First edition of the first Jesuit treatise on the Virgin Mary and the foundation stone of Marian theology: not only a major product of the Counter-Reformation but also beautifully illustrated.
The work has 12 very striking full-page woodcuts which appear here for the first and, perhaps, only time**.** They are quite different to the illustrations by Tobias Stimmer and fellow artists which were used for Sartorius’ second edition of 1583, and in the opinion of both John Rowlands and Giulia Bartrum they are very close to the style of Matthias Gerung (c. 1500-70) particularly in the distinctive cloud formation and architectural settings. Gerung’s work was quite distinctive and generally contained none of the influence of Italian art which affected many of his contemporaries. Although Gerung spent much of his working life at Lavingen, this was near enough to have some impact on the design of book illustration in Ingolstadt.
Petrus Canisius (1521-97), Saint and Doctor of the Church, was one of the most influential of the early Jesuits and it was due to him more than any other that the Counter-Reformation achieved such a remarkable success in Germany, Austria, Bohemia and beyond. His treatise on the Virgin Mary became part of his Commentarium de Verbi Dei corruptelis (Commentary on the Corruptors of the Divine Word), his decade long refutation in three parts of the Lutheran ecclesiastical history, the Magdeburg Centuries.
“Theologians like Canisius began the new discipline of Mariology because they had to justify Marian titles and devotional practices against Protestant criticism. Mariology was largely a new apologetic undertaking that provided for the first time a systematic, rational grounding for Marian devotion. Since most Marian practices and titles did not have a clear foundation in Scripture, they had to be justified. The strategy was to build Mariology on one barely contested truth, which was then demonstrated to be the foundation for all other Marian topoi. This most basic dogma was that Mary was the Mother of God.” (Tricoire, 2022).
“Erudite yet heartfelt, both compendious and readable, De Maria Virgine is a work of positive theology, written in imitation of the Church Fathers, not least Saint Jerome. Having received papal support, it proved influential, perhaps more as a summa of Marian doctrine and devotion than as a controversialist instrument. As Pope Pius V and Father General Francis Borgia had encouraged Canisius to write the Commentarium, so Pope Gregory XIII and Father General Everard Mercurian urged him to extend it by writing a comprehensive opus Marianum. Commonly known as the Opus Mariale, or simply, Mariale, the treatise offers a summa of Marian doctrine, but also doubles as a meditative text, whose five parts describe and justify the Virgin’s excellentia, nobilitas, virtus, sanctitas, and dignitas. Prefacing each subsection is a woodcut print of a Marian icon or mystery, accompanied by a poem expounding the image and its relation to Canisius’s text. (Walter S. Melion, 2010).
Provenance:
On verso of title-page, 16th century printed armorial bookplate of “M. Batholomaeus Seÿtz P:E:”, with his motto in manuscript “Spartem nactus es hanc [ex]orna” and his half-page presentation note dated 1597 in a neat hand, paraphrased in translation as “Bartholomaeus Seytz, parish priest of Ebingen[?] gave this work of Peter Canisius to Matthias Sempfflin, preacher of the divine word as a sign of his sincere affection and as thanks for his work in his sermons on the Lord’s passion given in 1597.”
Title-page “Ex libris M. Jacobi Siber, 1629”, with his initials in ink on upper cover “M:I:S:” with date “1629”.
Capuchin monastery at Türkheim, Bavaria, with their inscription dated 1685 at foot of title and 19th century stamp.
Minor marginal worming at gutter, c. pp. 410-450
VD16 C710. BMSTC (German), p. 684. Adams C521. De Backer-Sommervogel VII, 169. OCLC/USTC US: SMU Bridwell, Emory Pitts and Yale only.
Ref: Damien Tricoire, “The Invention of Early-Modern Mariology”, in Ulrich Lehner (ed.), Innovation in Early Modern Catholic Theology (2022), pp 182-195.
Walter S. Melion, “‘Quae lecta Canisius offert et spectata diu’: The Pictorial Images in Petrus Canisius’s De Maria Virgine of 1577”, in Early Modern Eyes (2010), pp. 207-266.
