Why Jesuit emblems? The Society of Jesus produced more books inthis genre than did any other identifiable group of writers andpublished in all major European vernacular languages as well as inLatin. Jeremiah Drexel, for example, was the most prolific and mostpublished writer in Europe in the seventeenth century. He wrote morethan twelve emblem books and each was translated and reissued innumerous later editions. Between 1618 and 1642, 170,000 of Drexel'sbooks were sold in Munich alone - then a city of 22,000 inhabitants.Father Dimler, Research Professor of Emblem Studies at FordhamUniversity, has assembled every known study on Jesuit emblembooks and their authors. His bibliography includes both books writtenby individual Jesuits as well as those produced by Jesuit colleges andinstitutions.

The Jesuit Emblem in the European Context' sets out to understand the emblems currently known to have been written by Jesuits (at least 1,525 printed books) in the context of the production of emblems in Europe. The Introduction offers a brief account of the Society of Jesus, followed by chapters on the European Emblem, the Ratio studiorum (the flexible blueprint for Jesuit education as offered by Jesuit colleges throughout the world), Jesuit Theory of Symbology, the Major Jesuit Emblem Books, the Material Culture (everything not deriving from print), and Purposes Served by Jesuits Using Emblematic Forms. Conclusions follow, with historical information on provinces and colleges of the Society of Jesus provided in appendices. 0Many scholars have considered this or that Jesuit writer, some of his works, individual colleges, and the role of emblem in Jesuit education. However, to date these investigations remain partial. This is the first comprehensive attempt ever to review what Jesuits accomplished using the emblem form.

The Jesuits produced more books on the topic of emblem studies than did any other identifiable group of writers, comprising a vast spectrum of subject matter with a wide diversity of structure and creating an enormous impact on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century culture. In his new book Studies in the Jesuit Emblem, G. Richard Dimler has gathered together selections from his past studies in Jesuit emblems, spanning some 25 years. His revised articles incorporate, among others, a wide array of topics including our state of knowledge of the Jesuit emblem book, Jesuit emblem theory, the genesis and the rise of the Jesuit Emblem, Jesuit reaction to Andrea Alciato, the Imago Primi Saeculi, Edmund Arwaker's translation of the Pia Desideria, as well as some specific Jesuit themes such as the bee-topos and the egg. Also included in the book are hitherto unpublished essays on Herman Hugo, the evolution of an Ignatiam emblem book, and a taxonomical inquiry into the eighteenth century Jesuit emblem.

This study reexamines the invention of the emblem book and discusses the novel textual and pictorial means that applied to the task of transmitting knowledge. It offers a fresh analysis of Alciato’s Emblematum liber, focusing on his poetics of the emblem, and on how he actually construed emblems. It demonstrates that the “father of emblematics” had vernacular forebears, most importantly Johann von Schwarzenberg who composed two illustrated emblem books between 1510 and 1520. The study sheds light on the early development of the Latin emblem book 1531–1610, with special emphasis on the invention of the emblematic commentary, on natural history, and on advanced methods of conveying emblematic knowledge, from Junius to Vaenius.

"This volume includes the late Elisabeth Stopp's previously unpublished study of La vie symbolique du bienheureux Francois de Sales (1664) of Adrien Gambart (1660-68), an introductory essay by Agnes Guiderdoni-Brusle that updates and amplifies Stopp's work, and a facsimile of Gambart's emblem book. This book was inspired by the life and writings of St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), and written for the Sisters of the Visitation monastery of Faubourg Saint-Jacques in Paris, where Gambart, a Vincentian priest, served as chaplain for over thirty years. It was published in preparation for Francis's canonization in 1665." "Stopp's study offers an English translation of the key observations made by Gambart about each of the fifty-two emblems, while the facsimile makes available Gambarts original French text. Moreover, the facsimile is reproduced in color in order to convey the tonal richness of the original emblems."--BOOK JACKET.

The emblem was big business in early-modern Europe, used extensively not only in printed books and broadsheets, but also to decorate pottery, metalware, furniture, glass and windows and numerous other domestic, devotional and political objects. At its most basic level simply a combination of symbolic visual image and texts, an emblem is a hybrid composed of words and picture. However, as this book demonstrates, understanding the precise and often multiple meaning, intention and message emblems conveyed can prove a remarkably slippery process. In this book, Peter Daly draws upon many years’ research to reflect upon the recent upsurge in scholarly interest in, and rediscovery of, emblems following years of relative neglect. Beginning by considering some of the seldom asked, but important, questions that the study of emblems raises, including the importance of the emblem, the truth value of emblems, and the transmission of knowledge through emblems, the book then moves on to investigate more closely-focussed aspects such as the role of mnemonics, mottoes and visual rhetoric. The volume concludes with a review of some perhaps inadequately considered issues such as the role of Jesuits (who had a role in the publication of about a quarter of all known emblem books), and questions such as how these hybrid constructs were actually read and interpreted. Drawing upon a database containing records of 6,514 books of emblems and imprese, this study suggests new ways for scholars to approach important questions that have not yet been satisfactorily broached in the standard works on emblems.