Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as Artisans of the Heart and Home in Manuscript MPM R 35 “Vita S. Joseph beatissimae Virginis sponsi” of ca. 1600

• Type of Material: Book Chapter
• Authors: Walter S Melion, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2021-12-13
• Publisher: Emory University Libraries
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © Walter S. Melion, 2022
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): https://brill.com/edcollbook-oa/title/60506?language=en
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Early Modern Privacy: Sources and Approaches
• Edition: Intersections, Volume 78
• Start Page: 317
• End Page: 363
• Place of Publication or Presentation: Leiden, Boston
• Keywords: 17th century; Antwerp; vita Christ; spiritual properties; Catholic votaries; devotion
• Research Categories: Art History; Religion, History of

Abstract

How and why did Catholic votaries in early seventeenth-century Antwerp allegorise the relation between the material circumstances and spiritual properties of the vita Christi? And how was this relation analogised to that between public and private zones of devotion? These questions prove crucial to our understanding of manuscript MPM R 35 Vita S. Joseph beatissimae Virginis sponsi patriarcharum maximi iconibus delineata ac versiculis ornata (Life of St. Joseph, Husband of the Most Blessed Virgin, Greatest of the Patriarchs, Portrayed in Images and Ornamented with Verses), a small octavo volume housed in the printroom of the Plantin Moretus Museum [Figs. 15.1–15.24]. The book consists of forty-six engraved images comprising two complete print series: the Vita S. Joseph [Figs. 15.1–15.5, 15.19–15.24], published and engraved by Theodoor Galle, perhaps with the assistance of his brother Cornelis and/or his son Jan, and the Cor Iesu amanti sacrum (Heart of Jesus Sacred to the Loving Votary or, alternatively, Heart Sacred to the Loving Votary of Jesus), designed, engraved, and published by Antoon II Wierix before 1604 [Figs. 15.6–15.18].