Molanus
Encyclopedia
Catholic University of Leuven
The Catholic University of Leuven, or of Louvain, was the largest, oldest and most prominent university in Belgium. The university was founded in 1425 as the University of Leuven by John IV, Duke of Brabant and approved by a Papal bull by Pope Martin V.During France's occupation of Belgium in the...
, where he was Professor of Theology, and Rector from 1578. From 1561 to 1563 he was headmaster at the Latin School in Duisburg
Duisburg
- History :A legend recorded by Johannes Aventinus holds that Duisburg, was built by the eponymous Tuisto, mythical progenitor of Germans, ca. 2395 BC...
, today's Landfermann-Gymnasium
Landfermann-Gymnasium
Landfermann-Gymnasium is situated in the city centre of Duisburg, Germany. It is a municipal grammar school for boys and girls, and is one of the oldest schools in Germany....
. Born at Lille
Lille
Lille is a city in northern France . It is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Lille is situated on the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium...
(then under the Habsburgs), he was a priest and canon
Canon (priest)
A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....
of St. Peter's church in Louvain, where he died.
Among many other subjects he wrote on the proper content of religious images, taking a very severe line in his De Picturis et Imaginibus Sacris, pro vero earum usu contra abusus ("Treatise on Sacred Images") of 1570. Five further, enlarged, editions of this appeared between 1570 and 1771, and a modern French translation has been published, most recently in 1996. He was lead editor of an edition of the works of Saint Augustine (Antwerp - Plantin Press
Plantin Press
The Plantin Press at Antwerp was one of the focal centers of the fine printed book in the 16th century.Christophe Plantin of Touraine, trained as a bookbinder, fled from Paris, where at least one printer had recently been burned at the stake for heresy, for Antwerp, where he bound books, became a...
, 1566–1577), and wrote a history of Louvain.
He is not to be confused with Gerhard Wolter Molanus
Gerhard Wolter Molanus
Gerhard Wolter Molanus was Lutheran theologian and abbot of Loccum....
(van Meulen), 1633–1722, an influential German Lutheran theologian.
Molanus and art
Molanus is today mainly remembered by art historians for being one of the first authorities to turn the short and inexplicit decrees of the Council of TrentCouncil of Trent
The Council of Trent was the 16th-century Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church. It is considered to be one of the Church's most important councils. It convened in Trent between December 13, 1545, and December 4, 1563 in twenty-five sessions for three periods...
(1563) on sacred images into minutely detailed instructions for artists, which were then widely enforced in Catholic countries. His views on the older, originally Byzantine
Byzantine art
Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....
, traditional depiction of the Nativity
Nativity of Jesus in art
The Nativity of Jesus has been a major subject of Christian art since the 4th century. The artistic depictions of the Nativity or birth of Jesus, celebrated at Christmas, are based on the narratives in the Bible, in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and further elaborated by written, oral and...
are typical:
The Virgin is shown pale with pains, the midwives prepare a small (narcotic) drought for the childbirth. Why this? Is it because the Virgin Mary would have held back from any pain of childbirth, when in fact she brought forth her divine son without pain? And what pertains to the midwives who are mentioned in the apocryphal Book of the Infancy? Jerome says: There was no midwife! No obtrusiveness of women intervened! She, the Virgin, was both mother and midwife! I saw in not a few places the picture of the blessed Virgin lying on a bed, depicting childbirth, and she was suffering pains from this birth, but that is not true. How stupid! Those artists ought to be laughed at who paint Mary in the very act of childbirth pains, accompanied with pain, midwife, bed, little knives (to cut the umbilical cord), with hot compresses, and many other appurtenances. . . . Rather, those pictures should be promoted which show the birth of Christ in which the Blessed Virgin Mary with arms folded and on bended knee before her little son, as though he was just now brought forth into the light
He objected on similar grounds to the Death of the Virgin
Death of the Virgin
The Death of the Virgin Mary is a common theme in Western Christian art, comparable to the Dormition in Eastern Orthodox art. It becomes less common as the doctrine of the Assumption gains support in the Roman Catholic Church from the late Middle Ages onwards...
, her swooning at the foot of the Cross
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...
, and her being shown supplicating Christ for mankind in Last Judgement scenes - she would, he said, in fact be sitting alongside Christ in stern judgement:
Many painters show Mary and John the Baptist kneeling beside Our lord at the Last Judgment...But we may not think that at that day the Virgin Mary will kneel for us before the Judge, baring her breast to intercede for sinners. Nor may we think that John the Baptist will fall upon his knees to beg mercy for mankind in the way the painters show. Rather, the blessed Virgin and St. John shall sit beside the supreme Judge as assessors. The mercy which is extended now will have no place then. There will only be strict justice at that day
Also condemned were Saint Christopher
Saint Christopher
.Saint Christopher is a saint venerated by Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, listed as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd century Roman Emperor Decius or alternatively under the Roman Emperor Maximinus II Dacian...
as a giant carrying Christ (and as the protector of travellers), Saint George
Saint George
Saint George was, according to tradition, a Roman soldier from Syria Palaestina and a priest in the Guard of Diocletian, who is venerated as a Christian martyr. In hagiography Saint George is one of the most venerated saints in the Catholic , Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, and the Oriental Orthodox...
and the dragon, the Holy Kinship
Holy Kinship
Holy Kinship was a popular theme in religious art throughout Germany and the Low Countries, especially during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The Holy Kin were the extended family of Jesus descended from his maternal grandmother St. Anne. According to this tradition, St...
, the unicorn hunt in the Hortus Conclusus
Hortus conclusus
Hortus conclusus is a Latin term, meaning literally "enclosed garden". "The word 'garden' is at root the same as the word 'yard'. It means an enclosure", observed Derek Clifford, at the outset of a series of essays on garden design, in which he skirted the conventions of the hortus conclusus...
and many other depictions not verifiable from reliable sources - the Golden Legend
Golden Legend
The Golden Legend is a collection of hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine that became a late medieval bestseller. More than a thousand manuscripts of the text have survived, compared to twenty or so of its nearest rivals...
was, he said, in fact of "lead".
Nudity, even of the infant Jesus, was to be avoided as much as possible, and drapes must cover the genitals where it could not be. Whilst condemning older depictions without a scriptural basis, he was not hesitant in creating new ones based on his own interpretation. Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....
should not be shown as the old, semi-comical figure of the Middle Ages, but as young, vigorous and firmly in control of the Holy Family
Holy Family
The Holy Family consists of the Child Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and Saint Joseph.The Feast of the Holy Family is a liturgical celebration in the Roman Catholic Church in honor of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and his foster father, Saint Joseph, as a family...
. Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...
should not be shown as an over-dressed prostitute, and generally dress should be simple.