The Monumental Jesuit Picture Bible Illustrated by the Wierix Brothers
Natalis (Nadal), Hieronymus. Evangelicae Historiae Imagines. Ex ordine Evangeliorum, quæ toto anno in Missæ sacrificio recitantur, In ordinem temporis vitæ Christi digestæ. Antwerp, [Martinus Nutius], [1591–]1593.
One of the great monuments of Counter-Reformation printmaking and arguably the most important Flemish engraved biblical cycle of the sixteenth century: the celebrated Evangelicae Historiae Imagines conceived by the Jesuit theologian Hieronymus Nadal and engraved principally by the Wierix brothers after designs associated with Bernardino Passaro and Marten de Vos.
The present first edition contains 153 engraved plates of extraordinary richness and refinement, depicting the life of Christ in densely populated Renaissance settings rendered with astonishing technical precision. The series became one of the most influential visualizations of the New Testament in early modern Europe and beyond, used extensively by Jesuit missionaries in China and South America and remaining influential well into the nineteenth century.
Edition & Bibliographic Information
Engraved title, 4 leaves, 2 blank leaves. With 153 engraved plates, 2 engraved ornamental borders, and 4 woodcut initials. Folio (342 × 235 mm).
Contemporary English red morocco binding over five raised bands decorated with gilt fillets. Spine compartments richly gilt with floral tools; covers framed in gilt with large orientalising central medallions composed of interlaced strapwork over stippled gilt grounds and elaborate floral cornerpieces. Gilt board edges and gauffered gilt edges throughout.
The plates survive in brilliant impressions of exceptional sharpness and tonal subtlety. The present copy belongs to the earliest issue in which the artists’ names have been erased from the plates while retaining both Roman and Arabic numbering.
The Great Jesuit Picture Bible
Maurice Funck famously described the series as:
“le monument de la gravure flamande de la fin du XVIe siècle”
the great monument of late sixteenth-century Flemish engraving.
The work originated in the intellectual and spiritual environment of the early Jesuit order. Hieronymus Nadal (1507–1580), one of the closest collaborators of Ignatius of Loyola, conceived the project together with the founder of the Society of Jesus as a comprehensive visual meditation upon the life of Christ.
Nadal had first encountered Loyola during his student years in Paris but only later joined the Jesuit order after hearing reports of Francis Xavier’s missionary work in India. He subsequently became one of the principal architects of Jesuit identity, helping shape the order’s educational system and internal spirituality through extensive travels and institutional foundations across Europe.
The Imagines formed part of this broader Jesuit pedagogical mission.
From Rome to Antwerp: The Creation of the Plates
The realization of the project extended across decades. After Nadal’s death in 1580, the drawings executed by the Roman painter Bernardino Passaro were entrusted to Jacobus Ximenes, who supervised publication. The plates were initially intended for Christophe Plantin in Antwerp, though negotiations proved difficult. Eventually the designs were reworked by the Antwerp Mannerist Marten de Vos and engraved principally by the brothers Anton, Hieronymus, and Johan Wierix, assisted by Charles de Mallery and Jan and Adriaen Collaert.
The resulting engravings are astonishing technical achievements. Every composition unfolds as a complex theatrical and theological space crowded with figures, architecture, landscapes, gestures, and symbolic detail. Renaissance Antwerp becomes Jerusalem; biblical history unfolds within the visual language of late sixteenth-century Europe.
Art, Meditation, and Global Mission
The Imagines were never conceived merely as illustrations. They functioned as instruments of meditation, teaching, and spiritual formation. Each scene corresponds to Nadal’s theological commentaries and meditative texts, inviting the viewer not simply to observe but to enter imaginatively into the Gospel narrative itself.
Their importance during the Counter-Reformation cannot be overstated. Jesuit missionaries carried the series across the globe, where the engravings became foundational visual models for Christian art in Asia and Latin America. In China and South America especially, the compositions acquired near-canonical status and continued influencing religious imagery for centuries.
A Masterpiece of Flemish Engraving
The plates unite the intellectual ambitions of the Jesuit order with the extraordinary virtuosity of Antwerp Mannerist engraving. Rich architectural settings, dramatic perspectival structures, expressive physiognomies, and densely choreographed narrative action transform the Gospel story into a vast visual encyclopedia of Christian history and doctrine.
At the same time, the engravings preserve the remarkable delicacy associated with the Wierix workshop: minute textures, shimmering fabrics, atmospheric distance, and microscopic details rendered with almost unbelievable precision.
Provenance
Bookplate of Stephanus Lipovniczky von Lipovnók, Abbot of Esztergom and Bishop of Großwardein (d. 1885), engraved armorial ex-libris on front pastedown.
Previously described in:
Tenschert XX, Illumination und Illustration, no. 117.
Tenschert XLVIII, Biblia Sacra, no. 50.
Literature
Adams N 56, 57, and 55; BM STC Dutch 33; Brunet IV, 18; Cockx-Indestege et al., nos. 2192–2193 and 8786; De Backer/Sommervogel V, 1518; Ebert 14656; Funck, pp. 196 and 366f.; Graesse IV, 648; Thieme/Becker XXVI, 283.
For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, number 68a–d:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume II
