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A personal device is closely related to the picture-text combinations called emblem
Emblem

An emblem is a pictorial , abstract art or representational, that epitomizes a concept ? e.g., a moral truth, or an allegory ? or that represents a person, such as a Monarch or Saint symbology....
s found in emblem book
Emblem book

Emblem books are a particular style of illustrated book developed in Europe during the 16th and 17th century in literature, normally containing about one hundred combinations of pictures and text....
s. Popular from late medieval times, the personal device typically consisted of a visual image and a short text or "motto", which when read in combination were intended to convey a sense of the aspirations or character of the bearer.

Derived from heraldry
Heraldry

Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of devising, granting, and blazoning Coat of arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms....
, where the coat of arms
Coat of arms

A coat of arms, more properly called an armorial achievement, armorial bearings or often just arms for short, in European tradition, is a design belonging to a particular person and used by them in a wide variety of ways....
 would often include a motto, the device spread far beyond the aristocracy during the Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
 as part of the craze for wittily enigmatic constructions in which combinations of pictures and texts were intended to be read together to generate a meaning that could not be derived from either part alone.






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A personal device is closely related to the picture-text combinations called emblem
Emblem

An emblem is a pictorial , abstract art or representational, that epitomizes a concept ? e.g., a moral truth, or an allegory ? or that represents a person, such as a Monarch or Saint symbology....
s found in emblem book
Emblem book

Emblem books are a particular style of illustrated book developed in Europe during the 16th and 17th century in literature, normally containing about one hundred combinations of pictures and text....
s. Popular from late medieval times, the personal device typically consisted of a visual image and a short text or "motto", which when read in combination were intended to convey a sense of the aspirations or character of the bearer.

Derived from heraldry
Heraldry

Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of devising, granting, and blazoning Coat of arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms....
, where the coat of arms
Coat of arms

A coat of arms, more properly called an armorial achievement, armorial bearings or often just arms for short, in European tradition, is a design belonging to a particular person and used by them in a wide variety of ways....
 would often include a motto, the device spread far beyond the aristocracy during the Renaissance
Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
 as part of the craze for wittily enigmatic constructions in which combinations of pictures and texts were intended to be read together to generate a meaning that could not be derived from either part alone. The device, to all intents and purposes identical to the Italian impresa, differs from the emblem
Emblem

An emblem is a pictorial , abstract art or representational, that epitomizes a concept ? e.g., a moral truth, or an allegory ? or that represents a person, such as a Monarch or Saint symbology....
 in two principal ways. Structurally, the device normally consists of two parts while most emblems have three or more. As well, the device was highly personal, intimately attached to a single individual, while the emblem was constructed to convey a general moral lesson that any reader might apply in his or her own life.

Particularly well-known examples of devices -- so well known that the image could be understood as representing the bearer even without the motto -- include the porcupine of Louis XII with its motto "Eminus et cominus" or "De pres et de loin" (left, over a doorway at Blois) and the crowned salamander among flames of François Ier with the motto "Nutrisco et extinguo" (right, at Chambord). These and many more were collected by Claude Paradin and published in his Devises héroïques of 1551 and 1557, which gives the motto of Louis XII as "Ultos avos Troiae".

See also

  • Heraldic badge
    Heraldic badge

    File:Badge of the Prince of Wales.svgIn heraldry, a badge is an emblem or personal device used to indicate allegiance to or property of an individual or family....
  • Diane de Poitier's famous three-crescents personal device


External links

  • - two editions of Paradin are available here