The Circle of the Vicissitude of Human Things
Posted: 12 Oct 2009, 17:25
In another thread, Enrique as posted a link to this fascinating image.
It is the front-page of a book (published in Antwerp, 1564) whose title “Circulus Vicissitudinis Rerum Humanarum” means “The Circle of the Vicissitude of Human Things”. The book is described in some detail on this page. At the two sides of the image we can see “abstract” Time (on the left) and actual time, represented by Day and Night as Sun and Moon (on the Left). The seven allegories on the central sphere represent (clockwise from the top) Richness, Pride, Envy, War, Poverty, Humbleness, Peace. The book includes seven images (one is missing from the above quoted page) that “zoom-in” on each of the seven allegories, illustrating how each “case of human life” is generated by the preceding one. So Richness generates Pride (and you can see a child Pride at the feet of an adult Richness), Pride generates Envy, and so on, in an infinite circle.
The representation of Envy as an ugly snake-haired woman heating her own heart can be found in Alciato and goes back to Ovid. I guess that also the other allegories can be found in Ripa or in other common sources.
The subject of the book is somehow similar to the central section of the Trump sequence (from Love to Temperance) that also represents the cases of human life. But in the Circle, there is no place for Fortune: everything is ruled by Time. Each state of life is an unavoidable consequence of the preceding one. I do not know which might be the philosophical sources for this cyclical vision of human history, but is seems to me to be a deep vision and possibly a valid one
Thanks to Enrique for posting this beautiful image!
Ciao
Marco
It is the front-page of a book (published in Antwerp, 1564) whose title “Circulus Vicissitudinis Rerum Humanarum” means “The Circle of the Vicissitude of Human Things”. The book is described in some detail on this page. At the two sides of the image we can see “abstract” Time (on the left) and actual time, represented by Day and Night as Sun and Moon (on the Left). The seven allegories on the central sphere represent (clockwise from the top) Richness, Pride, Envy, War, Poverty, Humbleness, Peace. The book includes seven images (one is missing from the above quoted page) that “zoom-in” on each of the seven allegories, illustrating how each “case of human life” is generated by the preceding one. So Richness generates Pride (and you can see a child Pride at the feet of an adult Richness), Pride generates Envy, and so on, in an infinite circle.
The representation of Envy as an ugly snake-haired woman heating her own heart can be found in Alciato and goes back to Ovid. I guess that also the other allegories can be found in Ripa or in other common sources.
The subject of the book is somehow similar to the central section of the Trump sequence (from Love to Temperance) that also represents the cases of human life. But in the Circle, there is no place for Fortune: everything is ruled by Time. Each state of life is an unavoidable consequence of the preceding one. I do not know which might be the philosophical sources for this cyclical vision of human history, but is seems to me to be a deep vision and possibly a valid one
Thanks to Enrique for posting this beautiful image!
Ciao
Marco