The Minotaur and Harpocrates Finger in the Mouth. Sources and Reasons for Two Empresas in the «Libro del secretario» by Gabriel Pérez del Barrio Angulo

Abstract

This article examines two impresas featured in some editions of the book that Gabriel
Pérez del Barrio Angulo wrote on the figure of the secretary, a work praised in
the paratexts of Spain's greatest authors in the early seventeenth century. Both the book
and the depiction of the minotaur in the silent language of impresa aim to reinforce the
dignity of the secretary's profession so as not to limit it to that of an official versed in
rhetorical devices that may turn useful in epistolary correspondence. The author, in the
service of the fourth Marquis de los Vélez, evokes and elaborates on multiple traditions,
and, with the expressive gesture of the finger on his lips, warns the minotaur-secretary that
the court is a labyrinth which, a few years earlier, had cost dearly to Antonio Pérez who
had broken the walls of silence and secrecy. In this way, Pérez del Barrio Angulo once
again proclaims that his role is to be the keeper of the Lord's secrets, his sacristy, his voice,
his hand, and his concept, just as the impresa of another secretary, Gonzalvo Pérez, had
highlighted.