Between word and image: the trajectory of civility and exemplarity in Gallet’s 1698 illustrated edition of the Heptaméron

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ABSTRACT This article explores George Gallet’s 1698 Amsterdam edition of Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron, which is both enriched with Romeyn de Hooghe’s etchings and whose textual contents are updated for a late seventeenth-century reader. By focusing on the peculiar interplay of verbal and visual elements in Gallet’s edition, I underscore how it recasts notions of civility and exemplarity for a seventeenth-century audience in the Dutch Republic. Marguerite’s work, originally tailored for a courtly readership, is transformed into a commodity for private consumption, with its devotional framework adapted and reshaped to address the needs of an evolving audience, comprising citizens rather than courtiers. I demonstrate that while the linguistic adaptation of Marguerite’s work mitigates manifestations of excessive violence and brutality, de Hooghe’s illustrations, in contrast, emphasize human ferocity and graphic punishments. I contend that what appears as a contradiction to the modern reader may instead be a false dichotomy.