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Frontispiece

After lengthy discussion with Hobbes, the Parisian Abraham Bosse created the etching for the book's frontispiece in the geometrico style which Bosse himself had refined. It is similar in organization to the frontispiece of Hobbes' De Cive (1642), created by Jean Matheus. The frontispiece has two main elements, of which the upper part is by far the most striking. In it we see a giant crowned figure emerging from the landscape, clutching a sword and a crosier, beneath a quote from the Book of Job "Non est potestas Super Terram quae Comparetur ei" (There is no power on earth to be compared to him), linking the figure to the monster of that book. The torso and arms of the figure are composed of over three hundred persons, in the style of Giuseppe Arcimboldo; all are facing inwards with just the giant's head having visible features. (A manuscript of Leviathan created for Charles II in 1651 has notable differences - a different main head but significantly the body is also composed of many faces, all looking outwards from the body and with a range of expressions.) The lower portion is a triptych, framed in a wooden border. The center form contains the title on an ornate curtain. The two sides reflect the sword and crosier of the main figure - earthly power on the left and the powers of the church on the right. Each side element reflects the equivalent power - castle to church, crown to mitre, cannon to excommunication, weapons to logic, and the battlefield to the religious courts. The giant holds the symbols of both sides, reflecting the union of secular and spiritual in the sovereign, but the construction of the torso also makes the figure the state.