A Question of Morals: Philip II and Achille Bocchi in a Roman Engraving (1588)

Abstract

This article analyses an engraving of Philip II of Spain published in Rome in 1588 by Marcello Clodio. The portrait is based on Sofonisba Anguissola’s famous painting of the king by way of Alonso Sánchez Coello’s copy in Florence. The Roman engraving offers a rare example of a Spanish painting copied in Italian print. A historiated frame surrounding the portrait, comprised of emblems from Achille Bocchi’s Symbolicae Quaestiones (Bologna, 1555), represents the most significant reuse of Bocchi’s emblems by a contemporary artist. The unusual frame is interpreted as a tactful representation of the polarising Spanish monarch.