Editing Emblem book (section)

== Definition ==
{{quote|But if someone asks me what Emblemata really are? I will reply to him, that they are mute images, and nevertheless speaking: insignificant matters, and none the less of importance: ridiculous things, and nonetheless not without wisdom [...]|Jacob Cats, ''Voor-reden over de Proteus, of Minne-beelden, verandert in sinne-beelden''.<ref>{{cite web|title=Al de werken van I. Cats|location= Amsterdamfirst= Jan Jacobsz. |last=Schipper|year= 1665|url=http://www.brill.com/sites/default/files/ftp/downloads/31773_Titlelist.pdf}}</ref>}}

Scholars differ on the key question of whether the actual [[emblem]]s in question are the visual images, the accompanying texts, or the combination of the two.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Emblematica Online |url=http://emblematica.grainger.illinois.edu/help/what-emblem |access-date=2023-10-26 |website=emblematica.grainger.illinois.edu}}</ref> This is understandable, given that first emblem book, the ''[[Emblemata]]'' of [[Andrea Alciato]], was first issued in an unauthorized edition in which the [[woodcut]]s were chosen by the printer without any input from the author, who had circulated the texts in unillustrated manuscript form. It contained around a hundred short verses in Latin.<ref name="Books: A Living History" /> One image it depicted was the lute, which symbolized the need for harmony instead of warfare in the city-states of Italy.<ref name="Books: A Living History" />

Some early emblem books were unillustrated, particularly those issued by the French printer Denis de Harsy.<!-- As of 3/2015, there is not even a French article on him.--> With time, however, the reading public came to expect emblem books to contain picture-text combinations. Each combination consisted of a [[woodcut]] or [[engraving]] accompanied by one or more short texts, intended to inspire their readers to reflect on a general [[morality|moral]] lesson derived from the reading of both picture and text together. The picture was subject to numerous interpretations: only by reading the text could a reader be certain which meaning was intended by the author. Thus the books are closely related to the personal symbolic picture-text combinations called [[personal device]]s, known in Italy as ''{{Lang|it|imprese}}'' and in France as ''{{Lang|fr|devises}}''. Many of the symbolic images present in emblem books were used in other contexts, on clothes, furniture, street signs, and the façades of buildings.<ref name="Books: A Living History" /> For instance, a sword and scales symbolized death.<ref name="Books: A Living History" />