Chapter 1: The Artist in Harmony with his Archetype: Deus artifex

1. Deux artifex and the Para Painting as a liberal art

2. Artistic and spiritual imitation of the divine Idea

3. Imitatio Christi and Deus pictor in Lope, Cervantes and Calderdon

Notes to Chapter 1

Chapter 2: The Expression of an Artistic Dilemma in the Allegorization of the Myth of Prometheus

4. The relationship of the artist's concetto to the Platonic Idea

5. The portraitist as Prometheus in Gongora and Paravicino

6. Disillusionment with art's incapacity to equal nature

Notes to Chapter 2

Chapter 3: Ekphrasis as Inscription

7. Epitaphs and inscriptions as commentary on works of art

8. Didactic rhetoric in epitaphs

9. The inscription as key to the iconography of a monument

10. The death of Prometheus: Inscriptions on the tombs of artists in Gongora and Paravicino

Notes to Chapter 3

Chapter 4: The Tradition of Ekphrasis as the Decipherment of a Hieroglyph

11. Allegorical portraiture from Renaissance to Baroque

12. Portraiture "a lo divino"

13. Gongora interprets an allegorical portrait in "Pintado he visto al Amor'

14. The Abuse of Allegory

Notes to Chapter 4

Chapter 5: The Poet as Painter of Cosmic Harmonie

15. "Escrito 'sta en mi alma"

16. Perspectives on the verbal 'portrait"

17. Macrocosm and Microcosm: the use of architectural analogies in poetic descriptions

Notes to Chapter 5

Conclusion

A Selected Bibliography

Illustrations