Skip to content
Early Printed Books

Early Printed Books

resources for learning and teaching

  • About
    • Contributors
    • Permissions &c
    • Privacy
    • FAQ
    • Contact
    • Changelog
  • Get Started
  • Browse Images
    • Browse Tags
    • Search the Site
  • Resources
  • The Book
    • Errata List
  • Featured Content

proper name variants: Icarus

Alciati, Emblemata, 1542 (D5r)

Printed a decade after Alciati's collection of emblems first appeared, this Parisian edition looks very similar to the first: a motto, a picture, and a brief verse. This emblem, "Against Astrologers," warns against the hubris of trying to use the stars to predict the future, unless they fall just as Icarus did for having dared to come too close to God's realm.

Alciati, Emblemata, 1589 (Z5r)

Here we again see the emblem for Alciati's "In astrologos" again with Alciati's Latin text and an illustration of Icarus falling from the heavens. This edition also supplies lengthy commentary from Claude Mignault, also reproduced here.

Alciati, Emblemata, 1661, (2D8v)

In the 1621, a printer in Padua published an edition of the Emblemata that included commentary from a handful of writers---Claude Mignault, Francisco Sanchez de las Brozas, Laurentius Pignorius, and Federicus Morellus---as well as additional emblems. This 1661 edition is a page-for-page reprint of the earlier Tozzi edition, attesting to the volume's popularity.

Whitney, Choice of emblemes, 1586 (D2v)

Whitney's book of emblems brought the popular European tradition to English readers. The mise-en-page follows the pattern of many of the early editions of Alciati's Emblemata, expanding the original design of emblem, title, and a brief epigraph to include commentary and references.

browsing

Browse by going through all the images or all the tags, or by following the main tags below. To learn more about what the various features mean, click on the tag and read the description at the top of the page.

main printed features

  • advertisement
  • blank
  • book making
  • colophon
  • correction
  • error
  • form
  • frontispiece
  • imprimatur
  • index
  • initial letter
  • intaglio
  • movable parts
  • music
  • press figure
  • printed marginalia
  • printer's device
  • printer's ornament
  • privilege
  • register
  • signature mark
  • subscribers list
  • title page
  • two-color printing
  • woodcut

date published

  • 1450-1499
  • 1500-1549
  • 1550-1599
  • 1600-1649
  • 1650-1699
  • 1700-1749
  • 1750-1800

place printed

  • Belgium
  • Czech Republic
  • England
  • France
  • Germany
  • Italy
  • Mexico
  • Netherlands
  • Peru
  • Poland
  • Russia
  • Scotland
  • Spain
  • Switzerland
  • Ukraine
  • United States
Sarah Werner. "proper name variants: Icarus." Early Printed Books. https://www.earlyprintedbooks.com/proper_name_variants/icarus/. Version 20200619.
Creative Commons License
Early Printed Books is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated. For more information, see Permissions.