Le radici antiche dei simboli. Studi sull'Iconologia di Cesare Ripa e i suoi rapporti con l'antico

The aim of the volume is to study in detail the relationship between “Iconologia” of Cesare Ripa (editio princeps 1593) and ancient world, the use of coins, of classical literary sources, of greek and latin masterpieces and to catch a strange paradox: the work contains more references to ancient masterpieces than it seems at a first reading. By investigating among Ripa’ s sources, it is clear that behind anonymous iconographies many very famous classical masterpieces hide that Ripa does not mention. The analysis, made on the sources shows that Ripa was neither a scholar of ancient objects neither a collector of antiques, but an encyclopaedist coder of iconographies and a man of XVI century interested in the strenght of symbols.