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or is it a perfectly ordinary-sized man and a giantess? Another popular album amicorum motif which seems, indeed, to have originated in the albums — the earliest I’ve found is dated 1598 [BELOW] –which was then picked up by the print-books (“Vita Corneliana”, 1624 BELOW) — and has endured Applied uses In subsequent centuries it…
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Another popular method of assessing suitors’ suitability is to pass them through a sieve — the acceptable candidate remains in the sieve.Again, the motif predates the albums Woman sieves fools/men Men sieve women
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The only painted miniature in the recently digitised album of Gerhard Horst, Hs. 35153 in the Library of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum (dated entries 1607-11) depicts a large devil sitting on a close-stool devouring soldiers and excreting them as priests — a monk sprinkles holy water over the issue. The caption below the image (not shown…
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Though you need more patience than at speed-dating! Men fishing for women, women fishing for men — the bait varies (see below). The earliest I’ve found it in the albums is 1578, but not found any 17C examples — so seems a short-lived motif limited to the final quarter of the 16C. Outside the albums,…
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This popular album scene is but one of several satirical motifs fixed by the Pugillus Facetiarum print-book (Strasbourg, 1608, 1618, etc). It was especially popular with 16C Swiss glass-painters too, found on Wappenscheiben [coats-of-arms painted on glass panes] and Scheibenrissen [designs for these] from 1552 onwards. Daniel Lindtmayer, for example, used it at least 3…
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Under the umbrella-term of the World Turned Upside Down [monde renversé, verkehrte Welt] are included many inversions and reversals of the natural order mostly – by definition – impossible. While on consideration, we may suspect the point of all these motifs of reversal to be ‘moral’, even at times ‘political’, the immediate visual impact, the…
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Another popular sexual innuendo in the albums. Yje motif is seemingly restricted to the Germanic area, but the foxtail is a very common phallic symbol, doubtless assisted by the fact that the fox’s tail is called “Rute”, a word which is also used for ‘penis’ at this period in German — but, then, the ‘tail’…
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One colourful aspect of student life registered in the print-books is the initiation or ‘hazing’ ritual to which new students were subjected. The so-called Depositio appears in the Pugillus Facetiarum (Strasbourg 1608, 1618) and also in de Passe’s Academia sive Speculum Vitae Scolasticae (Arnhem 1612),[i] and the miniature in the Frolich album clearly copies the…
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Welcome to my blog Early Modern album amicorum iconography. Blog categories Featured
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December 2025 (3) A peculiarly German motif — in both senses of the word! Presumably a sexual innuendo — riding on pricks? (works just as well in German) Christoph Gasser is bout to publish an article on this popular album motif. The earliest example known to me is one of the supporters of the arms…