Prime ricerche sull’uso e funzione del trigramma «IHS» nel frontespizio del libro italiano del Cinquecento

The Trigram for Jesus («IHS») in the Italian title-page of the Fifteenth century: results of preliminary research · The essay points out the diffusion in the Italian sixteenthcentury book of the trigram « IHS », the monogram of Christ used in printer’s devices. After distinguishing the main elements of the device, also thanks to the confrontation with France, focuses on the role played by the press of the Society of Jesus in the second half of the 16th century which, although spreading it in widely circulated texts, did not limit itself to entrusting it to printers commissioned to work in its own presses (as was Luigi Zanetti). The Jesuits offered their trigram to a wider audience of bookmen who created variants of the device and employed it in cultural contexts, sometimes very different from those in which it was born. In doing so, the trigram was subtracted from his original sphere and created a sign capable of traversing space and time, foreshadowing an identity of the more durable and strong frontispiece than who had made it.