The frontispiece of the 1651 edition

of Hobbes's Leviathan

[Click here for high-resolution image of original print in the collection of the British Museum.]

This is the frontispiece (title-page) of the first edition of Leviathan, printed in 1651. It was drawn and engraved according to Hobbes's detailed instructions. The name of the artist is unrecorded.

The image in the upper portion of the frontispiece is probably the most famous graphic representations in the history of political Western political thought. Its basic allegorical meaning is clear enough, but the meaning of its details has long been subject to speculation and debate . Is the giant head is supposed to resemble the executed King Charles I? Or his exiled son, Charles II, who at the time was plotting invasion to recover the crown? Or might it more closely resemble Oliver Cromwell, the de facto head of state at the time? Might it be a composite of all three? Or none?

Some have thought that the small figures composing the body of the giant look up at the massive crowned head with worshipful reverence. But in that case, why are they all wearing hats? (Subjects of a king were always expected to take off their hats in his presence.) Is it merely a coincidence that they seem reminiscent of the members of Parliament depiction of Parliament in the newly-designed Great Seal of the Commonwealth of England, issued that same year?

A further mystery lies in the fact that a different version of this image also exists - also commissioned by Hobbes. At the time the book was being published, Hobbes also ordered a special presentation copy (handwritten, in calligraphy), as a gift to the exiled Charles II. The overall design of the title page is much the same as in the printed book -- but with one significant difference: the torso and arms consist not in tiny standing figures looking up at the giant face, their backs turned to the viewer, but instead in an array of faces looking forward. Scholars believe that the same artist was likely responsible for both designs, but it's unknown which of the two was done earlier. (The artist's identity is also a matter of speculation.)

Apart from the massive giant rising on the horizon, the town and landscape below appears tranquil. But if you look very closely, you'll see that there are tiny figures - both within, and outside the town walls - who appear to be bearing arms. And something else, too: in the lower-most foreground, just to the left of the church, two other tiny figures seem to have weirdly-shaped heads. Some scholars have recently argued that they're supposed to be plague doctors - wearing the long-beaked masks that plague doctors wore to keep distance from the infected.

The Latin epigraph above the image reads: "Non est potestas Super Terram quae Comparatur eis." ("There is no power on earth to be compared with it," Job 41:24.) This quotation from the Biblical Book of Job refers to the legendary sea-creature Leviathan (possibly a whale). Hobbes quotes this same verse near the end of Chapter 28, "Of Punishments, and Rewards" (28.27). There are only two other places in the text where the name Leviathan occurs: in the opening lines of the Introduction, and near the end of Chapter 17, "Of the Causes, Generation, and Definition of a Commonwealth" (17.13).

"Representation" in Leviathan

A PERSON, is he, whose words or actions are considered, either as his own, or as representing the words or actions of any other man, or of any other thing to whom they are attributed, whether truly or by fiction.

When they are considered as his own, then he is called a natural person, and when they are considered as representing the words and actions of another, then is he a feigned or artificial person.

The word Person is Latin, instead whereof the Greeks have προσωπον ῀[prosōpon], which signifies the face, as persona in Latin signifies the disguise, or outward appearance of a man, counterfeited on the stage, and sometimes more particularly that part of it, which disguiseth the face, as a mask or visard. And from the stage, hath been translated to any Representer of speech and action, as well in Tribunals, as Theaters. So that a Person, is the same that an Actor is, both on the stage and in common conversation; and to Personate is to act, or represent, himself or another; and he that acteth another, is said to bear his Person, or act in his name.

(Leviathan, Chapter 16, §§ 1-3)

The Face of Leviathan?

	Detail from a portrait by Anthony Van Dyke, 1633 (Queen's Gallery, Windsor Castle)		Charles I (1600-1649) King of England 1635-1649 ➙ Protracted conflicts between King Charles and Parliament gave rise to the English Civil War of 1642 to 1648., ending in the defeat his forces to Parliament's army. He was put on trial before a specially-convoked High Court of Parliament, and beheaded in 1649.

	Portrait by Robert Walker, 1649. (National Portrait Gallery, London)		Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) Captain-General & Commander-in-Chief ("...of all Forces Raised or To be Raised at the Authority of Parliament within the the Commonwealth of England") 1649-1653 ➙ An officer under Cromwell's command carried out the 1648 purge of Parliament that expelled all members suspected of continued deference to the king, thereby paving the way for his trial and execution the following year. Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England 1653-1658

	Portrait by Philippe de Champaigne, 1653. (Cleveland Museum of Art)		Charles II (1630-1685) ➙ Around the time Hobbes was writing Leviathan, Charles II was engaged a series of failed attempts to mount an invasion of England. He eventually came to the throne at the invitation of (a newly-elected) Parliament, two years after Cromwell's death. King of England 1660-1685

**The Body of Leviathan?**

Great Seal of the Commonwealth of England 1651.jpg

The Great Seal of
the Commonwealth of England, 1651
Print (etching). (British Museum, London)
The inscription reads: "In the Third Yeare of Freedome by Gods Blessing Restored, 1651"

The Presentation Copy (Egerton Manuscript)

This is the upper-portion of the hand-drawn version of the frontispiece, in the custom bound manuscript copy of the book that Hobbes commissioned as a gift for the exiled Charles II. (A decade before, at the English royal court in exile in Paris. Hobbes had been the exiled prince's math tutor. In later years Charles reportedly said that Hobbes was "the strangest fellow he had ever met.") This hand-drawn version conforms fairly closely to the printed version, with the notable difference that here the giant's body is composed of an array of human faces. Nothing is known for certain about whether this design preceded the better-known one in the published engraving, or vice versa. Nor is anything known for certain as to Hobbes's reason (if any) for the change. All of this has been a matter of intense speculation, and heated disagreement, among scholars.

Some (but not all) scholars have argued that the drawing may be the work of the French artist Abraham Bosse,. suggesting that Hobbes may have gotten his idea for the design from the 1634 etching by Bosse reproduced below. In that etching, the faces depicted on the man's coat are jeering women (the reason for the man's dejected demeanor).

Abraham Bosse, "L'homme fourrée de malice" ("The man coated in malice"), 1634. Etching. (Bibliothèque National de France)

Life and Death under Leviathan?

Leviathan fr plague doctors.jpg

Some scholars have claimed that that these two figures depicted in the foreground of the townscape are wearing the peculiar beaked masks of plague doctors (as illustrated below).

"Doktor Schnabel von Rom" ("Plague Doctor from Rome"), 1721 engraving by Paul Fürst.