Glasgow University Library : Emblems

Alciato: Les emblemes,
Lyon: Macé Bonhomme, 1549.

Go to [List of Emblems] - [First Emblem] - [Emblems Home Page]

The text transcribed here is fundamentally the French version by Barthélemy Aneau taken from Alciati's Les emblemes, Lyon: Roville/Bonhomme, 1549, from the Glasgow University Library copy SM33. This edition is one of a series of editions produced by the same printer in Latin, French, Italian and Spanish from 1548 and on into the seventeenth century. A smaller format edition in French also appeared in the same year. French editions also appear in 1558 and 1564. The 1550 Latin edition is the first to contain all 212 emblems, all of which are illustrated by woodcuts enclosed in decorative frames. The first French edition , however, has only 201 of the total corpus of 212 emblems by Alciati, and only 165 of them are accompanied by a woodcut, usually the one found in 1550, though a few are used more than once. The woodcuts and text are enclosed in decorative frames.
Four further emblems are added to the French edition of 1564, three of them with woodcut. These have been included. Four emblems are also omitted, apparently in error.

Aneau's translation is the second of the three main translations of Alciati's emblems. Lefevre's in 1536 had been limited to the earlier emblems. Links to these the Lefevre translations are provided. Claude Mignault's translation would appear a generation later in 1584.

WOODCUTS

The woodcuts reproduced here are for the most part scanned in from the 1550 Latin edition, because this involved fewer technical difficulties. Although only 165 of the emblems in the 1549 editions are accompanied by a pictura, in subsequent editions (1558 and 1564) from the same press, further woodcuts are added (though some of those appearing in 1558 are omitted in 1564). The woodcuts added in later editions correspond to the woodcuts found in the 1550 Latin edition and elsewhere. Where a woodcut eventually appears in a French edition, it is included here, with careful annotation. A small number of woodcuts also change during the course of the different French editions. Where this is the case, both woodcuts are included, appropriately annotated.

TEXT

The text has been prepared by Alison Adams, Department of French, University of Glasgow. Editorial intervention has been kept to a minimum: 'long s', i/j and u/v have been normalised according to modern usage. Since emendation inevitably implies interpretation, only the most manifest errors have been corrected. These are indicated by * in the text, and the original reading is noted below the main text. Italic has been retained where it is used in the original, usually to highlight the moral. The French editions, along with all the Roville/Bonhomme editions (except the Spanish), have the emblems divided into thematic sections, marked on the one hand by a heading and on the other by running titles. The headings are included here where they occur in the 1549 edition, and the section heading is reproduced in square brackets after the title/motto of each emblem.

Reference numbers: the prefix A (Aneau) refers to the order in the 1549 edition; the prefix 'D' refers to Index Emblematicus: Andreas Alciatus, edited by Peter M. Daly, et al, Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1985, which itself follows the order of the edition of Padua: Tozzi, 1621. For ease of reference, the Latin titles given to the emblems in the Index Emblematicus follow the 'Daly' numbers given here.

Go to [List of Emblems] - [First Emblem]