Emblem 181, entitled 'Amicitia effugies,' on Friendship, created from a similar emblem in Ripa's Iconologia, shows a young man, centered in a rectangular emblem, standing in the middle of the woods. He is wearing a toga and has a robe wrapped around his body, which is seemingly floating about him on both sides, and his hair is being blown by the wind to the viewer's right. His heart, enclosed by a circular border, is visible through his chest. The first of three ribbons in the emblem, which is over his head, reads 'HIEMS AESTAS' (winter summer); the second, at the level of his heart, reads 'PROCUL PROPE' (far near); and the third, at the bottom of his skirt-like robe, reads 'MORS VITA' (death life). In the foreground, there is a tree on the left side of the emblem and several rocky mounds with grass growing on the tops of them to the right, and in the far right background, a city is visible. The border around the emblem is a series of crosshatched rods and flowers. Although this description makes it sound as though the figure seen is actually a man, the verse accompanying the emblem tells the reader that I t is actually a statue.
The Emblem from Ripa's Iconologia that appears to be most similar to the one in Peacham is emblem number twelve, entitled 'Amity.' The figure is centered within an oval-shaped emblem, but the figure, in this case, is a woman, whose chest is bare and body, barely covered by a toga-like robe, which extends all the way down to her ankles. She is holding on to a small tree that has a grapevine wrapped around it with her left hand. There is a ribbon with some writing on it above her right hand, which holds, presumably, her heart, a ribbon above her head and another at the bottom of her robe, yet the writing on all three is unintelligible. There are some mountains in the left background of the emblem and a few spots of grass at her feet. Her hair is also flowing in the wind like Peacham's figure and it looks as though there is a crown of some type of leaves on her head.
It can be assumed that the three ribbons of the woman say the same thing as the man's ribbons or something related to opposites. As there was more width to Peacham's emblem, the man had a flowing robe that extended widely away from his body. Accordingly, Ripa's emblem is smaller widthwise and thus, the woman's robe does not extend as far as the man's. It is also a curious fact that the woman holds her heart outwards while the man's heart is visible, yet within his chest. The man holds on to nothing, but has his right hand outstretched and his left hand appears to be holding up his robe, if not holding it back from blowing in front of his face.
Peacham's emblem with the man carries a longer verse than Ripa's woman and it tells us that the people of Rome named this statue 'TRUE FRIENDSHIP.' Part of it reads, "Winter and summer on his brow were seen: / within his breast, his heart did plain appear, / whereon these words were written, far and near, / upon his skirt, stood life and death below, / to testify in life and death, his love, / that far and near, with open heart do show, / nor place, nor space, true friendship should remove." All three ribbons presented extremes in which a friendship would continue to survive, which in turn signified that the friendship could endure any extremes no matter how intense those extremes were.
The verse, which accompanies the Ripa emblem, is much shorter and less lyrical than Peacham's descriptive poem. Clearly, Ripa took an entirely different interpretation of this emblem than Peacham did, but this could be attributed to the difference in appearance of the emblems, such as the heart, its position and the ribbons. Ripa's verse says that the youth is "…holding a crystal vase, in his right hand." This use of 'his' is strange, as the figure clearly appears to be a woman. It states, "The cup is a token of friendship, men drinking one another's health, as was the old custom." The emblems both have to do with friendship, but apparently the woman/man is not holding his/her heart in hand, but rather a crystal goblet of sorts. Ripa might have misinterpreted what the figure is holding, but his explanation of a goblet and the consequent toast to friendship still correlates to the emblem. Yet, the verse of Ripa's emblem makes no mention of the ribbons and what is inscribed on them. Although some elements in the emblems differ from each other, it is clear that Peacham's 'Amicitia effugies' was derived from Ripa's 'Amity.'
-Sean Ramsdell
