Books by Pedro Germano Leal
Janus. Estudios sobre el Siglo de Oro, Anexo 14, 2020
Glasgow Emblem Studies, 2017
The objective of this book could be easily summarised as ‘to provide an
introduction to the emble... more The objective of this book could be easily summarised as ‘to provide an
introduction to the emblematic culture in Colonial Ibero-America’.
However, establishing the parameters of this endeavour was not a particularly simple task: it was necessary to delineate the historical and
geographical limits for the book, the relationship between the contributions and even the aspects of the emblematic culture that would be considered here. At first, it seemed almost impossible to find a balance between these principles.
The decision to include both Spanish and Portuguese colonies was
justified by the interest of understanding the phenomena studied here as
a whole, by being able to contrast different colonial realities with the
different native receptions (or cultural substrata).13 In addition, more
than any other aspect of European visual culture, emblems had a sophisticated rhetorical function and became a fundamental instrument of colonialisation, and the success of the application of this tool in different cultural contexts may constitute a significant symptom of an emerging hybrid cultural identity.
This initial resolution implied that the volume would be dealing with
a vast corpus of material, spread in different historical and geographical
circumstances. Consequently, a choice was made to divide the book into
three sections, roughly corresponding to the three main Iberian colonies
in the New World: the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the Viceroyalty of Peru and Portuguese America. During the colonial period, the boundaries of these lands were extremely volatile, whether as a result of complex legal and political struggles between the European countries, or fierce disputes against natives and foreign nations for territorial occupation, or even the difficulties that emerged from administrating such vast colonies. As a historical and anthropological subject, the vicissitudes of the process of colonisation of Ibero-America are of great complexity and its study has produced a massive bibliography, which certainly goes beyond the purposes of this introduction.
Nevertheless, presenting a more general visual cultural context for each
of the three sections of this book, even if very briefly, is crucial to
understanding the place of the emblem in colonial society.
Papers and Chapters by Pedro Germano Leal
Mulher, gênero, erotismo. Rauer Ribeiro Rodrigues, Maisa Barbosa da Silva Cordeiro and Natália Tano Portela (Orgs.) (Coleção Literatura e Vida, 5), Uberlândia: Pangeia , 2019
Vamos ao diálogo? Seguimos em travessia: o convite à leitura é sempre um convite ao diálogo.
Jeroglíficos en la Edad Moderna: Nuevas aproximaciones a un fenómeno intercultural, 2020
Uma vez que as escritas indígenas haviam sido comparadas a hieróglifos
egípcios nas narrativas do... more Uma vez que as escritas indígenas haviam sido comparadas a hieróglifos
egípcios nas narrativas dos primeiros colonizadores, é natural que os missionários religiosos que se deslocaram para o Novo Mundo tivessem buscado se informar de antemão sobre aquilo que se sabia a respeito dos hieróglifos no Renascimento, em busca de um ponto cultural comum. Assim, da mesma forma que Cristóbal Colón levou em sua primeira expedição um tradutor fluente em hebraico (Luis de Torres) na esperança de que os “índios” se lembrassem da língua adâmica, os hieróglifos egípcios—ou o que sabia a respeito deles no Renascimento—poderiam estabelecer uma forma de comunicação com os povos das Américas.
Assim, é muito provável que missionários como Testera e Gante
tenham estudado as ideias de hieróglifo em voga na Europa e, a partir
disso, tenham constituído um repertório teórico (e mesmo prático) que
lhes permitiu traçar paralelos e intervir diretamente nas escritas indígenas, cuja lógica de funcionamento baseava-se em um uso sofisticado e polissêmico da imagem. Não é acaso que, ao longo dos séculos, as escritas mixteco-náhua e maia tenham sido sistematicamente descritas como “hieroglíficas”—até os dias atuais.
Esta complexa cultura de texto e imagem cria o ambiente propício
para a chegada da tradição emblemática no Novo Mundo32, introduzida
principalmente pela Companhia de Jesus. A retórica visual jesuítica
tem origem já nos Exercitia Spiritualia (Roma, 1548) do próprio
fundador da ordem, Ignacio de Loyola. Através dessa obra, a meditação
sobre imagens assume um papel central na espiritualidade e no proselitismo à luz da Contrarreforma, dando origem a uma sofisticada teoria que, em grande medida, reorganizou e deu função objetiva às principais práticas visuais em uso no Renascimento e Barroco: entre elas, a emblemática. A ascensão da cultura visual jesuítica está intimamente
ligada à nova orientação da Igreja Católica em relação ao culto e produção de imagens, conforme ao estabelecido no Concílio de Trento." (pp. 309-310)
Autores : Pedro Germano Leal y José Julio García Arranz , en J. J. García Arranz y P. Germano Lea... more Autores : Pedro Germano Leal y José Julio García Arranz , en J. J. García Arranz y P. Germano Leal (eds.), Jeroglíficos en la Edad Moderna. Nuevas aproximaciones a un fenómeno intercultural (Anexos de Janus 14); páginas: 177-255; La Coruña, SIELAE, 2020; ISBN: 978-84-09-9852-17756-1
IMAGO. Revista de Emblemática y Cultura Visual, 2015
In this paper the Spanish reception of hieroglyphs, and its outcome, is presented as an important... more In this paper the Spanish reception of hieroglyphs, and its outcome, is presented as an important aspect of the process of transmission of hieroglyphs in Early-Modern Europe. This change of perspective is important because it gives a general context for the phenomenon in Spain, clarifies its ties with the rest of the continent through the process of diffusion and –perhaps more relevantly– highlights the distinct characteristics that hiero-glyphs assumed in Spain as response to a different mentality, culminating with the creation of what the author regards as «classic Spanish hieroglyphs». RESUMEN: En este trabajo, dividido en dos partes, la recepción española de los jeroglífi-cos y sus desenlaces se presentan como un aspecto importante del proceso de transmisión de los jeroglíficos en Europa. Este cambio de perspectiva es importante porque da un marco general para el fenómeno en España, aclara sus vínculos con el resto del continente a través del proceso de difusión de ideas y –quizás lo más relevante– pone de relieve las característi-cas distintivas que los jeroglíficos lograron en España como un reflejo de su adaptación a una mentalidad diferente, que culminó con la creación de lo que el autor se refiere como «jeroglíficos clásicos españoles».
IMAGO, Revista de Emblemática y Cultura Visual, 2016
In this two-part article the Spanish reception of hieroglyphs, and their outcomes, are presented ... more In this two-part article the Spanish reception of hieroglyphs, and their outcomes, are presented as an important aspect of the process of transmission of hiero-glyphs in Early-Modern Europe. This change of perspective is important because it gives a general context for the phenomenon in Spain, clarifies its ties with the rest of the continent though the process of the diffusion of ideas and –perhaps more relevantly– highlights the distinctive characteristics that hieroglyphs achieved in Spain as a reflection of their adaptation to a different mentality, culminating in the creation of what the author regards as «classic Spanish hieroglyphs». 1 RESUMEN: En este trabajo, dividido en dos partes, la recepción española de los jeroglífi-cos y sus desenlaces se presentan como un aspecto importante del proceso de transmisión de los jeroglíficos en Europa. Este cambio de perspectiva es importante porque da un marco general para el fenómeno en España, aclara sus vínculos con el resto del continente a través del proceso de difusión de ideas y –quizás lo más relevante– pone de relieve las caracte-rísticas distintivas que jeroglíficos lograron en España como un reflejo de su adaptación a una mentalidad diferente, que culminó con la creación de lo que el autor se refiere como «jeroglíficos clásicos españoles».
Emblematica. An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies, 2014
The influence of Horapollon’s Hieroglyphica in emblematics has been
well studied since the Renais... more The influence of Horapollon’s Hieroglyphica in emblematics has been
well studied since the Renaissance. From the eighteenth century
on, however, some authors, writing about emblems, have referred to
these hieroglyphs as “fantastic,” “wrong,” or “inaccurate.” This prejudicial
and ethnocentric perspective, based on insufficient evidence,
affected the translations of Hieroglyphica available in English, which
in turn contributed to perpetuating the overall misunderstanding of
the work. This paper draws on the semiotics and historical context of
Hieroglyphica, building up some hypotheses about its “veracity” and
“authorship,” and highlights the need for a new English translation.
Valor Discursivo del Cuerpo en el Barroco Hispánico, Rafael García Mahíques, Sergi Doménech García (eds.), Universitat de València, 2015
A review on the translation of Pierio Valeriano's Hieroglyphica into Spanish.
The International Emblem: From Incunabula to the Internet, Simon McKeown (ed.), Cambridge Scholars' Press, Cambridge, 2010
As one can speak in terms of ‘word-emblem’, studying verbal icons inside the conventional literat... more As one can speak in terms of ‘word-emblem’, studying verbal icons inside the conventional literature, it seems to be also reasonable to believe in the existence of an ‘image-emblem’, observing when a ‘learned image’ may arise and display its textual (or intellectual) appeal, even apart from emblem books. Aware of this possibility, this work is focused on how the emblem can be a cultural materialization of an idea of “writing through images” most nourished by the speculation on hieroglyphs during Renaissance and Baroque periods. In order to
explore this thesis, this paper has two fundamental axes: firstly, by discussing the confusion made by sixteenth and seventeenth century authors and theoreticians between ‘emblem’, ‘devise’ and ‘hieroglyphs’, I question whether emblems could be understood as a writing-system in itself; and secondly, I attempt to figure out some aspects of this script, highlighting briefly its preponderant position as a subtle and silent transmission of ideological and philosophical contents.
Reviews by Pedro Germano Leal
Janus. Estudios sobre el Siglo de Oro, 2014
Reseña acerca de la traducción al castellano de los Jeroglíficos de Pierio Valeriano.
___________... more Reseña acerca de la traducción al castellano de los Jeroglíficos de Pierio Valeriano.
_________________________________________________________________________
Review. Pierio VALERIANO BOLZANO, Jeroglíficos: prólogo general y libros I-V, traducción de Francisco José Talavera Esteso, Alcañiz-Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas / Instituto de Estudios Humanísticos, Palmyrenus. Colección de Textos y Estudios Humanísticos, Serie Textos, 2013, 576 p.
Papers by Pedro Germano Leal
Renaissance and Reformation, Mar 1, 2023
Renaissance and Reformation, Mar 1, 2023
Renaissance and Reformation, Apr 16, 2021
Tristan autour du monde Type de publication : Revue Directeur d'ouvrage : Grove (Laurence) Résumé... more Tristan autour du monde Type de publication : Revue Directeur d'ouvrage : Grove (Laurence) Résumé : Revue des Amis de Tristan L'Hermite fondée en 1979, les Cahiers Tristan L'Hermite ont pour vocation d'éclairer l'oeuvre du célèbre poète, dramaturge, romancier et prosateur en son temps (1601-1655) et plus largement la culture du premier XVII siècle. Nombre de pages : 126
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Books by Pedro Germano Leal
introduction to the emblematic culture in Colonial Ibero-America’.
However, establishing the parameters of this endeavour was not a particularly simple task: it was necessary to delineate the historical and
geographical limits for the book, the relationship between the contributions and even the aspects of the emblematic culture that would be considered here. At first, it seemed almost impossible to find a balance between these principles.
The decision to include both Spanish and Portuguese colonies was
justified by the interest of understanding the phenomena studied here as
a whole, by being able to contrast different colonial realities with the
different native receptions (or cultural substrata).13 In addition, more
than any other aspect of European visual culture, emblems had a sophisticated rhetorical function and became a fundamental instrument of colonialisation, and the success of the application of this tool in different cultural contexts may constitute a significant symptom of an emerging hybrid cultural identity.
This initial resolution implied that the volume would be dealing with
a vast corpus of material, spread in different historical and geographical
circumstances. Consequently, a choice was made to divide the book into
three sections, roughly corresponding to the three main Iberian colonies
in the New World: the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the Viceroyalty of Peru and Portuguese America. During the colonial period, the boundaries of these lands were extremely volatile, whether as a result of complex legal and political struggles between the European countries, or fierce disputes against natives and foreign nations for territorial occupation, or even the difficulties that emerged from administrating such vast colonies. As a historical and anthropological subject, the vicissitudes of the process of colonisation of Ibero-America are of great complexity and its study has produced a massive bibliography, which certainly goes beyond the purposes of this introduction.
Nevertheless, presenting a more general visual cultural context for each
of the three sections of this book, even if very briefly, is crucial to
understanding the place of the emblem in colonial society.
Papers and Chapters by Pedro Germano Leal
egípcios nas narrativas dos primeiros colonizadores, é natural que os missionários religiosos que se deslocaram para o Novo Mundo tivessem buscado se informar de antemão sobre aquilo que se sabia a respeito dos hieróglifos no Renascimento, em busca de um ponto cultural comum. Assim, da mesma forma que Cristóbal Colón levou em sua primeira expedição um tradutor fluente em hebraico (Luis de Torres) na esperança de que os “índios” se lembrassem da língua adâmica, os hieróglifos egípcios—ou o que sabia a respeito deles no Renascimento—poderiam estabelecer uma forma de comunicação com os povos das Américas.
Assim, é muito provável que missionários como Testera e Gante
tenham estudado as ideias de hieróglifo em voga na Europa e, a partir
disso, tenham constituído um repertório teórico (e mesmo prático) que
lhes permitiu traçar paralelos e intervir diretamente nas escritas indígenas, cuja lógica de funcionamento baseava-se em um uso sofisticado e polissêmico da imagem. Não é acaso que, ao longo dos séculos, as escritas mixteco-náhua e maia tenham sido sistematicamente descritas como “hieroglíficas”—até os dias atuais.
Esta complexa cultura de texto e imagem cria o ambiente propício
para a chegada da tradição emblemática no Novo Mundo32, introduzida
principalmente pela Companhia de Jesus. A retórica visual jesuítica
tem origem já nos Exercitia Spiritualia (Roma, 1548) do próprio
fundador da ordem, Ignacio de Loyola. Através dessa obra, a meditação
sobre imagens assume um papel central na espiritualidade e no proselitismo à luz da Contrarreforma, dando origem a uma sofisticada teoria que, em grande medida, reorganizou e deu função objetiva às principais práticas visuais em uso no Renascimento e Barroco: entre elas, a emblemática. A ascensão da cultura visual jesuítica está intimamente
ligada à nova orientação da Igreja Católica em relação ao culto e produção de imagens, conforme ao estabelecido no Concílio de Trento." (pp. 309-310)
well studied since the Renaissance. From the eighteenth century
on, however, some authors, writing about emblems, have referred to
these hieroglyphs as “fantastic,” “wrong,” or “inaccurate.” This prejudicial
and ethnocentric perspective, based on insufficient evidence,
affected the translations of Hieroglyphica available in English, which
in turn contributed to perpetuating the overall misunderstanding of
the work. This paper draws on the semiotics and historical context of
Hieroglyphica, building up some hypotheses about its “veracity” and
“authorship,” and highlights the need for a new English translation.
explore this thesis, this paper has two fundamental axes: firstly, by discussing the confusion made by sixteenth and seventeenth century authors and theoreticians between ‘emblem’, ‘devise’ and ‘hieroglyphs’, I question whether emblems could be understood as a writing-system in itself; and secondly, I attempt to figure out some aspects of this script, highlighting briefly its preponderant position as a subtle and silent transmission of ideological and philosophical contents.
Reviews by Pedro Germano Leal
_________________________________________________________________________
Review. Pierio VALERIANO BOLZANO, Jeroglíficos: prólogo general y libros I-V, traducción de Francisco José Talavera Esteso, Alcañiz-Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas / Instituto de Estudios Humanísticos, Palmyrenus. Colección de Textos y Estudios Humanísticos, Serie Textos, 2013, 576 p.
Papers by Pedro Germano Leal
introduction to the emblematic culture in Colonial Ibero-America’.
However, establishing the parameters of this endeavour was not a particularly simple task: it was necessary to delineate the historical and
geographical limits for the book, the relationship between the contributions and even the aspects of the emblematic culture that would be considered here. At first, it seemed almost impossible to find a balance between these principles.
The decision to include both Spanish and Portuguese colonies was
justified by the interest of understanding the phenomena studied here as
a whole, by being able to contrast different colonial realities with the
different native receptions (or cultural substrata).13 In addition, more
than any other aspect of European visual culture, emblems had a sophisticated rhetorical function and became a fundamental instrument of colonialisation, and the success of the application of this tool in different cultural contexts may constitute a significant symptom of an emerging hybrid cultural identity.
This initial resolution implied that the volume would be dealing with
a vast corpus of material, spread in different historical and geographical
circumstances. Consequently, a choice was made to divide the book into
three sections, roughly corresponding to the three main Iberian colonies
in the New World: the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the Viceroyalty of Peru and Portuguese America. During the colonial period, the boundaries of these lands were extremely volatile, whether as a result of complex legal and political struggles between the European countries, or fierce disputes against natives and foreign nations for territorial occupation, or even the difficulties that emerged from administrating such vast colonies. As a historical and anthropological subject, the vicissitudes of the process of colonisation of Ibero-America are of great complexity and its study has produced a massive bibliography, which certainly goes beyond the purposes of this introduction.
Nevertheless, presenting a more general visual cultural context for each
of the three sections of this book, even if very briefly, is crucial to
understanding the place of the emblem in colonial society.
egípcios nas narrativas dos primeiros colonizadores, é natural que os missionários religiosos que se deslocaram para o Novo Mundo tivessem buscado se informar de antemão sobre aquilo que se sabia a respeito dos hieróglifos no Renascimento, em busca de um ponto cultural comum. Assim, da mesma forma que Cristóbal Colón levou em sua primeira expedição um tradutor fluente em hebraico (Luis de Torres) na esperança de que os “índios” se lembrassem da língua adâmica, os hieróglifos egípcios—ou o que sabia a respeito deles no Renascimento—poderiam estabelecer uma forma de comunicação com os povos das Américas.
Assim, é muito provável que missionários como Testera e Gante
tenham estudado as ideias de hieróglifo em voga na Europa e, a partir
disso, tenham constituído um repertório teórico (e mesmo prático) que
lhes permitiu traçar paralelos e intervir diretamente nas escritas indígenas, cuja lógica de funcionamento baseava-se em um uso sofisticado e polissêmico da imagem. Não é acaso que, ao longo dos séculos, as escritas mixteco-náhua e maia tenham sido sistematicamente descritas como “hieroglíficas”—até os dias atuais.
Esta complexa cultura de texto e imagem cria o ambiente propício
para a chegada da tradição emblemática no Novo Mundo32, introduzida
principalmente pela Companhia de Jesus. A retórica visual jesuítica
tem origem já nos Exercitia Spiritualia (Roma, 1548) do próprio
fundador da ordem, Ignacio de Loyola. Através dessa obra, a meditação
sobre imagens assume um papel central na espiritualidade e no proselitismo à luz da Contrarreforma, dando origem a uma sofisticada teoria que, em grande medida, reorganizou e deu função objetiva às principais práticas visuais em uso no Renascimento e Barroco: entre elas, a emblemática. A ascensão da cultura visual jesuítica está intimamente
ligada à nova orientação da Igreja Católica em relação ao culto e produção de imagens, conforme ao estabelecido no Concílio de Trento." (pp. 309-310)
well studied since the Renaissance. From the eighteenth century
on, however, some authors, writing about emblems, have referred to
these hieroglyphs as “fantastic,” “wrong,” or “inaccurate.” This prejudicial
and ethnocentric perspective, based on insufficient evidence,
affected the translations of Hieroglyphica available in English, which
in turn contributed to perpetuating the overall misunderstanding of
the work. This paper draws on the semiotics and historical context of
Hieroglyphica, building up some hypotheses about its “veracity” and
“authorship,” and highlights the need for a new English translation.
explore this thesis, this paper has two fundamental axes: firstly, by discussing the confusion made by sixteenth and seventeenth century authors and theoreticians between ‘emblem’, ‘devise’ and ‘hieroglyphs’, I question whether emblems could be understood as a writing-system in itself; and secondly, I attempt to figure out some aspects of this script, highlighting briefly its preponderant position as a subtle and silent transmission of ideological and philosophical contents.
_________________________________________________________________________
Review. Pierio VALERIANO BOLZANO, Jeroglíficos: prólogo general y libros I-V, traducción de Francisco José Talavera Esteso, Alcañiz-Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas / Instituto de Estudios Humanísticos, Palmyrenus. Colección de Textos y Estudios Humanísticos, Serie Textos, 2013, 576 p.