The emergence of ekphrasis as an aesthetic category in the Renaissance was influenced by ancient school rhetoric and literary tradition, from the Homeric epic to the Byzantine popularization of ekphrastic subgenres. This publication approaches the humanistic understanding of ekphrasis, shedding light on previously little-noted phenomena such as the school rhetorical characteristic of Giorgio Vasari's Vite or the traces of natural philosophical and technical descriptions in Renaissance visual culture, from emblem books and scientific treatises to sottobosco paintings and experimental poetry of the early Baroque, using the example of Luis de Góngora.

• Comprehensive study of the influence of the school rhetorical and literary tradition of ekphrasis on Renaissance visual culture

• Special focus on the transmission and dissemination of early modern concepts of nature and ecology through emblem collections