This study which complements The Sixteenth-Century French Emblem Book : A decorative and useful Genre (THR 224) and A Bibliography of French Emblems of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (THR 331) begins by tracing the continuities in emblematic from the sixteenth into the seventeenth century. As in the earlier period emblems continued to appear not just in book form but also in a variety of plastics. But there were significant diversifications in the emblematic tradition in the seventeenth century. Emblems came to be used in more specialised ways for educational purposes, and found a new application in devotional literature. Most spectacularly they were heavily exploited as a tool of royal propaganda, particularly during the reign of Louis XIV. This study surveys the theoretical writing carefully, but suggests that practitioners often ignored its rules, and blurred the supposedly clear borderline between emblem and device. Detailed information about editions is included, as also indexes of emblematic themes and mottoes.
Cet ouvrage qui complète les deux études parues aux éditions Droz, The Sixteenth-Century French Emblem Book : A decorative and useful Genre et A Bibliography of French Emblems of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries présente les modifications que subit le genre au cours du XVIIe siècle. Le livre d’emblème est utilisé dans de nouveaux domaines tels que l’éducation et la religion. En outre, il devient surtout en France un instrument de propagande politique, utilisé fréquemment pour la cause royale.
