![123 9 molanus pt](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/123_9_molanus_pt.jpg)
Joannes Molanus (1533–1585), often cited simply as Molanus, is the
Latinized name of Jan Vermeulen or Van der Meulen, an influential
Counter Reformation
The Counter-Reformation (), also called the Catholic Reformation () or the Catholic Revival, was the period of Catholic resurgence that was initiated in response to the Protestant Reformation. It began with the Council of Trent (1545–1563) a ...
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
Canon or Canons may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western ca ...
of
St. Peter's Church, Leuven, 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
Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Af ...
(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
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 ...
, 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 critic from the Habsburg Netherlands.
Life
Early life
Franciscus Lucas was born in Bruges late in 1548 or early in 1549, t ...
'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 Louvain in 1547. This edition was republished several times, and in 1574 a revised edition was published.
The 1 ...
, published in 1574. He became a
canon
Canon or Canons may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western ca ...
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.
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
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 ...
'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
The Nativity of Jesus has been a major subject of Christian art since the 4th century.
The artistic depictions of the ''Nativity'' or birth of Jesus, celebrated at Christmas, are based on the narratives in the Bible, in the Gospels of Matthew a ...
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 Roma ...
'', her
swooning at the foot of the Cross, and her being shown supplicating Christ for mankind in ''
Last Judgement
The Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Reckoning, Day of Judgment, Judgment Day, Doomsday, Day of Resurrection or The Day of the Lord (; ar, یوم القيامة, translit=Yawm al-Qiyāmah or ar, یوم الدین, translit=Yawm ad-Dīn, ...
'' 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
The ''Golden Legend'' (Latin: ''Legenda aurea'' or ''Legenda sanctorum'') is a collection of hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine that was widely read in late medieval Europe. More than a thousand manuscripts of the text have survived.Hilary ...
'' 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 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
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
,
*
Decavele, Johan, "Molanus, Johannes", Grove Art Online,
Oxford Art Online
Oxford Art Online is an Oxford University Press online gateway into art research, which was launched in 2008. It provides access to several online art reference works, including Grove Art Online (originally published in 1996 in a print version, ''T ...
, 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