Annotations and Meditations on the Gospels, composed by Jerome Nadal (1507-80), St. Ignatius Loyola s closest collaborator in the early days of the Society of Jesus, was first published in Antwerp in 1595 (a second edition followed the same year, and a third edition in 1607). This book combined engravings portraying episodes from the Gospels executed by the premier Flemish engravers of the day with Nadal s explanatory notes and meditations on these episodes as depicted in the engravings, in order to help young Jesuit seminarians to meditate on the Gospels that they heard read at Sunday Mass. The impact of this book on the sacred art of the period after the Council of Trent was enormous not only in Europe, but also in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Nadal s text (1607 edition) is presented in an accessible contemporary translation prepared by Frederick A. Homann, S.J., who also provides the reader with helpful notes and references. The translation is preceded by a thorough introduction to Nadal, his book, and its images by Walter S. Melion. Melion s introductory essay in Vol. 1: The Infancy Narratives is entitled The Art of Vision in Jerome Nadal s Adnotationes et Meditationes in Evangelia.

Annotations and Meditations on the Gospel: The Passion Narratives

Jerome Nadal

Religion & Spirituality

Saint Josephs University Press

Even in 17th-century Italy, news spread quickly. On June 25, 1678, an enormous crowd that included nobles, knights, city officials, ladies, scholarly men, the diocesan vicar general, and the entire College of Philosophers and Physicians gathered at the University of Padua to witness Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia stand for her oral doctoral examination-the first time in history that a woman had been accorded this privilege! So great was the crowd that the examination had to be moved from the University's College to the cathedral. The bishop's refusal to allow Elena to stand for a degree in theology no doubt increased interest in the grudgingly approved examination in philosophy. Elena's eloquent discourse on two Aristotelian theses so impressed the examining committee that, despite her request for a secret ballot, they voted their approval viva voce to award the Teacher and Doctor of Philosophy degrees. She was the first woman so honored by a university. Maschietto's definitive biography of Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia was originally published in Italian on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of her landmark degree (Padua: Editrice Antenore, 1978). Now more than 25 years later, this meticulously researched biography is available for the first time in English translation. After carefully tracing the lineage of Elena's family, Maschietto tells the fascinating story of her rearing and education, as well as of the high drama of her standing for examination for a doctoral degree. Maschietto also offers a full assessment of Elena's writings, spirituality, and posterity. This book is profusely illustrated with reproductions of paintings and engravings of many of the principal figures who populate Elena's life-story.

Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia (1646-1684): The First Woman in the World to Earn a University Degree

Biographies & Memoirs

Francesco Ludovico Maschietto

Professionals & Academics

The Meditative Art: Studies in Northern Devotional Print, 1550-1625 asks how and why printed images were utilized as instruments of Christian meditation and contemplation. The book consists of an introductory essay on meditative image-making, followed by nine case studies focusing on various prints and print series produced int he Low Countries, that offered templates for visually-based processes of soul-formation anchored in the imitation of Christ. Engraved by such masters as Philips Galle, Hendrick Goltzius, Boetius a Bolswert, and Jan, Hieronymus, and Antoon Wierix, among others, these prints served to mobilize the votary's sensitive and intellective faculties, harnessing them to the task of restoring the soul's likeness to Christ the Word made flesh. The images are seen implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) to allude to an image theory grounded in the mystery of the Incarnation, and in diverse ways of trope the themes of pictorial artifice and imitation. By calling attention to their status as pictorial images, the author argues, these prints claim to be sanctioned by the condition of representability espoused by Christ Himself. In addition to chapter on the illustrated meditative treatises of Benito Arias Montano, Jeronimo Nadal, and Antonius Sucquet, there are chapters on the prints as catalysts of penitential and communtative self-reformation, as well as on prints as meditative sources of works in other media, such as Otto van Veen's Carrying of the Cross. The book ends with an epilogue on the erotic form, function, and meaning of Hendrick Goltzius's celebrated devotional print of the Annunciation.

The Meditative Art: Studies in the Northern Devotional Print, 1550-1625

Arts & Photography

Walter S. Melion

Religious

No single group in early modern Europe produced as many emblem books as the Society of Jesus. G. Richard Dimler, S.J., has been a pioneer in the field of Jesuit emblem scholarship. With publications and conference presentations spanning more than forty years on various aspects of the Jesuit emblem, Fr. Dimler has almost single-handedly put Jesuit emblematics on the international scholarly map. His foundational contribution to emblem studies was recognized by Fordham University in 1999, when it named him Research Professor of Jesuit Emblem Studies, and, more recently, with the awarding of emeritus status. Emblematic Images and Religious Texts: Studies in Honor of G. Richard Dimler, S.J., is a tribute by sixteen emblem scholars from the U.S., U.K., and Europe to his pioneering scholarship.

Emblematic Images and Religous Texts: Studies in Honor of G. Richard Dimler, S.j. (Early Modern Catholicism and the Visual Arts)

Peter M. Daly

G. Richard Dimler

Pedro F. Campa

The study of the literary impact of the Bible in the Spanish Golden Age is a relatively neglected field. The present book considers, in a sequence of studies, some of the ways in which the biblical culture of Spain left its impress on the literature and art of the time. It does so by tracing the presence of biblical images in a selection of works composed between the reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella and Philip IV. Together these works represent some of the major genres, literary and artistic, that flourished in the Golden Age, including travelogues, works of devotion, narrative fiction, biblical exegesis, poetry, popular drama, and religious painting. They also illustrate the role played by ancestral images in a period of cultural change.Chapter One tackles an issue that has given rise to much discussion in recent years: the literary impact in Spain of the New World. Despite the Chronicles of the Indies, which includes eyewitness accounts by conquistadors, ethnographic studies by missionaries, and general histories penned in Spain, it is not easy to detect the presence of the New World in the literary imagination of the Golden Age. In the fiction, poetry, and drama of the period it is rarely accorded a central role; often, indeed, it does not figure at all. Instead, the Discoveries leave their mark in the imagery of the age. Chapter Two highlights the translation of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. Designed to be a manual for the person "giving" the exercises, rather than as a text to be read by the one "receiving" them, its contents could be adapted to a wide range of needs, and it informed the Society of Jesus's many pastoral activities. Chapter Three turns to the presence of the Bible in Lazarillo de Tormes, one of the earliest and most popular examples of realist fiction in Europe, and evidence of the influence in Spain of the European renaissance. Although the book was enormously popular, interpretation of it has proven notoriously problematic because its language is often obscure and arcane. The biblical allusions it contains illustrate the point: modern editors have noted their presence in the text, but they have not agreed about their number, provenance, or function. This chapter argues that they are more numerous than has been supposed, and it underlines the fact that many of them derive from proverbial sayings and jokes, a testimony to the transmission of biblical topics at a popular level.The early 1550s saw the emergence in Spain not only of realist prose fiction but of poetry informed by biblical themes and written in the Renaissance style. Two works signalled its arrival: A collectiono of religious verse by Jorge de Montemayor, published late in 1552 or early 1553, and Benito Arias Montano's poetic paraphrase of the Song of Songs. Chapter Four also looks at the poetry of Fray Luis de Leon, who studied under the great Cistercian exegete Cipriano de la Huerga. CHapter Five turns to the more public and popular genre of the comedia. The subject here is the play, The Man Condemned for Lack of Trust, which dramatises a thorny problem of theology. The final chapter moves from drama to the religious art of the period. It examines in detail the literary context of two bodegones, both inspired by biblical subjects, that Diego Velazquez painted as a young man in Seville. 1623's Christ in the House of Martha and Mary and The Supper at Emmaus have both been the subject of extensive debate concerning their secular and sacred elements. The paintings appear to have adapted iconographic conventions familiar to contemporaries in order to create a misterio. Each chapter explores the hidden sense of each art form, and concludes that the aart of the Spanish Golden Age explores distinct but complementary ways of reconciling contemplation and action.

The Bible in the Literary Imagination of the Spanish Golden Age (Early Modern Catholocism and the Visual Arts)

Literature & Fiction

Terence O'Reilly

History & Criticism

The roles of the Holy See and papal diplomacy vis-à-vis international organizations have a long and intricate story that spans centuries. Papal Diplomacy and the Quest for Peace explores the encounter between the Holy See and the international order, from the establishment of the United Nations (UN) in 1945 through the pontificate of Pope Paul VI (1963-78). Both Araujo and Lucal have worked for and represented the Holy See in the environment of the UN and, to a lesser extent, other international organizations. Consequently, their investigation is based on not only academic study of papal diplomacy and its relations with international organizations, but also participation in the activities of the Holy See within some of these organizations. They contend that while the Church and international organizations have distinctive goals and interests which can introduce strong differences on particular issues, they nonetheless share other perspectives such as the maintenance of international peace and security. The Holy See has expressed general approval of the UN, especially its initiatives aimed at "peaceful coexistence and collaboration between nations." At the same time the Holy See has not hesitated to state its morally grounded positions on pressing contemporary issues (e.g., family planning, abortion, human embryonic cloning, and family life) that have not always been congruent with those of temporal sovereigns and international organizations, including the UN. To date, Pope Pius XII's initial aspiration to join the UN has not been fulfilled, but the Holy See formalized its participation in the General Assembly of the United Nations in summer of 2004. In spite of occasional criticism by some segments of secular society, the interaction between the Holy See and the UN continues to exist and to be fruitful in a variety of contexts. Papal Diplomacy and the Quest for Peace seeks to elucidate this encounter and dynamic by examining congruence and divergence on vital issues of great importance to both institutions, most especially the quest for peace and the protection of the dignity and legitimate interests of humanity.

Papal Diplomacy and the Quest for Peace

Politics & Social Sciences

Robert John Araujo

John A. Lucal

Politics & Government

The Book of Honors for Empress María of Austria is a chronicle of the remarkable celebrations organized by the Jesuit Colegio de San Pedro y San Pablo in Madrid to honor the piety and generosity of its major benefactor after her death in 1603. María bequeathed virtually the whole of her estate to the Jesuits in Madrid, including a parcel of land where the Jesuit Fathers built their new College, opened in 1608. The Jesuits of Madrid educated the likes of Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca, Francisco de Quevedo, and many other illustrious Spaniards from all walks of life. María de Austria's legacy, therefore, was to have an enormous impact on Spanish Golden Age literature and culture.Following the conventions of the highly specialized genre of royal funeral exequies, the Book of Honors includes an encomiastic dedication by the Rector of the College to the house of Austria and to María s daughter, Margaret of Austria, like her mother, a nun of the Discalced Order of St. Clara of Madrid. This is followed by a description of the catafalque and the decoration of the church. The book then reproduces a lengthy Latin prayer delivered by the Jesuit theologian Juan Luis de la Cerda. The funeral sermon follows, preached by the Jesuit Jerónimo de Florencia. While much of the rest of the book consists of an anthology of the poems crafted by the Jesuit Fathers and their pupils to honor the empress, the most unique and interesting aspect of the book is the description and reproduction of the 36 hieroglyphs or emblems that were mounted on the walls of the church as part of the decorative iconographical program. They were intended as visual reinforcements for the main points of the funeral sermon, resulting in a highly original interconnection between the spoken word and the visual appeal of the series of emblematic images.This English translation of the Libro de las honras makes available to a wide public this important and little-known manifestation of the genre of emblematic funeral honors. This book helps illuminate the Jesuit predilection for preaching to the eyes by mounting celebrations with public displays of poetry and emblematic illustrations, a particularly effective pedagogical technique exploited by the Society of Jesus in its schools almost from its very inception. What makes the Book of Honors especially important, however, is that it is the first book of its type in Spain to include illustrations of the royal exequies. The Book of Honors for Empress María of Austria will appeal to historians of seventeenth-century Spain, art historians, emblem scholars, students of Spanish Golden Age literature, those interested in sacred oratory, and scholars interested in the history of Catholicism and the Jesuit Order.

Book of Honors for Empress Maria of Austria: Composed by the College of the Society of Jesus of Madrid on the Occasion of Her Death (1603) (Early Modern Catholicism and the Visual Arts Series)

Antonio Bernat Vistarini

John T. Cull

Tamas Sajo

This book was ready to go to press when Norman MacKenzie died on March 1, 2004. Growing out of the Martin D'Arcy Lectures that he delivered at Oxford in 1988-89, it combines his love of research into the contexts out of which Hopkins's poems were written with his deep knowledge of the poems through the various stages of their composition. Despite devoting much of his life to Hopkins's poems, they remained ever fresh to him. This enthusiasm pervades his final 'excursions' into their territory.

Excursions in Hopkins

Norman H. MacKenzie

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