Anti-Rhetorical Strategies in Early Modern Images of Comic Actors: Harlequin’s Iconography and its Surviving Medieval Features

2. The frontispice of the “Compositions de Rhétorique” by Tristano Martinelli, published in 1600 as a present to Maria de' Medici for her marriage and composed by blank pages interposed by images, shows the famous actor as an almost hellish figure, bearing a pannier full of little Arlequins. A similar iconography pattern is to be seen in the “Recueil Fossard”, though as part of a dramatic context, and could ultimately derive from the iconography of Hell-quin, as it is shown in a miniature of the Roman the Fauvel, where the hellish figure leads a chariot with dead unchristened babies. Discussing the hellish origin of Arlequin, most of scholars have neglected the evidence that some of his attributes are rooted in the sinful world of medieval entertainment. The pannier full of little fools or apes, for instance, recurs in medieval iconography of jesters, and it begins to occur also in the depictions of devils when they assume comical connotations. Exploring the context of medieval miniatures in relation to later iconography of actors, the article aims to rediscuss the vexed question of Harlequins's hellish origin, providing some exemples of a puzzling intertwining of elements and patterns.