X-Nico

7 unusual facts about Cesare Ripa


Cesare Ripa

Cesare Ripa (c. 1560 – c. 1645) was an Italian iconographer who worked for Cardinal Anton Maria Salviati as a cook and butler.

An English translation appeared in 1709 by Pierce Tempest.

Emblem book

Another influential illustrated book was Cesare Ripa's Iconologia, first published in 1593, though it is not properly speaking an emblem book but a collection of erudite allegories.

Four continents

In 1603, Cesare Ripa published a book of emblems for the use of artists and artisans who might be called upon to depict allegorical figures.

Grande Commande

Designed by Charles Le Brun from Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, the statues were executed by the foremost sculptors of the day (Blunt, 1980; Friedman, 1988, 1993; Nolhac, 1913; Thompson, 2006; Verlet, 1985).

Invidia

Cesare Ripa's influential Iconologia (Rome, 1603) represented Invidia with a serpent coiled round her breast and biting her heart, "to signify her self-devouring bitterness; she also raises one hand to her mouth to show she cares only for herself".

Stella d’Italia

In 1603, in the second edition of his treatise Iconologia, Cesare Ripa associated the symbol with the Italia turrita, and creates a modern version of Italy’s allegorical personification: woman with a star on top of a towered crown, therefore supplied with the Corona muralis and the Stella Veneris.


Barend Graat

The Amsterdams Historisch Museum has an Allegory of Care painting in their collection from the former Old Men's Almshouse, based on an Emblem by Cesare Ripa.


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