Foot of God, Pt 2: Continuing Thread on Odd Things in the Sky

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I am going to indecently add to my “foot of god” series with this metal engraving from the accomplished Joachim Camerarius¹’ Symbolorum et Emblematum…(published in four volumes at Nuremberg from 1590 to 1605).  There is so much to offer from these books, I freely admit, but I’m afraid that I’m stopped at this foot-from-the-sky image. 

The engravings, executed by Hans Sibmacher, were among the first executed in metal, and the book itself was the first of its kind to present botanical emblems. (The other three volumes contained emblems for animals of land-sea-air.) They are splendid and concise, and filled with soft detail.  And still I’m left with the foot. 

The legend is mostly a mystery and doesn’t help me with the foot—it says something about beauty and growth and madness and reward—and the saffron crocus.    This plant has been a commodity for thousands of years, used for therapeutics and dyeing and spice.  It takes quite a lot of these plants to produce a gram of powder—about 150. 60,000 plants are necessary to produce a pound of saffron, which is getting to be quite pricey.  Given this, saffron was very often imitated and counterfeited—a crime taken quite seriously in many places, and perhaps none more so in Bavaria where (in 1444) a conviction meant death.

And as long as we’re talking about odd antiquarian images the sky, I’d like to point out the work by the Jesuit Franciscus Nerrincq (1638-1712), De goddelycke voorsienigheydt², in which there are several odd eyes that burn their way through the atmosphere.   Eyes/eye of the creator occur frequently in religious presentations and emblems, but not so very often as hands holding a pair of eyes.  I know all of this is very heavy stuff in the history of Christian iconography and the progression of emblemata, but I’d rather deal with the images out of context here and have them stand on their own without interpretation. 

NOTES

1.From the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11^th edition, volume 5:  JOACHIM CAMERARIUS (1534-1598), German botanist and physician, son of the classical scholar of the same name, was born at Nuremberg on the 6th of November 1534. After finishing his studies in Germany he visited Italy, where he graduated as doctor of medicine. On his return he was invited to reside at the courts of several princes, but preferred to settle in his native town of Nuremberg, where he had a botanical garden and formed extensive collections. He wrote a Hortus Medicus (1588) and several other works. He died at Nuremberg on the i 1th of October 1598.

 2.  De goddelycke voorsienigheydt uytgebeeldt in Joseph onder-coninck van Egypten : verciert met sinne-beelden ende sede-leeringen.  The entire book can be seen here.

The University of Utrecht emblem collection is extensive and easy to navigate—there is drop-down box for available titles, and once selected, the book comes up with biblio info on the right and a drop-down of thumbnails for the entire book at left.  It is a joy to navigate. 

Comments

[Dave Dubé]

Marty Weil suggested some time ago that you might be a ready source for old maps. I take them to a local copy shop and have copies made from which I make envelopes:

http://oldpaperart.blogspot.com/2009/11/mail-me-art.html

Could you give me some idea please of what maps you may have for sale and their prices. Please.

[Ray Girvan]

So the Monty Python Foot ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Foot_of_Cupid ) has considerable precedent?