V. Changing the concept of illustration

Jan David. Veridicus Christianus. – Anvers: Jan I Moretus, 1606. In-4.

The Jesuit Joannes David (Kortrijk, 1546-Antwerp, 1613), rector of several Flemish colleges and a formidable polemicist, designed a catechism, the title page of which was strongly inspired by the emblem format. In 1593, he published a collection of 100 distichs in the form of couplets of questions and answers about the main tenets of the Catholic faith before composing detailed comments to each one.

   These elements are gathered together in an imaginative way, beginning in 1601, under the title Veridicus Christianus: the lengthy commentaries (400 pages) were set and printed in the workshop of the Plantin-Moretuses while the Antwerp engraver Theodore Galle placed each distich below a copper plate, crowned by an image and a title, thus highlighting the tripartite structure of the emblematic system.

   Reference letters integrated into the image allow the reader to return to a particular passage in the commentaries that clarified or interpreted them.

Mazarine: 4° A 13475 A

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