Peter Megyeši

Philothei symbola christiana. Emblémy v zámku Doudleby nad Orlicí 

In 1968 Milada Lejsková-Matyášová published an article on the baroque paintings in the chateau in Doudleby nad Orlicí in eastern Bohemia. She identified the sources for the unique iconographic programme of the paintings in two of three rooms in the chateau that feature painted emblems. The source of the twelve emblems found in a third room, however, remained unknown. In this article, the author identifies the source for these emblems as Philothei symbola christiana quibus idea hominis christiani exprimitur, a book by Charles II, Elector Palatin (1651–1685) writing under the pseudonym Philotheus. With a foreword by historian Paul Hachenberg (1642–1680) the book contains one hundred emblems and was first published in Latin in 1677 by Johannes Petrus Zubrod, a publisher in Frankfurt am Main. The following emblems are painted on the interiors of the chateau in Doudleby: ‘SEQVE OBTVLIT VNI’ (‘She surrendered herself to the one’), ‘DONEC ATTIGERIT’ (‘When he strikes’), ‘SE INTRICAT’ (‘Becoming involved’), ‘DIRIGIT VNVS’ (‘All is guided by one’), ‘REDIVIVA CALORE’ (‘Regenerate by warmth’), ‘MVNERIS OMNE TVI’ (‘Everything is a gift from you’), ‘ETSI REMOTVS’ (‘Though it may be far away’), ‘SVPERGRESSVS’ (‘Uppermost’), ‘ET DVRA, ET MOLLIA CEDVNT’ (‘Hard and soft both retreats’), ‘MOTIBVS INTERNIS REGITVR’ (‘Guided by what is within’), ‘NON INDE QVIETEM’ (‘Do not seek quiet here’), ‘NEC CVRAT, NEC SENTIT AMANS’ (‘Those who love are not worried or perturbed’). By comparing the prints in the book to the wall paintings it is possible to amend a number of inaccuracies in the chateau works. The paintings in Doudleby represent a rare, and to the best of the author’s knowledge, the earliest example of the use of this extraordinary book of emblems in an applied emblematic work.

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