Facundia difficilis
The Serpent and the Dragon as the central motif, with the Angel and the Wing, and the Hand in a secondary part. From Alciato's Emblemata.
What is happening
Andrea Alciato, 1648 “Facundia difficilis.”
Symbolica, 2026 Alciato's motto, put into English here: Eloquence is difficult.
Andrea Alciato, 1648 “Antidotum Ææa medicata in pocula Circes
Mercurium hoc Ithaco fama dedisse fuit.
Moly vocant: id vix radice euellitur atrâ,
Purpureus sed flos, lactis & instar habet.
Eloquij candor facundiaque allicit omnes:
Sed multi res est tanta laboris opus.”
Symbolica, 2026 Alciato's epigram, put into English here: The antidote to the drugged cups of Aeaean Circe, this the story says Mercury gave to the Ithacan. They call it Moly: it is pulled up only with difficulty by its black root, but its flower is purple and has the likeness of milk. The brightness of eloquence and fluency attracts everyone, but a thing so great is the work of much labour.
Key · 3 motifs
The motifs the picture carries, filed by role. The marks on the picture itself come with the entry.
- 1The Serpent and the Dragoncentral motif as it reads here: Emblema CLXXXI
- 2The Angel and the Wingsecondary motif
- 3The Handsecondary motif
The picture
The caduceus with its two snakes, the winged cap and heels, and the two hands meeting over the plant. By eye
The reading
The picture read whole, in the archive's words, from the sources quoted on the marks. Read on, and the picture follows: the motif under discussion keeps its colour.
Two figures face each other across a small flowering plant that grows between them, its dark root drawn bare at the foot. At the left Mercury, in a winged cap and winged heels, holds up a caduceus with two snakes twined at its head and reaches down to the plant with his other hand. At the right a soldier in a plumed helmet and a short armoured skirt bends to take it. A wall stands at the left edge and a walled town sits in the distance at the right.
This is the herb Hermes gives Odysseus against Circe, and Alciato spends the emblem on what it is for. He describes it accurately first, hard to pull up by its black root, a purple flower with the likeness of milk, and then gives it its meaning: the brightness of eloquence and fluency attracts everyone, but a thing that great is the work of much labour. The antidote to enchantment in this book is not a charm. It is a skill, and the emblem says plainly that it is difficult.
Not yet decoded: the motifs are tagged by eye and the readings above are quoted from their sources. The marks on the picture and the sourced notes come with the entry.
Also carrying the Serpent and the Dragon
23 works carry it. The 6 where it is the central motif are here. The symbol.
Where the detail is the subject
the Angel and the Wing · the Hand
Each of these is in the picture without being what it is about. Below, one work that is about each.
In the same series
Record
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