This chapter will look at the role of emblem and hieroglyphic repertoires in the transmission of musical metaphors of the state and the ruler in early modern Europe, with particular emphasis on those authors and treatises which were influential among Peninsular political writers. A number of relevant Spanish works or Spanish-based editions of classical books (such as Alciati's Emblemata) will be also discussed and placed in relation to the European early modern culture of symbols.

From the 1530s, musical metaphors of the state and the prince acquired a popular visual representation with the emergence of emblem books. As mentioned in the introduction to this volume, the starting point was Hieroglyphica by Horapollo, which triggered the Renaissance ‘fever’ for literature in the form of hieroglyphics and emblems, following the many editions of the manuscript after the editio princeps by Aldo Manuzio in 1505, some of them with illustrations. The fact that Filippo Fasarini translated it into Latin in 1517 added to its popularity. Horapollo, who, as explained above, wished to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics from an allegorical point of view, spoke of the lyre as a metaphor of the human being who is able to unite others; that is, to generate concord among his equals. Evidence of this can be found most clearly in the hieroglyphic entitled Man who binds together and unites his fellows: ‘When they wish to indicate a man who binds together and unites his fellows, they draw a lyre. For the lyre preserves the unity of its sounds’.