Abstract
The Chapel of Nuestra Señora de los Ojos Grandes (Our Lady of the Big Eyes) in the Cathedral of Lugo in Galicia, north-west Spain, houses an arresting cycle of applied emblems executed c.1735. Drawn from different printed sources, such as Jan David’s Pancarpium Marianum (1607) and Filippo Picinelli’s Mundus Symbolicus … (1681), most of them are used to emphasize the prerogatives accorded to the Virgin Mary by the Catholic Church. However, a dozen emblems appear to be addressed to the faithful as they may echo the process of spiritual perfection described by mysticism and popularized in the seventeenth century through two emblem books, Herman Hugo’s Pia Desideria (1624) and Benedictus Van Haeften’s Schola Cordis (1629). This article explores the connections between the Spanish edition of the latter, issued for the first time in 1720 under the title La Escuela del Corazón, and the aforementioned group of twelve non-Marian emblems. Could these paintings be an embodiment of some of the lessons taught in the Schola Cordis? If so, for what reason might they have been included in a programme devoted to the Mother of God? In answering these questions, this article attests to both the comprehensive relationship established between words and images in the Early Modern period and the important didactic role played by emblematics in the diffusion of post-Tridentine Catholicism.
Published Version
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