Emblems
I was listening to "The Verb" on BBC Radio 3 and heard a poet describe how her new book was inspired by another book nearly 500 years old, "Emblemi" by Andrea Alciato. I bought it because I'm always interested in odd illustrated books. What I actually bought was a heavily documented and commented version by Mino Gabriele, it has 700 pages whereas the original had less than 50. The original started off in 1531 as a text without illustrations, a list of mottos, aphorisms, sayings and nuggets of advice. Alciato (a famous Italian lawyer) hoped that artists would be inspired to illustrate the text. I won't go into the history of it but that is what happened. Here are a few of the pages. --o0o-- "A ruler must protect his subjects" The anchor symbolizes un-moving solidity, and the dolphin speed. A good ruler must have both of these properties. --o0o-- "Neither by word nor deed should you offend anybody" That lady there is Nemesis, "t...