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Bummer, 1996
Vol. 10 No. 1
EMBLEMATICA Virftitf ргШ4 comes
An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies AMS PRESS
EMBLEMATICA An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies Volume 10, Number 1
Summer, 1996
Editors Peter M. Daly
Daniel S. Russell
John M a n n i n g
AMS Press, Inc. New York
EMBLEMATICA ISSN 0885-968X Manuscripts and books for review may be sent to either editor; however, no obligation is recognized to review or return any book received. Articles and essays should conform to the guidelines published in the MLA Handbook for Writers (1977 edition); authors should submit their work in duplicate and will be expected to provide high-quality glossy prints of any illustrations to be published with their work. Submissions should be accompanied by return postage. Subscriptions and remittances should be sent to the publisher, AMS Press, Inc., 56 East 1 3 * Street, New York, NY 10003-4686, U.S.A.
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EMBLEMATICA An Interdisciplinary journal for Emblem Studies is published twice a year, in the s u m m e r and winter. Wmblematica publishes original articles, essays, and specialized bibli ographies 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 and publications), and various types of documentation.
Editors Peter M. Daly McGill University Department of German Studies (i80 Sherbrooke Street W. Montreal, PQ Canada НЗА 2М7
Daniel S. Russell Department of French and Italian University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA 15260 U.S.A.
John Manning Review Editor Department of English University of Wales, Lampeter Lampeter, Dyfed SA48 7ED Wales, U.K.
Advisory
Board Karel Porteman Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven Thomas P. Roche, Jr. Princeton University John M. Steadman University of California, Riverside
Barbara C. Bowen Vanderbilt University August Buck Marburg and Wolfenbuttel Wolfgang H a r m s Munich John Rupert Martin Princeton University
J. B. Trapp The Warburg Institute, London
Editorial Board Claudie Balavoine CNRS, Paris Virginia W. Callahan Howard University, emerita Pedro F. C a m p a University of Tennessee, Chattanooga Karl Josef Holtgen Erlangen-N timber g
Bernhard F. Scholz Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Agnes Sherman Princeton University Alan Young Acadia University Egon Verheyen George Mason University
EMBLEMATCA An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies
Volume 10, Number 1
Summer, 1996 Articles
Piotr Rypson Visual? Emblematic? Poetry?
1
David Graham Heroes, Maidens, Monsters: Dynamics of Male-Female Relationships in Sixteenth-Century French Emblem Books
15
Sabine Modersheim Christo et Rei publicae. Martin Marstaller's Emblematum Liber Philippi II (Stettin, 1609): An Unknown Calligraphic Emblem Book Manuscript and its Context
41
Jane Farnsworth "The springing hopes of Armes and Arts 7 ': Imprese in The King and Queenes Enter tainement at Richmond
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Anne-Elisabeth Spica The Prince's Mirror: Politics and Symbolism in Diego de Saavedra Fajardo's Idea de un Principe politico cristiano Karl Josef Holtgen Religious Emblems (1809) by John Thurston and Joseph Thomas and its Links with Francis Quarles and William Blake
85
107
Review and Criticism Reviews Fernando R. de la Flor, Teatro de la memoria. Siete ensayos sobre mnemotecnia espanola de los siglos XVII у XVIII and Emblemas. Lecturas de la imagen symbolica, by Antonio Bernat Vistarini
147
Peggy Munnoz Simonds, Iconographic Research in English Renaissance Literature: A Critical Guide, by Jerome S. Dees
151
Sabine Modersheim, 'Domini Doctrina Coronat': Die geistliche Emblematik Daniel Cramers (1568-1637) and Daniel Cramer, Emblemata Sacra, by Karl Josef Holtgen
158
Victor Minguez Cornelles, Los reyes distantes. Imdgenes del poder en el Mexico virreinal, by John T. Cull
162
Victor Minguez, Emblemdtica у cultura simbolica en la Valencia barroca, by John T. Cull
167
CONTENTS
Notes, Queries and Notices Notes Mason Tung A Note on the Additional Possible Borrowings from Paradin by Bossewell inThe WorkesofArmorie (1572)
175
Ian Maclnnes Leaena and Amore t
183
Laurence F. R. Grove A Note on Use and Re-Use of Jesuit Devices in the Seventeenth Century
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Michael Bath and Malcolm Jones Emblems from Thomas Combe in Wall Paintings at Bury St. Edmunds
195
Michael Bath and Malcolm Jones Emblems and Trencher Decorations: Further Examples
205
Visual? Emblematic? Poetry? PIOTR RYPSON Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw
In the past most of the research in the field of visual (or pattern) poetry concentrated on establishing a basic characteristic of the visual poem and a corpus of visual poetry in European and non-European literatures. Thus the historical and aesthetic issues have been examined, as well as questions of genre and symbolism, rather than the role and place of the visual poem within a broader context of the literature and culture of its time. 1 There are various problems involved in defining visual poetry: even the terminology is not consistent—one speaks of figured, pattern, and visual poetry. (The third term seems to me the one that encompasses various types or sub-genres while at the same time is free of the specific meanings "pattern" or "figure" might suggest.) Ulrich Ernst defines a visual poem as one which "is in the broadest sense a lyrical text (until modern times generally also a versified text) constructed in such a way that the words—sometimes with the help of purely pictorial means—form a graphic figure which in relation to the verbal utterance has both a mimetic and symbolic function" (1986,9). According to the same author "the emblem—with its generally triadic structure of motto, pictura and subscriptio—differs from the figured poem in the paratactic relation it establishes between image and text where the carmen figuratum creates a structural synthesis," although he does not deny that there is a similarity between pictura and subscriptio in emblems, and text and figure in visual poems (1986,11). 1. On the influences of ancient and medieval visual poems, as well as emblems, on George Herbert's visual poetry, cf. Westerweel. 1
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It has been said a number of times that visual or pattern poetry "may be regarded as the pinnacle of ut pictura poesis poetry" (Daly, 123). Peter M. Daly writes in his Literature in the Light of the Emblem (125): "In a century which used emblematic syntheses seriously in all arts, it is only natural that the pattern poem should take on an emblematic function, the visual outline replacing an actual illustration of the object under consideration. What could be more natural than to transform the emblematic poem with its serious conceptual foundation into a pattern poem by condensing the pictura of an emblem into the shape of the verbal work? In such a synthesis the outline visually introduces the object of thought or meditation and constantly reinforces the meanings by appealing to the sense of sight and fixing attention on the concrete basis of thought. Such poetry appeals simultaneously to the senses and the intellect, as does the emblem." While these r e m a r k s are true for most s e v e n t e e n t h - a n d eighteenth-century visual poetry in a general sense, the literary practice of the time presents a more complicated picture. It seems that the authors of the time, regardless of their nationality and language, had been writing their visual poems (occasional, religious, etc.), on the one hand, with a consciousness of the emblematic character of that type of literature and of the symbolic forms they had been employing—and, on the other, with that of the particularity of the visual poetry genre. This split identity, so to speak, is rooted in the fact that only at the end of the sixteenth century did visual poetry begin to be perceived as a genre encompassing various types (or sub-genres). Numerous editions of the Greek technopaegnia in the sixteenth century (from the first editions of Theocritus's Idyllia by Aldus Manutius in 1495 and Zacharias Calliergis in 1516) have formed the modern tradition of what Ernst has termed "the outline poem" (1986,13). Greek figured poems were closely imitated throughout Europe in the sixteenth century (in France, Italy, England, Germany and Poland), and they appear for the first time in a treatise on poetry in Julius Caesar Scaliger's Poetices Libri Septem of 1561. From that time on they begin to seep slowly into literary education in Europe. Etienne Tabourot, who collected literary oddities encompassing various types (or subgenres) of the visual poem in his Les Bigarrures (1608 and other edi2. On the reception of ancient and medieval visual poems in sixteenth and seventeenth century in Europe, see Rypson 1992.
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lions), recalls his school days in Paris in 1564 when he had composed ,i poetic glass, a wheel, and other visual poems. And yet neither Scnliger, who seems to have known technopaegnia by Simias and others only from hearsay, nor other scholars perceived the visual esthetics of the Greek poems as having anything in common with the medieval tradition of the visual poem—the "grid-poem" (the carmen ciuicellatum) and the "imago-poem"—that went back to the inventions of Publilius Optatianus Porphyrius and Hrabanus Maurus. The latter sub-genres have always been present within the realm of truly Christian poetry; their orthodoxy—in sharp contrast with the "pagan" Greek poems—was certified by biblical abecedarian Psalms and the sybilline acrostic, as well as by the religious and state symbolism attributed to his panegyric by Optatian, who had dedicated his visual "grid-poems" to Constantine the Great; in fact, they were considered to be a type of acrostic in the sixteenth century. The only author who seems to make this association is Joachim Camerarius who wrote a letter to Eobanus Hessus in 1530 condemning Theocritus's syrinx and other "cross-makers" (377-78; cf. Rypson 1992,604). The same is true for other types of visual poems defined by Ernst and others: the "spatial line-poem" and the "cubus." In fact, each of the five main sub-genres of visual poetry has its own historical, genealogical line and tradition; each came out of a specific cultural and literary background—and it was only in the first decades of the seventeenth century, after more or less one hundred years of imitation and use of these forms, that they began to be incorporated into some works on poetics and—as we may assume—into a more popular conceptual framework. The various sub-genres of visual poetry, together with other genres of artful poetry, were being collected by schools for educational purposes at the end of the sixteenth century. Earlier anthologies and collections, such as the one by Tabourot, served to satisfy literary curiosity and provide amusement, although they too may have played a role in education. In Poland, and in Central Europe generally, as 3.
"Estant escholier a Paris 1564 i'ay fait la coupe Poetique, la Marmite et autres"(fol. 152 v ).
4.
Ernst 1986,17-18. On the cubus see Rypson 1994; and Ernst 1990. The discussion of types or sub-genres of visual poetry has been recently taken up by Westerweel, 37-40.
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well as in Italy, France, and other countries, it was the Jesuit network of schools and colleges that played this disseminating role. When we take into consideration the rapid spread of small collections of visual poetry and related genres coming out of Jesuit schools at this time, we might speculate that manuscript textbooks actually existed, although we do not know of any treatise on poetics of the time that discussed these genres at any considerable length. The first edition of the Poeticarum institutionum Libri 3 (1597) by Jacob Pontanus makes no mention of visual poems although it had a long discussion of the epigram; later editions, however, included a chapter "De variis versuum affectibus" (1613,169-80) that has definitions and examples of shaped poems and other genres such as leonine verse, echo, reciprocus, proteus, and others. Other Jesuit authors of the time do not discuss visual poems in any way that could be useful for educational purposes, although Antonio Possevino recommends reading works by Giovanni Battista Pigna (known for his figured poems), Hrabanus, Theocritus, and Venantius Fortunatus in the Bibliotheca selecta de ratione studiorum (473, 520-28) and discusses Hrabanus's famous Liber de Laudibus Sanctae Crucis in the Apparatus sucer (1608, II, 30809). Possevino also mentions other authors of acrostic poems, as does Michael Rader, S. J., in his commentaries on Martial. Nevertheless, at this time, in Poland, we discover a continuous flow of occasional prints with visual poems coming from Jesuit colleges. In the colleges, students were training on "odes, elegies, bucolic poems, fabulae, epigrams, epitaphs and emblems of their own concept and design; these were elaborately copied and even printed, hung on doors to the assembly hall on festive days (the affixiones) and then publicly read to invited guests" (Zal^ski, 1,114). Similar situations probably occurred in other countries where Jesuits were active in establishing schools; we can only speculate on the basis of dispersed information as there has been no serious study of early visual poetry in France, Italy or Spain. Students at the Jesuit 5. Tabourot's book was very popular throughout Europe; he is mentioned in numerous works on literature and rhetoric, e. g. Fraunce, xxviii-xxxiii, 63. 6. Rader mentions visual poems by Optatianus Porphyrius, Hrabanus (what he calls hierogrammadistichorum) and technopaegnia by G. Leisentritt, as well as palindromes and echo poems, but has a very negative opinion of them. Cf. Rader, 235-37. See also Pozzi, 93-94.
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academy at Dole in France had their visual poems published in a col lection entitled Sylvae (1592); alongside imitations of Greek poems one also finds new forms (spectacles, circles, a set of squares illustrat ing the Pythagorean theorem, and a hexagon; cf. Higgins, 52). The га rliest known collection of visual poems in Italy, the Carminum libri quatuor discessuro Lemensium comiti, was produced in the Naples Jes uit collegium for vicar Pedro Fernandez, count of Lemos in 1616. A whole collection of prints published by students of the Olmutz col lege in Moravia in the last decade of the sixteenth century suggests a similar situation in Central Europe at the same time. One of the most interesting collections of early visual poems pro duced under Jesuit influence is the Poematum Liber (1573) by Richard Willes (Wills, Willis, or Willey) who studied in the Mainz collegium between 1565 and 1568 and later taught at the Jesuit academy in Trier. The visual poems in this volume include an altar, an axe, an egg, and a sword; while the first three imitate the shapes of the Greek technopaegnia, the fourth is a contemporary invention. There are also riddle-poems in the book, a poema hieroglyphicum, anagrams, acros tics, and a palindrome. The author says in his scholia that he was imi tating Simias, Theocritus, and Hrabanus Maurus and even a contem porary poet, Giovanni Piero Valeriano Bolzano (who had written a pear-shaped poem published in his Amorum libri quinque of 1549). He also knew Scaliger's poetics, which he frequently quotes, among other sources. The poems are of a serious nature, concerned with issues of Chris tian faith. The ancient forms and the contemporary content illustrate one of the basic goals of Jesuit counter-reformation esthetics: to christianize the classical, pagan symbols and topics. The altar of an cient offerings here becomes a Christian one. Willis, who had been discharged from the Jesuit Society in 1572 and had then returned to his native England, "saw clearly the necessity of showing his coun trymen that poetry is an art with definite classifications and tech niques"—as L. Bradner has put it—and was quite proud to introduce all these new genres to English literature.
7. Cf. Pozzi, 227-28. Pozzi also mentions another, similar manuscript collection from Naples, produced in 1617 but never published. 8. Written for Daniele Barbaro. Cf. Pozzi, 195-96; Higgins, 52
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Visual poetry was quite a novelty at the time, and not only in England. When looking at the small collections of poems that contained various types of technopaegnia, including visual poems, the reader senses a certain pride among the authors, sometimes expressed in the titles and introductions to their works. As stated, there was no systematic framework for a literary genre theory or taxonomy that would define visual poems and other, related, "artful" genres. As long as the ancient Greek, Roman, and medieval models were imitated and repeated, the problems of terminology did not arise; with the new inventions, however, new generic names were being coined or adopted. The question is whether the iconic models for visual poetry of the time came from the knowledge and tradition of the genre itself—from the old forms skillfully transformed—or from other sources, such as emblem books. When introducing new forms and symbols, the authors were relying upon a "symbolic dictionary" drawn from various sources or supplied by their teachers, and collections of emblems were a natural source in that process. In fact, it seems that new visual poems were considered to be a sort of emblem, albeit ones created with the use of a new poetic technique. Willis, who supplied each of his poetic inventions with a commentary in his scholia, actually uses the word emblema when discussing his sword-shaped poem: "Emblema hoc de meo addidi. nimirum illi assumendum esse gladiumspiritus, quod est verbum D e i . . . " (Willis 1573, sig. C2 v -C3 r [Scholia]). Furthermore, a number of his poems (visual and other) are accompanied by mottos: the aforementioned sword has as its lemma a fragment from Psalm 87, "Inter mortuos" [Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand; Psalm 88:5]. The scholia serve as explanations of the symbolic meaning of each of the forms of the poems. Small pamphlets published in Olmutz by students of the local collegium—a school that played quite an important role in the area, with young men from the Habsburg empire, Germ,in countries, Bohemia, Silesia, Hungary and Poland studying there—-present a similar picture. Knowledge of traditional forms of visual poetry among the students is surprising: not only were the Greek icchnopucgnia known, 9. Quoted by Fowler in Willes 1958,10.
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alongside the grid-poems of Hrabanus and Optatian Porphyrius, but also rather obscure texts such as a labyrinth inscription (cubus) of Prince Silo of Asturia from eighth-century Spain. Also, notes on po etry left by one of the students, Mikolaj Lubomirski, one of the first Polish authors to publish visual poems, attest that the knowledge of various genres in Olmutz was impressive. One can only wonder at the rapid spread of knowledge of artful lit erary genres in the network of Jesuit schools. For Polish literature alone we have two publications in Krakow in 1598, one in Brunsberg (Braniewo) in 1601, three in Krakow and Vilnius in 1606; other works were published in Poznaii in 1611, Vilnius in 1614, Putusk and Vil nius in 1617, and again in Brunsberg in 1621, Lwow and Jaroslaw in 1622, Kalisz in 1624, and so on. However, no textbook of this kind has been found, either in printed or in manuscript form. One may specu late that information travelled from school to school and college to college together with teachers and students. Teachers of rhetoric and poetry must have been supplying an impressive survey of types of artful poetry, poesis artificiosa—in Olmutz prints one finds dozens of genres and variants of acrostic poems, palindromes, hieroglyphic poems, puns, and other literary games. Emblems were taught as well: one of the collections is a composition around an emblematic depic tion of the seven liberal arts written by two young Polish noblemen, Andrzej and Krzysztof Koryciiiski. The typographic execution of the various poems has an emblematic disposition: there is usually a title resembling a motto within an ornamental frame, then the body of the artful poem proper—and quite often a short poem that follows, with an explanation of the previous text, a subscriptio. Sometimes a "title," which is usually an attempt to define a given genre, takes a more de veloped form, becoming a true motto. A poem in the shape of a zither has the words "Mater concordia p a d s " added to it; a parallelon, i. е. а multicursal reading text, has a motto taken from Ovid; a hiero glyphic, star-shaped poem, a fragment from Virgil—and another similar one—a motto from one of St. Bernard's sermons. Similar compositions occur elsewhere, outside the Jesuit school system; we find them for example in the Exequiae Illustrissimi Equitis, D. Philippi Sidnaei published as a memorial Festschrift for Sir Philip Sidney in Oxford in 1587 with poems in the shapes of a pyramid, an 10. Jagielloriska Library, Krak6w, Ms. 5575, fol. 560-78
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altar, and a set of wings framed with titles and subscriptiones (sig. G4 r ). Wawrzyniec (Laurentius) Susliga, a baccalaureate at Krakow University, who published his collection of visual poems in 1598 (sig. A4), the same year that the previously mentioned Lubomirski made his debut, clearly followed an emblematic structure. Each of his poems has a motto relating to the figures that represent a bishop's insignia: a chalice, a ring, a bishop's crook, a pectoral cross, an infula. And when we look at the whole corpus of Polish visual poems from the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries we see that almost all retain an emblematic character in that the pictura embodies at the same time the subscriptio and sometimes the motto. As generic terms were being codified throughout the seventeenth century, so was the awareness of the visual poem as a genre with its specific rules, aesthetic, and tradition. But at the same time that images were being added to the existing canon, they were being drawn from the same symbolic dictionary as the one used by the creators of emblems and emblem books. Peter M. Daly quotes Harsdorffer who was "well aware of the connection between pattern poetry and emblems; he felt that the latter supported the former: 'One considers these inventions poetic fencing leaps, and if they are not quite natural, or connected with a picture and emblems, they will not find favour among discriminating readers'" (132). The term emblema that Willis used when describing his poem in the shape of a sword also appears in the works of other authors of visual poems. Samuel Speed, who has a cruciform quatrain among other visual poems in his Prison pietie (1677), adds a short epigram underneath: The Emblem of Humility Express'd in him, did on it die. To it was nail'd the God of Life, Who died in Love to end our Strife . . . (65) In conclusion, we may say that apart from the general similarities, one finds four specific categories of visual poems where structural affinities with the emblem are clearly present:
11. Reproduced in Rypson 1989,102.
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//) A visual poem that follows the tripartite structure of an emblem with a motto, a poem shaped into a figure, and a subscriptio. Although not found very often in visual poetry, there are exam ples among the works of Nathanael Richards in his Poems Sacred and Satyrical (London, 1641) where a poem in the shape of an anchor has the lemma "Spes mea Christo" and one, chalice-shaped, "Fides Signum Christianorum" (131-32, 135-36). Another example can be drawn from the occasional poems by Lorenz Luden, a carmen cancellatum with a heart-shaped intext, preceded by a motto "Pictura Vitae Humanae" and followed by an epigram. b) A visual poem with a lemma. A few examples of this type of composition have already been given. A poem in the shape of a pyramid or monument may have a motto such as "Io Triumphe" (Artenski, sig. K2 r ), "Orate Iuvate Defendite" (D^mbiiiski); "Laureo est ingenio, laurea certa cape" (on a wreath crowning an obelisk (Fredro, sig. A4 V ; rpt. in Rypson 1989, 206). The motto "Plus ultra" has been placed on other obelisk-shaped poems (Herka, sig. D2V; Tomaszkiewicz, sig. F2 r ). A star-shaped poem may have a lemma, "Micas ut in Aethere Stellae" (Drzewicki), "Phosphorus Irradians" (Pogorzelski, sig. C l v ) , or "Semper in Oriente" (Kielkowski, sig. El r ). Louis de Gand de Brachey in his Sol Britannicus (1641) has a star-shaped poem with a lemma, "Non Solus." The Russian poet, Simeon Polockij, has supplied his heart-shaped poem with a motto from Luke 6:45, and the cycle of visual poems in Gottfried Kleiner's Garten-Lust im Winter (92-98) is of the same char acter. Specific uses of a motto are found in poems on coats-of-arms of Pol ish gentry; here the visual poem is related to a stemma rather than an 12. Piis Manibus . . . Sengestachii, 1641, sig. A2 r , reproduced in Rypson 1994,33, fig. 15. 13. Reproduced in Higgins, 45-46, fig. 2.22. 14. The motto reads: "Ot izby tka serdca usta glagoliut" [Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh]. Cf. A. Hippisley, 179.
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emblem, although structurally the two do not differ (o. g. "Labore partum" in Drzewicki, fol. 4 r ). Sometimes a motto may be inserted into the very body of a visual poem and distinguished only by typographic means, as in a poem in Polish in the shape of a lute where its upper and lower parts are made up of a Latin distich (Czaplic-Klec, fol. 7V). c) A stanzaic cycle of visual poems that repeat the same visual form. Here the pictura is as if commented upon by a sequence of subscriptions, each following the shape of the pictura: there are a number of examples in English literature—such as Christopher Harvey's wingr and step-shaped poems in his Synagogue or the Shadow of The Temple (33-35, 45-46). A whole group of panegyrics from Poland follows that model, usually repeating the form of a pyramid dedicated to various virtues. A good example of that type from German literature is a collection by Georg Weber entitled Sieben Theile Wohlriechender Lebens-Fruchte . . . , published in Danzig in 1649. The collection contains seven visual poems that introduce the seven respective parts of his book containing prayers and songs, and cycles of shorter visual poems generally related to each of the opening poems. The structure of the whole collection has an emblematic character and creates a narrative sequence. The first icon is one of stairs, a visual poem entitled "Treppe der Andacht," then a "Geistlicher SchatzThurm" follows (in the shape of a tower). Part three, dedicated to penance and repentance, has an opening cross that pierces a heart; then the reader is led to an altar (part four) and the offering of bread and wine (part five). Part six opens with a poem in the shape of a burning heart on an altar, symbolizing the longing of the soul for Christ, and the last icon is a coffin with a cross.
15. Cf. Westerweel, 40-41. 16. We may add here that such cycles of visual poems, written in different languages, make up the largest body of visual poetry in India. See Higgins, 157, on the Indian notion of bandha in poetry. 17. Cf. Otto, 136-47; Rypson 1991, 277-79, 303.
d) A combination of an emblem and a visual poem. Good examples of this hybrid form of emblematic poetry are the well-known poems of Francis Quarles with his stanzaic cycles of pyramids and lozenges in the Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man (1638) or t he ones by Christopher Harvey from his The School of the Heart (1676) with ladder, or wing-shaped, stanzas following emblems as subscriptiones (Harvey, 90-93,146-49,150-53). An interesting example from Poland is a collection of poems by a Trinitarian monk, Franciszek od sw. Kazimierza, Lucina orti sub sole Lcchico (27,32,37,42; rpt. in Rypson 1989,226). with various types of visual poems, sometimes with pictorial rebus elements, serving as subscriptions, added to crude emblematic woodcuts. Emblems are combined here with visual poems in a way that indeed provides a multi-layered composition, where texts and images meet in full force as an ultimate Gesamtkunstwerk on a printed page. Works Cited: Arteriski, RafalKazimierz. Triumphans herculaea virtus. Krakow, 1672. Bradner, L. Musae Anglicanae: A History of Anglo-Latin Poetry 15001925. 1940. Camerarius, Joachim. Epistolarum familiarum Libri 6. Nunc primum post ipsius obitum singulari studio a filiis edita. Frankfurt: Wechel, 1583. Czaplic-Klec, Maciej. Podarunek na slawne zuesele. Poznaii, 1622. Daly, Peter M. Literature in the Light of the Emblem. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979. D$hinski,]eremiasz. Ad maiorem Dei Opt:Max: Gloriam N.p.,1617. De Brachey, Louis de Gand. Sol Britannicus regi consecratus a domino Ludovico. London, 1641. Drzewicki, Adam. Zodiacus Horoscopum . . . . Zamosc, 1637. Ernst, Ulrich. "Labyrinthe aus Lettern. Visuelle Poesie als Konstante europaeischer Literatur." In Text und Bild, Bild und Text. DFGSymposion 1988. Ed. Wolfgang Harms. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1990. Pp. 197-215. . "The Figured Poem: Towards a Definition of the Genre." Visible Language 20, 1 (1986): 8-27. Exequiae Illustrissimi Equitis, D. Philippi Sidnaei. Oxford, 1587.
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Fernandez, Pedro, Count of Lemos. Carminum libri quatuor discessiiro Lemensium comiti. Naples, 1616. Franciszek od sw, Kazimierza. Lucina orti sub sole Lechico . . . . Lwow, 1736. Fraunce, Abraham. The Arcadian Rhetorike (1588). Ed. E. Seaton. Lon don: Luttrell Society, 1950. Fredro, Jakub Maxymilian and Andrzej Makowiecki. Gratulatio. Floriano Mijakowski. Krakow, 1610. Harvey, Christopher. The Synagogue or the Shadow of the Temple. Lon don, 1647. Herka, Klemens Stanislaw. Liber passus appia virtutis . . . . Krakow, 1732. Higgins, Dick. Pattern Poetry. Guide to an Unknown Literature. Albany, N. Y.:SUNY Press, 1987. Hippisley, A. "The Emblem in the Writings of Simeon Polockij," The Slavic and East European Journal 15, 2 (1971): 167-83. Kielkowski, Maurycy. Hypотпета franciscanum . . . . Krakow, 1718. Kleiner, Gottfried. Garten-Lust im Winter. Hirschberg, 1732. Koryciiiski, Andrzej and Krzysztof. Emblemata VII Artes Liberale .. . a . . . D. Christophoro & Andrea Coriciniis . . . conscripta. Olomouc, 1597. Lubomirski, Mikolaj. Untitled manuscript. Jagielloiiska Library, Krakow, Ms. 5575. Otto, Karl F., Jr., "Georg Weber's Lebens-Fruechte (1649)." Visible Lan guage 20, 1 (1986): 136-47. Piis Manibus . . . . Nicolai Sengestachii. Greiffswald, 1641. Pogorzelski, Piotr. Adorea feriarum D. Antonii Paduen . . . . Zamosc, 1639. Polockij, Simeon. Orel Rossijskij (1667). Ed. N. A. Smirnov. St. Peters burg: M. A. Alexandrov, 1915. Pontanus, Jacob. Institutio poetica . . . brcviter . . . opera M. Ioannis Buchleria Gladbach. Editio sexta. Cologne, 1613. Possevino, Antonio. Apparatus sacer. Cologne, 1608. . Bibliotheca selecta de ratione studiorum. Venice, 1603. Pozzi, Giovanni. La Parola dipinta. Milan: Adelphi Edizioni, 1981. Rader, Michael, S. J. Ad M. Valerii Martinlis Epigriunmaton libris Omnes, plenis commentariis, novo studio confrrtis, explicatos, emendatos . .. curae secundae. Ingoldstadt, 1611. Richards, Nathanael. Poems Sacred and Siih/ricnll. London, 1641. Rypson, Piotr. Obraz slowa. Warsaw: ALulcmm Kuchu, 1989.
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. "Homo Quadratus in Labyrintho. The Cubus Poem/' In Beitrage der Polnischen Stipendiaten der Herzog August Bibliothek zur Philosophie, Geschichte u. Philologie. Ed. Jan Pirozyiiski. Krakow: Uniwersytet Jagielloriski, 1994. Pp. 233-341. . Poezja wizualna na Pomorzu Zachodnim w XVII wieku. Szczecin: Ksi^znica Szczecinska, 1994. . "Recepcja staroytnej i sredniowiecznej poezji wizualnej w epoce Renesansu i wczesnego Baroku." Meander 11-12 (1992): 583605. . "Visual Poetry from Danzig in the Seventeenth Century." Gutenberg Jahrbuch (1991): 269-304. Speed, Samuel. Prison Pietie, or Meditations Divine and Moral. London, 1677. Susliga, Wawrzuniec. Reverendissimo in Christo Patri . . . Francisco Lacki, Dei et Apostolicae Sedis Gratia Episcopo Margaritensi. . . gratulatio. Krakow, 1598. Tabourot, Etienne. Les Bigarrures et touches . . . . Paris, 1608. Theocritus. Eidyllia. Rome, 1516. . Eidyllia. Venice, 1495. Tomaszkiewicz, Jozef Walenty. Arbor laureato . . . . Krakow, 1723. Weber, Georg. Sieben Theile Wohlriechender Lebens-Fruechte. Danzig, 1649. Westerweel, Bart. "Emblematic and Non-Emblematic Aspects of English Renaissance Pattern Poetry," Emblematica 6, 1 (1992): 3764. Willes, Richard. De re poetica (1573). Trans. & ed. A. D. S. Fowler. Oxford: Luttrell Society, 1958. Willis, Richard. Ricardi Willei Poematum Liber. London, 1573. Zal^ski, Stanislaw. Jezuici w Polsce. 5 vols. Krakow: PAU, 1900-1906.
Heroes, Maidens, Monsters: Dynamics of Male-Female Relationships in Sixteenth-Century French Emblem Books DAVID GRAHAM Memorial University of Newfoundland
Whatever else they may be, emblems are almost certainly a form of persuasive discourse. Not simply passive objects of enjoyment, they tend rather forcefully, obtrusively at times, to urge some "right" course of action or point of view on us as readers. This is generally the case whether the emblems in question present popular or learned morality, political statements, or religious propaganda. That being so, we ought to be able to locate in emblems those characters who are presented as models of good or evil conduct or who function as the heroes and villains of the piece. The fact that we are not usually dealing with purely narrative or fictional discourse here does not alter the fundamental reality of the popular moral drama of good and evil whose myriad aspects are played out in the sixteenth-century French vernacular emblem corpus. 3 1. For some supporting arguments and a description of some techniques deployed by emblem authors, see Graham 1993. 2.
More precisely, in narratological terminology, the "actors" and "actants."
3.
More particularly, in Corrozet's Hecatomgraphie, La Perriere's Theatre, Gueroult's Premier livre and Georgette de Montenay's Emblemes ou devises chresti-
15
16
LMHl I МЛ ПСЛ
Jean Le Clerc's emblem "La Delivrance do la France par le Persee Frangois" [The Deliverance of France by the French Perseus] was pub lished by Le Clerc in Paris in 1594 as part of the general celebrations surrounding the ascent to the throne of Henri IV. This emblem has been briefly but cogently analyzed both by Daniel Russell, in a talk given at McGill, and by Frangoise Bardon in Le portrait mythologique a la cour d'Henri IV et de Louis XIII [The mythological portrait at the Court of Henri IV and Louis XIII].4 Bardon, who considers this piece to be a "mythological portrait" rather than an emblem, has shown that Le Clerc had derived his image from a Perseus and Andromeda em blem included in the Emblemata of Nicolas Reusner, an emblem whose pictura, she says, seems ultimately to have been derived from the Vita e Metatnorfoseo d'Ovidio [The Life and Metamorphoses of Ovid] by Gabriele Simeoni published in Lyons by Jean de Tournes in 1559. Some scholars have also claimed a link between this picture and Achille Bocchi's emblem of Bellerophon and the Chimaera. The exact details of its provenance are not essential to what follows, though it is worth noting in passing that Le Clerc's emblem seems to mark the first use of the Perseus and Andromeda myth in the vernacular French em blem corpus (Graham 1996). An examination of the Le Clerc emblem reveals few surprises in the manner of its functioning. Its visual composition is certainly striking enough: Perseus, whose features are clearly recognizable as those of Henri, soars over the waves, mounted on Pegasus. With his sword, he is about to slash at the sea-monster, which is roiling the ocean below, and the awkward angle of his arm serves both to reveal his distinctive features and to emphasize the force of the imminent blow. An dromeda, entirely naked, is chained to her rock, which rises steeply from the waves in the immediate foreground. In the background, a crowd of onlookers, which can be taken to include Andromeda's un happy parents, seems quite naturally spellbound by the scene. The text of the emblem leaves no doubt that the picture is to be taken to represent specific persons and events. The three essential ennes, though I shall also refer to Aneau's French translation of his own emblems. 4. See also Graham 1996. On the various forms taken by the depiction of this scene in late medieval and Renaissance iconography, see the contributions of MarieFrance Wagner and others in the same volume.
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DAVID GRAHAM
identifications are all explicitly established: "France comme Andromede ..."; "Le monstre... / Sentit combien le bras de Persee estoit fort: / Comme feit l'Espagnol de HENRY quatriesme" [France like Andromeda . . . ; The monster . . . / Felt how strong was Perseus's arm: / Just as did the Spaniard Henry Fourth's]. But what is of particular interest here is the way in which the three main actors (the fourth being "le ciel" [heaven], which is taken to have sent Henri on his heroic mission) are characterized. France, like Andromeda, is clearly presented as a traditional "innocent victim": she is weak and helpless ("a la mort fut offerte" [to death was she offered], "mal voulue des siens" [unloved by her own people]), threatened ("son danger" [her danger], "sa perte" [her loss]), and unworthy of such treatment ("une injustice aperte" [a clear injustice]). Figure 1 Heaven
' Wedded bliss (Peace) Perseus (Henri IV)
quest/desire ^ ^ power^ struggle
Andromeda (France)
* Monster (Spain)
Le Clerc's heroic emblem is, however, unusual in the context of the French corpus, for as Mme. Bardon has pointed out, it is also a portrait. When Perseus actually takes on Henry's well-known physiognomy, there is a transference of characteristics not only from the emblematic frame to that of the "real" world—as one would expect—but vice-versa: ("Un Persee envoya a fin de la venger, / Un Persee Francois qui la vint desgaiger ..."; "le bras de Persee estoit fort" [Sent a Perseus to avenge her, / A French Perseus who came to set her free. . .; Perseus's arm was strong]). The mythological stature of Perseus is conferred on Henry, characterized as he is by the uniquely heroic combination of great strength and perfect virtue. Spain and "the Spaniard," because of their assimilation to the monster, on the other hand, must be seen by the reader as the very polar opposite of Henry; agents of death, they are inherently both powerful and evil ("Le monstre qui gardoit entre ses dens sa mort" [The monster which kept her (i. e. Andromeda's) death between its teeth]).
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In Le Clerc's emblem, as in almost all traditional heroic paradigms, the hero is not only active and powerful in his own right, but wields a piercing, cutting or bludgeoning weapon, as befits his status as emblematic of man the tool-maker. The monster, whose weapon is no artifact, but its very body, is in contrast typically shown to be a ravening, devouring force of nature, while the maiden's primary role is apparently to suffer patiently whatever her fate may bring; to be, as it were, bride or breakfast. This traditional heroic paradigm (Fig. 1), in which the strong, virtuous knight, sent on a quest by some higher power, rescues the weak but modest maiden from the clutches of a powerful and evil beast, is familiar from many a folk tale. While the use of such an entirely conventional heroicmodel of behavior and moral quality distinguishes Le Clerc's emblem quite neatly from the bulk of earlier French emblematic production, an examination of the earlier, more characteristic French emblem corpus reveals that the heroic paradigm surfaces there in some rather unexpected ways. Scholars who wish to study bin a r y oppositional p h e n o m e n a Figure 2 such as heroic models of good and evil, whether in emblem books or The 'semiotic square' elsewhere, may perhaps benefit more than most from the semiot< > not-X ics of Algirdas Greimas, and especially from his basic concept of the carre semiotique or " s e m i o t i c square" (Fig. 2). The ideal heroic not-X paradigm, when organized as a semiotic square (Fig. 3), has nothing intrinsic to do with gender; it -> opposition is a matter on the one hand, of - • contradiction power and lack of power, and on implication the other, of the use (good or evil) The concept of the "semiotic square" is now so much a part of mainstream critical theory that I shall not recapitulate it here, except to remind readers that the primary relevant texts may be found most conveniently in Greimas's Du sens and Semiotique: dictionnaire raisonne (Greimas 1983; Greimas 1970; Greimas and Courtes 1986; Greimas and Courtes 1979), especially in the essay "Les jeux des contraintes semiotiques" contained in the first volume of Du sens (135-55).
19
DAVID GRAHAM Figure 3
to which that power is put. The conventional heroic paradigm, however, as it appears in literaHero(ine) Can do Good ture and art, usually has everything to do with gender. Here, the Villain Victim fundamental semiotic square for our purposes is the one which deCan not do Evil fines the monster in terms of its *Sage/Saint lack of sexual identity (Fig. 4). As Adrienne Munich has written, drawing on the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, the monster is normally u n d i f f e r e n t i a t e d sexually, Figure 4 neither male nor female, and by killing the monster, the heA male/female semiotic square roic male stabilizes the gender Androgyne system in order to marry the Male Female intended female victim whom he has now freed: "The death Man Woman of the undifferentiated one reaffirms the gender system by Female Male Monster conferring upon the two humans the identity of man and woman and the status of hus-
X
Figure 5 Conventional heroism Human Hero = male+ power + good Heroic
Maiden = female + weak (+ innocent) Anti-heroic slippage Monster = power + evil towards unknown Non-human
band and wife" (Munich, 31). The conventional heroic paradigm thus superimposes the categories of maleness and femaleness (and of monstrousness as the lack of
20
EMBLEMATICA
both male and sexual characteristics) on a definition of heroic behavior as the power to do good (Fig. 5). The monster is opposed to the male hero because of its evil nature, but perceived as a worthy adversary because of its power, and consequently attracted towards the heroic axis. In this unstable schema, what distinguishes the female character from the hero is her charFigure 6 acteristic combination of weakness and innocence. These traits Wholeness vs imperfection are typically presented neither as virtues (as they might be in a Gender Power Morality Hero Strong Male iGood Christian moral schema, for inMonster (None) Strong ! Evil stance) nor as vices actively opMaiden Female Weak I (Innocent) p o s e d to the h e r o ' s " m a l e vertu" [male virtue] like the monster's evil strength, but rather as the absence of one or both of the heroic virtues (whether goodness or strength). Lacking one of the dimensions of the "complete hero," whether that of morality or gender (Fig. 6), both monster and woman are thus unheroic at least in part because they are intrinsically incomplete. In French emblem books, the various actors in this drama tend to compensate for this incompleteness of their natures by gravitating towards new positions in the schema of their actantial relationships which are rather different from Figure 7 Patterns of slippage Human Hero = male+ power + good
slippage:
Maiden = female + weak
loss ofpower «' loss
Heroic
Anti-heroic n
•Angel = male + female + power + good
virtue
Monster = power + evil Non-human
the ones they occupy in these simplest cases, and this "actantial slippage," as will be made clear in the remainder of this article, complicates the picture of their relationships (Fig. 7). A telling instance of this "slippage" may be found in emblematic depictions of the mortal combat which characterizes the traditional
DAVID GRAHAM
21
hero-monster relationship. In the French emblem corpus, it is Hercules rather than Perseus who tends to epitomize the heroic character in the emblem corpus, and his struggle with the Hydra seems to be the most frequent emblem of hero-monster combat. It is significant that the French emblem writers usually take this critical moment as the basis for an emblem which reduces the hero to the status of an ordinary contemporary. Corrozet's Hecatomgraphie, for example, uses the slaying of the Hydra as the basis for an emblem on the tendency of lawsuits to multiply unceasingly. The expected traditional characterizations are present in the text: Hydra is a non-human (therefore sexless) being ("serpent"); it is also monstrous in the normal sense, being characterized as "hideux" [hideous]. Hercules is both virtuous ("... riens ne demandoit / Qu'aquerre honneur par ses nobles conquestes . . .") [. . . he sought nothing / But to attain honour through his noble conquests], and, like the monster, powerful: "Pour debeller ung si furieux monstre / Sa grand prudence avec sa force monstre." [To subdue such a raging monster / He displays his great prudence with his strength.] (Corrozet 1974, sig. K r ). Similarly, La Perriere uses the topos of the monster as the basis for an emblem which relates Hercules to the reader even more explicitly: Quand Hercules, apres plusieurs conquestes, Cuydoit avoir repos de ses labeurs, Hydra survint avec ses sept testes: Renouvelant ses travaulx & malheurs. Quand par vertu avons acquis honneurs, Pensant avoir tousiours paix assouvie, Quelque meschant surviendra par envie, Pour nous donner plus que devant affaire: Tel travail n'eust Hercules en sa vie, Ne tel danger, que pour Hydra deffaire. (La Perriere 1973, C) [When Hercules, after many conquests, / Thought to take some rest from his labours, / Hydra appeared with its seven h e a d s , / Renewing his hard work and misfortune. / When through virtue we've acquired honours / Thinking to have eternal rest in peace, / Some envious wicked man will appear / To give us more toil
22
EMBLEMATICA
than before: / Such labour ne'er had Hercules in his life, / Nor such danger, as to defeat Hydra.] These emblems thus function by inviting the (presumably male) reader to put himself in the place of Hercules and by equating events from the reader's own experience to the monster. They also act to expand the labours of Hercules and his struggle with the Hydra into every reader's constant struggle with the vicissitudes of daily life and the wickedness of the envious. Both hero and monster emerge from this treatment substantially diminished, however, for unlike the original source, where Hercules does of course vanquish the Hydra, thereby permitting narrative closure to occur, these emblems imply that life's everyday trials and tribulations are unending. While this conclusion will surely be more in keeping with the experience of most readers than will the experiences of Hercules, the hero's reduction to the status of a common man unable to complete his heroic task makes him less an object of awe and esteem than an all-too-human fellowsufferer. Given the diminished status of the relatively toothless monster (which has in these emblems lost all status as an agent of divine retribution or even of the supernatural) and of the everyday hero, one must naturally wonder what may have become of the vulnerable, beautiful and innocent maiden. Readers of Ovid and the other classical mythographers will know that having dispatched the monster, Perseus did marry Andromeda and found a dynasty. The maiden's fate in French emblem books parallels that of the hero's domestification; when women are presented approvingly, it tends to be because their story is in the end one of domestic virtue, one which doubtless takes up where the Andromeda myth leaves off. "Good" women are thus typically presented as those who are content to stay home and look after the worldly goods which their husbands have accumulated. As Gilles Corrozet puts it, L'homme en toute saison A gaigner biens pourchasse, La femme en la maison Les garde & les amasse. (Corrozet 1974, sig. Nviii r )
DAVID GRAHAM
23
[Man seeks to gather goods in every season; / Woman stores and stockpiles them in the house.] While this emblem is likely to be read at first merely as a faithful but superficial reflection of Renaissance domestic reality, it in fact reveals a great deal about fundamental perceptions of male and female roles in sixteenth-century France. It is noteworthy throughout the emblem corpus that men and women are almost invariably characterized by what may be called an outward/inward dichotomy. The hero's most characteristic attributes, the sword, lance, spear or club, are quasiphallic instruments of penetrating, piercing, cutting and striking, or bludgeoning with which the hero's strength strikes outward from his body. The domestic woman's most frequent attributes, on the other are those connected with movement inward; the distaff, for example, is an instrument of entwining, of spinning, of drawing in. Even the key, which could in some contexts be taken to symbolize some sort of phallic power, is clearly a symbol of her locking away of her hus band's goods, as the text of La Perriere's emblem xviii makes abun dantly clear: Par la tortue, entendre est de besoing, Que femme honneste aller ne doit pas loing, Le doigt leve, qu'a parler ne s'avance, La clef en main denote qu'avoir soing Doit sur les biens du тагу, par prudence. (La Perriere 1973, XVIII) [By the tortoise, one should understand / That an honest woman mustn't stray, / The raised finger shows she is not forward in her speech, / The key in hand denotes the prudent care she takes / Of all her husband's goods.] Just as the hero is typically associated with totemic beasts whose power of fang and claw is reminiscent of his own strength and pano ply of weaponry, such as the lion (viz. Hercules' lion-skin cape), the careful woman's totem is the tortoise. Because it carries its house with it wherever it goes, the tortoise is synonymous not only with resis tance to penetration but with self-enclosure, not only in La Perriere but in the other equally well-known emblems by Alciato and Gue-
24
LMBLliMAl'ICA
roult. Gueroult stresses that the prudent woman has truly given up her will to leave the house except in connection with domestic errands ("ne veut en rue descendre / Fors que pour acheter, ou vendre" [will not go down into the street / Except to buy or sell]). La Perriere's text is of course strikingly similar in content, though even more prescriptive because of the multiple implied imperatives which it contains. Simultaneously protected by and imprisoned in her hard carapace of domesticity, the "good" woman must inevitably play a subordinate role. As Marie-Christine Pouchelle and Phillip Stallybrass have pointed out, a great deal of medieval and Renaissance writing about the "proper" conduct of women is careful to stress the closure and enclosure of the female body: by confining her to the home, by swaddling her in shapeless layers of garments, by enjoining her to dutiful silence. This struggle to enclose women no doubt arises from some confusion between the identification of woman as an ostensibly sacred, though sometimes leaky or fragile vessel of procreation with woman as the custodian of vessels (whether containing oil, grain, or coin), which are in turn contained in the larger vessel of the domestic abode. This clearly seems to be a visceral male response to a deep-rooted fear of what women may accomplish if set free. It seems that Perseus, even having married Andromeda, can never rest easy: for male French emblem authors, women are innately bent on seeking their 6. A typical example drawn from contemporary medical writing tells us of women that " . . . outre leur naturel temperament, qui est froid & humide: outre l'habitude de leur corps qui est mol, lasche, & de rare texture: outre les superfluitez & excremens dont elles sont pleines: outre la vie oysive, sedentaire & sans exercice que elles sont contraintes de mener pour Fimbecillite de leur corps: Encores ont elles une partie si sensible & tant facile a estre offensee (qui est la matrice) que la moindre indisposition d'icelle leur cause une infinite de maux estranges & quasi insupportables." [Aside from their natural temperament, which is cold and moist: aside from the general way of their body, which is soft, flabby and of a rare texture: aside from the superfluities and excrements with which they are filled: aside from the lazy, sedentary and inactive life which they are constrained to lead because of the imbecility of their body: Yet do they have one part so sensitive and so easily outraged (this being the womb) that its slightest indisposition causes them an infinity of strange and nearly insupportable ills.] (Liebault, 5) Woman's body is thus in every respect the opposite of that of the heroic man: soft rather than hard, cool and moist rather than hot and dry, sedentary and flaccid, overfull with excess fluids.
DAVID GRAHAM
25
freedom, as Corrozet's emblem "Nature foeminine" [Female nature] makes clear. The central persona of the emblem picture, a naked woman chasing birds which she has set free, tells us in the subscriptio that Ie suis de la complexion Des petits oyseaulx que ie garde, Ie suis d'aussy maulvaise garde Qu'ilz sont en leur condition. (Corrozet 1974, sig. Lvii v ) [I have the same bent / As the little birds I keep / I am as hard to hold onto / As they are by their very nature.] Corrozet makes it clear that the naturally rebellious nature of woman is always seeking to usurp the outward movement and freedom normally reserved for men: Une femme quoy qu'elle face En reigle ne veult estre mise, Elle desire estre en espace Sans estre a personne submise Soit en la rue ou en I'eglise Elle est aussy sotte & volaige Querant liberie & franchise Que le petit oyseaul ramaige. (Corrozet 1974, sig. Lviii r ; emphasis mine) [No matter what she does, a woman / Doesn't want to be brought to heel, / She wishes to be out in the open / Without submitting to anyone / Whether in the street or in church / She is as foolish and flighty / Seeking liberty and freedom / As the twittering little bird.] The phrasing of this text is suggestive both in its characterization of the rebellious woman's refusal to be enclosed and subjugated ("ne veult estre mise," "sans estre a personne submise"), in which the passive voice normally used for domestic women is apparently refuted by the use of the negative, and in its depiction of woman's illicit desire to take wing and seek the "wide-open spaces" of the great outdoors.
26
EMBLEMATICA
La Perriere's emblem XCVI is equally explicit in its depiction of "flighty-hearted" woman's refusal to be hemmed in, and even more forceful in tone: here, the vocabulary makes it perfectly clear who is in control: Plus tost pourras arrester le daulphin Que refrener femme de cueur volage. Combien que soit l'homme subtil & fin, Esprit de femme est ruse d'advantage. Femme ne veult estre tenue en cage, Tousjours pretend a usurper franchise: Quand le т а г у la cuyde avoir submise A son vouloir, pensant qu'il en soit maistre En luy donnant du vent de la chemise, L'aura soubdain bride de son chevestre. (La Perriere 1973, XCVI) [You'll sooner stop the dolphin / Than hold back a woman with a flighty heart. / Though man be subtle and cunning, / Woman's mind is wilier. / Woman doesn't want to be kept in a cage, / Al ways claims to usurp her freedom, / When the husband thinks he's brought her / To his will, believing he's the master, / Giving him a whiff of her skirt, / She'll soon have brought him to heel.] The unillustrated Denis de Harsy pirate edition of the Theatre admira bly sums up the domineering tone of this emblem by providing the ti tle "Femme difficile a d o m p t e r " [Woman hard to tame]. The references to "conquest" and "taming" make it clear that men should take special care to break woman's will, like that of any domestic ani mal. What is more, it can be seen from these emblems that Stallybrass and Pouchelle are right in asserting that there is a substantial sexual component to these injunctions. Gilles Corrozet's previously cited emblem "Nature foeminine" ends with the following telling lines: * Les tendres & ieunes pucelles, Ce sont petis oyseaulx volans, Car ilz ont une couple d'aelles Qui les portent es premiers ans En deduyctz & esbatz plaisans, L'une est la chair aymant Hesse
DAVID GRAHAM
27
Qui vole en la ville & aux champs Et l'aultre c'est sotte ieunesse. (Corrozet 1974, sig. Lviiir) [Tender young maidens / Are little birds in flight, / For they have a pair of wings, / Which bear them along in their early years / Into pleasant distractions and entertainments, / One is flesh, which loves pleasure, / Flying through town and country; / And the other is foolish youth.] Corrozet's "La statue de Caia Cecilia," like the Venus emblems, is quite explicit on the connection between modesty and enclosure, and in its supposition that any woman seeking to evade the constraints of domesticity, even temporarily, must in the final analysis be motivated by the desire to "show off her body": Toute femme pudicque Doibt estre domesticque, Non pas aller dehors Pour mieulx monstrer son corps. (Corrozet 1974, sig. Nviii v ) [Every modest woman / Must be domestic / Not go out of doors / The better to show off her body.] The untamed woman—which is to say any woman who manages to avoid subjugation to male power, whether because like the Amazons she refuses marriage in the first place, or because she contrives to defeat her husband's power—shares with the monster the possession of certain natural physical attributes (not artifacts like those of the hero and the wife) which make her a potentially redoubtable adversary for the heroic male. These attributes, like those of the monster, are so many weapons to be directed against the male's emotions, his intellect and his various senses, especially those of sight, touch and hearing. Fear of the power of female speech, for example, is as evident in the French emblem corpus as it is in Alciato's emblem "Sirenes" [Sirens]. Guillaume de La Perriere assures us that
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L MB I I : МЛ Г 1С Л
Les femmes sont en caquet tant affables Qu'elles nous font prendre souriz pour chatz. (La Perriere 1973, LXXXVIII) [Women's chatter's so beguiling / That they make us take mice for cats.] French emblems seem to suppose that women, and especially unmar ried, sexually attractive and available women, possess a sort of fatal power which may be used to seduce and subdue men. Gilles Corrozet makes this clear in "Complexion de femme" [Woman's natural bent]: On ne void poinct une femme occupee A batailler, n'y a tenir espee, Au moins bien peu, si est ce qu'en la terre Elle a este cause de mainte guerre, Car son esprit conduict par liberte Est aguise d'une subtilite Qui peult tant /aire avecq les pleurs & larmes Qu'esmouvera la force des gendarmes. Elle a Vesprit elle a la langue prompte, Dont les plusfortz & puissantz elle dompte, S'elle ne faict guerre & occision Elle en sera aumoins occasion, Car son parler a une telle force Qu'a batailler les hommes elle efforce . . . . (Corrozet 1974, sig. Lv r ; emphasis mine) [You don't see woman spend her time / In battle, nor with sword in hand, / At least not much, and yet it's true / That in the world she's cause of many wars, / For her mind driven by freedom / Is sharpened with such subtlety / That it can do so much with tears and weeping / To move the strength of men of war. / Her mind and tongue are quick to strike / And daunt the strongest and most mighty, / If she doesn't go to war and slaughter / She's cause at least of such / For her speech has such power / That she makes men do battle . . . .1
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The emblematic overdetermination of female power is strikingly marked in this text, in which Corrozet uses exactly the kind of language elsewhere used to describe the male hero's characteristics and activities. The mind of woman, to Corrozet's way of thinking, "peult tant faire" [can do so much] that it is capable of conquering even "les plus fortz & puissantz" [the strongest and most powerful]. Woman's speech is especially dangerous: "son parler a une telle force / Qu'a batailler les hommes elle efforce . . . " [her speech has such strength / That she makes men do battle with one another]. Should she for any reason decide not to do battle on her own account, she will nonetheless be the inevitable cause of strife among men, and hence of their destruction at one remove. Though woman's power is signalled by the use of linguistic markers identical to those used to characterize the male hero, it is clear that she herself is never presented as heroic; rather, she becomes, like the monster, the inevitable opponent of the male, who must subdue her (by breaking her will, as we have seen) if he is to avoid being subjugated in his own turn. Corrozet's "Election de vertu" (Corrozet 1974, sig. Kviii v -Li r ) uses the well-known story of Hercules at the crossroads to make the double point that female power is the inevitable precursor of male subjection, and that men, if they are to retain anything of their heroic status, must at all costs resist the wiles of women. Offered the choice between the delights of the flowery path of the fair damsel"Volupte" [Sensuality] on the one hand and the laborious and dreary rocky road of the crone "Vertu" [Virtue] on the other, the hero of course chooses the latter way because it leads to "honneur" [honour]. But it is clear that the dishonour which must follow any man's inability to hew to this virtuous—and chaste—course of action is more than simply a moral failure. It inevitably involves him in the irrecoverable loss of his heroic status which is, as the French emblem writers see it, the natural male position. The first emblem in Gueroult's Le premier livre des emblemes [The First Book of Emblems] reminds the reader of this, using another tale of Hercules to do so. Before getting to the subjugation of Hercules by lole, Gueroult begins by reminding the reader of Hercules' heroic past: Aux armes feust Hercules invincible Et subiugua les monstres inhumains, Car la vertu (a qui tout est possible)
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Donnoit vigueur a l'effort de ses mains. (Gueroult 1937, no. 1: "Amour oste sens et raison") [At arms was Hercules invincible / And vanquished inhuman monsters, / For Virtue (to whom all is possible) / Lent vigour to the effort of his hands. / (Love taketh away sense and reason)] Everything here is designed to drive home the point that Hercules' virtue lay in his heroic strength: words like "invincible," "subiugua" [vanquished], "vigueur" [vigour], and "effort" make this clear, while we are reminded that his combats were most successful when he was dealing with "monstres inhumains." The former hero has been relieved of his mighty club, which has been replaced by a distaff, the "quenouille" which, as in Corrozet's "Caia Cecilia," is the characteristic emblematic sign of chaste and passive female domesticity. The remainder of the emblem consists in the main of repeated contrasts between Hercules' former glories and his present servitude, suitably expressed in the passive voice: "il feust vainqueur, il est vaincu & pris" [he was a victor, he is vanquished and taken]. Use of this story by polemicists in the debate about woman's true nature is by no means confined to emblem books, of course, and Gratien Du Pont's Controverses des sexes Masculin et Femenin [Disputes of the Male and Female Sexes] uses it too. Du Pont, like Gueroult, resorts to the passive voice to emphasize the point that Hercules' enslavement ends logically in his powerlessness and ultimately in his death: . .. nonobstant sa vaillance Femenin sexe, neut point erubescence De luy hebetter, si fort lentendement Quil en devint incense proprement. Parmy les femmes, Hercules travailloit Faysoit buees, il cousoit, & filloit Exercitant, des femmes le mestier Qui ne sont faictz, de cueur ferme ne entier. Aussi de femme, portoit accoustremens Tant de la teste, quen autres vestemens. Si fort estoit, ledict effemine Que en tout pour femmes, il estoit domine. Bref en la fin, pour le femenin sexe
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Fut mys a mort, qui mal faire ne cesse. (Du Pont 1536, 289r) [... notwithstanding his courage, / The female sex did not blush / To confound his understanding / So much so that he became properly enraged. / Among the women, Hercules laboured / Did the washing, sewed and spun, / Exercising women's trades / Not done by [those of] firm and whole heart. / As well, he wore women's accoutrements, / Not only on his head, but other vestments too. / This selfsame effeminate was so strong / That in everything by women was he ruled. / In fine, for the female sex / Was he put to death—they never cease their evil deeds.] Similar claims are found in the French emblem corpus, where it is significant that powerful women are not only characterized in the text by terms identical to or reminiscent of those used to describe the hero, but frequently illustrated with quasi-phallic attributes and gestures which recall his. Corrozet's emblem "Cruaulte d'amour" [Love's cruelty], in which a woman brandishes a switch like a sword, tells us, no doubt hyperbolically, that unrequited love must surely entail a man's pining away until death: Puis que ie sens par amoureux encombres, Ung feu qui meet cueur & corps a torment, Sans recepvoir de dame alegement Fault que l'esperit, s'en voise soubz les umbres. (Corrozet 1974, sig. Cvi v ) [As I feel through loving toils / A fire putting heart and body in torment / Without receiving any relief from the lady / My spirit must needs go down among the shades.] More striking and somewhat less conventional, though, is the emblem entitled "Deffense du pays" [Defense of one's country] which tells the story of the Spartan mother (illustrated in possession of the hero's sword) who slaughtered her cowardly son rather than see him dishonour the family. It is as clear here as in Gratien Du Pont that the would-be hero will meet his death because he has let himself drift towards a "female" mode of existence: he has become an
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Homme couard & lasche do couraige, Effemine trop timide & paoureux . . . (Corrozet 1974, sig. BVr) [Cowardly and faint-hearted man, / Effeminate, too timid and fearful.. .] In the end, the emblematic hero (whether mythological or everyday) thus seems to face greater dangers from the female sex than from the few genuine monsters who appear in the pages of French emblem books. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that his best defense against women may simply be to attack them. A number of emblems suggest with some force that the best course of action for a man is simply to rid himself of troublesome women altogether. Corrozet's emblem entitled "Dessoubz beaulte gist deception" ['Neath beauty lies deception], for example, tells the story of a man with an unfaithful wife who simply attempts to return her to her relatives. La Perriere's emblem LXXVIII makes a more general point about women rather more strongly, in its metaphoric characterization of woman as both unbearably heavy load and insatiable abyss: Femmes et nefz ne sont jamais complies, Cest une chose ou Ton doibt bien penser, Quand on les cuyde avoir du tout remplies C e s t lors le temps qu'il fault recommencer. Vous les pourriez cent fois mieulx agencer Qu'a la parfin vous serez a refaire: C e s t grosse charge & trop peneux affaire: Voire plus grand encores qu'on n'estime Heureulx seroit qui s'en pourroit deffaire, Ou se garder d'entrer en tel abysme. [Women and ships are never filled, / That's something one has to think right through, / When you think you've filled them to the brim, / It's time to start all over again. / You could handle them a hundred times better / And still have to redo it all in the end: / It's a huge load and quite a painful business: / Even more than anyone imagines, / Happy would be he could free himself from them, / Or keep from falling into such an abyss.]
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This emblem's picture shows a woman clearly and grotesquely disproportionate to the sea-going vessel which her size and weight have so obviously overloaded, and the text describes her explicitly not only as an unfillable vessel, but one which can, like a bottomless pit, swallow up any man. What better image of the futility of man's attempts to dominate her than this visual and textual hypertrophy of woman's apparently boundless fertility and sexuality, which from this emblem must in the end apparently always outlast man's? As Marie-Christine Pouchelle has written, this obsessive fear of being swallowed up by women seems in medieval and Renaissance texts to be intimately connected to male sexual anxiety: . . . tandis que clercs et moralistes revent a l'envi de la cloture, jamais assez hermetique, des filles d'Eve et de Pandore, les auteurs de toutes sortes s'accordent a voir d'autre part dans la femme un etre justement ouvert des l'origine, ouvert parce que son corps presentait une breche absente du corps masculin: le sexe feminin, pergu autant comme une blessure que comme une bouche, par lequel le monde exterieur semblait s'engouffrer jusqu'au plus profond des corps. (Pouchelle, 326) [. . . while clerks and moralists strive with one another in dreaming of the enclosure—never hermetic enough—of the daughters of Eve and Pandora, authors of all kinds are in agreement too in their vision of woman as a being who is indeed open from the beginning, open because her body presented a breach missing from the male body: the female genitals, perceived equally as a wound and as a mouth, through which the external world seemed to be swallowed up into the very depths of the body.] While representations of disproportionate women thus reveal deep-rooted male fears of being reduced to impotence, the most striking representation in the French emblematic corpus of an attempt to abolish female power must remain La Perriere's emblem XVI. This emblem has been identified by Alison Saunders as reminiscent of Horus Apollo's "Impossibile" [An impossible thing], the image of which typically depicts a headless man and a pair of disembodied feet walk-
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LMDLEMATICA
ing on water (see the various sixteenth-century editions of Horus Apollo, [e. g. Horapollo 1551; Horapollo 1543]): Certain of [La Perriere's] emblems seem to have been inspired by the Hieroglyphica. The headless woman of emblem XVI is reminiscent of Horapollo's hieroglyphic representing the impossible by depicting a headless figure. (La Perriere 1973, introductory note) While it seems clear that there must be an underlying relationship of some sort between them, La Perriere's emblem diverges from Horus Apollo to such an extent that to accept the identification without qualification is to beg a number of questions. The figure in Horus Apollo is male, not female; clothed, not naked; typically shown walking, in side view, not stationary and seen in full frontal view; shown without the palm leaf in its hand, a feature most prominent in the La Perriere illustration, in which the disembodied feet are not seen at all. These divergences demand to be accounted for, and to study them is to come to grips with the full significance of this emblem for the understanding of the dynamics of male-female relationships in the emblematic corpus. The text of this emblem, in a way exactly analogous to that employed by Gratien Du Pont in the previously cited text dealing with the impotence of Hercules, enumerates a number of the monsters 7.
Du Pont 1536, 288 v : Comme Hercules, si vaillant & puissant Quil en valloit, bien souvent plus que cent Lequel iadis, tant de faict tormenta Ung Antheus, que celluy accravanta Combien quil fust, ung horrible geant Des creatures, maintes endommaigeant. Diomedes, il tua le tirant Le bien de maintz, devers soy attirant. A Gerion quesse que Hercules feist? Le treffort Roy, certes il desconfist Lequel avoit troys testes comme disent Aucuns autheurs, qui de celluy devisent. Le cruel chien, Cerberus abbatit Quavoit aussi troys testes, & batit. Ydra serpent, il ocist a sept testes
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slain by Hercules and the other mythological heros, before coming to the point: "bien seroit chose plus merveilluse, / Qui pourroit veoir une femme sans teste." ['twould be a thing more marvelous, / To see a woman with no head.] Bellerophon, Hercules, Apollo and Perseus: all the great mythological heros are at least implicitly present here. And it is here in fact that we return to Perseus, because of all the monsters mentioned in the text, the picture so strongly reminds us of the headless Medusa. Modern readers often forget that Medusa, in many versions of the myth, was not a sexless monster, like Andromeda's ravening sea-beast, but a woman, and a beautiful woman at that. Adrienne Munich reminds us in addition that both Medusa and Andromeda bear names which signify power, especially power over Fort venimeux, sur toutes autres bestes. [Like Hercules, so valiant and powerful / That he was very often worth more than a hundred / Who long ago in fact tormented / Antaeus to such an extent that he overthrew him. / Though he was a horrible giant, / Injuring many creatures. / Diomedes the tyrant he slew / Drawing good for many before himself. / To Geryon what did Hercules do? / The most-strong King he certainly discomfited / Who had three heads as say / Some authors who tell of him. / The cruel dog Cerberus he struck down / Who had three heads as well, and bested him. / Hydra the serpent, he slew with seven heads / Most venomous amongst all other beasts.] 8. While early versions of the Medusa myth characterize her only as monstrous, she is later frequently said to have been beautiful before being made monstrous by Pallas Athene, either as punishment for having been over-proud of her hair or for having defiled a temple consecrated to the goddess: . . . Ton racontait que Gorgo avait d'abord ete une belle jeune fille, qui avait ose rivaliser de beaute avec la deesse Athena. Elle etait fiere, surtout, de la beaute de sa chevelure. Aussi, pour la punir, Athena changea-t-elle ses cheveux en autant de serpents. Ou bien Ton raconte encore que la colere d'Athena s'abattit sur la jeune fille parce que Poseidon l'avait violee dans un temple consacre a la deesse. Meduse porta la punition de ce sacrilege. [... people said that Gorgo had first of all been a beautiful young girl, who had dared rival the goddess Athena in beauty. She was especially proud of the beauty of her hair. To punish her, therefore, Athena changed her hair into serpents. The story is still told as well of how the anger of Athena fell on the girl because Poseidon had violated her in a temple sacred to the goddess. Medusa bore the punishment for this sacrilege.]
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m e n / Before undertaking even the quest of marriage, Perseus is thus bound to overcome what Munich calls "the chaotic female, the very sign of nature, simultaneously choosing and constructing the socially defined and acceptable feminine behavior. He thus assures himself of licensed rather than unlicensed sexuality, legitimate progeny, and protection of his household name . . . ." (Munich, 32) The real monster, in French emblem books, thus appears to be the "chaotic female," this unrestrained and villainous female sexuality which causes so much neurotic uncertainty among men, and which if left unchecked must—in these writers' view of things—certainly reduce the hero's power to naught and the hero himself to the status of an effeminate victim. The signal exception to this essentially malecentered paradigm, of course, is Georgette de Montenay. Her Huguenot religious focus does of course lead her, as one might expect, to identify the archetypal Monster with Satan, with the Antichrist, and with the unrepentant sinner. Her emblem 72, for example, entitled "Et usque ad nubes Veritas tua" [And unto the clouds your truth], contrasts Satan's evil strength with the vastly greater power of divine goodness. Similarly, her emblem 21, "Sic vivo" [Thus do I live], which shows an owl's attempt to extinguish the lamp, lays similar stress on the monstrous power of evil, always eager, like Andromeda's monster, to devour the innocent. The power of evil is clearly very real indeed in the world of the Emblemes ou devises chrestiennes [Emblems or Christian Devices], but divine grace, in this book at least, will always overcome it. Georgette de Montenay's emblems thus transfer heroic power to the virtuous and repentant reader only to the extent that the reader may acquire power
(Grimal, s. v. "Gorgone"). For some examples of texts from the "Ovide moralise" which conform to this tradition, see (Graham 1996). 9.
"Andromeda means 'ruler of men'. Certainly the Victorian poets who wrote about her knew that. In 'med' Medusa's name has the same root, but, unlike Andromeda, the Gorgon's fatal power is acknowledged, and her punishment is commensurate with that power. Mirror images of each other, one female is killed because of her power, the other has her power chained. Although culturally assimilated to Perseus' story, Andromeda leaves a marker, a sign of power in her name. As woman and ruler of men, her name sets forth gendered distinctions elaborated in the narrative." (Munich, 30)
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over himself (in other words, the power not to sin) and power to resist the wiles of Satan and the world, as in "Resistite fortes 7 ' [Resist, о ye steadfast]. The reader is invited to take on the heroic characteristics not of the mythological pagan heros but of the saints, and the goal to be won is of course not the fleshly reward of marriage to some meek and submissive female but that of eternal life. While Georgette de Montenay's emblems thus clearly derive from a different paradigm of strength and virtue, her book is remarkable in that unlike those of male French emblem authors, it contains a number of portraits of heroic women. The initial emblem of Jeanne d'Albret entitled "Sapiens mulier aedificat domum" [A wise woman builds a house] is of course very well known, and justly so, but other emblems may serve as equally good illustrations of a tendency almost wholly absent from other emblem books: the ability to take women as exem plars not just of virtue but of heroic virtue. Emblem 51, "Vigilate" [Keep watch], is especially telling. Its Christian heroine is identified by Sara Matthews Grieco in a recent article as one of the wise virgins from the Gospel of Matthew, and it seems obvious from the emblem's motto that Georgette de Montenay must have had that passage in mind. Rather than the vessels of oil borne by the biblical virgins, how ever, this woman carries the far more heroic attributes of the multiple candles, virtual blazing swords with which to dispell pagan igno rance. Perhaps alone among emblematic women in France, she is able without fear of retribution to display the emblematic attributes of power and goodness normally reserved for male heros. With Georgette de Montenay's emblem book, we thus enter, to a far greater extent than ever before, a world in which the Monster does have a very real existence, whether as Satan, as the Antichrist, or as the World. In her emblematic universe, male and female characters can stand on a equal footing, whether as unrepentant sinners ("vil lains"), guilt-stricken but weak-willed sinners ("victims") or soldiers of Christ ("heros"). Claude Kappler is almost certainly right in assert ing that И semble que chaque sexe puisse voir dans le sexe oppose un «monstre» ou, du moins, un objet de peur. Mais dans les societes ou c'est essentiellement l'homme qui exprime sa pensee, qui ecrit, qui agit... cette crainte tend a se manifester sous une seule face. (Kappler, 265)
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[It seems that each sex may see in the opposite sex a "monster" or at least an object of fear. But in societies where it is essentially men who express thought, who write, who act . . . this fear tends to manifest itself in only one guise.] It is not surprising, in the end, that emblem books by male authors convert the traditional heroic paradigm into one of male victims and female monsters. What is remarkable, though, is Georgette de Montenay's ability to turn her religious emblems into a document which demonstrates her faith not just in the strength of Heaven, but in the genuine heroism of her own sex. Works cited: Alciato, Andrea. Emblemata cum commentariis . . . . Padua, 1621; rpt. New York: Garland Publishing, 1976. Bardon, Franchise. Le Portrait mythologique a la cour de France sous Henri IV et Louis XIII: Mythologie et Politique. Paris: Editions A. et J. Picard, 1974. Bocchi, Achille. Symbolicarum Quaestionum de Universo Genere quas serio ludebat libri quinque. Bologna: In Aedib. Novae Academiae Bocchianae, 1555. Corrozet, Gilles. Hecatomgraphie. Ed. Alison Saunders. Continental Emblem Books, vol. 6. Ilkley, Yorkshire & London: Scolar Press, 1974. Du Pont, Gratien. Les Controverses des sexes Masculin & Femenin. N.p. [Lyon?], 1536. Graham, David. "Pour une prehistoire emblematique du mythe d'Andromede." In Andromede ou le heros a Yepreuve de la beaute: Actes du colloque international organise au musee du Louvre. Ed. Franchise Siguret and Alain Laframboise. Louvre: conferences et colloques. Paris: Klincksieck; Musee du Louvre, 1996. Pp. 337-64. . '"Voyez ici en ceste histoire...': Cross-Reference, SelfReference and Frame-Breaking in Some French Emblems." Emblematica 7.1 (1993): 1-24. Greimas, Algirdas Julien. Du sens: essais semiotiques. 2 vols. Paris: Seuil, 1970-83.
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, and Joseph Courtes. Semiotique: dictionnaire raisonne de la theorie du langage. Langue, Linguistique, Communication. 2 vols. Ed. Bernard Quemada. Paris: Hachette, 1979-86. Grimal, Pierre. Dictionnaire de la mythologie grecque et romaine. Paris: PUF, 1982. Gueroult, Guillaume. Le premier livre des emblemes. Ed. DeVaux de Lancey. Lyons: Balthazar Arnoullet, 1550; Rouen: Imprimerie Al bert Laine, 1937. Horapollo. Ori Apollinis Niliaci sacrae sculpturae, quas ipse quidem Aegyptio sermone prodidit, Philippus verb lingua Graeca donavit. Paris: Kerver,1551. . Orus Apollo de JEgypte de la signification des notes Hieroglyphiques des Aegyptiens, cesta dire des figures par les quelles ilz escripvoient leurs mysteres secretz, & les choses sainctes & divines. Paris: Jacques Kerver, 1543. Kappler, Claude. Le monstre: pouvoirs de Vimposture. Paris: PUF, 1980. La Perriere, Guillaume de. Le Theatre des bons engins. Ed. Alison Saun ders. Continental Emblem Books, vol. 17. Menston, Yorkshire: The Scolar Press Ltd., 1973. Le Clerc, Jean. "La delivrance de la France par le Persee Frangois." Recueil general des pieces detachees et figures qui regardent la Ligue, 15891594, avec d'autres du regne de Henry IV, fait par M. L'Estoile, 1594. Fol. 31 r . Liebault, Jean. Thresor des remedes secrets pour les maladies desfemmes. Paris: Jacques du Puys, 1585. Matthews Grieco, Sara F. "Georgette de Montenay: A Different Voice in Sixteenth-Century Emblematics." Renaissance Quarterly, 47.4 (1994): 793-871. Munich, Adrienne Auslander. Andromeda's Chains: Gender and Inter pretation in Victorian Literature and Art. New York: Columbia Uni versity Press, 1989. Pouchelle, Marie-Christine. "Le corps feminin et ses paradoxes: L'inraginaire de rinteriorite dans les ecrits medicaux et religieux." La condicion de la mujer en la edad media. Actas del Coloquio celebrado en la Casa de Velazquez, del 5 al 7 de noviembre de 1984. Madrid: Casa de Velazquez/Universidad complutense, 1986. Pp. 315-31. Reusner, Nicolas. Emblemata Nicolai Revsneri, 1С. partim Ethica, et Physica: partime verb Historica, & Hieroglyphica, sed ad virtutis, morumque; doctrinam omnia ingeniose traducta: & in quatuor libros di-
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gestu, cum Symbolis & inscriptionibus illustrium & clarorum virorum. Ed. Jeremias Reusner. Frankfurt: Johannes Feyerabendt, 1581. Simeoni, Gabriele. La Vita e Metamorfoseo d'Ovidio. Lyons: Jean de Tournes, 1559. Stallybrass, Peter. "Patriarchal Territories: The Body Enclosed." In Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe. Ed. Margaret W. Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan and Nancy J. Vickers. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1986. Pp. 123-42 of Women in Culture and Society. Ed. Catharine R. Stimpson.
Christo et Rei publicae. Martin Marstaller's Emblematum Liber Philippi II (Stettin, 1609): An Unknown Calligraphic Emblem Book Manuscript and its Context SABINE MODERSHEIM McGill University and the Canadian Centre for Architecture The Court of Stettin At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Stettin court official Martin Marstaller composed an unusual manuscript emblem book for the reigning Duke Philipp II of Pomerania-Stettin, the Emblematum Liber Philippi II} The fifteen Latin emblems in the parchment manuscript, which is partially decorated in gold, are formed in a particularly artful way. The drawing of each pictura is formed with micrographic letters in the style of pattern poetry. All the emblems are related to the ruling duke and form the imprese and leitmotifs of his life and deeds. It is decidedly uncommon for a German emblem book not only to be dedicated to a particular person but to be conceived and written 1. A version of this essay was presented at the conference Emblem Studies: The State of the Art in Wroclaw, 1995. Additional research has been made possible by a Feodor Lynen fellowship granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Institut de Recherche en Histoire d'Architecture at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
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for him as a whole. There are, admittedly, examples of individual emblems dedicated to particular addressees and also of imprese or devices portraying personal mottoes. Collections of such devices were compiled, for example, by Jacob Typotius. In some emblem books, as in the case of Achille Bocchi or Charles de La Rue, each emblem was correlated with, and dedicated to, a person as addressee and as the bearer of a device. Alciato had already used the mottoes and devices of the nobility for individual emblems. With Marstaller's emblem book, however, we have an example in which each of the fifteen emblems refers to a duke, Philipp II of Pomerania-Stettin. The court of Philipp II of Pomerania-Stettin, 2 who ruled from 1606 until his death in 1618, was known beyond the borders of Pomerania for his promotion of the arts. Philipp II had studied at the University of Rostock and had taken the Grand Tour to Italy. After his return to Pomerania and his move to Stettin, he began cataloguing the portraits of the ducal Kunstkammer and organizing the academic library, the development of which was important to him (Bethe, 69-88). In particular, he supported the sciences and was extremely interested in the history of Stettin and Pomerania, and in the genealogy of his own ducal house (Wehrmann, II, 108). He commissioned chronicles and supported Friedeborn's investigations into the history of Stettin, which form one of the oldest German town histories, as well as the first Pomeranian church history by Daniel Cramer. He commissioned the Rostock professor Eilhard Lubinus to create a detailed and richly ornamented map of Pomerania according to precise measurements. His unusually high degree of education for the Pomeranian ducal house and his extraordinary patronage of the arts clearly distinguish Philipp II from other princes and dukes. These accomplishments were, however, later rarely acknowledged and hardly understood because they were often presented in allegorical forms, for which comprehension could no longer be assumed by the beginning of the nineteenth century. Older historiography even claims that "Philipp II occupied himself with his artistic or scientific pursuits rather than with the affairs of government" (Wehrmann, II, 106). The works of 2.
Philipp II was born in 1573 as the son of Bogislav III (1544-1606) from his first marriage with Clara von Braunschweig; he married Sophie von SchleswigHolstein.
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art, the coins, medals, and "curiosities" which he gathered on his journeys were collected in a Kunstkammer for which a wing of the Stettin castle was specially built (but not completed until 1619, after Philippe death). He himself compiled catalogues and lists of his works of art, his books, and collection of coins.
The Kunstkammer
and
Cabinet of Curiosities From 1612 on Philipp II began to collect contributions to a representative alFig. 1. The Pomeranian Kunstschrank, from: bum amicorum, which conLessing, Der Pommersche Kunstschrank (Ber- tained pages by Ferdinand lin, 1905). Photo courtesy of Herzog August Bol, Paul Brill, and Hans Bibliothek Wolfenbuttel. Breughel. A l t h o u g h this amazing collection has unfortunately been lost, Werner Bake published a description of it. Philipp II commissioned the Augsburg art agent Philipp Hainhofer, with whom he had been in contact since 1610, to collect contributions by the major German and European princely houses. Not only relatives of the Duke, the emperor, the kings of Denmark and Poland, but also German electoral dukes, other dukes, duchesses and bishops donated coats-of-arms and drawings. Apart from the Flemish masters, pages were made on commission by prominent Augsburg artists,
3.
He also recommended Hainhofer to his kinsman Duke August who commissioned Hainhofer to buy books and works of art for his collection. The vast correspondence between Duke August and his agent Hainhofer forms a source of great interest for cultural studies and art history; it is preserved in the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbuttel and is available in part in a modern edition. See Gobiet 1984.
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among them Bernhard, Koger, Kilian, Konie, and Mozart (Bethe, 82). Particular attention was aroused by the creation of the Pomeranian Kunstschrank, a curiosity cabinet (Fig. 1) commissioned by the Duke. It was designed by wellk n o w n A u g s b u r g artisans and artists (Himmelheber, II, 58-62). This was the first "writing desk" of its kind and served as a model for later examples of such "Augsburg cabinets" (Bostrom; and von Schlosser, 73 a n d 88). With great pomp and expense, Hainhofer himself Fig. 2. Pommerscher Kunstschrank (detail showb r o u g h t the curiosity ing the emblem panels). cabinet to Stettin, in order to be there for the presentation (Hainhofer, 19ff.). This curiosity cabinet formed a Kunstkammer in miniature—in a piece of furniture, as it were. Following the model of the Kunstkammer depicting the world in miniature in a selection of artifacts and naturalia, the curiosity cabinet collected such things as stones, shells, and coins, as well as miniature versions of tools and mechanical appliances or objects of domestic use in many small shelves and drawers (Medicus).
4. Hellmuth Bethe provides a reproduction of a miniature from this collection by A. Mozart (Augsburg, 1613), which was found in the Schweriner Geheim- und Hauptarchiv, with the motto "In Deo mea consolatione" and the inscriptio "Wolfgang Wilhelm Pfalzgrav bey Rhein." 5. A contemporary painting shows the delivery and ceremony in Stettin; see Die Brandenburgisch-Preuflische Kunstkammer, 65-68.
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Literature at the Court of Stettin Daniel Cramer and Heinrich Kielmann as well as Ludwig Hollonius, important representatives of the Latin school drama and Ger man-language drama, were active at the ducal school, the Paedagogium (Langer, 16f.). At the Stettin court of Philipp II adaptations л nd Latin translations of Tasso's dramas were first performed (Aurnhammer; Steffen, 3). The physician and poet Andreas Hiltebrant was the first to translate the dramas of Torquato Tasso for the Germanspeaking world. Philipp II had also visited England on the grand tour, and he brought English travelling theatre companies to Stet tin. The Duke's marriage to Sophie of Schleswig-Holstein was "also adorned with a graceful comedy by the students of the ducal Pxdagogium" in 1607 (Micraelius, IV, 16). Duke Philipp II had a particular interest in allegorical and em blematic art (Modersheim 1994 ). In the context of the court of Stet tin, the two influential spiritual emblem books of Daniel Cramer (rpt. Hildesheim, 1981 and 1994) appeared in 1617 and 1630. These were published in several editions, and they disseminated above all heart emblems (Modersheim 1994 ). In the north German and Scandina vian regions in particular, many of these emblems were used in church decorations (Nicolaisen). Daniel Cramer was the pastor at the church of Mary and rector of the ducal Paedagogium. The fact that he had friendly relations with Martin Marstaller is proven by the fu neral sermon he gave for Marstaller in 1615 (Cramer, Christliche Predigt, 1615). Already several years before the first edition of Cramer's Emblemata Sacra was published (Cramer, Societas Jesu et Roseae Crucis Vera, 1617), the Stettin court official Martin Marstaller had written his emblem book especially for Duke Philipp II.
6. Joachim von Wedel criticized the behaviour of these theatre companies in 1606 as "etliche und zwantzige Englander, musicanten, springer, tantzer und der pussenreisser, so die artes voluptarias uben und anders nirgend zu nutzen, als class sie frass, schwelg und ander unordnung und verschwendung befordern." [some twenty Englishmen, musicians, dancers, fools and comedians w h o are of no use other than promoting gluttony, disorder and extravagance] Hausbuch des Herrn von Wedel aufKrempzow Schloe and Blumberg erbgesessen, ed. Julius Freiher von Bohlen Bohlendorff (Tubingen, 1882); quoted in Langer, 19.
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Heraldry, Imprese, and Coins in the Epoch of Philipp II In 1606 and 1607, Philipp II had exhibition coins minted which depicted his device, or rather his chosen mottoes, the so-called Gnadenpfennige. Emblematic representations are also found on the exhibition coins which Duke Philipp II had minted on the occasion of the anniversary of the reformation in 1617 (Cramer, Das GroRe Pommerische Kirchen Chronicon,l628). In the history of the minting of coins in the duchy of Pomerania, the short period in which coins were commissioned by Duke Philipp II stands out clearly. Whereas usually only coats-of-arms and such insignia as the orb of the Reich and letters or inscriptions were stamped on the coins, and coins commemorating the burial of a member of the ducal family bore the usual vanitas motifs such as th skull, the skelton, or the hour glass, Duke Philipp II had a whole series of coins stamped bearing emblematic representations and inscriptions. In 1612 Philipp II re-opened the mint in Stettin, which had been closed since the death of his uncle. Several of the coins stamped during his reign bear emblematic motifs which almost all derive from Marstaller's emblem book; they include the Pomeranian gryphon with sword and book (emblem 1), Christ in a boat (emblem 3), the candle which consumes itself (emblem 14), and the stag at the spring (emblem 15). Book emblematics are thus only one of the various forms of emblematic representation which Philipp II, sponsor of the arts, encouraged. He evidently had an artist from Augsburg—certainly through the mediation of Hainhofer—engaged as a die-cutter: the dies for a series of coins bear the signature DS of the Augsburg goldsmith Daniel Sailer (Hildisch, 35-66).8 This striking allegorical form of representation, which combines image and word in an easily comprehensible unity, is obviously an ideal means for expressing a notion of self. The uneducated subject grasps the meaning by means of the pictorial representation (for ex7.
Hildisch, 40; Bethe, 72, Hoffman 1933, Nos. 34-39; Hoffmann 1937, 59-63.
8.
Philipp Hainhofer's letter of 18 April 1618: "Der Sayler wolle auch auf begehren Ihrer Frl, On. Conterfett mit emblema schneiden" [Sayler wishes to portray the Duke with emblemata]; quoted in Hildisch, 39.
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ample in a broadsheet or an exhibition coin or displayed as church decoration). The scholar for his part responds to the game of the reciprocal possibilities of interpretation of text and image and is intellectually challenged by it. Martin Marstaller Martin Marstaller had been the tutor of Duke Bogislav XIII's sons, and in particular of the young Philipp II, since 1585. The emblem book which Marstaller wrote for Philipp II thus bears many of the characteristics of a Fiirstenspiegel. Marstaller came from a highly regarded family of scholars and physicians. His grandfather came from the Catholic area of Breisgau, which at that time belonged to Austria. His father, however, as the personal physician of various German princes, came "to Wittenberg already during the lifetime of Doctor Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon .. . where he was illuminated and converted by the light of truth" and became a Protestant. Born in Brunswick in 1560, Martin Marstaller attended school there, where the headmaster was Matthias Bergius, and he studied "poetry, philology, and medicine" from 1578 in Jena and Helmstedt. After his eldest brother, Gervasius, had been brought to Pomerania as a physician by Clara of Braunschweig, whom Duke Bugslav XIII of Pomerania had married, Martin Marstaller accepted an invitation to Stettin to be tutor of Duke Bogislav's sons. With Philipp he made the usual Grand Tour through Italy, France, and Switzerland. He later became Ducal Advisor and worked particularly in this capacity with Duke Philipp II after his rule began in 1609. In 1610, Emperor Rudolf II promoted Marstaller to the rank of a Comes Palatinus. In 1613 Marstaller became deacon in Stettin. Marstaller's devices were: Officium faciam Christo [I shall perform my duty and put myself in Christ's hands] and Spes mea portio Christi [Christ is my hope and my inheritance] (Cramer, Christliche Predigt, fol. Dl v ff.). During his time as advisor, tutor, and court official, Marstaller published many books, among which was an edition of a Latin trans9. Martin Marstaller (1560-1615); see, Zedler 19, col. 1776: "ein pommerscher Doctor Juris, war Comes Palatinus, und bey dem Herzoge in Pommern Rath, und starb den 1. Juli 1615 im 55 Jahre." [a Pomeranian Doctor of law, became Comes Palatinus, then consultant for the Duke of Pomerania, died on July 1st, 1615, at the age of 55].
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lation of Aristotle's Rhetoric. This edition, which was printed in Barth in Pomerania, bears a reference in its title to its genesis and purpose. It was meant to be used for teaching in the Ducal Paedagogium and also served for the education of the young Duke Philipp. In the preface, Marstaller refers specifically to the necessity of an education in rhetoric for the future ruler. One can deduce from this biography that the development of Philipp II into a learned prince with a sensibility for the arts was encouraged by his education at the hands of highlyregarded scholars (von Katte). His cousin, Duke August of Brunswick, also served as a model. In his funeral sermon for Martin Marstaller, Daniel Cramer takes Psalm 105 as the point of departure and compares his role to that of Joseph's appointment as instructor of the King's men (Cramer, Christliche Predigt, sig. A3 r ; Cl v ). He thus refers to Marstaller's important function at the Pomeranian court. As the educator of princes, in particular of Philipp II, he had a decisive role in forming the latter's vision of himself as a pious and just Christian ruler. This is documented in the devices, symbols, and emblems chosen by the young prince which presumably already accompanied him during his childhood years and studies, and which were finally preserved in Martin Marstaller's emblem book for the prince and also in the curiosity cabinet. The fact that Marstaller both dedicated and presented the emblem book to the prince reinforces the connection with the biography of the prince and the genealogy of the ducal house. The Emblem Manuscript The manuscript was probably written for a special occasion, perhaps the New Year celebration. A title, which refers to the Emblematum Liber for Philipp II of 1609, can be found in the collection of such genealogical items as panegyric poems, funeral sermons and the like, called Vitae Pomeranorum of the Greifswald university library among the Parentationes Philippicae. It must evidently have been a dedicatory poem of Marstaller's, with which he presented the emblem book 10. Marstaller's preface is dated January 1609, which leads to the supposition that the New Year celebration could have been the occasion for the dedication of the emblem book. Other possible occasions fail to match the date of Marstaller's dedication: the Duke's birthday was 28 July, his inauguration took place on 7 March 1606, and he married in 1607.
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on the occasion of the New Year with good wishes for the following year in office. The contribution unfortunately no longer exists, but from the character of the collection one can deduce that the reference to the Emblematum Liber Philippi II concerns the manuscript. Marsi a Her presumably had the dedicatory poem, with which the emblem hook opens on the first page, printed for the presentation ceremony and distributed to those present. Ft cannot be determined whether the manuscript was intended to serve as the basis for a printed emblem book. While the preface to the reader and the disposition of the pages, which reminds one of typographical form, make this possible, the particular execution as a Schreibmeisterbuch suggests that the manuscript was created as a unique entity that imitated the form of printed models as closely as possible. The particularity of this manuscript lies in the execution of the pictura drawings, which are composed of micrographic characters. These lines, consisting of hardly decipherable letters and words, produce complete and meaningful sentences. They are mostly German quotations from the Psalms or prayers in the manner of Psalms. Each pictura consists of an oval in a rectangular frame the corners of which are also filled with text. These frame lines also consist of micrographic characters. In each of the corners the calligraphic script indicates the verse of the Psalms from which the quotation is taken. In some emblems, the motto or the inscriptio is written in the space between the lines that form the double oval frame. Only the initial emblem is executed in a different manner. Here the frame is traced in gold and the subscriptio is repeated in a separate rectangular space at the bottom of the pictura. In all the following emblems both the space between the surrounding ovals and the space for the subscriptio at the bottom are left empty.
11. Vitae Pomeranorum, 116. See Edmund Lange; and the Handbuch der historischen Buchbestande, ed. Christiane Petrick (in preparation). 12. A similar work is a portrait of Duke August of Braunschweig and Liineburg, also composed of Psalm verses by Schreibmeister Heinrich Julius Willershausen. The portrait is not dated but was most certainly done after 1646 since it copies the Duke's portrait by Albert Freise and Adrien Matham of which a copperplate was published in 1646. See, Alles mit Bedacht, in Bircher and Burger, frontispiece and description, p. 204.
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The running number of each emblem is written above the accompanying commentary, and below this follows the Latin motto and the inscriptio or subscriptio. A Latin prose commentary explains the meaning of the emblem and relates it specifically to the Duke. While the inscriptiones and the commentary are in Latin, all the texts of the Psalms, which comprise the pictura drawings, are in German. Although the prose texts differ in length, as a rule they fill a good half to a whole manuscript page. The remaining free space on the page is filled with arabesques. The initial letters of the prose commentary are specially decorated as capitals. At the end of the manuscript there occurs a striking defect as well as an error in numbering. For the fourteenth emblem the inscriptio, subscriptio and the commentary text are missing, while the last emblem lacks its pictura. Dirty marks and traces of use on the final page, however, as well as the analysis of the numbering of pages and sheets, permit the conclusion that no page has been lost. One can therefore assume that a previous draft version existed as a model for the sumptuous calligraphic manuscript and that in copying a mistake occurred which went undetected before the manuscript was presented to the Duke and was later left uncorrected. The model of the Schreibmeister page for the pictura marks the dominance of text over image. This signals the primacy of the Protestant scriptural principle and the authority of the Bible texts over all others. This also overlays the mythological allusions and references which are subordinated to the ideal of the Christian prince. The text is also privileged in other ways over the image in the bimedial triad of the emblem in this manuscript. Not only is the image composed of letters instead of lines, but the letters are also legible and present a meaningful text when read in a linear fashion. This text is to a large extent a quotation from the Bible, and when this is not the case, it is a prayer in the manner of the Psalms. Thus, not only can the images be "read" and seen in their relation to the accompanying text as the illustrating variant of a moral discourse, but they are also literally legible through the motifs in a material sense by the disposition of their lines, which are the lines of a text. This technique can thus "inscribe" the image with an additional variant of the significatio, that is, with a biblical sense. Thus the pictura embodies in itself the Protestant principle that biblical references and quotations should be the sources for the moralia of each individual emblem.
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The principle of the construction and the order of the emblem book thus derives from the Psalter and with it the series of Psalm prayers in their numerical order. The motifs of the pictura and the correlative inscriptions are selected and arranged according to the themes and the motifs of these Psalms, which range from thanks to, and praise of, God to the invocation of God's help against enemies. The texts from the Psalms identify the ideal prince with King David of the Psalter as a central theme for the emblem book. The motifs of praise for the ruler, addressing Duke Philipp II and his government, and the themes and motifs of his coat-of-arms, devices, and imprese fit into this context. His preferred mottoes are closely connected to the general themes of the Fiirstenspiegel for the ideal Christian ruler, which would later be developed in such an explicitly emblematic Fiirstenspiegel as Saavedra's Idea de un principe politico christiano. The commanding virtues of the pious prince—and Duke Philipp II considered himself to be such a prince—are again prescribed in the Psalter. The many passages in the Psalms which were typologically understood as the annunciation of the realm of Christ effectively double the references. Just as the Christian prince of the early seventeenth century can refer to King David as his model, he sees at the same time the topological paradigm of Christ in the Psalmist. He thus identifies himself doubly, both with King David of the Old Testament and with Christ. In his imitatio Christi and in his imitatio Davidis, the pious prince finds the legitimating authority for his rule. The correlation of quotations from the Psalms has a particular tradition in the literature of the Fiirstenspiegel, especially in Protestant contexts. Luther gave his exegesis of Psalm 101 the title "David's Mirror of the Ruler" (Luther 1974, 964). Many of the Psalms which deal with persecution by enemies and contain prayers for divine sustenance are particularly suitable for paraphrasing the virtues of rulers. The selection of texts from the Psalms for Marstaller's emblem book confirms this. The quotations are coordinated with the individual emblems in thematic contexts and thus serve alongside the subscriptio and the Latin commentary as a further "sub"-text. In this, the principles of the Christian virtues of rulership are formulated once more with particular authority, for these biblical texts were regarded as the prayers of King David as handed down through tradition.
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EMBLEMATICA
Themes and Motifs The emblems in Martin Marstaller's book for Duke Philipp II can generally be divided into three groups. First there are the emblems which have general biblical motifs as a theme, emphasizing the de piction of the Christian ruler (Christ in the boat, the stag at the spring). Then there is a group of genealogical motifs which refer to the coat-of-arms of the Pomeranian ducal house and the insignia re lating to the power of the ducal family (gryphon, book and crown, cross of Andreas). Finally, there are emblems which draw on the indiwO->.ll—Лк.«^ д,-,.»^.к*_„>>^ „I__
Fig. 3. Emblem I from Marstaller, Philippi II Emblematum Liber, Berliner Staatsbibliothek, photo courtesy of Ber liner Staatsbibliothek.
cnj- j
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vidual mottoes and devices of Duke Philipp II. These form the most important and the largest group. Apart from the general meaning, which refers to the virtues of a Christian ruler, some of the emblems have a further, individual meaning which alludes to Philipp II. To these belong the emblems featuring the heraldic images of the Pomeranian family, emblems which address Duke Philipp II directly, such as emblem 7, Philippe homo es [Philipp, you are human] and also others which make no direct allusion in the emblem itself, but develop the relation in the commentary, as in emblem 10, Philosophia, which alludes to the name of the duchess Sophia. The first emblem with Duke Philipp IPs electoral motto Christo et Reipublicae. Gott und dem Gemeinen helfen [For Christ and the State/ God and the commonweal] (Fig. 3) shows in the pictura the gryphon holding book and sword. The gryphon, a fabulous animal composed of the lion and the wolf, was worshipped as the holy animal of Apollo and of Nemesis, and had long been the heraldic animal on the coat-of-arms of the Pomeranian dukes; it can also be found on coins, seals, and on the coats-ofarms of the city (Pyl; Schmidt VII, 29-33). 13 One of the earliest depictions of the gryphon on a coat-of-arms is to be found in the shield of Duke Bogislav II of 1214.14 The gryphon with book and sword, as found in the first emblem of Marstaller's Emblematum Liber, is the personal coat-of-arms of Duke Philipp II of Pomerania-Stettin. On coins, the gryphon with the book and coat-of-arms is first found in 1612, thus three years after the presentation of the emblem book. 1 5 However, Martin Marstaller was presumably referring to the Duke's coat-of-arms, which was already generally known. On some ducats one also finds the motif of the sword crossed with a pen, illustrating the connection of learning and power which Philipp II considered his particular characteristic. This device is established in alba amicorum as early as 1597 (Lobe, 157). The gryphon with the book and the sword can be found on a coin of 1616 with the motto Hie regit, ille tue13. Today it can be found in the coat-of-arms and flag for the state of MecklenburgVorpommern. 14. See Hildisch, 35, No. 26; 39, No. 38; 40, No. 42. 15. Philipp II re-established the mint only in 1612; see Hildisch, 34.
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tur [This rules, that protects] (Lobe, 158). Christ is the highest in stance of good rule. From divine law and the model of Christ, who sacrifices himself for the faithful and redeems them, result the rele vant virtues of the ruler. The motif of the book and the sword is repeated in emblem 6: Те Duce [To Thee, the Duke] (Fig. 4). The pictura shows a book on which lies a sword, surmounted by a crown, a heart, and the dove as the Holy Spirit. The book, which may represent secular law, but is more likely the Holy Scriptures, is posited as the basis for everything that follows. This corresponds to the Protestant conception of scripture and the absolute authority of the Bible. The sword symbolizes the secular power of the ruler, which he should employ wisely. The S>Vv *>.,;.,.,
Fig. 4. Emblem 6 from Marstaller, Philippi II Emblematum Liber, Berliner Staatsbibliothek, photo courtesy of Ber liner Staatsbibliothek.
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crown, signifying the prince, is surpassed by the heart, which is closest to the dove and the rays of the Holy Spirit. This expresses the notion that the centre, the personal core of the believer, and particularly of the Christian prince, should elevate itself to God. The sword and the quill are recurring elements, which Prince Philipp II had stamped on coins. Thus he chose for the motto "Alles zu seiner Zeit" [Everything in its time], which was the personal motto of his mother Clara of Braunschweig and Luneberg, the image of the sword and the quill that form a cross when they are placed over each other (Hildisch, 47). A later commentary explains the intention: The motto Everything in its time pleased our Duke so much that he conceived a symbolic picture to correspond to it. He had a sword and a quill painted in such a way that they crossed each other and had the words written above. Everything in its time. The quill means the laws of a country and the proclamations and orders of the prince, beyond this also good books and everything that furthers and maintains the peaceful prosperity of a state. The sword is the sign of the supreme power of punishing evil-doers, which God conferred on the ruling authority in Romans 13. They cannot both be used indiscriminately at any time, but the first one must be used in time of war and when evil is about to gain ascendance, and the former should be applied in tranquil times and periods. The laudable prince thus wanted to demonstrate with this image that a great lord should examine the times and the circumstances well and consider where and when the quill or the dagger are necessary. I think that he arrived at this conclusion at a time in which a swarm of marauding soldiers were seen at the borders against whom one had necessarily to deploy regular troops. For such guests care nothing for laws, rights, and commands and can only be despatched with the unsheathed dagger, with gunpowder and lead.
16. Johann Heinrich Schultz, in Wochentliche Hallische Anzeigen, II, 1741; quoted in Hildisch, 48.
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In the fourth emblem, the Pomeranian coat-of-arms is depicted in the pictura. It has nine fields for the individual parts of the country. A crowned red gryphon with golden weapons on a blue background stands for the duchy of Stettin; a red gryphon on silver for the duchy of Pomerania; a black gryphon on gold for the duchy of Cassubia; a red and green striped gryphon on silver for the duchy of Wenden; a crowned black lion with red weapons on gold above a red gable for the principality of Rugen; a silver gryphon with a fish tail for the regency of Usedom; a black gryphon in gold for the Land of Barth; the red Andreas cross with four red roses in gold for the duchy of Gutzkow; and a silver gryphon in red above a blue-gold chessboard for the duchy of Wolgast. A flag of blood, a red expanse without pictorial representation, is found above the middle shield in the lower row. This shows that the bearer of the coat-of-arms is a prince of the Holy Roman Empire and carries out the highest justice as blood-justice. This field of regalia is represented on the large court and mourning flag of the Pomeranian ruling house as a separate coat-of-arms with arabesque-like decorations. In many depictions, the coat-of-arms is held up by two wild men, for example in the Barth Bible or on coins (Hildisch, 14-16, 38). The emblem picks this up. Here the coat-ofarms is held by Hercules who is leaning on his club. Both in the subscripts and in the Latin commentary Hercules is compared to the Duke. The fifth emblem, which bears the motto Deo gra Ha sum [I am grateful to God], features the Duke's initials, PHS set in an oval of four crowns and four roses. It contains a further reference to Pomeranian heraldry. The four roses (together with the cross of Andrew, which is not depicted here) belong to the coat-of-arms of the dukedom of Gutzkow (Hildisch, 16). However, the rose with the heart and crown at the centre perhaps alludes to Luther's coat-of-arms (Conermann). Through the sign of Christ in the centre of the picture, reference is also made to Jesus's wounds as well as to the rose as a sign of Christ in general. The crown refers to the Christian ruler. In imitation of Christ, the Princeps Christianus should give pride of place to God's commandments and the Christian faith. The commentary and subscriptio emphasize the sole legitimation of the Christian ruler: he has been chosen by God, is subordinate to the divine will, and must prove himself worthy of that choice. At the centre stands the sequence of letters PHS, for "Philipp Duke of Stettin," which clearly alludes to Christ's monogram, IHS. This is
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not fortuitous. Instead of the monogram of the complete title ГI ITS—Philipp Duke of Pomerania-Stettin—the second "P" is omit ted so as to create a connection between Duke Philipp as the ideal of tlu» Christian ruler and Christ himself. Among the German aristoc racy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was customary, particularly in inscriptions in alba atnicorum, to develop word-plays based on the initial letters of a personal name. Thus C.D.S. stood for (liristiana Ducissa Saxoniae, or Christus Dux Solus (Lobe, 197). A vari ant of this was to invent word-plays which, when read as an acrostic, formed a word or the name of Jesus, as in "Mein vester Stein ist Christus allein" [My immoveable rock is Jesus alone] or "Mein Vertrauen steht in Christus allein" [My trust is in Jesus alone]. Here the initial letters of the individual words form the word MUSICA. In the device of the duchess Luise Amalie of Anhalt-Bernburg, "In Einem steht unsere Seligkeit" [Our beatitude lies in one alone], one can read the name JESUS (Lobe, 7). Duke Philipp IPs initials PHS, intended to re call the name of Christ, should be read in this light. Marstaller varied these initials once more as a wordplay on the name of the Duke: "Pietas Hortus Salutis" [Piety is the Garden of Salvation] and in a varia tion in emblem 7 as "Philippus Homo Sum." Emblem 7, at the centre of the book, is the only one which already bears the name of the Duke in the motto "Philippe homo es" [Philipp, You are Human]. The pictura shows a clock decorated with symbols of transience, an hourglass and a skeleton. 17 The subscriptio and the commentary refer to the mortality of man, who must always live in the expectation of his end, as the general conditio hutnana. Also the Christian ruler is subject to the laws of mortality. Yet his fame over comes temporal limits. From the expectation of death, and conscious of his own mortality and the vanity of earthly existence, man in gen eral and the ruler in particular, gains a serene attitude towards the world. This consciousness provides the point of departure for a life which is lived to please God. The emblematic motif of the clock with a similar interpretation was already the device of the first Pomeranian duke, Duke Bogislaus X: D.U.I.W. meaning "Der Uhr ich warte" [I am
17. In memory of George III, a brother of Duke Philipp, a coin was minted in 1617. It shows Hercules with a gryphon coat-of-arms leaning on a board inscribed with the dates of Duke George Ill's birth and death. To the side are the attributes of death and futility, namely an hourglass and a skull.
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waiting for the (right) moment] or also D.U.N.W. meaning "Der Uhr nicht warte" [Do not wait for the clock]. The name of his wife, Sophia of Schleswig-Holstein, whom Philipp II married in 1607, one year after his accession, is hidden in the motto of emblem 10, "Philosophia." The pictura shows the flower Chamaepitia, whose popular name is "The longer the better." The text from the Psalms in the frame also alludes to this: "O du susser und lieblicher Herr Jesus Christus ich bitte dich du wiliest mein Herz erfullen" etc. [Oh sweet and lovely Lord Jesus Christ I ask you to deign to satisfy my heart]. Here, Philosophia stands for the Stoic virtues of wisdom, composure, patience, and justice, which the Christian ruler is particularly required to possess. The quotations from Psalms 35 to 38 also contribute to this theme. Psalm 35: "Herr hadere mit meinen Haderern"; Psalm 36: "Herr mache mich gerecht"; Psalm 37: "O Herr gib mir dafi ich mich nicht las bewegen das wessen der hoffartigen"; and Psalm 38: "Herr straffe mich nicht in deinem Zorn." Already the second emblem thematizes human mortality and the futility of human life. "Mors ultima linea rerum" [Death is the last line of all things] reads the commentary to this emblem. The pictura shows a crying child pointing to a skull while a sword (of Damocles) hangs over his head from a very thin thread. The advice to the Prince derives from this heavy-handed indication of the mortality of all humans. In all his actions and decisions as ruler he should always keep in mind the futility of earthly enterprises. If his actions are ruled by this insight, they should be free of selfishness and worldly vanity. Sub specie aeternitatis—only those decisions and actions count which are centered in Christian faith. For this emblem the Psalm texts forming the pictura derive from the prayers of the afflicted King (Psalm 61: "O Gott, hore meine klage"), the quiet hope and faith in God (Psalm 62: "Herr las dir meine Seele allzeit schweigen"), the fear of the distresses of wars (Psalm 20: "Herr erhore mich in dieser meiner Angst") and the thankful prayer after victory (Psalm 21: "Komme du mein lieber Herr Gott"). The third emblem (Fig. 5) has the unshakable faith in God as its topic. The inscriptio reads "Christus ist dennoch mit im Schiff / ob er
18. Cramer 1628, 236; Lobe, 154.
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Fig. 5. Emblem 3 from Marstaller, Philippi II Emblematum Liber, Berliner Staatsbibliothek, photo courtesy of Berliner Staatsbibliothek.
gleich auch schleft" [Christ is yet with us in the ship although he sleeps]. Even if the state and the Prince are afflicted, the first task should be to trust in God and put hope in his Son. Christ is the true savior from all affliction, and faith in him grants resurrection. The Christian ruler should learn from this example that he should not fall from faith in God even in the most desperate situations of war and danger. Rather he should find his strength in the true belief in Christ, directing all his actions towards faith in eternal resurrection in order to rule for the benefit of his subjects. Some coins from 1617 display a similar motif: "Sapientia non violentia" [Wisdom, not violence] reads the motto of an emblem showing a helmsman who steers his ship securely even in a violent storm
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Fig. 6. Emblem 8 from Marstaller, Philippi II Emblematum Liber, Berliner Staatsbibliothek, photo courtesy of Berliner Staatsbibliothek.
(Hildisch, 50ff., No. 79-85; Lobe, 157). By emphasizing the image of a wise Prince who rules with prudence rather than violence this emblem alludes to specific political upheavals under Duke Philipp's rule. In the previous year, in 1608, the burgers of Stettin had violently opposed an increase in taxation. Only the Duke's moderate appeal calmed the riot, and the burgers obeyed his regulations (Hildisch, 52). The ideal of the Christian ruler and his peaceful, wise rule is also the topic of other emblems in Marstaller's collection. Emblem 8 "Ego tuli de te grege" [I have entrusted you with the herd] (Fig. 6) shows King David, the harpist, as a model for the good prince. Only he who is the worthiest will be chosen to be the leader. He should, however,
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bc»ha ve like a servant acting as paris inter pares and should not think of himself as exceptional. The figura of King David with the harp recalls two virtues at once: it combines piety with the love for music and art. 19 This seems to hint at Duke Philipp's support of the arts. But Luther's interpretation of Psalm 101 as "Davids Regentenspiegel" might have influenced the decision to present King David as a model for the Christian ruler thus alluding to Duke Philipp. Duke Philipp must have been familiar with this Protestant type of FUrstenspiegel and even took it as a model for himself. There is also a coin showing King David, or rather a portrait of Duke Philipp II as KingJ3avid with the harp. He sits among a flock of sheep in a meadow outside a city that seems to be Stettin. A hand from heaven holds a crown over his head. The motto is the same as in emblem 8 in Marstaller's Emblematum Liber: Ego tuli te de grege (Lobe, 157). The harp as the symbol of unity and harmony returns in the emblem book in emblem 12 with the motto "Concentus ex concordia" [Unity derives from Harmony]. Emblem 9, "Vna salus patriae" [One salvation for our Countr y], is illustrated with a cornucopia held by folded hands as a symbol of unity. The virtues of concord, unity, and friendship guarantee continuation of the state's prosperity. Peace externally as well as internally guarantees the burgher's wealth and welfare. The commentary on this emblem refers to Philipp's inauguration in 1606 and expresses the hope for rule according to these virtues. Another emblem strengthens this plea for a peaceful and pious regency. A heart between folded hands, crowned by the tetragrammaton with rays from the sun forms the picturq for emblem 11: "Faveat Deus auctor amoris" [God prefers those who promote love]. Thus again the love of God is
19. Cf. Daniel Cramer's personal device "Domini Doctrina Coronat" [The Holy Doctrine is your crown] which also showed King David with the harp; in Daniel Cramer, Emblemata Sacra, Part 2, sig. A4 r . 20. Another allusion to King David is found in the frame of the picture: "David ist ein hebreisch Wort und heifit auf deutsch einen geliebten oder einen solchen Menschen, der von Gott und Menschen liebgehabt wird." [The Hebrew word David means a loved one or someone who is loved by God and man.] 21. This also appears in Daniel Cramer's device, see Modersheim 1994 2 , 78-82.
02
LMHl I MATICA
regarded as the most important basis for a harmonious and peaceful rule. The good Christian ruler who always acts for the benefit of his subjects and who offers his heart as a sacrifice to God is depicted in emblem 13 (mistakenly numbered 14) 22 with the motto "Patria resurgens" [A flourishing country]. The Prince stands near an altar and points to the heart which is being sacrificed. Next to him sits the allegorical figure of Caritas, represented as a woman surrounded by children. She is grasping the Prince's hand. This scene, like the image of King David's harp—repeated on the title page—also corresponds to the quotations from the Psalm and prayers which form the images of the pictura. The Bible quotations for this emblem again emphasize the identification of the Prince with the model for his behaviour. He should be a father to his subjects just as God is our father. The words in the frame of the pictura read: " Allmachtger Gott, ein Vater der Witwen und Waisen, etc." [Almighty God, father of widows and orphans]. The virtue of the good Prince is consumed in his service to others, which is the topic of emblem 14 (mistakenly numbered 15): "Officio mihi officio" [I consume myself in my task]. The pictura is missing for this emblem, but it can be reconstructed from the commentary as well as from a coin that shows a burning candle bearing the same inscriptio "Officio mihi officio " (Hildisch, 47, No. 72; Lobe, 157). This emblem of the self-consuming candle is also a well-known symbol of the selflessness of a pious Prince who lives only for his state and subjects. It was used several times by Duke August of Braunschweig and Luneburg as his personal device. Certainly Philipp II of Pomerania knew this emblem and combined it with his own motto "Officio mihi officio." The commentary also refers to a device for Duke Heinrich Julius of Braunschweig and Luneburg "Aliis in serviendo consumor" [In doing good to others, I harm myself] with the same pictura (Alles mit Bedacht, 199). For the final emblem 15, the text is missing. The pictura features the well-known Christian image of a stag drinking from a spring (Bath,
22. The correct number X/// was altered later by the addition of I in darker ink. The error seems to stem from the fact that obviously the pictura for the text on "Officio meo officio"was omitted while for the last pictura the text is missing. In both cases the missing part can be reconstructed.
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1992). The motto and the meaning of this emblem can thus be easily completed. A Doppelgoldgulden, coined in 1615 and 1616, shows a stag rxactly as in the emblem. On the coin the motto reads: "In te sitit anima mea" [Nach dir durstet meine Seele] a quotation from Psalm 42 (Hildisch, 35, No. 27; Lobe, 158; this quotation is also used in the pictura of emblem 11). The Emblems and the Pomeranian
Kunstschrank
Marstaller's emblem book forms a basis for later emblematic and allegorical self-representations by Duke Philipp II, expressing his vi sion of himself and serving as signs of his rule. In the enamel and wooden inlaid work for the Kunstschrank especially, some of the fif teen emblems from Philipp IPs emblem book reappear since they form personal devices of the Prince. The correspondence between the duke and Hainhofer concerning the artists involved and their work also refers constantly to Duke Philipp IPs interests in all manner of emblematic and allegorical arts. In his letters at the beginning of the work for the Kunstschrank, i. е., already in 1610, Hainhofer mentions the "Emblema von Nurenberg." 2 3 This refers to the so-called "Ntirnberger Pfennige" [Nuremberg pennies], which were coined for the Altdorf Academy (Stopp). They were designed by Georg Rhem from Nuremberg whom Hainhofer mentions frequently among other craftsmen and artists. Other emblem books mentioned by Hainhofer in his correspondence with Philipp II are Raffael Custos's Emblemata Horatiana (Doering 1894, 180) and Kilian's Iconum Novem Musarum. He probably sent copies of those books to the duke or to Martin Mar staller. 24 Although only one letter by Marstaller to Philipp Hainhofer is known, there was presumably a detailed correspondence concern ing the decoration for the Pomeranian Kurfttschrank.25
23. 7 November 1610; see Doering 1894,57. 24. Doering 1894,213: "so schicke ich E. F. G. allein vnderthenig ein Exemplar Ico num nouem Musarum, wie sie mir erst diese Wochen sein vom Kilian dedicirt worden, noch 5. dergleichen exemplaria fur E. F. Gn. hernn Bruder vnd fur den Herrn Marstaller, sende ich" (22.2.1612) [with compliments I send a copy of Icones nouem Musarum which Kilian dedicated to me just this week, as well a five more copies for the Duke's brothers and for M. Marstaller].
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EMBLEMATICA
From the surviving letters one can assume that the artists suggested new ideas for the decoration of the Kunstschrank, but Duke Philipp insisted that his emblems from Marstaller's manuscript should be used for the central motifs in the decoration. Hainhofer describes the emblems of which he got copies as draft models for the enamels on the desk. He also mentions the use of decorative images for pious meditation and conversations with his guests on the themes or morals depicted in the emblems.
25. Dahnerts pommersche Bibliothek, III, 334f. Deutsches Biographisches Archiv, 807, 215-24. 26. Lessing and Brtining, 6:"Vber die bulder mit dem Schreibzeug erwarte ich E. Fr. G. fernere gn. Resolution vnderthenig, Rothenheimer machet eine fisierung zum Dauidt, allein meint er vnd Lenkher, die wolken mit der hand und cron werden sich zum runden biild vbel schicken, den es sich nit recht lasst anhenckhen, so seche man darzu obenherab in die fleche der wolcken, welches kain recht art habe: wanift aller orthen frey stehet, in eine flache getriebne arbeit wurde es sich besser fiiegen, doch macht Rothenhaimer die fisierung vnd da ia E. Fr. G. bej dieser historia vnd Emblemata zu uerbleiben gedenckhen, so wollen wir sechen wie wirs machen das es wolstehe, vnd solle E. Fr. Gn. gnadigster will allzeit gehorsamblich obseruiert werden." 27. "Vnd were guet E. F. Gn. schickhten die Emblemata die sie in den 6. Veidungen gern sechen, aine daruon will Ich Seider machen lassen, nemblich den Konig Dauidt mit der harpfen vnder den schafen, oben die Hand mit der Cron vnd beistehendem motu hierzwischen kommen villeicht die vbrige 5 Emblemata auch die man vollends solle darzu machen, zway zwar hett ich schon, als die harpfen mit concentu ex concordia und den greifen das schwerdt und buch haltend mit Christo et Reip. vnd da es E. F. Gn. nit widersprechen, kan mans auch in die velder bringen vnd durfften noch drey darzu gesandt werden." "2. gemahl ob dem clavier von wappen vnd emblematj: [...] das Pommersch zwischen 4. elementen, das hollsteinisch zwischen 4. zeiten defl jahrfl alle 8. stukh von Frl. Pomerischen emblematibus: Alfl ein herz vnder dem hertzogs Huetelin vnd hayliger gayst mit buch vnd schwerdt, das feur: der geflugelig greif mit buch vnd schwerdt, den lufft: das schifflein Christ darinnen schlafft, das wasser: vnd der Dauidt wie er zum Konig gesalbet wiirdt; die Erden: Ain tag vnd nacht blumlin, den frueling: die harpfen mit Ihrer Concordanz, den Sommer: die vhr den herbst: vnd das liecht den wunter bedeutent." 28. "ain herr neben dem nutzen vnd dienst, schone meditationes vnd contemplationes haben konne vber die invention, veber die historias vnd figuren, allerhand gesprach in lateinischer, devtscher und Italienischer sprach."
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11 was certainly an ideal choice to commission Hainhofer with the development of the emblematic decorative programme, since he had «l good understanding of the allegorical mode and the significance of emblematic symbolism. Hainhofer himself had assembled a vast collection of artworks, artifacts, and naturalia; his collection of seashells especially was so famous that visitors came to Augsburg to admire its richness. He also possessed an impressive library which contained a huge collection of broadsheets thanks to his connections with various courts all over Europe (Gobiet, 75ff.). Hainhofer had also acted as a patron, commissioning a special and precious emblem book, the Emblemata Amoris by Raphael Custos after Van Veen's love emblems. In addition to his travel diary he kept an album amicorum with contributions from Duke Philipp II of Pomerania and Stettin (Doering 1901, 273 and 281). Hainhofer's travel diary recording his journeys to Innsbruck and Dresden mentions the emblems that Philipp II chose for his album. The drawing copies motifs from Marstaller's emblem book, which were also used for the Kunstschrank. The main part of the drawing—which is not preserved and known only from Hainhofer's description—refers to the title page and some emblems from Marstaller's Emblematum Liber Philippi II. It shows King David holding bolts of lightning in his hand representing the "Figur Davids, der den Lowen und Baren todtete" [the figure of David who killed the lion and the bear] and flanked by the allegories of Pietas and Justitia. It is worth mentioning that the Greek word emblema originally meant "inlaid work." The German translation "eingeblumet" (Harsdorffer, or "verschrote werck" (Holtzwart) which was in use in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, still preserved that sense. Actually, the Augsburg Kunstschranke wer§ characterized by artful inlaid works in precious materials and the emblems were executed in enamel (Die Brandenburgisch-Preufiische Kunstkammer . . . , 64ff.). Thus, the rhetorical device was transformed in the choice of material and craft in the same way the "emblem" was understood in contemporary emblem theory. Even the craftwork illustrated the very methods of allegory and emblematics. Such a similarity between craftwork and the rhetorical device was probably apparent at least to the inventors of the Kunstschrank, to Martin Marstaller and Philipp Hainhofer, to Duke Philipp, and probably also to the artists themselves. The emblem book was probably kept in the duke's collection, together with the Kunstschrank since it contained all the emblems that
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are depicted on it. Several inventories and descriptions of the Kunstschrank and Kunstkammer mention a book bound in blue velvet which was kept in one of the drawers. Presumably, the emblem manuscript later became part of the ducal Brandenburg Kunstkammer together with the Kunstschrank, which in 1684 was in the possession of Duchess Anna of Stolp. The Pomeranian lineage extinct, the Kunstschrank became part of the bequest of Duchess Dorothea of Brandenburg and was brought to Berlin. The inventory of 1696 contains a detailed Latin description (Die Brandenburgisch-Preufiische Kunstkammer, 65; Lessing and Brtining, 5-16). The manuscript of Marstaller's emblem book was given to the Berlin Royal Library at the beginning of the nineteenth century. According to a contemporary note on the cover page it was "sent by His Majesty the King to the Library through Duke von Gotze on the 5th of September, 1805" (Marstaller, Liber Emblematum, fol. l v ). This was exactly the date when the collections of naturalia and minerals were removed from the Kunstkammer, which originally contained not only works of art but also naturalia and "curiosities." The minerals were sent to the department of mining and foundry, and the naturalia were given to the department of natural history of the university (Die Brandenburgisch-Preufiische Kunstkammer, 63). This general reorganization of the collections was due to a different concept governing museums: with the new scientific classifications and nomenclature, the organization of museums and collections changed radically. There was no longer any understanding of the order of the Kunstschrank as it had been conceived two hundred years earlier. Therefore the curators would not have recognized the emblem book manuscript as a source for the iconographic programme of the Pomeranian Kunstschrank; they would have regarded it as an item for the rare book collection of the Royal Library. Visual Poetry in Stettin in the Seventeenth Century In 1617, the year commemorating the Reformation as well as the year in which the Kunstschrank was completed, a broadsheet by Jo-
29. The inventory of 1694 lists "N. 131. Ein Pommerscher Kunsttisch, in diesen einem Schublade die specification lieget von alien denjenigen sachen so sich im Tisch befinden" (Lessing and Brtining, 15).
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h.inn Jacob Cramer dedicated to Duke Philipp II was published in SU'ttin. It depicted an emblem and his motto Christo et rei publico [For ( hrist and the state] and was described as a "hieroglyphicea descripta," i. i\, composed of hieroglyphs (Rpt. in Reinitzer, 205). In this kind of "hieroglyphic" composition the motto consisted of a rebus. Each element of the sentence was formed by the picture of a thing or animal representing the virtues of the good Prince emblematically. Specifically designed to celebrate Duke Philipp II, the emblems emphasized the pious and ascetic values of good leadership and kingly government, thus confirming the duke's vision of himself. This broadsheet provides a further example of the use of allegorical modes that were encouraged at the ducal court of Stettin. Johann Jacob Cramer was a son of Daniel Cramer who published his first emblem book dedicated to Duke Philipp the very same year. He also designed an emblematic broadsheet as a contribution to the festivities for the hundredth anniversary of the Reformation (Kastner, 94-104). The parallel between Cramer's so-called "hieroglyphic" mode and the technique of Martin Marstaller's emblem book is striking. While Cramer's broadsheet has a text consisting of images, Marstaller's images consist of texts. In both cases an exchange of media takes place and demonstrates the proximity between both modes of expression. They are both privileged modes and media: Cramer's images of things from nature, from mythology, or from ducal heraldry make an allusion to the genealogy of the ducal family. Marstaller's texts forming the emblematic picturae are taken from Holy Scripture which lends them a certain authority. This technique of combining characters to form visual or pattern poetry has a long tradition and was often used in panegyric poems. In printing and typography it always represented a challenge for printers. Pattern poems were highly appreciated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and many surviving examples were published in Stettin (Rypson). At the court of Braunschweig and Luneburg these visual poems were also quite common (Ernst and Adler). Unusual, however, is the way Marstaller used this technique for a whole emblem book. Emblematics as a genre is already defined by a combination of textual and visual elements which complement each other in a particular way. Pattern poetry also combines text and image in such a way that they interpret each other. Thus it is hardly surprising to find an example in which those related concepts or techniques are actually combined. Indeed, quite a few examples can be named where the
6В
LMI3LEMATICA
emblem inscriptio is printed in the form of a pattern poem (Westerweel; Daly). Apart from Marstaller's Emblemata, however, no other emblem book is known which consists of pattern poems. The models for Marstaller (and certainly also for Cramer's poly glot emblem books) reside in the humanistic tradition of sixteenthcentury emblematics which both knew well and adapted in their own independent way. Perhaps Marstaller was acquainted with the clas sical tradition of visual poetry and derived his original pattern for the emblem book manuscript directly from this knowledge. The ut picture poesis ideal is realized in his peculiar combination of text and image. Duke Philipp's interest in the emblematic genre was unusual, al though he was certainly not the only Pomeranian duke who showed a predilection for emblematic art. Already his father, Duke Bogislav XIII, chose an emblem book which could be used as an album amicorum as a gift for his n e p h e w , the y o u n g D u k e A u g u s t of Braunschweig and Ltineburg, namely the Slam Vnd Wapenbuchlein, printed by Theodor De Bry in 1592. Martin Marstaller's emblem book manuscript for Duke Philipp II of Pomerania-Stettin thus displays the duke's various interests in the realms of arts, science, and religious edification as well as his view of himself as a Christian regent. The emblem book seems to be the earli est document to summarize the central motifs and topics of all these interests which were later developed in the commission of the Kunstschrank and were also reflected in the design of coins, other em blem books, and alba amicorum. Presumably, the emblems, motifs and mottoes were chosen in close cooperation with the Duke. The inven tion of devices and emblems had likely beenj>art of his education, es pecially in the Latin classes where Marstaller taught the young Duke. They could have been an imitatio of Latin epigrammata and humanis tic emblematics, completed later with elaborate commentaries in the style of a Fiirstenspiegel. The panegyric programme thus accom plished confirmed the Duke's self-conception as documented in the recurrence of motifs and devices in the Kunstschrank, on coins, paint ings, broadsheets, and other ephemeral forms of representation of his ducal power. The emblem book and its context thus form a unique
30. Theodor de Bry; Hopel; Kemp, 53-69.
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instance of the close interrelation of the arts, both literal and visual, and their representational as well as metaphysical purposes. Works Cited: Alciato, Andrea. Emblematum Liber. Augsburg: Steyner, 1531. AllesmitBedacht. Barockes Furstenlob aufHerzog August (1579-1666) .In Wort, Bild und Musik. Compiled by Martin Bircher and Thomas Burger. Wolfenbuttel: Herzog August Bibliothek, 1979. Aurnhammer, Achim. "Andreas Hiltebrand—ein pommerscher Dichterarzt zwischenSpathumanismus und Fruhbarock." In Pommem in derfriihen Neuzeit. Pp.199-225. Bake, Werner. Die Friihzeit des pommerschen Buchdrucks im Lichte neuerer Forschung. Ein Beitrag zur neueren Buchgeschichte. Pyritz, 1934. Bath, Michael. The Image of the Stag. Sonographic Themes in Western Art. Baden-Baden: Koerner, 1992. Bethe, Hellmuth. Die Kunst am Hofder Pommerschen Herzoge. Berlin, 1937. Bocchi, Achille. Symbolicarum Quaestionum de universo genere quas serio ludebat Libri Quinque. Bologna, 1555. Bostrom, Hans-Olof. "Philip Hainhofer and Gustavus Adolphus's Kunstschrank in Uppsala." In The Origins of Museums. The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe. Ed. Oliver Impey and Arthur MacGregor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985. Pp. 90-101. Brandenburgisch-Preufiische Kunstkammer (Die ). Eine Auswahl aus den alten Bestanden. Berlin: Staatliche Museen Preufiischer Kulturbesitz, 1981. ^ Bry, Johann Theodor de. Emblemata nobilitaii et vulgo scitu digna: singulis historijs symbola adscripta & elegantes versus historiam explicantes. Stam Vnd Wapenbuchlein Wolgestelte vnd kunstliche Figurn, Sampt deren Poetischen erklikrung. Frankfurt/Main, 1592. Cod. guelf. 84. 6 Aug. 4°: Herzog August d. J. zu Braunschweig und Liineburg Stammbuch 1594-1604, Theodor de Bry Stam Vnd Wapenbuchlein, Francof ad M. 1592. Facsimile ed. Wolfgang Harms and Maria von Katte. Stuttgart, 1979. Conermann, Klaus. "Luther's Rose: Observations on a Device in the Context of Reformation Art and Theology." Emblematica 2 (1987): 1-60.
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EMBLEMATICA
« i.iMH-i, I >.uiit'l. Cluistliihe Predigt / Bey dem BegrebnuR des weyland (,r,hrn^ni Lhrnveslen und Hochgelahrten H. Martini Marstallers ///;•;//. Stettinischen Cammerraths /Comitis Palatini. Stettin, 1615. .„__. Das Grofle Pomrische Kirchen-Chronicon. Stettin, 1628; first edi tion in 1602 under the title Pomrische Chronica. . Emblemata Moralia Nova: Das ist: Achtzig Sinnreiche Nachdenckliche Figuren auR heyliger Schrifft. Frankfurt/Main 1630; rpt. Emblematisches Cabinet, 5. Hildesheim: 01ms,1994. . Emblemata Sacra. Frankfurt/Main, 1624; rpt. Emblematisches Cabinet. Hildesheim: 01ms,1994. . Societas Jesu et Roseae Crucis Vera, Hoc est Decades quattuor Emblematum Sacrorum ex Sacra Scriptura, Das ist: Viertzig Geistliche Emblemata auss der heyligen Schriftt von dem silssen Namen und Creutz Jesu Christi. Frankfurt/Main, 1617; rpt. The Rosicrucian Em blems of Daniel Cramer; Grand Rapids, 1991. Custos, Raffael. Emblemata Amoris, consecrate Nobilissimo & Clarissimo Viro, Domino Philippo Hainhofer о. Augsburg, 1622. Dahnert, Johann Carl. Pommersche Bibliothek. Greifswald, 1753. Daly, Peter M. Literature in the Light of the Emblem. Toronto: Univer sity of Toronto Press, 1979. Doering, Oscar. Des Augsburger Patriziers Philipp Hainhofer Beziehungen zum HerzogPhilipp II. von Pommern-Stettin. Correspondenzenaus den Jahren 1610-1619, im Auszug mitgetheilt und commentiert. Vienna, 1894. . Des Augsburger Patriziers Philipp Hainhofer Reisen nach Inns bruck und Dresden. Quellenschriften fur Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, NF, 10. Vienna, 1901. Ernst, Ulrich and Jeremy Adler. Text als Figur. Visuelle Poesie von der Antike bis zur Moderne. Ausstellung Wolfenbuttel 1987/1988. Weinheim: VCH Verlagsgesellschaft, 1987. Friedeborn, Paul. Historische Beschreibung der Stadt Alten Stettin in Pommern. Stettin, 1613. Gobiet, Ronald, ed. Der Briefwechsel zwischen Philipp Hainhofer und Herzog August d.)'. von Braunschweig-Luneburg. Forschungshefte, 8. Munich: Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Deutsche Kunstverlag, 1984. . "Zur Korrespondenz Herzog Augusts des Jungeren von Braunschweig-Luneburg mit dem Augsburger Patrizier Philipp
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Hainhofer." Wolfenbiltteler Arbeiten zur Barockforschung 6 (1978): 75-82. Hainhofer, Philipp. Reisetagebuch, enthaltend Schilderungen aus Franken, Sachsen, der Mark Brandenburg und Pommern im Jahr 1617. Baltische Studien 2,2. Stettin, 1834. Harsdorffer, Georg Philipp. Frazvenzimmer Gesprechspiele so bey Ehr= und Tugendliebenden Geselleschaften /mit nutzlicher Ergetzlichkeit / beliebet undgeiibet werden mogen. Nuremberg, 1649; rpt. Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1968. Hildisch, Johannes. Die Mtinzen der pommerschen Herzoge. Cologne/Vienna, 1980. [Veroffentlichungen der Historischen Commission fur Pommern, Reihe IV: Quellen zur Pommerschen Geschichte 9]. Himmelheber, Georg. "Augsburger Kabinettschranke." Augsburg zwischen Renaissance und Barock (Augsburg, 1980), vol. 2. Hoffmann, Tassilo. Die Gnadenpfennige und Schaugroschen des pommerschen Herzoghauses. Stettin, 1933. . "Herzog Philipp II. von Pommern als Mtinzliebhaber." Unser Pommerland, Zeitschrift fur das Kulturleben der Heimat 22 (1937): 59-63. Holtzwart, Matthias. Emblemata Tyrocinia 1581. Mit einem Vorwort iiber Xlrsprung, Gebrauch und Nutz der Emblematen von Johann Fischart und 72 Holzschnitten von Tobias Stimmer. Ed. Peter von Duffel and Klaus Schmidt. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1968. Hopel, Ingrid. Emblem und Sinnbild. Vom Kunstbuch zum Erbauungsbuch. Frankfurt/Main: Athenaum, 1987. Kastner, Ruth. Geistlicher Rauffhandel. Form und Funktion der illustrierten Flugbl&tter zum Reformationsjubl&um 1617 in ihrem historischen und publizistischen Kontext. Mikrokosmos: Beitrage zur Literaturwissenschaft und Bedeutungsforschung, 11. Frankfurt/Main and Bern: Lang, 19$2. Katte, Maria von. "Zur Erziehung und Ausbildung Herzog Augusts d. J. von Braunschweig und Ltineburg. Die Prazeptorwahl von 1594 und die Auswahl seiner Devise EXPENDE." Wolfenbiltteler Beitrage 5 (1982): 9-51. Kemp, Cornelia. "Vita Corneliana: Das emblematische Stammbuch von Theodor de Bry bis Peter Rollos." In The Emblem in Renaissance and Baroque Europe. Selected Papers of the Glasgow International Emblem Conference. Ed. Alison Adams and Anthony J. Harper. Symbola et Emblema. Leiden: Brill, 1992. Pp. 53-69.
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Kilian, Lucas, копит Novem Musarum. Augsburg, 1612. La Rue, Charles de. Carminum Libri Quatuor. Paris, 1688. Lange, Edmund. Die Greifswalder Sammlung "Vitae Pomeranorum". Alphabethisch nach Geschlechtern verzeichnet. Baltische Studien, 1. Folge, Erganzungsband. Greifswald, 1898. Langer, Horst. "Literatur in Pommern wahrend der Fruhen Neuzeit. Voraussetzungen, Erscheinungsbilder, Wirkungsfelder." Pom mern in der fruhen Neuzeit. Literatur und Kultur in Stadt und Region. Eds. Wilhelm Kuhlmann and Horst Langer. Frlihe Neuzeit, 19. Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1994. Lessing, Julius and Adolf Briining. Der Pommersche Kunstschrank. Berlin, 1905. Lobe, Max. Wahlsprilche. Devisen und Sinnspriiche deutscher Fiirstengeschlechter des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts. Leipzig, 1833; rpt. Berlin: Transpress, 1984. Luther, Martin. Die gantze Heilige Schrifft ("Vorrede auffden Psalter"). Rpt. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, 1974. Marstaller, Martin, ed. Aristotelis Rhetoricorum ad Theodectem Libri Tres, Ex Petri Victorii Tralatione Latini. Seorsim in Regiae disciplinae alumnorum usum editi. Barth, 1592. . Emblematum Liber Philippi II. Stettin, 1609. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin: Ms. Boruss. Quart. 141. Medicus, Thomas. "Abbilder von Gottes Gehirn. Die Kunstkammer Erzherzog Ferdinands auf Schlofi Ambras in Tirol." Daidalos. Architektur. Kunst. Kultur 53 (1994): 82-93. Micraelius, Johannes. 6 Biicher vom alten Pommerlande, vol 4. Stettin, 1639. Modersheim, Sabine (19941). "Die Emblematik am Hof der pommerschen Herzoge. Martin Marstaller und Daniel Cramer." Pommern in der fruhen Neuzeit. Pp. 267-79. Modersheim, Sabine (19942). "Domini Doctrina Coronat": Die geistliche Emblematik Daniel Cramers (1568-1637). Mikrokosmos. Beitrage zur Literaturwissenschaft und Bedeutungsforschung, 38. Frank furt/Main: Lang, 1994. Nicolaisen, Lisbeth Juul. "Emblemmaleri in danske kirker." Kirkehistoriske Samliger, 8. Reine, vol. 1,121-51. Petrick, Christiane, ed. Handbuch der historischen Biichbestande (in preparation).
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_. "Die VitaePomeranorum—eineKostbarkeitderGreifswalder Universitatsbibliothek." Zentralblatt fur Bibliothekswesen 104 (1990): 322-24. Pommern in derfruhen Neuzeit. Literatur und Kultur in Stadt und Region. Eds. Wilhelm Kuhlmann and Horst Langer. Fruhe Neuzeit, 19. Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1994. Pyl, Theodor. "Die Entstehung des Pommerschen Wappens." Pommersche Geschichtsdenkmaler VII. Greifswald, 1894. Keinitzer, Heimo. "Kinder des Pelikans." Vestigiae Bibliae 6 (1984): 197-225. Rypson, Piotr. Poezja wizualna na pomorzu zachodnim w XVII wieku. Stettin: Ksi^znica Szczecinska, 1994. Saavedra, Diego de Fajardo. Idea de un principe politico christiano. Munich, 1640. Sammler, Purst, Gelehrter. Herzog August zu Braunschweig und Luneburg. Wolfenbuttel: Herzog August Bibliothek, 1979). Schlosser, Julius von. Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Sp&trenaissance. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Sammelwesens. Leipzig, 1908. Schmidt, R. "Greifen, Geschlecht der von Pommern, Herzog." In Neue Deutsche Biographie, vol. 7. Berlin, 1966. Steffen, Wilhelm. Stettiner Schiilerleben im 16-18. Jahrhundert. Wissenschaftliche Beitrage zur Geschichte und Landeskunde Ost- und Mitteleuropas, 26. Marburg, 1957. Stopp, Frederick John. The Emblems of the Altdorf Academy. Medals and Medal Orations 1577-1626. London: Publications of the Modern Humanities Research Association, 1974. Typotius, Jacobus. Symbola Divina & Humana Pontificum Imperatorum Regum. Prague, 1601-1603. W e h r m a n n , M a r t i n . Geschichte von Pommern. Allgemeine Staatengeschichte, 3. Abt. Deutsche Landesgeschichten, 5. vol. 2. Gotha, 1921. Westerweel, Bart. "Emblematic and Non-Emblematic Aspects of English Renaissance Pattern Poetry," Emblematica 6 (1992): 37-64. Zedler, J. H. GroRes vollstzndiges Universal-Lexicon aller Wissenschaften und Kunste. Leipzig, 1732-54.
"The springing hopes of Armes and Arts": Imprese in The King and Queenes Entertainement at Richmond JANE FARNSWORTH Brock University, Ontario
In The King and Queenes Entertainement at Richmond (1636), the climax of the masque occurs when Prince Britomart and his knights, sitting "on an arch triumphant" and "all attired alike in a Warlike habit," are discovered to the audience (26). They dance and then their dwarf squires lay "devices" at the feet of Queen Henrietta-Maria. Although several critics have discussed this entertainment (for example, John Astington has described its staging in fascinating detail), none has paid any attention to these imprese and their relation to their bearers and to the overall meaning of the masque itself (Astington; Butler 1987). Many of the masque's dialogues and characters have courtly and political significance that would have been easily recognised by a contemporary coterie audience. The imprese in the masque may be open to such interpretation as well. In Tudor and Jacobean tournaments, and later in masques, presentation of impresa shields to the monarch was well documented and, as Michael Bath says, "This disguised approach became an occasion for particular messages to be delivered, ranging from personal petitions to wider canvassing on political or state issues. The impresa was by its nature well adapted for such a purpose, since characteristically its two elements of motto and picture demand to be construed as the synergic statement of its presenter's point of view, ideological position or civic intentions" (Bath, 21-22). Because the bearers of these imprese are so young, ranging in age from six to fourteen, family history may also be an important part of their meaning. The six imprese here both represent the young knights and par75
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ticipate in the broader courtly and political engagement of the entertain ment. This masque is part of a debate that was partly carried out through theatrical productions in the mid 1630s on one of the great political questions of the day: the involvement, or lack of involvement, of England in the continental war against Spain. To simplify a complex situation, the King resisted the urgings of many of his court—and. the country in general—to support the Protestant cause whereas the Queen, because of her French background and sympathies (France feared the power of Spain in spite of their common Catholic faith), supported it strongly. Because of this, she became a focus for discontent on the part of Protestant Englishmen who were hostile to the growth of Spanish Catholic power in Europe, to Charles's leaning towards the Hapsburgs, to his personal rule, and to his policy of non-involvement in the war (Butler 1984,26-27).X By 1636 a number of courtiers were lobbying vigorously for a French alliance and an aggressive stance towards Spain. In this battle, the Queen and those who supported her employed the theatre to present this opposing position and exert pressure on the King. When Charles's nephews, the Elector Palatine Charles Louis and his brother Rupert, who were dispossessed German Protestant princes, came to England to ask for military aid against the Spanish, the Queen embraced their cause. As Martin Butler observed: "Three months later, as expectations of war continued to increase, Henrietta-Maria took the prince to the Blackfriars [theatre] to see Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany, an Elizabethan melodrama which had probably been specifically revived for him for it depicted the sufferings of Germany under a monstrous Spanish tyrant intent on destroying the elector Palatine, by violence and treachery" (Butler 1984, 33). Later that year, the Queen had an entertainment organized at Richmond for the diversion of the court and its visitors. As well as fulfilling the Queen's wish "to see her Sonne the most illustrious Prince in a dance" (Bang and Brotanek, 5), it also had a role to play in the continuing attempt to change the King's mind on the matter of war. The dedication of The King and Queenes Entertainment at Richmond 1636 was explicitly directed towards the Queen and makes her role in its presentation clear: "So this concurring with your [the Queen's] high commands / Came to be thus compacted" (11.7-8). Henrietta-Maria is the focal point of the produc-
1. I am greatly indebted here to Butler's lucid discussion of this complex political situation.
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I inn and is frequently praised through the words and actions of the masquers. The masque itself is composed of the usual rustic anti-masque followed by a more formal and elevated "revelation" at the end—the discovery of Crown Prince Charles (Britomart) and his five knights. In the middle there is a discussion between Britomart's Captain of soldiers and a I )ruid priest on the best way to rule subjects. Their conversation contains descriptions that echo the situation of the German princes and support the political reading of the Entertainement in general. The Captain, for example, describes Britomart's arrival in terms that cannot but bring the visit of the German princes to mind: Yes! for you k n o w w e are To enter on the C o u n t r y of another F r o m w h o m t h o u g h w e d e r i v e our selves, we k n o w not W h a t greeting to expect. (11. 326-30) There is a brief self-reflexive glance at this s h o w itself in the D r u i d ' s c o m m e n t that the C a p t a i n takes "the right w a y to find an e n t e r t a i n m e n t " (1. 332). The D r u i d (who obviously s e e m s to s p e a k for the K i n g ' s side in this discussion) describes the King as a m a n of peace w h o d o e s n o t wish to become involved in the d a r k n e s s of w a r : " . . . this g r e a t king, to w h o m w e n o w a d d r e s s e u s , / Is s u c h a one . . . U n m o v ' d in a firme peace of his o w n e m i n d , / As well as of his kingd o m e " (11. 336-40). Varying v i e w s of w a r a n d the m o r a l n a t u r e of fighting a p p e a r also in this central p a r t of the m a s q u e a n d there is a clear contrast d r a w n b e t w e e n "reprehensible a n d a d m i r a b l e sold i e r s " (Butler 1987,287). The w a r in w h i c h Britomart's e x p e d i t i o n is e n g a g e d is seen as an u n w o r t h y exercise in greed b y the D r u i d . The C a p t a i n , h o w e v e r , a r g u e s that n o t to fight is "to be C o w a r d s " (1.375) a n d h e looks to the past, i. e. the d a y s of Elizabeth, as a m o d e l for the p r e s e n t . The m a s q u e uses " m a n y Spenserian echoes to e v o k e a n d h o l d u p for imitation the ancient British military p a s t " (Butler 1984, 33). O n e obvious e x a m p l e is the C r o w n Prince a p p e a r i n g as the h e roic British warrior, Britomart, w i t h all its echoes of S p e n s e r ' s great female epic warrior, Britomart. The C a p t a i n w i s h e s the p r i n c e as Brit o m a r t to be a great leader a n d c o n q u e r o r — t o be w h a t m a n y believed C h a r l e s s h o u l d be in the E u r o p e a n war:
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Great father Mars, the first Progenitor Of Britomart, inspire him with a courage That may extend his Armes, as farre as is Or earth, or sea, that he may think this kingdome As Alexander did the worlds, too streight to breath in. (11. 398-402) The King was thus indirectly criticized in this production through such implicit and unfavourable comparisons with the late and glori ous Elizabeth and her victory over Spain. At the same time, however, the Queen (and those who supported entry into the European conflict) must not be portrayed as warmongers, and the author takes great care to avoid any such impression. In the opening praise of Henriett-aMaria, for example, the compliment explicitly empha sizes her typical courtly role as a peacemaker: Dost thou not see a light outshine the rest, Two Starrs that sparkle in a milky way, Dimming the shine of Ariadnes crowne, Or Berenices haire, and so serene, Their influence speak peace unto a kingdome. (11. 85-89) She is also shown in the song of the Priests of Apollo as taming the fierce, lawless soldiers of the expedition and receiving their weap ons. Then, in the last part of the masque, she receives the ordered and submissive devotion of her true knights who are led by Britomart. The fact that these true knights are children and youths, including her own son, further softens the martial effect, and there seems no danger of the Queen being seen as favouring violence or disorder. However, the general tone of the masque with its scenes of a military camp and its climactic revelation of Britomart and his "knights Ad venturers" all dressed "in Warlike habit" (11. 525-33) clearly cele brates and emphasizes the values of chivalry and valour not peace. It is in this context that the masque's revelation and the presentation of imprese takes place. The speech introducing the Prince and his compan ions has some echoes of the situation of the Palatine princes. The Post Messenger says,"... [I] am sent in most voluable Post language, to demand safe conduct for my Master, the most potent Prince, of a little Gentleman, that your Majesties kingdomes have taken notice of, Prince Britomart, For he with some few of his nobility, Little Cavalliers, his perpetuall adher-
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nils is now upon his way addressing himselfe towards you . . . Their squires, or Dwarfes rather, are some halfe an houres journey behind" (11. »l5-73). The Crown Prince and his companions lightly echo here the coming of the German Princes to the same court. The messenger, however, ^oos on to say that " For all the great stirre, and the debate of the Captaine, and the Druyd, he comes but to aske you blessing . . . " (11. 487-89). This comment, quite properly, removes the Prince himself from the political debate, but the entrance is still suggestive and the parallels would not have been missed by the audience. The presence of a Spaniard who is disarmed and rendered harmless immediately before the entrance of the children would further point the comparison. The Crown Prince and his companions are discovered, resplendent in warlike habits of crimson taffeta, silver scallops and great plumes, and are introduced by the Chorus of Priests with a song which, again, can also refer to the German princes: The s p r i n g i n g h o p e s of A r m e s and Arts, B o u n d on a faire a d v e n t u r e To take y o u r eyes, a n d w o u n d your hearts, A r e r e a d y n o w to enter. (11. 520-23) Both G e r m a n princes, especially Prince Rupert, w e r e seen as the e m b o d i m e n t of d a s h i n g a n d h a n d s o m e y o u n g heroes. R u p e r t h a d alr e a d y at the tender ajge of fourteen fought in Brabant a n d " c o v e r e d himself w i t h glory." The implicit comparison b e t w e e n B r i t o m a r t ' s c o m p a n y a n d his cousins w o u l d be flattering to the y o u n g s t e r s a n d m i g h t m o v e the King to look m o r e kindly on his n e p h e w s t h r o u g h this identification of t h e m with his o w n a n d B u c k i n g h a m ' s c h i l d r e n . The E n g l i s h prince a n d his friends as well m u s t be s e e n as n o less h e roic t h a n their cousins, if only potentially so. After their entrance, the Crown Prince and his friends dance, and then their dwarf squires, in established tournament tradition, lay their individual shields with their imprese on them at the feet of the Queen. We are not given pictures of the devices, only verbal descriptions of each of the imprese and their mottoes. The first device presented, of course, is that of Britomart, or Charles, the Crown Prince, who was six years old at the time of the masque: "The 2. Ashley, 11. See also Thomson, 1-27, and the famous 1637 portrait of the elegant Prince Charles Louis and Rupert by Van Dyck.
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Princes. The Sunne scarse risen. Only peeping behind a mountaine, ami shedding light upon the world. "Nondum conspectus illuminat orbem." [Not yet perceived (the sun) illuminates the earth]. His device uses the» t r a d i t i o n a l royal symbol of the s u n , here just rising d u e to his age and p o s i t i o n as heir a p p a r e n t . His m o t t o e m p h a s i z e s that he is n o t the s u n at its z e n i t h , i. е., the king, b u t one just b e g i n n i n g its climb. H o w e v e r y o u t h f u l t h o u g h , he is still royal a n d shines w i t h a beneficial light u p o n t h e earth. This is a v e r y s t r a i g h f o r w a r d i m p r e s a a n d does n o t a p p e a r to h a v e a n y subtext, political or otherwise. The second device belongs to the eight-year-old second Duke of Buck ingham, son of James's and Charles's favourite, George Villiers. His de vice explicitly reflects his violent family history: "My L. Duke of Bucking ham's. A faire welspread tree, and tall, blowne downe to the ground by a tempest, out of it a streight young tree springing, over which a black cloud dropping, and through that cloud the sunne breaking with his beames, and shining upon that young tree. "Sub his radiis sic iterum resurgam." [Under these rays I will thus rise up again]. The fallen tree destroyed by a tempest is, of course, his father who was assassinated in 1628, and the young stripling is George himself, the offspring who is favoured by the Prince and his father the King. (The symbol of the sun allows such a dou ble reading here and elsewhere.) As Charles Carlton observed: "Immedi ately after Buckingham's murder, Charles took charge of the Villiers fam ily. He made them several bequests, paid off Kate's [Villiers's wife] debts, and brought George's children up with his own. The second Duke of Buckingham became an intimate friend of his eldest son" (Carltone, 133). Referring to Charles's care of this family is a compliment to the King. Such care might suggest further that Charles should care for another family, this one related by ties of blood—the German Princes who were his sis ter's sons. The image of this device is also suggestive in having youth fos tered after violence has destroyed his progenitor or family. It could be a kind of visual image of what the orphaned and dispossessed German Princes hoped to find in England from their uncle, the King. The device of Francis Villiers, the seven-year-old brother of the Duke of Buckingham, comes next: "My L. Francis Villars. A square Altar of greene turfe, upon which is placed an heart crowned, over against this Cu pid with a bow in his hand broken with a shot. At the bottome of the Altar a shaft fastned as shot from the bow, and a second shaft in the middle way 3. Latin translations courtesy of Dr. Howard Jones, Department of Classics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario.
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brtweene Cupid and the Altar, yet flying towards it. "Etiam fracto arcu hue destinatur" [(The arrow) speeds hither even from a broken bow]. His impresa is the most difficult to interpret. There maybe a visual connection w i th his older brother's impresa of trees in the green turf which makes up the altar in this impresa. It may emphasize the youth and vitality of the bearer and the restoration of the family. A crowned heart often refers to earnest and faithful love that deserves to be rewarded, and it sometimes alludes to a king's heart. Cupid, of course, is love and, although his bow is broken, he still manages to shoot his arrows and hit his target. This suggests to me that the faithful love of this family, of this brother, for the King (and Prince) survives misfortune, being broken, as the family was by the murder of their father. If the elder brother's impresa celebrates the King's favour to this family, then perhaps the younger brother's celebrates this family's faithful love for their benefactor. The fourth device is that of Richard Sackville, the Lord of Buckhurst: "My Lord of Buckhurst's. An Altar of stone, upon it a burning heart, Cupid looking sadly towards it, and putting up his arrow in his quiver, from the Altar to Cupid written "Non tibi, sed patrice." [Not for you but for (our) father's sake]. He was the fourteen-year-old son of Edward, Earl of Dorset, a strong Protestant who favoured the war against the Spanish and was Lord Chamberlain of Queen Henrietta-Maria. His mother was the Countess of Dorset, the governess of the royal children. His device has a strong patriotic overtone to it which is fitting given that his father was a known supporter of England's involvement in the war on the continent. It is also suitable for his age—he would soon be seeking adventure away from home and a chance to display his courage and martial skill. His device features an altar of stone with a burning heart upon it. The burning heart can indicate passion and desire or a contrite heart yearning for God. Since Cupid or love is standing sadly by and putting his arrows away, it suggests that this heart burns not in romantic passion but for another cause. The motto makes plain that it is patriotic love which fires the ardour of the bearer not romantic or divine love. The fact that the altar is made of stone (in contrast to the turf altar of the third device) may indicate resolve, endurance—standing fast in this love. This impresa is open to the most political interpretation of all of them, given the bearer's family and age. The fifth device belongs to Charles, Lord Carr, son of Robert Carr, Earl of Ancrum, a Gentleman of the Bedchamber: "My L. Carr's. Under the Princes Armes a Youth lying on the ground, the Sunne shining on him through the feathers. "Sub istis lucem non impedit umbra" [Under those (feathers) the shade does not block out the light]. I cannot ascertain Char-
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les's exact age in 1636, but since his father and mother married in 1621, ho cannot be older than fourteen years. As the picture described contains a youth, we may suspect he is between eleven and fourteen. His device clearly shows that his place is sustained by royal favour and, again, can be read as a compliment to the Prince/King. We can assume that the feathers through which the royal favour shines are the three ostrich plumes of the Prince of Wales's coat of arms. The motto nicely plays with the idea that the King's favour comes through the Prince's—the sun shines through the feathers. The sixth and final device is that of Mr. Edward Sackville, Buckhurst's younger brother: "M. Sackvile's. A Cupid picking feathers for his arrowes yet unfeathered, out of the Princes Armes, a Youth opening his breast. "Hinc tibi pro calamis si data pluma, feri" [If a feather has been given to you from here for arrows, strike]. Again, no certain age can be ascertained for this participant, but the use of a youth also in his picture suggests eleven to thirteen years as a possible age. This seems likely especially as he has played a prominent role at the beginning of the masque when he engaged in conversation with the rustic anti-masquers and had about eight to ten lines to deliver. His picture again uses the prince's arms, but this time the feathers are being used to fledge Cupid's arrows. The bared breast of the youth suggests that he is the future target of these arrows of love. Again, the relationship among the young masquers is being portrayed. The motto indicates the desirability of being loved by a Prince. These i m p r e s e clearly reflect the personal, familial, a n d c o u r t l y ties b e t w e e n these y o u n g people. O n l y one or two at m o s t m a y reflect a political subtext. H o w e v e r , the v e r y presence of these devices in the context of this m a s q u e has political overtones. A l t h o u g h the u s e of i m p r e s e w a s p o p u l a r in Caroline m a s q u e s a n d c o n t i n u e d in civil w a r b a n n e r s (Young), in the context of the Spenserian echoes in this entert a i n m e n t t h e y h e r e look back p o i n t e d l y at the practices of the Elizab e t h a n t o u r n a m e n t s . In that w a y , their presence a d d s to the i m p l i e d c o m p a r i s o n of the present ( c o w a r d l y peace) w i t h the glorious p a s t (victory over Spain) w h i c h w a s so m u c h a p a r t of the o p p o s i t i o n ' s arg u m e n t for s u p p o r t i n g the G e r m a n princes a n d the w a r in E u r o p e . B u c k h u r s t ' s i m p r e s a , in particular, w i t h its m o t t o , " N o t for y o u b u t for o u r father's sake," w o u l d r e s o n a t e in the political context as a call to a r m s . By u s i n g children as the carriers of the g l o r i o u s past, the a u t h o r associates this past a n d the s u p p o r t e r s of r e n e w i n g it w i t h innocence a n d v i r t u e . P e r h a p s w e can go so far as to r e a d an i m p l i e d criticism—if e v e n children can h o n o u r chivalric v i r t u e h o w can the a d u l t s n o t d o so? It w o u l d not h a v e been wise, h o w e v e r , for the
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a u t h o r a n d the G e r m a n p r i n c e s ' s u p p o r t e r s to h a v e m a d e the p r i n c e and his friends too blatantly a p a r t of the political a r g u m e n t — t o seem to h a v e u s e d them in any w a y . This w o u l d surely h a v e a n g e r e d the King a n d n e g a t e d the effect of the m a s q u e . The c h a r m i n g p r e s ence of these "little Cavalliers" in their a r m o u r mirroring the Elector Palatine a n d Prince Rupert sitting in the audience, h o w e v e r , c o u l d certainly d o their cause no h a r m a n d p e r h a p s do some good. The imprese found in this entertainment exist in a complex web of contexts—personal and political. We may glimpse through them, through, as Frank Whigham says, the accepted aristocratic "vocabulary of kin and descent" (326), of the intimate relationships among the Prince and his companions and their families. Kinship relations amongst royal families convert inevitably, of course, into politics. Because imprese convey symbolically the closeness and kinship of the privileged nobility, their presence emphasizes the natural and necessary identity of interests of the King and the Protestant Princes who have come seeking his aid. As indirect forms of elite discourse, these devices serve well the careful and discreet battle between the King and the Queen on this matter of support for the princes and war against Spain. The implicit militaristic associations of heraldic devices subtly confirm that war is the covert subject (and object) of this courtly entertainment. The Richmond entertainment is clearly part of the debate over policy that was articulated through theatrical productions as much as through political institutions and channels. As Kevin Sharpe says, "To fail to study the politics of the courtly literature of Caroline England . . . is to neglect a powerful voice of the literature of politics—one through which contemporaries at the centre of power articulated important observations on and anxieties about the nature of government" (266). Even the playacting and dressing up of the children of the royal court could participate in that discourse.
Works Cited: Ashley, Maurice. Rupert of the Rhine. London: Hart Davis, MacGibbon Ltd., 1976: Astington, John H. "The King and Queenes Entertainement at Richmond." REEDN 12 (1987): 12-18. Bang, W. and R. Brotanek, eds. The King and Queenes Entertainement at Richmond 1636. In Materialien zur Kunde des alteren Englischen Dramas. Lou vain: Uystpruyst, 1903.
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Bath, Michael. Speaking Pictures: English Emblem Books and Renaissance Culture. London: Longman, 1994. Butler, Martin. "Entertaining the Palatine Prince: Plays on Foreign Affairs 1635-1637." In Renaissance Historicism. Eds. Arthur F. Kinney and Dan S. Collins. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1987. Pp. 265-92. Butler, Martin. Theatre and Crisis: 1632-42. Cambridge: The University Press, 1984. Carlton, Charles. Charles I: The Personal Monarch. London: Routledge, 1983. Sharpe, Kevin. Criticism and Compliment: The Politics of Literature in the England of Charles I. Cambridge: The University Press, 1987. Thomson, George Malcolm. Warrior Prince: Prince Rupert of the Rhine. London: Seeker & Warburg, 1976. Whigham, Frank. "Elizabethan Aristrocratic Insignia," TSLL 27 (1985). Young, Alan. Emblematic Flag Devices of the English Civil Wars 1642-1660. Index Emblematicus, The English Emblem Tradition, 3. Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1995.
The Prince's Mirror: Politics and Symbolism in D i e g o de Saavedra Fajardo's Idea de un Principe politico cristiano ANNE-ELISABETH SPICA Universite de Metz
Saavedra's masterpiece, the Idea de un principe politico cristiano, is one of the most famous Spanish emblem books. Republished and translated until the nineteenth century in Latin as well as in vernacular languages it was a pre-eminent model for politics, especially in Spain (Dowling). It also inspired many German baroque dramas (Benjamin, Schone). Materially, the book gives its readers the highest level of political emblematics that can be expected: the etchings, properly majestic, stylistically elevated, full of dignity and magnanimity, are by the famous engraver, G. Sadeler. But, as recent scholars have pointed out, it would be difficult to find in its developments any original thought. Its specific purpose, the political education of the prince through emblematics, corresponds exactly to CounterReformation political theories (Bireley, Maravall). Should we consequently say that without its flattering appearance, this pre-emiment 1. Concerning the detailed history of the publication and editorial modifications, see the prefaces of the modern editions (based on the 1642 Milan) by Vicente Garcia de Diego (Spanish quoted from this edition), and Quintin Aldea Vaquero (abridgement). The first version of this paper was presented at the Third International Emblem Conference at the University of Pittsburgh, August 16-19, 1993. I would like to thank Daniel Russell and Pedro Campa for their invaluable comments and help, as well as D. Wright for the translation.
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witness of the Siglo de Oro would not merit our attention, except from a historical or bibliophilic point of view? Such a position—as deliber ately exaggerated as it may seem—has to be qualified; if this book seems to be politically conventional, this apparent convention is nev ertheless based on particular practice, and on the specific purposes of the symbolic image, which have not been sufficiently noted until now. Saavedra's conception of empresas is larger than that of ordi nary imprese books which regulate the composition of the perfect de vice, offering the aristocracy a repertory of conceptos perfectly suited to the higher expression of the self. Saavedra's conception of empresas is larger, too, than the one provided by the ordinary rules of the po litical emblem books. Their first aim is to offer readers a survey of practical maxims, neither elevated nor well-ordered, through the de light produced by the engraved picture; the symbolic picture is a means, in a strategy of political significance, not an end. Saavedra, on the contrary, closely connects political and emblem atic expression through symbolic significance. The arena of politics had been deeply rooted in appearances since Machiavelli's Prince. So the Counter-Reformation prince, legate of God on earth, corresponds to his essence only if his worldly power has been legitimated by the supreme guarantee, i. е., the divinity. Because it only allows the lim ited human mind to see the platonic theory of Ideas, the symbolic im age, the basis of all emblematics, finds in the course of the Idea its lit eral and literary vocation and eventually enters the sphere of the Real and the Eternal. The emblematic engravings in Saavedra's book are the immanent r-elays of a progressive revelation. Like the walls re flecting the shadows in the platonic cavern and inviting the philoso pher's eye to look at the dazzling originals behind them, they are
2.
The clearest example of this argument—that there is a link between the reader's pleasure and political instruction obtained, particularly through hieroglyphics and emblems—can be found in the preface of the Emblemata politica by Johannes a Bruck, one of the Saavedra's prominent models.
3.
This idea was developed by the Vlth session of the Council of Trent (Degloria). It became the basis of the Counter-Reformation political theories, necessarily well-known by our author, a noble clergyman and diplomat.
4.
Saavedra seems to have read Plato closely, for he is frequently and accurately quoted throughout Saavedra's commentaries.
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really mirrors and reinvent the old and literalized metaphor of the Specula regis in the following way. If politics, as a concept, cannot be apprehended except through the symbolic image, then conversely a political formulation will empower the symbolic qualities of emblematics. The empresa establishes the perfect place where the Counter-Reformation prince can discover his essence and realize it: glory sub specie aeternitatis. On the stage of the world—Saavedra uses this metaphor which was favored by the baroque emblematists—the prince governs his subjects with trickery and illusory appearances: . . . pocas cosas son como parecen, principalmente las politicas habiendose ya hecho la razon de estado un arte de enganar о de ser enganado . . . (E46, III, 188-89) Moreover, his subjects themselves expect such a government: El vulgo juzga por la presencia las acciones, у piensa que es mejor principe el mas hermoso. Aun los vicios у tiranias de Neron no bastaron a borrar la memoria de su hermosura, у en comparacion suya, aborrecia el pueblo romano a Galba, deforme con la vejez. (E3, II, 97) 7 Politics is more than a changing concept, it is based entirely on the ap pearance of things or on men's opinions, and hence, subject to the passing of time. The symbolic image, and consequently its emblem atic expression, appears as the best resolution of the antinomy be tween the de facto reality of power, and its de jure truth.
5. This term appears throughout the book, and this frequent occurence permits us to equate the engraved emblems materially with the symbolical process. 6. The abbreviation E indicates "empresa'' while the second reference is to the five volume edition of reference. [. . . few things are what they seem, especially in politics, because the reason of state is the art of deceiving or being deceived...] 7.
[People judge acts according to one's presence, and consider the best prince to be the most handsome one. Nero's vices and tyranny were not enough to erase the memory of his beauty, and in comparison, the Roman people hated Galba who was deformed by old age.]
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EMPRESA П
According to the principal rules of symbolism, never discussed nor rejected by Saavedra, the image is the first and natural way of learn ing: Por esto nacio desnudo el hombre, sin idioma particular, rasas las tablas del e n t e n d i miento, de la memoria у la fantasia, para que en ellas pintase la dotrina las imagenes de las artes у la sciencias, у escribiese la educaci6n sus d o c u m e n t o s , no sin gran misterio,... (E2, II, 82-83. See Fig. I) 8
Starting with the Address to Fig. 1. Idea de un Principe politico cristiano, the Reader, Saavedra affirms embl. 2. Copyright B. N. F. the superiority of emblematic expression over the verbal, arguing that devices have a divine source, and he reminds us throughout the book that symbolic expression, as the whole century postulated it, comes from the Prisca Theologia (E68, IV, 187) and from the medieval conception of the Liber Mundi as well (E43, III, 163). Since God spoke this tongue to Old Testament princes, using em blematic expression in a political context is perfectly legitimate:
8. Similarly, the education of the young prince, emblematically treated in the six first empresas, is based on the virtue of imitation. So its model, suggested in E5, is the artes memoriae which are connected with emblematics. [Thus man was born naked with no particular language, and blank is the tablet of his mind, memory and fantasy through which doctrine paints in them images of the arts and sciences, and education writes its documents, not without great mystery.]
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Aun Dios... pudo por Josef у рог Daniel notificar a Faraon у a Nabucodonosor algunas verdades de calamidades futuras, se las represento por suenos cuando estaban enajenados los sentidos у dormida la majestad; у aun entonces no claramente, sino en figuras у jeroglfficos, para que se interpusiese tiempo en la interpretacion... (E48, III, 226) Moreover, the prince's tongue is based on this divine emblematic language: Los razonamientos breves son eficaces у dan mucho que pensar. Ninguna cosa mas propia del oficio de re que hablar poco у oir mucho . . . Bastantemente se deja entender por los movimientos la majestad. (Ell, II, 175-76) Therefore, the symbolic image is not only the divine truth's me dium for communicating with men, but becomes the basis of any communication between men, through the mediation of an emblem atic prince, mirror of God, to his subjects and mirror of the truth be tween men. The device book necessarily becomes the ruler's way of expression. The equivalence between emblematics and politics thus finds its full realization. A convenient use of images—that is, emblemat ics—justifies politics. Conponga el principe de tal suerte el semblante, que, conservando la autoridad, aficione No le parece a algunos que son principes si no ostentan ciertos desvios у asperezas en las palabras, en el semblante у movimientos del cuerpo, fuera del uso comun de los demas hombres; asi como los estatuarios ignorantes, que piensan consiste el 9.
[God, using Joseph and Daniel as intermediaries, notifed Pharaoh and Nebu chadnezzar of forthcoming disasters, representing them in their dreams while they were unconscious arid their majesty asleep. And he did it not clearly, but in figures and hieroglyphics, by which time was interposed in the interpretation.]
10. [Concise arguments are effective and give food for thought. Nothing is more royal than to say little and listen much. Majesty expresses itself sufficiently through movement.]
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arte у la perfeccidn de un coloso en que tenga los carillos hinchados, los labios eminentes, las cejas cafdas, revueltos у torcidos los ojos. (E39, III, 130-31)11 On the other hand, politics justifies the symbolic image, as the commentary to E42 makes clear. Traditionally, the Horatian precept, miscere utile dulci, legitimizes the use of symbolic images in emblematics, because the rhetorical placere helps the reader understand ab stract and difficult Ideas. Here appears a political miscere utile dulci which progressively legitimates the empresa. A la benignitad del presente pontifice Urbano VIII debo el cuerpo desta empresa, habiendose dignado su beatitud de mostrarme en una piedra preciosa, esculpita desde el tiempo de los romanos, dos abejas que tiraban de un arado . . . ; у cargando yo la consideracion, se me represento aquel prodigio del rey Wamba, cuando, estandole ungiendo el arzobispo de Toledo, se vio que le salia una abeja de la cabeza, que volo hacia el cielo, anuncio de la dulzura de su gubierno; de donde infer! que quisieron los antiguos mostrar con este simbolo cuanto convenia saber ijiezclar lo util con lo dulce, el arte de melificar con el de la cultura, у que le convendria por mote el principio de aquel verso de Horacio: Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci En esto consiste el arte de reinar; esta fue en el mundo la primer politica. Asi lo dio a entender la filosofia antigua, fingiendo que Orfeo con su lira traia a si los animales, у que las piedras corrian al son de la arpa de Anfion, con que edifico los muros de la ciudad de Tebas, para significar
11. [Let the prince compose his features in such a way that they may at once assert authority and invite love . . . It does not appear to some that they are princes un less they show something irregular in their speech, looks and carriage, unlike the commun use of other men; like those ignorant sculptors who believe that the art and perfection of a colossus consists in carving prominent lips, drooping eyebrows and squinting eyes.] 12. On this symbolic rhetoric and its implications, see my Symbolique hiimaniste et emblematique. devolution et les genres, 1580-1700.
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que la dulce ensenanza de aquellos grandes varones fue bastante para reducir los hombres, no menos fieros que las fieras. (E42, III, 157-58)13 This reversibility gives the empresa a performative nature in Saavedra's process. The etching as mirror, the symbol as figure, becomes an active way of interpreting politics, as active as the Idea of the perfect prince who obtains his embodiment through the engravings and in the reader's mind, which creates at the same time its own political representation. To achieve this combination, as Saavedra does perfectly, a perfect mastery of emblematic techniques is necessary. The book abounds with precise allusions to the technique of the symbolic process, as well as to past productions. Saavedra quotes his predecessors or refers implicitly to them. 14 These passages depend on iconographical intertextuality. At the same time, he uses every level of the traditional iconographical vocabulary of emblematics, unifying and adapting it to a regular and clarified demonstration. If, taken together, commentaries and etchings are based on historical examples and on a well-known iconography, Saavedra changes their effect on the reader's mind through his way of composing his book. He combines emblematic resources as if they were mirrors and reflexions of
13. [I owe the body of this device to the kindness of the present Pope Urban VII who showed me the two bees drawing a plough sculpted on a precious stone from the time of the ancient Romans . . . Which upon reflection recalled a prodigy of King Wamba; when being anointed by the Archbishop of Toledo, there was seen to spring from his head a bee which flew straight toward heaven, thus announcing the sweetness of his rule, from which I infer that the Ancients wished to show with this emblem how necessary it is to mix the useful with the pleasant, the art of making honey with that of ploughing, and as motto, the beginning of this line by Horace would be appropriate: Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci Therein consists the art of governing; it was the first politics on earth; that's what ancient philosophy gave us to understand by the figure of Orpheus leading the animals with his lyre, and that of Amphion moving stones with his harp when he built the famous walls of Thebes that the gentle method of these great menwas sufficient to civilize people more savage than the animals themselves.] 14. The question of references has been extensively treated. See Sanchez Perez, Gonsalez de Zarate, and Moreno Quadro.
; than other political device or \va dclantcdc los Efpofos vn Nino vcflido clc ho,«>; emblem books (El 7,26,27,30, Was con vn canaftillo dc pan en las manos, fnnb-! a miencenderjfignihcavanoaverndoinlliiui^ ; 39, 64, 66, 71, 75, 89). If these lonio para las dclicias folamcncc,finoрлгд Ы*' j different pictures are, sepa rately, common in emblematFig. 4. Idea de un Principe politico cristiano, ics, Saavedra seems to collect emppresa 20. Copyright B. N. F. them all here, hyperbolizing their hyperbolic figures, and giving his book solemnity. He also suppresses any allusion to the an ecdotal or marvelous with the purpose of concentrating the concepto, and consequently he obtains the most efficient device. A compara tive analysis of changes in the order of the engravings between the first edition of 1640 and the second of 1642 confirms this process of concentration. Strange or picturesque plates disappear completely, and only those most authorized by Alciato's hieroglyphics are main tained. Then he deals with the ideal symbols of the glorious prince whose typology has been established by Fernando Moreno Quadro,
23. [May the prince sail in calm times as in the storms of his reign, so that the beacon of glory always shines brightly; considering (to avoid any thought or deed un worthy of himself) that History will forever speak about his works and actions to all nations. Princes do not have anyone above them but God and Fame.]
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but Saavedra organizes them in intricate cycles: through the plates themselves, with Hercules (El, 9,43,97), the lion (E33,43,45, 97, 99), and the sun (E7,9,13,49,68,76,77,86,94,100); through the commen taries, with metaphors and political commonplaces, whose iconographic representation is less often figured, but is developed throughout the book: the bit and the unicorn (twice figured, E36 and E3; the notion appears in E15, 21, 28, 50, 51, 63). 24 The exegesis of the idea of glory produces a proliferation of im ages, engraved or rhetorically composed. But their multiplicity actu ally underlines the real and unique value of glory. According to its purpose, the symbolic image creates and demonstrates the distance between the multiplicity of appearances, and the singular essence of supreme virtue. The voluntary and linear progression that Saavedra gives to his Idea, from the first years to the last years of the prince's glorious life, is once again underlined by the 1642 re-arrangement of the book. It organizes a real via triumphalis, which is stressed in the summary at the end of the book, where bio-chronological sections appear. Moreover, a second itinerary implicitly and symbolically struc tures the whole book: the Counter-Reformation prince must clearly achieve glory. He must learn, through the symbolic organization of the devices, how to come from the vana gloria to the vera gloria. As we could have expected in a construction showing the unification of es sences with a diversity of appearances, the emblematic effect is pro-
24. We must note here a real art of the emblem-in-the-emblem. In E9, the compari sons are based on potential emblems: envy is described through the mediation of Aesop's fable of the owl and the birds; in the same emblem, attaching one's fortune to that of another is acting like a remora (the image appears again in the E84). In E78, a sententia ("Pensamos mejorar de gobierno у damos en otro pejor," V, 17), could be a reminiscence of the Ovidian meliora video proboque, deteriora sequor, a perfect motto for this empresa. E80 offers even comparative emblematics, with an allusion to the famous festina lente given to August and Alexander the Great ("Bien lo signified Augusto en el simbolo que usaba del delfin enroscado en el ancora con este mote; Festina lente; a quien no se opone la letra de Alejandro Magno; Nihil cunctando; porque aquello se entiende en los negocios de la paz у esto en los de la guerra, en que tanto importa la celeridad," V, 27). E84 is a retractatio of the device's model, Cominus et eminus, by way of explaining the en graved plate (armour is being forged): "Y asi, aunque [el hombre] nascio desnudo у sin armas, las forja a su modo para la defensa у ofensa" (V, 68).
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(lured by the constant distortions between the engravings and their commentary. The first points out systematically how hard duty is: I here is no positive vision of glory. Its positive quality appears ex plicitly only at the end of the device's commentary, inserted in a vi sion of royal asceticism. No hay en la corona perla que no sea sudor, no hay rubi que no sea sangre, no hay diamante que no sea barreno. Toda ella es circunferencia sin centro de reposo, simbolo de un perpetuo movimiento de cuidados. Por esto algunos reyes antiguos traian la corona en forma de nave, significando su inconstancia, sus inquietudes у peligros. (E20, II, 248. See Fig. 4) 25 No desanime al principe el semblante de las cosas, porque muy pocas en el gobierno se muestran con rostro apacibile. Todas parecen Uenas de espinas у dificultades— Sufra con valor у espere con paciencia у constancia El que espere tiene a su lado un buen companero en el tiempo. (E34, III, 90-91) 26 Images, engravings or verbal metaphors, place stability and movement, essence and appearance, tension and balance in opposi tion. La saeta impelida del arco, о sube о baja, sin suspenderse en el aire; semejante al tiempo presente, tan impercepti ble, que se puede dudar si antes dejo de ser que llegase; о como los angulos en el circulo, que pasa el agudo a ser obtuso sin tocar en el recto. El primer punto de la consisten25. [There is in no crown any pearl which is not sweat, any ruby which is not blood, any diamond which does not have some roughness. It is all circumference with out a center at rest, a symbol of constant movement. That is why certain ancient kings wore a crown in the form of a ship, signifying its inconstancy, toubles and dangers.] 26. [The prince must not despair of the appearance of things because in govern ment, very few present a peaceful aspect. Everything appears full of thorns and difficulties . . . He must suffer bravely and hope patiently and constantly . . . A prince who has hope has a good companion in time.]
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cia dc la saeta es de su declinacion. Lo qui» mas sube, mas cerca esta desucaida. Enllegandolascosas a su ultimo estado, han de volver a bajar sin detenerse.... Ninguna cosa permanente en la naturaleza. Esas causas segundas de los cielos nunca paran, у asi tampoco los efectos que imprimen en las cosas. (E60, IV, 104) 2 7 These images are combined via two different rhythms in a persua sive way. First, engravings or metaphors echo each other more or less throughout the book. For example, the magnet engraved in E88 finds its final commentary in E90. The last empresa's commentary about the pompous grave in the etching metaphorizes the iconography of the first empresa's picture of the young Hercules in his cradle. Thus ren dered more dynamic and synthetic, the shape of the prince's idea progressively finds its true form in the reader's mind. Through a more succinct combination, some pairs of empresas in scribe two opposite sides of the same concept, like a pro et contra de bate. 2 8 For example, the motto of E31 invites the prince to "lean on his reputation" before advising him in the following one that "he must not be confident in external appearances," which characterizes the reputation precisely. In the commentaries, E71 advises that a resting prince will not obtain benefits, but in E72, he will advance only if he is able to rest, because: El reposo del principe ha de ser sobre los mismos negocios, como le tiene sobre las olas el delfin, reclinada la espalda en lo mas alto dellas, sin retirarse a lo blando de la 27. Similarly, see E29 (III, 42-43), E31 (III, 59), E57 (IV, 49). [The arrow shot from a bow either mounts or falls without stopping in the air, like the present instant which is so imperceptible that it no sooner is, than it is past. Or like angles in a circle where the acute becomes obtuse, without ever forming a right angle. The first point of the arrow's consistency is the first of its decline; the higher it mounts, the nearer it is to its fall. All things when they arrive at their highest point must necessarily decline . . . Nothing in nature is permanent; the heavens themselves never rest, no more than their effects which they imprint on things below . . .] 28. About the relation between this process and the Spanish agudega developed by Gracian, see the remarkable book by Mercedes Blanco, Les Rhetoriques de la pointe, p. 510ff.
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ribera. No ha de ser el suyo ocio, sino descanso. (E 72; IV, 236) 29 So the empresas are a performative "advancement of learning": the l\36 plate represents a galleon in a hurricane, which reaches the shore in E37. The reader has to associate these two contradictory moments, as the beginning of the second commentary suggests: Por no salir de la tempestad sin dejar en ella instruido al principe de todos los casos adonde puede traerle la fortuna adversa, representa esta Empresa la election del menor dano. (E37, III, 109)30 This progression of pedagogical images allows the transition from Fortuna's immanent reign to that of Divinity, of whom the prince is the terrestrial and harmonious incarnation. Fundo la naturaleza esta republica de las cosas, este imperio de los mixtos, de quien tiene el ceptro; у para establecelle mas firme у seguro, se dejo amar tanto dellos, que, aunque entre si contrarios los elementos, le asistiesen, uniendose para su conservation. Presto se descompondria todo si aborreciesen a la naturaleza, princesa dellos, que los tiene ligados con reciprocos vinculos de benevolencia у amor. Este es quien sustenta librada la tierra у hace girar sobre ella los orbes. Aprendan los principes desta monarquia de lo criado, fundada en el primer ser de las cosas, a mantener sus personas у estados con el amor de los subditos, que es la mas fiel guarda que pueden llevar cerca de si. (E38, III, 117-18)31
29. [The repose of the prince must be in business itself, just as the dolphin has it among the waves, without retiring to the calm shore. This is not laziness, but a short respite.] 30. [Since the prince may not escape the storm without being instructed by every accident that ill fortune could draw him into, this device shows how to select the lesser evil.] 31. [Nature founded that republic of things, that empire of mixed elements from which it obtained its scepter. And to establish it more firmly and securely has
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Royal asceticism has become eternal glory. Some famous pictures consecrated by former emblem books have been transformed. Some basic symbols obtain an opposite meaning from their usual ones. Al though the figure in E44 is a negative one—a snake surrounded by spines, its head standing up as if it was ready to bite—it symbolizes the prince's prudentia which is normally figured by a crowned snake as in E28. Representations of the prince's glory appropriate above all the iconological expressions of other virtues. In E96 the palm tree, symbol of martyrdom, becomes the symbol of the prince's generos ity. Consequently, the good prince is the one who obtains the palm, keeping it from the others, thus allowing his subjects to avoid mar tyrdom. Finally, etymological twists resurrect the dead representa tions of old pictorial commonplaces. In E66, the imperial/flsces, sym bolizing authority and punishment and made with dead wood, flour ish in the grass and designate the forthcoming posterity by the strong visual metaphor of a genealogical tree. By the end of the Idea ,the prince's image itself is transmute. He is the virtuous one, because virtue is the only way to become glorious. Once again, and for the last time, the prince is a politico-cristiano, like the symbolic image, which allowed him to be glorious-virtuous. The Idea's figures, according to Tridentine precepts concerning pious pic tures, transform royal glory into priesthood, and moreover, into sanctity. Exactly according to the Counter-Reformation's political ideal: Quinto Maximo у Publio Cipion decian que cuando ponian los ojos an las imagenes de sus mayores, se inflamaban sus animos у se incitaban a la virtud; no porque aquella cera у retrato los moviese, sino porque hacian comparacion de sus hechos con los de aquellos, у no se quietaban hasta haberlos igualado con la fama у gloria de los suyos. (E16, II, 215-16Г 2 made herself so loved by them that even contradictory elements will unite to work for its preservation. All things would soon break up if they hated Nature, their princess, who with mutual ties of love and benevolence holds the earth in equilibrium, and lets heaven and the spheres move around it. princes should learn from the creatures' monarchy, founded on the essence of things, to main tain themselves and their states with the love of their subjects, the best guard ian.]
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Proceeding from the roots of symbol theory, Saavedra institutes a dialectic of the emblem as the paradigm of the symbolic image itself. This book, admiringly unifying the specificities of the impresa and I he emblem, creates this perfectly unique and perfectly eternal im,ige of the prince, because he is under the eye of the Almighty. So the I ilea de un Principe Politico cristiano marks the turning point between I he seventeenth-century political emblem and device books: it is in deed often their pattern. One of the most interesting qualities of the Idea is its personalizalion of the ideal prince, who appears closer and closer to his reader. This peculiar tonality invites us to a last comparison: with French de vice books, more and more devoted to the king after 1660. Nicole Ferrier Caveriviere (p. 149) stressed the French translation's influence on the political representations in France during the 1660s, which truly offered the most interesting use of such a prince's image. So, in this case, the prince's glory becomes Louis XIV's glory while this king embodies the prince's Idea for his court. The engraved frontis piece and the dedication to the Dauphin present different images of Hercules which have to be interpreted as a Gallic Hercules, that is, the symbol of French monarchy preferred by Henry IV and Louis XIII. As a matter of fact, E97, concerning the art of maintaining one's conquests, allows the reader to see such Herculean attributes. It would certainly remind the French reader of the brilliant victory of 1668. A famous engraved frontispiece designed at the same period by
32. [Quintus Maximus and Publius Scipio used to say that, when they looked at im ages of their ancestors, their souls were inflamed and incited to virtue, not be cause the wax or stone moved them, but they compared their actions with those of their ancestors, and were not tranquil until they had equalled their fame and glory.] 33. The Latin and vernacular translations of the book immediately introduce am bivalence, because of their confusion of two opposing genres: in the commen taries, empresa is frequently translated as "emblem." 34. J.de Solorzano Pereira, Emblemata centum, regio-politica; Andres Mendo, Prin cipe perfecto, у Ministros ajustados; A Luzon de Millares, Idea Politica veri Christiani; Fr. Nunez de Cepeda, Idea de el buen Pastor; J.Kauffmann, Idea Hominis christiano [sic] politici. 35. Jacques Rou, a member of parlement, published his translation in 1668.
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Charles Le liruiv**' and commemorating this event obviously offered one of the most impressive representations of the king's triumph ex actly through the same iconography. The symbolic Idea of the Counter-Reformation prince allowed a king to become the historical symbol of an eternal glorious polics. It was certainly impossible to imagine a more "emblematic" case, in the way of illustrating the richness of the figure created by our author. Works cited: Benjamin, Walter. Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiel. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1963. Bireley, R. The Counter-Reformation Prince. Anti-Machiavellianism or Catholic Statecraft in Early Modern Europe. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Blanco, Mercedes. Les Rhetoriques de la pointe, Balthazar Gracidn et le conceptisme en Europe. Geneva: Slatkine, 1991. Bruck, Joannes a. Emblemata politica. Strasbourg-Cologne, 1618. Dowling, J. C. El pensamento politico-filosofico de Saavedra Fajardo: posturas del siglo XVII ante la decadencia у conservacion de monarquias. Murcia: successores de Nogues, 1957. Gonzalez de Zarate, J. M. Saavedra Fajardo у la leteratura emblematica. Valencia, 1985. Ferrier Caveriviere, Nicole. L'image de Louis XIV dans la litterature frangaise de 1660 a 1715. Paris: PUF, 1981. Kauffmann, J. Idea Hominis christiano [sic] politici Augsburg: Woher, 1709. Luzon de Millares, A. Idea Politica veri Christiani.... Brussels: Foppens, 1665. Maravall, Jose-A. La Philosophie politique espagnole au XVIIe siecle dans ses rapports avec Vesprit de la contre-reforme, traduit et presente par L. Cazes et Pierre Mesnard. Edition enrichie de "devises" representant les principaux aspects de cette philosophie politique. Paris: Vrin, 1955.
36. The First Painter of Louis XIV designed the king's triumph in June 1668 for the thesis written by Colbert de Seignelay, the sone of the French prime minister (Louvre, Department of Drawings, GM 6386). Le Brun certainly knew the Idea: Nicolas Foucquet, his first patron, owned a copy of the 1649 Latin edition (now in the Sorbonne library).
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Mendo, Andres. Principe perfecto, у Ministros ajustados . . . . Lyons, 1642, first illustrated edition, 1657. Moreno Quadro, Fernando. "La Visione emblematica del gobernante virtuoso," Goya, No. 187-88 (July - October 1985): 17-26. Nunez de Cepeda, Fr. Idea de el buen Pastor . . . . Leon: Anisson у Роsuel, 1682. Saavedra Fajardo, Diego de. Idea de un Principe Politico Cristiano representada en cien empresas. Munich: Nicolao Enrico, 1640; reorgan ized in the second issue, Milan, 1642. . Idea de un Principe Politico Cristiano representada en cien empre sas. Ed. Vincente Garcia de Diego. 5 vols. Clasicos Castellanos. Madrid: La Lectura, 1927-30. . Idea de un Principe Politico Cristiano representada en cien empre sas. Ed. Quintin Aldea Vaquero. Madrid: Editora National, 1976. (Abridged edition). . Le Prince chretien et Politique, traduit de Vespagnol de Don Diegue Saavedra Faxardo, et dedie a Monsiegneur le Dauphin. Trans. Jacques Rou. 2 vols. Paris: Compagnie des Libraires, 1668. Sanchez Perez, A. La literatura emblematica espanola de los siglos XVI у XVII. Madrid: Sociedad General espanola de Librerias, S. A., 1977. Schone, Albrecht. Emblematik und Drama im Zeitalter des Barock. Mu nich: С. Н. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1964. Solorzano Pereira, J. de. Emblemata centum, regio-politica . . . . Madrid: D. Garcia Morras, 1653. Spica, Anne-Elisabeth. Symbolique humaniste et emblematique. Vevolu tion et les genres, 1580-1700. Paris: Champion, 1996.
Religious Emblems (1809) by John Thurston and Joseph Thomas and its Links with Francis Quarles and William Blake KARL JOSEF HOLTGEN University of Erlangen-Nurnberg Francis Quarles is the best-known English emblem writer, and his Emblemes and Hieroglyphikes is the most popular English emblem book. Emblemes was first published in 1635. Encouraged by its success, Quarles brought out in 1638 what he described as "a second service of the same dish," Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man. In 1639 Emblemes and Hieroglyphikes were published together, and it is in this form that they have commonly appeared since. Quarles's book was reprinted again and again. There were about sixty editions altogether, eight even in the eighteenth century, when works of allegory and symbolism were much disparaged, and over thirty in the nineteenth century. Indeed, Quarles's Emblemes was at the heart of the nineteenth-century emblematic revival, which involved Nonconformists and Evangelicals as well as Tractarians. I fully agree with Michael Bath's observation "that the history of the English emblem tradition after 1700 is largely the history of Quarles's reputation" (1993, 204). With its many editions and continued vitality, Quarles's book is unique among English emblem books. It survived as a relig-
1. Quarles, Emblemes (1635) and Hieroglyphikes (1638), ed. K. J. Holtgen and John Horden (Hildesheim: Olms, 1993). See Holtgen 1978 and 1986; Bath 1994; and Daly and Silcox.
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ions or devotional book when the emblem tradition itself had de clined. In 1635, Quarles established in Protestant Stuart England the Catholic Counter-Reformation emblems of the Amor divinus/Anima type. These books show the encounters of Amor divinus or Divine Love and the Soul, the latter being sometimes represented as Amor humanus, Human or Worldly Love. In England there had never been anything like the attractive, childlike cherubic figures of Amor divi nus and Anima, ultimately deriving from Hellenistic Cupid images and the conceits and emblems of secular love. Quarles modelled his book, pictures and verse, mainly on the two Jesuit emblem books from Antwerp, Herman Hugo's Via Desideria (1624) and the Typus Mundi produced in 1627 by students of the Antwerp Jesuit College. The ex cellent plates by the Flemish engravers Boetius a Bolswert and Philip de Mallery were copied, with some changes and a certain loss of qual ity, by William Marshall, William Simpson, and two other English en gravers. Quarles was a middle-of-the-road Anglican Protestant and a staunch supporter of the Church of England. The secret of his endur ing success lies in the fact that he, like his Jesuit models, promoted the general tenets of the Christian faith and avoided controversial theo logical doctrines or special cults. His verse has great affective and emotional appeal and, together with lively allegorical pictures, ex horts the reader to pursue the way leading from the world, the flesh, and the devil to heaven, from sin to salvation. His allegorical strategy to some extent dematerializes the pictures and exhibits types, not images, of divine persons. It accommodates Protestant iconophobic objections and aims at spiritual truth behind the pictures (Holtgen 1995). Amor divinus, Divine Love, is a figure of Christ, not Christ himself. I quote from the preface: "Let not the tender Eye checke to see the allusion to our blessed SAVIOUR figured, in these Types." The original copperplates engraved by Marshall and Simpson were used until the 1670s, often reworked by an engraver for the next edition, but without altering the design. Most of the eight eenth- and nineteenth-century engravers heeded the advice of Augustus Toplady, the hymnologist, "to keep strictly to the design of the original plates; and not to vary from them in a single instance: but the execution of them, as they stand in the old editions, calls for im provement" —a remarkable sense of the emblematic interdepend ence of word and image. Likewise, Quarles's text remained basically
KARL JOSEF HOLTGEN
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unch.mgrd throughout its publishing history, with the exception of a vrrsion of 1764, entitled Francis Quark's Emblems . . . modernized, atI i'ilMiioc.1 to the well-known Nonconformist hymn-writer and educationist Isaac Watts. Some later editions of Quarles's work have (in Hooks I and II and in Hieroglyphikes) the original Latin mottoes too t h e r with English verse translations, and (in Books III to V) the original biblical quotations from the Authorized Version (King |«imes Version) together with similar verse translations. Critics should be aware that these verses are not authorial. I have mentioned these details about Quarles in order to give an impression of the book which served as the model for the important .md attractive new work to be discussed here, Religious Emblems (London, 1809), with designs by the artist John Thurston and text by the Rev. Joseph Thomas. In my view it is the best and artistically most accomplished work composed under the influence of Quarles. It is certainly not a mere edition or version of his Emblemes. Thomas selected over half the subjects for the twenty-one religious emblems from Quarles's book and composed prose commentaries on them. He was the real author and inaugurator of Religious Emblems, the planning and controlling mind behind the ambitious literary and artistic project. He secured the collaboration of John Thurston, who was not only responsible for making drawings on the wood blocks but also for overseeing the work of four other craftsmen who engraved the blocks. Here was a distinguished team of artists auguring well for the successful outcome of the enterprise. Very likely Thomas, as a man of means and patron of the arts, would have met any costs of the expensive publication not covered by the chosen and not unusual method of subscription. The sophisticated programme of emblematic picturae would have been carried out by Thurston, the designer, and the several engravers 2.
Preface to Emblems (Bristol: J. Lansdown, J. Mills, 1808, and other editions from 1777 onwards).
3.
The exception is James Nisbet's Victorian edition of 1861 with elaborate, new, and unauthorized illustrations by Charles Bennett and W. Harry Rogers, which were also used for Grosart's edition of Quarles's Complete Works (Edinburgh, 1871).
4.
See Holtgen 1978, 313-14, Fig. 30, 33; Bath 1994, 266-71, Fig. 21, 23, 24; Paultre, 177-80, and earlier comments by Chatto and Jackson, 520.
5
BIBLIOTKA
|
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in close collaboration with Thomas and in accordance with his detailed instructions. For a time Thurston enjoyed the highest reputation as a designer on wood and contributed largely to the formation of the modern school of wood engraving. Religious Emblems became a much admired work. What we find in the new book are imaginative recreations of particular emblem pictures from Quarles. With regard to artistic technique, taste, and sensibility, the work is highly original, innovative and modern. The new art of wood engraving achieves atmospheric lightness of touch and attention to detail and allows the pictorial expression of moods and emotions. The underlying aesthetics is that of the Sublime, of a pre-Romantic and Romantic spirituality. It is akin to the graveyard poetry of Blair, the Meditations of Hervey and the visionary experience of Fuseli (or Fussli), and Blake. The book will lead us to a circle of artists and poets that includes Blake. The "William Blake, Esq." listed among its subscribers is almost certainly the author of Songs of Innocence and Experience. In dealing with the Thurston and Thomas Religious Emblems, we have to discuss four related bibliographical documents or texts. 1) A publisher's circular, Proposals for Publishing by Subscription a Series of Engravings on Wood, from Scriptural Subjects, in the Manner of Quarks'fs Emblems . . . after the design off. Thurston Esq. and executed by the most eminent engravers on wood (inserted in some copies of the 1809 edition, including the Glasgow University Library copy SM 1853). Subscriptions of two guineas, we are informed, may be placed with Mr. Thurston at Twickenham Common and the Rev. Joseph Thomas at Abele Grove, near Epsom. Thomas will select and describe "from Quarles's celebrated work" the most suitable religious subjects, and the distinguished practitioners of the new art of wood engraving propose to present to the public the most perfect specimen that has ever yet been executed. Thomas Bensley will print the volume with twenty engravings (later increased to twenty-one), in his best style on India paper, and it will be published by Rudolph Ackermann, a wellestablished German art dealer in the Strand. Blake already appears in the still incomplete list of subscribers. 2) The second document, the first edition of 1809, proves that the promises have been honoured in the shape of a fine, slim Royal Quarto volume. The title-page (Fig. 1) describes Thomas as Chaplain
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KARL JOSEF HOLTGEN
to the Earl of Corke and Or rery, and on the next page Thurston and Thomas dedi cate the work, with permis sion, to the Irish peer. Each of the twenty-one engravings is attractively presented in an oblong frame of 17 x 21cm, leaving g e n e r o u s m a r g i n s (Fig. 2). Above it are an engraved motto (here it is ''Awaiting the Dawn or Day-Spring") and a biblical text in Hebrew w h o s e E n g l i s h v e r s i o n is found at the bottom, here "Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the s l e e p of d e a t h . Psalm xiii. 3." In the midst of a chiaroscuro scene of rocks and clouds in an undefined
KELIGIOUS EMBLEMS, VjrGR^riJYGS
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THE FIRST ARTISTS IN THAT LINK,
DESIGNS UIIAWN ON TUE BLOCKS TUKMIELVES
J. THURSTON,
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DESCRIPTIONS THE
REV. J. THOMAS,
A.M.
HOLT COURT, Г1ВКТ ЪТЯШТ, t BY
R. Л С К Е К М Л М М , JTIOI,
Hlil*0i* vhm thou needt muft, Trie thou thy friend before thoutrufi.
With thing needs Trie friend trust.
197 some light when thou must, thou thy before thou
The relevance of this distich to the picture is explained in Combe's epigram, which advises "the reader that before Wc prooe atfirftif that a pot will hold, filling a v e s s e l w i t h With watcr.not wich wine of any kind, To th'end the ЙИГс the lefle we may behold, good wine it is prudent If in the bottome any hole we find. to test it for leaks by fill So ere ro truli aftrangerye waxe bold» Tell him the lighteft fecret of your mind, ing it with plain water; Whereof traall danger growes anotlier day, just so, before confiding If he agaioe your fecret ibould bewray. F3 in a stranger, it is wise to see if he c a n b e Fig. 2. Thomas Combe, Theater of Fine Devices trusted to keep secrets (1614). emblem 74. Photo courtesy of Glasgow by imparting some rela University Library. tively unimportant in formation to him. A glance at the Bury St. Edmunds wall painting (Fig. 1) and Com be's emblem (Fig. 2) will quickly reveal how closely the painting cop ies Combe's woodcut. It also copies the two-line inscriptio, using a gothic black-letter script in place of Combe's italic. The wall painting evidently did not use the verse epigram—an omission which raises some familiar problems in applied emblematics, since without the 3.
Mary V. Silcox, "The Translation of La Perriere's Le Theatre des bons engins into Combe's The Theater of Fine Devices/' Emblematica 2 (1987): 61-94; Bath, "'Dirtie Devises': Thomas Combe and the Metamorphosis ofAjax (with an Appendix on 'The Flanders Cow' by Malcolm Jones)," in Emblematic Perceptions: Essays in Honor of'William S. Heckscher, ed. Peter M. Daly and Daniel S. Russell, Saecvla Spiritalia, 36 (Baden-Baden: Valentin Koerner Verlag, 1997), pp. 7-32. The credit for recognising Combe as source for the Bury paintings belongs to Dr. Jones, who communicated his discovery to the co-author of the present article, enabling us to extend our previous collaborative work on Combe.
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epigram it is difficult for the viewer to work out the relevance of the inscriptio (or motto) to the picture and thus solve the emblematic riddle. Nevertheless, the retention of the moralising inscriptio suggests that the wall painting was always understood as having moral significance, and that these were meant to be read as sententious images and not seen as purely decorative. The only other element which the wall painting retains from its source is the title: "EMBLEME LXXIIII," faithfully copying the header from Combe's numbered sequence even though such numbering is wholly out of place in its new context (there is no possibility that the house at Bury ever contained the other ninety-eight emblems from Combe). 4 The emblem is based on a proverbial expression or figure of speech—indeed, we still speak of the unauthorised publication of an official secret as a "leak," and the inscriptio uses the proverb which The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs cites from Paradise ofDaintie Devices (1578) as: "Try your friend before you trust"—corresponding to Tilley, 595. It is interesting to note that the same proverb is recorded in a set of trencher verses which were described in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries as long ago as 1888: Try well thy freende before thou trust: Least he do leave thee in the dust. Be ware of fained flattering shoes. For none are worse than frendly foes. The coincidence may suggest the common ground which inscribed trenchers shared with emblems; however, it is only the emblem and the mural painting in this case, and not the trencher, which associate the proverb with the image of filling a vessel with water—such a conjunction of text and image is specific to the emblem. Trenchers were wooden platters on which cheese or fruit was served, and they were often decorated with sententious or moralising verses. Very often, 4. The irrelevance of this detail will account for the Bury restorer's natural, but mistaken, assumption that these numbers indicated the date (or dates) of the two pictures, which can be seen appended above the plaster in the 1956 photographs we have reproduced, Fig. 1, Fig. 3, and which we have not sought to erase. 5. PSA, 2nd ser., 12 (1888), 200-23, 201.
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Fig.3. Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, wall painting on plaster, right-hand panel. Photo courtesy of the Suffolk Record Office.
though evidently not in this case, they were also decorated with emblematic imagery—indeed at least two further trenchers described in the same Society of Antiquaries article evidently used emblems from Alciato ("Mutuum Auxilium" and "Fidei Symbolum," PSA [1888], 222).6 One of the other places where such proverbial versifying would have been most conspicuous in sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury material culture was on painted cloths; indeed Richard Burton associates these two contexts in The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), where he advises readers that wise counsels can be gathered either out of classical authors, or "for defect, consult with cheese-trenchers and painted cloths" (II.iii.7). Mural painting evidently shared some of the conventions of painted cloths (or, in more up-market build6. See Bath, "Emblems from Alciato in Jacobean Trencher Decorations," Emblematica 8 (1994): 359-70, and the sequel to that article in the present issue below, pp. 205-10.
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ings, of tapestries) at this period, which may sug gest w h y m a n y of the same proverbial formulae should be found not only in mural paintings but also on decorative trench ers and in emblem books. All these different media evidently shared a number of common char acteristics and conven tions. The adjoining picture at Bury St. Edmunds—to the right and separated by a d e c o r a t i v e pilas ter—shows a crouching Cupid blowing a pair of hand bellows onto a flami n g h e a r t w h i c h IS p l a c e d i n a Still, f r o m t h e s p o u t of
BMBLEME LXXIX. Alhoufad dngersdylj grew, Offoolxpt La$ttt 44 lomrrs knovn.
Alas thai men mould follow Venus trace. And take delight toplay on Cupids bus, "Who cafteih downe from high ettate to bale. And makes men counted wife, to leefe their wits. None but vnhtppy wretches roid of grace, Do eucr fall into fuch francicke fits: Vpon repentance 6teЪсputs the Still (dim!!. And blowes the colcs.where nought but teares
Fig 4
^ ^
C o m b e / Theater
of Иш
Devjces
emblem 79. Photo courtesy of Glasgow University Library.
(1614)/
which flows a distilled liquid (Fig. 3). Combe's inscriptio reads, A thousand dangers dayly grow, Of foolish Loue, as louers know. Again, it is only the missing epigram which explains that the pic ture shows how love "blowes the coles, where nought but teares dis till" (1. 8). The Bury St. Edmunds wall painting copies the image of Cupid-at-the-still quite closely, but in this case it varies the inscriptio, whose second line, no longer fully legible, appears to read: "Alas that men should follow " Once again the redundant emblem number is transcribed from Combe's header. Both pictures at Bury St. Edmunds vary Combe's woodcuts by add ing a variety of landscape and architectural details which are not in the originals. The paintings together measure 8'5"x2'8" and the sec tion of plaster on which they are painted was carefully removed from the first-floor chimney breast in 1956 and set in a wooden frame for
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conservation purposes, following alterations to the building; unfortunately it was left on view in the restaurant premises which then opened at this site and has deteriorated badly in the intervening years—it is now in the care of the local museums service. Reports of its original discovery in the local press insist that when first uncovered the painting showed traces of original colouring, which rapidly faded on exposure to daylight. A terminus post quern for the painting is provided by the great fire of April, 1607, which destroyed the previous building on this site along with much of the rest of the town. It has not been possible to establish who owned the house at this period, but in the eighteenth century it belonged to a family named Burrough, including a James Burrough who became Master of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and one of the foundation fellows of the Society of Antiquaries. Burrough's antiquarian interests may explain why this painting happens to have been preserved when similar painting elsewhere in the town has evidently disappeared. Painting on plaster is not uncommon in houses of this period—local examples showing the kind of grotesque work and arabesques characteristic of Tudor and Jacobean decorative painting can be seen in Christchurch Mansion Museum, Ipswich; none of these is emblematic, though the painted closet from Hawstead Hall, now displayed in the same Ipswich museum, is one of the best-known examples of applied emblematics in England. Hawstead Hall is only a few miles from Bury St. Edmunds, but though the painted closet, known as "Lady Drury's Oratory," testifies to the use of emblems in decorative painting in this locality, it is unlikely to have been produced within the same social circle or artistic milieu as the Bury St. Edmund's wall paintings. Unlike Sir Robert Drury's Hawstead Hall, the property at 25 Buttermarket was a modest burgess house whose decoration would probably have been carried out by members of the local painter-stainers guild (their records have not, unfortunately, survived). It is not implausible that the paintings would have been executed not long after the disastrous fire, or possible shortly after the appearance of the second edition of
7.
See Bath, "Emblems from Alciato in Jacobean Trencher Decorations/' and the sequel to that article in the present issue below, pp. 205-10.
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The Theater of Fine Devices in 1614. Its general style and its gothir black-letter make a date much later than this unlikely. It is seldom easy to account for the motivation behind particular emblematic decoration, or for the uses to which it was put, but the in troduction into these pictures of miscellaneous buildings showing particular architectural details would have a certain propriety if they had been executed shortly after the house itself, and the city around it, had just been rebuilt after the great fire. The association of this rebuilding with the temperate and prudential morality of these two emblems bespeaks a sense of civic virtue which would not be out of keep ing with such an urban recovery. Though none of the buildings shown in these wall paintings could be described as an accurate rendering of actual buildings in the town, some of their features resemble those of such well-known local buildings as the Abbey Gate, Norman Tower and Cupola House. It is difficult to say what motivated the retention of the emblem numbers on these two emblems chosen at random from Thomas Combe's sequence, but such irrelevant detail is not unprecedented in decorative painting and sculpture at this period—the painter at Stodmarsh Court, near Canterbury, who copied four classical deities from engravings by Virgil Solis evidently did not think it odd to copy Solis's monogram, whilst the sculptor responsible for the 8.
Such black-letter remained in use in broadside prints for some years after their use became unfashionable in printed books. Broadsides, often consisting of just such emblematic subjects and sententious verses as the Bury St. Edmunds mural paintings, were frequently pasted on walls, and this change of font almost certainly signals the assimilation of Combe's emblems in this context to the world of the broadside. As Tessa Watt says: "The categories used by historians of communications do not quite fit these painted texts-for-walls: they are not 'print', but neither are they really 'script'. In some ways they may be seen as extensions of the printing press: they share the same style of lettering, and their widespread domestic use is a reflection of the growing literacy made possible by print" (Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550-1640 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991], p. 220). As Watt says, English 'black-letter' developed from a late fifteenth-century textura script, so that "both the typographical font and the painted scripts were based on hand-written forms" (p. 220, n. 16). Chapter 5, "Stories for walls" (pp. 178-216), of Watt's important book supplies the essential context for much of our discussion in this article.
9. See F. W. Reader, "Tudor Domestic Wall-paintings, Part II," Archaeological Journal 93 (1936), 246.
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carvings at Edzel Castle in Scotland carved the initials "IB" which he found on the engravings of which supplied his pattern book, even Ihough his own name was certainly not Iorg Bentz (alias Georg Pencz), the artist responsible for the engravings. Though such copying may be iconographically naive, it can nevertheless supply vi tal bibliographic clues, and in the end it is the fact that these decoralive paintings used Thomas Combe's emblems as patterns that makes them important evidence for our growing knowledge of the circulation of particular emblem books in the culture of Jacobean England. 11
10. The carvings, and the detail, are illustrated in the official guide by W. Douglas Simpson, Edzell Castle. Edinburgh: HMSO for Historic Buildings and Monuments, 1987. 11. The authors are grateful to the St Edmundsbury Museums Service, particularly Chris Reeve, Keeper of Fine and Decorative Arts, and to local historian, Margaret Statham, who gave us invaluable help in searching local records and locating photographs.
Emblems and Trencher Decorations: Further Examples Michael Bath and Malcolm Jones University of Strathclyde and University of Sheffield
In his recent note, "Emblems from Alciato in Jacobean Trencher Decorations," 1 Michael Bath suggested the possibility that emblem studies might need "to add trenchers to the growing list of artefacts which use applied emblematics, at least occasionally" (370). This claim was based on the rather slender evidence of two designs from a set of trenchers in the British Museum which were shown to adapt emblems from Alciato. The note for Emblematica had hardly gone to press, however, when further evidence came to light in correspondence with Malcolm Jones which supports this conclusion. The present note aims to update the previous article by presenting these new findings. In 1989 Peter Daly and Mary Silcox announced their discovery of a set of six hitherto unknown emblems by William Marshall (1650) in the Folger Library, which they identify as a unique copy of the six emblems engraved by Marshall that were listed in the 1662 advertisement of the London printseller, Peter Stent. The article situates these emblems in their immediate political context, and suggests that they now have to be recognised as an important addition to the somewhat meagre corpus of English emblem books. Daly and Silcox fail, however, to recognise that the "Six Emblems, W. Marshal Sculpt/' which 1.
Emblematica 8 (1994): 359-70.
2.
Peter Daly and M. Silcox, "William Marshall's Emblems (1650) Rediscovered/' ELR, 19 (1989): 346-74; Alexander Globe, Peter Stent, London Printseller circa 1642-1665 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1985), p. 127.
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are listed in the broadsheet advertisement of 1662 (reproduced facsimile; Globe 1985, 35) are almost certainly the same set of prints which were advertised in the 1653 broadsheet (facsimile; Globe, vi) as "6 Plates of Mr Marshal's for Trenchers/' The same set was advertised again in 1658,1662, and by Stent's successor Overton, in 1673 (Globe, 175, item 113). In other words these six hitherto unknown emblems by Marshall are not to be regarded as a potential emblem book that somehow failed, or whose publication was mysteriously delayed for commercial or political reasons. Rather, they were marketed specifically as designs for decorated trenchers, and it seems likely that they were also designed with this end in view. 4 Stent's various advertisements include several further prints which are identified either as "emblems" or-as trencher designs. Thus the 1653 broadsheet, item 84, advertises "9 Plates of Embleams" (cf. 1658, item 429; 1662, item 114; 1673, item 154), whilst item 116 in the same broadsheet is "12 Emblems" (identified by Globe with 1658, item 456; 1662, item 102; 1673, item 145). The various broadsheets also include what Stent advertises as "Bates his 2 Emblems" (1653, item 143). "Trenchers" are less frequently mentioned, though item 65 in the 1658 broadsheet advertises "12 Plates for Cheez trenchers" and it seems likely that some, at least, of the sets that are not-specifically identified as trencher designs were, nevertheless, suitable for such use. Trenchers are known to have used such printed sets as the labours of the months, Aesop's fables, or the twelve Sybils. One of the most popular sets of roundels engraved specifically for trenchers was, indeed, the series of Months which was published ca. 1630 and is attributed to Vaughan. The perimeter inscription to May refers to that month's subject specifically as "this Emblem," and proceeds to
3. See Daly and Silcox, The English Emblem: Bibliography of Secondary Literatu (Munich: G. K. Saur, 1990), p. 57, and ibid. The Modern Critical Reception of the English Emblem (Munich: G. K. Saur, 1991), p. 87. 4. This suggestion is supported by the circular format—an emblem format first introduced into England with the publication of George Wither's Emblemes in 1635 which was tailor-made for the circular shape in which wooden fruit and cheese trenchers were normally produced. 5. STC 18051.5, not listed in Hind, copy bound in British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, 166.c.l.
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S. -Phrllip-p-andS* br-sobMkcTttro Twins (Their memories, on thisJirs-t2aybcgiits: