Jesuits

On 25 September 1710 Pope Clement XI finally promulgated the 1704 decree Cum Deus optimus which condemned the toleration of certain Confucian rituals among Chinese Catholic converts and the use of the Chinese terms tian and Shangdi to refer to the Christian God. This papal decision antagonised the Kangxi Emperor and devastated the Jesuit China mission. Although the Jesuits were prohibited from publicly refuting the decree the Flemish Jesuit François Noël sought to defend the Jesuit position by publishing his voluminous scholarship on the Chinese classics. Among other works in 1711 Noël published two seminal contributions to the history of Sinology: the Sinensis imperii libri classici sex or Libri sex and the Philosophia Sinica a sophisticated treatment of Chinese metaphysics ritual and ethics. While the Libri sex achieved some degree of influence in the Enlightenment through the French translation of the French Jesuit historian Du Halde and the writings of the philosopher Christian Wolff the Philosophia Sinica was actively suppressed by the Superior-General of the Jesuit order. Yet it is in this latter work where the full breadth of Noël’s originality and intellectual contribution can be found. Noël reinterprets the Jesuits’ position through the lens of Neo-Confucianism integrating concepts such as li taiji yin and yang in his reading of Chinese philosophy. With contributions from Sinologists and intellectual historians this book offers the first systematic study of this pioneering work.

The present volume of essays Emblemata Sacra. The Rhetoric and Hermeneutics of Illustrated Sacred Discourse follows a conference that took place in January 2005 in Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve thanks to the close collaboration between the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Literature Department) and the Université Catholique de Louvain (the research group ‘Figures et formes de la spiritualité dans la littérature et les expressions artistiques’).The 38 essays have been organised in seven sections. The first section (‘Historical and methodological issues’) presents methodological bases for the study of emblematics and spiritual images as well as the elements necessary for the Christian contextualisation of the corpus. The second section (‘Exegesis of the Scriptures and the Creation’) complementary to the first section is devoted to exegetical processes developed in different contexts and seeks to emphasise the correspondence between the exegesis of Sacred Scripture and the exegesis of the Creation which are the two central symbolisms in Christianity. The third section (‘The image in absentia’) focuses on the most critical aspect of the encounter between the Word and the Image in the form of a paradoxical iconoclastic image already mentioned in the first section. The fourth section (‘Rhetoric and poetics of the image’) exposes the mutual exchanges between the word of the images and the images of the word. The last three sections all deal with the uses of figures in determined contexts. Thus the fifth section (‘The image performance’) explores staged incarnated and exhibited figures while the sixth section (‘Circulation of images among different faiths’) gathers studies about different confessional contexts in which spiritual images are used to support and feed the polemics and the seventh section (‘The efficient image’) opens up the chronology toward the 19th century and then to our own time.

The thirteen articles in this volume deal with the Neo-Latin emblem book after the birth of the genre with Andrea Alciato’s Emblematum libellus (1531). While the interest in emblematics has grown considerably during the last decades the seminal Neo-Latin production has received relatively little attention. In Mundus Emblematicus an international team of experts in the field makes this part of the emblem tradition accessible to a broad scholarly audience. The articles cover a variety of emblem books published at the time ranging from influential humanist collections (for instance those by Achille Bocchi Hadrianus Junius or Joachim Camerarius) to alchemist (Michael Maier) or religious emblems (such as the books of the Calvinist Théodere de Bèze or the Jesuit Herman Hugo). In each paper subjects dealt with include the historical context of the work and its makers the relation between word and image the structure of the collection as a whole and the emblematic game (intertextuality in word and image). Moreover several articles explore the interaction between the emblem and connected literary phenomena like the commonplace-book the fable or the use of commentaries. All papers are in English and all examples from Latin texts are translated.

Together these articles show the variety within the Neo-Latin emblem production thus challenging traditional approaches of the emblem. As such Mundus Emblematicus contributes towards a more comprehensive view of the forms and functions of the genre as a whole

Vom 5. - 5. Juli 1998 fand an der Hochschule für Philosophie in München ein internationales Symposion zum Thema "Jesuitische Emblematik in Bayern: Einfluss und Wirkung" statt das sich mit der wissenschaftlichen Erforschung der Entstehungs- Entwicklungs- und Verbreitungsgeschichte des Symbols auseinandersetzte.

Die vorliegende publikation beschränkt sich bewusst nur auf die "bayerischen" Beiträge des Symposions erweitert durch ergänzende Studien zum Thema Emblematik und Kunst der Jesuiten in Bayern wie der Vorstellung der Frontispize der Werke des grossen Naturwissenschaftlers Christoph Scheiner Aspekte zu Georg Stengels Ova paschalia Betrachtung der Jesuitenkirche Franz Xaver in Luzern oder der neuen Interpretationen eines Kupferstiches der Heiligen Familie vor der St. Michaelskirche München. Vorangestellt ist dem Band ein Abriss über Gründer Leitmotiv Signet und Satzungen der Gesellschaft Jesu und das neue Logo des Ordens in Zentral-europa. Einführung in die Thematik Rita Haub und Richard Müller SJ "Jesuiten" Alois Schmid; Templum aulicum. Das Jesuitenkolleg St.Michael zu München als Herrschaftskirche im frühneuzeitlichen Bayern Emblembücher Peter M. Daly; A Survey of Emblematic Publications of the Jesuits of the Upper German Province to the Year 1800 Rita Haub; Bey was erkennet man einen Catholischen Christen? Illustrationen im Bilderkatechismus des Petrus Canisius James Latham SJ; Text and Image in Jeremias Drexel's Orbis Phaëthon G. Richard Dimler SJ; Octiduum S. Francisco Borgiae (1671) : The Munich Jesuits Celebrate the Canonization of Francis Borgia Franz Daxecker; Frontspize in den Werken P. Christoph Scheiners SJ Helmut Zäh; Die Welt im Ei : Georg Stengels Ova paschalia Elisabeth Klecker; Regiae virtutis et felicitatis XII symbola (Dillingen 1636). Panegyrik und Paränese in einem Emblembuch für Ferdinand III Paul Richard Blum; Die Versuchung der Philosophie durch graphische Schemata : Berthold Hauser und die Arbor Porphyriana Angewandte Emblematik Bernhard Paal SJ; Die Heilige Familie vor der St. Michaelskirche in München. Ein theologisches und ikonographisches Programm-Bild Joseph Imorde; Gebaute Emblematik. Die Jesuitenkirche Franz Xaver in Luzern Sabine Mödersheim; Matthäus Rader und das allegorische Programm im Augsburger Rathaussaal. Einfluss und Wirkung jesuitischer Emblematik Alan Young; Protestant Meditation and Two 1647 English Translations of Jeremias Drexel's Zodiacus christianus Paul Begheyn SJ; The Emblem Books of Jeremias Drexel in the Low Countries

This publication is a collection of essays on the function and significance of emblematic decoration of buildings in Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century dealing with general issues involved in architectural emblematics while a number of the essays are case studies of specific types of building.

The emblematic decoration of buildings both secular and ecclesiastical was widespread in Europe from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. The function and significance of such decoration is however frequently overlooked. The two introductory essays seek to come to grips with the general issues involved in architectural emblematics. The remaining essays are case studies of specific types of building while the final two consider the relation of architecture to the book. The essays are revised versions of selected papers presented at an international conference on the subject held at the Canadian centre for Architecture in November 1994.