Plague Imagery as Metaphor for Heresy in Rubens' The Miracles of Saint Francis Xavier
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 16611156 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christine M Boeckl (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1996 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 979-995 |
| Publication date | 1996-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sixteenth Century Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0361-0160 • E-ISSN: 2326-0726 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2543904 |
| OpenAlex | W2512394029 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
In 1617 Peter Paul Rubens painted the allegorical altarpiece, The Miracles of Saint Francis Xavier. Most of the represented events have been previously identified. However, the prominent foreground figure, a reclining man on the brink of death, seems to have been misinterpreted as a person raised from the dead. I propose instead that Rubens depicted an infidel cured by the missionary of bubonic plague, the illness being a manifestation of the man's former heretical views. This reading is supported by another Antwerp painting dated in the same year, the Allegory of the Jesuit Order that contains an explanatory Latin text denouncing the Plagues of Heresy. The article will address the previously ignored sixteenth-century literary topic that linked plague to heresy; it will also clarify the dichotomy in seventeenth-century allegorical and narrative plague scenes
Archaeology · Art · Art history · Environmental ethics · Heresy · Metaphor · Plague (disease · SAINT · Theology · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · History · Philosophy · Yersinia bacterium, plague, ectoparasites research
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.15 |
| Citation span | 2006 - 2023 (18) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |