EMBELEMATA–HIC SUNT DRACONES

Published in 2023

$5,000

Emblemata, derives from the Greek word for mosaic pieces. The first emblem book, Emblematum Liber was printed in 1531 in Augsburg. The text was lifted from a manuscript by the jurist, Andrea Alciato––poetic puzzles dedicated to his humanist friend. The  publisher added small, illustrative woodcuts to this unsanctioned edition. In 1534, Alciato authorized the Paris edition of Emblematum Libellus. Hundreds of editions later, the book swelled to feature over two hundred emblems and spawned thousands of emulations. The genre spread throughout the European continent and endured for over two hundred years, spanning the Renaissance and Baroque epochs as a vehicle for early European modernest thought, ethics and science, wisdom and silliness. The tradition prescribed that these emblem books contain a series of fantastic and enigmatic prints with mottos–often in Latin, and poetry or prose that might help to elucidate the meaning. 

Emblemata–Hic Sunt Dracones presents twenty emblems of allegorical figures. Intaglio images depict the personified symbols in poses referencing art history. Fortuna rides a wheel with clock-hand pedals in the pose of Giambolgna’s Flying Mercury. Mottos of common Latin phrases are incorporated into the imagery. Faith strides in the regalia of Mantegna’s Minerva on a tightrope through the clouds above an inscription of the Latin textual instruction, Vide Supra  (see above). Etched poems about the allegorical figures reveal in modern life the timeless denizens of the past. Melencolia races off to her therapist’s office. Fortitude faces cancer. Multiple plates of relief etchings, pieced together, compose individual dragons to ornament the poetry. These depictions of dragons are derived (sometimes closely, sometimes loosely) from original emblem book imagery. A key on the penultimate page provides the title and the artist of the art-historical references as well as the Latin motto of the original emblem imagery from which each dragon is derived. (The referenced emblem can then be discovered via a search engine on the internet.)

Emblemata–Hic Sunt Dracones was published in the waning days of 2023 in an edition of 40 by the Double Elephant Press. The volume measures 11.5 inches by 15.5 inches. Michael Kuch created the etched images and poetry and printed them on Twinrocker hand-made paper. He impressed the dragonfly-winged design for the cover boards on flax sheets made by Cave Paper. Jennifer Taub sewed the coptic binding pro bono.