Achille Bocchi
Achille Bocchi(Achilles Bocchius) (1488 – 6 November 1562), ofBologna,was an Italian humanist writer, emblematist, historian and lector in Greek, poetry and "humanae litterae" at theUniversity of Bologna.[1]He is best known for hisemblem bookSymbolicarum quaestionum de universo generefrom 1555, which "takes as its subject the whole of universal knowledge: physics, metaphysics, theology, dialectic, Love, Life and Death, packaging them under the veil of fables and myths."[2]It borrowed fromFrancesco Colonna.[3]The title page put it in the tradition ofserio ludere.[4]Bocchi was a friend ofGiovanni Pierio Valeriano Bolzanio,and his work is related to Valeriano'sHieroglyphica.
Bocchi was the leader of an informalacademy,theAccademia Bocchiana,under the protection ofCardinal Alessandro Farnese,nephew of theFarnesePope Paul III.For BocchiGiacomo Barozzi da Vignola,recently returned fromFontainebleau,designed thePalazzo Bocchi,Bologna, about 1545 (built 1545-55[5]); for the façade Bocchi provided two inscriptions, one in Latin, the other in Hebrew, that run along therusticated baseof the front.[6]
Notes
[edit]- ^she-philosopher.com: Gallery exhibit (The Athenian Society)
- ^John Manning,The Emblem(2002) p.114.
- ^Manning p.73 refers toBocchi's wholesale pillaging of one of Colonna's hieroglyphic fragments.
- ^"Playing seriously" (Manning p. 154).
- ^It was engraved in 1555. Wolfgang Lotz, "Architecture in the Later 16th Century"College Art Journal17.2 (Winter 1958, pp. 129-139) fig. 4.
- ^The emblematic nature of the inscriptions, turning the whole façade into an emblem of theAccademia Bocchiana,is discussed in Marcus Kiefer,Emblematische Strukturen in Stein: Vignolas Palazzo Bocchi in Bologna(Freiburg: Rombach) 1999. For another point of view and a different analysis, see Anne Rolet, « L'Hermathena Bocchianaou l'idée de la parfaite académie »,inM. Deramaix, P. Galand-Hallyn, G. Vagenheim, J. Vignes (dir.),Les Académies dans l'Europe humaniste. Idéaux et pratiquesGenève, Droz, 2008, p. 295-338
References
[edit]- Elizabeth See Watson (1993).Achille Bocchi and the Emblem Book as Symbolic Form
- Anne Rolet (2015).LesQuestions symboliquesd'Achille Bocchi. (Symbolicae Quaestiones,1555),Presses Universitaires François-Rabelais/Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2015, 1610 pages;ISBN978-2-86906-380-8.This is the first critical edition of Bocchi's emblems: Volume 1 (630p.) presents a thorough introduction and the edited worf itself with apparatus; Volume 2 (960p.) offers a French translation in verse of each emblem, with notes and commentaries aiming at helping readers find their way through the book's rich network of references and sophisticated allusions.
- Anne Rolet (2019).Dans le cercle d’Achille Bocchi: culture emblématique et pratiques académiques à Bologne au XVIesiècle,Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2019,ISBN978-2-86906-705-9.This is the first critical edition, with introduction, translation and notes, of three original neo-latin texts written in the cultural surrounding of theAcademia Bocchianain Renaissance Bologna. Two are by Bocchi himself: theDemocritusorOn Vanity,is a serio-comicpraelectiovery much influenced by Antonio Urceo Codro, Pietro Crinito and Erasmus; thePtolemaeusorWhat is the Prince's Duty Against Those Who Disparage Himis a political dialogue between Claudio Tolomei, Annibale Caro and Gabriele Cesano whose main political topics are inspired by ancient historians and Machiavel. The third text, aLittle Commentary on Achille Bocchi's Symbol 10by the Aristotelian philosopher Giovanni Antonio Delfinio, is a very precious testimony about the interpretative methods humanists of the 16th century followed to decrypt emblematic literary productions: Delfinio's commentary is of great help to understand Bocchi's emblem, where the antique Ikarios bas-relief is seen through the sixthEglogueof Virgil.
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