Abstract

The present essay offers an analogical interpretation of Albrecht Dürer’s renowned etching Melencolia I. By «analogical interpretation» here is meant the effort of bringing to light the peculiar correspondence between the spatial conception of the image in question and the state of mind it denotes – i.e. melancholy. According to a tradition which can be traced back to Antiquity and culminates in the Italian and German Renaissance (Marsilio Ficino’s De vita and Agrippa of Nettesheim’s De occulta philosophia are the main literary sources of Melencolia I), melancholy denotes the theoretical faculty par excellence; such a contemplative state materially reflects the lines of force that characterise the peculiar spaciality of Dürer’s engraving, where the scattering of emblematic elements is paradoxically counterbalanced by their simoultaneous concentration around the main figure