Quid est secretum? Visual Representation of Secrets in Early Modern Europe, 1500â1700 is the companion volume to Intersections 65.1, Quid est sacramentum? Visual Representation of Sacred Mysteries in Early Modern Europe, 1400â1700. Whereas the latter volume focused on sacramental mysteries, the current one examines a wider range of secret subjects. The book examines how secret knowledge was represented visually in ways that both revealed and concealed the true nature of that knowledge, giving and yet impeding access to it. In the early modern period, the discursive and symbolical sites for the representation of secrets were closely related to epistemic changes that transformed conceptions of the transmissibility of knowledge.
Contributors: Monika Biel, Alicja Bielak, C. Jean Campbell, Tom Conley, Ralph Dekoninck, Peter G.F. Eversmann, Ingrid Falque, Agnès Guiderdoni, Koenraad Jonckheere, Suzanne Karr Schmidt, Stephanie Leitch, Carme López Calderón, Mark A. Meadow, Walter S. Melion, Eelco Nagelsmit, Lars Cyril Nørgaard, Alexandra Onuf, Bret L. Rothstein, Xavier Vert, Madeleine C. Viljoen, Mara R. Wade, Lee Palmer Wandel, and Caecilie Weissert.
Walter S. Melion, Ph.D. (1988, Emory University), is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Art History and Director of the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry. He is the author of numerous articles and books on Northern art and art theory, including The Meditative Art: Studies on the Northern Devotional Print, 1500-1625 (Saint Josephâs University Press, 2010).
Contents
Acknowledgements Notes on the Editors Notes on the Contributors List of Illustrations
Introduction: Whatâs in a Secret?
âRalph Dekoninck, Agnès Guiderdoni, and Walter S. Melion
part 1: The Spiritual locus of Secret
1 In the Secrecy of the Cell: Late Medieval Carthusian Devotional Imagery and Meditative Practices in the Low Countries
âIngrid Falque
2 Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as Artisans of the Heart and Soul in Manuscript MPM R 35 Vita S. Ioseph beatissimae Virginis sponsi of ca. 1600
âWalter S. Melion
3 Symbols and (Un)concealed Marian Mysteries in the First Litany of Loreto Illustrated with Emblems: Peter Stoerglerâs Asma Poeticum (Linz, 1636)
âCarme López Calderón
4 âTeach Me, Reveal the Secret to My Heartâ: the Role of a Spiritual Guide in the Meditative Works of Marcin HiÅcza
âAlicja Bielak
part 2: Science and Secrecy
5 Of Grids and Divine Mystery: Gerard Mercatorâs Revelation
âLee Palmer Wandel
6 What Did They See?: Science and Religion in the Anatomical Theatres of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
âPeter G.F. Eversmann
part 3: The Secret in Matter
7 The Sienese Goldsmith and the Secrets of Florentine Disegno
âC. Jean Campbell
8 An Open and Shut Case: On the Dialectic of Secrecy and Access in the Early-Modern Kunstkammer
âMark A. Meadow
9 Mysterious Noises: Orphic Strings, Rough Music, and the Sounds of Early Modern Ornament Prints
âMadeleine C. Viljoen
10 âInsettingheâ and âyegelijcx conversatieâ: Understanding of the Image on the Eve of Baroque
âKoenraad Jonckheere
11 Roger de Piles and the Secret of Grace
âCaecilie Weissert
part 4: Secrecy and Sanctity: Negotiating Secular and Sacred Registers of the Secret
12 In Abscondito: Visuality and Testimony in Raphaelâs Transfiguration
âXavier Vert
13 Secrets of the Dark: Rembrandtâs Entombment (c. 1654)
âAlexandra Onuf
14 Poussin and Richeome: Mystery and Figurability
âRalph Dekoninck
15 Portrait or Parable?: Pierre Mignard and the Mystery of Madame de Maintenon
âEelco Nagelsmit & Lars Cyril Nørgaard
part 5: Secrets of the Ars symbolica: Emblems and Enigmas
16 Secret est à louer: Secrets and Secrecy in French Baroque Cartography, 1580â1640
âTom Conley
17 Hidden in Plain Sight: Melchior Lorckâs Emblematized Adages
âMara R. Wade
18 To Hide is to Reveal: the Paradox of Representing Secrets
âAgnès Guiderdoni
part 6: Challenges of the Secret: Publicity, Performance, and Play
19 Getting to How-To: Chiromancy, Physiognomy, Metoscopy and Prints in Secretsâ Service
âStephanie Leitch
20 The Answer Lies in the Eye of the Beholder: the Emblematic Ceiling Program in the Town Hall of GdaÅsk
âMonika Biel
21 Convents, Condottieri, and Compulsive Gamblers: Hands-On Secrets of Lorenzo Spiritoâs Libro
âSuzanne Karr Schmidt
22 Secrecy and the Understanding of Small Things in Early Modern Italy
âBret L. Rothstein
Index Nominum
Art historians, historians, literary historians, religious historians and all scholars interested in the epistemic representation of secrets in early modern Europe. Keywords: secret, mystery, epistemology, allegory, decipherment, disclosure, concealment, discretion, discernment, emblem, enigma, paradox.