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3. Variations in Woodcut Designs

Even more so than mottoes, woodcut designs help to determine emblem sources and reveal the interplay among the three components of an emblem. Not only did Whitney change mottoes for more specific moralizing and for greater conformity with the verses, but he also modified the designs and altered details of his models to bring about greater harmony between the verses and the woodcuts. A comparison between the MS drawings and the woodcuts in Choice is particularly revealing of Whitney's penchant for greater harmony among the three components. Apart from the 20 drawings whose sources have not been traced (see Appendix III), the majority of the remaining 177 in the MS follow their models fairly closely. In the printed edition, the 207 identical woodcuts of course present no variation from their sources; however, some of the MS copies from 158 of these same models do show some interesting variations. Of greater significance are 16 emblems in the MS whose drawings were modeled on the woodcuts of La Perrière and Aneau. And because these emblem-books were not printed by Plantin and therefore no blocks were available, these same emblems were

copied again and made into new woodcuts for the printed edition. In other words, for these the MS artist copied them into the pen-and-ink drawings and later the Choice artist copied them again for the new woodcuts. The resultant differences in the two sets show that the Choice artist modeled his designs not on the MS drawings except when there was no other model, but directly on the woodcuts of La Perrière and Aneau (see Figs. 20-22). Whether or not the MS artist might have been Whitney himself is indeterminable. The monogram [HA] appears on three drawings: fols. 34, 36, 39. The last is one of the 13 emblems which Whitney did not use in Choice; the other two become Wh 145 and Wh 148 respectively. All three belong to the 20 "newly devised" emblems in the MS. A relatively safe assumption is that Whitney commissioned [HA], whoever he might be, to draw or devise these three emblems. Whether the same [HA] also drew the other 17 "newly devised" emblems or whether he might be the MS artist who drew all of the 197 emblems is a matter of conjecture. The identity of artists for the source emblems has been perfunctorily mentioned and conjectured by Green (p. 248); overlooked by him are a number of emblems that are signed with the monograms [A] and [G]. Eleven from Faernus (Wh 31, 93a, 153a, 153b, 154, 156a, 156b, 158, 159, 160, 162) are signed with [A]; three (Wh 91, 98a, 157) are signed with [G]. Three from Sambucus (Wh 9, 43, 142) are signed with [A], one (Wh 206) with [G]; and from Junius two (Wh 3, 44) are signed with [G].[15] [A] is the monogram of Arnold Nicolai, who worked for the Plantin press from 1555 to 1596; [G] is that of Gerard Jansen van Kampen, who also worked for the same press from 1564 to 1584.[16] Perhaps the most unusual accident in the MS artist's copying from his source occurred when he modeled the drawing on fol. 20 after the woodcut in Sam 164 which contains the monogram [G] among other symbols on a brick wall (see Wh 206). The copyist obviously did not realize that it was the engraver's monogram and copied it along with other symbols. It will be the main concern in this section to examine two types of variation in design: one the result of the MS artist's deviation from his models in emblem-books whose identical woodblocks are later used in Choice, and the other that of the MS artist's copying from La Perrière and Aneau, from which the Choice artist copied again for the printed edition. The copying of the 10 "newly devised" emblems from the MS by the Choice artist and his devising of five new emblems will be dealt with in Section 6 below.

Of the first type of variations only the most significantly divergent designs between the MS copies and their originals will be discussed. Among those based on Alciati (77 drawings) the single most significant change in one detail is on fol. 23v. Based on Alc (71), later Wh 94, "Inuidiae descriptio," the MS drawing shows properly the thorny staff, whereas the woodcut in the 1577 Plantin edition pictures Envy's staff without thorns.[17] Although Whitney expanded Alciati's original tetrastich into three sextets, he kept the last important detail and rendered the Latin "spinosaque gestat | Tela manu" in his final couplet: "And laste of all, her staffe with prickes aboundes: | Which showes her wordes, wherewith the good shee woundes."[18] Similarly, though the addition is more noticeable, in the drawing on fol. 86v the MS artist places an ape on the back of an ass, whereas the printed woodcut pictures only the ass along with the goat, the dog, and the swine. The ape is however not directly mentioned in Alc (76), but is added in Whitney's translation: "See here Vlisses men, transformed straunge to heare: | Some has the shape of Goates, and Hogges, some Apes, and Asses weare" (Wh 82). In adding the ape onto the back of the ass, the MS artist was forced to move the tree from the left to the right side so that the tree would not obstruct the ape from behind. Thus, the demand for greater conformity between the verse and the drawing caused the artist to add one detail which in turn necessitated further modification of the design of the model. Another such modification appears on fol. 45, modeled on Alc (54) and later Wh 33 "Swallow's nest and Medea." The

MS drawing is faithful to the verse which changes the question in Alciati's original "Cholchidos in gremio nidum quid congeris?" into a direct statement: "The swallowe yet, whoe did suspect no harme, | Hir Image likes, and hatch'd vppon her breste." It depicts a nest on the breast of Medea's statue with a swallow hovering over the nest as if preparing to enter it (Fig. 3). The design of the 1577 Plantin model, however, pictures the nest clinging to the edge of the niche over the head of Medea, and the swallow is flying toward its nest from some distance to the right (Wh 33). Clearly, the MS drawing is more faithful to its verse. In using identical woodblocks from the Plantin press and in not revising the verses later, Whitney left three emblems (i.e., Wh 33, 82, 94) in Choice with discrepancies between their verses and woodcuts. As a result of the mistaken switching of woodcuts in the 1577 Plantin edition, the drawing in fol. 72 (Fig. 4) is based on the wrong woodcut of Alc (24) which later became Wh 62 through Whitney's correction. Green, although correctly identifying Wh 62 with Alc (159), placed Wh 133 among the "newly devised" emblems; it is likely that he was consulting the same 1577 Plantin edition and discovered that the woodcut of Alc (24) showed a different design from that of Wh 133.

The most uncommon variation in design from Junius occurs on fol. 75va, later Wh 93b. This is an emblem on wifely virtues based on Jun (50) and is represented by a woman standing on a tortoise and holding a bunch of keys in one hand and holding the other hand over her mouth. The MS artist added a dove prominently to the right of the figure to support the verse, in particular, line 3 of the single sextet: "The turtull shewes hir pure & honest lyfe." But for the printed Choice Whitney took the trouble of revising this line to "The modest lookes, doe shew her honest life," thereby removing an otherwise puzzling discrepancy between the verse and the woodcut which, as does its original in Junius, shows no dove at all. The most accidental difference among drawings based on Paradin is the one on fol. 55v, which shows the crab on top holding a butterfly with its claws. As indicated in the headnotes to Appendix II, this emblem "Festina lentè" belongs to the group of 36 designed by Gabriel Symeoni and form the last part, pp. 271-316, of the 1567 Plantin edition of Paradin's Symbola Heroica (see Appendix I). On p. 273 the woodcut for this emblem which the MS copied also pictures the crab on top and the butterfly in its claws below (Fig. 5). It is obvious that the MS artist modeled his drawing on this particular edition with the upside-down woodcut. All the other Symeoni "Festina lentè" woodcuts customarily show the butterfly on top as it is in Wh 121.[19] Of a greater and more significant variation in design

from that by Symeoni (Par [311]) is the drawing on fol. 70v later Wh 169. In expanding the original woodcut of 58 x 50 mm. (2¼ x 2”) to a much elongated frame of 64 x 86 mm. (2½ x 3⅜”), the artist added some more building to the right of the center house, from the second-storey window of which an ape is scattering its master-miser's gold pieces (Fig. 6). To the left of this house, two more details are added, each of which is supported by the verse. An ape is pictured chained to a low fence at the rear of the house to the left; it is described at the end of the first sextet: "And to his clogge, was chained in the courte." A man is bending over and collecting the gold pieces that the ape is scattering from the upstairs window: "The sight righte well the passers by did please, | Who gathered scrappes that after bought them croommes" (the second line is subsequently changed in Choice to "Who did reioyce to finde these goulden crommes"). The last new detail is an ironical extension of the miser's sin of avarice, as reflected in the motto "Malè parta malè dilabuntur," especially when these passers-by were poor people and the gold pieces "all theire life, theire pouertie did ease." The first new detail is most interesting in that it enables the MS drawing to tell a fuller story, a two-stage action as it were, of how the miser keeps the ape in chains for his daily sport and how one day it gets loose and makes sport of his master's avarice. In replacing this drawing with the identical woodblock from the 1567 Paradin (see Wh 169), a great deal is lost, not to mention the resultant discrepancy between the verse and the woodcut. This case excepting, the use of identical woodblocks from Paradin in Choice is otherwise an improvement over the drawings in the MS. This is so because many of the woodcuts in Paradin are, as has been mentioned in the introduction, of a vertical rectangular design, measuring 83 x 50 mm. (3¼ x 2”). In converting these to a horizontal rectangular frame, the MS artist is invariably forced to modify the original design, frequently resulting in inferior copies. This is particularly true of fol. 42a, where the original design measuring 74 x 51 mm. (2⅞ x 2” as seen in Wh 88) must be drastically flattened and elongated into a frame of 44 x 80 mm. (1¾ x 3⅛”; see Fig. 7).

Out of the 44 drawings based on Sambucus only three diverge significantly from their models. The design in fol. 43v differs from its model in Sam 110 "Non dolo, sed virtute." The original woodcut (as seen in Wh 58) depicts in the left foreground an ape forcing an unwilling dog to retrieve chestnuts from an open fireplace; the right half of the woodcut

pictures what appears to be a sculptor's studio, with the artist carrying a bust and walking out of the room. The MS artist retains the main subject of the ape and the dog, but changes all things else, including a much more elaborate fireplace on the left, a shelf under a window in the center background, and a man entering the room from a door on the right (Fig. 8). These changes, however, affect neither the moral nor the verse. In fol. 64v the much more drastic changes are induced by Whitney's desire to conform the drawing to the verse. The original woodcut from Sam 177 "Frontis nulla fides," later Wh 100 "Dog, bull & painter," shows a man fleeing from a barking dog at his heel while watching the chase is a bull whose body from neck down is blocked from view by a seated painter drawing on a tablet which is held by a man seated opposite him. In Sambucus' verse, five creatures are named to illustrate the fact that these all reveal their true characters by their God-given traits: Sambucus' artist, however, chose to present only the dog and the bull and to portray the moral lesson of the emblem with the painter—a lesson carefully prescribed in the verse also. In translating the list of animals, Whitney omitted the scorpion and added in its place the lion and the griffin in the first quatrain of the verse: In order to be faithful to this list the MS artist retained the fleeing man, the pursuing dog, and the watching bull—all in their respective positions in the model. The two seated men he replaced with two men standing, facing one another, with the man who blocks the view of the bull's body from neck down stabbing the other man in the abdomen with a long sword. Then he added a griffin in the upper left corner, a boar's head and one of its forelegs in the lower left corner, a coiled snake in the lower right corner, and a roaring lion at the back of the stabbing man (Fig. 9). The stabbing scene, in lieu of the original painting scene, has its support from the MS quatrain: (The third line is changed in Choice to "And Cain doth seeke, his brother for to kill.") So the two men are to represent Cain and Abel in the MS drawing. Moreover, since the drawing omits the painting scene, the MS verse ends with the fourth quatrain (the two versions are identical in their first four quatrains) to which Whitney added a final couplet: All in all, the MS drawing is closely supported by its verse, whereas the woodcut in Choice is not. Unwilling, as it were, to rewrite the entire MS verse so as to support the woodcut better, Whitney simply removed the final couplet and added an extra quatrain before concluding the Choice verse with the last sextet. As a result, the lion, the boar, the griffin, and the serpent along with Cain and Abel are not illustrated by the printed woodcut.

The last example of variation in design in the MS drawing taken from Sambucus leads to a special category in which the woodcuts in Choice are all from Faernus although in the MS drawings, in addition to Sambucus, one is based on Aneau and the other on an uncertain model. As has been mentioned in Sections 1 and 2 above, these drawings appear in fol. 33, based on Sam[216] later Wh 39 whose woodcut is identical to that in Fae 90; on fol. 9, based on Ane 80 later Wh 91 identical to Fae 95; and on fol. 92v, based on a model similar to Fae 56 which is identical to the woodcut in Wh 93a (see Appendix III). For fol. 33 Whitney based its motto and drawing on those of Sam[216], "Mediocribus vtere partis," which is based ultimately on one of Aesop's fables, "Canis & caro." The MS drawing follows Sambucus' model closely except the details surrounding the dog. Instead of the dog standing, as in Sam[216], on what looks like dry land, the MS artist added a bridge and on top of it put the dog which looks down at his own reflections in the water below (Fig. 10). Now in Choice the identical woodcut (Wh 39) from Fae 90 shows in an entirely different design the dog standing on the river bank with its forepaws in the water; its verse remains unchanged from that of the MS. Next, the MS drawing on fol. 9 is based on Ane 80, "Tecum habita," which is ultimately the Aesop's fable "Iuppiter et Cochlea." Although Whitney changed the motto to "Conuiuare raro," the MS artist followed the woodcut of Aneau closely, again with one exception. In addition to the tortoise near the lower left corner, he pictured a snail in center foreground (Fig. 11). This is done obviously to conform to Whitney's translation of Aneau's verse in which testudo was rendered "snail":

This verse remains unchanged in Wh 91, which has the identical woodcut from Fae 95 where Jupiter is seated on his throne, surrounded by a deer, a horse, a bull, an ass, his eagle, and a lion. At the foot of the dais is the snail, looking up at Jupiter and responding to his question. The Latin distich below the two sextets in Choice is from the last two lines in Aneau's verse; these are the only clues to Ane 80 as the source of both the verse in Wh 91 and the MS drawing. It is apparent that Whitney was not entirely satisfied with the MS drawing, containing as it did both the snail and the tortoise, and gladly replaced it in Choice with the identical woodcut from Fae 95, which fits his verse equally nicely. Finally, the drawing on fol. 92v diverges from the woodcut in Wh 93a and its source in Fae 56 not only in background but also in the representation of the mole. Unlike the sure-footed creature in Wh 93a, the MS mole is somewhat misshapen; at first glance it might resemble a tortoise, as if the MS artist really had no pictorial model in front of him when he drew the small blind beast (Fig. 12). So much for the first type of variations in design.

Now the second type. Aside from the emblem on fol. 9 which is modeled on Ane 80, there are five more MS drawings copied from Aneau's Picta Poesis. These the Choice artist copied once more directly from Aneau, not from the MS; as a result, the Choice woodcuts are closer to the original than they are to the MS drawings, which differ from their models only in minor ways. Folio 96 omits a small dog at lower left corner and the tree in the center foreground; fol. 81v adds trees on the hilltop to which Sisyphus is rolling the restless stone and some farm buildings in the distant background to the left; fol. 90vb omits the pond in front of the ass-eared Midas, who awards the palm to the bagpipe-playing Pan instead of to Apollo. The copying and recopying from La Perrière's Le Théâtre des bons engins are more interesting in that the exact models have not hitherto been determined. Green and Henkel and Schöne, who follow him, assume that the models are from the 1539 Paris edition. The truth of the matter is that both the MS drawings and the Choice recopies are so consistently and significantly different from the models in 1539 that they must have been based on models from a later edition. According to both Robert Hoe and Praz, there is at least one edition later than 1539 that might have been used as model for Whitney's artists. Hoe lists a 1554 edition in Paris by Estienne Groulleau, in addition to Thomas Combe's English translation published in London by Richard Field in 1614, whereas Praz mentions two editions in 1545: one published at Angiers by P. Trepperel, the other at

Lyons by Jean de Tournes, "who in 1583 issued a cheap edition 16mo, 56 leaves."[20] My attention was first drawn to the possibility that Whitney's artists worked with an edition later than that of 1539 when I compared Whitney's woodcuts with those in Combe's edition. Their obvious close resemblance leads to the inevitable conclusion that Combe's edition must also have been based on one of the later editions of Le Théâtre. Professor Praz, who has, upon my request, compared Whitney's emblems with the woodcuts in his personal copy of the 1583 Lyons edition, is convinced that Whitney's artists must have modeled their copies on the cuts either in the 1583 or the earlier 1545 Lyons edition which, with its decorative borders, must have been the copy for Combe's English edition as well.[21] A few examples will show that Whitney consulted either the 1545 or the 1583 instead of the 1539 edition, using woodcuts reproduced from Combe's edition to represent the 1545 edition. Per (100) is copied by the MS artists in fol. 46v, later by the Choice artist for Wh 175 (Fig. 13), and portrays, in the 1545 edition, Diligence seated on a throne-like chariot drawn by six ants with Idleness squatting in front of her out-stretched right leg, and the chariot progressing through an open field with mountain and trees in the distance (Fig. 14). The 1539 cut, however, pictures Diligence standing on a flat car drawn by six ants with Idleness half sitting and half standing on the front edge of the platform, and the procession passing by an elaborate building in the background to the right (Fig. 15).[22] The copying from La Perrière is as a rule fairly faithful; however, because of the need to conform the drawing to a verse substantially altered from its original, a great deal of modification is seen in the copying of the first emblem from Le Théâtre. In the 1539 edition, Janus is pictured as standing, wearing a crown, holding a large key in his left hand, a blazing mirror in his right, with simple mountains as background (Fig. 23). The 1545 edition portrays a crowned Janus, holding the key in his right hand and the mirror in his left, standing to the right of a large tree, with buildings in the background to his left (Fig. 24). The MS artist retained the building and the mirror in the left hand, but removed the crown, changed the blazing mirror to an ordinary looking glass and the key to a scepter, and replaced the tree to the left with some rather indistinguishable hillock. Janus' costume was also changed to a Roman military toga (Fig. 25). In Wh 108, further changes from the MS are noticeable: the building has been moved from right to left, and the lower part of a tree trunk, following the 1545 model, added to the right. The most interesting addition made by the Choice artist is that of Mars's sword, as if the military garb in the MS were insufficient to support the verse, where Janus is, in the third sextet, "Call'd the God of warre, and peace" (Fig. 26). As a result of these modifications, in seriatim, Wh 108 differs not a little from the model in the 1545 edition. But if examples of variation in design have thus far proved anything, they have confirmed the indebtedness of the artists to their models so long as the changes are dictated by the desire to bring about greater conformity between the verse and the woodcut.

From Montenay's Emblèmes ou devises chrestiennes the Choice artist copied nine emblems; in the process he had to reduce the original large 90 x 98 mm. (3⅛ x 3⅞”) copperplates designed by Pierre Woeiriot to a square of 57 mm. (2¼”). Moreover, since each original cut, except Mon (72), contains within its design a motto plaque, he had to remove it. As a result, there are more minor variations in design from this source than from any other sources. In two copies, however, he kept the original mottoes in Mon (72) and Mon (65). By retaining the original mottoes and by adding new mottoes of his own to Wh 166a and Wh 229a, Whitney caused these emblems to have dual mottoes: Wh 166a has the motto "Veritas inuicta" along with the words on the open Bible, "Et vsque ad nubes veritas tua" (Figs. 27, 28); similarly, Wh 229a has "Dominus viuit & videt" in addition to "Vbi es" in which the Choice artist replaced the plaque in the original with a radiating sun (Figs. 29, 30). Such a minor change enables the artist to bring about an ingenious improvement over the original. For "Vbi es" in the midst of a radiating sun—representing God's voice walking in the Garden seeking out the fallen Adam who hides himself behind a tree—more nearly conforms to the biblical account of the aftermath of the Fall. In other words, through this change "Vbi es," no longer an extrapictorial addition as in the original design in Montenay, becomes an integral and dramatic part of the emblem.

The study of variations in design and the comparison between the MS drawings and the Choice woodcuts have produced one interesting conclusion. The ability of the MS artist in modifying his drawings to bring about a closer conformity with the verse is clearly demonstrated in fols. 23v, 86v, 45, 70v, and 64v. When these drawings were replaced with woodcuts identical to their models and when Whitney did not have time to revise their verses accordingly in Choice, there resulted discrepancies between woodcuts and verses as seen in Wh 94, 82, 33, 169, and 100. Apart from these last instances, Whitney was as a rule conscientious in preserving harmony between the woodcuts and the verses in Choice, as will further be seen in the next section.