Metamorphoses of an allegory

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This study is a comprehensive survey of the iconography of the psychomachia motif including an analysis of the relationship between text and image based on the visual transformation of a verbal metaphor.Moral allegories, such as the battle of the virtues and vices representing the conflict between good and evil within the human soul, were important motifs, not only in literary and theological texts from the sixth to the sixteenth century in western Europe, but also in iconography. The transformations or metamorphoses of a central verbal metaphor as a motif in the visual arts provide a way to understand the mutual influence of word and image in developing a particular concept throughout the Middle Ages.The book includes a descriptive survey of the visual interpretations of the psychomachia allegory in all major works of art, manuscript illustrations, sculpture, paintings, and stained glass, as well as minor art forms, such as ivory and wood carvings and tapestries. Individual works are analyzed in terms of their conception of the allegory and various literary and theological sources or parallels are indicated.