View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Institutional Research Information System University of Turin Sign Systems Studies 38(1/4), 2010 1 2 3 4 5 6 Resemblance and camouflage 7 in Graeco-Roman antiquity 8 Massimo Leone 9 Department of Philosophy, University of Turin 10 Via S. Ottavio 20, 10124, Torino, Italy 11 e-mail:
[email protected] 12 13 Abstract. In the twenty-eighth book of the Naturalis Historia Pliny the Elder 14 claims that, if a chameleon’s left leg is roasted together with a herb bearing the 15 same name, and everything is mixed with ointment, cut in lozenges, and stored in 16 a wooden little box, this will bestow on those who own it a perfect camouflage. 17 The ring of Gyges (Plato, etc.), that of Midas (Pliny), the heliotropium (Pliny), the 18 dracontitis (Philostratus): ancient cultures abound with references to objects, 19 recipes, and techniques able to bestow different kinds of invisibility, meant as a 20 perfect resemblance with the environment. At the same time, these same cultures 21 also teem with references to how to avert the perfect camouflage: for instance, by 22 being endowed with a pupula duplex, a double pupil (Ovid). 23 The paper explores such vast corpus of texts from the point of view of a 24 semiotics of cultures, in order to track the roots of a conception of camouflage 25 that, from these ancient cultures on, develops through intricate paths into the 26 contemporary imaginaires (and practices) of invisibility.