Emblemas Morales. Segovia, Juan de la Cuesta,

£7,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

First edition of the first emblem book printed in Spain , compiled by Spanish writer and later bishop of Agrigento and Guadix, Juan Horozco y Covarrubias (c.1540-1610). The work is structured in three parts; the first explains the concept of emblems and devices, their use, history and significance, and serves as an introduction to the following two illustrated parts which contain 100 emblems. Campa describes it as, “the most important treatise on Spanish emblem theory in the Spanish sixteenth century”. Each emblem comprises a large woodcut accompanied by verse below, in Spanish, all enclosed in an elaborate architectural border. The emblem is followed by a several-page explanation that draws on both biblical and classical sources, complete with printed citations and index notes alongside, in the outer border. Some woodcuts contain mottos in Latin, and occasionally in Spanish. The emblems show the general influence of Bocchi, Coustau and Christian Stoicism, with less attention paid to practical virtue and more stress laid upon the most general philosophical and religious tenets taken from Biblical and classical sources - above all the themes of security and peace of the soul. J.-M. Chatelain remarks that Horozco shows a tendency to “streamlining” and greater clarity compared to his only Spanish predecessor (Borjas’ Emblemas Morales , Prague, 1581), both in iconography and text. ‘Juan Horozco y Covarrubias was a Spanish prelate of Seville, and bishop of the Sicilian See of Agri

• Year: 1589

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