Examples and Information

Examples:

From Giambattista Vico's New Science

Vico makes it a point to discuss the Frontispiece at length in the introduction to his book. The bearded figure is Homer, the first great poet of humanity. Higher up we find the female figure of metaphysics atop the globe, representing nature. The eye is God, whose gaze meets that of Homer in metaphysics. There are numerous other symbols, including a clock, a sword, an alphabetical text, and religious tools, among others. Vico considers the frontispiece to be a reminder for all readers of the text's contents and message.

From Francis Bacon's Great Instauration

Bacon's ship is the ship of knowledge, possibly making references to older texts such as Plato's Ship of State. The ship, the technology itself a sign of human progress, departs between two classical pillars (representing antiquity, Greece, etc.) upon a vast seascape, signifying the seemingly endless mysterious potential of human knowledge. Also notable is another ship in the distance, probably representing another mind or a beacon of some kind.



From Eikon Basilike

This frontispiece represents the loyalty, piety, and resilience of King Charles the 1st of England. He receives light even through vast darkness in the sky, and though brought to a kneel he faces and reaches for heaven. On the ground by his knees is his Crown, in his hand a crown of thorns likening him to Christ. He is as stalwart as the large boulder in the distance, and is a beautiful tree even with weights hanging from his branches. There are a number of Latin scrolls in the illustration that suggest similar interpretations.

From Henry David Thoreau's Walden

This frontispiece depicts Thoreau's solitary existence in the woods by Walden Pond. It contains his simple, makeshift house with a singular window, a single, man-made path (presumably) up to the entrance, and the surroundings of wilderness. In his journals Thoreau reveals that though the drawing was completed by his sister, he initially wanted it withheld due to certain imperfections of its representation of the woods (i.e. the types of trees, the absence of a certain hill, etc.). In the text of Walden (particularly the chapter "Reading") he gives the reader a strategy for approaching his work in a very careful and intentional way, as it was written. This necessarily includes the frontispiece, part of the classical whole.