Non inferiora secutus: Ultra-Soft Premium Cotton T-Shirt
"Not having followed inferior things" - Non inferiora secutus
This flower appears on a page of the emblem book Devises héroïques, published in Lyon in 1557. Claude Paradin compiled the book, and its woodcuts are attributed to the era's Lyonnais master, Bernard Salomon. The emblem is the personal symbol of Marguerite, Queen of Navarre(1492-1549).
The emblem's motto, 'Non inferiora secutus,' isn't Paradin's original invention. It's a quote from line 170 of Book 6 in the Roman poet Virgil’s epic, the Aeneid. The line describes a warrior who faithfully accompanied Aeneas, saying he followed nothing inferior. So, the motto was originally written as a tribute to a warrior.
When Marguerite took this line and paired it with a flower turning toward the sun, the meaning shifted. According to Paradin's 1557 interpretation, the flower follows the sun from east to west, opening and closing based on the sun's altitude. Marguerite used this as a sign that she directed all her actions and thoughts toward God, the 'Great Sun of Justice.'
The meaning deepens within the language itself. Let me explain.
The flower in the image is a marigold. In French, it's called a 'souci.' And the second meaning of the word 'souci' is worry or concern. Marguerite’s life was built on two things: her brother, King Francis I, and her piety. The very name of the flower in her emblem is everyday worries themselves. The motto, in turn, says that these anxieties don't drag her down to inferior, vulgar things.
There's also an older echo from classical literature behind the flower..
In Book 4 of Ovid's Metamorphoses, the nymph Clytie, abandoned by the sun god Sol, takes root in the earth from constantly gazing at the god she loves, transforming into a heliotrope - a flower that turns to follow the sun. So, the image is of a woman taking root in the soil from staring endlessly at her beloved.. Marguerite took this figure and redirected it toward God.
This motif lived on in later generations.
In Mary Stuart’s Oxburgh Hangings, three marigolds turn toward the sun, surrounded again by the phrase 'Non inferiora secutus'. Paradin’s emblem thus evolved from a queen's personal symbol into a widely circulated icon of faith, loyalty, and resilience in early modern Europe.