Libros de emblemas

Artistic genre that flourished in Europe particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries, focusing on a motto and an image representing that motto. Each emblem generally consists of three parts: a short, often Classical, motto (lemma, inscriptio), a pictorial representation or icon (pictura), and the explanation of the link between them in an epigram (subscriptio). The earliest known and most influential emblem book is the "Emblematum liber," by Andrea Alciate, published in Augsburg in 1531. The format and definiton of emblem books are typically derived from the example of this work; however, the emblem itself remained an ambiguous concept that covered a variety of connections between word and image.