Emblematics in Hungary: A Study of the History of Symbolic Representation in Renaissance and Baroque Literature

410 Pages·2012·19.237 MB·English

by  Eva Knapp, Gábor Tüskés, Nigel Griffin

Frühe Neuzeit
Band 86
Studien und Dokumente zur deutschen Literatur
und Kultur im europäischen Kontext
In Verbindung mit der Forschungsstelle
„Literatur der Frühen Neuzeit"
an der Universität Osnabrück
Herausgegeben von
Achim Aurnhammer, Klaus Garber, Wilhelm Kühlmann,
Jan-Dirk Müller und Friedrich Vollhardt

Eva Knapp / Gábor Tüskés
Emblematics in Hungary
A study of the history of symbolic representation
in Renaissance and Baroque literature
Max Niemeyer Verlag
Tübingen 2003
Gedruckt mit Unterstützung des Förderungs- und Beihilfefonds Wissenschaft der VG Wort
Translated by András Török
Chapters III and V were translated by Zsuzsa Boronkay
Revised by Nigel Griffin
Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Bibliothek
Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; de-
taillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar.
ISBN 3-484-36586-2 ISSN 0934-5531
© Max Niemeyer Verlag GmbH, Tübingen 2003
http://www.niemeyer.de
Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb
der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und
strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die
Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Printed in Germany.
Gedruckt auf alterungsbeständigem Papier.
Satz und Druck: AZ Druck und Datentechnik GmbH, Kempten
Einband: Buchbinderei Geiger, Ammerbuch
Contents
Foreword VII
I Background, definitions, and objectives 1
II Emblematics in Hungarian literary theory 19
III Routes of transmission: Jesuit education and emblematics ... 38
IV The typology of emblem books and emblematic prints 52
V The English reception of a late humanist emblem book by a
Hungarian author: Zsámboky (Sambucus) and Whitney . . .. 88
VI Mannerist emblematic poetry? The layers of literary tradition
in János Rimay's poem Fortuna/Occasio Ill
VII Emblematic modes of expression in the school drama 143
VIII The emblematic mode and the sermon 168
IX Religious prose: Emblematic biographies of Jesuit saints . . .. 190
X Literary emblematics and the fine arts: Rhetorical conception
and iconographie programme of the fresco cycle on the Grand
Staircase of the Jesuit College at Györ 215
Conclusion 244
Abbreviations 251
List of emblem books and emblematic prints with Hungarian
connections 253
Tables 269
List of figures 285
Figures after 288
Bibliography 289
Index 315

Foreword
This monograph attempts, for the first time, to give a comprehensive picture
of one of the most popular didactic and symbolic forms of literary expression
in Renaissance and Baroque Hungary: emblematics. It will look in turn at
the effect of emblematics upon literature, upon genre, and upon the different
kinds of material printed. We shall be considering both the content and the
appearance of that material as well as the changing structures and functions
of literature, and historical and international influences. Emblematics was
not merely a Europe-wide vogue; it was a >universal language^ and under-
standing how that language operated helps us to define and understand liter-
ary processes as well as epistemological and notational conventions which
seem to modern minds impossibly obscure.
The authors are grateful to the Institute for Literary Studies of the Hung-
arian Academy of Sciences, which approved the research proposal and gener-
ously supported the work. Financial support has come from the National
Foundation for Scientific Research, Budapest, while the library of the Lo-
ránd Eötvös University, Budapest, provided the authors with a base for their
work. Libraries both in Hungary and abroad have given every assistance in
identifying and furnishing copies of research material. Three grants made the
completion of this work possible: one from the Mellon Foundation to cover
work in the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, and two from the Brit-
ish Academy to finance research in the Warburg Institute of the University
of London.
The authors are also grateful to the Soros Foundation for help towards
financing this English translation. They would like to express their gratitude
to those who helped them to express their ideas in what they trust is now
clear English: Alison Adams, Anthony J. Harper, John Manning, Èva Pet-
röczi, Alison M. Saunders, Bernhard F. Scholz, Ursula Sdunnus, Susan Sire,
and John Β. Trapp. The final revision of the entire manuscript was under-
taken by Nigel Griffin.

I Background, definitions, and objectives
There are two principal concerns in emblem research today. On the one
hand, the emblem is considered a useful aid for the interpretation of Renais-
sance and Baroque imagery, in both the visual arts and in literature. On the
other, it is seen as a reflection of significant historical and cultural processes.1
In addition, students of literature2 and of art history3 are increasingly aware
1 Daniel Russel, >Looking at the emblem in a European contexts Revue de Littéra-
ture Comparée 64 (1990), 625-44.
2 August Buck, >Die Emblematik<, in Neues Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft,
vol. 10, ed. August Buck (Frankfurt 1972), 328-45; Wolfgang Harms, >Emblematik<,
in Literaturlexikon, vol. 13, ed. Walter Killy (Munich 1992), 200-02; Bernhard F.
Scholz, >Emblem<, Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft, vol. 1, ed. Klaus
Weimar (Berlin & New York 1997), 435-38.
3 Mario Praz, Studies in seventeenth-century imagery, 2 vols (London 1939 -47); Wil-
liam S. Heckscher & Karl-August Wirth, >Emblem, Emblembuch<, in Reallexikon
zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte, vol. 5, ed. Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich & Karl-
August Wirth (Stuttgart 1967), 85-228; L. Kaute, >Emblem<, in Lexikon der christ-
lichen Ikonographie, vol. I, ed. Engelbert Kirschbaum (Rome, Freiburg, Basel &
Vienna, 1974), 618-22; Cornelia Kemp, >Emblem<, in Marienlexikon, vol. 2, ed. Re-
migius Bäumer (St Ottilien 1989), 331-34. Compare, for example, Grete Lesky, Die
Bibliotkeksembleme der Benediktinerabtei St. Lambrecht in Steiermarkt (Graz 1970);
Michael Bath, >Honey and gall, or Cupid and the bees: A case of iconographie
slippages in Andrea Alciato and the emblem tradition: Essays in honor of Virginia
Woods Callahan, ed. Peter M. Daly (New York 1989), 59-94; id., The image of the
stag: Iconographie themes in Western art (Baden-Baden 1992); id. Speaking pictures:
English emblem books and Renaissance culture (London & New York 1994); Hans-
Joachim Zimmermann, Der akademische Affe: Die Geschichte einer Allegorie aus
Cesare Ripas >Iconologia< (Wiesbaden 1991); Ausserliterarische Wirkungen barocker
Emblembücher: Emblematik in Ludwigsburg, Gaarz und Pommersfelden, ed. Wolf-
gang Harms & Hartmut Freytag (Munich 1975); Roy Strong, >»My weepinge Stagg
I crowne«: The Persian lady reconsidered<, in The art of the emblem: Essays in
honor of Karl Josef Höltgen, ed. Michael Bath, John Manning & Alan R. Young
(New York 1973), 103 -41; Lubomir Konecny, >»L'accord interrompu«: An emblem-
atic source for Mathieu Le Nain<, in The verbal and the visual: Essays in Honor of
William Sebastian Heckscher, ed. Karl-Ludwig Selig & Elizabeth Sears (New York
1990), 87-108; Douglas Chambers, >»A speaking picture«: Some ways of proceed-
ing in literature and the fine arts in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centu-
ries<, in Encounters: Essays on literature and the visual arts, ed. J. D. Hunt (London
1971), 28-57; William S. Heckscher, Art and literature: Studies in relationship, ed.
Egon Verheyen (Baden-Baden 1985); George Levitine, >Some emblematic sources
of Goya<, JWCI22 (1959), 106-31; Miroslawa Czarnecka, >Dekorative Anwendung
der Emblematik am Beispiel von Sophienthalschen Sinnbildern der Herzogin Anna
Sophia von Liegnitz (1628-1666)<, Daphnis 23 (1994), 1-35.
2
of the importance of emblematics for their own disciplines, as are scholars
whose principal concern is the history of ideas,4 or the evolution of rhetoric,5
or the history of narrative.6 This growing interest in emblematics among spe-
cialists of various kinds has been accompanied, over the last ten to fifteen
years, by concerted efforts in a number of countries to identify, interpret,
and make accessible the national corpus of emblems.7
The present state of research
When we set out to identify the emblematic corpus of Hungary, we recog-
nized that both the many lists that had been drawn up of emblem books and
the growing number of reference bibliographies on the subject are as much
of an obstacle to research as they are a help. This is because the criteria
employed are often unclear and the purpose behind such compilations varies
enormously.8 There is no fixed definition of emblematics; the content, the
4 Peter M. Daly, Literature in the light of the emblem: Structural parallels between
the emblem and literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Toronto 1979);
Wolfgang Harms, >Emblem/Emblematik<, in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, vol. 9,
ed. G. Krause & G. Müller (Berlin & New York 1982), 552-58; Régine Reynolds-
Cornell, >Reflets d'une époque: Les devises ou emblèmes chrestiennes de Georgette
de Montenays BHR 48 (1986), 373-86; Eduard Β. Wüseke, Freimaurerische Bezüge
zur barocken Emblematik: Kommunikationszeichen an der Schwelle zur Neuzeit
(Münster 1990); Daniel Rüssel, Emblematic structures in Renaissance French culture
(Toronto, Buffalo & London 1995).
5 Sabine Mödersheim, >Emblem, Emblematik<, in Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhe-
torik, ed. Gert Ueding (Darmstadt 1994), 11.1098-1108.
6 Dieter Sulzer, >Emblem<, in Enzyklopädie des Märchens, vol. 3, ed. Kurt Ranke
(Berlin & New York 1981), 1379-91.
7 Peter M. Daly & Mary W. Silcox, The modern critical reception of the English em-
blem (Munich, London, New York & Paris 1991); Rosemary Freeman, English em-
blem books (London 1967); Ernst Friedrich von Monroy, Embleme und Emblem-
bücher in den Niederlanden 1560-1630: Eine Geschichte der Wandlungen ihres
Illustrationsstils, ed. Hans Martin von Erffa (Utrecht 1964); John Landwehr, Dutch
emblem books: A bibliography (Utrecht 1962); id., Emblem books in the Low Coun-
tries 1554-1949: A bibliography (Utrecht 1970); id., German emblem books 1531-
1888: A bibliography (Utrecht & Leiden 1972); id., French, Italian, Spanish and
Portuguese books of devices and emblems 1534-1827: A bibliography (Utrecht
1976); id., Emblem and fable books printed in the Low Countries 1542-1813: A
bibliography (Utrecht 1988); Paulette Choné, Emblèmes et pensée symbolique en
Lorraine (1525-1633) : »Comme un jardin au cour de la chrétienté« (Paris 1991).
8 See, for example, Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. und XVII.
Jahrhunderts, ed. Arthur Henkel & Albrecht Schöne (Stuttgart 1967). Compare
William S. Heckscher & Cameron F. Bunker, >Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinnbild-
kunst des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts, ed. Arthur Henkel & Albrecht Schöne
(Stuttgart 1967)<. Renaissance Quarterly 23 (1970), 59- 80; The European emblem:
Towards an index emblematicus, ed. Peter M. Daly (Waterloo,Ontario 1980); Peter
M. Daly, >Zur Inventarisierung der Emblematik : Ein Arbeitsbericht^ Jahrbuch für
Internationale Germanistik 15 (1983), 100-20; id. >The Union catalogue of emblem
books and the Corpus librorum emblematum<, Emblematica 3 (1988), 121-33;