Representing the atra bilis: The ‘Said’ and ‘Unsaid’ of the Melancholic in Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia
Representing the atra bilis: The ‘Said’ and ‘Unsaid’ of the Melancholic in Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia

Summary/Abstract: This article is the third in a series of works which aims to contribute to documenting theinfluence of the medical theory of individual temperaments, derived from the theory of the fourhumors, through the major work Iconologia by the Italian humanist Cesare Ripa (1555–1622). Here,we studied the allegory of the melancholic. Beyond the work aimed at situating it within the medical tradition, we were particularly interested in the relationship between text and image and theinterplay between expression (explicite) and silence (implicite) that is so frequent in the work. Wethus undertook to analyse all the symbolic attributes of Ripa’s composition according to whetherthey appear in the engraving, in the text, in both, and whether they are commented on or not. Theimportance given at the end of the text to the teachings of the School of Salerno also allowed us tobetter understand the synthetic thought of the Italian humanist and, consequently, the overall economy of the Iconologia. Thus, in the course of our reflection on the modes of expression of the ‘said’and ‘unsaid’ in the definition of the melancholic temperament in Ripa, we attempted to accountfor the internal mechanics of his work and the nature of the rhetorical strategies (both textual andvisual) of his discursive architecture.

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