The emblem

by John Manning

"In this book, John Manning traces the emblem to its Renaissance roots in a pan-European, neo-Latin humanist culture, and then teases out its various reinventions down to the present day." "In the 17th century new forms and sub-genres developed, and both were sharpened for the purpose of social satire. When the Jesuits appropriated the emblem, producing enormous quantities of material, a further dimension of moral seriousness was introduced, alongside a concentration of emblematic wit. Emblem books became one of the most popular kinds of publication throughout Europe, and increasingly appeared in vernacular languages. Later, the emblem was to be directed at young people: William Blake, in particular, adopted a fresh attitude towards children and their world. Since then, reprints of 17th-century emblem books have frequently been published with new plates, and writers and illustrators from Robert Louis Stevenson to Ian Hamilton Finlay and his artistic collaborators have used emblems in f