ABSTRACT
The image of the labyrinth is the constantly recurring emblematic form in Orfelin’s Festive Greeting. During the entire poem, the labyrinth appears three times in three separate illustrations: in the Frontispiece, as the Labyrinth with a City, and in the concluding verses. Before any further investigation of this topic, one question ought to be clarified – what might have conditioned the choice of the labyrinth as the main symbol in the book? Previous scholarship has hinted at the problem, but has left its answer completely open.1 One of the possibilities suggested was that the labyrinth might have served as the metaphorical impresa of Mojsej Putnik, alluding to his deeds and virtues as the new bishop.2 However, one has to consider the function of the book and the concept of festival in the Baroque age to find an answer to this question. Although the product of a quite specific cultural atmosphere, as a work of art (both literary and pictorial), this festival book was supposed to conform to general ideas that shaped the Baroque notion of state spectacle. One of them was la meraviglia – the image of the marvellous.
