Author: HESIUS (Gulielmus):
Title: Emblemata Sacra de Fide, Spe, Charitate.
Description: Antuverpiae [Antwerp] Ex Officina Plantinana Balthasaris Moreti, 1636. 12mo, 146 x 77 mms., pp. [2] 3 - 404 [405 - 406 privileges, 407 colophon, 408 blank], , 2 engraved vignette of angelic cherub on page 6, triangle image on page 8, cipher on page 10, geometric design on page 18, 41 engraved emblems within text in de Fide, 30 emblems in Spe, and 40 emblems in Charitate, additional engraved emblems on pages 147, and 263, all images present, bound in contemporary vellum, raised bands on spine, ink title on spine. A very good copy Hesius' Emblemata Sacra is probably the best-known of the books of sacred emblems published in the late 16th century and throughout the 17th century, though not all the images in this volume could be designated sacred. Alison Saunders in The Seventeenth-century French Emblem: A Study in Diversity provides information about the print history of the emblems: "In the original version published by Lucas Jennis in 1622 the collection comprised only fifty emblems, but in 1624 it was doubled in size, and the original collection became Part 1 of a 2-part collection: Emblemata sacra...." The woodcuts are by Jan Christoffel Jegher after Erasmus Quellinus. The emblems are striking and natural. John Manning in The Emblem Tradition in the Low Countries records that "Hesius had the good fortune to employ the brilliant woodcut designer Christoffel Jegher to fashion his cherubs for the picturae. They delightedly play all sorts of musical instruments and games...." Mario Praz: Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery (2001). See also, Henry Green: Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers (1870).

Keywords: emblems engraving prose


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