"This volume includes the late Elisabeth Stopp's previously unpublished study of La vie symbolique du bienheureux Francois de Sales (1664) of Adrien Gambart (1660-68), an introductory essay by Agnes Guiderdoni-Brusle that updates and supplements Stopp's work, and a facsimile of Gambart's emblem book. This book was inspired by the life and writings of St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), and written for the Sisters of the Visitation monastery of Faubourg Saint-Jacques in Paris, where Gambart, a Vincentian priest, served as chaplain for over thirty years." "Stopp's study offers an English translation of the key observations made by Gambart about each of the fifty-two emblems, while the facsimile makes available Gambart's original French text. Moreover, the facsimile is reproduced in color in order to convey the tonal richness of the original emblems."--BOOK JACKET.

This volume provides the first full study of Sambucus' influential Neo-Latin emblem book. By analysing individual emblems and the historical contexts in which they were shaped, a new picture emerges of the use of the emblem for Renaissance humanists.

Complète les deux ouvrages publiés dans la même collection, d'Alison Saunders, Stephen Rawles et Alison Adams. L'index des noms et des lieux enrichit la bibliographie des oeuvres secondaires consacrées aux emblèmes français et en facilite l'utilisation.

Andrea Alciati's Emblematum Liber was an essential work for every writer, artist and scholar in post-medieval Europe. First published in 1531, this illustrated book was a collection of emblems, each consisting of a motto or proverb, a typically enigmatic illustration, and a short explanation. Most of the emblems had symbolic and moral applications. Scholars depended on Alciati's book to interpret contemporary art and literature, while writers and artists turned to it to invest their work with an understood didactic sense. This new edition of the Emblematum Liber includes the original Latin texts, highly readable English translations, and the illustrations belonging to each of the 212 emblems. The editor's introduction explains both the importance and the cultural contexts of Alciati's book, as well as its innumerable artistic applications. For instance, close study of the emblems reveals--to cite only two examples--why statues of lions are traditionally placed before government buildings, and what underlying political message was conveyed by innumerable equestrian portraits during the Baroque era. The collection includes as an appendix the formerly suppressed emblem, "Adversus Naturam Peccantes," accompanied by a translation of the learned commentary applied to it by Johann Thuilius in 1612. An extensive bibliography points the student to scholarly research specifically dealing with artistic applications of Alciati's emblems. Altogether, this new edition of Alciati's seminal work is an essential tool for modern students of the liberal arts.

This study compares text/image interaction as manifested in emblem books (and related forms) and the modern bande dessinée, or French-language comic strip. It moves beyond the issue of defining the emblematic genre to examine the ways in which emblems - and their modern counterparts - interact with the surrounding culture, and what they disclose about that culture. Drawing largely on primary material from the Bibliothèque nationale de France and from Glasgow University Library's Stirling Maxwell Collection of emblem literature, Laurence Grove builds on the ideas of Marshall McLuhan, Elizabeth Eisenstein and, more recently, Neil Rhodes and Jonathan Sawday. Divided into four sections-Theoretics, Production, Thematics and Reception-Text/Image Mosaics in French Culture broaches topics such as theoretical approaches (past and present) to text/image forms, the question of narrative within the scope of text/image creations, and the reuse of visual iconography for diametrically opposed political or religious purposes. The author argues that, despite the gap in time between the advent of emblems and that of comic strips, the two forms are analogous, in that both are the products of a 'parallel mentality'. The mindsets of the periods that popularised these forms have certain common features related to repeated social conditions rather than to the pure evolution over time. Grove's analysis and historical contextualisation of that mentality provide insight into our own popular culture forms, not only the comic strip but also other hybrid media such as advertising and the Internet. His juxtaposition of emblems and the bande dessinée increases our understanding of all such combinations of picture and text.

Sleeping rough, having sex in public and insulting the most powerful men in the world earned the ancient Cynic or ‘dog’ philosophers fame and infamy in antiquity and beyond. This book reveals that French Renaissance texts feature a rich and varied set of responses to the Dogs, including especially Diogenes of Sinope (4th century B.C.), whose life was a subversive performance combining wisdom and wisecracks. Cynicism is a special case in the renewal of interest in ancient philosophy at this time, owing to its transmission through jokes and anecdotes. The Cynics’ curious combination of seduction and sedition goes a long way to account for both the excitement and the tension that they generate in Renaissance texts. Responses to the extreme and deliberately marginal philosophical stance of the Dogs cast light back on the mainstream, revealing cultural attitudes, tensions and uncertainties. Above all, representations of Cynicism constitute a site for the exploration of strange and paradoxical ideas in playful and humorous ways. This is true of both major writers, including Erasmus, Rabelais and Montaigne, and of dozens of other less well-known but fascinating figures. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of intellectual and literary history.