Three Modes of Illustration

The analyses of the pictorial cycles in Charles V's copies of the Ethiques (A and C ), and also of the Politiques and the Yconomique (B and D ), assume the illustrations' general functions as visual definitions and re-presentations of abstract ideas.^[30] As noted above, the illustrations rely on well-known representational modes of embodying abstract ideas to define key ideas in the text. In all the miniatures of the Ethiques program, personifications constitute the basic unit of representation. Individual miniatures are generally placed on the same folio as the list of chapter titles to permit the reader's quick identification of the principal subjects discussed. Not only inscriptions but also attributes or appropriate costumes facilitate association of the personification with the verbal concept. Interpretation of the personification's psychological or moral character may be limited. In A and C the typical Christian iconography of the virtues, or of other suitable personifications, is adapted without explicit reference to the text's classical and pagan content. Personifications appear as laconic subject guides in Books III, IV, and VIII of A .

A second category of illustrations, personification allegories of virtues or of other abstract philosophical ideas discussed, occurs in the cycles of both A and C . The term personification allegory here connotes a more active animation or profound psychological characterization of the personifications than that of the table of contents type.^[31] Of course, the personification allegory also functions as a visual table of contents, but it defines moral or spiritual relationships among several personifications. Personification allegories emphasize unfamiliar notions in the text by extended visual metaphors, in which kinship is frequently employed as a device to explain underlying relationships of identity, power, and social standing. Such imagery tends to be more novel and ambitious than that of simple personification.

The last category of Ethiques illustrations, the decision allegory, involves a moral or spiritual choice on the part of a personification or other figure. Erwin Panofsky uses the term to characterize the illustrations in Book VII of A and C (Figs. 35 and 36).^[32] The only other instance of a decision allegory occurs in the exceptional miniature for Book IX in C (Fig. 41). Of the three categories of illustrations in the Ethiques cycle, the decision allegory is the most unusual.