‎NATALIS Hieronymus - Jérôme NADAL - Jan WIERICX - Antoon WIERICX - Hieronymus WIERICX - Adriaen COLLAERT - Karel de MALLERY (engravers) - Bernardus PASSARO (designer) :‎
‎"Evangelicae Historiae Imagines. Ex ordine Evangeliorum, quae toto anno in Missae Sacreficio recitantur, in ordinem temporis vitae Christi digestae. (Suite of 154 engravings ) [BOUND WITH] Adnotationes et meditationes in evangelia quae in sacrosancto missae sacrificio toto anno leguntur ; cum Evangeliorum concordantia...Editio Ultima"‎

‎" Antverpiae (Antwerpen), ex Officina Plantiniana, apud Ioannem Moretum, 1607, in-folio, 34 x 23,5 cm, engraved title page + (10) nn pp + 636 pp + (8)nn pp ( index, approbatio, printer's mark). Bound before the text part of the '' Adnotationes'' is the complete suite ( engraved title + 153 plates) of the '' Evangelicae Historiae Imagines''. Bound in 17th c. French red morocco, smooth spine, all edges gilt, boards with gilt floral fillets decoration . Binding with some restoration at the extremities and the joints. All pages ( text and engravings) are ruled. Some minor stains or thumbing at some pages but overall a very fine copy with large margins. Second edition ( first Plantin edition) of the commentary of Jerome Nadal ( Natalis ) with the bible illustrations by the Wierickx brothers. The first edition of this suite of engravings , a real masterpiece of Flemish bookillustration in the 16th century, appeared anonymously in Antwerp in 1593 and without the text. It was printed by Nutius. The publishers were the Antwerp Jesuits **. An explanatory text by Natalis together with the plates was published one year after the suite . (in 1594). The engavings were commissioned by the Headquarters of the Jesuit Order in Rome. From correspondance by Christophe Plantin we know that he was involved in this project from 1587 onwards. But he never published this suite. ( It was done by the Antwerp Jesuits). In 1605 Plantin's son in law Jan Moretus aquired the plates from Carolus Scribanus - the head of the Antwerp Jesuit College. Antoon Wiericx engraved 58 plates, 57 were done by Hieronymus Wiericx, 17 by Jan Wiericx , 11 by Adriaen Collaert, 9 by Karel de Mallery, 1 by Jan Collaert and 1 by the unkown engraver I.N. The drawings were made by the Roman draughtsman B.Passaro and are preserved in the Brussels Royal Library. In 1607 Moretus published the plates together with Nadal's commentary ( our copy here is from this edition). This is a very fine copy of one of the most outstanding illustrated books of the 16th century , the ultimate Jesuit counter-reformatory answer ; published in the most northern bastion of Roman Catholic Europe, against Protestant Northern Europe. ** See Manuel Insolara... La spiritualité en images aux Pays-Bas...Leuven, 1996, pp. 135-141. Also : P.A.Fabre on the illustrations in '' Les Jésuites à l'age baroque ''. Grenoble, 1996."‎

Reference : 49044

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