Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598), cartograaf en humanist
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Book Series
Publications of the Belgian Royal Library, vol. 1
Emblematic Exhibitions (affixiones) at the Brussels Jesuit College (1630-1685)
A Study of the Commemorative Manuscripts (Royal Library, Brussels)
K. Porteman
- Pages: 200 p.
- Size:230 x 280 mm
- Language(s):English
- Publication Year:1996
- € 25,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
- ISBN: 978-2-503-50517-6
- Paperback
- Available
Subject(s)
Summary
The Royal Library of Belgium intends to make its rich collections
accessible to researchers and to the interested public. The Library
owns a series of seventeeth-century emblem manuscripts with more
than two thousand drawings and poems. In these commemorative
manuscripts the College preserved its annual emblematic exhibitions
for future generations. These affixiones-the phenomenon is perhaps
best represented by the word 'affichages'-were one of the numerous
manifestations with which the Jesuits used to commend the quality
of their education system to the outside world. What is meant is
the exhibiting or suspending of the work of pupils, mostly emblems
or related genres. The Brussels collection (some forty volumes) is
unique and special. It covers the production of a single college
during a long span of time (1630-1685). For researchers of emblems,
as well as for art historians it opens averitable goldmine. The
high artistic as well as literary quality which the volumes so
often achieve lends the collection moreover a rare distinction:
wonderful gouaches (by Antoon Sallaert), no less splendid
calligraphy (e.g. byG.H. Wilmart) and sophisticated, erudite Latin
and Greek verses. Attention is focused on the context in which the
Brussles affixiones came about and functioned: the tuition
(training of the pupils' memory abd their rhetorical abilities,
pastoral and social education), The Brussels festivals of the
Sacrament of the Miracle, the proximity of the Court, the
vicissitudes of the city, the artists. The manuscripts almost
always mention the name of the Poesis and Rhetorica pupils who had
designed an emblem. Their names are listed in appendix: a rich
source for genealogical and prosopographical research (some 1600
names and dates). never before has a similar series been published.