Book excerpt: Robin Raybould’s Hieroglyph, Emblem and Renaissance Pictography is the first English translation of Ludwig Volkmann’s Bilderschriften der Renaissance, the classic text which promoted the symbol as a defining cultural and literary characteristic of early modern Europe. Volkmann enumerates and describes many of the works which illustrated the contemporary obsession with hieroglyph, emblem and device, particularly those from France and Germany, thus complementing Karl Giehlow’s earlier Hieroglyphenkunde on the subject. Volkmann’s book highlights both Renaissance theories of the image as language and the symbol as an aid to an understanding of the meaning of life and the nature of God. Raybould’s translation has been described as elegant, admirable and impeccable and includes an introduction, extensive notes and several additional essays on topics relevant to the field.