Titulus

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Panel painting with titulus, around 1540

As a titulus ( Pl. Tituli; Latin for "inscription, picture panel, shield") an inscription or inscription on early pictorial works is referred to in the history of art , with the help of which what was represented was explained or commented on.

In Roman antiquity, a titulus was generally any kind of explanatory or declarative inscription on an object, in particular the notes with the author and title attached to scrolls, further the inscriptions with Elogia on the wax masks of deceased ancestors in the halls of noble families and finally as the best-known example of Titulus crucis , the titulus on the cross of Christ .

In art, tituli were used in antiquity to identify people and scenes depicted. This became rare in Christian art of the early Middle Ages, possibly as the literacy rate in the population fell. From the late Middle Ages and early modern times , image captions were then increasingly used again. A characteristic of their importance at the time is that almost every medieval writing on painting also contains instructions on how to make such inscriptions. Tituli were often - but not necessary - written in verse and quoted ancient authors. It is therefore considered likely that the performing artists were often advised by humanistic scholars who were familiar with the classical texts. In appropriate contexts, quotations from the Bible or from the writings of the Church Fathers were used . Wherever biblical parables were depicted in coded images, tituli provided the interpretation, creating an allegorical double form. Because of the juxtaposition or coexistence of image and text, tituli belonged to the sources of the early modern art form of emblems , which also consisted of text-image combinations.

literature

  • Arwed Arnulf: Versus ad picturas. Studies on titulus poetry as a genre of sources in art history from antiquity to the high Middle Ages , Munich Berlin 1997, ISBN 3422062181 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ William S. Heckscher, Karl-August Wirth: Article Emblem, Emblembuch , Chapter IV (Sources of Emblematics) in Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte , Vol. 5, Sp. 85–228, Stuttgart 1959/1967/1986, ISBN 3406141978 .