Intelligentsia Versus Reason of State

Volume lXXXIV Number 1 March 1969 s0 l We must at least mention the artists' figurations of reason of state, beginning with Cesare Ripa's Iconologia. In this work's many editions-I am using the one of Rome, 1603, pp. 426 ff.-ragione di stato is depicted as lady armed with cuirass, helmet and scimitar . . . with a ferule in her left hand ... the right resting on a lion's head, . . . at her feet a book inscribed IUS. While the arms refer to the prince's determination to use force and just war in the application of his state reason, the ferule demonstrates that the ragione di stato in question is properly belonging to whomsoever holds dominion; the law book points to the use of ragione civile and civil law. One French version of Ripa is Iconologie ou Explication nouvelle de plusieurs images, etc. Tiree des recherches et des figures de Cesar Ripa. Moralisees par J. Baudoin (Paris, 1644); raison d'etat is depicted and described in I, 66 ff. Altogether different is the concept of raison d'etat in Jean Charles Delafosse's Nouvelle iconologie historique a attributes hieroglyphiques qui ont pour objets les quatre elements etc. (Paris, 1768), 73: A dragon, pierced by two arrows, on which a victorious sun throws its rays, all in a framework composed of a shield of the Medusa, a lion's head, a helmet, a spear, a diadem, motifs that leave much to the imagination or associations of the viewer. It ought to be remembered that these iconographies were primarily intended to guide artists who were commissioned to paint political allegories. An actually executed image of state reason is the frontispiece of Grimmelshausen's Zweykopfige (1684) with the inscription: Schaut hier das Status Bild,) Das jetzund in der Welt viel Gilt,/ Wie jeder es Beschneid und bestielt. status is a strong male figure, ermine clad, holding in one hand two swords, one laurel-enlaced, and in his right an orb, titled Ratio Status Versatus, while groups of people, politicians and learned men, are snipping away at the ermine mantle, whose spots are really eyes, the symbols of watchfulness. The figure is double-faced, representing in one direction

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