Interpretation of the Badges by Italian Intellectuals at the Beginning of the Sventeenth Century
Abstract
In this article, the authors examine the discussion among seventeenth-century Italian intellectuals about the impresa and their interpretation. The emphasis is on personal badges, which were not strictly regulated, in contrast to generic ones. The source bases of the study were the works on heraldic signs and emblems by Giovanni Ferro, Lodovico Domenichi , Paolo Giovio , Gulio Capaccio and others. The aim of the study is to highlight the attitude of Early Modern Italian intellectuals to the personal badge of Emperor Charles V. The authors analyse not only the changes in attitude, but also the conditions under which this took place, namely the Spanish-Italian emblematic production that was taking shape at the time. The study aims to add to the knowledge about the Charles V’s badge that exists in the conteprarative scholarly discourse. The sources are limited by quantity, class prejudices and the range of knowledge available in the era under study, which from the point of view of heraldry is of some interest. Italian authors sought to attribute the origin of coats of arms to the times of Ancient Greece and Rome and put forward various assumptions about the origin of the term impresa. The badge of Emperor Charles V, the Pillars of Hercules, which was one of the most significant emblems in the imperial coat of arms, aroused great interest among intellectuals. They created legends around the emperor’s badges, and myth-making among them continues to this day. Italian intellectuals, by studying and describing the badges, contributed to the spread of heraldry in Italian literary culture.