April 23, 2013

Conferences

DAY OF THE BOOK. BIBLIOGRAPHIC HERITAGE

An exceptional collection of European engravings in sixteenth-century Pamplona

D. Ricardo Fernández Gracia.
Chairof Navarrese Heritage and Art

In one of the corners of the hidden Pamplona, in the cloister of the Discalced Carmelites of San José, an important collection of engraved prints is preserved, acquired by Leonor de la Misericordia (Ayanz y Beaumont). All of them were bound and numbered in the 17th century, after their acquisition by the aforementioned Carmelite in the last years of the 16th century and the beginning of the following century. Leonor had acquired in her youth an exquisite humanist training with Doña Brianda de Beaumont, daughter and heiress of the Constable of Navarra, remembered by Lope de Vega in La Arcadia ( 1598), as "la divina doña Brianda, gloria de Beaumonte" (the divine Doña Brianda, glory of Beaumonte). Leonor's brothers stood out for different reasons and among all of them, Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont (1553-1613), a multifaceted man who excelled as a military man, painter, cosmographer, musician and inventor, precursor of the use and design of steam engines and air conditioning as well as creator of a diving bell. He even designed a submarine. His most outstanding work was the invention of the steam engine, whose patent he registered in 1606.

The collection of prints is of great interest, both for the rarity of some of them and for their chronology and provenance. The Carmelite nun corresponded with religious of her Order stationed in different parts of Europe, as well as with other important political and Church figures. Among the personalities that sent engravings to her we will emphasize Father Domingo de Jesús María, (Calatayud, 1559-Vienna, 1630) who went to Italy in 1604, occupying the generalate of the Italian Congregation in 1617, Mother Inés de Jesús (Tapia), cousin of Santa Teresa and prioress of Medina del Campo and Palencia, Don Guillén de San Clemente, ambassador of Spain in Prague from 1581 until his death in 1606, the bishop of Tarazona and confessor of St. Teresa Fray Diego de Yepes, Mother Ana de San Bartolomé, prioress of Brussels and Antwerp and Father Gracián de la Madre de Dios, confessor of St. Teresa who by the way described Leonor thus: "Inwardly she was a seraph of condition and soul, and outwardly an angel of face and good grace. She had skill rare in writing, painting, knowing Latin and in the other labors and exercises of women, accompanying with manly prudence".
 

Venerable Catherine of Christ
Copper, sweet carving; 156 x 104 mm
 

The location of the engravings in the volume obeys certain thematic and even chronological criteria, always taking into account the devotions in those times of the first stage of the Counter-Reformation, austere moments, in which the triumphal Baroque had not yet made its presence felt and, therefore, neither had the trickery of rhetoric and propaganda. For the most part, the iconographies of the series have not yet made the quantitative and qualitative leap towards interpretations typical of the Baroque century: ecstasies, apotheosis and glories, because it was a time of containment, immediately after the Council of Trent. For their quality and notoriety, the images of the fourteen holy martyrs stand out, which were edited by Jean Sadeler, with drawings by Martin de Vos and belonged to a series entitled Speculum Pudicitiae. Contemplatio sanctarum castarumque virginum, made by the aforementioned masters, of which copies are preserved in Brussels, Cambridge, Milan, Munich, Paris and Vienna. Some of Martin de Vos' drawings are dated between 1584 and 1585.

Themes such as the Immaculate Conception, some Spanish Marian devotions, or St. Francis Xavier and St. Ignatius of Loyola, in early engravings, extremely rare, can be seen in this unique set.

Her fondness for engraved images led her to illustrate the manuscript copies of one of her works, the Life of Catalina de Cristo, foundress of Soria, Pamplona and Barcelona, with ad hoc engravings, in relation to the subjects of the different chapters. In Navarre he was more than a hundred years ahead of the great publishing companies with engraved prints alluding to the subject matter of their contents, as was the case with the edition of the Annals of Navarre by Moret y Alesón, in its 1766 edition.
 

Saint Charlemagne
Copper, sweet carving; 185 x 132 mm
Leonard Gaultier and Jean Leclerc