VI. Triumphant baroque

Henri-Thomas Chifflet. Series chronologica imperatorum Romanorum. – Anvers: Officina Plantiniana, 1655. In-4.

The Chifflets formed a dynasty of scholars from Franche-Comté – physicians, clergymen and officers – and served Spain in their country as well as in the Low Countries. They collaborated with the Plantin firm on some forty religious, historical and learned works. Some even established close relationships with the Antwerp company, such as Philippe, chaplain to Isabella of Austria and to the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand, whose numerous letters addressed to Balthasar i are preserved. Indeed, like their treatises on spirituality, the ‘antiquarian’ works were certainly part of the publishing strategy of the Moretuses, who always endeavoured to publish them to the highest standard of exceptional quality, both from the point of view of text as illustration. For this work on antique numismatics, the title page and the dedication to Archduke Léopold Guillaume (governor of the Low Countries) were printed exclusively in roman capitals in a page layout modelled after classical epigraphy.

Mazarine: 4° 18321-2

Next chapter