Ellen van Heteren
A mystery traveller
In the mid-seventeenth century, the Dutch city of Haarlem was a centre of culture, learning and art. In this city lived Theodorus Schrevelius, humanist and poet. Born in Haarlem in 1572, Schrevelius studied the classic languages. He became conrector and later rector of the Latin School in his home city. After twenty-four years of service, he was fired because of his remonstrant religious orientation and moved to Leiden, where he also filled the role of rector. Later, he was able to move back to Haarlem. Nearing the end of his life, he wrote the Harlemias, which added to a long list of publications by his hand. After over three hundred years, a copy of this book ended up in the special collections of the Royal Dutch Institute in Rome (KNIR). What is the story of this mystery traveller?
The Harlemias, printed in Haarlem by Thomas Fonteyn in 1648, was written because of Schrevelius’s love for the city in which he was born and raised. The author wrote a history of this city from its first building blocks to his own time. In doing so, he covered many different aspects of this history, which he divided into six ‘books’. The first book tells the tale of the city’s origins, the second of the famous siege of Haarlem, and the third that of the Dutch Revolt and reformation that followed. From the fourth book on, the subjects get more thematic: The fourth book summarizes all the city’s privileges and nobility; the fifth describes the rise of institutions such as the military, schools and police; the sixth book is all about the civility of Haarlem, its important magistrates, learned men, artisans and artists, and all other workers. The work was originally written in Latin and published in 1647, but soon it was rewritten in vernacular Dutch, because the author wanted to share his love for his city with everyone and not just the learned elite, as Schrevelius shares in his foreword to the reader. The books are accompanied by several poems and laudatory speeches.
After this engraving follows the typographical title page on which it, of course, states the entire title, the author and the impressum. On the back of this folio, someone has left their initials or some type of illegible signature. The engraving was an intricate part of the book as the same engraving is found in all other books from the print of 1648. A reprint from 1754 shows a different engraving. The larger part of the book is printed in a gothic letter, but some exceptions occur when names, poems or any type of citation is written.
Overall, the book and its paper are in excellent condition. There are no tears or breaks and no signs of biological infestations except for a little bookworm who left tiny holes in pages 247-383. With the exception of the end leaves and title pages, not a single marginalium can be found. These first few pages do carry interesting information about the provenance of the book. Most of these are, unsurprisingly, stamps and pencil-written signatures of libraries that held this book. Far more interesting, however, is a loose piece of paper that was put between the pages of the book. It contains an invitation for two persons to a concert that was organised by the Acedemie de France a Rome. A previous owner thus was somehow related to the French Academy of Rome. The catalogue of the KNIR library only reveals that the object was added to the collection in 2018, although I find this somewhat unlikely. Unfortunately, the KNIR does not seem to keep any other information about when or how this book came into the possession of the KNIR, whether it has ever been in the French Institute, or when it was bought by or donated to either institution.
A Painting Poet
Karel van Mander’s Wtlegghingh op den Metamorphosis
Karel van Mander’s Schilder-Boeck, published in 1604, includes a separate critical treatise on the first century Roman Ovid’s Metamorphoses with it’s own uniquely designed title page: Wtlegghingh op den Metamorphosis Pub. Ovidij Nasonis. According to art historian and leading Van Mander expert Hessel Miedema, the Wtlegghingh is the only part of the book that was reprinted separately multiple times during the seventeenth century. This implies that this part of the Schilder-Boeck must have been widely known and read, and that there clearly was a demand for a manual on the allegorical concepts of Ovid’s work.
Bibliography
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Lockwood, Dean P., & Roland H. Bainton. “Classical and Biblical Scholarship in the Age of the Renaissance and Reformation.” Church History 10, no. 2 (June 1941): 125 – 143.
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Mander, Karel van. Wtlegghingh op den Metamorphosis Pub. Ovidij Nasonis. Haarlem, 1604. Royal Netherlands Institute, Rome, Italy.
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Melion, Walter S. Shaping the Netherlandish Canon: Karel van Mander’s Schilder-Boeck. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991.
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Miedema, Hessel. “Karel van Mander: Did He Write Art Literature?” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 22, no. ½ (1993 – 1994): 58 – 64.
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–. “Review: Karel van Mander’s Grondt Der Edel Vry Schilder-Const: (“Foundations of the Noble and Free Art of Painting”).” Journal of the History of Ideas 34, No. 4 (October – December 1973): 653 – 668.
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Spies, Marijke. Rhetoric, Rhetorians and Poets. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1999.
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Stumpel, Jeroen. “A note on the intended audiences for van Mander’s “Schilder-Boeck,” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 35, no. ½ (2011): 84 – 90.
Lars Jansen
The studied copy at the KNIR, however, is bound together with all the parts that make up the Schilder-Boeck combined with the following work Uutbeeldinge der Figuren. This work, which, as it has its own title page, could be seen as a separate work in itself. Similarly, the Wtlegghingh op den Metamorphosis is an individual work in itself. However, due to an index at the end of the Uutbeeldinge that refers to both the Wtlegghingh and the Uutbeeldinge, the works are seen as one in
Van Mander ascribes the importance of his didactical work in the “Voor-rede” to the fact that the metamorphoses in Ovid’s “Change-Book” are so artfully strung together that not only the Greeks translated the work from Latin to Greek, but also that painters translated the work from words into image. Hence, van Mander nicknames Metamorphoses the painter’s bible. He had long wished to have an elaboration or explanation next to Metamorphoses so that, in van Mander’s own words, “students would be led from the darkness of Chaos into the light of Phoebe.” More recent scholarship has attributed van Mander’s interest in interpreting Ovid’s work to his interest in Italian Renaissance paintings, adapting their conceptions of art and learning that place classical mythology in accordance with Old Testament history and morality. Ovid’s work was thus for van Mander a source for painters akin to the Christian Bible.
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However, there are those that argue that van Mander originally might not have intended for the Wtlegghingh to be part of the Schilder-Boeck at all in its conception (regardless of the economic intention of the publisher). Whereas the Schilder-Boeck is mainly a presentation of the fundamentals of painting for a young audience, in the main text of the treatment of Ovid, any definitive references to the art of painting are fundamentally lacking. Jeroen Stumpel, professor in iconology and theory of art, also notes that the laudatory poems from van Mander’s colleagues the Wtlegghingh received “never, or almost never refer to the art of painting.” Only in the preface, which must have been written in a late stage in the production of the book, van Mander introduces the Schilder-Boeck and the Wtlegghingh as complementary for the benefit of the painter to understand Ovid’s writing and to relay it onto others.
It is worth mentioning that van Mander primarily saw himself as a poet, as Miedema writes according to van Mander’s anonymous biographer: “he completed his education with an apprenticeship with the poet painter Lucas de Heere”. He therefore must have had every opportunity to study the art of poetry next to painting. Nevertheless, the ultimate decision to include the literary-critical treatise is also in accordance with van Mander’s intention the title page exemplifies, as it states that the work is meant for the benefit and convenience of painters, art-lovers and poets, and indeed for people of all kinds. The edition in the KNIR then present a holistic view of art as including both the visual and the literary.
The verso side title page contains an interesting extract from the ‘privilege’ of the bookseller. The work, printed by Jacob de Meester by order of the Haarlem publisher and bookseller Paschier van Wesbvsch, was only allowed to be printed in Dutch or another language in the Dutch Republic and only by van Wesbvsch. According to historian Alice van Diepen, one of the reasons books were printed and sold separately was to boost sales and increase the profit of the bookseller, which was a practice often employed by de Meester. The case seems to be the same for the bound together books from the KNIR.
this edition. If the former title is included, the page count of the work is a total of 147 pages, also counting the protective pages. All three parts mentioned are bound together in parchment.
1- Karel van Mander, Wtlegghingh op den Metamorphosis Pub. Ovidij Nasonis. This is the engraved title page of the chosen book.
The Wtlegghingh consists of interpretations of the figures and themes in the fifteen books of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Van Mander’s writing on Cupid, for instance, includes a short biography that also takes into account versions of Cupid by other poets like Sappho and the Renaissance poet Marullus. In these comparisons, van Mander finds common threads and accordingly draws up literary attributes that characterise Cupid in writing.
2- An extract of the “Privilege”, or copyright of the printer Paschier van Westbusch, as given by the Heeren Staten Generaal of the Dutch Republic.
3- First page of the main text, the critical glosses to Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
4- The title page of the new Catalogue entry.