Robin Raybould – författare

This volume contains an introduction to the origins of literary symbolism, followed by about 4,000 works relevant to the Renaissance period, most with long or short commentaries, divided into about 50 categories (from “Allegories” to “Wands”) with a cross-category authors index, as well as information on further reading.

The Hieroglyphenkunde by Karl Giehlow published in 1915, described variously by critics as “a masterpiece”, “magnificent”, “monumental” and “incomparable”, is here translated into English for the first time. Giehlow’s work with an initial focus on the Hieroglyphica of Horapollo, the manuscript of which was discovered by Giehlow, was a pioneering attempt to introduce the thesis that Egyptian hieroglyphics had a fundamental influence on the Italian literature of allegory and symbolism and beyond that on the evolution of all Renaissance art.The present edition includes the illustrations of Albrecht Dürer from the Pirckheimer translation of the Horapollo from the early fifteenth century.

Robin Raybould's The Sibyl Series of the Fifteenth Century examines the startling and sudden change that occurred in the representation of the sibyls throughout Europe during the early Renaissance. Raybould describes how and why during this period the number, names, attributes and prophecies of these archaic prophetesses were selected and stabilized thus providing new witness to the Christian message in sharp contrast to earlier representations where the sibyls had played a minor role in the history of classical and Christian divination and prophecy. The book examines all the fifteenth-century instances of these series, as well as the manuscripts which describe them, identifies the origin of the sibylline prophecies and suggests reasons for the widespread popularity of this new artistic phenomenon.

Robin Raybould’s Hieroglyph, Emblem and Renaissance Pictography is the first English translation of Ludwig Volkmann’s Bilderschriften der Renaissance, the classic text which promoted the symbol as a defining cultural and literary characteristic of early modern Europe. Volkmann enumerates and describes many of the works which illustrated the contemporary obsession with hieroglyph, emblem and device, particularly those from France and Germany, thus complementing Karl Giehlow’s earlier Hieroglyphenkunde on the subject. Volkmann’s book highlights both Renaissance theories of the image as language and the symbol as an aid to an understanding of the meaning of life and the nature of God. Raybould’s translation has been described as elegant, admirable and impeccable and includes an introduction, extensive notes and several additional essays on topics relevant to the field.

Elitism and the Approach to God investigates a historical and cultural dichotomy in European history which has not hitherto been satisfactorily explained. Why did so many of the most influential “authorities” of the age insist that the nature and mystery of the divine and of God should not be shared with “the vulgar crowd”, that is with the ordinary people, although this appears to be the principal purpose of all other religious teaching throughout the period? Robin Raybould gives examples from the works of more than sixty “authorities” who insisted that the mysteries of the divine should remain secret. He then surveys the attempts of other religious and civic leaders, both pagan and Christian, to investigate, understand and by contrast to share their findings on the nature of God. In a final section he attempts to reconcile these opposing views.