Introduction
Posted on 28th March 2008 by Lochithea || Comments welcome
Emblem literature may be said to have had its origin with Andrea Alciat, the celebrated Italian jurisconsult, who was famous for his great knowledge and power of mind. In 1522 he published at Milan an Emblematum Libellus, or Little Book of Emblems. Green says: “It established, if it did not introduce, a new style of emblem literature, the classical in the place of the simply grotesque and humorous, or of the heraldic and mythic.” The first edition now known to exist was published at Augsburg in 1531, a small octavo containing eighty-eight pages with ninety-seven emblems, and as many woodcuts. It was from time to time augmented, and passed through many editions.
For some years the Emblemata appears to have been produced chiefly by Italians, with a few Frenchmen. Until the last half of the sixteenth century the output of books of this character was not large. Thenceforth for the next hundred years the creation of emblems became a popular form of literary exercise. The Italians continued to be prolific, but Dutch, French, and German scholars were but little behind them. There were a few Englishmen and Spaniards who also practised the art.
Facts
In 1905 was published a book called Letters from the Dead to the Dead, by Oliver Lector. In it attention is drawn to the remarkable features of some of the books on emblems printed during Bacon’s life, and to the evidence that he was in some manner connected with the publication of many of these volumes. The author claims this to be especially the case with the Emblemata Moralia et Bellica, 1615, of Jacob de Bruck, of Angermundt, and the Emblemata Ethic Politica of J. Bornitius.
The emblem pictures for the most part appear to be picture puzzles. In the Critique upon the Mythology of the Ancients Bacon says: “It may pass for a farther indication of a concealed and secret meaning, that some of these fables are so absurd and idle in their narration as to proclaim and shew an allegory afar off. A fable that carries probability with it may be supposed invented for pleasure, or in imitation of history; but, those that would never be conceived or related in this way, must surely have a different use.”
If this line of reasoning be applied to the illustration in the emblem books, it is clear that they conceal some hidden meaning, for they are apparently unintelligible, and the accompanying letterpress does not afford any illumination.
Alciat's Emblems
The first volume of Emblemata in which traces of Bacon’s hand are to be found is the 1577 edition of Alciat’s Emblems, published by the Platin Press, with notes by Claude Mignault. It is in this edition, in Emblem No. 45, In dies meliora, that for the first time the light A and the dark A is to be found. In previous editions this device is absent. For this volume a new design has been engraved in which it appears.
On Emblems
Embleme deduceth conceptions intellectual to images sensible, and that which is sensible more forcibly strikes the memory, and is more easily imprinted than that which is intellectual.
- - Francis Bacon: Advancement of Learning, bk. v. chap. 5
Some Examples
- In the emblem books written in Italian Bacon does not appear to have been concerned, unless an exception be made of Ripa’s Iconologia, a copy of which contains his handwriting and initials. In some way he had control of a large number of those written in Latin, and bearing names of Dutch, French, and some Italian authors, and also of several written in Dutch and of the English writers. The field is a very wide one, and only a few of the principal examples can be mentioned.
- The most important work is the Emblemata Moralia et Bellica of Jacob à Bruck, of Angermundt, 1615. Argentorati per Jacobum ab Heyden. With many of the designs in this volume Oliver Lector has dealt fully in Letters from the Dead to the Dead, before referred to. There is another volume bearing the name of Jacob à Bruck, published in 1598. Only one copy of this book is known to be in existence, and that is in the Royal Library of St. Petersburg.
- Bernard Quaritch, 1905: “The Emblemata Ethico Politica of Jacobus Bornitius, 1659, Moguntiæ, is remarkable because many of the engravings contain portraits of Bacon, namely, in Sylloge Prima, Plates Nos. vii., xxiii., xliv., xlv., xlvix.; and in Sylloge II., Plates ix. and xxxvi. Oliver Lector says: “I have not met with an earlier edition of Bornitius than 1659. My conjecture, however is that the manuscript came into the hands of Gruter with other of Bacon’s published by him in the year 1653.”
Additional Reading
There are two productions of Janus Jacobus Boissardus in which Bacon’s hand may be recognised: Emblèmes Latines avec l’Interprétation Françoise du I. Pierre Ioly Messin. Metis, 1588, and Emblematum liber. Ipsa Emblemata ab Auctore delineata: a Theodoro de Bry sculpta et nunc recens in lucem edita, 1593, Frankfurt. Two editions of the latter were printed in the same year. The title-pages are identical, and the same plates have been used throughout, but the letterpress is in Latin in the one, and in French in the other. In both, the dedications are addressed in French to Madame de Clervent, Baronne de Coppet, etc. The dedication of the former bears the name Jan Jacques Boissard at the head, and addresses the lady as que come estes addonnée à la speculation des choses qui appartiennent à l’instruction de l’âme. The dedication of the latter is signed Ioly, who explains that he has translated the verses into French, so that they may be of more service to the dedicatee.