qualities and objects." The artistic enterprise shared by him and Ben Jonson is less "ritualized dissimulation," as it has been called, than the use of fiction to reveal a truth. A little allegory in one of Jonson's masques spoken by Euclia, or Fair Glory, though attuned specifically to the genre of masque, is applicable to allegorical portraiture in general: So love, emergent out of chaos, brought The world to light! And gently moving on the waters, wrought All form to sight! Love's appetite Did beauty first excite, And left imprinted in the air Those signatures of good and fair— but instead of leaving "those signatures of good and fair" in the heavens, these artists have clothed them in mortal form, "Which since have flowed, flowed forth upon the sense, / To wonder first, and then
28. George Richardson, Preface to Iconology, 1779. This is his English version of Cesare Ripa's Iconologia, which had appeared in various editions from 1593 on.
29. Roskill, p. 194, comparing the art of Van Dyck and that of Thomas Carew. Carew is not only a slighter poet than Jonson but he also wrote far fewer poems in the panegyric mode.
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to excellence, / By virtue of divine intelligence!" Platonic philosophy is vindicated by art.
30. Love's Triumph Through Callipolis (1631), 11.135-45.
Thus it is that
Robert Farley's Kalendarium Humanae Vitae: A Study in Emblematic Strategies JANE FARNSWORTH St. Thomas University Robert Farley's emblematic strategy in the Kalendarium Humanae Vitae (1638) imparts new life to the old and much used device of the calendar with its comparison of man's life to the seasonal cycle. In this bilingual (Latin and English) and highly structured work, Farley pushes the limited calendar form in a new direction, creating a more expansive and effective "mortalitatis symbolum" (sign or token of mortality). In his commendatory poem, Edmund Coleman describes the 1. The use of the word "man" and other related terms here and elsewhere in this article is deliberate. Farley's description of human life in the Kalendarium Humanae Vitae is unquestionably set out in terms of male experience. Women only appear in the work as birth mother or prospective wife of the central male paradigm. It seems, therefore, to be truer to the original work to present this fact honestly and not gloss over the omission of women and women's experience from Farley's work with gender inclusive or gender neutral language. 2.
Robert Farley, Kalendarium Humanae Vitae: The Kalender of Mans Life (London: William Hope, 1638), A2v. The Kalendarium is written in both Latin and English. The Latin text appears on the left-hand page and is faced by an English translation on the right-hand page. In only two places does Farley fail to provide an English text: the dedication to Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, and the six-stanza poem which follows the month of January. In both cases, I have used a translation by Dr. Dorothy Bray (McGill University) as the basis for my discussion of those sections. Because of the presence of a complete English version of the work by the author, I feel that conclusions about Farley's purpose, approach, and form are accurate, although based only on the English. Only judgments concerning Farley's Latin style cannot be ascertained by such
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Kalendarium as "the whole worlds Ephemerides" and as "this Л1manacke of man." While thus firmly placing the Kalendarium in the calendar tradition and its author, through his allusion to "Tityrus Calendar/' in the illustrious company of Virgil, Chaucer, and Spenser, Coleman sees, however, that Farley is doing something new here: Like to another Phoebus thou dost take Thy twelvemoneths taske through lifes short Zodiacke: But these are too too narrow bounds for thee, Eeach moneth's an age, each age eternitie. Farley's work is based on the calendar and its lessons for man; yet, at the same time, it challenges those limits both formal and thematic, and moves beyond the calendar's daily round into eternity. By using the emblem in conjunction with the calendar, Farley is able to show man is both part of the natural world living within the cycles of time and subject to decay and death, and also a creature who transcends these cycles through the immutable and eternal life made possible by salvaan examination and that task I shall leave gratefully to a future Latinist. As far as the author himself is concerned, little is known. Elbert N. S. Thompson in his early article on Farley says that "practically nothing is known of Farlie, the author, save the fact, communicated on his title page, that he was a Scotchman" ("Between The Shepheards Calender and The Seasons/' PQ, I [1922], 23), and that he wrote an emblem book in conventional form, Lychnocausia. He appears to have been associated with a number of Scotsmen who were writing in Latin at this time. James Adams, in his chapter, "The Renaissance Poets (2) Latin," remarks that large numbers of Scots attempted neo-Latin poetry during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and mentions Farley as a contempo rary of the great poet, Arthur Johnston (Scottish Poetry: A Critical Survey, ed. James Kinsley [London: Cassell and Company Ltd., 1955], pp. 68-98). K. J. Holtgen adds that it is likely Farley was "some kind of schoolmaster" ("Francis Quarle's Second Emblem Book: Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man," 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 [Erlangen, 1988], p. 186), an impression based on Farley's four other works in Latin.
3.
Kalendarium, A3v. "Ephemerides" can be defined as an almanac or calendar of any kind, in early use especially one containing astrological or meterological predictions for each day of the period embraced; also, a calendar of saints' days (OED). Such a description aptly touches on the various concerns of this work and its presentation.
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lion. Although there is generic renewal found in the calendar cycles, .nul those cycles appear eternal, each individual is trapped in time, ti(4i to the physical world, and must inevitably die. The emblem, however, presents a movement away from the physical realm, from its pictured actuality, to a realm of moral and spiritual significance beyond time and change. Very simply, the movement of the calendar form is horizontal, endlessly circling back on itself, while that of the emblem form is vertical, a reaching upwards away from itself. Farley's strategy of merging the emblem and the calendar makes the Kalendarium a unique and complex memento mori. Farley is inventive even in his use of the basic calendar frame that structures the Kalendarium. The main body of Farley's work is organized into the conventional divisions of the calendar: four sections correspond to the four seasons and twelve poems correspond to the months of the year. Further, each section and its three poems represents a specific part of man's life. There seems to be no fixed pattern to the equation of ages with months in such works except for a general one of assigning childhood to spring, youth to summer, manhood to autumn, and old age to winter—an ancient correlation going back to the Pythagorean tetrad and beyond. All else, however, is open to individual modification and Farley creates his own variation in the Kalendarium through expanding the form to include man's conception in March, death in January, and burial and mourning in February, none of which is usually part of a calendar. Not only is his pattern of man's life in the Kalendarium more complete than that found in other calen-
4. Such authors as Henry Cuffe, Difference in the Ages of Man's Life (London, 1633), Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie (London, 1580), and the author of The Kalender of Sheephards (ca. 1585), all have differing ways of dividing up the year and man's life. It is interesting to note that another emblem book, Francis Quarles's Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man, employing the theme of the Ages of Man and the calendar appeared in the same year (1638) as Farley's Kalendarium. Holtgen, in his article, "Francis Quarles's Second Emblem Book," makes clear, however, through his examination of the publishing and imprimatur dates, that both authors worked independently. This coincidence, plus the number of other works in the period which deal with the Ages of Man and the calendar form, indicates the perennial popularity of these devices and highlights Farley's accomplishment in his sophisticated and original treatment of them.
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dars, but it is also developed in a much more profound and detailed way. This development is made possible by Farley's use of the emblem in combination with the calendar form, and even more by his choice of a specific type of emblem. The emblem form is not as readily apparent in the Kalendarium as in other, more conventional emblem books, but it is there in the relationship between the woodcuts which introduce each season and each month throughout the work and the twelve monthly poems. Each month has a woodcut pictura, an inscriptio, an epigram (except for those months immediately following the seasonal woodcut) and an expansive subscriptio. In addition, each season has its own woodcut pictura and inscriptio, but its subscriptio is formed by the poems for its three months. When we look closely at these monthly subscriptiones, we notice each poem has a set-off section of verses at the end which consists of an address or prayer to God. This section alerts us to the presence of that special kind of emblem which is allied to the meditation form. Such a close interweaving of the meditation and the emblem form is not uncommon in the seventeenth century. Peter M. Daly has argued convincingly that the emblem and the meditation are forms with many similarities in structure and purpose and that they often overlap each other. The meditation's statement of theme is comparable to the inscriptio of the emblem, the composition of place to the pictura, and the colloquy to the subscriptio. In the monthly poems of the Kalendarium the statement of theme and the composition of place are jointly created by the woodcut and the opening lines of the poem. The colloquy, a movement of the will and/or the affections upward towards God, is clearly present at the end of each poem and is marked textually by a change in the verse and by a decorative symbol. Like the emblem, the meditation form moves the reader from a physical realm, the composition of place, to a realm 5. In his article, "Southwell's 'Burning Babe' and Emblematic Practice/' Peter M. Daly writes that, like the meditation, "the emblem also set out to synthesize the operations of the mind and the physical senses in order to achieve a state of clearer knowledge . . . . In meditation the immediate objective is to excite the will to holy affections and resolutions. This is likewise the aim, often explicitly stated, of the kind of religious emblem-book we are considering here . . . . In such emblem-books the reader is exhorted to see, hear and understand things human and divine and then change his life accordingly" (Wascana Review, 3 [1968], 42).
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ol moral and spiritual significance. Daly goes so far as to suggest we call such a work an "emblem of meditation/' Holtgen in his Aspects of I he Emblem remarks on "the great number of religious emblem books originating from the amalgamation of the emblematic and meditative traditions." An example such as Henry Hawkins's Partheneia Sacra (1633), with its complicated structure of Devise, Character, Morals, Essay, Discourse, Emblem and Poesie, Theories and Apostrophe, indicates the degree to which authors expanded and experimented with the emblem of meditation. Farley has engaged in this type of experimentation in the Kalendarium by joining the form of the emblem-meditation to the form of the calendar. This provides him with a clear and meaningful organizing principle and with rich thematic possibilities in pursuit of his goal of moving his reader to look beyond the life of the flesh to eternity. In George Glover's engraved title-page to Kalendarium Humanae Vitae and its accompanying poem, Farley places before his reader an emblem of his work as a whole, complete with inscriptio, pictura and subscriptio (Fig. 1). The general motto, memento mori, and the longer epigram following the title, "Ipse iubet mortis nos meminisse Deus," [God himself bids us to remember death] both act as the inscriptio and point to the purpose or application of the work—a warning to the reader to remember the transience of the world and to think of the state of his or her soul. While such religious instruction is a traditional 6.
Ibid.
7. Karl Josef Holtgen, Aspects of the Emblem (Kassel: Edition Reichenberger, 1986), p. 25. See also his "Emblem and Meditation: Some English Emblem Books and Their Jesuit Models," Explorations in Renaissance Culture, 18 (1992), 55-92. 8. See Henry Hawkins, Partheneia Sacra (1633), with a new introduction by Karl Joseph Holtgen (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1993), and Karl Joseph Holtgen, "The Emblematic Theory and Practice of the English Jesuit Henry Hawkins," in Renaissance Poetics, ed. Heinrich F. Plett (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1993). 9. The title-page and a brief description of it can be found in Margery Corbett and Michael Norton, Engraving in England in the 16th and 17th Centuries, Part III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), p. 241 (Plate 126b). This brief description, however, is not completely clear or accurate in regard to the mottoes and their relation to their visual referents. The title-page is also reproduced in A. F. Johnson, Catalogue of Engraved and Etched English Title-Pages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934), Glover No. 9.
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Fig. 1 Robert Farley, Kalendarium Humanae Vitae: The Kalender of Mans Life, London: William Hope, 1638, engraved title-page. Reproduced by courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale Unvieristy.
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purpose of the calendar, it is also a subject which is, as Lewalski phrases it, "the age-old meditative concern, the contemptus mundi and t he true end of man." The inscriptio thus reveals not only the subject of the work, but also its meditative nature. The five medallions plus the border scene at the top of the title-page are equivalent to the c»mblem pictura. The top medallion contains the memento mori motto and depicts a man in his prime facing a skull. Behind the man's profile is a border scene of sunshine and flowering plants; behind the skull is a dark, cloudy scene of withered plants. The juxtaposition of the scenes and the medallion makes a clear visual connection between man's life and the natural world. Together they represent the horizontal movement from life to death which underlies the work as a whole. The fact that the man is contemplating the skull, and that the open jaws of the skull make it appear to be speaking to the man, warning him perhaps, visually presents the process of the work itself to the reader—that it is a meditation engaging the reader in just such a contemplation of mortality. Below, the four medallions of the four seasons with their appropriate mottoes emphasize the seasonal round of the calendar and of man's life: Spring, "Vet erat aeterium" [It was an everlasting spring], Summer, "Stabat mida aestas" [Summer stood naked], Autumn, "Et spicca serta gerebat" [And the barnes were full], and Winter, "Hyems canis hirsuta capillis" [Winter hath gray haires]. It is, of course, traditional for the seasons to be represented by human figures, but their use here is particularly apt and strengthens the visual connection between nature and man. The accompanying poem, "The Frontispeece," acts as a subscriptio and interacts with the plate to set out the full significance of Farley's work. The poem is divided into two ten-line stanzas, the first setting up the correspondences that we will see in the work as a whole and that we have seen in the interactions between the various parts of the engraving: the daily cycle of sunshine and cloud, day and night, light and darkness; the human cycle of life and death, youth and age; and, the seasonal cycle of spring (youth), summer (vigor), autumn (fruit10. Barbara Kiefer Lewalski, Donne's "Anniversaries" and the Poetry of Praise: The Creation of a Symbolic Mode (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 73. See also her Protestant Poetics and the Seventeenth-Century Religious Lyric (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), especially Chapters 5 and 6.
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fulness), and winter (age). The second stanza brings in the dimension of eternity and the end of the cycles, expanding the emblem's significance. Farley makes a verbal connection between the stanzas by beginning each with a reference to the sun. In the first, it is the sun in nature, "The Sunne is glorious still/' and in the second, the Son of God, "The Sunne of Glory." Both speak of the sun as the giver of light, and of the darkness that follows its setting. The second sun, however, is described as rising again and conquering darkness. The image of the sun echoes the two border scenes but goes beyond it to suggest a greater day under an eternal sun, something which is not present in the pictura or inscriptio of the title-page. At the end of the poem, the speaker's tone becomes admonitory and he calls on all people, young and old, to "Turne to the right-hand, and the Sunne behold." (This command appears confusing because the appropriate picture in the engraving is on the left. Farley may have' been looking at the actual plate, in which case the command would be accurate, or, more likely, he may have been referring to Christ who sits on the right hand of God in heaven.) Farley ends on a note of hope—Christ has conquered death and, through him, we can also. The subscriptio completes and moves beyond the inscriptio and pictura: the eternal round of the seasons is broken for man who will be lifted beyond it into the eternity of the saved. The engraved title-page and the poem are a visual/verbal blueprint for the themes and the emblematic method of the work as a whole. For Farley, the emblem is not a static form, but one that requires the reader to draw multiple analogies and produce the meaning from the interaction of all its parts. The reader is to be actively engaged in making connections between pictura, inscriptio, and subscriptio, and this engagement of intellect and senses will lead him to a greater spiritual understanding and eternal salvation. When we turn to the Kalendarium proper, we find the integration and interaction of calendar and emblem of meditation in each month of the year. The month of June, "Mans young age," is representative of Farley's technique. Being the first month of summer, June's pictura, inscriptio, and subscriptio are preceded by the seasonal pictura and inscriptio. Throughout the Kalendarium as a whole, the seasonal openings interact with the monthly poems that follow to create an extended emblem for each quarter of the year. The pictura for summer is a surprising one—a portrait of Bacchus with grape clusters in his hair and a wine cup in his left hand. Usually wine-making is associated with September and autumn, not high summer. The inscriptio, "This
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will bo wine/' reveals a concern with a future harvest and the fulfilment of early promise. It is only as we progress through the monthly poems of June, July, and August that the meaning of this woodcut and motto becomes clear. As the grapes are the basis for the product, wine, so is the youth the raw material which will be shaped by education and experience into a man. The months of summer are not about an end but a process, and thus this figure of Bacchus and his grapes is appropriate. Additionally, the depiction of Bacchus as a young male figure suits perfectly the age of man discussed in summer.
Fig. 2 Kalendarium, C7r, woodcut for June. Reproduced by courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale Unvieristy.
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The pictura for June presents a young couple sitting in the midst of a hayfield with hayricks in the background (Fig. 2). The young woman holds a hayrake in one hand, while the young man has one arm around her and stretches his other hand towards the rake. As in the majority of months, the obvious seasonal activity, here hay making, connects the life of man visually to the natural world. The gesture of reaching for the rake, of seeking something, may reflect the reaching or turning of youth to the tools needed for his life's work. This woodcut, like the rest, is very much a typical calendar illustration, containing as it does "the standard astrological sign . . . and . . . a reference to the time of the year, the labor of the month or the meaning of the month's name . . . .' The inscriptio, "I shall goe backward," refers to the movement of the zodiac sign of the month, the crab, but more interestingly, it directly contrasts with the future orientation of summer's inscriptio quoted above, "This will be wine." Although, at first glance, the woodcut may seem to be essentially "depictive," i. е., a simple representation of the season/month's activities with no other meaning or significance, that is not the case. The relation of June's pictura to its inscriptio cannot be understood without the long interpretative poem or subscriptio which accompanies it and places it in a moral and spiritual context. The interaction between these three parts moves the woodcut beyond a merely illustrative function to an emblematic one. As in the other months, the subscriptio opens with a description of the natural world in June and a comparison of the season to the appropriate age of man, here, "man's young age" (C8r). The opening comment that the earth's brood gives promise of fruit reflects the inscriptio of summer, "This will be wine." When the speaker turns to man, he speaks not of physical growth, but of the growth and educa tion of that feature which distinguishes man from the natural world, his "fiery seed of reason," which must be "fram'd with care." Such imagery clearly connects reason to the "Divine Spark" or soul and the seed images of March and leads us back to the beginning of things, to "mans great Sire," Adam, and the loss of perfect reason brought about by the Fall. Adam's loss is passed on to his children who are "Borne 11. Ruth Samson Luborsky, "The Illustrations to The Shepheardes Calender," Spenser Studies, 2(1981), 20-21.
12. Luborsky, 18.
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voidi» of knowledge, rude and ignorant" and who must be carefully !,uij;lit because only "Learning makes straight perverse and crooked wits." Mankind has so degenerated that the child must be beaten in order to make him learn. Learning and scholarship are here a sign not of pride and celebration, but of failure and loss. The meaning of June's inscriptio, "I shall goe backward," now becomes clear: our growth and development is only an attempt to recapture what we once had. Farley's moral view works against the expectations inherent in the calendar, creating a tension that echoes the tension at the heart of human life—the earthly versus the heavenly, the body versus the soul, and, here, the promise of youth versus human imperfection. In order to grow and develop properly, we must "go back" and attempt to become close to man's state before the Fall. Such a motion suggests humility in our view of human learning and, as fleshly pride was corrected in May, so is intellectual pride in June. In light of the subscriptio, the pictura may be seen to represent the paradoxical nature of human learning: the man reaches for the rake after the work is done. The truth about human learning is that it is not a going forward and gaining of the new but a going backwards, an attempted restoration of the lost. Farley allows no comfort to human pride but insists that all things human and earthly are imperfect. In the colloquy, the speaker prays to Christ to be made his scholar and receive enlightenment, cleansing and correction from him. It is here that the presence of the meditation form makes itself most strongly felt. From an emphasis upon the calendar, a form based on the passage of time, Farley moves to the meditation, a form concerned with the apprehension of eternity. Besides moving the focus upwards towards God, a colloquy usually helps resolve problems explored in the meditation as a whole, and Farley uses it to do so in his work. The allusion to Christ's preaching in the temple is fitting here in the month concerned with knowledge and the training of youth. Although Adam lost the gifts of perfect reason and knowledge, Christ can restore them and bestow greater ones. The speaker's relationship with Christ in each colloquy mirrors the human relationships in each subscriptio, making human relationships an image of spiritual relations between man and God. Also, by showing that the human relationships (and accomplishments) that the reader might suppose to be a source of happiness to man as only sources of misery in the first part of the subscriptio and by replacing them with that relationship between Christ and the soul, Farley shows the spiritual life transcending the
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natural cycle of life. By presenting Christ as master and the s p e a k e r ' s soul as scholar, Farley, at one a n d the same time, exalts teaching and learning b u t also humbles m a n ' s achievements. Going forward in h u m a n k n o w l e d g e is but returning to G o d ' s law—imperfectly on earth a n d only perfectly in Heaven. The p a t t e r n that w e perceive in the relation of these parts in June is evident t h r o u g h o u t the other m o n t h s of the year, with the exceptions of January a n d February. Farley takes the seeming good of each pictura a n d shows it to be inadequate. Here m a n ' s learning, though necessary a n d good, is in reality a m a r k of sin a n d ultimately unable to satisfy or save man. The pictura is incomplete formally and morally; it requires the subscriptio with its colloquy to complete it as an emblem a n d as a moral and spiritual lesson for man. There are, of course, variations in the relation between these parts in some of the other m o n t h s even t h o u g h Farley's basic m e t h o d remains constant. It is not, however, until the last three m o n t h s of the year, December, January, a n d February, that we see any notable divergence in the pattern. The first and most minor change occurs in the colloquy for December which, unlike those of other m o n t h s , is written in a verse form different from the subscriptio: three stanzas of ten lines with a complicated r h y m e and metre. This colloquy also marks the last of the s p e a k e r ' s first-person addresses. In its opening stanza the physical decline of the speaker is graphically detailed, with a reference to "youths delight and former joy" making the change all the more painful. This contrast has already been visually presented to the reader in the pictura's scene of the old m a n and boy. The second Stanza is concerned with the s p e a k e r ' s spiritual state. He recalls the errors of youth a n d asks for forgiveness and the grace of God, while the third stanza asks for assurance of salvation a n d describes the peace and joy that awaits the soul in heaven. The past and present are examined in stanzas one and two, whereas the future is looked to in the last stanza—the only possible future of a dying man, a heavenly, spiritual future. All things physical have failed; only virtue remains in the moral realm and salvation in the spiritual realm. The prayer ends on a note of hope—age a n d death cannot completely defeat man because there is always grace. The cozy scene of the pictura, an elderly m a n in a fur-trimmed gown sitting in front of a fireplace with a young boy kneeling beside him while outside the trees bend in a winter gale, has been qualified by the detailed a n d depressing description of age found in the subscriptio, but, through this concluding poem, h o p e of comfort
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«iiul peace for the aged is given. In this last stanza, the concept of eternity, of being outside of time, is stressed: "Heavens eternall rest," "eternall joy," "which no time e're can quell" and "endlesse love for evermore shall raigne" (I3r). Man is clearly lifted out of the cycles of time in this prayer when his soul is freed of physicality. The last thoughts of the speaker are focused beyond the earth and time and onto God and eternity. The breaking of the pattern of the work in this and the two succeeding months marks the breaking of the unending temporal round of life and death in which man, like all mortals, is caught. The last two months of the Kalendarium show the greatest variations on Farley's established pattern. With January we come to death, a subject in itself not usually described or set out as one of the ages of man. Farley gives us the complete cycle—birth to death—and, as we shall see, beyond. Pictura, inscriptio, and subscriptio work here as they do elsewhere in the Kalendarium, but, once again, the colloquy is the site of Farley's modification of the pattern. There is no colloquy for January; instead, Farley replaces it with a Latin poem for which no English translation is supplied. It is untitled, consisting of six stanzas of twelve lines each, and is introduced as the swan song of an anonymous Latin poet "which may warn men of their own mortality not unpleasantly" (Klv). The speaker, who has identified with each stage of life in the work, no longer directly addresses God in prayer; he is appropriately silent in this season of death. Each verse follows a thematic pattern of tracing life to death, day to night, growing to declining, and rising to setting, using many images previously employed in the Kalendarium, All things are shown to be mutable and all follow the great cycle of flourishing and dying. Each stanza ends with a general comment on this mutability, for example, "As the swan is about to die, so will man die" (Klv), and "The snow melts away, just as whatever has lived in the world perishes" (K2v). Although death is the end of all earthly things, the last stanza is set apart by its title, "Resurrectio," and speaks of new life after death, of returning light and man's rejoicing. The poem is a powerful reminder of death's inevitability but also of its final defeat. The pattern in each of its stanzas mirrors the pattern of the work as a whole and fittingly concludes the cycle. It is in the last month of the work, February, that the greatest change occurs. Here we have a pictura and inscriptio but no subscriptio or colloquy within it. Instead, there are a series of epitaphs which end
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the month and the work as a whole. Even the pictura, like January's, forgoes a seasonal motif for a spiritual and moral one. "February, or Epitaphs" opens with a pictura of a group of people gathered around a table (Fig. 3). Three people are engaged in amorous dalliance, a priest reads from a book while pointing at the floor, and, at the right, a jester plays the fiddle. Overhead are the fishes, the zodiac sign for the month. The inscriptio, "All shall arise," obviously looks to the resurrection. Although a banquet or feast often has eucharistic asso-
Fig. 3 Kalendarium, K3r, woodcut for February. Reproduced by courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale Unvieristy.
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t Lit ions in Christian art and literature, the presence of the jester and I lu» embracing figures makes such an interpretation problematic. The pivlura may, in fact, suggest a feast that is just the opposite of a spiritual banquet, a feast of worldly pleasure with people ignoring I heir spiritual peril. The downward pointing gesture of the priest may be a reminder to these revellers of the grave, the fact of death, and the importance of the state of man's soul. The priest is also pointing to the English inscriptio and its promise of life after death, and, by doing so, moves outside the pictura and involves the reader intimately with the emblem. The priest, through the act of reading, emphasizes how spiritual well-being is aided and the soul alerted to danger through such works as the very book the reader is holding in his or her hands. This pictura is both a warning and a sign which points the way to salvation for the reader. In the accompanying epigram, the imagery of water and the great flood, used in December and January to represent the dangers of old age and the miseries of time and the season, has been transformed into the cleansing waters of purification and baptism that wash away earthly dross. Playing an important role in that transformation is the zodiac sign for February, Pisces or the fish. The speaker says that all is gone as if swept away by the flood and "Like fishes in oblivion drowned lye." The "pleasant, fruitfull yeare" is past and consummatum has come at last, but his final lines look toward the resurrection: "As in the seas, the life, there fishes have, / So shall we take our being from the grave." The fish both die in the flood and live in the seas. This double nature of the fish and even their pictorial representation as facing in different directions echoes the circular pattern of natural life in the calendar and, at the same time, points to the eternal truth of life from death in the resurrection. February is the month of Lent, and the fish recall the penitential nature and purpose of this season. The pictura, seen in the context of the inscriptio and the epigram, represents those people who did not heed the warning of God, who ate and drank until the great flood washed them away to death and damnation. We, the readers, must heed the warning of this book, avoid their fate, and prepare for the eternal life to come. February has no subscriptio proper; instead, there are a series of epitaphs. Farley explains this change by referring to an ancient Roman custom, the festival of the dead held in February: "February or Epitaphs, which may be termed Februa, celebrated for the memory of certaine soules" (K4r). Roman families and the state commemorated
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their dead in a rite of purification, and this association makes it a fitting month in which to present the need for the soul to be cleansed of its earthly foulness and purified. For his epitaphs, Farley chooses biblical figures from the Old Testament: Adam, Methuselah, Abraham, Sampson, David, Absalom and Solomon. All the characters (except Absalom who does not speak) describe themselves in superlatives— the greatest representatives of human goodness, age, faith, strength, power, beauty, and wisdom. They would seem to have no cause for fear and no reason for pain. Thus, if they suffer and need salvation, no ordinary man can hope to be happy without God. Once again human pride and the pleasures of the earthly world are shown to be ultimately unsatisfying. Even such a man as Adam, who was created immortal and unstained by sin, fell and took all mankind with him. He, however, also first learned of salvation and humbly acknowledges his need for faith. Methuselah, "the longest liver of mankind," who was so old he thought he "could not dye," died eventually—death is the fate that awaits all men and there is no escape. Abraham, "the Father of the Faithful," relates the story of his son's birth and his acceptance of the need to sacrifice him (K5r). A son was thought to be the way to earthly immortality, but here a son, through faith, becomes the way to heavenly life. Faith in God is more important than any human relationship. Absalom, the "fairest of Israel," has become a byword for vice and lewdness. Unlike the others, he does not redeem himself in any way and dies unrepentant, not allowed to speak because unrepentant vice would have nothing to say to the godly man. Sampson, "the strongest judge of Israel" tells of his defeat at the hands of a woman, showing that earthly strength is not sufficient to save us. David, "the most holy King of Israel" speaks of his joy and his sorrow in serving God (K6r). He exhorts the reader not to be afraid of the pains of life but to remember that they do not last forever—all sorrow will end in heaven. Whatever earthly joy that we do experience, however, comes only from God, who fills the soul with his presence. These men speak directly to us and warn us to take heed by their example. The one voice of the speaker has become a chorus, all giving us the same implicit warning and corrective to man's pride. The last and most important speaker is Solomon, "the wisest and richest King of Israel" (K7r). He says that he had everything one could wish for on earth, "Riches, and honour, pleasure," but "Yet I did find all under Sunne to be / Mortall, fraile, brittle, and but vanity" The earthly, natural round is nothing but ashes in the end, and the only
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Inu» joy and hope of man lies in salvation and heavenly things. Farley's calendar ends with the greatest example of earthly success denouncing it as meaningless. Immediately following this final epitaph, as the final words of the Kalendarium, Farley places a Greek tag which translates as "Nothing without God." This is the perfect summation of Farley's theme and message throughout the Kalendarium—from the empty chaos of spring to the dissolution of the grave—all is nothing without God. Although Elbert N. Thompson, the author of the only critical article to date on Robert Farley, confidently concludes his discussion by saying that "Robert Farlie, as a poet, richly deserves the oblivion into which his name has fallen," his assessment of Farley's work is not justified. Farley may not be an outstanding poet, but he deserves praise for his inventive use of the emblem and calendar forms. Through the use of the calendar as a means of structuring his work, Farley gains a unity and complexity of theme in his emblems that is not always found in English emblem books. Not only that, but through his use of wide-ranging and diverse images—from the sciences, nature, history, religion, mythology, commerce, and everyday life—Farley creates the sense that the whole world is contained within his work. Such an encyclopedic completeness furthers his argument that all of life is tainted and only God can satisfy. The form and movement of the calendar, as described by Sherman Hawkins, reinforces Farley's moral argument: "To the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the cycle of the months suggested the vanity of temporal things no less than their purpose and order . . . . As the figures of the months glide by, we feel their transience as well as their constancy." The incorporation of the meditational emblem form into his work enables Farley, through the vivid composition of place (in the emblem pictura and subscriptio) and, most importantly, through the inclusion of a colloquy, to direct and exhort his reader to a higher spiritual awareness. The inclusive pronouns, "we, us, our," in the colloquies create 13. Translation provided by Professor G. M. Paul, Department of Classics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. 14. Thompson, 30.
15. Sherman Hawkins, "Mutabilitie and the Cycle of the Months/ 7 English Institute Essays (1961), pp. 98-99.
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an identification between the reader and the speaker which results in an emotional as well as an intellectual response—a widening of the emblem's affective power. The intense involvement of the reader in this strategy assures Farley of the success of his moral purpose. The tension of holding these forms with their different directions together creates the energy and urgency animating the Kalendariutn. It is the working together of several parts to create a greater meaning that makes the Kalendariutn truly emblematic and not merely an illustrated calendar poem. By expanding the emblem form to include the meditation and by placing it in the framework of the calendar, Farley created the perfect means to present the great paradox at the heart of his work: man is "a creature within nature, who must procreate, survive and ultimately die, and he is a living soul to whom is offered the triumph of eternity."
16. Patrick Cullen, Spenser, Marvell, and Renaissance Pastoral (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), p. 125.
DOCUMENTATION
Discours Sur V Art des Devises: An Edition of A Previously Unidentified and Unpublished Text by Charles Perrault LAURENCE GROVE University of Pittsburgh Charles Perrault and the Art of the Device Charles Perrault (1628-1703) is best known to the twentienth-century reader for his Contes (1697), which include such well known tales as "La Belle au bois dormant," "Le Petit Chaperon rouge," "Cendrillon" and "Peau d'ane." These, like the Memoires de ma vie (1702), were presented as being intended for the education of his two sons. Most of Perrault's career was, however, spent in a very different environment, that of the court and literary circles of the reign of Louis XIV. He worked closely with Colbert, both as Controleur general de la surintendance des bdtiments and in the Petite academie, whose task was the composition of devices and monuments for public buildings. Perrault was thus instumental in the work towards the founding of the Academie des inscriptions et belles lettres (1701).2
1. The piece was brought to my attention by Dr. Daniel Russell. It was he who first suggested that the Discours sur VArt des Devises might be the work of Charles Perrault. 2.
For further information concerning the Petite academie and the Academie des inscriptions et belles lettres see the introduction to volume I of Josephe Jacquiot's Medailles et jetons de Louis XIV (Paris: Klincksieck, 1968).
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A member of the Academie frangaise from 1671, Perrault played an active role in its debates. Notably, he was one of the leading figures in the Querelle des anciens et des modernes which compared the gifts of antiquity with those of the man of post-Renaissance France. Perrault led the cause of the Modernes with works such as Le Siecle de Louis le Grand (1687) and the Parallele des anciens et des modernes (1688-1698). Emblematically Perrault is best known for his work on the Devises pour les tapisseries du roy. The tapestries in question, praising the king for securing peace, were executed in the 1660s by the Gobelins manufactory. Perrault had created the majority of the sixteen Devises des Elements and the sixteen Devises des Quatre Saisons which decorated the tapestries' borders. These were then presented in a luxury manuscript (with engravings by Bailly) as well as in various printed editions. It is precisely these devices that Perrault describes in folios 13v-29 of our traite. A facsimile edition of the Bibliotheque Nationale's luxury manuscript Devises pour les tapisseries du roy (B.N. MS. fr. 7819) has been prepared by Marianne Grivel and Marc Fumaroli (Paris: Herscher, 1988) and should be consulted for further details. In the course of his work with Colbert in the proto-Academie des inscriptions Perrault composed a great number of devices, many of which are described and discussed in the Discours that follows. He also published the Course de testes et de bague in 1662 (folio edition in 1670), dedicated to the young Dauphin and describing the ceremonial fetes that took place in the Palais des Tuileries in that year. The engravings are by Silvestre and Chaveau, and much attention is given to the devices of the various participants. In 1675 appeared Perrault's Le Labyrinthe de Versailles. This is a description of the emblematic maze that once existed in the castle's gardens, where statues and inscriptions were brought together to illustrate ./Esop's fables. Indeed minor emblematic pieces are to be found throughout the work of Perrault, ranging from the Embleme ingenieux d'un peintre taken from his poem "La Peinture," to the short "Devise—Un Lys sur sa tige," both of which were to be included in the Passe-Temps poetiques, historiques et critiques of 1757. Paris, Bibliotheque de VArsenal MS. 3328 The original of the Discours sur VArt des Devises that follows comprises piece 1 (fol. 1-46) of Arsenal MS. 3328. Henri Martin's Catalogue des Manuscrits of 1887 merely labels the piece by its title, giving no
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further information. MS. 3328 as a whole bears the simple title of Recuoil and is comprised of 13 pieces (295 sheets) with little common link (e. g., piece 2 "Memoire touchant la maniere de faire de Г indigo/' piece 7 "Discours contre les spectacles"). The Recueil comes from the library of the Marquis de Paulmy, founder of the Bibliotheque de Г Arsenal, and contains manuscript pieces from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The green leather binding was comissioned for the Bibliotheque de Г Arsenal. Its spine bears the inscription, "Portefeuille du M1S. de Paulmy - Melanges." The Discours consists of four booklets of twenty pages, each com prising five folded sheets of paper, followed by a final booklet of twelve pages comprising three folded sheets. The final 3 1/2 pages of the last booklet remain blank. Each page measures 19 cm by 26.5 cm and bears a watermark of vertical lines and an encircled bird somewhat crudely drawn. The text itself is in black ink and occupies the central part of each page. The left margin measures three cm, the right margin 4.5 cm, the lower margin six cm and the upper margin 2.5 cm. Ample space has been left between the lines of text, thereby giving eighteen lines per page. Various additions and corrections have been made in red ink, as well as three marginal notes (fols. 2, 12 and 16v) and a few corrections in the original black ink. This would indicate that the work was throughly reviewed by the copyist. In my transcribed version I have used curved brackets—{ }—to indicate the red ink additions and corrections. It should be noted that the addi tional underlinings are in red ink and that the added § indicated at the end of a line is placed centrally between the two lines of text in the original. The style of the handwriting can be seen in Figure 1. The work is anonymous but it can beyond any reasonable doubt be attributed to Charles Perrault. This attribution is supported mainly by two texts: (i) Devises pour les Tapisseries du Roy. This work has been discussed briefly above. It is enough for us to know that the texts for the Devises were composed by Perrault, Charpentier and Chapelain around 1662. On folio 21v of our Discours, in reference to the "Tapisseries, ou les quatre saisons etoient representees" our author states, И у a quelques unes de ces devises, qui ne sont pas de moi, mais j'ai cru les devoir mettre ici toutes, avec le nom de leurs auteurs, lorsqu'elles ne sont pas de ma fagon pour ne pas demembrer cet ouvrage.
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Those devices in our piece which bear no name are precisely those which elsewhere are identified as being the work of Charles Perrault. (ii) Memoires de ma vie. This text of 1702, MS. 23 997 of the Fonds franc^ais of the Bibliotheque Nationale, has been reproduced in a 1909 edition by Paul Bonnefon. In the section entitled "Tapisseries des Quatre Saisons" (Bonnefon, p. 40), Perrault states, La verite est que j'ai eu d u talent p o u r faire des devises et je crois en avoir fait moi seul p e n d a n t quinze ou seize annees, autant que tous les autres ensemble. И у en a un recueil que Ton trouvera p a r m i mes papiers en suite d ' u n discours sur les devises. Bonnefon's edition, generally highly annotated, has nothing to say about this remark. Although the evidence is circumstantial, it does seem more than probable that Perrault is here refering to a text whose only k n o w n copy is now piece 1 of Arsenal MS. 3328. The manuscript is not in Perrault's hand, but in that of a copyist, as is indicated by the a b u n d a n t use of accents (Perrault's 1702 manuscript Memoires is m a r k e d by its infrequent use of accents). The copy was probably prepared in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. This theory is s u p p o r t e d by the fact that the dates on folio 41v have been corrected to 1670, 1671 and 1672 from 1690,1691 and 1692. This is the type of slip that could have easily occured if the document had been written in the 1690s. It seems likely that Perrault's original manuscript w o u l d have been composed over a period of years. Its abrupt ending suggests it may have been unfinished. The earliest possible date w o u l d be 1669, the year w h e n the Comte de Vermandois was n a m e d admiral (fob 1). The "Devises p o u r les Jetons de l'Ordre d u Saint-Esprit," given on folio 41 v, stop at 1672. The last date to which the text refers (fol. 44v), regarding a m o n u m e n t to the birth of the Due de Bourgogne, is 1682. Finally, the composition of the Recueil could have gone on to an even later time, one much closer to 1702. The basis for this suggestion is the fact that the collection's final device (fol. 45), "pour un Auteur qui ne pille pas les a u t r e s , " reflects the concern that d o m i n a t e s the
3.
For this information I am grateful to M. Bernard Barbiche of the Ecole des Chartes.
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MiUnoircs: here Perrault goes to some length to make it clear that his brother was not guilty of plagiarism. In short, our Discours and Rccucil were probably composed over the thirty years between 1669 and the end of the century. The Literary Interest of the Discours The Discours itself only takes up approximately eleven of the manuscript's forty-five sheets. The rest of the work consists of examples of various devices, sometimes with commentaries, sometimes not, thereby effectively forming Perrault's Recueil. Folios 13v-29 contain the Devises pour les tapisseries du roi, folios 29-45 give us Diverses Devises. The Discours is based on a supposedly autobiographical anecdote regarding the reception of a device Perrault had composed—a halcyon with the motto "Et nascens temperat aequor"—to celebrate the infant Comte de Vermandois's accession to the rank of admiral in 1669. One of the most "sqavans hommes du siecle" (probably Menestrier or Bourseis) found the device lacking and made a speech to the Academie fran^aise to explain his case (fols. 1-2), namely that that the body of a device (here "aequor" should not be named. Perrault uses the rest of the Discours to justify his case, and in so doing explains his view of the workings of the device, aided by intermittent examples. It is in this respect, given the furious climate of intellectual debate centred around emblematics at the time, that we find the immediate interest of the Discours. Perrault is giving his opinion regarding the discussion hitherto animated by characters such as Menestrier and Bourseis (the "s ал>ес се
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John Aiken's "On Emblems": The Source of an Emblematic Dialogue WENDY R. KATZ Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia At the end of the eighteenth century, a fictional dialogue on the nature of emblems, "On Emblems," appeared in a multi-volume children's work, Evenings At Home, or, the Juvenile Budget Opened (179296). Written by John Aiken (1747-1822), the dialogue between Cecilia and her father on the meaning of the word "emblem" offers a preliminary definition of an emblem as "a visible image of an invisible thing" and moves on to examine the figures of Justice, Death, and Time. The child is finally shown a series of emblematical pictures which she attempts to construe on her own. Aiken and his sister, the well-known eighteenth-century children's writer Anna Laetitia Barbauld (17431825), collaborated on the series of readings that comprise Evenings at Home (she wrote fourteen of the ninety-nine items). The emblem story is part of the reading for the twenty-sixth of the thirty-one "evenings" in the six-volume collection. It is very likely that parents who took pains to shape the reading habits of their children introduced the Aiken-Barbauld readings into their homes, particularly if they had read Practical Education (1798), an influential work on the education of children. Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849) and her father Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817) have only praise for Evenings at Home in the section on "Books" in their Practical Education. Evenings at Home, they wrote, "appears to be one of the best books for young
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I МНИ МЛИСЛ
people from seven to ten years old, (hat has yet a p p e a r e d / ' This frequently reprinted work Evenings at Home was still in print in 1899—was also,i favorite of nineteenth-century children's writer Mary Louisa Moles worth (1839-11'2'1) when she was a y o u n g girl. It was undoubtedly popular reading material in many nineteenth-century families. At some stage the dialogue "On Emblems" was incorporated unattributed into at least three American editions of John Huddlestone Wynne's Choice Emblems (1772) as an introduction to this emblem book. The following comes from the fifteenth edition of Evenings at Home, which appeared in 1836. Clearly, it is a dialogue aimed at introducing children to allegory rather than to emblem books, but it was indeed used as an introduction to the Wynne emblem book in the early nineteenth century. According to the editions of Wynne I have either seen or consulted special collections librarians about, "On Em blems" appears in the following: Choice Emblems, New York: Samuel Wood, 1815; Choice Emblems, N e w York: Samuel Wood, 1815; and Choice Emblems, N e w York: Samuel Wood, 1818. The dialogue does not appear in Choice Riley's Choice Choice Choice Choice
Emblems, Emblems, Emblems, Emblems, Emblems, Emblems,
London: George Riley, 1772; London: E. Newbery, 1781; London: E. Newbery, 1784; London: E. Newbery, 1788; Philadelphia: Joseph Cruikshank, 1790; Philadelphia: Francis Bailey, 1792;
1. Maria Edgeworth and Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Practical Education, 2 vols. (New York: Printed at George F. Hopkins, at Washington's Head, For Self, and Brown and Stansbury, 1801), p. 302. 2. This edition of Choice Emblems is undated, but I have dated it as 1815 because of a note by Theron Rudd, Clerk of the Southern District of New York, that the book was entered thirty-nine years after the formation of the United States. This 1815 edition is not the same as the above 1815 edition; the emblem story in this edition appears on pages 9-27 whereas it appears on pages 11-29 in the other edition.
WENDY R. KATZ
Choice Emblems, Choice Emblems, Choice Emblems, Choice Emblems, Choice Emblems, Choice Emblems, Choice Emblems, Choice Emblems, Choice Emblems,
1
London: George Riley, 1793; London: E. Newbery, 1793; London: E. Newbery, 1799; London: J. Harris, 1806; London: J. Harris, 1812; New York: James Oram, 1814; Hartford: Oliver D. Cooke, 1815; Boston: printed by Lincoln Edmunds, 1819; and Woodstock [Vt.]: David Watson, 1820. ***** ON EMBLEMS
PRAY, PAPA (said Cecilia), what is an emblem? I have met with the wo in my lesson to-day, and I do not quite understand it. An emblem, my dear (replied he), is a visible image of an invisit thing. CECILIA. A visible image of — I can hardly comprehend — PAPA. Well, I will explain it more at length. There are certain notio that we form in our minds without the help of our eyes or any of о senses. Thus, Virtue, Vice, Honour, Disgrace, Time, Death, and t like, are not sensible objects, but ideas of the understanding. CECILIA. Yes — We cannot feel them or see them, but we can thi about them. PAPA. True. Now it sometimes happens that we wish to represent о of these in a visible form; that is, to offer something to the sight tl shall raise a similar notion in the minds of the beholders. In order do this, we must take some action or circumstance belonging to capable of being expressed by painting or sculpture, and this is call a type or emblem. CECILIA. But how can this be done?
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I МИ1 I M M l< A
ГЛРЛ. I will toll you by «in 11* IIIII I-now ihc Sessions-house where trials are held. It would be easy to w n l r ovrr the door in order to distinguish it, "This is the Sessions house;" hut it is a more ingen ious and elegant way of pointing it out, to place upon the building a figure representing the purpose for which it was erected, namely, to distribute justice. For this end the notion of justice is to be personified, that is, changed from an idea of the u n d e r s t a n d i n g into one of the sight. A h u m a n figure is therefore m a d e , distinguished by tokens which bear a relation to the character of that virtue. Justice carefully weighs both sides of a cause; she is therefore represented as holding a pair of scales. It is her office to punish crimes; she therefore bears a sword. This is then an emblematical figure, and the sword and scales are emblems. CECILIA. I u n d e r s t a n d this very well. But w h y is she blindfolded? PAPA. To denote her impartiality — that she decides only from the merits of the case, and not from a view of the parties. CECILIA. H o w can she weigh any thing, though, w h e n her eyes are blinded? PAPA. Well objected. These are t w o inconsistent emblems; each proper in itself, but w h e n used together, making a contradictory ac tion. An artist of judgment will therefore drop one of them; and accordingly the best m o d e r n figures of Justice have the balance and sword, without the bandage over the eyes. CECILIA. Is there not the same Fault in making Cupid blindfolded, and yet putting a b o w and arrow into his hands? PAPA. There is. It is a gross absurdity, and not countenanced by the ancient descriptions of C u p i d , w h o is represented as the surest of all archers. CECILIA. I have a figure of Death in m y fable-book. I suppose that is emblematical? PAPA. Certainly, or you could not know that it meant Death. H o w is he represented?
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CHCILIA. lie is nothing but bones, and he holds a scythe in one hand, and an hour-glass in the other. PAPA. Well — how do you interpret these emblems? CECILIA. I suppose he is all bones, because nothing but bones are left after a dead body has lain long in the grave. PAPA. True. This, however, is not so properly an emblem, as the real and visible effect of death. But the scythe? CECILIA. Is not that because death mows down every thing? PAPA. It is. No instrument could so properly represent the widewasting sway of death, which sweeps down the race of animals like flowers falling under the hands of the mower. It is a simile used in the Scriptures. CECILIA. The hour-glass, I suppose, is to show people their time is come. PAPA. Right. In the hour-glass that Death holds, all the sand is run out from the upper to the lower part. Have you never observed upon a monument an old figure, with wings, and a scythe, and with his head bald all but a single lock before? CECILIA. О yes; — and I have been told it is Time. PAPA. Well — and what do you make of it? Why is he old? CECILIA. O! because time has lasted a long while. PAPA. And why has he wings? CECILIA. Because time is swift, and flies away. PAPA. What does his scythe mean?
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CECILIA. I s u p p o s e that is because he destroys and cuts down every thing, like Death. PAPA. True. I think, however, a w e a p o n rather slower in operation, as a pick-axe, w o u l d have been more suitable to the gradual action of time. But w h a t is his single lock of hair for? CECILIA. I have been thinking, and cannot make it out. PAPA. I t h o u g h t that would puzzle you. It relates to time as giving opportunity for doing anything. It is to be seized as it presents itself, or it will escape, a n d cannot be recovered. Thus the proverb says, "Take time by the forelock." Well — now you u n d e r s t a n d what em blems are. CECILIA. Yes, I think I do. I suppose the painted sugar loaves over the grocer's shop, a n d the mortar over the apothecary's, are emblems too? PAPA. Not so properly. They are only the pictures of things which are themselves the objects of sight, as the real sugar-loaf in the shop of the grocer, and the real mortar in that of the apothecary. However, an implement belonging to a particular rank or profession is commonly used as an emblem to point out the man exercising that rank or profession. Thus a crown is considered as an emblem of a king; a sword or spear, of a soldier; an anchor, of a sailor; and the like. CECILIA. I remember Captain Heartwell, when he came to see us, had the figure of an anchor on all his buttons. PAPA. He had. That was the emblem or badge of his belonging to the navy. CECILIA. But you told me that an emblem was a visible sign of an invisible thing; yet a sea captain is not an invisible thing. PAPA. He is not invisible as a man, but his profession is invisible. CECILIA. I do not well u n d e r s t a n d that.
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PAPA. Profession is a quality, belonging equally to a number of indi viduals, however different they may be in external form and appear ance. It may be added or taken away without any visible change. Thus, if Captain Heartwell were to give up his commission, he would appear to you the same man as before. It is plain, therefore, that what in that case he had lost, namely, his profession, was a thing invisible. It is one of those ideas of the understanding which I before mentioned to you, as different from a sensible idea. CECILIA. I comprehend it now. PAPA. I have got here a few emblematical pictures. Suppose you try whether you can find out their meaning. CECILIA. О yes — I shall like that very well. PAPA. Here is a man standing on the summit of a steep cliff, and going to ascend a ladder which he has planted against a cloud. CECILIA. Let me see! — that must be Ambition, I think. PAPA. How do you explain it? CECILIA. He is got very high already, but he wants to be still higher; so he ventures up the ladder, though it is only supported by a cloud, and hangs over a precipice. PAPA. Very right. Here is now another man, hoodwinked, who is crossing a raging torrent upon stepping stones. CECILIA. Then he will certainly fall in. I suppose he is one that runs into danger without considering whither he is going? PAPA. Yes; and you may call him Fool-hardiness. Do you see this hand coming out of a black cloud, and putting an extinguisher upon a Lamp? CECILIA. I do. If that lamp be the lamp of life, the hand that extin guishes it must be Death.
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PAPA. Very just. Here is an old half-ruined building, supported by props; and the figure of Time is sawing through one of the props. CECILIA. That must be Old Age, surely. PAPA. It is. The next is a man leaning upon a breaking crutch. CECILIA. I don't well know what to make of that. PAPA. It is intended for Instability; however, it might also stand for False Confidence. Here is a man poring over a sun-dial with a candle in his hand. CECILIA. I am at a loss for that, too. PAPA. Consider — a sun-dial is only made to tell the hour by the light of the sun. CECILIA. Then this man must know nothing about it. PAPA. True; and his name is therefore Ignorance. Here is a walkingstick, the lower part of which is set in the water, and it appears crooked. What does that denote? CECILIA. Is the stick really crooked? PAPA. No; but it is the property of water to give that appearance. CECILIA. Then it must signify Deception. PAPA. It does. I dare say you will at once know this fellow who is running as fast as his legs will carry him, and looking back at his shadow. CECILIA. He must be Fear or Terror, I fancy. PAPA. Yes; you may call him which you please. But who is this sower, that scatters seeds in the ground?
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CUCILIA. Let me consider. I think there is a parable in the Bible about seeds sown, and it therefore signifies something like Instruction. PAPA. True; but it may also represent Hope, for no one would sow without hoping to reap the fruit. What do you think of this candle held before a mirror, in which its figure is exactly reflected? CECILIA. I do not know what it means. PAPA. It represents Truth; the essence of which consists in the fidelity with which objects are received and reflected back by our minds. The object is here a luminous one, to show the clearness and brightness of Truth. Here is next an upright column, the perfect straightness of which is shown by a plumb-line hanging from its summit, and exactly parallel to the side of the column. CECILIA. I suppose that must represent Uprightness. PAPA. Yes — or in other words, Rectitude. The strength and stability of the pillar alone denote the security produced by this virtue. You see here a woman disentangling and reeling off a very perplexed skein of thread. CECILIA. She must have a great deal of patience. PAPA. True. She is Patience herself. The brooding hen, sitting beside her, is another emblem of the same quality that aids the interpretation. Who do you think this pleasing female is, that looks with such kindness upon the drooping plant she is watering? CECILIA. That must be Charity, I believe. PAPA. It is; or you may call her Benignity, which is nearly the same thing. Here is a lady sitting demurely, with one finger on her lip, while she holds a bridle in her other hand. CECILIA. The finger on the lip I suppose denotes Silence. The bridle must mean confinement. I should almost fancy her to be a School-mistress.
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PAPA. Ha! ha! I hope, indeed, many school-mistresses are endowed with her spirit, for she is Prudence or Discretion. Well — we are now got to the end of our pictures, and upon the whole you have interpreted them very prettily. CECILIA. But I have one question to ask you, papa. In these pictures and others that I have seen of the same sort, almost all the good qualities are represented in the form of women. What is the reason of that? PAPA. It is certainly a compliment, my dear, either to your sex's person or mind. The inventor either chose the figure of a female to clothe each agreeable quality in, because he thought that the most agreeable form, and therefore best suited it; or he meant to imply that the female character is really the most virtuous and amiable. I rather believe that the first was his intention, but I shall not object to your taking it in the light of the second. CECILIA. But is it true — is it true? PAPA. Why, I can give you very good authority for the preference of the female sex in a moral view. One Ledyard, a great traveller, who had walked through almost all the countries of Europe, and at last died in an expedition to explore the internal parts of Africa, gave a most decisive and pleasing testimony in favour of the superior character of women, whether savage or civilized. I was so much pleased with it, that I put great part of it into verse; and if it will not make you vain, I will give you a copy of my lines. CECILIA. O, pray do! PAPA. Here they are. Read them.
LEDYARD'S PRAISE OF WOMEN Through many a land and clime a ranger, With toilsome steps, I've held my way, A lonely, unprotected stranger, To all the stranger's ills a prey.
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While steering thus my course precarious, My fortune still had been to find Men's hearts and dispositions various, But gentle Woman ever kind. Alive to ev'ry tender feeling, To deeds of mercy ever prone, The wounds of pain and sorrow healing With soft compassion's sweetest tone. No proud delay, no dark suspicion, Stints the free bounty of their heart; They turn not from the sad petition, But cheerful aid at once impart. Form'd in benevolence of nature, Obliging, modest, gay, and mild, Woman's the same endearing creature In courtly town and savage wild. When parch'd with thirst, with hunger wasted, Her friendly hand refreshment gave, How sweet the coarest food has tasted! What cordial in the simple wave! Her courteous looks, her words caressing, Shed comfort on the fainting soul: Woman's the stranger's general blessisng, From sultry India to the Pole. I wish to thank the Librarians at the following libraries for their assistance with the John Huddlestone Wynne book: Rutgers University, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Minnesota, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the University of Kentucky, Union Theological Seminary, and Princeton University.
REVIEW AND CRITICISM
Reviews PEDRO F. CAMPA, Emblemata Hispanica. An Annotated Bibliography of Spanish Emblem Literature to the Year 1700. Durham and London: Duke UP, 1990. Pp. xii + 248; 6 illus. In La literatura emblematica espanola (Siglos XVIу XVII) (1977), one of the few book-length studies dedicated to Spanish emblem literature, Aquilino Sanchez Perez laments the fact that such an important cul tural phenomenon has merited only partial study (9). This is espe cially disturbing in the light of Julian Gallego's assertion, in Vision у simbolos en la pintura espanola del Siglo de Oro (Madrid: Catedra, 1987), that after the 1615 publication of Diego Lopez's Declaracion magistral sobre las Emblemas de Andres Alciato, not a single Spanish poet, major or minor, was without a copy of the Emblemata in his personal library (46). Spanish emblem literature, despite its unquestioned importance, is probably the least known and the least studied of the European emblem literatures. The reasons for this critical neglect are many. Spain's isolationist politics in the post-Tridentine era discouraged the free flow of ideas and books with mainland humanists. Spanish liter ary critics and art historians have been slow to realize the significance of their rich emblem corpus and to initiate its systematic analysis. One of the most serious impediments to a better appreciation of Spanish emblem literature is a lack of accessibility. The few modern editions of Spanish emblem books available, such as those published by the Fundacion Universitaria Espanola, are limited editions that quickly go out of print, or, in the case of the emblem series launched by Ediciones Tuero (Madrid), are impossible to obtain due to the insolvency of the publisher. To date, the study of Spanish emblem books has been a daunting bibliographical challenge. Fortunately, however, the lack of any centralized data bank to facilitate scholarship on Spanish emblem literature has been solved by the timely publication of Pedro F. Campa's Emblemata Hispanica. An Annotated Bibliography of Spanish Emblem Literature to the Year 1700. The fundamental goals of Campa's bibliography are succinctly de lineated in the Introduction: This bibliography comprises the production of Spanish emblem literature published from 1540 to 1700. It in159
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eludes all the editions of Spanish emblem books, the translations into Spanish of foreign emblem books, emblem books written by Spaniards in other languages, as well as polyglot editions of emblem books in which Spanish is one of the featured languages. The bibliography also includes secondary sources arranged in discrete sections, and in some cases secondary literature about the main entries (1). Emblemata Hispanica is logically organized into two main sections: "Primary Sources" and "Secondary Sources." These are followed by three appendices and a series of indices. The book's preliminary pages reproduce a number of Spanish emblems in photo-facsimile and include an "Introduction," a list of "Abbreviations," a "Key to Libraries," as well as a listing of the "Major Sources" consulted in the preparation of the bibliography. The overall presentation of materials is both attractive and practical. Emblemata Hispanica is conceived throughout with the reader in mind and is therefore a joy to consult. The "Primary Sources" section of the bibliography begins with the Spanish translations of and commentaries on Alciati's Emblemata. Here and throughout, Campa gives a brief bibliographical description of all editions consulted. He provides information on library holdings throughout the world for each edition, and includes facsimile and modern editions that might be more readily accessed by the casual or non-expert reader. The second section of the "Primary Sources" contains complete bibliographical information on the contributions of twenty-eight Spanish emblematists and the works that they published (multiple titles in the case of some authors) in the time frame of a century and a half to which the bibliography limits itself. These books all employ Castilian as their primary vehicle of linguistic expression. Some readers may take issue with a few of the works included in this section. Campa is well aware that his criteria for determining what constitutes an emblem book may be polemical: In the compilation of this bibliography I have subscribed to a more liberal standard and included items that would not generally be considered emblem books in a strict sense. One important reason for this decision is that Spanish Golden Age authors, although aware of the subtle differences between the terms emblema, empresa, jerogifico, simbolo, cifra, pegma, and enigma, frequently
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used this nomenclature irrespective of genre, disregarding current theoretical considerations while asserting that they too were bona fide emblem writers. Also, since I am dealing with a specialized bibliography, it is useful to list items that have been considered by earlier bibliographers as emblem books, if for no other reason than to disprove or to justify those assertions (Introduction, 3). In most instances, however, the works included in this section are legitimate emblem books when measured by any standard, and their number and diversity will surprise the non-specialist reader who is unaware of the important contributions made by Spanish emblematists. The remaining subdivisions of the "Primary Sources" section include other European emblem books translated into Spanish; emblem books penned by Spaniards in which the primary language is not Castilian and, finally, polyglot editions by non-Spaniards that contain systematic Castilian text. The second main division of this bibliography, "Secondary Sources," is subdivided into seven sections. The first of these consists of studies on a number of miscellaneous and fundamentally unrelated topics. Campa labels these materials as: emblem compendia, library inventories, contemporary definitions of the emblem, glossaries, commentaries, poetic treatises, and emblem theory not contained in emblem books. The second subsection of critical studies on Spanish emblems is comprised of works on: mythographies, arts of painting, works on paradoxography, numismatic works, emblematic topoi, visual motifs, proverbs and apothegms, studies on collectors and collecting, works on antiquarianism, studies on word and image, works on natural history, cultural studies, studies in mythology, and studies in art history and architecture of importance to Spanish emblem literature. Campa's third subcategory of secondary sources is a brief catchall grouping of: "overviews of Spanish emblem literature and short mentions of Spanish emblem writers not included under Studies of individual authors." The fourth grouping of secondary critical materials includes studies on the emblem writers featured in the "Primary Sources" (and their works). Items in this substantial section are arranged alphabetically by author, which helps to facilitate consultation. The fifth category of secondary sources is devoted to critical studies on the emblem and literature. The penultimate subcategory of secondary sources deals with studies about fetes, funerals, and royal entries. To his credit, Campa judiciously avoids the pitfall of privileging one
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discipline over another in the presentation of the secondary sources. It would have been easy for a literary critic, for example, to have focused exclusively on the relationships between emblematics and the written word. Emblemata Hispanica is a comprehensive approach to the study of Spanish emblematics, which makes it a useful tool for scholars from many disciplines. One could ask for more annotation in this section of the bibliography, or at least some authorial criteria for which entries merit commentary and which do not. The three bibliographical appendices that form the final section of Emblemata Hispanica are most helpful for an appreciation of the nature and content of works that have at one time been claimed as emblem books. The first of these appendices includes alleged emblem books that are either nonexistent or lost. Here Campa scrupulously provides the sources for the claims, and helps to clear up some of the bibliographical mysteries and misunderstandings. The second appendix is a short-title list of works related to emblem books but which cannot, by contemporary theory, be deemed emblem books proper. The third appendix is a short-title listing of emblematic Spanish Golden Age descriptions of fetes, royal entries and funerals. The bibliography closes with eight indices designed to aid the reader to locate easily entries of interest. The indices are of: copies examined; places of publication; dates of publication; printers, publishers, and booksellers; artists; dedicatees; names and, finally, subjects. Throughout the book, meticulous cross-referencing guides the reader to allied entries. Emblemata Hispanica is an extraordinarily useful tool that will prove to be an indispensable resource for all scholars interested in any facet of emblem studies in Spain of the Golden Age. Campa has produced an exhaustive and brilliantly executed bibliography that should be a stimulus to further research in the field. In any work of this scope, there are bound to be some errors. Emblemata Hispanica, like any bibliography, is a work in progress. The errors that one occasionally finds in the book, both typographical and informational, will be corrected in a list of addenda et corrigenda that Campa intends to publish in a future number of this journal. Emblemata Hispanica is, nevertheless, an excellent contribution to the field of emblem studies and one for which he should be congratulated. JOHN T. CULL Holy Cross College
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ITXXiY MUNOZ SIMONDS, Myth, Emblem, and Music in Shakespeare's ('[/mbclinc: An Iconographic Reconstruction, Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1992. Pp. 393. Many readers from Samuel Johnson on have been puzzled or annoyed by Cymbeline, George Bernard Shaw rewrote the last act, and Margaret Drabble, wondering why the text is "littered with sardonic reflections on its own improbability," recently called the play postmodernist. Peggy Muftoz Simonds, however, like such critics as G. Wilson Knight and Northrop Frye, looks to image patterns and their symbolic suggestions of regeneration to give the play unity and meaning. But unlike Knight and Frye, Simonds makes her argument by juxtaposing many emblems and texts from Renaissance neoplatonism with details in Cymbeline, Many other writers, as her notes show, have discussed particular aspects of Cymbeline in terms of emblems, but none with the cumulative, multi-faceted effect of this volume, which is virtually the first entire book devoted to Cymbeline from any perspective. The book, which won the 1990 University of Delaware Press Award for Best Manuscript in Shakespearean Literature, is a feast of Renaissance visual imagery. Its nearly eighty reproductions include many emblems, as. well as several photographs of statues of wild men, green men, and lions from English churches. It also often contextualizes Shakespeare's lines by a comparatist use of other Renaissance literature. Iconographic themes discussed include, among others, the Graces, primitivism, birds, vegetation, lions, gold, the senses, and orphic music. The book argues that Cymbeline, as a Renaissance tragicomedy, emphasizes the theme of regeneration through love both human and divine; but this summary is inadequate because, among other things, the volume's strength is in the accumulation of detail. I will cite a few of the many points I found illuminating before proceeding to some quibbles. In the very useful chapter on primitivism, for example, Simonds explains that Belarius's contrast of "the sharded beetle" and the "fullwing'd eagle" (3.3.20-21) recalls Emblem 169 of Alciati's Emblemata, in which the beetle defeats the eagle by strategy—in at least one edition pushing the eagle's eggs out of its nest. Belarius himself, wronged by King Cymbeline, uses this contrast in speaking to the
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king's sons w h o m he has k i d n a p p e d and raised as Wild Boys. Knowing this emblem a n d its connection with Erasmus's advice in The Education of a Christian Prince that the ruler should not provoke even the humblest enemy makes convincing Simonds's point that the play here emphasizes the p o w e r of the apparently weak. She notes that this is a "gentle w a r n i n g . . . by the playwright to his own patron, James I, w h o o w n e d a copy of Alciati and could not possibly be offended by w h a t h a d become a Renaissance commonplace taught to schoolboys" (144). Her analysis is the more persuasive because she recognizes some contrasts between Belarius and the beetle in the emblem. In the same chapter, her discussion of varieties of Wild Men imagery a d d s to an u n d e r s t a n d i n g of how the k i d n a p p e d children are used in the play. Before Cymbeline recognizes them as his sons, for example, the ritual-like m o m e n t in which he places them next to him as "you w h o m the gods have m a d e / Preservers of m y throne" (5.5.12) recalls the frequent use of Wild Men in heraldry as supporters of family shields—especially by Scottish noble families associated with King James. "Cymbeline d r a w s to himself their savage strength, their fertility, and their loyalty" as well as preserving the royal succession (157). In this chapter she also effectively discusses the play's changing uses of the h u n t and the association of different characters with the deer in the context of Renaissance emblems. In other chapters on bird and vegetation imagery, Simonds illuminates two passages in the final scene between Imogen and Posthumus that have often baffled readers. Reunited with her formerly rejecting h u s b a n d , Imogen says, "Think that you are u p o n a rock, and now / Throw m e again" (5.5.262-63). Emblem 16 from Book III of Camerarius's Symbolarum & Emblematum, in which the eagle, representing the converted soul, "stands on a rock and shakes off its old feathers (the past)" (225) seems absolutely right as a gloss, t h o u g h it doesn't quite explain "throw m e again." Likewise, Simonds persuades me that P o s t h u m u s ' s response to Imogen, "Hang there like fruit, my soul, / Till the tree die" (5.5.263-64) alludes to the emblem of the elm and the vine, used to symbolize both marriage and friendship. With an argument similar to one Catherine Belsey makes about the comedies, Simonds suggests that Imogen's embrace of her h u s b a n d while still in the costume of her masculine disguise associates marriage with the equality of idealized friendship. Other especially interesting passages discuss the multiple meanings of the Renaissance crow, Posthumus's
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i hanging uses of gold/alloy imagery, and the belief that the lion is horn dead and awakened by its father three days later. Some of Simonds's arguments do not convince me. For example, the parallels she draws between Iachimo's gaze at Imogen and Psyche's gaze at Cupid, and the plots of the play and the Psyche legend, slight too many differences. Her use of theological controversy sometimes seems intrusive. For example, Posthumus's wager on his wife's chastity is bad enough in itself; why allegorize it by adding "Posthumus is here defying the Protestant belief that one cannot know what is in the mind of God beyond that which is already revealed in the Scriptures" (218)? Occasionally, she may reduce the complexity of iconography, for example reading Eros and Anteros only as suggestive of earthly love and spiritual love instead of as also suggestive of initial love and reciprocating love. As my examples show, she occasionally refers to King James and to Reformation religion, but beyond these contexts she seldom raises the question of why the particular emblematic emphases of this play would emerge in 1609, a difficult task given some attention by Leah Marcus in Puzzling Shakespeare: Local Reading and Its Discontents (1988). Simonds notes shifts in the play's relation to James, and possibilities for multiple interpretations to evade censorship and punishment, but does not emphasize these themes as Marcus does; in fact, she quite reasonably notes that she says little about royal iconography because it has been amply discussed by others. For a sense of the varieties of interpretation of Imogen's development possible to a feminist critic (which Simonds is, among other things), it is interesting to compare Janet Adelman's view, presented in Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origin in Shakespeare's Plays, Hamlet to the Tempest (1992), with Simonds's. Adelman notes the "reduction of Imogen's power" during her disguise and claims "the happy ending is radically contingent on her self-loss, on the ascendancy of male authority and the circumscription of the female" (210, 211); Simonds, by contrast, writes without comment that Imogen "like Psyche . . . learns that the meaning of life is to serve others" (86) but believes that the play provides a "poetic criticism of the hidden agricultural metaphor in the term 'husband' itself" (267). Some unease about the play may emerge, however, in the way she emphasizes its contrast with reality; she expresses doubt "that in real life any woman could be so forgiving" as Imogen (266). I find Adelman's
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acknowledgment of this problematic aspect of the play more persua sive; others will prefer Simonds's approach. Nevertheless, even those not convinced by some of Simonds's ar guments will benefit from her extensive learning. For its explication of imagery and its demonstration of how many emblems from the Renaissance neoplatonic tradition are relevant to Cymbeline, this is a valuable book. MARIANNE N O W University of Pittsburgh
JEAN-MARC CHATELAIN, Livres d'emblemes et de devises: une anthologie (1531-1735). (Pref. by Henri-Jean Martin) Paris: Klincksieck, 1993. Pp. 182; 102 illus. ISBN 2-252-02917-X, FF. 180. Jean-Marc Chatelain's study plays the role of catalogue for the recent exhibition Livres d'Emblemes (Chapelle de la Sorbonne, 24 June - 11 July 1993); nonetheless it is a work of much value entirely inde pendently of its associations with the exhibition. Published as part of the Ecole des Chartes's Corpus iconographique de Vhistoire du livre (as Henri-Jean Martin points out), the anthology sets out to, presenter un choix de livres d'emblemes et de devises publies dans l'Europe la Renaissance et de Tage classique, avec l'intention plus particuliere d'introduire a un systeme, ou plutot un mode singulier de mise en page et de mise en texte qui, de l'avis de plusieurs—к commencer par les collectionneurs—, definit Tun des territoires les plus attachants de l'histoire du livre (11). The anthology proper is preceded by an introduction of some thirtyfive pages divided into three sections. Of these the first gives a brief history of the emblem, the second analyses the emblematic mode of expression with regard to Renaissance ways of thinking and the third discusses the distinction between emblem and device. Throughout, Chatelain, to his credit, draws on a wide and appropriately chosen range of international secondary criticism, ranging from Henry Green to the most recent of studies. Section 1, "De l'embleme dans le livre au livre d'emblemes" gives us a brief history of the genre from what might be called proto-em-
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Hematic pieces (e. g., Horapollo and Geoffroy Tory), through Alciato .nui the early models up to Sambucus. Lack of space leads to inevita ble omissions, such as the question of development in the Northern countries, and here (although not in section 3) there is some confusion between the terms "embleme" and "devise" (e. g. p. 19, "l'embleme de Louis XII (le pore-epic)"), however in general the survey is relevant and comprehensible. The second section, "Le livre d'emblemes dans la (lisibilite du monde): hermeneutique et poetique de l'embleme," takes us from a historical to a more analytical approach. Chatelain stresses the inter play between "obscurite" and hermeneutics or the art of interpreta tion; the interaction of text and image lifts the emblem's veil of obscu rity, thus leading to "une hermeneutique de Tembleme dont le ressort est fondamentalement poetique" (p. 31). Hermeneutics or interpreta tion of what? "Le grand livre du monde," replies Chatelain. Thus the fashion for works aimed at the readability of the world in the form of religious, political and scientific emblem collections. The emblem is seen as a microcosm (cf. the macrocosm of universal truth), its parti tion into picture and text being akin to man's separation of body and soul, and indeed the earth-and-sky division of the world. In short, Chatelain represents the emblem as a Platonic-style mirror for the readability of the world, with the emblematist obliged to create a mask through mimesis (often with the "realism" of the image being desta bilized by the motto) so as to aim at a deeper unmasking of an eternal moral truth. Chatelain's argument is convincing; however, one is left with the impression that the questions raised deserve more attention than the present format can allow. In the final section, "Les incertitudes de Г obscurite relative: l'em bleme moral ou la devise heroique," the author concentrates precisely on emblem and device theory contrasting Giovio ("devise heroique") with Alciato ("embleme moral"). The section's title refers to the idea that the emblem plays on obscurity to facilitate memorisation once the knot is unravelled, whereas the device plays upon a clarity/obscurity paradox so as to strike the viewer's imagination. Before reaching such a conclusion, Chatelain explores the functioning of an emblem before its reader, namely the "saisie instantanee" (p. 42) with its psychologi cal intermingling of text and image. Examples are also given of the various uses of the courtly device ("entrees," "carrousels," the work of the Petite Academie) and of theoretical debate on the subject (Estienne and Le Moyne). Like the introduction as a whole, this section
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gives a good foundation of information while raising interesting issues, perhaps for the reader to explore elsewhere. It is the anthology itself, comprising a selection of ninety emblematic works, that makes up the bulk of the work. Entry number fourteen gives a fairly typical example of Chatelain's system of classification. The entry's number is followed by the author's name, the work's title (often abbreviated) and publication details. Thus,
14. Guillaume de LA PERRIERE, Le theatre des bons engins, auquel sont contenuz cent emblesmes moraux.
Paris: Denis Janot, [1539]. 8° Then comes the main text, generally between a half page and a page in length. This section normally gives historical background details, before describing and analysing the work itself. Thus in this case Chatelain points out in his first paragraph that Le Theatre is the first French emblem book and explains that fifty of the work's emblems were composed for Marguerite de Navarre's 1533 entry into Toulouse. He notes that the illustrations were added in the 1539 Janot edition and that this was followed by a second edition the same year. Each emblem, the second paragraph tells us, consists of a woodcut on the left-hand page and a "dizain" on the facing page. Detailed borders represent an innovation not only in that they are pleasing to the eye, but also in that they inspire concentration and induce the reader to meditation. The final paragraph gives La Perriere's stated sources (Horapollo, Le Songe de Poliphile and Alciato) before concluding that "La tradition emblematique est ici indissociable de la tradition hermetique de la Renaissance." Endnotes provide the exhibition copy's shelf number and an elementary but inevitably incomplete bibliography. Each entry bears an illustration, normally taking up around half a page. Le Theatre's is emblem LXIII, which Chatelain entitles "L'Occasion." The arrangement of the selection is partially chronological and partially thematic. The first two sections deal with proto-emblematics ("Autour de l'embleme") and the early works ("Les emblemes d'Alciat et la tradition de l'embleme moral au XVIe siecle") whereas the third is thematic: "La devise heroi'que: un art de cour." The final section is historic and thematic: "Developpements de la tradition emblematique au XVIIe siecle." A mixed classification of this kind can lead to some confusion. Jesuit emblems—works by Nadal, David and Bivero, for instance—are
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grouped together in a subdivision of section four given to "Emblemes s.ii'ivs." The Imago primi saeculi Societatis Jesu and Menestrier's L'art tics emblemes are, however, to be found in different subdivisions of section three. Political and sacred emblems are given thematic subdivisions whereas love emblems, for example, are not. A universal chronological ordering would have been simpler; nonetheless it must be admitted that this would have been less enlightening from a comparative point of view. More importantly, such an approach could prove deceptive due to the fact that the various national traditions, although interactive, developed at very different paces. All things considered, Chatelain's layout makes a good job of a difficult task. Furthermore, his choice of works included is comprehensive and without obvious omission, Livres d''emblemes et de devises: une anthologie (1531-1735) presents itself, therefore, as a useful reference work both for the scholar familiar with emblematics and for the new student in need of an introduction. The text gives basic facts and stimulates ideas, the bibliographical notes being sound enough to open the way for further exploration. It is the main body of the work, with its clear layout and ample illustrations, that will be of greatest help. Flipping through the anthology gives the new student a thorough idea of the nature of the corpus of emblem literature, but it can also serve as an emblematic memory-trigger to those of us more familiar with the genre. LAURENCE GROVE University of Pittsburgh
GABRIELE DOROTHEA RODTER, Via piae animae. Grundlagenuntersuchung zur emblematischen Verknupfung von Bild und Wort in den "Pia desideria" (1624) des Herman Hugo S. J. (1588-1629). Mikrokosmos. Bd. 32. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1992. The Via piae animae by Gabriele Dorothea Rodter is a significant contribution to studies in Jesuit emblematics and particularly to studies on the Pia Desideria. Hugo's Pia Desideria, first published in Antwerp in 1624, is the most celebrated and most influential of all Jesuit emblem books. According to the latest figures from the Union Catalogue of Emblem Books database there are 124 editions and translations of the Pia Desideria, which makes it the most widely published
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of any known emblem book produced in the seventeenth century. Its impact particularly on Quarles and Arwaker and the English Protestant tradition is enormous. Its influence on Friedrich Spee's Trutznachtigall, one of the most important poetic works of the Catholic Baroque, and on Wilhelm Nakatenus's much-published Himmlisch Palm-Gartlein has been established. Somewhat surprisingly for an emblem book of such influence and importance, aside from the introductory articles by Erich Benz to Herman Hugo, Pia Desideria libri HI (Emblematisches Cabinet, 1) which is a reprint of the 1632 Antwerp edition and E. T. ReimbokTs introduction to Pia Desideri Gottselige Begierden. Nach Hermann Hugos Werk von 1624, there are but two monographic studies on the Pia Desideria, one by Mark Carter Leach in his 1979 University of Delaware dissertation and now Rodter's book. Thus for students of the emblem and, in particular of Jesuit emblem literature, Rodter's work is a welcome addition. Rodter has chosen five chapters from the Pia Desideria for analysis and interpretation: Book III, chapter 4 provides an "exemplary analysis" of Jesuit devotion in the seventeenth century on the basis of two of the most prominent res pictae of the baroque: the sunflower and compass; Book II, chapter 14 displays the Cross, which is the center of Christian belief. In Book I, chapter 1 the question is posed "From Whence?" with a discussion of the night-motif and the distress of man at the endtime. Book II, chapter 11 asks the question "Whereto?" on the basis of the soul's thirst for Zion and for the Presence of God. Rodter has chosen for her fifth and final emblem study the introductory chapter of the Pia Desideria asking the question "How?" against the background of man's self-revelation in the presence of God. According to Rodter, the arrow and bow motifs reveal programmatically the two basic themes in Hugo: the soul's mystical way to salvation and the contemporary self-understanding of man and world as the interplay between substance and appearance. Thus in her analysis of the Pia Desideria and specifically the goal of Anima in her search for God Rodter poses three fundamental ques1. For information on the bibliographic database project known as the Union Catalogue of Emblem Books, see Peter M. Daly, "The Union Catalogue of Emblem Books Project and the Corpus Librorum Emblematum," Emblematica, 3 (1988), 121-133.
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lions: "Whence," "Whither," and "How?" Rodter maintains that these live chapters will help reveal Hugo's specific emblematic narrative form within the context of the soul's mystical journey to salvation, i. e. the so-called threefold mystical progression of the soul towards ultimate union with God through the purgative, illuminative and unitive ways. Rodter's aim is to analyze the Via Desideria within the context of the history of ideas, and specifically view its devotional aspects as a mirror of the seventeenth-century cultural image of God. Rodter successively investigates the pictorial and written elements of the Via Desideria against the background of their historical contexts. But she does not take into account either modern research on the emblem or the theoretical writings on the Jesuit emblem, since as she maintains, these writings do not appear among Jesuits until after 1630. Moreover, Rodter maintains that Jesuit emblematics reaches a high point between 1630 and 1660. In fact, according to figures from the Union Catalogue of Emblem Books database, slightly more Jesuit emblems were published during the period 1661-1700 [ca. 400] than during the period 1631-1660 [ca. 384]. In her excellent discussion on the role of word and picture within the context of the Catholic devotional emblem book (pp. 14ff.) which, in contrast to the Protestant emblem, gives the picture equal or even greater prominence than the word, Rodter might well have mentioned the enormous impact which the Decree on Sacred Images issued by the Council of Trent of 3 December 1563 exerted on the Catholic and particularly Jesuit devotional context in the Counter-Reformation through its encouragement of the use of images for increasing devotion and faith among Catholics. As I have indicated elsewhere Ignatius Loyola's penchant for devotional images for purposes of meditation produced an early proto-emblematic tradition within the Society of Jesus. Peter Canisius's Catechism (1575) and Jerome Nadal's Evangelicae Historicae Imagines (1593-94) are two examples of this impetus among the early Jesuits of the late sixteenth century. Against this background of the Catholic emphasis on the image, Rodter makes clear that this emphasis does not gainsay the priority of the word (here she is following C.-P. Warncke). Perhaps the author might have indicated that from the point of view of the emblem-creator the word frequently takes precedence as in Alciato, but from the point of view of the recipient the picture may well have priority. This is quite important since Rodter makes the pictura the basis of her five choices (p. 28) and since in the Via Desideria the pictura precedes the inscriptio (p. 31).
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Rodter discusses the origins of spiritual emblematics in general (pp. 20-21) and rightly attributes its sudden rise to the many emblems of the Belgian and Flemish Jesuits and the Benedictines, under the influ ence of Bernardian commentaries on the Song of Songs together with the classical Amor-Psyche myths. These latter elements eventually found their way to Hugo through Otto van Veen's Amoris divini emblemata of 1615. Here it is well, once again, to keep in mind the impetus from the Council of Trent by way of the Jesuits in the sixteenth century as instrumental in the appearance of the Flemish Jesuit emblem. I would, however, not altogether agree with her statement that Hugo's Jesuit colleagues did not produce anything new in the way of theoretical works on the emblem (21). The influence of Emmanuale Tesauro, Baltasar Gracian and Jakob Masen on European mannerism and the rise of the "argutia" movement is well documented in the studies by Miguel Battlori, K.-P. Lange, Wilfried Barner and Barbara Bauer. Masen's influence on such fellow Jesuits as Athanasius Kircher, Caspar Knittel, Ignaz Weitenauer, Bohuslas Balbinus and on the Protestant Christian Weise is beyond dispute. The French Jesuit contribution to the field of emblem theory is extraordinary. One might also take issue with Rodter's statement that Hugo's elegies are an expression of the missionary goal of the Jesuit order and of his attempt to establish a "spiritual knighthood" (25). Rather, Hugo's elegies are intimate, personal considerations and colloquies directed to the individual soul unlike the very structured and stylized Ignatian meditation on the Kingdom. Questionable also is Rodter's statement that the structure of the Pia Desideria is based in detail on Sucquet's Via vitae aeternae (27). It is true that they both incorporate the threefold "mystical" way of salvation but the pictures, subscriptiones and content are quite different. Rodter follows a uniform approach in her analysis of each of the five chapters of Hugo. First, she begins with a formal description of the pictura followed by an explanation of the traditional meaning of
2. See Wilfried Barner, Barockrhetorik. Untersuchungen zu ihren geschichtlichen Grundlagen (Tubingen, 1970); Miguel Batllori, Gracian у el Barocco (Rome, 1958); Barbara Bauer, Jesuitische 'ars rhetorica' im Zeitalter der Glaubenskampfe (Frank furt, 1986); K.-P. Lange, Theoretiker des literarischen Manierismus. Tesauros und Pellegrinis Lehre von der acutezza oder von der Macht der Sprache (Munich, 1968).
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I lu» pictorial elements (res pictae) in the context of Christian symbolism .uul iconography (e. g. wings, compass, sun, sunflower, cross, lamp, milky way fountain, deer, masks and so forth); a concluding interpretation of the pictura and its elements; the inscriptio and its historical and theological context; an analysis of the metrics, prosody and rhetorical structure of the subscriptio and a final interpretation. Each analysis of the five chapters follows an identical interpretative sequence: from pictura to inscriptio to subscriptio. A final summation appears at the end of each chapter. Of particular interest is Rodter's interpretation of the subscriptiones or elegies which accompany each pictura. She sees an "ordo naturalis" progression within each elegy based on the rhetorical principle of dispositio, one of the five rhetorical canons: inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria and pronunciatio. Rodter correctly maintains that the first three rhetorical canons are interwoven. The organizing rhetorical canon of dispositio, will be found, according to Rodter, in each elegy with the following sequence: exordium, narratio, argumentatio and peroratio. Actually classical rhetoric would add confirmatio and confutatio. Rodter sees a close parallel between the rhetorical "ordo naturalis" and the meditative structure. Hugo wants to move the reader to the love of God through the soul who speaks in the first person. The structure of each elegy is based on this rhetorical "ordo naturalis." Furthermore, Rodter sees the considerable influence of Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises and in particular the Ignatian practice of employing the three powers of the soul: memory, intellect and will. She maintains that Ignatius used this procedure in each of his meditations. Rodter also maintains that Ignatius derived this practice of the three powers of the soul directly or indirectly through Johann Wessel Gansford's Scala meditationis (published in the early fourteenth century and placed on the Index in 1592) by way of Johann Mauburnus's Rosetum (1494). Rodter sees significant parallels between the structure of Gansford's Scala and Hugo elegies (pp. 86ff.). According to Rodter, Hugo follows the six steps of Gansford's Scala in each subscriptio: I. Modus recolligendi (memory). II. Gradus Praeparatorii (memory). III. Gradus Processori et mentis (intellect). IV. Gradus Processorii, & judicii (intellect). V. Gradus Processorii amoris voluntatis (will). VI. Gradus terminatorii (will). Thus there are two basic interpretative methods she uses for an understanding of the Pia Desideria's subscriptiones: the three rhetorical canons of inventio, dispositio and elocutio, in particular dis-
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positio through the ordo naturalis progression of exordium, narralio, argumentatio and peroratio, and Gansford's Scala. Rodter's analyses and interpretations are for the most part enlightening and could serve as a commendable model for one approach to Hugo. However, I have several questions and reservations about her approach and analysis. Does Rodter's choice of emblems for her analysis disrupt Hugo's triple threefold "mystical" progression? The subtitles for each of the three books make this progression obvious as well as the fact that each of the books has an identical number of emblems. Rodter has chosen a progression different from Hugo, but has she succeeded? The rationale for her choice of these five chapters is to reveal Hugo's specific emblematic narrative form within the context of the mystical path to salvation. But in so doing, she runs the danger of disrupting the logical flow and continuity of Hugo's own basic structure. Within the limits of this review I would like to propose another possible sequence based on her five emblem choices which I believe adheres more strictly to Hugo's original three-fold progression and to the principles of Ignatian spirituality: I. Hugo's introductory emblem where the soul sighs and weeps; only God hears her in her general desire for wholeness (cf. specifically 11. 19f. on p. 265 and 11. 31ff. on p. 266). This begins the soul's journey. II. Bk. I, 1: The soul's desire for light in her wandering and search for justification and meaning in her life (cf. v. 35ff. on p. 173). III. Bk. II, 11: The central dialogue with Christ on the Cross as revelatory of the soul's search and where Anima and Christus find union through dialogue and suffering. IV. Bk. HI, 4: The soul is drawn to her bridegroom who appears as the Sun dispelling darkness as the compass and sunflower. The journey to union is illuminated with His face. V. Bk. Ill, 11. The soul's thirst for union like the deer's for water; Anima experiences integration and casts aside all distractions in the final colloquy in order to be at the source of life. Lost in the discussion is the influence which Bolswert's engravings have exerted on the overall meaning. The res pictae are Bolswert's invention. Since much of the discussion is based on the res pictae, which are due to Bolswert alone, and the reader's role in discerning the message in the union of pictura-subscriptio, greater attention should have been paid to his contribution in the interpretation and message. For example, the heliotrope plays a very minor role within the elegy in III, 4 but it plays a dominant role in the pictura, an obvious
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example of Bolswert's influence. In addition, there is no mention of either res pictae: lantern or milky way, in the elegy accompanying Book I, chapter 1. These are examples of Bolswert's influence on the production of meaning in the work. In some cases the elegies seem removed from the pictorial elements, and the impression arises that Bolswert superimposed them onto the elegy. Rodter could have shown more clearly how Bolswert's res pictae actually integrate and merge successfully with Hugo's subscriptiones. Is there really a rhetorical progression based on dispositio in the elegy? Hugo's structure seems to be closer to an Ignatian one. Admittedly, seventeenth-century Jesuits made an attempt at rhetoricizing the emblem (especially under the influence of Jakob Masen) but in their meditational practices the Jesuits were more prone to follow a basic procedure adopted from the contemplations of the Spiritual Exercises: the composition of place, the meditation itself and the final colloquy. For example, in the subscriptio to III, 4 there is first of all, the composition of place: 11.1-8; the actual consideration or meditation in II. 9-54 (with its argumentation and "proofs") revolving around the central truth in 1. 15 within a succession of considerations, propositions, proofs and exempla; and the final Ignatian colloquy in 11. 55-58, and a conclusion in 1. 59. That each of the five elegies Rodter has chosen actually follows the progression in the Gansford Scala is somewhat unlikely. Despite what Rodter asserts about the Ignatian use of the three powers of the soul in each meditation deriving from Gansfort, one of the leading authorities on Ignatian spirituality, Joseph de Guibert, maintains that Ignatius took the three power approach from Bona venture's De triplici via and Ramon Lull's Art of Contemplation. This three-fold method is not the peculiar and exclusive type made according to the Spiritual Exercises, nor is it assigned any determined place in the course of the Exercises. Thus it plays only a miilor role in Jesuit spirituality. Does the author place too much emphasis on the mystical aspects of the Via Desideria? For example, in her discussion Bk. I, chapter 1, which is part of the via purgativa, the language of the subscriptio is mostly classical in nature and not mystical despite what Rodter says about the mystical "Brautnacht" and her statement that Hugo's "Nacht-Elegie" is suffused with mystical thought. Her further extrapolation comparing Hugo's "night" with John of the Cross's "The Dark Night" leads her to conclude that John of the Cross influenced Hugo's idiom, which strikes me as far-fetched. Furthermore, it is
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difficult to see h o w H u g o ' s "mystical" term "scintilla" in 1. 48 is in any w a y connected to Thomas Aquinas's expression "scintilla animae" (188) which is s u p p o s e d to prove H u g o ' s use of mystical language. Is more mystical content a n d h i d d e n meaning ascribed to the Pia Desideria than is justified? Certainly from the point of view of Jakob Masen, H u g o ' s fellow Jesuit, the Pia Desideria lacks the esoteric and the argutial content to be an emblem in his strict sense. Warncke w o u l d likely see the Pia Desideria as lacking the open form needed to qualify as an emblem. According to Masen, images have poetic quality only insofar as they are allegorically "hidden." Masen, like Alciato, Tesauro, Gracian and Mignault, sees emblematics as an art created by scholars for scholars. The Hieroglyphica of Piero Valeriano u n d the hieroglyphic interpretations of Athanasius Kircher are closer to Masen's theory than to the spiritual emblematics of such n o r t h e r n Jesuits as H e r m a n H u g o , Jan David, Jeremias Drexel and Antoine Sucquet. Surprisingly, Masen takes little notice of the profound use of Jesuit spirituality and theology in the emblems books p r o d u c e d by his fellow Jesuits H u g o , Drexel and Sucquet. Masen sees moral didaxis as a goal of ars iconographica, but it is not reducible to the simple "conclusions" found in the pictures and lemmas in other Jesuit writers such as Hugo. The tropological relationship m u s t rather be the result of an interpretation based on the various transferred meanings of the res picta (Masen, Speculum, p . 72). To the extent that Jesuit writers tried to make the meanings of devotional pictures more obvious, as in the emblem books featuring meditations on Jesuit saints or in the Spiritual Exercises, they lost their esoteric character. Books such as the meditative emblems in H u g o ' s Pia Desideria or Antoine Sucquet's Via vitae aeternae (Antwerp, 1620) fall short of Masen's criteria for an esoteric icono-mystical art. Emblems such as H u g o ' s Pia Desideria are for Masen defective because they are too obvious. The long prose and poetic passages beneath each pictura remove the elements of the u n u s u a l and striking which for Masen are essential to the figurative image. Masen eschews the long suhscriptio. Allegorical interpretation can only be the result of a process in which the observer demonstrates his acuteness by providing a significant apodosis for the pictorial protasis (Speculum, p . 561). Some final reservations: the Namen- and Sachregister should have been expanded, and the arrangement of the illustrations at the end is
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somewhat confusing. Nevertheless, apart from these reservations Rod tor's book is an important and noteworthy contribution to a much needed study of the Pia Desideria. G. RICHARD DIMLER, S. J. Fordham University
An Unedited and Unpublished Sixteenth-Century English Translation of Some Alciato Emblems: British Library Additional MS- 61822 JOHN MANNING The Queen's University of Belfast Among the legal documents, gardening notes, and household accounts contained in British Library Additional MS. 61822 are two items of particular literary interest: a manuscript of Sir Philip Sidney's sonnet sequence, Astrophil and Stella, and on fols. 77-80 a group of Alciato emblems, some of which appear in a hitherto unpublished English translation. The manuscript was compiled between 1564 and 1596 by John Briton (d. 1587) and his son, William Briton (1564-1637), of Kelston in Somerset. It was acquired by Quaritch's in 1932 or earlier and listed in their One Hundredth Anniversary Catalogue (1947), item 198. It was bought in 1950 by Arthur A. Houghton, Jr., and was part of his library at Wye Plantation, Maryland. The manuscript was subsequently sold at auction at Christie's in London in June 1980 as lot 427, and bought by Bernard Quaritch Ltd for £15,000 on behalf of the British Library. The manuscript was acquired too late to appear in the current printed catalogue of British Library Manuscripts.
1. I wish to thank Mary Mathis of the Book Department, Christie, Manson and Woods Ltd for help in supplying me with this information, and for so kindly answering my queries.
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William A. Ringler in his still standard edition of the poems of Sir Philip Sidney gave an account of the manuscript and made some use of it in establishing his text of Astrophil and Stella. His description of the manuscript's contents is exceptionally full and detailed, and I can do no better than to quote it: At one end of the volume are memoranda in the hand of William's father, John Briton, dated from 1564 to 1571, followed by two pages in William's hand concerning trees grafted 'in Kelston orchard' in January 1588 [9] and January 1589[90]. The volume was then turned upside down, and, beginning at the opposite end, William made entries on ff. 1-115 as follows: (a) ff. l-53 v Legal forms and notes, some of which refer to William's own affairs and none of which are dated later than 1586. (b) ff. 54-61 v 'Rules for Husbandry', translations of parts of Virgil's Georgics with other observations 'proved by experyenc'; additions and marginalia in different ink are dated from 1594 to 1602. ff. 62-76v blank, (c) ff. 77-90v 'Pithie Sentences and wise sayinges', beginning with 'Emblemata Andreae Alciati', and followed by untitled extracts from Baldwin's Treatise of Morall Philosophy (1547), Googe's translation of Palingenius (1560), Chaloner's translation of The Praise ofFolie (1549), Blennerhasset's Seconde part of the Mirrour for Magistrates (1578), and Norton and Sackville's Gorboduc (from the first edition of c. 1565); at the bottom of f. 87 v is a single line of verse in different ink, [Astrophil and Stella] 23. 4. (d) ff. 91-103 Sidney's 'Sonnetts'; ff. 103v-4 are blank, and between them stubs of four leaves that have been torn out. (e) it. 104v-9 Another set of 'Rules of husbandry', dated 1596, partly repeating and rearranging the material of the earlier set; marginalia in different ink are dated from 1594 to 1605; ff. 109 v -12 v blank. (/) ff. 113-15 Miscellaneous jottings 2. The Poems of Sir Philip Sidney, ed. William A. Ringler, Jr. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962). Hereinafter cited as Ringler. 3. Ringler, pp. 540-42.
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with dates 1599 and 1593[4], including notes on ancient deeds concerning Kelston manor with a memorandum that 'lo. Bryton delyuered to M r Io: harrington thyounger one other Copy . . of all the Scite and demaines of Kelston'. 4 It appears that William Briton began making entries in the manu script around the time of his father's death in 1587 and continuec adding to these until 1605. It would seem that the emblems wen entered in the manuscript sometime between 1586 and 1596, but sinci the Tithie Sentences' are preceded by blank leaves it is impossible t< date these more precisely, especially since one cannot assume that th< entries were made seriatim. Ringler's concern was with the Sidney sonnets, and he does no mori than record the presence of the Alciato Emblemata. To my knowledgi no other scholar has mentioned or discussed these manuscript Alciat< emblems with their English translations. Fol. 77 recto and verso, am part of fol. 78 recto contain English translations of Alciato's epigrams the other leaves, the remainder of fol. 78, fols 79 recto and verso, anc fol. 80 recto contain the transcriptions of other emblems in Alciato' Latin. No emblem, whether translated or not, is accompanied by ai illustration, but each has a verbal description (headed "Figura") of th image which the emblematic verse implies. Each emblem, whether ii Latin or in English translation, conforms to the same pattern: a centre* heading "Figura," followed by a centred description of the emblemati image; the Latin motto is written in the left-hand margin adjacent t the first line of the emblematic verse; the epigram is followed by short prose commentary. The emblems are not numbered, nor is there any explicit referenc to the particular edition of Alciato's Emblemata that lies at the basis с the translation or the transcription. What is of interest is that Alciat is the only literary Latin text quoted, and the English translations с the Emblemata are the only example of English literary composition i this section which does not derive from earlier printed work. Thes translations must either be by William Briton, or derive, like the te:
4. Ringler, p. 541.
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of Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, from a manuscript source. If the latter is in fact the case, then this manuscript has not yet been traced. The emblemata are part of a general section of the manuscript headed, "Pithie Sentences and wise sayinges," which suggests that emblematic composition was regarded at this time, and by this reader, as a branch of morally improving literature, rather than as an iconographical dictionary. The manuscript indicates that the Britons had dealings with John Harrington, the godson of Queen Elizabeth and translator of Orlando Furioso, who himself composed and mentions emblems. His "short Elegie upon a homly Embleme" was presented in manuscript to Prince Henry, and who shows detailed knowledge of "diverse pretie emblemes," particularly Alciato's Adversus naturam peccantes. The early date of this manuscript (1585-95) and its provenance makes this translation of particular interest. Sixteenth-century Eng lish translations of Alciato are rarely found, and so it seemed appro priate to bring these translations for the first time to the attention of a wider scholarly audience by providing a full transcription. Eight emblems are here translated: Princeps subditorum incolumitatem procurans; In senatum boni principis; Fidei symbolum; Nihil duos plurimum posse; Prudentes; Consilio et virtute Chimxra superare: id est fortiores et deceptiores; Qua dij vocant eundum. They are provided with brief commentaries that would appear to be modelled upon the Commentariola by Stockhamer. The Latin texts, however, since they must plainly derive from a printed edition, cannot be considered of any textual importance, and are therefore not transcribed here in this present article. It is possible, of course, that the author took these
5.
See A New Discourse of a Stale Subject called the Metamorphosis of Ajax, ed. Elizabeth Story Donno (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962), pp. 93 and 94, and n. 55. Hereinafter cited as Donno.
6.
Donno, p. 95 and n. 60. This Alciato emblem was first published in the Emblematum libellus (Venice: Heirs of Aldus, 1546) and appears in Emblemata (Padua: Tozzi, 1621) as Emblem 80. The emblem does not appear in many editions of the Emblemata omnia.
7. Seventeen of Alciato's Latin emblems are transcribed: Mutuum auxilium; Auxilium nunquam deficiens; Paupertatem summis ingeniis obesse, ne prouehantur; Illicitum поп sperandum; Luxuriorum opes; Quern alta contemplantur cadere; In eos
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emblems from several different editions of Alciato, but it is more likely that they were all taken from the same edition. If this hypothesis is correct, it is most likely that they were taken from one of the de Tournes editions of the Emblemata which were accompanied by the commentariola by Stockhamer. In the following transcriptions all scribal contractions are silently expanded, although the orthography of the original is followed exactly. Deleted portions of text, where they could be deciphered, have been placed within angled brackets . [fol. 77T] Emblemata Andreae Alciati Figura an anchore with a dolphine wrethed about hym [in left-hand margin next to first line of text: motto] princeps subditorum incolumitate procurans as often as the blusteringe wyndes, turmoiles the surginge seas the shippmen speedy anchore cast, their trobled myndes to ease the dolphine wrethes him rounde about, to fixe him fast in sande as nature yelds him frende to man, his perell to withstand the princes ought with like regard, their subiectes weale foresee that they to them in eche turmoile a steedfast hope may be The dolphine is a foreshower of tempests to come wherby imbrasinge the anchore fasteneth him more firmely, as naturally enclined to provyde for mans saftie, to whose example eny good prince ought to succore and foresee the weale of his subiectes, wherfore many noble and valiant kinges and emperors have gevin the anchore wrethed with the dolphine in their ensignes as, Setucus, Nicanor rex, imperator A Cesar etc. Figura a company of Judges sittinge in Judgment havinge neithere handes nor eyes
qui supra vires quicquam audent; In eum qui sibi ipsi damnum apparat; Alius peccat alius plectitur; In avaros; Captiuus ob gulam; Impossibile; Ex damno alterius alterius utilitas; De morte et amore; Gratiae; In momentaneam felicitatem; In occasionem.
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[in left hand margin next to first line of text: motto] in senatum boni principis. Whie sitt these Judges all amorte amated to behoulde becawse with grave, advised myndes their Judgmentes they vnfould. whie wante they handes or whats the cause such members are cutt of becawse for bribes and like rewardes theire care they cleane cut of but whats the cawse they want their sight deprived of the same to Judge without affected sense or parciall mynde they came. This is the Image of the thebane senate a Citie in Bootia. Their grave and comely sittinge betoken wisdome and sage counsaile their want of handes betokeneth them free from bribinges, their losse of sight notes them to geve sentence without parciallitie, all affection beinge set aparte [fol. 77v] Figura Two women ioyninge hand in hand with a naked boy standinge betwixte them. [in left-hand margin next to first line of text: motto] fidei symbolum first honor princely purtaied stands in purple color clad, and veritie ioyneth hand in hand as frindly leagues are made Chaste love starts vp betwixte them bothe and crowned with a wrethe of Roses did at first him self to ladies love bequethe these make true faithe and frindshipp firme whom honors great regarde dothe foster veritie bringes fourth, Chast love to strengthen is> ioyne prepard This is of faithfull frindshippe the protrature the assosiacion of honor, love and veritie. Figura Two men meetinge together, thone an ould man with a booke vnder his arme thother a lustie young gallant ready armed to go to the fielde [in left-hand margin next to first line of text: motto] vnum nihil duos plurimum posse This ould man with the gallant youth beginneth to dispute of martiall feates declare howe he, his foes might conterfute by policy and good foresight, nay quoth this lustie ladd by fors of arme in fierce assalt the peice is sonest had
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thone excels in perfitt witte, thothers force was great but ioyned vnto it semed light eche victory to get In great affares the force of body shall want the wisdome of the mynde in like manner a prudent mynd hath need of strenght and dexteritie of body so either policy or force of armes shalbe wanted, to obteine victory, but by being ioyned the conquest is easie. Figura a mans head with two faces thone before thothere behinde [in left-hand margin next to first line of text: motto] prudentes о Janus with thy dobled face thou seest what thinges are past what thinges to come with great foresight thy prudent mynd can cast which seest ech way, they picture thee with doble formed face becawse thy perfitt mynd is ioynd with circonspective grace. wisdome hathe his beinge in the head, therefore Janus doble forme signifieth wisdome; who hath memory of thinges past and provydence of thinges to come. Figura a man armed on a whinged horse fightinge with a monster [in left-hand margin next to first line of text: motto] consilio et virtute Chimaera superare: id est fortiores et deceptiores The valiant knight Belliferon Chimera did subdue in Licia land, by policie that monster did overthrowe and upon most noble pegasus dost cutt the aire with flight and monsters proud doth tame by witt before thou comest to fight The history of Belliferon which oercame Chimera teacheth that policy is preferred before force to performe those thinges which seeme most hard and impossible. [fol. 78r] Figura The picture of mercury [in left-hand margin next to first line of text: motto] qua dij vocant eundum Two travilers that past this way, Mercurius did direct the [illegible] path, thought troblesome would sheld them free from wrecl thone his wordes did ponder still untill his jorneys end, thother careles semed, to shone that might him best defend.
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In all our actions the ordinance and vocation of our Creator is cheefest to be immitated.
Wither's Second Emblem Book: Divine Poems ALAN R. YOUNG Acadia University George Wither (1588-1667) had a long and varied career as poet, satirist, religious writer, pamphleteer, soldier, and self-appointed prophet. Emblem scholars have chiefly remembered him as the author of one of the most important English emblem books, A Collection of Emblemes (1635). After his death, fifty emblems from this book were pirated and published by Nathaniel Crouch with new plates under the title Delights for the Ingenious (1684), and this work was in turn reprinted by Edward Parker in 1721 and 1732. Elsewhere, I have pointed out that Wither in fact reprinted in his posthumously-published Fragmenta Prophetica (1669) a number of the poems from the Collection, together with brief descriptions of their pictures to make a series of what one might call "emblemata nuda." I have also attempted to demonstrate elsewhere that Wither's A Collection of Emblemes was not
1. See, for example, the three facsimile editions that have been published: George Wither, A Collection of Emblems, with introduction by John Horden (Menston: Scolar Press, 1968 and 1973); with introduction by Rosemary Freeman and Charles Hensley (Columbia, S. C : University of South Carolina Press, 1975); and with introduction by Michael Bath (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1989). In 1991 Peter M. Daly and Mary V. Silcox reviewed the critical work on Wither's emblem book in The Modern Critical Reception of the English Emblem Book (Munich: Saur, 1991), pp. 155-65. See also, Peter M. Daly, "The Arbitrariness of George Wither's Emblems," in The Art of the Emblem: Essays in Honor of Karl Josef Holtgen, ed. Michael Bath, John Manning, and Alan Young (New York: AMS Press, 1993), pp. 201-34.
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his only foray into the art of emblem-making. Perhaps as early as '1611 until as late as 1667, Wither regularly created emblems or emblem-like compositions which show that his interest in the genre was on-going and far more extensive than students of emblem literature have hitherto suggested. In what follows here, I would like to examine what I believe is an emblem book by Wither that emblem scholars have hitherto not noticed. During the final years of his life, after supporting Parliament during the Civil War and after being imprisoned for several years soon after the restoration of Charles II, Wither spent a period of time removed from London. Whereas he had experienced the effects in London of the great plague of 1625 at first hand, he did not remain in the city during the even worse plague of 1665-66. As usual, however, his pen did not remain idle. During this period, having received a set of copper plates from a publisher, he set about adding to them a series of poems. The title of the resulting book was Divine Poems (by way of Paraphrase) ON THE TEN Commandments. This was sent with the copper plates to the publisher, but at some stage the plates were lost and the text remained unpublished when Wither died in 1667.
2.
See my "George Wither's Other Emblems" (forthcoming in a volume to be published in the AMS series "Studies in the Emblem").
3.
The full title-page reads as follows: "Divine Poems \ (by way of Paraphrase) \ ON THE TEN \ Commandments. \ Illustrated with Twelve Copper Plates, shewing \ how Personal Punishments has been inflicted on \ the Transgressors of these Commandments, as \ is Recorded in the Holy Scripture. \ Never before printed. \ Also a Metrical Paraphrase upon the Creed and \ Lords Prayer. \ Written by George Wither Esq; Author of Brittains \ Remembrancer. \ Psal. 119.5. Would God my ways were so directed that \ I might keep thy Statutes. \ Licensed according to Order. \ LONDON Printed by T. S. And are to be sold by R. Fane- \ way in Queens Head Ally in Pater Noster Row. 1688."
4. This was not the first occasion on which Wither had lost material. In 1657 he placed in the newspaper Mercurius Politicus the following advertisement: "A Manuscript of Poems, Essays and Characters dedicated to Madam M. B. by G. W. lost upon Thursday the 12 of March. If anyone bring it to Mr. Seiles a bookseller, over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet street, he shall be thankfully rewarded." (Mercurius Politicus, no. 353 [Thurs. March 12-19], p. 7668).
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Twenty-one years later, Wither's daughter, Elizabeth Barry, arranged to publish the Divine Poems. She described the posthumous work as "Meditations" and dedicated it "To all such as have formerly been Friends to the Author, his Daughter and only surviving child" (sig. A2a). She explained the problem of the plates as follows: THE Copper Plates mentioned in my Fathers following Epistle, in some of his removals from one Habitation to another have been lost, so that I have been forced to get new ones made. (sig. A3b) Among the preliminaries, Elizabeth Barry also included a copy of a letter that must originally have accompanied the manuscript and plates when Wither first sent them to the unnamed publisher (sig. A8a-b): Sir, among other kindnesses vouchsafed in your Neighbourhood, I received from you the Copper Plates, which are now made use of in this Book. The words which I have added unto those dumb Figures will make them (I hope) much more profitable, and cause them to be a means of publishing those Caveats and Universal Duties which are pertinent, as well to the General well-being of Mankind, as to the Glory of God; which two things were the proper ends of our Creation, and ought also to be the chief care of our life. To those ends therefore, and that your cost might not be unprofitably bestowed, I have returned the Coppies of those Figures which you gave me, illustrated with such Meditations as my leisure and ability could afford. And they do now as well speak as make signs what is prepared for wilful Transgressors of these Laws [i. e. the Ten Commandments], whereby if God may receive any honour, or his Children profit, I desire it may be some honour and advantage, which is the desire of 5. The Preface to the Divine Poems is singed "E. B." and dated 23 April 1688. In the preliminaries "E. B." refers to Wither as "father/' The identity of Withers intended publisher is not known. It seems doubtful that Elizabeth Barry would have been able to use the same publisher more than two decades later.
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Your Hearty and Wellwishing Friend GEO. WITHER. What is intriguing about this is that Wither appears to have worked somewhat in the way that he prepared his first emblem book. Starting with the plates, he then fashioned the accompanying verses. In this instance, below each plate is a moralizing poem that in part comments on the material depicted in the picture but also expands the subject to make broader moral points. Then follows a rhymed couplet that sums up the essential moral being conveyed. This is then immediately followed by a long meditative poem. As it now exists, Divine Poems has one engraving for each of the Ten Commandments. There are no mottoes as such, but each Commandment has inscribed the words of the Commandment at the top of its accompanying picture. One may choose to consider these inscribed words as functioning as an inscriptio in place of the motto usually employed in emblems. The rhymed couplet that precedes each of the long poems may also be seen as functioning in a similar but less direct way. Each picture, as might be expected, illustrates the offense referred to. In every instance, the pictures offer specific exempla from the Bible. "Thou shalt have none other Gods but me," for example, is illustrated by Pharaoh, who, contemptuous of God, is shown suffering his fate as he pursued Moses across the Red Sea, while "Thou shalt not take ye name of ye Lord thy God in vaine" is illustrated by a man being stoned to death. As Wither's poem explains, To fright Blasphemers, we present them with An Emblem, of the Son of Shelomith: (Who worthily, condemned was to dye, And, Stoned for his daring Blasphemy:)
(p. 24) Because neither Wither's text nor the illustrations cite the precise Biblical sources and because Wither's texts do not always name the characters depicted and do not necessarily explain the action portrayed, the reader's own knowledge of the Bible is presumably ex-
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pected to supply information about what is omitted and/or to make the necessary connections between text and pictures. Although the pictures for the Ten Commandments that Elizabeth Barry provided are not in themselves emblematic, their relationship to the texts that follow is very akin to that which obtains in emblems, and, indeed, Wither's own use of the term "emblem" (see the quotation above from p. 24) makes clear that he believed he was fashioning emblems. So close and consistent is the relationship between texts and pictures in Wither's book that I find it difficult to believe that the original plates were lost and that what we now have are substitutes. Whoever created them must have worked closely with Wither's texts, or perhaps some copies of the engravings had already been run off and this enabled the engraver to create close copies of the originals. The following are brief descriptions of the pictures for the emblems of the Ten Commandments, together with the Biblical sources for pictures and texts to the extent that I can determine them. It should be noted, however, that the names of the characters represented and explanations of some of the actions have been derived in part from the details supplied by Wither's texts or by the original biblical sources. Commandment 1: Thou shalt have none other Gods but me. (p. 7) Picture: Pharaoh and his army that is pursuing the Israelites are drowned in the Red Sea. Biblical Source: Exod. 14:23-28. Commandment 2: Thou shalt not make to thy selfe any Graven images. (p. 15) Picture: In the foreground various figures kneel before a golden statue of a bull-calf on a pillar. In the background Moses's men put the idolators to the sword. Biblical Source: Exod. 32:28. Commandment 3: Thou shalt not take ye name of ye Lord thy God in vaine. (p. 23) 6. The italicized mottoes are given exactly as in Wither's emblems. Biblical quotations are from the Geneva text since it would appear that Wither used some version of the Geneva Bible (see Footnote 9 below).
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Picture: A man (the son of Shelomith) is being stoned to death for blasphemy. Biblical Source: Lev. 24:10-23. Commandment 4: Remember that thou keep holy ye Sabbath day. (p. 31) Picture: In the foreground a man gathers sticks. In the background the man is stoned to death. Biblical Source: Num. 15:32-36. Commandment 5: Honor thy Father and thy Mother, (p. 39) Picture: Absalom, the rebellious son of David, hangs by his hair from an oak tree, "taken vp betwene the heauen and the earthe." Joab approaches and is about to kill him with a dart. Biblical Source: 2 Sam. 18:9 and 14. Commandment 6: Thou shalt do no murder, (p. 47) Picture: In the foreground Joab embraces Abner but stabs him "vnder the fift ryb" with a sword. In the background within the tabernacle, Joab, who holds the horns of the altar, is killed. Biblical Source: 2 Sam. 3:27 and 1 Kings 2:28 and 34. Commandment 7: Thou shalt not Commit adulterie. (p. 55) Picture: Zimri the Israelite having sexual intercourse with Cozbi the Midianite in his tent. Phinehas stands beside the bed with a javelin about to "thrust them bothe through: to wit, the man of Israel, and the woman, through her belly." Biblical Source: Num. 25:8 and 14-15. Commandment 8: Thou shalt not steale. (p. 63) Picture: In the foreground Achan, who stole some of the forbidden plunder when Jericho was destroyed, is hiding the spoils in his tent. 7. The choice of Zimri and Cozbi may seem somewhat odd since they did not commit adultery. However, in his poem Wither expands upon the idea of illicit sexual relationships to include unions, including even those between husband and wife, that involve lasciviousness or some contravention of lawful behaviour. In this instance, Zimri has offended by marrying outside his tribe.
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In the background Achan and his household are stoned to death and "burnt with fire" (Josh. 7:15) following God's decree that the guilty should be punished. Biblical Source: Josh. 6:17-19 and 7:1, 21-22, 25. Commandment 9: Thou shalt not beare false witnes against, (p. 71) Picture: The wicked Queen Jezebel, having been thrown from the window at Jehu's order after contriving Naboth's death (1 Kings 21:1-16) by having false witnesses brought against him, is torn to pieces by dogs. To the left is Jehu in his chariot. Biblical Source: 2 Kings 9:30-37. Commandment 10: Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours House, (p. 79) Picture: King Ahab disguised sits in his chariot during the battle with the Syrians. His chest has been fatally pierced by an arrow that has entered between the "ioyntes of his brigandine" (1 Kings 22:34). Biblical Source: 1 Kings 22:31-37. Even stronger evidence for thinking of Divine Poems as an emblem book is to be found in the two engravings and accompanying poems that "frame" the Ten Commandments in Wither's book and that form two fully-developed emblems. The first of these provides a striking opening to Wither's book and to "The Prologue" which begins it. As in all the other emblems to follow, Wither's picture is followed by a short poem of five rhymed couplets that summarize in some manner what is to follow. In this instance, Wither alludes to the blessings attendant upon those who obey God's laws and the dire fates that threaten those who do not: Happy shall that man become, Who this Law departs not from: Blessings will descend on him, From the Mount of Gerizim; But from Ebal they shall hear 8. To explain the connection between the picture and the Commandment, one needs to remember that among his various misdeeds was Ahab's covetous desire for his neighbour Naboth's vineyard.
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Curses, who rebellious are. Death, for them, attending stands, Who shall break these just Commands; And to those who them obey, God proposeth life for aye.
(p. 1) The references here to Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal stem from the picture itself, as will be explained later. At the centre of the picture stands Moses displaying the two stone tablets on which are inscribed the Ten Commandments. Beneath these is the inscription "Deca Documenta" [The Ten Commandments]. Above and to either side are two winged cherubim with trumpets. Each trumpet has a banner on which is inscribed a verse or verses from Deuteronomy. The one on the left states: "And these wordes which I Command thee this day shalbe in thine heart. And thou shall rehearse them continually unto thy children and shalt talke of them when thou tariest in thine house and as thou walkest by the way and when thou lye downe & when thou risest up" (Deut. 6:6-7). The other banner has the next two verses from Deuteronomy: "And thou shalt binde them for a signe vpon thine hand, & they Shalbe as frondets between thine eies Also thou shalt write them vpon the postes of thine house and vpon thy gates." Matching these texts are two further texts (from Deuteronomy 11:2627) in the bottom corners of the plate. That on the left reads: "Beholde I set before you this day a blessing and a Curse; The blessing if ye Obey the Commandements of the Lord your GOD which I Command you this day." That on the right states: "And the Curse if ye wil not obey ye Commandements of ye Lord your GOD but turne Out of the way which I Command you this day to go after other gods which ye haue not known." Across the bottom of the engraving and below both the two texts just quoted is another text that acts like the motto of an emblem. It is in Latin and states: "Optimum est aliena frui insania" [It is best to have the benefit of others' inspiration]. Filling the space
9. The text employed here and elsewhere in the engravings appears to be taken from a Geneva Bible.
10. The motto is found in Erasmus, Adages, Chil. II, Cent. Ill, XXXIX. Erasmus' commentary suggests that because of the risks others take, we ourselves can
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e between the texts on the left side of the engraving is a mountain with lush trees and pasture. Animals graze on its slopes. The mountain in inscribed "mount Gerizim." Opposite on the right is a depiction of "mount Ebal," a desolate and barren place, populated only by snakes. At its summit, it belches fire and smoke like a volcano, a detail that matches the contrasting female figure emerging from the summit of Mount Gerizim. This latter holds a crown in her right hand and a palm frond in her left hand. The presence of the two mountains alludes to the biblical account of the six tribes who gathered on the slopes of Mount Gerizim to recite the blessings of the Law, while the other six stood on Mount Ebal facing them and responding with curses (Deut. 11:29 and 27:12-13). The left side of the picture (God's right), together with its emblematic female figure, thus corresponds to the blessings promised those who obey the Commandments while the right side (God's left) represents the cursed fates of those who disobey. Traditionally, it was understood that the valley between the two mountains was where Joshua placed the ark of the covenant (Josh. 8:32-35), and this is the location occupied in the picture by Moses and the tablets. The arrangement of the items in the picture is thus symbolic. The arrangement is also in accord with the central theme of "The Prologue" that follows, and with the central theme of the entire emblem book. Aa Wither explains in the poem when referring to believers, To these for comfort and encouragement, The promise which attends it we p r e s e n t . . .
(p. 6)
However,
choose more prudent conduct. Presumably, Wither is referring to the "divinely-inspired" Moses and the gift of the Ten Commandments that may act as a guide to prudent conduct.
11. The Prologue also deals with the manner in which the Christian may acknowledge Jewish laws and use the Commandments as a helpful guide, although, of course, Christ and his Grace are of central account in the matter of Salvation: "Salvation comes not by this Law indeed, / Yet knowledge of our Sin, and that we need, / A Saviour for it, by this Law is taught; / Till which be known, no safety can be wrought" (p. 4).
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Before the rest, our Muse, to fright them sets The Tipes of punishments, and horrid Threats: . . .
(p. 6)
The final emblem in Wither's book introduces "The Epilogue," his long concluding poem that comments on God's Grace through which "we may be quite delivered from / The Body of this Death/' In it Wither talks of "The Lamb of God by whom we do possess / Redemption, Wisdom, Justice, Holiness/' and of the manner in which the Law, "which an appearance hath / Of Terror, of Severity and Wrath" to "dull naturalists," is allayed by the Law of Grace (p. 95). Castigating the follies of his own age ("Superstitious Fopperies," "Puppet plays," "Sects and Factions," p. 97) and recounting the general fallen state of humankind, Wither concludes by emphasizing God's infinite love. These themes are central to the accompanying engraving that is followed by the usual ten-line poem that then leads into the long final poem entitled "The Epilogue," itself preceded like all of Wither's other long poems in this book by a rhymed couplet ("The Law from God's meer love proceeds, / Though strict it seems and Terror breeds"). The picture has no motto, but instead has seven different biblical texts inscribed in crucial symbolic locations in the picture. At the top within the depiction of the sun are the words "CHRIST IESVS." Around the sun are the words "who is made vnto vs," and issuing from the sun like rays are the words "Wisedome," "Righteousnesse," "Sanctification," and "Redemption." Together these provide the bulk of a text from Corinthians: "But ye are of him in Christ Iesus, who of God is made vnto vs wisdome and righteousnes, and sanctificacion, and redemcion" (1 Cor. 1:30). Immediately below this representation of Heaven is a sphere representing the world. Around the circumference are the words "the whole World lieth in Wickednesse" (see 1st Epistle General of John 5:19. "We knowe that we are of God, and the whole worlde lyeth in wickednes"). Within and attached to the sphere is a net in which is ensnared a man upon whose chest is inscribed "the sinner." On his right arm that points up towards Heaven is inscribed "the hand of faith." Above his head are the words "O wretched man that I am who shall deliuer me from ye body of this death" (Rom. 7:24). The net is held at its base by a horned devil figure. Beside him is the statement "That they may recouer themselues out of ye snare of the deuil who are taken captiue by him at his will" (Timo. 2:26). Standing above the devil and cutting the net with a sword is a winged angel above whose head is a text from Job: "Deliuer him from going down
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to the pit I haue found a ransome" (Job 33:24). Two further figures with accompanying texts complete this complex pictura. At the bottom left, Death with an hourglass reclines on the ground but raises his spear which he aims at the man in the net. Death is accompanied by the predictable text "the Wages of sinne is Death" (Rom. 6:27). Standing above him is another winged angel with a palm frond in her left hand. Addressing the man in the net, she points up towards Heaven. Above her is the text "Behold the Lambe of GOD, which taketh away ye sin of ye world" (John 1:29). References to the Lamb of God, to Wisdom and Redemption, and to being delivered from the "body of this death" are, as has been intimated, all directly taken up in "The Epilogue," and Wither thus presents us with an extended emblem of picture and multiple texts that, functioning like an epilogue, sums up the central concerns of his entire book, aptly offering a matching frame to his prologue emblem. Wither's Divine Poems, along with the later edition of 1697 entitled A Paraphrase on the Ten Commandments, has to date eluded the attention of emblem scholars. However, given its author it surely deserves further scrutiny than I have been able to offer here and some kind of acknowledgement in the history of the English emblem. It is an important addition to the list of known English emblem books and is a significant addition to our knowledge of Wither the emblematist.
12. The full text of this verse in the Geneva Bible is as follows: "Then wil he haue mercie vpon him and wil saie, Deliuer him, that he go not downe into the pit: for I haue receiued a reconciliation."
Joseph Thomas and John Thurston's Religious Emblems (1809) MICHAEL BATH University of Strathclyde In their indispensable The English Emblem: Bibliography of Secondary Literature (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1990, p. 132) Peter M. Daly and Mary V. Silcox identify the authors of the twenty-one emblems published in London by R. Ackermann in 1809 under the title Religious Emblems as John Thurston and James Thomas. I believe that the christian name of the author responsible for the prose "descriptions"— who is identified on the title-page as "the Rev. J. Thomas, A. M., Chaplain to the Earl of Cork and Orrery"—was Joseph, not James, and that Daly and Silcox's "James Thomas" is a ghost. I hasten to add that the primary blame for raising this ghost lies not so much with Daly and Silcox as with the National Union Catalogue. The British Library Catalogue plays safe, identifying the author simply as "Thomas (J) Chaplain to the Earl of Cork and Orrery," but NUC is very confusing. Although it correctly enters Religious Emblems under "Thomas, Joseph" in volume 591, it also has the note: "see under Thurston, James, Chaplain to the Earl of Cork and Orrery." There is, of course, no such author, but under Thurston, John 1774-1822, NUC vol. 593 correctly lists Religious Emblems under the name of its engraver, author of a much-reprinted set of Illustrations to Shakespeare, numerous editions of which are listed in NUC. To confound our confusion, NUC then advises us to "see under Thomas, James, chaplain to the Earl of Cork and Orrery." We thus have a curious doubleerror in which the cross-reference from Joseph Thomas is to a non-existent James Thurston, whilst the cross-reference from John Thurston is to a non-existent James Thomas. This free-floating forename has no 201
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connection with either author, of course, and its provenance is a mystery. It is, I suggest, time we laid this ghost to rest. We can find the Irish earl's mysterious chaplain properly identified not on the title page but in the four-page Proposals for publishing by subscription A Series of Engravings on Wood from Scriptural Subjects, in the manner of Quarles's Emblems, a publisher's circular which is bound in at the end of some copies of the 1809 edition, including the copy in Glasgow University Library, shelfmark SM 1853. This announces that subscriptions (two guineas) may either be placed with various book sellers, or received "by Mr. Thurston, Twickenham Common and the Rev. Joseph Thomas, Abele Grove, near Epsom." Clearly these are the book's artist and its author. I have not been able to discover anything more about Joseph Thomas, but John Thurston was the principal, if not the only, artist working in London at this time who specialised in making drawings on the block for the new school of wood engravers who were busy reviving the art of commercial wood engraving, which was to become the dominant mode of book illustration for the next fifty years at least in England. Many of the engravers who executed his designs had served their apprenticeship under Thomas Bewick in Newcastleupon-Tyne; indeed Bewick himself executed the engravings to Thur ston's designs in editions of Robert Bloomfield's Rural Tales in 1802, 1809 and 1820, and in the Taunton, 1806, edition of Pilgrim's Progress.1 Religious Emblems is a work which was deliberately presented to the public as a significant example of the development of wood engraving. As the pre-publication Proposals puts it, The Art of Engraving on Wood being yet in its Infancy, and presuming, with many respectable and distinguished Artists, that it is capable of producing Effects infinitely superior to what has hitherto been seen, the Object of this Work is to present to the Public the most perfect Specimen that has ever yet been executed.
1. Peter Daly informs me that there are two sets of these six prints for The Pilgrim's Progress in the Houghton Library, Harvard, one set printed in black, the other in maroon, one print on paper with an 1820 watermark, shelfmark Тур 805.20.2084 F.
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Moreover, when a second edition of the work appeared in 1810, it contained a long Prefatory essay on the history of wood engraving. The book's pretensions to being received as a significant contribution to current developments in the fine arts are reflected in the quality of its materials—engravings and letterpress are printed on one side of the page only, the engravings on a fine "Indian" paper in order to achieve a finer impression. They are also reflected in its list of subscribers, which includes the names of not only John Flaxman and Henry Fuseli but also William Blake. Since the date of its first appearance the book has gone largely unnoticed, though Thurston's importance was recognised in John Jackson and W. A. Chatto's Treatise on Wood Engraving. This tells us that Thurston was born in Scarborough and trained as a copperplate engraver. "He was one of the best designers on wood of his time" (1861, p. 519n). He died in 1821. Among those who engraved his designs was Bewick's pupil, Charlton Nesbitt, some of the best of whose cuts are to be found "in a work entited Religious Emblems, published by R. Ackerman and Co. in 1808" [sic]: The cuts in the latter work were engraved by Nesbit, Clennell, Branston, and Hole, from drawings by Thurston; and they are unquestionably the best of their kind which up to that time had appeared in England. Clennell's are the most artistic-like in their execution and effect, while Nesbit's are engraved with greater care. Branston, except in one cut,—Rescued from the Floods,— does not appear to such advantage in this work as his northern rivals. There is only one cut—Seed sown—engraved by Hole. The following may be mentioned as the best of Nesbit's cuts in this work:—The World Weighed, The Daughters of Jerusalem, Sinners hiding in the Grave, and Wounded in the Mental Eye. The best of Clennell's are:—Call to Vigilance, the World made Captive, and Fainting for the Living Waters. These are perhaps the
2. 1838; second edition, London: Henry Bohn, 1861.
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three best cuts of their kind that Clennell ever engraved. (1861, p. 520) I have quoted the comment at such length because it is rare to find contemporary comment on the particular engravings in any emblem book. Of the four engravers, all but Branston were pupils of Bewick. Since the early remarks of Jackson and Chatto, the only place this work has been discussed is in a recent book by French collector Roger Paultre. Karl Josef Holtgen, however, noticed that the designs of Thurston's pictures are highly inventive adaptations of the copperplate engravings which had illustrated particular emblems by Francis Quarles in the numerous seventeenth- and eighteenth-century editions, based on the original designs executed by William Marshall, William Simpson and Robert Vaughan. They thus confirm the impression, for which there is much independent evidence, that the history of the English emblem tradition after 1700 is largely the history of Quarles's reputation.
3. Les Images du Livre: Emblemes et Devises (Paris: Herman, 1991), pp. 177-80.
4. Francis Quarles: Meditativer Dichter, Emblematiker, Royalist (Tubingen: Max Nie mayer, 1978), p. 314, plates 30, 33.
Vol. 7 No. 2
inter, 1993
EMBLEMATICA ViYtWtf /ortuifct comes
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EMBLEMATICA A n I n t e r d i s c i p l i n a r y J o u r n a l for E m b l e m S t u d i e s is p u b l i s h e d t w i c e a y e a r , in t h e s u m m e r a n d w i n t e r . Emblematica 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 biblio g r a p h i e s in all 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 t h e ses), n o t e s a n d q u e r i e s , n o t i c e s ( 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 .
Editors Peter M. Daly McGill University Department of German 1001 Sherbrooke Street W. Montreal, PQ Canada H3A 1G
D a n i e l S. R u s s e l l Department of French and Italian University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA 15260 U.S.A.
John Manning Review Editor Department of English The Queen's University of Belfast Belfast, Northern Ireland U.K. BT7 I N N
Advisory Board Karel P o r t e m a n Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven T h o m a s P. R o c h e , Jr Princeton University John M. S t e a d m a n University of California, Riverside J. B. T r a p p The Warburg Institute, London
B a r b a r a C. B o w e n Vanderbilt University A u g u s t Buck Marburg and Wolfenbuttel Wolfgang H a r m s Munich John Rupert Martin Princeton University
Editorial Board Claudie Balavoine CNRS, Paris V i r g i n i a W. C a l l a h a n Howard University, emerita P e d r o F. C a m p a University of Tennessee, Chattanooga K a r l Josef H o l t g e n Erlangen-Nurnberg
B e r n h a r d F. S c h o l z Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Agnes Sherman Princeton University Alan Young Acadia University Egon Verheyen George Mason University
EMBLEMATICA An Interdisciplinary
Journal for Emblem Studies
Volume 7, Number 2
Winter, 1993
Articles The articles by Stephen Rawles, Linda Freeman Bauer, Alison Saunders, and Ayers Bagley are versions of papers read at the Third International Emblem Conference, held in Pittsburgh in August 1993. Other papers from this conference will be published in future issues of Emblematica. Stephen Rawles The Full Truth about Daedalus: Denis de Harsy's Introduction of Emblem Books to the Lyons Market
205
Linda Freeman Bauer Further Reflections on an Emblematic Interpretation of Caravaggio's Early Works
217
Alison Saunders When Is It a Device and When Is It an Emblem: Theory and Practice (but Mainly the Latter) in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France
239
Michael Bath Applied Emblematics in Scotland: Painted Ceilings, 1550-1650
2W
Sandra Sider An Emblematic Portrait Gallery for Ana of Austria (Hispanic Society MS.HC397/397)
307
Ayers Bagley Childhood Education in Emblem Books of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
321
Review and Criticism Reviews Scolar Press Facsimile Series of "EmblemBooks": Geffrey Whitney, A Choice of Emblemes; George Wither, A Collection of Emblemes; Thomas Combe, Theater of Fine Devices; Claude Paradin, Devises heroiques; Guillaume de La Perriere, Le Theatre des bons engins with La Morosophie; Henry Hawkins, Partheneia Sacra, by Peter M. Daly
347
Abraham Fraunce, Symbolicae philosophiae liber quartus et ultimus, edited by John Manning with an English translation by Estelle Haan, by Denis Drysdall
359
Research Reports, Notes, Queries, and Notices Notes Hessel Miedema Alciati's Emblema Once Again
365
Alison
Ailmna
l ; rom Print to Manuscript: The Use of Alciato in Stirling Maxwell Manuscript SMM5
369
Betty l. Knott An Emendation in Alciato Emblem 111
383
Paul P. Raasveld Echoes of Andrea Alciato's "Foedera" in the Musical Theory of His Contemporary Gioseffo Zarlino
387
Recent Conferences
397
Errata
412
Volume Index
415
A Tribute to Gabriel Hornstein In June 1995, Gabriel Hornstein, President of AMS Press, will reach his sixtieth year. Emblematica has now completed seven years of publication with AMS Press. Although these were financially lean years for scholars and publishers alike, the press not only continued, b u t in fact expanded its commitment to emblem studies by introducing the monographic series "AMS Studies in the Emb l e m " and announcing a new series "AMS Emblem Reprints." Year sixty and year seven encourage us to look back and perhaps take stock. These have been productive years for emblem studies, and no small credit is due to Gabriel Hornstein w h o had the courage, and w e w o u l d say the foresight, to embrace a new publishing venture in a b o r d e r l a n d between the established study of art and literature. Thanks in part to AMS Press the emblem is no longer a n o - m a n ' s land. On the occasion of his sixtieth birthday the editors wish Gabe health and h a p p i n e s s , and the renewed vigor of eagles. Long may he continue to s u p p o r t emblem studies! PMD DR
The Full Truth about Daedalus: Denis de Harsy's Introduction of Emblem Books to the Lyons Market STEPHEN RAWLES Glasgow University Library Argument will doubtless continue about the antecedents of the emblem book, but failing a remarkable bibliographical discovery, there is little argument that the first three books explicitly published as emblem books and recognised as such were Alciato's Emblemata, La Perriere's Theatre des bons engins and Corrozet's Hecatomgraphie. So far as emblem books in French are concerned there is even less argument: Lefevre's translation of Alciato came first with two editions in 1536, followed by La Perriere and Corrozet in 1540. La Perriere's Theatre des bons engins was completed in 1536, but not printed until some time after 31 January 1540, by Denis Janot in Paris. Janot produced another edition in 1540/1541, and two more editions in about 1543/1544 which incorporate considerable textual revisions. An edition, without pictures, but with titles added to the emblems was printed by Denis de Harsy in Lyons, with the Daedalus mark on its title. I have demonstrated that its base text was Janot's second edition; this implies a dating of 1540 or 1541, and therefore late in the period during which Harsy used the Daedalus mark. 1
1. Stephen Rawles, "The Daedalus Affair: the Lyon Piracy of the Theatre des bons engins," in Intellectual Life in Renaissance Lyon: Proceedings of the Cambridge Lyon Colloquium, 14-16 April 1991 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 49-66. Marie Chevre, "Notes sur des impressions a la marque d'lcare [sic]/'
205
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EMBLEMA1ICA
This p a p e r considers works deliberately produced by Harsy as comp a n i o n v o l u m e s to the La Perriere: a bilingual edition of Alciato, w i t h the Latin text and Lefevre's translation, and an edition of the Hecntomgraphic (Fig.l). As with La Perriere I have compared the texts of the editions which could have formed the base of Harsy's edition, a n d in both cases reached firm conclusions about the base text of the Lyons edition. The assertion that the three Harsy emblem books were meant to go together is justified on the grounds that the signature styles (which are a-f8 for Alciato, A-F 8 G 4 for Corrozet, and Aa-Cc 8 DcT for La Perriere) imply simultaneous, or near simultaneous production. The use of the "Aa" convention in La Perriere makes this particularly plausible. Lefevre's translation of Alciato Only the text of the translation of Alciato has been considered. The indications of the French are so clear, however, that it would be surprising if the Latin text did not display the same affiliations b e t w e e n the editions. The two Wechel editions of 1536 are very similar, with minor corrections or changes being m a d e in the second. But in Wechel's 1539 edition textual changes are m a d e to Lefevre's translation. Some are minor: in Daly 181 a change is m a d e which merely corrects the scansion:
Gutenberg Jahrbuch (1959), 79-84, mentions no dated work later than the three emblem books under consideration here, and implies that the mark was not in use after about 1542.
2.
See Stephen Rawles, "The Earliest Editions of Guillaume de La Perriere's Theatre des bons engins," Emblematica, 2 (1987), 381-86.
3.
I have used the Stirling Maxwell copies of the Wechel editions of 1536, 1539, 1540 and 1542, and photographs of the British Library copy of the Harsy edition.
4.
This and subsequent references are to the numbering of Alci'ato's emblems in Index Emblematicus Andreas Akiatus. 7 The Latin Emblems, Indexes and Lists, ed. Peter Daly et al. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985).
STEPHEN RAWLES
шщт
1
207
П*Щ*
dcMtftetAiuktAH*, arisen шпсЕсаа ¥*tOjwt»
prmiicge.
Hccatographic ceft к dirties Dedaratios depluGea» Apophtegmes,Prouetbes4cn« tences,& didz,tant dcs Amaens que dcs Modcrnes.
Aucc priuilege
Fig. 1(a).AndreaAlciato, Lesemblemesde Fig. 1(b). Gilles C o r r o z e t , HecaMaistre Andre Alciat, Lyons, Denis de tomgraphie, Denis de Harsy, ca. 1540. Harsy, ca. Г540. By permission of the By permission of the British Library British Library (1065.C.47). (1161.e..36).
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EMBLEMATICA
Dira Ton pas (comme est verite) > Dira Ton pas (comme ce est verite)
Lc Theatre d es bons cngins, auquel font contenuz cent Ems blemes. НЛ/Ы
Auec priuilege.
In Daly 178 the scansion is cor rected by the significant substi tution of "contraint" for "aultrement," giving the line: "Qui n'est contraint pour paix acquerre." Elsewhere the changes are more significant, as in Daly 95, line 1 where "huitre" (the more well-known form of the French for "oyster") is substi tuted for "suinttre". In the "Si lence" emblem (Daly 11) the last 3 lines were rewritten: Pour luy faire tenir silence: Et soys en peu parler suyuant, De Harpocras la grand sapience.
(1536, first Wechel edition) Fig. 1(c). Guillaume de La Perriere, Le thea tre des bons engins, Lyons, Denis de Harsy, ca. 1540. By permission of the University Librarian and Keeper of the Hunterian Books and MSS, University of Glasgow (SM685).
> ... Pour tenir de parler science. Ou seras Harpocras suyuant, Dont lymage monstroit silence: (1539)
All these changes are reflected in the Harsy edition, and indicate that the Harsy text must date from later than the 1539 edition, or conceiv ably be its source. But it is unlikely, by this stage, that an unillustrated edition of the Latin and the French texts would be especially influen tial, particularly when the printer in Paris remained the same—why should Wechel adopt changes from what would to him be an inferior
STEPHEN RAWLES
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edition, because it lacked pictures, especially when Lefevre went to such trouble to make sure that the iconography of the woodcuts was corrected in 1536? A conclusive demonstration of the Harsy edition's debt to the 1539 Wechel edition, or one based on it, is found in the arrangement of the so-called "honey thief" emblems. (Daly 112 and 113). Because of the addition of new poems at this point in 1539, the order of the poems as found in the 1536 editions was changed; these changes also involved the breaking into two of a specific composite woodcut. Further, the last three lines of one of the poems involved were rewritten. The reason for these changes has been discussed by Michael Bath and Alison Adams; for present purposes the important point is that the texts in the Harsy edition follow precisely the arrangement of the 1539 edition. Harsy could not have made these changes on his own initiative, especially since he had no woodcuts to worry about, whereas the arrangement of poems around the woodcuts was one important reason for Wechel's changes. The Harsy Alciato is thus clearly indebted to the bibliographic and textual model of the 1539 Wechel. Other candidates as its base text, given the dating of 1540/1541 for the connected La Perriere edition are the Wechel editions of 1540 and 1542. Comparison of the texts is instructive, especially the presence and transmission of manifest textual errors. An obvious mis-spelling ( / / Promotheus , , for "Prometheus") in line 1 of Daly 103 found only in 1540 and Harsy must be important. In Daly 181, line 12, 1540 and Harsy alone have the nonsensical " a u " for "a":
5. See Alison Adams, "The Translator's Role in Sixteenth-Century Editions of Alciati," Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 52 (1990), 369-83.
6. Michael Bath, "Honey and Gall or: Cupid and the Bees. A Case of Iconographic Slippage," in Andrea Alciato and the Emblem Tradition: Studies in Honor of Virginia Woods Callahan, ed. Peter M. Daly (New York: AMS Press, 1989), pp. 59-94; Alison Adams, "Cupid and the Bees: a Translator's View," Emblematica 5, (1991), 171-76.
7. It should be noted that in the 1544 Latin-only Wechel edition (Glasgow University Library SMAdd367) the two elements of the woodcut split in 1539 are once again printed together, one above the other.
I M l i l I МЛ11СЛ
•А\()
Dira Ton pas (comme cost verite) Que l'espee a lieu aux livres quicte? In Daly 93 the last word of line 7 is missing in 1540 and Harsy only: Puis que chascun tu moquas, Es lieux ou faiz de fol loffice: Sont les piedz pinsantz sur maintz [cas], Ainsi vis tu en escrevisse. The words are just intelligible, but the scansion and rhyme are completly thrown out. These and other examples lead to the conclusion that Harsy was using Wechel's 1540 edition as his base text. Corrozet's
Hecatomgraphie
It has long been k n o w n that there are four Janot editions of the Hecatomgraphie, dating from 1540, 1541, and two dated 1543. 8 The existence of a considerable number of significant textual variants in the two Janot editions of 1543, as compared with those of 1540 and 1541 does not appear to have been recorded before. While the same pictures are used throughout, two emblems are completely rewrit ten, a third has a new verse commentary, while significant change takes place in at least 43 others. If the emblems are n u m b e r e d in Janot's order from 1 to 100, the emblems which are completely rewritten are no. 16 "Le maulvais esleve & le bon humilie," retitled "Recognoistre son imperfection," while no. 53 "Contre les magiciens" becomes "L'hystoire de Giges Lidien." The other changes sometimes involve the rewriting of several lines, and sometimes no more than slight rewordings. Over and above these changes, it should be noted that the punctuation of the fourth Janot edition was very carefully revised by somebody (not necessarily the author, of
8. I worked from Alison Saunders's facsimile of the Bibliotheque Nationale copy of the 1540 edition (Menston: Scolar Press, 1974), the Harvard copy of the 1541 edition, the Bodleian Library copy of the earlier 1543 edition (15431), and the Glasgow University Library copy of the second 1543 edition (1543., which I consider on typographical grounds to date from 1544).
STEPHEN RAWLES
211
course), as indeed it w a s in Janot's fourth edition of La Perriere's Theatre. The existence of the hitherto unsuspected textual changes makes it very easy to see that Harsy's edition is based on the earlier text of 1540 and 1541. In this case, and in contrast to the works by Alciato and La IVrriere, the direct indications of which precise text w a s u s e d by I iarsy are comparatively rare, though the circumstantial evidence is clear enough. Comparison of the texts of 1540 and 1541 with H a r s y ' s edition reveals that w h e n there is a variant of text, spelling, capitalisation or p u n c t u a t i o n between the Janot editions and H a r s y ' s , Harsy is far more likely to adopt the lesson of the 1540 text—in about 775 variants noted, H a r s y ' s reading is that of 1540 in 80% of the cases and that of 1541 in only 20%. This is only suggestive, not proof. Harsy is, of course, sometimes different from both 1540 a n d 1541, both as to order and especially where he has to take account of the lack of w o o d c u t s . Seven emblems do not appear in the Janot order. Six of these appear in Harsy's gathering F, and a s s u m i n g Janot's order to be correct, may be accounted for by a simple misimposition of the two formes of that sheet. The other emblem not to a p p e a r in the same order as Janot is number 100 (Janot's last). Janot places this emblem last partly because it alone has an abnormally long verse commentary running on to a second page, and were it placed anywhere else it w o u l d break the neat pattern of title, picture and short verse facing verse commentary. Harsy may have changed the places of emblems 72 (which has a short commentary) and 100 in order to accommodate his colophon on G4 r , but is nonetheless defeated by the length of emblem 100. As in two other emblems (44 and 59) he omits the short verse, which makes little or no sense w i t h o u t the picture, b u t still finds it necessary to condense three lines of the commentary into one. Even this results in a page longer than any other in the work.
1540: . . . Ie ne scaurois pour fortune p r o u u e r En ces hasardz, ieu plus decent trouuer,
9. Alison Adams is preparing an article on these variants in the text of Corrozet.
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I Mill I МЛПСЛ
Pource que mainct/. p«ir luy si» treuuent riche Les aultres n u d z & demourez en frisches. Harsy: . . . Pource tu void que mainctz sen treuuent riches Les aultres n u d z & demourez en frisches. This typographical and textual expedient suggests that Harsy is react ing to Janot's text, rather than influencing it. The evidence of the missing short verses is even stronger—these verses all have clauses inevitably drawing the reader into an examination of the the woodcut: emblem 44 "Voyez icy en ceste histoire . . . " [See here, in this picture . . . ], in 59 "Avant que mettre en ce vaisseau" [Before placing in this vessel . . . (i. e. a wine vase depicted in the woodcut)], and in emblem 100, just discussed: "Tout est icy represente" [Everything is here rep resented . . . ]. Harsy could not include them if his text was to be intelligible. In six other cases Harsy makes changes to the title of the emblem to account for the lack of a woodcut: "Image" in Janot is changed to "Description" in Harsy. Other similar expedients are used in a n u m b e r of other emblems, but the effect is always the same: Harsy reacts to the need to make sense of emblems which lack the essential element of a picture. His text cannot be the basis for Janot's, so he m u s t have copied Janot (or perhaps something derived from Janot). The weight of evidence suggests that he was copying Janot's 1540 edition. Apart from the crude statistical evidence already adduced, several manifest errors are transmitted from 1540 to Harsy, to be corrected in the other Janot editions: one example occurs in emblem 25, where the plural verb has a singular subject in 1540 and in Harsy—this error is corrected in 1541 and the two 1543 editions. Que m a r i n i e r ne deussent point aymer, (1540 and Harsy) > Que m a r i n i e r s ne deussent point aymer, (1541, 1543
)
10. "Description de temerite" (18), "La description de Nemesis" (37), "Description de Fortune" (40), "Paix" (1540)—"Description de Paix" (56), "Description d'occasion" (83), "Description de Caia Cecilia" (97).
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lurthor evidence comes in emblem 32, where line 24 of the verse commentary is missing in 1541, but Harsy uses the 1540 text, which is also re-established in the 1543 Janot editions. The same occurs with line 6 of the verse commentary to emblem 45. Conclusion The Harsy Hecatomgraphie, like his Theatre des bons engins and Alciato/Lefevre cannot date from earlier than the s u m m e r of 1540. Janot's Hecatomgraphie of that year has a privilege dated 25 May and a colophon dated 22 June. The other two base texts are not so precisely dated, but bibliographical analysis has s h o w n their dating to be similar to the Corrozet. Harsy's editions have no authority as texts, especially in Corrozet and La Perriere, where they impose changes to account for the lack of pictures. That does not, of course, mean that Harsy's editions lack interest as manifestations of emblem literature at an early stage in its development, especially in his introduction of titles to the emblems of the Theatre des bons engins in a partial attempt to compensate for the lack of illustration. Some implications about Harsy's motives emerge. Emblem books were popular, and comparatively expensive: Janot's privilege for the Theatre expands on the cost of producing them. That the reading public found them attractive is proved by the multiplicity of editions p r o d u c e d by Wechel and Janot. Harsy, using the Daedalus mark, published a n u m b e r of works also p r o d u c e d by Janot. There is plenty of evidence that Parisian books got to Lyons for sale and vice versa, but transport was also expensive. The commercial ind u c e m e n t to p r o d u c e books in Lyons for the Lyons m a r k e t was considerable, but there were also problems. In this case one m u s t h a v e been Janot's privileges; the privileges p a r a d e d on H a r s y ' s titles are not otherwise mentioned in his editions. We cannot k n o w whether the Daedalus mark was automatically linked with Harsy in
11. Both La Perriere and Corrozet announced illustrations in their introductions: Harsy eliminated the relevant 16-line verse section from his Corrozet edition, but retained the prose reference blindly in La Perriere.
12. E. g., for the woodcuts: "ledict suppliant a fraie et debourse plusieurs deniers a la taille des figures et pourtraictz d'icelles" (First Janot edition, Al v ).
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the b o o k - b u y e r ' s mind, but neitlier his real name, nor his place of work is revealed on these three editions, which may imply a degree of subterfuge. Prima facie, the three Harsy books could be considered as fairly crude piracies with which their printer sought to exploit the Lyons reader, at the cost of excluding the pictures which were vital to the three texts in question, not least in the way in which they make the Parisian editions particularly attractive. In La Perriere and Corrozet textual allowances were m a d e in some places, but in Alciato this did not h a p p e n , even if there are some emblems which do not w o r k well in Lefevre's translation without illustration. 1 Bibliographical analysis establishes the place of Denis de Harsy's three early unillustrated emblem books. The assertion that his La Perriere edition was the earliest has previously been disproved, and it has n o w been s h o w n that the Alciato and Corrozet editions also date from the early 1540's, probably 1540 or 1541. Further, Harsy's editions are not of any great textual interest except that they intro d u c e changes to allow for the lack of illustrations, and certainly have no authority in the establishment of a critical text. The changes Harsy makes to the texts to allow for their unillustrated state pre sumably indicate some respect for the critical faculties of his poten tial market—an awareness that, he was not meeting their expecta tions. The lyonnais of the early 1540's wanted to buy emblem books, b u t w o u l d not have appreciated anything more sloppy than what Harsy offered them. Harsy spotted a market, and filled a gap, just before Jacques Moderne, Jean de Tournes, R o u i l l e / B o n h o m m e and C o n s t a n t i n / S a b o n s t e p p e d in with superior p r o d u c t s . Mention Lyons in the context of emblem books in the 1540's, and one of the very few loosely emblematic manifestations which accompanied really great poetry springs to mind: Sceve's Delie. On a more m u n d a n e level, the Lyons printers were about to take over the main responsibility for emblem book production in France. Harsy was feeding the Lyons humanists with what they wanted, but at some-
13. An example is Daly 145, "Le Parlement du bon Prince/' in which the first line of Lefevre's version implies a reference to the picture: "Ces gens sans mains qui sont assis, / Sont ceulx dont Justice est pourueue: . . ." 14. Delie object de plus hanlte vertu (Lyon: chez Sulpice Sabon pour Antoine Constantin, 1544).
STEPHEN RAWLES
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Ihing of an intellectual price. The important period of emblem publishing in Lyons had yet to begin.
Further Reflections on an Emblematic Interpretation of Caravaggio's Early Works LINDA FREEMAN BAUER University of California, Irvine A direct c o n n e c t i o n b e t w e e n e m b l e m s a n d the p a i n t i n g s of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was proposed by Luigi Salerno as long ago as 1966. Rejecting the view first articulated in the seventeenth century by Bellori, but still voiced today, that these pictures merely depicted real people and fragments of life, he arg u e d that such works as the Boy Bitten by a Lizard or the Fortune Tellers represent the deliberate choice of specific subjects a n d are moralizing admonitions on the dangers of the World. Salerno's hypothesis is an attractive one. It offers a coherent interpretation of a n u m b e r of w o r k s which is less at odds with the artist's m a t u r e religious pictures, and it addresses the m o m e n t of Caravaggio's career before he h a d attracted patrons and commissions by associating him with a literary ambient of emblematic poets with w h o m w e otherwise know he had some contact. In a later reprise of his a r g u m e n t , Salerno summarized his position: 1. I should like to take this opportunity to acknowledge my great debt, early and ongoing, to Richard E. Spear, who first introduced me to Caravaggio and seventeenth-century Italian art. 2. "Poesia e simboli nel Caravaggio: I dipinti emblematici," Palatina, 10 (1966), 106-12. His argument is ably restated by Mia Cinotti, Michelangelo Merisi, detto il Caravaggio (Bergamo: Poligrafiche Bolis, 1983), p. 212.
217
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I MIU I МЛИСЛ
Caravaggio's apprenticeship with the Cavaliere d'Arpino served to introduce him into this cultivated [Ro man] society, for Arpino belonged to one of the many private associations in Rome, the Accademia degli Insensati [whose members, including Giovan Battista Ma rino, Gaspare Murtola, Maffeo Barberini, Giovanni Battista Lauri, and Aurelio Orsi] . . . were exponents of 'concettismo' . . . . These writers constantly praised the perfect imitation of reality in paintings, and in their madrigals they tried to present vivid images—both pic torial and real—with an implicit moral lesson summa rized by a motto, since they were convinced that metaphor would lend nobility to their discourses. Caravaggio was influenced by the group of men domi nated by Cesare Ripa and by Andrea Alciati—who would never have accepted a painting that simply por trayed everyday reality—and he sought to ennoble his models by incorporating a moral lesson in each picture (frequently in Northern and North Italian painting the motto was inscribed on the painting itself). In his early works, Caravaggio—like these poets—alluded to the disappointments of the sensory world, the disillusion ment of youth and to eternal poetic themes. In the welter of conflicting interpretations that have been directed at Caravaggio's early years, Salerno's ideas have become somewhat obscured. Recently, however, they have been developed in what might be called a metapoetic fashion by Elizabeth Cropper, who relates Caravaggio to Marino in order to expose their common concern with artistic creation. This paper takes another tack. It seeks to extend Salerno's suggestive ideas by placing them in the 3.
"The Roman World of Caravaggio: His Admirers and his Patrons," in the exh. cat. The Age of Caravaggio (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; Electa, 1985), p. 18.
4. "The Petrifying Art: Marino's Poetry and Caravaggio," The Metropolitan Mu seum journal 26 (1991), 193-226.
LINDA FREEMAN BAUER
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• onlcxl of the late sixteenth century's attempt to control the m e a n i n g l visual imagery and therefore to throw light on w h y a n d h o w ( a r a v a g g i o came to identify his paintings with e m b l e m s . T h u s it seeks to relate C a r a v a g g i o ' s paintings to e m b l e m s not so m u c h in terms of w h a t they m e a n as h o w they d o it. A l t h o u g h not unnoticed earlier, it was precisely d u r i n g the years following the onset of the Reformation that the instability of picto rial m e a n i n g h a d become a critical problem. Its controversial di m e n s i o n m a y be seen in Veronese's a p p e a r a n c e before the Holy С )ffico to defend a p a i n t i n g of a Last Supper, today in the Accademia in Venice (Fig. 1). The record of this hearing reveals that the problem w a s not in fact a breach of the p a i n t i n g ' s d e c o r u m , as is invariably a r g u e d , or at least that w a s only the tip of the iceberg. 7 Tor if reference to d e c o r u m might explain the reaction of the Holy
5. For the recognition of this problem already earlier in the Renaissance, see, for example, the apposite remarks of Kathleen Weil Garris, "On Pedestals: Michelangelo's David, Bandinelli's Hercules and Cacus and the Sculpture of the Piazza della Signoria," Romisches Jahrbuchfiir Kunstgeschichte, 20 (1983), p. 381: "The peregrinations of Donatello's Judith and David, reveal just how permeable sculpture is to vastly different meanings," so that it was necessary, and clearly recognized as such, to have pedestals and inscriptions "anchor" the content of the statues, and again, p. 391: "When the Judith was transformed from a Medici image to a public Florentine symbol, a new inscription 'EXEMPLUM SAL. PUB. CIVES. POS. 1495' was carved in the pedestal. When Donatello's David was brought into the cortile of the palace four marble civic coats-of-arms were attached to the old base. All . . . were added on to earlier works to transform their political significance."
6. Here, as always, I am indebted to George Bauer, who presented this material in a colloquium, "The Renaissance Viewer as an Interpreter of Images," The Institute for Advanced Studies and Princeton University, 1976.
7. For the publication of the records of this hearing, see Philipp Fehl, "Veronese and the Inquisition: A Study of the Subject Matter in the so-called 'Feast in the House of Levi'," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, ser. 6, 68 (1961), 324-54, and esp. pp. 349-52 for the text of the interrogation. For further instances and reflections on the Veronese, see Philipp Fehl and Marilyn Perry, "Painting and the Inqui sition at Venice: Three Forgotten Files," in Interpretazioni veneziane: Studi di storia dell' arte in onore di Michelangelo Muraro, ed. David Rosand (Venice: Arsenale editrice, 1984), pp. 371-75.
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Fig. 1. Paolo Veronese, Christ in the House of Levi, Venice, Gallerie deirAccademia (photo: Alinari/Art Resource).
Office to the painting, it is not adequate to explain the solutions that were proposed. This emerges clearly from the interrogation, which took place on July 18,1573. After questioning the artist about the significance and then the propriety of including "buffoons, drunken Germans, dwarfs, and similar vulgarities" in a picture of the Last Supper, Veronese was asked if he did not know that "in Germany and other places infected with heresy, they are wont to mock, revile, and deride that which is part of the Holy Catholic Church . . . in order to teach bad doctrine to the illiterate and the ignorant." The Holy Office was evidently concerned that the artist's various embellishments on the theme of the Last Supper could be interpreted innocently or inadvertently in a way detrimental to the religious content of the picture. In other words, Veronese's imaginative embroideries were potentially significant forms, and it was feared that nothing in
8.
"Veronese and the Inquisition/ 7 p. 351: "In(terro)g(atus) se li par conueniente, ch(e) alia cena ult(im)a del signore si conuenga depingere buffoni ini. briachi Thodeschi arma, nani et simili scur. rilita . . . . Non sapete uoi, ch(e) in Alemagna et altri lochi infetti di heresia sogliano con le pitture diuerse et piene di scurrilita, et si. mili inuentioni diligare, uittuperar, et far scherno d(e)lle cose della S(ant)a Chiesa Cath(oli)ca p(er) inse. gnar mala dottrina alle genti Idiote et ignoranti."
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I he painting itself prevented a viewer from interpreting them as amplifications of the meaning. Since interpretation always proceeds from initial assumptions, the first thought of the Office was to exclude the potentially dangermis assumptions by means of a visual sign. This suggestion must Ibivi1 preceded the hearing itself. At the very beginning of the process when asked if he knew why he had been summoned,
Fig. 2. Detail of Fig. 1 (photo: Anderson/Art Resource).
Veronese said he could well imagine. Asked to explain, he informs us that the Holy Office had already ordered the prior of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, for whose refectory the work was made, to have a Magdalene painted into the composition in place of the dog near the center of the picture (Fig. 2). To place the Magdalene so promi9.
Ibid., p. 349: "Sapete la cause p(er) che sete constituito./ R(espon)dit S(ignor) n o . / Ei dict(um) Podete imaginarla./ R(espon)dit Imaginar mi posso b e n / Ei dict(um) Dite quel ch(e) ui imaginate./ R(espon)dit Per quello, che mi fu detto
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nently in the central foreground of the painting would have sig nalled unmistakably that what was represented was not the Last Supper at all. Rather it would depict the Supper that took place in the House of Simon the Pharisee described in Luke 7: 36-50, when Christ had been bathed by the tears of the Magdalene, dried by her hair, and anointed by her unguent and where the presence of profane figures would not be out of place. Had the artist been willing to make this change, it is unlikely that he would have been summoned, but as he explained to the tribunal, he had many reasons for rejecting it. His explanation, although nowhere recorded, must have been persuasive, because the final solution, if precisely analogous to the first, was less intrusive to the picture. It was to add an inscription from Luke 5:29. "And Levi made him a great feast in his own house." This is followed in the text by the line "and there was a great company of publicans and others that sat down with them." By this simple expedient the painting was emblematized, its subject fixed, and the multivalency attaching to its ancillary images thereby ren dered harmless. What is important about this sequence of events is that it plays out concretely the theoretical justification for emblems laid down by Gabrielle Paleotti. 10 This is an overlooked aspect of the writings of the Tridentine reformer, Bishop of Bologna, and Cardinal Protector of the Roman Academy of St. Luke, who is often cited in connection with Caravaggio. Like other writers on the subject, Paleotti distin guished between the emblem and the impresa by assigning the for mer a universally applicable moral; but for Paleotti this in turn led to the identification of the emblem with an art of painting that was
dalli R(everen)di Padri, cioe il Prior de S(an) Zuane polo, del qual non so il nome, il qual mi disse, ch(e)l'era Stato qui, et che V(ostre) Sig(no)rie Ill(ustrissi)me gli haueua dato com(m)issio(n) che'l douesse far far la Maddalena in luogo de un Can, et mi ghe resposi, Se uolentiera haueria fatto quello et altro p(er) honor mio et del quadro;/ Ei dict(um) Ma che non sentiua ch(e) tal figura della Maddalena podesse Zazer ch(e) la stasse bene. Ei dict(um) p(er) molte ragioni, le quali diro sempre, che mi sia dato occasion ch(e) le possa dir."
10. Discorso intorno alle imagini [1582], in Trattati d'arte del cinquecento, ed. Paola Barocchi (Bari: G. Laterza, 1961), II, 462-72, for the chapters on emblems and devices.
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to be above all didactic. Thus the composition of emblems was to In» subject to the painting's rules and restrictions—decency and decorum, for example—and conversely every painting ideally was to have an inscription that would unambiguously determine its Interpretation. It is the practical value attached to emblematics in coping with the problem of pictorial ambiguity that enables us to extend Salerno's emblematic interpretation of Caravaggio's early work. Tor in addition to explaining how realistic motifs could be meaning ful, emblematics, as a mode of thought concerned with the forma tion and fixing of meaning, provide a model that demonstrates how the content of an image could be fixed, if not through an inscrip tion and explication, then through the similar interaction of a figure and the objects that gloss it. This possibility of collapsing the em blem into its pictorial imagery was, in fact, already theorized in the early seventeenth century by Ercole Tasso, who argued that an emblem is not what it is because of an inscription: for if it "contains a moral and has a universal application, it will be an emblem as much without an inscription as with one." 11. "Pitture dei simboli," for example, are to avoid "alcuni abusi assai noti, come il dipingere cose lascive, о monstruose, о di falsi dei, о di altro da noi di sopra notato, avertisca ancora, quandb vorra valersi degli essempii posti da altri, di fare buona scielta e di non attaccarsi subito a ciascuna istoria, о favola, о apologo, о altro che sia, perche sia stata scritta о stampata" (ibid., p. 465), whereas paintings "sopra tutto, per maggiore distinzione e chiarezza, lodaressimo assai alcuno breve e significante motto, che venisse a dar anima e vita alia imagine; poi che, essendo formata di cose forsi non molte note, viene a restare come corpo morto, se non ё vivificato da alcune parole о dal luogo dello autore approvato, come di sopra in altro proposito si ё discorso" (p. 461, but also pp. 368f., 387, 410f., and 421).
12. For the univalent character of the emblem, which specifies its content through the interaction of its several parts, see Peter M. Daly, European Literature in Light of the Emblem (Toronto, Buffalo and London: U. of Toronto Press, 1979), p. 72, and pp. ix-x, for its importance as a "structural principle." 13. Delia realta, & perfettione delle Imprese di Hercole Tasso Con I'Essamine di tutte le openioni infino a qui scritte sopra tal'Arte (Bergamo, 1612) p. 292; cited and translated by Mario Praz, Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery, 2d rev. ed. (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1975), p. 80.
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Fig. 3. Caravaggio, Penitent Magdalene, Rome, Galleria Doria Pamphili (photo: I. С. С D.—Rome—Serie E, nr. 4165).
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"*т. ••; Ж-
Fig. 4. Titian, Penitent Magdalene, Florence, Palazzo Pitti (photo: I. С. С. D.— Rome—Serie G, nr. 13588).
We can now turn to the Penitent Magdalene (Rome, Galleria DoriaPamphili, Fig. 3), one of Caravaggio's first religious pictures, which was connected by Salerno with an epigram written by Aurelio Orsi, brother of Caravaggio's friend Prosperino. The nature of the subject was such that it created a problem of just the sort that the
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Counter-Reformers were anxious to eliminate. As a former prostitute who repented, the Magdalene was typically conceived to be at once sexually desirable and piously penitent. But if, as many did, an artist attempted to convey both of these characteristics, the result was as likely to be the point of departure for lascivious thoughts as pious ones. In any number of Magdalenes her penitent rejection of the luxurious garments indicative of her worldly life, is an act that reveals the fleshly basis of her former state (Fig. 4). Thus, lifting her eyes hopefully to heaven or looking downward in regret, she can be either already nude or, if covered by drapery, on the point of exposure. These tendencies did not escape the notice and condemnation of contemporary critics. By emulating emblematics, however, Caravaggio was able to avoid this dilemma. Instead of trying to make the Magdalene's identity and her repentance immanent in her figure, Caravaggio has both unambiguously arise from the interaction of the various elements. As a motto interacts with its picture, the austere setting, low stool, and discarded jewelry interact with the beautiful and richly clad figure to create a chaste Magdalene, whose former life is nevertheless convincingly present.
14. "Poesia e simboli," pp. 108-09; Salerno did not suggest a direct relation between the two but underlined the simplicity and humility of the Magdalene that are common to the painting and the madrigal, which was published in Academicorum Insentatorum Carmina Ad ilhistriss. ac reverendiss. Carolnm Emanuele Piiim S.R.E. card, ampliss, Perugia, 1606. For the date of Caravaggio's acquaintance with Prosperino Orsi, see Cinotti, Caravaggio, p. 212.
15. See, for example, Gian Paolo Lomazzo's remarks on paintings of the Magdalene in the chapter of his Trattato dell'arte della pittura, scoltura, et archittetura [1584], entitled "Composizione dell' onesta ne' templi," in Gian Paolo Lomazzo. scritti sulle arti, ed. Roberto Paolo Ciardi (Florence: Narchi and Bertolli, 1974), II, 319-20 and p. 132, for his description of lascivia (one of the various types of mot), with which many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century depictions of the Magdalene conform precisely.
16. Following Denis Mahon ("Addenda to Caravaggio/' Burlington Magazine, 94 [1952], pp. 8-9) a pentimento apparent in the skirt of the Magdalene has sometimes been interpreted as evidence that the painting originally had no "subject," but was, as Mahon put it, a "direct study from a model" part of whose skirt was subsequently painted over "to make way for" the attributes. I should like to invert this reasoning and argue that the pentimento gives greater prominence and therefore intelligibility to these elements. See, too,
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Fig. 5. Caravaggio, Bacchus, Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi (photo: I. С. С D. Rome—Serie E, nr. 116176.
The essentially emblematic nature of Caravaggio's early paint ings can perhaps best be seen in one of his most controversial works, Salerno, "Poesia e simboli," p. 109, and also for Orsi's madrigal, from which the first two lines are worth repeating in this context: "Die mihi, compositis cur non iuvat ire capillis/ Amplius, et Tyrio spargere ordore caput? Cur non etiam solitis decoratur purpura gemmis,/ Nee micat in niveo pectore chrysolytus?" [Tell me, why does it not please [you] to go about any more with styled hair and head sprinkled with Tyrian perfume? / Why also is [your head] not adorned» crimson with the customary jewels? / And why does not topaz sparkle on your snowy breast?] For her translation of this and other madri gals, I am indebted to my colleague Margaret M. Miles.
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the Uffizi Bacchus (Fig. 5), which, I have argued elsewhere, is an allegory of t e m p e r a n c e , or rather an invitation to i n t e m p e r a n c e that reveals its c o r r u p t n a t u r e . 1 Here one can show that instead of being merely realistic m a n y of the elements are in fact conventional and w i t h i n this context realism itself becomes a convention of m e a n i n g . The a n d r o g y n o u s figure, for example, m u c h discussed in recent years, m u s t h a v e been perfectly familiar in type, if not in quality, to a c o n t e m p o r a r y viewer. To take only one of m a n y possible examples from C a r a v a g g i o ' s o w n N o r t h Italian b a c k g r o u n d , w h e n Titian un d e r t o o k to p a i n t a Bacchus for the city palace in Brescia in 1565, the clients s t i p u l a t e d that the god be "a beautiful youth, delicate and b e a r d l e s s , w i t h long, loose locks, two little h o r n s at the temples, a smiling m e r r y face, s o m e w h a t dissolute and licentious, effeminate a n d lascivious in all respects, p l u m p as a bon vivant, b u t not bloated as s o m e depict h i m . " The latter type of Bacchus, w h o s e a p p e a r ance reflects the ravages of his excess, is, of course, also well k n o w n .
17. "Moral Choice in Some Paintings by Caravaggio and His Followers/' Art Bulletin, 73 (1991), 391-98. For the painting and the history of its many inter pretations, see, in particular, Cinotti, Caravaggio, pp. 432-33. 18. This document is published by Harold E. Wethey, The Paintings of Titian: III The Mythological and Historical Paintings (London: Phaidon, 1975), p. 253: ". . . Sia Bacco un bel giovine delicato, & senza barba, con i crini longhi, & sparsi, con due cornette picciole alle tempie, con viso allegro, festevole, & ridente, alquanto licentioso & dissoluto, & in ogni suo atto effeminato & lascivo, grasso com' huomo di buontempo, ma non isconcio, come fanno alcuni/' Also telling is the description provided by Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, a friend of Caravaggio's teacher, Peterzano: "Doppo questa [proportions of ten heads] gl'antichi, considerando che la proporzione umana di nove teste ha il secondo loco nella bellezza, facevano certi suoi Dei, Apolline e Bacco di questa statura, della quale appresso di noi si possono dipingere santo Giorgio, santo Michele, santo Sebastiano e simili. Ma come che Apolline e Bacco ricchiedono le membra et i muscoli dolci e soavi, accompagnati da una gracilita leggiadra e delicatezza piacevole e molle, tuttavia Bacco debbe anco eccedere un poco piu, come quello che mena la vita nelle delicie e nelle morbidezze, in compagnia delle Muse, tutto il giorno; et Apolline dee essere rappresentato un poco piu fiero di muscoli per l'essercizio del saettare, e nel resto ambi hanno d'essere sempre giovani e belli" (Trattato dell'arte della pittura, scoltura, et archittetura [1584], in Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo. scritti sulle arti, II, 250). See, too, Lomazzo's description of Bacchus in his Idea del Tenipio della pittura [1590], ibid., I, 338-39.
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Nor is the figure's provocative pose with outstretched glass any пинт unusual than his type. As the god w h o introduced wine to mankind, he offers up his glass in every m e d i u m : in sculpture, as in Michelangelo's Bacchus (Florence, Museo del Bargello), in the m a n y prints by and around Hendrick Goltzius, and in such p a i n t i n g s as I hose by Annibale Carracci (Bologna, Palazzo Fava and N a p l e s , Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte), Caravaggio's c o n t e m p o r a r y in Koine. Even the triclinium u p o n which the figure reclines in the ancient manner was, as Mina Gregori has observed, e m p l o y e d for a painting by Lodovico Cigoli in 1596 just about the time of Caravag gio's. Seen in this way, what contextualizes these elements and w h a t , as we know from the reaction of the Holy Office to Veronese's painting, could be interpretive material, are the touches of a sordid realism— dirty finger nails, disreputable ticking on the mattress of the couch, and above all the prominent still-life of fruit. This last is often discussed as if it were typical of the artist, but it is in fact substan tially different. In earlier paintings by Caravaggio the fruit is more perfect, whereas in the demonstrably later still-lifes the realistic impulse results in the occasional spot or withered leaf. The Uffizi lUicchus by contrast places at the very front fruit either blemished or rotten, and w i t h o u t suggesting any direct connection b e t w e e n the two, it is easy to extract the same kind of moral—early ripe, early rotten—found in an emblem by Roemer Visscher that illustrates a
19. "Caravaggio dopo la mostra di Cleveland/' Paragone, no. 263 (1972), 46.
20. Salerno's analysis of Caravaggio's Boy bitten by a lizard, known in two versions (Florence, Collezione Longhi, and London, National Gallery), is similar ("Poesia e simboli," p. 108). Here he emphasized the emblematization of Caravaggio's composition (first connected by E. Battisti, Rinascimento e Barocco [Turin: Einaudi, I960], pp. 214 ff., with a madrigal on a similar theme by Giovan Battista Lauri, published in 1606 in the same volume as Orsi's) by comparing it with the overtly anecdotal interpretation in Sofonisba Anguissola's well-known drawing of a child bitten by a crayfish. 21. See, for example, the Still-life in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, and Supper at Emmaus, in the National Gallery, London. The blemishes in the fruit of the Uffizi Bacchus have been remarked by Mina Gregori in the exh. cat. The Age of Caravaggio, p. 244.
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similar still-life. Thus the fruit operates as a moral condensation of the image in the fashion of a motto, so that taken as a whole the painting at once exemplifies and comments on temptation. That early viewers were prepared to work through an image in this way can be seen from Ascanio Condivi's interpretation of Michelangelo's Bacchus where we are likewise led through the accessory elements to arrive at a moral truth. He writes: ". . . Messer Jacopo Galli, a Roman gentleman of rare intellect, had him make at his house a marble Bacchus 10 palms high, whose form and appearance correspond in every respect to what one finds in the ancient writers: the cheerful face, the squinting and lascivious eyes that are common to those overcome by their love of wine. In the right hand he holds a cup, in the manner of someone wishing to drink, and he fixes his eyes on it as one who takes pleasure in that liquor, of which he was inventor, and for this his head is wreathed in a garland of vine. On his left arm he has the skin of a tiger, an animal dedicated to him because it delights in the grape, and he showed the skin rather than the animal itself, as he wished to signify that he who allows himself to be drawn to sensuality and desire for that fruit and its liquor in the end loses his life for it." What Caravaggio did also appears amongst his followers, sometimes even more explicitly. In a painting by Gerrit van Honthorst (Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Fig. 6), for example, a well known image, recreated from Pliny by Jacopo Bassano, El Greco, and many of their followers, is given a precise moral inflection. The young boy of the original becomes in Honthorst's 22. Roemer Visscher, Sinnepoppen [1614], facs. ed. with notes by L. Brummel (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1949), no. XXVII.
23. Vita di Michelangiolo (1553; rpt. Florence: Rinascimento del Libro, 1938), pp. 39-40 [my translation]. 24. For the painting and a discussion of its subject, see the exh. cat. Die Sprache der Bilder (Braunschweig, 1978), p. 91, in which is also cited Jan Bialostocki's discussion of the Plinian motif ("Puer sufflans ignes/' Arte in Europa. Scritti di storia dell'arte in onore di £. Arslan (Milan, 1966), pp. 591-95). Honthorst, however, was not the first to allegorize the motif; see, for example, Harold E. Wethey, El Greco and his School (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), cat. nos. 124, 125, and 126.
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(Minting a voluptuous girl. She blows on the ember to light a candle, while inflaming the lusty man now added behind. None of the elements which elaborate or reconfigure the conventional image is
Fig. 6. Gerrit van Honthorst, Allegory of Lust, Braunschweig, Herzog Anton UlrichMuseum (photo: Museum, B. P. Keiser).
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an attribute or symbol as such. Rather, as in the Uffizi Bacchus, their interplay with the primary motif functions as an epigram or motto to create a peculiarly emblematic way of meaning-making, which is different from the meaning-making d e m a n d e d of paintings by those of Caravaggio's contemporaries w h o subscribed to the prevailing humanist theory on art. It is this last point, which concerns two fundamentally different ways of making meaning, that helps to explain not only the structure of Caravaggio's p a i n t i n g s b u t also the reaction they p r o v o k e d among humanist critics. The paintings were problematic for these critics not simply because of their overriding naturalism or questionable decorum, as is often suggested, b u t rather because their figures failed to adequately convey their story. Thus Bellori complains that Caravaggio's Magdalene might just as well have been, as he said, a young girl drying her hair. This is because for Bellori neither the figure's identity—as the Magdalene—nor its moral significance—as repentance—was immanent in its form, as w a s dem a n d e d by the humanist theory on art. Similarly, Scannelli, another of Caravaggio's critics, did not even find Caravaggio's Magdalene natural except in the superficial sense, since, he claims, the artist had not animated her with the appropriate act of penance; and therefore, being without spirit, grace, and proper expression, he concluded that she was dead in her every part. For Paleotti, on the other h a n d , an image is enlivened not, as Scannelli w o u l d have it, by its "moti," but by its verbal significance, so that it "remains a dead body unless enlivened by some w o r d s . "
25. The fundamental study remains Rensselaer W. Lee, Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting (New York: W. W. Norton, 1967). 26. Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni [1672], ed. Evelina Borea, with intro. by Giovanni Previtali (Turin: Einaudi, 1976), p. 215. 27. In comparison to the Magdalene in a Pieta by Correggio, he writes: 'Taltra del Carrauaggio non dimostra la naturalezza, che nella pura apparente superficie, perche non valendo in fatti per animarla, si ritruoua priua dello spirito, gratia, e debita espressione, che si puo dire per ogni parte morta" (Francesco Scannelli, J/ microcosmo delta pittura [1657; facs. rpt. Bologna: Nuova alfa editoriale, 1989], p. 277). 28. Cf. note 11: "sopra tutto, per maggiore distinzione e chiarezza, lodaressimo
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Thr lack of "moto e d'affetti/' underlying the h u m a n i s t criticism п (1607, p. 110). The substitution arguably makes this a better nnblem since it identifies the metaphorical, as opposed to the literal, point of the emblem which, as the Dutch and French epigrams make clear, is not about the medical condition of dropsy, but about the moral state of the miser: the subject of this emblem is avarice. The only change to the picture is the omission of the scroll which the physician in van Veen's engraving holds in his hand; but though he Ignored it for this picture, the scroll supplied the motto for one of
Fig. 6. Musselburgh, Pinkie Castle, Long Gallery painted ceiling (detail), Nescio an anticyram ratio illis destinet отпет.
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the other panels on Seton's ceiling. The inscription on the physi cian's scroll reads:
Fig. 7. Otto van Veen, Emblemata Horatiana (1607), p. 131, copperplate engraving, Avarus quaesitis frui поп audet.
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Danda est hellebori multo pars maxima avaris Nescio an Anticyram ratio illis destinet omnem. [By far the largest portion of hellebore is to be administered to the covetous: I don't know whether reason should not consign all Anticyra to their use.] The text comes from Horace, Sat. 2.3, and alludes to the town of Anticyra which was celebrated for its hellebore, a sovereign remedy
Fig. 8. Musselburgh, Pinkie Castle, Long Gallery painted ceiling (detail), Firma amicitia.
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against madness. Horace asks whether reason should not assign thr whole produce of Anticyra to the use of gluttons, since their madness exceeds all others. The Pinkie artist has transferred the Horatian text from the physician's scroll in the emblem of the dropsical man, to provide the motto for his emblem of Avarus, the greedy man: Nescio an Anticyram ratio illis destinet отпет (Fig. 6). Both are emblems of intemperance, and both copy van Veen's engravings. Here we see the miser who lives in his cellar surrounded by his unspent wealth eating only turnips or root-vegetables. Van Veen's motto, Avarus quaesitis frui поп audet means that the miser dares not enjoy his possessions
Fig. 9. Musselburgh, Pinkie Castle, Long Gallery painted ceiling (detail), Nil ego contulerim iucundo sarins amico.
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(Tig. 7). This change again shows us something of the methods of Intelligent assimilation and adaptation of sources which went into the composition of the ceiling. The emblem Firma amicitia shows us Zethus, who loved hunting, with his twin brother Amphion, who preferred music (Fig. 8). The emblem is based on Horace's reference to the two in Epist. 1.18, which recalls that Amphion abandoned his harp to humour his brother and retain his friendship. Van Veen's motto (p. 142) is from Sallust (Bellum Catalinae 20.4), Idem velle atque idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est [To like and dislike the same things, that indeed is firm friendship], and supplies the briefer title required on the ceiling. The Pinkie subscriptio, Bene ferre magnam disce fortunam [Learn how to bear great fortune well] is not in van Veen. Friendship is also the subject of the emblem Nil ego contulerim iucundo sanus amico | When I am in my senses, I hold nothing more valuable than a pleasant friend] (Fig. 9) whose motto, the same as in van Veen, p. 136, goes back to Horace, Sat. 1.5.44. The picture in this case owes little or nothing to the Horatian context (Horace is merely greeted by close friends whilst he is voyaging away from home) but takes its hint from the second citation in van Veen, which glosses, somewhat unexpectedly, a biblical text from Ecclesiasticus 29.13, urging us to sacrifice wealth for friendship—accordingly the picture shows a man leading his friend away from a table, on which are placed the symbols of worldly success and pleasure. A different source for three of the panels at Pinkie is the Emblemata by Denis Lebey de Batilly (Frankfurt, 1596). The latter is by no means a well known emblem book and that it was used at this date may suggest how closely Scotland was in touch with the continental emblem tradition. Lebey de Batilly's Emblemata was first published in an undated (71594) Leipzig edition consisting of 226 unillustrated neo-Latin poems dedicated to Philippe du Plessis Mornay. In 1596 sixty-three of these were reprinted in Frankfurt with new prose commentaries and copperplate illustrations designed by JeanJacques Boissard and executed by Theodore de Bry. Its format is more conventional than the first edition of van Veen's Emblemata Horatiana, with Latin motto, engraved picture and verse epigram on a single page, and a prose commentary following. In adapting this source to his requirements the Pinkie artist was working with a slightly different set of materials from the Horatian emblems, since there was no longer a list of supernumerary quotations upon which
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he could draw for his subscriptio (though, as we have seen, he occasionally ignored this resource even where, as in van Veen, it was
Fig. 10. Musselburgh, Pinkie Castle, Long Gallery painted ceiling (detail), Л teneris adsuesce labori.
available). Instead we shall find him adapting phrases from Lebey de Batilly's verse-epigrams and commentaries. 8. Lebey de Batilly and J.-J. Boissard also collaborated on a better-known book, the Icones virorum illnstrium (Frankfurt, 1597-99), which offered what became a standard source for biographies and portraits of celebrated men of learning,
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Л teneris adsuesce labori [Become accustomed to hard labour through lighter work] Pionyfij Lcbci-Batillij Emblemata, shows the athlete Milo, who carried a calf in his XXXVIII. youth so that when fullAD IACOBVM DVCATIVM, F. F. grown he could lift an ox (Fig. 10). The picture, one of four below the M I I O I N TENERIS ASSVESOBEMVrrVME^T central cupola in the gal lery, s h o w s b o t h m a n and boy w i t h a farm h o u s e in t h e back ground, and it copies de Bry's engraving closely (Fig. 11). Its subscriptio is the cartouche which reads: Natura necessaria docuit quae sunt pauca et parabilia stultitia superflua excogitavit quae sunt innumera et difficilia [Na ture h a s t a u g h t those things needful which are few and easily ob Gcftando vitulum long* afsuet и dine fecit tained; extravagant folly Vt taurum poffet poftmodtptferre Mtlo. has devised the super Difcepuer magnupaulattm afiuejcere iebm, fluous things which are Motltrt & ncrvos nonpatiare tuos. numberless and difficult Sed tolera & durojubfajce emtere contra, to attain]. This text is Porto te nullum detolitabti опт. L ADPE- not d r a w n from Lebey de Batilly's emblem and Fig. 11. Denis Lebey de Batilly, Emblemata (1596), no. 38, Adeo in teneris assuescire multum est. including such emblematists as Giovio, Alciato and Hadrianus Junius. Evi dence that Lebey de Batilly's emblems were known in England comes from Thomas Farnaby's Index Poeticus (London, 1646), which lists around a dozen emblematists as suitable texts for teaching rhetoric and poetical composition in schools; these include "Dionysius Lebeus Taubillius/' See also W. Harms, "Mundus imago Dei est. Zum Entsehumgsprozess zweier Emblembucher J. J.Boissards," Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift (1973), 223-44.
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must either have been composed by the artist, or drawn from his
Fig. 12. Musselburgh, Pinkie Castle, Long Gallery painted ceiling (detail), Nympharumque leves sum satyris me secernunt populo.
commonplace book. The other two panels in Seton's Long Gallery which use Lebey de Batilly's Emblemata are Nullum numen abest si sit prudentia which copies de Batilly's no. 32, A prudentia victoria, and Pax optima rerum, which copies no. 28, Pad studere praestat quam bello. Each has a secondary inscription or subscriptio. Saepe acri potior prudentia dextra [A skillful prudence is often better than impetuous bravery] is evi-
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iIrntly modelled on the first two lines of de Batilly's epigram to no. 12:
Saepe animis etiam in bello Prudentia, saepe Acri etiam dextra est, viribus & potior. [Often, indeed, in war Prudence is skillful and often better even than bold hearts and superior forces.]
'
. . : . •
•
•
:
;
Ш
•
' " • '
Fig. 13. Musselburgh, Pinkie Castle, Long Gallery painted ceiling (detail), Sit virtus Tiphys.
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EMBLEMATICA
Both mottoes for the second of these emblems, however, are drawn from de Batilly's prose commentary to no. 28, where both expressions, pax optima re rum and pax una triumphis innumeris potior are to be found (sig. H3 V ). This evidence that whoever was responsible for the programme of the Long Gallery at Pinkie did not unthinkingly copy his pattern book, but rather edited and adapted its materials, should encourage us, I suggest, to read the ceiling as an original text, for such imitation and adaptation of received commonplace materials is no different from the typical process by which any emblem book would have been composed. Such a ceiling demands to be read as a unique piece of rhetorical invention. The only other emblem at Pinkie for which I have yet discovered a source has the motto Quam bene conveniunt [How well they go together], which shows a lion in a landscape, with a snake entwined about its neck. The picture is based on a device found in both C a m e r a r i u s (Symbolorum et Emblematum ex Animalibus [Nuremberg: P a u l K a u f m a n n , 1595], e m b l e m n o . 6: " N i h i l D e c e n t i u s " ) a n d Ruscelli (Le Imprese Illustri [Venice: Francesco Rampazetto, 1566], p . 401) w h o explain that the lion signifies fortitude, the snake p r u d e n c e or w i s d o m , a n d their combination is an emblem of good govern ment. Neither picture has the background river-scene w e see on the Pinkie panel. I h a v e not discovered sources for the remaining six emblems at Pinkie. Of these one is based on a Horatian motto, which goes back to Odes, 1.1.32, t h o u g h it is not one of van Veen's Horatian emblems, Nympharumque leves cum satyris [chori] me secernunt populo [The nim ble chorus of n y m p h s together with satyrs separate me from people] (Fig. 12). The context is Horace's apology to Maecenas, in which he reflects that whilst other vocations p u r s u e the active life, the poet is crowned w i t h ivy and consorts with gods in a Bacchic retreat from h u m a n company. The picture shows Horace's n y m p h s and satyrs dancing r o u n d a classical temple, within which sits a male figure. The subscriptio is also from Horace (Od. 4.8.28) and alludes to the fame w h i c h the poet confers on those worthy of praise: Digniim laude virum musa vetat mori [The muse confers immortality on m e n worthy of praise]. The e m b l e m Sat patriae Priamoque datum [Enough has been done for country and for Priam (Virgil, Aen. 2.291)] is a familiar historical emblem of filial piety, showing Aeneas in plate-armour carrying his father Anchises away from the burning city of Troy, the child As-
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Ciinius clinging to his grandfather's coat-tails. The emblem Sit virtus Tiphys [Let Tiphys be virtue] shows the celebrated pilot of the Argo nauts, holding the rudder in one hand and a sword in the other, in л ship whose only other passenger is the naked Fortuna, who holds her sail out and supplies the place of a mast (Fig. 13). The subscriptio Is Cuique mores fortunam fingunt sui [Each man's conduct shapes his own fortune], which appears to explain the moral by identifying the skill of the pilot Tiphys with the fortunes of the ship of state; Fortuna's sail is controlled by his skill as a steersman. This emblem uses a motif also recorded at Francis Bacon's Great House at Gorehambury, described by John Aubrey as containing emblematic in scriptions and decorations: The Lord Chancellor made an addition of a noble Por tico, which fronts the Garden to the South; opposite to every arch of this Portico, and as big as the arch, are drawn by an excellent hand (but the mischief of it is, in water-colours) curious pictures, all Emblematicall, with Motto's under each. For example, one I remember is a ship tossed in a storm, the motto Alter erit Tiphys [There will come another Tiphys]. 9 Bacon's house, built by his father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, contained an important long gallery with maxims from Seneca and emblematic decorations. If we wanted to get some idea of the decoration of Bacon's gallery, which is no longer standing, we could do worse than visit Pinkie Castle. Two further emblems in circular frames at the base of the cupola include the familiar emblem of the rock in a stormy sea assaulted by the four winds, with the motto Stat cunctis immota minis [It stands
9. Aubrey's Brief Lives, ed. O. L. Dick (1949, rpt. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 1962), p. 123; all further references are to this later edition.
10. The gallery is the subject of Elizabeth McCutcheon's Sir Nicholas Bacon's Great House Sententiae, English Literary Renaissance Supplements, no. 3 (Amherst, Mass.: English Literary Renaissance, 1977). McCutcheon's monograph estab lishes the essential context for any further study of a gallery such as that at Pinkie, which it does not notice.
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unmoved, amidst all that threatens]. The subscriptio reads, Ad lac hi et aspera pariter nati sumns nisi pari utraque animo excipiamus inutile sumus [We were born equally to joy and hardship; we shall be useless if we do not accept both equally]. The emblem is too familiar to require a precise source; we find it as early as 1544 on the title-pa^c of Maurice Sceve's Delie (Lyon: Sulpice Sabon); in Whitney (1586, p. 96) who acknowledges his source in Hadrianus Junius; in Luc.i Contile's Ragionamento (1574, p. 137); and many years later it was to find its place in William Marshall's famous Eikon Basilike frontis
Fig. 14. Musselburgh, Pinkie Castle, Long Gallery painted ceiling (detail), Serviat aeternum qui parvo nesciat uti.
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|>ичч\ None of these has the Pinkie motto, however, which quotes Sl.itius, Thcbaid, 9.91, where, as here, it is describing a rock dashed by the waves. The other emblem at the base of the cupola shows a stag whose \\o\A collar bears the inscription Libertas, with the motto Serviat nctcrmtm qui parvo nesciat uti [He shall be a slave for ever, who knows not how to live on little] (Fig. 14). This is another Horatian motto, I mm Epistulae, 1.10.41. The subscriptio is In magna for tuna ut adinodum difficile sic admodum pulchrum est seipsum continere [At times of great good fortune, as it is difficult to hold oneself in check, so it is a very fine thing to do so]. It is not at all easy to see what the connection is between picture and mottoes in this instance. The collar with its inscription ought to identify this as a version of Caesar's deer, recorded in legends well known to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century readers, which reported that a famous emperor put a collar round the neck of a stag with an inscription prohibiting its recapture, and thus securing its freedom. These were essen tially legends of imperial renovatio, and they were traditionally cited as evidence for the longevity of stags, since the collared deer was usually recaptured hundreds of years later by an imperial successor. There is nothing in such legends, however, or in the wider iconog raphy of the stag, to support the prudential and provident morality of the two mottoes (though Ripa's Prudenza has a stag at her feet). The answer to this emblem depends wholly on the Horatian context for the inscriptio, in Epistle X, where Horace is praising the simplic ity of country life and the safety of moderate desires—"If you admire anything greatly, you will be unwilling to resign it—avoid great things." It is in this context that he cites an Aesopic fable of the horse and the stag: The stag could best the horse in fighting and used to drive him from their common pasture, until the loser in the long contest begged the help of man and took the bit. But after that, in overweening triumph, he parted from his foe, he did not dislodge the rider from his back
11. See my The Image of the Stag: Iconographic Themes in Western Art (Baden-Baden: Valentin Koerner, 1992), especially chapter 1: "The Legend of Caesar's Deer/'
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or the bit from his mouth. So he w h o through fear of poverty forfeits liberty, which is better than mines of wealth, will in his avarice carry a master, and be a slave for ever, not knowing h o w to live on little. (Translation: Loeb edition) This is not, then, Caesar's deer, but the stag from Aesopic fable which forfeits its freedom by exchanging the rich pasture for its native wilderness. The moral of this fable as we find it in Aesop ("Revenge is too dearly purchased at the price of liberty") might have suggested the motto on the stag's collar, though Horace at this point uses the very word: Sic qui pauperiem veritus potiore metallis Libertate caret, dominum vehet improbus atque Serviet aeternum, qui parvo nesciet uti. In the fable it is the horse, and not the stag, which is enslaved—the saddle and bridle remain the signs of its servitude. In the emblem it seems to have been the collar with its paradoxical inscription which appropriated this function. The legend of Caesar's deer recorded instances when the hunted deer was taken captive by a king but, when subsequently released, its freedom was protected and its recapture prohibited, and the various inscriptions placed on its collar (noli me tangere; "spare my life for Caesar's sake") recorded the prohibition. Whoever composed this emblem may have been familiar, however, with a number of received topoi which played on the homophony of the words servus and cervus to establish the stag as an emblem of servitude—the servile stag is an established topos (see Bath 1992, pp. 101, 283). Though the symbolism of the collar is appropriate enough to the fable's moral of confinement, the received iconography of the collared stag did not conventionally refer to the Aesopic fable, and there is nothing in the Pinkie picture that would have readily identified this stag, even for a knowing viewer, with the familiar Apologue. Recognition of the appropriateness of this motto to the emblematic
12. The best-known of these legends, in which the stag was captured by Charles VI of Fance, was recorded in Paradin, Devises heroiques (Lyons: de Tournes, 1557).
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Fig. 15. Musselburgh, Pinkie Castle, Long Gallery painted ceiling (detail), MH nANNYXION EYAE.
image thus depends entirely on the reader's familiarity with its uncited, but immediate, context in the poem by Horace which is its source. This ceiling presumes an educated reader, and its processes of iconographic association are complex and sophisticated. The painting that dominates the oriel window at the head of the gallery is a version of the emblem of the vigilant crane (Fig. 15). This familiar topos depends on a piece of bestiary lore which argued that cranes are birds which keep a watchful guard at night. According to the medieval bestiary description, the flock of cranes is protected whilst sleeping by a vigilant sentry-bird. The sentry keeps itself
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t-MBlLMAlICA
awake by holding a stone in its raised foot—should it become drowsy, the clatter of the falling stone wakes it up. This made thr crane a commonplace emblem of vigilance; it is in Horapollo and figures amongst the hieroglyphics which make up Durer's famous _ _ , r> A ,, — „ 1505 woodcut for the tri 4 J T ^ ^ umphal arch of emperor Maximilian, and in the rtJrf£srfttfXW;//t e m b l e m b o o k s of Al ciato, Reusner, Carrier arius and Rollen i *ч hagen. I have not dis covered a precise source for the Pinkie emblem as a whole, but there are two features which are sufficiently distinctive to suggest that it is al most certainly an origi nal r e w o r k i n g of two different sources. The first such feature is the attitude of the bird it self, w h i c h is s h o w n with its head tucked un der its wing, as though it Fig. 16. Jacobus Typotius, Symbola Divina et Hu were roosting. The use mana, Prague, 1600, plate 47 detail, impresa of of such an attitude to king Henry VII. signify sleep is unusual and surprising, since, by definition, the crane should not be shown as asleep, but rather as vigilantly awake. There is only one source known to me where the emblem of the vigilant crane is drawn in such an attitude, namely the Symbola Divina et Humana of Jacobus Typotius (Prague: Aegidius Sadeler, 1600), who illustrates the vigilant crane with its head tucked beneath its wing, and the motto: Non dormit qui custodit [He who 13. See Hans Martin von Erffa, "Grus vigilans: Bemerkungen zur Emblematik," Philobiblion (Hamburg), (1957), 286-308.
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guards d o e s not sleep] (Fig. 16). Typ o t i u s describes this as the impresa of King Henry VII of England. The shape of the bird on the Pinkie ceil ing is very similar to the Typotius print, close enough to suggest that the latter was its E X E R C I T V S (uram ^erens-fimno Uuu model. E classic.) It was 6Hiiynegleclo Animi nitore pukhri the ferule (or birch) Innatis, modojunt luti parent es. in Florentius SchoCOMMENTTARIVS. onhovius's em Rus Apollo infacrisfuis Sculpturis rcfcit ? i£»yptiblem, "Cura animi fi quindohomincm initio quidem informem natun " (1 poltchfornuraaccipicntcm,innucrevi;llcn'..b;-i.v. imprimis gerenda" U d > * •:*,". [Care of the soul is Fig. 4. Florentius Schoonhovius, Emblemata, Gouda, e s p e c i a l l y to be 1618, p. 213, emblem 72, "Cura animi imprimis ger- s u s t a i n e d ] (Fig. enda." 4). Aneau, w h o recognized the brutal connotations of "bear" and the short step from rigorous maternal care to a warrant for violence against children,
Cura animi imprimis gerenda,
О
1932).
41. Edward Eggleston, The Hoosier Schoolmaster (1871; New York: Hart, 1976), p. 23. 42. Emblemata (Gouda, 1618), p. 213.
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specifically rejected the "Dame . . . sans mercy" who by beating would turn a gentle nature into a "sauvage Ourse." In emblems and in pedagogical literature the theme of discipline interlaces family, school, state, and civil life. Louth Grammar School officials chose Proverbs 13, 24 "Qui parcit virge odit filium" [Who spares the rod hates his son] for the motto of their school seal (1532). The verse is illustrated by a schoolmaster concentrated on scourging a boy. At Merchant Taylors' School, Richard Mulcaster declared that "The rod may no more be spared in schooles than the sworde may in the Princes hand," adding for the benefit of parents, "my ladie birchly will be a gest at home, or else parents shall not have their willes." Governance was Mulcaster's principal concern in affirming rule by the rod in school and family, the birch equating with the prince's sword. In contrast, the birch wielded by the country schoolmaster in Schoonhovius's emblem is equated with the mother bear's tongue, not the steel of state (Fig. 4). Here the family sets the model for the school, and the emphasis is on general character formation, not simply citizenship. The mother-bear emblem, which places the burden of disciplining on parents and teachers, implies no intrinsic motive toward learning in the young. Rejecting this view of child psychology, Aneau looks to students rather than to parents or teachers in an emblem on "Contention des estudes." The pictura includes no adults, only two boys in an expansive landscape, intent on a palm tree, the one boy climbing and reaching for dates, the other supporting him. The importance of investing effort in learning is coupled with the sug-
43. Imagination, p. 43. Aneau refers to the mother-bear metaphor in his Decades (Lyons: Arnoullet, 1549), but not to express an education theme. See Saunders, French Emblem Book, p. 59. Otto Van Veen's mother bear licking her cub is accompanied by a Cupid, indicating love as the ruling motive, in Amoritm emblemata (Antwerp, 1608), pp. 56-57. Henkel and Schone, Handbuch, cols. 442-43. 44. From Positions (1581), cited in F. W. M. Draper, Four Centuries of Merchant Taylors' School 1561-1961 (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 22.
45. Schoonhovius, p. 213.
46. Aneau, Imagination, pp. 126-27.
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Dionyfij Lcbci-Baullij Emblemata.
g e s t i o n t h a t stud e n t s will a p p l y XLIV. themselves when A D £ E T . B A I L L E T T V M , ABBAthey perceive satistern Riuuanum, faction—"fruit"— i n h e r e n t in the a c h i e v e m e n t of k n o w l e d g e . Selfdiscipline in learning results, we understand, when k n o w l e d g e is its own reward. But it is the s t a t e of knowledge, not the difficult process of arriving at it, that the emblem recommends. jfeewfM tenet* pueri feut л[реглрл1пш% The student Хеш sitter/гыйш рл1тл touts jues. ffu sitmprmmm firm (реНлих'Лт offert climber of the palm AJfcfcctprticpsdrdutmenflrdt iter. in Denis Lebey de Udquibm iffuUbitfumn gm conimgeu Oilmen, Рстретл besrequKSЫш% decm^msчеп г. Batilly's emblem, Мз ADIA" C a r p t u r u s dulcem fructum radFig. 5. Dionysius Lebeus-Batillius [Denis Lebey de Ba icis amarae" [One tilly] Emblemata, Frankfurt, 1596, emblem 44, "Carptu about to pluck the rus dulcem fructum radicis amarae." sweet fruit of a bitter root], both agrees and disagrees with Aneau's. Lebey explains that the climber endures pain, cutting his tender hands on the bark, while he aims at achieving intellectual and moral virtue (Fig. 5). 4 7 To make the learning/climbing simile more explicit, and to emphasize learning, the pictura places a teacher and student interacting in the foreground (left) and relegates the tree climber and his companions to the middle-ground (right), suitably diminished in perspec-
47. (Denis Lebey de Batilly) Emblemata (Frankfurt: de Bry, 1596). Henkel and Schone, Handbuch, col. 198.
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tive. Like Aneau, Lebey suggests no p l e a s u r e in the process of learn C E N T V 1 U A ILing, but unlike Aneau, Lebey's main interest ap p e a r s to be the promise of extrin sic r e w a r d s of learning, namely, eternal rest, fame, and glory. EMftLEMA. ft. Asses not for Elnim tterrutcs como U cer*p schooling. Are all Que le fodcisfhrm*T svntftfu madof c h i l d r e n fit for TdomtnAtJu 4Mlunudfin€cr*y school, plastic for Qu*ndo{e trndcjoteatic en todor M л$р el C'/ligo.j U enfenSfs e I per л their would-be A U madnr^edsdydsTdasde/ csdj, educators, like Sten do VAr^podreis ettdertfdUr* bear-cubs? Combe, Si es лгЫ$саРгеи riejgo de цчеЬглИе. following La PerВЬ % EI riere, is optimistic, s u g g e s t i n g through motto and verse that educa t i o n can refine Fig. 6. Sebastian de Covarrubias Orozco, Emblemas Mo e v e n the h a r d e s t rales, 1610, Centuria II, Emblem 91/Tormas fingetur in wit, "For m a n is omnes." m a d e a g a i n e by reasons helpe" (XCVIII). Even more optimistic is Covarrubias's em blem "Formas fin-getur in omnes" [It can take any form], in which the pictura juxtaposes bee hives and a young child holding a wax tablet inscribed with the ABCs (Fig. 6). Like impressionable wax— like the wax tablet used by abcedarians—the young child accepts the character written upon him, providing education is timely. No pros-
48. Covarrubias, emblem 91. Henkel and Schone, Handbuch, col. 960.
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pect of innate traits troubles this reaff i r m a t i o n of t h e early-education theme; e d u c a t i o n makes all the difference. E r a s m u s , less sanguine, invokes the she-bear knowing t h a t h e r offs p r i n g will be at best another bear, lick as she might. "What s h o u l d be done with boys who can be driven to t h e i r s t u d i e s only by flogging?" he asks, answering question with question: "What would you do if an ox or donkey wanFig. 7. Jan Theodor de Bry, Emblemata Saecularia, Frank- d e r e d i n t o y o u r furt, 1596. "Invita nil proficies, discesue Minerva/' a classroom? Would version of Pieter Bruegel's popular print, "The Ass at y o u n o t d r i v e it School." back to the country, the one to the plow and the other to the treadmill? Well, there are boys, too, who are good only for the plough or the mill." Aneau agreed: "Art cannot change nature." "You who try to teach an unruly mind waste your pains and time. . . . One can never make a good horse of a dull ass."* 0
49. De Pueris, XXVI, 333 [LB I 508c]. 50. Aneau, Imagination, p. 74. More elevated phrasing is suggested by Aneau's Latin version of the text, Picta poesis (1552). The corresponding line, Robert J.
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I МШ.1 МЛПСЛ
The same conviction seemingly inspired JMeter Bruegel's popular print, "The Ass at School," which the De Bry brothers made into an emblem some forty years later (Fig. 7). [ The image compels atten tion: in the midst of young dolts, imbeciles, and a mob of other u n p r o m i s i n g scholars, including a big jackass—all collected in a barn-like setting—a schoolmaster prepares to whack a boy's bare bottom. The subscript on the original d r a w i n g (1556) and print (1557) asserts that schooling an ass will not transform it into a horse. The De Brys' motto alters the sentiment but not the basic message: "Invita nil proficies, discesue Minerva" [With Minerva unwilling, you will learn (or accomplish) nothing]. The verse confirms that toil and teaching will be unavailing without God's blessing; therefore, one should stick to one's own fiddle, which is to say, be content with your lot. It was a commonplace counsel: ". . . bee contente, with lot that God doth s e n d e , " Whitney advised in an emblem of the ass, ape, and mole, a l t h o u g h he also cites the mother bear in s u p p o r t of the idea, that diligent industry can to some degree overcome inherent limitations: "arte maie nature helpe." Multiple and varied expressions against setting hopes too high, against wishing for goods that nature or deity denies, are sprinkled t h r o u g h Erasmus's collection of adages. His texts express more d o u b t concerning over-aspiration by those of h u m b l e circumstance; yet he k n e w that not all children of the privileged classes m a d e apt s t u d e n t s : "If such is a person's nature, then I do not think he should со
be compelled against the will of Minerva . . . ." Aneau offered a counterpoint, observing that brutish, stupid parents often give birth Clements renders: "And never will a noble steed be made by art from a degenerate ass .. .," Picta Poesis (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1960), p. 51. See also Randle Cotgrave: "a laver la teste d'un asine on ne perd que le temps, & la lexive [One only wastes time and soap washing an ass's head], which he renders as: "In vaine one strives to make learned a sottish, or make honest a graceless, person." Л Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (London, 1611), "Asine."
51. Jan Theodor de Bry, Emblemata Saecularia (Frankfurt, 1596).
52. Whitney, Choice, p. 93.
53. De Pueris, XXVI, 316 [LB I 499c].
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to h a n d s o m e children possessed of good minds and natural gentility. Having thereby challenged the conventional a s s u m p t i o n of "like begets like," Aneau tilted back to the prejudice that family lineage tells in his emblem extolling the study of letters, particularly by well-born children of good blood ["bien nez: & de b o n sang descendent"].55 Advice on student types. Some emblems caution teachers against thinking that speed in learning is a reliable indicator of lasting achievement. "Soon ripe, soon rotten" is Whitney's compressed version of a Senecan theme relating to child development. Francis Meres later quoted the source more fully: "youth soone ripe soone rotten, b u t that which is harder and of lesse pregnancy at the beginning, afterwards commeth to maturity and fruitful r i p e n e s s . " Whitney's advisory emblem, dedicated to a schoolmaster, depicts a robed male figure in a landscape, presumably a p e d a g o g u e , and a child in a tree, whether one of the slow or the quick we cannot tell. An earlier treatment of the theme, by more than thirty years, with imagery more indicative of schooling had appeared in La Perriere's La Morosophie, emblem 76 (Fig. 2). Here, a schoolmaster occupying a m o n u m e n t a l chair of authority dominates the foreground of the pictura. Holding an open volume in his left h a n d and a formidable b u n c h of birches in his right, he looks d o w n on his g r o u p of five s t u d e n t s , his architectural chair aligned with civil architecture in the background; his birches, with the willow tree and olive tree in the m i d d l e and background. The left side of the pictura belongs to the p e d a g o g u e and civilization; the right, to students, to n a t u r e in general and, more specifically, to a willow and an olive tree symbolizing
54. Aneau, Imagination, "De Pere et Mere Villains, Enfans Gentilz," p. 84.
55. Ibid., pp. 126-27, "Contention des estudes."
56. Choice, p. 173. This emblem appears with the motto "To the Serious" in Emblems Divine, Moral, Natural and Historical... (London: Haley, 1673), a volume based on Whitney, prepared by "a person of Quality." The author of the verse advises "care's to be had, Not to reject a youth as a dull lad / Because he does not straightway comprehend . . ." (p. 15) [Wing E-704]. 57. Palladia Tamia (London, 1598) p. 65. Editions with different titles were published in 1634, 1636, and after.
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t w o p a t t e r n s of natural develop ment. The willow grows quickly but SPECVLVM SOCRATICVM. soon perishes; the olive grows slowly and endures. So it is w i t h s t u d e n t s : V»*E the precocious Бжу*! fc^ soon forget; those slower to learn re .s^$^rb tain. If e m b l e m a t i c predictions of soon-learned, If soon-forgotten had Si cautionary value for p e d a g o g u e s , \uditiumform*ff>ccuium bene confute forme Alciato's "AmygParimfar mensfit Ji bona relmaUfir. dalus" (Emblemata, 1550) might well .^fipfcfjb^aUrm ©m«t/£tfpfcf} caution parents of n>urDatid}@|?att* bright lads and, in d e e d , the b o y s themselves, for the a n o n y m o u s questionner asks rheto rically: "Almond Fig. p. Nicholas Reusner, Aureolorum Emblematum liber, v tree, why do you Strassburg, 1591, "Speculum Socraticum," sig. Eii . h u r r y so, to pro duce blossoms before leaves," and then declares "I hate boys that are that way forward and all too fast.",58 Valuing orderly development, deliberately paced, the speaker has nothing positive to say of precocity, spontaneity, or youthful enthusiasm.
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58. Quoted from Peter M. Daly, Emblem Theory (Nendeln, Liechtenstein: КТО Press, 1979), p. 75.
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Whereas Covarrubias's emblem on timely education is notably optimistic, a melancholy tone colors his "Immodicis brevis aetas" |l.ifi» is short for the immoderate], an emblem relevant to untempered parental pride in precocious offspring. 59 The child depicted wears adult apparel and holds a full-scale military lance. Strewn about the floor, disregarded, are other objects, the most indicative of them the wax tablet or horn book bearing the first letters of the alphabet. Such children, developing quickly, are apt to burn out before the normal span, like lamp wicks that consume oil too greedily. Fostering knowledge of most worth. For adolescent youth, Nicholas Keusner offers two emblems in which the identical image conflates the roles of teacher and counselor of conscience: "Seipsum nosse, sapientia summa" [Know thyself, the sum of wisdom] and "Speculum Socraticum" [Socrates's Mirror] (Fig. 8). The bearded sage and his student sit before a wall-mounted mirror which reflects their images, the boy inspecting while the sage looks at him and gestures meaningfully toward the glass. Two tomes, closed, stand on a low table at the far right where they cannot obscure the mirrored object of interest. Similarly, the sitters ignore the open book on the boy's lap. Temporarily at least, book learning is subordinated to selfknowledge. The pedagogy intended here aims to prompt reflective thinking rather than promote external grace in posture and gesture through practice in a looking-glass. While the boy's ankles twine awkwardly, betraying an otherwise unwanted tension in the legs, character development now fully absorbs attention. The mirror is a means of looking inward. Vergerius (ca. 1403) had called attention to a more complicated set of moral relations between the inner and the outer, depending on the sitter's physical attributes: "Socrates suggested that boys should be encouraged to regard themselves in a mirror, that the boy of dignified bearing may feel himself bound to act worthily of it, the boy of less attractive form braced to attain an inner harmony to compensate for his defect." Yet for Reusner, 59. Emblem 76. Henkel and Schone, Handbuch, col. 959.
60. Reusner, Aureolorum, "Seipsum/' sig. Aiii v , "Speculum," sig. Eii v . 61. Woodward, Vittorino, p. 98.
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as for Vergerius, mirroring, which associates image and idea through reflection, symbolizes an essential feature of education appropriate to the transition from childhood to responsible sell knowledge. Summary and Coda Emblems expressing advice on child rearing and pedagogy appear recurrently in emblem books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Through motto, icon, or epigram, such emblems convey ideas about child development, the psychology of learning and motivation, and aims and methods of instruction. Collectively, the emblems reflect long-standing confusions and disagreements, some of them passed down from antiquity. A few points of agreement are apparent: education should begin in early childhood because first learnings endure, and this is so because growth is a process in which plastic infancy hardens into inflexible adult attitudes. (Children are new jugs, soft wax, tender sprouts.) How much of the individual is predetermined by inherent nature, and how much by experience, is uncertain but parental indulgence of faults in childhood predicts untoward consequences in any case. (Don't be an ape.) Persistent parental attention to good form during the childhood years is the more hopeful course. (Be a bear.) Precocity in learning is not necessarily an advantage; such learning may not last. (Don't be an almond or willow tree.) Slower learning may result in longer retention; slow learners may outlive the precocious. (Be an olive tree.) Learning the finest things is a painful process. Few suggest that the finest things have sufficient intrinsic value to motivate effort or to satisfy investment. Aneau's assessment of intrinsic rewards appears exceptional, although intrinsic value is also suggested by the Socratic mirror of Holtzwart and Reusner. The predominant view among emblem authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it seems, was that learning must be stimulated either by threat of punishment (the whip) or by promise of present or future extrinsic rewards (sweet cakes, honors, fame). The intrinsic value of a liberal education has always been difficult to communicate. Coda: Iconographic limitations. The present survey may be more accurately regarded as a review of education iconography in emblems than as a comprehensive survey of education themes in emblems. Iconographic features alone may give no clue to education themes, which in some instances are made manifest only through
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I r x h u l content. Alciato's " A m y g d a l u s " is a prime example; an e d u г>
I. MHLLMAIICA
a p p e n d i x which lists the Latin mottoes accompanied by the French titles "supplied by Francois d'Amboise for the edition printed in Paris in 1622/' The list concludes with a curious note: "This last list [there is only one list] omits devices to which Paradin gave a French title in the first place, and also fourteen devices for which Francois d'Amboise did not provide a French title." In other w o r d s , it is an incomplete list. The reader is not told that the list reflects the order in which the mottoes occur in the facsimile edition. An alphabetical list w o u l d have been more useful. No explanation is given for the omission of P a r a d i n ' s original French mottoes, nor for the omission of P a r a d i n ' s Latin mottoes for which there are no d'Amboise trans lations. One can only surmise that the editorial principle was to p r o v i d e a seventeenth-century French translation for the Latin. The p u r p o s e s of scholarship would, however, have been better served through the provision of an alphabetical list of all Paradin's mottoes accompanied by an English translation, and perhaps by the d'Am boise equivalents for good measure. The quality of facsimile reproduction deserves some attention. This is a problem, given the editorial policy to provide "an edition as close to the original as possible." For example, the Whitney text is dirtier than that reproduced in the Blom 1967 facsimile of Henry Green's 1866 facsimile edition. The Wither is also inferior to the earlier Scolar Press edition, as is the Paradin. Could it be that the publishers chose to print from an archival copy of the earlier Scolar facsimile edition rather than re-photograph the original Glasgow copy, as w e are led to suppose they did? Technology has advanced rather than regressed in the intervening two decades, and I can think of no reason w h y the same publisher today cannot p r o d u c e as good a quality facsimile from the same original as he did nearly twenty years ago. The quality of paper is another consideration. The new series used a white paper for the first four volumes whereas the older series used a beige paper which lessens the contrast and makes for better reproduction and for easier reading. Happily, Scolar Press has returned to the beige coloured p a p e r for the two most recent v o l u m e s . Reprinting w h a t has already been reprinted is a questionable policy. Many libraries will not purchase w h a t they already possess w h e t h e r they hold the title in miocroform or reprint. Scholars will b u y w h a t they urgently need or cannot borrow from their local
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lihi-iirlrs; students cannot afford books not on the reading lists for llirir courses. The major purchasers will likely be libraries. Л more adventurous policy of printing less well known titles i nuId well be economically more successful than reprinting well known titles for the second or sixth time. Indeed, one wonders why tin* general editors did not complete the excellent programme origi nally set out by John Horden for the first series. Most of the titles, which were announced, but never published, have not been issued In the intervening years. Such a policy would at least have avoided duplication. What, then, is actually needed for emblem studies? It can be safely said that the English emblem books "most often referred to" had already been produced. The remaining books are indeed scarse, but which titles should come next? Each reader will likely have a different shopping list. I would suggest the following ten titles for English culture of the seventeenth century, which may exist in mi croform but in no twentieth-century facsimile:
(I., H. The Mirrour ofMaiestie. London: William Jones, 1618. Montenay, Georgette de. Monumenta Emblematum Christianorum Virtutem or A Booke ofArmes . . . One Hundred Godly Emblemata. Frankfurt am Main: Johann-Carl Unckel, 1619. Harvey, Christopher. Schola Cordis or the Heart of It Selfe. London: H. Blunden, 1647. Drexel, Jeremias. The Considerations of Drexelius upon Eternitie. Lon don: Nicholas Alsop, 1636. Farley, Robert. Kalendarium Humanae Vitae. London: William Hope, 1638. Farley, Robert. Lychnocausia sive moralia facum emblemata. London: Michael Sparke Jr., 1638. Emblems Divine, Moral, Natural and Historical. London: William Miller and Francis Haley, 1673. Burton, Richard. Delights for the Ingenious. London: Nathaniel Crouch, 1684. Arwaker, Edmund. Pia Desideria. London: Henry Bonwicke, 1686. Astry, Sir James. The Royal Politician. London: Matthew Gylliflower and Luke Meredith, 1700. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries should also be included. The following English titles deserve consideration:
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Richardson, George. Iconologia; or, Moral Emblems, by Caesar Ripa. London: Pierce Tempest, 1709. Gent, Thomas. Divine Entertainments. London: M. Hotham & T. Gent, 1724. Emblems for the Entertainment and Improvement of Youth. London: T. Green, 71730 [not 71750 as usually sugested]. Tolson, Francis. Hermathenae, or Moral Emblems, and Ethnick Tales. London?: n. p., 71740. Wynne, John Huddlestone. Choice Emblems. London: George Riley, 1772. Thomas, James and Thurston, John. Religious Emblems. London: R. Ackermann, 1809. Birch, Jonathan. Divine Emblems. London: Thomas Ward, 71837. Williams, Isaac. The Baptistery. Oxford: John Henry Parker, Rivington, 1842. Holmes, William and Barber, John Warner. Emblems & Allegories. New Haven, CT: John W. Barber, 1849. Richard Pigot. Moral Emblems. London: Longman, Green, Roberts, 1860. Dr&xel, Jeremias. The Heliotropium. London: Otley Saunders, 1863. Rogers, William Harry. Emblems of Christian Life. London: Griffith, Farran, 71871. Gatty, Margaret. A Book of Emblems. London: Bell, Daldy, 1872. It would be an easy matter to list a further twenty Continental collec tions of emblems and imprese that would enrich the series. By w a y of conclusion I w o u l d observe that in spite of the reser vations expressed here, the new series is to be welcomed, especially because the volumes contain substantial introductions. There is room for more scholarly reprinting of emblematic books given the r e n e w e d interest in this genre, but one hopes that Scolar Press will embrace a more adventurous policy in the future, provide greater consistency in the introductions, and also ensure the highest quality of facsimile reproduction. Anything less will be a disservice to emblem studies. Peter M. Daly McGill University
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ABRAHAM FRAUNCE, Symbolicae philosophiae liber quartus et ultimus, edited from the manuscript with notes and introduction by John Manning and an English translation by Estelle Haan. AMS Studies in the Emblem, 7 (New York: AMS Press Inc., 1991), xxxii + 208pp. Fraunce's published treatise on symbols of 1588 has always been well known. It has also been known that this was not his only work on the subject, and here at last we have an edition of a text which will help us to understand the complete situation and intentions of an important authority. It reproduces a manuscript dedicated to Sir Robert Sydney, brother of Sir Philip, owned by Viscount De LTsle, and now held in the Kent County Archive Office. The Latin text and English translation are accompanied by four appendices, of which the first presents substantive variants between the manuscript and the printed text, and the other three material found in the corresponding part of the printed text but not in the manuscript. This material consists of two short passages from before and after the chapter "Emblematis cum symbolo comparatio" and a longer passage, summarizing a number of items from Valeriano, from the chapter headed "Hieroglyphica." Seventy-five pages of notes, including many extensive parallel passages from Fraunce's sources, Giovio, Ruscelli, Farra, Contile, and Scipione Bargagli, attest to the meticulous care with which the manuscript has been edited. These are followed by a useful selection of illustrations of which seven are taken from another Fraunce manuscript, Bodleian MS.Rawl.D.345.12
11. Abrahami Fransi, insignium, armorum, emblematum, hieroglyphicorum, et symbolorum, quae ab Italis imprese nominantur, explicatio: quae symbolicae philosophiae postrema pars est. (London: Thomas Orwinus, 1588). Facsimile reprint by Garland Publishing, 1979. 12. There is an account of this MS, not included in Manning's bibliography, by K. Duncan-Jones, "Two Elizabethan Versions of Giovio's Treatise on Imprese," English Studies, 52 (1971), 118-23.
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The editor shows in his Introduction that Fraunce's aim was to p r o d u c e a treatise on imprcsc, privately addressed to his patron, to p r o v i d e him with "the philosophy of the courtier . . ." and describ ing "chivalric, moral and religious ideals." Further, he argues that it w a s not presented to its eventual dedicatee until 1590, and that, t h o u g h it may have begun with a desire to inform Sir Philip of what an impresa w a s , it became, after his death in 1586, a memorial to him a n d a condolence to the family. The account is convincing, and satisfactory, except perhaps in its treatment of the printed version. Of this the editor remarks (p. xv) that "the text of this manuscript corrects the printed and published version in many places, and the m a n u s c r i p t may therefore be taken to represent more accurately not only w h a t Fraunce wrote, but his final intentions for the work." In the next p a r a g r a p h (p. xvi), he continues: "The design of the manu script treatise, and the essentially private nature of its communica tion, has been obfuscated, perhaps deliberately, by substantial tex tual additions & deletions." Finally (p. xxi): "But the date of 1590 s u p p o s e s that the material was largely copied from the printed text, and, moreover, that it is the corrected state of the printed version." While this may be acceptable as far as the manuscript version is concerned, it seems to discount the autonomy of the printed version, a n d to ignore the fact that this consists of three books: Liber primus de insjgnibus, Liber secundus de armis, and Liber tertius de symbolis, emblematibus et hieroglyphicis. The manuscript corresponds only to book three (the "substantial additions and deletions" set out in a p p e n d i c e s II, III, and IV concern only this book). The editor is not u n a w a r e of this of course; he mentions "book three of Fraunce's Insignium . . ." at the beginning of Appendix I on p . 53, and refers to the first a n d second books in a note on p . 105. A reader of the Introduction, however, might be misled by the fact that these two books are not mentioned at all there, nor in the "Note on the Text" on p . xxxii. Yet their presence in the printed version and absence in the m a n u s c r i p t surely affect not only the question of w h a t Fraunce means by "fourth" book, but the discussion of the different nature and intention of the two versions. The w o r d "fourth" may, as the editor suggests, imply the exist ence of three other, lost, manuscript treatises or it may refer to the three books of the printed text. The latter hypothesis, however, has two difficulties which are not explored. The first is that the material of the m a n u s c r i p t corresponds to that of book three of 1588; it seems
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л little unlikely that Fraunce would regard it as constituting a n e w hook, to be n u m b e r e d "four." The second is that the w h o l e of the printed treatise is described in its title as "the last p a r t of symbolic philosophy" (see note 1), implying at least one earlier part. I h a v e speculated elsewhere that this may refer to Fraunce's Third Part of the Countess of Pembroke's Ivychurch, which, he explains in 1588, he does not wish to publish yet: I h a v e already written about mythology, about images of the gods, and the explanation of certain enigmas; this w o r k is to be kept back until it can be w o r k e d on m o r e carefully, because it is diverse and many-sided, and requires a regular volume [to itself]. 1 3 The first book of the printed version has a clearly political i m p o r t . "Insignia" are the symbols of power and office, secular and divine, which Fraunce is anxious not only to establish as of very ancient origin, distinct from the m o d e r n imprese and emblems, b u t i n d e e d as of divine origin. He suggests a symbol, that of the q u e e n bee, which he clearly takes to be s u p p o r t for the notion of divine right. The second book has a social purpose; here Fraunce provides infor mation on heraldry for the nobility in general. Heraldry is quite different from the science of insignia, and a comparatively recent invention, not to be confused with the R o m a n s ' images of their ancestors, though these performed a similar function of p r o v i n g nobility. The addition of mottos to coats of arms is a m o d e r n p r a c tice a n d represents an imitation of imprese. Coats of a r m s , unlike ecclesiastical or royal insignia, are not of divine or even ancient origin, nor is their use universal. These first two books have w h a t might be called a public intention, as o p p o s e d to the private inten tion of the manuscript treatise, and it seems likely that the other differences b e t w e e n the two versions of the treatise on imprese 13. "Mythologiam, deorum imagines, & aenigmatum quorundam explicationem iampridem descripsimus: quod opus quia varium est & multiplex, iustumque volumen desiderat, supprimendum est, donee perfectius elaboretur" (A2r~v). See "Samuel Daniel and Abraham Fraunce on the Device and the Emblem/ 7 The Art of the Emblem. Essays in Honor of Karl josef Holt gen, AMS Studies in the Emblem, 10 (New York: AMS Press, 1993), 143-60.
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should be explained in this way loo. I ' r a u i u e ' s printed treatise therefore has p u r p o s e s of its own, quite different from those of the m a n u s c r i p t dedicated to his patron; it is not merely an early version, replaced a n d corrected by the later one. Denis Drysdall The University ofWaikato
RESEARCH REPORTS, NOTES, QUERIES, AND NOTICES
Alciati's Emblema Once Again HESSEL MIEDEMA Kunsthistorisch Institmit In the Revue de VArt of September 1993, Pierre Laurens and Florence Vuilleumier wrote an extremely interesting article in which new light is thrown on the preceding stage of Andrea Alciati's Emblemata. In it, attention is focused on two manuscripts of Alciati's Antiquitates Mediolanenses, of which one is dated 1508, which brings it back to a time thirteen years before the Emblemata are mentioned for the first time and 23 years before Steyner's edition. In this collection of antique monuments with their inscriptions, young Alciati provided each entry with a commentary, of which there are two kinds: in one kind philological and historical remarks are made; in the other Alciati strives to decipher the funerary symbolism in the imagery. Especially, the hieroglyphic meaning of several attributes is interpreted with citations from Horapollo's Hieroglyphica, of which the first, Aldine edition had appeared in 1505. In itself, this interest in hieroglyphics was not limited to Alciati; it is also to be seen in Mazochi (fig. 11 in the Laurens/Vuilleumier article). The interesting point, though, is that several reliefs, read in this way, evidently have provided the subject matter for Alciati's emblems. This discovery is a lucky one, with which one can agree wholeheartedly. The only cause for my reaction lies in the authors' comment, in which it is implied that Alciati's interest in the visual
1. Pierre Laurens and Florence Vuilleumier, "De l'archeologie a l'embleme: la genese du Liber Alciati/' Revue de I'Art, 101, 3 (1993), 86-95.
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images of the m o n u m e n t s would throw a different li};ht on the meaning of his Emblemata. The authors point to a complexity in the notes of the Antiquitates, which consist of drawings, texts лт\ com mentaries, a n d they relate this complexity ("le fait merite d'etre souligne") to the complex form in which the Emblemata appeared in the learned editions from Mignault onward. Without explicitly say ing so, they h e r e w i t h make a suggestion implying that the complex composition of the later editions somehow w o u l d reflect a concept w h i c h Alciati w o u l d have developed w h e n making the notes in his Antiquitates and before he had even conceived his emblems in their early form. This seems to be an unprofitable line of thought, and I do not think it can throw any new light on Alciati's concept of emblema. In the end of the paper, my 1968 article is cited in this connection. I should like to point out that my expression "more nuance," which is quoted, referred to the historiography of a devel o p m e n t of the concept emblema after 1550; a d e v e l o p m e n t which has been described very satisfactorily by Russell. 2 For that matter, in dications of an interest in combinations of images and text in stages preceding Alciati's introduction of emblemata have been signaled before. The p r e h i s t o r y of e m b l e m a t i c s is e n r i c h e d s u b s t a n t i a l l y by Laurens's and Vuilleumier's article: it is by all means convincing that an interest in the hieroglyphic interpretation of antique reliefs led to Alciati's emblems. And it is, of course, true that his emblems were the earliest ones to be published—thanks to Steyner's pirated edition—although the idea seems to have come from Visconti and to h a v e b e e n developed early by Albuzi. Alciati's emblems, as can be maintained, were e p i g r a m s in which, sometimes by means of an elucidating title, a visual image is always
2. D. Russell, "The Term 'embleme' in Sixteenth-Century France/' Neophilologus, 69 (1975), 337-51. See for the use of the term emblema before Alciati, Denis L. Drysdall, "Prehistoire de l'embleme: commentaires et emplois du terme avant Alciat," Nouvelle Revue du XVIе Steele, 6 (1988), 29-44.
3.
E. g., С Reedijk, "Holbein's Erasmus met de pilaster (1523) en de emblematiek," in Driekwart eeuw historisch leven in Den Haag; historische opstellen uitgegeven ter gelegenheid van het 75-jarig bestaan van het Historisch Gezelschap te 's-Gravenhage (The Hague 1975), pp. 132-50.
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evoked without being described, but in such a way that scholars, g r o u n d e d in the humanities would be able to u n d e r s t a n d w h a t was meant; and in which additionally a hieroglyphic interpretation was )',iven. Лп illustration was unnecessary; the emblemata were not meant for an ignorant public. From my 1968 article, Laurens and Villeumier seem to have got the impression that I meant to imply that Alciati as a veritable humanist w o u l d have nothing to do with any pictures. Generally, I think that can be affirmed; but he was certainly interested in every thing antique, visual images included. This is corroborated by the Anliquitates material, in which the antique works have been docu mented a n d metaphorically interpreted. But this does not remove the fact that with the Emblemata he introduced an altogether different literary genre. The quintessence of that genre was that these epigrams did not need a picture to be understood. It is quite possible that Alciati w o u l d not have objected to a n y b o d y vulgarising them by adding pictures. He m u s t have been startled only w h e n Steyner's pictures, through ignorance, did not represent the antique images which were meant in the epigrams, and so spoiled their functioning. Small w o n d e r that he then w a n t e d that version corrected by replacing at least the w r o n g pictures by right ones. If that is a satisfactory nuance, I herewith gladly a d d it to m y theory.
From Print to Manuscript: the Use of Alciato as a Source in Stirling Maxwell Manuscript SMM5 ALISON ADAMS University of Glasgow
As well as printed emblem books, the Stirling Maxwell Collection in Glasgow University Library contains a n u m b e r of emblematic manuscripts. Stirling Maxwell Manuscript SMM5 is described in the Weston catalogue as: "Emblem book without title, containing 100 oval d r a w i n g s having many subjects in common with editions of Alciati. [France?]: 16th cent." 1 The manuscript volume is fairly small, t h o u g h not particularly so for an emblem book: each vellum leaf measures 146 by ca. 97 mm; the vertical oval frame within which each emblem is contained measures ±100 m m (usually very precise) by ±75 m m , and this is itself contained within a rectangular frame measuring ±110 by 85 m m . The one h u n d r e d drawings in b r o w n or black ink are all on the verso, and are all neatly executed. The d r a w i n g s are not accompanied by a verse text or subscript™, but mostly include scrolls within which the mottoes are presented. Mottoes in scrolls are read as if the scroll were opened out. The mottoes are mostly in Latin, using
1. A Short Title Catalogue of the Emblem Books and Related Works in the Stirling Maxwell Collection of Glasgow University Library (1499-1917), ed. David Weston (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1988). All the works cited in this article are available in the Stirling Maxwell Collection.
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R o m a n capitals, or in Greek, also capitals. The binding is nine teenth-century, as is the title page. T h e sixteenth-century dating and the identification of the manus c r i p t as French rely on two manuscript leaves b o u n d at the back of the book and foliated consecutively with the main text (fols. 101-02). T h r e e of these pages, headed "A l'utiHte et proffit du c o m m u n p e u p l e , " give weights and values of gold in different places (Paris, F l a n d e r s and Germany, Venice, Florence). The text is in French and can be a s s u m e d to be in a sixteenth-century h a n d , but there is no proof that it has always been in its present position. On the contrary, fol. 101 r is discoloured and a little w o r n in m u c h the same way as the recto of the first leaf, so that, despite the foliation, which admittedly is not m o d e r n , though difficult to date precisely, I do not think that this section of the manuscript provides conclusive evidence for the dating. A further problem, moreover, is that our manuscript is clearly s o m e kind of copy. The Latin and Greek are at times manifestly c o r r u p t . Two clear examples are the substitution of H A N D for H A U D and INDEX for IUDEX. The transcription of U as N is a c o m m o n scribal confusion w h e n lower case letters in a Gothic h a n d are used, so we can conclude that the source was in lower case. The m o t t o , incorporated as it is within the picture, is inserted by the artist. It could be that he was basing his work on an existing emblem book, w h i c h w o u l d greatly confuse any conclusion regarding dating, but, given that manuscript emblem books are sometimes conceived as personal gifts, it is more likely that he was merely copying from a p l a n of the work in note form. Whatever the original, the artist knew no Latin. Dating by emblematic allusions, and indeed postulating sources for emblematic works, is generally difficult, even d a n g e r o u s , since almost by definition we are dealing with commonplaces. Alongside the usual general moral statements, the theme which recurs most often in SMM5 is that of the superiority of the divine over the h u m a n and the p o w e r of God to bring new life in physical death. These ideas are, however, not expressed in overtly Christian terms but rather through the image of the life-giving sun or flame, contrasted with the ephemeral aspects of h u m a n life and even h u m a n love. This is certainly too much of a commonplace for any conclusions concerning sources, and hence dating, to be d r a w n . Shared motifs for individual emblems can be found in the emblematic writings of
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.mlhors as diverse as Alciato, Beze and Covarrubias, Paradin, Minroni and Van Veen, La Perriere, Corrozet, and Coustau, but the significance of these relationships is variable, and in most cases it is unlikely that direct influence is involved, at least at any systematic level. The one exception is Alciato: at least sixteen emblems can be definitively linked with him, and in a number of cases the source is clearly traceable to the woodcuts of the series of Rouille/Bonhomme editions which appeared from 1548 onwards. This terminus a quo is therefore the only definite evidence for dating the manuscript though stylistic features suggest a date rather nearer the end of the sixteenth century. A few immediate comments about the author's way of working can be made. The first six Alciato emblems (6-11) are grouped together and this corresponds to the tendency in the manuscript to juxtapose emblems with some link between them, although the link is often thematic. Within this group of six, three mottoes (8, 9, 10) can be scanned to form lines of verse (there are hints of this elsewhere). Thirteen of the base of sixteen show a visual link with traditional Alciato iconography, and some are very close indeed. Four or five can be traced specifically to the Rouille/Bonhomme editions from Lyons whose woodcuts I am therefore using as representative of the conservative iconographical tradition which manifests itself in virtually all Alciato editions. One emblem shows a remarkable similarity to a woodcut from the first edition of Alciato, by Steyner of Augsburg, though this precise source seems surprising. Eight emblems reveal a probable verbal link of one or two words, sometimes with Alciato's motto and sometimes with his epigram.
2. A further four emblems seem quite close to Alciato but can be discounted for analytical purposes, as they are such clear commonplaces.
3. I had hoped that costume would provide some clue as to dating, but only 3 figures are of any relevance whatsoever (6, 7 and 35) and one of these (7) is highly derivative. If any conclusion can be drawn from a mere three figures, they would suggest 1580-1600. My art historian colleague Claire Pace would similarly put the work between about 1580 and the early years of the seventeenth century, taking into account the presence of some Mannerist elongation.
372
EMBLEMATICA
More interesting th.in merely e s t a b l i s h i n g .i source is, obviously, to try to see how it is used. From these sixteen ЛI ciato emblems, it is pos sible to set up a kind о I c l a s s i f i c a t i o n of the ways in which the un known emblematisl h a n d l e d his sources, though these categories are not absolute: 1. Emblems similar to their source in overall sense and emphasis (3); 2. Emblems with a new, and very different, motto, providing a link between Alciato's narra tive/visual element and the moral theme (7); 3. Emblems reveal ing a tendency to greater generalization (5); 4. E m b l e m s g i v e n original treatment in the Fig. 1. "Aere quandoque salutem redimendam" manuscript (1).
from Andrea Alciato, Emblemata (Lyons: Bonhomme, 1550), L3 r (p. 165). The decorative frame has been excluded. Courtesy of Glasgow Univer sity Library. Reduced.
1. Emblems similar to their source in over all sense and emphasis: Since this group is the least interesting, it can be treated quite briefly. The seventh emblem in the manuscript corresponds to Daly 153, "Aere quandoque salutem redimendam," and the picture is manifestly based on the familiar (and constant) iconographic tradi tion of the beaver which, when pursued, bites off its own genitals. Here the artist has almost certainly borrowed from Rbuille /Bonhomme. The motto takes up the word "salutem": "Bonum opibus praeferre salutem" [That the good man prefers safety to wealth],
ALISON ADAMS
373
with approval made explicit by ref erence to the "good man" (Figs. 1 and 2). The ninth emblem too, "Monstra maris places citius quam pectus avarum" [You will sooner please sea monsters than a greedy heart], seems to be b a s e d on the R o u i l l e / B o n h o m m e Arion cut, D090, "In avaros, vel quibus melior I conditio ab extraneis offertur." Here Alciato perhaps draws the moral a little more clearly in his motto. The "monstra marum" are the equivalent of the beasts ("fera>ЫУГ« O P I B V S PR^fcF-EKRE SAJ/VTE-MTrum") in line 3 of Alciato, and HK. 2. "Bonum opibus praeferre sa- bringing them into the motto in the I litem/' emblem 7 from manuscript manuscript version perhaps points '.MM5. Courtesy of Glasgow Uriito the modifications characteristic vorsity Library. Reduced. of my second category. The motto is one of those which can be scanned, as a hexameter: "Monstra ma I rls pla I ces cltf I us quam I pectus a I varum." Emblem 83, though almost equally derivative, is more complex in that the motto is a direct quotation from the last line of D044 ("In simulachrum Spei"): "Speres nihil quod liceat" [Hope for nothing except what is permissible]. The iconography, on the other hand, is
Reference is made to the following editions of Alciato: Emblematum liber (Augsburg: Steyner, 1531); Emblematum libellus (Paris: Wechel, 1534); for the Rouille/Bonhomme woodcuts, Emblemata (Lyons: M. Bonhomme, 1550), which is the first of this series of editions to have woodcuts for all the emblems; for the Stockhamer commentary, Emblematum libri duo (Lyons: Jean de Tournes /Guillaume Gazeau, 1556); for the Mignault commentary, Omnia Andreae Alciati V. C. Emblemata (Antwerp: C. Plantin, 1577); for the French translation by Aneau, Emblemes (Lyons: M. Bonhomme, 1549) and by Mignault, Emblemata latino-gallica (Paris: J. Richer, 1584). For ease of reference, I number the em blems according to Peter M. Daly's Index Emblematicus. Andreas Alciatus. 1 The Latin Emblems and Lists (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985); in each case a "D" will precede the number.
EMBLEMATICA
374
related to (but much less closely than for 7 and 9) D046, the bricl "Illicitum non sperandum," the second line of which is a virtual reprise of the moral of D044 with the attention clearly focused on Spes and Nemesis alone, rather than the wider panoply of figures and motifs in D044. The anonymous artist gets it slightly wrong, but so does Wechel to whose version the manuscript is most clearly related: the goddesses in Alciato may be at the altars, but not on them; and the attributes change in comparison with all Alciato versions that I have looked at. Here Hope has an anchor, a traditional attribute, of course, but not in Alciato, while Nemesis, as well as the bridle, which is in Alciato as well, has what seems to be a mousetrap (Figs. 3 and 4).
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Fig. 3. "Illicitum non sperandum" from Andrea Alciato, Emblematum libellus (Paris: Wechel, 1534), F2V (p. 84). Courtesy of Glasgow University Library. Reduced.
Fig. 4. "Speres nil nisi quod liceat," emblem 83 from manuscript SMM5. Courtesy of Glasgow University Library. Reduced,
ALISON ADAMS
375
2. Emblems with a new motto, providing a link between Al< lato's narrative/visual element and the moral theme: The type of adaptation which we see operating here is related to the character of the motto or inscriptio in Alciato's emblem: indeed, it is valuable to distinguish between what I would call a true motto, in w h i c h some kind of moral aspect is introduced, and what is no more than a title, an indication of theme. Thus "In avaros," "In Astrologos" and "Superbia" are in effect titles, whereas "Aere q u a n d o q u e salutem praeferre" and "Illicitum non sperandum" are clearly mottoes. A case in point is Fig. 5. "In Senatum boni principis" from Andrea Al- emblem 8 which is ciato, Emblemata (Lyons: Bonhomme, 1550), K7r (p. related to Alciato's 157). The decorative frame has been excluded. Cour"In Senatum boni tesy of Glasgow University Library. Reduced. principis" (a title: D145: Figs. 5 and 6) in which judges are given the attribute of handlessness, and the "princeps" that of blindness, whereas here the attributes are combined in one figure with the motto relating it to the judge: "Sit iudex orbus manibus sit captus ocellis' [a hexameter: "Let a judge be deprived of hands, let him be without eyes"]. The use of "captus"
376
EMBLEMATICA
possibly contains a verbal allusion to 1. 2 of Alciato, "lumine capta." At first sight, this might appear to involve a considerable shift of meaning, from the prince to a single judge, but the Mignault commentary on Alciato is enlightening: the "princeps" is not the Prince, but the chief, or presiding judge. The new version spells out clearly the integrity demanded for justice to prevail; narrowing the focus to a single figure serves to sharpen this message. The motto for emblem 10 reads: "Sic aliis c u m u l a t t u r p i s a v a r u s opes." The Latin here is obviously corrupt, but once corrected it is a pen Fig. 6. "Sit iudex [ms. index] orbus tameter: "Sic all I is cumu I lat I turpis manibus sit captus ocellis," emblem a I avrus о I pes" [The nasty miser as 8 from manuscript SMM5. Courtesy of Glasgow University Library. Re sembles wealth for others]. The ac tual borrowing here is visual, though duced to 72%. from no particular printer/woodcut, from D086 "In avaros," the donkey, laden with good food, eating thistles. In Alciato, the parallel be tween the rich miser, Septitius, and the donkey is spelt out at length in the verse, but is not immediately apparent from the title and woodcut, whereas in the manuscript, though the donkey is not mentioned, the verb "cumulat" relates easily to the gathering up of treats on the donkey's back which the donkey/miser does not enjoy Manuscript emblem 37, "Datum haud cuivis super aethera [It is not given to all (and sundry, sc. to fly) in the sky] can be compared with D140 with its abstract title "Imparilitas." This time we have a
5.
Ms. index for index. Here and elsewhere, I am grateful to my colleague Betty Knott for help with emending the manuscript text.
6.
The manuscript reads hand for haud. Cf. Alciato 1. 3: "Sit summum scandit super aethera Pindarus ingens . . .".
ALISON ADAMS
377
precise verbal echo of "super aethera" (in 1. 3 of Alciato's poem) and the pictura also shows a general link with the tradi tional iconography. The motto IK ASTKOLOGOS. spells out the kind of inequality Alciato is addressing, while (as also with examples in my third category) generalizing it ("cuivis"). This is in contrast to Alciato who makes his point by alluding to the poets Pindar and Bacchyllides. In emblem 40, a similar pat tern can be seen: for the title "In Astrologos" (D104) is substi tore perfaxros ifpciU eft, nifidoflo homha,tot tender* chorda*: an able ruler forges y*a&lififi*ritnon bene tent* fides, treaties to build an .Jiuptd uefquodfacile eft)pcritomnisgrdtid conch*, jlleq; prdcellens atntu*, ineptш eric. alliance. Just one SicJtau соёипг proceres in fotdcra: concors, single broken JVilefl quod thnc "
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Whitney's Emblem 225, Superest quod supra est [What is above lives on], clearly complements his Emblem 223 on wrongful subor dination of God to Mammon in the journey of life. This pilgrim abandons the world to proceed to heaven (Fig. 9). Tung has ob served that the pictura of Emblem 225 conflates de Montenay's Emblems 12, 56, and 63: the first provides the pilgrim, the second, the globe, and the third, the celestially inscribed "Yahweh." 54 How-
KENNETH BORRIS AND M. MORGAN HOLMES
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ever, in de Montenay's E m b l e m 89, D e a t h leads a man away from I M RLE'ME the world (represented by a sphere) towards a p a t h e n d i n g at the word "Yahweh." Since Whitney's Em blem 225 likewise de picts a pilgrim step p i n g a w a y from the w o r l d (also r e p r e sented by a sphere) to w a r d s a p a t h sur mounted by the word "Yahweh," the pro spective pilgrimage to h e a v e n in d e Mon tenay's 89 was prob ably its main inspira tion. Emblem 225 further relates to the pilgrim Qui fait celaffon orgucil & folic, age represented in de M o n t e n a y ' s Emblem /~ • ,,. . ' , • ' - , ' '•;,' • ' f>!< 94, which declares "la voye est droite est tres p o l i e : / Le i u s t e у /X w>: fatn I'owf* passe, & le meschant trebusche" (Fig. 10). 55 In Whitney's epigram, Fig. 10. Facile Difficile. From de Montenay, Emblemes "that pathe, that ou devises chrestiennes, Lyons, 1571, p. 94. By permis l e a d e s w h e r e ioyes sion of the Librarian, Glasgow University Library. .
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122
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shall last" similarly accommodates those who are citizens of the heavenly country and strangers on earth. A further correspondence between de Montenay's Emblem 94 and Whitney's 225 is their ex actly equivalent placement, sixth from the end, in both texts. This correlation of thematically comparable emblems seems a compli mentary allusion to de Montenay's own use of the pilgrimage theme as an underlying structural motif, because Whitney thus reproduces part of the structure of her emblem collection. Clearly redirecting the journey of life away from the world to wards heaven, Emblem 225 has focal importance for Whitney's general usage of the motif, for it most fully exploits the Pauline diction and imagery of the earthly stranger or pilgrim who follows a course or races to the glorious reward of a heavenly country. As in de Montenay's collection, faith in ultimate entry into the celestial city defines Whitney's vision of the pilgrimage of life. Here, Chris tian promise clarifies the mythological admonition of Emblem 2, presenting Mercury at the crossroads: the traveller comes to follow Yahweh himself, as in de Montenay's Emblems 89 and 94. As both Whitney's and de Montenay's books near their own respective ends, they show pilgrims leaving the world, not travelling through it, so that the conclusions of both texts function, in effect, as tropes for an appropriate approach to the end of life itself, by seeking not only to register their own and human ends, but faithfully look beyond them. Further amplifying these themes, Whitney meditates on time and the end of life in Emblem 227 (Fig. 11). The motto, Sic aetas fugit [Thus does life flee], elaborates on the pictura which portrays pursuit of a riderless horse, which signifies "our time; while heere, our race wee ronne." The two pursuers represent night and day "Who after hast, vntill the goale bee wonne." Like Psalm 89, a marginal refer ence, this emblem treats the pressures of time, decay, and death throughout life, "from our birthe, / Vntill wee yeelde, and turne againe to earthe"; but looks forward to the reunion with God im plied by Whitney's diction, for "course," "race," "ronne," "goale," and "wonne" evoke the overall discourse of pilgrimage. Compari-
56. Compare, e. g., 1 Cor. 9:24: "Knowe ye not, that they which runne in a race, runne all, yet one receiueth the price?" (i. е., prize); and 2 Tim. 4:7: "I haue foght a good fight, and haue finished my course: I haue kept the faith."
KENNETH BORRIS AND M. MORGAN HOLMES
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EMBLEMATICA
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