Sweden and the Emblem

Sweden and the Emblem is the first full-length monograph in any language to examine the place of the emblematic arts in Sweden. Long overlooked as a country peripheral to emblem studies, this book argues for a re-evaluation of Sweden's place in the history of the genre by examining emblematic artefacts ranging in scale from lost or misidentified emblematic books, to large and historically significant decorative schemes in castles, manors, and churches. It becomes clear that Sweden enjoyed a rich emblematic culture informed by the major currents of continental European epistemology, but distinctive in its inflections, as, for example, in its identification of the language of runes with ancient hieroglyphics. The book charts the cultural acquisition of the emblem by sixteenth-century Swedes, and the form's gradual but inexorable assimilation into the fabric of Swedish cultural expression in literature, art, court ritual, funerary ceremonies, grand entries, political propaganda, religious devotion, personal display, and private reflection. The role of the emblem in the service of Sweden's political leaders, including Gustav Vasa, Erik XIV, Gustavus Adolphus, and Christina, is examined through chapters that establish an essential chronology, while others consider emblems within the Swedish Church, the world of science and learning, and in the hands of writers from across the Swedish Baltic Empire. Sweden and the Emblem presents a comprehensive guide to the Swedish emblematic heritage in art, literature, and material culture, much of it unknown, some of it unsuspected, and all of it a worthy expansion of the European corpus emblematicus.