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Showing posts with the label Advice to rulers

Emblems

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 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