O Thesenblatt “A missão mundial jesuíta” de 1664: exemplo da importância da religio cordis como linguagem da religião na iconografia jesuíta

Abstract

This article introduces to the iconography of Thesenblätter - posters advertising the theses of academic disputations, characteristic feature of an academic disputation in Catholic universities since the 16th until the 17th century - as a proper and important genre of Catholic European visual culture of the Baroque and Rococo. Next it introduces the Thesenblatt “Die Weltmission der Gesellschaft Jesu” (The World Mission of the Society of Jesus) engraved in 1664 by Bartholomäus Kilian to a design by Johann Christoph Storer. The article shows the wide and at the same time varied use of the religio cordis as imagetic language in this German Thesenblatt and points out how it characterizes the Jesuit world mission in particular and the Jesuit theology in general. The pictorial language of the religion of the heart establishes the idea of ​​continuity between Jesuit theology, the Mass of Gregory, great mystics of medieval times and the Catholic reform and sets up an interface with the Renaissance world, to reinforce and promote the triple way of medieval mysticism as an ideal and orthodox spirituality.