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Bibliotheca imaginis figuratae

These recent years have seen the development of intercultural studies and pluridisciplinary research. One of the main consequences is the growing interest for text and image relationships in the early modern age, at the crossroads of history and art history, theology, linguistics, rhetoric and emblematics.
It is well known that, from the end of the 16th century to the end of the 18th, the Society of Jesus played a central part in the institution of these relationships, writing and publishing treatises, as well as teaching rhetoric and emblematics in their colleges across the Old and the New World. Because their artistic and scientific production is at the core of scholarly research, and because, at the same time, this production is not easily available to the researchers, especially outside of Europe, it appeared necessary to give to the scientific community an easy access through the Bibliotheca imaginis figuratae.
Mainly based on works held at the Maurits Sabbebibliotheek at the K.U.Leuven (Belgium) — one of the greatest collections of jesuitica in Europe — this digital library holds the most important 17th century treatises of the imago figurata field and those works including a reflection about the connections between words and images, written by members (or former members, like E. Tesauro) of the Society.
This project was conceived by Prof. Anne-Elisabeth Spica (Université de Metz, France), thanks to a fellowship of the Institut universitaire de France; it was made possible and implemented by the close collaboration of Prof. Spica with the Faculty of Theology at the K.U.Leuven  (Prof. Rob Prof. Rob Faesen S.J., Bernard Deprez and Dirk Kinnaes [Libis]) and the Group for Early Modern Cultural Analysis at the UCL (Belgium) (Dr. Agnès Guiderdoni and Dr. Ralph Dekoninck).

Its purposes are threefold:

1. Text and image

Devoted to theoretical issues, the B.I.F. offers a necessary complement to other digital libraries built around emblem book collections (Glasgow, Urbana-Champaign, Bergamo), spirituality, history and art history in the early modern age. At the same time, it presents a large sample of material about the status of the linguistic and iconic sign in the early modern age.

2. Jesuits in the early modern age

As a representative survey of Jesuit rhetoric treatises, it allows for a better knowledge of the intellectual and “literary” commitments of the Society.  Presenting for the first time a sizeable amount of works of Maximilianus Sandaeus S.J. (Maximiliaan van der Sandt, 1578-1656), it will hopefully invite researchers to discover this major 17th-century Jesuit personality.

3. Books and engravings

Including a fairly good number of engraved books, it offers a rich set of iconographic material in its spiritual, rhetorical and artistic contexts.

For easy consultation, all books are entirely available in high quality image-mode, accompanied by three extensive indexes in text-mode: names, titles and notions/subjects. The scholar interested in book history will also find a large sample of typographic material and engravings, indexed by descriptive metadata.

As the list of scanned and posted books gradually increases, the titles of the books will appear below from where it is possible to click through to the books themselves:

Hugo (Herman), De Prima scribendi Origine, et universa rei litterariae antiquitate, Antverpiae: Plantin Moretus, 1617.

Richeome (Louis), Tableaux Sacrez des Figures mystiques, du Tres Auguste Sacrifice et Sacrement de l'Eucharistie, Dediez à la tres chrestienne Royne de France et de Navarre Marie de Medicis [1601], Paris: L. Sonnius, 1601.

Richeome (Louis) La peinture spirituelle, ou: L'art d'admirer, aimer et louer Dieu en toutes ses oeuvres, et tirer de toutes profit salutere, Lyon: Chez Pierre Rigaud, 1611

Possevinus (Antonius), Tractatio de poesi (!) & pictura ethnica, humana & fabulosa collata cum vera, honesta & sacra, Lugduni: Pillehotte, 1594

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