Emblem book  

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Iconologia (1593) by Cesare Ripa

Adspectus Incauti Dispendium (1601), woodblock title page from the Veridicus Christianus

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Emblem books are a category of mainly didactic illustrated books printed in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, typically containing a number of emblematic images with explanatory text. A well-known emblem is Nutrix ejus terra est (The Earth is his Nurse), the second emblem from the emblem book Atalanta Fugiens (1617).

Scholars differ on the key question of whether the actual emblems in question are the visual images, the accompanying texts, or the combination of the two. This is understandable, given that the first emblem book, the Emblemata of Andrea Alciato, was first issued in an unauthorized edition in which the woodcuts were chosen by the printer without any input from the author, who had circulated the texts in unillustrated manuscript form. Some early emblem books were unillustrated, particularly those issued by the French printer Denis de Harsy. With time, however, the reading public came to expect emblem books to contain picture-text combinations. Each combination consisted of a woodcut or engraving accompanied by one or more short texts, intended to inspire their readers to reflect on a general moral lesson derived from the reading of both picture and text together. The picture was subject to numerous interpretations: only by reading the text could a reader be certain which meaning was intended by the author. Thus the books are closely related to the personal symbolic picture-text combinations called personal devices, known in Italy as imprese and in France as devises.

Emblem books, both secular and religious, attained enormous popularity throughout continental Europe, though in Britain they did not capture the imagination of readers to quite the same extent. The books were especially numerous in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and France. Andrea Alciato wrote the epigrams contained in the first and most widely disseminated emblem book, the Emblemata, published by Heinrich Steyner in 1531 in Augsburg. Another influential illustrated book was Cesare Ripa Iconologia, first published in 1593, though it is not properly speaking an emblem book but a collection of erudite allegories. Two English emblem books were published in 1635, the famous Emblems of Francis Quarles, and George Wither's A collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne. Many emblematic works borrowed plates or texts (or both) from earlier exemplars, as was the case with Geoffrey Whitney's Choice of Emblemes, a compilation which chiefly used the resources of the Plantin Press in Leyden.

Early European studies of Egyptian hieroglyphs, like that of Athanasius Kircher, assumed that the hieroglyphs were emblems, and imaginatively interpreted them accordingly.

Origins

Emblem books are collections of sets of three elements: an icon or image, a motto, and text explaining the connection between the image and motto. The text ranged in length from a few lines of verse to pages of prose. Emblem books descended from medieval bestiaries that explained the importance of animals, proverbs, and fables. In fact, writers often drew inspiration from Greek and Roman sources such as Aesop's Fables and Plutarch's Lives.

Definition

Scholars differ on the key question of whether the actual emblems in question are the visual images, the accompanying texts, or the combination of the two. This is understandable, given that first emblem book, the Emblemata of Andrea Alciato, was first issued in an unauthorized edition in which the woodcuts were chosen by the printer without any input from the author, who had circulated the texts in unillustrated manuscript form. It contained around a hundred short verses in Latin. One image it depicted was the lute which symbolized the need for harmony instead of warfare in the city-states of Italy.

Some early emblem books were unillustrated, particularly those issued by the French printer Denis de Harsy. With time, however, the reading public came to expect emblem books to contain picture-text combinations. Each combination consisted of a woodcut or engraving accompanied by one or more short texts, intended to inspire their readers to reflect on a general moral lesson derived from the reading of both picture and text together. The picture was subject to numerous interpretations: only by reading the text could a reader be certain which meaning was intended by the author. Thus the books are closely related to the personal symbolic picture-text combinations called personal devices, known in Italy as imprese and in France as devises. Many of the symbolic images present in emblem books were used in other contexts, on clothes, furniture, street signs, and the facades of buildings. For instance, a sword and scales symbolized death.

Miscellany

Emblem books, both secular and religious, attained enormous popularity throughout continental Europe, though in Britain they did not capture the imagination of readers to quite the same extent. The books were especially numerous in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and France.

Many emblematic works borrowed plates or texts (or both) from earlier exemplars, as was the case with Geoffrey Whitney's Choice of Emblemes, a compilation which chiefly used the resources of the Plantin Press in Leyden.

Early European studies of Egyptian hieroglyphs, like that of Athanasius Kircher, assumed that the hieroglyphs were emblems, and imaginatively interpreted them accordingly.

A similar collection of emblems, but not in book form, is Lady Drury's Closet.

Timeline

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Authors and artists famous for emblem books

• Andrea Alciato (1492 – 1550)
• Guillaume de La Perrière (1499/1503 – 1565)
• Georgette de Montenay (1540 – 1581)
• Otto van Veen (c.1556 – 1629)
• Jacob Cats (1577 – 1660)
• Albert Flamen (c.1620 – after 1669)

Selected list of illustrations

• Nutrix ejus terra est[1] (The Earth is his Nurse) is the second emblem from the Atalanta Fugiens[2]

Pages linking in as of Dec 2021

Achille Bocchi, Adriaen van de Venne, Aesop's Fables, Albert Flamen, Andrea Alciato, Anna Visscher, Antoine de Bourgogne, Arnold Houbraken, Atalanta Fugiens, Atheneo de Grandesa, Barthélemy Aneau, Bernard Salomon, Between Scylla and Charybdis, Blason, Boetius à Bolswert, Cesare Ripa, Christophe Plantin, Cornelis de Bie, Daniel Cramer, Daniël Heinsius, Daniel Stolz von Stolzenberg, Denis Janot, Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, Dutch Golden Age painting, Emblem, Emblemata of Zinne-werck, Emblemata, English embroidery, European dragon, Feast of the Gods (art), Fight with Cudgels, Four continents, Francis Quarles, Gabriël Metsu, Gabriel Rollenhagen, Gabriele Faerno, Genre art, Genre painting, Geoffrey Whitney, George Richard Savage Nassau, George Wither, Georgette de Montenay, Gerrit Dou, Gilles Corrozet, Glossary of literary terms, Great Seal of the United States, Guillaume de La Perrière, Guillaume Rouillé, Hans van der Hellen, Henry Hawkins (Jesuit), Heraldic badge, Hercules and the Wagoner, Herman Hugo, Het Menselyk Bedryf ("The Book of Trades"), Historia animalium (Gessner book), Iconography, Invidia, Jacob Cats, Jacob de Bie, Jacob Jordaens, Jacob Neefs, Jacobus Typotius, Jan Harmenszoon Krul, Janus Cornarius, Jean Baudoin (translator), Johann Vogel (poet), Joris Hoefnagel, Josep Romaguera, Joseph Brooks Yates, La Decadència, Lady Drury's Closet, Lady Standing at a Virginal, Liberty (personification), Liberty pole, Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder, Marian art in the Catholic Church, Martin Droeshout, Michael Maier, Michel Le Nobletz, Miser, Muses, Northern Mannerism, Otto van Veen, Painted frieze of the Bodleian Library, Pandora, Pandora's box, Personification of the Americas, Personification, Philips van Mallery, Portraiture of Elizabeth I, Raphael Custos, Real tennis, Romeyn de Hooghe, Rosemary Freeman, Rossend Castle, Royal entry, Sadeler family, Samuel Daniel, Schouwen-Duiveland, Self-Portrait with a Sunflower, Silvester Petra Sancta, Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus, The Allegory of Faith, The Astrologer who Fell into a Well, The Bear and the Bees, The Beaver (fable), The Blind Man and the Lame, The Cock, the Dog and the Fox, The Crow and the Snake, The Dog and Its Reflection, The Dog in the Manger, The drowned woman and her husband, The Eagle and the Beetle, The Eagle Wounded by an Arrow, The Elm and the Vine, The Embarrassment of Riches, The Fox and the Grapes, The Fox and the Lion, The Fox and the Mask, The Fox and the Sick Lion, The Frog and the Mouse, The Frogs Who Desired a King, The Gourd and the Palm-tree, The Hare in flight, The Hedgehog and the Snake, The Man who Runs after Fortune, The Monkey and the Cat, The Mouse and the Oyster, The North Wind and the Sun, The Oak and the Reed, The Old Man and his Sons, The Old Woman and the Wine-jar, The Pilgrim's Progress, The Quack Doctor, The Satyr and the Traveller, The Tortoise and the Hare, The Walnut Tree, Thomas Jenner (publisher), Walther Damery, Washing the Ethiopian White, William Marshall (illustrator), Winged lion, Woodcut, Xanthippe, Yorick, Zacharias Heyns, Zeus and the Tortoise

See also

• 16th century literature
• 17th century literature
• Devises héroïques
• Lady Drury's Closet
• Georgette de Montenay
• Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
• Full text of "Iconologia, or, Moral emblems"
• Emblemata Amatoria (1611) by P.C. Hooft
• Illustrated fiction
• La Morosophie (Macé Bonhomme, 1553) is a book by Guillaume de La Perrière
• Emblem books of the Low Countries