THIS CD IS PRESENTED as a continuation of the one dedicated to the Renaissance impresa. The invention of imprese had become an exercising of wit linked to the development of the art of the literary conceit: the yoking of a symbolic image and a witty sentence provoked a response of admiration and wonder, and, as the Baroque theory of metaphor advocated, the impresa also achieved a level of knowledge superior to that allowed to everyday language. The genre thus extends beyond the Renaissance into the Baroque, adapting itself to the new aesthetic demands. But, above all, the Baroque transition consisted of bringing together, and trying to classify and comment on the immense corpus of available imprese, as can be seen in this CD.

Well into the seventeenth century, the works of Menestrier or, more concretely, that of Filippo Picinelli, had already become exhaustive repertories, of overwhelming richness and erudition, immersed in the purest Baroque world vision. The publication of these two authors alone would justify the existence of the CD. However, lesser-known works are no less important, such as those by Strada, the first of the great collections of the Baroque spirit, those of Ferro and Palatius, with their abundant commentaries, or the eighteenth-century treasure-house of symbols, Roth-Scholtz. Thus, with the works published together here for the first time, the reader has available a global vision of the genre, and, along with the CD of Renaissance imprese, within easy reach, the entire history of each impresa, each motto and each image.

In preparation.