The Concept of Imago Agens in Celestina : Text and Image

Abstract

This article explores the potential links between Celestina and the late medieval reinterpretation of the classical mnemotechnic concept of imago agens. On the one hand, it analyses the woodcuts corresponding to the deaths of the main characters and compares them with some examples of late medieval religious imagery that exemplify the technique of the imago agens. On the other, it connects the macabre descriptions of these deaths to the exemplary moral function that imagines agentes developed during the late Middle Ages. Finally, after examining the importance of violence in such textual and visual depictions of death, it concludes that it must have had been intended with a moralising function in mind.