Oedipi et Sphingis dialogus (Dialogues between Oedipus and the Sphinx); Le Sphinx (The Sphinx)

Oedipi et Sphingis dialogus (Dialogues between Oedipus and the Sphinx); Le Sphinx (The Sphinx)

The emblem book genre, in which images and mottoes are accompanied by brief explanatory texts, was a late development of Renaissance humanism, instigated by the Milanese jurist Andrea Alciato’s Emblemata. This unusual paper manuscript is a unique derivation of the arcane emblem books that became enormously popular in sixteenth-century France. The otherwise unrecorded text, primarily in Latin but with some sections in Greek, consists of a dialogue in the form of short riddles posed by the Sphinx and answered at greater length by Oedipus. Fifty-eight watercolor scenes, one per dialogue, offer allegorical illustrations of the relevant riddle. Occasionally, the figures represent recognizable personages from antiquity, while others are manifestly Christian. The book’s text and illustrations are of an obscure genre and not readily linked to other printed or manuscript works.

ca. 1575–1600

Manuscript on paper, 97 fols.

The Free Library of Philadelphia, Lewis E 164

France