Reading the rebus: the reception of seventeenth-century German rebus broadsheets

Abstract

Rebuses—visual riddles that replace words or syllables by images—were highly popular in early modern Europe. Many broadsheets containing rebus poems were printed in France and Germany in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Although multiple theories on the intended audience and use of these rebuses have been formulated by historians, very little is known about their actual reception, since the extant broadsheets rarely contain any traces of their use by contemporary owners. However, several German rebus riddles have recently come to light that do contain evidence of how they were read and interpreted in early modern times. The broadsheets in question are political in nature: they pertain to the Thirty Years’ War, ridiculing the opponent by means of visual satire. The solutions to these rebus puzzles have been added in early modern hands. These rare traces of the contemporary reception of rebus broadsheets make it possible to follow the thought process of their readers step by step, demonstrating how they tackled the visual riddles and which type of image was most difficult to decipher. In one case, multiple individuals even worked on the solution at different stages, showing how these visual games could be played over and over again. These sources give us a unique insight into early modern visual literacy at work.