In September, the Grolier Club will present Early Printed Books on Symbolism from the European Renaissance. This exhibition of some ninety books, drawn from the collection of Grolier Club member, Robin Raybould, mainly comprises of sixteenth and seventeenth century works.

The exhibition illuminates the Renaissance obsession with symbol, allegory and enigma, an obsession that in recent years seems to have increasingly resonated with a modern audience.

“This universal interest during classical, medieval and Renaissance times reflected attempts by contemporary thinkers and writers to explore the realities and meaning of life and the nature of God and was manifested in every aspect of religious, civic and daily life, in the art, architecture, literature and medicine of the period. It was believed that every facet of the natural world, in the heavens and on earth, including the stars, animals, plants, stones, colors, numbers and names, had symbolic significance. The symbol was the medium for the approach to God, for the investigation into the natural world, for the interpretation of the Scriptures, and for a guide to proper moral conduct.”

After the invention of printing in Europe during the fifteenth century, contemporary authors identified numerous different categories of symbolic literature. Some of these categories, illustrated in the current exhibition, include books of devices, fables, epigrams, mythologies, iconologies, prophesies, hieroglyphs, proverbs, dances of death and others. However, the category that had the widest circulation was the emblem book, with about 7,000 titles and editions published during this period.

The emblem book is identifiable as philosophy for the masses and the tripartite format as the multimedia of the age. In its usual form, the emblem is a tri-partite symbol with a picture, a motto and a poem, each of which contributes to an ensemble intended to signify or illustrate a spiritual, ethical, philosophical or historical concept or ideas.

Highlights from the exhibition include early emblem books by Alciato, Coustau and Saavedra; English emblem books, including those by Philip Ayres, Henry Hawkins and John Bunyan; a section on devotional emblem books, mostly written by Jesuits, including the emblem book issued to commemorate the centenary of the Jesuit order; two emblem books with title pages designed by Rubens; and modern emblem books, including those by Robert Louis Stevenson and Berthold Brecht. Other highlights include the first treatise on the device by Paulo Giovio, as well as the Cannocchiale Aristotelico by Tesauro, the Kerver illustrated edition of Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica, the Hieroglyphica of Valeriano, first editions of both parts of the Anthology of Stobaeus, the Adages of Erasmus, and the first illustrated edition of the ‘first book written in America,’ the translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses by Sandys.

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