See above, p 175, for importance of vowel marks.

37. TITLE-PAGE FOR G. BOSIO, CRUX TRIUMPHANS ET GLORIOSA. Antwerp, 1 617

(Fig. 126)

Engraving; 328 : 210 mm.; below on the left:

Pet. Paul Rubenius invenit;

below

on the right:

Com. Galleus sculpsit.

C o p y exam in ed :

Antwerp, Plantin-Moretus Museum, No. A 777.

Exhibited:

Paris, 19 5 4,

No. 367;

Bologna, 19 6 5,

No. 278.

L i t e r a t u r e : Hecquet,

p. 97, No. 11;

Basan,

p. 173, No. 16;

Smith, Catalogue Raisonné,

ii,

p. 336, No. 1286;

V S .,

p. 196, No. 18;

Rooses, Titels,

No. 5;

Rooses, Rubens- Moretus, 18 8 2-8 3, II,

p. 61;

Rooses, Rubens-Moretus, 18 8 4,

p. 56;

Dutuit,

vi, pp. 213,

214, No. 16;

Rooses,

iv, p. 120; v, p. 55, No. 1248;

Van den Wijngaert,

p. 48, No.

223;

Bouchery-Van den Wijngaert,

pp. 79, 123, 129, 136, 153, fig. 51;

Evers, 19 4 3,

pp. 47, 174, fig. 77;

Held, i960,

pp. 259, 262, 263.

Early in his life the author, Giacomo Bosio (Chivasso, 1544 - Rome, 1627) became a member of the Order of the Knights of Malta and, beginning in

1574» was their representative in the Vatican. In 1581 he was involved in a homicide and disappeared for some years from the Papal court. He later joined the Staff of Cardinal Petrocchini. His moSt famous publication is the history of the Order of Malta, the “HiStoria della Religione et Illma Militia di S. Giovanni Gerosolimitano” (Rome, 1594-1602).1 His Crux Triumphans et

Gloriosa is divided into six Books Starting with eight unnumbered folios, then

six hundred and eighty-nine numbered pages followed by twenty-six unnum­ bered folios containing two indexes, rights and permissions for publication and ending with a sixteenth-century Plantin Press device. There are numerous woodcuts interspersed throughout the publication. The firSt Book describes the names and forms of the Cross, the shape of Christ's Cross and the type of wood used. This Book also discusses where and when the Crucifixion occured and speaks of kings and famous people who were crucified. The question of why ChriSt chose to be crucified is also considered as well as legends of the Cross, of the instruments of the Passion and of the Story of Judas and the thirty pieces of silver. Book Two describes the forms of the Cross which God made in heaven and on earth that prefigure Christ’s death and why ChriSt decided to sacrifice Himself on the Cross. Book Three contains explanations of passages relating to the forms of the Cross as found in the Old and New Testaments and the writings of the Church Fathers. Book Four includes prophecies of the Crucifixion by Prophets and Sibyls. The following Book tells us that, although God had chosen the people of Israel, he did not leave the pagans to their fate. Bosio suggests that perhaps God allowed so many signs and forms of the Cross to appear in Egyptian hieroglyphics in order that the pagans could raise their spirit by observing the mySteries that God brought about by means of the Holy Cross. Book Six tells us that, after the Passion and Resurrection of ChriSt, the indignities, abusive words and insults before the Cross were miraculously changed into honour, glory, triumph and the highest veneration.

Rubens places ChriSt in the top center, Standing on a pedeStal that takes the form of an antique funerary altar, 1 which suggests the idea of Christ’s sacrifice. He supports the Cross in His left hand and points to it with His right. His wounds are visible on His side, feet and hands. However, Rubens’s ChriSt

Triumphant is an idealized Man of Sorrows coming from Italian sources3

and not the suffering and ravaged type generally associated with Northern Art. Faith, holding a chalice in her right hand and a cross in her left, is seated on

the pedeStal to the left. Beneath her feet and on the bottom platform, there is a large globe surmounted by a cross symbolic of Christianity’s conquest of the World.4 On the right is the personification of Divine Love, holding her attributes, the flame in her left hand and a crucifix in the right.5 The papal tiara and St. Peter’s keys are underneath her feet and refer to the worldly power of the Papacy.4 The pedeStal is bordered on the top by the egg and dart ornament and along the sides by volutes, which culminate in a fantastic animal’s foot. A splendid garland of fruit with serpents on either side hangs from the top of the volutes and enframes the bottom seftion of the title. This garland refers to the sweet fruits of Paradise and the serpents symbolize death and resurrection.7 Beneath the garland is the address, bordered at the sides by cherubim and at the top by a cross. This and two other types of crosses that also appear in this image are discussed by Bosio in Book I, chapter 2, p. 6 The cross at the top of the address is called the Crux immissa and takes the form of a plus ( + ) . The Crux commissa is shaped like the letter “T ” (tau in Greek), and we find it in the upper right juSt above the personification of

Divine Love. The Crux decussata looks like the Roman numeral ten (X) and

is found combined with the letter “P ” in the upper left. The latter is explained in Book VI, chapter 13, pp. 625-627, as the sign of the Cross that appeared to Emperor Constantine before the battle againSt Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. Page 627 States that in Eusebius’s Life of ConUantine, Book I, chapter 25, the sign that appeared to the Emperor and caused his conversion to Christianity is described as the letter “P ” interlaced with the letter " X ” and above this sign the words in h o c sign o Vinces (By this you will conquer). The use of the letter “T ” is further discussed in Bosio, Book I, chapter 4, pp. 9, 10. There the Story from Ezekiel 10, is cited where six men entered Jerusalem to kill the inhabitants and only those with the letter “T ” on their foreheads were saved.

Rubens’s design is conceived in terms of monumental tomb sculpture with a dominating figure in the center towering over personifications below and to the sides. He muSt have been thinking of ensembles like Michelangelo’s tombs in the Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo, Florence, Giovanni da Bologna’s

Altar of Liberty, Duomo, Lucca, or Leoni’s Medici Monument, Duomo, Milan.

However, Rubens’s figures are no longer constrained by the architecture or Strong contours, but move out and direftly engage the spectator as in the case of ChriSt or sit precariously on the sides of the pedeStal and reach back

into depth and out into space as do the female personifications. The movement and flesh and blood quality of the figures is typically seventeenth-century and bears a Strong similarity in spirit to what Bernini will do a number of years later.8 Although no specific tomb sculpture can be cited as Rubens’s model, the monumental figure of Christ does come from a very famous and often copied prototype, Michelangelo’s Christ in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome.9 Rubens takes over the antique pose of Michelangelo’s Christ,10 who turns His body to one side and His head to the other. Rubens’s Saviour also cradles the Cross in one arm and His fingers grip the wood in a similar way. This was not the firät time that the Fleming used this Michelangelo sculpture as a model. Around 16 15 this type appears in Rubens’s St. AuguStine between Christ and

the Virgin, Academia de San Fernando, Madrid,11, later, around 1618, in

the painting of Christ and the Four Penitent Sinners, Alte Pinakothek, Munich12 and in an engraving by Egbert van Panderen after a composition by Rubens representing The Intercession of the Virgin. 13 A more distantly related type is also evident in Rubens’s ca. 16 10 -12 composition of Christ as

Salvator Mundi, preserved in a copy of the loSt original in the National

Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.14 The latter is really based on Michiel Coxcie’s design of this subjeft engraved by Comelis Cort.1s

Bosio began negotiating by mail from Milan with Moretus for a new Latin edition of his previously published Italian text18 as early as Oftober 25, 1614 (Appendix I, p. 368 [ n ] ) . Moretus wrote to Bosio in Rome on March 6, 1615, informing him that he has finally received the book along with the illustrations which he will have improved in Antwerp. Furthermore, Moretus added that the illustration for the title needed a larger format (Appendix I, p. 369 [ 12 ] ) . Some nine months later, on December 21, 1615, the publisher wrote again to Bosio, informing him that he would Start printing the Trium­

phant Cross the following month, that he had already purchased the necessary

paper and that he would have a new frontispiece engraved because the one cut in Rome could not be adapted to the format of the new edition (Appendix I, p. 369 [ 13 ] ) . The book was printed shortly before May 22, 1617, as attested to in another letter from Moretus to the author (Appendix I, p. 369 [14 ]). In a letter of February 4, 1617, Moretus had informed Leonard Lessius that his De JuStitia et Jure could not yet be printed because Bosio was urging that his book should be finished (Appendix I, pp. 404,405 [96]). Moreover, between Oftober 5 , 1616, and May 2 9 ,16 17 , Theodore Galle was paid 75 guilders for

the copper and the plate cut by Cornells Galle after Rubens’s design. In this same list of payments, we learn that 1,275 sheets of the title were run off at a coSt of 20 Stuivers the hundred or 12 guilders 15 Stuivers in all (Appendix III, p. 461 [33, 34]). Moretus sold the book for 6 guilders 10 Stuivers when printed on ordinary paper, for 7 guilders on “fin median” paper and for 7 guilders 10 Stuivers on white paper (Appendix II, p. 434 [9 ]). There is a proof for this Galle engraving in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, where the contrails between the light and shadow areas are Stronger than in either the drawing or the engraving.17 The plate is preserved in the Plantin-Moretus Museum, Antwerp.18

1 G. De Caro, in Dizionario biografco degli Italiani, xiii, Rome, 19 7 1, pp. 261-264. 2 For an earlier use of this type by Rubens, see above, No. 29, Fig. 100.

3 Cf. Giovanni Bellini, National Gallery, London (M. Davies, National Gallery Cata­ logues. The earlier Italian Schools, London, 19 5 1, pp. 47, 48, No. 12 33) and Michel­ angelo, S. Maria sopra Minerva, Rome (C. de Tolnay, Michelangelo, hi, Princeton, 1948, pp. 89-95, %«• 68-70).

4 This juxtaposition of Faith and the globe is repeated, with some changes, in Rubens’s sketch for The Triumph of the EuchariSt over Philosophy, Science, Poetry and Nature, Royal Museum, Brussels (d’HulSt, 1968, No. 18, fig. 37).

5 For a discussion of this type and more specifically the meaning of the flame see R. Freydan, The Evolution of the Caritas Figure in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes,

XI,

1948,

pp.

68, 73,

7 4. 7 8.

4 Cf. Knipping, 11, p. 144, fig. 99.

7 Cf. a similar garland on the pedestal of the Portrait of Philip Rubens in the latter’s S. ASterii Amaseae Homiliae of 16 15 (No. 29; Fig. xoo).

8 Held, i960, pp. 262, 263.

9 For the copies by sculptors and engravers see C. de Tolnay, op. cit., in, pp. 93, 94, 180. m C. de Tolnay, op. cit., m, pp. 9 0 ,17 9 .

11 For documentation see Vlieghe, Saints, 1, pp. 97, 98, No. 66, Fig. 117 . 12 K.d.K., p. 176 ; Evers, 1942, p. 143, fig. 70.

13 H. Thode, Michelangelo. Kritische Untersuchungen über seine Werke, il, Berlin, 1908, p. 269.

14 For documentation see Vlieghe, Saints, 1, pp. 38, 39, No. 6, Fig. 14.

15 K . Arndt, Studien zu Georg Petel, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, ix, 1967, p. 198, figs. 15 , 16.

i* La triomfante e gloriosa croce trattato di Jacomo Bosio ..., Rome, 16 10 , in-f°; see the copy in the Plantin-Moretus Museum, Antwerp, No. B 558.

17 Inv, No. Cc 3 1, f° 87; engraving, 325 : 2 1 1 mm., margin; Dutuit, vi, p, 214, 18 Inv. No. K P 162 D ; 334 : 218 mm.

3 7a.

TITLE-PAGE FOR G. BOSIO, CRUX TRIUMPHANS ET GLORIOSA: DRAWING OR OIL

SKETCH

Technique and measurements unknown.

Whereabouts unknown; presumably loft.

C

o py

:

Drawing (Fig. 12 7 )

by

Cornelis Galle (?), London, Victoria and Albert Museum, No. Dyce 544; pen and brown ink and brown wash; 3 15 : 205 mm,, traced for transfer; for references, see No. 37b.

Because of the precise working out of the details and the awkward rendering of such forms as Christ's left hand, the anatomy of the allegorical figures, the details of the garland, the angel’s heads and the architecture, the Victoria and Albert Museum drawing cannot be the original Rubens. Although the technique is different, these weaknesses are similar to those found in the working drawing in Dijon (Fig. 192) made for Hugo’s Obsidio Bredana (No. 55; Fig. 190). One can suggest, therefore, that the Victoria and Albert Museum design very likely was drawn by the engraver, Cornelis Galle, or someone in his shop after the loSt original by Rubens.1 The only changes between the working drawing and the engraving can be seen in the greater contrats between the light and dark areas in the print and a few minor corrections in the shadow patterns. Balthasar Moretus paid Rubens 20 guilders for his design at an unknown date between 1624 and 1640 (Appendix III, p. 000 [2 ]).

1 For more details see text p. 28.

3 7b. TITLE-PAGE FOR G. BOSIO, CRUX TRIUMPHANS

ET

GLORIOSA: DRAWING (F ig . 1 2 7 ) Pen and brown ink and brown wash; 3 15 : 205 mm.; traced for transfer.

London, Viâoria and Albert Museum. Inv. No. Dyce 544.

P rovenance:

H. Tersmitten, sale, Amsterdam (J. Vollbragt), 23 September 1754 et seqq., lot 439; G. Huquier (Orleans-Paris, 16 9 5 -17 7 2 ), sale, Amsterdam (Yver), 14 September 17 6 1 et seqq., lot 552; D. Muiiman, sale, Amsterdam (Jan de Bosch Jeronimusz, Ploos van Amitel, de Winter), 29-30 March 1773, teekeningen konftboek H., lot 572 (“ ... Pen gewassen met OoStind. Inkt, hoog 12 i/2, breed 8 duim” ), bought

by P. Y ver; D. Marsbag & Mr. Cxxx, sale, Amsterdam (Ploos van AmStel, de Winter, Yver), 30 Oftober 1775

et seqq.,

lot 208; Rev. A. Dyce (London, 179 8 -18 6 9 ); bequeathed to the Museum by A. Dyce in 1869.

Lit e r a t u r e:

Catalogue of the Paintings, Miniatures, Drawings, Engravings ... bequea­

thed by the Reverend Alexander Dyce,

London, 1874, N o. 544;

Rooses,

v, p. 55, No. 12 4 8 ; K .T . Parker,

Unpublished Drawings by Rubens in the Victoria and Albert

Museum, Old Mailer Drawings,

rv, No. 14 , September 1929, p. 20;

Held, 1974,

p. 252.

Although Burchard does not discuss the attribution of this sheet to Rubens, he seems to accept Parker’s idea that Rubens executed it. For comments, see No. 37a.

38.

TITLE-PAGE FOR L. LESSIUS, DE JUSTITIA ET JURE.

Antwerp, 1 617 (Fig. 128)

Engraving; 327 : 198 mm.; below on the left:

Pet. Paul. Rubenius invent.;

below on the right:

Cor. Galleus sculpsit.

Co p ye x a m in e d: Antwerp, Plantin-Moretus Museum, No. A 557.

E x h ib ite d :

Paris, 1954,

No. 368;

Bologna, 1965,

No. 279.

Lit e r a t u r e:

Basan,

pp. 178, 179, No. 30;

Smith, Catalogue Raisonné,

11, pp. 338,

3 3 9» No. 130 2 ;

Rooses, Titels,

under No. 1 1 ;

Rooses, Rubens-Moretus,

1882-83, I» p. 282; II, pp. 6 1, 62;

Rooses, Rubens-Moretus, 1884,

pp. 25, 56, 57;

Rooses,

IV, p. 12 0 ; v, pp. 90, 9 1, 118 , No. 1279, pi. 369; Ch. Van SuÙ,

Léonard Lessius (1554-1623),

Paris-Brussels, 1930, p. 18 5 ;

Van den Wijngaert,

p. 50, No. 2 3 3 ;

Bouchery-Van den

Wijngaert,

pp. 79, 12 3, 129, 137 , fig. 52;

Evers, 1943,

pp. 47, 17 5 ; G. de Tervarent,

Les Enigmes de l'Art. L'Héritage Antique,

Paris, 1946, pp. 3 9 - 4 1; W , Deonna,

La

Politique par P.P. Rubens, Revue belge de philologie et d’biiïoire,

x x x i, 19 53, pp.

532 -5 34 ;

Held, i960,

pp. 263, 268, note 45.

The author of this book, Professor Leonard Lessius (Brecht, 1554 - Louvain 1623) or Leys, was born at Brecht near Antwerp and later became a member of the Jesuit Order. He taught philosophy at Douai and from 1585-1605 theology at the University of Louvain where he died.1 The book contains eight hundred and eight in-folio pages of text, followed by forty-three unnumbered pages, including a dedication to Albert of Austria by Lessius, an index and the necessary permissions to print the book. Lessius writes a continuous commentary on Saint Thomas [Aquinas]. The text is concerned

with Justice and Right and the remaining cardinal virtues, following Saint Thomas’s subdivisions. He juxtaposes the virtues and vices in each of four Books. In the firft Book he discusses the firSt cardinal virtue, Prudence, and its opposites Imprudence, Negligence, Ignorance, etc. Book II is concerned with Justice and the Law and the virtues related to JuStice as opposed to the vices. The third Book is concerned with Fortitude, which is considered to be the third cardinal virtue. The laSt volume deals with the fourth cardinal virtue, Temperance, and its four types: Sobriety, Abstinence, ChaStity and Virginity. These are opposed to Gluttony, Drunkenness and Excess. Lessius further divides Temperance into other virtues such as Continence, Clemency and ModeSty as opposed to the vices of Fury, Cruelty and Pride.

Rubens’s frontispiece is dominated by AStraea or Themis, the goddess of JuStice, who is seated in the center above the oval-framed book title, holding one of her attributes, the caduceus, symbol of peace, in her right hand and a small bowl in the left. She was the laSt deity to leave the earth after the Golden Age and became the constellation Virgo. Rubens appears to follow this concept as found in Valeriano’s description in presenting JuStice. According to the latter's text, the Virgin, symbol of JuStice, is placed on the arc of the zodiac between a lion and a set of scales which is precisely what we have here.2 Although the upper seftion can be read independently of the middle and bottom parts, Rubens seems to have meant them to be seen as a whole. In the upper left, the Lion muSt not be interpreted solely in terms of the signs of the zodiac, the month of July, but also as Fortitude. Below on the left one finds a female figure holding a snake in her right hand and wearing a crown in the shape of a fortress. The crown refers to a city or country and the snake to Prudence and Sovereignty. She is really an image of Wise Government. This combined with the lion above suggests that fortitude is necessary for wise and juft government. In the upper right, Rubens has included scales, symbol of JuStice and the months of September and Oftober. Beneath the scales Stands a five-breaSted female holding flowers in her left hand and supporting an upside-down cornucopia. Within the context of this book, which specifically deals with the Virtues, this many-breaSted female could be the personification of Temperance. However, it is difficult to maintain this notion because Temperance usually is depifted performing other aftivities such as pouring water into a vase or cup or holding a bridle. Another explanation might be that she personifies the abundance of nature during peaceful and juSt

times. When scales and abundance are combined, they also connote fairness while the caduceus and the cornucopia in the same image refer to a blissful and happy public. Rubens has placed two chained figures seated back to back

In document CORPUS RUBENIANUM LUDWIG BURCHARD (Page 186-197)