Joannes Molanus (1533–1585), often cited simply as Molanus, is the Latinized name of Jan Vermeulen or Van der Meulen, an influential Counter Reformation Catholic theologian of Louvain University, where he was Professor of Theology, and Rector from 1578. Born at

Lille Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Pref ...

(a city in the

County of Flanders The County of Flanders was a historic territory in the Low Countries. From 862 onwards, the counts of Flanders were among the original twelve peers of the Kingdom of France. For centuries, their estates around the cities of Ghent, Bruges and Ypr ...

, then under Habsburg rule), he was a priest and canon of

St. Peter's Church, Leuven Saint Peter's Church ( nl, Sint-Pieterskerk) in Leuven, Belgium, is a Roman Catholic church built in the 15th century in the Brabantine Gothic style. The church has a cruciform floor plan and a low bell tower that has never been completed. It ...

, where he died. He wrote numerous books, several only published posthumously. He is best known for his ''De Picturis et Imaginibus Sacris, pro vero earum usu contra abusus'' ("Treatise on Sacred Images"). This was published in 1570, four years after the

Iconoclastic Fury ''Beeldenstorm'' () in Dutch and ''Bildersturm'' in German (roughly translatable from both languages as 'attack on the images or statues') are terms used for outbreaks of destruction of religious images that occurred in Europe in the 16th centu ...

had swept through the

Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...

, and it defended the production and use of devotional images, but enforcing the restrictions of the

Council of Trent The Council of Trent ( la, Concilium Tridentinum), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trento, Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italian Peninsula, Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation ...

, as he interpreted them, in a brutally polemical fashion, which was very influential. Five further, enlarged, editions of this appeared between 1594 and 1771, and a modern French translation was published in 1996. He was also lead editor of an edition of the works of Saint Augustine (Antwerp,

Plantin Press The Plantin Press at Antwerp was one of the focal centers of the fine printed book in the 16th century. History Christophe Plantin (c. 1520–1589) of Touraine was trained as a bookbinder. He fled from Paris where at least one printer had rece ...

, 1566–1577), and wrote a manuscript history of Louvain that was printed in two volumes in 1861, edited by P. F. X. de Ram.

Life

Molanus was born in

, in

Walloon Flanders Walloon Flanders (Dutch: ''Waals Vlaanderen'', French: ''Flandre wallonne'') was a semi-independent part of the County of Flanders, composed of the Burgrave, burgraviates of Lille, Douai and Orchies. It is sometimes referred to as ''Lille–Douai ...

, in 1533, the son of Hendrik Vermeulen and Anna Peters. His father was from Holland and his mother from Brabant. He matriculated at Louvain University on 27 February 1554, graduating in the Liberal Arts in 1558 and as Doctor of Theology in 1570. He sat on the committee of theologians overseeing

Lucas Brugensis Franciscus Lucas Brugensis or François Luc de Bruges (1548/9–1619) was a Roman Catholic biblical exegete and textual criticism, textual critic from the Habsburg Netherlands. Life Early life Franciscus Lucas was born in Bruges late in 1548 o ...

's revision of the

Leuven Vulgate The Leuven Vulgate or Hentenian Bible () is an edition of the Vulgate which was edited by Hentenius (1499–1566) and published in Leuven, Louvain in 1547. This edition was republished several times, and in 1574 a revised edition was published. ...

, published in 1574. He became a canon of St. Peter's Church, Leuven, and a professor of Theology, serving both as dean of the Faculty of Theology and as rector of the university. In 1579 he was appointed president of

King's College King's College or The King's College refers to two higher education institutions in the United Kingdom: *King's College, Cambridge, a constituent of the University of Cambridge *King's College London, a constituent of the University of London It ca ...

. Molanus died in Louvain on 18 September 1585, having made bequests in favour of the college over which he had presided.

Molanus and art

Molanus is today mainly remembered by art historians for being one of the first authorities to turn the

's short and inexplicit decrees on sacred images (1563) into minutely detailed instructions for artists, which were then widely enforced in Catholic countries mostly. His views on the older, originally

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

, depiction of the Nativity of Jesus in art are typical:

The Virgin is shown pale with pains, the midwives prepare a small (narcotic) drought for the childbirth. Why this? Is it because the Virgin Mary would have held back from any pain of childbirth, when in fact she brought forth her divine son without pain? And what pertains to the midwives who are mentioned in the apocryphal Book of the Infancy? Jerome says: There was no midwife! No obtrusiveness of women intervened! She, the Virgin, was both mother and midwife! I saw in not a few places the picture of the blessed Virgin lying on a bed, depicting childbirth, and she was suffering pains from this birth, but that is not true. How stupid! Those artists ought to be laughed at who paint Mary in the very act of childbirth pains, accompanied with pain, midwife, bed, little knives (to cut the umbilical cord), with hot compresses, and many other appurtenances. . . . Rather, those pictures should be promoted which show the birth of Christ in which the Blessed Virgin Mary with arms folded and on bended knee before her little son, as though he was just now brought forth into the light.

He objected on similar grounds to the ''

Death of the Virgin The Death of the Virgin Mary is a common subject in Western Christian art, the equivalent of the Dormition of the Theotokos in Eastern Orthodox art. This depiction became less common as the doctrine of the Assumption gained support in the Roman ...

'', her swooning at the foot of the Cross, and her being shown supplicating Christ for mankind in '' Last Judgement'' scenes. She would, he said, in fact be sitting alongside Christ in stern judgement:

Many painters show Mary and John the Baptist kneeling beside Our lord at the Last Judgment...But we may not think that at that day the Virgin Mary will kneel for us before the Judge, baring her breast to intercede for sinners. Nor may we think that John the Baptist will fall upon his knees to beg mercy for mankind in the way the painters show. Rather, the blessed Virgin and St. John shall sit beside the supreme Judge as assessors. The mercy which is extended now will have no place then. There will only be strict justice at that day.

Also condemned were

Saint Christopher Saint Christopher ( el, Ἅγιος Χριστόφορος, ''Ágios Christóphoros'') is veneration, venerated by several Christianity, Christian denominations as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd-century Roman Empire, Roman emperor Deciu ...

as a giant carrying Christ (and as the protector of travellers),

Saint George and the Dragon In a legend, Saint Georgea soldier venerated in Christianitydefeats a dragon. The story goes that the dragon originally extorted tribute from villagers. When they ran out of livestock and trinkets for the dragon, they started giving up a human tr ...

, the

Holy Kinship The Holy Kinship was the extended family of Jesus descended from his maternal grandmother Saint Anne from her ''trinubium'' or three marriages. The group were a popular subject in religious art throughout Germany and the Low Countries, especially ...

, the unicorn hunt in the

Hortus Conclusus ''Hortus conclusus'' is a Latin term, meaning literally "enclosed garden". At their root, both of the words in ''hortus conclusus'' refer linguistically to enclosure. It describes a genre of garden that was enclosed as a practical concern, a majo ...

and many other depictions not verifiable from reliable sources – the '' Golden Legend'' was, he said, in fact of "lead".Mâle, online Nudity, even of the infant Jesus, was to be avoided as much as possible, and drapes must cover the genitals where it could not be. Whilst condemning older depictions without a scriptural basis, he was not hesitant in creating new ones based on his own interpretation.

Saint Joseph Joseph (; el, Ἰωσήφ, translit=Ioséph) was a 1st-century Jewish man of Nazareth who, according to the canonical Gospels, was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was the legal father of Jesus. The Gospels also name some brothers of ...

should not be shown as the old, semi-comical figure of the Middle Ages, but as young, vigorous and firmly in control of the

Holy Family The Holy Family consists of the Child Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph. The subject became popular in art from the 1490s on, but veneration of the Holy Family was formally begun in the 17th century by Saint François de Laval, the first ...

Mary Magdalene Mary Magdalene (sometimes called Mary of Magdala, or simply the Magdalene or the Madeleine) was a woman who, according to the four canonical gospels, traveled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to crucifixion of Jesus, his cru ...

should not be shown as an over-dressed prostitute, and generally dress should be simple. He opposed showing the

Swooning Virgin Mary The Swoon of the Virgin, in Italian Lo Spasimo della Vergine, or Fainting Virgin Mary was an idea developed in the late Middle Ages, that the Virgin Mary had fainted during the Passion of Christ, most often placed while she watched the Crucifixi ...

in scenes of ''

Christ carrying the Cross Christ Carrying the Cross on his way to his crucifixion is an episode included in the Gospel of John, and a very common subject in art, especially in the fourteen Stations of the Cross, sets of which are now found in almost all Roman Catholic ...

'' or the Crucifixion itself.Penny 2004, p. 26.

Publications

*''Usuardi martyrologium'' (Leuven, 1568
Available on Google Books
*''De Picturis et Imaginibus Sacris'' (Leuven, 1570
Available on Google Books
**Reworked as the posthumously published ''Historia Sanctarum Imaginum'' (Leuven, 1594
Available on Google Books
*''Indiculus Sanctorum Belgii'' (Leuven, 1573
Available on Google Books
*''De fide haereticis servanda libri tres'' (Cologne, 1584
Available on Google Books
*''Theologiae Practicae Compendium'' (Cologne, 1585
Available on Google Books
*''Liber de piis testamentis'' (Cologne, 1585
Available on Google Books
*''De Canonicis libri tres'' (Cologne, 1587
Available on Google Books
*''Militia sacra ducum et principum Brabantiae'' (Antwerp, 1592), edited by Henricus van Cuyck for posthumous publication
available on Google Books
*''Natales sanctorum Belgii'' (Antwerp, 1595), edited by Henricus van Cuyck for posthumous publication
available on Google Books

Notes

References

Blunt, Anthony Anthony Frederick Blunt (26 September 1907 – 26 March 1983), styled Sir Anthony Blunt KCVO from 1956 to November 1979, was a leading British art historian and Soviet spy. Blunt was professor of art history at the University of London, dire ...

, ''Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450-1660'', chapter VIII, especially pp. 107–128, 1940 (refs to 1985 edn

OUP, * Decavele, Johan, "Molanus, Johannes", Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press. Web. 4 Apr. 2017
subscription required
* Mâle, Émile, ''L'Art religieux après le Concile de Trente, étude sur l'iconographie de la fin du XVIe, du XVIIe et du XVIIIe siècles en Italie, en France, en Espagne et en Flandre'' (1932) * Penny, Nicholas, National Gallery Catalogues (new series): ''The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings, Volume I'', 2004, National Gallery Publications Ltd,

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Molanus, Joannes 1533 births 1585 deaths People from Lille Dutch art critics Belgian art critics Academic staff of the Old University of Leuven Roman Catholic theologians of the Habsburg Netherlands