Dear all, On 6/21/2007, "Peter Martin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > See Narvaez's "Los seys libros del Delphin", 1538 (or is it Narbaez?). It > has a picture of a large dolphin cresting the waves with a vihuelist on its > back (Arion, I believe), so not royalty in this case.
In renaissance world picture everything, everything, had its position in hierarchy. Dolphins (or whales) were the highest creatures underwater. Perhaps the reason for dolphins high postion was its ability to go over its sphere (the sea) for a while. Sometimes the most able human beings were compared to dolphins because they were also (for a short time) able to go to the spheres of the lowest angels, and understand more than normal men. There is a nice page of "The Chain of Being" http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/Tillyard01.html describing Tillyard's famous work about the world picture of renaissance. All the best, Arto To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
