Mikrokosmos

Every once in a while I check back at the MATEO project website at the University of Mannheim, hoping they may have added more to their already very marvellous selection of digital editions of old, illustrated books. There was nothing new there on my latest visit the other day, but I took a while browsing through the digitised pages of a volume called Microkosmos or Parvus Mundus, an emblem-book published in Antwerp in 1579, written by one Laurentius Haechtanus, with engravings by Gérard de Jode. I snipped out a few of the emblems, as shown below:

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Although each emblem in the book is accompanied by a Biblical quotation, as well as the customary Latin verse, the illustrations in this ‘rare and curious book’ are notably lacking in traditional Christian imagery: their engraver clearly shared in the Renaissance enthusiasm for pagan classical antiquity. Perhaps the single most striking illustration in this respect is that of Prometheus, shown hanging somewhat Christlike from a cross (below).

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Sites such as MATEO leave me to lament my linguistic shortcomings, as I can construe very little of either the Latin texts, or of the German commentaries thereupon. Often, perusing the images makes me feel as though I am participating in a recondite kind of caption-competition, one that I am much too slow-witted to win.

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As my comprehension of Russian is poorer still than my German (i.e. effectively zero), this site, which also features the Mikrokosmos emblems is even more baffling to me: it seems as though it’s some kind of guide to pictorial symbolism. I am easily fascinated, I suppose, by things I don’t understand. Clicking on each of the present images, by the way, will open the relevant Mikrokosmos double-page spread at the Mannheim site.

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