Understanding McLuhan/Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso/pc/mcluhan.dxr/08632_Field_TCGG T397.txt

Text File | 1996-04-10 | 974b | 16 lines

     which—made of wood or of leather padded with bombast
     and covered with plaster—was dressed in the coronation
     garments or, later on, in the parliamentary robe. The
     effigy displayed the insignia of sovereignty: on the head
     of the image (worked apparently since Henry VII after the
     death mask) there was the crown, while the artificial
     hands held orb and sceptre. Wherever the circumstances
     were not to the contrary, the effigies were henceforth
     used at the burials of royalty: enclosed in the coffin of
     lead, which itself was encased in a casket of wood, there
     rested the corpse of the king, his mortal and normally
     visible—though now invisible—body natural; whereas his
     normally invisible body politic was on this occasion visibly
     displayed by the effigy in its pompous regalia: a persona
     ficta —the effigy—impersonating a persona ficta —the
     Dignitas.