Emblematica : an interdisciplinary journal for emblem studies 2013 [20] 0404647707, 9780404647704, 9780404647506

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EMBLEMATICA An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies Volume 20

Managing Editor

David Graham Review Editor

Michael Bath Founding Editors

Peter M. Daly Daniel Russell

AMS Press, Inc. New York

EMBLEMATICA ISSN 0885-968X Manuscript submissions and other editorial correspondence should be addressed electronically, in a standard word-processing document format, to David Graham . All submissions will be submitted to blind external peer review; the editors’ decision on acceptance will be final. Books for review should be addressed to Michael Bath;

however, no obligation is recognized to review or return any books received. Articles and essays should conform to the house style sheet, which is available upon request. General guidance may be obtained from the MLA Handbook for Writers and the Chicago Manual of Style. Authors should be prepared to submit high-quality electronic images, also in a standard format such as JPEG or TIFF, and to proyide evidence of permission to reproduce them. Subscriptions and remittances should be sent to the publisher, AMS Press, Inc., Brooklyn Navy Yard, 63 Flushing Avenue — Unit #221, Brooklyn, NY 11205-1073, USA, or .

EMBLEMATICA

An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies

Emblematica publishes original articles, essays, and specialized bibliographies in all areas of emblem studies. In addition, it regularly contains review articles, reviews, research reports (including work in progress, theses, conference reports, and completed theses), notes and queries, notices of forthcoming conferences and publications, and various types of documentation, Emblematica is published annually. Editors Michael Bath, Review Editor 6 Roman Road Balfron Glasglow G63 OPW United Kingdom

David Graham, Managing Editor Senior Advisor to the President on International Strategy Concordia University 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W. Montreal, QC H3G 1M8 Canada

[email protected]

Camera-ready copy of this volume of Emblematica was produced at Concordia University, Montréal

Peter M. Daly Department of German Studies McGill University 680 Sherbrooke St. West Montreal, QC H3A 2M7

Daniel Russell 166 North Dithridge Street, Apt. KS Pittsburgh, PA 15213

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

Canada

Volume 20

Editorial Board

ISBN-10: 0-404-64770-7 ISBN-13: 978-0-404-64770-4

Set ISBN-13: 978-0-404-64750-6

Copyright © AMS Press, Inc., 2013 All rights reserved

All AMS books are printed on acid-free paper that meets the guidelines for performance and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources,

AMS Press, Inc.

Brooklyn Navy Yard, 63 Flushing Ave — Unit #221 Brooklyn, NY 11205-1073, USA www.amspressinc.com Manufactured in the United States of America

+/2{100 26 γ4: Ὁ Wt

USA

Pedro F. Campa University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Paulette Choné Université de Bourgogne (Dijon) John Cull

College of the Holy Cross

Denis L. Drysdall

University of Waikato, New Zealand

Agnés Guiderdoni-Bruslé Université catholique de Louvain Valérie Hayaert Erasmus House, Brussels Hiroaki Ito

Saitama University, Japan Lubomir Koneény Academy of Sciences of the Czech

Republic, Prague Donato Mansueto Universita di Bari

Jean-Michel Massing University of Cambridge Simon McKeown Marlborough College Sabine Médersheim University of Wisconsin, Madison Dietmar Peil Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat, Munich Stephen Rawles

University of Glasgow Library

Mary Silcox McMaster University

Arnoud S. Q. Visser

Universiteit Leiden Mara R. Wade

University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign Alan Young Acadia University

EMBLEMATICA An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies Volume 20

Preface to Volume 20 In Memoriam

xi XV

Walter S. Melion “Conspicitur prior usque fulgor”: On the Functions of Landscape in Benito Arias Montano’s Humanae salutis

monumenta (1571)

Miranda Anderson Mirroring Mentalities in George Wither’s A Collection of Emblemes

63

Jane Farnsworth Gender, Culture, and Emblematic Practice in E. Εἰς The

Embleme of a Vertuous Woman London, 1650?]

$1

Elizabeth Black Gilles Corrozet’s “Domestic” Emblems: Gender and Ethics

at Home in the Hecatomgraphie and Emblems in Cebes Pierre Martin “Redimentes tempus”: Eschatological Perspective in

Andreas Friedrich’s Emblemes nouveaux (1617) Catherine Oakes

Bedtime Stories: The Painted Emblems Formerly in the

Schoolboys’ Dormitory in the Deanery of Bristol Cathedral

111

EMBLEMATICA

VOLUME 20

Gabriele Quaranta

Andrea Alciato. Andrea Alciati Emblematum liber, Augustae Vindelicorum 1531. Emblematum libellus, Parisiis 1534, and Otto Vaenius, Daniel Heinsius. Otto Vaenius, Amorum Emblemata, Antwerpen, 1608. Daniel Heinsius, Quaeris quid sit Amor ....,

From Pages to Walls and Vice Versa: Applied Emblems between Tristan l'Hermite’s Poetry and Seventeenth-

Century French Decoration

219

translated by Hiroaki Ito, by Misako Matsuda

Thomas A. Bauer Habsburg Jmprese in the Archbishop's Palace in Brixen, Italy

Simon McKeown, ed. Otto Vaenius and His Emblem Books, by

257

Michael Bath

Alison Adams, Stephen Rawles, and Alison Saunders. 4

TEXTS

Bibliography of Claude-François Menestrier: Printed Editions, 1765, by Margaret M. McGowan

Max Reinhart Georg Philipp Harsdérffer and the Emblematic Pamphlets of 1641-42: Peristromata Turcica and Aulaea Romana

777

Introduction

Zi

Text, translation, and commentary

313

1655-

Misako Matsuda. Shékusupia to enburemu: Jinbunsyugi no bunkateki kisô [Emblematic Shakespeare: Cultural Substratum of Humanism], by Shinji Yamamoto |

RESEARCH REPORTS, NOTES, QUERIES, AND NOTICES Mason Tung “Seeing Is Believing”: A Note on the Forgettable History of Illustrating Alciato’s Emblems

379

Michael Bath The Proofs of Antonio Tempesta’s Engravings for Historia Septem Infantium de Lara: Glasgow University Library, S.M. Add.14

405

REVIEW AND CRITICISM John L. Lepage. The Revival of Antique Philosophy in the Renaissance, by Alastair Fowler

417

Stewart Conn, ed. The Hand That Sees: Poems for the Quincentenary of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, by Jameson B. Kismet Bell

418

Volume Index

Preface to Volume 20

A year ago, I wrote that volume 19 marked the first stage in implementing a succession plan for the editorship of Emblematica. At that time, I outlined some of the steps envisioned by the editorial group and issued a call for nominations and applications from the community of emblem scholars for colleagues willing and able to shoulder the joyous burden of taking the helm of our journal in the coming years. I am delighted to report that the process of refreshing our editorial group is now well under way and that we have identified a new Managing Editor and a new Review Editor. We have also appointed a new member to our editorial board, and it is with considerable pleasure that I am able to introduce these colleagues and sketch the outline of the process of transition that will enable the handover of the editorship of Emblematica. My replacement as Managing Editor will be our friend and colleague Mara Wade, professor of German literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Mara will be familiar to all members of our community in several capacities: as the current Chair of the Society for Emblem Studies, as the organizer of the very successful 2005 international conference of the Society held at UIUC, as the editor of several volumes of papers in the field of emblem studies, and as the driving force behind “Emblematica Online?

the major digital emblem repository and research project housed at UIUC in collaboration with the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolffenbiittel. She is also very active in learned societies, including the Renaissance Society of America, where she serves as the Society’s representative and has organized many sessios devoted to emblem studies. In addition to serving as a member of Emblematica’s editorial board, she performs similar duties for Renaissance Quarterly and Renaissance Forum. Mara brings extensive editorial experience to the position of Managing Editor in addition to her wide knowledge of the field of emblem studies and her special expertise in digital humanities and scholarship. Valérie Hayaert will assume the position of Review Editor as Michael Bath’s replacement. Valérie joined the editorial board of Emblematica last xi Emblematica, Volume 20. Copyright © 2013 by AMS Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

xii

EMBLEMATICA

Preface

year. In addition to her extensive work on the French jurist Pierre Coustau

M. Daly’s Companion to Emblem Studies into Japanese. As we welcome him to our board, the editors hereby record their deep gratitude to Professor Bowen for her many supportive contributions to Emblematica and to emblem studies over the years. This volume of Emblematica contains a wide variety of material that I think is certain to be of interest to our readership. Walter 5. Melion has contributed a fascinating article on the Humanae salutis monumenta of

(author of the Latin emblem book Pegma and its vernacular translation, Le

Pegme); she combines deep expertise in neo-Latin texts and the literature of Renaissance jurisprudence. In addition to emblem studies, she has research interests in legal humanism, book history, legal iconography and iconology, law and literature, and neo-Latin poetry, and we are delighted that she has agreed to become Emblematica’s new Review Editor. As is the case with any such transition, the timing of these changes is complex and sensitive. Michael Bath and I will work closely with our replacements as we prepare volume 21 of Emblematica, which is already well underway, with several very interesting submissions in hand. That volume, to appear in 2014, will thus be a joint editorial undertaking, and once it appears, we plan to hand over the reins entirely to Mara and Valérie, as we become editores emeriti. Peter M. Daly and Daniel Russell, the founding editors of this journal, are now acknowledged as such on our title page, and their names will always be indissociable from that of Emblematica. As Michael Bath and I prepare to step aside from our positions, we plan to work with Peter and Dan, as well as with Mara and Valérie, to identify new members who can replace us as part of the senior editorial group of this journal; we are confident that Emblematica will thus be in very good hands for many years to come. With volume 20, we also welcome a new member of our editorial board in replacement of Professor Barbara Bowen, one of our longest serving and most distinguished colleagues. Professor Bowen, who is no longer active

in the field of emblem studies, wrote to me some months ago to suggest that a replacement should be found for her, and it is with great pleasure that the editors are able to announce that Professor Hiroaki Ito has agreed to occupy the seat she has so has graciously made vacant. Professor Ito is by common consent Japan’s foremost scholar of emblem studies. Professor of Art Theory and History and Dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Saitama University (Saitama, Japan), he has published on early modern visual culture both in Europe and in Japan. Recent publications include “The Reception of Dutch Emblems in Japan: Shiba Kokan (1747-1818) and Jan and Kaspar Luyken’s Het Menselyk Bedryf? in The International

Emblem from Incunabula to the Internet (Simon McKeown, ed., 2010).

He has translated Alciato’s Liber emblematum, Otto Vaeniuss Emblemata

amorum, Mario Praz’s Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery, and Peter

xiii

the little-known Jesuit author Benito Arias Montano, in which he exam-

ines Montano’ use of landscape in the context of visual biblical typology. Miranda Anderson explores how George Wither takes up and modifies moralizing elements from Rollenhagen, with a particular focus on Wither’s use of mirror imagery. Jane Farnsworth’s contribution on The Embleme of a Vertuous Woman, by the enigmatic “E. F.;’ will be of interest to all students of the emblem in England, while Elizabeth Black examines the “domestic emblems” of Gilles Corrozet, not in his Blasons domestiques, but in his emblem books proper, the Hecatomgraphie and the Tableau de Cebes. Pierre Martin returns us to the world of emblematic theology with his consideration of eschatological perspective in the seldom-studied polyglot emblems of Andreas Friedrich’s Emblemes nouveaux or Emblemata nova while Catherine Oakes, through an examination of a series of painted emblems

preserved in the vestry of the Old Deanery at Bristol Cathedral, shows how emblematic material was routinely adapted for specific local use in such circumstances. Gabriele Quaranta also mines a rich vein of architectural applied emblematics in his study of how emblems by Tristan l'Hermite came to grace the walls of the chateau of Cheverny. The final article in this volume is by Thomas A. Bauer, who describes a cycle of terra-cotta statues, with accompanying imprese, that are found in the archbishop’s palace in the Italian city of Bressanone, or Brixen as it was called under the Habsburgs. The articles thus provide a highly varied and representative sampling of the full spectrum of emblem studies. This volume also contains the first installment of a major work of editorial textual scholarship in the form of Max Reinhart’s annotated translation and edition of the peculiar emblematic pamphlet Peristromata Turcica by the German polymath Georg Philipp Harsdôrffer. Originally published in 1641, this fascinating work will in all probability be unknown to all but a few of our readers, but as Reinhart demonstrates, there is a good case to support the contention that Harsdôrffer’s early Latin works should be taken more seriously by scholars

xiv

EMBLEMATICA

in their assessments of his life and work. The publication of Peristromata Turcica in this volume of Emblematica will be followed in volume 21 by a similarly annotated translation of the accompanying pamphlet Aulaea Romana, which provided a rebuttal to the pro-French geopolitical arguments outlined in the first pamphlet. Volume 20 is rounded out by two substantial research notes. Mason

In Memoriam

Tung contributes a reassessment of the fit (or, as he shows the frequent lack

of it!) between image and text in Alciato’s Emblemata, and Michael Bath, working with Glasgow’s unparalleled Stirling Maxwell collection, supplies an evaluation of the proofs of Antonio Tempesta’s engravings for Vaenius’s Historia septem infantium de Lara. We also publish our usual complement of book reviews dealing with recent work in emblem studies and allied areas from around the globe. Some of the articles in this volume of Emblematica arise from revisions and expansions of papers originally presented at the Ninth International Conference of the Society for Emblem Studies held at the University of Glasgow in 2011. The editors hereby express their appreciation to Dr. Laurence Grove of that university for his invaluable assistance in identifying and assessing suitable submissions for inclusion in this volume. As always, we also record our thanks to our publisher, AMS Press, Inc., and in particular, to the indefatigable David Ramm, our tirelessly benevolent and good-humored editor there, without whose assistance it would be quite literally impossible to produce these volumes. It seems almost incredible that this volume is the twentieth in a series launched so many years ago by Peter and Dan; that Emblematica has not only endured but has prospered is a tribute to their vision, to their intellectual energy and fortitude, and to their generosity of spirit. We have much to thank them for. David Graham Managing Editor

Philip Ford (28 March 1949-8 April 2013) Readers of Emblematica will join all early modernists in grieving the premature loss of our colleague and friend Philip Ford of Cambridge University, where he was Professor of French and Neo-Latin Literature. Born in Ilford, he attended King’s College, Cambridge, where he completed a bachelor’s in the characteristically unusual combination of French, Latin, and modern Greek, following that first with a Ph.D. under the direction of Professor lan MacFarlane and then a maitrise completed at the University of Bordeaux. Elected a fellow of Girton College, he soon moved to a lectureship at Aberdeen University before returning to Cambridge, where he became a fellow of Clare College. Ford’s many publications covered a broad spectrum of research in early modern studies. Students of the emblem will of course recall with special vividness the publication in 2011 of Le livre demeure: Studies in Book History in Honour of Alison Saunders, which he edited with Alison Adams, but his monographs included such varied topics as a study of the Scottish poet George Buchanan, a major work on Homer's reception in the Renaissance, and a literary and iconographic study of Ronsard’s Hymnes; his final monograph, The Judgment of Palaemon: The Contest between NeoLatin and Vernacular Poetry in Renaissance France, appeared only this year. His many editions included the translation and annotation of works by Jean Dorat as well as the proceedings of no fewer than ten conferences he organized at Cambridge. Among Ford’s many honors were membership in the Ordre des Palmes Académiques, associate fellowship in the Belgian Academy, and fellowship in the British Academy. His final illness unfortunately prevented him from attending the session he had organized on Renaissance Sea Monsters at XV

Emblematica, Volume 20. Copyright © 2013 by AMS Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

xvi

EMBLEMATICA

this year’s conference of the Renaissance Society of America in San Diego, where his achievements were celebrated in his absence. His untimely death, which occurred only a couple of days after that conference, has deprived early modern scholarship of an outstanding colleague. Karl-Ludwig Selig (14 August 1926-1 December, 2012) The eminent hispanist Karl-Ludwig Selig, Professor Emeritus of Columbia University, died in New York after a lengthy illness. Born in Wiesbaden, Germany, Selig was a prolific scholar who published in many areas, and his notes and brief articles, many bibliographic in nature, can still be profitably mined by scholars today for research directions needing further exploration. Selig will be remembered primarily for his contributions to two main areas of scholarly inquiry: Cervantes studies and Spanish emblematics. A founding member of the Cervantes Society of America, Selig published many important notes and articles on Cervantes and contributed frequently to the CSA, through information included in its newsletters and through generous financial support that continued unabated until his death. A student of Mario Praz—whose groundbreaking work needs no introduction to students of emblem and device literature—at the University of Rome, Selig completed a pioneering Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Texas in 1955. Studies on Alciato in Spain, published in facsimile by Garland Press, 1990, blazed an important trail for the study of Spanish emblematics. The author or coauthor of some 45 books, Selig was also a prolific contributor to several eminent scholarly journals including Modern Language Notes, which published early articles by him on Géngora, on the Spanish translation of Alciato’s Emblemata, on the emblems of Solérzano Pereyra, and on Philostratus and Alciato. Later in his career, he published widely on emblems and iconology in several languages; in addition to Spanish, his publications appeared in German, English, and French. In 1990, with Elizabeth Sears, he edited The Verbal and the Visual: Essays in Honor of William Sebastian Heckscher. In addition to his scholarship, Selig was a fervent supporter of the Columbia rowing team, which named two sculls for him. Widely regarded as an outstanding teacher and mentor, he won Columbia's Mark Van Doren Award for Teaching in 1974.

[With material contributed by John Cull, College of the Holy Cross.]

“Conspicitur prior usque fulgor”: On the Functions of Landscape in Benito Arias Montano’s

Humanae salutis monumenta (1571) WALTER S. MELION Emory University

This essay examines three aspects of the landscape settings pictorially and poetically described in Benito Arias Montanos Humanae salutis monumenta: first, the ways in which topological resemblance is used to establish analogies of type and antitype among the emblems, conjoining them as notional pendants; second, the opportunities offered by landscape for situating the beholder at a certain distance from sacred persons and events, and the comparative significance of such attention paid to vantage points; and third, the frequent parallels implicitly drawn between visual perception and spiritual vision, more specifically between the experience of looking from near to far (or conversely, from far to near), from objects close at hand to distant objects barely discernible, and the unfolding process of scriptural interpretation. It concludes by extending the discussion of visual typology to other kinds of relation between type and antitype in the Humanae salutis monumenta.

Pin landscapes regularly appear in Benito Arias Montano’s Humanae salutis monumenta (fig. 1), but their form and function have received little attention, and the manner in which they embed sacred persons and events has not been properly discussed. Published in 1571, four years after the first edition of Georgette de Montenay’s Emblemes 1 Emblematica, Volume 20. Copyright © 2013 by AMS Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

EMBLEMATICA

Walter S. Melion

3

ou devises chretiennes, the Monumenta qualifies as one of the first scriptural emblem books, and Arias Montano’s emblematic theory and practice, along with his biblical poetics, were widely emulated by fellow Christian humanist poets and emblematists.! Arias Montanos exegetical approach to the history of human salvation, though partially based on analogies between the Old and New Testaments to be found in the Glossa ordinaria, is often very inventive. His method of visual exegesis, anchored in pictorial monumenta modified emblematically by several textual species, including elegiac commentaries, was so novel that his publisher, Christopher Plantin, deemed it necessary to append annotationes (composed by Plantin himself, who serves as Arias Montano’s mouthpiece) keyed to Arias Montano’ readings of scripture. Published soon after the initial edition of Georgette de Montenay’s Emblemes ou devises chretiennes, the Humanae salutis monumenta qualifies, in point of fact, as the first scriptural emblem book to be written by a Roman Catholic theologian. Arias Montano diverges from the standard pairings of type and antitype, codified in block-book editions of the Biblia pauperum and printed editions of the Speculum humanae salvationis. To cite 1.

On the Humanae salutis monumenta, designed by Pieter van der Borcht in collaboration with Arias Montano, engraved by Abraham de Bruyn, Pieter Huys,

and Johannes and Hieronymus Wierix, and published by Christopher Plantin,

see Voet 1969-72, 1:69 and 1980-83, 1:182-88, nos. 588-90; Hansel, 68-89; Bowen; Stroomberg and Van der Stock, 2:23-- 44, nos. 3 and 3b, and 188-95, no. 33; Mielke, Mielke, and Luijten, 3:52-121; Bowen and Imhof, 107-12;

and Melion, 43-49. On the Emblemes ou devises chretiennes, engraved by Pierre

Woeiriot, see Labrousse and Labrousse; Perrier 1990 and 1991; and Adams 2000 and 2001. In fact, the reception of the Humanae salutis monumenta and the Emblemes chrestiennes may have been concurrent, since as Adams contends,

the 1567 edition of De Montenay’s emblem book was likely withdrawn, mak-

ing the 1571 edition the first to circulate widely. In a future essay, I hope to discuss the floral and faunal borders, the force of which is to evince an anal-

ogy between the ¢abulae and the virtual landscapes whence come these plants

and animals. In copies of the 1571 octavo edition that include borders, five

were signed and engraved by Pieter Huys and twelve first appeared in the Horae beatissimae Virginis Mariae (Arias Montano 1571). On the borders, see Bowen, 25; Bowen and Imhof, 108-9, 112, 115, and 344. As Bowen and Imhof show, the Monumenta with borders cost 70 stuivers (=3 florins 10 stuivers); without borders, the book cost 60 stuivers (=3 florins). Fig. 1. Benito Arias Montano, Humanae salutis monumenta, title page (Antwerp, 1571). (By permission of Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.)

2:

On the Biblia pauperum, see Engelhardt; Schmidt; Berve, 7-25; Labriola and

Smeltz 1990, 3-10; and Henry, 3-46. On the Speculum humanae salvationis, see Breitenbach; Wilson and Wilson; and Labriola and Smeltz 2002, 1-8.

EMBLEMATICA

some examples, discussed more fully below: he matches the Nativity neither to Moses and the Burning Bush nor to Aaron’s Rod, as in the Biblia pauperum, not to the Dream of Pharaoh’s Cup Bearer, Aaron’s Rod, or Augustus and the Sibyl, as in the Speculum humanae salvationis, but instead to Moses Showing the Tablets of the Law on Mount Sinai.’ Similarly, the Entombment is coupled neither with Joseph in the Well nor Jonah and the Whale, as in the Biblia pauperum, nor with David at the Funeral of Abner, Joseph and the Well, or Jonah and the Whale, as in the Speculum

humanae salvationis, but with the Dream of Jacob.* Furthermore, many scriptural events that Arias Montano utilizes as antitypes, such as The Agony in the Garden (paired to the Sacrifice of Isaac), appear neither in the Biblia pauperum nor in the Speculum. Conversely, he attaches standard types such as the Sacrifice of Isaac to new antitypes: in the Biblia pauperum, it prefigures the Crucifixion; in the Speculum, the Carrying of the Cross.> Some of the pairings, precisely because they are so surprising—the Raising of Lazarus and Moses Burying the Slain Egyptian (rather than Elias Raising the Widow of Sareptha’s Son and Elijah Raising the Shunamite Woman’s Son, as in the Biblia pauperum)— are certainly intended to prompt exegetical reflection. Most importantly, Arias Montano is sparing in his reliance on typology as an exegetical instrument: only about a quarter of the monumenta consists of pendants taken from the Old and New Testaments, and in all these instances of pairing, it is left to the reader-viewer to discover if, when, and how a monument interacts with its complement. Since the monumenta are organized chronologically, the types and antitypes never appear together, and this is a key point of difference from the Biblia pauperum and the Speculum. Pictorial correspondences—of figures, settings, and compositions—are the primary 3.

Onthe Nativity and its attendant types in the Biblia pauperum, see Henry, 51; Labriola and Smeltz 1990, 145-47; on the Nativity and its types in the Speculum humanae salvationis, see Labriola and Smeltz 2002, 32-33.

4.

On the Entombment and its attendant types in the Biblia pauperum, see Henry,

102; and Labriola and Smeltz 1990, 126. On the Entombent and its types in the

Speculum humanae salvationis, see Labriola and Smeltz 2002, 68-69.

5.

On the Sacrifice of Isaac and its antitype in the Biblia pauperum, see Henry, 98;

6.

On the Raising of Lazarus and its attendant types in the Biblia pauperum, see Henry, 70; and Labriola and Smeltz 1990, 109.

Labriola and Smeltz 1990, 168-69. On the Sacrifice of Isaac and its antitype in the Speculum humanae salvationis, see Labriola and Smeltz 2002, 60-61.

Walter S. Melion

5

means by which types are attached to antitypes. Almost as significant are the verbal images and tropes that establish thematic correlations between pairs of monumenta. First, a few words about Arias Montano’s novel emblematic format: as Christopher Plantin, the book’s publisher, explains in his preface, each of the 71 emblems in the Monumenta consists of two textual genera. The architectonic genus (genus architectonicum), comprising a titular motto and epigram above the pictura and a dedication below, attaches to the pictorial image, whose moral function and religious meaning it draws forth; the poetic genus (genus poéticum) takes the form of an ode, modeled on Horace, that develops themes introduced by the pictura and its associated inscriptions.’ In practice, the ode is ekphrastic, as the phrase “In tabulam” prefacing each title indicates: the Horatian poem modifies and amplifies the pictura by means of visual metaphors that generate a rich parallel imagery for intangible things—thoughts, emotions, and motions of the spirit—beyond the scope of pictorial description. For each emblem, the two genera are printed on the facing pages of a single opening, the ode on the left-hand folio verso, the picture on the right-hand folio recto. Plantin ascribes to Arias Montano the composition of both the texts and the pictures.*

ἋἊ

4

On the genus architectonicum, see Plantin; see also Melion, 44--45. On the genus

poéticum, see Plantin; see also Melion, 45. 8.

See Plantin: “instituti nostri esse existimavimus Ariae Montani publicae utilitatis studiosissimi, ac de bonis literis, & disciplinis optime meriti, Architecturae etiam peritissimi (cui enim nisi ingeniosissimo huic viro, tabularum, quas in hoc opera artificiose caelatas conspicis, admirabilem structuram acceptam referamus?)

foecundissimum, & quovis doctrinae genere refertissimum opus, id est, unam &

septuaginta odas, quibus ille felici quadam ingenii dexteritate, carminis elegantia, & gravitate maximum, & admirabile omnino salutis nostrae mysterium iam inde ab ipso primi parentis lapsis ad Evangelistas usque prosecutus est .. ” [We

considered it incumbent upon us to publish this most fruitful opus, replete with every sort of learning, of Arias Montano, who, most devoted to the public weal, most worthy by dint of the liberal arts and sciences, and further, most skilled in architecture (for to whom if not to this most ingenious man should we ascribe the admirable structure of the images, engraved with the utmost skill, that you see in this work?), has [here] described the great and awesome mystery of our

salvation, from the sin of the first parent to the Evangelists, by means of71 odes felicitous in invention, elegant in verse, and altogether weighty . ..].

6

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Fig. 2b. Hieronymus Wierix after Pieter van der Borcht, The Temptation of Christ in the

Wilderness, engraving, in Benito Arias Montano, Humanae salutis monumenta (Antwerp,

1571), monumentum 45. (By permission of Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.)

8

EMBLEMATICA

Landscape, Typology, and Visual Exegesis Let me now begin with emblem 45 on the Temptation of Christ, which illustrates my third point about landscape—namely, that the act of beholding, engendered by ἃ panoramic vista, can itself be seen to instigate and represent the process of biblical hermeneutics on which Arias Montano’s emblem book is predicated (fig. 2).? Here picture and poem closely cooperate: Whereas the former arouses the viewer's impulse to scrutinize the extensive cityscape punctuated by scenes from Matthew 4:1-11, the latter construes the act of beholding as analog and impetus to the exegetical monuments of salvation, on the model of Christ himself, who implants visual images into hearts and minds, the better to move and instruct them. This analogy between perception and exegesis is forecast by the relation, itself analogical, between the enticing picture, in which are arrayed the distinctive locales where Christ was tempted, and the motto, “Scripturarum utilitas” [Utility of the scriptures], that ingeniously alludes to a different kind of locality, the scriptural places (“loci”)—Deuteronomy 8:3, 6:16, and 6:13—exegetically marshalled by Christ against Satan’s false reading of Psalm 90:11: “That he hath given his angels charge over thee, and in their hands shall they bear thee up, lest perhaps thou dash thy foot against a stone.” The epigram, taking up the motto’s exegetical theme, advises the votary to contend with Satan by deploying scripture in the manner of Christ (“instructus verbis consiliisque Dei”) while the dedication is to

“Christ the Invincible Guide” (“Christo Duci Invictissimo”), who leads us incontrovertibly in our reading of scripture.!° In the foreground of tabula 45, the devil points at a rock, urging Christ to command the stones to become bread; in the right distance, they stand

atop the pinnacle of the temple, whence the devil enjoins Christ to cast himself down, while in the left distance, they stand upon a precipice, 9.

On monumentum 45, designed by Pieter van der Borcht and engraved by Hiero-

10.

Arias Montano 1571la, monumentum 45: “Legitime certare queas, & viceris hostem / Instructus verbis consiliisque Dei” “Christo Duci invictiss. s.” [Duly

nymus Wierix, see Stroomberg and Van der Stock, 1:26, no. 3.21.

may you fight, and instructed by the words and counsels of God, you shall conquer the foe]. NB: All further references to Arias Montano will use only the number of the monumentum cited.

Walter 5. Melion

9

whence the devil offers dominion over all the kingdoms of the world."! As the landscape stands for the regna mundi et gloriam eorum, proftered by Satan and eschewed by Christ, so attention paid to the landscape signi-

fies that the viewer is likewise under temptation from the world and its

glorious spectacle. Gazing intently at the rock, Christ expostulates with Satan and thereby demonstrates the close association between vision and exegesis, which constitutes, as we shall see, the chief meditative theme of the adjacent ode. Ode 45, “On the Image of the Temptation,’ begins with a colorful passage describing a strange and wondrous sight that requires meditation: Sylvis in mediis agmina caelitum Cernebam famulas adproperantium Exercere vices laetaque floridis Mensis fercula ponere. Dumque ipsi insoliti contremo muneris

Spectator ardens discere, maximae Causam laetitiae, cuique decus novae

Caenae praeniteat, rogo. (Arias Montano 157 1a, 45) [Amidst woodlands I saw heavenly hosts hastening to exercise themselves in offices of service, setting flowery tables with pleasing dishes of food. Seeing such unwonted labor, trembling greatly, and burning

to learn for myself the cause of [their] great joy, and for whom the new meal shines, I inquire. ]

This opening question is based on the brief reference to ministering angels, whom we are directed to envision, in Matthew 4:11: “et ecce angeli

accesserunt et ministrabant ei” [and behold, angels came and ministered to him]. The poem’s sylvan imagery, adapted from the woodlands visible within the pictorial landscape, implies that the beholder, having entered this

space, apprehends and, more importantly, interrogates it from a future time and different point of view. The heart of the poem, framed as a response

to this interrogative, celebrates Christ’s threefold triumph as exegete over

the devil stratagems. His true command over scripture secures a “triple wreath” of victory (“tergeminis gloria frondibus”), for he vanquishes his foe by crushing him beneath the heavy “weight of triple combat” (“triplicis 11.

Dressed like one of the prophets (cf. sabulae 22 (Nathan), 24 (Esdras), and 26 (Isaiah), the devil in his appearance exercises a false claim on scriptural authority.

10

EMBLEMATICA

Walter S. Melion

11

pondere proelii”).? Christ the victorious exegete is jointly portrayed as an

incomparable meditator, who entirely occupies himself, as must we, in sus-

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If the poetic image of Christ tempted portrays exegetical disputation as a mode of meditative praxis, the exercises thus celebrated, and the poem's own version of these exercises, its sustained answer to the question distilled by the verb “rogo” (“I inquire”), originates in landscape imagery (“sylvis in mediis”) and the enigma it urgently poses. The poetic subject’s attempt to make sense of what he sees represents the process of exegesis, as exemplified by Christ, for it likewise requires him to search, this time in scripture, for the true sense of things. Throughout the Monumenta, concordances of landscape call attention to visual typologies that connect events from the Old and New Testaments. These paired monuments generally concern the changing nature of divine revelation: they focus in particular on the visual distinction between the vestigia that signal the presence of God under the old Law and the evidentiae transmitted by Christ himself under the new. This distinction, as the odes intimate, hinges on the mystery of the Incarnation that makes the Word of God visibly evident in Christ. Whereas the visually resonant tabulae announce the linkages of type and antitype, the odae expound more precisely, though still in visual terms, the nature and significance of the salvation God

promulgates and the manner in which he makes known his redemptive intentions. As was the case with emblem 45, the pictured landscapes mobilize vision, which the odes then convert into a primary theme: the viewer's close Fig. 3. Johannes Wierix after Pieter van der Borcht, The Fall of Jericho, engraving, in Benito

Arias Montano, Humanae salutis monumenta (Antwerp, 1571), monumentum mission of Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.)

18. (By per-

12.

“Quem nunc tergeminis gloria frondibus / Victorem decorat sacrum. / ...

Nunc victus triplicis pondere praelii / Vertit terga gemens, armaque & omnibus

/ Posthac discipulis expositas vias / Vincendi dolet improbus” (Arias Montano 1571a, 45).

/

12

EMBLEMATICA

Walter S. Melion

13

examination of the richly detailed topographies is troped and subsumed into a thematics of corporeal and spiritual vision that allows crucial stages in the history of human salvation to be tracked and meditated. I shall discuss three such pendants that operate in and through landscape. Emblems 18 and 41 describe respectively the Fall of Jericho and the

Flight into Egypt (figs. 3-4). The two monuments share a broadly homologous scenography: hilltop buildings, their silhouette running diagonally

from upper left to lower right, rise steeply along a bluff, around whose base various figures, likewise moving left to right, pivot as they journey toward distant highlands. Tabula 18 depicts the Israelites resolutely carrying the ark around the doomed town of Jericho (fig. 3); its correlate, tabula 41, depicts Joseph in transit to Egypt, intrepidly striding forth with the Virgin (living tabernacle of the Lord) and child in tow (fig. 4).'° The two proces-

sional subjects, both impelled by divine fiat, are also implicitly bound as antitheses: whereas the Israelites, having wandered as exiles from Egypt, are now taking possession of Canaan, the Holy Family leave Israel as exiles

headed for Egypt. Accordingly, it is significant that ode 18, “On the Image of Peoples Subdued” (“In tabulam expugnatarum gentium”), like ode 41, “On the Image of Joseph Departing to Egypt” (“In tabulam Iosephi in Aegyptum commigrantis”), concerns a sight seen that is then interpreted as an image or alternatively a token of the saving power of the Word. The opening verses describe what the Israelites saw and learned, instructing us to view the print through their eyes: Audita quantum vox valeat Dei Conversis rerum cursibus edere,

Videre, qui dicto audientes, Castra loci tetigere odori. Insueta terris turma recentibus,

Vastis neque ampli corporis artubus Aequanda cum vulgo tumentum, Quos regio tulerat, gigantum. (1571a, 18) [Having heard the voice of God, they saw what it brings forth, causing things to change course; for hearing a suggestion [divinely] uttered, Fig. 4. ie

or Hieronymus

Wierix dite Pieced van der acai: The Flight intoà

PRE

engraving, in Benito Arias Montano, Humanae salutis monumenta (Antwerp, 1571), monumentum 41. (By permission of Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.)

13.

On monumentum 18, designed by Pieter van der Borcht and engraved by Johannes Wierix, see Stroomberg and Van der Stock, 1:24, no. 3.5; on monumentum 41, engraved by Johannes Wierix and perhaps designed by Pieter van der Borcht, see ibid., 1:26, no. 3.18.

14

EMBLEMATICA they took the place’s fortresses, a troop unused to new lands, not fit to be matched against the throng of giants, swollen with pride, vast of limb, and huge of body, whom the region had born forth.]

The poem gradually shifts from this self-reflexive visual exemplum, seen and enacted by the Israelites, to its decipherment by the personified land of Canaan: Arcana quo iam nomina maximi Doctore primum numinis audiit:

Qui fecla, caelestésque turmas Unus agit moderator aequus. Turrita iusto moenia iudici Firmata vastis vectibus, & trabes Cessere, & ingenti ruina

Sponte sua, patuere muri. (1571a, 18)

[Wherefore the earth now learns from its teacher, the hidden names of the great Godhead (“arcana .. . nomina maximi .. . numinis”), who alone governs the generations and the celestial armies as their just ruler. Fortified with towers, strengthened by huge bolts, the walls and beams yield to the righteous judge; and the defenses lie open, a ruin

falling of its own accord. }

The truths about God learned by Canaan are deduced solely from the effects he ordains and executes through Joshua, leader of the chosen people, the teacher (“doctore”) who adduces the unnameable presence of the hidden God. By contrast, ode 41 celebrates the image of the visible Christ (“pignus sacrum”), whose salvific presence is made apparent to sense and spirit (“pignore quo salutem sperat humanum genus”). This distinction between arcana nomina and pignus sacrum evokes the mystery of the Incarnation that demarcates between the experience of God under the old dispensation and the new. Ode 41 expatiates upon the incarnational theme of vision. It opens with an imagined episode of happenstance: the reader is cast in the role of a traveler who chances upon the Holy Family and, struck by what he sees, first de-

scribes them to himself and then inquires into their significance. Guided by

the poet, we meditate on the doctrinal meaning of these sights fortuitously seen, coming to realize by the poem’s end, that Jesus is the ago Dei, who makes visible in and through this contingent event the very image of our salvation. Joseph is addressed in the very first strophe:

Walter S. Melion

15

Dic mihi quo tenellam

Virginem (nam virgineum conspicio decorem) Frigore saeviente,

Hospes incessu fugitivum properante ducis? (157 1a, 41)

[Tell me, sojourner, whither you lead the tender maiden (for I descry

her virginal grace), a fugitive hastening through the fierce cold (of winter). |

The poet, speaking in our voice, now espies the child and observes that his beauty surpasses the power of human speech to denominate (“Quod pueri decori nomen est?”). The boy’s features seize the viewer’s attention, prompting him to realize that the child is divine: Namque tuum puellum Esse mortali genere progenitum refutant Digna Deo tonante Ora maiestasque oculis in teneris renidens. (157 1a, 41)

[For that your little boy was born of mortal man, his features worthy of God the Thunderer, and the majesty shining from his soft eyes,

deny. }

His gaze widens to encompass the landscape that makes visibly manifest the presence of God: Quam nemus & silentes Auditam vocem venerantur, capiuntque sylvae Attonitumque flumen Sistit undas praecipites blandisono susurro. (157 1a, 41) [Whose voice, once heard, the groves and silent forests venerate and

cherish, [causing the] startled river to stay the headlong waves to a

sweet murmur. |

All these sights keenly beheld and conveyed—the virgineum decorem of Mary, the pueri decor beyond the scope of words, the child’s Olympian ora and the power evident oculis in teneris, the response of nature to such extraordinary decor and majestas—elicit from Joseph an answer commensurate with the attention expended on close viewing: Vera rogas; perennis Est Dei natus puer; intactam habet is parentem

Virginem: ego huic ut illi

16

EMBLEMATICA

Walter 5. Melion

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Fig. 6. Hieronymus Wierix after Pieter van der Borcht, Christ

Appoints the Twelve Apostles, Ra : : engraving, in Benito Arias Montano, Humanae salutisἡ monumenta (Antwerp, 1571), Oe : À i ; monumentum 48. (By permission of Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory

University)

18

EMBLEMATICA Traditus custos monitis aligeri ministri Moenibus e cruentis Pignus en sacrum abripio, ne violet ferocis Invida vis tyranni,

Ad Phari abiunctas properando procul exul oras. (1571a, 41)

[You ask for truths (“vera rogas”): the child is born of God everlasting; he has a virgin mother as parent. Delivered by the winged messenger’s counsels as guardian to one as to the other, behold, I convey this sacred pledge (“pignus sacrum”) away from ramparts stained with blood, rushing as an exile far to distant shores, lest the envious might of a fierce tyrant cause injury. ]

The reference to ramparts harks back to the #wrrita moenia of Jericho, its

Walter S. Melion

Moses atop Mount Sinai, where—shrouded by mists and encompassed by flames—he receives the tablets of the law (fig. 5), tabula 48 positions Christ in the hill country of Galilee, where accompanied by twelve disciples, He

appoints them to evangelize their fellow Jews (fig. 6).!° The landscapes are

once again complementary, though reversed, but whereas Moses has distanced himself from the Israelites gathered in the foreground, Christ has descended the hillside to minister first hand to his chosen followers. This change in vantage point proves acutely significant to the meaning of the two emblems, as the odes reveal. Ode 15, “On the Image of the Law Received on Mount Sinai,’ describes the shocking novelty of what transpired at this sacred place: Quod prima nusquam saecula viderant,

“walls fortified by towers.”'* The term pignus identifies the infant Christ

Videre..., Mortalium uti colloquiis Deum,

as a visible guarantor—a living pledge—of humanity's hoped-for salvation,

through whom, as the poet states in closing, the wounds inflicted by our

Et voce sancti numinis indice,

first parents (Adam and Eve) shall be healed and the gifts kindly promised by the Godhead shall be given. The poem reconfigures the pictorial image

Praesentis electaeque gentis

Foedera participem subire. (157 1a, 15)

and the initial act of viewing it calls forth, giving us more to see and trans-

acting a kind of exchange in which spiritual truths are offered in reward for close attention paid to Jesus, who is seen to ensure the fulfillment of promises made and now being discernibly brought to pass. Jesus becomes present by means of instrumental images, pictorial and poetic, that assist us affectively to internalize his presence in ways more immediate and transcendent than the figurae—the mediating types—upon which the Israelites have previously relied. Designed as inverted mirror images, emblems 15 and 48, “Moses receives the Tablets of the Law” and “Christ appoints the Twelve Apostles,’ adapt the allegory of Law and Grace, portraying Moses as a type for Christ, whose presence, the Word having been made flesh, is seen directly (“ora tu-

[What no prior age had seen, [they] saw ...: before the chosen people, God undertakes covenants, using mortal speech and the human voice as a sign of the divine will (“sancti numinis indice”).]

Brought forth by the people’s fear of the Lord, their reluctance to behold

the awesome majesty of God, the visible signs he confers in place of himself

(“cui signa praefert”) cause hearts to tremble, rocks to break, and mountains clamorously to resound. By the same token, the Commandments given as a spur to virtue, instead produce fearsome consequences, for enfeebled by original sin, the recipients of the Law shall perforce fail to uphold it. And this dilemma, the ode concludes, shall not cease: Donec potenti numine, cordium Illapsus urat spiritus intima, Praestare & expertes pavoris

ens”), rather than discerned vaguely by means of natural portents (“signa”)

(figs. 5-6). In fact, these emblems contain the last set of paired landscapes in the Monumenta. Whereas tabula 15 situates the diminutive figure of 14. 15.

Sponte animos meliora donet. (157 1a, 15)

{Until [sent] by the potent will of God, the Spirit kindles [human] hearts, having owed into their inmost recesses, and freely vouchsafes to furnish better things to spirits free from fear.]

“In tabulam expugnatarum gentium in ibid.: “Turrita iusto moenia iudici / Firmata vastis vectibus, & trabes / Cessere, & ingenti ruina / Sponte sua, patuere

à muri.

Arias Montano 1571a, 48: “Ora tuens, sic fatur amice [Christus] “In tabulam acceptae Legis apud Sina montem, in ibid.: “Cui signa praefert sollicitus timor.

19

16.

On monumentum 48, designed by Pieter van der Borcht and engraved by Hiero-

nymus Wierix, see Stroomberg and Van der Stock, 1:27, no. 3.23.

20

EMBLEMATICA

The closing quatrain completes im nuce and before the fact, as it were, the visual typology initiated by emblem 15: the fearful power of the old Law (“imperio . . . tremendo”) that burns upon the mountain and ignites the lower atmosphere (“devolat aethere, summique tractus montis & aëra coillustrat”) becomes the flowing-in of the Spirit that inflames human hearts,

causing them freely and without fear to respond to the divine will (“praestare & expertes pavoris, sponte animos meliora donet”).'” The fiery mountaintop is transformed into the fiery heart; external signa originating in the fear of God (“cui signa praefert sollicitus timor”) are replaced by intima cordium—heartfelt intimacies—conveyed by the Holy Spirit (“cordium illapsus urat spiritus intima”); and rather than promulgating himselfas lawgiver, doctor, and dictator, God manifests his will potently (“potenti numine”) by internal and spiritual means.'* Ode 15 therefore adumbrates the argument of ode 48, “On the Image of Christ Gathering the Apostles” which in turn perfects the typological imagery of ministry and spiritual vocation: as the chosen people had previously been called to bear witness to the Law, so now the apostles are called

to spread the Gospel. The paired tabulae, as we have seen, are inverse compositions, and this transposition of Moses and Christ, the one distant from his people and the viewer, the other brought close to his disciples and to us, serves to indicate that the new Law differs fundamentally from the old. Similarly, our virtual access to Moses is blocked by a row of distraught onlookers, whereas Christ stands near the threshold of the image, the massed apostles granting us open access to his person. Underscoring the status of the emblem as an antitype, ode 48 asseverates that this monument marks the fulfilment of the old covenant:

Walter S. Melion

Now there comes the Christ, the Son of the Lord of the Harvest (“Domini

messis natus”), who with his sickle sets about the task of reaping the ripened crop of believers sown by His Father. What he brings them is a new vision of God, one that he himself makes manifest facie ad faciem: “Then the Son of the Lord of the Harvest, His highest minister and very image (“Domini . . . summusque minister, orbis imago”), author of the world’s renewal, gazing upon the twelve faces of the men selected with so much care (“selectorum operi tanto, duodena virorum, ora tuens”), speaks kindly in this fashion.” Embodied rather than merely signified, immediate rather than remote, the imago Dei responds to his closest followers in a face-toface encounter that supersedes all figurative foreshadowings, not least the signs of God's presence on Mount Sinai. But in conformity with Matthew 5:17, the proof text for typological usage—“Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill."—Christ proceeds to renew the system he perfects: he generates visual types, drawn from scripture, that prefigure the vicissitudes to be suffered by the apostles in his name. Arias Montano amplifies Matthew 10:16-18: O mihi praechari comites, sociique laborum Arcanique sacraria magni, Non vos parva manent discrimina ...

Sed magis ut nudi atque inopes, patriaque remoti, Vexati, instabilesque, vagique Vulpibus infestisque, lupisque rapacibus, agni Imbelles, blandaeque columbae Sitis, lux tenebris, nimiumque furentibus aegris Fomentum medicique fideles. (157 1a, 48)

Saeclorum veterum, praescripto ex ordine, finem Certa Deo voluentibus annis Tempora protulerant. (157 1a, 48)

[Ὁ my dear comrades, partners in labor, and [living] shrines of great

mystery, for you who have been sent to transform the custom and way

of the world there remain great dangers: . . . naked and destitute, far from home, tottering, and without fixed abode, harried by menacing

[In the order prescribed, the times fixed by God had brought forth with the passage of years the end of the previous age. | 17.

18.

foxes and ravening wolves, you are placid lambs and gentle doves, light to darkness, faithful physicians and a lenitive to those troubled and

Arias Montano 157 1a, 15: “Hinc ignis alto devolat aethere, / Summique tractus montis & aéra / Collustrat, urenteisque flammas / Congeminat, penetratque cautes. /... / Legesque certum quae doceant decus; / Sed mole monteis concutiant gravi, / Morboque languenteis avito, / Imperio exagitent tremendo.” Ibid.: “Doctorque, dictatorque coram / Alloquitur, recitatque leges.”

21

distraught. ] 19.

Arias Montano

157 1a, 48: “Tunc Domini messis natus, summusque minister /

Orbis imago auctorque novandi, / Selectorum operi tanto, duodena virorum / Ora tuens, sic fatur amice.”

22

EMBLEMATICA

Walter S. Melion

23

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Fig. 7. Hieronymus Wierix after Pieter van der Borcht, John the Baptist Preaches in the Wilderness, engraving, in Benito Arias Montano, Humanae salutis monumenta (Antwerp, 1571), monumentum 43. (By permission of Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.)

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a ee en E A? sr Fig. 8. Abraham de Bruyn after Pieter van der Borcht, Christ Preaches the Gospel (Sermon on the Mount), engraving, in Benito Arias Montano, Humanae salutis monumenta

(Antwerp,

1571), monumentum 47. (By permission of Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library,

Emory University.)

24

EMBLEMATICA

Walter S. Melion

25

These metaphors operate within τῆς context of a landscape simile comparing the perilous world to the storm-tossed sea roaring with dreadful tempests and to highways fraught with dangers.” Ode 48 thus functions not only as a climax to the sequence of types and antitypes that structure selected monuments taken from the Old and New Testaments but also as a ringing endorsement, voiced by Christ himself, of visual typology and the imagery it offers for reading the Gospels and for living one’s life in imitation of Christ. The last Old Testament type in the Monumenta, emblem 43 on the preaching of John the Baptist, corresponds precisely to its antitype, emblem

resounds like thunder and lightning. Arias Montano utilizes striking visual metaphors to describe the potency of the prophet’ godlike words:

47 on the Sermon on the Mount, and in truth, the respective tabulae are

er the thunderbolts of efficacious sound burst forth, they divide asun-

isomorphic (figs. 7-8).2! The landscapes are almost identical: sheltered by a hillside coppice, John and Christ preach to a mixed audience of men and women, the young and the old, supporters and opponents, beyond whom a distant city, presumably Jerusalem, nestles beside nearby mountains. Both of them gaze heavenward, for their speech is divinely inspired. The close accord between type and antitype here signifies the conformation of John to Jesus, whom the last of the prophets, his ministry bridging the two covenants, not only prophesies but also meets and baptizes. It is the odes that reveal how the two monumenta differ, and in what respect tabula 43 illus-

trates a type (fig. 7) and tabula 47 an antitype (fig. 8).

Ode 43, “On the Image of John Preaching,” identifies the Baptist as a type rooted in the Old Testament by implicitly comparing the effect of his words to that of God’s words spoken from atop Mount Sinai.” Just as God there used mortalium colloquiis to transmit the Law, moving mountains

and smashing boulders with the power of his clarion voice, so John’s speech 20.

Ibid.: “Queis maris horrisoni fluctus, ac dura viarum / Sunt adeunda pericula sacpe.

21. 22.

On monumentum 43, designed by Pieter van der Borcht and engraved by Hieronymus Wierix, see Stroomberg and Van der Stock, 1:26, no. 3.19. The church fathers and key exegetical compendia such as the Glossa ordinaria describe John the Baptist as the last of the prophets, who was privileged not only to prophesy the coming of the Messiah but also to bear witness to the advent of Christ. John is construed as a type of Christ on the basis of three crucial passages in the Gospel of John the Evangelist: in 3:28, the Baptist states that he is “not Christ, but [the one] sent before him”; in 3:29, he identifies himself as a “friend to [Christ] the bridegroom? in whom “[my] joy is fulfilled”; and in 3:30, he avows that “[Christ] must increase, but I must decrease.”

Vates, larden obstupenti Flumine percipit usque primus:

Quando efficacis fulminibus soni Commotus omnis contremuit locus,

Quacunque distinguunt iacentes

Aequora Gilghediusque terras. (157 1a, 43) [The Jordan, its stream stupefied, was the first to perceive the voice

that the prophets said would be the messenger of salvation: wheresoev-

der the lands and waters of Galilee, compelling all places to tremble. ]

So powerful are John’s sermons that they are seen (“efficacis fulminibus soni”) and tasted (“combibit non aure surda”), as well as heard. John himself becomes the image of his speech, to the extent that the “quality and condition of an austere life and mind” become visible in the “severe visage and bearing of the man speaking.” By contrast, ode 47, “On the Image of Christ Preaching the Gospel” avers that his words, howsoever potent, are spoken gently and inwardly; in this way, they recall the mellifluous agency of the Spirit, evoked at the close of ode 15, “On the Image of the Law Received on Mount Sinai,” as an antidote to the fearsome authority of the commandments. In addition, the foreground figure at the lower left of tabula 47, his back to the viewer, reiterates the central foreground figure of tabula 15, but with this difference: rather than starting back in amazement, his gaze and gesture indicate that he is turning toward Christ, whose gentle face is as visible as his merciful

words are audible (figs. 5-8). The motto, epigram, and dedication are con-

densed allusions to Matthew 5-7. The motto, “Divinae discipinae schola” [School of divine discipline], describes the pedagogical task that Jesus undertakes—to teach “the law and the prophets,” subsuming them under the commandment, “All things therefore whatsoever you would that men 23.

Arias Montano 1571a, 43: “Hanc & colonus gentibus impiis / Vicina iungens

praedia, combibit / Non aure surda, hanc ipsa Idea / Posteritas, Solymumque

CRE cives.

24.

Ibid.: “Mirantur omnes, ac loquentis / Vultum habitumque hominis severum.

/ ... / Id quippe monstrabat severae / Mentis honos habitusque vitae”

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should do to you, do you also to them” (Matt. 7:12). The epigram likewise refers to the doctrine Christ imparts, which fulfills rather than abrogates the law and the prophets (5:17), but does so by adapting them to the prerequisite of evangelical love, thus converting the Mosaic injunction of “an eye for an eye” into the Christian admonition “to turn the other cheek” (5:38-39). The exhortation to rejoice and be glad in the promise of heaven, even while suffering persecution, revilement, and false accusation (5:11),

perforce leads many foolishly to question the gospel of Christ, as the distich wryly observes: “Quas fugitat mundus rerum sunt commoda tanta? / Quis est: sed stultis non sapit ista seges.” [Does the world not flee the greatest good? So be it: this fruit (seges) tastes bad to fools] (Arias Montano 157 1a, 47). The term seges derives from Matthew 7:16-20, in which Christ calls

the good deeds of his followers the fruits by which they shall be known as disciples. The dedication to Christ, “supreme teacher to simple men”

(“Simplicium doctori optimo sacrum”), emphasizes that Christ instructs

by forthright example, a point underscored by the presence (at the lower right of tabula 47) of lepers and cripples, who have come in sure hope of the healing mercy he preaches in the beatitudes (Matt. 5:3-11). In emblem 47, the genus architectonicum thus consists of scriptural allusions that bring to mind key passages from the Sermon on the Mount (fig. 8). The ode changes tack, closely imitating the sermon itself, which

makes use of densely woven analogical images that resemble very condensed parables. The most famous of these analogies—the mote and the beam—converts occluded vision into a metaphor of presumptive judgment (Matt. 7:3-5). There are many other visual analogies: the salt of the

earth and the perseverance of the persecuted (5:13); the light of the world and the city perched on a mountaintop, a double analogy for the goodness of the blessed that cannot be hidden (5:14); the sun that rises over the just and unjust and the universal scope of divine mercy (5:44-45); the light of the eye and the light of the soul (6:22-23); the man with two masters and the man who serves God and mammon (6:24); the narrow gate and strait way and the wide gate and broad way, analogies for the paths lead-

ing respectively to salvation and perdition (7:13-14). Ode 47 turns on a similar though greatly extended analogy; formulated for the benefit of the votary, in the manner of the parabolic images addressed by Christ to the multitude, this visual analogy represents the transformative effect of the sermo delivered in Matthew 5-7.

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Walter S. Melion

27

The meditative theme being visualized in the solar imagery of a sundrenched landscape, as if in the descriptive words of Christ, is the power of

Christ the Word to conform the votary to Himself: Nam qualis calido lumine ab aetheris Alta sede humiles sol penetrat domos Terrarum, variisque exagitat potens

Tentatas species modis;

Cum plumbi & chalybis grandia semina

Concrescunt validis acta vaporibus, Sed cerae faciles & glacies nivis Decursu fluido liquent: Talis sermo Dei mentibus inditus, Obdurata premens aera superbiae, Marcentes animos sed faciles fovet Vitae munere prospero. (Arias Montano 157 1a, 47) [For just as from the high seat of heaven, the sun penetrates humble terrestrial abodes, its power stirring up the species it variously touches, as when the great elements of lead and steel congeal, having once been agitated by strong vapors, but soft wax and hard snow liquify into fluid streams; so also, the divine sermon conveyed to human hearts,

by a function favorable to life, presses upon pride’s hardened alloys, also warming weak yet pliant spirits. ]

This analogy signifies that the word of God is like the heat of the sun that acts upon the elements it strikes, causing some to harden and others to soften. Likewise, the sermo Dei animates minds and hearts: it mollifies what is obdurate, softening hard, resistant pride (“aera superbiae”), and it dissolves what is already soft, making tractable spirits all the more re-

ceptive (“marcentes animos sed faciles fovet”). The reference to lead and

steel, first vaporized and then annealed, implies that the Sermon on the Mount, if it is thoroughly meditated, has the power to soften the votary's intransigent vice and change it into fortified virtue. The ode’s opening and closing verses embed this analogical imagery within an additional visual analogy, that of the seed that brings forth a great fruit (an allusion to the

parable of the mustard seed, in Matthew 13:31-32, Mark 4:30-32, and

Luke 13:18-19):

Productum populis de sapientia

Patris consilium filius incipit

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Walter S. Melion

Enarrare, bonus dicere & algida Dictis urere pectora. (Arias Montano 1571a, 47) [ Worthy to speak and by speaking to inflame cold hearts, the Son begins to expound to the people the plan born of the Father's wisdom. ] Non caeca ambitio, non amor improbus Rerum quas studiis appetit ultimis Vulgus, non animi luxuries capit Sancti commoda nuntii: Sed quos dura hominum sollicitant mala,

Vel vitam puduit ducere turpibus Infectam vitiis, vel timor obligat, Cura & iustitiae tenet

Hi (quanquam exiguum) pectore vivido Semen concipiunt quod cumulos creat, Queis aeterna parens horrea compleat,

Et divum exhilaret choros. (157 1a, 47)

[Neither blind ambition nor the base love of things, after which the multitude strives with the utmost solicitude, or the licentious spirit

reaps the benefits of the sacred gospel, but rather they whom the hard

vices of men distress, who have been made ashamed to lead a life in-

fected by foul sin, whom fear compels and regard for justice binds. These are they whose living heart conceives the seed (as yet small) that begets the great increase, wherewith the parent fills eternal storehouses, gladdening the choirs of saints. |

Meditation on the Word is Arias Montano’s exegetical theme: to be efficacious, he argues by visual analogy, it must be keyed to the analogical and parabolic images that augment the efficacy of the sermo Dei, ensuring that it reforms the votary, hardening or softening his soul as need requires. Aimed at the “living heart” (“pectore vivido”), this process of conversion

is both signified and enhanced by the typological relation between the /4bulae and odae comprised by emblems 43 and 47. Here as elsewhere in the Monumenta, the transition from type to antitype, from the opacity of signa to the transparency of Christ, émago Dei and pignus sacrum, certifies that human salvation, discernible in the monuments

of biblical history, is en-

sured by divine providence working through its chosen instruments.

29

The three pairs of monumenta—emblems 18 and 41, 15 and 48, and 43 and 47—exemplify how Arias Montano avails himself of landscape to fulfill three elucidative functions: the scenae evince analogies of type and antitype; they situate the viewer in relation to sacred events that are seen to transpire either far away or near at hand, depending on whether they occur before or after the advent of Christ; and they evoke the processes, by turns gradual or sudden, of spiritual illumination and scriptural understanding that involve changes of vantage point, whereby a distant truth, glimpsed from afar, becomes intimate and heartfelt, or the register of private experience expands to signify some aspect of salvation history, universal in scope. For Arias Montano, poet and exegete, mind and spirit, illumination and understanding are construed as inseparable, if not indistinguishable. The figure of analogy proves crucial to all three functions of landscape: it signals that typology is the structural principle linking respective monumenta; proximity and distance are analogized to the relative presence of Christ, discerned distantly under the old dispensation, discerned closely, even palpably, under the new; and likewise, the ongoing process of discernment, at once spiritual and exegetical, is analogized to one’s shifting point of view, which narrows focally or widens panoramically, as the object of attention requires. Let us briefly recapitulate how each of these functions is effected. Emblems 18 and 41 rely upon analogous scenery, emblems 15 and 48 upon scenic inversion, and emblems 43 and 47 upon scenic identity to establish the mutual relation between type and antitype. Scriptural complementarity is keyed to the landscape settings that environ sacred persons and events. In addition, the odes often make use of prosopopoeia, giving agency and voice to the landscapes, so that they are seen and heard to react to the mysteries unfolding within them, as if enlivened by the divine will. The scale of the salutis monumenta, it is thus implied, is vast, for their limitless source is God himself: they stretch to embrace whole nations and kindreds, situating them, one might say; the conformations discernible amongst these paired loci stand for the exegetical analogies to be drawn amongst the loci textuales for which these places stand. Emblems 15, “Moses receives the Tablets of the Law,’ and 18, “The fall of Jericho,” locate the sacred events they portray—the bestowal of the Law and the victory of the Israelites over Canaan—at some distance from the beholder, as also from the witnesses arrayed within the image. Although

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Walter S. Melion

the tabulae refrain from depicting God, his presence may be inferred from the divinely sanctioned instruments he mobilizes:

in the former, mists,

flames, trumpet blasts, and an angelic messenger; in the latter, massive ramparts that crumble, as if of their own accord. By contrast, Christ looms large in emblems 41, “The flight into Egypt” and 48, “Christ appoints the Twelve Apostles”: the tabulae bring him close to the threshold of the image. In ode 41, he is called the pignus sacrum [sacred pledge] who visibly guarantees the new covenant of salvation; the poet amplifies the theme of vision, marshalling various collateral sights, not least the personified river, groves, and forests, that miraculously pay homage to the transit of the child Jesus, whom they acknowledge to be God and man. In emblem 48, the remote figure of Moses has been replaced by the nearby figure of Christ, whose ambulatory pose indicates that he has climbed down the hillside, like the distant figures descending from the summit. His motion toward us signifies the “passage of years” from the old covenant to the new that brings the “end of the previous age,’ as the ode intimates. Accordingly, tabula 48 fully recasts tabula 15, inverting its major components: whereas Moses has scaled Mount Sinai, Christ instead approaches the future apostles, who then part ranks for us, opening a pathway to the Lord. Positioned between the feet of the foremost figures, the stone that slightly blocks our way perhaps alludes to the stumbling-stone of faith, cited in Romans 9:32, as a trial to be overcome (in fulfillment of the prophetic type cited in Isaiah 8:14-15). The challenge thus posed admonishes us to emulate

the apostles, whose faith transforms a hindrance into a conveyance, the stumbling-stone into a stepping-stone.

In this and other ways, distance and proximity are troped to enlarge upon the notion that the advent of Christ has forever changed the relation between humanity and Godhead, making directly accessible and apprehensible what previously had been hidden or mediated about divinity. Conversely, the similarity between tabulae 43, “John preaching the Advent of Christ” and 47, “Christ preaching the Gospel” (“Sermon on the Mount”), emphasizes that John, the last of the prophets, is concurrently a protoapostle in his likeness to Jesus. Their attitudes, gestures, and closeness

to their audience are very similar, with one exception: lifting his mantel to facilitate movement in our direction, along a spatial corridor delimited by two apostles and a pair of cripples, Christ advances toward the foreground, bridging the gap between himself and us. The odes reinforce this

31

distinction: the effect of John’s sermon is compared to that of God’s voice thundering on Mount Sinai; Jesuss sermon, on the contrary, is piercingly intimate, having the power to soften and yet fortify hearts ready to hear. In its effect, Arias Montano avers, using a landscape metaphor, the Gospel operates like sunlight: shining from on high, it brightens the world, striking proximately everything it illumines. The trope of sunlight activates the framing tropes of distance and proximity, setting them in motion, showing how Christ draws near, and thereby tracking the allied processes of spiritual illumination and exegetical understanding. Emblems 41, 47, and 48, if their status as antitypes is properly recognized, compel us to apprehend how what was distant in emblems 15 and 18, and closer in emblem 43, has now become closer still. Occasionally, however, the opposite occurs: distancing effects are introduced to demonstrate the power and majesty of Christ, as in ode 43’s comparison of the Word to the rising sun that casts its light panoramically (but also, as we have seen, to the sun’s rays that penetrate inwardly, transfiguring whomever they touch). Ode 15, as noted above, adumbrates the movement from far to near in the climactic transformation it narrates of divine signa into intima cordium. Ode 48 takes up this device and intensifies it: the presence of God on Mount Sinai, occluded and terrifying, is converted into the face-to-face encounter of the apostles with Christ, the living image of God, who nourishes spiriturally as he returns their gaze. Emblem 47 concerns the alteration of severity, bodied forth by John the Baptist, paragon of the Law, into clemency, epitomized by the doctrine of evangelical love, promulgated by Christ and made manifest in his face and features. This transmutation is enacted in tabula 47 by the foreground figure drawn from tabula 15, who rather than averting his gaze, inclines emphatically toward Christ and imbibes his words. Ode 41, like its adjacent tabula, hinges on the idea of a chance encounter between the reader and the Holy Family: both he and they are journeying; they approach one another, and this encounter enables him to see and ponder the mother and child; having become aware of their preternatural beauty, he casts his gaze more widely, seeing how their presence animates and awes the landscape surrounding them; and finally, his vision have repeatedly moved from far to near, and near to far, he comes to realize that the Olympian child hypostatizes the mystery of the Incarnation. The changes in vantage point elicit questions about the nature of this great mystery (“vera rogas”) and correlate

Walter 5. Melion

EMBLEMATICA

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to a growing awareness of the true scope and signficance of this humanae salutis monumentum. How we inhabit the landscape, moving through it,

allows us visually to engage with the scriptural event that the emblem exegetically unfolds and brings spritually to light.

Other Kinds of Relation between Type and Antitype in the Humanae salutis monumenta

The paired emblems that we have been examining (figs. 3-8) utilize landscape to demarcate both actual and virtual thresholds: the storming of

Jericho and crossing over into Egypt (emblems 18 and 41), the establishment of the Law and of the apostolate (emblems 15 and 48), the preaching

of the Law by the last prophet of Christ and the preaching by Christ of the new doctrine of Grace (emblems 43 and 47). Landscape serves to imply that the history of salvation entails movement across spatial, temporal, and

metaphorical boundaries: in emblems 15 and 48, for example, the implied journey of Moses from the summit of Mount Sinai prefigures the voyage of the Holy Family from Nazareth; the progression from one place to another also signifies the transition, negotiated across the two emblems, from the old covenant to the new, from Mosaic type to Christian antitype, from figuration to fulfillment (figs. 5-6). In emblems 18 and 41, the passage of the

Israelites into Canaan and of the Holy Family into Egypt transforms the landscapes they encounter, “causing things to change course,’ so that the

personified Canaan, previously oblivious, now discerns the hidden pres-

ence of God, whereas the personified groves, forests, and rivers traversed by

the infant Christ respond to the newly visible presence of God incarnate, calling attention to his decor and majestas (figs. 3-4). The two journeys to-

gether signify how the knowledge of God advances over time: from the decipherment of arcana nomina under the old dispensation, one proceeds

Fig. 11. Hieronymus Wierix after Pieter van der Borcht, The Entombment, engraving, in Benito Arias Montano, Humanae salutis monumenta (Antwerp, 1571), monumentum 64. (By permission of Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.)

to the clear apprehension of Christ, knowable as the pignus sacrum who bodies forth a new dispensation. In emblems 43 and 47, in contrast, the very similar landscapes indicate that the boundary between the two covenants has become porous or, better, that the former covenant, represented by John, is soon to be subsumed into the covenant of Christ, whose public ministry the last of the prophets prefigures and announces (figs. 7-8). The uniformity of the two landscapes likewise alludes, as argued above, to the conformitas of the prophet to Christ.

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EMBLEMATICA

Elsewhere in the Monumenta, Arias Montano mainly relies on figural concordance to gather his emblems into typological pairs and occasionally triads, Even in these cases, however, landscapes often function as a corollary, if not primary, linking device and as an attribute of the biblical protagonist. The recumbent figure of Jacob in emblem 8, for instance, corresponds in reverse to the deposed figure of Christ in emblem 63, and again, to the entombed Christ in emblem 64 (figs. 9-11). The sleeping patriarch can thus

be construed as a type for the sacrificial Christ, whose death is likened to mere slumber, whence he shall ineluctably awaken. The rock against which

Jacob reclines, soon to be anointed and named the “house of God,” adum-

brates the rocky ground of Mount Golgotha and the rock-carved tomb and sarcophagus where his body is laid. Jacob’s utterance, “How terrible is this place! This is no other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven,’ encompasses all three places. Their complementarity is further underscored by the ladder-like stairway in emblem 8, its registers pierced by colonnades opening onto the distant horizon, and the ladders propped against the cross in emblem 63, its rungs framing the hill country of Judea (figs. 9-10). These visual analogies make the key differences amongst the three tabulae all the more apparent and meaningful: whereas Jacob sleeps in solitude, Jesus lies amidst family and friends, who support his lifeless body and stare intently at his prominent wounds. The odes expand on these contrasts, which are seen

to allude to the distinction between the imagery of type and of antitype, or better, between the relative obscurity of the former and clarity of the latter. Ode 8, “On the Dream of Jacob,’ asserts that his vision of the stairway to heaven, by virtue of its pellucidity, marks a new threshold in the history of salvation. Arias Montano makes this claim in three stages. First, he observes

that God, from the first age of humankind to the destruction of the world during the time of Noah, undertook to transmit his covenants by means of embryonic images that rendered his promises firmly but vaguely, in ways

barely legible and sometimes difficult to discern:

Quae patribus firmata olim sunt foedera primis, Novique coepta ab orbis ante termino,

Et quae prima hominum, quaeque altera credidit aetas, Rudi sed usque pervoluta imagine. (1571a, 8) 25.

On monumentum 63, designed by Pieter van der Borcht and engraved by Johannes Wierix, see Stroomberg and Van der Stock, 1:30, no. 3.37. On monumentum 64, see ibid., no. 3.38.

Walter S. Melion

37

[Which covenants were formerly promised to the first fathers, undertaken from before the end of the youthful world, and believed by the first and second ages of men, but all the while read by means of a rough image. ]

Second, Arias Montano describes the new kind of image—sharper, livelier, and richer in detail—that God inaugurates when he gives Jacob his dream vision: “Haec eadem iam clara magis, monstrataque cernit / Suo Iacobus expedita tempore” [These same [covenants], now more clear,

forthright, and disentangled, Jacob discerns in his time] (Arias Montano 157 1a, 8). Assured and responsive, his body renewed by sleep and his mind more fully alert than in waking (“mente sed vigil magis”), Jacob descries a panoramic landscape encompassing earth and the fiery firmament. Heaven stands open, its ample thresholds manifest, radiant and sparkling (“poli manifesta videbat patentis ampla permicare limina”). Arias Montano’s syncretic imagery becomes increasingly Olympian: à many-runged ladder, its base planted on terra firma, its high summit overtopping the sky’s lofty temples, joins humankind to God seated upon his high throne; angels pass to and fro, climbing heavenward to cluster at the seat of the Thunderer, descending earthward to watch over the world of men: Innixamque solo scalam, quae vertice summo Poli tonantis alta templa vinceret; Multifidoque gradu terris deduceret imis Ad usque tecta fulgidi orbis aurea. Illic supremam sedem, pater ipse benigne Fovens, tenebat efficace numine; Quo vultu solisque ignes, hyemesque nivales,

Et impotentis impetum maris regit. (157 la, 8)

[(He saw) a ladder, its base pressed upon the ground, its high sum-

mit overtopping the lofty temples of the thunderous heavens, its many rungs leading from the lowest earth to the golden roofs of the refulgent orb, There the Father, benignly cherishing and potent in divinity, himself occupied the supreme throne; with his face, he governs the fires of the sun, the snows of winter, and the fury of the storm-tossed sea.]

That the ladder connects high and low allows Jacob to glimpse the paradoxical nature of God, who benignly governs and nurtures from on high even while, with his mere look, he commands violent forces—the fiery sun,

38

Walter S. Melion

EMBLEMATICA

39

wintry tempests, and the furious sea. The vast landscape that functions as a metonym for the divine presence not only is dramatic and memorable but also signifies with relative transparency the covenant God now offers to renew: “Iamque oblata hominum generi commercia divum / Videns, fatetur atque adorat excitus” [And now seeing that commerce with the gods is offered to the human race, he is roused to profess and worship [God]] (1571a, 8). This second section of the ode, comprising twelve of its sixteen

couplets, amplifies the pictorial image of the somnium Jacob put forward in the tabula, expanding, enlivening, and aggrandizing it. Third, the ode concludes by recalling that the visionary image Arias Montano conveys pictorially and poetically, since it was fashioned under the old dispensation, remains only partially representable even though it transcends anything imparted previously. The poet's eloquence, by his own admission, is inadequate to the task of expressing the full scope of the divine opus whose lineaments Jacob was privileged briefly to behold. The “work” at issue is the divinely fashioned image made known in somnio Jacob: Opus sed astra quod pererrat ultima, Quodque premens terras, praetervolat aethera, in arctum Vocare carmen & referre sit nefas. (157 1a, 8) [But this work that traverses the highest stars, bears down upon the world, and flies over the upper air, no poem can summon up in brief or fitly recount.

This disclaimer serves jointly to emphasize that the new genus of visionary experience first bestowed on Jacob far surpasses the merely “rough image” (“rudi... imagine”) visited upon his predecessors and yet also to imply that the divinely sent image, howsoever improved, remains elusive, exceeding all

human means of transmission. For a fully legible image of salvation, Arias

FIDELI

Montano intimates, one must await the coming of the Messiah.

The visual antitypes to tabula 8, as we have seen, are tabulae 63 and 64, which feature various figures staring fixedly at Christ, who thereby signify that he is the image of God, made visible by the mystery of the Incarnation and thus discernible to human eyes, hearts, and minds (figs. 9-11). Jacobs closed eyes denote the privileged nature of his dream vision, which in turn betokens his status of patriarch. In place of this mental image, delimited in its attainability, the sacrificial Christ is observed by a community of beholders—male and female, young and old, rich and poor—whose attentiveness

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Fig. 12. Abraham de Bruyn after Pieter van der Borcht, Moses Shows the Tablets ofthe Law, engraving, in Benito Arias Montano, Humanae salutis monumenta (Antwerp, 1571), monumentum 2. (By permission of Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.)

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Walter 5. Melion

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Walter S. Melion

43

reveals their faith in the Gospel. In tabula 64, titled “Humani generis di-

vitiae” [Riches of the human race], the thematic of vision is underscored

reflexively: Joseph of Arimathea and Mary Magdalene watch the Virgin watching Christ, while John’s line of sight appears to coincide with hers, their gazes meeting at the wound in Jesus's side (fig. 11). Ode 64 implicitly invokes the Incarnation: deprived of life, the limbs of Christ the man are at one and the same time the living limbs of God (“membra extincta hominis, vivida membra Dei”). Dead and yet alive, these membra are christened a pignus of salvation—a pledge, gage, or token, verifiable by sense, that certifies the truth of a contract or covenant. As such, they have the power to bring to life even the tomb’s hard stones, causing them to perceive, know, and feel what Christ confers by his death and imminent resurrection:

ae D Γ ‘

In aie fulgens lumen dininag, dona Simplicitas ceflm.mn videt ambitio.

Miratura cito redivivum surgere corpus,

Marmorei silices antraque parva tenent. Pignore deposito multum o felicia saxa, at Pignore reddendo saxa beata magis. Membra fovete hominis, quibus est nil purius usquam

Membra extincta hominis vivida membra Dei. (157 1a, 64)

[Soon to be astonished, small caves and marmoreal stones hold the

body that shall arise. Oh stones, most happy by the pledge laid down,

but yet more blessed by the pledge fit to be restored. Cherish the limbs of the man, than which nothing is purer, the human limbs deprived of life, che living limbs of God. |

The “rough image” that vaguely delineates the divine foedera (promises, covenants) transacted with the first patriarchs, as ode 8 puts it, has now

become a clear, potent, and life-giving token of redemption. This novel pignus, ode 64 concludes, renews the “covenants of friendship” between God and humankind (“renovata orbi foedera amicitiae”); allaying all traces of divine wrath, the body of Christ vouchsafes the gift of eternal life (“nunc sibi ... vitam propriam ipse reponet”). Ode 63 dwells upon the experience of Mary keenly gazing at the membra nati just lowered from the cross. Arias Montano, alluding to the visionary panorama beheld by Jacob in emblem 8, again utilizes landscape imagery, this time to make apparent the intensity of the Virgin’s attachment to Christ. Whereas previously the landscape was seen as if from afar, now it is animated, anthropomorphized, and saturated with feeling, which is to say

Fig. 15. Abraham de Bruyn after Pieter van der Borcht,

The Nativity, engraving, in Benito

Arias Montano, Humanae salutis monumenta (Antwerp, 1571), monumentum 38. (By per-

mission of Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.)

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Walter 5. Melion

45

that the figurative image of the scala salvationis, symbolizing the promise of divine intercourse, has been replaced by images of nature that fulfill a different function. Landscape no longer operates as a vatic type for the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Passion; instead, its elements become metaphors after the fact, corollaries to a full-fledged antitype, the Deposition, whose chief protagonists, Mary and Jesus, are herewith represented lyrically, their sensations conveyed and elucidated. Salvation, intimates the poet, is now realized in and through the person of Christ who, having “climbed down”

characterize Mary, like her counterpart like his counterpart the aescu/um, as the Three tabulae featuring Moses—2, scapes populated by minuscule figures

from heaven and abased himself on the cross, will soon rise from the grave,

city near the banks of the Nile (tabula 10), and one of the store-cities built for Pharaoh by the people of Israel (tabula 11). In all three cases, the dis-

ascending into divine glory. In response to the Deposition, Mary reacts first and foremost by look-

ing closely (“conspiciens”), then sighs deeply (“gemit”) and offers support

(“fulcit”). This threefold reaction is analogized to mother earth's: just as the terra parens grieves to see an oak buffeted by fierce winter winds, its canopy stripped and branches torn away (“qualem revulsis frondibus aesculum, ... doluit videndo”), so too did Mary intensely suffer when she saw the bruised and battered limbs of her beloved son (“perculsa virgo visceribus, truci, demissa ligno membra nati, conspiciens”). And just as mother earth hopes to see her arboreal offspring restored to life, its trunk augmented with new boughs, once winter has passed (“ramosque crescentem priores, sperat

avens bene prodituram”), so too did Mary expectantly await the dawning of a more propitious day, when night's black clouds must perforce yield to the coming light of Christ (“tantisper almus dum veniat dies, et cedat atris nubibus obsita, nox illa”). And finally, just as mother earth, implanted with firm roots, invigorates her terrestrial children, infusing them with the power of her penetrating heat (“qua viva subiecti caloris, vis penetrat, recreatque terras”), so too did Mary, though inwardly cast down, resolutely look forward to the resurrection of her son, whose limbs would be recalled to light and to life (“talem dolenti pectore, ... remotam, corporibus revocare lucem, . . certa fide genitrix manebat”). The seasonal landscape, first seen in winter, then imagined in spring, heightens the register of maternal emotions stirred by the Crucifixion just ended and the Resurrection to come. The prosopopoeial images that set forth the relation between mother and son also serve to 26.

Arias Montano 1571a, 63: “Talem dolenti pectore, & intimis / Perculsa virgo visceribus, truci / Demissa ligno membra nati / Conspiciens, gemit, atque fulcit.”

terra parens, as a viewer, and Jesus, image viewed ex affectu. 10, and 11—contain distant landlargely unaware of the momentous

events that transpire in the foreground (figs. 12-14). Seen from a high van-

tage point, these landscapes provide settings for the Mosaic monumenta salvationis pictured in front of them, but they also divert the viewer's attention from the primary biblical scene, inviting his eyes freely to wander through the Israelite encampment at the foot of Mount Sinai (tabula 2), Pharaoh's tinction between foreground and background therefore turns on a double antithesis: figures spiritually blind to what is being revealed are contrasted to Moses at various stages of his life—infancy, young adulthood, and full maturity—and of his vocation as son of Israel and leader of the Jews; and the viewer’s attention to Moses, chosen by God to make manifest the divine will, vies with his attention to biblical places that devolve into sights interesting in their own right. Positioned at the threshold of the tabulae, Moses himself enacts or participates in three episodes of showing: in tabula 2, he promulgates the tablets of the Law (fig. 12); in tabula 10, Pharaoh's daughter discovers the infant Moses hidden in a basket of bulrushes (fig. 13); in tabula 11, Moses is observed burying the Egyptian whom he slew in

defense of his people (fig. 14).

Tabula 38, the antitype to tabula 2, portrays Mary and Joseph brightly lit by the glow of the newborn Christ, whom the kneeling Virgin unveils (figs. 12 and 15). The two images are coordinated: posed in three-quarter view, like Moses, Mary reveals the child, just as Moses displays the tablets of the Law; she gazes down at the specimen on show, as does he, and the child, like the tablets, is angled obliquely. Even the differences are calculated to be mutually complementary: Christ is made manifest in a low place, the tablets on a mountaintop; he illuminates the night, they are illuminated by daylight. Keeping vigil with Mary, his eyes like hers fixed on the child, Joseph genuflects as the radiance of Christ is revealed, suffuses the zone around the manger, and overwhelms the merely natural light of Joseph’s candle. The epigram above the image, like the title “Sun of justice rising” (“Sol iustitiae exoriens”), identifies the shining brightness of Christ, first made visible in this humble place, as the subject of tabula 38:

46

EMBLEMATICA

i

AVRORA DI£I NVNTIA

Walter S. Melion

|

Dona Deus, quanto foleat [Hlendore parares,

Si qui{quam ob/ernet tempora, teflts erit. LE -

47

“In tenebris fulgens lumen divinaque dona / Simplicitas cernit: non videt ambitio” [Simplicity discerns the light flashing in the darkness, and the

divine gifts, which ambition does not see] (Arias Montano

1571a, 38).

In the distance, the star of Bethlehem appears, and beside it an angel announces the birth of Christ to the shepherds, who are irradiated by the light of heaven. The theme of divinity made universally visible thus links foreground and background, and indeed, mediating between the two zones, a pair of shepherds approaches the stable, looking for the Savior. Inasmuch as the pastoral landscape converges with the nativity scene, under the rubric of divine illumination, tabula 38 differs from the bipartite construction of tabula 2 (figs. 12 and 15). The unity of the image subtly alludes to the universal character of the new dispensation, which is totalizing in that if offers salvation to all who would have it. The odes indicate that Moses is a type of Christ who brings to perfection aspects of his predecessor that adumbrate the coming of the Messiah. Whereas Moses is lauded at the start and close of ode 2 as the “bright progeny of the Levites” (“clara Levitum soboles”) and the “sure interpreter, bright with striking honor, who receives the Law” (“iura . . . certus interpres capis, obstupendo clarus honore”), the infant Christ, born a “glittering babe” (“splendens infans”), is seen to shine more gloriously, not least in his

power to brighten the whole world with the promise of salvation (“amplius

[Natura] ipsa tuo numine perficiar”). Subtitled “Naturae humanae naenia,’

the elegy is voiced mainly by personified Nature, who admits to having afflicted the child with labor, care, and other mortal burdens, but even so,

rejoices in the knowledge that, as God, he brings peace and welcome salvation, and empowers her to break the chains of eternal death (“a te ego, sed pacem Deus, acceptamque salutem, et posse aeternae rumpere vincla necis”). Natura stands for the whole of humankind, in whom the wondrous

OS PECTOR KL

Saag,

Fig. 16. Hieronymus Wierix after Pieter van der Borcht, The Birth of John the Baptist, engrav-

ing, in Benito Arias Montano, Humanae salutis monumenta (Antwerp, 1571), monumentum 37. (By permission of Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.)

birth, conjoining mortality to immortality (“o Deus, & vere puer, o tibi iungor”), arouses both joy and fear (“nunc pavet insolitum laeta puerperium”), whereas the promulgation of the Law, as ode 2 asserts, since it can effect no reconciliation between God and men, inspires fear and awe, but no delight, amongst the chosen people and their leaders (“iura, quae gentes metuantque reges”). In ode 38, Nature claims no true authority over Christ

(“nulla mihi in te iura puer”); in ode 2, the authority of the Law, pleasing solely to the pure mind of God (“numinis purae placitura menti iura”), is imposed on a fearful people by their indefatigable leader Moses (“impiger

48

EMBLEMATICA

doctor populi timentis”). Ode 2 designates Moses ἃ “special witness to the renewed promise of salvation” (“te repromissae proprium salutis indicem”);

ode 38 credits Christ with the fulfilment of this promise:

_FIDEI

MOMENTVM. M

O puer & certe Deus, o mihi iungeris, ut te Partibus excipiam, muneribusque

meis.

O Deus, & vere puer, o tibi iungor, ut aucta

Amplius ipsa tuo numine perficiar. (1571a, 38) [O child yet truly God, o ye conjoined to me, that in my parts and

offices I may sustain you. O God yet truly child, o ye to whom I am conjoined, that greatly augmented, I may be perfected by your will. ]

And whereas the poet, speaking in ode 2 as if still under the old dispensation, refers to himselfas jejune and barely capable of praising Moses and his divine virtues (“si quid angusto celebrare versu, possumus magnum’), his

lyrical voice seems dramatically to expand in ode 38, where under the new dispensation he becomes adept at singing joyfully, tenderly, and variously

about the unwonted birth he is privileged to witness (“atque novum mirata genus, variis quoque gaudens, blandidulos fertur concinuisse modos”).

Tabula 10, like its counterpart, tabula 37, centers on the P presentation of P

a child, who is tended by handmaidens: in the former, Moses is discovered by Pharaoh’s daughter and her retinue, who have just retrieved him from the Nile; in the latter, Elizabeth’s attendants, having bathed the newborn

John the Baptist, prepare to dry and dress him (figs. 13 and 16).”’ The dual structure of tabula 10 juxtaposes Moses and his handlers to a panoramic

view of city and country, in which figures go about their business, oblivious to the monumentum salvationis transpiring nearby. Ode 10 comments

upon this combination of attention and inattention, observing that the will

of God operates ineluctably, even when undiscerned or opposed: Nulla vis terris, licet usque denso Fulta conatu, valet imperantis Numinis certam variare mentem, Consiliumve. Nam simul iunctis opibus, manuque

Stulta mens tentat temerare sanctos, Nescit, ac caeli tamen evehendos

Suscipit orsus. (157 1a, 10)

27.

The bathing of John, of course, prefigures his vocation of baptizing the faithful.

Fig. 17 . Pieter Huys after peers van ει Borcht, The Raisingof Lazarus, engraving, in Benito Arias Montano, Humanae salutis monumenta (Antwerp, 1571), monumentum 50. (By permission of Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University.)

50

EMBLEMATICA [No power on earth, howsoever fortified by persistent striving, can alter the sure plan and purpose of God. For the foolish mind, unknowing, sustains heaven's holy endeavors, fit to be undertaken, which it yet

attempts to thwart. |

Walter S. Melion

51

Nile, as a growing flame (“crescit & ignis”); ode 37 develops this figurative

device, converting it into a fiery star that stands for the greater spiritual

light of John who announces the solar advent of Christ. (The roaring fire in tabula 37 connotes in like manner the brightness of John’s birth.) Similarly,

Seen in this light, the setting of tabula 10 supports the notion that the “imperantis numinis certam mentem” is insuperable, its power of action unrestricted, extending even where it remains unnoticed; in truth, the women who save Moses’s life can themselves be construed as unwitting agents of the divine will, whose dictates, unbeknownst to them, they perforce fulfill (fig. 13). If “The birth of John the Baptist,” by making its infant protagonist the center of attention, closely resembles “The finding of Moses” it also differs by expanding the scope of that attention to encompass the entire image (figs. 13 and 16). From the middle ground, the woman drying laundry at the fireplace turns round to watch John; from the far background, another woman looks in his direction as she lifts the entry curtain. The two women by the bedside, in their solicitude for John’s mother, likewise connect to the child, though at one remove. The presence of John thus unifies the entire chamber, an effect upon which ode 37 implicitly elaborates by emphasizing that this monumentum salvationis, unlike its Mosaic prefiguration, is universal in the message it delivers to the world. The tertium comparationis that undergirds this allusion to universality is the metaphorical analogy between the whole of the chamber and the whole of the world. Whereas Moses is described in ode 10 as a “messenger of secret salvation,’ whose message will be discernible to the privileged few (“quem dat arcanae Deus

sus liquido adnatantes, flumine pisces”). By contrast, Judea is given to know

where apparent, which rises to announce that salvation is at hand and a new dispensation of abundant grace imminent: “Shining with inborn light, a star is born, which a kind God has furnished as witness to the sun of peace. This child, a mother in feeble old age momentously and miraculously brought forth in the high mountains [of Judea]. An eyewitness, he reveals the good times of grace abounding, and thus testifies at this joyful time to the new salvation.”* The poem’s astral imagery plays upon the trope of fire

In a proleptical manner, the two landscapes, answering to Moses and John, convey the emotions to be aroused—trepidation in response to the former (“audit ut flentis pueri querelam”), happiness in the presence of the latter (“laeto tempore”)—as they fulfill their different vocations, Moses as vindex, administrum, and populator, John as index and testis.” In this sense, the

administrum esse salutis”), John is compared to a bright star, its light every-

in flood, with which ode 10 climaxes, referring to Moses, rescued from the 28.

These verses enlarge upon the arguments of the monumenta architectonica, especially the dedication, “Deo prospectori sac.” [Sacred to the one who fore-

sees God], and the epigram, “Dona Deus, quanto soleat splendore parare, si

John’s epithets transcend those of Moses, who is the mere “germ of faith on

the rise” (“germen augendae pietatis”), whereas John is the “discloser of the peace-bringing sun” (“solis paciferi indicem”). Moses is an “avenger to his

people” (“vindex generi”), John the attestor of a kind God (“Deus . . almus”), whose birth impels us to love and praise him (“vos quae diligitis Deum, matres ..., infanti propere novo, laudum nectite serta”). Moreover, as will by now be evident, both odes recast their respective monumenta salvationis as complementary yet opposing landscapes: on the one hand, the Nile, its watery waves (“amnis undas”) and riverine shores (“liquido ... flumine”); on the other, the starry skies (“astrum ... fulgens lu-

mine”) and steep mountains of Judea (“montibus arduis”). Arias Montano, utilizing prosopopoeia, brings both landscapes to life, though to different effect. The Nile, horrified by the cruelty of Pharaoh (“nefas horret subiisse Nilus”), hears the child crying and senses or, better, intuits that he is destined by God to be the bearer of divine mysteries (“audit ut flentis pueri querelam, quem dat arcanae Deus administrum, esse salutis”). Like the people of Israel before and under the Law, it must struggle to read the signs that lay bare the divine will. And so, striving to comply, the Nile contravenes Pharoah, slowing its waters (“insonteis vigil amnis undas, contrahit, parcens properare”) and protecting the infant Moses from its fierce fauna (“acres, continent mor-

incontrovertibly that the messenger of Christ is born, for under the new dispensation, he announces, the will of God and the salvation it brings may be known first hand (“Deus, solis paciferi indicem, terris praestitit almus”).

quisquam observet tempora, testis erit” [Anyone who observes the times shall

attest how splendidly God is wont to furnish (his) gifts]. 29.

See Arias Montano 1571a, 10: “Quem dat arcanae Deus administrum / Esse salutis. / ... / Denique iniustae populator aulae / Qui sit & vindex generi, nocentis

52

EMBLEMATICA

Mosaic landscape can be said to represent us to ourselves as we once were, before the Gospel, while the Johannine landscape represents us as we should be when we become fully aware of the mystery of the Incarnation. The final pairing of Moses and Christ juxtaposes two scenes of self-revelation. Tabula 50, “The raising of Lazarus,” provides the antitype to tabula 11, titled “Choice beyond compare” (“Optio incomparabilis”), which illustrates the burial of the slain Egyptian, as recounted in Exodus 2:11-- 14: having seen the affliction of the Jews and identified with them, Moses co-

vertly slays an Egyptian for striking “one tries to hide the corpse, burying it in the soon betrayed, as he learns to his dismay, the crime (figs. 14 and 17). These events,

of the Hebrews his brethren”; he sand, but nonetheless his secret is when a fellow Jew accuses him of which take place over the course

of two days, are conflated in tabula 11, whose title and epigram make clear that the topic at hand is Moses’s compulsion to defend the Jews, and collat-

erally, the promulgation of his vocation as defender of his people: “Publica cura animos magnos, & pectora tentat: / Certaque discrimen corda subire grave” [Public solicitude puts to the test great spirits and stalwart charac-

ters, urging sure hearts to make a critical decision] (Arias Montano 157 la, 11). Ode 11, taking up this theme, emphasizes that Moses propounds a true image of his resolution to save his brethren: Olim expectatae iam nimium diu Moses & mente, & viribus integris

Non vana sperandae salutis Signa suo generi adferebat. (157 1a, 11) [Moses, mindfully and with all his might, was imparting to his nation truly visible signs of long-awaited and hoped-for salvation. ]

He puts forth these “non vana signa,’ rather than propagating empty words and promises (“verba ... vendere, compositumque fumum”), as the eyewitness who saw him kill the Egyptian would surely have testified, had envy of Moses and self-deception not clouded his judgment: Illius vires & studium efficax Sensit (nam liber viderat) improba

Walter S. Melion

53

Qui Aegyptii vidit sepulchro

Membra, dari nimium superbi. Sed prona fraudi mens hominum suae, Et saepe oblatis invida commodis, Momenta monstratae salutis

Spernit & auxilii ministrum. (157 1a, 11)

[He who beheld the haughty Egyptian’s wicked remains being laid in the tomb perceived (for he had freely witnessed) the power and efficacious zeal of Moses. But the mind of men, prone to self-delusion and often envious of favors bestowed [on another], spurns the agent of aid and the momentous events of salvation made visible. ]

The distant cityscape, populated mainly by Egyptian overseers and enslaved Israelites laboring beside an immense lime kiln, exemplifies the injustice that has aroused Moses sympathy and spurred his actions (fig. 14). Emphatically demarcated from the foreground, sunny and lowlying where the latter is shadowy and lofty, occupied by figures unaware of what is transpiring on the hilltop, the background also underscores the admonitory message of ode 11—namely, that Moses, destined by God and his own choice to lead the Jews, is as yet divided from the people of Israel, who fail to discern the signa sperandae salutis he generates and the momenta monstratae salutis he enacts. The landscape thus articulates the problem of spiritual discernment that repeatedly bedevils the recipients of monumenta salvationis under the old dispensation, when as often as not, the divine signa are either ignored or willfully misread. The distinction between the attentiveness of the foreground figures and the inattentiveness of the background figures in tabulae 2 and 10 drives home the same point, as also, by contrast, does the correlative integration of foreground and background in tabulae 37 and 38, which like tabula 50 and its watchful bystanders, accentuate the novel clarity of the salvific images dispensed by God as instruments of the Gospel (figs. 12-13, 15-17), As tabula 50, “the raising of Lazarus” imitates the lineaments of tabula 11, respectively transferring to Christ, Lazarus, and Peter (who un-

binds Lazarus), the poses and positions of the Jewish eyewitness, the slain

/ Regis ingrato gremio fovetur, / Crescit & ignis,’ and ibid., 37: “Astrum nascitur

Egyptian, and Moses, so ode 50, like ode 11, dwells on the theme of salvation made visible in an image being divulged by divine warrant (figs. 14

almus. / ... / Salutis ferat ut novae / Laeto tempore nuntium, / Et testis bona gratiae / Magnae saecula monstrat”

ironically on his reason for staging the miracle, which is, as he states in John

insito / Fulgens lumine, quem Deus / Solis paciferi indicem / Terris praestitit

and 17). The transformation of the recalcitrant Jew into Christ comments

EMBLEMATICA

Walter S. Melion

PVBLICI DEBITI GRAVITAS.

Ebeu corda graui nimium fiunt preffa fopore, | δ | ς Ὁ Pro quibus hic orat Chriflus & aduigiat.

Fig. 18. A braham der Bruyn after Pie in Benito Arias Montano, Humana re!

{

-

an der Borcht, s monumenta :

ἢ

The Sacrifice of Isaac, engraving,

(Antwerp,

1571), monumentum T

7.

Fig. 19. Hieronymus Wierix after Pieter in Benito Arias Montano, Humanae salt (By permission of Manuscript, Archives

van der Borcht, The nta (Antwerp, R ook Library,

1571 Emory

University

56

EMBLEMATICA

11:15 and 11:40--42, to secure the faith of his followers by making them

eyewitnesses to the redemptive power of God: “Jesus saith to [Martha]:

Did not I say to thee, that if thou believe, thou shalt see the glory of God?”

By contrast, the Jew sees what Moses has done but fails to have faith in

him. The dead Egyptian who is buried becomes Lazarus who is raised, and Moses, who tries to conceal the evidence of his crime, becomes Peter who

assists the risen Lazarus, having seen the power of the Father expressed by the Son. Ode 50, “On the Image of Lazarus Recalled from the Dead,” asseverates that Christ here fashions a “public demonstration of [his] great power” (“virtutis altae publicum spectaculum”) and a “living image of future salvation” (“signum futuri vividum”) soon to be secured through his Passion and Resurrection.” Expanding upon the tabula, Arias Montanus

paints a sharply detailed word-picture of the signum Christ has orchestrated as an impetus to faith: Cui membra tabo rancido foedaverat Quartus sepulta Lucifer, Hic efficaci percitus Christi sono,

Quem mors & inferi expavent,

Surrexit atro de sepulchri carcere, Lethi remissis vinculis: Testatus ardens ferre quid possit fides,

Quid donet & nato Deus. (157 1a, 50)

[Raised by the efficacious voice of Christ, whom death and the underworld sorely fear, he whose buried limbs the fourth day [in the tomb] had defiled with rancid corruption, emerges from the dark prison of the sepulchre, the chains of Lethe having been broken: God has shown what ardent faith can accomplish, and what he has granted to the Son.]

This image of salvation, as the poem states in conclusion, centers on Christ its “author, at whom the sequence of all time gazes intently” (“quem temporum, prospectat ordo principem”), awaiting his “bestowal of better days upon the world grown senescent in evil” (“ipsi quoque orbi iam senescenti malis, laetos tributurum dies”). The true subject of tabula 50, then, as the ode argues, is the image-making prowess of Christ, who imparts a potent 30.

Arias Montano 157 1a, 50: “Virtutis altae publicum spectaculum / Christus daturus iam suis; /.../ Vinci suum absens pertulit charum caput / Lethis sopore Lazarum, / Dum notus esset gentibus casus viri, / Signum futuri vividum.”

Walter S. Melion

57

spectaculum of his burning desire to grant new life to lost humankind (“docturus & quantum ardeat mortalibus, afferre vitam perditis”).

Landscapes, pictured and imagined, are woven into the fabric of the last pair of monumenta I shall discuss. Tabula 7, titled “Fidei testimonium” [Testimony of faith], portrays Abraham offering thanks to God at the mountaintop altar where, having reached the “land of vision” de-

scribed in Genesis 22:2 (“et vade in terram Visionis atque offer eum ibi holocaustum”), he was preparing to sacrifice Isaac (fig. 18). Bound before the altar, on which a ram has been offered in his place, Isaac kneels beside

two crossed sticks that allude to the Passion of Christ, whose Carrying of the Cross and Crucifixion were compared to the Sacrifice of Isaac in the Speculum humanae salvationis and Biblia pauperum, respectively. Above, the angel who stayed Abraham hand points at the starry firmament, in allusion to Genesis 15:5-7, God’s promise to bless Abraham with progeny and to grant him property over the land of Canaan: And he brought him forth abroad, and said to him: “Look up to heav-

en and number the stars if thou canst.” And he said to him: “So shall

thy seed be... 1 am the Lord who brought thee out from Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land, and that thou mightest possess it.”

The mountainous landscape visible in the distant background represents the birthright Canaan. Beheld by Isaac, the exchange of gazes between the angel looking earthward and Abraham looking heavenward is another allusion to place, for it recalls the name given by Abraham to the mountain, as recorded in Genesis 22:14: And he called the name of that place, The Lord Seeth (“Dominus videt”). Whereupon even to this day it is said: “In the mountain the Lord will see.”

What Isaac visually discerns, it would seem, is the twofold fact that the place in which he finds himself is his father’s, and by right of succession his, and that it is a place of transit where God hearkens to humankind. Ode 7 compounds these locally specific references to sights seen, retailing how the steadfast faith of Abraham, fixed internally on the covenants God had earlier initiated, remains unswerving: Namque immota fides, cum semel haeserit Devoto penitus pectore, sustinet

EMBLEMATICA Quicquid superum, vel genus vel inferum Vel tentare paret Deus. (Arias Montano 1571a, 7) [For truly, resolute faith, once it has inwardly taken hold of the heart, endures everything, whether celestial or infernal, that God may be seen to essay. |

He keeps the faith, even when confronted by the things his eyes now see— Isaac’s lovely face, his hand holding the sacrificial blade, and the virtues he embodies, not least his filial piety.*’ In light of the tabula, it may be assumed that Abraham is keeping hold of the covenantal landscape imagery—the starry sky and the land of Chanaan—with which God has guaranteed his position as patriarch. Tabula 7 is juxtaposed to tabula 54, titled “Publici debiti gravitas”

[Gravity of the public debt] (figs. 18-19). Gravitas refers to the weight of sin that Christ agrees to take upon himself, while praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he humbly submits to the will of the Father. His pose echoes that of Abraham, so that he may be compared, in his determination

to embrace the Passion, to the patriarch whose “strength of faith” (“fidei robur”) was so unshakable. What is more, he also resembles Isaac, whose vultus

amabilis, virtus, and pietas prefigure his supernal obedience and willingness

to undertake his sacrificial vocation (see n. 31). So too, the angel who con-

firms the patriarch’s covenantal faith is similar to the angel who brings to Christ the cross he must bear and the bitter cup from which he must drink. This analogy serves to indicate that the Passion shall fulfill the sacrifice adumbrated by Abraham and Isaac, just as the angels presence certifies that Gethsemane, like the land of vision, is the place where “The Lord seeth.” Ode 54, “On the Image of Christ in the Garden” (“In tabulam Christi in horto”), underscores the many respects in which Christ, in his fathom-

less faith, is like Abraham and Isaac. The poem shares the same structure of emphatic negation evident in ode 7: in the one, Arias Montano stresses that nothing can diminish the piety of Abraham or his determination to comply with the divine will; in the other, he avows that no weight is so great, not even the heavy burden of human sin, that it can deter Christ from bearing 31.

Arias Montano 157 1a, 7: “Illum non iuvenis vultus amabilis / Hostis qui gladium

32.

On monumentum SA, designed by Pieter van der Borcht and engraved by Hiero-

sisteret, ac manus, / Nec virtus variis unica seculis / Turbat, nec pietas patrem.” nymus Wierix, see Stroomberg and Van der Stock, 1:30, no. 3.31.

Walter S. Melion

59

the load. But ode 54 is more pathopoeic in the stronger passions it evinces; whereas Abraham faith is so sure that nothing can trouble it (“nec. . tur-

bat”), Christ’s faith is unperturbable, even while his spirit is intensely troubled. His greatness of body and spirit is thus magnified: Ille & iudicii conscius ardui, Et quantis voveat criminibus caput, Quas explere petat vulneribus minas, Horrens procidit & pavet. (157 la, 54)

[Conscious of (the Father’s) harsh judgment, and of the great re-

proaches his head must bear, trembling he seeks by his wounds to assuage the menaces, falls prostrate, and is struck with fear.]

He is visualizing the Passion to come, the reasons why it must be, and the sins that have occasioned his suffering. He also sees with unerring providence that, in spite of his great sacrifice, humankind will continue to behave both for good and for ill (“horret parte sui providus altera, quae nec nempe mali nescia, nec boni”). That he perceives these things with such clarity and yet accedes to the plan of salvation demonstrates the power of his mind, heart, and soul (“sed mens exuperat certa sequi grave, magni consilium patris”). The nocturnal landscape that distinguishes tabula 54, one of the most intricate in the Monumenta, is likewise made more variegated through a process of layering that calls to mind the many resonant images in and through which Christ meditates on the Passion (fig. 19). For example, the imagery of Gedeon’s fleece (associated with the Annunciation in both the Biblia pauperum and the Speculum humanae salvationis) is superimposed onto that of Gethsemane. This poetic device serves several purposes: it connotes that the Passion is a consequence of the mystery of the Incarnation; it analogizes Jesus to the humble Gedeon who, the least amongst his fellows, yet vanquished the Midianites, propelling the people of God to victory; and by comparing the body of Christ to Gedeon’s fleece, and the Garden of Gethsemane to the threshing floor, it intensifies the reader’s sense of the nature and scale of Christ’s torment, thereby turning the landscape into an attribute of his body and soul. Arias Montano tropes the blood and sweat of Christ: Non tam densa bonus credere Gedeon Villis exposuit vellera candidis,

60

EMBLEMATICA Nocturno penitus rore madentia,

Queis tellus sitit invidens; Nec tot sicca iterum combibit area Diffusas nebulae munere roscidae Stillas, quae domitos exigua manu Hosteis praemoneant duci; Quam multis hominum criminibus tener Agnus comprimitur, qui subit omnium Culpas immodico pondere plurimas,

Humanumque refert genus. (157 la, 54)

[The shaggy, dazzling white fleece that Gedeon, sound in faith, set out, was not more dense or deeply soaked with evening dew, which the thirsty earth regard[ed] jealously; nor again did the dry threshing floor drink so many drops, dispersed by gift of the dewy mist, which to the leader foretold the foes [to be] vanquished by [his] exiguous hand; as was the tender lamb pressed down by the crimes of men, he who takes upon himself the faults of all, numerous beyond measure, and restores the human race.]

In this figuration, Christ, like the dew-soaked fleece, is densely saturated with human sin, which like the threshing floor, he has deeply drunk. There is a further inferred analogy between the dewy sins densely seeping into Christ and the drops of blood, described in Luke 22:44, that trickle down his body

and thickly leak into the ground. These similes of object and action imply that he pours out blood as he drinks in sin, and moreover, that he is as thirsty to redeem sin as is the bloodthirsty earth of Gethsemane set to receive his blood. As Christ, the living fleece, knelt on the ground of Gethsemane, so Gedeon’s fleece was placed upon the threshing floor, and as Gethsemane imbibed his blood, so Christ, like the threshing floor, absorbed the liquid weight of sin. On this account, garden, floor, and fleece become figurative

images of Christ, which is to say that landscape, as fashioned verbally and visually by Arias Montano, here becomes expressive of the very monumentum salvationis it situates. But as we have seen, no truer observation could be made about the many landscapes that crucially, in their form and function, manner and meaning, advance the argument of the Monumenta.

Walter S. Melion

61

Works Cited Adams,

Alison.

“Les Emblemes

ou devises chrestiennes de Georgette

de

Montenay: Edition de 1567.” Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Re-

naissance 62 (2000): 637-39.

- “Reading Georgette de Montenay.” In An Interregnum of the Sign: The Emblematic Age in France. Essays in Honour of Daniel S. Russell, ed. David Graham. Glasgow, 2001. Pp. 17-28. Arias Montano,

Benito. Humanae salutis monumenta B. Ariae Montani

studio constructa et decantata. Antwerp, 1571. [157 1a]

. Horae beatissimae Virginis Mariae. Antwerp, 1571. [1571b] Berve, Maurus. Die Armenbibel: Herkunt, Gestalt, Typologie. Beuron, 1969. Bowen, Karen L. “Illustrating Books with Engravings: Plantin’s Working

Practices Revealed.” Print Quarterly 20 (2003): 3-34.

Bowen, Karen L., and Dirck Imhof. Christopher Plantin and Engraved Book Illustrations in Sixteenth-Century Europe. Cambridge (UK), 2008. Breitenbach, Edgar. Speculum humanae salvationis: Eine typengeschichtliche Untersuchung. Strasbourg, 1930. Engelhardt, Hans. Der theologische Gehalt der Biblia pauperum. Studien zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte 243. Strasbourg, 1927. Hansel, Sylvaine. Der spanische Humanist Benito Arias Montano (15271598) und die Kunst. Minster, 1991.

Henry, Avril. Biblia pauperum: A Facsimile and Edition. Ithaca (NY),

[1987].

Labriola, Albert C., and John W. Smeltz. The Bible of the Poor [Biblia Pauperum]: A Facsimile and Edition of the British Library Blockbook C.9 4.2. Pittsburgh, 1990.

. The Mirror of Salvation [Speculum humanae salvationis]: An Edition of British Library Blockbook H. 11784, Pittsburgh, 2002. Labrousse, Elisabeth, and Jean-Philippe Labrousse. “Georgette de Montenay et Guyon Du Gout, son époux.” Bulletin de la société archéologique, historique, littéraire et scientifique du Gers 91 (1990): 369-402.

IE

62

EL

SEED IS IY OLA I ORES LE A

IAAL

ELT EET LN TANTS

FD 5

EMBLEMATICA

Melion, Walter 5. The Meditative Art: Studies in the Northern Devotional Print, 1550-1625. Early Modern Catholicism and the Visual Arts 1. Philadelphia, 2010.

Mielke, Hans, and Ursula Mielke, compilers, and Ger Luijten, ed. The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and

1450-1700:

Mirroring Mentalities in George Wither’s

Woodcuts,

A Collection of Emblemes

Peeter van der Borcht, Book Illustrations. 6 parts.

Ouderkerk aan den Ijssel, 2006.

Montenay, Georgette de. Emblemes ou devises chretiennes. Lyons, 1567/71. Perrier, Simone.

“Le corps de la sentence:

Les Emblémes

chrestiens

Georgette de Montenay.” Littérature 78 (1990): 54-64. . “La circulation du sens dans Les Emblémes chrestiens de

de

MIRANDA

ANDERSON

University of Edinburgh

G. de Mon-

tenay (1571).” Nouvelle Revue du 16e siècle 9 (1991): 73-89.

Plantin, Christopher. “Christophorus Plantinus Lectori S.” [Second Preface]. In Arias Montano 157 1a, unfol.

Drawing on a number of emblems in Wither’s 4 Collection of Emblemes, with a particular focus on mirror motifs, this paper explores how Wither expands on the morals given in Rollenhagen’s works. Wither’s Collection exemplifies Renaissance understandings of how the mind

Schmidt, Gerhard. Die Armenbibeln des XIV. Jahrhunderts. Verôffentli-

chungen des Instituts fiir Osterreichische Geschichtsforshung 19. Graz, 1959.

and subject could productively extend into the world, both through

the emblem themes and as part of its own methodological rationale. At the same time, the Collection demonstrates that, in this account, the physical is seen as problematically limiting, with the full capacity for

Stroomberg, Harriet, compiler, and Jan van der Stock, ed. The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts:

The

Wierix Family, Book Illustrations. 2 parts. Ouderkerk aan den Ijs-

sel, 2006.

Voet, Leon. The Golden Compasses: The History of the House of Plantin-Moretus. 2 vols. Amsterdam and New York, 1969-72. . The Plantin Press: A Bibliography of the Work Printed and Published by Christophe Plantin at Antwerp and Leiden. 6 vols. Amsterdam, 1980-83.

Wilson, Adrian, and Joyce Lancaster Wilson.

Humanae Salvationis,

4 Medieval Mirror: Speculum

1324-1500. Berkeley, 1984.

human extendedness only achievable through death and resurrection. !

eorge Wither’s 4 Collection of Emblemes, first printed in London in 1635, gathers together 200 engravings that had been previously printed in Gabriel Rollenhagen’s works Nucleus Emblematum Selectissimorum (Arnheim, 1611) and Selectorum Emblematum Centuria Secunda (Arnheim, 1613). The title page of Wither’s collection describes the emblems as “quickened with METRICALL ILLUSTRATIONS, both

Morall and Divine” (fig. 1), and further adds the ends and means of the col-

lection as being “That Instruction, and Good Counsell, may bee furthered by an Honest and Pleasant Recreation.” Recreate or re-create also captures the double sense of “quicken” by similarly evoking a fertile slippage between notions of entertaining and of giving new life. 1.

Iam grateful to Sophie Rietti and Daniel Andersson for their assistance with the various translations; any faults are my own.

63 Emblematica, Volume 20. Copyright © 2013 by AMS Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

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EMBLEMATICA

Miranda Anderson

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65

In the preface “To the Reader? Wither more elaborately sets out to defend the necessity of his chosen medium, not by any stock maneuver such as elevating the medium’s status, but instead in terms of its crude capacity to motivate through mirroring the crude capacities of the common human mind: [Plaine and vulgar notions, seasoned with a little Pleasantnesse, and relished with a moderate Sharpnesse, worke that, otherwhile, which the most admired Compositions could never effect in many Readers.

(sig. Alr)

While “Rymes, Fictions, or conceited Compositions” may sometimes “obscure the Sense” they may also “be made use of, to stirre up the Affections, winne Attention, or help the Memory” (sig. Alr). Such conceits, he argues, operate as a cognitive aid to the beginner in the same way as toys and learning the rudiments of language once scaffolded a child’s development: For, I know that the meanest of such conceites are as pertinent to some, as Rattles, 474 Hobby-horses to Children; or as the A.B.C. and Spelling, were at first to those Readers, who are now past them. (sig. Alv)

This apparently condescending recognition of general human weakness is in fact based in recognition of his own weakness, to authorize which paired recognition he calls on a biblical model: And as David said, His Heart shewed him the wickednesse of the Vn-

godly; ... Even-so, I may truly acknowledge, that mine owne Experience hath showne mee so much of the common Ignorance and Infirmitie in mine owne person, that it hath taught mee, how those things may be wrought upon in others, to their best advantage. (sig. Alr)

Fig. 1. George Wither, title page, from A Collection of Emblemes (London, 1635). (With

permission of the British Library.)

This tacitly links epistemological, phenomenological, and moral capacities and evokes the belief that effective insight into others is interlinked to selfknowledge, albeit ironically self-knowledge of one’s own ignorance and infirmity. As with Simulation Theory, which Shaun Gallagher and Dan Zahavi describe as “the grandchild of the argument from analogy,’ Wither believes we can use “our own mind as a model of what the other’s mind must be like” (Gallagher and Zahavi, 172). Reflective of this, preceding the first of the four books, the reader is faced with an image of the author himself, accompanied by a metrical illustration titled “The AUTHORS Meditation upon sight of his PICTURE”

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EMBLEMATICA

(fig. 2). He begins by juxtaposing the inferiority of the image, and of portraits in general, with the superior capacity of poetry to portray his true self, as he remarks that the poetic verses are that “which, in absence, will more truely show me, / Than, outward Formes, to those, who think they know me” (sig. A4r). Poetry versus pictorial image, Wither presents as participating in a more general hierarchy, with the poetic depicting the inward immortal self versus the superficial outward pictorial image. Poetic ability to outshine pictorial representation is a commonplace literary topos of the period. In Ben Jonson’s brief address “To The Reader,” printed opposite Martin Droeshout’s portrait of William Shakespeare in the 1623 folio, the opening praise of the lifelike engraving of Shakespeare’s face is belittled by Jonson’s further comment that it is only in the book, and not in the picture, that Shakespeare’s wit can be found. Since Jonson had openly quarreled with Inigo Jones over the respective merits of their literary or theatrical design contributions to their celebrated masques, his remarks may have a self-serving quality. Wither’s remarks may in part serve a similar function by implying the superiority of his own literary contributions to the work over those of the appropriated engravings. Rollenhagen seems to have to suffered from similar qualms on account of his original adoption of the engravings. The same themes accompany his portrait in the preface to his Selectorum Emblematum Centuria Secunda: Umbra Juventutis, formae florentis Imago,

Ut—nitet artfici reddita—cunque manu.

Mens agitat GENII est; vivet id INGENIO. (sig. A2r)

[The shadow of youth, the image of a flourishing form Shines forth however rendered by artistic hand. Nature made him thus externally; that which, within, The mind engages in, is produced by a creative mind; it will live

on through art.]

Initially this appears to be a debate about whether inner mental qualities can be captured in visual representation, with this initial verse of the laudatory poem by Valens Cremcovius seeming at first to argue that they can. Cremcovius juxtaposes the impression created by the artist’s representation of the youth’s image with that “within” in which the mind engages: the inner thought that is the product of a creative mind. The capitalized (on) pun

What I PAS

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tomorrow, fade away)

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Fig. 2. George Wither, “The Authors Meditation upon sight of his Picture” from 4

Collection of Emblemes, sig. A4v (London, 1635). (With permission of the British Library.)

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EMBLEMATICA

on mind (“GENJI”) and art (“INGENIO”) then draws the two together, showily highlighting their resemblance. Yet the “within” refers not just to

the biological mind but also to the book, and it is through this, not the picture, that the mind will live. “Genius” refers to Rollenhagen’s intellect or innate talents, to be set against “ingenium”; this is rather forced, since

“ingenium” normally refers to innate qualities, though it is also commonly

used in the Renaissance to refer to things invented or made? This slippage

again highlights the porous boundary in the Renaissance between external

resources functioning as mind and the internal resources of the biological

mind. The second verse in small print that follows supports this reading,

as it underlines the comparatively limited nature of visual art despite its

wondrous capacity to create lifelike images:

Enteres as; hilaris frons, lumina bina gemelli Sideris! en vegetis sinciput ingenii! ROLNHAGIDA, pingat si singula Zeuxis, acutae Pingere num potis est, indolis effigiem? (sig. A2r)

O smooth round coin; cheerful brow, two eyes of a twin Star! O, you bring to life this talented man’s head! Were Zeuxis to paint all the details of Rollenhagen, surely It is not possible to paint the image of brilliant talent?

Thus Wither’s portrait-preface appears to simply draw on the front matter conventions through which authors or their stand-ins promote the author and his writing both through and in opposition to the authorial portraits. Yet Wither considers this at more length than these other examples, both in his preface and in the morals of the emblems in his Collection.

A picture, like the living body, Wither contends, is but the “Shadow of a Shade,” in contrast with the “Reall-being / Which doth extend beyond the Fleshly-seeing” (sig. A4r). This evokes a Ficinian notion of the intellectual part of man as extended beyond and as constrained by the physical body, with the book’s picture, as described by Wither, equivalent to the

human body (Ficino 204-5). This extension of an ontological hierarchy

is also evident in the preface, where Wither comments that, to the “dumbe Figures” that were “Jittle usefull? he has added “the life of Speech? which “may make them Teachers, and Remembrancers of profitable things” (sig.

A2r). There is more at stake here than just Wither’s own status as an author, 2

Thanks are due to David Graham for his advice on this point.

Miranda Anderson

69

as can be more clearly discerned through examination of a dynamic set out by Marsilio Ficino, who describes his work “Five Questions Concerning the Mind” as in itself a “mind”: [I]f we have concentrated our powers in this most fruitful part of the

soul, then without doubt by means of this highest part itself, that is by means of mind, we shall ourselves have the power of creating mind; mind which, I say, is the companion of Minerva herself and the foster-

child of highest Jove ... I may perhaps have created, in a nights work, a mind of this kind, by means of mind; and this mind I would now

introduce among you in order that you yourselves . . . may at some

time bring forth an offspring. (193-94)

These notions—of the work itself as mind, of mind as divine, and of the generative effects that such textual minds can have on others—are echoed in Wither’s meditation, where the emphasis falls most on the work’s moral capacity to counterreflect the divine in man. Looking now in “Faith’s Prospective Glass,’ Wither suggests that what remains should be that wherein “My MAKERS Image, was in me renewd, and evokes the exemplary power of the book, through which “I to others, may some Patterne be / Of Doing-well, as other men to mee, / Have beene whilst I had life” (sig.

A4v). Wither refers to the notion in Genesis of man as the image of God, in

setting out his aspiration for himself through the means of the book to act in turn for others as a form of extended reflection. Since he adds that other men have acted as exemplary models for him while he has lived, and as he does not specify whether they are living or textual examples, there does not seem to be any distinction between the extended reflexivity that might be offered by a person in biological or bibliological form, with the focus simply on functionality. That the most significant aspect of the living Wither himself—as a pattern—may be distilled within the book suggests a form of what we might call extended subjectivity, through which the self may be constituted by linguistic resources. The notion of text as mind or self links to the notion of “the extended mind” as put forward by Andy Clark and David Chalmers, who argue that the mind is not necessarily brain-bound but can also be constituted by external resources. The hypothetical example given by Clark and Chalmers is of the use of a notebook in place of memory to access a dispositional belief while in Wither it is the capacity to shape moral beliefs that is supplemented.

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Miranda Anderson

71

These dynamics may also be understood in terms of pervasive Renaissance beliefs in the power of a book to form a person, evoking both Montaigne’s reflexive notion that, as he writes, he not only shapes the book, but it shapes him (612), and Edmund Spenser’s notion of the subject-shaping purpose of The Faerie Queene: “The generall end therefore of all the booke is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline” (15). There are illuminating correlations, as well as telling points of disjunction, between contemporary and various historical notions of the extended mind or self. Wither presents this dynamic as potentially operative through linguistic forms’ capacity to perform a reflexivity akin to that of one person

engraving adds, “Ne quid dedeceat, facto caveamus in omni, / Apta rei caput est, tempora nosse, suae” [To avoid any dishonor, the most important thing is that we should have a care in everything we do to know what is seemly to its matter] (91). Then, in Rollenhagen’s appendix, the further quatrain given in French comments on the meaning of the engraving: Comme dans le miroir se void la belle Dame Pour ne laisser en soy rien sans ornament: Ainsy doibt un chascun ses meurs diligement Par tout considerer pour eviter le blasme. (sig. D1r)

E

Ì ae

Selectorum Emblematum Centuria Secunda, the Latin couplet beneath the

»Ξ 8

“Ut ne quid dedeceat” [Lest it be dishonorable] (249). In Rollenhagen’s

as:

transmitted through a book. The mirror-motif emblem (fig. 3a, 3b), which the rest of this paper will focus on considering, is encircled with the motto

s

to another, and this in turn functions like self-reflection, but as a Puritan,

Wither also posits an underlying religious framework. He presents his need and ability to mirror mentalities as ultimately based on man’s Fall and on his mirroring of God. This introductory verse thus indicates more than just Wither’s didactic intentions: it simultaneously reveals the underlying moral and epistemological assumptions that frame Wither’s worldview, a frame in which social and linguistic resources are associated with the mental and spiritual, in turn elevating them above the pictorial through the association of that quality with the corporeal. The theme of socially extended reflexivity as an illuminating worldly parallel to the extended reflexivity offered by God resurfaces in a new form later in the book. Bibliologically extended reflexivity implicitly echoes these other forms of extended reflexivity, since the didactic message is

Fig. 3a. George Wither, “Dedeceat ut ne quid,’ from A Collection of Emblemes, p. 249 (London, 1635). (With permission of the British Library.)

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73

claim can be assessed at the same time as we consider how its interpretation reflects his methodological rationale. While Wither’s couplet simply echoes Rollenhagen’s version: “Jn all thine Actions have a care / That no unseemlinesse appeare,” in his metricall illustration, he quickens and recreates the emblem’s significance (249). Beginning modestly within the tiniest and most trivial circle of significance, through the course of the metrical illustration, Wither gradually extends the emblem’s purport till, like a series of concentric circles at once stretching ever farther outward and inward, its signification reaches ultimately to that of divine Grace. Wither begins by interpreting the significance of the glass-gazing woman literally, in terms of a woman's examination of herselfin a looking glass, with this examination described as being performed in order to ensure that she will please the reflecting eyes of her lover or husband. Yet the self-examination so figured is, Wither goes on to explain, intended to remind us more profoundly how we might appear reflected in the eyes of God or of worthy men; therefore we must trim ourselves in a “faithful Glasse; using either the ideal examples of pious men of the past or the

evils of men of either “now” or “then” as admonitory examples (249). The

(London, 1635), detail. (With permission of the British Library.)

[As the beautiful woman gazes at herselfin the mirror So as not to leave anything in herself without ornament Thus ought each one of us to diligently consider our manners So as to avoid in every way any blame.]

In both cases, Rollenhagen thus emphasizes that the emblem signifies the need for a reflective self-appraisal in order to avoid dishonor. In his preface, Wither claims an innovative approach to the engravings by asserting that rather than attempting to find out their original meanings, he has applied such meanings to them as arose in his mind: “I have not so much as cared to find out their meanings in any of these Figures; but, applied them, rather, to such purposes, as I could thinke of, at first sight” (sig. A2r). Through consideration of what Wither’s metrical illustration contributes to the meaning of this particular engraving, this

mirror is also linked to the authorial self-portraits and to the frames of the emblem images, both of which mimic the shape of the circular early Renaissance mirrors that were still in wide circulation and are referenced in the emblem itself through the convex mirror the woman holds. The resemblance highlighted through the shared shape of the self-portrait, the emblems, and the mirror is also reflected on an epistemological level. In the first instance, Wither argues that he can understand the minds of others through an understanding of his own. In the second, both in the prefatory matter and in the motifs, it is through other minds that one can gain a new understanding and means of improving one’s own mind and self. Both self-understanding and understanding of others are thus described as being constituted through a two-way relationship. This interpretation of the emblem plays on the use of a mirror motif to evoke an ideal or an admonitory example, which was widespread throughout the medieval period and the Renaissance both in images and in texts (Anderson, 113-14; Grabes 1-11). For example, in the second part of Shakespeare's Henry the Fourth, Lady Percy recalls her late husband Harry Percy as follows:

EMBLEMATICA He was indeed the glass Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves So that in speech, in gait, In diet, in affections of delight, In military rules, humours of blood, He was the mark and glass, copy and book, That fashioned others. (2.3.21-22, 28-32)

Thus, such ideal mirrors were generally human subjects depicted as sharing

a function with a technological resource. While it initially appears an inversion of the normal function of the mirror imitating the subject, since the

perceiver should instead imitate the mirror, this follows the dynamic of customary courtly measures to improve appearance courtesy of the feedback of the visual supplement of the mirror. In the above quote, the ideal mirror is

described as having “fashioned” others who would “dress” themselves by it, through outward and inward imitation, while the listing together of “glass”

and “book” reflects a recurrent epistemological slippage between these two

technologies, both of which were understood to be providers of images for

reflection and as shapers of human subjectivity.

Returning to Wither, here we find that, rather than “ancient glasses,’ he recommends the emulation of examples drawn from our present surroundings;

he states that a wife, companion, or loving friend may, through their very proximity, act not only as a looking glass but also as a fountain, both reflecting and

refreshing (249). In this way, they are parallels to Wither’s “quickened” em-

blems, which, as we have seen, he describes as resources that both re-create and recreate. The friend provides good example, admonition, reformation, and volition. Above and beyond this moral glass for human perfection, there stands the divine Law of Grace. This notion of glass and fountain might be inspired by the dynamic background image of the man gazing at his reflection in the spring into which water is simultaneously being poured, apparently by a naiad, while the social and religious elements are gestured toward by the portrayal of a town with a church in the right hand of the image. This combination simultaneously references and dismisses the Narcissus topos, replacing it with a dialectical quest for self-knowledge. Thus, Wither transforms the focus of the emblem from signifying a closed circle, in which only self- and mirror-image are portrayed, into one that

more explicitly evokes humans’ self-knowledge and moral accountability

Miranda Anderson

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as dependent on an ability to loop out into the social and religious spheres through forms of extended reflexivity. Rather than a closed circle of reflexivity with only the social or the divine as an end, what is proposed then is a social and divine means to self-knowledge. Wither made a socializing addition to the emblems in the form of the games of chance that conclude the volume; these have moveable hands to be twirled around a pair of dials that respectively indicate the number of book and emblem to which the player should then refer (sig. Oo3v-Oo4r).

Like the engravings, the lotteries are presented as being necessary in order to please “the vulgar Capacitie” (sig. A2v). Following some of the import, although not the expansiveness, of the metrical illustration, were you a player chancing upon book 4 and number 41, before being referred to emblem 91 itself, you would find yourself directly addressed in a lottery: Thou thinkst, that thou from faults art free; And, here, unblamed thou shalt be. But, if to all men, thou wilt seeme As faire, as in thine owne esteeme,

Presume thou not abroad to passe, Untill, by ev’ry Looking-Glasse,

Which, in thy Morall, is exprest,

Thou hast, both Minde, and Body drest. (267)

This particular lottery thus reflectively addresses the readers, while simultaneously instructing their re-examinations of themselves in every available glass in which their moral capacity is expressed, in order that not only the body but also the mind be suitably dressed. Regarding Wither’s use of the word “glass” elsewhere in the volume, in the metrical illustration for emblem 35 of book 3, he similarly uses it in terms of a moral and divine reflexivity that operates as a guide in his request “Lord, let thy sacred Law, at all times, bee

/ A Rule, a Master, and

a Glasse to mee” (169). The polyvalence of the word “glass” casts multiple

reflections on its every use, especially since it could refer to transparent glass forms as well as to the opaque glass of the mirror (Anderson, 105-6). Indeed, glass is most frequently used in Wither’s Collection to refer to the

memento mori of an hourglass, as in emblem 21 from book 1, whose metrical illustration draws on the running sands depicted within the glass of the emblem in its conclusion that, “When we are Borne, to Death-ward

EMBLEMATICA

Miranda Anderson

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straight we runne; / And by our Death, our Life is new-begunne” (21). The illustrations for emblem 50 in book 3 and emblem 44 in book 4 similarly refer to the hourglass as ἃ signifier of mortality, while τῆς illustration of emblem 40 in book 4 more explicitly describes the hourglass’s brittleness as representing the frailty of the body. A final example that is particularly illustrative of Wither’s methodological rationale is the presentation of emblem 32 in book 2 in terms that suggest that the emblem’s circular form is in fact a convex glass that reflects the reader with his book (fig. 4). Beth Williamson has described how the viewer's relation to an image can sometimes be powerfully represented within the image itself. Williamson gives as an example of such an image in the Hours of Mary of Burgundy, a personal book of hours that dated from the late 1470s, in which Mary herself is pictured reading the book while the background image—viewed through a casement window—displays women in fifteenth-century attire grouped before the Virgin and Child seated in a Gothic church, and so depicts how and on what Mary should be thinking while contemplating the book (139).

Wither suggests that the contemplative image of the cherublike child with his book, thinking of the passing of time represented by the burning of the candle, by the running of the sands in the glass, and by the matter he reads, offers readers an image of themselves reading in Wither’s Collection (fig. 4) and consequently advises: “[T]hy selfe apply / To what it counselleth; and, learne to die, / While that Light burnes, and, that Short-houre doth last”

se

hf

(94). In this way, Wither recreates and quickens the figure, thus making it

thees

And, when Lord renirnes ebooks Scoot preys become, : ; my God ! É m Let me bemade , that, Te be mes (and rely

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a more direct representation and a reflexive visual aid for the reader. This illustration concludes with Wither directly calling on God not to let the author himself forget this moral, although again one is aware that he is setting the reader an example to be followed. Are these notions of the mind as extended, and of extended subjectivity and extended reflexivity, operating via social, textual, and technological resources, a purely pre-Cartesian phenomenon? Debora Shuger puts forward the argument that the Renaissance mirror is grounded in medieval notions of an exemplary likeness: it is a means to see “saints, skulls, friends, offspring, spouses, magistrates, Christ” and so “lacks reflexivity, self-consciousness,

and individuation, and hence differs fundamentally from what we think of as the modern self” (37, 35). Perhaps there is another level of complexity

Fig. 4. George Wither, “Vita Mortalium Vigilia” from 4 Collection of Emblemes, p. 94 (London, 1635). (With permission of the British Library.)

here, since reflexivity and extended reflexivity are described by Wither as intertwined, with understanding of one’s own mind and of another's mind

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reciprocally revealing and potentially transformative. Furthermore, research in cognitive science has suggested that such forms of extendedness are fundamentally constitutive of human nature. Stephen Kosslyn recently defined as “social prosthetic systems” (SPSs) people on whom we rely “to extend our reasoning abilities and to help us regulate and constructively employ our emotions’; he suggests that we have evolved these social systems for the same reason that Andy Clark explains that we employ bodily, technological, and linguistic resources as mind tools: because our brains are limited (2003). The

notion that technologies, texts, and other people can and do supplement the means through which feelings, thoughts, words, and actions are formed and evaluated, due to our biological cognitive limitations amd adaptability, is arguably a paradigm that manifests itself in different forms in different contexts, or to varying extents, is repressed by them. In the Renaissance, and particularly in George Wither’s Collection, with its moral and theological end, this extendedness is ultimately understood within a Christian schema that adds to this expression of the paradigm the role of the divine while disparaging the role of the body. And, as we have seen, Wither exemplifies these beliefs not only through the subject matter but also as part of his own methodological rationale. Works Cited

Anderson, Miranda. “Early Modern Mirrors.” In The Book of the Mirror, ed. Miranda Anderson. 2008. Rey. ed. Newcastle, 2008. Pp. 105-20.

Clark, Andy. Natural-Born Cyborgs. Oxford, 2003.

Clark, Andy, and David Chalmers. “The Extended Mind.” Analysis 58

(1998):7-19.

Ficino, Marsilio, “Five Questions Concerning the Mind.” Trans. Josephine L. Burroughs. In The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, ed. Ernest Cassirer and Paul Oskar Kristeller. Chicago, 1948. Pp. 193-212.

Gallagher, Shaun, and Dan Zahavi. The Phenomenological Mind: An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science. 2nd ed. London, 2012.

Grabes, Herbert. The Mutable Glass: Mirror-Imagery in Titles and Texts of the Middle Ages and English Renaissance. Trans. Gordon Collier. Cambridge (UK), 1982.

Miranda Anderson

79

Jonson, Ben. “To the Reader.” In Mr: William Shakespeare's Comedies, His-

tories and Tragedies, by William Shakespeare. London, 1623.

Kosslyn, Stephen. Edge: The Third Culture. 18 June 2005. http://edge.org/ response-detail/ 11826. Montaigne, Michel de. The Complete Works. Trans. Donald M. Frame. London, 2003.

Rollenhagen, Gabriel. Nucleus Emblematum

Selectissimorum.

Arnheim,

1611.

. Selectorum Emblematum Centuria Secunda. Arnheim, 1613.

Shakespeare, William. The Collected Works of Shakespeare. London, 1997. Shuger, Debora. “The ‘I’ of the Beholder: Renaissance Mirrors and the Reflexive Mind.” In Renaissance Culture and the Everyday, ed. Patricia Fumerton and Simon Hunt. Philadelphia, 1999. Pp. 19-36. Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene. 1590-96. Rpt. London, 1987. Williamson, Beth. “Mirrors in Art: Images as Mirrors.” In The Book of the

Mirror, ed. Miranda Anderson. Rev. ed. Newcastle, 2008. Pp. 132-50.

Wither, George. A Collection of Emblemes. London, 1635.

M,

D

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fe

A

D

2 TOE La

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I

Gender, Culture, and Emblematic Practice in E. Εἰ The Embleme of a Vertuous Woman

[London, 1650?]

JANE FARNSWORTH Cape Breton University

The Embleme of a Vertuous Woman, by E. F., serves as a fascinating intersection of emblematic practice, gender, and culture in seventeenth-century

England. In a creative blend of conduct book, biblical paraphrase, medita-

tion, and emblem, it fulfills its purpose of presenting the character of a virtuous Protestant woman to inspire and instruct its readers. The work is

a composite of individual poems, some of which are emblems in their own right, shaped into three sections that echo the three parts of the traditional tripartite emblem. Through its structure and content, The Embleme reveals the adaptability and liveliness of the English emblem tradition.

he Embleme of a Vertuous Woman (London, 1650?], a curious and

obscure work by an unknown author called E. Ε, raises for us one of the central questions in emblem studies—what is or is not properly considered an emblem.' Lacking pictures, this work is obviously not the 1.

Seethe “Introduction” in Manning, 13-36; “Chapter 1: Theories and Contexts”

in Bath, 1-7; and “Chapter 1: The Emblem” in Daly, 1-72, for discussions about

the difficulty of defining the emblem. I tend to favor Manning perspective on this matter. He suggests that “what is an emblem? is not even a good question. It implies that the answer lies in the same eternal present as the question, and that there is 47 emblem, a normative type, that the emblem is one thing at all times, in all places” (21). He proposes the safest answer to be that “everything that was called an emblem was indeed an emblem” (24).

81 Emblematica, Volume 20. Copyright © 2013 by AMS Press, Inc. ΑἹ! rights reserved.

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formal tripartite emblem with inscriptio, pictura, and subscriptio, yet the author has deliberately called it an emblem. Why he might have done so and what the implications are of that choice is at the center of understanding this text. His subject matter, the virtuous woman and her biblical models, is also significant, since women, aside from frequent warnings about their dangers and duplicities, are not much dealt with in traditional emblem literature.’ Closely examining The Embleme of a Vertuous Woman, its context, structure, and content, will reveal the author’s engagement in valid, recognizable emblematic practice. This work, in fact, serves as a fascinating intersection of emblematic practice, gender, and culture in seventeenth-century England, and, even more, highlights the liveliness and pervasiveness of the early modern English emblem tradition. Only one copy of this text is extant, in the Huntington Library, and its title page is missing. Fortunately, the rest of it is intact and includes two items of preliminary material, a dedicatory address signed by E. F. presumably the author, and an unusual contents page of biblical quotations. Following these pages is the title and the text of The Embleme of a Vertuous Woman, which is made up of three major sections separated by ornamental bars. The first part is a 132-line poem that sets out the desired qualities for a virtuous woman and the vices to be avoided by her. The second is a series of over 100 short poems of varying length, each based on

a biblical text about women, and the last section is a 104-line poem based on the episode of the three bodyguards of Darius from the Apocrypha. A bridge stanza stands between the second and third parts, and, at the end, a final farewell address in fifteen lines of verse is addressed to “Madam, with the usual humble disclaimers about the worthiness of the work and the wish for the dedicatee to be blessed by God. This complexity of structure reveals not only E. Es desire for variety but also a marked interest in form and its possibilities. 2.

US

Biblical female characters are not common in English emblem books. Only six

emblematists use them in their works, usually with one or two figures at most:

Andrew Willet, Sacrorum Emblematum (1592); H.G., The Mirrour of Majestie (1618); Henry Hawkins, Partheneia Sacra (1633); George Wither, A Collection of Emblemes (1635); Francis Quarles, Hieroglyphikes (1638); and Christopher Harvey, Schola Cordis (1647). E. F. is very different from these writers (with

the exception of Hawkins, who devotes his work to the Virgin Mary) with his intense focus on biblical female figures and his purpose of presenting his readers, especially his female readers, with a pattern of virtuous womanly behavior.

sta tee ame

Jane Farnsworth

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The loss of the title page creates problems for any critical discussion of the text. Its publication date of 1650, assigned by the Short-title Catalogue, is merely tentative. Since the context of a work is significant in understanding both its form and its subject, a more certain date of publication would be most useful. Establishing such a date for the text is possible, I believe, through a consideration of the political allusions found in the first section of the work, the long poem listing the qualities of a virtuous woman. In it, the poet writes, “A virtuous woman joyes, that God hath sent / So happy, and so sweet a Parliament”? He adds, “A virtuous woman rageth not you

see, / At my Lord Bishop, nor the Deputy” (5). Finally, he concludes that “A vertuous minded woman will not cease, / To pray for this united, happy

peace” (5). These six lines, especially their tone and word choice, such as

“sweete Parliament” “Lord Bishop,’ and “Deputy,” imply an earlier date than 1650—a date of 1640-41. The phrasing in these politically oriented lines suggests that the poet is writing about the beginning of a session of the English Parliament. The internal evidence points strongly to the Long Parliament, which began in November 1640, rather than the ending of it, the Rump Parliament of 1653. Much was anticipated from the Long Parliament, which may be the reason for the optimistic and moderate tone of the lines in E. F’s poem. This tone is clearly seen in contemporary comments about this Parliament; for example, “Sir Henry Slingsby; in Yorkshire, expected ‘a happy parliament where the subject may have total redress of all his grievances”; and “John Bampfield, in Somerset, wrote: ‘For ever be this parliament renowned for so great achievements, for we dream now of nothing more than of a golden age” (Braddick, 117-18). Such comments suggest a hope that both sides could work together—that king and parliament could end the tensions that had been dividing them. The members’ concerns centered on “parliamentary control of taxation, the end of the Laudian experiment, and a balance between prerogative power and other sources of law which gave 3.

E. Ε, Embleme, 5. Since there are no line numbers in E. F work and the three major sections are clearly delineated, page numbers are given for the textual

references. The pagination is generally correct, with most errors occurring at the

end of the text: p. 38 has been mistakenly printed as 20, 39 as 25, 42 as 24, 45 as 29, 46 as 82, and 47 as 41 (for the last four, there is a handwritten correction

given). I will give what should be the correct number in my citations. The only copy of this work is in the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery and can be accessed through EEBO.

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greater security to the subject” (Braddick, 120). One of che first actions of

the Long Parliament was “the removal of Charles counselors, in particular Laud and Strafford” (Braddick, 134). The mentions of “Lord Bishop” and “the Deputy” in the poem are most likely allusions to these two men. Laud, the “Bishop of Canterbury” as a pamphlet play of 1640 calls him, was impeached in December 1640, imprisoned in March 1641, and eventually

executed in January 1645 (Purkiss, 99). Thomas Wentworth, the Earl of

Strafford (who was Lord Deputy of Ireland 1632-39 and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1640), was impeached in November 1640 and executed in May 1641. It was felt that these two men needed to be removed in order to bring about religious and political stability and end their destructive influence on the king. The position and fate of these men were the focus of enormous public debate during the opening months of this Parliament, but they were both long dead by 1650 and no longer of significance on the national scene. The allusion to them in the poem makes sense only in the context of a 1640-41 dating, not a 1650 one. In the same way, the prayer for a “united, happy peace” makes sense only at a time when it was felt it might still be possible to solve the country’s political differences without war. While these readings are not definitive proof, a date of 1640-41 for the work is reasonable considering its political allusions. Even other allusions, such as that to provocative dress, “A vertuous Woman doth not greatly care, / To have her Ivory breasts be seene too bare,’ and a warning against women’s pride in “Their Mantles, Jewells, and their crisping pins” (4, 29) are more

meaningful in 1640-41, when the court and court ladies still existed; by 1650, all of that was gone." In works that lack a date of publication or have little or no direct information about the author, the identity of the dedicatee can be helpful in providing context, but here that identification is also lacking. E. F. dedicates his work “To the right worshipfull and truly vertuous Gentlewoman,

Mistris? followed by a blank space instead of a lady’s name and title (A2r).

There is, however, a lady’s name—“frances wolfreston her book” —written at the top of page 1 (the page on which the first poem begins) on the Huntington Library copy. Frances Wolfreston was a literate country lady who “began collecting books after her marriage in 1631 to Francis 4.

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Wolfreston, son of a gentry family settled at Stratford, near Tamworth” (Watt, 315). She collected a wide variety of works, many unbound, including a number that reflect an interest in subjects similar to E. F’s; for example, I. As The Good Womans Champion, Dorothy Leigh’s The Mothers Blessing, Katherine Stubbess 4 Chrystall Glasse for Christian Women, and Joseph Swetnam’s The Arraignment of Lewde, Idle, Froward and Unconstant Women Unfortunately, there is no indication that E. E dedicated this work to her; rather, his work may be the kind of chapbook Teresa Watt discusses as peddled around the countryside with a dedication filled in for each buyer. Wolfreston’s collection contained a number of these books with open dedications ready for a buyer's name to be inserted by hand (Watt, 235-40). Heidi Brayman Hackel describes the practice more fully: Material evidence reveals that writers on occasion did in fact produce multiple dedicatory epistles that varied only in the names of the patrons. Some of these books clearly do not dissemble or mean to mislead prospective patrons. Walter Berry, for instance, offered small personalized books to friends and patrons as New Year’ gifts in the 1580s; each was printed with an incomplete dedicatory epistle, missing its title and leaving several blank spaces to be filled in by hand. (Hackel, 112)

In Wolfreston’s collection, one chapbook, The Good Womans Champion, has a less personalized variant on this with a generalized dedication to “Madam, or Mistris, Dame, or courteous Maide” (I. A., Alv). All we can be certain of is that E. F. had expectations that his dedicatee was a literate woman (as he says in his final address on the last page of the text, “For I confesse ingenuously indeed, / Many more learned books you often read”) and of the gentry class. The identity of the author of this work is thus obscure, and even his sex is not immediately certain, While the dedication opens with a comparison of the poet to Abraham's male servant sent to Rebekah, E. F. goes on to compare himself (and/or his work) to Benjamin, the widow of Zarephath, and Hester (Esther), and the female dedicatee to Joseph, Elijah, and Ahasuerus.

The phrase “crisping pins” is defined by the OED as an “instrument for crisping

Morgan, 200. See Morgan's article for a detailed description of Wolfreston’s life, her books, and the fate of her collection. E. Es work is not mentioned in his article or listed in his appendix of located copies of Wolfreston’s books. There

wealthy and vain women being criticized here.

Wolfreston’s collection of play texts).

or curling hair” (def. b), which would fit as one of the accoutrements of the

5.

is also no reference to it in Gerritsen’s article nor in Hackel (who discusses only

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In these comparisons, the author crosses gender boundaries, which may, at first, seem odd given the obvious sex of the intended dedicatee and the strong views expressed later in the work about the divinely ordained differences between the sexes. However, as we will also see in the text, while the author’s primary focus is on the virtues of a woman, he makes clear that these spiritual and moral values are applicable to all Christians, male and female, including himself. This blurring of gender may also come from the practice of biblical typology in which biblical figures and events prefigure or represent quite different things from the original. It is not actually until his short poem concerning God’s favor to women in the second part of the work that it becomes certain the author, E. Ε, is a man: “Here in this Chapter you may soone descry, / That God doth love your sexe intirely” (12; emphasis added). What is immediately clear in the dedication, however, is the importance to the poet of biblical stories and characters—there are sixteen biblical references in the brief dedicatory paragraph alone—and, as we will see, the exceedingly strong emphasis on the Bible continues throughout the whole work. Such a focus on the Bible signals information about the authors own learning and social position, as well as his intended audience. The almost complete lack of classical and mythological allusions in the entire work sug-

gests that it is intended for what George Wither calls “common Reader|s]”

as opposed to learned ones (Wither, Alr). There are only two lines of Latin, which are followed immediately by an English translation (43), and one Latin tag, ecce signum (behold the sign] (16) in E. F's book. Given the lack of advanced education for almost all women and most men, this work seems well suited for a female and nonaristocratic audience. In this way, it is similar to the other works in Wolfreston’s collection: “These vernacular works are at the opposite end of the scale to those owned by learned aristocratic ladies with classical attainments . ... Perhaps they may best be regarded as revealing the reading tastes of a literate lady of the mid-seventeenth century” (Morgan, 210). The biblical emphasis may also suggest strongly Protestant

religious views on the part of both the author and his intended audience.

The identity of E. F., his dedicatee(s), and the date of his work are not

the only contentious areas—the very nature of the work itself is problem-

atic. E. F. calls his work an Embleme, but as I noted above, it does not 6.

As for Wolfreston’s

own

religious beliefs, her book

collection

is not

really

revealing. It contained a variety of religious works from a Roman Catholic catechism to a Tyndale New Testament.

87

follow the form of what we consider the traditional emblem. To make matters even more interesting, the author calls his book a “poore Epitomy, and little Manuell” in his dedication, and he obliquely suggests that the first poem is a kind of blazon. It is fairly easy to see the appropriateness of the term “epitomy” here, meaning as it did at this time “a compendium of a subject” and “a representation in miniature” (OED def.1b; 2). His long

poems and short verses set out the nature of a virtuous woman in a detailed but fairly concise fashion. A manual, of course, is defined as a “small book

for handy use” (OED def. B1), and fits the instructional nature of this

work for the reader. It also connects The Embleme of a Vertuous Woman to the extremely popular genre of conduct books, used to set out the moral and social ideal for women (and men) of the time. Such books, especially for women, often employ the image of a mirror for the work itself and propose that in it readers can see the pattern they should emulate in order to improve themselves.’ E. F. alludes to this image in a negative fashion in his first poem: “And yet because vertue doth often lye, / Rak’d up in Embers of Obscurity: / Some little Sparkles I will let you see, / Without a glasse of

fain'd hypocrise” (1). His poem will show only the truth, not a flattering

reflection. His comment that he will not need “to blaze” the goodness of a virtuous women because her “owne demerits [ “merits,” OED def. 1] speaks her worth” (1) is clearly using “blaze” (that is, blazon) in its meaning of “to publish, to make known” (OED def. 2), but there may also be a suggestion of the further meaning of “to describe pictorially, to portray” (OED def. 4b), often used to set out a woman outward and inward beauty.’ All these 7. 8.

See Grabes for a discussion of mirror imagery used in exemplary texts (48-53). By using the term “blazon,” E. E is obviously indicating his familiarity with the common

poetic concept of delineating one’s beloved through a careful

examination of his/her parts. The blazon has a long tradition behind it by the

1640s when E. F. was writing. The form came from the French blason poétique, a

popular sixteenth-century French literary genre. A particular variant of this form,

the blason anatomique, focused on celebrating specific parts of the loved one’s

body and often included illustrations. It was clearly related to the other illustrated

genres of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries “such as the emblem, the device or impresa, the figures de la bible . . . . Like those genres it requires the combination—indeed, the fusion—of picture and text in order to function at its best. . . . As the sixteenth century wore on, the blason anatomique gave way increasingly to other sorts of blason that were frequently religious, propagandist,

or satirical in nature”(Graham). It came to be applied “to any sort of poem of praise or blame that relied on techniques of enumeration . .. [and attempted] to

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terms seem to be unproblematic when applied to this work. E. Εἷς use of the term “emblem,” however, raises numerous questions for us that can be

answered only by looking at how the works sections function individually

and as a whole. E. Ε follows his unassigned dedication with a rather unusual contents page that continues the emphasis on the Bible found in the opening address (A3r-v). Instead of the expected listing of headings, chapters, and page numbers, we find four quotations about Mary Magdalene, one from each of the gospels: The Contents of the ensuing Poems.

Now when Jesus was in Bethania in the house of Simon the Leaper, there came unto him a Woman, havingan Alabaster Boxe of precious Oyntment, and powred it on his head, as he sate at meat. Matth. 26.

6,7.

Now when Jesus was risen early, the first day of the weeke, hee appeared first to Mary Magdalen. Mark 16. 9.

And behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eigh-

teen yeares, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up her selfe. And when Jesus saw her, hee called her to him, and said unto her; Woman, thou art loosed, from thine infirmity.

And he laid his hands on her, and immediately shee was made straight, and glorified God. Luke 13. 11, 12, 13. Then tooke Mary a pound of Oynmtment of Spikenard, very costly,

and annoynted the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her haire,

and the house was filled with the Odour of the Oyntment. John 12. 3.

E. E follows accepted tradition in merging the identity of Mary Magdalene

with the woman who washed Christ’s feet and with the woman with infir-

mities, and his Mary is typical of those found in Renaissance writings in be-

ing “rooted in Scriptures and stripped of the legendary apparatus associated

with her medieval cult” (Jeffrey, 486; Badir, 5). Because Mary Magdalene

paint a verbal picture of a person or object” (Graham, 85). Whether E. Ε had any knowledge of this particular form is impossible to say, but the general technique

and purpose of the form would certainly be known by English writers and readers. It may be another genre that E. F. knowingly or unknowingly draws upon to create his work, and it seems to show the similar broadening of the genre’s form and purpose as we see with the traditional emblem at this time.

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remained a favorite saint of Catholics during the Counter-Reformation, one might be led to suspect that E. F. is revealing Catholic sympathies here, but although “the Reformation effectively ended the cult of Magdalene ... she was not totally rejected by Protestant poets in the early 17" cent.” (Jeffrey, 487-88). This claim is fully supported by the fact that more than one hundred [works] . . . on the subject of the ‘blessed sinner’ were published in England between 1500-1700. Many more texts were circulating in manuscript form, and this count does not even begin to consider the prolific references to the saint in works that were not wholly dedicated to the Magdalene story. (Badir, 3)

She is seen by writers such as Nicholas Breton in his prose work, Marie

Magdalens Love (1595), as a “solitary, contemplative figure poised in her thoughtfulness, her constancy, and her humility,’ and in “To the Lady

Magdalen Herbert, of St. Mary Magdalen” (1607), John Donne gives “a superior example of the habit of posing pious women in the posture of the Magdalene” (Badir, 5, 92). Her sinful past, however, will always shadow representations of her. As Patricia Badir comments, “For the Protestant Magdalene, as for her Catholic predecessor, the a priori condition for salvation is sin; and the greater the sin, the more extraordinary the salvation, That this aspect of the sinner-saint’s biography would survive the Reformation is not surprising” (Badir, 22). Instead of putting forward a completely good (or evil) female model, E. F., by using the figure of Mary Magdalene, pres-

ents here a flawed, human woman (unlike, for example, the Virgin Mary) to whom his readers can relate more easily and take comfort from—if even Magdalene can be saved, then there is hope for them. These biblical verses in E. F. serve as a kind of summary of the virtuous woman the text is meant to move the reader to be—perhaps even as a kind of multiple emblematic motto or énscriptio for the work as a whole: the once sinful woman who is saved through her trust in Christ and who then serves Him humbly and faithfully. Structurally, this unique contents page sets up the possibility of the overall text forming a three-part emblem with it serving as the motto to be fleshed out and interpreted by the following descriptive poems. Supporting its significance to his work, E. F. also refers to the Magdalene story in other parts of his text. She is given seven lines in his first poem and is referred to six times in the second section of short verses on biblical women. In those six verses, E. F. does not describe Mary physically or consider

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Jane Farnsworth

her past or future life—the common theme is the act of prayer, praise, and love reflected in her actions. In the verse on anointing Christ’s head, we have a simple description of the action, and the woman is described only as “vertuous.” The interpretation of the figure and event is based on seeing the ointment as analogous to prayers: “Lord, give us grace, that we may ever be, / Powring forth prayers to thy Majesty” (36). In the verse on anointing Christ’s feet, Mary is said to do this “Out of her love” and the anger of Judas is a reflection of the anger of the Devil “when we please God by faith or prayer” (41). Indirectly, a female figure such as Rahab, a prostitute (like Mary Magdalene) who hid Israelite spies and who was spared along with her family by Joshua for her action, echoes the pattern of repentance in Mary Magdalene'’s life. E. F. concludes his verse about Rahab by saying that, as she hid the men, so her sins will be hidden from God: “For which, her faithfull and religious love, / Her sins are vail'd and hid from God above”

(Luke 2:51). As well, they may call to mind one of the most popular and familiar images of Mary Magdalene, especially for Protestants: the spiritually alert reader of devotional books (Badir, 92-93). It is interesting to notice that these lines are closely followed by a description of active charity (“And as she daily walkes about the Citie, / Shee’s still a dropping of her Charity” [4]), thereby lessening the danger of a more Catholic emphasis on the vita contemplativa as opposed to an active Christian life. These descriptions, through their associations with Mary Magdalene, refer back to the contents page and act as an expansion or interpretation of its meaning. Moreover, because reading the Bible, listening to preaching, and inward ex-

(13). Throughout the work, Magdalene’s example reminds the reader that

salvation is always at hand and that the attainment of virtue is always possible. She is obviously an important model for the virtuous woman in The Embleme and, paraphrasing Badir, she becomes for E. F. “the Reformation Every[woman]” (Badir, 27). The first poem following this unique contents page is a description of a good woman and comprises 132 lines of heroic couplets. The phrase, “A vertuous woman, is used every four or five lines to introduce a new quality that defines a good woman or a vice that she avoids. The attributes of virtue are the usual ones prescribed for women—silence, piety, charity, truthful-

ness, humility, and modesty. For example, “A vertuous woman

feares no

suddaine danger, / But loves with Abraham to relieve the stranger” (2) and

“A vertuous woman loves not talking idle, / But keeps her mouth as with a bit or bridle” (1). The paramount virtue of a good woman is, of course, piety. She is described as doing charitable deeds; keeping her mind on spiritual, not worldly things; and loving and trusting God. Further, she will take

“delight to meditate and read / Of that which is Canonicall indeed” (1) and “will not gad abroad, / But loves (with Mary) for to heare the Word;

/ And then sequestereth her selfe apart, / And layes up all those sayings in

her heart” (2). These lines allude to the Gospel story of Mary of Bethany

(Luke 10:38-42), who chose the better part in listening to Christ rather than taking care of practical matters like her sister, Martha. They may also allude to the Virgin Mary and her inward contemplation of the angel’s news

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amination were a very important part of Protestant spiritual practice (more

so than Catholic), they support the idea that the author is a Protestant appealing to a Protestant audience. Even more strongly, a further pious direction—“A virtuous woman chiefly doth procure, / To make her Calling and Election sure” (4)—employs terms that are distinctly Protestant and refer to the Calvinist belief in Predestination and the hope of being among the Elect. E. F. and his intended reader are definitely Protestant in their religious views. This opening poem suggests also that the author and intended audience were Protestant and reforming in their political views as well as their religious convictions. Although women were not encouraged to involve themselves in power or politics, many women, including most unsettlingly Queen Henrietta Maria, became actively involved in public and political activities ranging from petitioning to pamphleteering to marching in the

streets in the mid 1600s (Higgins, 200-218). In this poem, several allu-

sions to the political situation of the day indicate that the author understands that women are interested in those issues. As we have seen, E. F. makes references to the new parliament and to Laud and Strafford, but he implies that the virtuous woman sees the current concerns in spiritual and eternal terms, not as an occasion for emotional or worldly engagement: “A virtuous woman rageth not you see, / At my Lord Bishop, nor the Deputy: / But doth confesse even from her heart within: / The cause of all these tumults first was sin” (5). The political becomes foremost for her a moral matter and one that has its roots in disobedience to God. The good woman should not fall prey to anger based on moral indignation or superiority. All may sin and no one is exempt. The proper reaction of the virtuous woman is not political but spiritual action, “To pray for this united, happy peace.”

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E. F% virtuous woman may be aware of the political situation and hopeful about the outcome of this Parliament, perhaps even on the side of the Parliamentarians as opposed to the court, but her involvement is not public but pious and private—prayer to and praise of God. This long poem that comprises the opening section of The Embleme of a Vertuous Woman ends with a significant religious image—that of the garment of holiness: And thus you see what vertuous women are, How they are qualified, and what cloaths they weare, Now if you like the garment which is shewne, Goe but to Christ, he'll helpe you put it on. Which being done, no question you are free, Both from the World, and Sathans tyrannie. (5)

This clothing is in strong contrast to the worldly garments shunned by the virtuous woman. In the poem, E. F. mentions that the virtuous woman “doth not minde, nor care; / To be in her aparrell singular” (3). The associa-

tion of costly and revealing clothes with looseness and vanity in a woman is a well-worn commonplace of the time: A virtuous Woman doth not greatly care,

To have her Ivory breasts be seene too bare:

But in a comely, meek, and modest way, She vailes and hides them from the eye of day. (4)

The low-cut dresses of wealthy and worldly women, such as the royalist court ladies, are obviously being criticized here, and the plainer dress of the pious woman extolled. E. F. even mentions the notorious Mary Frith (1584-1659), better known as Moll Cutpurse, “who dressed in men’s clothes throughout her long life (she died at 75, after a career that spanned professions from pickpocketing to prostitution and bawdry, and ultimately... to tavernkeeping)” (Garber, 221). Frith is the only nonbiblical woman mentioned in the entire book, which may indicate how seriously E. F. took the sin she represents. A virtuous woman “in despight of such as Mary Frith, / What nature sends she is contented with” (5): in other words, the good woman does not try to improve or distort the face and form that God has given her. Many writers criticized Frith for dressing as a man and blurring the proper, God-given distinction between the sexes in numerous books, tracts, and sermons in the late sixteenth century to the mid seventeenth

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century—Stubbess Anatomy of Abuses (1583) and Hic Mulier (1620) being famous examples. E. F. dedicates one of his short biblical poems to presenting the scriptural authority for this position: the sexe is to be distinguished by apparell Women by no meanes must not weare in vaine, That which doth properly to men pertaine; Neither must any man himself invest: With womens cloaths, for God doth such detest. But bothe of them must lend her care and wit, To weare what is most decent, meet, and fit.

Deut. 22.5 (11-12)

Clothing for women (and men) was not just a matter of style or appro-

priateness, but one of social and spiritual health. The spiritual significance of clothing is reinforced when E. F. adds an image of heavenly clothing to his reference to the parable of the ten virgins (Matt. 25:1-13): A vertuous woman labours and doth toyle, To have her Lampe provided still with oyle, That when the Bride-grome comes, she may be found

Cloath’d with the wedding garment, and so crowned. (2)

The image of the garment at the conclusion of the first poem expands on this idea of heavenly or spiritual dress and personalizes it. In a direct address to the reader, E. F. not only exhorts her to put on this garment but also identifies it with virtue and with the poem—“Now if you like the garment which is shewne, / Goe but to Christ, he'll helpe you put it on” (5;

emphasis added). Through a reading and application of this picture of virtue, material clothing will be transformed into spiritual garments. The very physicality of the garment image enables this first poem to function as a kind of pictura of the virtuous woman for the book as a whole. From this prescriptive description of a virtuous woman, which, like the dedicatory address, is filled with biblical references, E. F. then moves into the largest section of his work, the 106 verses that are based on female biblical figures and scriptural directives concerning women. E. F. strives for completeness in this section—he looks at 67 female figures from the Old Testament, 9 from the Apocrypha, and 30 from the New Testament,

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and treats them in the order in which they appear in the Bible.’ His fourth

the mind of the reader, would already be images or signs in and of themselves of vices and virtues due to the long tradition of biblical typology and exegesis. Lots wife is as vivid and familiar an example of faithlessness as lions are of might and Cupid is of profane love in books by traditional emblematists such as Geffrey Whitney and George Wither."E. E, like Willet, uses characters from the Bible who nearly all “have a typical or almost paradigmatic value. The person or event becomes the bearer of meaning which is interpreted morally or spiritually” (Daly and Valeri-Tomaszuk, 187), and neither author needs actual pictures in his text. E.F’s intense focus on the Bible is one of the most noticeable features of his book as a whole and of these verses in particular, and it affects the way in which we perceive them as emblems and how they work. As Michael Bath explains in Speaking Pictures, emblems based on scripture are not attempting originality, which would be “quite out of place in the interpretation

verse on Lot’s wife offers a good example of his general method: Lots Wife turnd into a piller of Salt Here in this woman you may plainely see, A perfect signe of infidelity; For though the Lord had promised to preserve her: Who yet shee fear’d that promise would not serve her O Lord my faith is weake and wants reliefe,

Yet I believe, Lord helpe my unbeliefe. Gen 19.26 (7)

The caption at the top provides us with a little verbal picture: “Lots Wife turnd into a piller of Salt.” The poet then indicates the meaning of this text and directly addresses the reader: “Here in this woman you may plainely see, / A perfect signe of infidelity.” The nature of this infidelity is explained next: “For though the Lord had promised to preserve her; / Who yet shee fear'd that promise would not serve her.” She is a sign of a lack of faith in God. The poet ends with the prayer, “O Lord my faith is weake and wants reliefe, / Yet I believe, Lord helpe my unbeliefe.” The biblical source is then cited beneath the lines: “Gen. 19.26.” The structure and content of this and the other short verses lead back to the question of whether or not they function as individual emblems and, if so, what kind. Their pictureless form is strongly reminiscent of another emblem book

that is also focused on the Bible—Andrew Willet’s Sacra Emblemata

(1592). In his Latin preface, Willet says he would have liked to have figures, but they were too expensive and difficult to produce (Daly and ValeriTomaszuk, 197-99). As Peter M. Daly and Paola Valeri-Tomaszuk comment, “Despite his regret, however, it was far from unusual for an emblem book to have no pictures. Heckscher and Wirth estimate that as many as a tenth of all emblem books were unillustrated” (184). Given the modest,

inexpensive format of E. Εἰς book, it seems very likely that cost was one of the main reasons to forgo picturae. The other reason may be the fact that these verses are all based on well-known biblical figures and events that, in 9.

The biblical quotations in E. F’s work are from the King James Version of the Bible (1614). Although modern readers associate the Apocrypha with only

Roman Catholic versions of the Bible, “until about 1825... the Apocrypha was included in all English Bibles” (Bobrick, 244).

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of scripture—we cannot create God’s meanings, only recognize them. This

makes for a very different type of emblem from the topical and concettist basis of Alciato’s invention, which had supplied the tradition within which

Whitney” and other English emblematists were working (Bath, 173). An

important example of this kind of emblem is Willet’s work in which, as Bath says, “In some ways [the scriptural reference] is the most important part of the emblem, and it is quite pointless to read Willet’s emblems [or, I

would argue, E. F’s] without looking up their biblical sources” (Bath, 172). E. F. obviously expects his readers to know scripture and to be able to turn to the Bible and read the story for themselves (another clear indication of his Protestant perspective). In one verse on Ruth and Boaz, E. F. directly instructs his reader to go to the original: “Please you to read the story, that

will than / Give you more satisfaction then I can” (17). Because Willet’s

work is generally accepted as an emblem book, and he certainly believed it to be one, it provides a useful model for understanding what E. E is doing

emblematically in this part of his text. A brief comparison of an emblem by Willet and a verse by E. F. on the subject of Jezebel makes their similarity clear."' The death of Jezebel is treat-

ed by Willet in emblem 58: 10.

11.

See Whitney, emblem 127, and Wither, 2.20.

For another pair of emblems on the same subject by Willet and E. F, the slaying

of seven brothers and their mother in 2 Maccabees 7, see Willet, emblem 59, and

E. Fip:33:

E

me

EMBLEMATICA Sanguinis pretium sanguis. Emblema 58. 1,Reg. 9.33. Jesabel e summa modo praecipicata senestra, sanguine conspargit moenia caesa suo.

Conculcans & equi pedibus, lacerantq larrantes dente suo saevi languida membra canes. Nempe ubi Nabothi prosusus sanguis, ibiden: Jisraelis agro claudit & ipsa diem: Sic Deus iniustae est caedis iustissimus ultor, & sanguis solo sanguine perluitur. The same in English

Here Jesabel from window cast

with sprinkled blood the walles doth marke The horse her tread, the dogges doe waste and teare her flesh, wont for to barke, For even where Naboths blood was spilt in Israel field, there slaine was shee, Of blood God will revenge the guilt, and it by blood must purged be.

Willet’s emblem, with its Latin motto, scriptural citation, vivid description of the incident, and brief interpretation of its meaning, is an attenuated version of the pictura, inscriptio, and subscriptio of a traditional emblem. The visual element is contained in the verbal description of Jezebel’s death and the moral interpretation—God will take revenge on those who commit evil—is found in the last two lines. E. F’s verse on Jezebel is as brief: Proud Jezabel is throwne downe out of a window, and eaten by Dogs. And here this Chapter forces me to tell Ofa proud woman named Jezabel: One that Elisha menaceth, because He wishes her to keep Gods holy Lawes: But now ‘tis come to passe she cannot threaten, Because her envious flesh by Dogs is eaten.

2 Kings 9.33.34 (24-25)

Here the caption contains the strongest visual element and an individual inscriptio is absent. The moral interpretation of the degrading death of

Jezebel is suggested more than stated. The phrasing of its introductory

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pointer, “And here this Chapter forces me to tell,” with the use of the word “forces,” signals the author’s moral perspective on this woman. The fact that she threatens a holy prophet, along with the use of the words “proud” and “envious,” clearly implies that her death is a result of her pride and her opposition to God. Both Willet and E. F. open with a direction to the reader, “here,” which points us to the description as one would point toward a picture. They both display a brevity of form and rely on the reader to know the full biblical story, but E. F. further emphasizes his reliance on the biblical text by pointing specifically to “this Chapter” in his poem. Whether E. F. personally knew Willet’s work is, of course, impossible to say, but given E. F’s obvious desire to base his work solely on biblical material, it is not surprising that his emblematic practice would follow that of Willet. E. F. in these short verses has created a group of biblical emblems, or as Bath terms them, “exegetic emblem{s]” (Bath, 182), which work essentially as individual emblems and which provide an expansive interpretation (a kind of subscriptio) of the various virtues and vices described in the first poem in the work. Within these short biblical emblems, E. F. continues to fulfill the exemplary and instructional purpose of his book as a whole—to present in detail the image of a virtuous woman. These verses also show the character and actions of a faithful Christian—a virtuous woman for E. F. and his time must, of course, be both. Although, in most cases, writers interpreted biblical stories according to received exegesis, biblical inconsistencies and gaps could “serve to empower readers [and writers], allowing them the freedom to choose which biblical tellings, ideals, and instructions to follow” and emphasize (Osherow, 9). By not retelling each story in full, E. E is thus free to highlight the aspect or meaning of the story that best fits his (and his society) vision of a virtuous woman. E. E is also free to choose which biblical women will serve this purpose most effectively, although it is clear he wishes to be as complete as possible and to cover the Bible from Genesis to John." He also recognizes that there is often a lack of information about 12.

À minority of his poems simply paraphrase the biblical text with little or no

comment or interpretation attached; for example, his verse on “Peter made knowne by a maiden”: Here is a maiden telleth Peter plaine, That he belong'd unto our Saviours traine. But still the more the maiden justifies it,

+

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+

NL

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many female biblical characters, which will affect his choice of characters. As he says in the second ofhis verses, “But of Wife, small mention we descry, / Therefore in silence all her actions lye” (6). His female figures range from many of the most well-known women of the Bible—for example, Ruth—to the more obscure such as Siphrah and Puah. His decision to make verses on biblical women the heart of his work is not surprising, as biblical women and their stories from Eve to Mary were commonly “used to expound more generally upon early modern women’s own” and were the most important source of models for female behavior in early modern England (Osherow,

8). E. F. himself uses this terminology, as when he says of Esther: “I wish all may / Bee as she was; a patterne to this day” (26). By using, in the view of a seventeenth-century reader, actual historical women and events, E. F. makes the more abstract moral and spiritual attributes prescribed for the virtuous woman come memorably and dramatically alive for his reader. These biblical verses cover a wide range of intertwined social, political, moral, and spiritual behaviors that are presented to the reader as divinely sanctioned lessons in female conduct. One concern throughout the early modern period is the matter of rank and social hierarchy. In his verse about Hagar, the caption, “though a Bond-woman, yet a good woman, emphasizes that status is not what determines virtue, although the word “though” does suggest that it is a common perception (7). His description of a maid who helps her master to meet Elisha to be cured of leprosy presents a direct moral to female servants: “Lasses take patterne, with your Masters well, / As did

this maiden here of Israel” (24). Because the intended reader is a lady of the gentry, the proper behavior for a female servant is dealt with only briefly, as Why still the more courageous he denies it.

But then at last, the Cock began to crow,

And then with teares he did confesse ’twas so.

Marke 14. 6,67,7.2 (37-38)

‘There is no interpretation present in this verse, simply a plain statement of events, and, in this case, these events have little to do with E. F stated purpose. The reader may be able to “read between the lines” and draw a moral conclusion about

Peter's lack of faith in and betrayal of Christ, but there is nothing on the maiden’s

moral meaning or significance for a virtuous woman. It seems this situation is mentioned only because there is a female figure in it—perhaps for a sense of completeness. One obvious omission in this section is the book of Revelation.

There are no examples taken from it, probably because the female figures in that

book are clearly not human individuals and, therefore, not useful as models for his reader.

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it is not particularly important to E. Εἰς purpose. The proper behavior of a woman to her husband and to her king, however, is crucial.

Throughout this section, E. F. develops a number of examples of women being praised and rewarded for supporting their husbands. The story of Michel who saved David by putting a pillow of goat’s hair in his bed to fool would-be assassins is a typical example. As E. F. says, “And thus good women, as you plainely see, / Will still defend their husbands carefully” (18). Disobeying the husband is, however, firmly condemned, as in the case of Vasthi, who refuses to come when called by Ahasuerus and is put away: “Which tells all women, tis a hainous thing / To crosse a private husband; more a King” (26). This comment clearly reveals the lack of strict boundaries between family life and political life in early modern England. As Graham Parry comments, “{T |he language of politics under the Stuarts, with its emphasis on the family and the succession, makes the domestic and the political interchangeable” (Parry, 102). The proper relation between man and woman, husband and wife, with each pursuing his

or her appropriate duties respectively in the public and the private sphere, was crucial to social and political order: “Marriage is the metaphor employed for the ordering of private virtue and the commonweal” (Sharpe, 80). Because “patriarchal authority within the family was the cornerstone

of... Jacobean [and Caroline] political theory, [it was] the ultimate ‘nat-

ural’ justification for obedience to the state” (Underdown, 117; see also

Amussen). In his verse on Samson, however, the poet does suggest that

love is an important component of this relationship. Samson slays the Philistines on being denied his “best beloved” (15), and E. Εἰς rather surprising comment is that these actions make it “apparent, if true love be crost, / Our lives and all we have may soone be lost” (15). As we have already seen in the first poem, E. Ε does not support public, political action by a woman, and this is reinforced by a number of his biblical verse interpretations. Many women of great significance in the Bible acted in ways that would not be seen as desirable in a seventeenth-century Englishwoman. E. F. deals with that difficulty by omitting the undesirable aspect of their lives or stories and emphasizing the acceptable elements, or, in some cases, even reinterpreting them to fit his ideal better. For example, 13.

See also E. F’s verses on Lamech’s wives (6), Sarah (7), Abigail (18), Abishag (20), and his three verses on “The Praise and properties of a good wife” from Proverbs (28-29).

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in his verse concerning Deborah, he describes her as a judge of Israel who loved to sing and praise God, but he only hints at her more aggressive role in planning and executing the battle that delivered her country—“Deborah and Baruch deliver Israel from Jabin and Sisera” (13-14). Similarly a woman saves a city by cutting off the head of her enemy and throwing it over the city wall in 2 Samuel 20:16-17, but E. F. softens it by speaking of the head “falling” and transforms the violent, public act to a private spiritual one: “So if Jehovah’ love we meane to win, / We must, as she did, kill the cause of sinne” (20). Women who act for God’s cause are praised, but their actions tend to be less violent and more hidden; for example, the midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, who do not carry out Pharoah’s orders to kill Hebrew sons, are praised by the poet: “Lord send up more such midwives that delight, / Though Kings command, to doe nothing but right” (9). Their actions are in keeping with their female role as midwife. Disobeying a king, like a husband, can be countenanced only when it is a matter of obeying God and abstaining from evil. The question of voice for a woman, especially a public voice, is raised in several verses. In the Bible, Miriam is afflicted by God with leprosy for criticizing her brother, Moses, on his choice of wife. Michele Osherow makes the point that Miriam

When E. F. treats the story of the daughters of Zelophehad in Numbers 27:1-11, the distinction between good and bad speech by women is further delineated. In this story, the daughters come to Moses asking for their father’s inheritance, as they have no brother to speak for them. That they have acted rightly is made clear by the fact that “the Lord their suites advance, / And gives them ever more inheritance” (11). The poet describes them as capable of speaking effectively: “Their minds in ample manner were exprest” (11). Here women are speaking out of necessity, not pride, and on a personal matter—not a public event—and their voice is acceptable. This uneasiness about women and their public presence may explain the brief description of one of the most famous biblical models for women— Esther (Hester). Esther’s story was read by seventeenth-century readers in a number of ways, not all of them compatible with the views of E. F For example, her story was seen as a tale “of female transgressive supplication forgiven, a story of invited and successful petitioning . . . [and] a story of feminine counsel to a misdirected governor” (Wiseman, 45-46). She was also used as an example of “loyalty to a community .. . [and] the courage of the reformed church,’ and she “acquired particular and deepened significance during the mid-century crisis, becoming virtually a patron saint of Civil War women’s petitions” (Wiseman, 45—46). E. F’s clear opinion that women should not be active in the public, political sphere may explain why he comments on her only in terms of an obedient wife: “Hester best pleasing the King, is presently made Queene” (26). The biblical woman who seems to be the model that fits E. F ideal most closely is Ruth, whose story, set out in three verses by E. FE, was commonly seen as celebrating “the commonplace, domestic values, and wedded romantic love” (Jeffrey, 669). E. F. begins with the episode of Ruth and Naomi, which was, perhaps, the most important of the few models of female friendship available in the seventeenth century. He treats it clearly as a friendship, and sees Ruth’s action, as opposed to Orpha’, of remaining with Naomi as “Shewing of two friends, in our misery, / Tis well if one will beare us company” (16). In the second verse on Ruth, E. F. describes Boaz’s allowing her to glean his fields and his falling in love with her. Finally, in the

is the first female prophet in the Bible, and raises her voice in song to celebrate the Hebrews’ crossing of the Red Sea... [Her] song earns her prophetic status [yet she] is ultimately punished for inappropriate speech. The biblical judgment of Miriam's speech as a form of disobedience parallels the early modern belief that speech undermined female obedience and female chastity. (Osherow, 5)

E. F's verse omits mention (or criticism) of Miriam’s prophetic song because praise of God is acceptable speech for women, but public criticism of a man, especially a leader, is not: Miriam envies Moses because hee married with an Ethiopian woman.

Miriam speakes ’gainst Moses, cause he can Affect and love an Ethiopian; But what is her reward for doing so:

Is she not turn'd a Leper white as snow?

Yet Moses meekenesse to her did excel, For he entreates the Lord to make her well.

Num. 12.1.13 (10)

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third verse, Boaz marries Ruth and from their offspring comes David. E. F.

strongly emphasizes the moral character of both Ruth and Boaz: “Here in this Chapter, so it comes to passe / That virtuous Ruth combin'd with curteous Boaz” (17). He ends by urging his reader to turn to the original

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scripture, thus indicating the importance of this story and this female biblical character to his purpose. Many of E. F's verses discuss the various difficulties of the relationship between women and men, and they cover a wide range of topics, including slander, adultery, and rape. In some of these verses, E. F. is critical of men’s behavior toward women; for example, in a verse from Deuteronomy, E. Ε says no man should slander his wife, “Abuse her name or her Virginity” (12). But, he concludes, “Yet many men there be I feare doe wrong/ Their wives by deedes, as well as by their tongue.” He condemns men equally with women for adultery and repeats the biblical injunction: “The Lord says both the man and she must dye” (12). He also deals with the matter of sex before marriage and relates the story of Dinah, who is defiled by Shechem, a man

who afterward wishes to make her his wife. E. F. does not mention the fact that Shechem wanted to marry her—a partial mitigation of his actions (at

least in Old Testament terms). The poet says she was “ravished by Shechems subtilty” which suggests seduction rather than force, but he also makes it plain that it was not Dinah’s desire or fault that led to her submission: Also good gentlewoman it grieves me much, That thou shouldst be recorded any such; Because in holy writ I cannot finde, That it was done according to thy minde. (8)

Here the poet defends Dinah against the common perception of the time that ravishment was a disgrace for a woman, a mark of her bad moral char-

acter, and, ultimately, her own fault. E. F. gives an example of a violent rape in the story of the Levite wife who is “basely usd . . . and to death abusd” (15). He emphasizes that God punishes the men who did it and their tribe with the death of thousands, “which shews, though God be silent, time

will come, / Lust shall be surely punisht, Ecce signum” (16). Although E. F. strongly condemns wicked women and cautions men that they must always remember that, no matter how beautiful, a woman

is only “earth as well

as thee” (32), he does not indulge here (or in his text as a whole) in misogynistic diatribes against all women as daughters of Eve. Surprisingly, he mentions Eve only once, in his first biblical verse, and, though he does see

her as “the first motive brought us first to woe,” he also reminds us that she

faced “th’ Serpents subtilty” (6). This even-handed treatment of women,

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of course, will encourage his female reader and avoid offending her, which would diminish the book’s efficacy. E. F's direct remarks to his readers, which often begin and end his biblical verses, are another strategy designed to appeal to his readers and engage them with the text. They echo a practice found in a number of traditional emblem books of his time. Nearly all E. F’s biblical poems (91 out of 106)

begin with phrases such as “Here,” “Here you see,’ “In this chapter you may see, and “Here in this woman you may plainely see.” This kind of phrasing directing the reader to the biblical text (as well as to the poem itself)

emphasizes that, for E. F, the biblical figure and her story serve as a kind of pictura in the mind for his reader. But equally importantly, this kind of personal engagement with a reader, when combined with the frequent personal prayers by E. F. found at the end of most of these verses, leads us into another type of form or structure echoed in this work—that of the meditation and, specifically, the Protestant meditation. The Protestant meditation has affinities with the sermon, with its grounding in a biblical text and its emphasis on the application to the self of the material examined in the meditation. As Barbara Kiefer Lewalski writes, “The Christian’s experience comments upon the biblical text and the text upon his experience” (Lewalski, 155). This application to the self and turning to God in a kind of mini-colloquy is something we see in other contemporary emblem books such as A Collection of Emblemes (1635) by George Wither. Wither ends many of his long subscriptiones with a prayer such as that in emblem 2.48: But, what's our strength, O Lord! or, what are wee In such a Combate, without ayde from thee? Oh, come to helpe us, therefore, in this Fight; And, let us be inabled in thy might: So, we shall both in life-time, Conquests have; And, be victorious, also, in the Grave.

Like Wither, E. F. applies the moral both personally to himself, for example, “O Lord my faith is weake and wants reliefe, / Yet I believe, Lord helpe my unbeliefe” (7), and inclusively to both himself and his readers (and by implication to all Christians): “Lord raise our soules above a common Spheare, / That we thy holy name may laud and feare” (35). In most cases, his application is not gender-specific; this may be surprising given his

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purpose, but it has the important effect of mitigating the tone of criticism or judgment of women on the part of the poet. He does not assume moral superiority as a male to his female subjects and readers, but situates himself as a fellow sinner who needs God’s grace. As he moves into the examples from the New Testament, these kinds of inclusive prayers become more frequent, and given that the virtues often seen as particular to women are, essentially, Christ-like virtues suitable for all people, this kind of expansion seems inescapable and justified. Such application is, of course, precisely the purpose of his book. Once again, E. F. is employing familiar emblematic strategies in his poems, here expanding and opening up the moral or spiritual interpretation to a moving request to incorporate this knowledge into his readers’ experience, into their souls. These biblical verses function as individual emblems, but also form a collective subscriptio to his first section. At the very end of these verses, E. F. provides a summary of this section with a final verse, “Saint Johns exhortation, to an honourable Matron” based on 2 John 1:1-3, followed by a brief epigram, first in Latin, then in English. In the verse, the lady is exhorted to persevere in her Christian duties that she may gain eternal life. The poet ends by saying, “I doe hope the time ere long will come, / You'l meete her where shee is, in sweet Elizium” (43). The lady is a model for the virtuous woman he hopes the reader, addressed directly as “You” will become. This potential meeting in heaven creates a very personal tone that draws the reader into the text as both object and subject. The epigram that follows is directed, as we might expect, to the reader and expresses the typical modesty of an author concerning his work: Foemina multiplici splendet speciosa paratu. Qua mala, sit tua sors: qua bona, grata mihi. Here is a sort of women ready drest, Pray leave the worst, and take your selfe the best. (43)

The significance of these lines lies in the presence, again, of the clothing imagery that was used effectively at the end of the first part of the work. Once more the physical image of clothing moves the poem away from pure abstraction to an embodied ideal. E. F’s readers are to choose which items of dress to wear, which moral and spiritual traits to emulate. Immediately following these lines is a short bridge stanza in which E. F. directly addresses his dedicatee and says there is one last thing for her to see:

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Lady, your patience, yet I have not done, There is another streame desires to run Into your favour, onely to let you see

A female crown’d with magnanimitie. (28) E. F. then politely requests in a prose heading to the last section of his poem, “Please you at your best leisure to read the third and fourth Chapters of the first booke of Esdras, you will finde as followeth” (28). This last poem, based on the story of the three pages and King Darius in 1 Esdras 3-4 of the Apocrypha, forms the third and last major part of the book and may act as a kind of colloquy to his emblematic depiction of a virtuous woman. The vision of “a female crown'd with magnanimitie” (again, we

notice, it is a picture we are to imagine) is not really the climax of the original biblical story, but seems to be E. F’s own interpretation of this tale. His reader is prepared for such a change, as E. F. has already mentioned this tale in an earlier biblical verse, where he captions it “The mighty force and efficacy of women” (30). In that poem, he focuses solely on women’s strength and says, “For though man be her head, why yet I wist, / She'll rule her head and body as she list.” He concludes that, “if she be not good, pray God to mend her.” This version is not at all triumphant in its tone, but rather rueful and hesitant about the power of a woman. In the expanded narrative of this biblical story that makes up the final section of the book, however, E. F. keeps his focus on women but alters his tone. Briefly, the original story in Esdras is of three young men who hold a contest to determine what one thing is the strongest. The person giving the wisest answer is to be richly rewarded by Darius. The first answer is wine and the second is the king. The third answer begins by proving that women are far stronger than wine or the king, but ends by saying truth is ultimately the strongest. The king, after hearing the arguments for each answer, declares the winner to be the third young man who says truth is the strongest. In his retelling, however, E. F. omits the arguments for the strength of wine and of the king and focuses only on the argument for the strength of women, setting out the points found in the biblical text that men cannot

exist without women and that all men’s striving is to please a woman and secure a wife. Even more, women can rule kings, and the power of Darius’s concubine, Apame, is described. At this point, E. F. turns from the biblical text and reduces eight biblical verses about the power of truth to three

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lines: “When he had done with women, [he] spake of truth; / Both which

he did expresse so rare and well, / He was thought worthy of a Chronicle” (41). E. F. keeps his focus firmly on women and concludes this poem (and his work) with a final prayer that women will be true, that they will be virtuous: “And I shall invocate my best prayer, / That truth and women still may goe together.” The use of this story and the concept of truth expand and elevate the matter of virtue in women to something greater and more significant. Truth contains virtue and adds to it the sense of moral and spiritual integrity, of being chastely faithful, and of being true to God, who is, of course, ultimate truth, and to the true revelation and practice of faith. E. F final prayer that women and truth “still may goe together” suggests both a continuation with the past—here, the biblical women whom he has used to flesh out his model of the virtuous woman—and the provisional nature of truth and virtue in the world and especially in his female readers. The need to strive constantly to obtain truth and to be virtuous is what makes his book necessary. As well, the power of women over men so clearly shown in this biblical tale makes the shaping of their moral character crucial not only for their own salvation but also for the well-being of society and provides a strong imperative and authority for E. F’s book. If women wield such personal and social power, then the instruction of women in virtuous behavior through a book such as E. F’s serves a valuable and necessary purpose. His prayer at the end of this final section of the book, along with his ideal of a woman crowned with magnanimity, suggests an optimism that women can follow the path of virtue and truth with God's help and with the help of a book like this. Unprepossessing in appearance, missing its title page, and lacking the interest of pictures expected in an emblem book, E. F’s work is a surprisingly complex text and arguably a thoroughly emblematic one. In a creative blend of conduct book, biblical paraphrase, meditation, and emblem, it ful-

fills its purpose of presenting the character of a virtuous Protestant woman to inspire and instruct its readers. Given the time in which this book was written, a writer such as E. F. would certainly be familiar with emblems and emblem books featuring the traditional tripartite structure of the form. Perhaps it is not surprising, therefore, that his work is a composite of individual poems, some of which are emblems in their own right, which are

then shaped into three sections that echo the three parts of the traditional tripartite emblem. The contents page can be seen as the inscriptio, the first

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poem as a pictura or blazon of the virtuous woman, the section of biblical verses as the subscriptio supplying the basis and expanding the meaning of the virtues and vices described in the opening poem, and the final

long poem based on the Apocrypha as a kind of colloquy bringing women and truth together in a modulated climax. This adaptability of the emblem form is not an indication of faulty emblematic practice or a degeneration of the form, but rather it is that very quality which, as Manning phrases it, “gave the genre life” (Manning, 25). Such flexibility in structure is a sign of its strength and cultural importance in seventeenth-century England and makes it a form ready to hand for authors such as E. F. to shape in their own ways and for their own unique purposes. Works Cited A., I. The Good Womans Champion. London, [n.d].

Amussen, S. D. “Gender, Family and the Social Order, 1560-1725.” In Order and Disorder in Early Modern England, ed. Anthony Fletcher and John Stevenson. Cambridge, 1985. Pp. 196-217.

Badir, Patricia. The Maudlin Impression: English Literary Images of Mary Magdalene, 1550-1700. Notre Dame (IN), 2009. Bath, Michael. Speaking Pictures: English Emblem Books and Renaissance Culture. London, 1994.

Bobrick, Benson. Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the

Revolution It Inspired. New York, 2001.

Braddick, Michael. God's Fury, England

Fire:

A New History of the English

Civil Wars. London, 2001.

Daly, Peter M. Literature in the Light of the Emblem. 2nd ed. Toronto, 1998. Daly, Peter M., and Paola Valeri-Tomaszuk. “Andrew Willet, England’s

First Religious Emblem Writer.” Renaissance et Reforme 22 (1986): 181-200.

EEBO. Early English Books Online. http://eebo.chadwyck.com/home. E, E. The Embleme of a Vertuous Woman. |London, 1650].

G., H. The Mirrour of Majestie. London, 1618.

sey zg

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Garber, Marjorie. “The Logic of the Transvestite: The Roaring Girl (1608).”

In Staging the Renaissance: Reinterpretations of Elizabethan and

109

Quarles, Francis. Hieroglyphikes. London, 1638.

Jacobean Drama, ed. David Scott Kastan and Peter Stallybrass.

Sharpe, Kevin. Criticism and Compliment: The Politics of Literature in the England of Charles I. Cambridge (UK), 1987.

Gerritsen, Johan. “Venus Preserved: Some Notes on Frances Wolfreston.”

Underdown, D. E. “The Taming of the Scold: The Enforcement of Patriarchal Authority in Early Modern England.” In Order and Disorder in Early Modern England, ed. Anthony Fletcher and

New York, 1991. Pp. 221-34.

English Studies 45 (1964): 271-74.

Grabes, Herbert. The Mutable Glass: Mirror-imagery in Titles and Texts of the Middle Ages and English Renaissance. 1973. Trans. Gordon Collier. Cambridge (UK), 1982.

Watt, Teresa. Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550-1640. Cambridge

Graham, David. “Blason poétique.” In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Semiotics, ed. Paul Bouissac. Oxford, 1998. Pp. 84-85.

Whitney, Geffrey. 4 Choice of Emblemes and Other Devises. Leydon, 1586.

Higgins,

Patricia. “The

Women

Reaction of Women,

with

Special Reference

to

Petitioners.” In Politics, Religion and the English Civil

War, ed. Brian Manning. London, 1973. Pp. 179-224.

Hackel, Heidi Brayman. Reading Material in Early Modern England: Print, Gender, and Literacy. Cambridge (UK), 2008. Harvey, Christopher. Schola Cordis. London, 1647. Hawkins, Henry. Partheneia Sacra. London, 1633. The Holy Bible. London, 1614. Jeffrey, David Lyle, ed. A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature. Grand Rapids (MI), 1992. Lewalski, Barbara Kiefer. Donne “Anniversaries” and the Poetry of Praise: The Creation of a Symbolic Mode. Princeton, 1973.

Manning, John. The Emblem. London, 2002. Morgan, Paul. “Frances Wolfreston and ‘Her Bouks’: A SeventeenthCentury Woman Book-Collector” Library 11 (1989): 197-219. OED. The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford, 1971. Osherow, Michele. Biblical Women’s Voices in Early Modern England.

Farnham (Surrey), 2009.

Parry, Graham. The Seventeenth Century: The Intellectual and Cultural Context of English Literature, 1603-1700. London, 1989. Purkiss, Diane. The English Civil War: A People’s History. London, 2006.

John Stevenson. Cambridge (UK), 1985. Pp. 116-36.

(UK), 1991.

Willet, Andrew. Sacrorum Emblematum Centuria Una. Cambridge (UK), 1592. Wiseman, Susan. Conspiracy and Virtue: Women, Writing, and Politics in Seventeenth-Century England. Oxford, 2006.

Wither, George. A Collection of Emblemes. London, 1635.

Gilles Corrozet’s “Domestic” Emblems: Gender and Ethics at Home in the

Hecatomgraphie and Emblems in Cebes ELIZABETH BLACK Old Dominion University

Gilles Corrozet published several emblems in his Hecatomgraphie (1540-44) and Emblemes (in the Tableau de Cebes, 1543) on the subject of the family home. These emblems complement Les Blasons domestiques (1539), his collection of illustrated poems dedicated to the home. This article defines Corrozet’s attitude toward men’s and women’ places inside and outside the home through these two illustrated works and situates his ethics of domestic space within the broader discourse around the home and personal space, especially as put forth by authors of architectural treatises in France in the sixteenth century.

n the wake of his Blasons domestiques (Paris, 1539), a collection of poems dedicated to rooms and objects in the home and illustrated with woodcuts, Gilles Corrozet published two collections of emblems that in several places revisit themes treated in the Blasons. The Hecatomgraphie and the emblems in the Tableau de Cebes (1540-44 and 1543, respectively, both with Denis Janot in Paris) reprise discussions of the moral dimensions of the family house, particularly with respects to gender: the circulation of male and female inhabitants; the status of visitors in the home; and the problem of women’s visibility. The purpose of this article is to trace variations on the ethics of domestic space and domestic economy |

111 Emblematica, Volume 20. Copyright © 2013 by AMS Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

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within Corrozet’s two emblematic works and to relate them back to Les Blasons domestiques. Although Corrozet’s emblems are known to contradict one other, on the subject of the home, his texts are surprisingly consistent.' Nonetheless, it is imperative to consider several emblems in order to discern the champ sémantique [semantic field] of Corrozet’s writings on the home, as Alison Saunders has rightly emphasized (Saunders 1988, 40-55). Text and image may be in conflict within individual emblems, but in general, the emblem texts together conclude not only that women should stay at home and have virtually no contact with the outside world but that all family members should focus inward, staying within the house’s walls and concentrating on solidifying the family unit and ensuring the smooth functioning of the household. Within the broader debate around privacy in the home as it plays out in literary works and architectural treatises published in sixteenth-century France, Corrozet’s voice provides insights into the perspective of the merchant and family man as he juggles the need to exercise his trade and protect his family all within the same building. Jerome Schwartz has already stated the usefulness of emblem books as “a good indication of values generally shared by a broad middle range of social groups” (Schwartz 1986, 246). Corrozet’s views on the home are inseparable from his views on women and marriage, as analyzed by Schwartz (Schwartz 1986), so closely intertwined are the institution of marriage and the building that houses the family. The bookseller’s seeming desire for a division of home space into public and familial (what is today understood as private) represents a growing senti-

ment in the sixteenth century, but also counters established use of space. Although seeking time and space alone might at the time be seen as suspect, Corrozet presents a consistent textual message in Les Blasons domestiques, the Hecatomgraphie, and the emblems in Tableau de Cebes that a separate space is needed for women. Yet in all three works, the choice of images seems occasionally at odds with the unambiguous texts. Corrozet was almost certainly not fully responsible for the choice of images to accompany his verses. As Daniel 5. Russell explains, the creation of an emblem was “a joint venture” between poet-humanist, woodcut artist, 1.

Alison Adams has adroitly observed how individual emblems can contradict each other: “One of the characteristics of his work is to explore themes in different ways, presenting a variety of conclusions. The reader is required to reflect, not simply to read a single emblem in isolation” (Adams 2002, 599).

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paginal compositor, and a “printer/publisher who may have commissioned

the work” (Russell 1995, 13). For the emblems in the Tzbleau de Cebes, at

least fourteen of the sixteen woodcuts had already appeared in books produced by Denis Janot (Saunders 1980, 14). In the Hecatomgraphie, only 26 of the 100 woodcuts can be shown to have already been used in works by Janot and others. Of the remaining 74, Stephen Rawles posits that many were cut for the book itself, and thus speculates that Corrozet may have had some financial interest in the creation of the woodblocks (Rawles, 32-33). It is possible that some were selected from sets of woodblocks that Janot already possessed. Although it is difficult to be certain about Corrozet’s level of involvement in either the creation or the selection of these images, Adams has shown that the images remain consistent across all four editions of the Hecatomgraphie (Adams 1997b, lxxiv). Of the images analyzed in this article taken from the Hecatomgraphie, only one has been traced to an earlier work. The pairing of text and image has varying degrees of success and it is generally agreed that choices were made more carefully for the Hecatomgraphie than for the emblems in the Zzbleau de Cebes.‘ The purpose of this article is not to decide whether an emblem is good or bad, but to decode the way it functions and how its messages are constructed. Some conjunctions of image and text provide a fruitful reading, while others are less suggestive. The book that a reader picks up is the product of many influences, but the reading experience rests with the final printed product, and the provenance of the different voices in a single emblem may not be evident. The multiple messages may differ from an authors original intention, even though the emblem medium in the early sixteenth century in France is primarily textdriven (Russell 1995, 131; Saunders 1988, 177). The relationship between texts and images that portray differing—if not openly contradictory—messages calls to mind what Jerome Schwartz 2.

3. 4.

The vast majority of woodblocks used in Les Blasons domestiques was also cut specifically for that book. I am grateful to Stephen Rawles for sharing with me his research on Denis Janot and in particular his findings on the Blasons. This is “L'ymage de Nemesis déesse de juste vengence” [The image of Nemesis, goddess of just vengeance] (Corrozet 1544, F4v), which appears in Dupont (2H7v). See Saunders 1980, 15; and Rawles, 50. Russell, Saunders, Rawles, Adams, and many others all agree on this point.

from the text as that which the reader is able to take away from his or her reading. Both text and image are designed to be remembered, the memory of one prompting the memory of the other. However, since the two do not always harmonize but often work against each other, the reader is sometimes left with a pair of conflicting messages. Schwartz identifies in early emblematic works “almost a kind of ‘deconstruction’ taking place between them, the image shamelessly proclaiming one thing, the text attempting to recuperate, by a moralizing rhetoric, the illegitimacy, the blatancy, of the image, enacting what the text specifically proscribes” (Schwartz 1986, 250). Text and image cannot efface each other; each can only add another layer of meaning. It is between these “playful elements,’ as Schwartz terms them

5.

The verse commentary was a feature of the Hecatomgraphie in all four editions produced (Adams 1994, 43), unlike the glosses added to various editions of Alciato over the years. Schwartz does not consider it to be a “formal constitutive element of the emblem itself? since it is not typeset in the same decorative frame (Schwartz 1987, 297). Bergal rather sees it as an integral part of the theatrical dialogues staged in Corrozet’s emblems and thus integral to their structure (Bergal, 279-84). Since the moralistic message—the purpose of the book according to so many critics—can often

be found only in the longer poem, and since the distribution of analogy

and moral is unevenly spread across inscriptio, pictura, quatrain, and verse commentary from emblem to emblem, I consider it to be part of this emblem book’s design and therefore integral to the work.

To the extent that the reader hesitates over the meaning of the mo-

Se

conscious of himself as a reader, and hence begins to prepare himself for a more active, and eventually freer and more creative role, as a reader. ... Corrozet and La Perrière both seem conscious of the im-

NS

picture is allowed to praise or contest the words of the emblematist, might not the reader do the same?” (Bergal, 285). This new freedom of interpretation, which Russell sees coming out of a shift away from medieval realism, is not limitless in scope but is still shaped by material linked to its original sources: “So it is possible for the illustrator to go beyond the text in some way, just as the author of the text had digressed from the original intent of the materials he had borrowed. And the series of liberties instituted by that author can be continued into the practice of the reader” (Russell 1988, 85). The texts of Corrozet’s emblems—whether the quatrain on its own or the quatrain with the extended verse commentary’—are generally counted as the main vehicle for their message. However it is important not to neglect the function of many images chosen for emblematic purposes—namely, memorability. If the image is the element intended to make the emblem memorable, then its message exists concurrently with the moral message

(Schwartz 1986, 250) that Bergal’s reader can be found deciding for him- or

herself the interpretation of each emblem and participating in a decidedly active reading. Russell, like Bergal, identifies this ambiguity as a feature of Corrozet’s and Guillaume de la Perriere’s work: tifs, or sees multiple possibilities for interpretation, he is becoming

portance of an increasingly dynamic reading process in making an emblem work. (Russell 1995, 167)

Corrozet’s text will not be the lone voice on the page, and in the hands of a reader, it is even less the sole maker of meaning.

OR

participators in each emblematic drama is the following: “[I]f the speaking

n nn n i

1986, 248). Given that two or more messages exist within the same mani-

festation of the emblematic medium, the reader is faced with a choice of interpretation. Any presumption of a clear moral imperative within the emblem’s message seems to give way to a questioning of absolute positions. Irene Bergal sees Corrozet’s reader as one interpreting voice amongst many, including speaking figures depicted in woodcuts, narrating personae in the subscriptiones, the author, and the readers. While the longer poems in the Hecatomgraphies emblems present a clear moralizing voice, the conclusion drawn by Bergal regarding the shifts in perspective amongall the readers and

TE

refers to as the “semiotic” aspect of early French emblems: “The image possesses signifying elements not totally accounted for by the text; on the other hand, the text is not a totally referential caption for the image” (Schwartz

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In considering which elements of an emblem are apt for analysis, David Graham has carefully outlined the ways in which the text of an emblem

renders an image significant or not. With regard to gender and the depiction of the female form, he argues: It is thus clear that the textual markers in emblems have a decisive role

to play in the economy of reading in the emblem. In practice, they have the power not only to confirm gender . . . but also to inscribe

gender in the absence of such visual and textual markers, and even to erase gender once it has been established as a matter to be considered

in the emblem. (Graham, 79)

Unlike allegorical images of women in which gender plays no role in the textual development of the emblem’s subject matter, the emblems chosen

A

114

—

116

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117

mm

for consideration in this article make specific reference to gender in their texts. Where women also appear in the picturae, the explicit textual treatment of gender dialogues with the depiction of women in the woodcuts. Women in the Home

In the Hecatomgraphie, the emblem titled “La statue de Caia Cecilia” warns that women should leave their homes only in extreme circumstances (Corrozet 1544, N8v-Olr).f Caia (or Gaia) Cecilia was the legendary Roman figure who represented marriage and the home. Her statue could be found in the temple of Sancus (Adams 1997b, Ixxiii). The emblem’s quatrain explains: Toute femme pudicque Doibt estre domesticque, Non pas aller dehors Pour mielx monstrer son corps. (Corrozet 1544, N8v)

[Any modest woman must be domestic and not go outside in order to better show off her body. ]

A women who is careful to maintain her reputation regarding her sexual activities must be literally of the home.’ The danger, explains the short verse, is that she will wish to show off her body. According to this emblem, a woman must stay inside because her nature makes her want to display herself and shame both herself and her family. Instead, women must resemble Caia Cecilia, the model of domestic life (fig. 1). In the pictwra, we see a nude female figure standing atop a pedestal, presumably the statue to which the inscriptio refers, since the distaff and sandal—objects typically associated with her—lie nearby (Adams 1997b, 6.

En,

7.

In his later bilingual (Italian/French) Treselegantes sentences, Corrozet cites Martial as an authoritative source on this topic: “Les femmes vagabondes se

corrompent aisément” [Wandering women are easily corrupted] (Corrozet 1546, K2r). Pudique means “chast, pure, untainted, cleane; shamefast, modest, honest” according to Cotgrave; for La Curne, it signifies “Pleine de pudeur” (“pudeur” [modesty] being a synonym of “honte” [shame]). Interestingly, La Curne’s synonym is only the second meaning for “pudeur”—the first being the seeming opposite of the second. “Pudeur” at least in 1444 could mean “impudicité? the very opposite of “honte”—“vice contraire à la pudicité.” “Pudicité” is given as “pureté du corps et de l'âme” [purity of body and soul].

i,:

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Toute femme pudicque Doibt eftre domefticque Non pasallerdehors -

| Pour mielx monftrer fon corps.

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Fig. 1. Gilles Corrozet, Hecatomgraphie (Paris, 1540), fol. N8v, “La statue de Caia Cecilia”

(By permission of Glasgow University Library, Special Collections.)

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Ixxii).$ Yet the nude statue—out in the open and immodestly attired—exhibits behavior that women are not supposed to imitate, thus putting her in the position of both exemplum and warning.’ Statuesque the figure is not. Her hair billows to the side of her head, implying either that it is blowing in the wind or that she is moving quickly. Her body is distinctly fleshy and unlike carved stone. Moreover, she is balancing on one foot, in a pose that no statue could readily maintain without toppling over. While it may be possible that the woodcut artist simply depicted a highly convincing statue by a sculptor with a great deal of skill, but chose not to portray the metal support that would render such a pose possible in statuary, one might wonder why it would be desirable to represent such a realistic rendering of the statue yet leave out the detail of the metal support, also realistic in its own right. The seeming movement suggests that the figure is not a statue at all, but rather is intended to show a living woman, as if the statue had been removed and a real person jumped onto the pedestal in its place. In addition, she looks as if she has just rushed to cover her nudity. The woodcut figure is a site where Caia Cecilia’s ideal modesty meets every other woman's exhibitionist tendencies. Out of the confines of the home, and even outside the temple housing the statue, woman cannot help but be on display. If a woman attempts to imitate Cecilia, she will inevitably fail due to her own nature; fleshly women cannot live up to the iconic, stone statue Cecilia and should therefore stay at home.'” The inscriptio—La statue de Caia Cecilia’—mentions only Cecilia herself, whereas the quatrain refers only to contemporary women. The image seemingly melds the two ideas, with a woman displaying herself and yet realizing her own fault, as if the woman showing off her body had just 8.

Graham has underscored the “universality” of Cecilia’s distaff and spindle; in analyzing them as indices of femininity, not only because they are indisso-

ciable from women but also because of their transformative effect: they render Hercules feminized in Guillaume Guéroult’s 1550 Premier livre des emblemes

(Graham, 74-75).

9. 10.

This figure was most likely cut for the book. See Rawles, 32. | Schwartz interprets Venus as being depicted not inside the home but in a landscape, in La Perriere’s emblem on marriage, to imply a greater degree of freedom taken by some women. (Schwartz 1986, 247-50). Although Corrozet does not himself include an emblem on Venus and the tortoise to symbolize marriage, his emblems that discuss the home touch on the same debate about women’s freedom and their confinement to the home.

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gained Cecilia’s sensibilities. In the verse commentary, no mention is made of contemporary women at all; the whole poem is dedicated to Cecilia and the Roman women who honored her. The all-encompassing “toute femme a vertu” can be taken as an indication that Cecilia’s lesson is good for all time, especially since Corrozet’s intention with his emblems is so clearly didactic (Saunders 1980, 7; Schwartz 1987, 297). Furthermore, a comparison can be made with the emblem depicting Viriplaca from the emblems in the Tableau de Cebes."' In “La paix en mariage” [Peace in marriage] (Corrozet 1543, G4r-GSv), Viriplaca is presented as the Roman goddess who restored peace in marriage. Much like the women who worshipped Cecilia, couples sought Viriplaca’s aid to rid themselves of marital strife. In this case, Corrozet makes an observation on marriage in his own time by lamenting that it is rarely peaceable and that there is no temple to a figure such as Viriplaca who might serve as mediator: “Or pleust à dieu quen france l’honorée / Un temple y eust servant à la couctume” [Please God there should be a temple in France dedicated to the honored woman and serving this purpose]. Corrozet’s explicit comparison of Roman society with his own in the emblem of Viriplaca can be applied to the observations he makes about all virtuous women in the emblem about Caia Cecilia. Contrary to the Cecilia emblem, Viriplaca is depicted in her temple, presumably surrounded by her worshippers, whereas Cecilia’s original context has been removed, allowing for a wider interpretation of the woodcut figure’s identification. The circulation of the female body and its production as spectacle are roundly condemned in the text of the Cecilia emblem. As noted, however, the use of this particular image proposes a representation of a woman’s body as a spectacle, both in the context of the nude, shamed figure who is clearly in an outside setting and on the wider diegetic level of the emblem book as object. The book itself will circulate in public and thereby carry with it this and other images of the female form. The woodcut thus undermines 11.

Alison Adams indicates how little known Cecilia would have been to Corrozet’s mostly merchant-class readers, few of whom would have in-depth knowledge of such obscure classical figures (Adams 2002, 599-600). Saunders

12.

The woodcut for “La paix en mariage” had already been used in editions of Petrarch in 1538 and Ovid in 1539 (Saunders 1980, 18). Less specific to the accompanying text, it depicts a typical scene of statue worship.

reaches the same conclusion regarding Viriplaca (Saunders 1980, 27).

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Elizabeth Black

121

Corrozets own text, giving a negative example of behavior that women should not follow and in recasting the virtuous Caia Cecilia in the role of

immodest, imperfect everywoman."*

The Cecilia figures obvious discomfort is in stark contrast to the pose adopted by the female figure depicted in “Nature foeminine” [Feminine nature] in the Hecatomgraphie (Corrozet 1544, L7v-L8r). Serving as a warn-

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ing, the image is at the same time slightly provocative." It shows a naked woman running toward a flock of birds that is flying away from her (fig. 2). She appears to be stretching as if to catch them, but they remain beyond her reach. Unlike the Cecilia figure and several other female figures depicted in Corrozet woodcuts, the woman seems to have no regard for—or consciousness of—the fact that she can be seen in her nudity. Fully absorbed in her activity, she cares not for a potential viewing public. Other woodcuts of women indicate some awareness on their part or clear reference to the fact that their bodies are on display—they are depicted as statues, painter's models, covering themselves, etc. The inscriptio, when paired with the image, would seem to suggest that it is the nature of women not to be aware of or to care about their public reputation. The quatrain makes clear the analogy between the birds in the woodcut and the woman chasing them:

ἊΣ de la complexion

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— ( Des petis oyfeaulx que ie garde, À} Te fuis d’aufly mauluaife garde C =s Qu'ilz font én {eur con ‘fiom,

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[I am of the same complexion as the little birds that I keep; I am as difficult to keep as they are in their condition.]

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Des petis oyseaulx que je garde, Je suis d’aussy maulvaise garde Qu'ilz sont en leur condition. (Corrozet 1544, L7v)

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The practice of keeping birds enclosed is applied to women and their wayward nature. Women are seemingly untamable; they need limits imposed on them by an authority figure. The longer poem, echoing the Cecilia emblem, elaborates on reasons to keep women at home—they are compared to birds who desire nothing less than the freedom to fly away:

Une femme quoy qu'elle face En reigle ne veult estre mise,

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Je suis de la complexion

s

Fig. 2. Gilles Corrozet, Hecatomgraphie (Paris, 1540), fol. L7v, “Nature foeminine”

permission of Glasgow University Library, Special Collections.)

(By

13. 14.

Russell sees this image as “willfully subversive” (Russell 1995, 181). No prior use for this woodcut has been traced; it was most likely cut for the Hecatomgraphie.

122

EMBLEMATICA Elle desire estre en espace Sans estre à personne submise Soit en la rue ou en l'eglise Elle est aussy sotte & volaige Querant liberté & franchise

Que le petit oyseau ramaige. (Corrozet 1544, L8r)

[Whatever a woman does, she does not want to follow rules; she wish-

es to be outside without submitting to anyone. Whether in the street or in the church, she is as foolish and flighty in seeking freedom and

emancipation as the wild little bird.]

Women are described as volaige—which literally means ready to fly away, and metaphorically apt to change their minds, similar to the English term flighty. Tempting as it might be to assign the literal meaning to the birds and the metaphorical meaning to women, the poem demonstrates that women’s flightiness is not confined to the metaphorical realm, since it is also inscribed in physical space: she desires to be free “en espace” [outside]. The spaces mentioned—the street and the church—are clearly public and highly frequented, in contrast to her domestic space where she should not be seen. In addition, the adjective used to describe the birds at the end of this stanza, ramaige, means wild or of the woods, but also has a secondary meaning—according to the Dictionnaire du moyen français, it implies act-

ing contrary to social norms, and when applied to women, it can refer to those who abandon their husbands and households. The depiction of a woman seeking freedom and independence—“liberté & franchise” —that are not rightfully hers as nude and seemingly unaware of her nudity suggests not only that nonconforming behavior would shame the woman in the same way as showing her naked body but also that she might not even be aware of the consequences of her actions. Spatial freedom leads her to a desire to ignore any rules that might be laid down for her behavior; the public spaces mentioned must be contrasted with the family home, where she is supposed to be “kept” like the birds that she herself keeps. To pursue the secondary meaning of “ramaige” further, a woman who abandons her husband leaves herself and her household exposed. In “Nature foeminine,” the three stanzas of the verse commentary gradually narrow down the field of women to whom they refer. Initially in the spotlight are all women—the singular “une femme” representing all of womankind. They are then divided into bad and good—‘les vicieuses” as

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123

opposed to “les bonnes.” The field is then limited even further, with the third stanza reserved for young, unmarried women: “les tendres et jeunes pucelles.” In fact, the two “wings” that the bird-woman is said to have are her flesh (“chair”) and her foolish youth (“sotte jeunesse”). These two wings take her both outside of her societal confines and into the world of fleshly sins, literally out into the street. While this gradual limiting of the scope of his discussion to only young, unmarried women seems to indicate a particular concern for youthful folly, the izscriptio of the emblem implies all women, as does the image, the quatrain, and the first stanza of the verse commentary. Moreover, when paired with the text of “La Statue de Caia Cecilia,” whose quatrain clearly includes all women in the lesson to stay inside, “Nature foeminine” leads not to the conclusion that only young women are “volaige” and need to be checked in their movements, but rather to the conclusion that all women, no matter their age, retain this characteristic unpredictability. The outside, or public space—the street, the church—becomes a marker of errant female sexuality. For her own good and the good of the household, a woman should stay indoors. The drama of women’s visibility—both the taboo of display and the problematic, intrusive male gaze—is enacted in the Blasons domestiques in the blason of the bedroom, in which a naked woman can clearly be seen through an opening in her bedroom wall (Corrozet 1539, B6v). The reader’s perspective is placed outside the house, looking in on the unsuspecting woman. Although this particular figure is not straying outside her home, unlike the inept guardian of the birds in “Nature foeminine,’ she is still seen." The reader takes the place of a visitor to the home and glimpses what should be reserved for the husband alone. In this respect, the Blasons domestiques seem to go further than Corrozet’s emblems in their prescriptions, as they imply that limiting women’s movement is not enough to keep them from unwelcome eyes, and that visitors should thus be kept out of the family home. Drawing a parallel between kept/liberated women and kept/liberated birds invites a parallel between the two keepers. The women’s cage is, of course, the family home, a simple enough analogy. Yet in “Nature foeminine;? women are put in the position of both the keepers and the kept. When they are made responsible for the birds, the result is disaster—the birds escape and cannot be contained. Once a woman tastes freedom, either 15.

Eforts to trace the origins of this image have as yet proved fruitless.

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EMBLEMATICA

it will be impossible to contain her or it will be impossible to repair her reputation and, consequently, that of the household. Yet women do have some responsibilities inside the home, as shall be seen below in “Garder les biens de la maison” [Keeping safe the assets of the home] (Corrozet 1544, N7y-N8r). “La statue de Caia Cecilia” and “Nature foeminine” imply that, in order for the household to function as it should, and for women to carry out their duties within the domestic economy successfully, it is essential to limit their freedom. They cannot be independent of the household. The theme of women’s nature and their liberty is further explored in “Complexion de femme” (Corrozet 1544, L4v-L5r). Woman is depicted using Athena's iconography—she holds both an olive branch and a sword (Adams 1997a, Ixviii). The quatrain explains that a woman causes wars but also brings peace: “Puis quand je veulx je fais la paix” [Then when I want, I make peace] (Corrozet 1544, L4v). It is a question of her own will, which she seems to exert on a whim. Her warmongering is described as an effect of her freedom, whereas her peacemaking comes about when she adopts a mindset described as “humain”:

Elizabeth Black

she must need enclosure and guidance in order to temper her destructive instincts.!®

Men at Home

As might be expected, the same restrictions of movement do not apply to men—they are granted the freedom to travel outside of the house. In fact, it is depicted more as a responsibility and necessity in order to increase their wealth and their family’s inheritance. “Garder les biens de la maison” (Corrozet 1544, N7v-N8r) is a comment on domestic economy, that describes the basic division of roles in the household according to gender. Men are expected to go out to acquire possessions and wealth while women should store them and use them judiciously.” Any chance of an existence outside the home belongs to men while women are confined to an interior role. The pictura and the description in the poem of the Danaids suggest that this situation is not quite as simple as it should be. As is well known, the Danaids (daughters of Danaus in Greek mythology) are condemned in the

Elle a esté cause de mainte guerre,

underworld to pour water for all eternity into a cask perforated with holes so that it never fills.” While women should be storing what their husbands

Est aguisé d’une subtilité

18.

Car son esprit conduict par liberté

amass, in reality it disappears as soon as it appears, with the implication that

Mais quand la femme a l'esprit bien humain Elle tient lors toute paix en la main, Sa volunté à sa beaulté accorde. (Corrozet 1544, L5r) [She has been the cause of many wars, because her mind, driven by liberty, is sharpened with a certain subtlety .. .. But when a woman has a truly civil mind, she then holds all peace in her hands, her will accords itself with her beauty.] 7

Ifa woman is left free, then she will wreak all kinds of havoc and destroy a household. Yet her willpower is not a function of her freedom. Rather, her will is bent to peaceful ends specifically when she is not free. Since this lack of liberty trains her toward civility, gentleness, and courtesy, 16. 17.

125

Again, this image has not been found in previous volumes; it is probably original. Cotgrave and the Dictionnaire du moyen français agree that “humain,” in addition to signifying qualities specific to humanity (as opposed to the gods or animals), refers to civility, gentility, and courtesy.

19.

20.

In Les treselegantes sentences, Cicero is quoted as follows on the question of containment, “Entre les choses domestiques se cerche la louange de continence, & entre les publicques se demande la dignité” [In domestic affairs continence is sought, and in public affairs, dignity is required] (Corrozet 1546, H5v), whereas “Socrates disoit que c’estoit continence de fuyr les voluptez du corps” [Socrates used to say that continence was fleeing bodily sensual pleasure] (Corrozet 1546, H6v). The idea of physical containment is complemented by the notion of verbal containment in Corrozet’s La conseil des sept sages de Grece, in which women are said to be able to destroy a household with excessive and indiscreet talking (Corrozet 1548, 111v-12r). Again in Les treselegantes sentences, Corrozet cites a Roman orator named Geminius: “Il est meilleur d’abiter parmy le chemin qu'en la maison avec une feme trop parlante” [It is better to live in the street than in a house with a woman who talks too much] (Corrozet 1546, I8v). In Les treselegantes sentences, Corrozet cites Plato on this point: “Il appartient a la vertu feminine de gouverner droictement la maison, tandis quelle a la garde des choses domestiques, & obeir a son mary” [It becomes feminine virtue to rule the house honestly while she has care of domestic affairs and to obey her husband] (Corrozet 1546, L7v). The accompanying woodcut also has not been found in previous volumes,

allowing the conjecture that it is original for the Hecatomgraphie.

a

126

—

ΡῈ Δ

ra.

eme

me

a τς

EMBLEMATICA

women are wasteful of the family’s fortune. Once again, as in “La statue de Caia Cecilia” and “Nature foeminine the woodcut image shows the opposite of women’s ideal behavior—or maybe, what women are as opposed to what the emblem writer believes they should be. As in “Nature foeminine, women are as bad at keeping things as they are at being kept—this time, the family’s wealth takes the place of the birds in the emblem examined above. Danaus’s daughters were condemned to their fate in the underworld for killing their husbands. While the emblem’s poem makes no mention of their crime, narrating instead the miserable and wasteful nature of their onerous task, anyone with any knowledge of the myth would doubtless hear the foreboding resonances. It is reasonable to expect a larger proportion of Corrozet’s audience to be aware of this mythological tale of familial grief, which would have been more familiar than the figure of Cecilia. Lurking beneath the surface of the almost banal division of domestic labor put forward by the emblem’s text is the distinctly menacing tone of mariticide, the murder of a husband. Wasting the family’s wealth is apparently the equivalent of killing the head of the household, for if there is no inheritance to leave to future generations, how can the family name continue? Both “Nature foeminine” and “Garder les biens de la maison” have woodcuts that magnify the danger of women’s not adhering to certain prescribed behavior and go significantly beyond what is expressed in the emblem’s text. Since women apparently cannot be trusted to manage their side of the domestic bargain, a delicate balance must be struck by men, who should both spend time outside of the house to increase their fortunes and stay home to oversee the running of the household. In “Du gouvernement de maison” [On household management] from the emblems in the Tableau de Cebes, men are encouraged to take little less freedom than the women they

supervise (Corrozet 1543, G8r).2! The paterfamilias is warned that it is only

Elizabeth Black Tout en va mieulx, tout se faict par raison,

Et la famille à bien faire s'adresse. (Corrozet 1543, G8r) [When a good father is present in his home, and governs it with prudence and wisdom, everything goes better, everything is done using

reason, and the household attempts to behave well.]

The “bon pere” can exercise his authority in the home only through his physical presence; he must be there to provide the example from which his family can learn.” It is his prudence and wisdom that leads everything in the household to be accomplished according to reason, as if reason would disappear the minute he stepped out of the door. Corrozet therefore seeks to limit not only women’s movement but also men’s. The use of “raison” here recalls the contrast in “Complexion de femme” (see above, 124), in

which a woman causes war when she acts freely, but if she has “lesprit bien humain’ then she brings about peace, presumably in the presence of her husband, who inspires reasonable action.” This folding inward, directing all members of the family to the interior of the house and limiting the time they spend outside, applies not only to its adult members but also to newborns. The discussion—in the unillustrated emblem “Aux meres” [To mothers] in the emblems in the 7zbleau de Cebes—of sending babies to a wet nurse, instead of mothers themselves taking charge of breastfeeding, again reinforces the tie between the family unit and domestic space in claiming that “bailler aux autres allaicter, / Cest contre droict, contre propre nature” [to leave breastfeeding to others is against the law, and against nature itself] (Corrozet 1543, G8v). The emphasis is 22.

“Famille” can be taken to mean more than simply blood kin and includes all the relations and employees of a household.

23.

This notion is mirrored in Le Conseil des sept sages de Grece, in which Pru-

his presence in the house that can guarantee the stability of his home life: Quand un bon pere assiste en sa maison, Ec la gouverne en prudence & sagesse,

21.

The accompanying woodcut, depicting a horse and a mule, was originally used in an edition of Aesop’s fables (Saunders 1980, 18). Its connection with the text is Aimsy at best; if the horse can represent the household, there is no clear association with the mule. It would seem that this image is too strongly tied to its original context to contribute much to the meaning of this emblem.

127

dence teaches that a happy household is one that lives by reason: “Prudence

aprent a vivre par raison, / La ou elle est, heureuse est la maison” (Corrozet 1548, 110r).

24.

In Les treselegantes sentences, this idea is attributed to the Roman philosopher Favorinus: “Icelle n'est pas vraie mere de son filz qui prend une nourrrice pour luy donner le laict, & luy nie les siens propres tetins. Les deux mamelles ne sont données a la femme pour seul ornement de la poitrine, mais aussi pour nourissement de ses enfans” [She who takes a wet nurse to give her son

milk and deny him her own nipples is not a real mother. The two breasts are not given to women just to decorate the chest, but also to nourish her children] (Corrozet 1546, I7v).

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EMBLEMATICA

placed not only on the action of feeding but also on the distancing effect of sending infants out of the home: “Cest tresgrand honte aux dames de gecter / Hors d'avec soy leur propre geniture” [It is highly shameful for women to send out their own offspring away from their sides] (Corrozet 1543, G8v).

While “Aux phasized in “Du household—to remain there to

meres” uses the laws of nature to make its point, what is emgouvernement de maison” is the main purpose of a successful amass wealth. If women are confined to the home, and men guarantee its successful functioning, then under the head of

the household’s guidance, “Le bien s‘acroist, l'heritage & richesse” [wealth grows, as do inheritance and riches] (Corrozet 1543, G8r). The household is

compared to a horse that needs tending and feeding by his master: “Le bon cheval se nourrist & s'engresse, / De l'oeil soigneux du maistre qui le pense” [The good horse is nourished and fattened up by the careful eye of the master

who tends it] (Corrozet 1543, G8r). The verb penser, according to Randle

Cotgrave, can signify “to dress, to tend, to look unto” and by extension “have a care for, provide for, furnish with all necessaries.” (Cotgrave, Ooo ii and Mmm v).” According to this final couplet, it is in fact the master’s eye that cares for the horse and causes it to fatten up. Not only is his presence in the house required but his active gaze is what provides for the household’s needs. In Intertextual Masculinity, David LaGuardia has amply argued that the cultural concept of ideal masculinity in early sixteenth-century France is elaborated through representations of the surveillance and control of domestic

space (LaGuardia, 1-13). In Corrozet’s emblem, we also see the figure of the

head of the household using the power of his gaze to ensure correct behavior, in a Foucauldian move that echoes LaGuardias observations. Inherent in the painstaking construction of masculinity through idealized control is a preoccupation with the idea that it is highly likely to fail (LaGuardia, 1-13). Similarly, his woodcuts depicting Cecilia and the Danaids belie the possibility of ever achieving such control, since the inclusion of female bodies demonstrates and perpetuates the constant circulation of the female form on public display. If ideal masculinity can be achieved only by reserving the gaze exclusively for the husband of a household, then the two emblematic works question the very concept, and the notion of controlling the circulation of women’s bodies and images of them seems all but ridiculous. 25.

This usage is confirmed by the Dictionnaire du moyen français, in the article “penser IV.A”: “S'occuper de quelqu'un ou de quelque chose,” alternative spelling for panser.

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The Secretive House

It is not merely possessions and bodies that should tend inward and find their limits at the boundaries of the family home. A series of emblems treats the subject of secrecy and ties the concept of containment of ideas and words to containment in physical space. This mental and oral interiority reinforces the physical interiority outlined in the emblems above. Women’s bodies, no less chan a man’s business affairs, are secrets to be contained within the household. In “Secret est a louer” [Secrecy is to be praised] from the Hecatomgraphie (Corrozet 1544, D3v-D4r), the commonplace of the snail, attributed to Erasmus (Adams 1997a, liii), is employed to symbolize the home.” The

snail’s shell not only protects on a physical level but also comes to represent a mans mental realm, as outlined in the emblem’s quatrain: Ainsi que le Lymas se tient En sa coquille en grand secret, Tout ainsi l’homme se maintient, Clos & couvert comme discret. (Corrozet 1544, D3v) [In the same way that the snail keeps himself inside his shell in great

secrecy, so does man keep himself shut away and hidden to be discreet.]

The secrecy judged necessary for a man’s thoughts is tied to space—specifically to the snail’s domestic space. In fact, as the accompanying long poem explains, an enclosed space is described as the precondition that allows for secrecy, The snail can hide his disposition thanks to his shell: “Nul n'appercoit ne congnoist ton dispos, / Car ta maison te sert bien de defense” [Nobody sees or knows your disposition because your house serves well as your defense] (Corrozet 1544, D4r). Without either discretion or

the physical barrier that allows for it, the snail would be unable to achieve “repos” [rest or peace]. The snail’s home must therefore be the locus of secrecy. In the same way, a man should avoid revealing his thoughts, as to show them would be disadvantageous for his personal interests. But a lingering doubt or underlying fear clouds the view here. Secrecy is not simply to be praised. Louer has two meanings: to praise and to rent. Secrecy is also for hire. A household’s secrets can be bought, and this emblem seems to 26.

While the woodcut can probably be presumed original as it has not been found in previous volumes, its value is purely illustrative, not dialogic.

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EMBLEMATICA

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131

warn its reader of the possibility of endangering the household’s interests through a lack of discretion. The snail makes a reappearance in the emblem titled “L’ymage de Nemesis déesse de juste vengence” | The image of Nemesis, goddess of rightful vengeance] from the Hecatomgraphie (Corrozet 1544, F4v), in which

Nemesis is depicted with her traditional bridle but also with her foot resting on a snail. The snail signifies the slowness of vengeance but also the way in which it hides in the heart secretly.” While this emblem shares the image of the snail and the theme of secrecy with the Corrozet emblem mentioned above, its depiction of a mythological female figure resting one foot on an animal in a shell finds its iconographic partners in a series of emblems by Alciato, La Perrière, and others, in which Venus has underfoot a tortoise, an image representing marriage. The tortoise in these instances symbolizes the house, where women should remain, underscoring their domesticity and the secrecy and discretion that should govern their role inside the home (Schwartz 1986, 247-50). Discretion in the snail’s shell can therefore be linked to a woman’s place in the home, with the female body becoming one of the house’s secrets. Few emblems depict a house, even when the subject is the home or a household. In complementary fashion, “Contre les brocardeurs” [Against those who mock] in the Hecatomgraphie links the notion of discretion with

a visual representation of a house (Corrozet 1544, B3v-B4r). The pictura shows a swallow sitting atop a house (fig. 3).2* The swallow denotes someone who talks too much, an analogy borrowed from Aesop and also employed by Alciato for the same purpose (Adams 1997a, xlviii). The bird dominates the quatrain, but it is mentioned only briefly in the longer poem. In the pictura, although the swallow is present, it is minuscule, with the house dominating the right-hand side of the woodcut. The rather small detail of the bird takes up less than one-eighth of the height of the woodcut. At a casual glance, it appears that the male figure shown holding a stone as if 27.

28.

Although

this image had been previously used in Gratien

Du

Petite fafcheufé Arondelle, Auez vous affez caqueté:

Gaignez au pied tirez de l’ælle, Fuyez vousen d’aulrre cofté.

Ponts

Controverses des sexes in 1539 (see Saunders 1980, 15 and Rawles, 50), it is well chosen for this emblem, as it underpins the symbolic elements of the figure of Nemesis and creates links with other emblems across multiple works.

This woodcut is not to be found in previous volumes, even though the emblem shares themes with Aesop. It adds an alternative perspective to the text by shifting focus from the bird to the house.

Fig. 3. Gilles Corrozet, Hecatomgraphie (Paris, 1540), fol. B3v, “Contre les brocardeurs.” (By

permission of Glasgow University Library, Special Collections.)

AR

132

rm

D

op

EMBLEMATICA

Elizabeth Black

to throw it may be aiming at the house rather than at the bird, which might not be noticed. Is the pictura implying that indiscretion could lead to damage being done to a family home or a household? Such a conclusion is stated in La conseil des sept sages de Grece, in which Corrozet states that a man must not reveal his secrets to his wife. Women not only are as flighty as birds (see above, 121, the discussion of “Nature foeminine”) but their chatter will destroy a household. The theme of dam-

NICSTOE

age to the house is confirmed in “Contre les flateurs” [Against flatterers]

in the Hecatomgraphie (Corrozet 1544, D6v-D7r), in which an analogy is made between flatterers and snakes. Allowing a flatterer into one’s home is analogous to a snake’s entering a sleeping crocodile’s open mouth. The result is catastrophic for the crocodile—the snake exits its body by piercing through the stomach, presumably resulting in the poor lizard’s death.” Flatterers are dangerous to a household and will cause utter devastation and ruin. While the theme of flattery and its dangers to princes is a common trope in many types of texts, Corrozet broadens the scope of the message to warn anyone at the head of a family:

133

ZIN

Pource Princes & gros seigneurs,

Et vous gouverneurs de famille,

Gardez vous de ces blasonneurs. (Corrozet 1544, D7r) [For this reason, princes and great lords, and you, governors of families, beware of those who praise. ]

All households, of any class, are seemingly at risk. The crocodile’s scaly exterior does little to protect it if it is asleep, and a house’s walls can protect the family only so far. Flatterers wheedle their way in when a house’s defenses are down—critically, through an open mouth. Is this another warning against telling secrets and talking too much? The house can physically restrain bodies inside its walls and behind its doors, but a household's ability to contain its secrets is dependent on the discretion of its members. The theme of secrecy, trust, and retention is outlined in “Preuve de nouvelle amytié” [Proof of new friendship] in

te pleine

=

lereiecte le furperflus

pl me fuffit,& n'en veulx plus.

the Hecatomgraphie (Corrozet 1544, 12ν-- 131), in which a new friend is 29.

“Jamais home qui est saige & discret, / Ne revelle a femme son secret” [A

man who is wise and discreet never reveals his secret to his wife] (Corrozet

1548, 111v).

30.

An image not found in prior volumes or used in later works.

“τὰς We. : Η MN i ae Tr A Fig. 4. Gilles Corrozet, Hecatomgraphie (Paris, 1540), fol. Sv, “Suffisance. (By permission

of Glasgow University Library, Special Collections.)

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EMBLEMATICA

compared to a vessel that must be tested with water before being entrusted with valuable wine. Before confiding in a new friend with precious secrets, one should test him with some inconsequential information to see if he is trustworthy. The longer accompanying poem, explaining that the jug must be shown to be neither pierced nor holed (“percé ne troué”), invites ἃ comparison with the emblem featuring the Danaids, whose pictura shows just such a pierced vessel leaking water onto the floor’! A family’s secrets are as precious as its wealth; the visual parallel between the two emblems suggests that the keeping of the former determines the safeguarding of the latter. Added to secrets and wealth (surrogates for words and property, as we have seen), as elements to be contained within the house, is also imagina-

tion. The emblem “Suffisance” [Sufficiency] from the Hecatomgraphie

(Corrozet 1544, 15v-I6r) constructs a clear bridge between a man’s imagi-

nation and his home’s physical limits. The pictura and quatrain present a fountain that can hold only a limited amount of water and lets any excess overflow, in contrast to those who are never satisfied and who constantly desire more wealth (fig. 4). The accompanying long poem berates those who covet more than their current dwelling and possessions: Combien qu’il soit en maison si estroicte, Loppinion qu’il à n'est pas bien droicte, Puis qu’il pretend les superfluytez,

Pour mieulx complaire aux s'ensualitez. (Corrozet 1544, I6r)

[Even though he is enclosed in such a small house, the opinion he has

is not aligned, since he aspires to what is superfluous to better sate his sensuality. ]

The house has physical boundaries limiting the scope of its owner’s property, and yet this space cannot arrest the covetous man’s desires at its walls. Furthermore, the fountain base is reminiscent of a woman’s legs, adding an

extra dimension to the use of the word “sensualitez.” A man’s physical desire, as well as his material longings, must begin and end at his home—with his wife and his property. Balance has been identified by Adams as one of the recurrent themes of Corrozet’s work, as well as accepting one’s place in the world (Adams 2002, 600). Excessive desire is harmful while not know31.

This woodcut neither has been found in earlier works nor has been reused.

32.

Like the previous one, this woodcut neither has been found in earlier works nor has been reused.

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135

ing one’s place both physically and in terms of social class is portrayed as a type of sensual lust. The desire for bodies maps to a desire for material goods and a quest for social advancement, the three seemingly inseparable in this saturated text. Conclusion

The network of images and texts across the Hecatomgraphie and the emblems in the Tableau de Cebes ties together secrecy, the circulation of the female body, domestic economy, and the physical space of the home. While wealth can be amassed and retained only if secrets can be kept, the desire for wealth is equated with the desire for female bodies. Likewise, the body, for the preservation of the family unit, must be treated as a secret to be jealously guarded. Although wealth is essential for the household, the drive to amass excessive wealth is a vice equated with physical lust. For a father figure not to stray on either count, he must limit his thoughts, words, and movements to the house. The female members of his family must do the same in order not to attract illicit lust from other men or fall prey to their feminine nature. Containment and a focusing inward to the space of the house are two of the main moral lessons of Corrozet’s text in both works, and these lessons echo the sentiments earlier expressed in the Blasons domestiques. Corrozet’s textual ideal seems to propose the house as a space that is separable from the outside world, but in reality, a merchant’s home may also be his place of work. The architectural treatises written and published in France in the sixteenth century all discuss the inclusion of secret space within homes. In De Artificiali Perspectiva, Viator (pseudonym for Jean Pélerin) shows how little privacy a well-furnished bedroom in the early sixteenth century would provide, since it contained multiple beds and several pieces of furniture for congregating such as chairs and tables (Viator, B3r).

For Leon Battista Alberti, who proposed building models for upper- and

middle-class houses, and whose treatise was the most influential in France and across Europe, space is to be set aside in the home both for the master

of the house to tend to his secret affairs and for guests who need space to themselves.” Both Sebastiano Serlio and Philibert de Orme, building for 33.

Alberti provides for the head of a household to have his own secret doorway (Alberti, 77v) and asserts that the doors and windows of a house should not allow neighbors to see and overhear everything that occurs in a house

(Alberti, 77v), that women should have their own places to retire to in order

aoe

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royal and aristocratic figures in sixteenth-century France, follow Alberti’s practice of factoring in separate spaces for important family members.» In addition, Alberti’s ideal configuration of a house is one in which movements of servants and visitors can be observed at all times by the paterfamilias (Alberti, 77r). Moreover, Alberti debates women’s places within the house, allowing them some access to spaces where visitors might congregate, but nonetheless limiting their movements and the contact they might have with the outside world (Alberti, 97r). Corrozet’s statements about “l’oeil

soigneux du maistre” leading to the safekeeping of the household’s wealth, and the separation of women from the outside world, find themselves encoded in the new sixteenth-century science of building. Even though seeing others and being seen is a way of life in court and noble settings, across all classes, the trend is to allow individuals time and space on their own (Duby and Ariés; Ariés), to confine women to the house so that contact between

them and the outside world is limited, and to configure home space to allow for such possibilities. No textual ideal can ever be fully established, however, and as with the model of masculinity proposed by LaGuardia, the gap between ideal behavior and reality can never be closed. The tension between ideal and reality is reflected in the semiotic dissonance between text and image that can be observed in Corrozet’s emblems and his collection of blasons, and even

across and between all three works. The Hecatomgraphie’s exhortation to moderation when imagining riches takes an ironic turn in the light of the to preserve their chastity (Alberti, 97r), that the head of the household and his wife should have their own apartments that are set apart from the rest of the house (Alberti, 77v), that there should be a passageway between their apartments that only they—not even their servants—can access (Alberti, 97v), and that guests should have their own cabinet for privacy (Alberti, 97v). These features should not be limited to rich households, but should be

34.

-

imitated by households of middling means (Alberti, 99v). Serlio tends to limit the provision of secret space to royalty or the head of a household, such as when a king might need to access his stables without anyone else’s knowledge (Serlio, 152), whereas country peasants might have a more open plan arrangement in order to better defend a house when attacked (Serlio, 6). De ’Orme recounts only building for royal households

Elizabeth Black

Blasons domestiques, a collection dedicated entirely to imagining the possibilities of filling each room in a well-to-do merchant's house with every conceivable object, from brooms to furniture to precious jewels. Rooms are saturated with material goods, in what Cynthia Skenazi argues demonstrates a fast-growing consumer confidence among the expanding merchant classes (Skenazi, 150-57). It is difficult to take seriously the moral lesson of “Suffisance” if one is aware of the existence of the Blasons domestiques, in which the author does precisely what his reading public is instructed not to do. Furthermore, the analogy between the accumulation of material wealth and sexual desire, as hinted in “Suffisance” has also been proposed by Chantal Liaroutzos with regard to the Blasons domestiques. Liaroutzos reads Corrozet’s blazoned house as an extended metaphor, with the path toward the inner sanctum of the house a substitute for Corrozet’s real objective—a suggestive depiction of the female body (Liaroutzos, 50-53). Ironically, in Les treselegantes sentences, it is women’s problematic sexual appetite that is tied to the home by Martial’s statement that, the more strictly women are kept, the more they harbor lust.** Even without the house/body analogy, the texts in which Corrozet takes a clear moral stance suffer ideologically by the addition of images depicting nude women. The Caia Cecilia pictura and the woodcut for “Nature foeminine” are joined by the last image in the Blasons domestiques, which depicts Zeuxis and four nude models posing for his painting of Helen of Troy. While the text of “Contre les blasonneurs des membres” [Against those who write blasons about the parts of the body] (Corrozet 1539, E6rFlr) takes an excoriating tone against the depiction of the female form, the

presence of so many nude female figures works against the poem's stated premise. Moreover, if the aim of the volume is to incite blasonneurs not to write licentious verse and instead to adopt different subject matter, then Corrozet’s inclusion of a blason of the female body, embedded within the

blazon of the mirror (Corrozet 1539, DSr-D5v), may introduce a note of

doubt in the reader.* 35.

and will go to great lengths to incorporate private space for a prince even

when the configuration of a building’s walls seem not to allow for it (De

l'Orme, 88r). He sees it as his duty to provide secrecy to those who require it (De l’Orme, 90v).

137

36.

“D/autant que la femme est tenue plus estroictement, de tant plus est elle couvoiteuse de luxure” [The more strictly a woman is held, the more lusty she becomes] (Corrozet 1546, K2r). Corrozet’s protest against the blasonneurs goes the way of La Hueterie’s, as remarks Saunders: “François Sagon was indeed correct when he expressed

138

Across the emblems examined above, it is only the mirror blazon text chat contradicts the others in ἃ meaningful way. There is generally a consistency of message, guiding all family members’ attention inward to domestic space. Yet the destabilizing effect of images that so clearly contradict the written word introduces the possibility of alternative interpretive stances for the reader. Whatever Corrozet’s intention, so clearly stated in his prefaces and poems, the very nature of emblem production means that he cannot retain full control over the work. That the messages of the texts sit alongside occasionally obfuscatory and provocative images suggests the impossibility of absolutes, the unbridgeable gap between theory and practice. Flexibility of interpretation is built into the very fabric of these texts, with varying degrees of semiotic dissonance found within the emblems themselves. However much Corrozet imagines his ideal configuration of domestic space and the strict code of behavior that it is intended to enforce, the unpredictability of others and their unwillingness to conform to his model will tend to undermine his position. Works Cited

139

Corrozet, Gilles. Les Blasons domestiques. Paris, 1539.

. L'Hecatongraphie (1544) et les Emblemes du tableau de Cebes (1543). Intro. Alison Adams. 1544 and 1543. Rpt. Geneva, 1997.

___. Les treselegantes sentences et belles authoritez de plusieurs sages Princes, Rois, & Philisophes, Grecz & Latins. Paris, 1546.

___. Le conseil des sept sages de Grece. Paris, 1548. Cotgrave, Randle. A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues. 1611; rpt. New York, 1970.

De l'Orme, Philibert. Le Premier Tome de l'Architecture. Paris, 1567. Also available online through Architectura at http://architectura.cesr univ-tours.fr/Traite/Images/Les1653Index.asp. Dictionnaire du moyen français. Vers. 2010. Available at hetp://wwwaatilf fr/dmf. Duby, Georges and Philippe Ariès, eds. A History of Private Life, Volume II: Revelations of the Medieval World. Trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge (MA), 1988.

Adams, Alison. “Textual Development in Corrozet’s Hecatomgraphie.’ Em-

blematica 8 (1994): 43-59.

_.

Elizabeth Black

EMBLEMATICA

“Introduction.” In Corrozet 1997, pp. ix-Ixvii. [1997a]

Dupont, Gratien. Les Controverses des sexes Masculin & Femenin. n.p., 1539. Graham, David. “Born Under a Bad Sign’: Semiotics of Gender in French

Emblem Books.” In Transmigrations: Essays in Honour of Ali-

“The Transformation of Classical Motifs in Corrozet’s Hecatongra-

son Adams and Stephen Rawles, ed. Laurence Grove and Alison Saunders, assisted by Luis Gomes. Glasgow Emblem Studies 14. Glasgow, 2011. Pp. 63-82.

Alberti, Leon Battista. LArchitecture et art de bien bastir. Trans. Jean Mar-

La Curne de Sainte-Palaye. Le Dictionnaire historique de l'ancien langage français. In LAtelier de la langue française. CD-ROM. Vers. 1.5.

___. “Notes.” In Corrozet 1997, pp. Ixvii-Ixxxiv. [1997b] __

phie. Studi francesi 46:3 (2002): 597-605. tin. Paris,

1553. Also online through Architectura at http://ar-

chitectura.cesr.uniy-tours.fr/Traite/Images/CESR_478 1 Index asp. Ariés, Philippe. Centuries of Childhood. Trans. Robert Baldick. London, 1962.

Bergal, Irene. “Discursive Strategies in Early French Emblem Books.” Emblematica 2 (1987): 273-91. doubts as to whether La Hueterie’s contreblasons could shake the popularity of the blasons. Like Prokofiev's wolf, the blasons simply swallowed them— whole” (Saunders 1981, 157).

Paris, 2007.

LaGuardia, David. Intertextual Masculinity in French Renaissance Literature. Aldershot, 2008. Liaroutzos, Chantal. “De pièces et de morceaux: Les Blasons domestiques de Gilles Corrozet” Littérature 78 (1990): 46-53.

Rawles, Stephen. “Corrozet’s Hecatomgraphie: Where Did the Woodcuts Come from and Where Did They Go?” Emblematica 3

(1998): 31-64.

140

EMBLEMATICA

Russell, Daniel 5. “The Emblem and Authority” Word and Image 4 (1988): 81-87. . Emblematic

1995,

Structures

Saunders, Alison. “Emblem

in Renaissance

Books

French

Culture.

for a Popular Audience?

rozets Hecatomgraphie and Emblemes” French Studies 17:1 (1980): 5-29.

Toronto,

Gilles Cor-

Australian Journal of

. The Sixteenth-Century Blason Poétique. Bern, 1981. . The Sixteenth-Century Emblem

Book. A Decorative and

“Redimentes tempus”:

Eschatological Perspective in Andreas Friedrich’s Emblemes nouveaux (1617)

Useful

Genre. Travaux d’humanisme et Renaissance 224. Geneva, 1988.

PIERRE MARTIN

Schwartz, Jerome. “Some Emblematic Marriage Topoi in the French Re-

University of Poitiers

naissance.” Emblematica 1 (1986): 245-65.

. “Emblematic Theory and Practice: The Case of the Sixteenth-Century French Emblem Book.” Emblematica 2 (1987): 293-315.

The moral and spiritual discourse of the Emblemes nouveaux [New Emblems] emphasizes the urgency of opening one’s heart to Christ and accepting faith and concludes with the confident expression of the author's certainty of the imminence of the Last Judgment. This eschatological perspective is signaled in the title of the German edi-

Serlio, Sebastiano. On Architecture. Trans. Vaughan Hart and Peter Hicks. 2 vols. New Haven, 2001.

Skenazi, Cynthia. Le poëte architecte en France: constructions d'un imaginaire monarchique. Paris, 2003.

tion by a quotation from Ephesians 5:16, which the Vulgate renders

Viator (pseud). De Artificiliali Perspectiva. Toul, 1509. Also available on-

as “Redimentes tempus” [buying back time]. To “buy back time” is

line through Architectura at http://architectura.cesr.uniy-tours

less to store up good works than to be able to seize the opportunity to

ft/Traite/Notice/ENSBA_LES1 433.asp?param=.

convert: the notion of time blends here with that found in the Occasio

[opportunity] allegory, to which Andreas Friedrich refers, not without proposing for it, by way of conclusion, a surprising and strictly Lutheran reinterpretation.

I

n 1617, Andreas Friedrich’s Emblemes nouveaux were published in Frankfurt, first in German, then in French by the publisher Lucas Jennis, with the financial backing of Jakob de Zetter.! The German text offers a dedicatory epistle dated 22 February by Jakob de Zetter. The full title is Emblemata nova, daf ist: New Bilder Buch. Darinnen durch 1.

A 1644 edition is mentioned in bibliographies. I know only one copy—in

the Wolfenbiittel Library—which actually seems to be a 1617 item: the

publishing date near the title and under the preliminary epistle has been covered with a small piece of paper dated 1644.

141 Emblematica, Volume 20. Copyright © 2013 by AMS Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

142

EMBLEMATICA

Pierre Martin

sonderliche Figuren der jetzigen Welt Lauff und Wesen verdeckter Weise abgemahlet / und mit zugehôrigen Reymen erkläret wirt : Den Ehrlichenden und Frommen zu mehrer Anreizung der Gottseligheit und Tugend : Den Bésen aber und Ruchlosen zu trewer Lehr und Warnung Mit sondern Fleif gestellt / Durch Den Wolgelehrten Andreas Friedrichen. The 88 metal engravings appear on the right-hand pages, printed on the recto between a title and a quatrain in accordance with the structure today’s literary critics consider as canonical for emblems, namely, that of the emblema triplex. On the opposite page, we can see, under a typographical band with geometrical

of emblems, with exactly the same engravings as that of Friedrich, one is again printed by Jennis and is titled Viridarium hieroglyphico-morale, in quo virtutes et vitia atque mores hujus aevi, secundum tres ordines hierarchicos, explicantur ....* It displays the same emblematic layout, with the exception that the comment on the opposite page is in prose, with an abundance of marginalia that makes quotations and learned references more numerous, and uses a typically humanist apparatus such as we find in Camerarius or Schoonhovius. These marginal notes immediately highlight the importance given in this new text to authors from patristic and pagan antiquity. With the new symbolic function he gives them, Oraeus’s emblems bear no relation to Friedrich’s very Lutheran meditations.° The National Library of France has a Catalogus omnium librorum qui prodierunt impensis Jacobi de Zetter, Bibliopolae Hamburgensis : Et in off-

ornaments, a comment in verses of variable length called “Erklärung” [explanation], which indicates in Roman numbers the rank of the emblem in

the corpus. Both pages bear the appropriate title “New Bilderbuch” from the two Latin words translated in the main title. There is a more simple ornamental band on the French text and the title repeats the first words of the new title Emblemes nouveaux : esquels le cours de ce monde est depeint et representé par certaines Figures, desquelles le sens est expliqué par rimes : dressés

Pour plus grande incitation au gens de biens et honorables, densuivre la pieté et vertu, et Pour sincere instruction et advertissement aux meschans et dissolus

de fuir le vice. Premierement en Allemand par André Frideric, et maintenant en François, pour le bien de la jeunesse, et du simple peuple. Mis en lumiere par Jaques de Zettre.* The arrangement of the emblems and explanatory poems mentioned as “Déclaration” is different: left page for the emblems and right page for the explanatory poems (see figs. 4 and 4a, below). A new dedicatory epistle dedicated to other persons is dated 6 September 1617.

cina eiusdem Hamburgi, ad Templum S. Nicolai, nec non Meno-Francofurti,

apud Lucam Jennisium, venales habentur. This catalog, dated 1627, clearly shows how De Zetter tried to get the greatest possible return from his investment by drawing attention to the number of books he published and sold, whether at his own premises in Hamburg or with Lucas Jennis in Frankfurt as middleman. ‘The titles in this catalog are grouped under headings: for example, three different versions—in Latin, French, and German—of a book against the Pope by H. Oraeus, under the pen name Erycus Rhonaeus: Idea reformandi Antichristi. Its first sentence is a quotation from Luther, “Impleat vos Deus amore Christi, et odio Papae” [let God fill you with the love of Christ, and hatred of the Pope], which lays out the principles of the Lutheran dogma. Before this edition, dedicated to the powers that be in the

In this epistle to his maternal uncles Jaques and Jean de Bari, De Zetter

points out the expenses he had to meet to publish the dual edition: engraving, publishing, and translating costs. Such an appeal to family members, themselves primarily traders and investors, was probably not entirely disinterested. De Zetter may also be seeking to assert his prerogatives in this publishing venture while simultaneously defining his role: as the initial investor, he is the owner of the 88 engravings. This is what enables him to reuse them with a quite different Latin text by another author: a Lutheran minister and teacher whose pen name is Henricus Oraeus.’ This new book 2.

I will not use the French spelling for Friedrich (“Frideric”) and De Zetter (“De Zettre”) when mentioning the French edition.

3.

In 1623 Johannes Conrad

Unckelius—who

in 1619 had published the

polyglot edition of Georgette de Montenay’s emblems—published a book

143

Low Countries and the Prince of Orange, an undedicated one in German was published under the name Johannes Hyperii in 1620. The pen name Erycus (Ericus) Rhonaeus is the anagram of Henricus Oraeus (cf Placcius). 4.

Brunet is mistaken when he writes: “On a lieu de croire que les mémes planches se retrouvent encore dans l'ouvrage suivant [There is reason to

believe that the same plates are once again to be found in the following

work]: Philosophia practica, varias inclinationes, animorum affectus, atque adeo diversissima humanarum actionum studia artificiosis figuris, et apposite

dictis exprimens, lat. german. et gallice. Francof., apud Jac. de Zetter, 1644, in-4 obl., avec 97 pl.” (Brunet, 2:331). This reprint of a trilingual edition

of 1624 dedicated to Antonius Mauclerc, citizen of Frankfurt, the French title of which reads Philosophie operatrice .. . , offers a quite different series

of emblems which De Zetter had already used in 1620, adding comments by Oraeus under the title Æroplastes Theo-Sophicus, sive Eicones mysticae.

5.

See, for example, the way emblem 17 is newly interpreted by Spica (104).

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Pierre Martin

by Jean Daniel Mylius, an in-folio probably requiring an important investment, can be found under three different headings. In the same way, the engravings of immediate interest to us—in the three successive ways they were used—appear in separate sections: the Viridarium Hieroglyphicum morale by Oraeus is listed in “Historici et politici”; Emblemes nouveaux: esquels le cours de ce monde est dépeint et representé par certaines figures... appears in “Libri Gallici”; finally, under “Teutsche Historische und Politische Biicher,’ we find the Friedrich volume again, but this time with the author’s name written out in capital letters as it appears in the title: ANDREAE FRIDERICI Emblemata nova, daf ist : New Bilder Buch. ... The notion of authorship exists, for the textual portion at least, and is formally recognized through the explicit mention of the author’s name in the title; nonetheless, the notion of intellectual property has been eclipsed by questions of money, and so the status of the person responsible for the visual portion remains problematic. The reprinting of a series of engravings in a new book whose only common link with the original is that it belongs to the emblematic genre raises the very complex problem of what Alison Adams has called “le comité emblématique," at the heart of which lies the question of the status of visual images. In the nineteenth century, Andreas Friedrich was commonly considered a Leipzig painter, born sometime near 1560, who had left a few authenticated traces of activity, though absolutely not in the field of engravings. Arising from the confusion of two homonyms, maintained by G. W. Geyser (36), G. Wustmann (58), and C. Gurlitt (153, 391, 417), and still to be found in the pages of the Saur-Allgemeines Kiinstlerlexikon,’ this version of Andreas Friedrich probably has its origin in a Latin epigram signed by

Emblemes nouveaux and in the very noticeable positive image of the magistrate found therein, are thus too lightly dismissed. The commendation of the magistrate reaches a climax in emblem 34, which displays an anthropomorphic sun whose four cross-like arms symbolize impartial justice. Placed in the very center of the image, it stands as an intermediary between the earth in the lower part and a radiant sun in the upper part, “le Soleil dequité”

one Andreas Martersteck, who styles himself “Gothanus” [from Gotha], an

epigram found among the liminary texts in Friedrich’s book. This critical discourse dates the Leipzig artist’s death to 1617. The argument is based on the printing date of the book of emblems considered as his last recognized activity and on the reprint of the engravings two years later under another name, a fact taken to prove that the true author had disappeared. The many references to the world of justice, both in the text and engravings in the 6.

7.

See Adams, 10; as she reminds us, it was Daniel Russell who first used the word

committee in this way. This article simply repeats Kurzwelly.

145

[the Sun of equity}. This biblical expression we find in the “Déclaration” is

considered in patristic sources to be a prefiguration of Christ as a judge. It is immediately apparent that the link between a magistrate and God mirrors the link between the small sun and the radiant sun at the top. Under cover of prosopopeia, the “Déclaration” appears as the social commitment of Andreas Friedrich in person: Quant 4 moy je feray 4 chascun assistance De fait, et de conseil, Dieu me donnant constance. Tout bon Jurisconsulte en son affaire est tel. [As for myself, I will give assistance to everyone

In deed and word, should God give me the constancy. Every good jurist is similar in his own sphere. ]

Many clues lead us to think that Friedrich is not the Leipzig artist that the nineteenth century thought he was, but it is still likely that, to some extent, he was in charge of the iconographic program that De Zetter would cause to be realized by someone else. While it is obvious that Oraeus was entrusted with existing engravings and the freedom to let his moralizing verve run loose, it is no less clear that the emblems in the 1617 edition were conceived before the images were engraved. Andreas Friedrich constructed the emblems and provided commentaries, whether he was able to visualize the images very clearly in his own mind, whether he was working with rough sketches as a basis for his work, or whether he himself produced drawings from which a more expert engraver would work. This we can see clearly in emblem 36, “Ne vois tu pas comment l'Orgueil tousjours tout gaste?” [Do you not see how pride always spoils everything?]. The text, referring to the image from the viewer's perspective, draws the reader's attention to the most important detail, which is located “à main droite” [on the

right]. This detail is a Bible, which the allegory of one of the three corporate bodies of society, the “Wehrstand” or civil authority, must have in hand according to the Lutheran vision of society. This detail is worth emphasizing,

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Pierre Martin

for here it is not the attribute of the “Wehrstand” but of the “Lehrstand” [ecclesiastical authority], and the purpose of the emblem is to denounce a society whose depravity results from the confusion of these spheres. The expression “a main droite” points, not to the allegorical figure, but to the body of the writer himself, who has in mind a mental image or a rough draft of the scene on which he is commenting. The reader can plainly see that the picture does not show “a main droite” the detail mentioned in the poem because the engraver has chosen to favor Pride over the other allegories, which are thus reduced to their own characterizing attributes. This divorce between a written explanation supposedly based on the details of a picture and the picture the reader is in fact given to see clearly shows that, after the text was written, several craftsmen intervened between the designing of the draft by Friedrich and the engraving of the images. Whether the draftsman and the engraver were the same person or not, the artist whose job was to polish the rough drafts—and who left no name or monogram—had a relatively free hand. We may propose that he was not a Lutheran but a Calvinist, since we find three depictions of the Tables of the Law, and three occurrences of the Roman numbers that identify the Ten Commandments, whose distribution is in accordance with Calvin’s prescriptions, with four

commandments in the first Table and six in the second.* In his catalog of emblem books in German, like Mario Praz before him, John Landwehr attributes the 88 engravings to Jakob de Zetter.’ This is not compatible with the liminary epistle of the 1617 French text, which calls attention to “les despens” [the expenses] underwritten by De Zetter “pour l’impression . . . en Allemand et graveure des figures” [for the printing... in German and engraving of the figures]. Landwehr draws a link between the style of the engravings in Friedrich’s emblem book and those of Joannes Flitner’s Nebulo nebulorum published by De Zetter soon after 1617, This article will not report in detail the results of my close comparison between the two documents, but that comparison invalidates Landwehr’s proposition, though it does show a similarity

of themes and treatment. My analysis leads to the conclusion that both 8. 9.

For Luther, who follows the Augustinian schema, there are seven Commandements qui se rapportent au prochain” [commandments related to one’s neighbor]. The notes about Oraeuss Viridarium attribute the 88 plates to De Zetter, an “

.

Φ

assertion still to be found in Both and Stronks (80).

|

147

series of engravings very likely come from the same printing house, but from different hands, and that the quality of workmanship in the 1617 edition is notably better than that of the extremely clumsy 1620 issue. Unless we posit a strange regression in the space of three years, we must agree that we are here dealing with two different artists who are closely related by their training or by the documentation with which they are dealing. De Bry’s workshop naturally comes to mind, all the more because comparisons are possible between some details in Friedrich’s emblems and the images in Michel Maier’s Atalanta fugiens (1618), which are generally attributed to Johan Theodor de Bry," particularly the drawing of a world with a head and four limbs, a sketchy male figure in emblem 68 of the Emblemes nouveaux and female in the first image of Atalanta fugiens. Jakob de Zetter and Lucas Jennis are linked on several counts to the De

Bry family then settled in Frankfurt. Jakob de Zetter’s father, also named

Jakob, was himself an engraver and publisher.

A Calvinist, he fled from

the Spanish Low Countries to take refuge in Frankfurt. He was said to come from Tournai, where his name was spelled De Sutra, which explains the various spelling of his son’s name as his publications succeeded one another.'! He married Jeanne de Bary at Hanau in 1581. She, too, came from a Calvinist family that had fled Tournai. Their two sons, Jakob and Paul, were introduced to engraving, and young Jakob worked with Johan

Theodor de Bry.” Jakob senior died the year before the Emblemes nouveaux were published. Lucas Jennis also belonged to a family of Calvinist immigrants. His father, a goldsmith and engraver, had left Brussels with his wife to settle in Frankfurt, where he died in 1606. His mother remarried Johan

Israel de Bry, who taught engraving to his stepson. When Johan Israel died in 1609, Lucas Jennis followed Johan Theodor de Bry, his stepuncle, to Oppenheim, and had business dealings with Moretus in Antwerp. When Friedrich’s production was entrusted to him, he was 27 and had been the owner of his publishing business for one year. De Zetter, Jennis, De Bry: 10.

The title of Atalanta fugiens, printed at Oppenheim at the expense of Johan Theodor de Bry in 1618, introduces the book as a selection of alchemical emblems under the title Emblemata nova, just as Friedrich’s was.

11.

We find De Zeter, Zetter, Zettre, Zettra, and Zetra.

12.

The names of Johannes de Bry, Iacobus de Zettra, and Johannes Galle

appear together at the bottom of the cartouche bearing the title of a book by Gotthard Artus, Electio et coronatio ... Matthiae.

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EMBLEMATICA

three Calvinist families in a Lutheran country, possessing capital that they had to make profitable. But why should they publish a book of Lutheran emblems in French? What readership could these businessmen rely on? Two rare copies preserved in library collections show, in the oval cartouche intended to contain the address under the larger title cartouche, the name of a retailer in France, which covers the initial indication: one of them reads “Imprimé à Francfort. Et se vendent à Paris chez Abraham Pacard rue Sct Jaques à l’Estoille d'Or. A[nno] 1617” [Printed in Frankfurt, and sold in Paris at the shop of Abraham Pacard, in St. James Str. at the Golden Star. 1617], and the other, of uncertain date, “Se vendent chez B. Vincent.

A Lyon. 1608” [Sold by B. Vincent. Lyons. 1608] (Adams, Rawles, and

Saunders, 1:497-98). But De Zetter would hardly rely on Lutheran readers in France, whether in Paris or in Lyons. There is no mention of any Lutheran community in Paris prior to the Thirty Years’ War. It is well after 1618 that workers, craftsmen, begin migrating, and they are in sufficient number to form a community only after 1626, when they are granted asylum by the embassies of Sweden and Denmark, which give them access to their temple for worship (see Driancourt-Girot). The Lyons Lutheran community is probably older, but it was very small and most of its members were in the printing business. Lutheran communities in large towns were simply too small to permit the conclusion that the two booksellers—Abraham Pacard and Barthélemy Vincent—were solely responsible for distribution of the book in the provinces. This leads us to reconsider the question of the potential readership, especially in Germany. Even if some rare copies may lead us to think that the publisher had in mind the French market (Saunders, 4),we must not forget that most of the copies in French published in 1617 that survive today bear the address of Jennis and De Zetter in Frankfurt, which implies at least a partial distribution near the printing center:" this is true for the copies at the National Library in Vienna, at the Royal Library in Belgium, and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. All three clearly

bear the mention “Francofurti. Apud Jacobum de Zetter. Anno 1617” [In Frankfurt. At the shop of Jakob De Zetter. In the year 1617] (see Adams, Rawles, and Saunders). It was, of course, quite feasible, from the free town 13. Saunders is correct when she says these emblems were “designed to cater specifically for the French reading market” (49).

Pierre Martin

149

of Frankfurt, to reach a German audience interested in Lutheran emblems in German; whether the publisher was a Calvinist and not a Lutheran mattered little, but the publication of Lutheran emblems in the French language in Frankfurt is another matter. The solution to this puzzle may be found in the fact that members of the French Church in Frankfurt gave

shelter to migrants from Wallonia, that is, to coreligionists of Jannis and De

Zetter. Among the deacons of the French Church in Frankfurt for the year 1576 was a certain Jean De Bari. Whether he was Jakob de Zetter’s uncle, dedicatee, and likely financier of the emblem book in French or not, he was at least part of the maternal branch of the family. This foreign congregation shared, for some time, a house of worship with the Flemish Church, and until 1636, they shared the same language: French. When they were suppressed in 1561 by the Lutheran authorities, the Foreigners’ Churches in Frankfurt numbered 2,000 members, about one tenth of the population.* Most of the French and Flemish members then left to settle in more tolerant towns, but in 1572, the population still included more than 850 Calvinists, members of the only French Church. They were joined by French refugees after the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre and by refugees from Wallonia, particularly many Protestants who were given one year by the Duke of Parma after the siege of Tournai in 1581 to sell their properties and leave. When the Burgomasters compelled them, in 1596, to relinquish the keys of the private house where they still worshipped even though they had no established minister, many Calvinists of foreign origin fled to Bockenheim while others founded a new town near Hanau. The authorities tried to prevent the flight of capital by allowing the Calvinists to build a place of worship outside the town, close to the Bockenheim gate. The new house of worship was destroyed by fire in 1608, however, and rebuilding was not allowed. Minister Thimothée Poterat, who died a year later, had no successor, so the Flemish minister was called for. Clearly the situation of the French Church in Frankfurt was not bright in the years preceding the Thirty Years’ War, but given the number of books usually printed, there were enough potential readers and the publishers would have expected to reach members of the community who had recently migrated. 14.

For this information about the French Church in Frankfurt, I am indebted to Schréder.

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There were, therefore, not only French but also Flemish and Walloon potential readers, and when Friedrich writes, “O Teutschland, wo ist nun dein Muht!” [O Germany, where is your pluck now?] the translator does not have in mind France but a larger community, and so adapts the sentence to the new readership: “6 Chrestiens, ot est donc vostre franc courage / De jadis?” [O Christians, where is your bold courage of yesteryear?]. The importance given to the Decalogue in Andreas Friedrich’s book perfectly suited a Calvinist community that was itself familiar with the commentaries on the Commandments found in the Institution de la religion chrestienne. Those commentaries praise the prescriptive moral law, “fondement de toutes les lois strictement politiques” [foundation of every strictly political law], as well as the “oeuvres domestiques et quotidiennes, dont un

voisin peut s'acquitter à l'égard de l'autre” [daily and domestic works, which one neighbor may do for another]. Common themes and sayings could be found, notably in the commentary on the first Commandment, which prompts Calvin, like Luther, to blame both Mammon and self-love. The Walloon Protestants had the opportunity to find in the commentary on the relation between faith and charity in the Emblemes nouveaux the same ideas as in article 24 of the Confessio Belgica about the concept of “foi ouvrante par charité” [faith working through charity]—a concept by which emblem 17, studied below, can immediately be read and understood.if As for the Flemish Church, which claimed to be a Lutheran evangelical community, it worshipped in French: this was a way to preserve the specific features of its religious identity from the rather punctilious Lutheranism of the Frankfurt authorities (see Rahlenbeck). Worshippers were baptized and married by a Lutheran minister, but in the wake of Cassiodore de Reyna,

the rejection of the dogma of ubiquity left no choice but to attend worship with the Calvinists. It is true that most of the engravings in Friedrich’s book do not lend themselves to an exclusively Lutheran interpretation, at least at

first glance, before the reader has had an opportunity to relate them to the 15. 16.

After the sermon of the Last Supper, French Calvinists sang Marot’s Ten Commandments hymn from the Geneva Psalter in the Geneva republication (1562) (see Grosse, 166). In 1617, this confession of faith is close to Guy de Brès's text (1561) adopted by the Walloons at the Embden synod of 1571, and again at Antwerp in 1580 (available on the Leyden University website). After the Dordrecht synod, there would be a few adjustments, of which the last was in May 1619.

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“Déclaration, which always specifies the author's intentions. It is also true that these long poems show some basic knowledge of the major principles of the Lutheran faith, but they are free from dogmatism and controversy. Most of them would have been perfectly acceptable to all Protestants. After all, if we are to trust Agrippa d’Aubigné, Jacques-Auguste de Thou had introduced Gaspard de Schomberg to Claude de la Tremoille as follows: “M. de Chomberg est luthérien, et pas trop esloigné d’un bon Huguenot” [Mr. de Chomberg is Lutheran, and not too far from being a good Huguenot] (5.1,

454, “Affaires des reformez”).

Writing in his Emblemes nouveaux from a magistrate’s point of view, Friedrich could generally set aside the rigid points of view of theologians and could appear to be offering a kind of consensual discourse within the Reformation by avoiding contentious and controversial issues and aiming at the internal conversion of the Christian reader. As De Thou had said, this Lutheran discourse was not so very different from what good Protestants thought and what members of the Flemish Church and everyone who was not a theologian could accept. This was all the more true given that these small religious communities had to endure endless vexations from the Lutheran authorities, which led them to appreciate tolerance, kept them from peremptory positions, and encouraged them to favor the common base of answers that both Calvinists and Lutherans could offer to meet the day-to-day problems of social life: such is a Reformation ethic. In the same year, 1617, Nikolaus Hoffmann published for Lucas Jennis another book of Lutheran emblems consisting of four decades: the Societas Jesu et Rosae Crucis Vera by Daniel Cramer, professor of theology in Stettin.!” Jennis would later print—on his own press—several new editions with added text under the title Emblemata sacra. The 1624 quadrilingual edition contains an epistle that points out the novelty of Cramer's emblems, as well as Friedrich’s book. According to him, Cramer writes in the line of “peinture eloquente” [eloquent painting], which goes back to hieroglyphics and whose aim is to give une couverte instruction et institution de la vie humaine, pour detourner les hommes des vices qui la rendent plus difficile et laborieuse, et les acheminer à la vertu, qui la rend aulcunement tranquille et heureuse. 17.

From a formal point of view, these emblems imitate those of Gabriel Rollenhagen.

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from the vices, which render it more difficult and laborious, and lead them to virtue, which makes it somewhat tranquil and happy.]

This is exactly what the full title of Friedrich’s book announces: emblems dressés pour plus grande incitation aux gens de bien et honorables, densuivre la pieté et vertu, et pour sincere instruction et advertise-

ment aux meschans et dissolus de fuir le vice. [raised up for the greater encouragement of good and honorable people, to follow piety and virtue, and for sincere instruction and warning to the evil and dissolute to flee vice.]

Cramer brings something new, Jennis says, because he has turned pagan fables into God’s words when conceiving his “Emblemes sacrés” [sa-

cred emblems], “monstrans le chemin, non pas à une vertu morale et extérieure seulement, mais aussi, et principalement à une pieté vrayement Chrestienne” [showing the way, not to virtue that is solely external and moral, but also, and principally, to a truly Christian piety]. One must admit that this shows a consensual attitude that all readers, whatever their

Church, could accept. Yet German readers of the German emblem book could not ignore the fact that Friedrich was a Lutheran, and we can won-

der how his book was classified under “Archéologie sacrée” {holy archeology] in the Dictionnaire de bibliographie catholique [Dictionary of Catholic Bibliography]. The long title in the frontispiece ends with a quotation from Ephesians 5:16 in Luther’s translation, “Schicket euch in die Zeit, denn es ist bése Zeit” [Conform to time, because times are bad], differing substantially from the Vulgate, which reads “redimentes tempus,” which Catholics and the Geneva Bible understand to mean: “Buy time.” These emblems are announced as spiritual exercises, as “meditations, or, more ex-

actly— if we are to believe the German foreword—a basis for meditation 18.

See Pérennès et al. An article was published recently whose aim was to point out a Catholic influence in Friedrich’s book, namely, an ecumenical attitude: “In 1617, Jennis produced the Emblemata nova / Emblemes nouveaux by the Catholic Andreas Friedrich, who worked within the tradition of the Counter-Reformation” (Dietz and Stronks, 362). This assertion is based on G. Richard Dimler’s review of Aegidius Albertinus’s Hirnschleiffer, in which Dimler merely suggested a vague relation between Friedrich’s emblems and three of the pictures in Albertinus’s book.

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[“occasionem meditandi”] as quoted by Friedrich to enrich his sentence."

Friedrich sees a difference between the emblem itself and the meditation to which the emblem can give birth, which consists in a “Déclaration” in verse. Emblem and “Déclaration” as a whole are probably offered to the reader as an “occasio meditandi” so that, as the title recommends, good Christians can find a way to perfection and bad Christians can mend their ways. We naturally want to understand how Friedrich’s peculiar venture converges with the many emblem books to which the Counter Reformation gave rise.” Caution precludes inferring too much from a word that Catholics and particularly Jesuits, as disciples of Loyola, had made theirs. The fact is that Luther’s presentation of his short commentary on the “Our Father” was no different; in one of his sermons, he offered the prayer to everyone as a solid footing for deeper meditation and prayer (“occasio profundius meditandi et orandi”), so that everyone would have the means to desire and

love God more intensely. The ethical remarks about virtue and depravity in the Emblemes nouveaux could allow the investors to hope for a promising market among Calvinists, all the more so as the author takes care not to deal with controversial issues. Apart from a few pictures—such as those of emblems 54 and 55—that obviously portray a Lutheran position, it takes deep consideration to perceive how the legal and spiritual aspects of the Law combine in a typically Lutheran way. The Commandments are important in the corpus, as are the emblems dealing with the domain of the law. For example, Friedrich uses a quite abstract figure?! to represent “le devoir des Juristes” [the duty of jurists] (fig. 1). It shows symbols in a pattern around a threefaced head crowned and adorned with three ostrich feathers, an image that Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica leads us to identify with the concept of justice. The quatrain reveals the meaning of this triple face when it recommends 19.

The word “meditations” is the one that the translator chose.

20.

For further study, see recent work by Dekoninck and the collection of essays edited by Dekoninck and Guiderdoni-Bruslé. One of these emblems is characterized by “the use of multiple attributes, drawn from multiple sources, to form symbolic collages . . . , completely divorced from any naturalistic narrative situation,’ which “continued to be one of the prized techniques of the emblematists well into the seventeenth century” (Russell, 76).

21.

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that the magistrate weigh the case well before pronouncing a judgment,” whereas the explanatory poem (the “Déclaration”) returns to the metaphor in the figure and points out the fact that this multidirectional glance 22.

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In emblem 26, which follows, a more abstract figure—an isosceles triangle, the three sides of which display three identical faces—leads to the same meaning.

Foy & Dileélion : Telle race eft plaifante.

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Fig. 2. Andreas Friedrich, Emblemes nouveaux (Fankfurt, 1617), p. 38, emblem 19. (By permission of the author.)

concerns more spatial than temporal things: “Tourne tes yeux ouverts tout à l'entour de toy” [turn your open eyes all around you]. The crowned threefaced head is used in another emblem, but not as the main element (fig. 2): the center of the composition is a burning heart between two allegorical

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forms standing on ἃ stela on each side. We recognize the respective allegoties of Faith and Charity: “Glaub, Lieb” [believe, love] in the German title, rather poorly translated by “L'Amour, & loyauté” [love and loyalty]. The first verse of the emblem epigram gives the clue: this is faith planted by the spirit of God, and the enormous heart consisting of many associated small hearts represents what faith must result in: the assembly of true Christians that constitutes the Church. The Church is, of course, the model of the ideal city, a prefiguration of the celestial polis, the Holy City of the end of time whose citizens are all the believers making up Christ’s community in the world. The way motives are arranged is clear: At the top of the picture the Holy Spirit that communicates faith, at the bottom a kind of seed planted in the open space between the two stelae and whose growing stem would stand for the enormous burning heart of Faith. Thus faith is represented by a complex sign associating the heart (the faithful receive Christ in their heart), the scales (which becomes the symbol no longer of Civil Law but of Justification) and the three-faced head, of which the German “Erklärung” [enlightenment] says “Sicht vorwarts und auch hintersich”# in other words, “looking back and looking forward.” It is probably the temporal dimension that is meant and not the spatial one, according to the definition of faith, which in the words of the Formula of Concord, 50 years after the Augsburg Confession, is

“the beginning, middle and end of Salvation.”

It can be noticed that allegories of Faith and Charity are holding hands

and that their indissoluble association is strengthened by a padlocked chain. To say that faith aims at salvation is no denial of works, but does deny that works play any part in the salvation of Christians. The good works are the necessary productions of the Christian regenerated by real faith the way a good tree naturally brings forth good fruits, though these good works have no merit whatsoever in the process of justification and

salvation. So emblem 6 (fig. 3) represents Faith as a tree that is at the same

time the crucified Christ, “l’arbre du Seigneur” [the Lord’s tree], in the

shade of which the Christian is invited to take a rest “en confiance” [in

confidence] and which “meurira les bons fruits de [s]on ame” [ripen the good fruits of its soul] (emblem 6, “Déclaration” 4). À contrario, emblem 23.

Emblem 19, “Erklarung,” |. 4. The French translation is not clear for today’s reader: “Est tousjours regardant devant et après soy.”

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armed with a pickaxe is making a breach and another man is trying to break down the gates of the City Hall. In other words, on the one hand, we see people building; on the other, people who are destroying or bringing ruin. If we merely look at the picture, the risk is that we will go no

further than identifying those who do and those who undo, that is, good people versus bad people. That would be a misinterpretation, forgetting that the “Déclaration” sees in the picture the support for a meditation on works and condemns the five characters equally:

mission of the author.)

17. (By

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Lun s'exerce au travail, l’autre ne fait que boire,

Et le pecheur meschant ne veut point à Dieu croire. Le troisieme bastit, le quatrieme desfait, Un chascun estre veut le maistre par effect.

(Emblem 17, “Déclaration; 5-8)

[One exerts himself at work, the other only drinks, And the evil sinner has no wish to believe in God. The third is building, the fourth tears down, Everyone wants to be the master through his works.]

Friedrich explains that all these people sin through lack of faith—“la Foy est esteinte” [Faith is extinguished] (emblem 17, “Déclaration,” 17), so that these works cannot be good works despite their appearance; this explains the symbolic ribbon of clouds between the sun and human activities, all of which are blameworthy. Thus on the left is a fire from which a naked man vainly tries to escape: this is a prefiguration of hell, where, the last verse says, the wicked will go “puis qu’ils ne veulent croire” [since they do not wish to believe]: salvation depends only on faith—sola fide [only by faith ]—not on works. Without faith, charity is dead. Works result only from the pride of men who through a kind of blackmail try to subdue (“maistriser”) God: This is a transgression of the First Commandment according to Luther’s commentary on the Great Catechism. According to this foundational text, the Old Testament prescription to honor God must be the subject of a broad understanding. But among all the implications of the First Commandment, the best way Christians have to honor God is to have the true faith that consists in trusting in Christ and his justice by opening one’s heart to him, as Friedrich says in the very first emblem: ... Heureux celui qui ouvre

La porte de son cœur, et qui tout le descouvre Devant Dieu l’honorant. (emblem 1, “Déclaration” 9) [Happy is he who opens The door of his heart, and who reveals it completely

Before God, honoring Him.]

The true faith granted by the Holy Spirit via the Gospel consists in simply believing the promise of Christ; that is to say, to be conscious that man is

soiled by original sin and inclined for wicked tendencies, and that Christ

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through his sacrifice redeems him and grants forgiveness, so his soul can be saved. During the course of his life, every Christian worthy of the name leads his life in the fear of God and in obedience to his Commandments: Dieu nous a tous creés fort merveilleusement, Et Christ a rachetés tous les siens puissamment :

Le sainct Esprit aussi avec grande efficace Les Chrestiens sanctifie, et emplit toute place. Heureux celui qui tout ce cognoit sainement

Considerant en soy tant son commencement,

Que son milieu, sa fin. (emblem 1, “Déclaration, 1-6) [God has created us all most marvelously, And Christ has powerfully redeemed all his own; The Holy Spirit too most efficaciously Does sanctify Christians, and takes up all the space. Happy is he who has a healthy knowledge of all that, Considering in himself as much his beginning, As his middle, his end.]

We find in the foregoing poem the very words of the Formula of Concord,

but the most important thing is the consideration “en soi” [in itself],

the awareness of sin that the Law arouses in Christians and the necessity for them to accept the sacrifice of Christ for their own salvation. Then the “milieu” [middle] is the life of Christians regenerated in the present state of things, and it is emblem 2 that raises that point. Visually speaking, this is the emblem where Lutheran influence is most conspicuous (fig. 5). Perched on a sphere that represents the world, three characters, their right arms raised, receive from three divine hands their respective attributes. A man in armor is given a sword, a mitered bishop receives a book—in all probability a Bible—and a peasant receives a hoe. We have the allegories of the three states that form society and, as the epigram says, “Pun Nourrit, l'autre Enseigne, / Le troisieme Maintient ceux qui sont oppressés” [the one nourishes, the second teaches, / The third maintains

those who are oppressed] (emblem 2). Capital initial letters and a distinct typography draw attention to the stereotypical character of those verbs:

we find here the Lutheran trilogy of the “Lehrstand” (the Church), the

“Wehrstand” (the civil authorities), the “Nahrstand” (the other trades, including domestic activities).

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Every Christian is required to accomplish what Friedrich, following

Luther, calls “Beruff” then translated by the word “vocation” namely,

the duties inherent in the social function assigned to him by his fate. The

Fig. 6. Andreas Friedrich, Emblemes nouveaux (Fankfurt, 1617), p. 110, emblem 55. (By

permission of the author.)

word fate is justified because, as the first verse in the “Déclaration” says, the repartition of the members of society in three states reveals “l'ordonnance

de Dieu” [God's order], in German “Gottes Ordnung.” There is a kind of

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social predestination™ that is part of God’s design and that asks that good Christians accept it and obey the Commandments: “Gouverne tout ton train par de Dieu les paroles” [Govern your whole life by the word of God]

(emblem 2, “Déclaration 17). That is the third use of the Law according

to the Formula of Concord, its “usus didacticus” or “normativus” {didactic or normative use], which consists in offering to all converts the rules of a good life, as if the Decalogue held up a mirror to them that reflected the

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divine will. Thus the picture in emblem 15, obviously of Lutheran inspira-

tion, displays at its center both Tables of the Law surmounted by some convex object—a mirror or shield—on which the three predicates corresponding to the three rules of the Law can be read one under the other (fig. 6): applied to the political use (“Lex frenum” [the law (is a) restraint]), the Law offers a curb to passions and a limit to a sinner’s actions; applied to the educational use (“Lex est speculum” [law is a mirror]), the Law helps us to be aware of our sins so that the Christian in despair has no other way out but faith in Christ; and applied to the didactic use (“Lex regula vitae” [law the rule of life]), the Law is still necessary for converts, since it offers

a model to forestall the assaults of sin, which is always ready to overcome us despite Regeneration.

The Lutheran Christian is therefore required to carry out the duties of his vocation in respect to the Commandments. That is the meaning of the epigram of the first emblem, which invites us to adapt ourselves to the world: “Schick dich in d’ Welt.” The pictura (fig. 7) displays a sphere full of heads; verses 13-14 of the “Déclaration” point out their metonymic value, similar to that of the skulls in Sambucus's emblem “Varii hominum sensus” [The many opinions of men], or again, of the severed heads Daniel Meissner will later use for the philo-politica representation of the Hungarian town Raab (1623). The aim is to stigmatize through the diversity of opinions what Luther denounces as “raison charnelle” {carnal reason] (emblem

12, “Déclaration”

23). Not to adapt to the world is to want to “ensuivre sa raison” [follow one’s own reason] instead of submitting to God. That is in particular the way of heretics and of all those who generally speaking are looking for oversubtleties in the biblical text, so missing the simplicity of God’s word: 24.

Stoer’s dictionary (whose creation is contemporary to Friedrich’s emblems) has the entry “Ordnung Gottes,” for which it gives the French words “Predestination,

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sion of the author.)

Quiconque à Dieu ne veut croire, ni à sa voix,

Ains son opinion ensuit à chasque fois, Et icelle pretend inserer en la Bible, Et non pas ceste-ci en sa teste inflexible.

(Emblem 12, “Déclaration, 13-16)

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EMBLEMATICA [Whoever wishes not to believe in God, nor in his voice, But follows his own opinion in everything, And claims to insert it into the Bible, And not the latter into his own hard head. |

In these inflexible heads, which refuse to comply with the divine word, we recognize the stiff-necked people of the Old Testament (Exod. 32:9; Deut. 9:13); Friedrich does not fail to mention repeatedly the modern worshippers of the Golden Calf or Mammon and insists on the necessity to “cog-

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:

noistre ses pechés, et estre bon Chrestien” [know one’s own sins, and be a

good Christian] (emblem 59, “Déclaration” 12) without postponing the time of a true conversion: La derniere heure vient, icelle retarder Nul ne peut ; pense y bien, sage, pour te garder Que tu ne sois surpris tout à la despourveué Sur les loix de ton Dieu jette tousjours la veué. (emblem 1, “Déclaration; 21-24) [The final hour comes, put it back

No one can; think well on that, wise man: keep yourself From being surprised and taken unawares; Keep your eyes fixed on God’s laws. }

There is thus a sense of urgency embodied by the Goddess Occasio in emblem 62, “Prends garde au temps present aussi bien qu'à toy mesme”

[Keep watch on the present time as well as on yourself]. She is on the point of cutting her long forelock with a razor (fig. 8). The translator who

chose to normalize all the titles (except three) by setting them in alexandrine verse meter did not exactly follow the German title, which is more concise and in which appeared the verb used in the first emblem then translated “s’accommoder” [to accommodate oneself]: “Schick dich in die Zeit” [Accommodate yourself to Time]. The verb schicken was then completed by a notion of time instead of a worldly notion, so that we are now referred to Ephesians 5:16, or at least to the way Luther translated this verse in the German Bible. Ephesians 5:16 is all the more present for German readers in that, as previously mentioned, the verse appears quoted in its Lutheran version under the German title in Friedrich’s book: “Schicket euch in die Zeit” [Comply with the time in which you live]. This translation differs from the Vulgate, which says we must redeem time

nesfe laiffe pas prendre LOccafion tousjour buys Quand on le woudroit bien: Repentoyaujourd

a geflé,joye, ennuy, pegs cendre. enas Au monde demeurront,€ tu ir

SE

Fig. 8. Andreas Friedrich, Emblemes nouveaux (Fankfurt, 1617), p. 124, emblem 62. (By permission of the author.)

(“redimentes tempus”) but is in conformity with its scopus, which Luther perceives in the interpolation of verse 11 in the Epistle to the Romans

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140

Emprrmes

Vulgate, and “Tempori servientes” [serving Time], from a different interpretation of the manuscripts in Greek which the exegetic tradition takes into account. Erasmus chooses the second one and explains that the reason these two are different is that a word had been shortened in a common source. The completed word may either give in Greek kyrios, meaning “che Lord,” or kairos, meaning “favorable period,’ “opportunity” “convenience”—this is the meaning of emblem 62. The fact is that Luther chose the interpretation close to the Vulgate, “Tempori servientes,” which leads to “Schicket euch in die Zeit” while asserting that the two interpretations are coherent: complying with time means taking full advantage of the possibility of salvation, which in effect is submission to God’s will. When Luther chooses this translation of Romans 12:11 to render Ephesians 5:16, he also transfers to his gloss on the Epistle to the Ephesians the idea of redemption; by redemption, however, he has in mind the treasure that the true Christian hoards up in heaven, as the evangelical metaphor about salvation has it (Matt. 6:20). We can see that the wording chosen by Luther forecloses on the Catholic interpretation of “redimentes tempus” as found in the interpretation of Nicolas de Lyre, in whose view we buy back time through good works as opportunities occur

Nouveaux.

650 9630 08 Der DEDEDE HES DSO Ge

169

CD OSE S

Du calomniateur grande eft la tromperie, »-..».ἡ

(“bonis operibus insistendo habita opportunitate temporis”) (6:96).

In the emblem “Prends garde au temps” (“Schick dich in die Zeit,” which,

as we have seen, can be read “comply with time” or “submit to time”), the

appearance of a newly reimagined goddess, Occasio [opportunity], standing on a sandglass and holding up the spear of Death to signify the urgency of a true conversion, is justified by the Lutheran specificity of this book (fig. 8). Further on, emblem 70 (fig. 9) displays a conventional representation of

fer ἢ efcrevice, Uiconque va cercher fon heur ily parvient jamans: Merveille ce feras'

Fortune meant to represent, not the treasures that the good Christian stores

up for himself in heaven, but the bad Christian's craving for power and ma-

Ilen prendrout ainfi a qu croid au mauyais, On qui attend de lu: quelque loyal fervice.

terial goods, even though “on ne peut esperer qu'il portera bon fruict” [one

Declara

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Fig. 9. Andreas Friedrich, Emblemes nouveaux (Fankfurt, 1617), p. 140, emblem 70. (By permission of the author.)

chapter 12, for the translation of which he uses the same turn “Schicket euch in die Zeit” We have two different translations of this verse from the Epistle to the Romans: “Domino servientes” [serving the Lord], in accordance with the

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cannot hope that he will bear good fruit] (emblem 70, “Déclaration” 12). Fortune now travels astride a crayfish instead of in her conventional watercraft, and she thus goes “à reculons” [backward] (emblem 70, “Déclaration,”

4); in other words, Fortune is akin to the moon, with which she shares cer-

tain characteristics. Both crayfish and moon underline the inconsistency

and instability of the goddess and of ill-gotten goods. Worse, the crayfish

cannot swim, and the poem says it is bound to drown as its retrograde movement leads to a plunge toward the abyss: this is a metaphor of hell, to which the wretched sinner is destined when he proves unable to consider

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disappeared from the picture, where there remains only the sphere of the world, which had functioned as a wheel in emblem 62. Though the whole composition is unbalanced, we can identify the four traditional positions. At the top, in the most propitious location, are an angel and a crown of glory. At the bottom, on the point of plunging into the mouth of the infernal beast, are bags on the pan of a set of scales; these represent money. To the right, the bad Christian, sporting a diabolical tail that he owes to his depravity, is cast down, reminding us of Lucifer’s fall. To the left, the virtuous Christian standing on the other pan is rising to heaven. But the wheel no longer rotates; it has just been stopped by the hand that God has laid on it. Such is the emblem that comes before and announces what appears as the last part of the book, with enough homogeneity for Gabriel Peignot to have considered it as an appendix, a kind of iconographic variation of the Dance of Death (Peignot, “Additions”). These are twelve emblems in

which Friedrich, who had in mind the Artes bene moriendi, which probably inspired the sequence of the fight between the angel and the devil, offers a meditation on Judgment Day and the liberation from time—a reminder of the inaugural quotation from Ephesians 5:16. The complete title of Friedrich’s book is an invitation to flee from vice and adopt virtue, not only in the realms of ethics, but, as Jennis points out about Cramer, with the aim of making possible the internal conversion that makes good Christians and that, by setting in motion the process of sanctification, will enable them, with Lutheran fortitude, to await the Day of Judgment and the final punishment meted out by divine justice:

( .

+

qui est mauvais reçoit mauvais falaire:

Mais celus qui craint Dieua fon chef couronne: cA fincere vertu l'Eternel a donné

e De 5 eflever aux ceux: à l'argent au contraire.

Declara-

Fig. 10. Andreas Friedrich, Emblemes nouveaux (Fankfurt, 1617), p. 152, emblem 76. (By

permission of che author.)

his fate (“sa fin”), as the first emblem recommended, and to open his heart to Christ and thus free himself from time.

I think we can see ἃ similar plan in the picture of emblem 76, the invention of which proceeds from the same order of ideas. Occasio [Fortune] has

Seigneur, par ta vertu et force justiciere, Vien, car nous tattendons avec tresgrand desir.

(emblem 60, “Déclaration,” 14-15)

[Lord, through thy virtue and avenging strength, Come, for we await thee with great desire. ]

Yet there is no doubt that the end of time is imminent; “L’heure du jugement dernier vient et ne tarde” [The hour of the last judgment comes and does not tarry] (emblem 69, “Déclaration; 18), writes Friedrich in the “Déclaration” of emblem 69, echoing the explanatory poem of emblem 35: Il adviendra bien tost, evident est l'indice,

Car le peché vilain s’augmente cependant,

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Que le flambeau des cieux panche vers l'Occident. (emblem 35, “Déclaration; 14-15) [It will come very soon, the sign is apparent, For ugly sin is growing, even as Heaven’s torch is leaning to the West.]

Rather than the actual fall of celestial bodies, the weakening of their luminosity is a widespread theme of the prayers that, at that moment in history, were circulating to announce the imminence of Christ's return. Generally speaking, the eschatological concerns present in Friedrich’s book, which reach a climax in the final few emblems, are representative of that Lutheran piety that Bernard Vogler made patent when he studied private religious practice during the first ten years of the seventeenth century: looking forward with trust to the end of time for true faith’s reward.

Adams, Alison. “La conception et l'édition des livres d’emblémes dans la France du XVIe siècle. Une problématique collaboration entre un auteur et un éditeur.” In Lembléme littéraire : théories et pratiques. Littérature 145 (March 2007): 10-22. Adams, Alison, Stephen Rawles, and Alison Saunders. 4 Bibliography of French Emblem Books of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Travaux d’ Humanisme et Renaissance. 2 vols. Geneva, 1992-2002.

Artus, Gotthard. Electio et coronatio sereniss. potentiss. et invictiss. principis et Dn. Dn. Matthiae I. Frankfurt am Main, c. 1612. Aubigné, Agrippa d° L'Histoire universelle du sieur dAubigné. Vol. 3. Maillé, 1620.

Both, Bert, and Els Stronks. “Acceptatie van oofsvrijheid in de Republiek vanuit Nederlandse Letterkunde 15:2 (2010): Brunet, Jacques-Charles. Manuel du libraire et Brussels, 1838-45.

Cramer, Daniel. Societas Jesv et Roseae Crucis Vera, hoc est, Decades quatvor emblematum sacrorvm ex Sacra Scriptura, de dulcissimo nomine & cruce Jesu Christi. Wahrhaffte Bruderschafft Jesu und dess Rosen Creutzes, das ist, Viertzig geistliche Emblemata auss der Heyligen Schriffi von dem siissen Namen und Creutz Jesu Christi. Frankfurt am Main, 1617.

Dekoninck, Ralph. Ad Imaginem. Statuts, fonctions et usages de l'image dans la littérature spirituelle jésuite du XVIIe siècle. Travaux du Grand Siècle 26. Geneva, 2005. Dekoninck, Ralph, and Agnès Guiderdoni-Bruslé, eds. Emblemata sacra. Rhétorique et herméneutique du discours sacré en images. [The Rhetoric and Hermeneutics of Illustrated Sacred Discourse].

Brepols, 2007.

Dietz, Feike, and Els Stronks. “German

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het vreemde: Pers- en gelinternationaal perspectief.” 73-102. de l'amateur de livres. 5 vols.

Catalogus omnium librorum qui prodierunt impensis Jacobi de Zetter, Bibliopolae Hamburgensis. Hamburg and Frankfurt am Main, 1627.

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of Visual Culture in the Dutch Republic.” 2011. http://igiturarchive.library.uu.nl/let/2011-1117-200601/CHRC_091-0304_article2_Dietz-Stronks.pdf.

Dimler, G. Richard. Review of Aegidius Albertinus’s Hirnschleiffer. The

German Quarterly 51 (1978): 206-8.

Driancourt-Girot, Janine. L'insolite histoire des Luthériens de Paris. Paris, 1992.

Flitner, Joannes. Nebulo nebulorum, Hoc est, Jocoseria nequitiae censura. [Latin adaptation of Thomas Murner’s Schelmenzunft, 1512]. Frankfurt am Main, 1620.

Friedrich, Andreas. Emblemata nova, daf ist : New Bilder Buch. Darinnen durch sonderliche Figuren der jetzigen Welt Lauff und Wesen verdeckter Weise abgemahlet / und mit zugehôrigen Reymen erklaret wirt : Den Ehrlichenden und Frommen zu mehrer Anreizung der Gottseligkeit und Tugend : Den Bòsen aber und Ruchlosen zu trewer Lehr und Warnung. Mit sondern Fleiff gestellt / Durch Den Wolgelehrten Andreas Friedrichen. Frankfurt am Main, 1617. [1617a] . Emblemes nouveaux : esquels le cours de ce monde est depeint et representé par certaines Figures, desquelles le sens est expliqué par rimes :

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dressés Pour plus grande incitation au gens de biens et honorables, d'ensuivre la pieté et vertu, et Pour sincere instruction et advertissement aux meschans et dissolus de fuir le vice. Premierement en Allemand par André Frideric, et maintenant en François, pour le

Pérennès, François, Brunet de Bordeaux, and abbé Jacques-Paul Migne, eds. Dictionnaire de bibliographie catholique... depuis la naissance du christianisme, en tous pays mais principalement en France pour et sur le catholicisme. Paris, 1858-59.

Zettre. Frankfurt am Main, 1617. [1617b]

Placcius, Vincentius. Theatrum anonymorum et pseudonymorum Hamburg, 1708.

bien de la jeunesse, et du simple peuple. Mis en lumiere par Jaques de

Geyser, G. W. Geschichte der Malerei in Leipzig von Frühester Zeit bis zu dem Jahre 1813. Leipzig, 1858. Grosse, C. Les Rituels de la Céne. Le culte eucharistique réformé a Genève (XVIe-XVTe siècles). Geneva, 2008. Gurlitt, C. Beschreibende Darstellung der älteren Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler des Kônigreich Sachsen. Heft 17 und 18. Dresden, 1917.

Kurzwelly, A. “Friedrich, Andreas.” In Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildender Kiinstler von der Antike zur Gegenwart, ed. Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, Leipzig, 1916. Landwehr, John.

German Emblem

Books,

Utrecht, 1972.

1531-1888: A Bibliography.

Lyre, Nicolas de. Biblia sacra cum glossis interlineari & ordinaria, Nicolai Lyrani Postilla & moralitatibus, Burgensis additionibus & Thoringi replicis. 7 vols. Lyons, 1545.

Maier, Michael. Atalanta fugiens. Oppenheim, 1618. Meissner, Daniel. Libellus novus politicus emblematicus Nuremberg, 1638.

civitatum.

Oraeus, Henricus. Viridarium hieroglyphico-morale, in quo virtutes et vitia atque mores hujus aevi, secundum tres ordines hierarchicos, explicantur.... Frankfurt am Main, 1619.

. Idea Reformandi Antichristi. Siue Succinctae Tractationis, sed solidae Demonstrationis, De Primordiis, Incrementis, & summo fastigio, Antichristi, eiusq; subsistentia, blasphema Doctrina, & malitioseim-

pia vita, deq; subsequenti deniq; Ruina. n.p., 1623.

Peignot, Gabriel. Recherches historiques et littéraires sur les danses des morts

et sur lorigine des cartes à jouer. Dijon, 1826.

. .

Praz, Mario. Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery. 2nd ed. Rome, 1964. Rahlenbeck, Charles. “Les réfugiés belges du seizième siècle à Francfortsur-le-Mein.” Revue trimestrielle, 2nd ser., 18 (April 1868): 5-48. Russell, Daniel. Emblematic Structures in Renaissance French

Culture.

Toronto, 1995.

Saunders, Alison. The Seventeenth-Century French Emblem: A Study in Diversity. Geneva, 2000. Saur-Allgemeines Kiinstlerlexikon. Munich, 1992.

Schréder, F. C. Troisième jubilé séculaire de la fondation de l'Eglise réformée française de Francfort sur Main. Discours prononcés à cette occasion, le 18 mars 1854, par les Pasteurs de cette Eglise. Frankfurt am Main, 1854. Spica, Anne-Elisabeth. “La figure de Babel: un hiéroglyphe humaniste?” In

Babel à la Renaissance, ed. J. Dauphiné and M. Jacquemier. Montde-Marsan, 1999. Pp. 95-110.

Stoer, Jakob. Dictionaire françois-alleman-latin et alleman-françois-latin. Geneva, 1621. Vogler, Bernard. “La piété luthérienne d’après les recueils de prières (15001770). Histoire, Economie et Société 7 (1988): 79-91. Wustmann, G. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Malerei in Leipzig vom 15. bis 17. Jahrhundert. Leipzig, 1879.

Bedtime Stories: The Painted Emblems Formerly in the Schoolboys’ Dormitory

in the Deanery of Bristol Cathedral CATHERINE OAKES University of Oxford

The focus of this article is a series of painted emblems formerly in the attic of the Old Deanery at Bristol Cathedral and now preserved in the vestry there. The series forms part of a larger decorative program examined in an article published in 2011, from which this piece develops some arguments and refines some conclusions. A few of the emblems are shown to have features in common with other visual compositions of the period, including those in emblem books. They have, however, clearly been adapted for a particular purpose and a specific audience— the schoolboys accommodated in the Old Deanery buildings and educated in the Grammar School that was attached to the new Anglican Cathedral foundation. In light of those considerations, an attempt is made to interpret the emblems according to their original intentions.

Ϊ n a rhymed speech delivered on the occasion of a Visitation to Bristol Free Grammar School in the 1730s, the fears of being at sea in a storm and the relief of arriving safely in harbor are used as metaphors to evoke the fear of taking exams and the subsequent relief when they are over: And now their wonted books each class prepares, And each the dire examination fears. At length τίς pass'd; they feel their fears no more; That raises joy, which torment gave before. Thus, when by storms and adverse tempests tost, 177 Emblematica, Volume 20. Copyright © 2013 by AMS Press, Inc. ΑἹ] rights reserved.

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EMBLEMATICA The pilot fails to make the sought-for coast, His tortur'd breast is rack’d with chilling fear, He sees grim death in every wave appear,

But if the ship is harbour’d safe at last, Reflects with pleasure on the dangers past. (Exercises, 63)

The image was well chosen for boys who lived in one of the wealthiest ports in England where the weather at sea would have crucial consequences for fortunes at home. About 150 years before, another storm-tossed boat was painted in an attic room thought to have been used as a dormitory for the boy choristers of Bristol Cathedral, pupils at the Cathedral Grammar School, which, at the time, was close to the Free Grammar (Morgan, 12). This visual rendering of the same image features a Latin motto—“Non timebo” [I will not fear] —and a giant protective hand holding the boat, and it is these two details that indicate the particular meaning of this version of a much-used visual and literary metaphor. The early modern picture and eighteenth-century text may share a common image and a common audience—the storm-tossed ship, grammar school boys in Bristol—but they are differentiated by their media, their dates, and the specific details of their compositions. Their polyvalency is activated by these differences. In the same way, the emblems examined below share many common features with other literary texts and visual artifacts, but it is the way these features are combined and the context and audience for which they were made that give each its own specific meaning. The generic reading identified through similarities of detail and context has to be triangulated with unique or more unusual features to establish the particular intention behind each one. These considerations will be essential in analyzing the Bristol program of wall paintings to which the storm-tossed boat belongs, and they must

take into account wide-ranging scholarly discussions about the adaptation of emblems for particular audiences (Bagley; Davidson). This Bristol wall painting and the program to which it belongs, with its metaphorical images and Latin mottoes, is presented in an emblematic way. Such a program may be influenced by emblem books or even reproduce their contents but might also draw from other visual models in the classical and medieval iconographic traditions to combine and comment on them in unique ways. Such compositions were not solely inspired by existing iconographic conventions, for many were forged from literary texts or oral traditions (Waddington). There was a rich and complex culture of visual/textual

Catherine Oakes

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communication within which writers and designers of emblems could cultivate their ideas. This article will give further evidence of the widespread nature of emblematic culture in early modern England by showing that, in a provincial part of the country and in a domestic setting, artists were instructed to paint programs that demonstrate a knowledge of both English and Continental emblematic culture, including emblem books. It will show that the Bristol emblems draw on a common repertoire of emblematic images used widely elsewhere and that these images and their accompanying texts were adapted to create new compositions designed with a particular purpose in mind. Indeed, in some cases, the designer of the Bristol program seems to have created entirely original emblems by combining allegorical elements in an inventive way and so demonstrating his credentials as someone steeped in the methods of rhetorical expression characteristic of the period. The Bristol emblems are now preserved in the vestry of Bristol Cathedral. They are part of a larger set of wall paintings executed in black outline on plaster in the same way as many other surviving murals of the period, especially in domestic settings (Baird). These paintings were removed from their original location in the early years of the last century, when the room they were in, which was part of an upper floor of the old Deanery of the Cathedral, was demolished.! There is no record of the appearance or size of this room. I have recently written about the program as a whole in a publication that discusses its history, context and the literary and emblematic sources that inform it (Oakes).? The present article complements the 1.

For eighteenth-century views of the Deanery building showing the attic story, see Leech, illustrations 1.6 (c and d).

2.

The first article gives the early publication history of the wall paintings after their 1840 discovery under wallpaper in dormitories above the rooms of the petty canons behind the Old Deanery. They were traced by George Pryce in 1852, and

these drawings appeared in an 1882 publication (Nicholls and Taylor, 1:27071). The wall paintings were the subject of an article by W. W. Hughes in a local history society journal in 1904. The 2011 article goes on to discuss the biblical

frieze and “Four ages of man” paintings, which are part of the series, and some

of the individual emblem panels are examined more briefly—the heart on the

anvil, the winged man with scales, the anchor crucifix, the man with the horse, and the two harts. It sets the wall paintings against the history of the cathedral in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, suggesting that the wall paint-

ings as a whole were probably made during two distinct periods. It notes that a strong penitential, even Lenten, theme pervades the biblical frieze and that the

3.

biographical reference. For this process, I am indebted to the online conversations I have had with Mi-

chael Bath and Malcolm Jones and to discussions on site with Justine Hopkins, who, as a Bristol resident, has also been very helpful in a practical sense. I would also like to thank Michael Bath, Vida Russell, Christine Jackson, and Michael

Copley for their comments on the draft.

4.

Hughes refers to the star, eclipse, parrot, and “Mors vitae janua” image, which are not among the Pryce tracings.

ai eR

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“Four ages of man” with accompanying images and inscriptions may contain a

Facsimile of mutilated drawings in outline on the ceiling of the up-

which was formerly the dormitory of the petty Canons of the Monastery of St Augustine, Bristol. Copied by George Pryce, November, 1852. N.B. The whole of these drawings were traced from the originals, and are very accurate. They are probably of the age of James I;

aa

paper in groups of two and three. The “Four ages of man” are in two pairs and do not follow the sequence of the original, which still survives on a single piece of plaster; rather, the infant is paired with the old man, and the youth with the middle-aged man. Two of the emblems considered below are also paired on one piece of paper (“The winged man with scales” and “The two harts”), six appear in two groups of three (“Linked hands,’ “The anchor crucifix,’ and the “Heart on the anvil”; and “The man with the horse,” “Sundial,” and “The ship in the storm”) and two (“The wise and foolish virgins” and “The flaming winged heart”) appear on a single long scroll of paper flanking a frieze of biblical and allegorical figures, just as they are arranged on a single piece of plaster in the vestry. There is also an

emblem depicting an eclipse in the Vestry that was neither traced by Pryce nor known to Hughes. The documents saved in che library are not tracings as such but were presumably reproduced from tracings onto paper which were then stuck onto canvas. There are no prick marks on the paper to suggest how the tracings were transferred, and it remains a matter of conjecture as to why Pryce made these “facsimiles” at a time when presumably the existence of the room containing the wall paintings was not under threat. He describes them as “mutilated,” but most are in fact to this day in remarkably good condition, and it is curious that, if he wanted simply to record the images, he went to the trouble of making full-size reproductions. Each of the emblems is about 52 cm in diameter, and each length of paper has the same handwritten inscription by Pryce in the bottom corner: per story [sic] of a building now incorporated with the Deanery, but

certainly not earlier. (Pryce)

Pryce tells us that the wall paintings (or “drawings,” as he describes them) that he has traced were on the ceiling, though the curved bases of some of them may suggest that he included a coving in that description. Hughes's article seems to contradict Pryce in this respect, since Hughes tells us that “the ceiling must have originally presented a very strange appearance, evidently emblematical of the ‘Last Days” (Hughes, 153; Oakes, 279). The tracings give no clue to the original distribution of the pictures. The fact that the emblems are traced in rows rather than columns, however, suggests that they were all arranged in a frieze format on a coving around the chamber and that the scheme on the ceiling referred to by Hughes was not copied by Pryce. Moreover, the fact that the “Four ages of man” roundels do not appear on the tracings in the correct order suggests that the others also were not presented with a view to replicating their original distribution. Pryce’s firm contention that the pictures are Jacobean is inconsistent with his assertion made elsewhere, and quoted by Hughes, that “they were certainly executed at a period not long after the Reformation” (Hughes,

hé

B2915-2920) and are arranged next to each other on separate pieces of

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previous one by looking more closely at this one part of the program and so develops and refines some of the ideas set out in the earlier piece.* Surviving along with the wall paintings themselves are full-size tracings made in 1852 by the Bristol librarian, George Pryce, when the wall paintings were still in situ. It would appear that Pryce copied only the most complete of the surviving paintings, but W. W. Hughes, in an article written in 1904 (still before the demolition of the building they were in), refers to a few extra images not copied by Pryce and says that the room was originally covered with drawings on both walls and ceiling, most of which were in too poor a condition to be preserved (Hughes). There seems to have been further loss since 1904 because the images that can still be seen do not include all those listed by Hughes, such as those he describes as a “flaming cross” and also “a curious bird” (Hughes, 153). Since the publication of Hughes's article, the wall paintings have hardly been referred to in print, until my conference paper in in 2008, subsequently published in 2011. Pryces tracings of the emblems are in Bristol City Library (M14,

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two images on either end of the biblical frieze. These ten emblems, and the eclipse emblem, which was not traced, are my subject in the present article. In a cathedral context, and given the explicit biblical references in the two friezes, it might be expected that the emblems were driven by a pious agenda. This seems to be the case in a number of instances where the images contain a Christian reference, for example, the anchor crucifix and the JHS monogram representing Christ’s name, or where the associated Latin motto is a biblical quotation. However, some of the emblems, including these, seem to be deliberately ambiguous in terms of their meaning, to the extent that, like emblems in a book, they should probably be viewed as pieces to prompt contemplation or discussion rather than as simply exhortative. It seems they were intended as discrete compositions, rather than contextualizing each other, though the placing of the emblems that flank the frieze may be significant. Some thematic links between the emblems may be discernible, such as reflections on the empowerment brought about by faith in God (which also characterizes the themes of the two friezes) and the

related theme of the transience of life. The general characteristics of this group of images that suggest that they were created as part of the same program are their size, style, and composition. Each one has a circular laurel leaf frame, bossed at the four cardinal points. This is not a frame that is typical for the presentation of emblems in emblem books in the sixteenth century, but becomes more common in the seventeenth. Circular frames, similar to those used for the “Four ages of man” sequence at Bristol, feature in the 1611 Nucleus Emblematum by the humanist jurist Gabriel Rollenhagen and in the 1617 Emblemata Sacra by the Lutheran Daniel Cramer. Later, George Wither’s À Collection of Emblems (1635), which is derived from Rollenhagen, and some of the frames in the Roman

Catholic Henry Hawkins’s Partheneia (1633) are

similarly shaped. Other print sources, however, unless they are portraits emulating medals or coins, tend to have rectangular frames (Jones). Given

the size of the wall paintings, it is probable that their shape was influenced by other media, such as ephemeral decorations used in pageantry or other staged events. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there was a fashion for stained-glass roundels, usually manufactured in Flanders and intended for a domestic setting. Inevitably, the circular glass panels are not as big as the wall paintings, but they generally depicted biblical, and increasingly moralizing and even satirical, subjects, so in shape, content,

ef

147). I have previously suggested that at least part of the program, notably the biblical frieze, belongs to the late Elizabethan period, on the basis of τῆς probable devotional tastes of those in charge at the Cathedral through this period and the style of the paintings (Oakes, 282, 298). I would now like to reconsider this dating, at least with regard to the emblematic paintings. Pryce’s inscription indicates the original setting of the pictures—the dormitory of the petty canons who were the young novices in the pre-Reformation Augustinian community. There is evidence that the canons also took in boys from the city to educate them in grammar and that these boys may have shared their lessons with the petty canons (Morgan, 12). The new Cathedral Grammar School occupied the same buildings as the old school, and these were ordered to be repaired in the 1542 statutes (Morgan, 19). Further major repairs were carried out in 1581-82 on the schoolhouse, which by this time was part of the Deanery (Morgan, 26-31). The foregoing evidence therefore suggests that the paintings were made for an audience of grammar school boys, including the six choristers specified in the Henrician statutes; that they were painted on the ceiling and on the walls, probably the coving of the room; and that the date 1581-82 can be suggested as a terminus ante quem for the wall paintings. Pryce’s tracings do not yield conclusive evidence as to their arrangement. The surviving wall paintings consist of the frieze on a single piece of plaster of biblical figures, including Christ, Mary Magdalen, John the Baptist, St. Peter, and St. Paul, six female allegorical figures representing vices and virtues, and a small scene depicting an episode from the parable of the prodigal son. At either end of this frieze are two of the emblems, identical to the others in their laurel wreath framing, which slightly bite into the figures adjacent to them on the frieze. There is also another single piece of plaster upon which is painted the row of scenes representing the four ages of man, again in circular frames, but this time plain with four bosses. The “Four ages” depict two scenes from the Old and two from the New Testament, and they are supported to the left by four male figures depicting infancy, youth, middle, and old age. Beneath them kneels a possible donor figure. On separate pieces of plaster are various unframed images, such as a parrot, a star, and a door constructed of bones inscribed “Mors vitae janua” [Death, the doorway to life]. Also on separate pieces of plaster are eight further emblematic compositions, framed with laurel wreaths, identical to the

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extent to which these were adapted from their originals is a measure of the dedication of their designer to the virtues of Renaissance inventio. How they were adapted was driven by the intended impact of the program on its young audience. “The wise and foolish virgins” (fig. 1) This is one of the two emblems flanking the biblical frieze, the other one being a flaming heart with the JHS monogram, which will be considered next. Five women standing on the left in contemporary dress carry upright lamps in their right hands and appear to be raising their heads and gesturing with their left hands toward a flying angel above them, who emerges from clouds and blows a trumpet from which issues the text “Ecce sponsus

venit” [Behold, the bridegroom comes]. To the angel right, a full-length

Fig. 1. “The wise and foolish virgins.” (Photograph by the author.)

and purpose, they may relate to the Bristol program (Cole, xix; Hamling, 277-78). The circular composition framed with classical ornament—such

as egg and dart, acanthus, and laurel leaf—can be found also in architectural contexts going back as far as Hampton Court in the 1510s, or later in the sixteenth century at Wollaton Hall in Nottinghamshire. In terms of the style of the Bristol images, their simple figures and the flatness of their minimal settings associate them with late Tudor emblem books, such as Geoffrey Whitney’s A Choice of Emblems, rather than the more sophisticated, nuanced, and perspectivally composed emblems of the Jacobean period. However, while the print medium inevitably springs to mind as a model for the Bristol program, it would be surprising if the level of accomplishment of an interior decorator, at least for this level of commission, matched that of a contemporary printmaker. Their simplicity, therefore, may not be significant for their dating. In terms of sources, the mottoes at Bristol often copy or paraphrase a biblical verse or classical aphorism, and some of the emblems are similar to existing printed compositions, perhaps via their use in other media. The

haloed figure, presumably representing the mystic bridegroom but referring also to the Second Coming of Christ, stands under an arch. Opposite the wise virgins, the five foolish virgins are seated asleep against a hill. Three of their lamps are strewn on the ground and two are held upside down. Other than the clouds, the arch, and the hill, the image is now bare of further detail. The text comes from Matthew 25:6 and, like other texts at Bristol, was set to music for the Elizabethan church (Oakes, 286-87). Thomas Tallis’s Audivi Vocem, for instance, concludes with this line. Although it follows the same format as the other Bristol emblems, this roundel is the least emblematic, since it depicts an episode from the Gospels and is accompanied by a text from the same source. The subject is not common in emblem books, though a wise virgin appears in emblem 51 of the Emblemes, ou devises chrestiennes of the Huguenot Georgette de Montenay, inscribed “Vigilate” [Be vigilant] (Saunders 1988, 248 and pl. 15). In the popular devotional manual by Lewis Bayly, Bishop of Bangor, titled The Practice of Piety: directing a Christian how to walke that he may pleise God, a very Protestant guide to Godly behaviour, which ran through 33 editions between 1613 and 1636, a wise virgin appears on the frontispiece, with further details relating to the

iconography at Bristol to which I return below (Hamling, 97). In the mid

sixteenth century, Gilles Corrozet had referred to the narrative in the text of his emblem book, Hecatomgraphie, although the accompanying image is a sundial with a skull placed on top of it impaled by an arrow, so associating the narrative of the wise and foolish virgins with death and the passing of

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time (Corrozet, Niii v). Both the memento mori message of the parable and the appearance of the sundial elsewhere at Bristol (see below, 203) suggest

that the transience of life is a theme that permeates the program. Since the subject itself is uncommon in surviving art from the period, we may wonder whence the composition derives. There is a panel painting of the subject by Hans Eworth, painted in 1570 and now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. It is a rare example of a picture, presumably created for an English patron (since Eworth was resident in England during this period), that is not a portrait. It is remarkably similar to the wall painting in scale (61.5x62 cm) and composition, though much more detailed. The women are grouped in the same way, and in the upper tier of the image is an angel with a trumpet and a full-length Christ standing under an arch. A cloud billows around the arch, as at Bristol, though the position of Christ and the angel is reversed in the Eworth painting. No direct influence can be inferred, but the similarity raises the question whether the Eworth painting was engraved and transmitted as a pattern for artists during the period, or whether Eworth and the artist who drew the Bristol paintings

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The position of this emblem next to the biblical frieze needs consideration, as it immediately juxtaposes three standing male figures, including Saints Peter and Paul. I have discussed the frieze in some detail elsewhere, including the possibility that the emblems were added later (Oakes, 283-

86). Even so, it is feasible that the themes that govern the content of the

frieze inform the choice of the emblems flanking it. The frieze itself is an extended commentary on sin, penitence, and faith, and features three allegorical figures representing faith, hope, and penitence, rather than the usual trinity of Pauline virtues. In this context, the parable of the wise and foolish virgins clearly has resonance. “The flaming winged heart” (fig. 2) At the other end of the biblical frieze, directly next to three female personifications of Obduratio | Hard-heartedness], Desperatio | Despair], and Metus

and spinning, on the other (Hamling, 126-27).

[Dread], appears an emblem showing a hand above appearing from a cloud and holding a seal. Another hand with a frilled cuff emerges below from a segmental line shaded around the edge as if to suggest a curve, perhaps a section of the globe. This hand holds a heart stamped with the monogram THS. Flames flicker around the top of the heart, which seems to be winged. The Latin motto “Impressa in aevum” [Forever sealed], a sentiment perhaps derived from a verse in the Old Testament Song of Songs expressing the strength of love, and so in this case referring to love for Christ, is located on either side of the hand holding the heart. Hands and hearts are very common components of emblems, and another flaming heart appears in the Bristol program itself. The ancient IHS monogram had become a common devotional badge by the late Middle Ages and survives in England in a number of parochial wall painting schemes, for instance, at Ewelme in Oxfordshire and at Blythburgh in Suffolk, where it appears on the roof beams; both schemes date from the mid fifteenth century. In the same context of the parish church, there is some evidence that it continued to be tolerated in Elizabeth's reign, though, by the Commonwealth period, it had become associated with Catholicism and was targeted by iconoclasts (Oakes, 291). The monogram inscribed on a flaming heart was one of the attributes of

5.

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were working from a common model (Strong 1969, 99). It is signed and

dated, and has a lengthy Latin inscription making the allegorical message of the story clear. Eworth’s work is relatively frequently informed by allegory and so, in this respect, does link with the emblem genre. His picture of Sir John Luttrell, for instance, incorporates a ship in a storm with an allegorical inscription (Hearn, 65; Van Claerbergen).> At much the same time as the Copenhagen panel, he produced another painting titled Allegory on Man, with many English inscriptions including a quotation from the parable of the wise and foolish virgins (Hearn, 74-75). The two paintings were among his last works. A later example of an image of the wise and foolish virgins that gives some substance to the idea that the Eworth painting may have been available through an engraving is its appearance on an alabaster screen at Burton Agnes in East Yorkshire. Dated ca. 1610, the composition is again similar to Eworth, with the foolish virgins here disporting themselves irresponsibly on one side and the wise ones, in more sober employment such as sewing The inscription reads “More than the rock amidst the raging seas the constant heart no danger dreads nor fears.”

“Pone me ut signaculum, super cor tuum” [Place me as a seal on your heart] (Song of Sol., 8:6).

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appearance in Benedict Van Haeften’s Schola cordis, published in Antwerp in 1629 (Campa, 4). Van Haeften was not aJesuit but a Benedictine abbot, however, and although emblem 13 in book 3 of the Schola features the monogram on a heart, it is not a flaming heart. The Bristol emblem thus has more in common with the Jesuit badge than with the version in this Catholic emblem book. Variations on the visual theme of the JHS mono-

gram and the heart also appear in a Protestant context. The heart inscribed with the tetragrammaton, the name of God in Hebrew, features in De Montenays Emblemes ou devises (emblem 64), which has a large number

of other heart emblems (Saunders 1988, 247). The monogram appears in Cramer’s Emblemata (e.g., emblems 3 and 11), but not imprinted on the heart, as it appears in the Schola cordis. Although Van Haeften’s heart is not

as visually close to the Bristol version as the Jesuit badge, the emblem as a whole echoes the Bristol scheme, since it depicts the heart as being sealed

with the monogram and is accompanied by the motto “Cordis obsignatio” [The sealing of the heart] (Saunders 2000, 195-97). The theme is therefore the same as the Bristol emblem, even though the composition of the image

and the motto are different. If the IHS in this context could be problematic, the flames and the wings are less so. The flaming heart as a motif representing the dangers of love is found in Guillaume de La Perriére’s Le Theatre des bons engins (1540),

which reached an Anglophone audience via Thomas Combe’s 1593 translation into emblem 79 of The Theater of Fine Devices (Silcox, 62). Here it appears in an expanded scene showing Cupid blowing on it with a pair of bellows. A similar episode clearly inspired by Combe is the subject of an early seventeenth-century wall painting formerly in a house in Bury St Edmunds (Bath and Jones, 200). A Humanist example of the flaming heart appears

in Rollenhagen’s Nucleus Emblematum of 1611. Here it is also winged, as

Fig. 2. “The flaming winged heart.” (Photograph by the author.)

the thirteenth-century Franciscan saint, Anthony of Padua, and went on to appear more generally on objects from a Franciscan milieu (Rudy, 193). Eventually the ZHS on a flaming heart came to be recognized as one of the badges of the Jesuit order, a development that has been attributed to its

at Bristol, and rests on an open book with a Greek text (emblem 79). The Latin motto reads “Cor rectum inquirit scientia” [Knowledge seeks the upright heart]. Wither gives a version of this in 1635. In a Protestant context,

there are numerous winged and burning hearts in Cramer’ and the winged

heart is to be found in Francis Quarless Emblemes of 1635 (emblem 135). The frontispiece to The Practice of Piety (1613) features a aming heart, this 7.

Emblems 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 11, 35, 43, and 49, for example.

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em

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time on an altar inscribed in English with the word “Pray” and the name of God appearing in the sky above in Hebrew. The winged heart, when it represents the thirst for knowledge, as in Rollenhagen and Wither, would be apt in the Bristol setting, and with the flaming heart seems to be as much at home in both Protestant and Roman Catholic contexts.’ Taking all the constituent parts together, though, it is hard to escape the conclusion that this emblem has some association with

eq

Jesuit, or at least Roman Catholic, imagery. The Jesuit emblem combines

the heart inscribed with the JHS monogram surrounded by flames and lacks only the component of the wings. De Haeften’s emblem lacks both fire and wings, but it may be significant that this emblem was omitted from Christopher Harvey’s School of the Heart, a Protestant emblem book adapted from Van Haeften and published in 1647, perhaps because, by then, just the JHS on the heart was enough to signify a Jesuit association (Saunders 2000, 198; Bath 1994, 178-86). Van Haeften’s and Harvey's books and the emergence of this Jesuit badge are developments that date from the 1620s onward, however; the flaming heart was also connected from the late sixteenth century with the cult of the saint Philip Neri, and there is a Latin motto elsewhere at Bristol that may also be related to the iconography of

that saint (Oakes, 297-98). If 1am right to suggest this religious leaning, it

is difficult to explain in the context of a new Anglican Cathedral. One way of understanding its appearance may be to consider its broader context as a foil to the roundel depicting the wise and foolish virgins, and its position next to the personifications of dread, despair, and hard-heartedness. A close look at the frieze does suggest that the emblems were added afterward, but they do not cover the earlier program and so may have been intended as an addition rather than a replacement. In this case, the emblem itself could have a negative message in keeping with the allegorical figures next to it and could stand in contrast to the Protestant theme of living a Godly life in preparation for the next that is evoked by the parable from Matthew's Gospel at the other end of the frieze. 8.

Hélegen (42) quotes Quarles’s introduction to his Emblemes (1635), itself based

on the Jesuit Pia Desideria, by Hermann Hugo. Quarles is careful to describe the emblems as “Types” and compares them with “Hierogliphicks,’ so emphasizing their cryptic nature and minimizing concerns in iconophobic readers.

Fig. 3. “The heart on the anvil.” (Photograph by the author.)

“The heart on the anvil” (fig. 3) The foregoing emblem is not the only one to feature a flaming heart. There is another that shows an anvil inscribed with the motto, “Non despici cor” [Despise not the heart], upon which a flaming heart is held in place by a

woman with tongs on the right of the composition. On the left, another woman raises an elaborate hammer above her head in order to strike the heart. A third woman is lying in front of the anvil, her head raised and resting in her left hand. Behind, a fourth raises her right hand upward toward a cloud from which raindrops fall. Rather than being an assemblage of a number of favored emblematic motifs, as seen in the previously discussed emblem, this example is different because it certainly derives from

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a single model. There is a late drawing of the 1520s in a circular frame by

Albrecht Dürer, now in the British Museum, which is remarkably similar and may have shared ἃ common model with the Bristol wall painting, if it was not the ultimate source itself? It is almost the same as its counterpart in Bristol, except that a tree, the personal badge of Dürer's friend Willibald

Pirckheimer, appears on the anvil, and the four women looking up to the sky, holding the hammer, holding che tongs, and lying down are respectively labeled Consolatio [Consolation], Afflictio [Affliction], Immodia (?) [Envy?], and Tristitia (?) [Sadness?]. It is a very rough drawing and looks as if it was intended simply as a design. However, what seems to have been conceived as a personal message addressed to Pirckheimer moved into the public arena in 1529 when the drawing was engraved, again in a circular frame, by the so-called “monogrammist IB.” Here the four personifications

are Spes [Hope, looking up], {nvidia [Envy, with the tongs], Tribulatio [ Tribulation, with the hammer], and Tolerantia [Forbearance, lying down]. The composition of Diirer’s drawing (and of the Bristol painting) is reversed in the engraved version. The latter went on to be reproduced else-

where in print, and the British Museum has a copy of a version printed in a broadsheet in Nuremburg between 1599 and 1614 (Louchner). We cannot know from what exact source the commissioners of the Bristol scheme found their model, but it is interesting to note that a close version of it was

circulating in print at about the right period. The broadsheet versions were accompanied by explanations of the emblem in verse, which may well derive from Pirckheimer’s own rendering of the emblem since he is credited

with giving it the title “Envy’s workshop.” Envy and Tribulation torment

the man’s heart while Indifference looks on and Hope points to heaven.

God frustrates the stratagems of Tribulation and Envy with water and snowflakes falling from a cloud.!° In assessing the significance of the Bristol emblem in its context, the inscription on the anvil is perhaps the key detail to explore, since this differs from the other examples by replacing an element with something else rather than simply by omitting some details, such as the inscriptions, identifying 9:

SL-5218-65. For the reputation of Dürer in late sixteenth-century England, see

10.

See Waldmann, pl. 183. My thanks to Michael Bath for this reference.

Hilliard, 69-71.

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the allegorical figures.!! The Latin motto “Non despici cor,” which replaces Pirckheimer’s tree, is derived from Psalm 51:17: “Cor contritum at humiliatum, Deus, non despicies” [A broken and contrite heart,

O God,

thou wilt not despise].!? Psalm 51, one of the penitential Psalms, is known as Miserere. It is sung as part of the liturgy on Ash Wednesday and, like many other psalms, was set to music, for example, in William Byrd’s 1591 Cantiones Sacrae. The thematic link to penitence and this use of the psalm in the Anglican liturgy and its musical settings are both in keeping with the images and texts of the biblical frieze and some of the other roundel emblems, as well as the purpose of the program overall (Oakes, 284-86).

The verse as a whole describes the broken human spirit as an acceptable sacrifice to God, which may explain the visual ambiguity in some “anvil” emblems between anvil and altar. For example, one of the marginal emblems on a set of tapestries now at Hatfield House and possibly dating from the late sixteenth century shows a hammer held by a hand appearing from the sky to beat a heart that is clearly on an altar and not an anvil.'? The altar here is inscribed “gratum” and the Latin motto is “Cor contritum gratum deo” [The contrite (broken) heart is pleasing to God], so referring to the same

verse from the Psalms as the Bristol motto. Michael Bath will be discussing the source of this version of the emblem in his forthcoming book on the tapestries. In another English and Protestant context, the passage is quoted on the frontispiece of the 1611 Practice of Piety, where it emanates from the mouth of a kneeling man, inscribed “pious man,’ who is placed next to an altar with a flaming heart upon it. Finally, the verse from Psalm 51, in its original form, accompanies emblem 11 in book 2 of Van Haeften’s Schola cordis and in Harvey’s adaptation, The School of the Heart (emblem 14). The 11.

[εὶς so obvious that the engraving either shares the same model or is the source of the Bristol emblem that there is little point in examining the latter’s individual components, even though these appear elsewhere in emblem books. Anvils occur, for example, twice in Combe: emblem 31 on the subject of friendship and

emblem 47 on constancy.

biblical quotations in Latin are from the Vulgate and those in English are taken from the Authorized Version. Psalm numbers follow the Vulgate system.

In his forthcoming book The Four Seasons Tapestries at Hatfield House (London,

2013), Michael Bath will be proposing this revised date for the tapestries, which were previously dated to around 1611. I am grateful to Professor Bath for show-

ing me a draft chapter relevant to the Bristol paintings.

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emblem here titled “Cordis contritio” | The contrition of the heart] shows a heart, not beaten on an anvil, but crushed by a pestle in a mortar. Since it is an allegory, the actions 07 the heart in the versions of this emblem we have considered should perhaps be read as characteristics of the heart, with the heart itself representing the nonphysical attributes— moral, spiritual, intellectual, and emotional—of the human individual, as it usually does in emblem literature. It may therefore be understood thus. The human heart is troubled by the cares of the world, which it has to endure. However, this suffering makes the heart stronger, a paradox represented in the emblem through the mysterious process of tempering, a technique used though hardly understood in early modern England. The blacksmith applied both the cooling effects of water and the heating effects of fire to make iron stronger. Because this process seemed at the time to be inexplicable, the mysterious strengthening of the iron by tempering is used as a metaphor for the apparently paradoxical strengthening of the human heart through suffering summed up in the motto from Psalm 51. The emblem tells us that God does not despise (the troubles of) the human heart, but takes the troubles, in the shape of the burning tormented heart, and applies divine grace to them in the form of the cooling water from heaven; as with the tempering of iron, this process strengthens the heart. The words in parentheses articulate the meaning of the emblematic image, as opposed to the Latin motto, and show how it contributes to the message of the emblem as a whole. Even if the Bristol viewers were not aware of the specific identities of the four women, they would have recognized their actions and postures, the allegorical nature of the composition as a whole, and the ideas it conveyed.

“The winged man with scales” (fig. 4) This emblem is also accompanied by a biblical inscription and has a traceable source in a previous emblem. It shows a bearded man in what looks like a highly simplified form of Roman military dress. He is standing facing the viewer with his right leg and right arm raised. There are two wings on his

right wrist and one on his right foot while his left foot is on the ground and

his left arm points downward. In his right hand, he carries a pair of scales, which seem to balance each other. It is hard to decipher what are in the scale pans, but the left-hand side could contain flowers and the right-hand side

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Fig. 4. “The winged man with scales.” (Photograph by the author.

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thorns. In his left hand he carries a bust portrait of a long-haired, beardless

figure in a circular frame that is suspended from his hand by a chain. In the top right-hand corner, a hand appears in the sky holding a scroll inscribed

with the words, “Sufficit tibi gratia mea” [My grace is sufficient for thee], which comes from 2 Corinthians 12:9. The original source for the image is Andrea Alciato. In the many editions

of his emblem book, this image appears in a number of different versions, from the naked putto figure of the early French editions to the gentleman with a hat in the German editions. In some, the rock rests on the ground while, in others, it is suspended in the air. The Bristol version, while differ-

ent in many details, is closest to the 1584 edition of Alciato, which inspired Geoffrey Whitney’s 4 Choice of Emblemes of 1586 (Oakes, 293-94; see

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Alciato, emblem 120; and Whitney, emblem 152). These show a clothed man without a hat whose posture is very similar to the Bristol example, but who faces away from the viewer. In both of the books, the emblem represents poverty frustrating the fulfillment of talent, and the man clearly holds a boulder in one hand while his other, winged hand reaches up toward a figure of God in the sky, rather than simply the hand of God. The appearance of God was interpolated by Alciato’s illustrators, though it is not implied in the accompanying motto or text, which has no Christian reference. Indeed, an English applied emblem survives based on an earlier edition of Alciato in which God does not appear. This can be seen among the wood carvings dated 1575, which once decorated a house built for an Oxford don and are now displayed in University College (Bayley 1958, 193 and 198-99; 1960, 345). They are of interest in our consideration of the wall paintings in that they were chosen by an academic as a decorative scheme in a domestic context, not dissimilar to the circumstances at Bristol. Versions appear also in seventeenth-century emblem books, where again the religious reference can be found in the image rather than in the text. A version where the text has a similar meaning to those in Alciato and Whitney appears in Rollenhagen (42) adapted by Wither (3.42), where the religious reference is provided by David and Goliath, who feature in the background of the image.'* Elsewhere, this originally secular emblem is turned to unambiguous religious use. In the Hatfield tapestries, for instance, the object that weighs

the figure down, though a rock as in the secular versions above, is actually described in the motto as “mundus” [the world], and in the sky, the name “Jehova” appears. In the 1624 Jesuit emblem book Pia Desideria, by Hermann Hugo, another version of the emblem represents the Christian dilemma between choosing life or death. The rock is now a sphere surmounted by a cross, which holds back a winged figure who reaches up to another winged figure in the sky (emblem 39). Like the Bristol emblem, Hugo’s Latin motto derives from Paul, in this case Philippians 1:23, “Coarctor e duobus: desiderium habens dissolve et esse cum Christo, multo magis melius” [For I

am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better]. 14.

The accompanying couplet in Wither is “My wit got wings and high had flowne; but povertie did keep mee down.”

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None of these examples, however, includes the motif of the scales, though scales are a feature of many other emblems of the period, either on their own or set in different compositions. They are brought to the service of emblems commenting on a wide variety of themes, such as friendship, the immutability of fate, and the proposition that every man should be given his just deserts.!* In some, the scales are balanced, and in others, one scale pan clearly outweighs the other, which is always significant for the meaning. Portraits by George Gower show scales where talent is seen to be clearly outweighing wealth and status, and a late sixteenth-century wooden overmantel formerly at a house in Uckfield, Sussex, but now destroyed, showed scales where a Bible outweighed items associated with church ritual (Strong

1969, 170; Hamling, 1 and 3), One example that may have some bearing on the interpretation of the motif at Bristol does not feature scales as such, but does imply weighing. This is Georgette de Montenay’s emblem 86, which shows two hands emerging from clouds, one carrying a large cup and the other a small one. The verse that accompanies it explains that God blesses the small and the big cup equally, even though the latter holds more. The Latin motto is “Sufficit” [It is enough]. “Sufficit” also features in the Bristol emblem, where it is part of the Latin motto on the scroll held by the hand in the sky. The passage, from Corinthians, comes from a chapter that engages with the issue that the pride Paul has as a man privileged with visions and revelations ought to be tempered by humility, described metaphorically as “a thorn in the flesh.”'* The chapter also spells out the paradox that the strength of Christ best finds its place in the weakness and tribulations of people (2 Cor. 12:9 and 12:10), a point that is not dissimilar to the paradox that informs the anvil emblem. The visual aspect of the emblem deals with the relationship between opposites—reaching up to the sky and being pulled back to the ground—and the balancing of opposites—the objects in the scales, one of which appears to be thorns. Bearing in mind the meaning of the motto in its biblical context, we might consider an explanation of the emblem to be that the man reaches up toward the divine revelation in the sky but is pulled back by his humanity, 15.

16.

For example, Combe, emblem14; Boissard, 13; Wither, 2.38.

“And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the rev-

elations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to

buffet me, lest I should be exalted above all measure” (2 Cor. 12:7).

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represented as the image he carries in his hand.!7 At the same time, the pride he has in reaching up is brought to task by the necessary humility he should have, which is represented by the thorns in the scales (“lest I should be exalted above all measure”). Christ in heaven says “my grace is sufficient for thee” to make him strong, implying that, if he thinks his own strength or, specifically in the Pauline context, his insights derive from his own merits, then he will be beset by pride. The thorns that punish his pride are balanced in the scales by flowers, perhaps presenting God’s grace. This interpretation allows for the Latin motto to complement the imagery as it does in the anvil emblem; takes in the broader context from which the motto comes; and shares the paradox of the anvil emblem that Christ’s strength best takes root in human weakness. Any interpretation should also take into account the meaning already attached in contemporary minds to the emblematic motifs being employed. Interesting in the light of other possible Jesuit influences on the program at Bristol, the Pia Desideria may have been known, but once again it raises the question of the accessibility of Jesuit writings at the time and the date of the Bristol emblems. It also uses a Pauline text, but the visual motif of being pulled in both directions here represents dilemma rather than aspiration. The Bristol version, if the interpretation above is feasible, conforms more to the use of the motif in Alciato and Whitney and the version in the Hatfield tapestries in as much as the pull heavenward represents noble aspirations frustrated by the social condition in one case and visionary aspirations controlled by the human condition in the other. The balanced scales speak of equality in the eyes of God in the De Montenay emblem, and its Latin motto, “Sufficit;” begs the question as to what exactly is sufficient to make this miraculous balancing of unequal quantities possible, to which the answer presumably is divine grace.

the scale pan of the balanced scales. The scale pan that balances his right leg contains a column. The one that is in the higher pan on the other side is empty. The Latin motto is “Ex fide victurus est” [He shall live by faith], and the verse describes how mortality is overcome by faith, leading to immortal life. The column presumably represents faith (as it does in emblem

The Bristol emblem, which employs the same word, but in a fuller literary

context, offers this answer. The same theological issue is at the heart of another De Montenay emblem using the image of scales. Emblem 69 shows two sets of scales, one balanced and the other unbalanced. A man in the center stands in the scale pans, his left leg in the lower pan of one pair of scales and his right leg in 17.

“For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool: for I will say the truth: but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me” (2 Cor. 12:6).

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8 of the same book) or constancy, and the weight of this in the pan lifts the

figure up to balance evenly with it. Thus weak suffering humankind is raised up through faith in God’s grace through the action of divine agency in the scales. In the same way, the scales on the wall painting show the thorns from the biblical passage as representing human frailty, which is lifted up through the agency of what is contained in the other scale pan. The intervention of divine grace is “enough” to do this.

“The ship in the storm” (fig. 5) Another emblem where the Latin motto derives from Psalms is the ship tossed on a stormy sea referred to in the introduction. The main mast is broken, and a man stands in the stern, which is secured by a giant hand that emerges from some clouds on the right. Across the flapping sails appears the Latin motto, “Non timebo” [I will not fear]. While ships in storms appear elsewhere (e.g., Alciato, emblem 43), the closest equivalent for this emblem is once again to be found in the pages of De Montenay. Emblem 11 similarly shows a man standing in a ship in a stormy sea. A hand emerging from clouds on the right holds a torch, and at the top of the composition, a cartouche contains the motto “Quem timebo” [Whom

shall I fear?], a fragment from Psalm 27:1, which opens with the words, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” The hand holding the torch presumably refers to “The Lord,’ who is “my light” in the source text. The Bristol version, though similar to De Montenay, is significantly different. The hand at Bristol does not hold a torch and the scriptural source is not quite the same, though still apparently rooted in the Psalms. The precise phrase “non timebo” appears three times in Psalms (3, 23, and 56) with the sentiment, especially in Psalms 3 and 56, that God will save the

psalmist from his enemies. Another psalm, however, fits the overall theme of the Bristol wall paintings even better. Psalm 46 is a Lenten psalm, and it opens with a verse expressing the psalmist’s faith that God will keep him

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Fig. 5. “The ship in the storm.” (Photograph by the author.)

safe amidst the storms. It employs a similar phrase to the Bristol motto in verse 2, except that it uses the first person plural—“non timebimus”— rather than the singular form.'* Adapting biblical sources is a feature of the Bristol emblems elsewhere, and the fact that there is only one man in the boat in the emblem may explain the change that has been made in this case. Overall, given the reference in this psalm to stormy seas, it seems likely that Psalm 46 is the strongest candidate for the source of the motto among the five considered. So the author of the Bristol program has used a familiar emblematic motif, and indeed may have had the De Montenay version in mind, but has combined it with a phrase from another psalm, presumably in order to create an image with a specific purpose. 18.

“God is our hope and strength; a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be moved; and though the hills be carried in the midst of the sea. / Though the waters thereof rage and swell.”

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Fig. 6. “The anchor crucifix” (Photograph by the author.)

“The anchor crucifix” (fig. 6) À hand is also a feature of the anchor crucifix emblem, which is discussed in some detail in my earlier article, with its links to other emblems and literary metaphors used in the period (Oakes, 293). Here, in the manner of a medieval manus dei, the hand extends from a cloud at the top of the frame and holds a ring from which an anchor is suspended. Christ appears crucified on the shank, with his feet resting on an open book supported by the curved arm of the anchor below. Underneath, written on a curling scroll, is the motto, “Spe, prece, patientia” [By hope, by prayer, by suffering], the hope represented by the anchor, the prayer by the book, and the suffering by the figure of Christ on the cross.

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The hands hold each other around a rainbow that spans the emblem anddisappears into clouds on each side. Flanking the wrist of the hand at the top is the Latin motto—“Serva et servabo” [Attend (to me) and I will watch over (you)|. Hands emerging from clouds are commonplace in the emblem books of the day, and hands clasping each other often represent Concordia. However, they tend to emerge from each side of the emblem, as in Paradin’s Heroicall Devises of 1591 (351) and Cramer’s emblem 14, rather than from

top and bottom. A close correspondent to the Bristol example appears in a miniature by

Nicholas Hilliard, now in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (P21-

Fig. 7. “Linked hands.’ (Photograph by the author.)

“Linked hands” (fig. 7) This is another hand emblem with a motto inspired by classical sources that apparently promotes values of civilized and honorable behavior. One hand emerges from clouds at the top, like the medieval hand of God in the anchor crucifix emblem, and grasps a hand that emerges below from a segment of the globe, like the hand in the flaming heart emblem. Both hands, again like the one found in the flaming heart emblem, have elaborate cuffs and sleeves.

1942) and dated to the late 1580s (Strong 1983, 75). Although part of a portrait, the hands are angled vertically in the same way, and the top one emerges from a cloud with a beautiful, bejewelled cuff. While the identity of the sitter and the source of the motto on the Hilliard portrait have remained an enigma, it seems likely that the hand the man holds is emerging from heaven. If not, why not angle the hands horizontally, and why not give an identity to the disembodied hand? The Latin motto at Bristol is close to the phrase “Servo servabo” in Cicero's Epistulae ad Familiares (Cicero, 9.22.4, 1. 14), but the first word is clearly the imperative “Serva.” In fact, “Serva servabo” is a contraction of the Roman proverbial expression, “Serva me, servabo te” which is quoted, for example, by Petronius in chapter 44 of Satyricon (Petronius Arbiter, 48). Whether either of these is a conscious source or not is hard to establish, but the motto at Bristol certainly implies the involvement of two protagonists whereas the phrase from Cicero is all in the first person. The sentiment at Bristol suggests a contractual relationship and is visually expressed as a deal made between heaven and earth, concord between the human and the divine, which is further suggested by the presence of the rainbow, signifying the heavenly covenant. In addition, the demanding imperative of “Serva” combined with the image of the hand coming out of the sky evokes divine authority. “Sundial” (fig. 8)

This broken panel represents a sundial numbered I to XI. scribed within the frame indicates the points of a compass The shadow cast by the gnomon points to just past the should be, though the face of the sun appears beyond the

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appears again, as with the previous emblem, that a fragment from a classical aphorism is referred to. The whole quotation from which it derives, exhorting the reader to live for the present because joys that lie in the future will be enjoyed more pleasurably if they are not anticipated, would seem appropriate for the visual subject of the emblem." The two words “grata superveniet” can be literally translated as “welcome when it comes, and it is interesting that Hughes built into his translation an understanding of that phrase as meaning that Grace awaits the faithful. Presumably his reading was that God’s grace awaits all believers. They do not know when it will come, but it will be welcome when it does. The classical reference would be appropriate for a grammar school audience, and, if Hughes is right, the derivation from Protestant theology would speak to the teachings of the newly established church, and it is reminiscent of the reference to divine grace in the winged figure emblem. Both these readings complement the image of the sundial and its reference to transience, and both would be suitable for an audience of schoolboy choristers. If the miscasting of the shadow is not significant, the same cannot be said for the absence of the figure XII. The wise and foolish virgins emblem refers to an apocalyptic event that, according to Matthew, chapter 25, will occur at midnight. We also know

that the ceiling of the room where the paintings were originally located was decorated with a scheme depicting “Last Things.” In these contexts, grace intervening to save the believer from the darkness of the Judgment hour may be a way of interpreting the sundial.

“The man with the horse” (fig. 9) one The text on this emblem also quotes a classical source. It is another shares and es of the Bristol emblems that appears on the Hatfield tapestri on a number of features with similar images in emblem books. It shows

a ia © Siz! ; Fig. 8. “Sundial.” (Photograp h by the author.)

the left a standing man, finely dressed, who points with his right hand to a horse apparently collapsed at his feet with its eyes closed. The horse

and IT and so the shadow appears to be cast in the wrong direction. We can-

line of horn, and above his head, the sun peers through from behind a

neath the sundial is broken away, but Hughes must have seen the emblem before it was damaged because he transcribes it as “Grata Superveniet” and

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not know whether this inaccuracy is deliberate or not. The motto under-

freely translates it “Grace shall come upon thee” (Hughes, 151; see Oakes, 294-95). The passage comes from Horace’s Epistles (1.4, |. 13), and so it

hunting is saddled and bridled. In his left hand, the man holds a broken

puffy clouds. The motto is written across the composition underneath the

diluxisse supreThe full quotation from Horace is, “Omnem crede diem tibi yourself chat to [Think hora.” r sperabitu non quae et, superveni mum / Grata come as a will forward look not every day is your last; the hour to which you do

welcome surprise. |

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derives from both Ovid (Tristia, 1.5, 1. 1) and Martial (Epigrams, 1.15), in each case as part of texts commenting on the importance of close friendship and quite different in sentiment to the mottoes associated with the emblems in Bocchi and La Perrière (Oakes, 294-96). The broken horn may refer to a hunting accident resulting in the death or injury of the horse, perhaps a metaphor for the loss of a friend, but with no evidence to support this reading, it must remain merely speculative.

“Eclipse” (fig. 10) This emblem was found only after W. W. Hughes read his paper to the Clifton Antiquarian Club in 1901, so presumably prior to the demolition of the building in 1904 (Hughes, 152). It depicts an eclipse of the moon, with the three orbs—sun, moon, and earth—lined up vertically, the sun sending out rays of light at the top, the earth marked with sea and land masses in the middle, and the moon in shadow at the bottom. The sun is damaged, so it is not possible to see if anything was painted on it, but the moon is endowed with a face. Underneath, on a scroll designed similarly to that on the linked-hands emblem, is the motto, “Ascende nite bis” [Climb

Fig. 9. “The man with the horse”

( Photograph

by the author.)

clouds and reads “O mihi post nullos” [O mine, after no others]. The image has strong similarities with La Perriére’s emblem 95 (1544) and Achille Bocchi’s emblem 52 (1574). In the former, the emblem has religious con-

notations because God appears in the sky carrying an orb surmounted by across. The man stands on the opposite side and is clearly not a gentleman from the way he is dressed. Also the beast is not a horse but an ass, and a beast of burden because he has two wooden chests strapped to his back. In Bocchi, the pack donkey also features, but the man kneels and apparently petitions Hercules, who is seated on a cloud above him. These have more in common with each other than with the Bristol example, where the man is of a different social class, the beast of burden is a mount, the man carries

an attribute, and there is nothing in the sky. However, these features apart, the influence of the emblem books is apparent in the general design. There

and you will shine twice as brightly]. There is a close match to this emblem again in one of the miniatures of Nicholas Hilliard. His cabinet miniature

of George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, dressed as he appeared at the 1590

Accession Day tournament when he was appointed as Elizabeth’s champion at arms, shows the Earl standing next to a tree upon which hangs his parade shield (Young 1987, 140).? Customarily these shields were made of wood and painted with an emblematic device, usually an image and accompanying motto, collectively described as an impresa (Heaton, 51-53; Young 1988, 1-18). Inasmuch as there is no obvious shadow cast over the moon,

it is not an eclipse as such on the miniature, but otherwise it is very similar to the Bristol roundel in the vertical arrangement of the three planets and the face on the moon. Whether there was a shared printed model or not we can only surmise, but the eclipses that appear in the emblem books are 20.

London, Greenwich, National Maritime Museum (MNTO193)

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are two extra features at Bristol that do not appear elsewhere, however. The first is the broken hunting horn, and the second is the Latin motto. This

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A closer kinship, however, can again be found in the Hatfield tapestries, where there is an eclipse emblem still more like the one at Bristol and even sharing the same motto. I have not found a source for “Ascende nite bis,’ though it hardly needs remarking that this rallying exhortation seems also to fit the Bristol emblem’s original setting and audience. “The two harts” (fig. 11)

The final emblem was considered at some length in the previous article on the Bristol wall paintings (Oakes, 296-98). It shows a hart with its eyes closed, lying down in the foreground apparently in front of a stream on the banks of which vegetation grows. From a ridge in the landscape halfway up the emblem, another shrub grows on the right of the composition. In the top half, another hart appears leaping up a hill. Whether the creatures are meant to represent two individual beasts or one shown at two different stages of a narrative is difficult to establish. Across the composition beneath the recumbent hart is the motto “Secreta mea mihi” [My secrets are mine].

Fig. 10. “Eclipse” (Photograph by the author.)

not, as far as I can see, represented in this way (Kemp).”! As a subject, the eclipse was frequently alluded to in Tudor and Jacobean writings prompted by a series of total and partial eclipses in England in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, notably, a total lunar eclipse in 1598 (Levy, 33-34). The mottoes on these two emblems, however, are quite different,

“Hasta quando” [A lance at any time] being appropriate for the overall subject matter of the miniature and the circumstances in which it was made. The comparison with Hilliard may indicate a common visual source and is interesting as an example of a motto determining the reading of an image. 21.

For example, see De Bèze, emblems 40, 41, and 42.

The scroll upon which it is written seems to be coming from the animals mouth, as if it were speaking the phrase. The link of the wounded hart by a stream to themes of melancholy and the anguish of unrequited love were referred to in my previous article on the Bristol program (Oakes), and the whole subject of the imagery of the hart has been thoroughly examined elsewhere by Michael Bath (1992). The appearance of hearts as a visual motifin other Bristol emblems may suggest a punning use of the image of the hart here, especially given the melancholic setting in which the hart in the foreground lies. However, in the earlier article, it was also noted that the motto “Secreta mea mihi” not only was a popular classical aphorism of the day but also derived from a biblical source in Isaiah.” Furthermore, the biblical phrase was associated from the 1590s with the emerging cult of Philip Neri. A motto having both classical and Christian, or at least biblical, interpretations has been shown to be a feature of the Bristol scheme as a whole, not surprisingly for a Cathedral grammar school audience. Nor would this be the only emblem there that appears, perhaps rather problematically, to have possible connections with Roman Catholicism. The elusive element 22.

Isaiah 24:16: “A finibus terrae laudes audivimus: ‘Gloria iusto. Et dixi: ‘Secre-

tum meum mihi, secretum meum mihi. Vae mihi!” [From the ends of the earth

we have heard praises: “Glory to the just one.” And I said: “My secret is mine, my secret is mine. Woe is me!”].

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out, and streams in the desert” (Isa. 35:6). In the image, the leaping hart at

Fig. 11. “The two harts.” (Photograph by the author.

)

of this example, however, and probably the key to a closer interpretation of its intended meaning, is the bearing of the image upon the Latin motto and the reason why the biblical source has been changed from the singular to the plural. The Isaiah connection seems to be the most likely trail to follow in order to make a meaningful link between text and image. There are frequent references in the Old Testament to the hart, the word being an archa-

ic designation for an adult male deer or stag. Perhaps the most well known is the opening of Psalm 42, which compares the hart’s desire to quench its thirst with the human soul’s yearning for God. Nevertheless, another hart

metaphor appears in Isaiah, the same book from which the motto is derived, It is in a later chapter and describes God’s defense of the weak and the benefits that it brings. It reads: “Then shall the lame man leap as an hart and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break

the top of the composition and the appearance of water and vegetation in the scene represent this passage and stand in contrast to the hart that lies down with its eyes closed keeping its secret to itself. The latter illustrates a text while the former images a text. It is apparent from the biblical context of the phrase in chapter 24 that the secret in question is the prophet'’s premonition of God’s vengeance; the other hart celebrates God’s blessings of the righteous. There is no obvious reason for the change in the motto from the singular to the plural except to note again that the Bristol mottoes are often modified in order to adapt them for a particular purpose. What that precise purpose was remains elusive. However, the foregoing discussion has attempted to provide a few further observations and suggestions about the Bristol wall paintings and their significance. Unsurprisingly in an Anglican Cathedral context, most of the emblems, in terms of their contemporary reading, seem to be explicitly religious, especially where the mottoes are clearly derived from biblical texts. The inclusion of classical aphorisms for mottoes is appropriate for the grammar-school audience for which they were likely designed. Moreover, since many or even all of the boys would have been choristers, it is notable that the biblical mottoes include references to three psalms and a further text—“Ecce sponsus venit” [Behold, the bridegroom comes]—for which there was a musical setting available in the new Anglican liturgy. The mottoes are usually fragmentary and selective in relation to their sources, adapted to complement the visual emblem and to highlight its meaning. In many cases, understanding the emblem relied on the viewer's knowing the broader literary context of the motto, which is to be expected in the Anglican and Humanist culture within which the boys would have been educated. Three of the emblems can be visually sourced via emblem books or engravings. The others draw on a repertory of images commonly used in numerous variations in em-

blem books and other visual sources from the mid-sixteenth to the midseventeenth century, notably scales, hands emerging from clouds, hearts, stags, sundials, and boats in stormy seas. It has been shown (see above,

183 ff.) that many of these were used elsewhere in other visual contexts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as paintings both large and small, plasterwork, and woodcarvings. The date of the scheme should be fairly easy to deduce from the sources discussed. With the exception of one emblem, all the others relate to

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models dating from the sixteenth century. In particular, the Bristol program, although not directly copying any of Georgette de Montenay’s emblems, does seem to be particularly informed by the general compositions and the theology of the Huguenot book. De Montenay was also influential on the emblems on the Hatfield tapestries, which share five emblems in common with the series at Bristol. However these mutual influences worked, the emblem book, tapestries, and wall paintings all constellate around the last fifteen years or so of the sixteenth century, when we take into account that De Montenay’s editions date in the main from the 1570s and 1580s and that 1580s editions of Alciato and/or Whitney inspired the winged-figure emblem. The terminus ante quem suggested at the beginning therefore does not seem to be too far out, and the Bristol paintings may indeed form a part, a late part, of the restoration of the Grammar School buildings begun in the early 1580s. However, this date does not fit the emblem with the IHS monogram on the winged flaming heart, which is also a puzzle given its apparently explicit Roman Catholic references. There is no doubt that it belongs to the same date as the other emblems considered, but the use of this motif suggests placing the Bristol emblems into the second or even third decade of the seventeenth century, when it was introduced into Jesuit circles. Its presence in pre-Reformation iconography shows that earlier versions were theoretically available, although it is hard to know where the Bristol designer would have found such a source. As has been shown, the Roman Catholic influence is also suggested in the motto for this emblem and that of the two harts emblem. The regime at the cathedral by the 1620s was Evangelical, which makes it unlikely that the conservative drift in the Bristol paintings would have been tolerated at this time, unless, as has been

suggested above, this particular emblem was intended to have a negative connotation compounded by its position in relation to the biblical frieze (Oakes, 289-90). Nonetheless, the anomaly could be explained another way. The Bristol motif has an extra detail not found in the Jesuit versions—the wings. It has been shown that winged and flaming hearts (though not bearing the IHS 23.

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On the Hatfield tapestries, see Daly (274 and 276), Turner, and Bath (forthcoming, chap. 4). One of the emblems that appears both at Bristol and on the Hatfield tapestries is not considered here. It is the emblem that shows a doorway made of bones with the motto “Mors janua vitae” [Death (is) the door of life].

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monogram) can be found in Protestant emblem books in the 1610s and

1620s, and it has been suggested that the monogram on its own was tolerated in iconography until the Commonwealth period. It may be, therefore, that these parts have been combined into a whole that retrospectively ap-

pears Jesuitical but that at the time was simply an emblem created for a

particular purpose using the innocent components available in any contemporary emblemist’s toolbox. Even if some of those were associated

with Roman Catholicism, as Héltgen has pointed out, Protestant writers

were in fact drawn to the cryptic nature of emblems, whatever their source, because they could avoid using realistic imagery, which was much more problematic for them (see Bath 1986, 378). Such an explanation would

situate the winged and flaming heart, and thus the whole emblematic part of the program at Bristol, in the second decade of the seventeenth century,

when winged and flaming hearts first appeared in emblem books, and even earlier if we are to understand emblem books as summarizing allegorical motifs in circulation rather than as instigating them. The evidence examined in this article would situate the emblems safely between ca. 1585 and ca. 1615, but the earlier date fits in better with the history of the cathedral, the style of the emblems, and the demonstrated connections with sixteenth-century emblemists such as Whitney and De Montenay. This article has deliberately focused on the emblems at Bristol and their possible sources, and has attempted to explain their purpose in their original setting. I remain convinced that they are a unique document for the study of early modern education and Reformation iconography, as well as for the field of emblem studies. Their content is far from simplistic and indicates an intellectual culture at this minor Anglican cathedral that must have been highly stimulating for the boys privileged to reside there. Works Cited Alciato, Andrea. Emblemata. Paris, 1584.

and Bagley, Ayers. “Some Pedagogical Uses of the Emblem in Sixteenth

Seventeenth Century England” Emblematica 7 (1993): 39-60. Baird, Kathryn. Secular Wall Painting in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth

Centuries. Unpublished D. Phil. thesis. University of Oxford, 2003.

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Bath, Michael. Review of K. J. Hôltgen, Aspects of the Emblem: Studies in the English Emblem Tradition and the European Context. Problemata Semiotica 2. Kasse, 1986. Emblematica 1 (1986): 375-79.

. The Image of the Stag: Iconographic Themes in Western Art. Baden Baden, 1992.

. Speaking Pictures. English Emblem Books and Renaissance Culture. London, 1994. - The Four Seasons Tapestries at Hatfield House. London, forthcoming

[2013].

Bath, Michael, and Malcolm Jones. “Emblems from Thomas Combe

in

Wall Paintings from Bury St Edmunds.” Emblematica 10 (1996): 195-203.

Bayley, Peter C. “The Summer Room Carvings.” University College Record 3.3 (1958): 192-201; 3.4 (1959): 252-57; 3.5 (1960): 340-46. Bayly, Lewis. The practice of pietie: directing a Christian how to walke that he may please God. London, 1629. Bocchi, Achille. Symbolicarum quaestionum libri quinque. Bologna, 1574. Boissard, Jean-Jacques. Emblemes Latins. Metz, 1588.

Campa, Pedro F. “Devotion and Onomasiology: The Impresa of the Society

of Jesus.” In Emblematic Images and Religious Texts: Studies in

Honor of Richard G. Dimler S.J., ed. Pedro F. Campa and Peter M. Daly. Philadelphia, 2010. Pp. 1-28. Cicero, Marcus Tullius. Epistolae ad Familiares. Ed. David R. ShackletonBailey. 2 vols. Cambridge, 1977.

Cole, William. 4 Catalogue of Netherlandish and North European Roundels in Britain. Oxford, 1993.

Combe, Thomas. The Theater of Fine Devices. London, 1614.

Corrozet, Gilles. Hecatomgraphie. Paris, 1540.

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Davidson, Peter. “The Inscribed House.” In Emblem Studies in Honour of Peter Daly, ed. Michael Bath, Pedro F. Campa, and Daniel S. Russell. Saecula Spiritalia 41. Baden Baden, 2002. Pp. 41-62. De Bèze, Théodore. Icones. Geneva, 1580. De Montenay, Georgette. Emblemes ou devises chrestiennes. Lyons, 1571.

Exercises. The exercises performed at a visitation of the Grammar-School of Bristol, on Thursday the 7th of April, MDCCXXXVII. To which are added, Verses on the Grammar-School, spoken at a former visitation. Bristol, 1737. Hamling, Tara. Decorating the Godly Household. Religious Art in PostReformation Britain. New Haven, 2010. Harvey, Christopher. The School of the Heart. London, 1664. Hawkins, Henry. Partheneia Sacra. Rouen, 1633. Hearn, Karen, ed. Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530-1630. London, 1995. Heaton, Gabriel. Writing and Reading Royal Entertainments: From George Gascgoigne to Ben Jonson. Oxford, 2010.

Hilliard, Nicholas. A Treatise Concerning the Arte of Limning. Ed. R. K. R. Thornton and T. G. S. Cain. Manchester, 1981. Hltgen, Karl Joseph. Aspects of the Emblem: Studies in the English Emblem Tradition and the European Context. Problemata Semiotica 2. Kassel, 1986. Horace. Epistole. Ed. Marco Beck. Milan, 1997. Hughes, W. W. “Mural Decorations in a Dormitory of the Old Deanery, College Green, Bristol.” Proceedings of the Clifton Antiquarian Club for 1900-1903 5 (1904): 147-53.

Cramer, Daniel. Emblemata Sacra. Frankfurt, 1622.

Hugo, Hermann. Pia Desideria. Antwerp, 1624.

Daly, Peter M. “The Sheldon ‘Four Seasons’ Tapestries at Hatfield House. A Seventeenth-Century Instance of Significant Emblematic

Jones, Malcolm. The Print in Early Modern England: An Historical Oversight. New Haven, 2010.

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Kemp, Cornelia. “Lumine carens: zur Sonnenfinsternis in der Emblematik anlaflich totalen Sonnenfinsternis in München am.Il. August 1999.” In Polyvalenz und Multifunktionalitat de Emblematik, ed. Wolfgang Harms and D. Peil. 2 vols. Bern, 2002. 1:303-18. La Perriére, Guillaume de. Le Theatre des bons engins. Paris, 1544.

Leech, Roger H. “On the Waterfront: The Early Medieval Landscape Setting of St Augustine’s, Bristol.” In The Medieval Art, Architecture and History of Bristol Cathedral. An Enigma Explored, ed. J. Cannon and B. Williamson. Woodbridge, 2011. Pp. 20-32.

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Levy, David H. The Sky in Early Modern English Literature: A Study of

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Allusions to Celestial Events in Elizabethan and Jacobean Writing 1572-1620. New York, 2011.

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Martial. Epigrams. Trans. Walter C. A. Ker. 2 vols. London, 1919-20. Morgan, Edwin T. 4 History of the Bristol Cathedral School. Bristol, 1913.

Nicholls, James F., and John Taylor. Bristol Past and Present. 3 vols. Bristol, 1881-82. Oakes, Catherine. “Secreta mea mihi: The Wall paintings from the Old Deanery of Bristol Cathedral.” In The Medieval Art, Architecture

and History of Bristol Cathedral. An Enigma Explored, ed. J. Cannon and B. Williamson. Woodbridge, 2011. Pp. 276-98.

Ovidius Naso, Publius. The Tristia of Ovid. Intro. and notes George H. Wells. London, 1904. Paradin, Claude. The heroicall devises of M. Claudius Paradin whereunto are added the Lord Gabriel Symeons and others. London, 1591.

Petronius Arbiter. Satyricon. The Latin Library. http://www.thelatinlibrary .com/petronius.html. Pryce, George. Drawing(s) of Ceiling in Deanery. Bristol Central Library

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Van Claerbergen, Ernst Vegelin, ed. The Portrait of Sir John Luttrell: A Tudor Mystery. London, 2000. Van Haeften, Benedict. Schola cordis, sive, Aversi a Deo cordis ad eumdem reductio, et instructio. Antwerp, 1629.

Waddington, Raymond B. “Moralising the Spectacle: Dramatic Emblems in As You Like It.” Shakespeare Quarterly 33:2 (1982): 155-63. Waldmann, E. Die Nürnberger Kleinmeister. Leipzig, 1910.

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From Pages to Walls and Vice Versa: Applied Emblems between Tristan l’Hermite’s Poetry and

Seventeenth-Century French Decoration GABRIELE QUARANTA The poem “La Maison d’Astrée” by François Tristan Hermite provides important evidence about the chateau of Berny, particularly regarding the ekphrasis of an emblematically important room of the house dedicated to the celebration of love. “La Maison d’Astrée” is also considered in relation to several paintings with love emblems now preserved at the chateau of Cheverny, near Blois. Part of a lost decorative program, these emblems can be reconstituted with the aid of an anonymous poem preserved in the Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris. Both texts are thus relevant not only to the use of emblematic decorations but also to the tight connections between literature and artistic practice in seventeenth-century French aristocratic residences, and for the broader theoretical question of the value of poetic and encomiastic texts in general in bearing witness to other vanished emblematic programs.

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ove emblems enjoyed some fortune as a decorative theme in seventeenth-century French aristocratic residences. Very few traces remain today because of the profound changes that later occurred in

decorative tradition, as well as of the perishableness of such works, usually

painted on wood panels. In the following pages, I will investigate two of these emblematic decorations, linked to each other from a typological point of view, but also because of family relationships between their patrons. They 219 Emblematica, Volume 20. Copyright © 2013 by AMS Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

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are two “problematic” cases because the cycle of the château of Cheverny is reduced today to ἃ few specimens, now decontextualized, while the cycle of the chateau of Berny—with which we will begin—has been completely lost: moreover, as we shall see, it is intelligible only through one particular source, François Tristan l’Hermite’s poem “La Maison d’Astrée” written in celebration of that house and its owner, Mme de Puisieux.! Thus, both of these cycles pose the preliminary question of the value of encomiastic poetry as a source for art history, especially when it takes the shape of an ekphrasis. Travelers’ descriptions and reports, as well as works of erudition, are sources of primary importance in the same way as archival records when one is researching a building or a decoration that has been totally or largely lost. In a few extremely fortunate instances, the patron himself has provided us with a description of his house or his collection (see Harms):

this is the case, for example, of the famous emblematic decoration in the castle of Bevern, which is entirely lost but has been reconstructed thanks to a volume that the owner, duke Ferdinand Albrecht von Braunschweig, had

prepared (Médersheim).

But what happens when our source is a poetic work, an encomiastic text, written to celebrate the builder of the house? What could be its possible value as documentary source? In fact, written pages can became an unexpected but nonetheless revealing mirror of the visual arts, not excluding architecture. This question arises in a particular way, for example, in Louis XIII’s France, a period of intense artistic, especially architectural, activity. 1.

Gabriele Quaranta

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These pages are an extended and revised version of a paper presented at the Ninth International Conference of the Society for Emblem Studies, Glasgow (25 June-2 July 2011). My interest on the decoration of the château of Berny and its relationships with the emblematic poetry of Tristan Hermite follows

research on the chateau of Cheverny, which was the subject of my 2008 Compagnia di San Paolo Fellowship at the Collége de France and, in part, of my Ph.D.

thesis on the presence of literary themes in seventeenth-century French decora-

tion (Sapienza Universita di Roma/Université Paris-1 “Panthéon-Sorbonne”).

An earlier version of a portion of this (Quaranta 2010a) while a larger book rations is in preparation at Editions “Trame dipinte, romanzi incrociati.

text appeared in Cahiers Tristan l'Hermite on Cheverny and its several painted decoGarnier (Paris), with the provisional title Il ciclo pittorico del Don Quijote e altri

temi letterari nel Castello di Cheverny.” I take this opportunity to thank the organizers of the Ninth International Conference, as well as the editors of Eblematica for allowing me the opportunity to present my research to the scholarly community. I also extend sincere thanks to Mrs. Livia Bevilacqua for her valuable attentions and contributions.

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During this period of important political changes, the aristocracy—both small and great, feudal and financial—tried to reassert its traditional role even through the construction of new residences and the renovation of old ones. It is no coincidence, then, to come across at this time a number of laudatory poems in which the aristocracy celebration passes through that of their homes, evoked in more or less refined ekphrastic forms: like the real building, even the “literary building” concurred to the reputation of the patron. This large production often goes unrecognized—and the investigation, from this point of view, is far from being exhaustive—but includes both some real masterpieces of French literature and very small works, which cannot overcome their immediate nature. Most of the authors lie in the literary current of “Marinism”: the poet of “Il tempio” and “La Galeria” —and, of course, of “Adone” [Adonis] —was considered an undisputed master of the genre and language of ekphrasis (Graziani). The relationships between what the poetic text selects and the reality of the premises, obviously, vary from work to work: we find superficial evocations with extensive use of well-established topoi, as well as texts closer to

reality, which can sometimes exceed the limits of true descriptions. These are therefore to be assessed case by case, each requiring a study specifically dedicated to it. It is interesting to note that in some cases, however, the poetic evocation seems, if not perfectly adherent to the material given, at least very carefully “distilled” so as to become a crystal-clear image, a true synthesis of a society and its ideology. “Le palais de la volupté” [The pleasure palace], by Marc-Antoine

Gérard de Saint-Amant (published in 1629), provides a rare and complete

example of such a work. This poem is dedicated to the new castle that the Duke of Retz had built in his fief of Princé, not far from Nantes. The calculated distribution of the poetic matter revolves around the evocation of the images of classical deities that decorated the various rooms. It not only draws on the different aspects of aristocratic life (hunting, love, intellectual otium, games, and pleasures of the table) but also seems to re-propose the different size of the house’s rooms, assuming the appearance of a true “poetic architecture” (Roberts). The building outlined by the writer does 2.

Giambattista Marino lived in France from 1615 to 1624, and the Crown itself supported the publication of “L’Adone” in 1623. Previously, a work such as “IL Tempio” (1615), an ekphrasis of an imaginary building, was conceived as a tribute to Maria de’ Medici.

pq

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pr

Se

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not match the one that existed in reality—it is entirely lost, and yet not sufficiently studied—however, it became a literary mirror of it, returning to us an ideologically coherent picture.’ Similarly, the later fragments of

“Le songe de Vaux” [The dream of Vaux], by Jean de La Fontaine, were

"De,

dM

de Berny 2 mes +

lent von Bary auf dem Wey d Orléans.

written in the wake of the same poetic tradition (Graziani, 192-94). They were intended to celebrate, through the evocation of the castle of Vauxle-Vicomte, the artistic and, more broadly, cultural venture of Nicolas Fouquet. But, in their own unresolved incompleteness, they actually bear witness to the failed project and the fall of the great minister, as well as to the dramatic wane of an era (Fumaroli, 176-79), Within this ekphrastic tradition, tinged with Marinism, a prominent place certainly belongs also to the poem that we will discuss here, “La maison d'Astrée” [The home of Astrée], that Francois Tristan l’Hermite

“

published in Les Vers Héroïques {Heroic Verses] in 1648, but going back

to the beginnings of the writer’s career, the first half of the 1620s, according to a notice added to the text.‘ Behind this “literary building,” there lies

one that really existed: the chateau of Berny (fig. 1), near Paris, the resi-

dence of Pierre Brulart de Puisieux—son of Chancellor Nicolas Brulart de Sillery—and his wife Charlotte d’Estampes-Valencay, the renowned Mme de Puisieux, later counted among the Précieuses and an habituée of the salon of Gaston d’Orléans. Unfortunately, this chateau, to be considered among the most interesting and innovative built during the reign of Louis XIII, is today a mere vestige of its former self, having been absorbed by the Parisian 3.

On aristocratic ideology subjected to a work such as “Le Palais de la Volupté”

see Peureux, 367. On the castle of Princé, a residence built in the context of

à

an unusual park structured in five islands parted by canals and arranged in the

shape of a Greek cross, only a short bibliography exists, centered, of course, on the arrangement of the garden rather than the building (see Mathot, 47-53; and Rialland, 9-10). Two critical editions are to be cited. The first is the historic edition prepared by Catherine Grisé in1967; the more recent one is included in Les Œuvres complètes published in 1999-2002. The “notice” in the latter says: “Ce palais des Amours,

Fig. LE Merian, Prosp(ective) de la Maison de Berny, 2 menlen von Parijs, auf dem weg d'Orléans, 1656.

suburbs and having miraculously escaped the complete destruction chat on several occasions threatened the building, the park, and their rich decorations.’ It will tell us very little if we cannot enrich it with further valuable evidence, both graphic and literary. Among the former, the original drawings by François Mansart must be mentioned; they may be found in the Archives Nationales in Paris (Braham and Smith, 192-94). In addition, several later views of the chateau, executed from the mid-seventeenth to the eighteenth century, must be added.‘ The oldest, dating from around 1650, is the Veué de Berny a deux lieués de Paris, a view of the courtside by Israél Henriet. A few years later (1655) can be dated the Prosp(ective) de 5,

qui est un des premiers ouvrages de l’autheur, n'est pas icy dans l’estat qu’il sou-

haiteroit, en ayant égaré quelques vers dans les voyages qu’il a faits hors du royaume. S'il peut un jour les recouvrer, vous aurez cette superbe maison mieux achevée” [This palace of Loves, which is one of the earliest works of the writer, is not here in the form that he would like, because some verses have been deleted during the trips he took out of the Realm. If he is able to recover them one day, you will have this magnificent house in a much more finished state] (173).

6.

Berny stood at Fresnes, ἃ town near Paris that was renowned because it housed

the most famous residence of the du Plessis-Guénégaud family, also built by François Mansart. The inner circle of the salon of Elizabeth de Choiseul-Praslin, wife of Henri du Plessis-Guénégaud, used to gather there (Craveri, 257-- 63). These etchings are preserved in several French collections, such as those of the Bibliothèque Nationale (Est. Va 92) and the Archives Nationales in Paris, but references in this article are to the complete collection preserved in the Archives Départementales des Hauts-de-Seine (ADHS) located in Nanterre, available at http://www.archives.hauts-de-seine.net.

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Gabriele Quaranta

la Maison de Berny, another view by the courtside by G. Merian, included in the first volume of Topographia Galliae (Zeiller, 1.54, fig. 1), while at the end of the century Adam Perelle represented the château both looking toward its main entrance and from the vantage point of its gardens. Finally, in the eighteenth century, by which time Berny was the luxurious country

entrances, each guarded by two statues of allegorical figures, matched for contrast and accompanied by explanatory verses. There were in fact Pleasure and Temperance, Fortune and Prudence,’ Envy and Patience, and, finally, Slander and Truth" (Godefroy, 53v-55v). Literally dialoguing with each other, the statues developed a discourse of moralizing tone, certainly evoking some classic themes, but also strongly referencing the political vicissitudes of the lords of Berny. The Chancellor de Sillery was among the chief ministers of Henri IV and later one of the key figures of Maria de Medici’s regency. Omitted from the Council of State by Concino Concini, he lost his office of Garde des Sceaux in 1616. The following year, he recovered this role, but he was finally sidelined by Richelieu in 1624 (Wilhelm, 29; Constant). In turn, his son Pierre, “Sécrétaire d’Etat aux Affaires Etrangères” {State Secretary for Foreign Affairs] since 1617, was ousted in 1626 and did not secure another place in the new administrative apparatus that the cardinal was setting up.

home of the Abbots of the Parisian church of Saint-Germain-des-Près, J.

Rigaud provided a final image. However, the most telling visual evidence is the great “bird's-eye view” carried out in 1684 by Jean Millet and Claude Revel (Paris AN, N 1 Seine 32). Among the literary sources, valuable descriptions are also to be counted,

left by the Parisian erudite Denis Godefroy (1615-81) (Godefroy, 47r-

54v), who visited Berny in 1636, as well as by the Florentine ambassador Giovanni Francesco Rucellai (1608-?) (Rucellai, 117-19) and by the young official Elie Brakenhoffer, from Strasbourg (1618-82) (Brakenhoffer, 4751), both of whom visited it around the early 1640s. The chateau of Berny was built in the late sixteenth century by Sillery, but it was radically renovated in 1623-24 by the young François Mansart, here creating one of his first independent works. The architect renewed the look of this residence by totally demolishing and rebuilding the central pavilion and reshaping the lateral ones in order to adapt them stylistically to the new structure. This was connected to the old long gallery,

developed over the entrance court, through the elegant tower of the main

staircase (Braham and Smith). Of course, the work, whose Marché bears only the signature of Mme de Puisieux—therefore indicated as the genuine patron, the soul of the project (Ciprut)—was not restricted to the architecture but also affected the estate’s private area. The cour d’honneur was shaped as a terrace on the river Biévre: it was decorated with a fountain, with statues of classical divinities, and with a series of busts of Roman emperors completed by the portrait of Sillery. The rear garden was redefined in flower beds and enriched by several fountains. In the first one, set in the middle, water sprayed out from three superposed basins; in the second one, set in the potager [kitchen garden] and round in shape, an

unidentified “figure on dolphins” appeared; in the third one, larger and semicircular in shape, conceived as a backdrop of parterres, five divinities appeared: Bacchus, Flora, Hercules, Mercury, and Diana. Inside the park, a large circular basin was excavated; it featured a central sculpted group representing Neptune “seated on snakes.” It was accessible through four

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The chateau of Berny, built right at the time of political decline of the fami-

ly, thus could not retain any trace of the condition of its owners. Additional study will perhaps clarify the choice of the sculptural subjects in the garden. However, the mere moralizing discourse woven by the eight statues of the circular basin suggests an explicit reference to the events that struck the family: an evocation of past splendor and an affirmation of the value of family virtues, which are able to deal efficaciously with Envy, Slander, and Fortune, so as to permit the triumph of Truth." 7:

“Les voluptueux plaisirs / Traisnent les grands au naufrage / Qui tempére ses désirs / Est sans crainte de l'orage” [ Voluptuous pleasures drag the great to ruin / (but) the person who moderates his desires is unafraid of storms]. “Sur les desseins des mortels / La Fortune a son empire / La Prudence nous rends tels / que la Sorte ne peut nous nuire” [Fortune rules over human designs (but) Prudence makes us such that Fate cannot harm us].

“Lenvieux a son tourment / dans sa propre conscience / tout se surmonte aisément / pour la seule Patience” [An envious man finds his torment in his own conscience; every obstacle is easily overcome only through Patience].

“La Mesdisance poursuit / Les Vertus et les puissances / Enfin la Verité luit / et

détruit les Mesdisances” [Slander pursues virtues and powers / (but) finally the Truth shines through and destroys the backbiting]. I have focused briefly on the building and park structure, but it should be noted

that, except for a few studies that will be cited, the chateau of Berny and its long history are in need of an overall examination.

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In this context, the poem of Tristan I’ Hermite appears as an encomiastic work, which nonetheless draws a picture of the chateau and of its owner that Mme de Puisieux certainly could approve and share. In this way, it becomes part of the celebration of the family. Neither the name of the estate nor that of Charlotte d’Estampes-Valengay are explicitly revealed in connection with the house that the poet calls the “maison d’Astrée” [Astrea’s house]. The relationship linking the building, the poem, and the noblewoman, however, is explicitly documented by the dedicatory letter, in which Tristan himself offers the ode to Mme de Puisieux. “Madame,” the poet begins, “Je vous envoye la peinture d’un chef-d'œuvre qui vient de vous” [Madame, I send you the picture of a masterwork that comes from you]; he then highlights the correspondence between his poetic creation—not surprisingly called a “description’—and what Mme de Puisieux had achieved, a work already so perfect that it did not require any kind of embellishment (Tristan 1972). Even the name of Astrea, under the veil of which is concealed the identity of Mme de Puisieux, was not chosen by chance, but because it recalled both the protagonist of the novel by Honoré d’Urfé—in print and already popular at that time—and in general the image of the young goddess, bringer of peace, which had played such a large role in French political propaganda at the end of the previous century (see Yates, 208-14). Tristan evokes the chateau of Berny as an enchanted place: “paisible empire et bienheureuse cour” [peaceful empire and most happy court], which can compete with the Palace of the Sun, as well as with the one Cupid built for his beloved Psyche. Mme de Puisieux, in her capacity as a new, real Astrea, had built it according to her own refined taste, through the industrious work of a tireless team of Cupids, wise in every craft, technology, and art: they carried out the architectural structures; they brought different materials (crystal, agate, and porphyry); they carved sculptures (two statues of lions watching the entrance); and they took care of the

gardens, flower beds, and leafy avenues. The lady’s coat of arms stands over all, displaying the crowns that, the poet says, she is certainly destined to receive. Although the evocation of the buildings and park is very concise, Tristan includes therein some specific references. Decorations in “jaspe,

porphyre et agathe” are also cited by Brakenhoffer while two lion statues did in fact adorn the entrance gate, where the coat of arms appeared: here, however, Tristan has introduced a frankly eulogistic variant because the

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coat of arms did not show the crowns of d’Estampes-Valengay, but instead the grapes of Brülart de Sillery. But the description of Berny suddenly becomes more definite in the following verses. In fact, among the factotum Cupids, among these “ouvri-

ers emplumez” [winged workers] working at the castle, there is also an ac-

complished painter. This painter—Cupid himself—has carried out in the house “mille traits aimez / Qui témoignent que l'art surpasse la nature” [A thousand lovely strokes bearing witness that art transcends nature]. And saying this, Tristan Hermite opens the second part of his ode, consisting of more than 250 lines and totally devoted to the ekphrasis of the painted decoration of Berny. In particular, Tristan’s description of the gallery with the Henri IV cycle has aroused great interest (Wilhelm). This large room (measuring 38 x 6.2 m) is evoked in lines 291-410, and it is also mentioned by Godefroy (49r-v) and Brackenhoffer (50-51). It was decorated with boiseries: according to standard practice, landscape paintings were inserted in the wainscoting while above it a great series of 31 paintings was fitted, 29 of which were dedicated to the events of the life of Henri IV, with two representing

the early years of the reign of Louis XIII (see Wilhelm). This was a real bi-

ography of the king in visual images, perhaps inspired by the great canvases shown in Florence at the “funeral in effigy” in 1610, images that later spread throughout Europe thanks to a series of engravings by Aloisio Rosaccio

(Mamone, 216-19). Thanks to Tristan’s text, we know that some of these

paintings offered an opportunity for the celebration of Nicolas Brulart de Sillery and Jean d’Estampes-Valengay, parents of the lords of Berny, both leading figures of Henri IV’s entourage and related to the monarch.” A 12.

Here, too, Tristan verses perfectly agree with the other seventeenth-century sources. Verses 341-50 are devoted to Sillery: “Icy le sage Sillery / Dont la

bouche versoit un torrent d'éloquence, / Et qui du Roy fut toujours si chery, / Luy parle d’un traité de grande consequence. / Il a par ses conseils prudens / fait des miracles évidens / Pour la grandeur de nos monarques / Et dans les graves soins qu'on lui fit embrasser, / Il s'est dépeint avec des marques / Que l'obluy, ny le temps ne scauroient effacer” [ Here, the wise Sillery, from whose mouth poured forth ἃ torrent of eloquence, and who was always appreciated by the

king, speaks to him about a treaty of great importance. By means of his prudent

counsel he performed obvious miracles for the greatness of our monarchs and in the great tasks chat were entrusted to him, he is depicted with such signs that neither oblivion nor time will erase]. A few later lines (361-70) are devoted to Destampes-Valengay: “Mais qui voy-je dans ce tableau ? / C'est un heros celebre

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portrait of the Vert Galant and his sons and another one with Maria de’ Medici and their daughters completed the decoration on the short sides of the gallery. None of the 33 paintings has been traced so far, although three scenes copied in drawings are now preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, in the Manuscrits Clairembault collection (Wilhelm, 43-44).

The gallery plays a very important role in the ode, constituting its final

part. But, on closer inspection, the poet has given more space and attention

to what seems the evocation of a different room of the chateau. Thirteen stanzas at the center of the poem, developed in verses 161-290, provide the description of a series of love paintings, where Cupid himself appears in a leading role, because Dedans le vuide des quarrez Qui sont en ces lambris dorez, Dont les chambres sont étoffées, ... Sest dépeint en cent actes divers Par lesquels ses plus grands trophées Et ses plus doux secrets nous sont tous découverts.’? (II. 166-70) [In the blank squares located in this golden wood

paneling with

which the rooms are provided . . . he has depicted himself in a hun-

dred different attitudes, by means of which his greatest trophies and his sweetest secrets are laid bare for us.]

The verses that follow are nothing but the ekphrasis of these paintings, to which some more are added, depicting famous episodes of love. Recent scholarly literature has shown particular interest in this passage. Since the 1960s a relationship between these pages and other works by entre les plus illustres, / De qui le nom n’ira point au tombeau / Quand son corps

y seroit plus de quatre cens lustres, / Ce brave et noble Valengay, / Qui pour son

premier coup d'essay / fit vingt actions heroiques, / et qu’en servant la France on

a veu mille fois / Brosser dans des forests de piques / De mesme qu'un sanglier brosse parmy des bois” [But whom do I see in this painting? It’s a hero renowned among the most illustrious, / Whose name will not go to the grave, even when

his body will have been there more than two thousand years; this bold and noble

Valengay, who at his first attempt performed twenty heroic deeds, and, when

serving France, we have seen a thousand times passing through a forest of pikes as a boar passes through the woods].

13.

Quoted verse passages have been indented in conformity with later published editions of the “Maison d'Astrée” so as to make them correspond to contemporary practice.

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Tristan with the early seventeenth-century emblematic tradition and the Dutch production of love emblems had been postulated by some scholars. In this respect, analysis some years ago of the Glasgow University Library manuscript SMAdd.392 (Van Veen) has provided a definitive confirma-

tion (see Adams 1997a; Grove 1997a). SMAdd.392 is in fact a specimen

of Otto Venius’s Amorum Emblemata (1608), enriched with handwritten

notes and verses in several hands, but mostly attributable to Tristan himself: certainly he owned the volume and used it as a source of inspiration for some of his poems. Among Tristan’s compositions found in SMAdd.392, some were completely unknown and unpublished whereas others were variously reused in his published works: six are the ones combined into the “Maison d’Astrée,” and five of these bear, in addition to the signature, the notation “en Berny” or “de Berny,’ thus establishing a further, direct link with the chateau celebrated in this poem. Analysis of manuscript SMAdd.392 therefore reopened the debate on this other ekphrastic section of the “Maison d’Astrée.” The question of a possible relationship between the love images described by Tristan and real paintings had been raised some time previously (Dalla Valle; Thuillier 1984). On the basis of the Glasgow manuscript, scholars now tend to see also in this section of the poem an explicit reference to real pictorial data (Grove 1997c, 161-63). This hypothesis is all the more convincing if we

look at the passage carefully. Although subordinated to the necessary fluidity of a poetic text, lines 161-290 appear to be an accurate description of a room in the chateau. First, the poet himself says that paintings are housed in the wainscoting: he will be just as accurate later, recalling the landscapes that accompanied the biographical decoration of the gallery, as is confirmed by a later source, the Procès Verbal de |sic| réparations et augmentations à faire au Château de Berny, le 14 mars 1681 (Paris, AN, S. 2905; Wilhelm, 30). Furthermore, the number and typology of paintings are definitely not fortuitous: we find eight emblematic pictures, one triumphal, and four more with mythological themes. In lines 161-220, we find the description of the first eight panels, in which Cupid appears not only as a painter but also as a protagonist, having portrayed himself in several different ways. He appears first in the guise of Atlas, keen on supporting the globe:

A

oO,

EMBLEMATICA Pour un Hyerogliphe en ce lieu

Que la force d'amour est vrayment sans seconde, On void courber le dos du petit dieu,

Qui porte comme Athlas le faix de tout le monde. (171-74) [As a hieroglyphic in this place that the power of love is truly unequaled, we see the little god’s back bending, holding, like Atlas, the world’s whole weight. |

In the second painting, the winged god is represented as wrapped in an Ouroboros:

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In the fourth panel, Cupid, as a hunter, tracks a deer: Chassant un cerf de ce costé Qu'à force de courir il a mis hors d’haleine, Il nous fait voir comment une beauté Ne se peut obliger sans devoirs et sans peine. (191-94)

[Hunting a deer, on this side, which by making it run he has made

short of breath, he shows us a beauty cannot be obliged without dedication and trouble. | Then, he is caught watering a flower bed:

Et cet autre petit Amour Qu'un serpent ceint tout à l'entour Exprime une eternelle flame Que l'on doit sous ses loix servir fidelement, |

Gabriele Quaranta

Et qu’il faut qu'en une belle ame

Un feu bien allumé dure eternellement. (175-80) [And this other little Cupid, completely surrounded by a snake, expresses an eternal flame that one must faithfully serve under his rule,

and that in a beautiful soul a well-lit fire lasts forever.]

In the third one, he is sailing on his quiver, using his bow as an oar: En ce lieu voguant sans vaisseau,

D’un bandeau sur sa trousse il a formé des voiles, Pour avirons de ses traits il fend l’eau, Et tire à deux beaux yeux dont il fait ses estoilles; Ainsi malgré les soins jaloux Et tout le celeste coroux

Et de l’autre, arosant des fleurs, Afin que leurs vives couleurs S’augmentent par ce bon office, Il instruit Idalie avec cette action a me traiter sans artifice,

Montrant que la faveur acroist la passion. (195-200) [And on the other side, watering some flowers so that their bright col-

ors will be enriched through his attentions, he teachs Idalie, by this

deed, to treat me without artifice, showing that kindness increases passion. ]

The sixth panel depicts Cupid being sad because of the absence of his beloved: Dans ces amaybles promenoirs Qu'il imprime à regret de sa divine piste, Loin d’un bel œil, les lys luy semblent noirs,

Le jour luy paroist sombre et la verdure triste. Aussi que je suis privé De celle que ma captivé, Je ne trouve que de supplices ;

Qui peut s’oposer à leur joyes,

Eclairez du beau feu qu'ils portent dans le sein,

Les Amans treuvent mille voyes Pour faire succeder un amoureux dessein. (181-90)

(Here, sailing without a boat, by adding a blindfold to his quiver, he has made sails; using his arrows as oars, he cleaves the water and steers

toward two beautiful eyes, that he has chosen as stars. So, despite all the jealous worries and all the heavenly wrath, which can oppose their

joys, enlightened by the warm fire they carry in their breast, lovers find a thousand ways to bring to pass an amorous project. ]

Tous les objets de joie irritent mon tourment,

Et pour moy toutes les delices Ne sont que des sujets de mécontentement. (201-10) [In these pleasant walks that with regret he marks with his divine

footprint, far dark and sad made me her torment, and

from a beautiful eye, lilies seem black to him, daylight the greenery. Likewise when I’m without the one who slave, I find only torture; all sources of joy stimulate my all delights are for me only a cause of discontent.

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In the seventh one, instead, he displays some withered poppies and roses, to evoke the fleeting nature of beauty: Icy faisant voir par pitié Le peu durable estat des œillets et de roses, Il montre aux cœurs qui sont sans amitié

Que le temps fait ainsi passer les belles choses; (211-- 14) (Here, showing by pity the brief lifespan of carnations and roses, he shows to hearts without love that Time similarly consumes beautiful things. ]

«Pour un Hyerogliphe en ce lieu Que la force d'amour est vrayment sans seconde, On void courber le dos du petit dieu, Qui porte comme Athlas le faix de tout le monde»

(wv. 171-174)

Finally, the last picture shows Cupid raging with his little arms against a great oak tree, trying to break it down:

«Et cet autre petit Amour Qu'un serpent ceint tout à l'entour Exprime une eternelle flame, Que l'on doit sous ses loix servir [fidelement, Et qu’ilfaut qu'en une belle ame Un feu bien allumé dure eternellement» (vv. 175-180)

Et là chamaillant sans cesser Ce Chesne qu'il veut renverser

Avec de si petites armes,

Par sa perseverance, il enseigne à l'amant Qu'on flux continuel de larmes

Pourroit enfin caver un cœur de diamant. (215-20) [And there, ceaselessly harassing this oak that he wants to overthrow, with such little weapons, through his perseverance, he teaches the lov-

er that a steady stream of tears could finally soften a heart of diamond. ]

Although Tristan himself describes these paintings as “hieroglyphs,” stating that they reveal “the secrets and the victories of Love? their emblematic nature is nevertheless evident, and indeed all of them are to be found in the pages of Otto Væniuss Amorum Emblemata. There we see not only the six that already in SMAdd.392 were accompanied by verses, then reused in stanzas 19-21 (Grove 1997b), but also the two that open the series, and to which Tristan did not appear to pay attention in the Glasgow manuscript. Cupid in the guise of Atlas draws on Vaenius’s emblem

19, “Atlas Maior”

[The greater Atlas], the one wound round by an Ouroboros, emblem 1, “Amor Æternus” [Eternal love] (see fig. 2). The god sailing on his quiver is derived from emblem 47, “Via nulla est invia amore” [No road is impassable with love] (Van Veen, 93), while the following one, with the deer hunt-

ing, derives from emblem 66, “Anteit venatio captum” [Hunting goes be-

fore catching} (Van Veen, 131). The image of watered flowers comes from emblem 40, “Plantæ rigatæ magis crescunt” {Watered plants grow better]

I- Amor etemus

Fig. 2. Tristan l'Hermite, “La Maison d’Astrée,” IL 171-74 and 175-78 set against Otto Venius, Amorum emblemata (Antwerp, 1608), emblems 19 and 1.

(Van Veen, 79), while the allusion to the painful distance of the beloved refers to emblem 62, “In tenebris sine te” [In shadow without you] (Van Veen, 123). Finally, the transience of beauty is evoked through emblem 116, “Semper idem” [Ever the same] (Van Veen, 231), and the portentous power

of feeling through emblem 106, “Durate” [Endure] (Van Veen, 211). As has been pointed out about the other compositions of SMAdd.392 (see Grove 1997b), Tristan is inspired by the figurative element of the Dutch work, though creating with his own poetry a sort of “emblem in verses,” which provides both the starting image (the body) and its explanation (the soul), in this case substantially adhering to the meanings handed down by Otto Venius.'* Therefore he is not content with a simple enumeration of images, thus formulating a true ekphrasis. 14.

Thisis remarked by Grove (1997b), who also notes that, in the case of poems that

came together in other collections, such as Les Plaintes dAcante or Les Amours, Tristan varied the meaning, departing from what was proposed by Vænius.

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235

This Triumph of Cupid appears as a basic element of this decoration evoked by Tristan, but it is followed by four other paintings, which show an

explicitly mythological subject. Two stanzas (Il. 241-60) are devoted to a

depiction of Aeneas and Dido, alone at last, during the hunt interrupted by TD

the storm (Æneid 6.160-72): Juno and Venus, standing apart, contemplate

N ὃς

ςς

the scene, rejoicing in it. The three stanzas that follow are devoted to the re-

maining three paintings. The first (Il. 261-70) shows the disappointment of

|

Fig, 3. Castle of Berny: hypothetical reconstruction of the Chambre d'Amour. (Drawing by the author.)

The same thing also happens in the following stanzas, although references radically change with the painting evoked in lines 221-40: here Cupid “s'est peint dans un grand tableau” [has depicted himself in a great picture] (221) in which he appears triumphant, aboard a chariot dragged by four fiery horses, explicitly compared to Apollo’s chariot. Like the sun god, Cupid rises from the oceans, holding the light in his hands, in a glass bulb: he

thus “vient d’un nouvel éclat illuminer la terre” [comes to illuminate the earth in a new blaze” (224) while the gods of the woods praise him, and Aurora precedes him, chasing away the shadows. Obviously, the reference is

no longer to some sort of emblematic image, but to the triumphal paintings that had a privileged location on ceilings of galleries or reception rooms: while in Rome, the Chariot of Aurora was flying on the ceilings of the casino Borghese, or Ludovisi, in the Gallery of Diana in Fontainebleau, and King Henri IV himself was borne in triumph on a cart in the air, accompanied by classical deities.

Pan, watching Syrinx becoming a reed thicket to escape from his lust while a dryad mocks him. The third (Il. 281-90) instead presents the famous myth of Hercules and Omphale: the maidservants of the queen of Lydia converse with one another, watching the hero with spindle and distaff in his hands, considering how everyone must yield to the divine power of Love. Between these two very renowned scenes, a less immediately recognizable one is displayed (IL. 271-80): a shepherd, intent on wooing his beloved, has been left dispersing his flock and now is moved to anger against an ironic Cupid, who laughs at his fate. In all four cases, as well as in the Triumph of Cupid and the eight emblematic panels, the description provided by Tristan is extremely detailed, rather then simply evocative of a subject or a theme. We have here a true ekphrasis, which reveals the narrative and iconographic details of these images, as well as their deeper meaning, by lingering on the characters’ feelings and explaining the sense that has led to the choice of these subjects rather than others. It is simple to imagine a poetic representation of a real room with real decoration, just as in the case of Henri IV’s gallery. It woud locate the viewer's field of view in one of those “cabinets” that were, as well as galleries, a privileged place for decorative elaboration. Although the sequence of Tristan’s verses does not reach the geometric accuracy that can be found in such a poem as Saint-Amant’s Le Palais de Volupté, it is not difficult to imagine such a decoration (fig. 3). The eight emblematic panels were

placed in the wainscot, probably a /ambris dappuy limited to the lower part of the walls, while the other paintings were perhaps meant to occupy the upper one. Although two stanzas have been granted to Aeneas and Dido, too, it seems clear that the Triumph of Cupid would have been the main element of the room. Moreover, according to the “notice” already mentioned, we know that the text was published in an incomplete form, due to the wanderings of the poet, so we can presume also that the composition of this part has remained imperfect. Apart from that, it is

EE

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237

Fig. 4. Cheverny, north façade. (Photo by the author.)

not difficult to imagine—for example—the Triumph of Cupid as a sumptuous fireplace painting, towering over the rest of the decoration, with the others arranged on the remaining walls. But we can also consider a more complex but equally plausible hypothesis: all the five main paintings could have been included in the ceiling of the room—the Triumph of Cupid at the center, the others at the corners—as was the custom in those “plafonds à l’italienne” that had been used increasingly since the 1620s, in smaller but more refined rooms. Therefore, the image ofa real Chambre d'Amour comes out from a careful reading of the “Maison d’Astrée,” a room that complements, by right, the more famous Henri IV gallery, but that, even more than the latter, seems to act as the deep thematic core of the whole poem. We should not forget that love is the main theme of Tristan’s ode: not by chance does the notice added by the publisher of Les Vers Heroiques define the poem itself as “ce palais des Amours” [this palace of Cupids], extending to the whole of the text and to the building itself—a real artwork by Cupids—the same erotic “watermark” that is so well concentrated in the stanzas we have examined so far. Moreover, the description of the royal exploits gallery also starts with this theme, evoked by means of a quick wink, because the painter Cupid has painted there first of all:

Fig. 5. Cheverny, ground floor, salon. (Photo by the author.)

tous les explois D'un monarque invincible. . . Qui pouvant voir l'univers sous ses loix

Fut soumis par les yeux d’une belle Marie. (291-94) [All the deeds of an invincible king . . . who being able to survey the

whole universe in his power was subdued by the eyes of a lovely Marie. ]

Did such a room really exist in the château of Berny? If so, Tristan's poem is all that remains of it. In fact, seventeenth-century visitors were usually admitted to the gallery and through the gardens while only quick glances into the other rooms were allowed: in their reports, therefore, we find only fleeting references to the Puisieux private apartments. While Rucellai simply mentions a beautiful “gabinetto” [private room] (Rucellai, 118)—to be identified probably with the great cabinet on the ground floor that appears in Mansart’s plan—only in the Godefroy manuscript is it possible to find even a quick reference to our paintings: in his annotations about the collection of paintings, the author mentions, among other works, “de divers cupidons et amours” [various Cupids and putti] (Godefroy, 50r). However, it was common to find rooms dedicated to celebrating love in early seventeenth-century French manor houses. There is, for example, a

238

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LXXIX — Et cum fortuna statique

caditque fides

239

rest of the seventeenth-century decoration of the chateau, they have not enjoyed special attention from scholars."° The eight panels present neither inscriptions nor any obvious trace of the presence of inscriptions, but they do show a clearly emblematic nature, which allows us to draw a comparison with those evoked by Tristan, both from a thematic and from a typological point of view: there are, in fact, depictions of love emblems painted on the wooden panels of the wainscoting, exactly as those described in the “Maison d’Astrée” would have been. In addition, as many as four of them derive equally from Otto Væniuss Amorum Emblemata, albeit with some modifications. The panel with Cupid blindfolded by the Occasio responds to emblem 79, “Et cum Fortuna statque caditque fides” [And with Fortune faith both stands and falls], merely replac-

ing the matronly figure of Fortuna with the younger one of Occasio, showing its typical tuft of hair on the forehead. Cupid darting a fugitive lover derives from emblem 15, “Ille silvas saltusque peragrat, frustra: nam haeret

lateri lethalis arundo” [He travels in vain through forests and glens: for XV — Ille silvas saltusque peragat...

Fig. 6. Cheverny, salon, love emblems in comparison with Otto Vænius, Amorum emblemata (Antwerp, 1608), emblems 79 and 15.

room in the Coulon, near Graçay (in the Cher department): here, a fresco frieze at the top of the walls was carried out in the first decade of the century, probably commissioned by François de Bourbon, prince de Conty. It displays, between grotesque borders, exactly eight medallions with love emblems, all taken from Le Théâtre d'Amour, an anonymous French translation of Daniel

Hensius’s emblem book Queris quid sit amor, published ca. 1601 (Boot).

But in this respect, more eloquent testimony is provided by a series of paintings in the chateau of Cheverny, near Blois (fig. 4), which provides a

material response to Tristan’s text. The salon on the ground floor (fig. 5) to-

day displays a decorative program carried out during the 1830s and 1840s, which included a number of old family portraits. It also holds a set of eight wooden panels with images of Cupid, painted in grisaille on a golden back-

ground. These have been repainted and altered in order to be reused in the nineteenth-century decoration, and now they are mostly hidden behind the sumptuous furniture, although they are certainly the remains of seventeenth-century wall paneling. Since it is not easy to connect them to the

the deadly dart is stuck in his side] (fig. 6). The painting showing a Cupid teaching the secrets of love to Hercules in the guise of Omphale literally takes up emblem 42, “Amor addocet artes” [Love teaches the arts as well], a further development of this myth already mentioned. Finally, but less precisely, the picture with Cupid stoking the fire of love while a companion checks their arrows develops what we can find in emblem 49, “Vulnus alit

venis, et cæco carpitur igne” [He cultivates the poison in the veins, and is

consumed by the secret fire]. However, unlike the eight emblematic paintings evoked by “La Maison d’Astrée,’ iconographic references at Cheverny draw in a wider context, not limited to the Dutch production but also open to Italian influences. The image of the Satyr, or rather Pan shot by Cupid’s dart, has no precise counterpart in any textual source, but it does appear as a variation on the theme “Omnia vincit amor” [Love conquers all things] introduced

into Renaissance culture by Vincenzo Cartari, who wrote, in his Imagini dei Dei degli Antichi: 15.

Anatôle de Montaiglon, talking about the salon and the landscapist Burette who worked on the decoration, does not mention these paintings (Montaiglon, 19) while Blancher-Le Bourhis writes briefly about them, attributing them to an anonymous painter, “an artist passing by there, attracted [to Blois] by Gaston d'Orléans” (60-61). See also Quaranta 2010a, 31-33.

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Gabriele Quaranta

dunque perché tanto pud Amore, fu detto vincente di tutto, come che nullo altro ἃ lui sia pare di forza, e finsero perciò le favole ch'ei vincesse gia pur anche il dio Pan, che l’aveva provocato prima... (Cartari, 54)

Farnese gallery, but its iconographic source seems to go back once again, directly, to emblematic Italian literature, which was widespread in France. In Andrea Alciato's Emblemata, in fact, we find the theme of “Cupid defeated by Love of Virtue.” In the first Paris edition (1534), the related image shows the son of Venus tied to a classical column by a winged young boy, armed with a bow, but also crowned with laurel, while the God of Love’s arms are burning in a fire on the background (p. 76v, “Avtépoc, Amor virtutis alium Cupidinem superans” [Anteros, Love of virtue overcoming the other Cupid]). A variant of this iconography appeared in the Lyon edition of 1549, where Cupid appears tied to a tree.'’ Both iconographies were reproduced in later French editions until the seventeenth century. Meanwhile, the same subject had also appeared in painting, for example, in a canvas by Guido Reni for the Genovese Palazzo Spinola and, in Rome, the famous one by Giovanni Baglione (now in Palazzo Barberini), painted in response to Caravaggio’s Amor vincitore (Pierguidi, 69-71). So, in this case too, both the theme and its iconography were well known and popular, but the Cheverny panel shows that, once again, some variations were performed on the model: the winged victor does not display a laurel wreath, and his victim is not tied to a column or to a tree. A final panel shows Cupid bathing in a fountain. This image seems to have no specific precedents in emblematic literature, neither in Italy nor in Northern Europe. It seems, rather, to rewrite in emblematic form a theme much appreciated by Late Gothic and Renaissance culture, that is, the

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[So, because Love could do so much, he was deemed winner of all, no one else being equal to him in strength, and therefore some tales claimed that he had also overcome the god Pan himself, who had aroused him the first .. . .]

Thus, in Achille Bocchi’s Symbolicae Quaestiones, this theme was represented as a real fight in which Pan, knocked down, was forced to succumb to Cupid. Later, representations of “Omnia vincit amor” enjoyed great success in the decades spanning the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thanks to an invenzione by Agostino Carracci for a painting in Magnani Palace in Bologna" and then for a successful engraving dated 1599 (Bohlin, 359-65: 216). Again, Carracci inserted it into one of the grisaille roundels of the

Palazzo Farnese gallery, in Rome, but in the same period also, painters such as Federico Zuccari and Cavalier d’Arpino used it as a subject of pictorial representation (Pierguidi, 66-71). A few decades later, through an engraving again, Giusepe de Ribera renewed its iconography depicting Pan tied to a tree while he is suffering the lashes of Cupid (Bellini and Loach, 280: 12(83)). At Cheverny, Pan is depicted lying down, his hand tied behind his back, now prisoner of Cupid. The god of love, with his bow stretched— in a gesture rather worthy of Apollo darting Python—is about to pierce Pan’s heart: in a similar manner, Cupid’s arrow strikes a submissive Minerva in the emblem “Chasteté vainq Cupido” [Chastity vainquishes Cupid] in Gilles Corrozets Hecatomgraphie (Corrozet, C5v). In the Cheverny panel,

however, the fight is already over, and Cupid is about to triumph over his opponent, according to a variation that, while moving away from traditional iconography, nevertheless respects the idea behind the myth, namely, the necessity that the whole of nature yields to the power of love. From such a process of variation, another panel results: it shows Cupid tying a companion’s wrists while in the background, a bow, a quiver, and a pair of wings are burning in a small fire. This image could be reduced to the

theme of the struggle between Eros and Anteros, also represented in the 16.

This painting was carried out for the Bolognese Palazzo Magnani’s fireplace mantel and is still to be found in Bologna, though now in the Palazzo Masetti

(Wittkower, 111-13).

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Fountain of Love, yet introducing a variant: it is not lovers who are con-

templating their reflection or bathing in the fountain, but Cupid himself. At Cheverny, the range of sources is thus broader and less exclusive than that put forward by Tristan in “La Maison d’Astrée but this emblematic cycle shows us how early seventeenth-century French residences may house emblematic programs similar to those that would have existed at Berny. These were certainly used as a part of a larger decoration, as wainscoting to be combined with other elements—a great fireplace painting, for example, 17.

See 135r, “Contr Amour, ou Amour de Vertu sourmontant l’aultre Cupidon” [Counter-Love, or Love of Virtue overcoming the other Cupid]. A Spanish edi-

tion, with the same images, was also published in Lyon in 1549. All editions of

Alciato’s emblems cited in this article are available on the University of Glasgow website “Alciato at Glasgow”: http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk.

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or large canvases on the walls or into the ceiling—just as the central stanzas of Tristan’s poem suggest and that even at Cheverny are not absent. But this other Chambre d'Amour also seems to escape our inquiry. Of course, the chateau of Cheverny has enjoyed a better fate than Berny; it escaped the destruction feared during the most turbulent years of the French Revolution, but was transformed almost entirely for the first time around 1765 and then, on several occasions, during the nineteenth century, The park and gardens have been transformed into English-style ones, and the wing overlooking the cour d'honneur—housing the gallery, the chapel, and the conciergerie—was demolished (Jestaz). In the main wing today, only two rooms on the first floor bear witness to the sumptuous decorations commissioned by the founder, the earl Henri Hurault (Paris 1575-Chevenry 1648). In the early 1630s, the earl had commissioned to the painter Jean III Mosnier (Blois, ca. 1600-1656) and his workshop a large work of decoration, once again focused on a celebration of love. Departing from mythological and emblematic Renaissance tradition, however, it focused instead on themes drawn from novels. This is confirmed by an anonymous unpublished ode, “Sur les bastiments et les yssues du Chasteau de Cheverny,

en 1633, whose verses explicitly state that the decoration was inspired by

“Bergeries” and “Romans” (Quaranta 2010b, 71-72)." But, above all, it is confirmed by the paintings, either mentioned by the sources or preserved. In the ground floor dining room, a large number of small paintings on wood panels depict the adventures of Don Quixote. This cycle, quoted by André Félibien in two different texts (Félibien 1668, 263-64; Félibien 18.

Stanza S: “Est-il rien de charmant comme ceste peinture / qui produit des effets

devant qui la nature / perd sa grace et ses ornements / ni ce que ces beaux pla-

fonds et ces tapisseries / qui raménent au jour toutes les Bergeries / dont les jeux ont servi d'objet a nos Romans” [Is there anything so charming as this picture,

which produces effects faced with which Nature sheds her charm and her adornments, or as these beautiful ceilings and tapestries that bring to life all the Pastorales whose games have been the theme of our Novels?]. Manuscript fr. 12491 is a late collection of poems and ballets produced by the entourage of Counts of Cheverny, dated from the end of the sixteenth century to the third decade of the following one. Materials about Chancellor Philippe II Hurault and his cadets Philippe III, bishop of Chartres, and Louis, earl of Limours, appear in it while the firstborn Henri never appears, with the exception of this text on the new chateau of Cheverny. While most of the texts also bear the name of the author, the ode on the chateau is anonymous, and it has so far been impossible to formulate any persuasive hypotheses about its authorship on stylistic grounds.

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Fig. 7. Cheverny: hypothetical reconstruction of the water basins. (Archives Départementales du Loir-et-Cher, Cadastre Napoléonien; photograph by the author.)

1874, 63-65), should be considered as the earliest pictorial transposition of Cervantess masterpiece, although only eleven seventeenth-century panels survive today, complemented by several nineteenth-century supplements (Quaranta 2006, 681-86). The Chambre du Roi [king’s bedchamber], on the first floor, offers an extensive cycle drawn from Heliodorus’s Aethiopica, a novel immensely appreciated by readers and painters, as well as fundamental in the process of theorization of the novel as the new dominant narrative form of Western civilization.” Quoted once again by André Félibien 19.

Heliodorus’s Aethiopica, a novel written in the fourth century AD, was rediscoy-

ered in the sixteenth century and was translated from Greek to French in 1547 by Jacques Amyot. This translation, which has remained the most renowned, made available the novel to a wide public, converting it into a true bestseller, one

that enjoyed great success until the end of the seventeenth century. Aethiopica was considered an indispensable model for the rising modern novel, both by writers and by theorists, as Pierre-Daniel Huet attested in 1670, in his Lettre

sur l'origine des romans. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the novel

enjoyed some artistic fortune, too, both in France and in the Netherlands, where Aethiopica also inspired decorative painting, as in the Chambre Ovale at Fontainebleau (see Stechoy, Sarant 1997, and Sarant 2000).

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moral, comic-chivalrous; some very successful, others recently published; uncommon in some cases or totally unexpected, as the comical Don Quixote, a theme considered inadequate to decorate an aristocratic space (Quaranta 2010b, 65-68)—but all united by a shared love interest, in order to develop the different facets of the same speech. The earl Henri Hurault was a very colorful personality, well established at the court of Henri IV until his dramatic ouster, in 1602, following the murder of his young wife. Later, through building his new manor house of Cheverny, he may have wanted to create in his house a “library through pictures” or, rather, a sort of private “theater of memory” woven in painted novels (Quaranta 2010b). In comparison with such a decorative sight, none of our sources seems to indicate or allude to a Chambre d’Amour inside the chateau, which was nonetheless filled with precious decorations, including paintings in addition to tapestries and sculptures. However, we may at least try to formulate a plausible hypothesis, leaving the building and expanding our inquiry to Fig. 8. Cheverny: hypothetical reconstruction of the water basins. (Archives Départementales du Loir-et-Cher, Cadastre Napoléon; drawing by the author.)

(Félibien 1668, 263) a series—now entirely lost—inspired by Honoré

d Urfé’s Astrée was carried out in an another, unidentified room, while in the Salles des Gardes [guard chambers] we can still see a truly unique small

cycle: in five paintings, it represents the rewriting as a romance of the myth of Venus and Adonis, written by Jean Puget de La Serre and published in his book Les Amours des Déesses in 1626 (Quaranta 2010b, 70). Arranged as the decoration of a monumental fireplace, this latter cycle is accompanied by another emblematic series—floral emblems, classical divinities, al-

legories of arts—entered into the dambris dappuy, the low paneling that runs along the perimeter of this large room.’ Such a decorative whole can appear unexpected, but it is perfectly consistent in itself. It combines different kinds of novels—ancient novel, pastoral, 20.

This series of floral emblems also deserves a careful investigation, which it has not been possible to carry out so far. A description can be found in Blancher-Le Bourhis (49-56), who comments on the earlier ones presented by Montaiglon (7-10) and La Saussaye (306-10). It is also quoted by Evans (126), who compares it to the Carrousel du Iugement de Flore staged in 1620 at the Savoy court, where each knight showed a different flower in his flag (see Menestrier, 238-47).

the whole estate of Cheverny. The large park established for Henri during the second half of the eighteenth transformed into English style. A Procès up in 1724, and reporting on the state of ever, shows the park as structured around

Hurault had already been lost century, when it was gradually verbal de Chiverny [sic] drawn the fief and its buildings, howa wide circular basin, centered

on a powerful water jet and combined with a long straight channel (fig.

a 7). Between these two stretches of water, a kind of small island housed

two-floor pavilion that was cut off from the rest of the park but reached by a bridge (fig. 8). The ground floor was open as a five-arched loggia, covered inside by wooden panels. On the upper floor, a room with six windows was similarly paneled, but a painting decorated the fireplace mantelpiece while three more were arranged on the remaining walls (Procès verbal, 22-23). The two basins and the pavilion are also mentioned by the anonymous ode celebrating the new chateau and its patron, It devotes two stanzas to corthe small building on the island, evoking it—surprisingly but quite

rectly—from a topographical point of view, between the description of the circular basin and the grand canal’s one: Oscure cabinet qui t’offres a ma veue iamais ta forme ailleurs n’avoit esté conçeue tes desseins sont misterieux

246

EMBLEMATICA ton ordre sans esgal tient mon Ame en contrainte et mon ardent desir combat contre la crainte de manquer de respect dans ce temple des Dieux.

Montons pour adorer ces Deités visibles les Dieux ne se font voir que pour estre accessibles monstrons que nous suivons leurs lois

tesmoignons que bien loin de troubler leurs delices nous venons leur offrir nos coeurs en sacrifices ainssy qu'aux Protecteurs et des Eaux et des Bois. (“Sur les Bastiments,” 61-72) [Dark pavilion offering itself to my sight, your shape was never previously conceived, your designs are mysterious; your unparalleled order binds my soul and my burning desire fights against the fear of showing disrespect in this temple of the Gods. Let us go up to worship these visible Deities; the gods show them-

selves only to be accessible; let us show that we follow their laws; let

us bear witness, that far from disturbing their pleasures, we come to

offer our hearts in sacrifice to them and to the Protectors of the waters

and woods. ]

The pavilion was therefore a pivotal element of the park: cut off between the two stretches of water, it had to be a sort of buen retiro for the earl of Cheverny. But it was also shaped as an “obscure” temple, a sacred and esoteric place, full of “mysterious designs.” Neither the anonymous ode “Sur les bastiments” nor the Procès verbal of 1724 tell us what was depicted in these strange images. In this regard, however, We can consider the testimony of André Félibien, who wrote twice about the chateau of Cheverny. In the manuscript Memoires pour servir à l'Histoire des maisons royales et bâtiments de France, dated to 1681 but un-

published until 1874, he notes:

A main gauche est un bois, partagé par plusieurs allées, avec des fontaines et un grand rond d'eau, au bout duquel est un long canal. À un des coins du bois, et assez proche du Chasteau, il y a un ancien cabinet, ou espèce de loge ouverte des deux costez et le reste seulement fermé d’ais, mais dans le dedans est considérable par des peintures du fameux Nicolas Poussin, qui estoit fort jeune lorsqu'il les fist. Quoy qu'elles soient assez gastées, on ne laisse pas d'y connoistre l'esprit de cet excellent peintre. (Félibien 1681, 22-24)

Gabriele Quaranta

247

[On the left-hand side [of the park] there is a wood, divided by several avenues, with fountains and a round pond, at the end of which is a long canal. In one corner of the woods, and fairly near to the château, there is an ancient cabinet, or a kind of loggia open on two sides and with the remaining parts closed off only with planks, but inside it is considerable because of some paintings by the famous Nicolas Poussin, who was very young when he made them. Although they are quite damaged, one can still recognize the spirit of this excellent painter.]

In a biography devoted to the great French master, found in his later Entertiens, Félibien is both more concise and more accurate, because he reveals that the paintings in question depicted some Bacchanalia (Félibien

1668, 312-16), a datum that has been taken up by various subsequent authors, including Jean Bernier (88-89) and Florent Le Comte (26). The question of Poussin’s contribution to Cheverny, as well as to the nearby Château de Blois, is one of the most debated about the painter's uncertain youth. Whereas many scholars considered this to be nothing more than a legend, it continues to raise questions, although for now there is no other basis than Félibien’s testimony, which, in turn, seems uncertain. For example, concerning the chronology of such an event, in the Entretiens, he locates it in Poussin’s adventurous return trip from Anjou to Paris, so in his earliest period (ca. 1614-15), but in the Mémoires, on the contrary, he simply says more generally that the painter was “very young.’ Of course, a dating in the early years of Poussin’s career would require a terminus ante quem of 1624 for Poussin’s departure for Rome, and in this regard, a stay in Blois around 1618 has been proposed. At that time, Maria de’ Medici—who had not given up her patronage even then—was there in exile. The alternative would require later, quick trips by Poussin, which would be very difficult to prove (Thuillier 1995, 24-25, 46-47). Otherwise, we would have

to choose the date—perhaps even more problematic—during Poussin’s

short stay in Paris in the 1640s (Blancher-Le Bourhis, 66). But neither of

these dates matches what is known about the works at Cheverny, since the construction of the chateau can be dated with some confidence to the second half of the 1620s (Jestaz), and its decorations immediately thereafter (Quaranta 2010b), though major work on the park may have continued for some time, as the shipment of building materials even in 1635 seems to suggest (Mignot). Since the pavilion and its paintings are now lost, only these

248

EMBLEMATICA

few short late seventeenth-century quotations stay as tenuous evidence of an event destined to remain unverifiable, at least for now. So, were these Bacchanalias the “strange pictures” decorating the pavilion in the park of Cheverny? Magdeleine Blancher-Le Bourhis, who briefly mentioned this question, seems in little doubt about it (BlancherLe Bourhis, 66), although the comparison between the descriptions pro-

vided by Félibien and Bernier and by the Procés Verbal is not entirely exact. While recording the pavilion in relation to the park’s stretches of water, the two historians seem to allude to a very simple building, and one sited very close to the chateau (at the corner of the forest, near the ditches). But it is true that the canal area was not more then 200 meters from the residence and that the estate’s woodland truly began there. Of course, a small, mostly wooden pavilion, especially one in poor condition even in Félibien’s time, could have disappeared by 1724 when the state of the fief was recorded, leaving no trace of its former presence. However, the pavilion documented by the Procés Verbal and by the anonymous ode, placed as it was between the two main basins, filled a central role in the design of the park, and it thus seems very unlikely that Félibien and Bernier could have overlooked it in favor of a less conspicuous and more modest structure. Pavilions such as those at Cheverny were indeed common in seventeenthcentury French gardens: they set up an alternative attraction to the main house, while also making concrete some explicit references to Renaissance tradition derived from the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. They therefore took the shape of those small temples that the literature of initiation sets as the true pivot point of the philosophical garden, by which aristocratic gardens, too, were inspired. The park of the chateau of Coulommiers, for example, was carried out for the dukes of Longueville during the last years of the sixteenth and the early years of the seventeenth century, in explicit reference to Colonnas famous volume. At Coulommiers, a pavilion was built at the end of a long avenue in order to recreate the “Temple of Love”; later, it would become renowned as the Cléves Pavilion, because Mme de La Fayette would set in it one of the most important passages of her novel (Péricard-Méa). Closer to that of Cheverny, by date and by typology, the pavilion of the chateau of Dampierre was built on a small island at the end of the Grand Canal; it was linked to the daring story of the Duchess of Chevreuse, but little more than a skeleton—in what is clearly a later rococo style—now remains.

Gabriele Quaranta

249

No wonder then that the anonymous ode celebrates the “o[b]scure cabinet, the dark pavilion of Cheverny, as a temple, as an unparalleled architecture building full of mysterious pictures that one must enter frightened and respectful, bearing his own heart as sacrifice to the gods, just as in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, the Love Pilgrims come to “a sacred place, and full of mystery” (Péricard-Méa, 123). Although the Procés verbal stays silent on the subject of the paintings making up the pavilion’s mysterious decoration, it is intriguing to suppose that they were nothing more than the Bacchanalia mentioned by Félibien: such a theme, better than anyone else, would be fit for an esoteric interpretation, or at least to representing a figurative recall to humankind’s primitive and natural condition, as was so often evoked through the structure and decoration of gardens and parks. It would be fascinating to suppose, too, that the eight panels with love emblems now in the salon may come from the wainscoting of the same pavilion: in this way, beside the Dionysian themes of the main paintings, the consistent corollary of a meditation through enigmas on the power of love was added. In this regard, the earl of Cheverny could easily have drawn his inspiration from one of the most successful French novels of the seventeenth century, LAstrée, by Honoré d’Urfé, which he knew very well and to which he devoted the decoration of a room in his house. In the first volume alone of this pastoral saga, published in 1606, there is an evocation of the nymph Isoure’s palace and, in its garden, of the sorceress Mandrague’s grotto, dominated by herms of Pan and Syrinx and decorated “tant par dehors que par dedans ... d'un grand nombre de statues qui, enfoncées dans leurs niches faisaient diverses fontaines et toutes représentaintes quelque effet de la puissance d'Amour” [as much without as within... by a large number of statues which, set deep in their niches, acted as divers fountains and all depicted some effect of Love power] (Astrée, 1.11; Péricard-Méa, 125-27). These statue-fountains in the grotto depict the effects of the power of Love just as the emblems painted at Berny were intended to reveal Cupid's “great victories and his sweetest secrets” (Il. 169-70). We could say the same about the love emblems of Cheverny, whose pavilion undoubtedly adhered explicitly to this dense intellectual tradition. Of course, the provenance of the eight panels from the lost pavilion of the park must remain a hypothesis, but it is now clear that they represent the vestiges, the faint and fragmentary traces, of a larger and more complex

250

Gabriele Quaranta

EMBLEMATICA

decorative program, of which we can hypothesize little more than the existence. Through the verses of Tristan l’'Hermite, however, as through a kind of strange necromantic evocation, the program takes on a more consistent appearance: if his poem does not give conclusive details, it nonetheless opens up a new line of investigation and interpretation. Nevertheless, these pictorial fragments of Cheverny derive value by bearing concrete witness to the poet’s words because, located in the first half of the seventeenth century, they attest to the existence of decorative paneling very similar to that of the hypothetical Chambre d'Amour at Berny; set against the poet's words, they allow us to delineate the contours of an actual building. The correlation between this painted testimony at Cheverny and the poetic memory passed down by “La Maison d’Astrée” also is extremely firm and interesting because the Lady of Berny, Charlotte d’Estampes-Valengay, was a cousin of Henry Hurault, and Tristan himself could boast some family ties with the earls of Cheverny (Bernardin, 39, 108, 276). The presence of two decorative programs in such proximity in the two châteaux may therefore not be a matter of chance, with the reasons for that going beyond the mere fashion of the time. These are reasons that Tristan himself could share: he himself may have suggested to Mme de Puisieux the decorative use of the love emblems he knew so well, and whose creative process he so easily mastered. An intense plot between painting and literature, between real buildings

and chateaus poetically evoked, is yielded by these lost or fragmentary decorations. They provide an intense dialogue, where it is often difficult —and perhaps not strictly necessary—to distinguish between which art dictated images and subjects to the others. In such a dense context, emblems played a key role as a refined, learned, mysterious commentary on the painted cycles: in this way, they left the pages of emblem books to be hung on walls, themselves becoming a kind of decoration until they were forced to come back to the paper, evoked through ekphrasis in the words of a great poet.

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Alciato, Andrea. Andree Alciati Emblematum libellus. Paris,

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. Les Emblemes dAlciat de nouveau translatez en françois vers pour vers iouxte les Latins. Lyons, 1549. [1549a] . Los Emblemas d'Alciato. Traducido en rimas espanolas. Lyons, 1549.

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Bernier, Jean. Histoire de Blois contenant les antiquitez et singularitez du Comté de Blois. Paris, 1682. Blancher-Le Bourhis, Magdeleine. Le chateau de Cheverny. Paris, 1950. Bocchi, Achille. Symbolicarum Quastionum de universo genere, quas serio ludebat, libri quinque. Ed. S. Massari. Rome, 1983.

Bohlin, B., ed. “Commentary.” In The Illustrated Bartsch 39 (formerly 18.1). New York, 1980. Boker , H. J., and Peter M. Daly, eds. The Emblem and Architecture: Studies

in Applied Emblematics from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century. Turnhout, 1999.

Boot, Peter. “The Love Emblem Applied.” In Learned Love: Proceedings of the Emblem Project Utrecht Conference on Dutch Love Emblems and the Internet (November 2006), ed. E. Stronks and P. Boot. The Hague, 2007. Pp. 143-48. Brackenhoffer, Elie. Voyage de Paris en l'Italie, 1644-1646, traduit d'après le manuscript du Musée de Strasbourg par H. Lehr. Nancy-ParisStrasbourg, 1927. Braham, Allan, and Peter Smith. François Mansart. 2 vols. London, 1973. Cartari, Vincenzo. Imagini de gli Dei dell antichi. Venice, 1556. Rpt. Venice, 1996.

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Ciprut, E. J. “Marché entre François Mansart et M. de Puysieux pour le château de Berny (1623) Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de LArt Français (1954): 175-81. Colonna, Francesco. Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Ed. M. Ariani and M. Gabriele. Milan, 1998. Constant, Jean-Marie. “Sillery” In Dictionnaire du Grand Siècle, ed. F. Bluche. Paris, 2005. P. 1449.

Corrozet, Gilles. Hecatomgraphie, cest à dire les descriptions de cent figures et

hystoires, contenantes plusieurs appophtegmes, proverbes, sentences et

dictz, tant des anciens que des modernes. Paris, 1540.

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Grove, Laurence, ed. Emblems and the Manuscript Tradition, Including an Edition and Studies of a Newly Discovered Manuscript of Poetry by Tristan l'Hermite. Glasgow Emblem Studies 2. Glasgow, 1997. [1997a]

. “Glasgow University Library SMAdd.392: An Introduction.” In

Grove 1997a, pp. 102-4. [1997b]

“Tristan [Hermite Emblematics and Early Modern Reading Practices in the Light of Glasgow University Library SMAdd.392.” In Grove 1997a, pp. 159-75. [1997c]

Craveri, Benedetta. La Civilta della conversazione. Milan, 2006.

Harms, Wolfgang. “The investigation of emblem programmes in buildings: assumptions and tasks.” In Boker and Daly, pp. 3-16.

Dalla Valle, Daniela. “A propos de La Maison d'Astrée” Cahiers Tristan l'Hermite 6 (1984): 31-37.

Henriet, Israël. Veué de Berny à deux lieuës de Paris. Etching by J. Marot. Archives Départementales des Hauts-de-Seine, Nanterre, 1Fi/ANT_02.

Daly, Peter M. “Introduction.” In Boker and Daly, pp. iii-xx. D'Urfé, Honoré. LAstrée. 6 pts. in 5 vols. Paris, 1607-26.

Huet, Pierre-Daniel. Lettre sur l'origine des romans. In Zayde, histoire espagnole . . . avec un “Traitté de lorigine des romans’, par M. Huet,

Evans, Joan. Pattern: A Study of Ornament in Western Europe from 1180 to 1900. 2 vols. Oxford, 1931. Rpt. New York, 1975. Félibien, André. Memoires pour servir à l'Histoire des maisons royales et bâtiments de France par André Félibien (1681). Ed. A. De Montaiglon. Paris, 1874. . Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus excellents peintres anciens et modernes. Paris, 1688. Rpt. Geneva, 1972.

Fumaroli, Marc. Le poète et le roi. Jean de la Fontaine en son siècle. Paris,

1997.

Godefroy, Denis. Description du Beau Lieu de Berny. Paris, Bibliothèque de l'Institut de France, Ms. Godefroy 219, cc. 47r-54v. Graziani, Françoise. “La langue des dieux’: Marino et les jeunes poètes français” In Le Siècle’de Marie de Médicis, Actes du Séminaire de la Chaire Rhétorique et Société en Europe (XVIe-XVIIe siècle), sous la direction de Marc Fumaroli de UAcademie Française, (Collège de

France 21-23 janvier 2000), ed. F. Graziani, and F. Solinas. Franco-

Italica 21-22 (2002): 187-202.

by La Fayette, Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne. 2 vols. Paris, 1670-71.

Jestaz, Bertrand. “Le Chateau de Cheverny.” In Congrès Archéologique de France, 13% session, 1981, Blésois et Vendômois. Paris, 1986. Pp. 164-77.

La Saussaye, Louis de. Blois et ses environs. Blois, 1860. Le Comte, Florent. Cabinet des singularités d'architecture peinture, sculpture, et graveure. ou introduction a la connoissance des plus beaux Arts, figurés sous les Tableaux, les Statués & les Estampes. dedié a M. Mansart Sur-Intendant des Batimens du Roy, &c., par Florent Le Comte, sculpteur & Peintre. Paris, 1699. Mamone, Sara. Firenze e Parigi: due capitali dello spettacolo per una regina, Maria de’ Medici. Milan, 1987. Mathot, Véronique. “Les Jardins Renaissance de Princé” Bulletin de la

Société des Historiens du Pays de Retz 10 (1990): 42-54.

Menestrier, Claude-François. Traité des Tournois, loustes, Carrousels et autres spectacles publics. Lyons, 1649.

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Merian, G. Prosp(ective) de la maison de Berny. 2 menlen von Parijs, auf dem

Puget de La Serre, Jean. “Les Amours de Venus et d’Adonis.” In Les Amours

weg d'Orléans. In Zeiller, 1.54, fig. 1. See also Archives du département des Hauts-de-Seine. http://archives.hauts-de-seine.net/typo3temp/pics/Of6cbc41b2.jpg.

Mignot,

Claude.

“L'Église Saint-Louis-des-Jésuites

(Saint-Vincent-de-

Paul) à Blois” In Congrès Archéologique de France, 139 session,

1981, Blésois et Vendémois. Paris, 1986. Pp. 142-52.

Millet, Jean, and Claude Revel. Plan du chasteau de Berny sous Fresne-lesrongis [sic]. Archives Nationales de France, Paris, N 1 Seine 32.

Méderseim, Sabine. “Duke Ferdinand Albrecht Self-portrayal in the Emblematic Programme of Castle Bevern.” In Boker and Daly, pp. 125-47.

Montaiglon, Anatôle de. Les peintures de Jean Mosnier de Blois au Château de Cheverny. Paris, 1850.

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des Déesses. Paris, 1626. Pp. 527-670.

Quaranta, Gabriele. “Don Chisciotte nel castello di Cheverny: un ciclo dipinto del Seicento francese.” Critica del Testo 9:1-2 (2006): 675-96. . “De la Maison d’Astrée aux tableaux de Cheverny: emblémes, poèmes et ‘Chambres d'Amour’ au temps de Tristan.” Cahiers Tristan ’'Hermite 32 (2010): 24-38. [2010a]

. “Pagine e immagini: le ekphraseis di Marc-Antoine Gérard de SaintAmant e di Adrien de Monluc e gli esordi figurativi del Quijote nei dipinti di Jean Mosnier a Cheverny.’ Ro/SA 12 (2010): 55-76.

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. Viie du Chateau de Berni du costé du Parc. Archives Départementales des Hauts-de-Seine, Nanterre, 1Fi/ANT_05.

Roberts, William. “The Baroque Style in Architecture and Poetry: SaintAmants Palais de la Volupté” Papers on French Seventeenth Century Litterature 15:29 (1988): 639-55.

Péricard-Méa, Denise. “Du Songe de Poliphile à l’Astrée: les jardins d’A-

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Peureux, Guillaume. Le rendez-vous des Enfans sans soucy. La poétique de Saint-Amant. Paris, 2002.

Pierguidi, Stefano. “Sull Amor omnia vincit’ del J. P. Getty Museum e la fortuna delle allegorie d'amore a Roma intorno al 1600.” Bollettino dArte 5. 6, 137/138 (2006): 63-76. Procès verbal de Chiverny commancé le 21 septembre 1724 et finy le 24 octobre

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Stechov, Wolfgang. “Heliodorus’ Aethiopica in Art.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 16 (1953): 144-52. “Sur les Bastiments et les yssues du Chasteau De Cheverny, en 1633.” In Recueil de diférents poéttes de vers faicts sur plusieurs sujets du temps passé. Paris, BNF, Ms. fr. 12491, XVIIe siècle, cc. 131r-32v. Thuillier, Jacques. “Poètes et peintres au XVII siècle, l'exèmple de Tristan.” Cahiers Tristan l'Hermite 6 (1984): 5-30. . Poussin before Rome (1594-1624). London, 1995.

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Tristan Hermite, François. Les Vers Héroïques. Ed. Catherine M. Grisé. Textes litteraires français 144. Geneva, 1967. . “A Madame de Puisieux, sur une description qu'il avoit faite de sa maison de Berny.” In Lettres Meslées, ed. Cathérine Grisé. Geneva, 1972. Pp. 142-43, letter 63.

Habsburg /mprese in the Archbishop’s Palace in Brixen, Italy

. Les vers héroiques. Paris, 1648. Rpt. in Les Œuvres completes, ed. J.P. Chauveau, V. Adam, A. Génetiot, and F. Graziani. 5 vol. Paris, 1999-2002.

Van Veen, Otto. Amorum emblemata, figuris ænis incisa studio Othonis Veni patavo-lugdunensis - Emblems of Love with verses in Latin, English, and Italian. Antwerp, 1608. With manuscript additions. Glasgow University Library, Special Collections, Stirling Maxwell Collection. Shelfmark SM Add.392.

THOMAS A. BAUER The city of Bressanone, or Brixen as it was formerly known, has much to interest the scholar, including a cycle of terra-cotta statues accompanied by imprese that forms the subject of this article. Originally commissioned by Cardinal Andreas of Austria with the object of creating a visual family tree of his Habsburg ancestors, the statues and imprese are drawn from a work by Francesco Terzio, Imagines Gentilis

Wilhelm, J. “Un décor disparu: les peintures de la galerie du chateau de Berny illustrant la vie d'Henri IV et la première année du regne de Louis XIII.” Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de L'Art Français (1983): 29-45. Wittkower, Rudolf. Drawings of the Carracci in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle. London, 1952. Yates, Frances. Astrea. The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century. London, 1975. Zeiller, Martin. Topographia Galliae, sive Descriptio et delineatio famosisso-

rum locorum in potentissimo regno Gallie, partim ex usu et opini-

onis scriptoribus diversarum linguarum, partim ex relationibus fide

dignis per aliquot annos collectis, in ordinem redacta et publico data,

per Martinum Zeillerum. Frankfurt, 1655-61.

Austriacae {Images of Austrian Nobility]. The article discusses the ori-

gin of the cycle, provides a brief description of each of the imprese, and finally gives an overview of the cycle’s significance and some analysis of a small number of imprese not drawn from Terzio.

ressanone—or Brixen, which is the German name of this town in B the South Tyrol, Italy—has many sights of interest to the historically minded.’ One can, for example, explore the marvelous cloisters next to the cathedral, which contain medieval frescoes of astonishing quality. On the other side of the church, one can find an epitaph in memory of Oswald von Wolkenstein, a famous writer, singer, and composer of the fourteenth and fifteenth century. Those involved in emblematic studies and research, however, will be most fascinated by the courtyard of the archbishop's palace, the so-called Hofburg, which contains a cycle of 24 imprese. Three sides of this rectangular structure consist of arcades (fig. 1). These arcades are divided in three; each floor has arches of a different design (fig. 1.

The town’s two names arise from the fact that South Tyrol was part of the medieval German Empire and became part of Italy only in the twentieth century, and it was only then that the German names were replaced by Italian ones. Thus, for example, we now find both Bozen and Bolzano, Meran and Merano,

Sterzing and Vipiteno.

257 Emblematica, Volume 20. Copyright © 2013 by AMS Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

EMBLEMATICA

Thomas A. Bauer

2). In the first floor of the southern and northern arcades there are twelve statues with imprese above them (fig. 3), for a total

of 24 imprese, as the eastern arcades do not have any statues or imprese and the west side of the courtyard has no arcades at all,

being dominated by the chapel

Fig. 1. The Hofburg arcades. (By permission of Diôzesanmuseum Hofburg, Brixen.)

(fig. 4). The statues in the southern and northern arcades repre-

sent members of the family of

Habsburg. Cardinal Andreas, who was archbishop of Brixen, | was the eldest son of Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria and Philippine Welser, a commoner. A,

He was born in the Bohemian

! town

of

Bieznice—now

in

| the Czech Republic—in 1558 (Bürklein, 43). As the son of

design. (By permission Hofburg, Brixen.

of

Diôzesanmuseum

a commoner,

he could not be

counted as a full member of the Habsburg dynasty, and so was actually raised as a foundling by

his own parents. However, he was allowed to call himself “von Osterreich.” He was supposed to

become a clergyman (Matsche, 181). As his father the Archduke

was a close ally of Pope Gregory

Fig. 3. Placement of the statues with imprese. (By

permission

of Diôzesanmuseum

Hofburg,

XIII,

Andreas

1984,

138).

was

made

car-

dinal in 1576 without being a proper clergyman (Gelmi He

first became

Archbishop of Konstanz (1588)

259

and then, in 1590, Archbishop

of Brixen

(Biirklein,

43).

In

1595, he decided to modernize the palace of Brixen, which was transformed from a medieval

castle into a Renaissance palace (Gelmi 2000, 169). After his death in 1600, the construction

work came to a temporary end. However, his successor restarted the work on the palace in 1603 (Matsche

182-83).

The statues of the first floor

Fig. 4. West side of the Hofburg courtyard, Brixen. (By permission Brixen.)

of Diôzesanmuseum

Hofburg,

of the northern and southern wing of the palace are all made of terra-cotta. However, they do not have the typical color of terra-cotta, being black, and therefore have the appearance of metal. Cardinal Andreas commissioned a Bavarian artist, Hans Reichle, who was probably born in Schongau in 1565 or 1570 (Bruhn, 11), to create a cycle of 44 of his Habsburg ancestors, with

the idea of producing a kind of Habsburg family tree (Matsche, 180). For this reason, it was originally planned to put the coat of arms and an inscription next to the statues, as one can see in the sketches (Matsche, 182-83).

At some point of the rebuilding, however, this original plan was abandoned and the terra-cotta figures were accompanied by imprese, most with a Latin motto. The coats of arms we can see today often do not date back to the sixteenth or seventeenth century and so are not correct. Unfortunately, the correct order was not preserved when the figures and imprese eventually found their places in the courtyard in the nineteenth century (Matsche, 180), with the result that the Habsburg family members and

their character cannot be identified by the imprese next to them. Moreover, there are only 24 figures in the courtyard. Eight more are in other parts of the palace, but are unaccompanied by imprese. Others have been lost, and some are housed in several museums. These also lack imprese. We thus find ourselves with a cycle of only 24 Habsburg family members, arranged in the wrong order, and 24 imprese, which have no connection with the persons depicted in the statue they accompany. What can we do about this? Fortunately, the source of Hans Reichle’s statues and of the imprese can be identified. This is a kind of Habsburg family tree by Francesco Terzio

260

EMBLEMATICA

(1523-91), an artist working for the court of Archduke Ferdinand IL, the father of Cardinal Andreas of Brixen. This family tree is called /magines Gentis Austriacae [Images of Austrian Nobility].2 The Habsburg family members it depicts are always represented as a single person or in pairs on one page of the book, with the main item of each page being an etching of the emperor, king, archduke, duke, or count. Below the image, the reader will see the name of the person and four lines of verse about him or her. Even further below is a prose text about the life and the character of the Habsburg family member. At the very top, there is an impresa. The pictura and the Latin motto for 46 of Terzio's 47 imprese can also be found in the Symbola Divina et Humana of Jacobus Typotius. Typotius’s book of imprese cannot be the first choice as a source for the Brixen courtyard, however, as it was published in 1600, when the rebuilding of the palace was already underway. Terzios book has five parts. The first of these is dedicated to Emperor Maximilian II, the second to Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol, the third to Archduke Karl, the fourth to King Philip II of Spain, and the fifth to Maria of Spain, Emperor Maximilian’s wife. The dedication of the final section to a female family member hints at the fact that this last of the five parts contains only Habsburg women. All of them lack a pictura at the very top of their pages, where we find only a motto. Moreover, the parts of Terzio’s Imagines Gentis Austriacae are structured logically. The first part contains sixteen important emperors, kings, and archdukes of the House of Habsburg. The second shows us eighteen Habsburg counts, some of whom seem to be imaginary family members rather than real, historical persons. Obviously, these connections were invented in order to enlarge the family tree. Additionally, this part contains Sigibert, who provides a connection between the kings of ancient Franconia and the House of Habsburg. Here two counts always share one page, but each one has his own impresa. The third part consists of five Franconian kings, 2.

The Bavarian State Library (BSB) owns ἃ copy of this book, which bears the

shelfmark Chalc. 174-1/2/3/4/5. The front page mentions a publication date of 1569, though at the end of the volume the year 1573 can be found. It is also included in the Munich emblem database and can be found at http://mdz1. bib-bvb.de/~emblem/emblalle.html ?inpKng=paut&inpBegriff=Terzio,%20

Francesco. All the plates in Terzio’s imagines Gentis Austriacae can be found in the Munich emblem database: http://mdz1.bib-bvb.de/~emblem/loadframe. html ?toc_name=terzi_austri.html&img_id=img_terzi_austri00001.

Thomas A. Bauer

261

who are supposed to be Habsburg ancestors. The fourth section gathers six Habsburg relatives and ancestors who reigned in foreign countries and the fifth the female Habsburg members mentioned above. Having thus examined the sources of Hans Reichle’s cycle of Habsburg rulers and their imprese, I am now able to discuss the imprese in detail. As the correct order of the statues has been confused, I shall refer in the discussion that follows to the original combination of Habsburg family member and impresa. This original combination can be derived from Terzio, and Franz Matsche also presents a list of the planned order (Matsche, 236-37). Matsche’s list clearly shows that even the imprese are not in the right place because the original order of the statues does not correspond to today’s order of the imprese. That means that both the figures and the imprese were confused in the nineteenth century when they were finally arranged in the Brixen courtyard. We must therefore rely on Terzio’s information. I begin with the south arcades, Ρ starting from τῆς left. At the beginning of this cycle of statues and im-

prese, we

find a pictura showing a

dragon holding a globe (fig. 5), with the motto est virtus” {The virtue is motto is drawn from minor

est

virtus,

in its claws “Non minor no less]. This Ovid: “Nec

quam

quaerere,

5.

4

Fig. 5. South arcade of courtyard, first from

parta tueri” [There is no less merit in left, “Non minor est virtus.” (By permission of Diôzesanmuseum Hofburg, Brixen.)

watching over what you have gained than in gaining it] (Ovid, 2:13). In ™ Terzios work, this impresa is linked to King Sigibert I of Austrasia, and we find there a very similar pictura with the same motto (Terzio, pl. 33). Terzio tells his readers that according to Typotius, the dragon symbolizes .

_— :

Jupiter, who had to struggle hard to remain the ruler of the gods. The same

d

is true

for King

Sigibert

I, who

Austrasia in the sixth century.

rule

Fig. 6. South arcade of courtyard, second

from left, “Laesus iuvo.” (By permission of Diôzesanmuseum Hofburg, Brixen.)

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EMBLEMATICA

Thomas A. Bauer

The next émpresa to the right (fig. 6) shows a ball in a fire, from which air is escaping because of the heat. This air makes a second fire burn much brighter. The motto is “Laesus iuvo” [[Even when] injured, I give aid]. This ball represents Count Ramprecht (Terzio, pl. 25), who was called “Gratiosus” [Showing favor]. The

impresa is supposed to show us how

helpful Ramprecht was, even if he had to suffer from his helpfulness, his suffering being represented by the heat the ball has to withstand even as the air escaping from it nourFig.

7. South

arcade

of courtyard,

third

from left, “Omnia vincit.” (By permission

of Diézesanmuseum Hofburg, Brixen.)

--{Β

τα

ishes the other fire.

The next pictura (fig. 7) contains I

Τα

e

à

a brush, which is dying water with

the paint it holds. Together with the motto “Omnia vincit” [It conquers

all things] it is connected to King

~.

Theudebert II, who reigned Austrasia in the late fifth and early sixth centu-

and the people he ruled.

The character of another Habsburg count is explained in the next im-

presa: Count Babo (Terzio, pl. 26). we It shows a crown, two coats of arms, and several spears (fig. 9). The motto is “Benevolentia” [Benevolence]. This can either mean that the goodwill of

the subjects is the best protection for the ruler, or that Babo was very loyal to his king, whom

its

L ἃ A bull with ἃ net caught between horns

(fig.

Conscia virtus”

La

.

.

10)

”

and

the

motto

[Conscious

A a Fig. 9. South arcade of courtyard, fifth from left, “Benevolentia” (By permission of Diézesanmuseum Hofburg, Brixen.)

an

armored

arm holding a violin (fig. 8). Terzio links that impresa to Count Ottopert (Terzio, pl. 27). This is meant to explain the unity between Ottopert and his subjects. Unlike the trumpet mentioned in the motto, which sounds i Figs

only one note at a time, the violin

A

Fig. 10. South arcade of courtyard, sixth from left, “Conscia virtus” (By permission

of Diézesanmuseum Hofburg, Brixen.)

presa. This is supposed to show that Count

Betzo—his

real

name

seems

to

be Lanzelin—is fully aware of his own

shining on a vine with grapes on it

it shows

;

(Terzio, pl. 22) make up the next izm-

such a mighty king.

is mine];

:

.

“Fortissimus”

motto “Haec mihi tuba” [This trum-

~=

virtue]

.

Theudeberts unnatural death (he was murdered by his own brother) was the will of God, who alone can rule over to the right has the

q

Iw

he would have de-

fended in any case.

Fig. 8. South arcade of courtyard, fourth from left, “Haec mihi tuba.” (By permission of Diézesanmuseum Hofburg, Brixen.)

impresa

'

Ca

ds

pet

|

other. This imprea suggests that such a harmony existed between Ottopert

virtues and therefore uses great force when fighting his enemies. This is the reason why Terzio uses the epithet

The

|

needs several strings to make music. These strings have to be tuned to each

ties (Terzio, pl. 31). The force that rules over everything, as the motto says, is God. This may imply that

---+”

263

[Strongest]

for this son

of Guntram the Rich. The next impresa depicts the moon,

/

-

Fig. 11. South arcade of courtyard, seventh

from left, no motto. (By permission Diôzesanmuseum Hofburg, Brixen.)

of

a

(fig. 11). The version in the courtyard

in Brixen lacks a motto. Terzio, however, uses the motto “At saltem illus-

tror” [And I at least am illuminated ] and connects this pictura with Duke Sigibert (Terzio, pl. 28). This sym-

bolizes the modesty of this Habsburg

ancestor because, after the death of É this

father,

= King

Theudebert

IL

— %. _

-

:

:

»

7 | ,

- Fig. 12. South arcade of courtyard, eighth of from left, no motto. (By permission of

Austrasia, he agreed to become only ἃ Diëzesanmuseum Hofburg, Brixen.)

264

EMBLEMATICA

Thomas A. Bauer

duke and not king of Austrasia. The same modesty is shown by the vine, as

its grapes cannot ripen in the wan light of the moon. The pictura to the right also lacks a motto (fig. 12). Looking at Terzios

work, we find the words “Vim viribus” [Strength to strength] (Terzio, pl. res 26) with a quite similar pictura dedi-

cated to Count Rother. It depicts the

a>,

sun, which drives off darkness and clouds. Count Rother’s epithet, given to him by Terzio, is “Aequus” [equal]. Just as the light of the sun brings à an end to darkness, this count ends

ia

injustice.

Fig. 13. South arcade of courtyard, ninth from left, “Hoc opus est.” (By permission of Diôzesanmuseum Hofburg, Brixen.)

Further right we find an impresa mes: l that is linked to Count Sigopert ( Terzio, pl. 27). It consists of a pictura

x

showing ἃ leg with a spur in a stirrup

A

d

mes

)

(fig. 13) and the motto “Hoc opus est”

[This is the work]. This means that all

humans

4 D.

need

a new

impe-

defeat, as Count Sigopert did. The motto “Ex ipso et per ipsum” [Out of myself and through myself] Fig. 14. South arcade of courtyard, tenth “

A

"|

sometimes

tus—as a horse sometimes needs the spur—to make them persevere after a

from left, “Ex ipso et per ipsum.” (By permission of Diôzesanmuseum Hofburg,

is combined with a pictura showing Jonah who has just been released by

Brixeni)

the whale (fig. 14). This impresa can-

not be found in Terzio’s work. In the courtyard of Brixen it is found next to the statue of Ferdinand II of Tyrol. This placement may in fact be correct, as another source, the Sylloge numismatum of Johann Jakob Luck, links this Habsburg archduke with Jonah. Obviously, Ferdinand is represented by Jonah, who survived three days inside the whale through the will and help of God. The problem is that Luck’s Sy/loge was published in 1620, and therefore cannot be the source for this impresa in Brixen. Nevertheless, Luck and Reichle may have used the same model. However, Ferdinand II is represented in Terzio’s family tree. There his impresa shows a ship in a storm and the motto “Sic resistit” [Thus does it resist], which underlines the

265

steadfastness of this Habsburg ruler. It is quite astonishing that Ferdinand's

statue can be found in the courtyard (Matsche, 242), but not his impresa from Terzio’s Imagines. Obviously, the artist has decided to change Terzios

characterization of this family member. This special impresa will be discussed again later. Going on, we can see the motto “Ergo movebor” [ Therefore I shall be moved] and below an eagle, which is bullied by other birds (fig. 15). This is

LI

supposed to show the great patience of Count Albrecht (Terzio, pl. 20.)

II of Habsburg

The last impresa of this wing of

_

—

Fig. 15. South arcade of courtyard, eleventh from left, “Ergo movebor.” (By permission of Diôzesanmuseum Hofburg, Brixen.)

the palace is titled “Paulatim” [Little

by little] and shows a hand caressing a lion (fig. 16). This explains to the viewer that a lion can gradually be tamed by caressing it. Count Otto II of Habsburg,

to whom

this pic-

tura is linked by Terzio (Terzio, pl. 20), was said to be very careful and friendly when dealing with dangerous opponents. Now

we have to do an imaginary

about-turn so as to face the arcades on the north side of this marvelous courtyard. The first impresa on the left shows a globe, two flags, and the Austrian double eagle above them. On the first flag we can see a lion and on

Fig. 16. South arcade of courtyard, twelfth

from left, “Paulatim.” (By permission of Diézesanmuseum

Hofburg, Brixen.)

—

the second a crucifix (fig. 17). Terzio

dedicates

this

impresa

to

Emperor

Ferdinand I (Terzio, pl. 3). The motto

going with it is “Christo duce” [With Christ as leader]. The eagle is the

symbol of the Habsburg monarchy.

LS

Fs

Fig. 17. North arcade of courtyard, first from left, “Christo duce.” (By permission

of Diézesanmuseum Hofburg, Brixen.)

Ξ

266

EMBLEMATICA Moreover, the pictura stresses the emperor’s power, which is represented by

the lion, and his faith, represented by

the crucifix. The next impresa depicts the sun with a swimming turtle below it (fig. 18) and the motto “Sic immersabilis” [Unsinkable]. The turtle does not dive Fig. 18. North arcade of courtyard, sec- under water to hide from the sun, and ond from left, “Sic immersabilis.” (By perso the meaning of this émpresa seems mission of Diôzesanmuseum Hofburg, to be that Count Hunifried (Terzio, Brixen.) pl. 23) had so much virtue that he did

ἴω

.

not need to hide from anyone.

Terzio links Count Guntram of Habsburg (Terzio, pl. 24) with the next impresa, showing an owl on a shield and a sword (fig. 19). “Non solum nobis” [Not for ourselves alone] is the motto. Guntram had the epithet

NN

Fig. 19. North arcade of courtyard, third

from left, “Non solum nobis” (By permission

Brixen.)

of

Diézesanmuseum

Hofburg,

“Fortissimus” [The strongest]. His military success is here represented by

the sword and the shield. His wisdom is shown by the owl, a common symbol for this trait of character. Below the words “Timentem time” [Fear the fearful], the next pictura contains a fish in a net biting the finger of a hand (fig. 20). This is supposed to

explain that one should never act carelessly, even if one’s opponent seems to Fig. 20. North arcade of courtyard, fourth from left, “Timentem time” (By permission of Diôzesanmuseum Hofburg, Brixen.)

Thomas A. Bauer

The next impresa is closely linked

to a Habsburg ruler: Archduke Leopold III (Terzio, pl. 11), who was killed in the battle of Sempach in the year 1386. The motto “Virtuti nihil invium” [Nothing is inaccessible to virtue] and the pictura containing hands that are throwing fire and rocks toward a crowd with spears allude to

this battle (fig. 21). This is supposed

to make clear that everything can be achieved by virtue—even such impos-

NN Fig. 21. North arcade of courtyard, fifth from left, “Virtuti nihil invium.” (By permission Brixen.)

of

Diôzesanmuseum

Hofburg,

sible aims as the victory in this battle.

However, the most virtuous man, like

Duke Leopold, can fail. King Chlothar I of

Franconia

(Terzio, pl. 34) is linked to the next

impresa. It depicts a mill next to a small river (fig. 22) and the motto “Mens immota manet” [The steadfast mind abides]. The river can be seen

as a symbol for life. Injustice, sorrow, Fig. 22. North arcade of courtyard, sixth from left, “Mens immota manet.” (By perand pain may come along that river, mission of Diôzesanmuseum Hofburg, but the mill cannot be destroyed by Brixen.) them. King Chlothar is seen to be as calm and careful as the mill.

The person who goes with the next

impresa

in Terzios Imagines

is King

Ladislaus of Bohemia (Terzio, pl. 8).

be harmless. Otherwise this careless

behavior will be punished, as we can see here. Obviously, we are to be told

This impresa depicts an allegorical representation of the river Danube (fig. 23), which is closely linked with Ladislaus, as it runs through what was his kingdom and as his intentions

that Count Rapoto, to whom this i7-

are as well hidden as its depths. The

presa is dedicated by Terzio (Terzio, pl. 21), was very careful and judicious.

267

motto reads “Latet altius” [It conceals more deeply].

Fig. 23. North arcade of courtyard, seventh from left, “Later αἰτίας" (By permission of Diôzesanmuseum Hofburg, Brixen.)

268

EMBLEMATICA

Thomas A. Bauer

The following émpresa is not taken from

Terzio’s Imagines.

see Aeneas, who

In it we can

is carrying his fa-

ther out of the burning

city of Troy

(fig. 24). The motto is “Nisi dominus retribuat” [Unless the lord restores (it)]. Unfortunately, we do not have any hint to which member of the Fig. 24. North arcade of courtyard, eighth from left, “Nisi dominus retribuat” (By

permission of Diôzesanmuseum Hofburg,

:

Brixen.)

Habsburg family it is linked, and so the exact meaning is hard to tell. It may be supposed to show us the heroic :

_ character of another family member.

However, given the motto, this impresa could also allude to a catastrophic event in the ruler’s life, which must remain unknown to us. Similar picturae

F

€ ν

i]

Fig. 25. North arcade of courtyard, ninth from left, “Vae illi” (By permission of

Diézesanmuseum Hofburg, Brixen.)

often symbolize children’s love toward their parents (see Henkel and Schéne, 1703). This could be another explanation of why we find this impresa here.

There may be Ì another explanation, è :

which will be discussed later in this ar-

ticle. In all probability, there is a link between this impresa and the other one not taken from Terzios Imagines, which I have mentioned earlier. The next pictura is quite strange. It shows a lion standing on its hind legs (fig. 25). In Terzio’s Imagines we find a similar impresa, with the motto “Vae illi” [Woe betide him]. The pictura at Brixen does not have any motto. Moreover, the Terzio variation shows a lion trying to get rid of a spear piercing its hind leg. Here we see only a kind of stick in the lion’s mouth. Terzio associates King Childebert II (Terzio, pl. 32) with this impresa, whose intended meaning is that this king—like the wounded lion—will always fight on, even after a defeat. However, this badly damaged pictura could also show a lion breaking a club. We have a model for that in Terzio’s Imagines as well; there, the same pictura—with the motto “Pro aequitate” [For equity]—is connected with Count Luithard of Habsburg (Terzio, pl. 24). This is supposed to show us that Luithard used his power only peacefully. The breaking

269

of the weapon represents the renunciation of military power. However, there is one more quite strange thing about this impresa in Brixen. Looking closely, one will see that it is badly

damaged. There is a crack from the top of it down to the bottom and the

upper edge is furrowed. In my view, it is simply a wooden copy of the terra-

Fig. 26. North arcade of courtyard, tenth

cotta original. from left, “Qui volet” (By permission of Leaving this strange copy, we find Diôzesanmuseum Hofburg, Brixen.)

a knight (fig. 26) and the motto “Qui volet” [[If] he pleases] in the next

—

fe = dd

pictura. King Philip I of Castile is the person who was originally accompa-

nied with this émpresa (Terzio, pl. 5).

Here, he is shown as brave and ready to fight any opponent. The pictura to the right contains the sun shining on a tree; behind this Fig. 27. North arcade of courtyard, elevtree is a second one without any leaves enth from left, “Superabo alibi.” (By peron it (fig. 27). The motto is “Superabo mission of Diôzesanmuseum Hofburg, alibi” [I shall prevail elsewhere]. Brixen.) Count Hetoprecht is the ruler of the House of Habsburg represented here (Terzio, pl. 25). His personal device was “Cautus” [Wary] and this émpresa stresses his careful attitude. The last of the 24 imprese in the courtyard of the archbishop’s palace in Brixen shows a hand carrying a flail (fig. 28) and the motto “Telum virtus Fig. 28. North arcade of courtyard, twelfth facit” [Virtue makes a spear]. It was

connected to Duke Ernst by Terzio ( Terzio, pl. 10). Obviously, the impresa

from left, “Telum virtus facit.” (By permission

Brixen.)

of

Diôzesanmuseum

Hofburg,

is linked to Duke Ernst, was called “the Iron | Duke],” because he was said to

be very strong. The impresa shows that a quite harmless tool, such as a flail,

270

EMBLEMATICA

Thomas A. Bauer

can become a mighty weapon if someone virtuous like Duke Ernst uses it. This concludes our survey of the imprese in the courtyard of the archbishops palace in Brixen. However, there are even more of them inside the building, as the museum there houses four imprese that were to have been placed next to more statues in a part of the courtyard arcades that was planned but never built. These imprese Fig. 29. “Una salus,’ one of four additional

4T€ all derived from Terzio, but

mission of Diôzesanmuseum Brixen.)

+o

I will

imprese housed in the museum. (By per- describe only one of them. It is linked Hofburg,

Count

Werner

II

of

Habsbur

8

(Terzio, pl. 19) and depicts a wild boar running toward a spear (fig. 29). The motto is “Una salus” [One deliverance]. Obviously, this wants to tell us that attack is the best form of defense: this brave attitude was indeed that of Werner II, who died in 1167. After analyzing these imprese in the courtyard and in the museum, we must conclude that all of them show a very positive picture of the House of Habsburg. We are told again and again how virtuous all these rulers of this family were. Archbishop Andreas, who had those statues and the imprese made, apparently wanted to justify the legitimacy of his own power to rule by depicting his extremely worthy and skilled ancestors. Moreover, through these works of art, he could demonstrate both his own ideal education and his appreciation of art. The most important point, however, is the fact that he was not a legitimate member of the House of Habsburg, as he was the son of a common woman. By creating his own Habsburg family tree, therefore, he primarily intended to legitimize his status as a full and worthy member of the family, and therefore he represented himself as well by means ofa statue in the cycle found in his palace. For this purpose, as we have seen, he chose a well-known book, Francesco Terzio’s Imagines Gentis Austriacae, as the model for the imprese to be placed in the courtyard of his palace in Brixen. In this context, it is hard to say why there are two imprese that were not derived from Terzio. I think these two imprese are quite different from all the others, simply because of

the complexity of the picturae: the burning city of Troy, Aeneas with his

271

father Anchises on his back and trees in the right background (fig. 24). The pictura with Jonah and the whale in it is also rather detailed (fig. 14). This is not the clear and simple style of Terzio’s picturae. There is an easy explanation of why one impresa was not taken from Terzio. Archbishop Andreas himself wanted to be represented in his Habsburg family tree, and one statue has in fact been identified as that of Andreas (Matsche, 242). As we have seen, however, he is not part of the illustrated family tree Imagines Gentis Austriacae by Terzio, and therefore he needed to find another source for his own impresa, which was supposed to be next to his statue. Why there is a second non-Terzio impresa is more difficult to explain. There may have been another member of the House of Habsburg who was in the cycle of Brixen but not in Terzio’s version. We cannot tell who this person may have been, as some of the statues have been lost. However, we do have the original plan and the blueprints for the statues, and some of the persons mentioned there are not present in Terzio’s Imagines. For example,

Pharamund (Matsche, 236) is not part of Terzio’s family tree. In addition, the female members of the House of Habsburg, who are all together in the fifth part of Terzio’s book, do not have imprese associated with them. However, Archbishop Andreas did plan to erect statues for some female family members as well. Therefore, he needed sources other than Terzio if he wanted to have imprese to associate with those statues. This was not necessarily the case because it is possible that only the statues in the courtyard were supposed to have imprese with them. However, the existence of additional imprese in the museum may show that Andreas had developed a plan to give imprese to all his ancestors’ statues. Assuming that the statues and the imprese of the courtyard belong together, but were mixed up in the nineteenth century, it is easy to explain why there is one that does not derive from Terzio. As we have seen, Andreas of Brixen wanted to have himself represented in the cycle of his ancestors, and it seems quite likely that the impresa showing Jonah was intended to be linked to the Archbishop of Brixen himself. The motto “Ex ipso et per ipsum” [Out of myself and through myself] could allude to his situation as “half-official” family member. He had to make his way using his own strength and will because his links to the Habsburg dynasty could not help him. However, his presence in the cycle of famous Habsburg rulers in the Brixen courtyard shows that he had left behind the darkness of

272

Thomas A. Bauer

EMBLEMATICA

his “irregular” birth, just as Jonah was able τὸ emerge from the darkness of the whale’s stomach. But what about the second “non-Terzio” impresa? This may perhaps represent Andreas’s father, Ferdinand II. As we have already seen, Ferdinand can be found in Terzio’s Imagines. However, Andreas, his son, may have changed the original impresa to allude once again to his problematic origin. The pictura showing Aenaeas carrying his father to save him from the flames of the burning Troy can easily be linked to Andreas and his father Ferdinand. “Dominus” in the motto “Nisi dominus retribuat” [If god (?) does not give it back] could also be translated with “father” —yet another allusion to Andreas’s situation. He is probably accusing his father here, as Andreas was denied by him. He was Ferdinand’s son, but was raised by his father as a foundling, so Andreas drew no advantage from his noble

birth; he was no official family member in the beginning. Only his own efforts made him a proud representative of the Habsburg dynasty. Therefore, the two “non-Terzio” imprese can be interpreted as very strong symbols of Andreas’s will to show himself as a decent and honest Habsburg representative. Obviously, this is the reason why Terzio was not used to represent Ferdinand II. His son, the mastermind behind the cycle of Habsburg ancestors, may even have been the creator of those two imprese for himself and for his father. In both cases, he used mythological backgrounds: the

Jewish myth of Jonah and the ancient Greek myth of Aenaeas, the legend-

ary founder of Rome. I believe that Andreas of Austria identified himself with Aenaeas, as he had also founded his own small empire: his archbishopric of Brixen, with the courtyard of his palace as its center. Terzio provided a model not only for the imprese but also for the statues. His pictures of the Habsburg rulers obviously inspired the artist Hans Reichle. Moreover, there is a quite similar Habsburg family tree with statues in the “Hofkirche” of Innsbruck in Austria. They are next to the tomb of Emperor Maximilian I (Egg, 4). The statues of 28 male and female ancestors, who include, for example, King Arthur, were made of bronze in the years 1508 to 1550. They were very famous in those days because they were the first life-sized bronze statues made outside Italy. I therefore think that Archbishop Andreas of Brixen was familiar with this cycle of Habsburg ancestors—Brixen is not too far away from Innsbruck—and developed the idea to create something similar for himself. So, some 100 years after his role-mod-

el Emperor Maximilian I, he started to work on this remarkable Habsburg

273

family tree for his palace in Brixen. Archbishop Andreas did surpassed his ancestor Maximilian, however, by accompanying his statues with imprese.

Works Cited Bruhn, Thomas Paul. Hans Reichle (1565/70- 1642): A Reassessment of his

Sculpture. London, 1982.

Biirklein, Ditmar. Neue deutsche Biographie. Berlin, 1957. Egg, Erich. Das Grabmal Kaiser Maximilians I. Hofkirche Innsbruck. Innsbruck, 1993. Gelmi, Josef. Die Brixener Bischôfe in der Geschichte Tirols. Bozen, 1984.

. Geschichte der Stadt Brixen. Brixen, 2000. Henkel, Arthur, and Albrecht Schéne. Emblemata. Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart/Weimar,

1996.

Luck, Johann Jakob. Sylloge numismatum. Strasburg, 1620. http://mdz1 bibbvb.de/-emblem/emblalle.html?inpKng=paut&inpBegriff =Luck,%20Johann%20Jacob. Matsche, Franz. “Hans Reichles Statuenzyklus des HabsburgerStammbaums in der fürstbischôflichen Hofburg zu Brixen (1595—

1601).” In Am Anfang war das Auge. Kunsthistorische Tagung anlasslich des 100jährigen Bestehens des Diézesanmuseums Hofburg Brixen, ed. Leo Andergassen. Brixen, 2004. Pp. 179-243.

Miinchener

DigitalisierungsZentrum

Digitale

Bibliothek.

Bayerische

Staatsbibliothek. http://mdz1.bib-bvb.de/-emblem/emblmaske html.

Ovid [Publius Ovidius Naso]. P Ovidi Nasonis Liber Secundus Artis Amatoriae. http://wwwthelatinlibrary.com/ovid/ ovid.artis2.shtml. Terzio, Francesco. Imagines Gentis Austriacae. Innsbruck, 1569. http:// mdz1.bib-bvb.de/-emblem/emblanzeige.html?Auswahl%5B%5 D=47&inpBitmuster=2&x=47 &y=10.

Typotius, Jacobus. Symbola Divina et Humana. Prague, 1600.

Georg Philipp Harsdôrffer and the Emblematic Pamphlets of 1641-42: Peristromata Turcica and Aulaea Romana Edited, Translated, and with an Introduction and Commentary! by

MAX REINHART University of Georgia

For Klaus Garber and Theodor Verweyen, beloved mentors

n 26 “Winter Monats” [November] 1641, the 34-year-old Nuremberg poet Georg Philipp Harsdôrffer sent, together with three other Latin works,” a copy of an elegantly illustrated pamphlet called Peristromata Turcica [Turkish Tapestries], his Latin translation of an anonymous French manuscript printed by Toussaint du Bray in Paris, to the president of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, Prince Ludwig 1.

Lexpress here my deep gratitude to the anonymous expert readers for their careful perusal of my manuscript, and especially for their painstaking attention to what are uncommonly problematic Latin texts. One of the readers provided a detailed list of corrections and suggestions, many of which I have incorporated

2.

into the final translations, thereby sparing readers of Emblematica many an irritation. For remaining errors or questionable judgments, I alone am responsible. Harsdérffer had already presented volume 1 of his German-language Frauenzimmer Gesprachspiele to the society earlier in 1641. Though he did not specify the other three titles, they doubtless included Germania Deplorata and Gallia

Deplorata, both also published in 1641; the third may well have been his most recent Latin publication prior to 1641 (printed by Endter in summer 1640), Cato Noricus, a much-admired panegyric to the local dignitary Johann Friedrich Loffelholtz. (Endter has clouded the issue in his list of Harsdérffer’s Latina

by incorrectly dating another work, Porticus Augusti, as 1641; that work did not appear until 1646.) 277 Emblematica, Volume 20. Copyright © 2013 by AMS Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

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of Anhalt-Kôthen, in a bid for membership in that renowned intellectual society.’ Alarmed by the works seductive beauty, employed, as he interpreted it, in a belligerent cause—a European war on the Ottomans, to be led by Catholic France—the Reformed Calvinist Prince Ludwig called a special meeting of the society in early spring 1642 to discuss a suitable response.* Aulaea Romana [Roman Tapestries] (1642), which answers the argument of Peristromata Turcica emblem by emblem, represents the soci-

ety’s effort to counter the dangerous effects of what the French printer had

praised as “Novitate validis illiciis grata” [Charming novelty’s powerful enticements], but now in the service of ecumenism and peace. These two pamphlets,’ composed in the final decade of the Thirty Years’ War, represent leading French and German positions on the actual threat to Europe from the Ottoman East and on how best to resolve hostilities. The pamphlets thus reflect significantly on politico-confessional thought in the late stage of the war. But they represent something quite different, if certainly related, as well. The debate, which has been characterized as a “battle of the tapestries” (Reinhart 1998), arose equally as a clash between two aesthetic philosophies: one mannerist, given to experimentation, novelty, and wit; the other neoclassic and insisting on the unchanging values of Christian antiquity, which the author calls “lux Veritatis” [the light of truth]. The two pamphlets beg to be considered as a pair and accordingly to be presented in full text, as they are here for the first time: Peristromata Turcica in this volume, Aulaea Romana in the next volume of Emblematica.S 3.

Forthehistory and significance of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft [Fruitbring-

ing Society], see especially Barthold, Otto, Evans, Garber 1986, Conermann,

and Hoppe.

4.

5.

The politico-confessional context of the response will be addressed briefly in this

introduction and then in greater detail when Aulaea Romana appears in the next issue of Emblematica. On the introduction of Reformed Calvinism and the culture of the Second Reformation in Anhalt-Kôthen, see Hoppe.

been flawed, sometimes seriously so.

7

No previous edition of these works exists, either in the original Latin or in trans-

It seems never to have been noticed, however, that the last two titles are out of chronological order: Gallia Deplorata (no.7) was published in 1641, and Aulaea Romana (no. 6) in 1642 (Endter in fact assigned no date to the latter; the date

is yielded by the chronogram on the title page, as well as by the content in the pamphlet’s introductory section).

sideration here resemble the German Flugschrift, which in practice consistently

lation, which may explain why all discussions of them in literary history have

279

In German literary history, Peristromata Turcica (henceforth: Per) and Aulaea Romana (henceforth: Aul) have usually been mentioned in combination with two other Latin pamphlets from 1641: Germania Deplorata [Lamentation for Germany] and Gallia Deplorata [Lamentation for France], so that the four appear to constitute a corpus. This practice mimics the uninterrupted sequencing of the four titles (nos. 4, 5, 6, and 7) in the Nuremberg printer Wolfgang Endter’s two-page list of Harsdérffer’s Latin works, under the rubric “Latina” near the beginning of the third volume of his printing of Harsdérffer’s Poetischer Trichter {Poet's Funnel] (1653).’ Printing history followed Endter in keeping them together: the majority of libraries holding at least one of these four Latin works possess all four, either bound together in one volume or in separate volumes.* Additionally, all have pamphlet form and are concerned primarily with political and moral issues, particularly with respect to the character of Louis XIII’s chief minister Richelieu and his role in either prolonging or ending the war. However, at least two considerations militate against taking them uncritically as an organic corpus: First, a close reading shows that Harsdérffer did not himself compose any of them, but served rather either as translator, as in the case of Per and probably Gallia Deplorata (both from French) or, in the case of the remaining two, as facilitator of their publication with Endter. These are all functions consistent with premodern usage of the term auctor, to be sure; but even the modern, post-eighteenth-century, German transmission has, with one exception (Schneider, 33), erroneously taken him to be the original writer of all or most of them. Second, it was assumed that Endter was responsible for printing all the titles in the list, a claim he himself did not actually make.’ It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that

The pamphlet qua genre defies universal description. Both works under con-

demonstrates three distinctive features: brevity, currency, and polemic. This fits well with George Orwell definition of the pamphlet: “Pamphlets may turn on points of ethics or theology, but they always have a clear political implication. A pamphlet may be written either for or against somebody or something, but in essence it is always a protest” (qtd. in Grabes, vii). 6.

Max Reinhart

8.

For the complete list of library holdings, see below, “Extant Copies” p. 300.

9.

“Demnach ich unterschiedlich / so wol schrifftlich / als mündlich befraget worden / was der Autor dieses Biichleins welcher aus Bescheidenheit seinen Namen nicht beysetzen lassen wollen / fiir Schriften an das Liecht gegeben / habe ich Anlaf genommen derselben Register alhier nachrichtlich anzufügen” [Because

at various times I have been asked, either in writing or orally, what the author

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scholars simply have not read Harsdérffer’s early Latin works with care, when they have read them at all.'° Harsdorffer’s Life and Works Georg Philipp Harsdérffer (1607-58) was not only one of the guiding lights of the seventeenth-century German literary reform,"! he was also a keen observer of social and political events in Europe during and immediately following the Thirty Years’ War.'?An admirer of Martin Opitz (15971639), the so-called “Vater der deutschen Dichtung” [father of German poetry],!? Harsdérffer was also an avid student of European culture, exceptionally open-minded, and welcoming of differences. Widely traveled and proficient in at least five modern European languages, he contributed as did no other of his German contemporaries to the importation of the ideas and forms that were shaping intellectual and aesthetic practices around the continent. Much earlier scholarship treated Harsdôrffer, who was known in his time as “der Spielende” [the Playful One], as a rather dilettantish purveyor of non-German genres, trends, and curiosities. This opinion un(who out of modesty does not wish his name to be given) has published, I have

taken this opportunity to attach this register for clarification] (A6r). 10. 11.

A notable exception is the excellent recent study by Lepper (2006) of Harsdorffer’s 1639 Latin account of his Grand Tour with Christoph Fiirer. Until approximately the 1970s, the seventeenth century was commonly called the

Baroque by German scholars, despite the historical and aesthetic contradictions of the term, particularly for Protestant Germany. Newer German criticism, much as that for the other European national cultures, situates the seventeenth century within the longue durée known as early modernism, or early modernity (German: Frühe Neuzeit). See, e.g., volume 4 of the Camden House History of German

12.

13.

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EMBLEMATICA

Literature, Early Modern German Literature, 1350-1700 (Reinhart 2007). No modern study exists of the complete life and works of Harsdôrffer and none will be possible until certain gaps in our knowledge of his activities and writings (esp. the lost personal letters) have been filled, and until scholars are able to unify the ostensibly contradictory sides of this most imaginative writer and thinker. The first, and still useful, monograph on Harsdérffer was Bischoff, written for the 250th anniversary of Nuremberg’s Pegnesischer Blumenorden, of which Harsdérffer was first president. Among the important newer sketches, see especially Krebs, Büttcher, Verweyen 1995, Hess, Lepper, and Verweyen 2006. Students of German literature learn to say that modern German literary practice began in 1624 with the publication of Opitz little poetics, Buch von der Deutschen Poeterey [Book of German Poetry].

281

derwent a major reevaluation, however, between the 1970s and the 1990s, a period driven—in part by university agendas—to explore questions related to internationality and interdisciplinarity. It is today precisely his mediating role as German interpreter of international cultural phenomena, both literary and material, that most defines Harsdôrffer's greatness. He is now appreciated as a “son of Europe” who contributed to a degree equaled perhaps only by Opitz in the seventeenth century to the renewal and “de-provincialization” of German letters.'* One could fairly say that Harsdôrffer did for German literary culture what Opitz did for German literary form: each invented, based on the most distinguished European examples, models for emulation that influenced German practice down to the Age of Enlightenment. Harsdôrffer was born on 1 November 1607 into an eighth-generation patrician family in the imperial free city of Nuremberg. He received an excellent private education at home and matriculated at the age of sixteen at nearby Altdorf University, where he studied law. The Altdorf curriculum was strongly humanistic, which is to say, Latin-based; one of his most influential professors was the mathematics scholar Daniel Schwenter, who stirred the young Harsdérffer’s instinct for a pleasure-driven approach to education.!5 Upon graduation in 1626, Harsdérffer set out with his friend Christoph Fürer on a five-year peregrinatio academica (Harsdérffer 1639; Lepper). The first stop was the University of Strasbourg, where he studied under the polymath Matthias Bernegger (1582-1640),'* renowned for his dialogical method of instruction. The method would provide Harsdorffer with a model for his best-known work, the eight-volume Frauenzimmer

Gesprachspiele [Playful Colloquies for the Ladies] (1641-49; henceforward: 14.

15.

16.

Battafarano’s groundbreaking work in the mid 1990s established a Euro-

pean framework for Harsdôrffer studies (see esp. Battafarano 1991, 1994, 1995, and 1998). Following this current, see Bexte, Westerhoff, and Ver-

weyen 2006. The most recent estimation of Harsdürffer’s reach comes from Keppler-Tasaki and Kocher, who go an increment further in their volume’s dedication to his “Universalitat.” In 1651 Harsdôrffer would add a second volume to Schwenter’s Deliciae Physico-

Mathematicae [Physical and Mathematical Delights] (1636), a kind of family

book in which nearly 700 scientific problems are collected and solved in a playful manner. He added a third volume two years later (1653). Bernegger’s primary biographer is Bünger; see also Kühlmann (43-66) on Bernegger’s critical contribution to late-humanist political thought.

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F2G).7 In Tuba Pacis [Trumpet of Peace] (1621), which he intended as a patriotic appeal to German-Christian unity, Bernegger, a disciple of the Dutch neo-Stoic political philosopher Justus Lipsius, made clear that free citizens had the right to resist tyranny, a bold position for his time and one that influenced Harsdérffer’s political philosophy.'* The academic journey then continued, first to Geneva (a center, along with Heidelberg, of the socalled Second Reformation),’? then back to France, with a lengthy stay in

Paris, then to Italy (Turin, Genoa, Naples), and by way of Switzerland and

Schwabia, again to France, before returning home in early 1632. Politically speaking, Harsdôrffer's appointment in 1633 as an aide to Johann Jacob Tetzel—Nuremberg’s diplomatic envoy to the Heilbronn League meeting in Frankfurt—was an eye-opener. In this role, he was able to witness in action Richelieu’s chief proxy, the Marquis de Feuquiéres, as he maneuvered to gain the advantages that would, in 1635, lead to France’s gamechanging entry into the war (Baustaedt; also Kretzschmar). By this time, it

was no longer in doubt that Richelieu meant to expand the military might of France, with the help of purchased foreign troops (among others, the German forces of Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar). It must also have been alarming to realize that the French strategy of constructing a united front under “Christendom” could only mean a triumph for Roman Catholicism. But to assume that this caused in Harsdôrffer some animus toward Richelieu and France, as has been asserted, goes too far.”” 17.

Harsdôrffer regarded women, in their role as home administrators and prima-

ry educators of children, as potentially the educational foundation ofa modern German culture.

18.

Reifferscheid, 1004-5. This position is reflected in the 1641 pamphlets Germania Deplorata and Gallia Deplorata and in Harsdérffer’s 1643 German translation of the French drama Europe (as Japeta). The view espoused by Bernegger

had been in circulation in France since the appearance of the anonymous Vindiciae contra tyrannos | Defenses of Liberty against Tyrants] in 1579. 19.

The Second Reformation is particularly associated with the movement of Reformed Calvinism emanating from Heidelberg into a Europe-wide network of intellectual

and political interest groups. Its irenic-universalist aspect exercised special attrac-

20.

tion in the seventeenth century within the international community of intellectual societies, one of the foremost being the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft. See Schilling; Garber 1986 and 2000; Walter; Keppler-Tasaki and Kocher; Muller and Gunnoe. See my conclusion to the section of this introduction on the arguments in historical context (below, 290-95).

Max Reinhart

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Harsdérffer devoted the years 1634 to 1641 almost exclusively to career and domestic concerns. He married in 1634 and was appointed in 1637 to Nuremberg’s Stadtgericht [city court of justice]?! He published little in this period beyond his student travel memoirs in Latin and a book on table manners in German. The literary explosion in 1641, however, in both Latin and German, is evidence that he was amassing literary notes and reflecting on the political developments around Europe during these years. The eight volumes of FzG, published in German annually between 1641 and 1649, are an indispensable trove of knowledge for cultural historians of early modern Europe, with their citation of some 849 European sources in 300 conversation games (Hess, 149). The playfully erudite method of FG (six people from various social backgrounds make up the lively discussion group) owes much to various precedents, beginning with Baldassare Castiglione’s I/ libro del Cortegiano (1528) and including Bernegger’s dialogical method and the playful strategies of Schwenter’s Deliciae. However, the model for Harsdérffer’s ideal of the well-informed public figure so evident in the FzG—it is even more visibly on display in the opening section of Aul, which describes the special meeting called by Prince Ludwig—derived probably most directly from the Parisian conférences organized by the learned physician and friend of Richelieu, Théophraste Renaudot, between 1633 and 1642 (Krebs, 1:478-503; Wellman; Verweyen 2006, 49). In 348 conférences over these nine years, speakers presented talks on 460 different topics (Wellman, xiv, 429, and passim), many of which are addressed, if less scientifically, in Harsdorffer’s FzG. Each of Harsdôrffer's many compilations of narrative, dramatic, lyrical, musical, visual-emblematic, and additional mixed genres focuses on a particular kind of intellectual, sociocultural, or artistic production and gathers its selections from a vast range of sources. To name only the most important: the three-volume Poetischer Trichter (1647, 1648, 1653) is a poetics; Der grosse SchauPlatz jammerlicher Mordgeschichte [Grand Theater of Lamentable Murders] (1649-50) and its companion Der grosse Schau-Platz Lust- und Lehrreicher Geschichte [Grand Theater of Delightful and Edifying Stories] (1650) run to six volumes and hundreds of stories adapted into German from French, Spanish, Italian, and other 21.

Scholars have repeatedly attributed Harsdérffer’s penchant for moral instruction to the experience gained in the role of having to witness, day in and day out, the petty criminality of his fellow human beings.

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languages; Der Teutsche Secretarius |The German Secretary] (1655, 1659)

is a handbook in two volumes presenting models of epistolary and other pragmatic styles, gathered from around Europe, proper to an efficiently and elegantly run bureaucracy. Harsdorffer’s Early Latin Works It is odd that Harsdérffer’s reputation should continue to be based almost solely on his German writings.” Scholarship has failed to investigate the compelling lead provided by his foremost biographer, Theodor Bischoff, at the end of the nineteenth century, who spoke promisingly of Harsdérffer’s early Latin writings as “Schriften der Vorbereitungszeit” [writings of the preparatory period] (Bischoff, 28). The very fact that the early Latin compositions have gone unexamined sets them apart as a kind of de facto corpus. Harsdôrffer himself distinguished them linguistically from his writings in German. In the letter to Prince Ludwig mentioned above, Harsdôrffer apprised him of “vier lateinische Schrifften” [four Latin writings] being sent in lieu of the eagerly awaited volume 2 of the FzG.” The specific nomenclature of “Latin writings” is the more significant, since Harsdôrffer published only in Latin until 1643, except for the first two volumes of the FzG and a book of banquet manners called Vollstandiges Trincir-Büchlein |Complete Handbook on Serving Food] (1640). In other words, scholarship must at last acknowledge that Harsdôrffer had a significant writerly period in Latin that preceded his turn to German composition. Indeed, it was not until 1646, with his Specimen Philologiae Germanicae [A Model for a German

285

striking statement that anticipates Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's revolutionary concept of the late 1820s.” In light of the recent appreciation of Harsdôrffer as a German poet with European instincts, considering him seriously as a spiritual forerunner of Goethe does not seem far-fetched.” For both Harsdorffer and Goethe, translation was to play a key part in this enterprise.”° That Bischoff should have made this astute connection on the basis of Harsdôrffer’s early Latina is surely reason enough to begin to take them seriously as part of his complete life’s work.” Title Pages, Dates, Printers, Attributions, Circumstances of Composition Quasi-facsimile title pages PERISTROMATA TURCICA,

| SIVE | DISSERTATIO

| EMBLEMATI-

CA, | PRÆSENTEM EUROPÆ STATUM | INGENIOSIS COLORIBUS

| REPRASENTANS. | Exod. 27. v. 40. | IsMaëL VIVet gLaDlo, & pIngVIs |

est terra elVs eX nVbe | rorante. 4°: [A 1r-2v] A3r—F4r [Ἐάν], pp. [1-6] 7-45

[46]. Plates: 6 full-p. 2-color copper engravings. Chronogram: 1641.

AULA ROMANA, | CONTRA | PERISTROMATA TURCICA | EXPANSA: | SIVE | DISSERTATIO EMBLEMATICA, | CONCORDIÆ CHRISTIANZ | OMEN | REPRÆSENTANS. | 1. ad Corinth, XIV. v. XXX.

| EXVrget protInVs IehoVa, qVIa non est DEVS | DIssenslonIs, seD PaCls.

4°: [Alr-2v] A3r—H4y, pp. [1-6] 7-64. Plates: 7 full-p. copper engravings. Chronogram: 1642.

Study of Words], that Harsdôrffer, still writing in Latin to reach European

readers, “declares the end of the monopoly of Latin” (Hess, 152). The failure to give his Latin works their due in his overall contribution to letters is doubly surprising in light of Bischoff’s second insight, one that is particularly prescient for literary history. They represent, according to Bischoff, nothing less than Harsdérffer’s “Absicht, eine Weltlitteratur [sic] zu schaffen” [aspiration to create a world literature] (Bischoff, 33; emphasis added)—a 22.

23.

German literary histories commonly register his entry into the field in 1641 with the first volume of the German FG, but especially 1644, when he was 37 years old, with the founding (together with Johann Klaj) of the literary society known as the Pegnesischer Blumenorden |Flower Order on the Pegnitz]. In another letter, dated 11 March 1642, he again mentioned them as “erlich[e] seiner Lateinischen Schrifften” [a few of his Latin writings] (Krause, 310).

24.

Of the vast literature on Goethe’ concept of world literature, see most recently the volume by Manger; see also Birus.

25.

[εἰς interesting to take note of the common fascination in both Harsdôrffer (as evidenced in Per) and Goethe for Orientalist aesthetics. Goethe conceived his

26. 27.

idea of world literature in the wake of having composed his Hafiz-inspired Westôstlicher Divan | West-East Divan] (1819). On Harsdérffer’s theory of translation, see Battafarano 1998 and Robert; cf. Birus.

Bischoff, of course, assumed Harsdorffer’s authorship of the four pamphlets, which may have inflated his assessment of their significance within the poet's

oeuvre. Nevertheless, Harsdérffer’s deep engagement in their production and

reception warrents exploration of the ways in which they may be considered to establish the foundation for his later work and career.

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Peristromata Turcica

Roméo Arbour points out that Per was published under Toussaint du Bray's name and bound together with Germania Deplorata in one volume (Arbour, 86).** Both are found attached as supplements to Toussaint’s catalog without explanation. Arbour expresses bewilderment about the number of elementary questions left unanswered by the printer’s (he assumes Toussaint’s) foreword: D'ou viennent ces textes? comment expliquer cette absence du nom de l'auteur, du lieu d'édition, de la date, de l'extrait du privilège dans un ouvrage qu'on a pris soin dorner de figures à l’eau forte, tirées en rouge et noir, chose rare et coûteuse à cette époque?

[Where do those of authors name, lege in a volume figures printed in

texts come from? How does one explain that absence place of publication, date, and declaration of privithat one cared enough about to adorn with etched red and black, a rare and costly thing at that time?]

He can only conclude: “Leur histoire est pleine de mystére” [Their history is full of mystery] (86). The printer’s foreword does indeed raise as many questions as it answers and certainly contains elements of a good mystery: Sed unde haec nobis peristromata, rogas? Regis nostri Christianissimi Legatus, qui ad portam Ottomannam & nunc agit, dedit haec ad Eminentissimum Galliae Cardinalem, tanquam preciosum & rarum munus, affirmans, se semel tantum facultatem haecce aulaea videndi obtinuisse, antequam in conclavi, ubi cum Eunuchis regiae clauduntur Amasiae affigerentur. Vir itaque haereditaria eruditione illustris, sumptuosa curiositate, hiante oculo & cupida manu argumentum cu-

jusque tapeti designavit, & avida aure. (A4r, 7)

[You ask, where did these tapestries come from? Our Most Christian King’s ambassador, even now in service at the Ottoman Porte, presented them to His Eminence, the Cardinal of France, as a costly 28.

Later in the volume (291), Arbour miscalculates the chronogram as 1640 (it is

actually 1641) and accordingly establishes 1640 incorrectly as the publishing date of the two catalog supplements. Since Toussaint’s shop closed officially in 1635, these two works were either pirated editions or were permitted to appear under Toussaint’s name by some special privilege that cannot be determined

here. Dünnhaupt (1978 ff.) and others have attributed it to Endter, but until

hard evidence turns up that overrides the authority of the Toussaint colophon, this attribution must remain uncertain.

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and rare gift, explaining that he had had the opportunity to view the actual tapestries themselves only once before they were hung up in a chamber and locked away with the eunuchs of the royal harem. And so this man, well known for his native intelligence, then proceeded, with painstaking care (with eager eye and loving hand, as it were), to trace the argument of each tapestry .. . .]

To these numerous unanswered questions must be added yet another perplexing one with respect to the Latin translation and printing: If the opulent copper engravings were given to Richelieu, where do the beautiful two-color engravings accompanying Per come from? Did Toussaint (or whoever the actual printer may have been) have another set—a copy of a copy!—made up for the Latin translation? It seems the questions have no end, and the best we can do is to admit it is so, even as we attempt to determine what is most likely to have been the case, based on our limited textual and historical evidence. All of that notwithstanding, the text does provide evidence toward the solution of certain questions. For one thing, we can ascertain that the ambassador, who is not identified by name, was the author of the text and that he composed it in French. He can only have been Jean de la Haye, Seigneur de Vantelet, ambassador to the Porte from 1639 to 1660, who was reputed to be exceptionally knowledgeable about Oriental arts and sciences (Rouillard, 153-57). Without question, he was a royalist and apologist for Richelieu. The readiness he displays for military action suggests that he supported the plan contrived by the cardinal’s zealous confidant and foreign minister, the éminence grise Père Joseph, François Leclerc du Tremblay, to engage in a holy war against the Turks as part of his larger medieval scheme to reunite Europe under Christendom, which was to say, Roman Catholicism. That such a pamphlet should come from the house of Toussaint du Bray is consistent with his history of printing books and tracts friendly to the crown and to Richelieu, often by writers employed by the first minister, such as Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (Lachévre). In order to try to ascertain the probable title of the French original, Arbour backtranslates the Latin title as Tapis turcs, ou dissertation ouvragée représentant avec de vives couleurs l'état actuel de l'Europe | Turkish Tapestries, or beauti-

fully wrought interpretation in vivid figures representing the present state of Europe]. Despite this help, neither Arbour nor the present editor has

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been able to discover it in any printing list, a failure that suggests chat the original was an unpublished manuscript.” From the Mantissa [Postscript] to Aul, we learn that the translator of Per was Georg Philipp Harsdôrffer.* It is apparent that Arbour did not read the full text, or he would have discovered that the original was indeed a French manuscript. Harsdôrffer explains that it was nearly illegible: [C]um gallicum schediasma, (absque aeneis typis, hoc loco compen-

dio quodam exhibitis,) difficili exaratum calamo, multis in locis criti-

cis conjecturis instaurandum fuerit. (F3r, 45)

[[T ]he hasty French copy (it had no printed texts; these were in rather summary form), was written with a barely decipherable pen and had to be restored with judicious conjectures].

Whether this statement is to be taken at face value or self-protectively as “euphemization,”*' a means by which Harsdôrffer could distance himself from the content, may be subject to discussion. How he came into possession of the French manuscript in the first place seems to have been lost to history. He cannot have discovered it among Renaudots conférences, which were devoted exclusively to sober-minded scientific discussions. It is reasonable to speculate that the source was Bernegger, who maintained an active correspondence with prominent intellectuals in Paris, most notably with members of the eminent Cabinet Dupuy (Garber 2000, esp. 69; Wellman, 29-30), and regularly communicated information flowing from these Parisian contacts to intellectual centers in Germany, particularly the Calvinist court in Heidelberg and the Reformed court in Anhalt-Kéthen (Garber 1986; Walter, 113-60). It does not fit well with Bernegger’s repu-

tation as a conciliatory personality, however, to imagine him recommending this incendiary work for print.” His published writings were primarily 29.

30. 31.

32.

This was in fact the case, as we shall presently see. Note that Diinnhaupt (1978 ff.) mistakenly identifies the French original as the anonymous La voix gemissante du peuple chréstien et catholique |The Groaning Voice of the Christian

People]. La voix was the original title of Gallia Deplorata. The initials “G. P. H.” (he often used only his initials in correspondence and other writings) stand at the end of the postscript.

Alain Viala has defined euphemization as “the use of code or allusion to evade

authority” (qtd. in Wellman, 17). Recommending the French manuscript to the German Harsdérffer for translation could have been a way of testing its effect beyond France’s borders even as

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academic in nature; he was reputed to be a gentle and humorous teacher; and at least one of his major works, Tuba Pacis, is decidedly irenical.* Aulaea Romana™

Aul is a highly sophisticated literary exercise, as intellectually refined and rigorous as Per is visually engaging. Its author builds an argument upon a complex system of allusions to ancient authors, especially the late-empire poet Claudian Claudianus.” Although the author remains unnamed, the unusually informative introduction, together with other institutional and historical evidence, lead almost certainly to one man. To begin with, the narrative evidence shows that he was obviously an active member of the

Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft as of 1642 and a close associate of Prince

Ludwig; he was also a devoted friend of the translator of Per (who turns out to have been Harsdérffer), whom he asks to critique his work.* The citations and borrowings in the text reflect wide reading in biblical, classical, late-empire, patristic, scholastic, mystical, humanist and late-humanist German, French, Polish, and Italian literature, as well as being conversant with biblical exegesis, heraldry, numerology, linguistics, Pythagoreanism, Orientalism, and the more recent disciplines of public law and the historiography of modern times. He embraced the pragmatic brand of irenicism promoted in the politico-confessional operations of the Reformed principality of Anhalt. Politically, he was experienced and astute; Prince Ludwig's mention of the Diet of Regensburg likely alludes to the author's participation in it. His ideas are consistent with Anhaltian foreign policy in favoring a united Christendom under imperial Habsburg (Hoppe; Garber 1986, 341-48).

33.

it concealed his own personal role in a delicate endeavor, though this is purely speculative. The most thorough analysis of this work is still Foitzik’s 1955 Ph.D. dissertation.

34.

This work will be introduced at greater length in the next volume of Emblem-

35.

Claudian was one of the most quoted ancient authorities in the time of the European Renaissance (Braden; Reinhart 1999a). This is expressly stated in the author's conclusion, as well as in Harsdértfer’s

36.

atica.

postscript reply. The author opens the “Occasion and Purpose” by addressing Harsdorffer as “Virorum Amicissime” [kindest of men].

his death in Anhaltian service as an adviser and diplomat. Milag was admit-

ted into the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft in 1637 as member number 315 under the sobriquet “der Mindernde,” best translated as “the Mediator”

(Conermann, 357-59). Among his many diplomatic missions was that of 1634 to the Heilbronn League meeting in Frankfurt am Main and

that of 1640-41 to the Diet of Regensburg.” Compelling evidence of the literary friendship between Milag and Harsdôrffer may be gathered from volume 6 of the FzG (1646). Among the opening gratulatoria stands a 36-line poem from “der Mindernde” that puns on Harsdérffer’s institutional name “der Spielende”: “Spielen pfleget zu behagen” [Playing cultivates pleasure]. In turn, “der Spielende” replies with a fond “Zuschrift an der Hochlôblichen Fruchtbringenden Gesellschaft Vielmégendes Mitglied Den Mindernden” [Reply to the very gifted member of the august Fruitbringing Society, the Mediator].

The Arguments in Historical Context Per addresses the large geopolitical issue of the balance of power in Europe following the entry of France (after 1635) as an active combatant in the war. It does so, however, from an ideological perspective that severely distorts the source to which it responds. As accurately as may be discerned from the

38. 39.

40.

In Latin, Martinus Milagius; born Milack, in Turgau (1598), he died in Dessau

(1657).

Ie was at this same meeting that Harsdôrffer served as assistant to Nuremberg’s

liaison, Johann Jacob Tetzel. Harsdérffer was 27 at the time, Milag 36. It is

tempting to imagine that they became acquainted on this occasion. See Rust; more recently, Bierther. Rust provides evidence of Milag's legal and

literary competencies (e.g., 569, 574). As part of his charge to undertake the society's response to Per, Prince Ludwig makes explicit mention of the Diet of Regensburg (C2r,19).

Unfortunately for scholarship, Harsdérffer himself maintained unfailing discretion as to the authorship of Aud even as late as 1657, a year before his death, in

including the work without attribution in the index to his new edition of the second volume of FzG (469).

printer’ foreword and introductory “Occasion and Purpose,’ as to how the tapestry emblems of Per came to be and for what end, the facts are as follows: Six large ornamental tapestries were designed in Constantinople and woven at elaborate expense in Venice to be presented to the illustrious sultan Murad IV. The several tapestries had exactly the same design, but the pasha Abu Bakir directed his agent, Rev Ben-Cophen, a converted Jew, to have symbolic, aniconic images sewn onto them, each with its own motto in Greek* (one is handwritten in Arabic). In the meantime, Murad died, and the tapestries were presented instead to his successor, Ibrahim I, on his ascension to the Ottoman throne in February 1640. The French ambassador was apparently troubled by what he saw and obtained permission to sketch them before they were removed from public view. Once back in Paris, he presented the copies as a set of two-color copper engravings* to Cardinal Richelieu. Whether he presented only the tapestry images or included his own narrative is unclear from the printer's statement, unfortunately, for the chronology would help us determine his intent: If he offered only the images, then his gift would have been primarily aesthetic in nature. But if the gift

included his written interpretation, there can be no doubt that it was meant not only as a thing of beauty but also as a direct warning to Richelieu.”

However that may have been, it is clear that the French author's intertextual inventions aggressively overwrite the Ottoman template in a distorting way. After all, he cannot have been privy to the original meaning of the tapestries, since they did not include textual interpretations. All he can have witnessed in Constantinople were the visual products: the tapestries with the various aniconic images, the purpose of which was, it would seem, to exemplify the Ottoman view of the European political state of affairs, with the Ottoman Empire factored in (see tapestry 1) as a (perhaps future) roleplayer within this consortium. The larger historical context within which this Ottoman view was proposed was, then, what Bernard Lewis describes as “the Muslim discovery of Europe.” It represents, in other words, an internal assessment of where the Ottomans imagined themselves vis-à-vis Europe as of 1641. By inventing elucidations and attaching them to the tapestries as 41.

On che centrality of Greek in Ottoman political affairs, see Lewis, 73-- - 7.

42.

Dünnhaupt (783) speculates that they were the first two-color copper engravings manufactured in Europe.

43.

Exactly what the warning is, we can read in the final paragraph of the translator's

postscript.

+ EE

ria apply, one name asserts itself: Martin Milag.*” Milag studied law at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder and entered the service of Christian I of Anhalt in 1626. From 1632 to 1634, he assisted Prince Ludwig in the latter’s function as Swedish governor at Halberstadt, and continued until

291

EE

When we consider the biographies of members to whom all these crite-

37.

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EMBLEMATICA

—

290

ο.--:.--.

quasi swbscriptiones, the French author has created full-fledged emblems. The result is an altogether new narrative, one that casts the Turks in the role of heathen aggressor, and the French nation, under Most Christian King Louis XIII and Chief Minister Richelieu, as the champion of Christendom. Given France’s long history of pragmatic alliances with the Turks, especially as a means of distracting the Habsburgs in the southeast,“ the appearance of Per, with its combined beauty and bellicosity, could only heighten the anxieties of the German lands lying between these great powers. What was Richelieu up to? To the participants in the meeting at Anhalt-Kéthen in the spring of 1642, the emblems of Per held a key to unlocking French attitudes, if not policy. The aesthetic novelty of the emblematic pamphlet represented to the minds of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft a risk of being seduced into war by beautiful but dark machinations. In the introduction of Au/ to the argument proper, three speakers offer their opinions. The first suspects that, by the dubia vestigatione {uncertain method], the French

pamphlet is camouflaging the truth; the second is ready to accept this strategy as a benefica fraus | beneficial fraud] because it alerts us to real dangers in the world;* the third, the author of Au/ himself, argues that no concession, however strategic, must be made to political prudence if it should compromise ancient and Christian truth, which absolutely militates against war. Because this position represents the majority view, Prince Ludwig charges the speaker with the responsibility of composing the society’s response. In doing so, the appointed writer proposes to combat the aesthetic appeal of the Oriental emblems with his own set of emblems, which he constructs

upon a palm tree template (the society’s device) surrounded with mottoes taken from Claudian,* and supports with other classical and patristic sources, most notably Augustine. 44. 45.

On the French-Ottoman relationship in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Rouillard; from the Ottoman perspective, see Lewis, chap. 2.

Harsdôrffer himself, as translator of Per, seems to have agreed. He concludes

the postscript with the cautionary words: “Praevertamus igitur sapienter futura, & cruenta quae sub aenigmate enitescunt fata, precibus & lachrymis deprecemur!” [Let us therefore wisely attend to what is to come, and let us avert with

our prayers and tears the bloody calamities that gleam in a riddle!]. Later, in the postscript to Aul, he will appear to recant his position. 46.

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EMBLEMATICA

‘The early modern attempt to appropriate Claudian as a (neo-Stoic) Christian

apologist began with the Jesuit Martinus Antonius Delrio’s Antwerp edition of 1572 and received the definitive stamp of approval in 1624 from Caspar von

293

Per and Aul devote individual chapters to the same six imperial, religious, and ethnic entities in contemporary Europe before adding their concluding assessments. As a direct rebuttal, Au/ uses the same chapter titles, but dehistoricizes number II, “Roman Catholic Empire,’ as “The Christian Religion,” and number III, “Habsburg Empire,’ as “Roman Empire.” Thus, while both are agreed on the constitution of the political game board, they disagree fundamentally on how to name and interpret it. Their basic positions may be summarized as follows: Peristromata Turcica

Aulaea Romana

The threat of the Turkish Empire is less than its growl suggests. [τ

The Turkish Empire, with itshatred of Christians and its over-

1.

Il. The Roman Catholic Empire, which rests on the authority of the pope, continues to unite us; unfortunately, we no longer seem willing to undertake crusades against the infidel.

IL

III. The Habsburg Empire, once great under Charles V, suffered a great schism when it became the Spanish-German Empire. It now lies

III. The Roman Empire is an eternal flame of virtuous power, confirmed by the line of Caesars down to our own Ferdinand III.

L

weening pride, threatens Europe. Its self-declared mission is to rule the world.

burns but does not consume.

The Christian religion also is a fire but one not consumed, a pure flame confirmed by the blood of Jesus Christ and the martyrs. Its truth is beset but not defeated.

lifeless and in ruins. IV. The Kingdom of France isnowthe

lighthouse that directs all nations to safety. Richelieu is the epitome of prudence while King Louis XIII is the epitome of justice.

IV. The Kingdom of France has lost

most of its former glory; gifts once entrusted to it have been squandered. Ferdinand, however, will reunify Christendom.

Barth, Opitz’s Heidelberg colleague. Harsdôrffer confirms it in the postscript to

Aul: “Selegisti porro Mystam tibi, & interpretem Illustrem Poétam, & ut Criticus fidem facit, Christianum” [You selected as priest of mysteries and interpreter a poet both renowned and, as the critic (viz., von Barth) assures us, a Christian].

--,- - ----------ς-.----.-ς --....-.-.-.-.----..--.-.-.-.-----.-Ξ-..-.--.-.-..--

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EMBLEMATICA Peristromata Turcica

The Kingdom of Poland was for-

merly a shield against the Turk-

ish menace. Meanwhile, the Turks have grown mightier than the Poles.

Aulaea Romana The Kingdom of Poland, by the Brandenburg transfer of 1525, is in fact Prussian; it will continue to be a buffer against the Turks.

vided, and they contribute nothing but empty phrases against

. The remaining republics will politically unite behind the true gospel of Christ and the political leadership of Ferdinand III.

Conclusion: The arrogant sultan is preparing himself for the ultimate battle. Let us therefore not fail to arm ourselves against the many uncertain dangers that lurk in the darkness.

Conclusion: As Erasmus taught in his adage on false fires, the dangers to Europe are only apparent ones. Let us seek peace. The Lord will have vindication in His time.

.

The remaining republics are di-

Turkish power.

Standing center stage in this political drama is the éminence rouge, at once feared and admired, Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu. For all that has been written about Richelieu as an international force, historians have yet to address the question of the conflicting German views of him in the seventeenth century. Even historians of France long held vastly differing opinions. The work of Hermann Weber, which developed on the groundbreaking reassessment by Fritz Dickmann in the 1960s, represents the shift toward a more nuanced understanding of Richelieu’s Machrpolitik. Weber argues that Richelieu’s purpose was to ensure political harmony in Europe, with the nation of France at the center of various satellite countries, unified ideologically by the concept of Chréstienté, and that the chief minister ultimately sought thereby “une bonne paix.” This view is consonant with what is promulgated in Per. Aul does not challenge it as such, but instead envisions a similar state of affairs emanating from east of the Rhine under the auspices of the Habsburg emperor, Ferdinand III. It is less clear whether the author of Au/ understands religion as state sponsored, though as he is a representative of the Reformed court in Anhalt-Kéthen, this is unlikely; his view is much more that of the universal, irenic church embodied in the Heidelberg Confession, or Catechism (1563), which was adopted in Anhalt-Kôthen in 1596. Harsdorffer’s personal attitudes toward France

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295

in general and Richelieu in particular have been unfairly labeled “antiFrench,” an opinion that betrays a lack of detailed knowledge of his early Latin works (Bischoff, 32; Schneider, 33-34; Faber du Faur, 136);* this is not to mention his publicly stated admiration for Richelieu’s literary prowess, which merited the Frenchman's inclusion in Harsdérffer’s 1646 canon of estimable contemporary German (!) writers, the Specimen Philologiae Germanicae of 1646 (Disquisitio V:14).5 Nowhere in the writings that can be safely attributed to him alone do we find a negative opinion voiced; on the contrary, he continued to express admiration for Richelieu, especially for his erudition and taste.

Harsdôrffer’s Emblem Theory: Aesthetic and Political Implications Nuremberg was known well before Harsdôrffer’s birth as a leading publishing center for emblematics, beginning in the late sixteenth century with the multiple printings of the Symbola et Emblemata of the famed botanist

Joachim Camerarius the Younger. In the area of material culture for which

it was especially renowned (Daly, 525), Nuremberg’s contributions ranged

from its official preservation of the imperial insignias to its many opulently illustrated public buildings, including the town hall, the Heilig Geist Spital, and the extraordinary collection of emblematic medals at nearby Altdorf University, where the young Harsdôrffer studied. Harsdorffer’s lifelong occupation with emblems doubtless owed much to these visual surroundings and collections. He published two works consisting exclusively of emblems: the Stechbiichlein [Little Book of Engravings] (1645), fifty heart-shaped images with moral messages, and the two volumes of Hertzbewegliche Sonntagsandachten | Heart-moving Sunday Meditations] (1649, 1652) that deal with themes from the church calendar. It was in his 47.

The opinion that he was anti-French is based in part on the mistaken attribution of Harsdôrffer as sole or chief author of Germania Deplorata and Gallia Deplorata. The latter in its original French was a widely circulated ad hominem attack on Richelieu of extraordinary length, more than 250 pages (see Church, pts. 3 and 4). Harsdôrffer remains silent as to why he elected to translate it—perhaps it was commissioned, but more likely his motivation was simply to bring it

to the attention of a European readership. What stands out in comparing the Latin translation with the original, however, is the extent to which Harsdérffer

reduced the effrontery: by shortening the text to only 51 pages, reorganizing its

contents, and softening the overall message.

48.

See Forster’s analysis of this important work.

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EMBLEMATICA

FzG, however, and particularly in the first volume, that he attempted to work out an emblematic theory. He would return to this subject repeatedly in all but one of the remaining seven annual volumes. Since the FzG were intended for a wide audience of literate Germans interested in furthering their general knowledge, many of the discussions start with elementary instruction. With respect to the emblem, initial questions included how to choose a pictura, where to discover a suitable saying for the inscriptio, and how to invent a subscriptio. Subsequent topics

involved matters of style (brevity, wit) and the propriety of choice (what

constitutes decorum, whether subjects should be animate or inanimate).

Embedded in the answers to these basic questions are reflections on the deeper metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical implications of the relationship among thing, word, and image: What is the truth value of the vari-

Max Reinhart

penetrating observation that emblems always produce a surplus of meaning: “[sie] mehr weisen / als gemahlet oder geschrieben ist” [they indicate more than what is depicted or written]. It was indeed this overproduction of possible meanings in Per—those “powerful enticements” of “charming novelty”—that generated such anxiety within the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft. The printer of Per had written in his “Occasion and Purpose”: “Blanditur oculis venusta Novitas, percellit animum, affectum concitat, & castis quasi amoribus cum ingenijs libidinatur” [Charming novelty coaxes the eyes, excites the spirit, arouses the emotions, and freely indulges its wit in, as it were, innocent pleasures]. The sober Reformed-Calvinist mind (Aul) saw in this seductive novelty the capricious play of mere shadows: Admirationem sibi habeat Novitatis nomine palliata Varietas: levis est umbra, quam rei inusitatae intuitus protinus protendit, interce-

ous likeness figures (metaphor, analogy, metonymy, synecdoche)? How do

the parts of the emblem relate to each other logically and philosophically? To what degree are verbal formulations adequate to the meaning-giving potential of visual scenes? How is the surplus that inevitably results from the conjoining of word and image to be understood? Whether Harsdérffer’s focus on emblematics already in the first volume of the FzG in 1641 related to his translation of the French manuscript in that same year or whether he may have taken on the translation as an exercise in working out theoretical issues arising from the preparation of the FzG is impossible to determine. Placing the Latin Per and Aul side by side with

the contemporaneous German discussions does, however, yield insights into

Harsd6rffer’s theory of the emblem and, in his role as translator of the French pamphlet, into his aesthetic preferences and political attitudes as well. Two points in the discussions in the FzG of 1641 shed special light on the emblem program in Per and the poet’s subsequent expression of regret for

what he calls its maculae |faults}. Having noted at the most elementary level that the emblem as genre consists in the combining of images and words,

Harsdôrffer (through a fictional spokesperson named Vespasian) makes the

49.

In the postscript to Aud, he admits to the author, “maculas Peristromatum, (quae me & alios forté latuére) igneis ingenij tui radiis placidé notas” [you reveal, serenely, the faults of the Turkish Tapestries, which had perhaps escaped me and others as well]. By the plural “maculas,” which neither he nor the author of Aud specifies, Harsdôrffer is abstracting a general ideological difference between the two pamphlets and diplomatically putting himself in the position of having been in error.

297

dens penitior contemplatio tollit, vel contrahit. Umbra est, inquam, amoena & jucunda, sed quae evadit, dum imminet. (Br, 9)

[ Variety clad in the name of novelty may desire to be admired for its own sake; but the gaze of novelty casts a frail shadow; contemplation penetrating deeper eliminates, or at least reduces, that shadow. The

shadow is, admittedly, pleasant and agreeable, but it vanishes even as it is cast.]

The possibility that the sensuous attraction of the emblems in Per could be concealing only emptiness—emptiness being an exploitable space ungoverned by principle or meaning—was not lost on Harsdérffer.

In a subsequent discussion (FzG 4) on the Italian impresa, having first

noted the elementary fact of the need for unity between visual and verbal components, he proceeds to the striking observation, first set down by Girolamo Ruscelli in his Discorso of 1556, that this unity is not a natural one but must have been constructed. The two components, he writes, “sollen also miteinander verbunden seyn/ daf keines ohne das ander kénne verstanden werden” [should therefore be conjoined so that neither can be understood without the other].°° All depends, not on nature, but on the wordsmith. The ancients had recognized that the truth value of what is said depends on the ethical reliability of the human agent, the rhetorician, the “vir bonus dicendi peritus.” To the classicist author of Aud, the

composer of Per had assembled his effects by a less than virtuous method: 50.

Ruscelli emphasized that this was an essential defining point of the impresa.

298

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EMBLEMATICA

“dubia vestigatione constat, & conjectura potius, quam evidentià aestimandum erit” [(the tapestries) proceed by uncertain method and must be accepted more on conjecture than on evidence] (Br, 9), he says, in an allusion to Quintilian 3.6.30.5 The free-floating semantic possibilities of Per were only made to appear as truth,” thereby creating a mendacious narrative, namely, that of the treacherous Ottomans and of France as the savior of Christendom. Truthful narrators, in contrast, need not flail wildly about in mere conjecture, “Andabatarum more” [in the manner of blindfold gladiators}; they have only to trust in the “doctrinae coelestis sanctitatem” [sanctity of heavenly doctrine] that is ready to hand—along with an arsenal of quotations from Augustine and set pieces of Claudian, it might be added.” But what are we to make of Harsdérffer’s mea culpa in his postscript to Aul? Or rather, what exactly were the “faults” in Per for which he confesses regret? He does not name any explicitly. Does he truly accept that he erred in attempting to bring the French work to European attention through Latin translation? May we not discern rather an irony in his saying that these faults had perhaps (“forté”) escaped him? And, indeed, not only him but others as well (“et alios”)? If we look at Harsdérffer’s subsequent actions, do we find evidence of changed views? One year after the appearance of 44, he publishes a German translation (Japeta) of Jean Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin’s drama

Europe, Comédie héroique (Europe, a Heroic Comedy], in which Richelieu,

as the allegorical Liliwert [Noble Lily], exhausts himself in finding, together with the Habsburg emperor Adelmann [Noble Man], a just settlement to the

war. Is this the work of a corrected and humbled young poet? As if to make

his point, and rather audaciously at that, he sends a copy of Japeta to Prince Ludwig on 20 September 1643. In the enclosed letter, he writes: Es hat der Spielende in übersetzung dieses frantzôsischen Freudenspiels ... ein genügen Zu thun vermeinet .... Die Erfindung dieses Werkleins wird dem jüngst verstorbenen Cardinal von Richelieu Zugeschrieben,

und ist vor Kônigl: Majestet in Franckreich, kurtz vor seinen bege-

benen Todesfall gespielet, und mit grosser Begnädigung angesehen worden: daf noch bei so beharrten Rahtschlägen, von Frantzôsischer

Grofmithtigkeit ein erwünschter Fried Zu erhandelen seyn sollte.

[The Playful One hopes to have contributed something useful in translating this French comedy. . . . Its creation is attributed to the

recently deceased Cardinal of Richelieu.” Shortly before his death,

it was played in France in front of His Majesty the King, and was received with great favor, that through such lengthy negotiations the fervently desired peace should be achieved by French magnanimity. ]

With this subsequent activity in mind, a third point emerges powerfully from the emblem discussions in the 1641 volume of FzG, one that completes the first point regarding surplus and ties it to the second regarding unity and construction. In doing so, it anticipates the invigorating role of Geist [mind, spirit] in Immanuel Kant’ aesthetic philosophy in his Critique of. Judgment (Kant, esp. §49, 413-20). That the visual/verbal construct of the emblem yields a surplus is what alarmed the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft about Per and motivated its rebuttal. But Harsdérffer surely never meant for the witty novelties of Per to circulate in completely unregulated free play. To his observation that emblems “indicate more than what is actually depicted or written” he adds the corollary concerning the surplus, “in demselbe zu ferneren Nachdencken fügliche Anla& geben” [in which is given due occasion to further thought]. The phrase carries Kantian weight. Kant had severe misgivings about the tendency of art and imagination to precipitate unpredictable multiplicity that remains in a zone of mere meaningless beauty. But if Geist, “das belebende Prinzip im Gemiite” [the invigorating principle of mind], is present, the work of art “soviel zu denken veranlaft” [produces continuous thought] and thereby assumes a useful function in the generation of philosophical thinking.*> Harsdérffer’s Geist seems to have been no less committed to just such continuous thought—in his case, in the service of peace.”®

Quintilian describes conjecture (from conicere [to throw together]) as a forensic

54.

path to the truth,

55.

52.

Kocher (185) speaks of the “Spiel der Verbindungen” [play of the connections] (emphasis added).

53.

On the early modern technique of borrowing, with specific reference to Clau-

56.

51.

tool employed in a situation where facts are lacking, as a means of rationalizing a

dian, see Bolgar on “extraction” (chap. 7, pt. 1) and Reinhart 1999a.

299

It was thought that Richelieu might have collaborated with Desmarets in either

the writing of the text or the production of the play.

Alt (38) finds the manifestation of Geist in Harsdôrffer in the “generativ[e] Spiele der literarischen Imagination” | generative games of the literary imagination].

Schneider first recognized peace as the guiding principle in Harsdërffer life and work. He believed that Harsdorffer had undertaken to translate Europe, Comédie héroïque, “weil es sich für eine Idee einsetzte, der er um diese Zeit mit Leib

300

EMBLEMATICA

Max Reinhart

Extant Copies

Location

Seventeen libraries have been confirmed as holding a total of nineteen physical exemplars of Peristromata Turcica, and fourteen as holding a total of fifteen copies of Aulaea Romana; twelve of these libraries hold physical exemplars of both pamphlets. Libraries owning the titles only on microfilm or in electronic format are not included here.

Strasbourg

Location

Library

Title

Shelf mark

Berlin

Staatsbibliothek,

Per

Ry 10950

Typ 620.42.447

Preufischer

Kulturbesitz

Cambridge (MA)

Houghton Library,

Per & Aul

Darmstadt

Hessische Landes-und

Per Per

Typ 620.41.681 31/2681

Universitatsbibliothek Universitatsbibliothek University Library Forschungs- und

Per& Aul Aul Per & Aul Per & Aul

4° Hist. 127d/1 G 4584 SM 835 H8718

Universitäts- und

Aul

an Nd 370

Krakéw

Biblioteka Jagielloñska

[εν & Aul

Leipzig

Universitatsbibliothek

Per

Neu Gesch. 139i

London Mannheim New Haven (CT)

British Library Universitatsbibliothek Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library,

Per Per& Aul Per & Aul

8026.bb.69 Sch 055/087 Zg17.H25.641

Landeskirchliches

Per & Aul

Fen V 361

Bibliothèque Nationale

Per

1641: Z3561/62

Aul

1642:

Erlangen Freiburg i. Br. Glasgow Gotha Jena

Harvard University

Hochschulbibliothek

Landesbibliothek Landesbibliothek

585438-411

Paris

Archiv

Library

Title

Shelf mark

Bibliothèque Nationale

Per

D. 146.009

Per

47.Nn.175/176

Aul

47.R.21/22

et Universitaire

Vienna

Wolfenbüttel

Wroclaw

Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek Herzog August Bibliothek Biblioteka

Uniwersytecka

Per

& Aul

Ge311

Per

& Aul

Α:34.6Ρο!

Per & Aul

510864-67

Editorial Note Because no variant editions or printings exist for either work, the Latin texts have simply been transcribed; errata, which are rare, are noted and corrected in the “Notes and Commentary” section. Except for retaining original roman and italic fonts, which have meaningful significance (e.g., for distinguishing narrative voice), the editor has normalized other printing features, such as font sizes and specially designed characters, including dropped caps and ornamental caps. Marginal notes have been removed to the foot of the text and signaled in the text by a superscript number. Printer’s word forms (e.g., sveverunt, for sueverunt; salvere, for saluere) and diacritics (e.g., pulchrè, valida elegantià, except for: æ/Æ > ae/AE; œ/CE > oe/OE) are retained; the same applies to unusual verb forms, so long as they are not incorrect (e.g., circuirent, for circumirent). Standard manuscript abbreviations have been tacitly realized (e.g., côchulis > conchulis). Translator’s Note

Yale University

Nuremberg

301

M10257

und Seele diente, der Idee des Friedens” [because it supported an idea that he was committed to at this time with heart and soul, the idea of peace] (33).

The Latin of Per, itself a translation of a French manuscript (now lost), is usually difficult and often tortuous, certainly unclassical in many instances. That of Aul is less so, though it, too, in many ways reflects the neo-Stoic, Tacitean tendency of the seventeenth century. It is likely that neither pamphlet (in the case of Per, at least in its Latin version) was intended for wide distribution; rather, they were likely intended for internal consumption by

302

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Gelehrtenrepublik um 1600 im Spiegel der Korrespondenzen Georg Michael Lingelsheims. Frühe Neuzeit 95. Tübingen, 2004.

Weber, Hermann. “Une paix sûre et prompte: die Friedenspolitik Riche-

lieus.” In Zwischenstaatliche Friedenswahrung in Mittelalter und Frither Neuzeit, ed. Heinz Duchhardt. Vienna, 1991. Pp. 111-29.

Wellman, Kathleen. Making Science Social: The Conferences of Théophraste Renaudot, 1633-1642. Series for Science and Culture 6. Norman (OK), 2003. Westerhoff, Jan C. “‘Poeta calculans’: Harsdôrffer, Leibniz, and the mathesis universalis” Journal of the History of Ideas 60:3 (1999): 449-67. Yermolenko, Galina L, ed. Roxolana in European Literature, History and

Culture. Aldershot

(UK), 2010.

Georg Philipp Harsdorffer’s Emblematic Pamphlets of 1641-42 Part 1: Peristromata Turcica

313

|

314

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315

EI

LUA

>

Harsdôrffer’s Latin Text, with an English Translation, Notes, and Commentary

Ξὰ

i

s

{ ale

Ì

Varin

Na πὶ NN

Gi

Ὡς

ey,

ALA

Peristromata Turcica

nr

Fig. 1. Peristromata Turcica, trans. Georg Philip Harsdôrffer (Nuremberg, 1641), frontis-

piece. (Image courtesy of Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolffenbiittel.)

315 Emblematica, Volume 20, Copyright © 2013 by AMS Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Max Reinhart

PERISTROMATA TURCICA,

TURKISH TAPESTRIES,

SIVE

OR

DISSERTATIO EMBLEMATICA, PRAESENTEM EUROPAE STATUM

EMBLEMATIC TREATISE, REPRESENTING

INGENIOSIS COLORIBUS REPRAESENTANS.

THE CURRENT STATE OF EUROPE IN INGENIOUS IMAGES.

Exod. 27. v. 40.

Gen. 27:39-40.

IsMaëL VIVet gLaDlo, & pIngVIs

Ishmael shall live by the sword,

[Ar-v = blank]

[A2v = blank]

est terra elVs eX nVbe rorante.

Editorial note on sources and practice: Strictly informational content of the notes and commentary derives from multiple reference works in various European languages from the seventeenth century to the present. In cases involving subjective

judgment or interpretation, the editor has made every effort to acknowledge the exact source (noted in parentheses at the end of the entry or interpretive passage within the entry). Unless noted otherwise, translations are the editor’s own.

Peristromata] sg. peristroma (Gk. περίστρωμα) “bed- or “wall-covering” Exod. 27. v. 40] Inaccurate for Gen. 27:39-40.

IsMaëL VIVet...] Passage freely adapted from Isaac’s reply to Esau: Gen. 27:39 “motus Isaac dixit ad eum in pinguedine terrae et in rore caeli desuper 27:40 erit

and fat is his earth

from the dew of heaven.

benedictio tua vives gladio et fratri tuo servies tempusque veniet cum excutias et solvas iugum eius de cervicibus tuis” [Then his father Isaac answered him: ‘See,

away from the fatness of the earth shall your home be, and away from the dew

of heaven on high. By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother; but when you break loose, you shall break his yoke from your neck’). The author has substituted the name of Ishmael—Abraham’s son by his Egyptian maid Hagar—to create the fiction of Muslim (“Ishmaelite”) militancy. Biblical translations follow the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). Latin edition consulted: Biblia Sacra Vulgata (see list of works cited, above, 303). IsMaéL VIVet… . nV be rorante] Chronogram for 1641 (MDLLXVVVVVIIIIII).

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Hieronym. Epist. II.

Jerome: Epistle III.

Nostris peccatis Barbari fortes sunt; Nostris vitijs Romanus superatur exercitus, & quasi haec non sufficerent,

Because of our vices, our Roman army is defeated,

319

Because of our sins, the barbarians are strong; And, as if this were not enough,

Plus pené bella civilia consumpsére, Quam mucro hostis.

Civil wars have consumed almost more

Miseri Israélitae, ad quorum comparationem Nebuchdonosor servus DEI est!

Wretched Israelites, in comparison with

Than the enemy’s sword.

whom Nebuchadnezzar is the servant of God!

Typographus Curioso Lectori

Saluere.

The Printer

to the Attentive Reader: Greetings!

etiam venerationem adinventura. Sic dies posterior Discipulus est prioris, ut simul futuri veniat Magister; quin ipsa omnium scientiarum primordia tenuia

novelty coaxes the eyes, excites the spirit, arouses the emotions, CC and freely indulges its wit in, as it were, innocent pleasures. The Old is worthy of respect and admiration; but the New takes us by storm, and it will one day be venerated by our descendants. Thus today is the pupil of yesterday, and becomes at the same time the teacher of tomorrow. Indeed, in their

licijs grata ad frugem profectre. Sed quid tibi commendo, quod amas, Curiose Lector? displicere non possunt, quae «Αάν, p. 8> auribus & oculis nostris miras

into maturity and, nurtured by charming novelty’s powerful enticements, came to fruition. But why should I seek to commend to you what you already love,

Bee 7

oculis venusta Novitas, percellit animum, affectum conci-

at, & castis quasi amoribus cum ingenijs libidinatur. Habeat sibi

admirationem Antiquitas; Stuporem Novitas obtinet, apud Posteros

quondam, subnato robore, ad maturitatem assurréxere, Novitate validis il-

respective origins all sciences were feeble; but infused with strength, they grew

Hieronym. Epist. III.| Letter 3 to Heliodorus, based on Jer. 25:9.

Sic dies posterior Discipulus est prioris, ut simul futuri veniat Magister| Allusion to Matt. 10:24 and Luke 6:40.

bella civilia consumpsére| Lipsius (6.5) holds civil war to be worse even than tyranny. Typographus| According to the colophon, it is Toussaint du Bray. Both Lachévre and Arbour establish that Du Bray closed shop in Paris in 1635, however. This fact generates a number of difficulties regarding publisher and dating that cannot be solved with certainty. (See introduction, above, 286, sect. “Peristromata Turcica; for further discussion.)

displicere non possunt, quae auribus & oculis nostris miras delicias faciunt] The confidence in the authority of sensuality here resonates with the “law of delight” expressed famously by Torquato Tasso in his Aminta (1573), “sei piace, ei lice” [if it is pleasing, it is lawful]. Aul will reject the unquestioned authority of this position, though not with the uncompromising dura lege of modern sociopolitical discipline with which Giovanni Battista Guarini responded, in his I/ pastor fide (1590), to Tasso (Garber 1982, 52-54).

EE ee

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delicias faciunt. Hinc volupe mihi visum, nova haec Peristromata Turcica Latinitate donata amussitato tuo judicio in publicum exponere. Aulaea temporis sunt, quibus aevi nostri calamitas eruditis coloribus expingitur; quibus arduum discrimen Christianis, à non Christianis imminens, ingenioso modo explicatur,

quibus bella bellorum occasio panditur, & quasi ad oculum commonstratur. Sed unde haec nobis peristromata, rogas? Regis nostri Christianissimi Legatus,

qui ad portam Ottomannam & nunc agit, dedit haec ad Eminentissimum Galliae Cardinalem, tanquam preciosum & rarum munus, affirmans, se semel tantum facultatem haecce aulaea videndi obtinuisse, antequam in conclavi, ubi

cum Eunuchis regiae clauduntur Amasiae™ affigerentur. Vir itaque haereditaria eruditione illustris, sumptuosd curiositate, hiante oculo & cupidd manu argumentum cujusque tapeti designavit, & avidd aure, ex Magnatibus regni partim etiam ex innexis à tergo eorundem literis (quae cujus vis partis inscriptionem facient) intimam significationem hausit. Tu curiose Lector illustra has picturas tué lubentia & vale. OPERIS Occasio & Institutum.

CUm mense Schieval [id est, Februar.] Luna III. anni currentis M. DC. XL. Novus Imperator SULTAN IBRAHIM frater demortui SULTANI 1.

au serrail.

Regis nostri Christianissimi] Formulaic for Louis XIII, le roi très chréstien (r.

1610-43). Legatus] Almost certainly Jean de la Haye, Seigneur de Vantelet, French am-

bassador in Constantinople from 1639 to 1660 (sources vary somewhat as to end date). La Haye’ major contribution as a diplomat was in the areas of Oriental arts and sciences, for which he received encouragement from Richelie u (Rouillard, 153-57).

Regis nostri Christianissimi Legatus . . . intimam significationem hausit| The proper reconstruction of events hinges on the following sentences, which distinguish three moments in the genesis of Per: the viewing in Constantinople of the original tapestries before they were locked away; the presentation to Richelieu of the opulantly enhanced replicas; and the reinterpretation of the tapestries by the ambassador, written in French. The Latin translation would, of course, comprise a fourth moment.

Eminentissimum Galliae Cardinalem) Cardinal Armand-Jean du Plessis de

Richelieu (1585-1642).

ee ee eee

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Attentive Reader? How can anything offend that gives wonderful delight to our ears and eyes? I am therefore pleased to be able to publish these new Turkish Tapestries in Latin for your discerning judgment. These tapestries are relevant, for in them the grave danger threatening Christians from non-Christians in our time is ingeniously exposed in learned illustrations, in which the opportunity for wars is explained and brought immediately before our eyes, as it were. You ask, where did these tapestries come from? Our Most Christian King’s ambassador, even now in service at the Ottoman Porte, presented them to His Eminence, the Cardinal of France, as a costly and rare gift, explaining that he had had the opportunity to view the actual tapestries themselves only once before they were hung up in a chamber and locked away with the eunuchs of the royal harem.! And so this man, well known for his native intelligence, then proceeded, with painstaking care (with eager eye and loving hand, as it were), to trace the argument of each tapestry, and by listening attentively, and partly too from the writing woven

on the tapestries (which form the inscription in each chapter), he derived the

inner meaning from the great men of the realm. You, Attentive Reader, may interpret these images as you see fit. I bid you farewell. The Work’s Occasion & Purpose.

When in the month of Shawwal (February), the third moon of the current year, 1640, the new ruler, the sultan Ibrahim, brother of the deceased sultan 1.

__intheharem.

Amasiae] The word amasia is otherwise documented in the early modern period only in the sense of “concubine,” metonymically here for “harem” (Niermeyer). The harem referred to would likely be the famous one in the Topkapi Palace.

anni currentis M.DC.XL.] Sultan Murad IV (τ. 1623-40, fifth son of Sultan Ahmed I) died on 8 February 1640. The last of the great Ottoman warlords,

Murad reestablished for a time the empire’s military might, for which he was widely acclaimed. Highly educated and possessing a great love for poetry, he initiated a series of reforms that were carried on, following the short and ineffective reign of Sultan Ibrahim I, by Ibrahim’s son, Sultan Mehmed IV (r. 1648-87).

SULTAN I8RAH1M] Ibrahim I bin Ahmed (τ. 1640-48), youngest son of Sultan

Ahmed I and brother of Murad IV, succeeded to the throne on Murad’s death in February 1640. A poor steward of the economy and military, he soon handed over the reins of government to the more competent Grand Vizier Kara

322

Murap HAN Turcici Imperij thronum conscenderet, populi passim laetantes, donis, spectaculis, acclamationibus, & vario cultu publicum gaudium concelebrârunt. Singulare autem munus ad pedes Monarchae deposuit Bassa Budaeus, vocatus Ebrobekyr, vir admodum belli avidus, & atrocissimi contra Christianos odij. Offerebat nempe Peristromata VI. sericis, aureis, argenteisque filis contexta, gemmis illustrata, solertissima acu depicta, & defuncto prius Imperatori in donum destinata, tunc vero ex occasione gratante dextera oblata, ut sic Solem Orientem adoraret, praefatus Bassa. Miserat ille jam dudum Rab. Bencophen*? insti-

torem suum, (Ebraeum, qui ad Mahometismum desciverat,) Venetias, ut

haecce peristromata largis sumptibus ex observantia Alcorani accuraret. Sergius enim vafer ille turpissimae & nefandae legis compilator noverat, artem artium esse regimen affectuum & animorum; ideoque singularia &

media quaedam capita ex Christianismo, Judaismo atque Paganismo con}

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EMBLEMATICA

lat. filius palmae sonat.

Mustafa. In 1642, Mustafa renewed the 1606 peace treaty with the Habsburgs and undertook economic reforms. The French were fascinated in the early 1640s with Mlle de Scudéry’s Ibrahim. The novel has a frontispiece by Claude Vignon that pictures “Tillustre Bassa” in full Turkish costume. Monarchae) Application of the term to the Turkish emperor is unusual but not outside its connotative range in early modern Europe (Bodin 2.2).

Bassa] Pasha: title earned usually through military distinction. Budaeus seems to have been seeking influence with the sultan, originally Murad, then Ibrahim, by presenting him with this costly gift. Ebrobekyr] Ebro-Bekyr, or Ebubekir, perhaps mistaking a name for what was a title of membership in the dervish order Bekriya, whose members claimed descent from the first caliph, father-in-law of Prophet Muhammad, Abu Bakr

(r, 632-34).

ex occasione gratante dextera oblata, ut sic Solem Orientem adoraret| The original occasion was doubtless Murad’s triumphant return from victory in Persia. Newspapers in Paris reported wild rejoicing in the streets of Constantinople, and a special edition of the Gazette described “La magnifique entrée du Grand Seigneur dans Constantinople” (Rouillard, 91). Mahometismum| The name arose out of a skewed polemical analogy in the Christian world, according to which Muhammad was to Islam as Christ was to Christendom.

323

Murad Han, ascended the throne of the Turkish Empire, the people celebrated the happy event publicly far and wide with gifts, spectacles, cheers, and other demonstrations of joy. Pasha Budeus, known as Abu Bakir, a warmonger driven by terrible hatred for Christians, laid a unique gift at the feet of the monarch: six tapestries, woven with golden and silver silk threads, sparkling with precious stones, and illustrated with needlework of extraordinary skill. Having originally intended them as a gift for the sultan, now deceased, the aforementioned pasha offered them on this propitious occasion in adoration of the new Sun of the Orient. At some earlier time, he had sent his agent, Rev Ben-Cophen? (a Hebrew convert to Muhammadanism), to Venice to have these tapestries prepared at elaborate expense in strict observance of the Qur'an. For Sergius, that crafty compiler of vile and abominable law, knew that the art of arts lay in the regulation of the emotions and passions. He therefore collected certain paragraphs, both extraordinary and common, from Christian, Jewish, and pagan law, by which he might assure himself the approval of all peoples. But 2

Sounds in Latin as “son of the palm.”

Venetias| Venice was a major gateway to the Ottoman lands and had been a significant port for Turkish maritime expansion. Although the effects of the Thirty Years’ War had diminished the city’s once dominant role in European trade, Ottoman relations with Venice continued to be robust well into the seventeenth century (Faroghi 1983; Lewis, 122). Alcorani\ Qur'an.

Sergius] Legendary seventh-century abbot of the Callistrata monastery, known as the accursed monk or, to the Greeks, as Pseudabbas, the pretender abbot. In humanist Germany, Sergius became a symbol for clerical corruption, as por-

trayed in Johann Reuchlin’s Sergius, sive caput capitis (composed 1496; published ca. 1504). The earliest source of the legend may be John Damascene’s De heresibus [Concerning heresies], section 100, which identified an “Arian monk” who is said to have helped Muhammad “[devise] his own heresy.” Sergius was allegedly expelled for accepting the Arian and Nestorian heresies, as well as that of Monothelitism. While traveling through Palestine and Arabia, he is said to have made the acquaintance of Muhammad and remained to assist him in copying the message of the Qur'an, only then to be killed by the Prophet when his assistance was no longer needed (see Hüniger).

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gessit, quibus omnium gentium assensum sibi pollicebatur. Ut autem absque prodigijs & signis lex ejus acciperetur, lasciviam (ad quam Orientales populi proni atque proclives admodum semper fuére,) permisit, & etiam quibusdam in locis inculcavit, sicque ij, qui neglexerant ambulare in spiritu, declinarunt ad opera carnis. Inter alia dictum illud Deuteron. c. 5.

so that his law be accepted without the necessity of prodigies and signs, he permitted lasciviousness (to which Orientals were always inclined anyway), and even encouraged it here and there. The result was that those who had ceased to walk in τῆς Spirit now turned away to works of the flesh. Among other places, one thinks of the injunction in the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy:

325

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of any-

Non facies tibi sculptile, nec SIMILITVDINEM omnium, quae in coelo sunt desuper, & quae in terra deorsum, & quae versantur in aquis,

thing that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is

in gratiam Judaeorum detorquens, sanxit, ne naturae opera immediarè prognata, ullo modo effigiarentur. Hinc in Turcorum & AEthiopum manufactis, figurae sive hominum, sive animalium, sive vegetabilium nunquam conspiciuntur; Illa vero quae ingenio pollent, quae ars per naturam rerum vaga & varia inconstantia quadam commendat, omnibus repraesentare modis nihil verentur. Neque ratio deest: cum enim Devs sit Spiritus & non nisi sola mente concipi possit, profani videntur, qui summum illud Numen mortalibus materijs effingunt, opificio non Opifici servientes. Quae res etiam apud Esaui posteros aliquo tempore poenis fuit subdita. Propositum igitur R. Benchophen* habuit, Domini sui jussu Europae provincias sub

Twisting this scripture to conform to the interpretation of the Jews, Sergius strictly forbade making any sorts of images of natural things. Hence, among the artifacts of the Turks and Ethiopians, figures of men, animals, or vegetables are nowhere to be found. Of course, these peoples do not fear to portray, in a limitless variety of ways, anything that springs from the human imagination, according to its own nature, as it were, however capricious. Nor is this entirely without reason: since God is Spirit and can be grasped only by the mind, it would seem to be unholy, as though serving creation rather than the Creator, to portray the Highest Being by corruptible means.’ Among the offspring of Esau, in fact, such a violation was always subject to punishment. Rev Ben-Cophens assignment, accordingly, by order of his master, was to portray the European provinces in certain images so as to reveal, as though in a mirror, their exhaust-

3.Jobi. 31, 26. 27.

lasciviam (ad quam Orientales populi proni . . . semper fuére,)| Luther (“Vom kriege,” 127) writes concerning the alleged Turkish propensity for warmongering and sexual promiscuity: “Mars und Venus, sagen die Poeten, wollen bey einander sein” [Mars and Venus, the poets say, desire each other's company]. qui neglexerant ambulare in spiritu, declinarunt ad opera carnis| Allusion to Gal. 5:25; cf. 2 Cor. 10:3.

Deuteron. c. 5.] Deut. 5:8.

in gratiam Judaeorum detorquens] The author seems to have shared the opinion of many that Sergius was a Jew, or crypto-Jew. in gratiam Judaeorum detorquens .…. nunquam conspiciuntur] Modern scholars are generally agreed that the prohibition against painting was a later development in Islam. Creswell reasons that it owed to a shared Semitic cultural preference, as the verse from Deuteronomy would imply, and may well have been further influenced internally by Jewish converts.

in the water under the earth.

3.

Job 31:26-28.

ullo modo effigiarentur) An aniconic principle is basic to Islamic aesthetics, which accounts for the emphasis on geometric and calligraphic art. mortalibus materijs effingunt| Lactantius (Error. 4) conjectures that simulacra and other cultic ornaments are manufactured out of sinful self-love: “Adorant

ergo mortalia, ut a mortalibus facta” [they (e.g., poets) love the materiality of which material things are made]. apud Esaui posteros] Edomites. Gen. 36:1, 8-9. poenis fuit subdita] The alleged tradition of punishment among the Edomites for making graven images is specious. The Edomites, who had long since departed from the Israelites, worshiped other deities beyond the One God. Propositum . . . superstruere ratum habebat\ Given the prohibition against portraying “naturae opera” [works of nature], Ben-Cophen was instructed by his overlord to have inanimate allegorical images created and attached to the various tapestries, But what a different interpretation the French author gave

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certis exhibere typis, ut quasi in speculo commonstraret, exanimatas, languentes & marcidas singularum vires & rudera, quibus Imperij Ottomannici magnitudinem superstruere ratum habebat. Mutus Orator Pictura est, sed gravis & flexanimus, fida ac sincera ejus eloquentia non captat benevolentiam, sed momento possidet, non per aurium ambages descendit, sed per praestantissimum sensuum Visum, intima quadam sympathia, se demittit ad Mentem, lumen & splendorem humanae compagis. Hinc animus humanus, non secus ac flamma imaginibus alitur, & sibi relictus, etiam ex falsis Ideis fomenta arripit. Sed longits ne abeamus. Ipsa peristromata intueamur, in quibus cruenta bellorum incitamenta pulcherrima arte contexta refulgent.

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327

ed, enfeebled, and decayed strength, the detritus upon which the glory of the Ottoman Empire was presumably to be built. A picture is a mute orator, but it is powerful and affecting. Its faithful and sincere eloquence does not entice our goodwill, but rather seizes possession of it immediately. It does not descend gradually through the windings of the ears, but rather, with a kind of natural sympathy, it thrusts itself through the faculty of sight, the foremost of the senses, directly into the mind, that brilliant light of the human organism. In this way the human mind is fed by images as if by a flame and, left to itself, derives nourishment even from false ideas. But let us not digress further. Let us now contemplate the tapestries themselves, in which bloody incentives for wars are woven so skillfully and shine so brilliantly.

them! If we may call the original Ottoman design the template, we may call the French revision an overwriting of the template. Rarely does one encounter such an aggressive exploitation of the (imagistic) emblem’s generic mutability. In this instance, one ideological program has been completely inverted by another. The result is a new narrative, one that casts the Turks as heathen aggressor and the French nation as the savior of Europe and Christendom. (See

sibi relictus, etiam ex falsis Ideis fomenta arripit\ Author suggests that Islamic ideas are in fact no ideas at all, in the Platonic sense being argued here, in that they allegedly do not derive from the soul in contemplation of higher things, but derive from corporeal desires and other sensual experience. The tapestries therefore both attract and repel him, for they imply a method of argumentation that is as beautiful and seductive as it is dangerous and wrong.

Tobi 31,26.27] Inaccurate for Job 31:26-28, which relates to the taboo of plac-

cruenta bellorum incitamenta| Whereas Ben-Cophen’s purpose was to demonstrate the position of the Ottoman Empire in relation to the consort of European national entities (“Europae provincias sub certis exhibere typis”), the

introduction, “Peristromata Turcica” [above, 286] and “The Arguments in Historical Context” {above, 290] for fuller discussion.)

ing visual pleasure in any natural thing above the desire for God.

Mutus Orator Pictura est] Cf. Erasmus, Adag. (31) 1.2.18 on silent teachers

(“muti magistri”), i.e., books, not pictures.

praestantissimum| Editor’s emendation of original praestantissimi.

French revisionist reads it as a threat and encourages France to engage in a preventative action.

EMBLEMATICA

Max Reinhart Peristroma I. IMPERIUM

TURCICUM.

PORTENTUM artis fuit, quod primum & principem inter aulaea haec locum obtinebat. Erat Tapetium longitudine XV. latitudine X. cubitorum:

F

Tapestry I. The Turkish Empire.

=

νὴ

PA

ἐς τὸς

AUX

ΩΝ Tye

i]

)

ELS >

/

5

striatae; incirca, segmina inflexa, recta,

obliqua, volutata, trabes, ductus, cycli & hemicycli varij; fibulae erant ex parte tessellatae, aliae orbiculatae, aliae etiam auro contortae; & haec omnia insidebant fundo candido argenteis filis innexo, ex quo reliqua jam memorata ornamenta diversis coloribus fulgida illustrabantur. Infimam tapeti partem ambibant laciniae, sive caesurae aureis argenteisque filamentis variegatae. Aream ta- peti holosericam atram & quasi concavam, occupabant candelabra quatuor, conchulis veluti aureis,

7

Sy

ad oras spectabantur squamae

Ì

This one set the stage, occupying the first and leading place among the tapestries. It was fifteen cubits long and ten cubits wide. Visible around the edges were striated scales; all about the inner field were curved, straight, slanting, and arched segments, beams, lines, various circles and half-circles; brooched figures, some mosaic, others circular, still others in twisted gold. The entire tapestry rested upon a white backdrop woven with silver threads; all of the figures mentioned here were illuminated against this background in multiple colors. Along the bottom edge were fringes, or hems, of gold and silver threads. The black silk area of the tapestry, like a hollow, was occupied Peristroma I.

longitudine XV. latitudine X. cubitorum] A cubit is commonly calculated at a modern equivalent of about 46 cm (18 inches), or 0.46 m (1.5 feet). The tap-

estry described here would therefore measure approximately 9.2 m long (22.5 Fig. 2. Peristromata Turcica, trans. Georg Philipp Harsdôrffer (Nuremberg, 1641), Peristroma I, “Halla vere/Deus dabit” [God will provide]. (Image courtesy of Herzog

August Bibliothek, Wolffenbiittel.)

feet) and 6.9 m wide (15 feet).

diversis coloribus| Dünnhaupt (783) suggests that these may be the first twocolor copperplates ever manufactured. Bland (122) mentions Johannes de Ketham’s Fasiciculus Medicine ( Venice, 1491) as “one of the earliest books with

an illustration printed . . . in colours’—though red and black, these were, of

course, woodcuts.

— —

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anaglyphica acus opera“ prominentia, cum cereis candelis totidem, quarum tres extinctae, quarta verd corusca spectabatur luce, scil. flammam dabat adamas, aureis filis in pyramidem radiatus. Obscura tamen omnia, nisi lemma lucem addidisset, quod his verbis Arabicis emicuit superits:

by four candles, with little golden shellfish ornaments in raised embroidery.’

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threads in the form of a pyramid. Everything else was dark save for the motto above, which emitted a light forming these words in Arabic:

HALLA VERE. DEVS DABIT.

Symbolum hoc heroicum, Imperator SULTAN SOLIMAN tanquam Regni

auspicatum vaticinium Successoribus suis reliquit, eà mente, ut religiosus

Legis Mahumeticae observator, nil altitis in votis habuerit ὃς intimils nepotibus suis commendarit, quam Alcorani & Imperij propagationem. Quatuor candelabra Mundi plagas repraesentant. Accensa candela Turcicum notat Imperium Alcorano fulgidum, reliquis mundi partib. caligantibus. 4.

(broderie de relief, ou broderie de rapport.)

anaglyphica acus opera] Stumpwork, a raised form of embroidery.

lemma) The motto that occurs at midpoint in each chapter is the hinge, as it were, in the French reinterpretation of the emblem. The motto, like the pictura, can easily be turned to a different meaning, as the French author has clearly done in his following interpretation, or subscriptio. his verbis Arabicis| All other mottoes in Per are in Greek. The Arabic lemma

is clearly handwritten, not surprisingly, since until the early eighteenth century Arabic and Turkish were prohibited from being printed in Ottoman cities (Lewis, 50; cf. Rodinson, 41). The French revisionist has copied it exactly. This observation is significant for the argument that the lemmata, and not only the images, were of Ottoman origin and that they were present on the images at the time the French ambassador first saw the tapestries.

Symbolum hoc heroicum . . .\ Here, as in most of the chapters of this French revision, one discerns a difference in tone or perspective between the portion of text preceding the midchapter motto and that following it. The former is typically descriptive in character (for the most part in the past tense); the latter is

HALLA VERE. GOD WILL PROVIDE.

Sultan Süleyman left this heroic symbol to his successors as an auspicious prophecy for the realm, implying thereby that the devout observer of the Muhammadan law should hold nothing in greater reverence, or commend to his descendents anything more fervently, than the propagation of the Qur'an and the empire. The four candlesticks represent the zones of the earth. The flaming candle stands for the shining Turkish Empire of the Qur’an, the other parts of the earth remaining in darkness. 4.

Relief embroidery, or embroiderie de rapport.

evaluative-interpretive (for the most part in the present tense). This structuralnarratological problem in Per remains to be studied in detail. Imperator SULTAN SOLIMAN] Süleyman the Magnificent (τ. 1520-66), also

known among the Turks as Kanuni (Law Giver), brought the empire to its greatest military strength, especially as a naval power, expanding it in all directions around the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the Aegean. Diplomatically adept, he was a strategic ally of France during the hostilities between Francis I and Charles V and concluded other mutually useful treaties, such as those with England and the Dutch Calvinists in their struggle with Spain. He was also an avid promotor of the arts, above all of literature and architecture (see Leonclavius).

Accensa candela Turcicum notat Imperium Alcorano] The authors claim to find reference in the Qur'an to a “Turkish Empire” can be accepted only in a typological way. There is a shining candle in a lamp in the famous passage at Surah

24:35 (“The Light”), but it can by no means be construed as a symbol of empire. One of the best early modern descriptions of the origins of the Turkish, or Ottoman, Empire is Georgievic (1560).

— Ἐ οὄ..- -. -ς-.,...--...-.-......-.--ς-ς-------.-.-..-...-..-.---᾽-

The four candles were of wax, three of them extinguished; the fourth cast a twinkling light, to be sure a diamond giving off a flame, furnished with gold

Ò

—

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Adscribitur autem hujus picturae inventio Rossae Conjugi praedicti Solimanni, quae parentibus nata Christianis, Constantinopoli captiva, Imperatorem amore sibi mancipaverat, quod itaque illa de vera Christiana fide, Turca de falsa Mahumetana secta intellexit, fore nimirum, ut omnes Mundi partes eadem Religionis face resplenderent, & cum fato sint deditissimi Saraceni, verba illa Deus dabit, scilicet lucem, haud mala forté intentione adscripsit. Nae, superstitio introducit novum primum mobile, quod omnes Imperij sphaeras rapit, & optandum esset, ut tantum apud Christianos vera valeret religio, quantum falsa apud Turcos, qui non pecuniarum modo tributa constituunt, sed & pueros suis sacris imbuendos deposcere solent. Cum autem hoc Emblema laetas futurae amplitudinis spes Imperio Turcico spondere videatur, gratum illud semper Barbaris, in aestimatione habitum, & hoc loco tanquam magni excitando contra Christianos bello momenti, & victoriarum indubitatum augurium primo loco adornatum venit.

The pictures design is ascribed to Roxolana, Siileyman’s wife, who, born of Christian parents and taken captive to Constantinople, had won over the sultan by her love. Her knowledge of the true Christian faith and the false Turkish Muhammadan sect persuaded her that the entire world would eventually be ablaze with the one true light of religion, and since the Saracens are very devoted to prediction, she inscribed the words, with sound purpose, as it seems, “God Will Provide,’ that they might serve as a beacon. Alas! superstition introduces a new primum mobile, which drives all the spheres of the empire; and we may hope that the true religion flourish among Christians as successfully as the false religion among the Turks, who demand not only tributes of money but of children as well, for the purpose of training them in the sacred rituals. Since, however, this emblem seems to promise the Turkish Empire happy expectations of future greatness, it has always been viewed favorably by those barbarians. On this basis something was created of great effect in stirring up war against Christians and appreciated above all as a reliable augury of victory.

Adscribitur autem hujus picturae inventio Rossae] Authorial conjecture, as often throughout the chapters, for religious-ideological purpose.

novum primum mobile] Reference to the Aristotelian idea of an unmoved mover, the primary driving force of the universe.

Rossae| Roxolana was renowned for her beauty and administrative aptitude, both of which helped her to gain significant influence in affairs at state. “Rossa” alludes to her native country, Rhusium, a Turkish province, She was captured in Galicia by the Crimean Tatars and eventually became the favorite wife of Süleyman (Yermolenko).

qui non pecuniarum ... deposcere solent] The practice of devshirme was a human tribute of Christian boys, aged six to twenty, from the conquered lands. During the sixteenth century, about 3,000 boys per year are calculated to have been captured and trained for positions in the government, military, household staffs, or general labor force. Although they were not forced to convert, conversions were rewarded with promotions and celebrations. Christian families sometimes actively sought to see that their sons were accepted.



parentibus nata Christianis] Roxolana may have been the daughter of a Ukranian priest. The portrayal here of Roxolana as a Christian “insider” within the Ottoman “barbarian” world is ideological. Imperatorem amore sibi mancipaverat] Nicolas de Moffan, a prisoner of the Turks in Constantinople during the reign of Siileyman, claimed that Roxolana won the sultan’s hand by inner-harem intrigue.

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335

Peristroma Il. IMPERIUM

ROMANO-CATHOLICUM.

SIngula pericosmemata & adornamenta recensere supersedeo. Semel dicam: omnia sumptuosa constabant arte, & à Daedala Limbolarij & textoris

(ut dictum est) manu absoluta spectabantur. Quanquam enim Turci reli-

gionem ducant, simulachris naturam provocare, in tabella suscitare quod vivit, & hominum vel animalium in marmore animare effigies: Ars tamen Tapestry IL. The Roman Catholic Empire.

I shall refrain from reviewing any specific decorations and adornments and simply remark that all were clearly lavish and skillful, and appeared to be undertaken by the hand of a veritable Daedalus among fringe makers and weavers. Although the Turks have religious scruples about evoking nature in images, invoking in painting that which is alive, and animating in marble Peristroma II.

IMPERIUM ROMANO-CATHOLICUM] The author applies the title to refer to Christendom, making no distinction between Catholics and Protestants and subsuming all under the moral and juridical entity of the Papal See. omnia sumptuosa constabant arte| The French traveler Pierre Belon (403) commented in 1553: “Les Turcs prennent plairis 4 avoir du linge blane, et bien

ouvré. ... A peine pourroit-on croire en noz pays que l'ouvrage sur le linge est

bien reçeu et tenu cher en Turquie: et qu'on y en fait grande quantité” [The Turks take pleasure in having white and finely worked linen. .. . Hardly could one believe in our countries that the work on the linen is well received and considered expensive in Turkey, and that it is made in large quantities].

Fig. 3. Peristromata Turcica, trans. Georg Philipp Harsdérffer (Nuremberg, 1641), Peristroma IL Ὑποτείνομαι pqdin subitd solo instratum pretiosum peripetasma, ad quod Tyrannus expansis membris procumbit. Arripit Mysta

arundines XXX. infirmiores & negotio selectas, levique feriente manu, se-

mel in tergo ejus frangit omnes, sicque Imperatorem fictitia satisfactione propitiat. Ut autem poenitudinis novaeque obedientiae speciem commonstraret, propria manu scyphos, carchesia, diotas & reliqua ebrietatis instrumenta confregit. Qui nunc rerum potitur SVLTAN IBRAHIM ultimus ex hac gente est, soluto in lasciviam animo, masculam prolem firmando Imperio omnibus modis flagitat, & sic Monarchae socordia rerum summa penes Beglerbey, id est, militiae Duces, residet, quibus nil altiùs cordi est, quam parato jamdum numerosissimo exercitu tentare fortunam belli.

foedere C4ESARI] The Treaty of Zsitva Térék of 1 November 1606 transferred a number of strategic Habsburg fortresses to the Ottomans and exempted Rudolf I from the annual tribute to the sultan. The treaty represents an important milestone in Ottoman-Habsburg relations, effectively concluding longstanding hostilities in Hungary and, perhaps more significantly, forcing Ottoman acknowledgment of Habsburg political equality. The willingness of Ahmet I to accept it was further evidence of the weakened condition of the Ottomans. devicta non ita pridem Babylonia] Baghdad was reconquered by Murad IV in late 1638, thereby reestablishing Ottoman authority in Persia. Janitsaris| Frequent crises in the Crimea and in Transylvania delayed Murad’s plan to march on Baghdad. Only late in the 1630s was this possible, by which time the Janissaries (the regular Ottoman troops established in the fourteenth century) had grown restless for improvement in their living conditions. Murad at last was able to restore the old timar system (granting of land in exchange for military service) as the financial basis for the army and administration.

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Asia, Greece, and Thrace, who is more powerful than Mithridates, is capable of undertaking similar attacks, with an eye not only on Hungary but also to unleashing his full might against the whole empire. He burns with implacable hatred for Christianity; he boils with an insatiable lust for domination; soon he will erupt in a blaze, like a flame long concealed. Nor can any religious compunction hinder him, for the treaty sworn with Caesar has been dissolved now with the death of the tyrants predecessor, and since now too the time is ripe for war. He cunningly waits to exploit these troubled times and will be well aware of how to measure all laws to his advantage. Moreover, Baghdad, newly conquered, adds to his haughtiness, even though the campaign (which moved too slowly for the janissaries’ liking) was in the charge of the recently deceased tyrant, a man devoted more to pleasure than to warfare. Among his other vices, the barbarian reveled in drunkenness and frequently drank himself sick. Finally, the caliph, chief of the mophtha, or priests, dared by the authority of his office to proclaim Prophet Muhammad anger with the sultan. He then decreed that the sultan atone, one by one, for the many evils committed in his wine cups, with a maximum penance of thirty blows. No sooner said than done! At once an expensive carpet was spread upon the ground, and the tyrant lay down upon it, his limbs outstretched. The priest then carefully selected voluptatibus quam armis addictior| Murad was given to spectacle. On 5 July

1638, the Paris Gazette described his appearance as follows: “armé d’une cotte de maille, l'espée au costé, avec le carquois et arc, le pot de fer en teste, le petit turban dessus, fait de soye rouge cramoisie, enrichi de ses deux plumes de heron, garnies de diamans et perles” [Armed with chain mail, a sword at his side, with quiver and bow, an iron helmet on his head, with a small turban atop, made of crimson-red silk, adorned with its two heron feathers, garnished with diamonds and pearls] (Rouillard, 91).

Calipha praeses Mophtharum] The caliph was the chief religious figure of the Muslim community; muftis were officially appointed interpreters of sacred law. Dictum factum!] Truncated version of the proverbial “Simul et dictum et factum” [No sooner said than done] (see, e.g., Erasmus, Adag. [34] 2.9.72).

masculam prolem firmando Imperio omnibus modis flagitat] Ibrahim’s son, Mehmet IV, was born about a year later, in 1642. At only six years of age, he succeeded to the throne upon the assassination of his father in August 1648. Beglerbey| More commonly beylerbeyi, here identified as military chiefs. They officiated over a beylerbeyilik, the largest administrative unit in the empire. The

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Ipse Imperator, facilè permittet, suis auspicijs egregia gerantur, cum arrogantia potentissimi Principis, gliscente adulatione, novis quotidie nominibus assurgere so- leat, audire gestit, utriusque Paradisi Sultanus, caput alterius hemisphaerij, Donator donorum & gratiarum, Caesar Caesarum, gloriosus, invictissimus, dominator magni maris, & inferioris Europae, Syriae, Arabiae, Judaeae, Cananeae, Galilaeae, Phoeniciae, Alexandriae, AEgypti, Magni Chayris & AEthiopiae, Mediae, Libyae, Lanchae, rubri maris, Tyberiadis, Damasci, Alepij, Magnae, Antiochiae, Mesopotamiae, Chaldaeae, Magnae Babyloniae, cum majore & minore Armenia, Parthiae, Persiae, Maris Caspij, Trapezuntiae, Taurisiae, Cappadociae, Caesareae, Pamphiliae, Ciliciae, Nicomediae, Magnae Calcedoniae, Anatoliae, Graeciae, Thraciae, Macedoniae, Thessaliae, Peloponesi, Corinthi, Chersonesi, Albaniae, Bounae, Bulchariae, Walachiae, Moldaviae, Scythiae, Tartariae & multarum aliarum infinitarum provinciarum, Regno-

rum & Imperiorum Magnus Dominus. Quid non arbitrabitur, totum sibi deberi mundum, «Εν, p. 42> cum Deus Majoribus suis tantam potentiam per MXLIX annos in ipsis regionibus, ubi primitus religio Christiana coepit & incrementa habuit, concesserit? Caeterùm cum rebus Christianis compertum ab Oriente immineat discrimen, cur Gallorum Rex, qui gentilitio titulo Christianissimus audire gestit, cum publico omnium hoste amicitiam habere non erubescit? Politica necessitudo est, maximis exemplis nixa. Pacem cum Infidelibus coluére Israélitae quondam, Pontifices, Imperatores, Reges, Principes & Respublicae, non quod absurdas illorum probarint superstitiones & nefandas, sed ne nocerent; utque Christiani sub tyrannico gementes sceptro “bey of the beys” (commander of the commanders] was a provincial governor, the highest rank in provincial government, among whose rights and duties was to enlist fighting contingents. numerosissimo

exercitu]

Yet

another

exaggerated

estimation

of Ottoman

strength, It has been calculated that in 1607 the combined mounted force of the empire numbered just over 105,000 men. The fear they struck in the hearts of Europeans owed less to sheer numbers than to superior discipline and command (Shaw, 122-32).

Ipse Imperator) Ibrahim I. Walachiae\ Walachia, region in southern Rumania between the Transylvanian Alps and the Danube; chief city, Bucharest.

369

thirty soft reeds and, applying a light blow, broke them all together across his back, thereby atoning for the emperor by means of a mock punishment. But in order to make a show of his new penitential obedience, the emperor with his own hand broke the cups, goblets, wine jars, and other receptacles of his drunkenness. The one who presently holds the power, Sultan Ibrahim, is the latest of this race; his licentiousness knows no bounds; above all else, he desires a male heir in order that the succession of the empire be guaranteed. It is through the folly of this monarch that supreme authority should rest in the hands of the beylerbeyi, the military chiefs, to whom nothing is dearer than to be able to test the fortune of war with their huge standing army. The sultan himself, with the whimsical arrogance of a sovereign prince, permits and even encourages that his honors be displayed and his adulation increased daily with ever new appellations that he finds sweet to his ear: Sultan of Both Paradises; Chief of Both Hemispheres; Giver of Gifts and Mercies; Great Caesar of Caesars; Glorious One; Invincible One; Conqueror of the , Phoenicia Sea and of Lower Europe, of Syria, Arabia, Judea, Canaan, Galilee, Sea, Alexandria, Egypt, Cairo and Ethiopia, Media, Libya, Lancha, the Red Chaldea; Tiberia, Damascus, Aleppo, Magna, Antioch, Mesopotamia, and

the of Great Babylon with greater and lesser Armenia, of Parthia, Persia, Cilicia, Caspian Sea, Trebizond, Treviso, Cappadocia, Caesarea, Pamphilia, a, Macedoni Thrace, Nicomedia, Great Calcedonia, Anatolia, Greece, Bulgaria, Thessaly, the Peloponnesus, Corinth, Chersoneses, Albania, Buna, Lord Great and ; Peninsula Walachia, Moldavia, Scythia, and the Crimean he should indeed of countless other provinces, kingdoms and empires. Why that God not imagine that the whole world belongs to him, given his belief years in 1071 of course the granted his ancestors such formidable might over

d? those very geographical areas where Christianity began and first flourishe

1000 + 10 + 50 + per MXLIX annos| MXLIX is to be read as a chronogram: publication), yields 570, 1 + 10 = 1071, which, subtracted from 1641 (year of

the year of the Prophet's birth. necessity bePolitica necessitudo] Philosophically antithetical to contingency, it as a chals employ comes a political category in Niccolo Machiavelli, who non partirsi dal lenge to justice as the guiding principle in princely behavior: diverge from bene, potendo, ma sapere intrare nel male, necessitato” [not (to) how to set know to then led, compel the good if he can avoid doing so, but, if about it] (trans. Marriott).

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multis modis sublevarentur. Beneficentia Regis nostri in tantum DEO similis est, quantum humana Natura patitur. Ingens ejus Regnum, quod per

tanta tam felicium terrarum Spatia in utrumque mare procurrit, augusto

ambitu suo non complectitur tot tantaque beneficia, sed ad afflictos etiam in Orientem usque prolixa benevolentia extendenda, ut hu-

mani generis suffragio dignissimum tanto Rege cognomentum acceperit , &

ubique non tam Lupovici quam JUSTI appellatione noscatur. Justus est &

misericors, cum oppressos populos, afflictos Principes sua potentia relevat, nec fortunae nimium licere indulget: Justus est & simul clemens, cum de-

victis regionibus praeter peccandi licentiam nihil adimit: Justus simulqu e sapiens, cum vim animis, circa divina diversum A se sentientibus minimé infert. Quam pulchrum verd, quam gloriosum, quam laetum conscien tiae, Regnum coelorum, (quod solum suo melius est) Justitia in terris repraesentare!

IN INSIGNIA CHRISTIANISS. GALLIARUM REG.

Ingens ejus Regnum] By comparison with the France of 1610, the year Louis succeeded his assassinated father, the France of 1640 had been considerably expanded, mainly as the result of Richelieu’s foreign and colonial, especially maritime, policies. France’s northern border now ran far beyond the Somme; Lorraine, Alsace, Metz, Nancy, and the bridgeheads on the Rhine were secure, as was Roussillon. Possessions had been gained in Italy, and alliances, e.g., with Portugal, protected France against Spanish encroachme nt. This is not to men-

tion the new maritime trade routes in the Medit erranean and colonies in Canada and the West Indies.

etiam in Orientem] France by now had trading posts and colonies as far away as Senegal and Madagascar. LUDOVICI quam JUSTI appellatione] Louis le Juste. This sobriquet can be dated as early as 1614, with the festive entry into Paris from Nantes of the

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3271

In conclusion: It is widely known that this danger from the East threatens the Christian world. Why then is the French king, who so fervently desires to be addressed by his national title of “Most Christian,” not ashamed to befriend this enemy of the entire world? The answer is, quite simply, political necessity, supported by a wealth of precedents. The Israelites, popes, emperors, kings, princes, and republics all once cultivated peace with infidels, not because they approved of their foolish superstitions and abominations, but as a means of avoiding harm. Similarly, Christians groaning under the scepter of tyranny might have been sustained by a variety of strategies. The beneficence of our king is as much like that of God as human nature allows. His kingdom is vast; it stretches across great expanses of fruitful lands from sea to sea. While it does not contain within its own noble borders extraordinary resources, generosity and magnanimity must still be extended to distressed people in need as far away as the Orient, so that all humankind agree that Louis should receive the epithet truly worthy of a king and be known everywhere, not merely as Louis, but as “the Just.” For he is indeed just and compassionate when by his power he comes to the aid of oppressed peoples and tormented princes, refusing to allow fortune to have its way.

boy-king and his mother. Moote (57) explains: as the parade passed under a triumphal gate displaying the symbols of royal virtues, the accompanying im-

presa described him as a “peaceful” and “most just” king.

Justus simulque sapiens] Cicero considered justice and wisdom to be the first two cardinal virtues (Offic. 1.5.15-20, 1.43.153-57). cum vim animis, circa divina diversum a se sentientibus minimé infert] The

Turks are not included, apparently, among those who may expect to enjoy religious tolerance from the French, since the pamphlet as a whole encourages a holy war against them.

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LUDOVICI XIII.

He is both just and lenient, stripping conquered lands of nothing but their license to sin. He is both just and wise, eschewing violence against those who hold religious views different from his own. Truly, how beautiful, how glorious, how joyful for him to be by his justice the representative on earth of the kingdom of heaven, which alone is better than his!

Aurea caeruleum decorant tria lilia campum Rex 6 in insigni Maxime Galle tuo. Sunt #ria: perfectus numerus quia trinus habetur; Lilia: vulneribus certa medela malis.

Aurea: quo virtus tua & auri magna notetur.

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On the Coat of Arms of the Most Christian

French King,

Campus caeruleus Justitiamque notat.

Louis XIII. Mantissa.

INgenuo & ingenioso Lectori, quaedam in Typographo, multa in tenuitate

interpretis, plurima in superba cogitationum humanarum norma, corrigere,

emendare, arbitrari licet. Caeterm

Labor jucundus Juit,

Turcica haec

Peristromata Romana convestire praetextä. Labor, inquam, cum gallicum

schediasma, (absque aeneis typis, hoc loco compendio quodam exhibitis,) difficili exaratum calamo, multis in locis criticis conjecturis instaurandum fuerit:

Jucundus vero, quia ad Latinae linguae puritatem, maxima verborum licentia

concessa videbatur. Ita tamen ut ex digressionibus, aut rectius ex aggressionibus,

vel quidquam ex argument fide demutatum non venerit.

Quae igitur in materia desiderabit Lector, ad Autorem, quae in verbis, ad interpretem referat, utrumque verd sud libentid integrare dignetur. Inter Mantissa.

Mantissa] “Modest addition, or postscript. The anonymous composer, as we will learn at the conclusion of the companion pamphlet Aul, is Harsdérffer. cum gallicum schediasma] The schediasm in the seventeenth century was “an extemporized work, a jotting” (OED). Du Cange defines schedius as an impromptu poem or speech: “extemporalis, subito factus, inelaboratus” [extemporized, quickly made, unlabored].

difficili . . calamo] Harsdérffer’s language is perhaps purposefully ambiguous here. It suggests that he worked from a manuscript composed in an unclear hand, making it difficult to interpret not only visually but also figuratively.

maxima verborum licentia| Without being able to compare the French original, it is impossible to say how Harsdérffer may have modified it in Latin. That he did intervene to some extent is suggested by his own claim that difficulties

Three golden lilies decorate a blue field, O Great French King, on your coat of arms. Three: the perfect number is triple; Lilies: a sure remedy for serious wounds; Golden: your great virtue is worthy of gold. The blue field, finally, signifies justice. Postscript. The honorable and perspicacious reader may consider that certain questions, some relating to the printer, many due to the weakness of the translator, and in most instances the result of the highest standard of human thought, are left to your judgment to correct and emend. Aside from that, it was a labor in deciphering the original “had to be restored with judicious conjectures,” thereby allowing “the greatest freedom of expression.” ex digressionibus, aut rectius ex aggressionibus| Technically, digressio (Quintilian, 9.1.28) has the character of an excursus (4.3.14-16) and may occur at

the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of the narratio, and be of various lengths. It usually expresses strong sentiments (indignation, conciliation) that relate to and strengthen the narratio. Aggressio (5.10.4) is synonymous with epichirema and represents a method of argumentation that may be conceptualized, though not necessarily in words: “argumentum quo aliquid probaturi sumus, etiam si nondum verbis explanatum, iam tamen mente conceptum, epichirema dici” [the Argument by which we are going to prove something, even if not expressed as yet in words, but only formed in the mind] (trans. Russell), Autorem] The (anonymous) French writer.

interpretem| The translator, Harsdérffer.

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discrimina versamur, securi haud tuti. Tela praevisa intimiüs nocent, & pericula neglecta acerbiùs coalescunt, Praevertamus igitur sapienter futura, & cruenta quae sub aenigmate enitescunt fata, precibus & lachrymis deprecemur! Lutetiae Parisiorum primum

Apud Toussaint du Bray, in platea S. Jacobi ad insigne Spicae. [Fév [p. 48] = blank]

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of pleasure to dress these Turkish Tapestries in Roman garb. I say “labor” because the hasty French copy (it had no printed texts; these were in rather summary form), was written with a barely decipherable pen and had to be restored with judicious conjectures. But it was nonetheless a “pleasure,” in that in good Latin the greatest freedom of expression is possible, though in such a way that my departures, or rather my interventions, should result in no departure from fidelity to the argument. Whatever, therefore, the reader misses in content should be assigned to the author, whatever in style to the translator, each correcting each as he wishes. We live in perilous times, secure for the moment, but hardly safe. Arrows when foreseen may harm us deeply, and threats left unheeded unite and grow even more fiercely. Let us therefore wisely attend to what is to come, and let us avert with our prayers and tears the bloody calamities that gleam in a riddle. First printed in Paris by Toussaint du Bray, in the street of St. Jacobi at the shield of the Grain Spear.

[Colophon] Lutetiae Parisiorum] Paris.

in platea S. Jacobi ad insigne Spicae] Lachèvre gives the historical addresses of

Toussaint’s shops as “rué sainct Jacques, aux Espics meurs, et en sa bouticque au

Palais en la gallerie des prisonniers” [Rue Saint-Jacques, at the sign of the ripe

wheat ears, and in his shop at the Palace (Hall of Justice) in the Gallery of Prisoners]. Rue Saint-Jacques, one of the longest in Paris, was in the seventee nth

century one of the two main centers of the book trade, along with the arcades

of the Palais de Justice (Hall of Justice) on the Île de la Cité. A booksell er of

Toussaint du Bray’s importance would have had shops in both locations.

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“Seeing Is Believing”: A Note on the Forgettable History

of Illustrating Alciato’s Emblems MASON TUNG University of Idaho mblem students know that there are many editions of Alciato’s em-

blem book, but they forget that throughout the the illustrations show a limited number of major that there are two original major designs, one by Jorg Augsburg Steyner edition and the other by an unknown

178 or so editions, designs. We know Breu for the 1531 artist/engraver for

the 1546 Venice Aldo edition, but we forget that the many subsequent editions by other printers in Paris, Lyons, Frankfurt am Main, and Antwerp use these two original designs as models. We know that modeling, both

straight and reverse, is common practice among subsequent editions, but

we may forget the extent to which such modeling has gone, as well as the number of new designs in some editions, which thereby become models themselves. The difference between copying and modeling, it should be noted at the outset, is that the former is more exact in following the design of the original than the latter, which may involve adding new background

as well as foreground scenes. Reengraving the old woodblocks, as was done in the 1583 edition, is harder to distinguish from exact copying, except perhaps by its darker or thicker lines. I had the good fortune of compiling “A Concordance to the Fifteen Principal Editions of Alciati” in 1986 and of launching “Towards a New Census of Alciati’s Editions . ..” in 1989. From the “Concordance,” I learned 379

Emblematica, Volume 20. Copyright © 2013 by AMS Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

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EMBLEMATICA

its inadequacy in revealing the extent of copying and modeling that have gone on, and from the “Census,” I learned that many “editions” are in reality states or issues of the same edition, which play an important role in correcting faulty designs in previous states or issues (Tung 2010). From both projects, I came to value the experience of having compared major designs among eight or nine principal editions. In this essay, I shall try to show the extent of copying and modeling in seven Latin editions (1534, 1547, 1551, 1567, 1577, 1583, and 1621) in light of their new designs, although the Latin

1548, the French 1549, and the Spanish 1549 editions will be mentioned so as to include their new designs as part of the history of illustra ting Alciato’s emblems. Selected new designs will be examined to determ ine to what extent they are true—that is, accurate or faithful—to Alciato’ s text. If they are not true, why are they still followed as models by subseq uent editions, making the history of their illustrations irresponsible, thus forgettable?

Copying and Modeling

It is well known that Alciato was dissatisfied with the 1531 Steyner edition (Tung, no. 1)! and authorized, perhaps permitted might be a better word,

Chrétien Wechel in Paris to issue a new editio n in 1534 ( Tung, nos. 3 and 4).

Alciato soon lost control of at least the first state of the edition, as Michael Bath and John Manning have shown. Both disco vered to their surprise that Wechel’s artist—Mercure Jollat was only the engra ver—used many of Breu’s designs as models. Out of the 113 woodcuts in the 1534 edition, as many as 48 use the 1531 woodcuts as models, but 65 are of new designs, making them the second major design. The fourth major design is that by Bernard Salomon for the 1547 Lyons edition of de Tourn es and Gazeau ( Tung, no.

21). Of the 113 woodcuts in its first book, 67 use the 1534 designs and three use those

of the 1542 edition (Tung, no. 12) as models, and 44 are of new designs. Although the 85 emblems from the 1546 edition (Tung, no. 20), chronologically the third major design , are incorporated into its second book, they remain unillustrated throu ghout the long history of this frequently reprinted edition (Tung, nos. 29, 40, 43, 49, and 77), until Jean II de Tournes’s Geneva editions (Tung, nos. 104, 115, and 1 17) in which the second book is illustrated with eight woodcuts (see Tung 2008), 1.

|

All references to editions in the “Census” (1989 [1990 ]) will be in the following form: (Tung, emblem no,),

Mason Tung

381

The identical 1550 and 1551 Latin editions* printed by Rouille and Bonhomme in Lyons (Tung, nos. 35 and 36) mark the fifth major design; they are the first posthumous edition to have inherited all the accumulated new designs (77 in all) that began to be introduced in the first Latin edition of 1548 (Tung, nos. 22 and 23). This editio princeps has only 128 woodcuts out of 201 emblems and only 25 are of new or different designs. In the 1549 French edition (Tung, no. 27), the number of woodcuts increases to 163, with 20 new or different designs, and in the 1549 Spanish edition (Tung, nos. 25 and 26), the number reaches 198, with 27 new or different designs. The last authorial edition of 1550 (Tung, nos. 32 and 33) has 211 emblems, one duplicate, and 210 woodcuts. Of the woodcuts, 8 use as models those in the 1534, 2 those in the 1542, 14 those in the 1546, 90 those in the

1547 editions, 72 first appeared in the 1548 Latin, 1549 French, and 1549 Spanish editions (see above), and 24 are new designs (including the 14 trees, which reused the blocks from Leonard Fuchs’s De Nieuwen Herbarius

[Basel, 1545]). The 1567 Latin edition in Frankfurt am Main by Feyerabendt and

Hiirter (Tung, no. 61), along with its companion Latin/ German edition (Tung, no. 57), is not well known or understood; nonetheless, it consti-

tutes the sixth major design. These editions have different numbering systems, and although each has 128 woodcuts, the number of their unillustrated emblems varies: 76 in the Latin but 83 in the bilingual editions. In the Latin edition, 29 woodcuts use as models those of the 1547 edition and 86 those of the 1551 edition, with only 13 new designs. Although the wood-

cuts are attributed to Jost Amman and Virgil Solis, only two bear Soliss

monograms, but no monogram of Amman has been identified. Since Solis

had died in 1562, he was unlikely to have designed all the woodcuts for this edition—an edition marked by a large number of woodcuts using the two

earlier major designs as models, with six emblems using duplicate woodcuts

and old blocks; some of these display uneven qualities.

'

The 1577 Antwerp Plantin edition (Tung, no. 72), representing the seventh major design, has expanded commentaries from Mignault over those

in the 1573 and 1574 editions, which have the same number of pages ( 559)

and collation (A-m8; Tung nos. 65 and 68). Of the 210 woodayts, designed

by Pierre Van de Borcht and engraved by Arnold Nicolai and Gérard Van 2.

AsI do not have access to the 1550 edition, I refer throughout to that of 1551.

=

ae=

382

EMBLEMATICA

de Kampen, 38 use as models those in the 1547 edition, 120 those in the

1551 edition, and 38 are of new designs (excluding the 14 trees, which re-

use the woodblocks from Rembert Dodoens’s 1557 Cruydt-Boeck, and subsequent editions under different titles, in 1565, 1568, and 1574, all printed by Plantin). The numbering of emblems from 1 to 211 in the 1573 first edition is followed by all subsequent editions until the 1621 Padua editio optima by Tozzi, which restored the offensive emblem, “Aduersus naturam” [Against nature], as emblem 80. Beginning at the same time as Plantin, de Marnef and Cavillat in Paris printed the 1573 and 1574 Latin/French editions (Tung, nos. 67 and 70) before producing the 1583 Latin edition (Tung, no. 80). This edition is

chosen for its derivativeness, thus not as a major design. Of the 211 woodcuts, two are duplicates, 113 use the reengraved woodblocks from the 1547 edition, 52 use as models those in the 1577 edition, 26 those in the 1551

edition, including the fourteen trees (which are struck from the same 1548

woodblocks), and the remaining 19 are new designs. The quality of the new designs is not high; the only thing its artist/ engraver could boast was that he had left no emblem unillustrated. It comes as a surprise to find the rather derivative nature of the majority of the cuts in the 1621 Padua Tozzi edition (Tung, no. 111). Of the 212 woodcuts, 2 are duplicates, 2 use earlier editions (one after the 1547 and one after the 1567) as models, 108 closely copy those in the 1577 edition, and 22 use those in the same edition as models, Sixty-four are of new or different designs, plus the 14 trees: they constitute the eighth major design. The emblem numbers of the 1621 edition are now the widely used references to Alciatos Emblemata in current emblem study. In this essay, reference to individual emblems will be by folio or page no./1621 no. The English translation of Alciato’s text used in this study will be based on that in “Volume One: The Latin Emblems” of the two-volume facsimile edition in the “Index Emblematicus Series” edited by Peter M. Daly, Virginia Callahan, and Simon Cuttler.? Moreover, the Garland Publishing Company’s reprint of the 1621 edition in 1976 has made its illustrations and commentaries readily accessible (Alciato 1976). 5;

References to the illustrations of the 1621 Latin emblems will thus be τὸ [ΕἸ (i.e., Index Emblematicus 1), and references to those of the emblems in French, German, Italian, and Spanish will be to IE2.

Mason Tung

383

This survey of copying and modeling reveals the true extent of such practices by artists and engravers sanctioned by publishers and printers, with or without the authors knowledge or consent. It also shows which editions have become the favorite models. Ranked first is the 1547 edition, which has 271 of its designs copied or used as models by five subsequent editions (i.e., 90 by 1551, 29 by 1567, 38 by 1577, 113 by 1583, and 1 by 1621); second is the 1551 edition, with 232 designs by three editions (i.e., 86 by 1567, 120 by

1577, and 26 by 1583); third is the 1577 edition with 160 designs by two edi-

tions (i.e., 52 by 1583 and 108 by 1621); and fourth is the 1534 edition, with 75 designs by two editions (i.e., 67 by 1547 and 8 by 1551). Many factors will explain why some editions are more popular than others, but perhaps one reason may be that the designs are more truthful to Alciato’s text.

Fidelity or Infidelity of the New Designs: An Overview Unlike a true-or-false question, that of the truthfulness or accuracy of a new design to its text cannot be answered simply. In addition to totally true or totally false, there are partially true and partially false designs. As all teachers know, grading is never an exact science, whether by letters or numbers. In the absence of a foolproof system, the five letter grades from A to F with which we have traditionally graded freshman compositions will have to do, however inadequate they may be. In order to arrive at an over:

view of the performance of new designs of four editions in terms of their truthfulness to Alciato’s text, we posit that A = totally true, B = true, C = partially true (these grades may be considered as having the true designs), D = partially false, and F = totally false (these may be considered as having the false designs). The difference between A and B is that an A design is usually followed by all subsequent editions, just as an F design can also, though rarely, command complete allegiance. Grade inflation is strictly forbidden.

Total

%

11

17

17.5

5

17.

52

26.5

4

6

10

15.4

11

17.2

“8.

Cm

Fork

%

he

97m

1047)

238

080

825

6

1546

83

5.32.

24.

à)

73:8..."

1534

65

25;

i

846

1621

GATE

IF)

95

82.8

8

Ed 1531

Εἰ5 5 .-ὦὦ

E Az.

Ξ Ὲ

The statistics of the 1531 edition are meaningless unless we compare them with those from the 1546 edition. If Alciato was upset with the illustrations

A

384

om

cee

ee

ΤΥ

rrz

πος

of 0

SN

EMBLEMATICA

tion, when compared with chose from the 1531, do show Alciato gaining

2.

not have allowed the Ds and Fs. Statistically speaking, this edition has the

the 64 new designs in the 1621 edition is, statistically speaking, not much

the 1531, but some of the failed designs so blatantly ignore Alciato’s texts that they are almost beyond belief. They are much worse than those he had complained about in the 1531 edition. In the performance of illustrating

asin ee ere

3.

Of the three versions of how the blind helping the lame in the Anthology, Leonidas of

A

“The blind beggar supported the lame one on

με

True or False: The New Designs and Some Eye-Opening Examples

his feet” which is followed in 1531 (HSHb,

taire

DCI

déni

blind man carry his companion on his back, whereas Philippus or

“Bonis a divitibus nihil timendum” [Good men should have nothing to fear

Isidorus, in 9.11, describes the blind man “taking the lame man on

his shoulders,” a style followed by Alciato's illustration. The reason for

Breu following the Greek texts is unknown and open to speculation,

but when we look at the cuts reproduced in the Handbuch and in fig. d 1, seeing is indeed believing. Michael Bath is certainly correct when he observes chat “the recognition

that the correspondence of pictura and scriptura is not always exact, and that it occasionally owes as much to the whims of the artist/ engraver ἂς it does to the intentions of the author is, of course, nothing new

(63).

Another important cause for what Bath has called “iconographic slippage

designs (62) is economy or, in modern jargon, “the bottom line.” Original print: costs, reduce to and engravings cost money (Rawles, 51, n. 11), and

ers and publishers often resort to copying and modeling, as well as to using 5. 6.

paring the miser Artemidorus with the behavior of asses, writes, “who

be found in the right-hand column of the “Concordance” (Tung 1986).

; 1 Ke

col. 990); Plato the Younger in 9.13 has the

As an example of a partially false design in the 1531 edition, the woodcut in

For the woodcut, see column 1635a in Henkel and Schéne, hereafter cited as HSHb together with the appropriate column number; these citations may also

385

dolphin and a flower” (fig. 1), but Alciato replaces the dolphin with a fish.° “Mutuum auxilium” [Mutualaid] (D2r/161).

Alexandria, in epigram 9.12, stipulates that

4.

IE EE PS

“Potentia amoris” [The power of Eros] (D8r/107). Describing Eros’s power, Palladas asserts, in epigram 16.207, “And it is not without reason that he holds in his hands a

emblems, no one can or will get a summa cum laude.

from the rich] (F2r/032) is represented, or more accurately symbolized, by a single harpy confronting two naked boys with wings. The boys represent Zetes and Calais, the sons of Boreas, who are supposed to drive the harpies away from King Phineus, “whom? so describes Alciato following Hesiod, “the twin Harpies despoil.”* Realizing the inadequacy of this design, the 1534 artist, following Virgil, changes the lone harpy into three harpies who, taking flight, are chased by two boys with added “swords” (IE2). However, did not Alciato specify “twin harpies”? Such a clear direction is ignored, not only by the 1534 edition, but also by all six subsequent editions: 1547, 1551, 1567, 1577, 1583, and 1621. In other words, no edition has ever shown two harpies. Equally amazing are three emblems based on The Greek Anthology, the illustrations of which follow the Greek texts instead of Alciato’s: 1. “In avaros” [On misers] (C6r/086): W. R. Paton translates Alciato’s Latin rendering of the original Greek as follows: “For the ass carries costly food-stuffs on its back, and the poor thing feeds on bramblebush and tough reed-grass,” whereas Lucian in epigam 11.397, com-

SEré

often, carrying on their backs a heavy and precious load of gold, only eat hay.”

best record among the four chosen editions. Nevertheless, the record of better than that of the 1531. However, the As more than double those of

INTT

Mason Tung

of the 1531 edition, should he not be fuming over those in the 1546 edition? Yet we know of no complaints from him. Statistics from the 1534 edi-

some degree of control, but not much. Had he had total control, he would

rE

7.

Seethe cut reproduced in HSHb, col. 511; all quoted English translations of the

Greek epigrams are those of Paton. the All figures are reproduced from editions of Alciato’s emblems satis on appear also Hey /alciato/; s.gla.ac.uk emblems.art Glasgow website, hetp://www. in the list of works cited, and thus only the year is cited in each caption. have If Heckscher’s outburst is to be taken seriously, then Alciato himself could 1996a, Cummings and 22, n. 228, Scholz, also see them; for sketches provided 270, n. 67.

386

EMBLEMATICA

existing blocks they have in stock (Grove, 106, n. 22). That is why we find many cuts that use existing blocks in the 1531 edition do not fit the texts: 1. An old block of a clam riding on an arrow in flight (HSHb, col. 713) is used in C6v/020, which is replaced by the more faithful picture of a 2.

remora encircling an upright arrow in 1534 (IE2). A regular wooden mousetrap (HSHb, col. 5904) is put in E3v/095,

which is corrected by a mouse caught by a clam on the seashore in 1551 (HSHb, col. 590b). 3. An astrologer stubbing his toe on a brick (HSHb, col. 1056) in C7r/104 is replaced by Icarus falling from the sky in 1534 (IE2). These are clearly more than “slippage”; they testify, rather, to an iconographic indifference or blindness. Moreover, it is not uncommon to use the same cut for two emblems in the same edition. In the 1531 edition, for instance, the cut in D8v/044, “In simulachrum spei” [On a representation of Hope] (HSHb, col. 1557), is reused for that of A6v/046, “Illicitum non sperandum” [The unlawful should not be hoped for], and the cut in B5v/094, “Paruam culinam duobus ganeonibus non sufficere” [A small kitchen does not suffice for two gluttons]” (HSHb, col. 743), for that of E8v/180, “Doctos doctis obloqui nefas esse” [It is not right for one scholar to malign another scholar] (HSHb, col. 872). It must be admitted that the two cuts for the last example are not identical because the two trees in them are drawn slightly differently, but the two birds are the same, making nonsense of the text of the second emblem, which calls for a bird catching a cicada in its beak: “Alas, cruel Procne, why are you snatching the shrill cricket and preparing a detestable feast for your chicks?” The greater perpetrator of indifference is the 1567 edition, which used four duplicate cuts and two cuts from the old stock that bear Solis’s monograms. “To save a buck, turn a blind eye” seems to have been a favorite business adage. To offset the negative impression of the faulty 1531 illustrations, we

Mason Tung

6.

7. 8.

τὰ

Halcyon nesting at sea, B1v/179 (HSHb, col. 840).

Laiss tomb, B3v/074 (HSHb, col. 375b). Elephant and trophies, B7r/124 (HSHb, col. 419). Helmet as beehive, C3v/178 (HSHb, col. 1489) . Vine and olive, C5v/024 (HSHb, col. 208).

Two pots, D1r/166 (HSHb, col. 1381).

Aeneas and father, D5r/195 (HSHb, col. 1703). Dolphin beached, D7v/167 (HSHb, col. 684b).

One design that no other editions follow, yet is more faithful to the text, is that of a dolphin dragging an anchor “so that it may be fixed more securely in the lowest depths” in B2r/144 (HSHb, col. 683) instead of the Aldine device adopted—perhaps under Alciato’s influence?— by the 1534 artist,

who is followed by the rest of the editions (IE2). Truthfulness to the text

is not a virtue universally sought after, it seems, not even by its own author. Having established a balanced perspective of the 1531 edition, we strive for a similar view of the 1534 edition: that it is not as perfect as people are led to believe. As Bath and Manning have shown, Alciato did not have full control of the illustrations in its first issue, and many corrections (the degree of his supervision can only be assumed, however) are introduced in the second issue and subsequent editions (see the many figures appended to Manning article). Manning’s point that there is a gradual effort to improve the illustrations by subsequent artists/engravers is balanced and modified by his concluding demonstration of the long-missing rule of Nemesis in A7r/027 (HSHb, col. 1811), which is restored at last in the 1618 edition (Manning, 145, and figs. 30-36). The reputation of the 1534 as the first authorial edition has perhaps blinded subsequent artists/engravers into following its erroneous designs. In addition to the two already mentioned above, other examples are the following: 1. Instead of following 1531’s design of Cupid breaking a thunderbolt (in the shape of a set square, D7r, which is not illustrated in HSHb 1761), the 1534 artist shows a Cupid breaking his bow and arrow in the midst of flames falling from the sky (77/108, see the cuts in IE2), a design

now instance some of its successful designs. These designs, followed by the

1534 and all the remaining editions, are (among others)

387

2.

followed by the rest of the editions until the 1618/1621 edition, which replaces the set-square with a Jovian thunderbolt (IE1). Brutus about to stab himself with a dagger in 1531 (C1r/120, HSHb 1181) and 1621 (IE1) is changed by the 1534 artist to an image of him

falling on his own sword (IE2), perhaps confusing him with Ajax—or

3.

more likely, the woodcut of the latter’s suicide is ready at hand? The Duke of Milan’s tomb is replaced by the 1534 artist with a map of northern Italy (109/134, HSHb 1197) until restored in 1621 (IE1).

388

EMBLEMATICA

Mason Tung

Finally, nothing is more unbelievable than che two 1534 designs concerning Ulysses. _ In the first, Ulysses is portrayed as shooting at a two-eyed Polyphemus with a bow and an arrow and hitting the middle of his forehead (41/172, fig. 2). This erroneous design may be influenced by

S

that of the 1531, in which Polyphemus,

standing among his sheep and holding Fig. 2. “Iusta vindicta” [ Just vengeance],

j

his

tall

the

middle 1

club,

has of

i his

a

short i single

stake eye

(

P lanted H

5

H

b,

in i | col,

Fig. i

3.

" Duodecim i

[The twelve 151/138.

labours

certamina i of

sree is”

Hercules],

546,

15 Fig.

4. ke]“F er? di >

difficu

’

46,

ret difficilis”

[Elo 4 uence

is

3v/182

1692). By substituting the arrow for the

1534.}:41172. stake, the 1534 artist must have thought that he had improved the 1531 design by showing how the arrow got to its target. Obviously unacceptable to Alciato, it is replaced in 1542, if not earlier in the second edition of 1534, by Ulysses and one of his men using a long pole to pierce the eye (no. 37/172, IE2). In the second, Ulysses, in full armor, is standing opposite Diomedes, who, in a priestly turban and long robe, holds in his hand a banderole inscribed with the Greek words σὺν τε

δύ᾽ ἐρχομένω [When two are joined together] (116/041, IE2). It is a design

that has puzzled commentators ever since: “Whoever is responsible for the design has had his eye on the derived moral point of the epigram, not on i i i : : RRT the imagined subject and has willy-nilly accommodated Alciato’s emblem to a quasi-proverbial tradition of confrontations between knights and clerks” (Cummings 1996b, 400, and n. 4). Not much is known about the publication of the 1546 edition beyond the fact chat it was printed in Venice by the Aldine Press.* The unkno wn artist/engraver, like Jorg Breu, took a “minimalist” approach to illustra ting some of Alciato’s 83 woodcuts, thereby running afoul of his texts, Breu, for instance, draws one harpy (see above), one crab [a lobster] in B3v/093 (HSHb, col. 722), the wagtail without the wheel in B6r/078 (HSHb, col. 887), three girls without drawing lots in C4v/130 (HSHb, col. 1120), the

8.

The colophon has“... pud Aldi Filios” Specializing in produci ng fine editions of classics, its founder, Aldus Manutius (born Teobaldo Mannucc i, 1450-151 5), invented italic type. For the possibility of Wechel’s having been asked by Alciato to print from the manuscript of the 1546 emblems, see Drysdall 1988, 143; and Drysdall 2001, 386.

EI incipiendum” » [One Fig. è 5. «pie: “Bonis auspiciis

ig. 66. “Consiliarii Principum” [The counFig. ;

nen Fig. 7. “Ira” [Anger], 1546, 38r/063.

eee Fig. 8. “Lascivia” 39/079.

heal d bochin w}i)th f…gb]e auspices], 1546, 14v/127.

selors of princes], 546, 28r/146.

[Wantonness],

1546,

390

EMBLEMATICA

Mason Tung

391

tongueless lioness in D3r/013 (HSHb, col. 375), and Ate and one Lita

in ESv/131 (HSHb, col. 1791). Similarly, the 1546 artist chooses to take the easy way out in six of the fourteen trees in which the shape of neither their leaves nor their fruits can identify them; they are recognizable only from their titles. Single persons or objects are preferred to what are called for by the texts. For instance, he draws a Hercules with his usual club and lion skin, conceding perhaps that he could not draw the twelve allegoriFig. 9. “Dicta septem Sapientum” [The sayings of the seven wise men], 1546, 32r/187.

Fig. 10. “Lapsus ubi? Quid feci? aut officii quid omissum est?” [Where did I err? What did I accomplish? Or what duty was left undone?], 1546, 291/017.

cal labors (151/138, fig. 3), but neither could many artists after him. What they did draw were a varying number of the physical labors (IE2); only the

artist of the 1618/1621 editions crammed all twelve labors into a single woodcut to no avail (IE1). Undeterred, the 1546 artist provides the moly

plant alone in 13v/182 (fig. 4), the weasel alone in 14v/127 (fig. 5), Chiron

alone in 28r/146 (fig. 6), lion’s tail in a truncated hand in 38r/063 (fig. 7), the ermine alone in 39r/079 (fig. 8), and Chilon alone for the seven sages in 32r/187 (fig. 9). The list is long and is getting longer. Surely he should be given a medal for temerity in drawing a single crane with a stone in its claw instead of a flock of them in 29r/017 (fig. 10), a single grasshopper for

hordes of them in 43v/128 (fig. 11), and a single head of lettuce instead of

Venus covering Adoniss body with lettuce leaves in 17v/077 (fig. 12). But he also has a few successes. Some of the successes are due to the larger dimension of the woodFig. 11. “Nil reliqui” [Nothing left], 1546, 43v/128.

Fig. 12. “Amuletum Veneris” [The amulet of Venus], 1546, 17v/077.

cuts. For instance, the single nobleman in 12v/137 is able to show both the cricket clasps and the half-moon shoe-buckles (fig. 13), which become

almost invisible when in the 1548-51 editions because, in order to be more faithful to the text, they add a second nobleman into the smaller cut

(Cummings 1996a, 268f, n. 65). In like manner, the design of soldiers rising from the ground to fight each other in 25r/186 (fig. 14) is changed

in subsequent designs by substituting prior scenes of Cadmus slaying the

dragon and plowing its teeth (HSHb, 1621), thereby crowding the wood-

cuts without being any more faithful to the text. These examples show that subsequent changes in design may not always bring about improvements. The designs of three more emblems (07v/073, 36r/085, 44r/165) are fol-

Fig. 13. “Nobiles, et gererodt? [The Noblyborn and the eminent], 1546, 12v/137.

Fig. 8. 14. 14. “Li“Littera occidit idit spiritus spiritus vivificat vivificat” [The letter kills, the spirit gives life], 1546,

251/186,

lowed in subsequent editions with little change. Overall, the designs of the 1546 edition, next to those of the 1567 edition, are neither much copied nor used as models. The reason may have been accessibility. The Venice Aldine publication is the only edition, whereas the 1567 Latin edition has been reprinted only once in 1583 (Tung, no.

392

EMBLEMATICA

Mason Tung

79). Moreover, the emblems in the 1546 edition are not illustrated in the

woodcuts even though the total number of emblems had reached 210; that is only fifteen more cuts than the 113 in de Tournes’s 1547 edition. The number of cuts continued to rise in the 1549 French and Spanish editions (see above) until it reached the full complement of 210 in the 1550 Latin edition. With each new edition, the title announced the addition of new illustrations to lure more buyers. Titles were also used to remind the readers of the author diligence in reviewing the text and enriching it with elucidations or explications. Using titles to beat the competition reached its apex in Pignoria’s 1618 edition, which billed itself as being “cum Imaginibus plerisque restitutis ad mentem auctoris” [with most of the pictures restored

second book of the 1547 edition by Bernard Salomon (see above). In contrast, the more frequently reprinted 1547 edition, along with those of the Rouille/Bonhomme 1548-51 and the Antwerp Plantin 1577, become sources for much copying and modeling. Whether or not their popularity is due to their accessibility alone or to their truthfulness to Alciato’s text is a question that we shall next attempt to answer.

Truthfulness of Design: A Tool of Competition? It is said that competition is the engine that drives business. This seems to be especially the case with the printing business. Thanks to Stephen Rawles’s study, we know in greater detail the competition that Chrétien Wechel faced, after having superseded Steyner in publishing Alciato’s emblem

books and maintained a monopoly for almost a decade (Rawles, 50). His

success is all the more remarkable because he chose the more expensive octavo format, printed bilingual editions that required doubling the numbers of papers and types, and invested in new issues and editions in order to correct illustrative designs that were untruthful to their texts. These decisions cost him much, yet he managed to hold on in the face of competition from Denis Janot in Paris and Jacques Moderne in Lyons through the early

1540s. After the publication of the 1546 Aldine edition, new competitors from Lyons in the teams of Jean de Tournes and Guillaume Gazeau and of Guillaume Rouille and Mace Bonhomme began to challenge Wechel’s market shares. The decisions made by de Tournes to print the 1547 Latin Alciato in the smaller sexto-decimo format and not to illustrate the 86 emblems from the 1546 edition, which he incorporated as its second book, cut the cost of printing by as much as “a quarter of Wechel’s” (Rawles, 70). In the meantime, Rouille and Bonhomme printed their editions in both

octavos

and

sexto decimos

and

vernacular

only editions,

following de

Tournes’s lead (Rawles, nn. 50 and 51). These changes put further pressure

on Wechel, who printed in 1549 his last edition, a Latin/French bilingual (Rawles, 67, n. 43). Tools of competition consist not only of smaller format, press work, and single-language editions but also of adding commentaries, new emblems, and new illustrations. The latter strategy was used effectively by Rouille and Bonhomme in beginning their first Latin edition in 1548 with only 128

393

to the intention of the author] (Bath, 64). Whether he succeeded in ful-

filling his goal remains to be assessed, but he was not alone in a to improve the truthfulness of the illustrations. As Manning has shown, ἼΑ] process of steady, and progressive revision characterizes che history of the illustrative matter in the editions of the Emblemata during the sixteenth century, until the pictura is brought into line with details specified in the author’s text” (145). As we have seen, there are both hits and misses among

the earlier major new designs, and it is a foregone conclusion that there would not be an edition in which all the illustrations match their texts. Cost-cutting measures preclude that possibility. But among the later, more popular because more successful (commercially) editions by de Tournes, Rouille/Bonhomme, and Plantin, greater competition tends to be focused on the truthfulness of their illustrations, all other things being equal. Among the 44 new designs in the 1547 de Tournes edition, 40 are truer, true, or half true (A, B, C) to the text (91%) with only four (D, F) going against the text (9%). To look at the failed designs first: 1. Mercury in “Qua Dij vocant, eundum” [One must go where = gods call] (80/008) is drawn in full body, whereas the text specifies a “truncated figure of a god, fashioned from the waist up” (cf. 1531, HSHb 1776). Truth in “Fidei Symbolum” [A symbol of fidelity] (98/009) is clothed

while the text says “let naked Truth be clasping her [Honor’s] right

hand” —it must be remarked that Salomon does not like naked women because he clothes most of them, cf. 1534, IE2. The remora in “In facile a virtute desciscentes” [On those who easily fall from virtue] (51/083) is hard to find among the waves.

394 4.

EMBLEMATICA The fowler in “Qui alta contemplant, cadere” [Those who contemplate

things on high, fall] (86/105) shoots a bird on a tree instead of a high-

flying crane, as the text calls for (cf. 1534, IE2).

The three half-true designs miss part of the text; for instance, the parent stork feeding the young in the nest on a chimney in “Gratiam referendam” [A favor should be returned] (7/030) ignores the part of the offspring carrying and feeding the old parent as described by the text (cf. 1534 and 1551, IE2). The new elements among the 23 true designs do not provide in any appreciable way greater truthfulness than designs of the earlier editions, but they do enhance their aesthetic appeals or logical persuasiveness. Three examples must suffice: 1. The crest of the Duke of Milan is a child leaping out of a snake’s mouth (3/001). Unlike the 1531 and 1534 designs, in which the snake is drawn with a wavy body (HSHb, col. 628a; and IE2), Salomon ties it in intricate knots, which are used as models by the rest of the editions (IE2). The 1534 design shows three girls playing a game of dice around a table in “Semper praesto esse infortunia” [Misfortunes are always at hand] (49/130), when out of nowhere a tile hits the center girl on the head (IE2), whereas Salomon lets the tile fall on the girl on the right, who is sitting near the wall of a building from which the tile originates. Behind the two other girls there is a trellis of climbing vines, suggesting that they are in a backyard of a house. In “Pax” [Peace] (83/177), the 1534 design shows an elephant pulling a chariot toward the gate of a temple while weapons litter the ground nearby (IE2), but Salomon uses a driver to coax the animal of war to run the empty chariot over the littered weapons of war. While the former design shows the elephant drawing “the chariots of emperors to the holy temples,’ the latter evokes the feeling of the reluctant elephant putting “its neck under the yoke and, driven by goads, ... performs the duties of peace.” While one is more literal, the other more evocative. In evaluating the fourteen truer designs, we should remind ourselves of the relative nature of the new pictorial motifs when comparing them with those of the earlier editions. Five highly selective examples, from the simplest to the most complex, may not truly represent the diversity and intricacy of those new motifs: 1. In “Amor filiorum” [Love of one’s children] (46/194), the replacing of a leafy tree (as shown in both the 1531 and 1534 editions, IE2) with a

Mason Tung

395

leafless one, on which the “white ring-dove builds its nest in the northern cold” and dies “from the winter frost” after stripping her feathers to warm the chicks (IE2), is a veritable index of Salomon’s alertness in Roi reading Alciato’s text. “Ex litin trumpet a as use Similarly, he adds a conch for Triton to terarum studiis immortalitatem acquiri” [Immortality is achieved by literary studies] (43/133) in order to make the sea-god true to his epithet as “a trumpeter of Neptune” (IE2). Making Cupid and Death fly in the air to shoot their respective wrong victims in “De Morte & Amore”

[On Death and Eros] (67/155)

does not make his design more faithful to the text, but definitely does make the flying archers into more effective killing machines (IE2). Consequently, his picture is more dramatic and exciting. Choosing between the 1531 design of an Actaeon who is wearing, as it were, a stag suit down to his midriff (HSHb, 1622) and that of 1534, in which Actaeon has morphed into a stag but still bears a human face (IE2), Salomon gives his Actacon only a stag’s head with a full rack of antlers to match Alciato’s text: “Behold a new Actaeon, who, after he put on the antlers, gave himself as prey to his own dogs” in “In receptatores sicariorum” [On harborers of murderers] (92/052).

Comparing Scaeva, the leader of a band of brigands and thieves, to Actaeon, Alciato’s description reveals a subtle wit, which is too intricate to go into here, but his new Actaeon is not based on Ovid's narration of what happens to the peeping Tom. Whatever their artistic merits or dramatic realism, both the 1531 and Salomon’s designs must be regarded as more faithful to the text, as far as putting on the antlers is concerned, than that of the 1534. Finally, in “Custodiendas virgines” [Virgins must be guarded] (44/022), Minerva is given her usual armor, spear, and shield, with her attendant dragon in a background consisting of a temple to her right and a grove to her left, which supports the textual description of the duties of the dragon, “thus it tends sacred groves and temples” (IE2). One could scarcely think of a more nearly complete and faithful illustration of a text by Alciato. The 77 new designs in the 1551 edition, which are accumulated through several installments from the 1548 to the 1550 editions (see above), have the added advantage of correcting for the first time the defects of the 1546

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EMBLEMATICA

designs, some of which have already been described above. Overall, 70 are truer, true, and half true (91%), and seven are half false and false (9%); 57 are based on the 1546 designs, 20 on those of earlier editions. Here we will examine the ten that are new in the 1550 edition, the last authorial edition, which will show the extent to which Alciato may have exercised control over some of the designs. The following five may show some evidence ofthe author's influence over the corrections: 1. Instead of just a cuckoo on a tree, as in the 1546 edition, in the emblem “Cuculi” [Cuckoos] (68/060), the artist of the 1550 edition draws a cuckoo with an egg in its beak flying to an empty nest on a tree while below the tree, pruning the vines, are two farmers who are being called “cuckoos,’ a term of opprobrium, by two passing soldiers 2. 3.

(HSHb, col. 869b).

Instead of just the starred heron in flight in the 1546, the slave Asterias

in “Ignavi” [The Lazy] (91/084) has been added, with his body taking

on the wings and body of the bird (HSHb, col. 862). Instead of the weasel alone in the 1546 edition, a traveler who confronts a weasel next to his path is added; in the background, another

traveler is seen walking (HSHb, col. 462a) in “Bonis auspiciis incipien-

4. 5.

dum” [One should begin with good omen] (138/127), In “In colores” [On colors] (128/118), the nine plants in 1546 are changed into nine squares, in each of which Alciato’s description of the color and symbol is carefully illustrated (HSHb, col. 1292). Similarly, in “Dicta septem Sapientum” [The sayings of the seven wise

men] (200/187), the bifron figure holding a mirror to represent the

saying of Chilon in 1546 is changed to a design of six squares topped by a larger triangle that encloses a large balance, the symbol of one of the seven wise men, Cleobulus (HSHb, col. 1291). In four of the six squares, the descriptions of an object and a person who uses it are illustrated in careful details; in the other two, just the objects are portrayed. These last two examples should convince any doubters that Alciato does exercise some control over the illustration of his emblems. At the same time, these same woodcuts must have been very expensive to make, so much so that no later editions would ever try to copy them or use them as models, The 1577 edition replaces the nine squares of the first design with a dyer working at his boiling vat, which is hardly satisfactory, and the six squares plus the triangle of

Mason Tung

397

the second with seven labels of the wise men’s names and, under the label of Bias, aman on horseback. There are no better examples of cost cutting at work. Although the 1550 printers evidently put up with Alciato’s trying to be as truthful to his text as possible, they cannot afford to let him go on for too long. Indeed, they appear soon to have put an end to his “meddling,” and the results in the second five are easy to see. Two remain somewhat true to the text; for instance, in “Temeritas” [Rashness] (63/055), the driver loses

control of the team of horses pulling a chariot down a steep slope (HSHb, 1072b), although later designs put the chariot on level ground so that it is the unbridled nature of the horses that is at fault (Alciato’s point), not the steep slope. Two are half true; for example, in “In desciscentes” [On those who degenerate] (153/141), the she-goat kicks over the milk bucket

with no one around (HSHb, 533), a design not as convincing as that of the 1546, in which the milkman has just finished milking when the bucket is kicked over by the goat. Finally, the one failed design is in “Lascivia [Wantonness] (87/079), which shows a nobleman with one ermine on each side of him (HSHb, 464), whereas the text calls for ermine skins to be worn by “Roman matrons” (cf. 1618/1621, IE1). Such is the fate of emblem designs when the intentions of the author are not being, or cannot afford to be, taken seriously. The 38 new designs in the 1577 Antwerp Plantin edition should not keep us long. The most outstanding design, though far from being original, is that of the chameleon, in “In Adulatores” [On flatterers] (222/053), which is copied from the woodblock used by Plantin to print the 1555 edition of Pierre Belon’s Les Observations de plusieurs singularités et choses memorables. The first edition of 1554 was printed in Paris by Gilles Corrozet, and the naturalistic design can be traced to Conrad Gesner's Historiae Animalium (Zürich, 1551). This chameleon (as in 1621, IEI,

which copies the 1577 illustration) replaces the rodent-like animal of medieval zoological illustration seen in all the previous editions (IE2). With this single new design, the emblematic world has been ushered into the modern scientific age. Besides eight designs that are against the text, which we will not enumerate, most of the other designs in 1577 are generally simplifications of those in the 1551 Rouille/Bonhomme edition, which tend to be more elaborate both in foreground and background scenes, with many (sometimes unnecessary) shadings (including some cross-hatching) to match the elaborate borders used in all the octavo, “luxury” editions.

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EMBLEMATICA

Mason Tung

On occasion the shadings even obscure the main subject (HSHb, 889b or

899b). Accordingly, the simpler and more easily understandable Plantin designs are a distinct advantage over those of the 1551 edition, an advantage appreciated and followed by the 1618/1621 edition; the successe s and failures of its designs will be our focus next. The 24 designs that are more nearly truthful to the text than any other editions are listed below to justify Pignorias boast in the 1618 title (see above); a few of them have been noted by others before. We record all of them here (for illustrations of 1621, see IE1): Emblem 012

Design (truthful to text) A Roman standard

Ed.

Seen in

013

A tongueless lioness

1531

HSHb 1595

014

1531

A chimera true to form

HSHb 375a

1534,

IE2;

031

Frieze of tomb with relief (Manning, 138, fig. 18) Ulysses and Diomedes 1534

1551

HSHb 1661

041

046 051

054 068 071 077 081 083

108

120 123 130 132 134

163

Rule added to Nemesis (Manning, 144, fig. 36)

Wasps carved on a tomb

above

1551

HSHb 928a

1551

HSHb 1699b

1551

HSHb 1570b

1551

HSHb 344

1551

HSHb 1188b

1531

HSHb 712

Swallow’s nest in Medea’s bosom (‘Tung 2002, 405, fig. 1)

Scylla turned into a sea monster Envy’s staff has visible thorns

Venus covers Adonis with lettuce evan Essene on bushel with torch Remora trying to stop a ship Cupid breaks a winged thunderbolt

Brutus stabs himself with a dagger

Fauna sees horsemen fleeing Three girls casting lots

cf. 1534 and 155 1, IE2

cf.1531

1551

Hands holding cricket and a whisk

(cf. 1546, hand and cricket )

185

Lyre on altar with a cicada on top

1531

189

Fox in a workshop of a stage manager

(cf. 1531

HSHb 454)

197

Penelope covers her face with a veil

1551

HSHb 1701b

7. 8.

HSHb 1835

A snake eating a chick Man on tomb with the arms of Milan above Adding wings to three Graces’ feet (Tung 1994, 40 and n. 18)

164

HSHb 932b

We have been at great pains to list all the successes for two reasons: one, to give credit where credit is due; the other, to give equal time to the failures, so as to gain a balanced view of this last principal edition, which marks the end of the Alciato-style emblematic vogue. To begin with the eight halffalse designs: 1. 022: Minerva without her gorgon-shield and dragon; snake is not known to guard virgins, and the owl helps but cannot fully support the text (cf. 1547, above); 2. 026: the crowning of Fabius alone misses the other three riddles of the couch-grass (cf. 1551, HSHb 1254, which misses the crowning of Fabius?); 3. 032: replaces three sirens for three harpies (cf. 1531 and 1551, IE2); 4. 070: swallow nests on the ceiling beam of a house (cf. 1551, HSHb 873); 5. 076: Circe offers drink to sailor on board a ship, whereas the text calls for her to change “many men into strange monsters” (cf. 1551, HSHb 1694); 6. 101: five birds all look alike perched on two trees, which bird repre-

HSHb 1181

1534, IE2, and 1547, above 1531 HSHb 623

399

senting which season is anybody’s guess (cf. 1551, HSHb 744a); 188: the Egyptian sphinx is unfaithful to ster has “the feathers of a bird” (cf. 1531, IE2); 191: a couple join left hands, a puppy is apple tree is in sight for “See the girl, who her right hand; . . . how the puppy plays

Alciato’s text, where the monHSHb 1789; 1534 and 1551,

next to the man’s feet, and no is joined to her husband with at her feet. . . . rightly on her

left there will be the branch of an apple tree” (cf. 1534 and 1551, IE2).

Compared with these eight, the three totally false designs can be justified only by claiming for antiquarian authenticity. No. 009, “Fidei symbolum” [A symbol of faith], is modeled in reverse after the design of a marble frieze in Rome.’ The picture follows the same order of, from left to right, Truth, 9.

See the large reproduction in Du Choul, 30.

EMBLEMATICA

Mason Tung

Love, and Honor as in the earlier designs (cf. 1531, HSHb 1559; 1534 and 1551, IE2), but the similarity ends here. Instead of two ladies and a boy (only Honor is clothed), the three virtues are represented by all clothed male

but was disqualified by the editors for not being both an art historian and a neolatinist. From that manuscript, I quote the substance of the description of the variant pictures from eight editions of the emblem, “Mulieris famam non formam uulgatam esse oportere” [A womans reputation, not

400

figures. Instead of “let naked Truth clasp her [Honor] right hand,” Truth’s

left hand is clasping Honor’s left hand because of the reverse modeling. Johann Thuilius exonerates himselfby pointing out the errors in this 1618 Pignoria instigated design, which blatantly ignores Alciato’s text (1621 57). Second, nos. 112-13, “Dulcia quandoque amara fieri” [Sweet shies

sometimes become bitter] and “Fere simile ex Theocrito” [Almost the same from Theocritus], the two woodcuts on Cupid and the bees are switched so

that neither matches its text (cf. 1534; IE2; and Bath, 60-64; for a detailed analysis, see Tung 2009). Especially egregious is the high-flying Cupid in the second woodcut, who can in no way perform the following actions as required by the text: “running about he stamped the ground.” Third, no. 156, “In formosam fato praereptam” [On a beautiful girl snatched ἌΡ by fate], Death is seen leaving hourglass and scythe behind instead of her arrows for the sleeping Cupid to carry away when he wakes up. This scene is preposterous, to put it mildly (Tung 1994, 40-41, fig, 3). No study of the history of illustrating emblems can be complete without including the fourteen trees. Neither the first designs of the 1546 edition nor the botanical drawings from Fuchs’s De Nieuwen Herbarius and

Dodoenss Cruydt-Boeck (see above), true to life though they may be, are

responsive to Alciato’s text (see above). It remains for Pignoria to [oe credit on the grounds that the scenes added below the trees have restored most of the pictures . .. to the intention of the author” (see above). Since I have examined these scenes in light of Alciato’s practices of imitation of flora and fauna elsewhere (Tung 2012), I shall not repeat the results

here. Suffice it to add that, even with these fourteen trees, together with

the 24 truer designs listed above, they still do not amount to more than a quarter of the 212 emblems. They do not justify the claim of “most of the pictures.” Pace Pignoria. So, what have we learned from all these surveys and exhausting comparisons? That the “bottom line” rules? That perfect harmony between scriptura and pictura is but a pipe dream? For the future of emblematics there isa real need for a critical edition of Alciato’s Emblemata in which the illustrations of at least eight major designs appear on the same page (or digital screen), so that seeing is truly believing. I had drafted such an edition,

401

her beauty should be widely known] (no. 196):

The 1531 edition shows a nude Venus wearing a waist band and standing, right foot on a tortoise, right hand holding an apple, her face turning right, one dove to the left of her right foot, another at the lower right corner; a tree at right and a human-faced sun peering down from the upper left corner. In 1534 she is standing under an arch with two doves, her left hand pointing at the tortoise under her

right foot. In the editions of 1547/1583 a half-clothed Venus sitting

on the edge of a canopied bed, her left her left hand is pointing, her right hand the air is drawing the drapes open to the this design except Venus is fully clothed

foot on the tortoise to which touching her breast, Cupid in left. The 1577 edition follows and her right hand resting on

the pillow and her left hand is not specifically pointing at the tortoise

as in 1547/1583. Cupid is drawing up the right side of the drapes. In 1551 a half-clothed Venus stands in the studio of Phidias, the index

finger of her right hand is pointing at herself, her right foot still on the tortoise, and her left hand holds onto Cupid. In the background

to the left Phidias with chisel and mallet is sculpting a figure from a

block of stone. The 1567 follows this design except Venus is standing

at left and facing left, her left foot on the tortoise; she is fully clothed, her left hand is pointing at Phidias behind her to the right and her right hand is on Cupid's head. Behind her Phidias is carving Venus’s

figure out of a slab of stone propped up by stone blocks. In 1621 a nude Venus except for a cape standing in front of the canopied bed, her right hand touching her left breast, her left foot on the tortoise, and Cupid walks from right to left towards her.

With illustrations of these eight editions on the facing page, this description is the real history of illustrating this particular emblem. The history I have attempted to trace here is, in contrast, forgettable in the sense that the

bulk of the emblems are being copied or modeled with all their faults and imperfections. Certainly, there are some successes that are worth pointing out, but they are far from being the whole history. As to the value of pointing out misses and failures in a history like this, different readers will react differently. If you were to ask all the artists/engravers, printers/ publishers,

402

EMBLEMATICA

Mason Tung

and editors/commentators who had worked on Alciato’s editions (Pignoria

Du Choul, Guillaume. Discours de la religion des anciens romains illustré.

included) what they would think of this history, they would probably reply

in unison with the equivalent of “Forget it!”

Grove, Laurence. “Pour faire tapisserie’? / Moveable Woodcuts: Print/ manuscript, text/image at the birth of the emblem.” In 4An Interregnum of the Sign: The Emblematic Age in France, Essays in Honour of Daniel S. Russell, ed. David Graham. Glasgow Emblem Studies 6. Glasgow, 2001. Pp. 95-119.

Alciato, Andrea. Emblematum liber. Augsburg, 1531. ___. Emblematum libellus. Paris, 1534. ___. Emblematum libellus. Venice, 1546.

___. Emblematum libri duo. Lyons, 1547.

Henkel, Arthur, and Albrecht Schone. Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinn-

___. Emblemata. Lyons, 1551.

bildkunst des

1996. [HSHb]

___. Emblemata. Frankfurt am Main, 1567.

___. Emblemata. Antwerp, 1577. ___. Emblemata. Paris, 1583. . Emblemata cum commentariis. . . . Padua, 1621. Rpt. New York, 1976.

Bath, Michael. “Honey and Gall or: Cupid and the Bees, A Case of Iconographic Slippage.” In Andrea Alciato and the Emblem Tradition: Essays in Honor of Virginia Woods Callahan, ed. Peter M. Daly. New York, 1989. Pp. 59-94, : Cummings, Robert. Sr “Alciato’sPA Emblemata as an Imaginary Museum.” Emblematica 10:2 (1996 [2000]): 245-81. [1996a} Emblem

41:

Lyons, 1556. Rpt. New York, 1976.

The Greek Anthology. Trans. W. R. Paton. 5 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge (MA), 1915-25.

Works Cited

. “Alciato’s

‘Unum

nihil,

403

duos

plurimum

Emblematica 10:2 (1996 [2000]): 399-413. [1996b]

posse.”

Daly, Peter M., Virginia W. Callahan, and Simon H. Cuttler, eds. Andreas Alciatus: vol. 1: The Latin Emblems, vol. 2: Emblems in Translation. Index Emblematicus Series. Toronto, 1985. [Cited as IE1 and IE2]

Drysdall, Denis L. “Defence and Illustration of the German Language: Wolfgang Hunger’s Preface to Alciati’s Emblems.” Emblematica

3:1 (1988): 137-60.

- “The Emblems in Two Unnoticed Items of Alciato’s Correspondence.” Emblematica 11 (2001): 379-91.

XVI und XVII Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart, 1967, 1976,

Manning, John. “A Bibliographical Approach in the Illustrations in Sixteenth-Century Editions of Alciato’s Emblemata.” In Andrea Alciato and the Emblem Tradition: Essays in Honor of Virginia

Woods Callahan, ed. Peter M. Daly. New York, 1989. Pp. 127-76.

Rawles, Stephen. “Layout, Typography and Chronology in Chrétien Wechel’s Editions of Alciato.” In An Interregnum of the Sign: The Emblematic Age in France, Essays in Honour of Daniel S. Russell, ed. David Graham. Glasgow Emblem Studies 6. Glasgow, 2001. Pp. 49-71. Scholz, Bernhard F. “The 1531 Augsburg Edition of Alciato’s Emblemata:

A Survey of Research.” Emblematica 5:2 (1991 [1992]): 213-64.

Tung, Mason. “A Concordance to the Fifteen Principal Editions of Alciati.”

Emblematica 1.2 (1986): 319-39.

. “Towards a New Census of Alciati’s Editions: A Research Report that Solicits Help from the Scholarly Community and Curators of Rare Books and Special Collections.” Emblematica 4:1 (1989 [1990]): 135-76. “More on the Woodcuts of Alciato’s Death Emblems.” Emblematica

8:1 (1994 [1996]): 29-41.

. “Notes on Alciato’s Medea Emblem.” Emblematica 403-11.

12 (2002):

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EMBLEMATICA

- “Mystery Solved: The Source of the Eight Woodcuts in the 1615 French Alciato.” SES Newsletter 42 (January 2008): 11-13. - “Cupid and the Bees’ Once More.” SES Newsletter 45 (2009): 9-12.

. “Addenda and Corrigenda to Tung’s “Towards a New

Census of

Alciato’s Editions, 1989” SES Newsletter 46 (January 2010):

26-29.

- “Alciato’s Practice of Imitation: A New Approach to Studying His Emblems.” Emblematica 19 (2012); 215-37.

The Proofs of Antonio Tempestas Engravings for Historia Septem Infantium de Lara:

Glasgow University Library, S.M. Add.14 MICHAEL BATH University of Glasgow

T

||

|

he copy of Otto Vaenius's Historia Septem Infantium de Lara in the

library of Glasgow University (Stirling Maxwell Collection, S.M. Add.14) has all the plates that were used for the Antwerp 1612 edition published by Philipp Lisaert, but in an early state without the engraved inscriptions that tell the story in Spanish and Latin beneath the pictures. Although it was in Antwerp that Otto Vaenius designed his illustrations of this medieval Spanish tale of chivalrous heroism, insult, betrayal and vendetta, they were engraved by Antonio Tempesta in Rome. Vaenius had almost certainly met the famous Italian artist and engraver during the years he spent in Rome as a young man in the 1570s, and as Simon McKeown says,

|

The collaboration between the two men on this publishing venture,

therefore, was a remote operation, with Vaenius dispatching his forty

drawings with expository letters to Italy, and Tempesta sending back copperplates engraved according to close instructions. Back in Ant-

werp, the plates were completed with the addition of engraved textual

matter set into compartments below the pictorial area—Spanish to

the left, Latin to the Right—and also, importantly, a numerical key that identified the principal characters in the scenes. (McKeown, 108)

In this same year, Tempesta also engraved the 36 plates for Vaeniuss Batavorum cum Romanis Bellum, a series of allegorical engravings, inspired by 405 Emblematica, Volume 20. Copyright © 2013 by AMS Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

1

EMBLEMATICA ‘Tacitus’s history, illustrating the armed

struggle between the ancient Dutch tribes and their Roman invaders. In view of these circumstances, it is of some interest that the Glasgow

copy has an early leather binding with Antonio Tempesta’s name stamped Fig. 1. Cover of the Glasgow University Library volume $.M. Add.14. (By permission of Glasgow University Library.)

(4 ar ae os . “A wa 8 ee binding aXe undoubtedly the uncor-

rected proofs that Tempesta sent back to Vaenius (or to Vaenius’s printer, Philipp Lisaert) in Antwerp in 1612. For this reason, they are of exceptional rarity and importance, and they may improve our understanding of the production of this work, designed as it was by the Netherlands’ leading emblematist and executed by one of Italy's most prolific and distinguished prints engravers (for

Tempesta, see Leuschner).

Although now forming part of Glasgow’s important Stirling Maxwell Collection of emblem books, S.M. Add.14 was not collected by Sir William

Stirling Maxwell (1818-78) himself, but was purchased in 1960 from the

Library of Writers to the Signet in Edinburgh, established in 1594 as the leading professional association for Scottish lawyers. A penciled note on the flyleaf records an unidentified librarian’s belief that the Glasgow copy was “from Sir Peter Lely’s collection, with his mark P.L” It is, however, quite impossible that these initials, which are engraved bottom right on each of the Glasgow sheets, could have anything to do with Lely, since he was not born until 1618, six years after these plates had been issued in a heavily revised state by their Flemish printer and with this monogram erased and the compartment filled with text.! The initials are, of course, those of the books Antwerp printer, Philipp Lisaert, who evidently, on finding that Tempesta had not himself signed the plates that he had executed in Rome, ventured to 1,

Thereis no mention of this book, or of any other engravings by Vaenius or Tempesta, in the catalog of the sale of Sir Peter Lely’s “Great Collection of Pictures” that took place after his death, the most famous sale of its period in Britain: if this copy had belonged to Lely, it would almost certainly have been included in

the sale. See “Sale of the picture collection of Sir Peter Lely at the Great Piazza in Covent Garden, 18 April 1682; in The Art World in Britain 1660-1735, hetp://artworld.york.ac.uk; accessed 7 February 2013.

Michael Bath

407

put his own initials on them. He would presumably have felt entitled to do so, since he was about to spend quite a lot of time engraving the Spanish and Latin inscriptions in this compartment at the bottom of each sheet, inscriptions that were required in order to finish the job but that evidently had not been thought necessary or appropriate to delegate to Antonio Tempesta in faraway Rome. Presumably before the sheets were actually printed, Vaenius must have objected to their being signed in a way that risked crediting Lisaert, rather than Tempesta, with their engraving, and for this reason the initials have all been removed from the plates as published. We can therefore conclude with some confidence, I suggest, that the Glasgow sheets are a prepublication printing of proof copies of Tempesta’s engravings after Vaenius’s drawings, run off while those proofs were at a transitional stage. Lisaert must have begun his own work on them by adding his initials to each of the compartments at the bottom of the page, the area for which he himself was responsible, but before he had actually begun to engrave any of the inscriptions that those compartments were meant to hold. While it is not unusual to find early engravings, and especially book illustrations, in a state that lacks the final printed text, we should beware of describing the Glasgow plates as “proofs before letterpress,” since, in this case, the intended texts are all engraved, not printed: there was to be no letterpress. Vaenius’s intervention in the final proofreading and correction of these engravings after they had come back from Tempesta can be witnessed in just a few further changes that he made to the actual illustrations, either because Tempesta had made mistakes in copying Vaenius’ original drawings or more likely because Vaenius himself wanted to correct details in just a couple of those drawings that he had earlier sent to Rome. One of the most notable features of Vaenius’s illustrations to this eleventh-century tale of feuding families, vengeance, and justice? is his decision to “classicize” the story by giving it a supernumerary cast of presiding deities, in the shape of Ripaesque allegorical figures who preside over the action: the addition of this celestial machinery might be seen as an attempt to turn medieval romance into 2.

AsMcKeown notes, “The story had been recounted in both the Primera Cronica General (1270) and the Segunda Crénica General (1344), and published in an edition by Florio de Ocampo in 1541,” and “It is cited by Cervantes in Don Quixote and was the subject in this same year, 1612, of the drama J/ Bastardo Mudarra, tragecomedia by Lope de Vege {sic\” (McKeown, 109, 110).

University Library.)

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an attempt to palliate this difficulty, and it may well have been a decision taken quite late in the day, after the engraved plates had come back from Tempesta for Philipp Lisaert to put the finishing touches to them, since these key numbers are also absent from the Glasgow copy. The

allegory starts in

Plate 1, where, even before

the story has begun, we see the goddess Necessitas up in the clouds telling the three Fates, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, that they must begin spinning the seven threads that will determine the lives of our heroes, the seven sons who are about to be born and who give the tale its title (fig. 2). This opening illustration gives a high profile to the celestial machinery that will preside over the action throughout, and it was therefore of some importance that these classical figures should be pictured with their traditional defining attributes. The three Parcae are accordingly

of their trade as spinners,

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ss à but the opening line of the narrative also tells us that Necessitas is holding her hammer and nails. “Necessity” is not one of the traditional pantheon of classical deities, and it is Cesare Ripa who tells us that she is depicted as a woman holding a hammer in her right hand and, in her left, a bundle of nails, in order to express the idea that when things are so inevitable that we cannot change them they are said to be | “fixed with nails.” : In the Glasgow copy, | we can see that, although } Tempesta shows the ham- ° Fig. 4. Necessita, in Cesare Ripa, Iconologia (Rome, 1603), mer, he has omitted the Ρ. 358. (By permission of University of Glasgow Library.) nails, and it is only in the corrected copy, as published, that we see them represented, though they are not tied into a bundle as Ripa describes them but scattered across Necessitas'’s cloud (fig. 3). In this position, it is hardly surprising that Tempesta should have failed to recognize them or represent them accurately. Illustrators of Ripa, beginning with the earliest illustrated edition in 1603, however, invariably show the nails as Ripa describes them (fig. 4). This is a minor correction to the final proofs, but one that is of at least some interest for what it tells us about the design and production of these particular illustrations. Necessity and the three Fates put in later appearances in the tale, such as on plate 30, where they are shown with all their defining attributes, including Necessitas’s nails, in both the Glasgow proof copy and the final state as published (fig. 5).

rame

Fig. 2. Otto Vaenius, Historia septem infantium de Lara (artists proof), pl. 1. (By permission of Glasgow

shown holding the tools

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Renaissance epic. One of the disadvantages of such a decision, however, is the way it fills che pictures of an already-crowded narrative with even more figures, whose identities were always likely to be unclear or confusing, especially to readers unfamiliar with the story. Vaeniuss addition of key numbers link-

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411

sky, though it does include

two unidentified female figures, standing behind Almanzor’s daughter, holding a shield painted with a device showing two hands joined in alliance or friendship. This is clearly making an emblematic comment on this

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(Antwerp, 1612), pl. 34; detail of

clasped hands shown at left. (By permission of The British Museum.)

vengeance on those enemies who have killed his half brothers—Gonzalo’s seven sons—and who have sent Gonzalo on a fraudulent embassy to king Almanzor, with the instruction to put him to death, something Almanzor refuses to do. The plate as published shows no presiding deities up in the

Fig. 8. Otto Vaenius, Historia septem infantium de Lara (artist's proof), pl. 34; detail of

wyverns shown at left. (By permission of Glasgow University Library.)

parentage, a token that eventually serves to identify him to his father and fulfill his destiny. It is, accordingly, appropriate that the illustration immediately following this (pl. 35, fig. 7) once again shows Necessitas with the three Fates up in the sky, where, the narrative tells us, she is ordering them to spin the thread of the child who is destined to “restore the glorious race

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Michael Bath

of Lara,” fulfilling Gonzalo gift of the ring and bringing about a reconciliation of Moors and Christians, which is signaled by the conversion of Almanzor and his subjects to Christianity in the closing pages of the tale. It is this destiny of reconciliation and justice that must be signified by the emblem of joined hands, symbolic of reconciliation and friendship, that we have noted in plate 34. It is therefore of some interest to note that this detail is lacking in the Glasgow version of plate 34, where it not only has been misnumbered but also shows, instead of the shield with its joined hands, two winged dragons or wyverns held by the female figures behind Almanzor’s daughter (fig. 8). Their significance is unclear, but evidently they record a detail in the design that Vaenius must have had second thoughts about before it went to press. The Glasgow Stirling Maxwell copy is not the only copy of this set of engravings to have survived with some interesting and exceptional details, for the British Library has an “additional copy” of Historia septem infantium de Lara that once belonged to Sir Hans Sloane and hence became part of the British Museums founding collection. In this copy, the Spanish and Latin texts have been excised and a handwritten English translation substituted by an unknown writer. This invaluable aid to English readers has been admirably edited and published in Simon McKeown’s recent article, which is reviewed elsewhere in this volume of Emblematica. The fact that these two distinctive copies ended up at a comparatively early date in Scotland's leading law library, on the one hand, and in the collection of one of the

emblematic figures that guide our symbolic interpretation of the action throughout must have played their part in this popularity, and as McKeown says, “[FJor a story that so heavily depends upon the themes of apparent good will, treachery, wronged virtue and passionate anger, Vaeniuss assemblage of emblematic figures serves him well in conveying the hidden motives that drive human affairs” (115).

most eminent members of England’s fledgling Royal Society, on the other, suggests, as McKeown argues,

something of Vaenius’s status as a pan-national figure. Indeed, every line, visual and verbal, in the Historia septem infantium de Lara speaks

of its cosmopolitanism. In it, a Spanish legend is retold in Castilian

and Latin by a Dutch-born author who supplies illustrations cut into copper by an Italian. (McKeown, 116)

Both Otto Vaenius and Antonio Tempesta were painters in their own right, as well as engravers of prints, and we know that in 1615 Vaenius was commissioned to complete no fewer than 40 paintings based on his

Historia septem infantium de Lara for a Netherlandic/Spanish nobleman, Don Rodrigo Calderén, paintings that ended up in the Royal Collection in Madrid, where they have not survived (McKeown, 111). The Ripaesque

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Works Cited

Leuschner, Eckhard. Antonio Tempesta. Ein Bahnbrecker des Rômischen Barock und seine europäische Wirkung. Studien zur internationalen

Architektur- und Kunstgeschichte 26. Petersberg, 2005.

McKeown, Simon. “An Unknown English Translation of Otto Vaenius’s

Historia Septem Infantium de Lara (British Library, 551.¢.9): A Transcription and Introductory Note.” In Otto Vaenius and His

Emblem Books, ed. 5. McKeown. Glasgow Emblem Studies 15. Glasgow, 2012. Pp. 107-56.

Vaenius, Otto. Historia Septem Infantium de Lara. Antwerp, 1612.

Reviews

ance. JOHN L. LEPAGE. The Revival of Antique Philosophy in the Renaiss -37281London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Pp. xv + 281. ISBN 978-11 81-4. £55.00.

ble to read. This is a book of considerable interest, scholarly and agreea that the idea Its chief value lies in its development of John Manning’s of profound Renaissance emblem was a form of wit rather than a vehicle d antique “viewe sts philosophy. Lepage’s thesis is that Renaissance humani lves.” His book philosophy through vivid images of the philosophers themse mal Platonism, evaluates philosophy, not in terms of its metaphysics—for Diogenes, Socrates, say, or Aristotelianism—but of the iconography of Renaissance thought as based Democritus, and the rest. In short, it treats

ts and critics) on the assumption (one congenial to many modern studen that image is everything. of melancholy; Lepage’s topics include the wise fool: the revaluation

the systematic Menippean satire; and the emblems supplanting, in his view, of departure is Pagan philosophy of the Scholastics. His promising point

undervalues the extent to Mysteries of the Renaissance, though he perhaps

philosophy and which Edgar Wind took for granted knowledge of formal

between Wind theology. There is more of a gulf than he seems to allow

ucault, Bakhtin, and the fashionable cultural historians he relies on—Fo G. B. Harrison's essay on and Greenblatt. (Would he even have mentioned Greenblatt?) melancholy, for example, if it had not anticipated

Lepage is disappointOn the important topic of Renaissance imitation, begins to explore the great ing. He refers to The Light in Troy, but hardly for a critical approach to importance of Greene’s typology of imitation 417 Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Emblematica, Volume 20. Copyright © 2013 by AMS

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Renaissance literature. And he treats the period’ interest in small creatures without touching on the theological and aesthetic value of such works as the Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta. But the main omission of Lepage’s study is surely the absence of any reference to Paul Barolsky’s Infinite Jest: Wit and Humor in Italian Renaissance Art (1978), a work that offers an indispensable model of how to discuss Renaissance profundities without losing lightness of touch. ALASTAIR FOWLER

University of Edinburgh

STEWART CONN, ed. The Hand That Sees: Poems for the Quincentenary of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Edinburgh: Scottish Poetry Library and the Royal College of Surgeons, 2005. Pp. ix + 83. ISBN: 0-9546213-2-8. £9.99. The Hand That Sees provides a multimedia journey through the 500-year history of surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons Museum in Edinburgh, Scotland. The reader is encouraged to contemplate nineteen color images of objects related to the history of surgery, read poems of personal memories or invented fantasies of intimate body experiences and traumas by many of Scotland’s choice poets, and listen to the poet-authors’ recorded voices on an accompanying mini-CD (80 mm). As a polyvalent media presentation, this pocket book achieves success and may possibly renew interest in the reciprocal support of surgery, visual, and poetic arts in Scotland. Even with several conspicuous weaknesses, this collection offers an assortment of contemporary word/image combinations that emblem scholars can trace in the history of fluctuating body presentations. After careful readings, I found that the poems appear under four distinct categories, themes or ideas. The first poetic idea appears when the editor and contributing poet Stewart Conn, Scotland’s makar or poet laureate from 2002-5, uses the occasion of the 500th anniversary to mark the transfer of the control of surgical knowledge from Aesculapius, the Greek god of medicine, to James IV, patron of both poetry and surgery from 1505 (ix). By

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writing about familiar body parts, at least four of the poets inform the reader that in Scotland, in 2005, the control of surgical knowledge was transferred again, from the royal court to each individual subject. Andrew Greig marks this transition with the inaugural poem of the collection based on the “hand that sees” from the center of the stained-glass window of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh’s armorial device (1). Greig leads at least four of the 21 poets to immortalize fragments of their personal acquaintances: a father’s hands, a daughter’s tooth, a mother’s cancer, and a second mother's osteoporosis. By looking briefly at a genealogy of the “hand that sees,’ one can understand Greig’s poem within shifting historical contexts. Emblem scholars will note that the “hand that sees” can be traced to the ancient Egyptian Eye of Horus as a symbol for health and power (Masson, 1-3). The “eye in hand” or Hamsa of Asia Minor portrays a second hand that sees” which is a right hand positioned vertically hanging downward with an eye in the palm. This object is still used as an amulet in some countries for general protection against evil spirits, as well as support for fertility (Sonbol, 335). A third “hand that sees” familiar to emblem scholars can be found in the Renaissance emblem “Sobriè vivendum” from Andrea Alciato’s Emblematum liber printed in 1550 in Lyon. This image orients the hand horizontally, thus supplementing the Hamsa meaning with a more humanistic meaning of general prudence or cautionary reminder (Becker, 56). The Hamsa is visually closer to that found in the armorial seal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, which represents a right hand descending from clouds, possibly implying that God gives wisdom of seeing and touching to all of humanity and specifically to surgeons. The stained-glass window of the armorial seal image was completed for the Royal College of

Surgeons in 1897 (Dingwall, 232).

In his poem “The Eye in the Hand,’ Greig adds a modern transformation to the image by imbuing the seeing hand with familiar and intimate qualities: the hand that sees is not from Horus, Aesculapius, or another deity, James IV, or the Royal College, but is isolated and reanimated by an individual museumgoer in relation to his father. With the royal seal of cause

given to the college of surgeons in 1505, that once-divine power was trans-

ferred from a heterogeneous collection of barber surgeons to the king, giv-

ing the barber surgeons’ union the authority to govern surgical knowledge. In Greig’s poem about his father’s hands, as well as Elizabeth Burns poem about a child’s teeth (4), Robert Crawford's invocation of a mother’s cancer

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(7), and De Luca’s ability to volunteer to have surgery to rid the body of a potentially fatal genetic disease (40), the divine protection of surgeons’ manual knowledge once conveyed through a trade—which had become under political protection of the king—has now come under the control of the private individual who can elect to have surgery. A second poetic category in The Hand That Sees poetry collection creates an assortment of modern-day Scottish memento mori, or glimpses of pain and death from the authors’ own body fragments. Unruly, decayed, or preserved body parts from the museum’s collection reminded the poets of their own mortality, prompting Tom Pow to anthropomorphize and moralize rickets as a devilish disease that causes skeletal curvature (26),

which for emblem scholars may invoke any one of the plethora of medieval, Renaissance, or baroque dancing death texts. Christine De Luca also writes about curved skeletons, as well as an ailing uterus that can be made right with surgical gestures (39-41). Two poems about eyeballs question the visual nature of vision, where John Burnside describes a detached retina (55) and Kevin MacNeil a corneal graft (59). This second group of poems is also

highly self-reflective, publicizing personal experiences the authors or a narrative character survived with the help of the surgeon's tools. If one compares these personalized image/word relations to early modern emblems, a difference appears in that emblems use the combination of title, image, and poetic description as supplementary structures to reveal a general moral message (Russell, 4). Late medieval surgical uses of poetry and printed images were mnemonic in nature, memory devices used to recall treatments, procedures, astronomical charts, medicines and anatomical parts (Kismet Bell, 150-55). The word/ image combinations from this collection mirror

l 114 | ΠῚ

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the divide between the sciences and the arts that occurred during the scientific revolution; they lack the broader moral meaning of the emblem tradition and the usefulness of medieval surgical poetry. Instead, the poems focus on a specific instance of personalized visual experience with very little relation to an image or objective surgical knowledge. As a montage experience of text and image while walking through the museum, Valerie Gillies relates a photographic image of cancer to the surgeon who helped her survive, though the included image is about a previous poem, “Head: Sabre Wound,’ and the actual jar containing “a mounted

specimen of invasive lobular carcinoma” is described only in words (14-16) .

John Burnside’s lifelong ocular troubles provide the impetus to write about

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his own eye surgeon, yet the magnified image of a star-shaped corneal scar on the surface of the eye does not match the detached retina he describes (54-57). Kevin MacNeil’s autobiographical poem titled “Corneal Graft” would have made and still does make better use of the eye image provided by the Edinburgh ophthalmic surgeon Alistair Adams, but through omission

or typographical error, the corneal graft is described only verbally (58-59). The treatment of the disease about which MacNeil writes, kerataconus, or degeneration of the cornea, requires a donation from a gently used cadaver, which allows MacNeil to claim morbidly that “A part of me has seen things I have never seen” (59). The memento mori—which in the Renaissance had

been a skull or skeleton image or in the Enlightenment was a vanitas reminder of the dead from within the living—has become a common, exceedingly personal yet physically distant object of modern transplant surgery. A third and most abundant poetic category appears in this collection as a muted form of the early modern verbal emblem or later Romantic German Dinggedicht, or object poem. Sundry objects, texts, and procedures impart these verbal artists with inspiration as they wander through artifacts collected from the 500-year history of surgery in Edinburgh: a painting of a sabre wound to the head by the famous Charles Bell; deformed skeletal fragments; an African statue; a pocket-sized fish-skin case with phlebotomy tools; a chloroform dropper bottle; a seventeenth-century woodcut image of a corpse performing a self dissection; a map of the Gaza strip adorned with two black-and-white photographs; an x-ray; and a hands-on laparoscopy exhibit. Within these object poems, the subjective “I” fades and the objects are verbally thrust to the foreground. Readers are encouraged to recreate meaning individually from separate objects, but also collectively as museumgoers. A fourth and final category recreates former and fictional figures such as James IV, the King of Scots, who brought the Royal College of Surgeons into existence in 1505; fictional surgeons who perform their various dexterous manual movements; a museum curator who guards the museum's

grotesque and beautiful elements with affectionate zeal; and a dream of the infamous grave robber Ned Black that mirrors the art of dissection. Finally,

in many of the poems, the museum building itself becomes a character composed of carefully arranged fragments. When one listens to the audio CD, the authors’ voices and occasional musical interlude guide one through the museum as if the large stone structure were hidden in the rhythm of the words themselves. Open to the general public since 1832, Scotland’s oldest

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surgical museum is itself evidence of the history of the body: curiosity cabinets of the baroque and Enlightenment periods collected the strange, deformed, and grotesque that to today’s viewers, such as Diana Hendry, occasion a search for our own infirmities (45). As each of these categories demonstrates, this collection of poetry and images relating the history of surgery has much to offer to the museumgoer. However, there are several difficulties that must be addressed. First, the structure of the text—a combination of poem, image, and author interpretation—often renders the poetry redundant. While close to the emblematic form that simultaneously presents a title, picture, and poetic interpretation, the addition of anecdotal clarifications or poetry lessons by the authors themselves provides little new information except to demolish the poetic power of the often well-crafted verse. When E. Burns writes about a poem that is about a set of teeth found in the dental collection of the museum, “I wrote this poem, which is a direct response to the events which happened chronologically as they do in the poem, one is left to wonder why she wrote the poem at all. Or, when Dilys Rose’s interpretation turns into an advertisement for her novel, the phrase “for that reason” begins a justification for her poetic style, “For that reason” becomes a weight from which the poem has difficulty to be freed (51). The burden of the poetic interpretations over the poems in this collection of Scotland’s greatest poets creates a bifurcated audience: the poems appear to be written for poetry and language enthusiasts and the interpretations seem to be included as a guide for a general public. The juxtaposition, however, assumes that a poem requires the author to explain his or her intentions, and thus the interpretation becomes a perpetual display of power over the reader. This is an especially important problem since the author occupies the collection in fourfold fashion: through the poem, the choice of image, the interpretation, and the inclusion of an audio recording of the authors reading of the poem. A second problem intersects with the theme of power mentioned in this review, or perhaps is a case of conspicuous omission turned into theoretical insight: hidden in the personalization of each body fragment, the praise of family members’ members, personal members, unknown members, diseased and foreign members, and real and fictional characters, is the commodification of a modern medical body that is consumed by a nation’s citizens. John Burnside writes, “When I was invited to contribute to the anthology, I im-

“I knew where my poem would end before I went to the Surgeons’ Hall” (7).

mediately knew what I wanted to explore” (54). Robert Crawford remarks,

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Each poet straightaway composed poems to their own subjective idea of surgery that, once written, become odes to surgical bodies shared by all independent readers. The authorial interjections of personal body experiences, along with interpolations from the remaining authors in this collection, display a well-trained preoccupation with a surgically divided body under the control of the Scottish government since the Royal College of Surgeons received the seal of cause from King James IV.

Where religious meaning of the body in the Middle Ages transitioned to secular moral meaning of the Renaissance body, and the rational mechanical body of the Enlightenment became the alternatingly familiar and foreign body of the nineteenth-century military, clinical, and laboratory surgeons and doctors, this collection performs the transformation of the oscillating body into a common body shared by all (who have access to modern health care services). A gruesome, attractive, or rare exhibit in the Royal College

of Surgeons Museum did not inspire Burnside’s poem or the poems in the collection; their inspiration stemmed from a preoccupation with their own frail body parts that can be healed through governmental intervention of the surgeon’s hand. The difference is historical and technological: through the nineteenth century, most patients had to be forced to go to the surgeon, who was the last of the three arts of medicine: diet, regimens, and surgery (Nutton, 85). “Last” typically implied a final punishment, such as Marsyas’s flaying by Apollo, cited by lan Bamforth: anyone who visited the surgeon usually did not survive to write a poem. Today, as evidenced time and again

within the collection, ordinary citizens often volunteer for cosmetic or elective surgery, or they have survived the horrific experience to know and

speak about what it is like to be “interrogated by a scalpel” (44). As a product of two national concerns—The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Scottish Poetry Library—this collection is not so much about surgery or even body parts. The celebration of quincentenary of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh is about a celebration of 500 years of control over how individuals in Scotland experience the body in image, word, and especially the gestures of the hands that see. It miss-

es, however, the powerful implication of the history of surgery that can be

found in the title “Hinc sanitas” [From here, health] above the hand that sees of the armorial device in the stained-glass window of the Royal College

of Surgeons of Edinburgh, which also appears on the jacket cover for the

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poetry collection. “From here, health” is equivocal. Does health come from the armorial device? From the stained glass in the museum’s staircase? The hands or tools of the surgeon? The King or Royal Society? The gods of medicine or another divine source? Health, from the perspective of over 500 years of surgical training in Edinburgh, has been protected variously by the hands of God; ancient masters; Renaissance and modern institutions: and now, at least from this stimulating collection of Scottish poets, by hands of the individual who can regularly survive surgery and live to write about it. Works Cited

Becker, Jochen. “Affenhand und Fotoauge: Zu El Lissitzkys Selbstbildnis der Konstrukteur (1924).” In Emblematic Tendencies in the Art and Literature of the Twentieth Century, ed. Anthony J. Harper, Ingred Hôpel, and Susan Sirc. Glasgow Emblem Studies. Glasgow,

2005. Pp. 47-82.

Dingwall, Helen M. 4 Famous and Flourishing Society”: The History of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, 1505-2005. Edinburgh, 2005.

Kismet Bell, Jameson. From Allegory to Emblem: Uncovering the Brain in Lorenz Fries’ Spiegel der Artzney and Hans von Gersdorffs Feldtbuch der Wundartzney. Unpublished dissertation. State College, 2011. Masson, A. H. B. 4 College Miscellany: Some Treasured Possessions of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Edinburgh, 2001. Nutton, Vivian. “Humanist Surgery.” In The Medical Renaissance in the Sixteenth Century, ed. A. Wear, R. French, and I. M. Lonie. New

York, 1985. Pp. 75-99.

Russell, Daniel. Emblematic Toronto, 1995.

Structures in Renaissance French

Culture.

Sonbol, Amira El Azhary. Beyond the Exotic: Women’s Histories in Islamic Societies. Syracuse, 2005.

JAMESON B. KISMET BELL Dogus University, Istanbul

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ANDREA ALCIATO. Andrea Alciati Emblematum liber, Augustae Vindelicorum 1531. Emblematum libellus, Parisiis 1534. Trans. by Hiroaki Ito. Tokyo: Arina Shobo, 2010. Pp. 542. ISBN 4-7566-0063-8. ¥7200. OTTO VAENIUS, DANIEL HEINSIUS. Otto Vaenius, Amorum

Emblemata, Antwerpen, 1608. Daniel Heinsius, Quaeris quid sit Amor...., Amsterdam, 1601. Trans. by Hiroaki Ito. Pp. 226. Tokyo: Arina Shobo, 2010. ISBN 978-4-7566-0908-5. ¥3600.

The publication Hiroaki Ito, are studies in Japan. and Paris, 1534) (Antwerpen,

of these two volumes of emblem books, translated by one of the most important contributions to emblem One is of Alciato’s Emblematum liber (Augsburg, 1531, and the other is of Otto Vaenius’s Amorum Emblemata

1608)

together with

Daniel

Heinsius’s Quaeris

quid sit

Amor ... (Amsterdam, 1601). As a student of Italian Renaissance philosopher Pico della Mirandola, Ito has done various research on Renaissance intellectual history, from his first book, a joint translation of Pico’s Oratio de hominis dignitate in 1985, to a recent article on representation of Sibyls and the Prophets in pendentives of the Cappella Sistina in 2013. Not only writing on philosophical and iconological themes, he has also been very active in translating essential books for emblematic studies such as Mario Praz’s Studi sul concettismo (1998) and Lina Bolzoni’s La Stanza Della Memoria (2007). His Alciato stands highest among those translations partly because of his arrangement of the picturae. In this book, Ito arranges the picturae of both the 1531 edition and the 1534 Paris edition on the same page, and we can easily compare these two versions of the same emblem. For example, for the “In Astrologos” emblem, the 1531 version illustrates a man who looks

up the sky; he seems to be an astronomer, though the figure has no relevant reference to the content of the verse. The accompanying verse refers to Icarus, and it clearly warns us the danger of being too proud of human ability. The picture of Paris edition illustrates the figure of Icarus falling from the sky, which signifies the moral of the verse. Furthermore, Ito adds a biographical note on Alciato to help the reader to understand the cultural and social background that led Renaissance humanists to make emblem books. He also makes an introductory analysis of each of the authors in his edition of Vaenius’s and Heinsius's emblems. In particular, the huge influence of Petrarchism as well as of classical literature, is pointed out. Ito's excellent knowledge of classical literature can be observed in the interpretation

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of complex Renaissance Latin epigrams, and his meticulous comments on these epigrams are very clear and readable. As we Japanese, compared to people in Western countries, are not so familiar with the Renaissance emblem books, his translation of these books will be highly helpful for both students and nonacademic readers who are interested in Renaissance literature and culture. MISAKO MATSUDA

Seijo University

SIMON

McKEOWN,

ed. Otto Vaenius and His Emblem Books. Glasgow

Emblem Studies 15. Glasgow, 2012. Pp. 316. ISBN 978-0-85261-932-2. €35.50.

The contributions to this volume derive from papers delivered during the Eighth International Conference of the Society for Emblem

Studies, or-

ganized by the editor of this volume at Winchester College (England) in

2008, when three of the sessions were devoted to Vaenius in celebration of the quadricentenary of his Amorum Emblemata. These are now supplemented by several further contributions to make up a comprehensive collection of studies that will surely become recognized as the standard and definitive body of research on Otto Vaenius, the artist and emblem writer who stands, as Simon McKeown persuasively argues, second only to Alciato in the history of the European emblem tradition: “In truth, consciously or otherwise, every author or artist who picked up a pen in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with the aspiration to create an emblem did so under the tutelage of Antwerp’s unsurpassed master of the form” (xxxvi). Vaeniuss interests and influence, however, extend way beyond his three best-known emblem books, and it is a major achievement of this collection of essays that it places those achievements against “a wider backdrop of creative and intellectual endeavour which has enjoyed less recognition or appreciation and which it is now time to revisit and reappraise” (xxxv). Henceforth students of these emblems will have little difficulty in identifying the precise historical and intellectual context within which they were created and received, whilst scholars of the wider history of Flemish art will

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have no excuse for ignoring or underestimating the strongly emblematic basis of all those other intellectual and artistic activities to which Vaenius devoted himself. Conference proceedings are always liable to appear random and disconnected, but in this case its editor’s claim to have brought together a focused and comprehensive body of work is fully justified. As McKeown says, “The collection of essays that follow—the first to be devoted to Vaenius in English or any other language—takes a more panoptic approach to the artist’s published oeuvre than has been customary hitherto, and addresses in part areas of neglect” (xxxi). Not only can this collection claim to be comprehensive, but it also turns out to be remarkably coherent in the way its various contributors build up what amounts to a consistent and persuasive reading of Vaenius’s emblems and the intellectual and humanist culture in which they flourished. McKeown’s introduction opens the volume with a masterly summary of current scholarship on Vaenius’s three best-known emblem books, the Emblemata Horatiana (1607), Amorum Emblemata (1608), and Amoris Divini Emblemata (1615). It is, however, the relationship between these influential emblem books and a number of less familiar works that is explored most fruitfully in the introduction and many of the essays that follow. Vaenius’s 40 plates illustrating the Spanish romance of the Seven Sons of Lara (1612), for instance, are the subject of McKeown’s own paper later in the volume, whilst his Physicae et Theologicae Conclusiones (1621), a “rare and mysterious work” (xxxiii) in which Vaenius offers to present key theological issues in diagrammatic form, is the subject of two further essays in the volume. It was Vaenius’s standing as a celebrated artist in his own day, and tutor to Rubens, which accounts for the fact that—unlike most em-

blem “authors”—he himself designed all the plates that supplied his emblematic picturae. His pictures in the Emblemata Horatiana, for instance, composed as they are of extensive landscapes “teeming with life, crammed to the margins with characters, action and incident” (xviii), differ radically from the spare iconic signifiers of most previous emblem books. It was surely this shift toward realism, ekphrasis, and history painting that made them such attractive models for seventeenth-century decorative painting at such places as Pinkie House in Scotland, Skokloster in Sweden, and on the azujelos of a monastery in faraway Brazil. It is another lesser-known document associated with Vaenius that underpins the argument of Walter Melion’s compelling essay, which follows

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the introduction. Readers might be forgiven for jumping to the conclus ion that the pun that advertises Melion’s title for the article was mere opportu nism: “Venus/Venius: On the Artistic Identity of Otto van Veen and His Doctrine of the Image.” However, it is Vaenius’s surviving album amicorum that, Melion shows, provides copious evidence for this wordpla y as a key to what one can only call the Renaissance (self?) fashioning of Otto van Veen within the circle of Dutch humanists who were his immedi ate contemporaries and admirers. Far from being a mere “epideictic instrument of persuasion” (4), the paronomasia is shown to go to the heart of the

theory of images that underpins everything Vaenius attempts as an artist, since love (“Venus”) is shown in this analysis to be the key to mimesis : “For Vaenius . . . the discourse of love is at one and the same time a discour se on images” (46). In the Amorum Emblemata, the direction of the lover’s gaze in the picturae and the frequent recourse to mirrors are shown to present what one can describe only as an erotics of the image, while in the Amoris Divini Emblemata, it is meditation on sacred images that produce s a unity of Amor and Anima, in which the image of divine love become s a mirror in which the soul finds itself represented. In an extracurricular maneuver at the end of his essay, Melion takes us from Vaenius’s well-known emblem books to his lesser-known illustrations to a 1610 Life of St Thomas Aquinas, in which the kneeling saint’s prayer to an effigy of Christ crucifie d above an altar is answered in a scroll from Christ’s mouth approving the saint’s exposition of the meaning of the sacrament as the food of love. What is most extraordinary about this is that it is written in mirror-writing, with the result that the last three letters of St Thomas's name, as he is address ed by his Savior (“Thoma”), appear to spell out the word love: “AMO” This representation (in mirror image) of the divine Word made flesh is the crowning example, as Melion puts it, “of the grand theme that occupie d, indeed preoccupied, Vaenius throughout his career—the promulgation of images as the currency of love” (53). The consistency with which the various entries in Vaeniuss album amicorum recognize and further such self-fashioning shows a collaborative instinct among the friends and colleagues who surrounded him that is also apparent in the production (or perhaps we should say “authorship”) of the Amorum Emblemata for—as Tina Montone shows us in a fine analysis of the iconography and topical rhetoric that informs both its picturae and its polyglot subscriptions—this is a fundamentally collaborative work,

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We can identify some but not all of the authors of the various epigrams, which appeared in different combinations of languages in the three variant editions of 1608: Dutch and French, Italian and French, English and Italian (all three of which also include Latin). However, what this collaborative approach to the composition of this “most famous theatre for profane love in the history of European emblematics” (72) reveals is not simply an opportunistic approach to international marketing on the part of its seventeenth-century publisher, as has sometimes been suggested, but rather an innovative approach on Vaenius’s part to the process of collaborative composition. In this process, as Montone’s meticulous analysis of particular emblems demonstrates, the principles of abundant expression, topical variation, and copious invention, which lie at the heart of thetoric, are called into play. Whether or not this collaborative instinct is the sign of some kind of “officina or workshop in which, in the manner of the master

painter and his pupils, the collaborators for the vernacular languages caine

to work together” is unclear. “However, there seem to be clear indications, Montone suggests, “of the fact that Vaenius’s drawings and his emblematic ideas circulated within the closed group” (71). It is not so much what such collaboration tells us about Vaeniuss working practices, however, that is of most interest in this essay but rather Montone’s demonstration of the way such collaborative and polyglot composition “responds to the principles of abundance and variation that are so central to the genre”: The system based on copia, the abundance of elements which enrich the emblematic structure and its content, and variatio, which enriches the emblem both formally (with the presentation of the same concept in different languages, and with the pictorial presentation of the general idea in the pictures) and thematically, became even more efficacious when Vaenius had multiple languages at his disposal. (68)

As she demonstrates, both the secondary motifs in Vaenius’s own picturae and the variant proverbial and topical emphases in the different epigrams show an approach to variation within the confines of classical imitation, which “is a traditional and constant aspect of all European emblematic productions” (67). The complex bibliography of this polyglot and multiauthored emblem book is Stephen Rawles’s subject in the succeeding essay, which offers an object lesson on the dangers of jumping to conclusions about the

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publication history of particular books. We may well be surprised to learn that sheets for the 1608 edition were still available more than 100 years later for use by a different publisher and that, as late as 1715, “sheets of letterpress printed in 1608 for the Latin, French and Dutch, and Latin, Italian and French combinations were bound with new title pages, and preliminaries, always with the imprint of the Brussels bookseller Frangois Foppens” (74). Changes to the engravings in successive editions are identified in some detail and shown to include both the kind of alteration, such as Cupid with his bow string shown slack rather than taut, that could have been made to the original plate and those, such as lateral reversal of the picture, that would necessarily have required a completely new plate to be produced. Clearly, this research tells us not only about the publication history of this particular emblem book but also about the circulation of printed material between different publishers during the seventeenth century in the Netherlands. Alison Adams directs our attention to a single emblem from Amorum Emblemata in order to identify its antecedents and analogs. These turn out to be numerous and varied, for the motto “Mens immota manet” goes back to secular roots in Vergil (Aeneid 4.449) but had been cited by St Augustine in City of God (9.4), which is seemingly what sanctioned its use in both secular and religious applications thereafter. Sambucus’s well-known picture under this motto shows a man praying at an altar, on which is placed

a magnetic compass directing his prayer to the heavenly pole star, and it is the background detail of the thirsting stag at the stream that confirms the Christian application of the motto by its allusion to Psalm 42:1. For Vaenius’s secular love emblem, however, the same motto is illustrated by

a picture of winged Father Time clipping Cupid’s wings. Adams identifies variants and antecedents of these pictures, and of the motto, in ways

that certainly suggest an evolving, if diverse and polyvalent, iconography, although whether this ever really concretes into a single or discrete topic is uncertain. What seems clearest, however, is the way a congeries of influences were, by the time Vaenius came to compose his Amorum Emblemata, bringing together secular and religious topics that anticipate his own practice in Amorum Divini Emblemata. These intertextual developments should surely be identified as yet another example of that approach to variation that Montone identifies, as we have seen, as “a traditional and constant aspect of all European emblematic productions” (67).

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McKeown’s article on the 40 engravings that Antonio Tempesta made from Vaenius’s designs for his Historia Septem Infantium de Lara in 1612 stresses their strongly emblematic character, notably, the numerous allegorical abstractions and attributes that supply the celestial machinery that presides over, and comments emblematically on, the action of this Spanish narrative of heroic deeds, chivalric violence, treachery, and vendetta. The

tale had already been cited by Cervantes in Don Quixote and adapted for the stage by Lope de Vega. Vaenius’s version was probably created to impress, even if it was not commissioned by, a Spanish nobleman at the Brussels court, Don Rodrigo Calderén, to whom Lope da Vega had dedicated his play in the same subject in that very year. In 1615 it was Calderon who commissioned Vaenius to paint 40 pictures based on the Historia Septem Infantium engravings and send them to him in Spain, where they have unfortunately not survived. The engravings for the 1612 publication had been cut by Tempesta, working in Rome, following the instructions and drawings that Vaenius had sent him in letters from Antwerp. In the same year, 1612, Tempesta also did the engravings for Vaenius’s illustrations

of the Roman conquest of the Netherlands, his Batavorum cum Romanis Bellum. In view of this collaboration, it is of interest to note the survival in Glasgow’s Stirling Maxwell Collection of a copy of the Historia Septem Infantium in an early binding with Antonio Tempesta’s stamp on the cover and numerous differences from the published versions; as I remarked some years ago, these were almost certainly the artist’s proofs before letterpress, and it is probably time someone looked at this copy again. McKeown

himself concludes his discussion by identifying another variant copy of this interesting work that sheds further light on its reception overseas, for

the British Library has a copy, which once belonged to Sir Hans Sloane, in

which the sheets have been mounted with pasted-on manuscript English translations of the Spanish text. McKeown ends with a generous illustration of all 40 of these copperplate illustrations, as well as transcripts of their English translations, which now provide us with an accessible and convenient facsimile of the whole book. 1.

of That earlier treatment is “Vaenius Abroad: English and Scottish Reception

the Emblemata Horatiana? in Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Field of the Emblem, ed. Bart Westerweel (Leiden, 1997), pp. 87-106, see p. 105. In addis Engravings tion, see above in this volume, “The Proofs of Antonio Tempesta’

for Historia Septem Infantium de Lara?

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The relationship between Vaenius’s secular love emblems and their religious successors has occasioned much discussion and comment by students of the emblem, from Mario Praz onwards. In an essay titled “Similar or Dissimilar Loves?,” Peter Boot challenges many of the untested assumptions that have all too often been passed down on this subject. Leonard Forster's characterization of Amoris Divini Emblemata as Petrarchan conceits “converted to religious use” (in The Icy Fire: Studies in European

Petrarchism [1969], 53) is shown to be wide of the mark, as is the received

idea that in his divine emblems Vaenius was finding new spiritual applications and morals for the secular love emblems that he had already pub-

lished in his Amorum Emblemata. On the contrary, “even though there is a

minority of emblems that, while showing some Petrarchist characteristics, are far removed from its spirit, the great majority of the book’s emblems are

not even remotely Petrarchist” (161). This is a conclusion that, we might

think, questions (in this context at least) one of the most long-standing assumptions about the literary inheritance of the emblem tradition—what one might go so far as to describe as its very DNA. It is recent research by Franco-Dutch emblem scholars into the precise theological and doctrinal contexts for the development of the seventeenth-century religious emblem that manifestly motivates and supports this revaluation of the Amoris Divini Emblemata, research that is even more powerfully brought to bear in the succeeding essays on Vaenius’s extraordinary symbolic investigation into the theological doctrines of free will and predestination—his Physicae et Theologicae Conclusiones (1621). The two essays in this volume on this little-known and very unusual work make an unanswerable case for it being a key to Vaenius’s theory of the image in all of his different types of work as an artist. Its abstract, geometrical figures look very unlike emblems, however, and appear more like the type of cosmological diagrams one finds in Robert Fludd. Ralph Dekoninck and Agnés Guiderdoni nevertheless show them to be expounding what amounts to a systematic theology of the imagination, the image-making faculty. That theology rests on the doctrine of man being made in the image of God, as well as on the Aristotelian idea that the mind cannot operate without images, since there is nothing in the soul that was not previously in the senses. Because it involves the idea of incarnation, this theory emphasises the role of divine love, which is why Dekoninck and Guiderdoni can insist that, far from being tangential to the emblems, it is indeed the key

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to Vaenius’s purposes in his Amoris Divini Emblemata and elsewhere. In a notable coincidence, the consistency of their thesis with Walter Melion’s argument earlier in this volume is signaled by their use of the same image of St. Thomas Aquinas at prayer before the altar on which the image of our Savior declares, “Bene scripsisti de me Thoma,’ in mirror writing, which, as we have seen, pronounces the reciprocated love of the believer, “AMO. This article is, indeed, an appetizer for the French translation, edition, and analysis of the Conclusiones, on which these two scholars and their colleagues, including Walter Melion, are currently working. It is the semiotics of Physicae et Theologicae Conclusiones that Andrea Catellani observes in an analysis influenced by the theories of C. S. Peirce and Nelson Goodman. Vaenius’s images have both diagrammatic and mimetic features, whose functions are to represent the relationship between man and God, heaven and earth, mind and body, but are also shown to be highly self-referential: “a non-iconic meta-language that talks about iconic, mimetic language and its power from outside itself, from the space of abstraction” (199). Fundamental to Catellani’s analysis is this relationship between iconic and diagrammatic signs: iconic signs have some mimetic resemblance to their referents, whereas diagrammatic ones are purely abstract and analytical, It hardly needs saying that, in modern epistemologies, diagrammatic signs tend to be the preserve of science, and science is not wholly absent from Vaeniuss Conclusiones, both in their cosmological bias and also in a number of ideas taken over from alchemy, such as the triadic

structure of body, soul, and spirit, which, Catellani suggests, “links man to

the universe, with its elements (the essences of sulphur, salt, and mercury)

and to the Trinity itself” (201). We might thus note the way this semiot-

ics brings together both theological and scientific epistemologies, although the extent to which its argument rests on analogy should be clear from the above triads. Such analogic argument is, of course, characteristic of emblems, and the penetration of Vaenius’s highly original and unusual theories into the mainstream seventeenth-century emblem tradition becomes

vitae aeapparent from a couple of emblems from Antoine Sucquers Via s Conclusione ternae (1620), whose correspondence with some of Vaenius’s

ie? | diagrams is surprisingly close (Catellani, figs. 5-6). mixe somewhat remain If the semiotics and genre of the Conclusiones to and anomalous, those of another little-known work that turns out be equally interesting and significant are fixed with admirable authority

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and precision in a groundbreaking analysis by Olga Vassilieva-Codognet. Vaeniuss Emblemata sive Symbola is a late work, published in 1624, but never reprinted and surviving in only a few copies; yet, as its title suggests, it belongs to a familiar tradition that goes back via Typotius to Paradin, in which relatively simple pictographic images are joined to Latin mottoes. These are defined as devises by Paradin and as symbola by Typotius in their respective book titles, but Vaenius’s title, which is undoubtedly modeled on Typotius’s, elides the differences between emblem and device that had been endlessly debated by the Italian impresa theorists. Indeed it is Vaenius who introduces the word emblem into his title in a way that insists on the synonymy of the two terms. Grouped nine emblems to a page with brief prose explanations on the facing page, the page format also recalls Typotius, though it anticipates even more closely that of such later successors as Nicolas Verrien (1685) and Daniel de la Feuille (1691). That this is indeed the tradition that defines their posterity is establish ed by Vassilieva-Codognet in her rather wonderful discovery of an early eighteenth-century cabinet in the Victoria and Albert Museum that borrows for its decoration fourteen emblems from Vaenius’s Emblema ta sive symbola together with six from de la Feuille’s Essay d'un dictionna ire contenant la connaissance du monde (Wesel, 1700). Unlike Paradin or Typotius, however, Vaenius’s book is not an anthology of existing devices, previously invented for the rich and famous, but is made up of original emblematic devices invented by Vaenius himself according to his own moral and semiotic principles. The morality is neoStoic and the semiotics are shown in this illuminating study to depend on a limited number of simple Pictograms, often repeated and reused in different emblems in ways that give them the status of an emblematical lexicon, a repertory of fixed motifs that has affinities with the hieroglyphics of Horapollo or the Iconologia of Cesare Ripa. Moreover, as VassilievaCodognet shows, the way the motifs are marshaled (to use the entirely relevant term from heraldry) in their circular medallions uses pictorial space to impose a relationship among the groups of motifs that amounts to a fixed and reproducible syntax. Hence, placing one image (or pictogram),

such as Hercules’s club, above another, such as Fortune’s rudder, signifies

the triumph of Virtue over Fortune, especially if, as in emblem 54, the rudder is shown as broken.

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The fixed, if limited, vocabulary of pictograms that makes up the symbolic lexicon of Emblemata sive Symbola is one that Vaenius also uses for the celestial machinery that comments on the action in his illustrations for the Septem Infantium de Lara. Vaenius had, since 1512, been warden of the Brussels mint, an office in which he was succeeded by his son Ernest and his descendants for more than 100 years. It should not, therefore, surprise us to find that his Emblemata sive Symbola replicates the designs of a number of contemporary Flemish coins, jetons, and medals, which are usefully identified and illustrated in this study: their generic and semiotic properties thus also extend into numismatics. Finally, very many of his pictograms—the anchor of Hope, the pileus of Freedom, the rudder of Fortune—are ancient, and Vaenius’s belief that his symbolic lexicon was a genuine and authentic example of artes antiquae suggests that this is also “an instance of the Renaissance’s obsession with the perfect language of images” (237). This

alone might be sufficient for us to applaud the authors aim when she says, “In writing this article, I chiefly wanted to give this long-neglected emblem

book the exposure it truly deserves” (246).

Sabine Médersheim returns our attention to the Amorum Emblemata. In 1608, Vaenius’s love emblems had been issued in variant polyglot editions with epigrams written in Italian, French, Dutch, Spanish, and English. A German translation finally appeared only in 1622, with reverse-copy illustrations by the Augsburg publisher and engraver Raphael Custos. This may appear to be merely the latest stage in the production of this most successful and influential of emblem books, but Médersheim’s study of the book’s German author and its dedicatee, Philipp Hainhofer, sheds more light on its reception. Custos came from a family of Antwerp engravers and printers who had formerly been active in the circle of Pieter Breughel, and his father had moved to Augsburg in the mid-sixteenth century, where he opened the first copper-engraving workshop in the city. Philipp Hainhofer was a widely traveled Augsburg textiles merchant who not only collected books, curiosities, and objets d’art for his own pleasure but also advised and purchased such things for the dukes of BrunswickLüneburg, Philipp II of Pomerania-Stettin, and various other princes and magnates of the Catholic church. Of particular interest, however, is

Hainhofer’s role in the manufacture and design of furniture to display such objects, cabinets of curiosities (Kunstschrinken), whose manufacture became a local industry in Augsburg. He purchased emblem books for

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Duke Philipp, including several by Vaenius (Emblemata Horatiana and Amorum Emblemata), and also what can almost certainly be identified as a copy of the emblems of the Altdorf Academy together with 21 of the Altdorf medals. As Médersheim points out, Emblem books and cabinets of curiosities share the same worldview and are conceptually compatible. As part of the cabinet’s collection, emblem books could serve to deepen understanding of the whole, as a kind of guide-book to understanding its parts, It is quite possible that Hainhofer saw this connection and therefore did not merely display emblematic medals and books in the cabinet, but encouraged the publication of emblem books in order to sponsor such practice. (266)

The close relationship between emblem books and cabinets of curiosities has, indeed, been recognized from time to time by students of the

emblem, for instance, by John Manning, in The Emblem (2002, chap. 3),

“The Imaginotheca.” If Médersheim’s discoveries clarify the wider seventeenth-century reception of Vaenius’s emblems, Wim Van Dongen’s essay, which closes this volume, draws our attention to a much more surprising instanc e of their afterlife. In 1690, a cartographer, architect, engraver, and publisher called Nicolaus Person produced in Mainz a peculiar emblem book entitled Symbolica in Thermas et Acidulas Reflexio [An Emblematic Reflection on Bathing and Spas]. Of its 51 emblems, ten copy pictures that go back, with only slight changes, to Vaenius’s Amorum Emblem ata. Printed on only one side of the page so they could be bought separat ely as individual prints, Person’s engraved plates have a title page that shows clear signs of Vaenius’s influence. Person supplies the emblems with new inscriptions (in German, French, and Latin) that adapt the original s to refer to the

benefits, and the possible drawbacks or dangers , of fashionable bathing

resorts, including several contemporary German

Kurorten, whose par-

ticular advantages are specified. This surely makes these late seventeenth-century adaptat ions of Vaenius one of the earliest examples of emblematic advertising. Vaenius is not the only famous artist whose work is copied by Person, however, for Van Dongen identifies Jacques Callot as the source of several grotesque figures in another of the emblems. Moreover, the cohesio n and unity of pur-

pose that characterize the whole of this colle ction of essays on Vaenius is

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confirmed by Van Dongen’s discovery that Person’s engravings evidently copy, not the original plates that illustrated Vaenius’s Amorum Emblemata in 1608, but the version of these that had appeared in Raphael Custoss Augsburg edition of 1622, the very edition that Sabine Médersheim discusses in the preceding essay in this volume. Van Dongen’s findings are acknowledged as indebted to hers, and that is the kind of fruitful collaboration, collegiality, and networking that has come to characterize recent emblem studies at their best.

MICHAEL BATH

University of Glasgow

ALISON ADAMS, STEPHEN RAWLES, and ALISON SAUNDERS. 4

Bibliography of Claude-François Menestrier: Printed Editions, Geneva: Droz, 2012. Pp. lvii +

1655-1765.

516. ISBN 978-2-600-01526-4. $122.40.

The Jesuit Claude-Francois Menestrier was a writer of prodigious industry, encyclopedic in the scope of his interests, a pioneer in many fields, and rightly christened “homme universel” by his contemporaries. He was per suaded of the significance and novelty of his great enterprise La Philosophie des Images, which he conceived very early in his career (as early as 1659), the details of which are set out in full in the Avertissement to the 1673 edition of Les Recherches du Blason and are transcribed in this Bibliography (xxxxiii). Images, Menestrier claimed, give access to the whole of knowledge; they are at once a mode of discovery, a form of expression, and a a of codifying thoughts and feelings. As this Bibliography shows, he established four principal categories:

1.

mental images, which had to do with memory, judgment, and ideas;

2.

images for the eyes, designed for pleasure and instruction}

3. 4.

images of the imagination, used in poetic fictions and in the arts of persuasion; — symbolic images.

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This ambitious magnum opus, as the authors of this Bibliography rightly call it, was Menestrier’s main work in progress throughout his life, and elements from it were published as separate works, constantly updated, modified, and augmented as he responded to criticism or to new evidence. In the works he published, Menestrier concentrated on categories 2 and 4. In the images for the eyes, he could demonstrate the theory and application of images to public commemorative and celebratory events—firework displays, ballets and operas, carousels, funeral decorations, and princely entries into cities—and revel in the speaking images (“images parlantes”) made all the more spectacular through new engineering technology that created multiple fiery displays and incredible illusions in church and theater. In category 4 (symbolic images), he explored a vast territory encompassing heraldry, devices, emblems, and hieroglyphs. These areas of human ingenuity were enormously popular during Menestrier’s lifetime and were promoted in Jesuit circles, where the cult of images was exploited for educational and cultural purposes. Menestrier himself was particularly interested in method, and he searched for arguments and proofs in often obscure sources, thereby illustrating his notions with a great diversity of examples. For La Science et [Art des Devises,

he consulted more than 80 authors and examined over 8,000 devices! These he had found not only in the collections of père Lachaise in Lyons but also in the great Parisian libraries—from the collection of Monsieur Clement, “conseiller de la cour des aydes,’ for example, whom he had met in the learned circles of president Lamoignon and the duc d’Aumont. In these circles, Menestrier worked with Charles le Brun, whom he greatly admired, and with Jean Bérain. Thus, it is important to realize that a study of Menestrier’s oeuvre (such as this one) is no arid matter, for it takes us to the heart of the

cultural, intellectual, and artistic life of the times. Although Menestrier’s work in progress sometimes produced elements of the enterprise that seem unfinished (many works tend to end inconsequentially), this can be explained because their author was already anticipating its place in another, larger work, or because he thought that piecemeal publication allowed for necessary adjustments and modifications. He certainly believed that “Nature and Art taught that great plans should never be hurried along” (Dessein de la Science du Blason [1659], p. 3). Menestrier never hesitated in dedicating his works to significant individuals: to the aldermen and governors of Lyon; to Filippo d’Aglié, grand

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colmaster in the construction of court festivities in Savoy; to his Jesuit

leagues, such as père La Chaise, the future confessor to Louis XIV; and, especially, to members of the Royal Family. In many ways, his work is focused on representing via images—devices, emblems, and symbols—the achievements of his contemporaries. In particular, the life and reign of the king became the center of attention that, from 1689, produced the various editions of Histoire du Roy Louis le Grand, culminating in the greatly expanded version Histoire du Regne de Louis le Grand in 1693. This work displays, more than any other, his conviction that not only do symbolic demfigures give form to many diverse things but also that they actually onstrate the order of the universe, a belief he expressed in the madrigal e des he composed for the king as founder and protector of the Académi Exposent à Medailles et des Inscriptions: “Sous des figures Symboliques / nos yeux l'ordre de l'Univers” (417). which, This enormous output is carefully studied in this Bibliography, substanadds (1883), based on earlier work by Allut (1856) and Renard discovered tially to their corpus, both in terms of the quantity of new texts h to the approac l technica and through the accuracy of observation. The xviii). listing and analysis is explained fully in the introduction (xxxi-xx

reproFor the 250 items listed in the Bibliography, the title of each text is

The value atduced, copies located, and most of them examined in detail. evident through tributed by contemporaries to particular volumes is made (1669), the number of surviving copies, such as the Traicté des Tournois

d across the which is found in 128 copies located in 103 libraries scattere reproduction in world. Sensitive and scrupulous analysis of the dynamic the sturdy persisdifferent editions of individual texts throws into relief it appears again tence of Menestrier. The Art du Blason is a case in point; 1659 to the final and again, changed and added to, from its first issue in text is examined can edition cited here, in 1761. The care with which each

are frequently be illustrated from the attention given to engravings which in the Méthode reused and rearranged and adapted to new material; those

1671 edition and redu Blason, for example, were reproduced from the

1695 Latin edition appeared in 1696, while some of those used for the Locating specific of the Philosophie des Images were printed upside down! of names, authors, texts is facilitated through the comprehensive indexes printers, titles, artists, and dedicatees.

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This Bibliography has been a formidable labor, and scholars interested in Jesuit commitment to education, in the creation of images and their usage, and in diverse forms of public celebration will be beholden to the authors of this text. Menestrier, at last, has found bibliophiles worthy of his vast output and ambitious enterprise. MARGARET M. MCGOWAN

University of Sussex

MISAKO MATSUDA. Shékusupia to enburemu: Jinbunsyugi no bunkateki kisô [Emblematic Shakespeare: Cultural Substratum of Humanism]. Tokyo: Keio University Press, 2012. Pp. vi + 313. ISBN 978-4-7664-19160. ¥3,990.00.

Emblematic Shakespeare proposes a particular aspect of the emblem as “a bimedial genre—a visual and textual medium which integrally conveys a moral lesson or truth by the collaborative system between image and text,” borrowing some of the key terms such as “speaking picture” “subreading” (originally from T. M. Greene), and “applied emblematics”” as well as “bimedial” mainly from Michael Bath’s Speaking Pictures (London, 1994). In the book, Misako Matsuda discusses Shakespearean texts and English Renaissance emblematics through the notion of “speaking pictures” in the “bimedial” genre of image and text, searching enthusiastically for the mentality of Shakespearean texts. Matsuda sets out to study these ideas in her first three introductory chapters on the cultural history and background of emblems in Renaissance England. Her chief interest in the bimedial form of image and text has always been within the context of a wider survey of the visual and verbal culture, on

the Continent and in Britain, during the Renaissance. It can be said, on the

whole, that Emblematic Shakespeare succeeds in arguing that emblems and Shakespearean texts complement each other through the representational reading processes and practices of the period. Not surprisingly, it is Matsuda’s interdisciplinary approach that allows this book to explore the very bimediality of the emblem for this type of combined studies, Shakespeare and emblem. Matsuda addresses a connection

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between emblems and Shakespeare by carefully choreographing a variety of assorted materials and perspectives into a handy and consistent exhibition. This splendidly illustrated book brings two particularly important rewards for students of both Shakespeare and of the emblem in Japan. The book examines various emblematic aspects within the signifying process of early modern image and text production, but as one of the key cultural factors, resorting to J. H. Hagstrum’s inspiring words from The Sister Arts (Chicago,

1958): “Words are images of things and acquire significance only as they arise from and remain related to things” (18). The author neatly maps out directions for beginners of emblem studies to understand the essential way of reading emblematic literature as an aspect of representation, without reducing it to some broadly comprehensive theory of iconology, such as

John Doebler’s Shakespeare Speaking Pictures (Albuquerque, 1974), which

“highlights only the visual effects” (46). Matsuda, as one of a few leading Japanese emblem scholars, has clearly had an interest in emblems and Shakespeare since 1992, when she published an article on the Renaissance concept of opportunity and Shakespeare's Richard II, which is incorporated into chapter 6. Matsuda recognizes the significance of emblems to Renaissance culture, high and low, and integrates them into her analysis of her chosen symbolic subject matter: for example, pelican, palm tree, Orpheus, bee, Fortuna, Occasio, Virtus, heart, and conscience. Emblematic Shakespeare brings together these topics as central to some of Shakespeare's tragic works, and attempts to prove how Shakespeare and his original audience shared an extensive discipline of visual and literate cultures in a broad sense. Matsuda also attends meticulously to the emblematic effects created by the interaction between visual and textual modes of representation by providing the reader with high-quality illustrations from works by such authors as Andrea Alciato, Thomas Palmer, . Geoffrey Whitney, and many more. emblematic the on chapters seven of Emblematic Shakespeare consists relation between symbolic images and the tragic genre of Shakespeare's narrative poetry and drama that such images diversely enhance. The earliest but most voluminous part of the book is chapter 6, dating from 1992, while most of the introductory chapters are newly written for the book. It should be noted here that, in the first rather long two sections of chapter 6 on the nature and representations of Occasio in Renaissance emblem books, the author silently uses mostly the same emblematic images of Occasio and

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Fortuna as her monograph, Occasio in Renaissance Emblem Books ( Tokyo, 2006), which incorporates materials that were part of an unpublished thesis submitted to the University of Wales under the supervision of Professor John Manning in 2004. It is regrettable to find that the current book fails to include and develop the second section on Occasio in religious emblem books from the same monograph, for it would have enriched her argument that the concept of Occasio kept its popularity in devotional emblems long after it was religiously transformed. In the first three chapters, Matsuda explores the cultural and social influences the emblems in the manuscripts and emblem books had in England during the Renaissance. In the later chapters, she examines the way in which Shakespearean texts and the contemporary visual culture shared the modes of signification and provided each other with common reading practices. In the words of M. C. Bradbrook’s forward to The Sword and the Word: Shakespeare's Tragic Sense of Time (Tokyo, 1973) by Soji Iwasaki (one of the few distinguished forerunners in the field of emblem studies in Japan), “The interpretation of Shakespeare requires the knowledge of a scholar joined to the sensitive sympathies of a poetic imagination.” In fact, Iwasaki’s book has become a good example of the study of Shakespeare’s tragic sense of time, in showing how useful the critical essentials of Renaissance poetics are for our understanding of the “bimedial” nature of emblematic texts and images. In her introductory remarks, Matsuda particularizes the emblemat ic function in Shakespearean texts into three levels: (1) a rhetorical ornament in emblematic explanations of the allegorical characters in medieval morality plays and Tudor interludes; (2) an intellectual puzzle for readers capable of emblematic hermeneutics; and (3) something that stipulates the viewpoints of authors and characters in contemporary literature and arts by contributing to their way of perceiving the world. Chapter 1, titled “The Formation of Emblem—Its Origin and Characteristics? explains some important features of the emblem by clearly articulati ng the theoretical background based upon the former research achieveme nts from Henry Green to Peter Daly. Chapter 2, “The Reception of the Emblem in England,” investigates the actual status of emblematic reception in Elizabethan England by closely looking at the ways in which Shakespeare and his contemporary writers, including emblem writers, produce em-

Application of Emblem to Shakespearean Works,’ the author takes an approach to Shakespeare's works from three main emblematic fields—myth, natural history, and personification of an abstract concept—and offers a brief overview of the analogical relationship between emblems and Shakespearean works. After chapter 4, the book sets out to examine some Shakespearean texts from this point of view. The second part of the book, consisting of four chapters, is wholly devoted to the tragedies, whose relationship with Occasio is traced from Venus and Adonis, Rape of Lucrece, and Richard II to Hamlet. Chapter 4, “Venus and Adonis and the Myth of Orpheus,’ examines Venus and Adonis by focusing on Orpheus among the emblems that represent mythological gods. Chapter 5, “The Emblem of Bees and Their Hives in The Rape of Lucrece, focuses on honeybees from various areas of natural history. In chapter 6, titled “The Mediocre Tragedy of Richard IJ]—Fortuna, Occasio, and Virtus, Matsuda explores the reception and transition of Fortuna, mainly through the analysis of King John and Richard II; she goes on to argue that Occasio came into existence as a single concept only after a development that saw its identification with Fortuna. In chapter 7, “Occasio in Hamlet; Matsuda suggests, with conscience as a key word, that the theme of Occasio achieves the fullest expression of its diversity in that play. While it is true that the images of Time and Fortune, for example, are omnipresent in early modern culture, sometimes Matsuda analyzes such key emblematic motifs as Occasio, pelican, palm tree, and bee without making an effort to explore why those motifs were so popular in contemporary

blematic texts and images, as well as emblems. In the third chapter, “The

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emblem books (v, 25, 30, 144), an oversight that may reflect her overin-

debtedness to Frederic Kiefer’s Fortune and Elizabethan Tragedy, Writing on the Renaissance Stage, and Shakespeare Visual Theatre. Matsudas own interpretation of Shakespeare’s plays is mostly thematic and philosophical, however, so that it may seem that insufficient attention is given to theatrical performance. As this book limits the scope of emblematic subjects to three main concepts (Occasio, Fortune, and Virtus), some readers may wish that there were more references to some of the other emblematic topics in Shakespearean works, for example, the Peacham drawing (ca. 1595?)

in connection with Shakespeare's Titus and Andronicus; or such diverse topics as Time, Truth, Nature, Tempest, Caritas, Patience, and Fortune in

some related parts of Sonnets, King Lear, Winter’ Tale, and The Tempest; or possibly Love, Death, Justice, Saturn, and Melancholy in relevant scenes

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of Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, and Hamlet. We might also recall the pelican in King Lear and Hamlet or Hell and Conscience in Macbeth. Even as Matsuda’s attentively focused approach may succeed in tracing one particular aspect of the text, her analysis sometimes seems to be executed on such a limited part of the play that she fails to examine other emblematic aspects and the relationship between them. It is regrettable that the book fails to register more of the

multilayered (and elusive) facets of Shakespeare’s text, as well as its com-

plex meanings, in somewhat essentializing the emblem as a kind of unique cultural phenomenon, rather than viewing it as part of a larger organism that includes not only visual and verbal culture but also the abundant material culture of the Renaissance. Her discussion might have been more insightful and the bibliography more wide-ranging and up to date had she considered the significance of

EMBLEMATICA An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies

the emblem in various areas of material culture. Indeed, some of the verbal

and visual images collected in this book hold rich material that requires further analysis in the context of theatrical performance. While Matsuda recognizes the limitations of Henry Green’s enthusiastic nineteenth-century listing of hundreds of emblematic allusions in Shakespeare’s plays, her own reading of emblems is, it could be said, in many ways just as limited. Readers of Misako Matsuda’s Emblematic Shakespeare will nonetheless be abundantly repaid by the extraordinary range and scope of the material presented within its pages. The book represents excellently the result of a very long engagement with images and texts of the Renaissance, as well as the author particular expertise concerning the emblematic figure of Occasio. There can be no doubt that Matsuda has produced an important

book, from which Japanese students of the emblem and Shakespeare will

benefit significant in the years ahead. SHINJI YAMAMOTO Tenri University

Volume 20

Volume Index

Volume Index

Articles by Author 4 Anderson, Miranda. Mirroring Mentalities in George Wither’s

Collection of Emblemes

in Bauer, Thomas A. Habsburg /mprese in the Archbishop’s Palace

63

Brixen, Italy

257

Black, Elizabeth. Gilles Corrozet’s “Domestic” Emblems: Gender and Ethics at Home in the Hecatomgraphie and Emblems in Cebes

111

in Farnsworth, Jane. Gender, Culture, and Emblematic Practice

E. E’s The Embleme of a Vertuous Woman [London, 1650?]

in Martin, Pierre. “Redimentes tempus”: Eschatological Perspective (1617) Andreas Friedrich’s Emblemes nouveaux

81 141

Melion, Walter S. “Conspicitur prior usque fulgor”: On the

ae saFunctions of Landscape in Benito Arias Montano’s Human

lutis monumenta (1571)

ms Oakes, Catherine. Bedtime Stories: The Painted Emble Bristol of ry Deane the in Formerly in the Schoolboys’ Dormitory Cathedral

Applied Quaranta, Gabriele. From Pages to Walls and Vice Versa: eenthEmblems between Tristan I’Hermite’s Poetry and Sevent Century French Decoration

447 Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Emblematica, Volume 20. Copyright © 2013 by AMS

177

219

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Volume Index

Articles by Title

Research Reports, Notes, Queries, and Notices by Author

Bedtime Stories: The Painted Emblems Formerly in the

Schoolboys’ Dormitory in the Deanery of Bristol Cathedral, Catherine Oakes

177

Tung, Mason. “Seeing Is Believing”:

“Conspicitur prior usque fulgor”: On the Functions of Landscape in Benito Arias Montano’s Humanae salutis monumenta (1571), Walter S. Melion

From Pages to Walls and Vice Versa: Applied Emblems between Tristan l’Hermite’s Poetry and Seventeenth-Century French Decoration, Gabriele Quaranta Gender, Culture, and Emblematic Practice in E. Εἰς The Embleme

of a Vertuous Woman (London, 1650?], Jane Farnsworth

Gilles Corrozet’s “Domestic” Emblems: Gender and Ethics at

Home in the Hecatomgraphie and Emblems in Cebes, Elizabeth Black

1

219

81

“Redimentes tempus”: Eschatological Perspective in Andreas Friedrich’s Emblemes nouveaux (1617), Pierre Martin

111

63 141

Texts

Georg Philipp Harsdérffer and the Emblematic Pamphlets of 1641-42: Peristromata Turcica and Aulaea Romana Introduction, by Max Reinhart Text, translation, and commentary, by Max Reinhart

405 379

Research Reports, Notes, Queries, and Notices by Title “Seeing Is Believing”: A Note on the Forgettable History of Illustrating Alciato’s Emblems, Mason Tung

379

The Proofs of Antonio Tempesta’s Engravings for Historia Septem Infantium de Lara: Glasgow University Library, S.M. Add.14, Michael Bath

405

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257

Mirroring Mentalities in George Wither’s A Collection of Emblemes, Miranda Anderson

A Note on the Forgettable

History of Illustrating Alciato's Emblems

Habsburg Jmprese in the Archbishop's Palace in Brixen, Italy,

Thomas A. Bauer

Bath, Michael. The Proofs of Antonio Tempesta’s Engravings for Historia Septem Infantium de Lara: Glasgow University Library, S.M. Add.14

449

277 313

Adams, Alison, Stephen Rawles, and Alison Saunders. 4 Bibliography of Claude-François Menestrier: Printed Editions, 1655-1765, by Margaret M. McGowan

437

Alciato, Andrea. Andrea Alciati Emblematum liber, Augustae Vindelicorum 1531. Emblematum libellus, Parisiis 1534, and Otto Vaenius, Daniel Heinsius. Otto Vaenius, Amorum Emblemata, Antwerpen, 1608. Daniel Heinsius, Quaeris quid sit Amor ..., translated by Hiroaki Ito, by Misako Matsuda

425

Conn, Stewart, ed. The Hand That Sees: Poems for the Quincentenary of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, by Jameson B. Kismet Bell

418

Lepage, John L. The Revival of Antique Philosophy in the Renaissance, by Alastair Fowler

417

Matsuda, Misako. Shékusupia to enburemu: Jinbunsyugi no bunkateki

kisô [Emblematic Shakespeare: Cultural Substratum of Humanism],

Fa

by Shinji Yamamoto

McKeown, Simon, ed. Otto Vaenius and His Emblem Books, by Michael Bath

426

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