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Icones Symbolicae: The Visual Image in Neo-Platonic Thought
Author(s): E. H. GombrichSource: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 11 (1948), pp. 163-192Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750466 .
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ICONES
S
YMBOLICAE
The
Visual
Image
in
Neo-Platonic
Thought
by
E.
H.
Gombrich
riting
on
allegorical
painting
in
I748,
Abbe
Pluche made a remark
which
many
students
of this
branch of
art
may
have felt
prompted
to
endorse:
"Puisqu'un
tableau
n'est
destine
qu'a
me montrer ce
qu'on
ne me
dit
pas,
il
est ridicule
qu'il
faille
des efforts
pour
l'entendre
.
. .
Et
pour
l'ordinaire,
quand je
suis
parvenu
'
deviner
l'intention de ces
personnages
mysterieux,
je
trouve
que
ce
qu'on
m'apprend
ne valait
guere
les frais
de
l'enveloppe."1
The learned Abbe was here
pleading
for
clarity
in
the
devising
of
allegories
in
accordance
with
eighteenth-century
taste. He wanted
to
confine
allegories
to
images
which could be
readily
understood.
Nineteenth-
century
critics went further.
They rejected
this
type
of
subject
matter
alto-
gether as incompatible with the true function of art. Both periods had this
in
common,
that
they
regarded allegory
as
a
kind
of
picture writing
in
which
a
conceptual
language
is
translated
into
conventional
images.2
It is a
striking
fact that
Abbe
Pluche's
line of criticism
was
not
developed
until the dawn
of the
Age
of
Reason.
The
preceding
centuries were
not
worried
by
the
apparent paradox
of
an art
invented
to
convey
a
message
in
symbols
which
seemed
to
become
more obscure
the triter the
meaning
they
were
supposed
both
to hide and
to
reveal.3
To
them these
"mysterious
personages"
meant
obviously
more
than
mere
"wrappings"
of verbal state-
ments.
It is
the
purpose
of this article
to
define
more
clearly
what
this
"more"
can have been-in what respect the visual image may have held a special
place
in the
minds of men.
We
need
not
rely
on
speculations
in
our
quest.
The claims
for
the
special position
of the
visual
symbol
were
firmly
rooted
in
a
philosophical
tradition of
long standing.
A
text
of
the
seventeenth
century
This
article
is
based on
a lecture
on
"Neo-Platonism
and
the
Arts"
given
at
the
Taylor
Institution, Oxford,
in
February
1948.
1
Histoire du
Ciel, II,
p. 427,
quoted
by
Jean
Seznec,
La survivancedes dieux
antiques. (Studies
of the
Warburg
Institute,
i
i),
London,
I940,
p.
239.
The line of this attack had been
developed
in
J.
B. Du
Bos'
Reflexions Critiques
sur
la
Podsie et sur la
Peinture,
Paris,
I719,
Part
I,
Sect.
24.
2This is
the idea
underlying
the definitions
of
allegorical
imagery
in
most
I8th
and
I9th
century writings,
e.g.
K.
H.
Heydenreich,
Aesthetisches Worterbuch
iber
die bildenden
Kiinste,
Leipzig,
1793:
"Die
Allegorie...
ist ein...
Mittel,
welches der
Knfistler
anwendet,
um
durch
HUIlfe
symbolischer Figuren,
.
.
. und
durch
andere
Dinge,
wegen
welchen
man
sich
i
bereingekommen ist, geistige
Gedanken
und
abstrakte Ideen mitzuteilen."
The
latest and
greatest
exponent
of
Abbe
Pluche's
view
is
Benedetto Croce who
has banished
allegory
from
the
"aesthetic
sphere"
because
he,
too,
sees
in
it
a
purely
conventional
and
arbitrary
"mode
of
writing"
which
belongs,
at
best,
to
the
"practical sphere."
In his
review of Seznec's book
(op.
cit.)
in La Parola
del
Passato,
I,
3,
1946,
Croce even dismisses
iconographic
research because
the
solution
of
these
"mysteries" usually
proves
to
be
"with-
out
importance."
While his
warning
against
a
"detective"
approach
to the
past
which
tries to
reveal
"an
invisible
history
behind the
visible one"
is
certainly
justified,
the
present
argument
may
help
to show that
his
division
into
"spheres"
can
hardly
do
justice
to
the
complex problem
of
symbolic
imagery.
3
Cf.
Seznec,
loc.
cit.,
p.
94.
x63
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164
E. H. GOMBRICH
which
may
be
regarded
as
a
culmination
and
summary
of this tradition will
serve
as
our
starting-point
and
our
conclusion.' Its
author,
Christoforo
Giarda,
has
no
great
claims to
literary
distinction. He was
a
teacher
of
rhetoric at
a Barnabite
college
in
Milan
on whom
devolved
the
task
of
entertaining
the
members of a Congregation of his Order with one of those show pieces of his
art which
we
find
so difficult
to
appreciate.
Giarda chose as the
text
of his
speech
or
sermon the
figures
of
sixteen
"Disciplines"
or
Liberal Arts which
adorned
the
reading
room of the
newly
erected
College
Library
(P1.
32)
where-as we
may
presume-he
had
to
give
a
sample
of his skill.
Before
explaining
the emblems and
features
of each
one of them
in
learned
disserta-
tions Giarda delivered
a
eulogy
of the
art
of
devising symbolic
images.
Despite
its
baroque
bombast this
eulogy
proves
to be
a
coherent and
explicit exposi-
tion of
a
doctrine
which is latent and
implicit
in
the whole
conception
of
allegorical
imagery.
Its
very
first sentence introduces us into
an
atmosphere
very
different from that of
Abbe
Pluche's
rationalist criticism. For to
Giarda,
in 1626, the allegorical images are not just translations of words into images,
a
kind
of
picture
writing
to
tease and
exasperate
the
impatient.
We
owe
it
to
them-so he claims-"that
the mind
which
has
been banished from heaven
into
this dark cave of the
body,
its actions held
in
bondage
by
the
senses,
can
behold
the
beauty
and
form of the
Virtues
and
Sciences,
divorced from
all
matter
and
yet
adumbrated
if
not
perfectly expressed,
in
colours,
and is thus
roused
to an
even
more
fervent love and desire for them."
If
these words
mean
anything
they
mean
that
we misunderstand these
images
if
we
think
of them
only
as conventional
signs
for abstract
concepts.
The
figure
of Rhetoric or
History
on
the bookshelf
in
the
College Library
is
not
just
a
substitute
for a
label-it
is
a
representation
of
the idea
of
Rhetoric
or
History
as it dwells in the
intelligible
world.
It
will
be our task both to
justify
and to refine this first formulation. For
this
it
may
be better
to
leave aside
the
turgid
rhetoric of the
seventeenth
century
cleric
and to
analyse
the elements out of which he
composed
his
praise
of the
Icones
Symbolicae.
We have
to
undertake
a
lengthy
journey
along
the
devious
paths
of Neo-Platonic
speculations
and
traditions before we can
read Giarda's
speech
in
its
right setting.
It
will
turn out that
we
must,
above
all,
revise
the
assumptions
about the functions
of the
image
which we
usually
take for
granted,
before
we can
hope
to formulate the
Neo-Platonic doctrine
in
our own
language.
We are used to making a clear distinction between two functions of the
visual
image-that
of
representation
and that
of
symbolization.2
A
painting
may represent
n
object
of the
visible
world,
a
woman
holding
a
balance,
or
a
lion.
It
may
also
symbolize
n
idea.
To
those conversant with the conventional
meanings
attached
to
these
images
the woman with the balance will
symbolize
Justice,
the
lion
Courage,
or the British
Empire,
or
any
other
concept
conven-
tionally
linked
in
our
symbolic
lore with the
King
of Animals.
On
reflection
1
For
the
text
of this
introduction
and
a
note
on its author see
Appendix p.
i88
ff.
2
Cf.
E.
Panofsky,
Studies in
Iconology,
New
York,
1939,
p.
3
if.
In the
terminology
of Charles Morris, Signs, Language and Be-
havior,
New
York,
I946,
we would have to
distinguish
between
images
as
"iconic
signs"
and as
"post language
symbols";
I
hope
to discuss
the
more
technical
aspects
of this
terminology elsewhere.
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32
.
Tf
i
A
S C
a-Theology
(p.
192)
1 <
-:-i
i
-
i i-
:
iii
-
:iiiiiiiiii-ii•iiiii~iiiiiiiiii•L
b-Rhetoric
(p. 192)
HIST RIA
c-History (p.
192)
MATHEM AT 1 A
d-Mathematics
(p.
192)
Engravings
from C.
Giarda,
Icones
Symbolicae,
Milan,
1626
(p. 164)
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ICONES
SYMBOLICAE
165
we
may
be
prepared
to
grant
the
possibility
of another
kind of
symbolism,
not conventional
but
private,
through
which
an
image
can
become the
expression
of the
artist's conscious
or
unconscious
mind. To van
Gogh
the
orchard
in
bloom
may
have been
a
symbol
of his
returning
health.'
These
three ordinary functions of images may be present in one concrete image-a
motif
in
a
painting
by
Hieronymus
Bosch
may represent
broken
vessel,
symbolize
he
sin
of
gluttony
and
express
n
unconscious
sexual
fantasy
on the
part
of
the
artist,
but
to us the
three levels
of
meaning
remain
quite
distinct.
As
soon,
however,
as
we leave
the
ground
of rational
analysis
we find that
these neat distinctions no
longer
hold. We know
that
in
magical practice
the
image
not
only
represents
an
enemy
but
may
take his
place
(the very
word
re-present
still has
this
dual
meaning).
We know that
the "fetish" not
only
"symbolizes"
fertility
but
"has" it. In
short,
our
attitude towards
the
image
is
inextricably
bound
up
with our whole
conception
of
the
universe.
Any
student
of the
religious
function of
images
knows
how
complex
this
attitude
may be: "Between the belief of the peasant, who took the animation of the
idol
in
its
most
gross
realistic
sense,
and the belief of the
educated
man,
who
regarded
the
ceremonies
of
worship
as
only
expressing
in a
symbolic
way
that
there was some unseen
power
somewhere,
who
liked to receive the
homage
of
men,
there
may
have
been
any
number
of intermediate shades
.
. . we
realize more
to-day
than was realized before
how the mind of man is
on
various
levels,
and
how,
beneath
an
articulate
intellectual
theory,
a
belief
inconsistent with
that
theory, closely
connected
with unavowed
feelings
and
desires
may
still
subsist."'2
These words
by Edwyn
Bevan on
the attitude of
Horace and his time to the
question
of "idols"
apply
to the
whole field
of
our
investigation.
For
where
there
is
no clear
gulf separating
the
material,
visible
world from the sphere of the spirit and of
spirits,
not only the various meanings
of
the
word
representation
may
become blurred
but
the whole
relationship
between
image
and
symbol
assumes a different
aspect.
To
primitive
mentality
the whole
distinction between
representation
and
symbol
is
no
doubt
a
very
difficult one.
Warburg
described
as
Denkraumverlusthis
tendency
of the
human mind to
confuse
the
sign
with the
thing
signified,
the name and its
bearer,
the literal
and the
metaphorical,
the
image
and
its
prototype.3
The
structure of the
Indo-Germanic
languages
favoured this natural bent
towards
"hypostasis"
of
concepts.4
The
very
question
whether Fortuna
is
a
"symbol"
of
the
vicissitudes of
life
or a
capricious
demon
intervening
in
our
fate,
whether
Death
with the
scythe is
an
abstraction or capable of knocking at the door,
does
not
allow
of
a
clear-cut
answer.
On this level it
may
be true
to
say
that
the
naive
painter
who had
to
represent "Justice" began
by
trying
to find out
what
Justice
"looked like."
After
all,
allegorical
painting
grew
out
of
the
religious
imagery
of classical
antiquity
and here
the
borderline
between
mythical
beings
which can be
represented
and
abstractions
which can
be
symbolized
is
particularly
hard
to
define.
Gods fade
imperceptibly
into mere
1
Carl
Nordenfalk,
"Van
Gogh
and
Litera-
ture,"
Journal
of
the
Warburg
and
Courtauld
Institutes, X,
I947,
p.
132
f.
2
Edwyn
Bevan,
Holy
Images,
An
Inquiry
into
Idolatry and Image-Worship in Ancient Paganism
and
Christianity,
London,
I940,
p.
31.
3
A.
Warburg,
Gesammelte
Schriften,
Berlin,
I932,
p.
49I.
4
Cf.
Roscher's
Mythologisches
Lexikon,
s.v.
Personification(by L. Deubner).
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166
E. H.
GOMBRICH
personifications
of
concepts
and
abstract ideas
suddenly
take on
a
vitality
as of
daemonic
powers.I
Philosophical speculations
increased
rather than
obviated
the
ambiguities
involved. The
writings
of
the
Neo-Platonists,
of Philo and
the
Gnostics
provide
the most frequent examples of this systematic ambiguity. "The idea of
Wisdom,
Sophia,
becomes
in
the Gnosis a female
spirit capable
of
being
seen in
a
vision."
In
fact the
whole
conception
of
the
hierarchy
of
beings
which,
in
these
pictures
of the
universe,
links
the
idea
of
the
Godhead
with
the sensible
world
in
an
unbroken chain of
gradations,
could
readily
absorb
the
Platonic
Ideas and allot them a
place
in
the
supra-celestial spheres.
Thanks
to these
interpretations
the
"personifications"
of
the
pagan
world were
given
a
sanctuary by
the Church.
Lactantius,
in his
polemics
against
pagan
worship,
had
still mocked at the
cult
of
such
beings
as
Spes,
Fides,
Pax,
Pudicitia,
and
Pietas "which
have no substance outside
the human mind"
even
though
he
would rather
worship
those than such
monstrosities as
Febris or
Rubigo.3
S. Gregory, under the influence of the Neo-Platonic writings ascribed to
Dionysius
Areopagita,
already
tentatively
identified
the Virtues
with certain
categories
of the Second
Hierarchy
of
Angels.4
If
Angels
could
be
represented,
so could
the
Virtues.
In
fact Lomazzo
in his
handbook
for
painters
makes no
difference between these two entities.5
The
questions relating
to the
allegorical
image
and
its
function
thus
merged
with the
general
issue of the
legitimate
use
of the visual
symbol
in
relation
to
the
doctrine
of
the Church. But the
conclusions
drawn
from this
conception
of a
hierarchy
of
beings
differed
widely
from each other.
It
is well known
how
anxious
the Latin
Church was
to avoid
a confusion between
representa-
tion
and
symbol.
Western
theologians
never tired
of
insisting
that
religious
images
were in no
way
representations
but
symbols,
pictures
to teach the
illiterate,
equal
in
status to the
letters of the
written word.
It
is hard
to
say
how far
these
efforts
were
successful.
The
laity may
still
have
regarded
a
painting
of God the Father as
a
portrait
of
Divinity
rather than
as
a mere
sign symbolizing
His
wisdom under
the
image
of
an
old
man.
Yet the
fact
that
the
doctrinal
point
of view was
always
potentially
present
prevented
the
religious image
in the
West from
being
turned
into an
icon.6
1
H. R.
Patch,
The Goddess Fortuna in
Mediaeval
Literature,
Cambridge,
Mass.,
1927,
p.
178
f.,
and
R.
Hinks,
Myth
and
Allegory
in
Ancient Art (Studies of the Warburg Institute,
6)
London,
1939-
I
have examined this
aspect
of
personification
as a
psychological
regres-
sion in
"Cartoons and
Progress,"
The Public's
Progress,
a
Contact
Book,
1947.
2Hans
Leisegang,
Die
Gnosis,
Leipzig,
I924,
p.
I3.
3
Epitome
Divinarum
Institutionum,
Migne,
PL
VI,
col.
1028.
4Migne,
PL
LXXVI,
col.
1251.
In
Gregory
the name
may only signify "power",
but
in
popular
literature
the
identity
of
names seems
to
have
led
to
an
identity
of
concepts. Cf. C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of
Love,
Oxford,
1936,
p.
86:
"The
seven
(or
eight)
Deadly
Sins,
imagined
as
persons,
become
so familiar
that at last the believer
seems to have lost all power of distinguishing
between
his
allegory
and his
pneumatology.
The Virtues
and Vices become
as
real
as
the
Angels
and
the Fiends."
5
P.
Lomazzo,
Trattato dell'arte
della
Pittura,
etc., Rome,
I844,
libro
VII,
cap.
III.
6
Cf.
Bevan,
op.
cit.,
pp.
I26
and
I69
ff.
For
the Renaissance
artist's attitude
cf.
Giulio Romano's
letter
on his fresco
in
Parma:
".
.
.
Also
I
have heard
that
I
am
blamed for
having
painted
God the
Father
Who
is
invisible;
I
answer
that
outside
of
Christ
and the
Madonna who
are
in
heaven
with glorious bodies, all the rest of the saints
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ICONES
SYMBOLICAE
167
Side
by
side with
this rational
idea
of visual
symbolism,
however,
there
existed
another
interpretation
of
the
same doctrine of the
hierarchy
of
beings
in
which
a
more
vital role
is
accorded to
symbolism.
The
writings
of
"Diony-
sius
Areopagita"
on the celestial
hierarchy
open,
in
fact,
with
a
disquisition
on the function of symbolism which remained influential throughout the
Church.
The
Saint
defends
the Sacred
Scriptures
against
the
accusation
of
having
used a
gross
and
inappropriate
symbolism
for the revelation
of
spiritual
truth.
There
are two
ways
of
approaching
the Divine:
through
affirmation
(xa(Yqq)
and
negation (4Mraqp).1
Revelation
makes
use
of both
ways.
It
represents spiritual
entities
by way
of
analogy
through
such
dignified
concepts
as
Logos
or
Nous
and the
image
of
Light.
But
there
is
a
danger
in
this kind
of
symbolic
language.
It
may
lead
to
the
very
confusion the
religious
mind
must avoid.
The reader
of the
Scriptures
might
take
them
literally
and
think
that the
heavenly
beings
are
really "golden
men,
radiant
figures
of transcend-
ent
beauty,
clad
in
shining
robes .
. .
or
similar
figures
through
which the
Revelation has given a sensible representation of the heavenly spirits."'2 It is
to avoid
this confusion that
the
holy
authors of
the revealed
writings
have
deliberately
used
inappropriate
symbols
and similes
so
that
we
should
not
cling
to
the
undignified
literal
meaning.
The
very
monstrosities
of
which
they
talk,
such as lions
and
horses
in
the
heavenly
regions, prevent
us
from
accepting
these
images
as real and stimulate our
mind to
seek a
higher
significance.
Thus the
apparent
inappropriateness
of the
symbols
found
in
the
Holy
Writ
is
in
effect a
means
through
which
our soul
is led on
towards
spiritual
truth. To
the
profane
these
enigmatic
images
conceal
the
holy
arcanum
of the
supernatural;
to
the
initiate,
however,
they
serve
as
the
first
rung
of
the ladder
by
which we
ascend
to
the
Divine.
In itself there is no contradiction between this doctrine of the
symbol
and
the
teaching
of
the
role of the
image
as a
letter for the
illiterate.
But
the
emphasis
is different.
In
the
one the
image
is the
means
of
teaching
the
doctrine-a mere substitute for the
spoken
word.
In
the
other
it is a
starting-
point
for
contemplation.
The
virtue of
the one
is
to
be
clear,
the virtue of the
other to be
mysterious.
Moreover
Dionysius
does
not talk
about
images
devised
by
man. He
defends
the
symbolism
he
finds inherent
in
Revelation
itself. To such a
conception
the
very
idea of a "conventional"
symbolism
is
alien. God
has
revealed
the truth
about
the
supernatural
world
in
the
strange
images
taken from the
sensible world-and
the
contemplation
of the low will
teach us to ascend to the high.
It is this
conception
of
revelation
through symbolism
which
gains
new
importance
in
the Renaissance with
the revival
of Neo-Platonism. It finds
perhaps
its clearest and
most
coherent
expression
in
the
writings
of Pico
della
Mirandola. The universe to Pico is
one vast
symphony
of
correspondences
in
which
each level of existence
points
to
another level.
It is
by
virtue of
this
and
souls
and
angels
are
invisible,
and
yet
it
is
the
custom to
paint
them,
and
to
your
lordships
it
should not
be new
that
pictures
are the
scriptures
of the crowd
and
the
ignorant
. . ."
Cf.
F.
Hartt,
"Raphael
and
Giulio
Romano,"
The
Art
Bulletin,
1944,
p. 91.
1
For
the
Neo-Platonic
origin
of these dis-
tinctions
cf.
Hugo
Koch,
Pseudodionysius
Areo-
pagita
in
seinen
Beziehungen
zum
Neuplatonismus
und
Mysterienwesen,
Mainz,
I900,
p.
208 ff.
2
Oeuvres
Completes
du
Pseudo
Denys
L'Areo-
pagite,
traduction,
preface
et notes
par
Maurice de Gandillac, Paris,
I943,
p.
191.
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168 E.
H. GOMBRICH
interrelated
harmony
that one
object
can
signify
another and that
by
con-
templating
a
visible
thing
we can
gain insight
into the
invisible world.
In
his
commentary
on
the
opening
chapters
of the
Bible,
called
Heptaplus,
ico
applies
the
methods of
Dionysius'
exegesis
systematically
to
his doctrine
of three
worlds, the terrestrial, the celestial and the supra-celestial, all of which re-
flect
each
other and
all of which
are mirrored
in
the
"small world"
which
is
man.
Everything
which is in the
totality
of
worlds
is also
in
each of them
and none of them
contains
anything
which is
not
to
be found
in
each of
the others . . .
whatever
exists
in
the
inferior
world
will also
be found
in
the
superior
world,
but
in a
more
elevated
form;
and whatever exists
on
the
higher
plane
can
also
be seen down
below but
in a
somewhat
de-
generate
and,
so
to
say,
adulterated
shape
.
. .
In
our world
we have
fire
as an
element,
in
the
celestial world
the
corresponding
entity
is the
sun,
in the supra-celestial world the seraphic fire of the Intellect. But consider
their
difference:
The
elemental
fire
burns,
the celestial
fire
gives
life,
the
supra-celestial
loves.1
It
is
this idea
of a strict
hierarchy
of worlds
which
explains
the
Neo-
Platonic
conception
of
symbolism
as
a form
of
revelation.
To
quote
Pico
again
in
the same
context:
The
ancient fathers
could
not have
represented
one
image
by
another
had
they
not known the occult affinities
and harmonies of
the universe.
Otherwise there
would
not have
been
any
reason
whatever
why they
should have
represented
a
thing by
one
image
rather than by an opposite
one.2
The
consequences
of this
doctrine
are
far-reaching.
For
to the Neo-
Platonic
philosophers
the
conception
of
an inherent
and essential
symbolism
pervading
the whole order
of
things
offered
a
key
to the
whole
universe.
If
only
they
could
unriddle
the
mysterious
imagery
used
by
the "ancient
fathers"
they
could unveil
the
secrets of
the
supra-sensible
world.
It is
here
that
the
doctrine of
symbolism
links
up
with
the doctrine
of esoteric tradition
which
plays
such
a
part
in
the
writings
of the Renaissance
Platonists.
This doctrine was not invented by the Neo-Platonists but
it was
made
by
them the
pivot
of their
exegetic
method. The basis
of this
method
may
be
described as a belief
in
a
multiple
revelation.
To
put
it
briefly,
it is the idea
that
God
reveals Himself
in
everything
if
only
we
learn to read
His
signs.
The
popular
form
of this doctrine
is familiar from the
Middle
Ages.
It
is the
idea
that
apart
from
the revelation as embodied
in the
words of
the
Scriptures
and
the
teachings
of
the Church the
whole of
nature
is,
as
it
were,
a
hieroglyph
of revealed
truth;
that
the
strange happenings
in
nature's
kingdom
yield
up
a kernel
of
divine
teaching.
The
pelican
pre-figures
Christ and His
Charity,
1
Giovanni
Pico
della
Mirandola,
Heptaplus,
ed. E. Garin, Florence, 1942, p. i188.
2
Pico,
ed.
cit.,
p.
192.
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ICONES
SYMBOLICAE
169
the
pearl
the
virgin
birth.
It
is
important
to realize the
potentialities
inherent
in
this
tradition.
A thinker of Aristotelian
schooling
might
interpret
it ration-
ally
by recommending
the
pelican
as a
suitable
metaphor
or
Christ.' But
the
Neo-Platonist could at
any
time revive the
mystical
conception
which
pre-
supposes the idea that God pre-figured and represented His Charity in the
habits
of
the
pelican.
What
goes
for
the
Book of
Nature
also
goes
for
the
mythological
lore
of
the
past.
The Middle
Ages
had inherited
the
view from late
antiquity
that,
rightly
understood,
the fables and
myths
of
the
poets
must
yield
up
the same
meaning
as
the
contemplation
of nature. It
was this
tradition
in
particular
which
the Florentine Neo-Platonists
seized
upon
and
which
they
carried to
its
logical
conclusion. To them
the
myths
were not
only
a
mine of
edifying
metaphors.
They
were
in
fact
yet
another form of
revelation.
In
accepting
this
belief
the Neo-Platonists had
no intention of
minimizing
the value of the
Bible
as the chief instrument of Divine
revelation.
On the
contrary. They
were convinced that the pagan lore rightly understood could only point to-
wards
the
same
truth which
God had
made manifest
through
the
Scriptures.
For God
had
not
only
spoken through
the
Prophets.
The first men
in
the
Golden
Age
had been
so close to the act
of
creation that
they
had
still
known
the
secrets of the
universe.2 But these
sages
of the
mythical
past-Pico's
"ancient
fathers"-had hidden the truth in
mysterious
tales and
images
to
prevent
it from
being
prematurely profaned. Something
of
this
belief
still
lingers
as an
undercurrent
of
European
thought.
We are
familiar with
the
doctrine
of an
esoteric tradition which
reaches
back to
the
mysterious
origins
of time and which is
both
revealed
and concealed
in
the
Wisdom of the East.
The
writings
of
Ficino
and
Pico
belong
to
this current of
thought.
Those
who
expect
to find there the serene world of classical
beauty
will soon be dis-
appointed.
We
are
constantly
referred
to the
mythical
sages
of
the
East,
to
the
Egyptian
Priests,
to Hermes
Trismegistos,
to
Zoroaster, and,
among
the
Greeks,
to
those
who
were
believed
to
have been
in
possession
of this secret
lore,
to
Orpheus,
to
Pythagoras
and,
last
but
not
least,
to
Plato,
whose use
of
myths
and
whose
reverence
for
Egypt
fitted
in
well
with
this
picture
of
an
unbroken chain of
esoteric
tradition.
Here,
at
last,
we
come
back to the
object
of
our
quest,
the visual
image.
For
it
is this
belief which
explains
the
passionate
interest
which the
Quattro-
cento
took
in
the
Egyptian
hieroglyphs.
These
strange
images
were
believed
to be in fact "sacred signs" in which the Egyptian priests had hidden their
1
For this
important
difference of
approach
cf.
C. S.
Lewis,
op.
cit.,
p.
45
ff.
2
I
know
no
systematic
study
of this im-
portant
doctrine of the
sapientia
veterum,
or
priscorum
theologia.
Its
basic
assumption
that
the
ancient
sages
were in
possession
of
Divine
Wisdom is
very
widespread
but the
explana-
tions offered
vary considerably.
While
some
trace
all
this
knowledge
back to
Moses,
others
believe
in a
revelation to the
pagan
world
through
the
sybils
and
philosophers.
Another
way
of
reconciling
the Biblical and
the
Hermetic
beliefs was
provided
in
the
story
of
Josephus (Jewish
Antiquities,
I,
70-72)
according
to
which
Seth had
preserved
Adam's
superior
knowledge
for
posterity
on
two
imperishable
columns
which survived
the flood.
This
version is used
by
Giarda.
Cf.
Seznec,
op.
cit.,
p..
9o;
Nesca N.
Robb,
Neoplatonism
of
the
Italian
Renaissance,
London,
1935,
p.
48;
G.
Anichini,
L'Umanesimo e
il
problema
della
salvezza
in
Marsilio
Ficino,
Milan,
I937,
p.
68
ff.,
where
some of
Ficino's sources
are
quoted.
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170
E. H.
GOMBRICH
occult
knowledge.1
The aura of
mystery
which
surrounded
them can
be
gathered
from
their use
in
the Neo-Platonic
romance,
the
Hypnerotomachia
Poliphili,
in which the visual
symbols
from the
past
are
endowed with
pro-
found
significance.
The
images
on the
reverse of
coins,
too,
were
eagerly
questioned for their symbolic meaning. They were believed to be ciphers
in
which
the
sages
of the
past
had
laid
down their
knowledge
of the
mysteries.
For,
as
we know
from
Pico,
the "ancient
fathers"
had not chosen their
symbols
arbitrarily.
They
based
them on their
insight
into the
structure of the
universe.
In
choosing
the
symbol
of
fire for
celestial love
they
had chosen an
image
which
was,
in
the true
meaning
of
the
word,
not conventional
but
essential.
It
applies
the code
of
equivalence
which
pertains
between
sensible and
supra-
sensible
entities.
If we
contemplate
fire we
may
therefore learn
something
about
the true
nature of
Divine
Love,
and
if
we
try
to read the ancient hiero-
glyphs
we
may
find out
more
about the
correspondences
which enable
us
to
penetrate
into the
arcanum
of the Divine.
This conception of visual symbolism as a key to the essential nature of the
entities
symbolized
accords
well with
the
conception
of
language expounded
and
applied
by
the Neo-Platonic
philosophers.
The
names
of
the
Gods,
for
instance,
were
not
thought
of as conventional counters.
They
belong
to
them
"by
nature",
and those who
first used them still knew
their "true"
meaning.
Correctly
analysed
they
too must reveal
something
of the essence of the
divinity
they
signify.2
Hence
the interest the Neo-Platonists took
in
the
fanciful
etymologies
of late
antiquity
and even
in the
cabbalistic
speculations
on
the
letters which
composed
a
word.
But
there
is
one
respect
in
which
the visual
symbol,
the
hieroglyph,
is
superior
to
the
name,
the
image
superior
to the sound.
To understand this
important
argument
we must take into account the Neo-Platonic
theory
of
the threefold
nature
of
knowledge.
At the
lowest
end is
knowledge
derived
from
sense
perception.
This
is fallible and deserves
only
the
name of
"opinion."
The artist as
a maker of
such
visual
images
leads
away
from truth
and
feeds
on delusion.
The
higher
form
of
knowledge
is that derived
from
reasoning
which
proceeds
step
by
step
in
the
dialectical
process.
As
long
as
the soul
is
imprisoned
in the
body
we
are
really
thrown
back on these
two
imperfect
guides,
the
senses
and
reason,
and our
understanding
remains dim
and obscure.
True
knowledge
only
results
from
the third and
highest
process,
that
of
intellectual
intuition
of ideas or
essences. Such
knowledge
we
had,
according to Plato, before
we
were born-the
Neo-Platonists
were
in
danger
here of
coming
into
conflict
with
the
teachings
of
the Church-and such
knowledge
we shall
surely
gain
once
we cast off this dead
weight
of
a
body
and
find ourselves
face
to face
with the
Divine
in whose mind
the ideas
dwell.
In our
lives-and
this is
the
aspect
which
Neo-Platonism
elaborates-we can
1
Karl
Giehlow,
"Die
Hieroglyphenkunde
des
Humanismus,"
Jahrbuch
der kunsthistor-
ischen
Sammlungen
des
allerh6chsten
Kaiserhauses,
XXXII,
I9I5.
2
Marsilio
Ficino,
Opera
Omnia,
Basle,
1576,
pp.
1217
f. and
I902.
The
latter
passage
comments on the interesting exposition of
this
doctrine
in
lamblichus'
Egyptian
Mysteries
(transl.
A.
Wilder,
New
York,
1911, p. 245
f.).
For Pico's
attitude
to names
and his
occa-
sional
acceptance
of
conventionalism
see
A.
Levy,
Die
Philosophie
Giovanni
Pico's della
Mirandola, Berlin,
1908,
p.
19-
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ICONES
SYMBOLICAE
1
71
only
hope
to achieve
this true
knowledge
in
the rare moments when
the soul
leaves
the
body
in
a
state of
ek-stasis,
such as
may
be
granted
us
through
divine
frenzy.
Hence
the
importance
which
men
like Ficino
attached to the
working
of the
furor
in
love,
in
poetry
and
in
prophecy,
and hence
the
efforts of Renaissance artists to arrogate to themselves the same state of
"inspiration"
which
antiquity
had
granted
to the
poet
but
had denied
to
the
"menial" craftsmen.'
In
these moments of
rapture
the
genius
is
granted
a
glimpse
of the Platonic Idea.
He
shares
in
the
experience granted
to the
higher
intellects such as
angels
and
spirits,
who
always
contemplate
the
Ideas
and therefore
know truth
directly,
without the crutches of
discursive
reason-
ing.
What to us
is
only
understandable
analytically
is
revealed to
them,
as
it
were,
in a
flash,
as a
whole. No wonder
that
Ficino
revered St.
Paul,
whose
vision
on the
way
to Damascus
he
identified with the
Neo-Platonic
ecstasy2
and
who had summed
up
this whole trend of
thought
in
the
wonderful
words
of
the
Epistle
to
the
Corinthians:
"For
now
we
see
through
a
glass,
darkly,
but then face to face; now I know in part; but then I shall know even as also
I
am known."
The idea
of intuition as the
highest
form of
knowledge
could
easily
merge
with the doctrine
of revelation
through
visual
symbols.
The
way
in
which
the "ancient fathers"
expressed
themselves,
through image-symbols, may
not
have been accessible
to
profane
reason but it was nearer to
the world
of
ideas.
For
in
the visual
symbol
we also
contemplate
the whole
of
a
proposition
in
a
flash.3
This
process,
therefore,
pre-figures
and
mirrors
the
process
of
intel-
lectual intuition.
The
sacred
symbols
of the
esoteric tradition
which
embody
1
For a
concise
exposition
of
these doctrines
see Ficino, ed. cit., pp. 612 and 626 f.; for the
general
context,
P.
O.
Kristeller,
The
Philo-
sophy
of
Marsilio
Ficino,
New
York,
1943.
The
influence of
these
doctrines
on
the
theory
of
art
is
treated
in
E.
Panofsky,
'Idea'
(Studien
der Bibliothek
Warburg, V),
Berlin,
I924,
and
R. W.
Lee,
"Ut
pictura
Poesis,"
The Art
Bulletin, XXII,
1940,
p.
197
f.
A
telling
docu-
ment
for this
adaptation
of
the
theory
of
the
poetic
furor
to the
painter's
art is Annibale
Caro's
letter
to
Giorgio
Vasari
of
I548
in
which the
famous letterato
administers
a
gentle
rebuke
to the
painter
for his
notorious sloven-
liness and yet acknowledges his right as a
genius
to do
as
he
pleases.
The contrast
between
such
a
commission
and the
typical
quattrocento
contract
gives
a
measure
of
the
influence
the
Platonic
theory
had
on the
status of
the artist:
"I1
mio
desiderio d'havere
un'opera
notabile
di
vostra mano e
cosi
per
vostra laude come
per
mio
contento,
perche
vorrei
poterla
mettere innanzi
a
certi,
che vi
conoscono
piii per
ispiditivo
nella
pittura
che
per
eccellente
. .
.
Del
presto
et de
l'adagio
mi
remetto
a
voi,
perche giudico,
che si
possa
fare anco
presto
et
bene,
dove
corre
il
furore,
come nella pittura; la quale in questa parte
come in
tutte l'altre
e
similissima a la
poesia.
E ben vero, che '1 mondo crede, che facendo
voi
manco
presto,
fareste
meglio;
ma
questo
e
piu probabile
che necessario:
Che si
potrebbe
ancor
dire,
che
l'opere
stentate,
non
risolute
e
non tirate con
quel
fervore che si
cominciano,
riescono
peggiori
. .
.
ancora de
l'inventione
vi
rimetto
a
voi,
ricordandomi
d'un'
altra
somiglianza,
che la
poesia
h?"
con
la
pittura,
et di
piii
che voi
siete cosi
poeta
come
pittore,
et che ne
l'una
e ne
l'altra con
pi
affetione et con
pid
studio
s'esprimono
i
concetti et le idee sue
proprie
che
d'altrui."
The whole
letter deserves
study
as
a
charac-
teristic document of the "mannerist" attitude
towards
art. Cf.
Karl
Frey,
Der
Literarische
Nachlass
Giorgio
Vasaris,
Munich,
1923,
I,
p.
220.
2
Ficino,
ed.
cit.,
p. 436
ff.
and
p. 697
f
3
These
claims
for
the
image
rest on
an
important psychological
fact. Discursive
speech
is a
relatively
poor
instrument for
representing complex relationships. Degrees
of
kinship
which could
hardly
be
explained
in
words can be
read
off a
family
tree "at
a
glance."
This
superiority
of the
diagram
(or
graph)
over
a
descriptive explanation
has of
course nothing to do with the mutual claims
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172
E.
H.
GOMBRICH
the true nature and
essence of
concepts
contain
wisdom,
as it
were,
in
highly
concentrated form. If
we
only
apply
our
minds to them
we
arrive
at an
insight
which is at least
parallel
to
the
direct
intuition of
ideas or
essences,
a more
immediate
path
to
the
knowledge
of
ultimate truth
than
discursive
reasoning could ever be.
It was
Ficino
himself
who
applied
this doctrine of
the virtue
of
visual
symbols
to
the
Egyptian
hieroglyphs.
The
Egyptian
Priests
did
not
use
individual letters
to
signify mysteries
but whole
images
of
plants,
trees or
animals;
because God has
knowledge
of
things
not
through
a
multiplicity
of
thought
processes
but rather
as a
simple
and
firm
form of the
thing.
He
chose
as
example
the
age-old
symbol
of Time as a
winged
serpent
biting
its tail.
Those
who
contemplate
this
image
learn
everything
about
the
sacred
mystery of Time, for "the Egyptians presented the whole of the discursive
argument
as
it were
in
one
complete image."1
Here we
are
clearly
far
away
from the
rational
doctrine
outlined
above,
that an
image
of this kind
represented
winged serpent
but
symbolized
ime.
For
Ficino's
argument presupposes
that there is
nothing
conventional
in
this
symbolic
significance.
That,
in
fact,
we can
learn
everything
about Time
by
looking
at its
symbolic
representation.
Should we
then
say
that
the
image
"represents"
Time?
In a
sense
it
does. But
only
in
an
esoteric sense. For
Time
is
not
part
of
the sensible
world.
It
can never
appear
to our
bodily eyes.
Yet
it is
not a
mere "abstraction" either. The idea of Time is
thought
of
as some-
thing
existing
by
itself
in
a
higher sphere-a sphere
accessible
to
intellectual
intuition. The
image-symbol,
then, is a
representation
of the
unrepresentable,
both
demanding
contemplation
and
spurring
us on to transcend it.
This
doctrine
of the function of
visual
symbols may hardly
be
capable
of
completely
rational
exposition,
because
it is
by
the nature of the
argument
an
irrational doctrine. Yes
it
is clear that
in
and
through
it
the distinction
between
the
representational
and
the
symbolizing
function of the
image
of
poetry
and
painting
as arts. In the Renais-
sance,
however,
the two
questions
seem to
merge.
The fact that vision allows
us
to see
"all
at once" what the word
can
only impart
successively was adduced by Leonardo in the
"Paragone"
to
exalt
painting
over
poetry;
cf.
Lee,
op.
cit.,
p. 251.
1
"Sacerdotes
Aegyptii
ad
significanda
divina
mysteria,
non utebantur
minutiis
literarum
characteribus,
sed
figuris
integris
herbarum,
arborum animalium
quoniam
videlicet Deus scientiam rerum habet non
tamquam
excogitationem
de re
multiplicem,
sed
tamquam simplicem firmamque
rei for-
mam.
Excogitatio temporis apud
te
multiplex
est
et
mobilis,
dicens videlicet
tempus
quidem
est
velox,
et
revolutione
quadam
principium
rursus cum fine coniungit: prudentiam docet,
profert
res,
et aufert. Totam vero
discur-
sionem eiusmodi
una
quadam firmaque
figura
comprehendit
Aegyptius
alatum
ser-
pentem
pingens,
caudam
ore
praesentem:
caeteraque figuris similibus, quas describit
Horus."
Ficino,
ed.
cit.,
p.
I768.
For the
religious
background
of
this
Neo-Platonic
conception
of
symbolism
cf.
F.
Cumont,
"Le
Culte
Egyptien
et le
Mysticism
de
Plotin,"
Monuments
Piot,
XXV,
1921/22.
Giehlow,
op.
cit.,
p.
23,
sees
in
the
passage
from
Ficino
an
indication
that he
regarded hieroglyphs
as
representations
of
the Ideas.
Though
this
may
be an
oversimplification
it
is
note-
worthy
that Ficino
uses the
metaphorical
expression
"ideam
. .
.
coloribus
pingere"
(ed.
cit.,
p.
763).-
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ICONES
STMBOLICAE
173
becomes
blurred.1
Ficino does
not
accept
the
image
of
the
serpent
as
a mere
sign
which "stands for" an abstract
concept.
To him
the essence of
Time is
somehow
"embodied"
in
the
mysterious
shape.
By
contemplating
the
ancient
symbol
in
which those endowed
with
superior knowledge
laid down
their
insight
into the nature of time
he will
himself
arrive
at an
increasingly
clear
and
profound
understanding
of
Time,
he will "see" it here on earth as he
hopes
to see
it
when
the
body
no
longer
dims his
apprehension.
The
vogue
of
the
hieroglyph
and emblem
and the whole
wealth of
pictorial
symbolism
which followed
on
the
Neo-Platonic movement can
hardly
be
understood
except against
this
background.2
The
gravity
with
which
the
casuistry
of the emblem and
device was
discussed
by
otherwise
perfectly
sane
and
intelligent
people
remains
an
inexplicable
freak of
fashion
unless
we
understand that
for
them a
truth
condensed into
a
visual
image
was
somehow
nearer the
realm of absolute
truth
than one
explained
in
words.
It
was
not
what these
images
said that
made them
important
but
the
fact that
what
was
said was also "represented." No sane person believed that festina lente em-
bodied
a
very
profound
truth. But
the
fact that it
was
believed that
Augustus
himself
had
expressed
this motto
in
the form of an
image-the
dolphin
as
a
symbol
of
swiftness
with
the anchor
the
image
of
steadfastness
(P1.
33c)-this
fact that one could see the
whole
offestina
lente
n
a
flash
made it into
some-
thing
of a
mystery.3
It was
precisely
this
feeling
for
the
peculiar
character of
the visual
symbol
1
Since
Weinhandel,
Das
aufschliessende
Symbol,
has
investigated
the role of the visual
symbol
in the visions of St.
Nicolaus of
Flue
various
writers have
dealt
with
this
type
of
"insight symbol," cf. Helen Flanders Dunbar,
Symbolism
in Mediaeval
Thought,
New
Haven,
1929,
and W. M.
Urban,
Language
and
Reality,
London,
1939.
Maybe
this attitude
towards
the
symbol
can best be described
as a
blurring
of the distinction between
representation
and
symbolization
in
a
particular
direction. The
symbol
is
thought
to
represent
the entities it
signifies.
The
Eastern
mystic
who
meditates
on
the
holy
syllable
"Om"
hopes
to learn
from
its
qualities
(including
the silence
which
precedes
and follows
it)
something
about the
nature of
the Divine.
The
psychological pro-
cess from which this attitude springs can
perhaps
best
be illustrated
by
an
example
from
an
entirely
different
sphere.
In
the
opening paragraph
of Great
Expectations,
Dickens describes
the mental state of
a
child
who
has
never
set
eyes
on
his
parents
and
who has
nothing
to
go
by
to form
a
mental
picture
of
their
appearance
except
their
tombstone.
"As I
never
saw
my
father or
my
mother,
and never
saw
any
likeness of
either of
them
(for
their
days
were
long
before
the
days
of
photographs),
my
first
fancy
re-
garding
what
they
were
like,
were
unreason-
ably
derived from their
tombstones.
The
shape
of
the
letters
on
my
father's,
gave
me
an odd idea that
he
was a
square,
stout,
dark
man,
with
curly
black hair.
.
.
."
In this
masterly description of the dream-like muddle
which
may
beset the
mind of the
child
we
have
a
typical
instance of the
confusion
be-
tween
symbol
and
representation.
In
his
passionate
desire to
know
more
about his
father
than
he can
know,
the
boy
endows
the
conventional
symbols
of letters
with
repre-
sentational features.
2
Cf. Frances
A.
Yates,
The
French
Academies
of
the Sixteenth
Century
Studies
of
the
Warburg
Institute,
15),
London,
1947,
p.
I31
ff.
3
L.
Volkmann,
Bilderschriften
der
Renais-
sance,
Leipzig, 1923,
p.
17.
The
other
element which makes up the "mystery" of
festina
lente
is the
contradiction in
terms,
the
oxymoron
or
paradox.
For the
special
virtues
of the
acutezza
recondita
cf.
M.
Praz,
Studies in
Seventeenth-Century
Imagery
(Studies
of
the
Warburg
Institute,
3),
London,
I939,
p.
14.
Just
as
the emblem is linked with
the
"insight
symbol,"
this
form
of the
motto
connects
with
the coincidentia
oppositorum
of
the
mystic
tradition. "Denn
ein
vollkommner
Wider-
spruch,
Bleibt
gleich
geheimnisvoll
fir
Kluge
wie
ftir
Toren"
(Goethe,
Faust,
I).
12
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174
E. H.
GOMBRICH
which
was lost with the
dawn
of
Rationalism. Abb6 Pluche's
complaint
that
what these
"mysterious
personages"
convey
is
rarely
worth the
wrapping,
indeed the whole
demand
for
lucid
allegories
which
became
universal
in
the
eighteenth
century,
shows that
the
original
point
of this
symbolism
was
no
longer understood. Many elements, of course, were involved in the forma-
tion of the emblem
fashion,
but
among
them
Dionysius'
conception
of the
"inappropriate"
symbol
should not
be
forgotten.
The
"mysterious"
shape
and
aura of these
images
should shock us
into
an
awareness of the
supra-
sensible
truth
there
"represented."
Seen
in
this
context
it
becomes
perhaps
less
surprising
that a
philosopher
like
Giordano Bruno
could
make
emblems
the
starting-point
of his
contemplations.1
The
very language
of
the sixteenth-
and
seventeenth-century
emblem
books
which
often seems so
exaggerated
to us
bears witness to this
Neo-Platonic
ancestry.
One
sample
from
the
English
version of
Henry
Estienne's Art
of
Making
Devices
may
stand for
many:
Bargagli
saith with
good
reason,
that a
Devise is
nothing
else,
but
a
rare
and
particular
way
of
expressing
ones
self;
the most
compendious,
most
pleasing,
and
most efficacious of all other
that humane
wit
can invent. It
is indeed most
compendious,
since
by
two or
three words
it
surpasseth
that
which
is
contained
in
the
greatest
Volumes.
And
as
a
small beame
of
the
Sun
is
able
to illuminate and
replenish
a Cavern
(be
it
never so
vast),
with
the
rays
of its
splendor:
So a Devise
enlightens
our whole
understanding,
and
by
dispelling
the darknesse
of
Errour,
fills it with
a
true
Piety,
and solid
Vertue.
It
is in
these
Devises
as
in
a
Mirrour,
where
without
large
Tomes
of
Philosophy
and
History,
we
may
in
a short
tract
of
time,
and with much
ease,
plainly
behold and
imprint
in our
minds,
all the
rules
of
Morall
and
Civil
life
....2
These
are
high
claims
indeed,
but
even
if
we
make
allowance for the
hyperbolic
conceits
of
the
text we must take
the
substance
seriously.
The
substance
is that
the device not
only
instructs
us
but
affects us.
Arguments
may
convince
but
images
have a
more direct
impact
on our
mind. He
who
sees
the truth can
no
longer
err.
He
who
is
granted
a
vision
of the
supra-natural
ideas becomes attuned
to
them;
knowledge through symbols
is
higher knowledge.
To understand the true import of this teaching we must turn from the
popular
emblem books to
the
role of
the
visual
symbol
in the
typical
esoteric
1
Frances
A.
Yates,
"The Emblematic
Conceit
in
Giordano
Bruno's
'De Gli
Eroici
Furori'
and the Elizabethan sonnet se-
quences,"
Journal
of
the
Warburg
and
Courtauld
Institutes, VI,
I943.
It is
significant
that
Tasso,
in
his theoretical
justification
of the
poetic
image,
also
appeals
to
the
Dionysian
tradition:
".
.
.
to move
readers
in
this
way
with
images,
as do the
mystic theologians
and
the
poets,
is
a much
more noble
work
than
to teach by means of demonstrations, which
is
the function
of
the
scholastic
theologian."
He insists
that the
poet's images
are
of intel-
ligible,
not of
sensible
things. ("Del
Poema
Eroico",
Opere
di
Torquato
Tasso,
Venice,
1735,
V,
p.
367.)
This
is one of the
points
where the
problems
here discussed
may
merge
with those
treated
by
R.
Tuve,
Eliza-
bethanand
Metaphysical Imagery,
Chicago,
1947.
2
Henry
Estienne,
The Art
of Making
Devices.
Translated
into
English by
T.
Blount,
London,
I646,
p.
13.
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ICONES
SYMBOLICAE
175
tradition
of
magic
and
mysticism.1
In Goethe's Faust
we have
a famous and
authentic
description
of
this
transition
from
seeing
to
intuition,
from
intuition
to
transformation,
of
the
unity
of
mystic
significance
and
magic
effect.
When
Faust
opens
the
mysterious
book
of Nostradamus
he sees
in
and
through
the
"Sign of the Macrocosmus" the Universe unriddled, and experiences the
exaltation
of
the
vita
contemplativa.
Ha,
welche
Wonne
fliesst
in
diesem
Blick
Auf
einmal
mir
durch
alle meine
Sinnen?
Ich
ffihle
junges, heil'ges
Lebensglhick
Neuglthend
mir durch Nerv'
und
Adern rinnen.
War es
ein
Gott,
der
diese
Zeichen
schrieb,
Die
mir
das innre
Toben
stillen,
Das arme Herz
mit Freude
fullen
Und mit
geheimnisvollem
Trieb,
Die Krafte
der Natur
rings
um
mich her
enthillen?
Bin ich
ein Gott?
Mir
wird so
licht
Ich schau in diesen reinen Zugen,
Die
wirkende Natur vor
meiner Seele
liegen.
Jetzt
erst
erkenn
ich,
was
der
Weise
spricht:
"Die Geisterwelt
ist nicht
verschlossen;
"Dein
Sinn ist
zu,
dein
Herz ist todt
"Auf, bade,
Schtler,
unverdrossen
"Die
ird'sche Brust
im
Morgenroth"
(er
beschaut
das
Zeichlen)
Wie
alles
sich zum Ganzen
webt
Eins
in
dem Andern wirkt
und lebt
Wie
Himmelskrifte
auf und
nieder
steigen
Und
sich die
goldnen
Eimer
reichen
Mit
segenduftenden Schwingen
Vom Himmel durch die Erde
dringen,
Harmonisch
all
das All
durchklingen
Welch
Schauspiel
aber
ach
ein
Schauspiel
nur...
Was Faust's
"Sign"
a
representation
of
the
Universe,
a
picture
with
angels
going up
and
down,
passing
each
other
the
golden
ewers,
or was
it
an
abstract
diagram,
a
magic
rune
of
the
kind
which
Goethe
might
have
known from
Rosicrucian
literature
(P1.
33a)
?2
The
very
fact that this
question
remains
1
The connection between
this
tradition
and Florentine Neo-Platonism is
traced
fully
by Will-Erich Peuckert, Pansophie,Ein Versuch
zur
Geschichteder weissen und
schwarzen
Magie,
Stuttgart,
1936.
2
Cf. Geheime
Figuren
der
Rosenkreuzer,Altona,
1785,
(Facsimile
Edition,
Berlin,
g1919).
One
is
reminded of the
figure
of
the
universe
which Ficino
bids his
adepts
to
have made
in a
propitious
hour
(ed.
cit.,
p.
559):
"Sed
cur nam
universalem
ipsam,
id
est
universi
ipsius imaginem permittimus?
Ex
qua
tamen
beneficium ab
universo
sperare
videntur.
Sculpet ergo
sectator
illorum
forte,
qui
poterit
formam
quandam
mundi totius
arche-
typam si placebit in aere, quam deinde op-
portune
in
argenti
lamina
imprimat
aurata."
There
follows
detailed advice as
to
the
right
hour and the colours to be used, and the
incidental
information that
a
movable model
of
the
planet
spheres
such as Archimedes had
constructed
was
"recently"
(nuper)
made
by
"our Lorenzo
the Florentine"
(Florentinus
quidam
noster,
Laurentius nomine-can
it
be
Ghiberti who
signed
the
first
Baptistery
door
LAURENTIUS
FLORENTINUS?).
Ficino
con-
tinues:
"Proinde
in
ipsis
suae domus
pene-
tralibus cubiculum construet
in
fornicem
actum,
figuris
eiusmodi et coloribus
insigni-
tum,
ubi
plurimum
vigilet atque
dormiat.
Et
egressus
domo
non tantam attentione
singularum spectaculam quanta universi
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176
E. H. GOMBRICH
undecided
proves
how
far
removed the esoteric
conception
of
the
visual
symbol
is
from these
rational
categories
of
representation
and
symbolization.
The
magic sign "represents"
in
the
literal
sense
of the
word. Like
the name
it
gives
not
only insight
but
power.
The
Neo-Platonic
theory
has
indeed
accepted this consequence. For if the visual symbol is not a conventional sign
but
linked
through
the
network of
correspondences
and
sympathies
with
the
supra-celestial
essence
which it
embodies,
it
is
only
consistent to
expect
it to
partake
not
only
of the
"meaning"
and "effect" of what it
represents
but to
become
interchangeable
with
it.
We
can
hardly
understand
the Renaissance attitude towards the
visual
symbol
without
at least
taking
cognizance
of
this
most
extreme
position
in
which not
only
the
distinction between
symbolization
and
representation
is
removed
but
which threatens
even
the
distinction
between
the
symbol
and
what it
symbolizes.
Ficino
expressed
his
belief
in
the
magic
potency
of
the
image quite
openly.
In
his book
De
vita coelitus
comparandal
a
number of
chapters
are devoted to
astrological
practice and amulets. He treats at
length
"de
virtute
maginum," "quam
vim habeant
igurae
in coelo
atque
sub
coelo,"
"quales
coelestium
iguras antiqui
imaginibus imprimebant,
ac
de usu
imaginum."
Ficino
wavers a
little
in
his
attitude.
He does
not
think
that
images
on
amulets can
achieve
everything
but
he
shows
himself convinced that the
right
image
engraven
on
the
right
stone
may
have
a
very
potent
effect on health. It
is not
the
fact
that
Ficino took
over
this
superstitious
belief from
the "esoteric
tradition"
which
is
important
in our
context,
but the
arguments
which
he
uses
to
rationalize
this belief.
These
arguments
are based on the same
Neo-
Platonic
literature,
on
Plotinus and
Iamblichus,
from which Ficino's other
views
on the
virtue
of the
visual
image
are derived.
They are,
in
fact,
an
extension
of
the same
view.2
Ficino
uses
a
number of
interesting
examples
to
make his
meaning
clear.
Just
as
one
lyre
resounds
by
itself
when the
strings
of
another
are
plucked,
the
likeness
between
the
heavenly
bodies
and the
image
on the amulet
may
make
the
image
absorb
the
rays
from the stars to which
it is thus attuned.
The
argument
provides
an
instructive
instance
of what
Warburg
called die
Schlitterlogik
of the
astrologer.
For
rationally
there
is,
of
course,
no
likeness
whatever
between
the
image
Ficino bids
us to
engrave
and the star as
a
"heavenly
body."
What
he means
is
the
image
of
astrological
tradition,
of
Saturn
with
his
falx
or Mars
with
his sword.
These
images,
then,
are not
to
be regarded as mere symbols of the planets nor are they simply representations
of demonic
beings.
They
represent
the
essence of
the
power
embodied
in the
star.
If
we
give
these
symbolic
images
the
"right"
form of
which
we find
the
record
in
that
ancient
Eastern
lore
which the Neo-Platonists
held to be
divinely
inspired,
if
we
design
them
in
the
proper
way
so that
they embody
figuram
coloresque
perspiciet."
Did Ficino
have
such
an
image
in
his
house?
We
know
from
his letters
that
he had
in
his
gymnasium
a
painting
of
the
sphere
of
the
world
with
Heraclitus
and
Democritus
on either
side
(ed.
cit.,
p.
637).
Perhaps
he
attached
greater
significance
to
the influence
of this
image
than
he cared to reveal?
'Ed.
cit.,
p.
531
f.
The
importance
of
this book
is
discussed
in E.
Panofsky
and
F.
Saxl,
Melencolia
I,
(Studien
der Bibliothek
Warburg,
II),
Berlin,
1923,
p.
35
f. and
by
L.
Thorndyke,
History of
Magic
and
Experi-
mental
Science,
New
York,
I934,
IV,
p.
565.
2Bevan,
op.
cit.,
p.
76.
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ICONES
SYMBOLICAE
177
the
"essential" attributes
of the
Planetary
deities,
they
must of
necessity
receive
something
of
the
power
they
"represent."
Saxl drew
attention
long
ago
to
the connection
existing
between
the
importance
attached to
the
correct
"form"
of the Gods
in
the
sixteenth
century
and
the
belief
in
the
magic
efficacy of images. He showed how far these ideas were removed from our
rational
division
between "form"
and
"content."1
In Ficino this
magical
doctrine is
linked with
the whole
body
of
Neo-Platonic
aesthetics
n
the
follow-
ing
argument:2
The
objects
in
our sublunar
world
have different
qualities.
Some,
like
heat and
cold,
dryness
and
moisture,
are elemental
and
thus wedded
to
the
world of
matter.
Others,
like
brightness,
colours
and
numbers-that is
pro-
portion-appertain
both
to
our
sublunar world
and
to
the celestial
sphere.
These
mathematical
shapes
and
proportions,
then,
belong
to
the
higher
order
of
things.
Shapes
and
proportions,
therefore,
have the most intimate
connec-
tion
with
the Ideas
in
the
World Soul
or the
Divine Intellect.
"Imo et
cum
idaeis maximamhabent n mentemundireginaconnexionem."What applies to
numbers and
shapes
applies
also
to
colours,
for colour
is a
kind
of
light
which
is
itself
the
effect and
image
of
the intellect.
If
anybody
should doubt these
sympathetic
links
Ficino asks him
to consider
the
power
of
images
as a
matter
of
common
observation.
How
easily
does
a
figure
of a
mourning person
move
us
to
pity,
how
profoundly
does the
image
of a
charming person-amabilis
personae
igura-affect
the
eye,
the
imagination
and
our
humours
Ficino
then
appeals
to the
age-old
belief
according
to which
an unborn child
is
affected
by
the
parents'
mental
images
during
conception.
We need not
follow
him
further
to
see where
his
argument
leads.
It leads
to the
conclusion
that,
in
the
Neo-Platonic
theory
of
art, image making
could
be considered on a
par
with
music.
In
musical
theory
we
are more
familiar
with
the
metaphysical
Platonic
doctrine
that all
harmony
reflects
a
heavenly harmony
and that
the effects
of
music
on
the
mind are
somehow
due to
this
power
derived from
cosmic
laws.
"What
passion
cannot
music
raise
and
quell?"
In
the Neo-Platonic
theory
of
music,
so
wonderfully
epitomized
in
Dryden's
ode,
no
clear
line is
drawn
between
what
we
call
expression
in
music
and the
magic
effects
achieved
through
harmonies. The
Platonic
theory
which
banned
certain
modes of
music
because
of their
effects on the
mind,
must be seen
in
the context
of
the
medical and
physiological
effects
ascribed
to
music,
and
these,
in
turn,
were believed to be on the same level with magic phenomena and with the
physical
law of
resonance
invoked
by
Ficino.
The result of this belief
was,
in
fact,
very
similar in
the
sphere
of
music and in
that
of
art. We see the
Renais-
sance
Platonists
searching
eagerly
for
the
tradition of
the "music
of the
1
F.
Saxl,
Antike
G6tter
n
der
Spdtrenaissance,
(Studien
der
Bibliothek
Warburg,
VIII),
p.
17:
"Dieser
Begriff
der
Form
entspricht
der
Rolle
des
Namens in der
Zauberei.
Beide
sagen
etwas
fiber
das Wesen
der
Dinge
aus."
Cf. G.
Santayana's
remark
on the
Judgement
of
Paris: "The
disrobing
of
god-
desses . . . does not conform to my principles
of
exegesis,
and
I
pronounce
it
heretical.
Goddesses
cannot
disrobe,
because their
attri-
butes are
their substance."
(Soliloquies
in
England
and
later
Soliloquies,
London,
1937,
p.
241
)
2
Ed.
cit.,
p.
355.
For
a
parallel passage
see
ibid.,
p. 941-
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178
E.
H.
GOMBRICH
ancients"
which must have
embodied
the
laws of the
universe and
which
was
therefore
reputed
to
have
produced
such miraculous
effects.'
Orpheus
could
lead
the
savage
race;
And
trees
uprooted
left their
place
Sequacious
of the
lyre...
It is known
that out of these efforts to
reconstruct the music of the ancients
which
moved
the
passions
there
grew,
almost as an
accidental
by-product,
the
Opera
of Monteverdi.
The
parallelism
with Ficino's
theory
of
the
image
is
complete.
He
thought
that
the numbers and
proportions
preserved
in
the
image
reflect
the
idea
in
the
divine
intellect,
and therefore
impart
to
the
image
something
of the
power
of
the
spiritual
essence which it embodies. Moreover
the
effect of
images
on
our minds
can
be considered a valid
proof
of this
type
of
magic
effect.
In
other
words,
the
Neo-Platonic
conception
favoured not
only
a removal
of the
distinction between the
representational
and the
symbolizing
functions of the
image,
but
also the
confusion of these
two
levels with what we have called
the
expressive
function. All the three
together
are seen not
simply
as various
forms of
signification
but rather as
potential
magic.
We need
not
assume that these
ideas were
consciously
accepted
by
all
people
of the
period.
But
their
presence
in
the
centre of
philosophical
specula-
tions cannot have remained
without an effect on the
vague
beliefs about
the
image
which
always
lurk,
as it
were,
on
the
fringe
of
consciousness,
ready
to
take
sway.
Thus the
painter
who had
to
represent
Justice
in
a
city
hall was
not without a
certain
philosophical
sanction
if
he first wanted
to know
what
Justice
"looked
like"
in
her
supra-celestial dwellings.
His humanist
adviser
would even know how to
find
out:
If we
only
burrow
deep
enough
into
ancient
and
recondite
lore we
may
find there
an
allusion
to one
of the
images
in
which
the ancient
sages
of the East hid their
deep insight
into
the
essence
of
Justice.
It
was
Plutarch,
for
instance,
who
reported
in
De Isidi
et
Osiride
that the
mythical
Priest of
Egypt represented
Justice
blind.2
To
paint
her blindfolded
was
thus to
reveal
a
true attribute
of the idea of
Justice.
The true Neo-
Platonist
may
even
encourage
one
to
go
a
step
further
and to
assume that
those whose
eyes
rest on the
figure
really
do behold
Justice,
and
that
there-
fore their behaviour
may
or
must be affected
by
what
they
see.
This
attitude would
explain
the immense care and
learning
which was
spent on the "correct" equipment of figures not only in paintings but also in
masques
and
pageantries
where
nobody
but
the
organizers
themselves
could
ever
hope
to
understand
all
the learned
allusions lavished on
the costumes
of
figures
which
would
only
appear
for a
fleeting
moment.3
Perhaps
the
idea
was
under the
threshold
of
consciousness
that
by being
in
the
"right"
attire
these
figures
became
genuine
"masks"
in
the
primitive
sense,
which turn
1
Cf. F. A.
Yates,
The
French
Academies,
ed.
cit.,
p. 36
ff.
2
Cf. E.
v.
Mller,
"Die
Augenbinde
der
Justizia,"
Zeitschrift fair
christliche
Kunst,
XVIII,
1905.
3
Cf. A. Warburg, I Costumi Teatrali per gli
Intermezzi
del
r589,
ed.
cit.,
esp.
p.
280,
where
it
is shown that certain emblems
were
in fact
invisible
to
the
audience
and
that
even
intel-
ligent
and
learned observers
remained
ignor-
ant
of the
true
significance
of
these
figures.
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18o
E. H. GOMBRICH
spirits.
He
held
the
correct Neo-Platonic
view that the
spirits
belong
to the
supra-sensible
world and
only
assume
visible
form
to
enable
them to
have
commerce
with
human
beings.
It is
precisely
this doctrine which
informs
the
whole
Neo-Platonic
argument concerning
the true
nature
of visual
symbols.
They are the forms which the invisible entities can assume to make themselves
understood to the
limited human mind.
In other
words,
the idea of
Justice-
be
it
conceived
as
a member of the celestial
hierarchy
or as
an
abstract
entity
-is
inaccessible to the
senses.
At best we can
hope
to
grasp
it in a moment
of
ecstasy
and
intellectual
intuition. But God
has
decreed
in
His
mercy
that
these
invisible
and abstract
entities
whose
divine
radiance
no human
eye
could
support
may
accommodate
themselves to
our
understanding
and
assume
visible
shape.1
Strictly
speaking,
these
allegorical images
neither
symbolize
nor
repre-
sent the
Platonic idea. It is
the
idea
itself,
conceived
as
an
entity,
which
through
these
images
tries to
signal
to
us
and thus
to
penetrate
through
our eyes into our mind. Put in this form this conception admittedly sounds
abstruse
if
not
absurd. Yet
it
is
only
the
explicit
formulation
of an
idea which
is
implied
in
the
whole
Neo-Platonic
approach
to the
symbol.
The
very
position
which
regards
the
symbol
as
existing
"by
nature"
rather
than
by
"convention"
is
only
understandable,
as
we have
seen,
if
we
accept
the
assumption
that the
higher
orders reveal themselves
to our
limited mind
through
the
sign
language
of nature.
It is
not we who select
and
use
symbols
for
communication-it is the
Divine
which
expresses
itself in the
hieroglyph
of
sensible
things.
To rational
analysis
this
doctrine
may
reveal one more
semantic
confusion.
It is
the confusion between
the
two
meanings
of
the
word
"sign"-the
sign
as
part
of a
language
and the natural
sign,
or
indication.
Nothing
is more natural than the confusion of these two
meanings.
For in
human
intercourse
the
two
in
fact
merge
imperceptibly.
There is
no
clear
borderline
between
blushing
as an indication of
embarrassment
and
a
frown
as
an
(intentional) sign
of
anger.
But we have
no
difficulty
in
keeping
the
two
apart
as
soon
as we
approach
nature.
We realize
that
lights
on
the
horizon
may
be either flash
signals
intended as
communications,
signs
of
distress;
or
sheet
lightning, signs
of
electrical
discharges,
indications
of
ap-
proaching
storms. To
the
mind, however,
that sees the
skies
peopled
by higher
intelligences
this
distinction
is
less
clear.
The
lightning
on the horizon
may
be
a
sign
in
both the
meanings
of the
term,
an omen
through
which
an
unseen
power announces to us an impending disaster. It is therefore
less
surprising
to
notice
that the
sixteenth
century
did
not
always
distinguish
clearly
between
man-made
symbols
and
supernatural
omens.
It is well
known
what
import-
ance was
attached
in
the Reformation
period
to the
"signs
of
the
time,"
to
the
miraculous births
like
the
Papstesel
or
the
Minchskalb. Both Luther
and
Melanchthon
applied
all
the subtleties of
allegorical
or
"hieroglyphic"
inter-
pretation
to
the
individual features
of
these
natural
symbols:
the
ears of
the
Minchskalb,
for
instance,
were said
by
Luther to denote "the
tyranny
of
aural
1
Cf.
Dante,
Paradiso,
IV, 40
f.,
where the
doctrine of
accommodation
is
given
in
the
rational Thomistic form.
For
his sources cf.
G.
A.
Scartazzini's
edition,
Leipzig,
1882,
III,
p.
88
ff.
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ICONES
SYMBOLICAE
181
confession."
The
theoretical
justification
of
this
divinatory
technique
is
given
by
Luther
in a little
rhyme
accompanying
a
picture
of
one of these
portents:
Was
Gott
selbs
von
dem
Bapstum
helt,
Zeigt
dis schrecklich
Bild hie
gestelt ...1
Here, then,
we are almost back
at our
starting-point.
Where
every
natural
object
can
be conceived
as
a
sign
or
symbol, every symbol,
in
its
turn,
will
be
thought
of
as
existing
"by
nature"
rather than
by
convention.
To us it seems
a
far
cry
from Pico's
ghosts
and Luther's monsters
to
the creations
of
allegorical
art,
but both rest
on a common foundation.
If
the forms
of
spirits
and
portents
can
be conceived
as
signs
from God
it
is
only
consistent
that the forms
of
_-;Z--
The Monk-Calf.
From a
pamphlet
by
Luther,
1523
visual
symbols,
too,
can be conceived
as
signs
of
a
supra-sensible
presence.
It is characteristic
of
Neo-Platonic
speculation
that
it
can
absorb
these
con-
ceptions, usually
associated with
primitive mentality,
into a self-contained
metaphysical
system.
The
theory
of
emanations,
of the
"great
chain of
beings,"
succeeded
in more than one
sense
in
linking
the
highest
with the
lowest,
exalted
contemplation
with
simple superstitious practice.
Divination
through
monsters and its use
in
mass
propaganda
may
be
close
to
the lowest
level.
The
feeling
of
a
revelation of universal
harmony
roused
through
the
aesthetic
experience
may
be its most sublimated
form.
Somewhere
in
between
we
may
have
to
place
the
attitude
of
the seventeenth
century
cleric whose
oratorical
showpiece
on
Icones
Symbolicae
provided
the
starting-point
for
our
investigation.
ICf.
C.
Lange,
Der
Papstesel, 1891;
A.
Warburg,
Heidnisch-antike
Weissagung
n
Wort
und Bild zu Luther'sZeiten, ed. cit., p.
524;
H.
Grisar,
S.F. and
F.
Heege,
S.J.,
Luthers
Kampfbilder,
Lutherstudien, V,
3,
4, Freiburg,
1923.
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182
E.
H.
GOMBRICH
Christophoro
Giarda
sees
the universe
in
terms
of
the Neo-Platonic tradi-
tion,
of
Dionysius
Areopagita
and his
followers.
To
him
the Arts
and Sciences
are
not
"abstract
concepts"
but
spiritual
entities,
heavenly
virgins,
the
daughters
of the
Divine
intellect,
dwelling
eternally
in the radiance
of the
intelligible world. Their very sublimity and purity makes them invisible to
our coarse
mind,
addicted as it is
to
the
service
of our
bodily
senses.
Man
in
his
ignorance
would never
have known of their
existence;
they,
in
their exalted
position,
would never
have
enjoyed
human
love
and
worship
had
not
God,
in
His
mercy,
transformed
the
whole
of
nature into
a
vast
collection
of
symbols
which
provides
the medium
through
which
these
Divine
messengers
can
accommodate themselves
to
our dim
understanding.
It is
to
the inventors of
the
hieroglyphic
art,
to
the
sages
of the
primeval
age,
that
mankind
thus
owes the boon
of
this
contact with
the
Divine,
because
it
was
they
who created
and
preserved
the unbroken tradition
of
symbolic
knowledge.
The
Symbolic
Image
provides
the means
through
which
the
inmates of
the
spiritual
world
can descend to earth and assume visible form thlere to rouse, instruct and
transform
the
mind of man
through
the
love
of
higher
things.
If
we read Giarda's
eulogy
in
its context
we become
aware
of
a
strange
parallel.
It is
clear that
in
his
formulation
the
mystery
of
the
visual
symbol-
for
it is a
mystery-is expressed
in
terms
reminiscent
of those
used
to describe
the central
mystery
of
salvation-the
incarnation
of
the
Logos.
Here we
have
reached
the end
of
our
quest.
For
the fact
that
the
Barnabite
cleric could
express
the
Neo-Platonic
conception
of
the
visual
symbol
in
this
form
without
a
feeling
of
incongruity proves
that his
doctrine,
the
antecedents
of
which
we
have tried to
trace,
was not
just
a freakish current
of
esoteric
ideas,
unrelated to
the
main
body
of
European thought.
It could
be
absorbed
by
the main stream of
religious teaching
without a
feeling
of
incompatibility.
We
clearly
cannot venture
into the vast
field that
opens up
before
us.
But the
awareness of this
larger
context
may
perhaps
help
us
to
place
our
problem
in
the
right setting.
In
reconstructing
a doctrine
of the kind
we
have
attempted
to
piece
to-
gether
there is
always
a
danger
of over-statement.
To be
sure,
the elements
existed
in
European
thought,
but
how
far were
they
accepted
as
a whole?
In
other
words,
have
we
any
right
to assume
that
artists and
public
alike
really
saw
sixteenth-
and
seventeenth-century allegories
in
this
strange
light?
Did
they
seriously
believe
them to
be
revelations
of a
higher
reality
whose
very
presence exerted its mysterious effects? Have these esoteric doctrines more
than a
certain
curiosity
value?
It
is
certainly
not
easy
to answer
this
question.
Our
attitude
towards
the
words
and
images
we use
continuously
varies.
It
differs
according
to the level
of
consciousness. What
is
rejected
by
wide-awake
reason
may
still
be
accepted
by
our
emotions.
In
our
dreams we
all
make
no difference
between
the meta-
phorical
and the
literal,
between
symbol
and
reality.
In the dark
recesses
of
our
mind
we all
believe
in
image magic.
Not
even
the
primitive,
on
the
other
hand,
believes
in
its
sole
efficacy.
In the
history
of
European
thought
this
duality
of attitudes
is
somehow
reflected
in
the
continuous
co-existence
of
Neo-
Platonic
mysticism
and Aristotelian
intellectualism.
The
tension
between
these two modes of thought, their interpenetrations, conciliations and divisions
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ICONES
SYMBOLICAE
183
make
up
the
history
of
religious philosophy
throughout
the Middle
Ages
and
the
Renaissance.
In
trying
to
disentangle
the Neo-Platonic
conception
of the
visual
image
we
had
to isolate
it
somewhat
artificially
out
of this
complex
texture. But
it
is well to remember that for all its fascination Neo-Platonism never held un-
disputed
sway
in
this field
any
more than
in
other
fields.
Though
it
may
have
encouraged
an
irrational
confusion between
the
functions of the
image
there
always
remained
scope
for
the
application
of "discursive reason" and
the exercise of
rational distinction
grounded
on
Aristotelian
logic.
No
history
of the
visual
symbol
in
European
art
could afford
to
neglect
this
other
powerful
tradition.
Its
importance
is
clearly
demonstrated
by
the
fact that it was
on this doctrine rather
than on Neo-Platonic
mysticism
that
Cesare
Ripa
based
his
successful
handbook
of
allegorical
imagery,
his famous
Iconologia.
As
compared
to
Christophoro
Giarda's fervent
eulogy
Ripa repre-
sents
the more
rationalist
wing
of
opinion.
In
his
introduction,
written
a
generation before Giarda, Ripa develops a theory of the allegorical personi-
fication
in
conscious
analogy
to
the Aristotelian
theory
of
definition. If we
wish to form the
image
of
a
concept
we
must
subject
it
to the same
process
of
logical analysis
as we
apply
when
establishing
its verbal
definition.
In
Ripa's theory
the
human
figure
stands for the
substance,
or
essence,
the
emblems
it holds
or
wears,
for
its "attributes."
Our choice of
attributes
is
determined not so much
by
a
scrutiny
of the sources
of ancient
wisdom as
by
a
rational search
for
qualities
which abstract
ideas
and concrete
objects may
have
in
common.1
There is no
contradiction between
Ripa's
conception
and that
of
Giarda.
Ripa's
Aristotelian
"essences" whose
intellectual intuition must
precede any
1
".
.
.
Hora
vedendosi,
che
questa
sorte
d'Imagini
si riduce facilmente
alla simili-
tudine
della
definitione, diremo,
che
di
queste,
come
di
quelle,
quattro
sono i
capi,
6
le
cagioni
principali,
dalle
quali
si
pu6
pigliare
1'ordine di
formarle,
&
si
dimandano
con
nomi
usitati
nelle
Scole,
di
Materia,
Efficiente,
Forma et Fine....
Dapoi, quando
sappiamo
per
questa
strada distintamente
le
qualiti,
le
cagioni,
le
proprietY,
&
gli
accidenti
d'una
cosa
definibile,
accioche
se ne
faccia
l'imagine, bisogna cercare la similitudine,
come
habbiamo
detto nelle
cose
materiali,
la
quale
terrA
in
luogo
delle
parole
nell'
imagine,
6
definitione
de'Rettori;
Et
la
similitudine,
che
serva
a
questo
proposito,
dovra essere
di
quelle,
che
consistono
nell'
egual
proportione,
che
hanno
due
cose
dis-
tinte
fria
se stesse
ad una
sola diversa
da ambe-
due,
prendendosi
quella
che e
meno;
come,
se,
per
similitudine di
Fortezza,
si
dipinge
la
Colonna,
perche negl'edificii
sostiene tutti
i
sassi . . .
dicendo,
che tale
e la
fortezza
nell'huomo,
per
sostenere
la
gravezza
di
tutti
i fastidii .
...
Ripa
makes
a
significant
distinction
be-
tween
the
"essentialist"
allegory (cf.
K.
R.
Popper,
The
Open
Society
and its
enemies,
London,
I946,
ch.
XI)
and
the
superficial
illustration,
which
gives
an
example
rather
than
a
definition.
"Ci6
non
e
avvertito
molto
da alcuni
moderni,
i
quali rappresentano
gl'
effetti
contigenti,
per
mostrare
l'essentiali
qualiti,
come
fanno,
dipingendo per
la
Disperatione
uno,
che
s'appica
per
la
gola
.
. .
6
simile
cose di
poco
ingegno
e di
poca
lode. . . ." Giotto's allegories of the Virtues
and
Vices, then,
would
fall under
Ripa's
ban.
He
grants,
however,
that
the
physiognomies
of
his
personifications may
be
moulded
ac-
cording
to their
significance.
Ripa's
didactic
aims come
out in
his in-
sistence
that
allegorical
images
should
always
be
clearly
labelled "unless
they
are intended
as riddles." For
the influence of
his
handbook
on
the arts
of
the
I7th
and
18th
centuries
see
E.
Mile,
L'art
rdligieux
pris
e Concile e
Trente,
Paris,
1932,
and
E.
Mandowsky,
"Ricerche
intorno all'
Iconologia
di Cesare
Ripa,"
La
Bibliofilia,1939, XLI.
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184
E. H.
GOMBRICH
correct definition
could
certainly
be
reconciled
with Giarda's
Neo-Platonic
ideas
dwelling
in
supra-celestial
regions.
But the
emphasis
in
Ripa's
systematic
approach
differs
nevertheless
significantly
from Giarda's emotional
praise.
In Giarda
the
ultimate function of the visual
symbol
is
to
kindle love
through
vision. In Ripa we are nearer the established view of the didactic image as a
substitute
for
and
supplement
of the
written word.
A
discussion of
the
com-
plex
function of the didactic
image
which dominated the art of the Middle
Ages
and
continued
to
exercise its influence
in
subsequent periods
lies outside
the
scope
of the
present
essay.
It
would have to be
preceded
by
an
analysis
of
the various
modes of
illustration and
the
many
forms of interaction between
word
and
image.1
What
distinguishes
the
Neo-Platonic
conception
of
the
visual
image
is
precisely
the
emphasis
on
the
autonomy
of this form
of
sym-
bolism. This
autonomy
was
not
always
recognized.
The task
assigned
to
the
image
in
the famous
pronouncement
of
Pope Gregory
the
Great was
essentially
that
of
being
a substitute for
words:
pictures
should tell the sacred
story
to
the
unlettered who could not read the texts. There is no place in this doctrine for
the
superiority
of visual
intuition over
discursive
reason,
nor
for the direct
impact
of
forms,
colours and
proportions
on
the
mind of the beholder.
It has
always
been
assumed that the Neo-Platonic revival
of
the
Renais-
sance contributed to the
emancipation
of
art
and the
acknowledgment
of
an
independent
aesthetic
sphere.
The
importance
of the new
emphasis
on
beauty
as
a
token
of
the
Divine
and the
significance
of the
new
conception
of the
creative
process
in
art have
often been
stressed.
If
our
analysis
is
correct,
the
Neo-Platonic
conception
of the
special
virtues
inherent
in
the visual
symbol
would
also have
contributed to the enhanced status
of the
figurative
arts.
We need not
assume,
in
accepting
this
possibility,
that artists were con-
sciously
aware of
all
the
chains
in
the
Neo-Platonic
argument.
Unfortunately
we still know too
little about the
way
in
which
philosophical
ideas
percolate,
the
way
in which
they
are
first distilled into
slogans
which
in
turn direct
the
attitude
of
men towards certain values and
standards.
It is
in
this
way,
so it
seems,
that the
philosopher
influences the
actions
of
his
contemporaries
by
a
II
have
attempted
to
analyse
the inter-
action
of
symbolism
and
illustration
in
a
work
of
15th
century
religious
art
in
"Tobias
and
the
Angel,"
Harvest,
I, London,
1948.
For the
superiority of the text over the image in
mediaeval
didactic
imagery
see F.
Saxl,
"A
Spiritual Encyclopedia
of
the
later Middle
Ages,"
Journal
of
the
Warburg
and
Courtauld
Institutes,
V,
1942, esp. p.
Ioo.
Perhaps
it
is
only
among
the
mystics
that the Neo-Platonic
con-
ception
of
the
image
is
to
be found
in
its
pure
form
in
the
Middle
Ages.
We
hear
of
Suso that
"in
his
youth,
he
had caused
to
be
painted
for
himself,
upon parchment,
a
picture
of Eternal
Wisdom,
who rules
supreme
over heaven
and
earth,
and far
surpasses
all
created
things
in
ravishing
beauty
and
loveliness of
form;
for
which reason, when he was in the bloom of
youth
he
had
chosen
Wisdom for his
beloved.
He carried
this
lovely
picture
with
him
when
he
journeyed
to the
place
of studies
and he
always
set
it
before
him in
the window
of his
cell, and used to look at it lovingly with
heartfelt
longings.
He
brought
it back home
with
him on his
return,
and caused it to be
transferred to
his
chapel
wall as
a
token
of
affection.
.
.
."
(The life of
the
Blessed
Henry
Suso
by
himself,
translated
by
T. F.
Knox,
London,
I913,
p.
I34.
For
Suso's belief
in
the
magic efficacy
of the
image
see
ibid.,
p.
75.)
For
an
attempt
to
interpret
a work
of
the
I2th
century
in
the
light
of mediaeval
Neo-Platonic
thought,
see
R.
Grinnell,
"Iconography
and
Philosophy
in
the
Cruci-
fixion Window
at
Poitiers,"
The
Art
Bulletin,
I946.
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ICONES
SYMBOLICAE
185
process,
almost,
of
remote
control.1
There
are
few
indications that the
leaders
of
the Florentine
"Academy"
were much interested
in
the art of their
time.
One
might
read
through
all the
weighty
tomes written
by
Ficino,
Pico and
Poliziano
without
suspecting
that the
writers
rubbed shoulders with
artists
like Leonardo or Botticelli, Bertoldo or Ghirlandajo. And yet, after the lapse
of
hardly
a
generation,
the talk of the studio
is
filled with Neo-Platonic catch-
words,
and
before
a
century
has
gone
by
these
slogans
have
transformed the
whole
position
of the artist
and the whole
conception
of
art. It is
in
this in-
direct
way
rather than
by
detailed
instruction,
that
we
may
imagine
the
views
outlined
above to
have influenced the attitude of
patron
and
artist
in
the
Renaissance.
Perhaps
this
influence has
so
far
been
sought
too
exclusively
in
the
sphere
of
iconography
on the one side and
aesthetics
on
the
other. The
very
confusion
of
Neo-Platonic
thought helped
to weld form
and
content,
symbolic
significance
and aesthetic
effect,
together.
If
we
step
with these notions
in
mind
before
a
painting
like
Botticelli's
'Birthof Venus' we feel how all these influences unite in it as raysin a burning-
glass.
Whatever
the actual
"programme"
that underlies this
commission,
we
know that
it
is the
result of
passionate
efforts to re-evoke
the
"true"
image
of the
Goddess
of Love as it had been
created
by
the
ancients.2
This "true
image"
is the
form assumed
by
the
heavenly
entity
which
is
hidden
in
the
myth
of
Venus
when
appearing
before the
eyes
of the
mortals. It both
hides
and
proclaims
her
spiritual
essence. The influences which
such an
image
exerts
on our
senses,
in
every meaning
of
the
term,
would
not have
been con-
sidered
incompatible
with
any
spiritual
or
allegorical
interpretation.
On
the
contrary-this
effect of the
image
on
our
passions
and
emotions
would
have
been
accepted
as a
proof
of
its true
correspondence
to the
heavenly
idea,
a
natural outcome of its magic efficacy. The patron who had it in his room for
contemplation
would surrender
to
its influence
and would find in
it
a
true
guide
to the
supra-sensible principle
of
Love
or
Beauty,
of which
Venus
is
but
the
visible
embodiment
and
revelation.
In
short,
the antithesis between
aesthetic and
literary
interpretation,
be-
tween
sensuality
and
symbol, may
largely
be
imported
by
us.3 If
these
works
of
the
Renaissance
have
struck
some
observers as
"pagan"
it is
not
because
1
Modern
art
and
literature
provides
a
number of
interesting examples
of
this
type
of
influence.
The
impact
of theories like
those
of Freud or Jung extends much further than
the
small
circle
of those who read and under-
stood the technical
writings
in
which these
ideas
were first
expounded.
Some
of
the
catchwords
derived
from
these
theories were
often
distorted
beyond
recognition
but this
did not
deprive
them
of
their
fascination
and
influence.
The
attraction
and effect of
"Platonic"
words
like
idea or
furore
may
well
be
compared
to
that of
terms like
"unconscious,
"
"symbol,"
"pattern"
or "in-
tegration,"
which become
heavy
with
vague
but emotional
significance.
2
Cf. my article on "Botticelli's Mytholo-
gies," Journal
of
the
Warburg
and
Courtauld
Institutes, VIII,
I945,
p.
53
if.
3
It
is in
this
direction,
perhaps,
that
one
might suggest a compromise between the
points
of
view on
Renaissance
allegory
ex-
pressed by
O.
Brendel
and U.
Middeldorf in
their
exchange
of letters in
The Art
Bulletin,
I947.
Prof.
Middeldorf is
certainly
right
when
he
emphasizes
that the search
for
recondite
symbolism
should not
blind us
to the
more
obvious
qualities
of
"bedroom
art."
But
the
one
approach
does
not
necessarily
exclude
the other.
Perhaps
even
this
type
of
art was
thought
sometimes to
exert
an
influence
beyond
its
erotic
appeal.
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186 E.
H.
GOMBRICH
they
are
anti-religious
but
rather because in
them
the attitudes
toward
religious symbols
are
transferred
to
secular
themes.
From
this
point
of
view the
allegory
of the
Baroque period
may
perhaps
be
seen
as another
swing
of
the
pendulum.
The
unity
of sense
and
sensuality
which had been the secretof the Neo-Platonic visual symbol in the Renaissance
was
now
claimed
and
accepted
by
religious
art. It is
hardly
an accident
that
our
Christophoro
Giarda moved
in
the ambiente f Urban VIII.
Born
in
1596,
he
belongs
to the
generation
of
Cortona and
Bernini,
the
generation,
that
is,
in which
religious
art was
assigned
the
task
of
rousing
the
mind from vision
to visions.
In
the
great
ceiling
compositions
of the
Baroque
masters
we find
the
illustration
of
Giarda's
world,
in
which
the
abstractions
dwell with the
angels
in
a realm
of
light
and bend down
to
us mortals to
point
the
way
to
higher
spheres.
In
these visions
of
the
open
heaven the Church
speaks
the
language
of accommodation to
perfection.
Who would
say
where
representa-
tion
ends and
symbols begin
in
Sacchi's Divina
Sapientia
P1.
33b)
or Pozzo's
ceiling in S. Ignazio in Rome (P1. 34)?1
And
yet
this art
may
have carried
in
it
the
seeds
of its own destruction.
We
are reminded
of
Dionysius
the
Areopagite's
warning against
analogous
symbols.
The
representational
illusion swallowed
up
the
symbol.
Ration-
alism
demanded
a neat distinction
of
the two.
In
its insistence
on
lucidity
it
worked
towards
a
divorce
of
the three functions
of
the
image.
The
result
is
apparent
in the
history
of
art since the
Age
of Reason. First the
symbolic
function
was denied
a
place
in
art,
then the
representational
function as
such
was
placed
outside the
pale;
we have
become used
to the identification
of all
art with
the
function
of
"expression."
But this revolution
in
its turn had
to contend with the
surviving
tenets
of
the Neo-Platonic conception of the image. Some features of academic
classicism
preserve,
as it
were,
the esoteric
view of the visual
symbol
in
a
1
H.
Tetius,
Aedes
Barberinae, Rome,
1642,
concludes
his
description
of Sacchi's
famous
painting
with
an
eulogy
which is
strikingly
reminiscent of
Giarda's
terminology.
One
day,
so
we
hear,
Urban VIII visited the
palace
and
sat at table
under the fresco
when,
quite
by
accident,
a
text on Divine Wisdom
was chosen for
the lesson.
All
present
were
struck
by
this
mysterious
coincidence. "At
last we were able to behold Divine Wisdom,
which we had never
seen before
except
darkly
and,
as it
were,
covered
by
a
veil,
openly
and
without
a
vizor so that
every
one could con-
template
her: her
Divine
and
lucid Arche-
type
(archetypam)
n
the
Holy
Writ,
her
proto-
type
(protypam)
in
Urban
and her
representa-
tion
(ectypam)
in
the
painting.
What
light,
what
splendour
was thus
infused into the
room
and
revealed
to
all
who surrounded
the
exalted
Prince.
In
truth even the
very
walls
seemed
to
leap
with
joy (parietes
ipsi
gestire
videbantur)
and to
congratulate
themselves on
this high honour. We, however, were filled
with
joyful
confidence
and
felt
transported
to
the
very
presence
of Divine
Wisdom
(quasi
in
ipsam
Sapientiam
Divinam
rapti)
so that
in
future
nothing
obscure,
nothing impenetrable
could
ever occur
to us."
It
is
easy
to
dismiss
such
an
account
as
empty
flattery
but the
psychological
state of
rapture
it
describes,
into
which even the walls are
drawn,
gives
a
perfect
idea
of
the
effects
at which the
art
of the Baroque period is aiming. For the
programme
to
Sacchi's fresco
see
Incisa's
article
in
L'Arte,
1924,
p.
64.
The survival of
this
type
of
allegorical
composition
and its
gradual suppression through
rationalist
criti-
cism is
analysed
in H.
Tietze,
"Programme
und Entwtirfe
zu
den
grossen
Oesterreich-
ischen
Barockfresken,"
Jahrbuch
der kunst-
historischen
Sammlungen
in
Wien,
XXX,
191
I.
The aesthetic relevance
of
these
programmes
is stressed
by
K. L.
Schwarz,
"Zum
aesthet-
ischen Problem des
Programms,"
Wiener
Jahrbuch
fiir
Kunstgeschichte,
XI,
1937.
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ICONES
SYMBOLICAE
187
strangely
watered-down
form. Classicist
teaching
turns on
the
advice
that
the true artist should
not
copy
nature-he
must
ennoble,
"idealize"
it
by
representing
not crude
reality
but the
Platonic idea
behind it.
A
genius
will
be
granted
the
vision of these Divine ideas in his
moments
of
rapture.
But
for those who are no geniuses there is a safer way to the same haven. In the
antique
statues,
or rather
in
their
plaster
casts,
they
can
find
a
storehouse
of
the Platonic
ideas.
Many
influences
contributed to
the
formation of
this
doctrine that
the ancient statues
represent
Platonic
ideas,
but one of
them
we would
probably
find
to be the
Neo-Platonic
mode of
thought
which
saw
in
the
images
handed down from the
past
a
revelation
of
essential
knowledge.
It is true that the reason
given
for
this
estimation of
the
classical
images
had
changed,
even
though
it still
retained its Platonic
character. It
was
based
on
the identification
of the idea with the
universal
concept.
What
we
see
with
our
bodily
eyes
is
only
the
particular. Only
through
the
process
of
"abstrac-
tion" do we
arrive
at the
universal.
In
the
antique
this
abstraction
has
already been performed. The "accidents" of matter are not represented by
the
classical artist.
He does not
portray
the
individual
but the
type,
not a
particular
man
but
the
image
of man
as
such.'
But however
plausible
the
argument may
sound that
the
more
"general-
ized" or schematic
image
is
nearer to the
"abstract" or
universal
concept
than
is the
naturalistic
or
particularized representation,
even
this
last
stronghold
of
Platonic
aesthetics
rests on
mistaken
semantic
analysis.2
The
idea
of an in-
ductive
process through
which we
can rise
from the
particular
to
the
general
by leaving
out individual traits has
been
challenged
in
logic-in
the
realm
of
the
image
it
certainly
rests on
no
foundations.
A
moment's
reflection
will
show
that the most schematic or
rudimentary
image
can
be
intended as a
representation
of an individual while the most detailed
portrait
can stand for
the
concept
or
type.
It is
not
the
degree
of
naturalism
which
determines
the
question
whether the
image
of a
horse is to
serve as a
symbol
for
the
universal
concept
"horse"
or as a
portrait
of a
particular
horse. A
photograph
in a
text-
book
or on
a
poster
may
represent
the
type
or
serve as a
symbol-a
mere
primitive
scrawl
may
be
intended as a
representation
of
the
individual.
Only
the context can determine
this distinction
between
symbol
and
representation.
Maybe
it was
this
Platonic
identification of
the
abstract
with the
general-
ized which finished
allegorical
imagery
as a
branch of
art.
The
phrase
of
the
"bloodless" abstraction was no
empty
metaphor.
Artists
began
to think
that
the more
generalized was the concept they had to symbolize, the paler and
1
Cf.
Reynolds, Discourses,
IV.
"A
history
painter paints
man in
general;
a
portrait
painter,
a
particular
man,
and
consequently
a
defective model."
2I1
do not wish to
imply
that these
remarks
exhaust
the
problem
of
the
universal
in
art.
But
the
word "abstract"
is
rather
apt
to
confuse the
problems
involved. As I. A.
Richards
observed
in relation to his
own
field
of
study:
"It
is
perhaps important
to
insist
S.
.
that abstract
thinking
is
not a
highly
specialised sophisticated intellectual feat ..
the
simplest
organism
when its
behaviour is
selective
is
abstracting
....
English
philo-
sophical
thought
. .
. was
distracted
into
fruitless
argument
by
a
blunder
about this.
S...
it was
supposed
that
the mind
began
with
concretes and
then
performed
a
peculiar
operation
which
resulted
in
abstract
ideas.
But
the mind is
primordially
abstractive;
of
whatever it
handles
it takes some
aspects
and
omits
others.
. . ."
(Interpretation
n
Teaching,
London,
1938,
p.
380.)
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188
E.
H.
GOMBRICH
more lifeless should
be the
representation.
Thus
the visual
symbols
of
invisible
entities
became more
shadowy
every day.
Even
in
the
nineteenth
century
they
continued
to
parade
their
emblems on the
corners of
monuments
and on
the
pediments
of museums and
stock-exchanges1-but
they
had
acquired
the
faculty of making themselves as invisible as the abstractions they were sup-
posed
to
symbolize.
1
For
the
19th-century
use
of
allegories
cf.
Jakob
Burckhardt's
lecture
"Die
Allegorie
in
den
Ktinsten"
in
Vortrdge,
BMle,
1919,
p.
374.
H.
Janitschek,
Die
Gesellschaft
er Renaissance
in
Italien,
Stuttgart,
1879,
p.
38, gives
an
excellent
description
of
this
process
of dis-
sociation:
"Die
moderne
Kunst
vermag
mit
der
Allegorie
nichts
mehr
anzufangen;
die
Superklugheit,
die uns
anerzogen
wird,
die
skeptische
Stimmung,
der wir
uns
nicht
entschlagen
k6nnen,
hindern
uns,
die von
einem
Maler, Dichter,
Bildhauer
einer
Gestalt
unterschobene
Bedeutung
mit
derselben
ugleich
als
selbstverbundenes
Ganze zu
fassen;
es
tritt unter unseren
Augen
die
L6sung
der
Elemente sofort ein."
APPENDIX
From the introduction to Christoforo
Giarda's
BibliothecaeAlexandrinae cones
Symbolicae,
Milan
16261
(Ideas
Made
Visible)
While
all
knowledge
that
concerns
Science and Virtue is
useful to
man,
the
know-
ledge
which
pertains
to the
invention
and construction
of
symbolic images
by
far
excels
everything else;
for thanks to this boon the mind which is
banished from
heaven
into
x
The full title
of
the
book
is
BibliothecaeAlexandrinae
Icones
Symbolicae
P. D.
Christofori
Giardi Cler.
Reg.
S.
Pauli
Elogiis
illustratae,
Illustrissimo
loanni
Baptistae
Trotto
Praesidi
et
Reg.
Consiliariodicatae. There are
two
editions
apud
lo. Bidellium
(Milan),
I626,
and
I628.
The text
and
illustrations
are
reproduced
in
G.
Graevius
et
P.
Burmannus,
Thesaurus
Antiqu.
et.
Histor.
Italiae,
IX,
6.
The
author,
Christophoro
(Pietro
Antonio)
Giarda,
was a
member
of the Barnabite
order;
born
in
1595
at
Vespolata
(Novara),
he
took
the
vows
in
1613,
studied rhetoric
at Milan
and
philosophy
and
theology
at
Pavia,
became
a
priest
in
I620
and
for
three
years taught
rhetoric at
Montargis
(France).
He
then
returned
to
the Barnabite Institu-
tion
of
S. Alessandro
in
Milan. This
important
college
had been given a library by the Milanese nobleman
and
diplomat
Carlo Bossi
(1572-1649).
According
to
Giarda's
preface
this
"Alexandrian"
library
was the
worthy
heir
of
the
original
one
by
reason of
the
wealth,
variety,
order
and
beauty
of its
volumes.
Its
divisions
(scrinia)
were decorated
with
the
personifications
of
16
Liberal
Arts
which marked the
grouping
of the
library
books.
It
is
significant
that we are
not
told who the
artist was who
designed
them-judged by
the
feeble
engravings
of
Giarda's
book he
was
not
a
great
master.
Perhaps
the
programme
for these
figures
had been
drawn
up by
the
donor,
C.
Bossi,
himself,
as we
know
that
he was
interested
in
emblematics,
a
manuscript
De
impresiis
t emblematibus
eing
listed
among
his
works.
Giarda's
speeches
or sermons on
the
allegorical
figures
of
the
"Alexandrian"
library
were delivered on
the occasion of a meeting of the Barnabite Congrega-
tion at Milan in
1626,
when
custom demanded that
the
professors
at
the
College
should
present
the
guests
with a
sample
of their skill. He
dedicated the
published
version
to
G. B.
Trotto,
a
president
of
the
Milan
Senate.
Giarda's
subsequent
fate
is
interesting.
After
preach-
ing
with
great
success
in
Bologna
and
Rome he rose
in
the
hierarchy
of the order
and
became
ultimately
the
director of its entire Roman Province.
Thanks
to the
patronage
of Cardinal
Francesco
Barberini he was
called to the
Congregation
of the Index.
After
the
accession of
Innocent
X
he seems to
have
mainly
been
engaged
in
pressing
for
the
canonization of St.
Francois
de Sales.
In
May
1648
his
life took a
dramatic
turn.
The
Pope
in
person
consecrated
him
Bishop
of Castro.
This appointment proves that Giarda's reputation for
loyalty
and
courage
must have
stood
high.
For
Castro
was
no
ordinary Bishopric.
A
dispute
raged
between
the
Pope
and
the House of Farnese
as
to
their
respective
rights
in this
small
town
in
the Orvieto
area. Giarda
did
not
proceed
to
his
contested seat
immediately
but
stayed
in
Rome for another ten months.
In
March
1649
he left
with a small
retinue
to
take
up
his
appoint-
ment
and
was
promptly
murdered
by
Ranuccio
Farnese's bravi
while
spending
the
night
in an inn
on
the
way.
The
Pope's revenge
was
terrible.
Castro
was
destroyed
and a
pillar
erected
with
the
inscription:
"Quifu
Castro." The
diocese,
of
course,
ceased to exist.
Cf. P.
G.
Boffito,
Scrittori
Barnabiti
o della
Congregazione
dei Chierici di San
Paolo,
1533-1933,
with full biblio-
graphy.
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ICONES
SYMBOLICAE
189
this
dark
cave
of
the
body,
its
actions
held in
bondage by
the
senses,
can
behold
the
beauty
and
form
of
the Virtues
and
Sciences divorced from all
matter and
yet
adum-
brated
if not
perfectly
expressed
in
colours,
and
is
thus
roused to an even
more fervent
love
and desire
for
them.
For Love
embraces
Cognition
as a
blood-relation
who
will
never
bring
forth the fairest
offspring
of
Love
in
any
mind
unless
she
be
wedded
in
intimate union to the Beautiful and the Good. What, however, was wrought more
beautifully
by
Nature or created
as a
greater good
by
God immortal than
the
very
Virtues
and Sciences?
If
only they
could be seen
by
human
eyes
as other
things
are
they
would
truly
kindle
such
amazing
love for themselves in
all
hearts
that all men
would
spurn
lust,
forget
the
craving
for
power, quell
their
desire
for
riches and
would
flock
together
to
pursue
them.
Now,
however,
the
Sciences,
the
rulers
and
queens
over all
fields
of
knowledge
and
the
judges
and
arbiters
of all
actions,
although, by
their
nature,
they
not
only
outshine
with
their
light
the minor
stars but would even dim the sun
by
comparison,
can
never-
theless
not be seen
by
the human
mind,
enclosed
as
it
is in
the
night-like
dwelling
of
the
body,
as
it
could
not sustain their immense
radiance
without
turning away
the
eyes.
For
the mind
is
the
eye
of the soul.
(The
Languageof
Accommodation)
It
is
the
same
with
fire:
just
as
when
it is
nourished
by grosser
matter we
can
see
it,
but when
it returns
in
purer
form
to its
proper
abode
it
eludes,
by
its
purity,
the
power
of
human
vision;
so the
most noble Arts
and
Disciplines,
as
abstract
from the
senses,
are the less
apprehended
by
us the clearer
they
become
in
themselves;
but
made
concrete
by
some means accommodated
to our minds
through
the
excellent
admixture
of
colours,
they
can be
grasped
more
easily,
more
clearly
and
better.
For
all the
wisest men
are
agreed
that it is
impossible
to
love what
cannot be
apprehended
either
by
reason
or
by
the senses. As
nothing
can
be
apprehended by
the senses that is not somewhat
corporeal,
nothing
can be understood
by
our mind in
its
depressed
condition
that has
not the
appearance
of a
body.
Who,
then,
can
suffi-
ciently
estimate
the
magnitude
of
the debt
we owe to those who
expressed
the Arts
and
Sciences
themselves
in
images,
and so
brought
it
about
that
we
could not
only
know
them
but
look at them as
it
were with our
eyes,
that we can
meet
them and
almost
converse
with
them about
a
variety
of matters?
(The
inventors
f
the various
LiberalArts suchas
Moses,
the
ounderof
Divinity,Socrates,
the
inventor
f
Philosophy,
uclides,
Ptolemaeus
tc. were
rightly
honoured
y
the
ancients
ike
gods
and rewarded
ith
immortal
ame.)
Should
then the teachers
of the
symbolic
doctrine who
brought
these noble
faculties
not
only
before
our minds but before
our
very eyes
and made them into familiar
and,
as it were, domestic companions of men, should these be the only ones to be cheated
of
their
just
reward
of
well-deserved
praise?
To me
nothing
seems
more
fitting
for the
doctrine,
more
elegant
for its
sweetness,
more suitable for
rousing
the
mind
than the
invention
of
Symbolic
Images;
those, therefore,
who first
thought
out this art I
would
not
only compare
to the
initiators
of
the
Liberal Arts but
rather to the author of all
things
and
deem them
most
alike
to
God the Creator.
(The
Ideas
dwell in
the
Mind
of God)
In
the
rich mind of
the Godhead there
flourished,
ere the
memory
of
centuries
began,
there
still
flourish and will continue to
flourish
as His
daughters, yet
not
distinct
in
any way
from
their
mother,
the fairest
Virtues---Wisdom, Goodness,
the effective
'3
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190
E.
H.
GOMBRICH
Power
of
things,
Beauty,
Justice,
Dignity
and all the rest of this
kind.
They
were
all
most
worthy
to
be
much
known
and
beloved.
And
yet,
because
of
the
exceeding
radiance of their
nature
they
could not
be
known
and
thus,
unknown,
they
could
not
be
loved
in
any way.
What, then,
could
God,
their
father,
do?
It
was not
fitting
to
allow
such
illustrious
daughters
to
remain
for all
Eternity
secluded
with
Him in
the
light, separated and far removed from the notice of man. But how could he
bring
them
to
the notice and
before the
eyes
of
mortals
when the
outstanding
radiance of the
Divine
virtues on
the one
side,
the
dullness of our
understanding
on the
other,
was
such
a
great
obstacle?
(Nature
a
Book
of
Symbols)
He
spoke-and
with a
word all
the
elements,
and
within
the elements
all the
species
of
things,
all
the
animals
on
earth,
all
the kinds of fish
in the
water,
all
the
variety
of
birds
in
the
air,
all
the
prodigies
in
the
fiery
sphere,
all
the
stars in
heaven
and
its
lights-these
He turned
into so
many Symbolic
Images,
as
it
were,
of those
perfections
and made and designed them all at once and presented them in the library of this
Universe,
or
if
you
prefer
it
so,
in
this
theatre,
to
the
contemplation
of man.
Let them
approach,
then,
the
mortals,
let
them
only
enquire,
and
deny,
if
they
can,
that
the
easiest
access
to the
contemplation
of
Things
Divine
is
open
to
them,
when
all
things
which can
be
perceived by
the
senses are the
images
of
these,
imperfect
it
is
true,
but
yet
sufficiently
suited to infer
from
their
appearance
and
operation
the
dignity
of
Divine
Matters.
(Superiorityf
Vision)
Believe
me,
it
was
for similar
reasons that
the
Arts
and
Sciences
went about
as
strangers and pilgrims in the habitations of men. No one could have known them by
appearance,
hardly
even
by
name-mentioned
again
and
again,
sometimes
as
the
nomenclature of
a
philosophic
school,
sometimes
of a
department
of
learning
and other
studies,
but
hardly
pronounced,
they
had
vanished
like
a
shadow.
Nor
could
anybody
have
kept
any
record
of
them in
his
mind
(save
the
learned,
whenever indeed
it
might
engage them)
had not
this
heavenly
institution of
expression through
Symbolic Images
fixed
the
most
noble
nature of
these arts
more
clearly
in
the
eyes
and minds
of
all
and
had
not
the demonstration
of
their
sweetness
aroused the
eager study
even
of the
unlearned.
For,
by
the
faith of
heaven
and
of
man,
is
there
anything
which could
demonstrate
the
power
of these
excellent
faculties
more
convincingly,
which could
serve
as
sweeter
recreation and
move us
more
profoundly,
than this
very
learned
use
of
Symbolic Images
with its
wealth
of
erudition?
The other modes of demonstration which might be mentioned in great profusion
are
not
devoid
of
virtue,
but
they
all
require
a
very
acute
intelligence
to be
understood.
The
Symbolic Images,
however,
present
themselves
to
contemplation,
they
leap
to
the
eyes
of their
beholders and
through
the
eyes
they penetrate
into
the
mind,
declaring
their nature before
they
are
scrutinized,
and
so
prudently temper
their
humanity
that
they
appear
to
the
unlearned as
masked,
to the
others
however,
if
they
are
at least
tolerably
learned,
undisguised
and
without
any
vizor. How
pleasantly
they
perform
this,
Sweetness
herself,
if
she
could
speak,
could
hardly
describe.
(The
Effects
of
the
Image)
For first every image and likeness, whether framed in words or expressed in colours,
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ICONES
SYMBOLICAE
19
I
has this
quality
that
it
greatly delights
hearers and
spectators.
Hence
we
find that the
wisest of
poets
and
orators,
to whom
it
was
given
to
mix in their
speech
sweetness with
usefulness,
often use
poetical
and rhetorical
images.
Furthermore
our
delight
is
greatest
if
this
image
is of a
person
or
object
most
dearly
beloved
by
us-for
then it
functions,
as
it
were,
vicariously
and we
tacitly accept
it instead
of
what is absent.
Finally, were it not for the fact that images are most powerfully endowed with the
capacity
of
rousing
the
mind
of
those who behold
them
to
love and emulation of what
they
represent,
would
the Greeks
or
the
Romans,
the wisest of all
nations,
have
filled
their
public
and
private
edifices with the
images
of
their most
outstanding
men?
Or
would
the members
of
ruling
houses who have
marriageable daughters
send their
carefully
worked
portraits
to other
princes?
I
tremble to
praise
the wisdom of those men who were
the first to fix the
symbolical
images
of the Arts and Sciences. For what could
you
desire,
what would be
fitting
to
demonstrate the excellence of those
heavenly virgins,
to
delight
the minds of the
beholders and
to
kindle
in the soul of all
a
flaming
desire
for them? Do
you
desire the
power
of
persuasion?
These are
like
silent
messengers,
dumb
interpreters,
witnesses
worthy
of
all faith and
authority.
Do
you
desire
the
enjoyment
of
elegance?
What
type
of eyeglass, what mirror, what rainbow in the sky did ever show the sun to such delight
of
the
spectators
as
the
Symbolic Images-those
clearer
eyeglasses,
those more brilliant
mirrors,
those
more
gorgeous
rainbows-show
the
forms of
the
Sciences in the most
elegant way?
Or
do
you
want the
gift
of
rousing
the
passions?
The
golden
chains which
were said to issue from the
mouth
of
Hercules and to bind
the
ears and minds
of
men
are
as
nothing compared
to the attraction exercised
by
this
art.
(The
Tradition
of
Primeval
Wisdom)
This arcanum
was
understood
from
the
beginning
of the
nascent world
by
the
wisest men
of
the
primal
age,
and it was
from
them that first this
usage
of
forming
these
images derived, having been handed down through all the intervening centuries through
nearly
all
literatures,
and
finally
came to
our own
age.
Who that is well
versed
in
antiquities
does not know
of
the memorable two
columns,
one made
of brick
to
resist
fire,
the other of marble to resist
water,
on which all the arts were
depicted
and
en-
graved
so that
they
could be
transmitted
to
future
generations?'
For from
these
the
Egyptians
borrowed the excellent doctrine of the
Hieroglyphs
which we admire so much. The Greeks followed in their
footsteps
and left no Art or
Science
unadorned
by
Symbolic
Images.
What kind of
stone
or
metal is there in
which
they
did not
express
the forms of the
Sciences?
What
shade or colour
which
they
omitted
in
their
representation?
It
was no
thing
to be
relished
by
vulgar
erudition
but one whose
singular majesty
filled
them with ineffable
delight.
Behold the Greek
cities
under a
generous sky,
on
a
fruitful
soil,
surrounded
by
a
friendly
sea,
crowded
with statues, images and paintings through which the splendour of the Virtues and
Sciences,
albeit
only
painted
and
wrought,
shone
forth with
such
vigour
that the
chastest fires were cast into the
eyes
of
all,
and
through
the
eyes
into
their
souls,
inflam-
ing
them to the
worship
of those
of
whose
beauty
the
Symbolic
Images
had convinced
them.
Should
we, then,
deem their actions
wise
or foolish?
If
foolish,
what madness is
there
in the name of
science,
what
folly
in
philosophy,
what
bungling
in the
laws,
what
ignorance
in all the
arts which
allowed
their followers
to
indulge
in such vile
hallucinations over such a clear
matter?
If,
on
the other
hand,
we
pronounce
those
to
have acted
very wisely,
then
we
must
all
concede what follows
therefrom: that
the
1
Cf.
above,
p. 169,
note
2.
'3*
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