Meditating the Unbearable in a Fifteenth-Century Netherlandish Manuscript Prayerbook with Printed Images

• Type of Material: Book Chapter
• Authors: Walter S Melion, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2023-10-26
• Publisher: Emory University Libraries
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © Walter S. Melion, 2023
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): https://brill.com/edcollbook-oa/title/63067?language=en
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Vernacular Books and Their Readers in the Early Age of Print (c. 1450–1600)
• Edition: Series: Intersections, Volume: 85
• Start Page: 328
• End Page: 405
• Place of Publication or Presentation: Leiden, Boston
• Keywords: early printing; illustration; plate tone; religious texts; Israhel van Meckenem; Grosse Passion; Groenendaal Passion
• Research Categories: Religion, History of; Art History

Abstract

Compiled in late fifteenth-century Brabant, Metropolitan Museum Album 2003.476, known as the Groenendaal Passion, is a customised manuscript prayerbook organised around first-state impressions of the Grosse Passion, a series of twelve prints designed, engraved, and published ca. 1480 by the master engraver-goldsmith Israhel van Meckenem, who was resident in Bocholt (North Rhine-Westphalia) [Figs. 11.1–11.20]. All twelve show evidence of plate tone, and the set as a whole is an early printing, exceptionally fine, probably acquired for the express purpose of illustrating the meditative spiritual exercises on the Passion of Christ that the series currently anchors [Figs. 11.4–11.15]. The book takes the form of a rapiarium, a collection of religious texts in Latin and Middle Dutch gathered from various sources in order to facilitate pious devotion and prayerful edification.