Cesare Ripa
Encyclopedia
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
who worked for Cardinal Anton Maria Salviati
Anton Maria Salviati
Anton Maria Salviati was an Italian Roman Catholic cardinal.Salviati was born in Florence, son of Lorenzo Salviati and Costanza Conti, the nephew of cardinals Bernardo Salviati and Giovanni Salviati. In 1561 he was appointed as bishop of Saint-Papoul in France, and later was apostolic nuncio in...
as a cook
Cook (servant)
A cook is a household staff member responsible for food preparation. The term can refer to the head of kitchen staff in a great house or to the cook-housekeeper, a far less prestigious position involving more physical labour....
and butler.
Little is known about his life. He was born in Perugia
Perugia
Perugia is the capital city of the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the River Tiber, and the capital of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area....
and died in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. After the death of the cardinal, Ripa worked for his relatives. He was knighted after his highly successful book called Iconologia, which he wrote in his free time, was published.
The Iconologia overo Descrittione Dell’imagini Universali cavate dall’Antichità et da altri luoghi was a highly influential emblem book
Emblem book
Emblem books are a category of mainly didactic illustrated book printed in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, typically containing a number of emblematic images with explanatory text....
based on Egyptian, Greek and Roman emblematical representations. The book was used by orators, artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
s and poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
s to give substance to qualities such as virtue
Virtue
Virtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a positive trait or quality subjectively deemed to be morally excellent and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being....
s, vice
Vice
Vice is a practice or a behavior or habit considered immoral, depraved, or degrading in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a defect, an infirmity, or merely a bad habit. Synonyms for vice include fault, depravity, sin, iniquity, wickedness, and corruption...
s, passion
Passions (philosophy)
Passion, or the passions, is a philosophical concept. It is different from popular connotations of passion, which are associated with notions of romance, and which is generally seen as a positive emotion. The philosophical notion, in contrast, is identified with an innate or biologically driven...
s, arts
ARts
aRts, which stands for analog Real time synthesizer, is an audio framework that is no longer under development. It is best known for previously being used in KDE to simulate an analog synthesizer....
and sciences. The concepts were arranged in alphabetical order, after the fashion of the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
. For each there was a verbal description of the allegorical
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
figure proposed by Ripa to embody the concept, giving the type and color of its clothing and its varied symbolic paraphernalia
Paraphernalia
In modern usage, the word paraphernalia most commonly refers to apparatus, equipment, or furnishing used in or necessary for a particular activity as in, "Beth is such an avid sports fan that her walls are covered with baseball paraphernalia"....
s, along with the reasons why these were chosen, reasons often supported by references to literature (largely classical).
The first edition of his Iconologia was published in 1593 and dedicated to Anton Maria Salviati. A second edition was published in Rome in 1603 this time with 684 concepts and 151 woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
s, dedicated to Lorenzo Salviati. The book was extremely influential in the 17th and 18th centuries and was quoted extensively in various art forms. In particular, it influenced the painter Pietro da Cortona
Pietro da Cortona
Pietro da Cortona, by the name of Pietro Berrettini, born Pietro Berrettini da Cortona, was the leading Italian Baroque painter of his time and also one of the key architects in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture. He was also an important decorator...
and his followers. Also Dutch painters like Gerard de Lairesse
Gerard de Lairesse
Gerard or Gérard de Lairesse was a Dutch Golden Age painter and art theorist.Lairesse was born in Liège. His broad range of talent included music, poetry, and the theatre. He was perhaps the most celebrated Dutch painter in the period following the death of Rembrandt...
, Willem van Mieris
Willem van Mieris
Willem van Mieris was a Dutch painter. He was a son of Frans van Mieris sr. and brother of Jan van Mieris....
based work on Ripa's emblems. Vermeer used the emblem for the muse Clio
Clio
thumb|Clio—detail from [[The Art of Painting|The Allegory of Painting]] by [[Johannes Vermeer]]In Greek mythology, Clio or Kleio, is the muse of history. Like all the muses, she is a daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne...
for his The Art of Painting
The Art of Painting
The Art of Painting, also known as The Allegory of Painting, and or Painter in his Studio, is a famous 17th century oil on canvas painting by Dutch painter, Johannes Vermeer. Many art historians believe that it is an allegory of painting, hence the alternative title of the painting...
, and several others in his The Allegory of Faith
The Allegory of Faith
The Allegory of Faith, also known as Allegory of the Catholic Faith is a painting created by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer in about 1670-1672 and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1931....
. A large part of Vondel's work cannot be understood without this allegorical source, and ornamentation of the Amsterdam townhall
Royal Palace (Amsterdam)
The Royal Palace in Amsterdam is one of three palaces in the Netherlands which is at the disposal of Queen Beatrix by Act of Parliament. The palace was built as city hall during the Dutch Golden Age in the seventeenth century. The building became the royal palace of king Louis Napoleon and later...
by Artus Quellinus
Artus Quellinus
Artus Quellinus also known as Artus Quellijn, Artus I Quellinus or Artus Quellinus the Elder , was a Flemish sculptor.-Life:...
, a sculptor, is totally dependent on Ripa. An English translation appeared in 1709 by Pierce Tempest.
The baroque painter Antonio Cavallucci
Antonio Cavallucci
Antonio Cavallucci was an Italian painter of the late Baroque.-Biography:Cavallucci was born in Sermoneta in the Lazio. His artistic talents were recognized in an early stage by Francesco Caetani, Duke of Sermoneta in 1738-1810...
drew inspiration for his painting Origin of Music from the book. In 1779 the Scottish architect George Richardson
George Richardson (architect)
George Richardson was a Scottish architectural and decorative draftsman and writer on architecture.One of his few remaining architectural works is St Mary Magdalene's Church at Stapleford, Leicestershire, built in 1783 for the Earl of Harborough.His main output, however, was in the form of books...
's Iconology; or a Collection of Emblematical Figures; containing four hundred and twenty-four remarkable subjects, moral and instructive; in which are displayed the beauty of Virtue and deformity of Vice was published in London. The drawings were by William Hamilton
William Hamilton (painter)
William Hamilton was an English painter and illustrator.Hamiliton was born in Chelsea, London, but travelled and worked in Italy with Antonio Zucchi for several years. He trained first as an architectural draftsman, but soon moved to theatrical portraits and scenes from plays...
. In 1819 Filippo Pitrucci, a London-based artist, published his version of Iconologia.