Like in the Renaissance with its absolutistic states the conditions of communications were ruled by the monarchs. The 16th century in Europe was a time of change and the beginning of the modern era. The century opened with the discovery of the continent America. At its peak the Renaissance in Italy was spreading northwards. An upcoming European phenomenon in the arts started in the late 15th century and was called Barock in Germany, in France baroque, and gongorrismo in Spain. From the 16th century onwards we find in Spanish the terms berrueco and barrueco, in French barroque,barrocque, and baroque and later Italian baroco and barocco. The word was first applied to the fine arts in reference to architecture.296 The term baroque is used to describe the era between the Renaissance and the age of Neoclassicism for arts until the mid-18th century. Baroque as the dominant style of European arts expressed the spirit of the Catholic Church. It used visually and with rhetorical means, grande style, sensuous richness, dramatic composition, antithetical perspective, and a tendency to connect various arts.297. Degentesh in Describing a Baroque Aesthetic declared that Baroque rhetoric was approaching other areas of culture: “Rhetoricians (obviously always concerned with rhetoric) began with a classical definition of rhetoric. Throughout the Baroque period, then, the changes that rhetoric experienced were directly related to the definitions of rhetoric that rhetoricians applied. [...] There was no need to recreate this type of rhetoric in hopes of matching the classical ideal, because the classical ideal was already present in the works of classical rhetoricians. Thus, rhetoricians of the Baroque period focused on ways which the definition of rhetoric could be altered on philosophical and practical terms, and classical models or methods of rhetoric were not created as often.”298
During this Baroque period a lot of writing were published for the rhetorical purposes of entertainment, teaching, and religious instruction. The writers and their publishers had to follow certain rules for their license to print them and in order to be not banned by censorship.
Failure to follow these rules could result in censorship and punishment by the local political and clerical authorities. Baroque poetry was characterized by an attitude, which questioned both the traditional concept of the world and of man following the traditional ethical and artistic concept of the Renaissance in a highly antithetical concept serving as an expression of this worldview in literature and in –especially visual– arts.299 In the 17th century Rome was the artistic capital of Europe. The baroque style soon spread outwards from here. In Germany Baroque poets were important for the reform of the German language.300 As an expression of Catholic belief Baroque could never establish in England. The use of extremes and antithesis in literature represents the highly artificial rhetorical construction of baroque literature. The juxtaposition of extremes was also a typical element of style in Renaissance. In literary
296 Cf. Convergences. Rhetoric and Poetic in Seventeenth-Century France. Essays for Hugh M. Davidson. Ohio:
Columbus State University 1989. Pp. 60-65.
France, Peter. Rhetoric and Truth in France: Descartes. Oxford: University Press 1935. Pp. 55-59.
Lyons, John D. Exemplum. The Rhetoric of Example in Early Modern France and Italy. Princeton, New Jersey:
University Press 1989. Pp. 71-76.
297 Spahr, Blake Lee. Problems and Perspectives. A Collection of Essays on German Baroque Literature.
Frankfurt am Main: Lang 1981. Pp. 51-55.
298 Degentesh, Gwen. Describing a Baroque Aesthetic. St. Mary's College of Maryland. [1.7.2007].
<Http://www.smcm.edu/users/gtdegentesh/d4/Emotion.htm>
Cf. for Baroque in general: Baroque. Art History. [1.7.2007].
<Http://www.arthistory.cc/glo/baroque/index.htm>
299 Wellek, René. "The Concept of Baroque in Literary Scholarship and Postscript.” In: Concepts of Criticism.
New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1963. Pp. 69-114 and 155-227.
300 Warnke, Frank J. German Baroque Literature. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Harold Jantz and a Guide to the Collection on Microfilm Research Publications. Yale: University Press 1974. Pp. 85-91.
comparisons and in the context of the contemporary world picture even from remote elements were connected. Not only in literary comparisons, but also in the context of the contemporary world view rhetoric was used even regarding antithetic elements like heaven and hell, life and death, fire and water.
Baroque culture was based on visual communicative means and its art reflected the increasing feeling of an antithetical world. The 'sensational' visual art of the baroque didn’t present abstract ideas, but was visual. Emblems connected pictures with texts. As a special Baroque forms for a combination of literary and visual arts they were available in emblem books since the late 15th century. In theeikonof the emblem the emblematic artist visualized the topic in a picture related to the poem. In the poema the artist explained his lemma.301 Emblems were pieces of art that were used and collected in Renaissance and the Baroque age. Baroque literature's characteristics are rhetorical figures such as antithesis, paradoxes, syllogisms, barocones, and other kinds of rhetorical forms. In the literary comparison the distance between vehicle and tenor was widened in an artificial and affected way.302 We can consider the European Baroque epoch as a culture in which rhetoric was not only placed for oratory education and practise but also used for the visual and pictural arts. Also poetic arts and music used rhetoric. Rhetorical influence was used by politicians and the church to claim power.
Gabriel Harvey used in 1577 the term communicare to express the communication with other persons (cum alijs libentissime communicare) in his Rhetor, Vel Duorum Dierum Oratio De Natura, Arte, & Exercitatione Rhetorica:
Qui potest, optime Clerce, nisi te velim vna laude ornatum, pluribus, peraeque debitis, spoliare: & tanquam vinum perdere, infusa aqua, vt ille apud Homerum polu/mhtij? Nec vero est, quod magnopere tacitas extimescam cogitationes tuas, cuius perurbana humanitas, cum mihi priuatim cognita (fatendum est enim) tum satis omnibus perspecta est.
Praesertim cum & ipse tuas laudes cum alijs libentissime communicare soleas, excellentibus viris, & qui vnam tibi virtutem, eamque perfectam tribuit, non modo non adimat reliquas, sed tacite quodammodo vel omnes ascribat, vel certe plures.303
In distinction from the art of persuasion or sophistic art (sophistiké techné) persuading was the correct way and manner of investigation. What kind of rhetorical literature do we find in this époque? Every baroque poem used the stylistic knowledge of rhetorical theory. Since the 15th century rhetoric became a method to improve style, imitation, and literary criticism. For the rhetoricians in the 16th century art was in many cases a tool of communication in order to express their cultural tradition within their contemporary worldview. The language of the rhetoricians included foreign words and ancient expressions. Thomas Elyot in The Dictionary of Sir Thomas Elyot (1538) uses communication for several oral and literal forms:
Epularis are bilongynge to a feaste or banket, as Epularis sermo, communication mete for a feaste or bankette.
Micrologus a lyttell communication.
301 Cf. Lamy, Bernard. La Retorique Ou, L'Art de Parler. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1969. Pp. 91-96.
302 Warnke, Frank J. Versions of Baroque. European Literature in the Seventeenth Century. New Haven;
London: Yale University Press 1975. Pp. 23-38.
303 Harvey, Garbriel. Rhetor, Vel Duorum Dierum Oratio, De Natura, Arte, & Exercitatione Rhetorica. Londini:
Ex Officina Typographica Henrici Binneman Anno 1577. IPA. [2.2.2007].
<Http://www.ipa.net/~magreyn2/rhlat.html>
Pertesus, ispleased, annoyed. Sermonis pertesus, werye of the communication.
Præloquium, the begynninge of a communication, or thinge spoken, as that which in rhetorike is named exordium.
Prolocutio, the fyrste speche or fyrst entree into communication.
Sermo, monis, a speche, a fourme of speakynge: sommetyme an oration, also communication.
Soliloquium, communication, which a man beinge alone, hathe with god in contemplation.
Transactio, an agrement vpon communication.
Alloquium, communication, speche.304
In Thomas’ Dictionarium Linguae Latinae et Anglicanae (1587) communicatio is defined as
“communication, or making of a thing common: imparting: making of an other partaker in any thing: consultation, talking. “305 Richard Perceval in A Dictionary in Spanish and English (1599) defines comunicár as to communicate, to reueale, to disclose, to impart, to bewray.306 A new ideal of Baroque science referring in terms of universality to the ideal of the vir bonus of ancient times is the polyhistoricus (polyhistorician), a person having knowledge of many subjects. The 16th century is a time marked by a growth of interest in vernacular rhetoric. The allegory of ‘Lady Rhetoric’ became popular. By the early 16th century chairs in humanist studies appeared and university libraries started to purchase copies of major humanist texts.307 In the Tabulae Breves et Expeditae in Praeceptiones Rhetoricas Quas Certo Consilio Subjungere Superioribus Visum Fuit written by Georg Kassander the first chapter contains the theme De Rhetorica, Eloquentia, et Oratione in Universum, et Quae Huc Pertinent Pluscula.
The Tabulae were added to an edition of the Partitiones Oratoriae of Cicero publicated in the year 1629 in Helmstädt. Kassander’s definition of rhetorica and eloquentia follows Quintilian:
Quid est igitur Rhetorice?
Ars quae viam ac rationem recte & onate dicendi
Quid est eloquentia? facultas sapienter & ornate dicendi: quae merito a Cicerone virtutibus annumeratur. Siquidem nihil est aliud Eloquentia, nisi loquens sapientia.
Partit. Orator. Quinctil. Lib 2. cap. 20 & lib 12. cap.1308
The function of communication in the rhetorical system didn’t change since ancient times.
Communicatio was among the rhetorical figures mentioned in the German Rhetorica Gottengensis published in 1680.309 Nicot's Thresor de la Langue Française (1606) defines
304 LEME. Lexicons of Early Modern English. University Toronto. [2.2.2007].
<Http://leme.library.utoronto.ca>
305LEME. Lexicons of Early Modern English. University Toronto. [2.2.2007].
<Http://leme.library.utoronto.ca>
306 LEME. Lexicons of Early Modern English. University Toronto. [2.2.2007].
<Http://leme.library.utoronto.ca>
307 Sonnino, Lee A. A Handbook to Sixteenth Century Rhetoric. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1968. Pp.
57-63.
308 Sequntur Georgii Cassandri Viri Doctissimi Tabulae Breves et Expeditae in Praeceptiones Rhetoricas Quas Certo Consilio Subjungere Superioribus Visum Fuit. Caput I. De Rhetorica, Eloquentia, et Oratione In Universum, et Quae Huc Pertinent Pluscula. In: M. Tul. Ciceronis Partitiones Oratoriae. Seperatim Editae et In Capita Distinctae. Adjectum Est Certo Consilio M. Antonii Riccoboni Compendium Rhetorices Ex Aristotele et Cicerone et Georgii Cassandri Tabulae Rhetoricae. Helmstadi, Anno 1629. S. p.
309 Haae, Fee-Alexandra. Heinrich Tolles Lehrbuch Rhetorica Gottingensis. Ein Dokument der Kultivierung rhetorischer Lehre an einem Gymnasium Deutschlands im 17. Jahrhundert. (Heinrich Tolles Handbook
communication as derived from communicatio, participatio, and commercium with the sentence:
"Faire communication de la découverte qu'aucun a fait de ses complices et compagnons en quelque malice, Indicium edere".
The definition says:
"Par communication de langage, Commercio sermonis feras populorum linguas contrahere ad colloquia."310
For Francisco Suárez in Disputationes Metaphysicae the human nature (natura humana) has a formal unity (unitatem formalem) and communicability due to literacy (verbi gratia):
6. Sic igitur declarata opinio probatur primo, quia natura, verbi gratia, humana, de se habet unitatem formalem, ut dictum est; habet etiam de se quod sit communicabilis multis; ergo de se, et ante omnem intellectum est una in multis et de multis, in quo ratio universalis consistit, teste Aristoteles, I Post., text. 25; habet ergo natura ex se et in rebus ipsis aliquam universalitatem, quae sit realis proprietas eius, et non tantum rationis. Minor, in qua est vis argumenti, probatur primo, quia natura humana de se non est incommunicabilis, alioqui secundum numerum multiplicari non posset; est ergo de se communicabilis; quia inter communicabile et incommunicabile non est dare medium respectu eiusdem naturae, nam sunt opposita contradictorie.311
Also the communicability of ethical values was discussed. Francesco Buonamici wrote in De Motu (1591) about the communicability of bonitas:
1002
Itaque pulcherrimus. atque hucusque se fundit essentia: nunc velut vmbra consequitur, ab omnibus expeti, quae inde bonum cuiusque nascatur: non ita sanè, vt credas id ad eius essentiæ perfectionem pertinere, & ob id eam bonitatem, quia sit communicabilis, aliis afferre necessitatem vt sint, vt ea bonitas communicari queat; aliter fore imperfectam, ideòque. sic struere rationem. Si Deus est, & cętera sunt. Verùm nobis, si audimus Aristotelem, rom fabricanda est aliter.
Si cętera sunt, & Deus est. iam enim docuimus, Deum esse bonum, quod sine alio subsistit; reliqua verò ex tali principio pendêre, & ab ipso quoquo pacto suam ducere perfectionem.312
´Rhetorica Gottingensis´. A document of the cultivation of rhetorical instruction in a Gymnasium in Germany in 17th century.) In: Humanistica Lovaniensia. Leuven. 2001. Pp. 267-379. Index
310 French dictionaries online. Dictionnaires d'autrefois. Dictionnaires des 17ème, 18ème, 19ème et 20ème siècles. ARTFL Project, The University of Chicago. The University of Chicago. Access by Lexilogos.
[2.2.2007].
<Http://www.lexilogos.com/francais_langue_dictionnaires.htm>
311 Suárez, Francisco. Disputationes Metaphysicae. Disputatio VI. De Universitate Formali et Universali. Ruhr Universty Bochum. [1.7.2007].
<Http://homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Michael.Renemann/suarez/suarez_dm6.html>
312 Buonamici, Francesco. De Motu. Archimedes Project. [1.7.2007].
<Http://archimedes.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/cgi-bin/toc/toc.cgi?page=1023;dir=buona_demot_014_la_1591;step=textonly>
In the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, et De Via Qua Optime in Veram Rerum Cognitionem Dirigitur Benedictus de Spinoza asked for the communicability of the verum bonum:
I. De bonis quae homines plerumque appetunt.
1. Postquam me experientia docuit, omnia, quae in communi vita frequenter occurrunt, vana et futilia esse; cum viderem omnia, a quibus et quae timebam, nihil neque boni neque mali in se habere, nisi quatenus ab iis animus movebatur; constitui tandem inquirere, an aliquid daretur, quod verum bonum et sui communicabile esset, et a quo solo reiectis ceteris omnibus animus afficeretur; imo an aliquid daretur, quo invento et acquisito continua ac summa in aeternum fruerer laetitia.313
For Cipriano Suarez in De Arte Rhetorica Libri Tres (1569) communicatio (anacoenosis) is one of the figures of sentences:
De figuris sententiarum Interrogatio
Subiectio (aitiologia)
Ante occupatio (praesumptio, prolepsis) Correctio
Dubitatio
Communicatio (anacoenosis) Prosopopoeia
Apostrophe (aversio) Hypotyposis (descriptio)
Aposiopesis (praecisio, reticentia, interruptio) Ethopoeia
Emphasis (significatio) Sustentatio (paradox)
Praetermissio (raeteritio,reticentia, paraleipsis, apophasis, occupatio)
Licentia (parrhesia) Concessio
Parenthesis (interpretatio [which is mistaken from Quint.
"interpositio"), interclusio) Ironia
Distributio (merismus) Permissio (epitrope)
Deprecatio (obsecratio, obtestatio, deesis) Epiphonema
Exclamatio De collocatione De ordine De iunctura
De modo & forma [numerorum]
De origine orationis numerosae
313 Spinoza, Benedictus de. Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, et De Via Qua Optime in Veram Rerum Cognitionem Dirigitur. Wikisource. [1.7.2007].
<Http://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Tractatus_de_intellectus_emendatione,_et_de_via_qua_optime_in_veram_rerum_
cognitionem_dirigitur>
Cur numerosa oratio inventa sit De incisis membris & periodis De pedibus
De numero oratorio
In qua parte ambitus debeat inesse numerus, & qui pedes maxime probentur
De initio periodi De fine periodi De media periodo
De his quae suapte natura numerosa sunt Quae vitia sunt vitanda in oratione numerosa De magnitudine ambitus
De numero, qui est in membris, & cuiusmodi ea esse debeant In quo scribendi genere circumscripte, in quo sit membratim dicendum
Qua ratione paretur haec facultas apte, ac numerose dicendi Quanti momenti sit apte dicere
De tribus generibus dicendi De memoria
An memoria sit eloquentiae pars De artificio memoriae
Quid conferat hoc memoriae artificium De pronunciatione & eius utilitate De voce
De gestu314
Josephus Justus Scaliger uses in one of his poems communicabilis as a quality of a person:
Concilia me, domine, fratri meo.
Si deposita memoria vetus maleficiorum Debet cedere spiritui quieti amoris:
Ah ah rigidum quomodo diligemus hostem?
Ni te insinues: in te abeam denique totus.
Heu tolle pius, quae animis hostiliter actis Me dividuum semina fecere nocentem.
Cum tu omnibus undique communicabilis sis.
Idemque manens Deus indivisilis, unus.
Unus potes haec omnia facere, & dare solus.
Meque ex homine eximium tibi condere divum.
In a series of attributes to persons the communicability is attributed to Origen (nec alteri communicabile ut Origenis):
Nihil creatum aut serviens in trinitate credendum, ut vult Dionisius, fons Arrii, nihil in aequale ut Eunomius nihil gratia aequale ut vult Aethius, nihil anterius posteriusve, aut minus ut Arrius, nihil extraneum aut officiale alteri ut Macedonius, nihil persuasione aut subreptione insertum ut Manicheus, nihil corporeum, ut Melito et Tertullianus, nihil corporaliter effigiatum ut Antropomormus et
314 Suarez, Cipriano. De Arte Rhetorica Libri Tres. Brigham Young University. [1.7.2007].
<Http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Primary%20Texts/Suarez.htm>
Vadianus, nihil sibi invisibile ut Origenis, nihil creaturis uisibile ut Fortunatus, nihil moribus vel uoluntate diversum ut Martion, nihil trinitatis essentia, ad creaturarum naturam deductum ut Plato et Tertullianus, nihil officio singulare, nec alteri communicabile ut Origenis. nihil confusum ut Sabellius, sed totum perfectum, quia totum ex uno et unum non tamen solitarium, ut praesumunt Silvanus et Praxetos, Pentapolitana damnabilis illa doctrina. Omousion ergo id est in divinitate patris filius; Omousion patri et filio spiritus sanctus, omousion deo et homini unus filius manens, deus in homine suo in gloria patris desiderabilis videri ab angelis, sicut pater et spiritus sanctus adoratur ab angelis, et ab omni creatura, non homo preter deum, vel Christus cum deo sicut Nestorius blasphemat, sed homo in deo et in homine deus.315
Like in the previous époques with its absolutistic states the conditions of communications were ruled by the monarchs of European countries in the 17th century. 17th-century writers were educated in classical literature like the Renaissance humanists. These scholars approached scientific texts with assumptions and strategies. From their classical training 17th -century natural philosophers inherited the view regarding cosmology, method, epistemology, and ethics. Rhetoric was an art that combined epistemology, method, linguistics, and ethics.
In the book Antiqui rhetores Latini publicised in 1699 in Paris we find the following authorities of Roman Times and Middle Ages and their books for rhetoric:
Rutilius Lupus De Figuris Sententiarum et Elocutionis Aquilia Romanus De Figuris Sententiarum et Elocutionis
Iulius Rufinianus Consulti Artis Rhetoricae Scholicae Libri III Curii Fortunatiani Expositio in Libros Rhetor. Cicer.
Marii Victorini Expositio in Libros Rhetor. Cicer.
Sulpitii Victoris Institutiones Oratoriae
Emporius Rhetor De Ethopaeia ac Loco Communi Aurelii Augustini Principia Rhetorices
Iulii Severiani Syntomata
Rufinus De Compositione & Metris Oratorum
Priscianus Caesariensis De Praeexercitamentis Rhetoricaew Aurel. Cassidiorus De Arte Rhetorica
Beda De Tropis Sacrae Scriptura
Isidor De Arte Rhetorica
Anonymus De Locis Rhetoricis
Albini Alcuini De Arte Rhetorica Dialogus
Wilhelm Bodenius’ letter written in Prague in 1605 is an example for a bilingual Latin -German text containing the Latin noun communicatio and the verb communicirn:
Communicationem in causa Schwisel habe ich bishero ad partem noch nit haben konnen, denn seider E. Dt. jungst gnedigst schreiben anhero komen und der keiser inquisitionem anzuestellen bevholen, will keiner schir mer etwas communicirn, es sei denn, das solches iudicialiter beschehen muss, sonsten ist gedachte Schwiselische
315 Scaliger, Josephus Justus. Poemata. Pars II, p. 98 - 324: Epidorpides. Edidit Paula Koning Ex. KBH 766 G 4. University Leiden. [1.7.2007].
< Http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Latijn/ScaligerEpidorpides.html >
sachen auf die hofcammer geben, aber in derselben bishero das wenigste nit furgenummen worden, die Ursache ist, das der president Unverzagt numher vil tage todtlich krank darnider gelegen, auch noch also in Gotts gewalt ligt [...].316
In the collection Imagines Veterum Illustrium Rhetorum ac Oratorum publicated in the year 1685 the following rhetoricians of ancient time are mentioned:
In the collection Imagines Veterum Illustrium Rhetorum ac Oratorum publicated in the year 1685 the following rhetoricians of ancient time are mentioned: