9-camillo camilli’s imprese for the academies · camillo camilli’s imprese for the academies...

Journal of Literature and Art Studies, April 2018, Vol. 8, No. 4, 589-613 doi: 10.17265/2159-5836/2018.04.009

Camillo Camilli’s Imprese for the Academies

Liana De Girolami Cheney

Independent Scholar, Boston, MA, USA

This study examines the humanistic influence of ancient and Renaissance art in Camillo Camilli’s Imprese of 1586.

Camillo Camilli (ca. 1560-1615—his exact birth date is unknown) was an Italian poet of the sixteenth-century. His

family came from Monte San Savino, Siena, and records mention that he died on July 13, 1615, in Ragusa. While

personal documentation on Camilli’s life is scarce there are substantial sources about his literary career as a

translator, compiler and poet. Camilli wrote extensively. There are the five canti on Erminia e Tancredi which were

collated with Tarquo Tasso’s (1544-1595) unfinished poems, and his commentaries for Ludovico Ariosto’s

Orlando Furioso in 1584 and for Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata in 1585. Under the influence of Tasso’s writings

and his involvement in the commentary of Gerusalemme Liberata (1585), Camilli started formulating his concetto

(conceit) of what an impresa is (badge, device or insignia). The focus of this essay is on Camilli’s Imprese for the

Academies. The whole collection of the Imprese consists of three volumes. The frontispiece to each volume depicts

three different stage settings filled with classical ornamentation and bearing in the center of the lintel the impresa or

insignia of Francesco Ziletti’s printing company—a starfish surrounded by stars and bound by a ribbon. Camilli

selected this image to announce through the imprese the significance of these famous men (uomini famosi) of the

academy, granting them immortality and honor for their cultural and intellectual accomplishments.

Keywords: Italian imprese, emblems, iconography, symbolism, famous men, academies, Camillo Camilli

Introduction

“L’impresa è "l’imagine de' pensieri, ritraendo una sola un pensier solo virtuoso”

(“The impresa is the image of thougths, portraying in each one only a virtuous thought”).1

In 1586, Camillo Camilli (1560-1615), a Tuscan poet of the sixteenth-century, composed a collection of

imprese with commentaries, titled Imprese Illustri di diversi, coi discorsi di Camillo Camilli et con le figure

intagliate in rame di Girolami Porro, Padovano and printed by Francesco Ziletti in Venice. Camilli dedicated

this endeavor of the Imprese to Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici (1549-1609), who later between 1587 and 1609

became Grand Duke Ferdinand of Tuscany.

This presentation is twofold. The first part brings to light some information about Camillo Camilli’s life

and career; and the second sheds some light on the influences and significance of Camilli’s imprese, focusing

on imprese for three academies: the Academia Nova di Padova (The New Paduan Academy), the Intronati

Acknowledgements: Shorter versions and different aspects of this essay were presented at the Emblem Session of the Renaissance Society of America in Chicago on April 2, 2017 and at the Emblem Society Conference of the International Congress on Medieval Studies at the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 12, 2016.

Liana De Girolami Cheney, Ph.D., Visiting Scholar in Art History, SIELAE, University of Coruña, Spain. 1 Camillo Camilli’s definition of an impresa in the Introduction.

DAVID PUBLISHING

D

CAMILLO CAMILLI’S IMPRESE FOR THE ACADEMIES

590

Accademici (The Thunderous Academicians), and the Unanimi Accademici (The United Academicians).2

Camilli’s Life and Career

There is limited information about Camillo Camilli’s life and career.3 The exact birth date is unknown,

perhaps around 1560. His family came from Monte San Savino in Siena, and he died on July 13, 1615, in

Ragusa (Dubrovnik, Dalmatia).4 Camilli was described as a man of “accorte maniera, costume dolci e

pieghevoli” and “ingegno pronto e svegliato” (“friendly manners, dressed with soft and gentle garments” and of

“a quick mind and alertness”); the description continues to describe [era un] “personaggio sperto dei pubblici

negozi, bel parlatore e destro” (“[he was] an individual knowledgeable of public affairs, well spoken and

sharp”).5

In the dedicatory of the Imprese to Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, Camillo enlightens the reader on the

purpose of the commission and adds some information on his own life. He begins by recounting his humanistic

learning in Siena at his early age, where he studied the history and contributions of the Medici family. Camilli

demonstrates his gratitude to the Cardinal by further reiterating his good fortune in meeting the young Medici

cardinal on his sojourn in Siena during the Cardinal’s trip from Florence to Rome. Camilli graciously thanks

the Cardinal for his assistance in transferring him to Venice where the Imprese book was being published. He

tactfully excuses himself for not including an impresa on the Cardinal but fears that in order to do justice to his

virtues a whole book would need to be written on this image. Politely and cleverly, Camilli states that he has

compensated for this deficiency by dedicating the entire work to the Cardinal.

Documentation on Camilli’s residence is also scarce. After his schooling in Siena, he spent the rest of his

lifetime in Ragusa. Once he traveled from Ragusa to Rome to attend, as a Ragunese representative, an event in

the Church of Santa Maria dell’Orto, where there is a plaque with his name commemorating this event.6 A

source noted that in 1600, Camilli was the “rettore delle scuole e professore di umane lettere” (“school prior or

rector and professor of humane letters”).7

However, what is best known about Camilli is that he was a prolific writer and an accomplished translator.

With the Aldine press, he published in 1582 and 1590 translations of the Spanish humanist Juan Huarte’s

Examenes de Ingenios: contribución a la historia de la psicologia, originally published in Madrid in 1575, as

Esame degl'ingegni di gli uomini per apprendere scienze. This Spanish psychological treatise was so popular

and significant in the sixteenth century that Camilli’s Italian version was translated into English by Richard

Carew (1555-1620) as Examination of Men’s Wits in 1594. Huarte’s book discusses the mental potentiality in

every individual. According to him, a person is endowed with his own type and level of genius by nature; the

mental faculties function in conjunction with the four humors—each connected with a pair of temperatures, hot,

2 Camilli mentions other significant academies in relation to some illustrious men, such as Curtius Borghese and the Accademia Parthenia di Siena (The Parthenian Academy of Siena) and Giovanni Battista Titoni and the Accademia degli Olimpici; however, he does not compose a separate impresa for each of them. 3 See Sebastijan Slade Dolci, Fasti litterario-ragusini sive virorum litteratorum (Venice: Gaspar Storti, 1767), 14-15. GerolamoTiraboschi, Storia della letteratura italiana (Modena: Società tipografca, 1772-81) VII, 1339; T. Chersa, Degli illustri toscani stati in diversi tempi a Ragusa (Padua: Della Minerva, 1828), 16-17; and V. Vivaldi, Studii letterarii (Naples: Morano, 1891), 225-28. 4 http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/camillo-camilli_%28Dizionario_Biografico%29/ (accessed September 2017). 5 See Vincenzo Forcella, Iscrizioni delle chiese e di altri edifici di Roma dal seccolo XI fino ai giorni nostri (Rome: Scienze matematiche e fisiche, 1869), 258, no. 980. 6 See Forcella, Iscrizioni delle chiese, 258, n. 980. 7 See http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/tag/camillo-camilli/ (accessed September 2017).


591

cold, dry and moist—from which all human virtues and vices or wits can be determined. Thus, temperatures

can determine ethnic differences and aptitudes. For example, the three parts that compose the brain can be

associated with specific temperatures, such as basic memory to moisture, imagination to heat, and

understanding to dryness and coldness.

As an avid Ovidean reader, Camilli translated Ovid’s Fasti and Epistles in 1587. He also composed five

canti on Erminia e Tancredi that were collated with Tarquo Tasso’s (1544-1595) unfinished poems. Camilli

wrote commentaries for Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso in 1584 and Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata in

1585. Under the influence of Tasso’s writings and his involvement in the commentary of Gerusalemme

Liberata (1585), Camilli started formulating his concetto (conceit) of what an impresa is.

In L'Impresa come ritratto del Rinascimento, Mauda Bregogli-Russo clearly articulated the theories about

the historiography of the impresa starting from the nebulous definition of Tasso, who considered an impresa,

“an intellectual metaphor containing military or amorous subjects that are cleverly composed with rhetorical

wit.”8 This quest to define the meaning of the impresa was continued by Girolami Ruscelli in his four books on

Le Imprese illustri, con espositioni, et discorsi. Con la Giunta di altre Imprese tutto riordinato et corretto da

Francesco Patritio, published in Venice in 1572 (book 1-3) and in 1583 (book 4). Ruscelli lucidly defined the

rules that govern an impresa, thus defining its composition. He stated that an impresa must have a figura

(picture or image) and motto; the motto must be brief, of two words in Latin or from a popular saying (“verso

volgare”); the motto must have been cited or composed by a famous author; the metaphorical allusion must be

clever—not too clear and not too obscure; and the meaning of the motto and the figura (image) must be

interdependent and interwoven. In turn Ruscelli was inspired by Paolo Giovio’s (1483-1552) Dialogo

dell’imprese militari et amorose, composed in 1551 and published later in 1555 in Rome and 1559 in Lyons.9

In his conceits for the Imprese, Camilli was aware of and benefited from these positions on the conception

and invention of an impresa. The impresa was composed of two parts: a short motto (word), usually written in

Latin and considered the soul of the impresa; the second part of the impresa contained an image or figure

(pictura), which was considered the body of the impresa. The motto was visualized in the pictura, which

visually revealed the meaning of the text.10 The poet Ercole Tasso, in his Della realtà e perfezione delle

Imprese of 1614,11 and Paolo Giovio, in his Ragionamento delle Imprese, composed rules on how to design an

impresa. Giovio in particular articulated five rules, noting: “1) an adequate correspondence of body and soul

(pictura and motto); 2) neither obscure nor too obvious; 3) pleasing appearance; 4) no human form; and 5) the

motto not be in the vernacular of the person who chose the impresa, and the motto be brief without being

8 Mauda Bregoli Russo, L'impresa come ritratto del Rinascimento (Naples: Loffredo, 1990). 9 First published in Lyons with Guillaume Roville, 1559, then reprinted by Antonio Barre in Rome, posthumously in 1555. After Giovio’s death his book was reissued in 1556 with the title, Ragionamento di Mons. Paolo Giovio sopra i motti e i disegni d'arme e d'amore che comunemente chiamiamo Imprese. Con un discorso di Girolamo Ruscelli, intorno allo stesso soggetto by Giordano Ziletti all'insegna della stella (Venice: Ziletti, 1556). A new edition with a commentary by Ludovico Domenichini was also published in Venice in 1556 by the Gabriel Giolito de’ Ferrari press. See T. C. Price Zimmermann, Paolo Giovio. The Historian and the Crisis of Sixteenth-Century in Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). 10 The impresa (pl. imprese) is a device or a badge that became very popular during the fifteen through the seventeen centuries See Dorigen Caldwell. The Sixteenth-Century Italian Impresa in Theory and Practice (New York: AMS Press, Inc., 2005); Mason Tung, The Impresa Index (New York: AMS Press, Inc., 2006); and Mario Praz, Studies in seventeenth century imagery (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1964-75); Arthur Henkel and Albrecht Schöene, Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1967, and 2nd edn, 1976). 11 Ercole Tasso, Della realtà e perfezione delle Imprese (Bergamo: Comin Ventura, 1614); this text defines the impresa of each illustrious man without the image or pictura. Since the volume is about illustrious men (uomini famosi) there are no inclusions about illustrious females (donne famose).

592

ambiguous

Camil

with the Ita

he compos

pensieri, ri

single pers

image (mo

Fig

12 See Franç

s.”12

lli’s erudition

alian tradition

sed the Impr

itraendo una

son and only

tto and pictur

gure 1a. Camillo

çois Velde, Imp

CAMILLO

n and experien

n on the impr

rese, where in

sola un pen

on one of the

ra) to convey

o Camilli, Impr

rese, available

O CAMILLI’S

The Comp

nce in transla

rese assisted

n the introdu

nsier solo virt

eir virtues.” C

y a moral mes

rese, Book One

at http://www.h

S IMPRESE F

position of t

ating treatises

him in the cr

uction he est

tuoso” [the i

Camilli’s imp

ssage (Figure

, engraved by G

heraldica.org/to

FOR THE AC

the Imprese

s on the huma

reation of his

tablished the

imprese are]

prese combin

s 1a-1c).

Girolamo Porro

opics/imprese.h

CADEMIES

e

an condition

s own book o

purpose of

“images of

nes text with

(Venice: Franc

htm (accessed S

as well as his

on imprese. A

his work: “I

thoughts, foc

a prose and a

cesco Ziletti, 15

eptember 2016

s familiarity

And in 1586

Imagine de’

cusing on a

a poem and

586).

).

Fig

Figu

gure 1b. Camillo

ure 1c. Camillo

CAMILLO

o Camilli, Impr

o Camilli, Impre

O CAMILLI’S

rese, Book Two

ese, Book Three

S IMPRESE F

, engraved by G

e, engraved by

FOR THE AC

Girolamo Porro

Girolamo Porro

CADEMIES

o (Venice: Franc

o (Venice: Fran

cesco Ziletti, 15

cesco Ziletti, 15

593

586).

586).


594

Some brief observations of the composition of Camilli’s text assists in understanding the significance of

this collection of imprese. These Imprese consist of three volumes on 300 illustrious men of the academy, from

Alcibiade Lucarini to Zenofonte Bindaffi. It is unclear from Camilli’s preface the original selection of these

illustrious men; most of them are from the North of Italy (Padua and Venice), a few from Siena and none from

Florence. In the text, five imprese discuss famous institutions, such as the Accademia Nova di Padova (The

New Paduan Academy), the Intronati Accademici (The Noisy or Thundering Academicians), and the Unanimi

Accademici (The United Academicians). Each impresa contains a pictura or image with an explanatory

commentary. All the images are represented in a square format. Inside the square a sumptuous cartouche

decoration conceals and reveals the symbolic impresa. The frontispieces to each volume depict three different

stage settings containing engraved titles within elaborate architectural borders filled with classical

ornamentation. In the center of the lintel area sits the impresa or insignia of Francesco Ziletti’s printing

company—a starfish or echinus surrounded by stars and bound by a ribbon. In manuscripts on Bestiaries, it is

mentioned that the echinus or sea urchin foretells the coming of a storm by taking on a stone as an anchor.13

Camilli, with Ziletti, probably selected this image to announce through the imprese the significance of these

famous men and their immortality as stars encircled by an anchored starfish. Perhaps Camilli and Ziletti’s press

conceit is paraphrasing the Aldine Press logo (compare Figures 2a and 2b).

Figure 2a. Francesco Ziletti, Printer’s Insignia in Camillo Camilli’s Imprese, engraved by Girolamo Porro (Venice: Francesco Ziletti, 1586).

13 See Aristotle’s Historia Animalium (The History of Animals), trans. D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910), Book IV.


595

Figure 2b. Aldus Manutius, Printer’s Insignia, 1500 (Venice). Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org.

The Paduan engraver Giacomo Porro (1550-1604) incised in copper the imprese and recorded this action

with his initials on at least 108 imprese. Proudly, Camilli honors Porro in the title dedicatory page: “Ho almeno

supplito nella nobiltà, & bellezza delle figure, le quali sono state per la maggior parte intagliate da M. Girolamo

Porro, persona che hoggi in questa profession hà pochi parti” (“I at least succeeded in the nobility and beauty of

the images, which mostly were engraved by Mr. Girolamo Porro, a person whom today there are none who

excelled in this profession”). Little is known about this Paduan engraver; however, one of his most notable

works, L'Isole piú famose del mondo of 1572 (“The Most Famous Islands of the World”) attests to his artistic

merits.14 The engravings in the Imprese are also remarkable for two reasons: as a splendid series of engravings

on copper, and as a rare technological innovation, that is, the successful combination of such engravings with a

background in simulated wood as seen in the academies imprese. All the images are represented in a square

format. Inside the square a sumptuous cartouche decoration conceals and reveals the symbolic impresa. The

cartouche’s decoration is different for each impresa.

14 Girolamo Porro also illustrated 64 engraved maps of Claudius Ptolemy’s Geography edition of 1608 in Cologne.


596

The major contribution of Camilli’s Imprese rests on the fact that each impresa combines an image

(pictura), a motto in Latin or Greek (inscriptio) and an explicative text, similar to the composition of the

emblem.15 The Latin motto is usually composed of one to four words. Interestingly, Camilli inserts above the

image the motto, as a way of crowning the pictura or bonding the meaning of the motto with the image. The

pictura contains heraldic symbols alluding to the explicative text on the history of the cultural contribution of

the mentioned noble family, describing the uomo famoso (illustrious man) for his renowned family, and for his

fame acquired through an honorable heroic or noble act—a specific moral virtue. He further expands the

epigram (subscriptio) or discursive text by adding at the end a poem composed of eight or ten lines, combining

prose and poetry. Camilli invented a masterful design for the formation of his imprese.

The theme of the imprese is varied and complex. In some imprese there is a romantic allusion on the part

of the illustrious man.16 In other imprese, the text alludes to a poetical moral virtue or to mythological or

astrological allusions, as well as to representations of natural phenomena, measuring devised or geometrical

configurations.17

Furthermore, in the invention of his imprese, Camilli was strongly influenced by the ancient and

Renaissance mythographers and emblematists as well as the writing of humanists and literati of the

Renaissance. Among the latter are Francesco Colonna’s hieroglyphs in the Dream of Poliphilo (Venice: Aldine

Press, 1499), Vincenzo Cartari, Imagini degli Dei Antichi (Venice: Francesco Marcoli, 1547-1556), Andrea

Alciato, Emblemata (Venice: Aldine Press, 1546); Paolo Giovio, Imprese Militari e Amorose (Rome: Antonio

Barre, 1555), Girolamo Ruscelli, Discorso intorno all'invenzione dell'Imprese (Venice: Ziletti, 1556, reprinted

later in 1572 and 1584), and in particular, Achille Bocchi’s Symbolicae quaestiones (Bologna: Presses

Universitaires, 1555).18

Imprese for the Academies

These influences are noted in Camilli’s imprese, in particular for those composed for famous academic

institutions, including: the Accademia Nova di Padova (The New Paduan Academy) and the Intronati

Accademici (The Noisy or Thundering Academicians), and the Unanimi Accademici (The United

Academicians). As a Tuscan poet, Camilli’s interest in the academies probably evolves from his familiarity

15 Camilli ingeniously is paraphrasing the construction and meaning of a an emblem, for example: “An Emblem is a symbolic picture with accompanying text, of a type which developed in the sixteenth century and enjoyed an enormous vogue for the next 200 years or more, when several thousand emblem books issued from printing presses throughout Europe. Along with personal imprese-devices that expressed the values or aspirations of a particular individual rather than a general moral, emblems communicate moral, political, or religious values in ways that have to be decoded by the viewer. Emblem books exercised an enormous influence on literature and the visual arts, and therefore they have long attracted the attention of scholars interested in painting, decorative arts, literature, illustrated books, iconography, symbolism, theories of representation, social and cultural history.” See the University of Glasgow’s definition of an emblem and an extensive bibliography on this topic, http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/ (accessed September 2017); and Mara R. Wade, “What is an Emblem?” http://emblematica.grainger.illinois.edu/help/what-emblem (accessed September 2017). 16 Camilli’s impresa for Giulio Mosti, “Pur che altamente” (“Always aim high”) alludes to love trials. 17 For example, Lelio Lucarni’s impresa, “Dum respicis detegor” (“I manifest myself in your look”); Giovanni Lorenzo Lambardi de Malpili’s impresa, “Ut recta sustinear” (“I stand erect with your support”); Gabriello Cesarini’s impresa of Hercules and the Hydra, “Quo Difficilius, Eo Praeclarius” (“The more difficult, the more honorable”); Lelio Orsino’s impresa “Sicut in coelis” (“As in Heaven”); and Pietro Melchiori’s impresa, “Nunquam decidet” (“It will never drop”); Bartholomeo Tatio’s impresa, “In umbra desino” (“I die in darkness”); Iacomo Zacco’s impresa, “Sufficit una dies” (“Only one day is needed”); and Marcantonio Gandini’s impresa, “Undique frustra” (“Futile attempt”). 18 A comparative study of these sources with Camilli’s imprese is beyond the purpose of this essay.


597

with the pursuits of the Florentine literary Accademia della Crusca and his illustrious men.19

The New Academy of Padua

Figure 3. Camillo Camilli, Impresa: New Academy of Padua, from the Imprese…, 1586.

The impresa of the Academia Nova or New Paduan Academy, also called Hoplosofisti or Sophist Soldiers

(Figure 3).20 The term hoplo derives from Greek name hopla, meaning tool or equipment. The ancient Greek

citizens and soldiers were called hoplites because when armed they carried a spear and shield, as seen on the

Lekytos, red figure ceramic of a Greek hoplite, 480-460 BCE, at the Regional Archeological Museum,

“Antonio Salinas”, Palermo, Italy (Figure 4).

19 The formation of the Accademia della Crusca originates from the Accademia Fiorentina, founded in 1540 by a young group of Florentine literati which included the humanist, historian and poet Benedetto Varchi (1503-1556), whose aim was to evaluate and appreciate the vernacular Tuscan literature of Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarca. In turn, the Accademia Fiorentina developed out of the Accademia degli Umidi, but soon changed its name as the members’ grammatical and linguistic interests in the Florentine language were established. Also, the approval and sponsorship of Cosimo I de’ Medici Duke of Florence for the new academy encouraged its members to change its name. Years later, in 1582, as the Accademia Fiorentina further concentrated its aims on the study of the origin of the Tuscan language, and under the initiative of the Florentine Lionardo Salviati (1540-1589) and five literati—Giovan Battista Deti, Anton Francesco Grazzini, Bernardo Ganigiani, Bernardo Zanchini and Bastiano de’ Rossi—the academy again changed its name from Accademia Fiorentina to Accademia della Crusca The selection of the name “crusca” or “cruscate” derives from the aims of the members to polish and refine the Florentine language. For a recent overview and current bibliography about the academies, see J. R. Woodhouse, “Borghini and the foundation of Accademia della Crusca,” in Italian Academies (1995): 165-173; Liana De Girolami Cheney, “The Imprese of the Accademia della Crusca,” in Emblematica, ed. Sagrario Consuelo (Coruña, Spain: University of Coruña Press, 2003), 259-266; Liana De Girolami Cheney, “Accademia della Crusca: arte and imprese,” in International Journal of the Humanities (2005): 25-35; and Jane E. Verson, et al., The Italian Academies: 1525-1700: Networks of Culture, Innovation and Dissent (London: Routledge, 2016). 20 Camilli, Imprese, Book 2, 3-5.


598

Figure 4. Greek Hoplite, Lekytos, det. 480-460 BCE (NI 2134). Regional Archeological Museum, Antonio Salinas, Palermo, Italy. Photo credit: ™Marie-Lan Mguyen, Wikimedia Commons/CC-BY2.

In the impresa (Figure 3) the Greek—not Latin—motto states: “No more the head of the Gorgon” (“Non

piú il capo della Gorgona” or “No more the head of a Gorgon”), an explicit allusion to the quest of these

academicians. The design of the impresa’s cartouche is complex, containing four layers of design. A

background structure simulates the surface of wood with a diagonal hatching technique. The second layer

represents another replica of a wooden board with vertical hatching and borders containing dangling bell

flowers, while two bucrania ram skulls bite into the next layer of the cartouche. In this third layer there is

interplay of concave and convex decorations of ribbons, terminating at the bottom of the cartouche with a large

ribbon and at the top with a mask crowned with jewels. Two puzzlingly eyes or monocles pierce the center of

this layer. The last layer in the shape of an oval medallion or commemorative coin is decorated with a Greek

bead motif. At top a garland of jewels connects with a mask from the previous layer. In the center of the oval

layer, an elaborate ribbon with the Greek letters, Sophist Soldiers, crowns the standing figure at rest of Minerva

victrix (“Victorious Minerva”).


599

The impresa illustrates a bare-breasted Minerva wearing a plumed helmet where her long and curly

stresses parallel the movement of the floating ribbon’s edges. Minerva, like a hoplite, holds on to her lance

while resting her shield on the edge of the Earth. On her shield, the image of the Gorgon has been substituted

by a rampant lion alluding to the Venetian Republic—at this time the city-state of Padua was under the

jurisdiction of Venice. But the rampant lion also symbolizes bravery, courage and fortitude of body and mind.

In the description and in the poem of the impresa, Camilli emphasized that this image of the shield with a

rampant lion alludes to a benevolent and ubiquitous Minerva. The image of Minerva also reveals the

association of the intellectual members of the academy from the city of Padua, the city of Padua being known

as the new Athens of Italy.

In the impresa of Accademia Nova, Camilli appropriated the conceit of Minerva from Achille Bocchi’s

book cover for Symbolicae quaestiones (Figure 5). The imagery was designed by the Bolognese artists Lavinia

Fontana (1552-1614) and her father, Prospero (1512-1597). Bocchi commissioned the Fontanas to create

drawings for the engravings in his emblematic volume (Figure 6). Bocchi (1488-1562), a close friend of both

Fontanas, was also a Bolognese humanist, teacher at the University of Bologna and leader of the Accademia

Bocciana. He composed this moralistic emblematic volume under the influences of his friend, Pierio Valeriano

(1477-1558), a classicist and emblematist who wrote Hieroglyphica in 1556,21 and Francesco Colonna

(1433-1527), a Dominican poet who composed a mysterious allegorical tome, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili in

1499. 22 In turn, Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica, a fifth-century Neoplatonic treatise on ancient Egyptian

hieroglyphs, influenced both of these humanists, Colonna and Valeriano.23

The image represented in Bocchi’s title page is of a victorious Minerva, dressed in her military regalia of

plumed helmet, breastplate and warriors boots. She is holding in her right hand a cornucopia, a symbol of

abundance and richness—and a substitution for the Aegis shield, and in her left hand a traditional banner of

victory. Bocchi was also the leader of the Accademia Bocciana, which was sponsored by two avid collectors

and patrons of the arts, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520-1589), the nephew of the Farnese Pope Paul III, and

cardinal Scipione Caffarelli Borghese (1577-1633). Fontana’s imagery for Bocchi’s book cover is alluding to a

victorious Minerva, Minerva victrix. In Bologna in particular, familiarity with Horapollo’s writings was due to

the grammarian Filippo Beroaldo the Elder (1453-1505), who translated, annotated and compiled some of

Horapollo’s hieroglyphs into a vocabulary of grammar for Bolognese students.

21 Pierio Valeriano, Hieroglyphica (Basel: Michael Isengri, 1556). Valeriano, a humanist scholar from Belluno, visited Rome in 1509 with an introduction to Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, and later became the classical tutor for the Medici family. In 1530, Valeriano returned to his native town and completed the Hieroglyphica. The text is dedicated to several scholars, including Achille Bocchi, Paolo Giovio and Giorgio Valla. The tome consists of sixty books appropriating and elaborating on the symbols and hieroglyphs of Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica. In 1422, Cristoforo Buondelmoti, a Florentine geographer and monk, while visiting Andros, a Greek Island, obtained a copy of Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica (today in the Biblioteca Laurenziana, Plut. 69, 27). This precious manuscript became an important original source for Florentine humanists such as Aldus Manutius and Giorgio Valla. In the Renaissance, Horapollo’s text was only known as a reference in a Suda, a Byzantine encyclopedia of the tenth century. In 1505, Manutius published Valla’s Greek translation of Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica. 22 Francesco Colonna, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1499). 23 See Brian Curran, The Egyptian Renaissance: The Afterlife of Ancient Egypt in Early Modern Italy (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 2007), passim.


600

Figure 5. Achille Bocchi, Title Page, Symbolicae quaestiones (Bologna: Giulio Bonasone, 1574).

Figure 6. Lavinia and Prospero Fontana, Minerva, 1570, drawing for Achille Bocchi, Title Page, Symbolicae quaestiones (Bologna: Giulio Bonasone, 1574). Photo credit: Christie’s, Auction of January 30, 2009, Lot 207.

In Bo

displayed a

the Accade

Goddess of

his academ

of learning

institution

the Paduan

instrument

lion—henc

Aventine H

Patroness o

name origi

was consid

impresa is

of Padua as

The Thund

24 See Ovid,University P(especially w

cchi’s Miner

at her feet. On

emia Boccian

f War, but tra

my. Camilli id

g who had s

and the role

n Academy. A

s of peace—

ce she is a M

Hill, represen

of Artisans d

inally meant

dered the patr

not only a sy

s the New At

derous Acad

Figur

, Fasti, trans. a

Press, 1931), Bowool), Science,

CAMILLO

rva, the olive

ne book is in

na. Bocchi, a

ansformed he

dentified him

selected an im

of its membe

As in Camilli

—the spear of

Minerva vict

nted by the te

during the Qu

“thought.” O

roness of int

ymbol of peac

thens.

demicians of

re 7. Camillo C

and ed. James Gook 3. MinervaCommerce and

O CAMILLI’S

tree—her sa

nscribed with

as founder of

er into a Godd

mself with Boc

mage for the

ers similar to

i’s imagery, t

f war now is

trix and paci

rrain on whic

uinquatrus, th

Ovid called he

ellect and lea

ce but also an

Siena

amilli, Impresa

G. Frazer (Cama was a multi-td War.

S IMPRESE F

cred tree—is

the Latin titl

f the academ

dess of Learn

cchi since Bo

e Accademia

o what Camil

there is a repl

s the banner

ifica. Camill

ch she stands

he artisans’ h

er the “Godde

arning, espec

n intellectual

a: Thunderous A

mbridge, MA: Htalented Godde

FOR THE AC

s a symbol of

le of Boccian

my, understoo

ning Teaching

occhi was a h

a Bocciana th

lli was aimin

lacement of a

of victory, o

li’s Roman g

s. In Roman t

holiday held

ess of a Thou

cially academ

symbol for t

Academy, from

Harvard Universess of Wisdom,

CADEMIES

f peace, place

a Docet, refe

od the attribu

g and Wisdom

humanist asso

hat encapsula

g for in his d

attributes: fro

or the gorgo

goddess is d

times, Minerv

from March

usand Works.

mics. For Cam

the new Padu

the Imprese…,

sity Press, Loeb Poetry, Music

ed at her side

erring to the t

utions of Min

m, reflecting

ociated with a

ated the purp

design of an

om instrumen

on head for t

depicted resid

va was celeb

h 19 to 23. In

.”24 More ge

milli too, Min

uan academy

1586.

b Classical Libc, Medicine, Ar

601

e. Books are

teachings of

nerva as the

the aims of

an academy

pose of the

impresa for

nts of war to

the rampant

ding on the

rated as the

n Latin, her

enerally, she

nerva in the

and the city

rary, Harvard rts and Crafts

602

The im

stating “M

continuatio

the tutelag

Capitoli (r

organizatio

the world c

Figuredegli In

The fi

who comp

pestles, allu

borrowed

According

25 Camilli, I

mpresa for th

eliora latent”

on of the Qua

ge of Enea Si

records) of 1

on as well as

caused by a c

8. Antonio Vigntronati, Siena,

irst impresa o

posed a Tusca

uding to the t

from Ovid’s

to the custom

Imprese, Book 1

CAMILLO

he Intronati A

” (“The Best

attrocento Gra

ilvio Piccolo

532, the me

the meaning

onstant state

gnali, Original Italy.

of the Introna

an zucca (pu

tool for grind

Metamorpho

m of Tuscan p

1, 97-99.

O CAMILLI’S

Accademici (

is Concealed

ande Accade

omini (1405-1

embers of the

of their name

of daze, an in

impresa for the

ati was inven

umpkin) (Fig

ding spices. C

oses; below,

peasants, in o

S IMPRESE F

(“The Thund

d”) (Figure 7)

mia, which h

1464), the fu

e Intronati A

e. The founde

nability to thi

e Thunderous A

nted by one of

ure 8). Abov

Circling the d

another scro

order to prese

FOR THE AC

derous Acade

).25 The Sien

had been orga

uture Pope Pi

Academy def

ers wished to

ink clearly an

Academy, 1525.

f the founders

ve this pump

esign on a sc

oll contains t

erve the salt u

CADEMIES

emicians of S

nese academy

anized by a gr

ius II (1458-

fined the pur

o escape the c

nd cultivate hu

. Photo credit: B

s Antonio Vi

pkin, the imp

roll is a Latin

the name of

used in their

Siena”) conta

y originated in

roup of huma

-1464). In th

rpose and go

continuous di

umanistic pu

Biblioteca Com

ignali, called

resa contain

n motto, “Me

f the academy

cooking and

ains a motto

n 1525 as a

anists under

he Academy

oals of their

in (noise) of

ursuits.

mmunale

L’Arsiccio,

s interlaced

eliora latent,”

y Intronati.

to conserve


603

their food, the seawater crystalline substance was pulverized and placed inside a pumpkin.26 The opening in

the zucca alluded to this vegetable protecting what is inside, the salt, against humidity. Salt as a symbol has at

least two meanings. First, as a symbol of good people, straightforward and trustworthy, as seen when Christ

praised his apostles in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:13), stating that they are as “salt of the earth.”

Another symbolic meaning of salt is as intellectual illumination, the wisdom of a learned individual—for Christ

his disciples are the “light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). Both meanings allude to the Intronati members of the

academy as the salt and light of the world with their collected knowledge. In the impresa, the pestles are the

instruments of refining the salt, hence symbolizing good judgment achieved through intelligence that is then

refined with learning and studying.

Camilli’s composition of the impresa, with a layered design and a simulated background of wood base,

projects a cartouche with elaborate herbal festoons sustained at top by the central bucrania mask and framed by

two burning lamps. Below the central image of the zucca and pestles with an intertwined scroll with the motto

“Meliora latent,” similar herbal festoons as above decorate the design and accentuates the visibility of the

hidden profiled masks. Camilli plays with the contrast of an animal mask located above the impresa and the

human faces located below the zucca, perhaps creating a pun on the skull of the animal and the human skull in

relation to the zucca image.

In Siena during the sixteenth century, the honorable Thundering Academy had formulated an impresa with

a pumpkin (zucca) containing salt deriving from an old custom of conserving salt in a pumpkin. Zucca in

colloquial Tuscan means head or cranium—symbol for containing sapid things—while salt is a symbol of

wisdom, thus the popular saying “non aver sale in zucca” or “essere poco intelligente” that means to knock

some sense into you” or “falling for brains,” very loosely “we must take it all with a grain of salt.”27 In the

impresa the depiction of the two pestles suggests that the salt has been pounded and is at the bottom of the

pumpkin, referring to the stamping of knowledge. These instruments hold a scroll with the motto “Meliora

latent”—alluding to the idea that the best things are concealed, or to the concealment of good things. Hence the

meaning is that wisdom resides in the head or cranium of a person. This motto recalls Plautus’s (Captivi I, 2,

165) comment on how great geniuses are hidden, “saepe summa ingenia in occulto latent” (“spesso gl'ingegni

sommi si tengono occulti” or “often great talents are kept hidden”) and Ovid’s quotation (Ars am. III, 387)

“Quo latet, ignotum est” (“Ciò che e nascosto, e ignoto” or “What is hidden is ignored”). Camilli explains the

meaning of the picture, both with the motto’s reference to the classical literary (Plautus and Ovid) and artistic

traditions and also by surrounding the background of the impresa with festoons, bucrania, and flaming urns,

symbolizing the eternal fame of the famous members of the academy who engaged in distinguished and

honorable deeds. According to Camilli, the academicians received high praise because of their prudence and

wisdom as commented in antiquity by Horace’s Poetics, “exfumo dare lucem cogitate” (“light from smoke

thinks”) meaning that an image out of smoke can produce light or elucidation that is a brilliant idea.28

26 The economical well being of the Roman people increased when it was discovered in antiquity that salt preserved food and provided taste to the food. The Via Salaria (Salt Shops Street) in Rome became the marketplace where one could purchase salt as well as the avenue by which this seawater substance was transported for the cattlemen and merchants selling meat products. See Maarten de Vos’s drawing of Arithmetica (Liberal Arts) engraved by Johann Sadeler of 1575, where the pumpkin in the Latin inscription is associated with rich calculations (prosperity). See Figure 11. 27 For another expression, “to be giddy-patted.” 28 Horace, Arts Poetica, V. 143: “Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem/Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat” (“Not [so much] on the smoke from the flame does he dwell but on the light from the smoke, that marvelous wonders should it hence evoke”).


604

It is interesting to observe that the bottom decoration of the impresa where chamomile flowers frame a

face. The design of this face contrasts with the bucrania mask placed axially at top. The unique human features

and expression of the face suggest an individualized portrait—perhaps a self-portrait of the author, Camillo

Camilli. A centrally placed chamomile flower decorates the forelocks of the forehead, which may further allude

to his name, Camilli, as well as a reference to his collaborative and tranquil personality—similar to the benefits

of the chamomile flower (Figure 9). The elaborate initials SS or CC seen on the recto and the verso of some

designs for the imprese can be associated with the initials of his first name and last name, Camillo Camilli.

Perhaps Camilli is humorously suggesting his adroit desire to please and restore harmony among the

academicians.

Figure 9. Camillo Camilli, Chamomile Flower, Impresa, Thunderous Academy, in the Imprese…, 1586.

In the sixteenth-century visual tradition outside of Italy, the symbolism of the pumpkin was associated

with the brevity of life, as seen in the engraving of Albrecht Dürer’s Saint Jerome in His Study of 1514 (Figure

10), while in the engraving of Maarten de Vos’ Allegory Arithmetic of 1540, engraved by Johann Sadeler in

1575 (Figure 11) the pumpkin alludes to prosperity, as the Latin inscription records, “Tradit Arithmetiche

numeros sparsimque vagantes colligit et certa in summas ratione coercet.” (“L’Aritmetica insegna i numeri e

quelli qua e là vaganti con calcolo esatto assomma”) (“Arithmetic teaches numbers who in turn assist in the


605

correct summation”).29

Figure 10. Albrecht Dürer, Saint Jerome in His Study, 1514, engraving. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City (Accession Number 68.793.28). Photo credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. Gift of Mrs. George Khnuer, 1968.

29 For the image, see https://art.famsf.org/jan-sadeler-i/arithmetic-series-five-female -figures-personifying-arts-and-sciences-19633014710 (accessed September 2017).


606

Figure 11. Johann Sadeler, Arithmetica, engraving of 1575 after Maarten de Vos’ drawing of 1540. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Accession Number 49.95.1492). Photo credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, donation to Wikimedia Commons. The Elsiha Wittlelsey Colletion, Fund. 1949.

Unfortunately for the Intronati Accademici, this impresa was subject to much ridicule on the part of their

rivals and competitors, to the point that the impresa was transformed into a sexual image of fecundity referring

to the male organ, undermining the significant moral values inherited and the knowledge produced by the

members of this Academy.

The Unani

The im

“Idem ardo

all of us th

open mout

The agitate

now all tog

surprise in

expression

The b

honey—an

bees’ actio

collectively

greatness o

specifically

oppression

of honesty

30 Camilli, I31 See Jean the myth that32 See Hans in particular

imous Acade

Figure

mpresa of th

or” (“The sam

he same ardor

th framed by

ed bees danci

gether will tr

n observing t

further refer

bees’ behav

nd vigilance,

on refers to

y in gatherin

of God. In the

y in the Old

n. The text of

y, justice and

Imprese, Book 2Chevalier and t the bees touchBiedermann, D35.

CAMILLO

emicians

e 12. Camillo C

he Unanimi A

me ardor”), w

r”) (Figure 12

a Greek egg

ing in a circle

ransform the

the bees’ co

s to eloquenc

ior is assoc

because of th

the endeavor

ng and preser

e text, Camill

Testament w

f the impresa

d virtue throu

2, 93-95. Alain Gheerbra

h their lips and Dictionary of Sy

O CAMILLI’S

Camilli, Impresa

Accademici

which is expan

2).30 The cart

g-dart motif.

e indicate that

coveted nect

ordination an

ce noted by P

ciated with

heir lack of s

rs and labori

rving knowle

i comments a

where the Ma

emphasizes t

ugh their int

ant, A Dictionamouth as they fymbols: Cultur

S IMPRESE F

a: Unanimous A

(Unanimous

nded at the en

touche of the

In the center

t they have ob

tar into delici

nd organizat

lato and Sain

diligence—b

sleep in atten

ious efforts

dge for the g

about the con

accabees unit

the aims of th

tellect and h

ary of Symbols form their hive.ral Icons and Th

FOR THE AC

Academic, from

Academician

nd of the text

e pictura show

r a beehive w

btained from

ious honey. T

ion in return

nt Ambrose.31

because of t

nding carefull

of the Acad

greatest good

nnection betw

ted and were

he members o

human deeds;

(London: Blac.

Their Meaning (

CADEMIES

m the Imprese…

ns) contains

to read “Om

ws in the cen

with swarmin

the flowers t

The mask’s o

ning to their

their industr

ly to their tas

demy as they

d, in particula

ween the bees

thus able to

of the Academ

; hence, char

kwell, 1994), 7

(New York: Me

…, 1586.

a scroll with

mni vs Idem A

nter a wing m

ng bees rests

the sweet nec

open mouth in

habitat, but

rious labor

sk.32 In the im

y work indiv

ar the knowl

and the Holy

o free Jews fr

my to pursue

ritable action

78-80, in partic

eridian Books,

607

h the motto

Ardor” (“For

mask with an

on an altar.

ctar and that

ndicates the

t this facial

to produce

mpresa, the

idually and

edge of the

y Scriptures,

rom foreign

e the virtues

ns achieved

cular 79 about

1994), 34-36,


608

through good intentions formulated by the intellect are deemed honorable and meritorious.

Camilli stresses the academicians’ kinship and sense of order in divulging knowledge of the good,

employing analogies about the bees’ behavior of working together for a common good in the creation of a

precious nectar. The analogy of the bees’ conduct is similar to the efforts of the members of the Academy who

engage their intellect to serve God and disperse with their good actions the words of the Evangelists. The

Academicians express spiritual pleasure in being virtuous while the bees delight in making honey.

In composing this impresa, Camilli is reflecting on the classical writings about the behavior and

symbolism of bees in Virgil’s Georgics (On Agriculture), an ancient book dedicated to bee-keeping, Varro’s

De re rustica (On Agriculture), Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, and Seneca’s Epistles. In Georgics, IV, 220,

Virgil admires the bees for their sagacity as imparted by divine reason, similar to human wisdom imparted by

God.33 In one of Seneca’s Epistles, the Stoic philosopher and rhetorician advises humans to bond like the bees

in order to unite for the purpose of creating a conceit; similarly, the members of the Academy invent ways to

disperse conceits about the virtue of the good.34 Seneca is recalling Virgil’s comment: “Pack close the flowing

honey/And swell their cells with nectar sweet.”35 In Epistle 84:3, Seneca encourages individuals to be like bees,

alluding to their united industrious and positive endeavors of creating honey, like individuals producing a

positive climate of good in the society.36

Figure 13. Roman-Egyptian, Lantern, 2nd century CE, terracotta. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City (Access No. 89.2.2092). Photo credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. Gift of Mrs. Lucy W. Drexel, 1889.

33 See Hilda M. Ransome, The Sacred Bee in Ancient Times and Folklore (New York: Dover Publications, 1937, repr. 2004), 84. 34 I am employing the term “the good” in Platonic and Christian terms. See Plato’s Republic (504 and 580a 2-3) in Raphael Demos, “Plato’s Idea of the Good,” in The Philosophical Review, Vol. 46, No. 3 (May, 1937): 245-275; and in the Holy Scriptures, Psalms 25:8; 34:8: 86:5 and Matt 19:17; and Luke 18:19. 35 Seneca’s Epistles, trans. and ed. Richard M. Gummere, 3 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, The Loeb Classic Library, 1917, 1920, 1925) 1-65; 66-92 and 92-124. 36 See Ransome, The Sacred Bee in Ancient Times and Folklore, 87.


609

In observing Camilli’s design of the beehive one observes the unusual shape, not of mud or straw but of a

lantern (Figure 13). Camilli is probably appropriating Pliny the Elder’s description of a Roman beehive, which

some were made of a “transparent lantern horns.”37 The hive’s spatial structure is analogous to the architecture

of an Academy: the housing of the Unanimous Academicians is not just a physical space but also a

metaphysical realm. The hive in itself further alludes to another classical reference from Virgil’s Georgics, IV:

184 “Omnibus una quies operum, labor omnibus unus” (“There is one rest from work for all, there is one labor

for all” or “one task is shared by all”). This bond of working together and reposing together after a fruitful

endeavor was visualized by the emblematist, doctor and botanist Joachim Camerarius in his Symbola et

emblemata tam moralia quam sacra of 1587.38 In Camilli’s impresa, the meaning about the structure of the

hive invites the humming of bees to return to their place of rest in order to produce together delicious nectar. In

Georgics, III: 244, Virgil considers the bond of the bees and their return to their habitat buzzing and working

together to be an act of love “amor omnibus idem” (“love is the same for all”). Thus the hive alludes to two

realms of unity: a physical realm where the bees unite to work and survive, and a metaphysical realm, where

the bees achieve unity through their love, a moral bond,39 as illustrated in Camilli’s impresa.

The altar on which the beehive stands refers to the mythological story of Comatas and the Muses, where a

goatherd makes an altar to sacrifice a kid as an offering to the Muses for their beautiful music and dances;

however, the goat master punishes him by this action and locks him to die in wooden chest.40 The Muses

recompense the goatherd by sending a honeybee to create a keyhole in the cedar-chest, and soon numerous

honey-bees start to feed him and keep him alive with their nutritious nectar.

For the ancients, the honeybees were considered the “Birds of the Muses”41 because they were gifted like

the Muses: they sang and danced with their movement and buzzing, and provided sensual pleasure with their

scent and honey. These animals, sacred to the gods, provided their special habitat wherever hills were covered

with meadows of flowers, as found on the hills of Mount Helicon or the mouseion, the sacred places where the

Muses resided.42 The Muses were the goddesses of music, love and dance and, as a source of inspiration for

artist, poets, philosophers and musicians, they promoted the arts and sciences. The bees with their actions and

production became associated with the Muses’ endeavors. The description of the flying bees around the habitat

might evoke Plato’s Ion (534), where he comments that the souls of the poets are like bees flying from flower

to flower and their honey flowing like fountains of the Muses;43 hence a probable association of the bees and

their product honey with the Muses’ divine creativity, eloquence and poetical inspiration. In employing the bee

analogies, Camilli has Christianized the Muses’ pagan inspiration to imply how God’s divine inspiration was

imparted to the members of the Academy. In the text, he also noted the amours overtone, associated with a

didactic and moral message, as a reminder that academic kinship and collaborative behavior are rewards for the

37 See Ransome, The Sacred Bee in Ancient Times and Folklore, 87, citing Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book XI, 49, 85. 38 Joachim Camerarius, Symbola et emblemata tam moralia quam sacra (Frankfurt/Main: Akademische Druck, 1587), 3:90. For the image, see Henkel and Schöene, Emblemata, 926 or http://distichalatina.blogspot.com/2011/11/labor-omnibus-unus.html (accessed September 2017); and Simona Cohen, Animals as Disguised Symbols in Renaissance Art (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 42-45. 39 See Stephanie Nelson and David Green, trans. and eds, God and the Land: The Metaphysics of Farming in Hesiod and Vergil (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 147. 40 See Hélène Adeline Guerber, The Myths of Greece and Rome (New York: Cosimo, Inc., 2007), 70. 41 See Biedermann, Dictionary of Symbols, 35. 42 See Ransome, The Sacred Been in Ancient Times and Folklore 84, referring to the writings of the ancient Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro, De re rustica, Book III, Chapter XVI, 84; and T. J. Haarhoff, “The Bees of Virgil,” Greece and Rome, Vol. 7. No. 2 (October, 1960): 155-70. 43 See Haarhoff, “The Bees of Virgil,” 155; and Plato’s Ion, trans. and ed. W. R. M. Lamb (London: Heinemann, 1925).


610

general good of the association and the society, thus pleasing God.

Figure 14. Botticelli, Mars and Venus, 1485. National Gallery of Art, London, UK. Photo credit: en.wikipedia.org.

Figure 15. Piero di Cosimo, Discovery of Honey by Bacchus, 1510. Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts (Accession Number 1937.76). Photo credit: commons.wikepedia.org.

In the Italian Renaissance, painters and patrons enjoyed depicting narratives associated with the bees and

the symbolism of love, as can be seen in Botticelli’s Mars and Venus of 1485 at the National Gallery of Art in

London (Figure 14), where the bees attest to the love making between the gods but also allude to the patron’s

name Vespucci (bees or wasps),44 or in Piero di Cosimo’s Discovery of Honey by Bacchus of 1500, at the

Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts (Figure 15), which is a visual interpretation about the discovery of

honey during the feasts of Bacchus and Silenus recounted in Ovid’s Fasti, Book III. Cosimo’s interpretation

lacks the romantic flavor of Botticelli’s painting, focusing instead on the humors aspect of entrapping the bees

44 See Edgar Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 1969), 86-96.


611

in a tree trunk for them to make honey. The decayed tree-trunk is in the shape of a woman with large breasts

but perhaps more precisely the shape of a bear. As recounted in Medieval bestiaries, bears search for beehives

in order to find honey.45 These visual narratives accentuate the sensual aspects or taste for the bees’ product,

honey, and not the united labor of the bees to create a good product as interpreted by Camilli in the impresa.

Following the aims of the Unanimous academicians, Camilli reinterprets the classical myth of the beehive

with the bees making honey at two levels. One level is associated with a philosophical and political structure as

a model of human society; in this case, the academicians, who work together as an intellectual community to

encourage good deeds. The second level deals with spirituality, a metaphysical aspect about the classical myth

of the Omphalos, the navel or center of the earth (Figure 16). This ancient and mysterious carved monument in

the shape of a beehive covered with a pattern of bees was associated with the Delphic priestess Pythia, also

called The Delphic Bee, who when eating honey entered into a deep sleep (Pausanias, Description of Greece, X,

16.2). This blissful, peaceful state was the goal of the Unanimous academicians.

Figure 16. Omphalos (Navel), 330 BCE. Archeological Museum, Delphi, Greece. Photo credit: en.wikepedia.org.

45 See T. H. White, The Book of Beasts (New York: Dover, 1984), 47; Thomas F. Mattheus, S. J., “Piero di Cosimo’s Discovery of Honey,” in The Art Bulletin, Vol. 45, No. 4 (December, 1963): 357-60; and Erwin Panofsky, “The Early History of Man in a Cycle of Paintings by Piero di Cosimo,” in Studies of Iconology: Humanistic Theme in the Art of the Renaissance (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1939/1962), 33-67.


612

Conclusion

Camilli’s imprese combines text and image (motto and pictura) to convey a moral message. The

contributions of the Academies assist individual members in achieving their highest intellectual aims and also

support all members in sustaining the highest standards of moral virtues such as integrity, justice and love (the

good). The impresa is also a visualization of the classical phrase “ut pictura poesis” (“as is picture, so is

poetry”).46 The idea is that the complementary nature of poetry or writing is painting, equating the inspiration

of the poet and writer with the imagination of the painter.. The ancient poet Horace, in Ars poetica, formulated

an additional allusion to artistic quests: the paragone or comparisons among the sister arts of painting,

sculpture, architecture, music and poetry.

The phrase was also frequently employed by artists, humanists and theoreticians of the sixteenth-century,

including Leonardo da Vinci, Ludovico Dolce, Gian Paolo Lomazzo and Giorgio Vasari.47 For Camilli, as a

Tuscan poet of the sixteenth-century, there was as well a similar parallel with the conceptual construction and

the visual realization of each of his imprese, in particular for those for the Academies. Although the impresa

was sometime conceived by a patron, it required the assistance of an artist to represent it; if the artist composed

it, he needed to capture the patron’s persona and wishes, here specifically referring to the Academies’

aspirations. In both instances, the purpose was to aggrandize the patron’s honorable qualities in terms of the

accomplishments achieved in cultural, civic or political endeavors. The more abstract the meaning of the

impresa, the more sophisticated the reader needed to be in order to decode its meaning. This visual and

intellectual challenge was the goal of Camillo Camilli.

References Biedermann, H. (1994). Dictionary of symbols: Cultural icons and their meaning. New York: Meridian Books. Blunt, A. (1968). Artistic theory in Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Caldwell, D. (2005). The sixteenth-century Italian impresa in theory and practice. New York: AMS Press, Inc. Camilli, C. (1586). Imprese Illustri di diversi, coi discorsi di Camillo Camilli et con le figure intagliate in rame di Girolami Porro,

Padovan (Imprese of illustrious of men with various explanations by Camillo Camilli and with the engravings in copper by Girolami Porro from Padua). Venice: Francesco Ziletti.

Cheney, L. D. (2003). The Imprese of the Accademia della Crusca. In Sagrario Consuelo (Ed.), Emblematica (pp. 259-266). Coruña, Spain: University of Coruña Press.

Cheney, L. D. (2005). Accademia della Crusca: arte and imprese. In International Journal of the Humanities (pp. 25-35). Chersa, T. (1891). Degli illustri toscani stati in diversi tempi a Ragusa (Ilustrious Tuscan Writer Residing at Different Times in

Ragusa). Padua: Della Minerva. Chevalier, J., & Gheerbrant, A. (1994). A dictionary of symbols. London: Blackwell. Curran, B. (2007). The Egyptian renaissance: The afterlife of ancient Egypt in early modern Italy. Chicago, Ill: Chicago

University Press. Cohen, S. (2008). Animals as disguised symbols in renaissance art. Leiden: Brill.

46 Horace’s Arts poetica, line 361, first century BCE; and Ars Poetica, lines 10-11: “Pictoribus atque poetis quidlibet audendi semper fuit aequa potestas” (“But painters and poets have always shared the right to dare anything”), and lines 38-39: “Sumite materiam uestris qui scribitis, aequam uiribus et uerstate diu quid ferre recusant…” (“You who write choose a subject that’s matched by your powers…”). See Horace: Epistles Book II and Arts Poetica, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Loeb Classical Library, No. 194, 1929). 47 See Mario Praz, Mnemosyne The Parallel Between Literature and the Visual Arts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 2-28; Leah Mendelsohn, Paragoni: Benedetto Varchi Due Lezzioni (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1982), 109-142; John R. Spencer, “Ut Rhetorica Pictura: A Study in Quattrocento Theory of Painting,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 20 (1957): 26-44; Anthony Blunt, Artistic Theory in Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 52; and Rensselaer Lee, Ut Pictura Poesis: Humanist Theory of Painting (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1967), 1, no. 2.


613

Demos, R. (1937). Plato’s idea of the good. The Philosophical Review, 46(3), 245-275. Fairclough, H. R. (Trans.). (1929). Horace: Epistles Book II and Arts Poetica. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Loeb

Classical Library. Forcella, V. (1869). Iscrizioni delle chiese e di altri edifici di Roma dal seccolo XI fino ai giorni nostri (Inscriptions in Roman

Churches and other Edifices from the XI century today). Rome: Scienze matematiche e fisiche. Frazer, J. G. trans. (Ed.). (1931). Ovid’s Fasti. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Loeb Classical Library. Giovio, P. (1556). Ragionamento di Mons. Paolo Giovio sopra i motti e i disegni d'arme d'amore che comunemente chiamiamo

Imprese. Con un discorso di Girolamo Ruscelli, intorno allo stesso soggetto (Arguments of Mons. Paolo Giovio on the mottoes and drawings bout arms and love that commonly are called Imprese. With an essay of Girolami Ruscelli about the same subject). Venice: Ziletti.

Guerber, H. A. (2007). The myths of Greece and Rome. New York: Cosimo, Inc. Gummere, R. M. (Trans. & Ed.). (1917-1925). Seneca’s Epistles. 3 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, The Loeb

Classic Library. Haarhoff, T. J. (1960). The Bees of Virgil. Greece and Rome, 7(2), 155-70. Henkel, A., & Schöene, A. (1967-1976). Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts (Emblemata:

A handbook about emblems in art from XVI until XVII centuries). Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler. Lamb, W. R. M. (Trans.) (1925). Plato’s Ion. London: Heinemann. Lee, R. (1967). Ut Pictura Poesis: Humanist Theory of Painting. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. Mendelsohn, L. (1982). Paragoni: Benedetto Varchi Due Lezzioni. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press. Nelson, S., & Green, D. (Trans. & Ed.). (1998). God and the land: The metaphysics of farming in Hesiod and Vergil. Oxford:

Oxford University Press. Panofsky, E. (1939/1962). Studies of iconology: Humanistic theme in the art of the renaissance. New York: Harper and Row,

Publishers. Praz, M. (1964-75). Studies in seventeenth century imagery. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. Praz, M. (1967). Mnemosyne: The parallel between literature and the visual arts. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Price Zimmermann, T. C. (1995). Paolo Giovio. The historian and the crisis of sixteenth-century in Italy. Princeton: Princeton

University Press. Ransome, H. M. (1937-2004). The sacred bee in ancient times and folklore. New York: Dover Publications. Russo, M. B. (1990). L'impresa come ritratto del Rinascimento (The impresa as a portrait of the renaissance). Naples: Loffredo. Spencer, J. R. (1957). Ut Rhetorica Pictura: A study in quattrocento theory of painting. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld

Institutes, 20, 26-44. Thompson, D. W. (Trans.). (1910). Aristotle’s Historia Animalium (The history of animals). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Tiraboschi, G. (1772-81). Storia della letteratura italiana (History of Italian literature). Modena: Società tipografca. Tung, M. (2006). The impresa index. New York: AMS Press, Inc. Verson, J. E. et al. (2016). The Italian academies: 1525-1700: Networks of culture, innovation and dissent. London: Routledge. Vivaldi, V. (1891). Studii letterarii (Literary studies). Naples: Morano. White, T. H. (1984). The book of beasts. New York: Dover. Wind, E. (1969). Pagan mysteries in the renaissance. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Woodhouse, J. R. (1995). Borghini and the foundation of Accademia della Crusca. Italian Academies, 165-173.

9-camillo camilli’s imprese for the academies · camillo camilli’s imprese for the academies...

Documents