The Comely Frontispiece by Margery Corbett and RW Lightbown

CITATION: Corbett, Margery, and R W. Lightbown. The Comely Frontispiece: The Emblematic Title-Page in England, 1550-1660. London: Routledge and K. Paul, 1979. Print.
Understanding

• Question: What is the nature of the illustrated frontispiece in Renaissance England?
• Answer: The Renaissance English drew from classical and Continental sources to produce four dominant forms of title-page illustration, defined by: (1) geometric frames, (2) single design, (3) cartouche, and (4) architecture.
• Method: A lengthy introduction surveying the Renaissance conception of the frontispiece is followed by many case-studies of illustrated title-pages.
• Assumptions: Oddly, the authors presume a strong influence of the author on the creation of title-page illustrations: "Perhaps something is added to a knowledge of [authors'] minds; on a different level the idiosyncracies of character which are revealed from time to time afford us an unexpected glimpse of their personalities." (47)
• Sententiae:
• "The four types of design which occur in this book are the title-page divided into geometrical compartments, the title-page which is a single overall design, the title-page whose dominant motif is a cartouche and, most important and interesting of all, the architectural title-page." (3)
• "In origin the device was a characteristic invention of northern fourteenth-century chivalric culture, and spread from France into Italy during the fifteenth century... in its Renaissance guise it was imported north of the Alps where it was believed by many in the late sixteenth century to be an Italian invention. Essentially the device was a heraldry of the mind, a symbol chosen to blazon a personal preoccupation in war or love, an aspiration, an ambition, a vow, a declaration of courageous purpose, of amorous hope, constancy or despair." (10)
• "It will be obvious that emblems, being intended to suggest subjects for craftsmen, were bound to differ from devices, whose application was purely personal, even when their significance might have a wider interest or appeal." (17)
• [from Whitney's A Choice of Emblems, "To the Reader"]:
  "[Emblems are] for adorning of the place: hauinge some wittie devise expressed with cunning woorkemanship, somethinge obscure to be perceiued at first, whereby, when with further consideration it is vnderstood, it maie the greater delighte the behoulder. And althoughe the worde dothe comprehende manie thinges, and diuers matters maie be therein contained; yet all Emblemes for the most parte, maie be reduced into these three kindes, which is historicall, Naturall, & Morall." (17)
• "The prime source from which the Renaissance derived its knowledge of hieroglyphs was not one to weaken such a belief [that hieroglyphs contained the truths of religion and philosophy]. This was the Hieroglyphica for Horapollo... Horapollo's book was rediscovered in 1419 and brought to Florence. In fifteenth-century Italy it was eagerly copied and studied and was printed in the original Greek in 1505 and in a Latin translation in 1515." (23)
• "But in general medals were highly esteemed as a source for allegorical figures and representations of the ancient gods." (26)
• "The Lord commanded Moses to see that 'every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensign of their father's house' (Numbers 2:2). Rabbinical commentators as early perhaps as the fifth century were of the opinion that the standards were emblazoned with the emblems of the twelve sons of Jacob drawn from his Blessing." (94)
• "In an era when merchants travelled all over the world it is not surprising that the impetus which led to a study of 'The naturall Language of the Hand' came from reflections that this was a way in 'which, without teaching, men in all regions of the habitable world doe at first sight most easily understand'; that there were those that drive 'a rich and silent Trade, by signes'; 'In this garbe long ago / We spake with th'Indian Apochankano.' The benefit of a sign language to the deaf and dumb also attracts his notice; it was not his chief interest at this time, but only four years later he was to publish the Philocophus." (205)
• [The argument of Bulwer's Philosophvs: or, the Deafe and Dumb mans friend]
  "EXHIBITING THE Philosophical verity of that subtile Art, which may inable one with an Observant Eie, to Heare what any man speaks by the moving of his lips. UPON THE SAME Ground, with the advantage of an Historicall Exemplification, apparently proving, That a Man borne Deafe and Dumbe, may be taught to Heare the sound of words with his Eie, and thence to speake with his Tongue." (213)
• "'Al sensation is performed by contact'; it follows, therefore, that 'one sense may be exercised by the Organs of another, by changing the offices of the Senses.' This is the 'anagram' or 'transposition to make something new' which is going to make it possible for the deaf and dumb to hear and speak." (215)
• "The title-page is invariably described as anonymous in the English literature, bibliographical and otherwise, of Hobbes and his Leviathan. Yet in France it has been ascribed since the middle of the seventeenth century to one of the most famous Parisian engravers of the day, Abraham Bosse (1602-76) and it has figured regularly in the literature of this artist as an unsigned work. The ascription dates back to Bosse's Parisian contemporary, the Abbe Michel de Marroles (1600-81), a famous connoisseur and collector of engravings, who included the frontispiece in his volumes and engravings by Bosse." (221)

Overstanding

• Assessment: The case studies are less applicable than the introduction, which provides a nice background on the early modern conception of title pages.
• Synthesis: Corbett & Lightbown provide a very interesting set of data to compare to Goldberg, especially in the passages regarding Bulwer's work on sign-language and the mutability of the five senses. In a very real way, the whole world is made text by Bulwer's system: text to be assembled and reassembled in anagrams with comparable meaning.
• Application: I'm most interested in pursuing the work on Bulwer--especially as it presents a materialist yet logocentric theory of perception. Some subsequent questions include: How did Bulwer conceive of the different arts--as mutually intelligible, or signifying differently through the approximation of different senses? How did Bulwer understand the operation of metaphor--on a materialist level of transcription and transliteration?