Maria Leonor García da CRUZ

Original title: Dos bestiários à Iconologia de César Ripa: a construção de representações políticas e religiosas nos alvores da Época Moderna

Published in Ramon Llull. Seventh centenary

Keywords: Bestiary, Fox, Iconology, Machiavelli, Reform, Wolf.

Wolves and foxes, traditionally chosen as representatives of the threat to the sheep that were led by the Pope, Pastor of souls, were animals used both positively and negatively in religious and profane literature, in bestiaries, emblem books and in the “Iconology” of Cesare Ripa in the late 16th century. Putting special emphasis on the latter and comparing political thought and 16th-entury movements of spirituality, I shall attempt to explain meanings in the textual and pictorial representations of the time, in an approach that is part of the “Imagery Studies” of Lisbon University’s History Centre.