Marking the ownership of a volume on its binding was a practice that took a long time to become customary among book buyers and binding commissioners.1 Bindings primarily identified the possessors of the books they protected by displaying their names, often proclaimed in longer inscriptions or represented only by initials, as well as accompanied by mottos. Verbal formulas in turn could be combined with or supplanted by visual representations, which (for the most part) evolved from the pictorial vocabulary of mediaeval heraldry.
Coats of arms of noble owners can easily be found on bindings made in fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, particularly in German lands and workshops of bookbinders active in the Kingdom of Poland. Signs of ownership of non-nobles are less common. Nevertheless, merchants’ marks (Hausmarken) used by tradesmen and craftsmen, as well as burgher arms (Bürgerwappen) of more prosperous individuals, can be noted on some of the bindings covering volumes that once belonged to the commoners.2 In the sixteenth century, these signs of identification and ownership, which had originated in the tradition of heraldic recognition, began to be displayed along (or even replaced with) imprese, personal devices, ‘expressing some personality trait, thought or intention of their bearers, through ingenious coupling of a typically quite concise image with an equally brief motto’.3 For the meaning of the composition to become apparent, these two elements were to be read in conjunction with each other. Perhaps the best-known examples of bindings exhibiting stamps, which can be classed as imprese, are the ‘plaquette bindings’ manufactured in the 1540s in Rome for Apollonio Filareto (an eagle with a Virgilian motto) and Giovanni Battista Grimaldi (Apollo and Pegasus accompanied by a Greek inscription), and those made for the French collector Claude Gouffier (the figure of a term paired with a motto ‘Hic terminus haeret’).4 As far as I know, in the Kingdom of Poland, imprese first appear on bookbindings in the early sixteenth century, stamped on volumes bound for men of learning, professors at the Krakow University.5
The ownership signs displayed on book covers are sometimes referred to as supralibros (superlibros) due to their placement (on the binding, both protecting and adorning the volume). In my text, I use this term as designating signs on bindings that declared ownership of the volume, whether they were verbal (names, mottos, etc.), pictorial (e.g. armorial bearings) or a combination of the two (e.g. imprese). Admittedly, supralibros is a term rarely used in book historical discourse by authors writing in English, where the armorial stamp, ownership stamp and central panel dominate. For my purposes, this term is most convenient, denoting the main function (proclamation of ownership) and placement (on the binding) of specific signs.6
There are various ways to examine supralibros. The most straightforward approach is cataloguing them and identifying their early owners for the purpose of provenance research. Supralibros can also be studied as material objects, for example for techniques used to execute them (as they were stamped, painted, cut or burnt in, engraved and embroidered) and their placement (on both covers and on book spine, on clasps and on centre as well as corner furniture).7 They are often regarded as works of art whose forms reflect how certain decorative styles and general aesthetic trends of the day spread in the mediaeval and early modern world: despite the fact that the majority of binders are traditionally minded, supralibros pursued various styles, and they were designed and created in accordance with contemporary developments in visual arts.8 In this study, however, I propose a slightly different approach to the ownership marks that bookbindings were furnished with. I will focus on two supralibros that elaborate on the same iconographical theme. These supralibros marked the books of Tomasz Treter (Treterus, 1547–1610), a secretary of Cardinal Stanislas Hosius (Hozjusz, 1504–1579), a canon of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome and (towards the end of his life) a canonicus et custos Varmiensis. When discussing Treter’s supralibros, I will provide preiconographic descriptions and attempt at identifying motives, themes and concepts that were incorporated in these compositions.9 This will be an attempt to discover and interpret ‘symbolical values’ of supralibros, which served not only to identify the owners of the books they were applied to, but also to convey meanings. My iconological investigations abstain from aesthetic considerations, and for the most part, ignore the materiality of supralibros. Nevertheless, they are connected to social-historical influences that affected ‘devices on books’.10
The identification and possession signs displayed on the books of Tomasz Treter are noteworthy in several key respects. First, they document non- hereditary personal devices of a man who spent many years close to the papal curia and the most influential figures of the early modern Catholic Church, first and foremost his patron, Cardinal Hosius.11 Second, they were certainly adopted and used consciously because Treter was an author of emblems and an artist who was the inventor or auctor intellectualis of numerous projects. Third, we are fortunate to have contemporary interpretations of these supralibros’ symbolism, either from Treter himself or from his milieu. Forth, these stamps mark and distinguish volumes from a substantial library, amassed by the canon in Frombork (Frauenburg), Warmia (Ermland), between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Treter’s collection was looted and dispersed, but perhaps identifying and studying his supralibrios will help to uncover more of the volumes that once belonged to the canon.
1 Life, Works and Library
Tomasz Treter was the son of a bookbinder from Poznań.12 Smart and diligent, he was educated first in his hometown, and later in the Jesuit College at Braniewo (Braunsberg) in Warmia, the Society’s earliest school in Poland- Lithuania, established in 1565 primarily through the efforts of Hosius, the then bishop of Warmia.13 In 1569, Tomasz was accepted into the service of this prominent prelate of post-Tridentine church, and in the summer of that year, he embarked with his patron on the journey to Italy. With time, Treter grew to become a trusted secretary of the cardinal, and during his long Roman sojourns, he was to rub elbows with influential figures active in the Eternal City: diplomats, intellectuals, writers and patrons of the arts. In Rome, Treter studied theology and law, and also worked for Hosius as a draughtsman, painter, engraver, monument and print designer and Neo-Latin poet. A versatile and talented amateur, Treter produced a large body of work that varied in both subject matter and function. It often combined the verbal and the visual, evidencing his lifelong interest in emblematic forms. The most monumental of these endeavours was Theatrum virtutum Stanislai Hosii, a cycle of approximately a hundred illustrations and odes, which recounted Hosius’s life and praised his virtues.14 Others include allegoric prints (e.g. Typus Ecclesiae Catholicae), a cycle Regum Poloniae icones and an emblem book Symbolica vitae Christi meditatio.15 Shortly before Hosius’s death in 1579, Treter became a canon of Santa Maria in Trastevere, where he proposed an iconographic programme for the sumptuously rebuilt Altemps Chapel.16 In the years that followed, the ‘piccolo canonico polacco’ travelled between Italy and Poland before finally leaving Rome for good in 1593. Afterwards, Treter lived in Frombork as a chancellor of the Warmia chapter, in a house where he had ‘every wall and every ceiling coffer’ decorated with ‘impressive emblems and clever mottos’ and where he amassed an ample, well-kept library.17
The collection remained in Warmia only briefly: in 1626 and at the beginning of the eighteenth century, it was looted by the Swedes, and subsequently the books once owned by Treter were distributed among Swedish libraries, including the Uppsala Universitetsbibliotek and Kungliga Biblioteket in Stockholm.18 It is in these two collections that books marked with Treter’s supralibros have been identified. The Uppsala University Library has preserved Jerónimo Osório’s Opera, while the National Library of Sweden holds a larger collection of volumes bound for Treter, the most impressive of which are two monumental folios of works by pope Gregory I, with deluxe bindings executed in Gdańsk (Danzig), tooled in blind and high-quality gold.19
Upper cover of Gregorius I, Opera omnia, vol. 1 (Antwerp 1572). Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, KB liste VIII B: 26
Photo courtesy of Wolfgang Undorf
2 The Brazen Serpent
On these volumes, one cover (usually the upper cover) has a stamp with an oval enclosed by a thick, ornamental frame. The stamp depicts a fierce reptile coiled around a tau-shaped cross, its wings stretched and mouth revealing a protruding tongue. The image is surrounded by the legend THOMAS TRETERVS CVSTOS VARMIEN<SIS>.
The other supralibros (regularly stamped on the lower cover) is a similar medallion composition. It has an elaborate cartouche enclosing a pictura that shows a cross with its vertical beam entwined by a snake and mounted by the IHS monogram encircled by light rays. Above the image, a brief urging ‘HOC SAPE’ (Understand this!) is inscribed.20
Supralibros of Tomasz Treter, upper cover of Jerónimo Osório, Opera (Rome 1592), Uppsala Universitetsbibliotek, call no. 1500 t. Polen Fol. 19
Supralibros of Tomasz Treter, lower cover of Jerónimo Osório, Opera (Rome 1592), Uppsala Universitetsbibliotek, call no. 1500 t. Polen Fol. 19
Both stamps represent and interpret the same iconographical theme: the brazen serpent, a subject taken from the Book of Numbers (21: 4–9), which tells the story of Israelites who rebelled against Moses during the exodus from Egypt. God sent a plague of snakes to punish their disobedience, and many people died. The cure revealed to Moses was a ‘serpent of brass’, placed on a pole for the stricken Israelites to look at and be cured. Because of the typological reference inspired by Christ’s own words (‘as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life’, Jn 3: 14–15), the Old Testament subject (the story and its visual representation) became widely understood as a prototype of Christ’s sacrifice, a prefiguration of salvation and redemption.21 By the mid-sixteenth century, the brazen serpent had emerged as an independent scene in contemporary figurative arts, while the interpretations of the Old Testament episode were recurring in polemical writings of the time, as Catholics and Protestants analysed the narrative and its meaning with renewed interest. The Lutheran doctrinal discourse viewed the crucifixion as the central event in the history of humanity, and faith in the redeeming power of Christ’s passion was stressed as being of the greatest importance for individual salvation. Luther used the story of the brazen serpent and its typological interpretation to visually explain the doctrine of justification by faith (iustificatio ex fide) and to clearly determine his stance on image worship. For the reformer and his followers, Moses’s serpent became a symbol of justification by faith: the stricken Israelites, for whom the only cure was trust in God’s word personified in the serpent of brass resembled the Christians, for whom the only hope of salvation is their faith in the crucified Christ.22 Catholics cited the Old Testament episode first and foremost as historical proof of the legitimacy of image-making, arguing that, unlike Jews, who were inclined to idolatry, Christians understood that the image is merely a sign referring to the model.23 Importantly, Hosius also explained the subject, for example, in his widely disseminated Confessio catholicae fidei Christiana (a treatise reprinted throughout his life more than thirty times):
The church is rightly raising a monument of crucified Christ in the most eminent place of temple, in such a manner that it could be seen by everyone; that way as those that were bitten by snakes could look at the brazen serpent that Moses lifted up in in the desert and be cured, so these who want to be cured of their sin wounds left by Satan the serpent, would look up at the One, who agreed to die for us hanged at the cross, so that, thanks to Him, we could receive hope of remission of our sins.24
The Catholic theologians also promoted the brazen serpent as a symbol of Eucharist, that is, the figure of Christ’s true and real presence in transubstantiated bread and wine. The meaning of the Old Testament scene might also converge on temperance, following the exegesis proposed by Philo of Alexandria, and often quoted in the early modern period.
The new chapter in the history of the interpretation of the brazen serpent was written during the thirteen years of Gregory XIII’s papacy, precisely during the time when Treter lived in Rome, close to the curia’s affairs. The family coat of arms of Boncompagni, elected a pope in 1572, was a winged dragon without a tail. Boncompagni’s Draco evoked interpretations associating it with the demonic serpent and with Satan, posing a political, ‘public relations’ problem for Gregory XIII. The pope and his family sought to neutralize the negative connotation of the Boncompagnis coat of arms. Their campaign to counter defamatory interpretations drew many intellectuals and artists, who reimagined the Draco in positive terms in numerous works, including drawings, pamphlets, printed volumes and decorations of the Vatican buildings.25 Many of these depicted the pope’s dragon as a brazen serpent.26
While living in Rome, Treter must have been aware of the efforts of the Boncompagnis and the authors of verbal and visual works who (in view of gaining the pope’s grace) were seeking to shift and modify the traditional perceptions of the Draco. All this information about the new lease of life of the brazen serpent, all this talking and publishing, could only have reinforced Tomasz’s conviction that he once had made the right decision in choosing the old symbol as his sign of recognition and identification; ‘once’, because Treter started to use the image of the brazen serpent as his personal badge not in Rome, but before his voyage to Italy and before Boncompagni’s elevation to the papacy.27
Tomasz Treter’s seal stamped on a letter of 1569. Olsztyn, Archiwum Archidiecezji Warmińskiej, Ms AB 62
Already in his young years, Treter stamped his letters with a non-armorial seal that depicted a shield with a winged snake twisted around a cross; the shield was flanked by the legend THOMAS TRETERVS.
Treter used this signet ring until his death. This is evidenced by the seals preserved in the canon’s letters: the earliest letter sealed by the signet ring with Treter’s non-heraldic sign described above was sent in 1569 (the year Treter embarked on his first journey to Rome), and the most recent examples come from 1605 to 1610. To authenticate his correspondence in the last years of his life (and possibly earlier as well, but there are no documents confirming such a supposition), the canon also used a signet ring different, but with the representation also repeating the brazen serpent theme: this new seal (known from letters sent between 1605 and 1610) depicted a tau cross entwined by a winged snake, raising among plants. In the seal composition, this living cross was flanked by two letters T: Treter’s initials, but perhaps also a visual allusion to Golgotha where Christ’s cross stood between crosses of two criminals.28
Tomasz Treter’s seal stamped on a letter of 1604. Krakow, Biblioteka XX Czartoryskich (Muzeum Narodowe), Ms 1625
The brazen serpent image was used as well as Treter’s sign of authorisation or workmanship, constituting a part of elaborate designs. A striking example is a manuscript Lectionarium sanctorum Ecclesiae S. Mariae in Transtiberim, copied and illuminated by Treter, the frontispiece of which features an architectural title border with the canon’s personal sign displayed at the bottom.29
Burgher arms were non-noble badges of identity, which were usually personal in nature, but could be passed down within a family. Often, they depicted (in place of a heraldic charge) an identifiable item. Those who adopted and used such insignia clearly recognized the potential of heraldic representation as an allegoric medium and at least some burgher arms were presented and interpreted by their educated bearers and viewers as symbolic images.30 Treter’s non-armorial sign (as stamped on his letters or displayed on the covers of his books) depicted not an item, but a scene, and one that has long served as a symbol of layered Christological significance. There is little doubt that it must have acted as a badge of identity, a sign of recognition and ownership, as well as a device that (at least for some viewers) resonated the symbolical tradition of interlaced threads recapitulated above.
Bürgerwappen could resemble imprese lacking a motto.31 However, it is only rarely possible to observe how the symbolic capacities of the entities depicted in any given burgher arms could have been handled and the components of the original device elaborated upon to reinterpret it into an impresa, that is a composition devised (and understood) as expressing ideas in an individual’s mind, their sentiments, aspirations and ambitions.32 Supralibros on books that once belonged to the Warmia canon are an example of such a manipulation. The stamp that is displayed on the front covers of Treter’s volumes constitutes a transposition of the canon’s burgher arms as was presented on his signet rings: the brazen serpent, a biblical figura, with crucifixion implicit in it, is displayed in this supralibros with the priest’s name and title. However, the other of Treter’s supralibros (the one usually placed on the bottom cover of his books) enhances the legibility of the original idea by associating the representation of the brazen serpent with further symbolic material. The picture is more complex, as it merges the depiction of the snake with that of Christogram surrounded with a radiant glory. Such a pictura reveals in encapsulated form the parallel notion of deliverance through faith in God’s chosen image (the Moses’ serpent) and of salvation through Christ and his sacrifice on the cross. Moreover, the image was associated with a verbal component other than just a label naming the owner of the device. The motto ‘HOC SAPE’ (Understand this!) not only transforms the composition into a full impresa, an amalgamate of word and image. It also urges the viewer to contemplate and comprehend the meaning of the symbol it accompanies.
3 Device as a Creed
By definition, any given impresa can elicit a wide range of interpretations: ‘without the confirmation of the inventor or the bearer, all suggestions as to meaning could only be supposition’.33 In the case of Treter’s device, we are fortunate to have additional clarification of its significance, an exegesis that most likely comes from someone familiar with the meaning hidden within this badge of identity. It is found in Treter’s posthumously published emblem book, Symbolica vitae Christi meditatio.
This volume is a collection of verbal-visual wholes, in which engravings interact with Bible quotations serving as mottoes, and with prose commentaries.34 Treter drafted these meditative compositions during his Roman years already (between 1569 and 1579), in an environment of unparalleled visual richness, and liberally employing iconographical models from contemporary emblem books.35 Towards the end of his life, in Warmia, Tomasz oversaw the publication of the work being prepared by his nephew, Błażej Treter. The volume was printed in Braniewo by Georg Schönfels in 1612, two years after the author’s death.
Each of the verbal-visual compositions in Symbolica vitae Christi meditatio consists of an engraving with a motto and a prose commentary. Compositions are organized in pairs, grouped together under a single heading. Yet, the volume’s final facing pages (preceded by indexes and errata, and thus appearing to belong to the paratextual materials rather than the main body of the book), display a different emblematic structure.36
Tomasz Treter, Symbolica vitae Christi meditatio (Braniewo: Georg Schönfels, 1612), pp. [Gg3v–Gg4r]. Warsaw, Biblioteka Narodowa, SD XVII.3.2721
On the left-hand side of the opening, beneath the heading ‘In Symbolum T.T.’, the ‘HOC SAPE’ impresa is displayed, and it is unclear if the brazen serpent crest on the facing page belongs under the same inscriptio. Below the pictures, multiple verses are printed in Roman and Italic typefaces. Two of these are anagrams that rearrange the letters from the canon’s name, repeatedly emphasising the idea of ‘overcoming fate’.37 However, the first distich printed right underneath the ‘HOC SAPE’ impresa seems to provide its exegesis. It reads:
The tightly constructed epigram interprets the image, but its brevity suggests that it is also a statement of the bearer’s faith and a summary of Christianity’s basic beliefs.38 It is even more striking when we consider that symbolum as ‘the creed’ was the most important usage of the term during the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance.39 Presumably, Treter and the people assisting him in preparation of the volume published in 1612 were well aware of this tradition and practice. It is perhaps no coincidence that Tomasz’s impresa (and his burgher arms) was included in his emblem book and printed under the heading ‘Symbolum T.T.’
I say ‘Treter and the people assisting him’, as I suppose it was not the canon who penned all the epigrams linked to the representations of the brazen serpent in the 1612 book. While the verses quoted above could have been written by Tomasz Treter, the distich printed below them refers to the canon as deceased already, and elucidates not on his impresa, but praises the parenetic value of Treter’s Symbolica vitae Christi meditatio:
Similarly, the couplet underneath the representation on the right-hand page mentions Treter as no longer alive:
Interestingly, this distich seems to identify the brazen serpent with the Draco, the family coat of arms of Gregory XIII, at the same time suggesting the line of associations between the Old Testament subject and Christ’s passion, as well as between Treter’s burger arms and Boncompagni’s crest.40 As such, it interprets Treter’s device as engendering layered readings, which is consistent with the claims of imprese theoreticians, who repeatedly stated that these compositions should allow for syncretic readings, and that (with time and use) they should acquire new meanings, absorbing rather than replacing earlier ones.41 A successful impresa would also convey an overt, more obvious meaning, while inviting less evident interpretations, not apparent but intelligible to the initiated. The components of the device could also be recombined and elaborated upon to form variants of the original composition that highlight specific aspects of the original idea.42
4 Conclusions
When focusing on early modern Polish bindings, it is possible to see how book possessors who had their ownership stamps cut were abandoning heraldic motifs in favour of alternate structures and symbolic representations.43 Treter’s supralibros are, in turn, a striking example of how badges of identity with roots in the mediaeval tradition of heraldic recognition came to express ideas about the owners of the volumes they marked. In other words, how they were reinterpreted into imprese, signs imbued with ‘a unique sort of reciprocity between the reality and the ideal self-image of the bearer’.44 Tomasz Treter’s burgher arms and his impresa stamped on the bindings of his library were badges of identity whose literary and iconographic points of reference encompassed the continuous tradition of vocabulary of heraldic devices, as well as a more intellectual sphere, informed by current artistic trends and forms of decoration for cultural élites. Neither of the supralibros was overly obscure or controversial, and they worked as a pair on Treter’s binding, as if they were an obverse (both theological and identifying a person) and a symbolical reverse. Litterati, such as Treter (and those responsible for the epigrams on the final pages of Symbolica vitae Christi meditatio), were most likely to have the knowledge needed to decipher and explain the signs found on the books belonging to the Warmia canon. For those who did not understand their significance or did not have the advantage of a guide to their complexities, ‘devices on books’ might nevertheless serve simply as signs of identification and ownership woven into the ornamentation of the bindings they marked.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Bartłomiej Czarski and Wojciech Ryczek for their help with translating Treter’s epigrams from Latin. To both of them, but also to Magdalena Górska and Magdalena Komorowska, I am grateful for sharing their erudition with me. The research for this chapter has been supported by a grant from the Priority Research Area Heritage under the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at Jagiellonian University.
Paul Needham, Twelve Centuries of Bookbindings 400–1600 (New York, London: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 92.
Kamila Follprecht, ‘Gmerki mieszczan krakowskich’, Krakowski Rocznik Archiwalny, 9 (2003), pp. 46–62; Stefan K. Kuczyński, ‘Quelques remarques sur les armoires bourgeoises de Pologne’, in Hervé Pinoteau etc. (eds.), Les armoires non nobles en Europe XIIIe–XVIIIe s. Académie Internationale d’Héraldique, IIIe Colloque International d’Héraldique, Montmorency 19–23 Septembre 1983 (Paris: Le Léopard d’Or, 1986), pp. 55–62; James Douglas Farquhar, ‘Identity in an Anonymous Age: Bruges Manuscript Illuminators and their Signs’, Viator. Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 11 (1980), pp. 371–384; Detlef Mauss, ‘Der Rubrikator PW’, Gutenberg Jahrbuch, 52 (1997), pp. 107–110; Maria Koczerska, ‘De manu, signo et nomine, czyli o krakowskich notariuszach publicznych w późnym średniowieczu’, in Danuta Gawinowa etc. (eds.), Kultura średniowieczna i staropolska. Studia ofiarowane Aleksandrowi Gieysztorowi w pięćdziesięciolecie pracy naukowej (Warsaw: PWN, 1991), pp. 191–206.
Dorigen Caldwell, The Sixteenth-Century Italian Impresa in Theory and Practice (New York: AMS Press, 2004), p. xi. For other definitions and their discussion, see Mario Praz, Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery (London: Warburg Institute–University of London, 1939), p. 50; Kristen Lippincott, ‘The Genesis and Significance of the Fifteenth-Century Italian Impresa’, in Sydney Anglo (ed.), Chivalry in the Renaissance (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1990), pp. 51–54; Caldwell, The Sixteenth-Century Italian Impresa; Laura De Girolami Cheney, ‘The Impresa in the Italian Renaissance’, in Peter M. Daly (ed.), Companion to Emblem Studies (New York: AMS Press, 2008), pp. 251–266.
Anthony Hobson, Apollo and Pegasus. An Enquiry into the Formation and Dispersal of a Renaissance Library (Amsterdam: Van Heusden, 1975); Needham, Twelve Centuries, pp. 163– 167, 228; Jean Guillaume, ‘Hic Terminus Haeret: Du Terme d’Erasme à la devise de Claude Gouffier: la fortune d’un emblème à la Renaissance’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 44 (1981), pp. 186–192.
Kazimierz Piekarski, Superexlibrisy polskie od XV do XVIII wieku (Krakow: Drukarnia W.L. Anczyca i Spółki, 1929), plates 32–35; Arkadiusz Wagner, Superekslibris polski. Studium o kulturze bibliofilskiej i sztuce od średniowiecza do połowy XVII wieku (Toruń: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2016), pp. 208, 214, 235; Justyna Kiliańczyk-Zięba, ‘Imprese of Non-Noble Intellectuals as Ownership Stamps on Bookbindings. An Example from Sixteenth-Century Poland’, Emblematica, 5 (2021), pp. 55–81.
See David Pearson, Provenance Research in Book History. A Handbook (London: Bodleian Library, 1994), p. 97. For a discussion of relevant terminology, see Wagner, Superekslibris polski, pp. 37–62.
For the techniques of binding and decorating books, see e.g. Mirjam M. Foot, The History of Bookbinding as a Mirror of Society (London: The British Library, 1998), pp. 3–50, as well as numerous other studies by the same author.
Mirjam M. Foot, The History of Bookbinding, p. 51.
Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology. Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (New York: Oxford University Press, 1939), pp. 6–11.
Roelof van Straten, An Introduction to Iconography. Symbols, Allusions and Meaning in the Visual Arts (New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 12; about perspectives opened up by the methodologies such as ‘actor-network theory’ and ‘theory of art’, see the compact introduction by Grażyna Jurkowlaniec etc., Art History Empowering Medieval and Early Modern Things, in Grażyna Jurkowlaniec etc. (eds.), The Agency of Things in Medieval and Early Modern Art. Materials, Power and Manipulation (New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 3–14.
Characterising, even briefly, activities and achievements of Hosius falls beyond the scope of this article. From extensive literature on the subject, see e.g. Anton Eichhorn, Der ermlandische Bischof und Cardinal Stanislaw Hosius (2 vols., Meinz: Franz Kirchheim, 1854–1855); Jadwiga A. Kalinowska, Stanisław Hozjusz jako humanista (1504–1579). Studium z dziejów kultury renesansowej (Olsztyn: Wydawnictwo Hosianum, 2004); Stanisław Achremczyk etc. (eds.), Kardynał Stanisław Hozjusz (1504–1579). Osoba, myśl, dzieło, czasy i znaczenie (Olsztyn: Wydawnictwo Hosianum, 2005).
After nineteenth-century scholars, such as Anton Eichhorn and Franz Hipler, the greatest contributions to the knowledge of Treter’s biography were: Józef Umiński, ‘Zapomniany rysownik i rytownik polski XVI w., ks. Tomasz Treter i jego Theatrum virtutum D. Stanislai Hosii’, Collectanea Theologica, 13 (1932), pp. 13–59; Tadeusz Chrzanowski, Działalność artystyczna Tomasza Tretera (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1984); Tadeusz Chrzanowski, ‘Uzupełnienia do biografii Tomasza Tretera’, Rocznik Historii Sztuki, 15 (1985), pp. 129–162.
Jan Korewa, Z dziejów diecezji warmińskiej w XVI wieku. Geneza braniewskiego Hozjanum. Przyczynek do dziejów zespolenia Warmii z Rzeczpospolitą (1549–1564) (Poznań: Księgarnia św. Wojciecha, 1965); Ludwik Piechnik, ‘Gimnazjum w Braniewie w XVI w.’, Nasza Przeszłość, 7 (1958), pp. 5–72.
Treter first drafted ‘an emblematic biography’ of his late protector in 1580; in 1588, Theatrum virtutum was published in Rome, but as a series of prints only. See Karol Bayer, ‘Rysunki oryginalne Tomasza Tretera kanonika warmińskiego z drugiej połowy XVI w.’, Biblioteka Warszawska, 4 (1868), pp. 467–470; Chrzanowski, Działalność, pp. 84–116; Magdalena Górska, Polonia–Respublica–Patria. Personifikacja Polski w sztuce XVI–XVIII wieku (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2005), pp. 178–180; Joanna Talbierska, Grafika XVII wieku w Polsce. Funkcje, ośrodki, artyści, dzieła (Warsaw: Neriton, 2011), pp. 107–108.
From the growing body of literature concerning Treter’s work, see: Grażyna Jurkowlaniec, Sprawczość rycin. Rzymska twórczość graficzna Tomasza Tretera i jej europejskie oddziaływanie (Krakow: Universitas, 2017), but also Karolina Mroziewicz, ‘Regum Poloniae icones Tomasza Tretera ze zbiorów Biblioteki Królewskiej w Sztokholmie i szwedzkie wątki w losach serii’, Folia Historiae Artium, 15 (2017), pp. 25–34; Tomasz Treter, Symboliczne medytacje nad życiem Chrystusa, transl. Anna Treter (Warsaw: Wydział Polonistyki UW, 2020); Alicja Bielak, ‘Symbolica vitae Christi meditatio Tomasza Tretera jako siedemnastowieczna realizacja emblematycznych medytacji. Źródła graficzne i zamysł zbioru’, Terminus, 20 (2018), pp. 411–462; Alicja Bielak, ‘Nowo odnaleziony autograf Tomasza Tretera. Notatnik z projektem księgi emblematów’, Terminus, 34 (2021), pp. 259–307.
See Grażyna Jurkowlaniec, ‘Cult and Patronage. The Madonna della Clemenza, the Altemps and a Polish Canon in Rome’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 72.1 (2009), pp. 69–98.
‘Omnis paries, omne lacunar, speciosis emblematis et ingeniosis lemmatis eruditionem spirat’. See Georg Schönfels, ‘Typographus ad bonae mentis lectorem’, in Tomasz Treter, Symbolica vitae Christi meditatio (Braniewo: Georg Schönfels, 1612), USTC 2055155, f. )( 5r.–)( 5v.
Otto Walde, Storhetstidens litterara krigsbyten. En kulturhistoriskbibliografisk studie (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1916–1920), I. 32, 97–99. Krystyna Korzon, ‘Fragment treterianów w Ossolineum’, Ze Skarbca Kultury, 35 (1990), pp. 155–173. Walde, p. 99, also mentions a copy of Cassiodorus, Variarum libri XII (Lyon 1595), now in the Royal Library in Copenhagen, inscribed ‘Thomas Treterus Custos Varmiensis. Emptus Braunsbergae 26 Junij 1601’.
Walde, Storhetstidens, p. 98. Jerónimo Osório, Opera (Rome: Bartolomeo Bonfadino, 1592), copy at the Uppsala University Library, call no. 1500 t. Polen Fol. 19, USTC 845594; copy annotated in Treter’s hand: ‘Emptus Varmiae a Joanne Krause Bibliopola Gedanensis 26 Maji 1600. Constat florenis Polonicis quinque’. See Adam Heymowski, ‘Reliures armoriées polonaises de l’époque des Jagiellon et des Vasa dans les collections suédoises’, in Krystyna Dymkowska, Joanna Pasztalaniec-Jarzyńska (eds.), VIIIe Congrès International des Bibliophiles, Varsovie, 23–29 juillet 1973 (Warsaw: Biblioteka Narodowa, 1985), p. 157; Sten G. Lindberg, Reliures polonaises dans les bibliotheques suedoises de l’âge gothique, de la renaissance et de la reforme, in Dymkowska, Jarzyńska, Congrès, p. 119. Gregorius I, Opera omnia (Antwerp: Gerard Smits, 1572), KB liste VIII B: 26, USTC 404668; copy annotated: ‘Ligata et curata Gedani 1598 constaterunt mihi florenis 10 Polonicis’. See Lindberg in Reliures, pp. 85–86, 98, 119, il. 40; Wagner, Superekslibris polski, p. 380, plate XV.
A device in Claude Paradin Devises Heroïques (Lyon 1557) is erroneously presented as an immediate source for Treter’s impresa in Carlo Bertelli, ‘Di un cardinale dell’impero e di un canonico Polacco in S. Maria in Trastevere’, Paragone–Arte, 327 (1977), pp. 89–128 (p. 100). Repeated in Chrzanowski, Działalność, p. 149.
Donald L. Ehresmann, ‘The Brazen Serpent, a Reformation Motif in the Works of Lucas Cranach the Elder and his Workshop’, Marsyas. Studies in the History of Art, 13 (1966–1967), pp. 32–47; Molly Faries, ‘A Drawing of the Brazen Serpent by Michiel Coxie’, Revue belge d’archéologie et d’historie de l’art, 44 (1975), pp. 131–141; Jefferson C. Harrison, ‘The Brazen Serpent by Maarten van Heemskerck. Aspects of its Style and Meaning’, Record of the Art Museum. Princeton University, 49. 2 (1990), pp. 16–29; Alicia Craig Faxon, Nancy Frazier, ‘Crucifixion’, in Helene E. Roberts (ed.), Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography. Themes Depicted in the Work of Art (Chicago, London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1998), I. 189–198.
See Faries, ‘A Drawing of the Brazen Serpent’, pp. 137–38, and Ehresmann, ‘The Brazen Serpent’, pp. 32–47.
Eleanor A. Saunders, ‘A Commentary on Iconoclasm in Several Print Series by Maarten van Heemskerck’, Simiolus, 10 (1978–79), pp. 59–83.
‘Verum et in medio templi cuiusque in eminentiori loco, ut ab omnibus conspici possit, Christi crucifixi statuam erexit, quo sicut in serpentem aeneum, quem in deserto Moyses exaltavit, qui morsi a serpentibus intuebantur, sanabantur, sic qui vellent a morsibus peccatorum sanari, quos intulit serpens diabolus, in eum intuerentur, qui pro nobis in cruce pendens mori dignatus est, certa cum spe remissionis peccatorum illius merito consequendae’, Stanisław Hosius, Confessio catholicae fidei Christiana (Mainz: Franz Behem, 1557), f. XIr, USTC 624569.
Marco Ruffini, ‘A Dragon for the Pope. Politics and Emblematics at the court of Gregory XIII’, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, 54 (2009), pp. 83–105. Perhaps most influential being Principio Fabrizi’s Delle allusioni, imprese, et emblemi (Rome 1588), manuscript composed in 1579, with numerous interpretative ideas.
Yvan Loskoutoff, Un art de la réforme catholique, vol. 2: La symbolique du pape Grégoire XIII (1572–1585) et des Boncompagni (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2018), pp. 107–132.
However, since Ugo Boncompagni was Hosius’s friend from their university period in Bologna, Treter might have known the coat of arms of this Italian family already at the time when he studied in Braniewo and joined the cardinal’s household. See Jadwiga Ambrozja Kalinowska, ‘Podróże Stanisława Hozjusza. Zarys problematyki’, in: Danuta Quirini-Popławska, Łukasz Burkiewicz (eds.), Itinera clericorum. Kulturotwórcze i religijne aspekty podróży duchownych, pp. 287–300.
In Archiwum Archidiecezji Warmińskiej in Olsztyn, Ms D 62; in Biblioteka Książąt Czartoryskich (Oddział Muzeum Narodowego) in Krakow, Ms 1625, 1626, 1628.
Chrzanowski, Działalność, pp. 135–143; Chrzanowski, Uzupełnienia, p. 146.
Pedro F. Campa, ‘The Space between Heraldry and the Emblem. The Case of Spain’, in Peter M. Daly (ed.), Emblem Scholarship. Directions and Developments. A Tribute to Gabriel Hornstein (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), pp. 55–57; Magdalena Górska, ‘Symbolika heraldyczna a teoria impresy. Przykład Orbis Polonus Szymona Okolskiego’, Rocznik Polskiego Towarzystwa Heraldycznego, new series 13 (2014), pp. 35–49. On controversies pertaining to imprese without mottos, see Lippincott, p. 58; Caldwell, The Sixteenth-Century Italian Impresa, pp. 16–17, 36–37, 218–219.
Lippincott, ‘The Genesis’, p. 52.
On theories and practices of imprese, see Caldwell, The Sixteenth-Century Italian Impresa.
Caldwell, The Sixteenth-Century Italian Impresa, p. 222.
On various structural forms of emblems, see e.g. David Graham, ‘Emblema Multiplex. Towards a Typology of Emblematic Forms, Structures and Functions’, in Peter M. Daly (ed.), Emblem Scholarship, pp. 131–157; Peter M. Daly, The Emblem in Early Modern Europe. Contributions to the Theory of the Emblem (London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 131–150.
Three collections have so far been identified as his sources: Claude Paradin’ Devises heroïques, Emblemata by Hadrianus Junius – Adriaen de Jonghe, and Picta poesis, ut pictura poesis erit by Aneau Barthélemy. See Bielak, ‘Symbolica vitae Christi meditatio Tomasza Tretera’, p. 414.
They also seem to echo the custom pervading the books produced in early modern Poland-Lithuania, that of preceding the work presented in an edition by a heraldic blason, a verbal-visual composition, where the woodcut displays a coat of arms of the work’s author or patron, and an epigram follows, interpreting the heraldic representation, at the same time praising its bearer. See Bartłomiej Czarski, Stemmaty w staropolskich książkach, czyli rzecz o poezji heraldycznej (Warsaw: Muzeum Pałac w Wilanowie, 2012).
In Anagramma euisdem: Sors levis rebus dominatur imis: / Prosperis tollit, levat haec sinistris. / Tu teras sortem: monet hoc volumen / Voxque Treteri. [In the anagram of the same one: The variable fate rules the lowest: / Sometimes it brings fortune, sometimes misfortune. / Overcome the fate! This is this book’s admonition, /And Treter’s.] Anagramma. Tu sortem teras: Ludit in humanis sors fallacissima rebus: / Quod parit illa, perit; quod struit illa, ruit: / Divitias parit his, aliis molitur honores, / Sors ubi Morsve rotam verterit, omne labat. / Docta quod at pietas dedit aere perennius exstat. / Tu pie TV SORTEM docte TRETERE teras. [Anagram. Defeat the fate: Deceptive Fate plays with human affairs: / What it creates gets lost, what it builds, falls into ruin. / It sends wealth to some, honors to others; / But when Fate or Death spins the wheel, everything is gone./ While, what a learned piety offers is stronger than bronze./ You, devout Treter, defeat the Fate wisely.]
Placing the verbs sapis and capis in immediate vicinity seems to echo St Augustine’s paronomasia (Contra Iulianum (opus imperfectum), 5,44): ‘Si ergo vis Manicheos vel devitare vel vincere, hoc sape, hoc cape intellegendo si potes, credendo si non potes, quoniam ex bonis orta sunt mala, nec est aliquid malitia nisi boni indigentia’. The phrase ‘seps morsu mortem’ may be an allusion not only to snakes that attacked Israelites, but also Satan who tempted Eve to bite the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Elizabeth See Watson, Achille Bocchi and the Emblematic Book as Symbolic Form (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 106–107.
On the tradition that Treter was ennobled by Gregory XII and received the privilege to use the Boncompagnis’s Draco, see Justyna Kiliańczyk-Zięba, ‘Wąż Miedziany i rzekoma nobilitacja. Przyczynek do biografii Tomasza Tretera’, Terminus, 2 (2023) [forthcoming].
Watson, Achille Bocchi, pp. 37–38.
Claudia Rousseau, ‘The Yoke impresa of Leo X’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz, 33 (1989), pp. 113–114.
A large number of illustrations showing supralibros belonging to Polish collectors are to be found in: Kazimierz Piekarski, Superexlibrisy polskie; Maria Sipayłło, Polskie superexlibrisy XV–XVIII wieku w zbiorach Biblioteki Uniwersyteckiej w Warszawie (Warsaw: PAX, 1988); Maria Cubrzyńska-Leonarczyk, Polskie superekslibrisy XVI–XVIII wieku w zbiorach Biblioteki Uniwersyteckiej w Warszawie. Centuria druga (Warsaw: Biblioteka Narodowa, 2001); and in a recently published monograph Wagner, Superekslibris polski, where an elaborate apparatus of footnotes and a bibliography list numerous publications reproducing photographs of Polish mediaeval and early modern bookbindings.
Rousseau, ‘The Yoke impresa’, p. 113.