Moralia Bornitiana

Here are some emblems from another of the books in the Herzog August Bibliothek (see the previous entry, here), which I present in lieu of having anything more worthwhile to write about. The source this time is a 1678 emblem book by one Jakob Bornitz: Moralia Bornitiana Hoc est: Symbola Et Emblemata Politico-Sacra Et Historico-Politica…

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As usual, I’ve just cut out a few of the images that caught my eye when I leafed through the on-line edition of the book. For example, I liked the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ image above: who knows, this could be one of Led Zeppelin’s very earliest influences…

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I think the large bird (second picture up), is supposed to be an eagle, but it has, to me, a disconcertingly poultry-like look about it. Perhaps this impression was strengthened by the surprising number of emblems in the book that feature chickens. In the other image above we see the stilts of youth worn down to become the walking-sticks of old age.

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For me the single most striking image in the Moralia is the hovering mouthless heart-face, above, which, I presume, is making some or other point about the word of God, but, my knowledge of Latin being so meagre, I can’t figure out exactly what.

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Also intriguing is the last engraving here, where we see some proto-rockstar behaviour as this musician, evidently out of his mind on ale or wine, improvises a percussion solo with his instrument… Click on the images to see enlarged versions of the same.