The chief Emblem deviser and writer towards the end of the century was Sebastian Brandt, born at Strasburg in 1458, and after a life of great usefulness and honour dying at Bâle in 1520. The publication in German Iambic verse of his “Narren Schyff,” Bâle, Nuremberg, Rüttlingen, and Augsburg, A.D. 1494, forms quite an epoch in Emblem-book literature. Previous to A.D. 1500, Locher, crowned poet laureate by the Emperor Maximilian I., translated the German into Latin verse, with the title “Stultifera Nauis” (see Plate IX.); Riviere of Poitiers, the Latin into French verse, “La Nef des Folz du Monde;” and Droyn of Amiens, into French prose, “La grãt Nef des Folz du Monde.” Early in the next century, 1504, or even in 1500, there was a Flemish version; and in 1509 two English versions,—one translated out of French, “The Shyppe of Fooles,” by Henry Watson, and printed by “Wynkyn de Worde, MCCCCCIX.” (see Dibdin’s Tour, ii. p. 103); the other,—“Stultifera Nauis,” or “The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde;” “Inprentyd in the Cyte of London, by Richard Pynson, M.D.IX.” (Dibdin’s Typ. Ant. ii. p. 431.) This latter was “translated out of Latin, French, and Duch into Englishe, by Alexander Barclay, Priest;” and reprinted in 1570, during Shakespeare’s childhood by the “Printer to the Queenes Maiestie.” At the same time, 1570, another work by Barclay was published, which, although without devices, partakes of an allegorical or even of an emblematical character; it is The Mirrour of good Maners; “conteining the foure Cardinal Vertues.”
Dibdin, in his Bibliographical Antiquarian, iii. p. 101, mentions “a pretty little volume—‘as fresh as a daisy,’ the Hortulus Rosarum de Valle Lachrymarum, ‘A little Garden of Roses from the Valley of Tears’ (to which a Latin ode by S. Brandt is prefixed), printed by J. de Olpe in 1499,”—but he gives no intimation of its character; conjecturing from its title and from the woodcuts with which it is adorned, it will probably on further inquiry be found to bear an emblematical meaning.
Dibdin also, in the same work, iii. p. 294, names “a German version of the ‘Hortulus Animæ’ of S. Brant,” in manuscript; “undoubtedly,” he says, “among the loveliest books in the Imperial Library.” The Latin edition was printed at Strasburg in 1498, and is ornamented with figures on wood; many of these are mere pictures, without any symbolical meaning,—but it often is the case that the illuminated manuscripts, especially if devotional, and the early printed books of every kind that have pictorial illustrations in them, present various examples of symbolical and emblematical devices.
The last works we shall name of the period antecedent to A.D. 1501, are due to the industry and skill of John Sicile, herald at arms to Alphonso King of Aragon, who died in 1458. Sicile, it seems, prepared two manuscripts, one the Blazonry of Arms,—the other, the Blazonry of Colours. Of the former there was an edition printed at Paris in 1495, Le Blason de toutes Armes et Ecutz, &c.—and of the latter at Lyons early in the sixteenth century, Le Blason des Couleurs en Armes, Liurees et deuises. Within an hundred years, ending with 1595, above sixteen editions of the two works were issued.
Several other authors there are belonging to the period of which we treat,—but enough have been named to show to what an extent Emblem devices and Emblem-books had been adopted, and with what an impetus the invention of moveable types and greater skill in engraving had acted to multiply the departments of the Emblem Literature. It was an impetus which gathered new strength in its course, and which, previous to Shakespeare’s youth and maturity, had made an entrance into almost every European nation. Already in 1500, from Sweden to Italy and from Poland to Spain, the touch was felt which was to awaken nearly every city to the west of Constantinople, to share in the supposed honours of adding to the number of Emblem volumes.
Picta Poesis, 1552.
Section III.
OTHER EMBLEM WORKS AND EDITIONS BETWEEN A.D. 1500 AND 1564.
