THE BOOK OF FRANCISCAN SAINTS BYCORNELIUS THIELMANS, 1610:

A QUESTION OF TITLE

ANNA E. C. SIMONI

O N 31 August 1974 the British Library received as part of the Van Stuwe donation^ thegift of a book in small quarto entitled Cort Verhael van het Leven der Heijlighen van 5[.]Franciscus Oirden Met Haer Levende Figuren Wt Diuersche schyvers [sic] genomen Deur DenE. P. Broeder Cornelius Thielmans^ Guardiaen vander Minderbroederen binnen Tshartogen-bosch[.} Met gratie ende Priuilegie, Gedruckt Tshertogenhosch, By Jan Scheffers An"M.D.CVI. [Short narration of the lives of the saints of the Order of St Francis togetherwith their living portraits, drawn from various historians by the Revd Father, BrotherCornelius Thielmans, Guardian of the Friars Minor at *s-Hertogenbosch. With hcenceand privilege. Printed at 's-Hertogenbosch, By Jan Scheffer, 1606]^ (fig. i). The mutilatedremnants of the original printed text of this title-page, set within an engraved architecturalborder, have been clumsily repaired in manuscript. The rest of the book is in goodcondition. The Library already owned an apparently related volume by this author: CorteLegende der Heyhghen van S, Franciscus Oorden met haer Figuren^ AJlaet van Portiunckel^ende Miraculeuse staninge van S, Franciscus Lichaem. By een vergadert Door B. CornelisThielmas Guardiaen der Minderbroederen binnen t^Shertogenhosch[.] Met gratie endePriuilegte^ Gedruckt Tshertogenbosch By Ian Scheffer An" M.D.CVI. [Short legend ofthe saints of the Order of St Francis with their portraits, Portiuncula Indulgence, andmiraculously risen body of St Francis. Compiled by Brother Cornelis Thielmans, etc. asabove]^ (fig. 2). Comparison showed that the two books were identical apart from thedifi^erences in the title-pages and the accidental absence in the Cort Verhael of signature 0and in the Corte Legende of leaf P2.

Before discussing the differences in the title-pages I shall describe the composition ofthe book, ignoring the missing leaves."* The title-leaf has no conjugate leaf and istherefore no part of a gathering. It is immediately followed in both copies by signature Xwhich consists of two leaves printed on the inner forme only, i.e. Xi^ and X2'', the first ofwhich is signed at the foot. These two pages bear an address 'to the well-disposed reader'to which I shall return later. Further gatherings of two leaves each follow, signed A-T.The gatherings A-P are again printed on the inner formes only while Q7T are printed onboth sides of the leaves. Another gathering, signed V, consisting of six leaves, concludesthe book, bearing letterpress text from V2^ to V6^ and an engraving on Vi^. The book, as

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Fig. I. C. Thielmans, Cor/ Verhael van het Leven der Hetjltghen van S. Franciscus Oirden('s-Hertogenbosch, 1606 [i6io]), title-page. 1578/3235

1

COR TE LEGENDE

ER H E Y L I G H E NIvan S. Francifcus Oordenmet hacr Figurcn, Aflacc

vanPortiunckcl ,cndcMiraculcufc ftaningc

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Fig. 2. C. Thielmans, Corte Legende der Heylighen van S. Franciscus Oorden ('s-Hertogenbosch,1606 [1610]), title-page. 4828.aaa.22 (2)

its title declares, is profusely illustrated. Engraved portraits of saints, singly or in groups,fill the recto pages of signatures A-N, with their names in Latin and brief apposite biblicalquotations in Dutch engraved at the foot of each plate. These are fine engravings,unsigned, but printed in the mirror image of, and therefore copied from, the portraits ofthe same saints with the same names and the same quotations, though here in Latin, in theImagines Sanctorum Erancisci of Henricus Sedulius, published at Antwerp in 1602 underthe imprint of Philippus Gallaeus.^

We cannot be sure whether the plates in that book are the work of Philips Galle, orperhaps that of either or both of his sons Theodoor and Cornelis. The probability is thatthey are by Philips because when Theodoor or Cornelis engraved plates for similarworks they supplied not only the imprint, e.g. 'Antverpiae apud Theodorum Gallaeum'on the engraved title-page, but also signed at least one plate either at the beginning or atthe end of the book. An example very similar to the Imagines Sanctorum of Sedulius, andby implication to those of the Cort Verhael of Thielmans, is the Vita et miracula S. P.Z)off/m/n by JoannesNysof 1611.^ It has the imprint of Theodoor Galle on the title-page;the letterpress address to the reader in Latin; eight pages of explanatory text in Dutch togo with the Saint's portrait; and thirty-two numbered plates, each on the recto of a leaf,bearing an engraved caption above each picture and four lines of verse below it, all inLatin. Plate 32 bears the inscription: 'Joes Nys inuenit. Pet. de Jode figurauit, Theod.Galle sculp, etexcud.', which implies that Petrus de Jode made the drawings of the scenesas envisaged by the author which were then engraved and printed by Theodoor Galle. It isperhaps likely that Philips Galle, the publisher, also engraved and printed the portraits ofthe saints described by Sedulius after drawings by an anonymous draughtsman or even byhimself^ In that case the name in the imprint covers all the art work as well as thecommercial aspect of Sedulius's book. This type of devotional book, in which theengraved plates were at least as important as the text, was very popular in the SouthernNetherlands during the Counter-Reformation. They often appeared in several languagesat once or in separate translations, and the copying of plates, leading to the reversal of theimages, was also common.

The connection between Sedulius and Thielmans was to be one of long standing.^Several Latin works of the former served as the basis for works in the vernacular byThielmans who freely translated and adapted them for the benefit of a wider public,occasionally, as here, adding matter derived from other sources. The original plates,published by Galle, used in Sedulius's Imagines were not available to the printer at's-Hertogenbosch; if they had been preserved at all, they would probably still be at theGalle press at Antwerp.^ Copies were therefore made by an anonymous, probably local,artist who was skilful enough not to deserve the condemnation of modern critics ̂ *̂ (fig.3^, b). They are numbered from i to 13. The left-hand page opposite each plate bears theprinted text relating to the particular saint or saints, translated from the Roman and/orFranciscan Breviary or Lectionary, frequently giving this as the source at the end of theMife'. The only text literally translated from Sedulius is that on signature Li , pi. no. i i ,the life of St Louis IX, King of France.

161

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ichcytmacA ^ih^khg^^rvfli

tFtg. 3a. Saint Bonaventura. H. Sedulius, Imagines Sanctorum Franctsci (Antwerp, 1602), pi.

4828.aaa.22 (i)

^Ue mlheyt heh Uk qheUcH Jmicr aheue^s vhcyt ^

Eig. jh. Saint Bonaventura. C. Thielmans, Cort Verhael, pi. 5. 1578/3235

With signature O the book begins to change character. After exhausting the GalleImagines of Sedulius, Thielmans now adduces various traditional Franciscan texts, moresparingly illustrated. The first concerns the stigmata borne by St Francis, a text printedon Oi^, accompanied on 02^ by a representation of the Arbor Vitae, the Tree of Life, inwhich the Crucified Christ is seen at the heart of a tree made up of branches carryingcircular 'leaves' with Latin inscriptions relating to Christ's life. Passion, and Resurrec-tion. The 'tree' is flanked by Saints Francis and Bonaventura (fig. 4). Instead of anidentification or a descriptive text at the foot of the plate, it contains a Latin dedication byThielmans to Joannes Martinus, a lawyer, court counsellor, and military judge, whomThielmans addresses as his friend. This dedication is dated t6o5 and the plate is notnumbered. Signatures P -T deal with the famous, if controversial, Portiuncula Indulgencewhich promised absolution to pilgrims visiting the church of Portiuncula at Assisi, thecentre of St Francis's mission, on the second day of August of any year.^^ Again, P2^contains an engraving, unnumbered, which shows the mystical scene in which the Virginallows St Francis to hold the Holy Child in his arms. It is a much smaller plate than eitherthe copies from Sedulius or the Arbor Vitae and is of much poorer quality. It seems tohave been designed for a book in octavo or even duodecimo format and it has aninscription in Latin. Miracles achieved through recourse to St Francis or this pardon arethen reported at some length, without illustrations. Signature V relates to the miracle ofthe body of St Francis which was discovered by Pope Nicolas V, on a visit to Portiunculain 1449, as standing upright and radiant above his tomb there. An engraved representa-tion of this scene fills Vi^, again in quarto size, unnumbered, but, for once in this book,signed: 'Joan: Berwinckel sculp:'. Very little is known of this artist other than that heproduced devotional engravings in Belgium around 1600.̂ ^ The stories of this miracle,taken from St Bonaventura's biography of the saint, and other events in St Francis's lifecomplete the text.

The address to the reader on signature X, bound at the beginning of the two copies inthe British Library, but reported as found following signature V in others, supplies theexplanation for the strange dichotomy of the book: 'The first edition of the Shortnarration of the saints of the Order of St Francis being nearly sold out, a number of peopleimplored me [to publish another edition] and I acceded to their wish, but more brieflythan before, restricting myself to the readings of the Roman Breviary and the feasts of ourOrder so as to reduce the reader's tedium and the printer's expenses. And to this I haveadded the Portiuncula Indulgence and the miracle of the risen body of St Francis that thereader might learn what wonders God works through His saints and what great honourHe bestows on them . . .'. This address and the approbations by the local censorGisb[ertus] Coeverincx and the Franciscan Minister-provincial Balthazar Vincent,printed at the end, are all dated 1610.

The first part of the book is therefore a new and abridged edition of an earlier 'Shortnarration'. This, as the literature records and extant copies confirm, is a work with exactlythe same title-page as that of the Cort Verhael, including the Jan Scheffer imprint and thedate 1606. But a different and much longer text based more closely on Sedulius and

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Fig. 4. Arbor Vitae. C. Thielmans, Corte Legende, 02^. 4828.aaa.22 (2)

enlarged in the form of a commentary, interspersed with poems, on the lives of the saints,follows it.^^ It contains the same thirteen portraits copied from those in the edition byGalle of the Imagines of Sedulius.

The literature further describes an enlarged third edition of 1620, brought out at's-Hertogenbosch by Jan Janszoon Scheffer, son of Jan Scheffer, which combines the fulltext of the first edition with part two of the second edition and with new additionalmaterial which had been published separately before. ̂ "^ Father Benjamin de Troeyer of StTruiden, historical bibliographer of the Franciscan Order in the Spanish Netherlands,has given me additional and invaluable guidance through this maze.^^ His careful analysisof the texts reveals the growing independence of Thielmans from Sedulius. In examiningthe preliminary matter, De Troeyer notes the significance also of the changes indedications between religious and secular patrons. Thus, copies are known of the 1610edition of the Cort Verhael which have a dedication to Jan Neyen, Commissary-Generalof the Third Order of St Francis in the Netherlands and emissary of Archduke Albert andhis consort Isabella in the negotiations with the States General of the United Provinceswhich led to the Twelve Years' Truce in 1609. This dedication, when it occurs, followsthe title-leaf and may be followed in turn by a calendar of Franciscan feast-days, but nopattern has as yet been established to account for the presence or absence of these leaves. ̂ ^Their absence is too frequent to be counted as an imperfection.

Another variant which has been found and which has added greatly to the complexityof our edition, concerns a copy now in the library of the Provinciaal Genootschapvoor Kunsten en Wetenschappen, the Provincial Society for Arts and Sciences, at's-Hertogenbosch, on the title-page of which a label with the imprint' 's-Hertogenbosch,By my Jan van Turnhout, Anno MDCX' has been pasted over the original imprintof Jan Scheffer of 1606.̂ ^

No copy apart from the one in the British Library appears to be recorded with theCorte Legende title. Its text is printed in letterpress on a label carefully pasted overthe text of the earlier, wholly engraved title-page, as can plainly be seen even in thephotograph (fig. 2). When this title-leaf is held up against the light, the old, engravedwording can easily be read (fig. 5), showing the spellings 'scryuers' in line 8,'T'shertogenbosch' in line 14 and 'SchefFer' in line i8 which were wrongly emended onthe British Library's copy with the Cort Verhael title.

The title as phrased on the added label is at first sight much more accurate for this 'new'edition in which the portrait plates remain the only link with the 1606 edition proper.'Legende' distinguishes it at once from 'Verhael', stressing its partial derivation fromliturgical reading matter. It then hsts the main additional texts not so derived. Similarly,the Jan van Turnhout label recorded at 's-Hertogenbosch provides the correct date in theimprint, and both together are therefore an indication of the intended wording for the titleof this work. The question arises why this new title should not have been printed as acompletely new title-page rather than being superimposed on the much less suitable 1606title-page by means of labels which were then removed again at a later stage.

In the absence of records, for example a reference, unfortunately not provided, in the

166

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Fig. s- C. Thielmans, Corte Legende, verso of the title-page showing the original text.4828.aaa.22 (2)

i62O edition, and in view of the general scarcity of copies on which to base one'sargument, ̂ ^ it is of course impossible to draw reliable conclusions. One small clue isincidentally supplied by Thielmans in his address to the reader, quoted above. He saysthere that he aimed at keeping the printer's expenses down, and this accords with the useof already existing copperplates from the 1606 edition for the portraits of the saints and ofthe Arbor Vitae image previously used in Thielmans's translation of some tracts by, orascribed to, St Bonaventura, published at 's-Hertogenbosch by Jan van Turnhout in1605.^^ I have been unable to trace any earlier appearance in a book, published at's-Hertogenbosch or elsewhere, of the plates of the vision of St Francis holding theChrist-child and of the same saint's miraculously risen body as engraved by Berwinckel.But the former, different in style of execution and in format, and only tenuouslyconnected textually with the book under discussion, is so plainly brought into the editionfrom some other source that it must surely have been printed from a plate alreadyavailable from earlier employment; and the latter, though agreeing much better with itssurroundings, is no more essential to the book than would have been the illustrations ofany other miracles described in the preceding pages if they had happened to exist, and thisplate may also just have been taken out of a drawer to be given a new airing in 1610.̂ ''Indeed, a new copperplate would only have added greatly to the costs. So would a newlyengraved title-page, and it would equally have required a skilled engraver to erase the oldand substitute the new wording on the plate for the 1606 title-page. There may not evenhave been such a craftsman in the city which was suffering the after-effects of all too manysieges. New letterpress labels were, then, a sensible solution. They could also have beenused on title-pages already printed from the original plate for the as yet unsold copiesstill in the printer's shop. The extant imprint label names Jan van Turnhout only asbookseller, saying nothing about who printed it, and although I myself have had too littlecomparable typographical material at my disposal to assign the Cort VerhaeljCorteLegende to one or other of the two 's-Hertogenbosch printers, Verreyt's attribution of it tothe press of Jan Scheffer has been accepted by Ten Brink.^^ According to Verreyt, theimagery of the 1606 title-page refers to Jan Scheffer, not so much in the figure of KingDavid on the right as in that of John the Baptist on the left, complete with Lamb, which heinterprets as a pun on the printer's name: John Shepherd. ̂ ^

On the other hand. Father De Troeyer has been able to compare the 1610 edition ofThielmans's book on Franciscan saints with a copy of his Voortghanck der GheestelijckerPersoonen, a translation of St Bonaventura's Processus religiosorum, which Jan vanTurnhout had published at 's-Hertogenbosch in 1604. De Troeyer found identical typesused in both these books which do not occur in any Jan Scheffer production known tohim. He concludes that the Jan van Turnhout imprint on both these title-pages designateshim also as printer. In De Troeyer's view, Jan van Turnhout rather than Jan Schefferpossessed the small roman type used in the 1610 Cort VerhaeljCorte Legende. More textcould be printed on fewer pages by using this type and the printer's expenses could bekept down, a very good reason under the circumstances for preferring his press.

Be this as it may, an allusion to Scheffer in the imagery of the earlier title-page, or

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simply its retention proclaiming his name in the imprint, is only explicable if it wasintended to associate him with this new edition. With the exception of the Arbor Vitaeplate the plates were certainly in the possession of the Scheffer press when Jan JanszoonScheffer needed them for his 1620 'omnibus' edition.

The old engraved title-page with labels equipping it for the new edition seems thereforesatisfactory enough. Then why and when were the labels removed.^ If they were so badlyaffixed that they merely dropped off in the course of time they would not have left thedamage still visible on the imprint compartments of both the British Library's copies, stillless would they have caused the amount of mutilation that made so much manuscriptemendation to the title-page of the Cort Verhael necGss^ry. And if a label falls off a page,would one not try to re-attach it or rewrite its text into the less truthful wording foundunderneath it? This would also be the natural course to adopt if the labels had merely beenlifted in order to satisfy curiosity to see what they were hiding, and such a desire woulditself demand careful handling so as not to cause injury. The destruction of one or bothsurfaces leads one to suspect at the least carelessness, and more probably intent, certainlyin so far as the top layer is concerned. Nor, if some individual owners of the book had beentempted at a later period to remove the labels, ought the proportion of surviving 'CortVerhaeP titles to be so much greater. Was the removal of the labels then undertaken verysoon after they had first been applied?

In my discussion with Father De Troeyer he tentatively suggested a possible reason forsuch a curious procedure, namely an objection raised by a church authority to the use ofthe term 'legend' in the title. However, he knew of no evidence for such a move, nor of anysimilar difficulty arising from this word. Nevertheless, in this instance I consider that theobjection could concern the more recent meaning given to the word in Protestant circles,since Luther's condemnation of what he saw as superstition in Catholic beliefs andpractices, as covering fictional, untrue, intentionally fraudulent tales. ̂ ^ These meanings,from the mythical to the lying, are the common ones of the word today. The ironical twistgiven to the word by Luther and Reformers after him became part of the stock-in-trade inboth religious and political satire. Thus the Dutch version, first published at Dordrecht in1575, of the savage French satire on the dogma of the transubstantiation, Legende veritablede lean le BlanCj of 1575, had been reprinted at The Hague as recently as 1609 under thetitle of VVaerachtige legende van Jan de Witte-^"^ 2.nd a CathoHc censor in the Spanish-ruledcity of 's-Hertogenbosch, exposed to contagion from bordering Calvinist provinces,with who-knows-quite-what amount of support from secret adherents of that faith withinthe walls, might well wish to avoid playing into the hands of heretics with a title-pageliable to such an interpretation. He would demand the destruction of all loose labelsprinted and their removal from any copies to which they had already been affixed. Thecopy in the British Library with the Corte Legende title-page would then be one of thevery few, if not the only one, to have escaped the fate of forceful removal of its label.

The description of the book in the approbations is not very helpful in establishing itsrightful title. Both are in Latin and refer to the book in a way which may reflect the CorteLegende title without quoting it, or which may simply be a summary of the book's

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contents. The one by Coeverincx of 19 March 1610 runs: 'Imagines Sanctorum ordinis S.Francisci cum Historijs continentibus vitam eorundem contentis in Breviario Romano &Ordinis, qu^e sunt a sede Apl'ica [Apostolica] approbatae, vt & indulgentiae Portiunculsesummo cum fructu, etiam cum prodigiosa statione funeris S. Francisci excudi poterunt'.To which Balthazar Vincent added on 23 November of the same year: 'Placet & mihiin lucem prodeant hae Imagines Sanctorum ordinis nostri Seraphici, cum indulgentiaPortiunculae & Miraculosa statione funeris S. P. Francisci, opera & studio V. P. F.Cornelij Tielmanni Guardiani Buscod. collect^'.^^

The removal of the imprint label cannot have had a similar cause as the removal of thetitle label; it was surely quite inoffensive. But if an order had been given to remove alllabels, it was no doubt obeyed without further argument, and again, only one instance isknown where the imprint label was accidentally spared. The chance survival of bothlabels, though on different copies of the book, still testifies to the attempt of author andpublisher to give this edition a clearer identity than it finally obtained to the puzzlement ofall who have encountered it ever since.

1 The Van Stuwe donation is a selection from thebooks collected by Jacobus van Stuwe, one-timearts correspondent of the Nieuwe RotterdamsckeCourant in Britain, offered to the British Libraryby his son Hans.

2 B.L., 1578/3235-3 B.L., 4828.aaa.22 (2), purchased 17 May 1895.4 No satisfactory explanation for the loss of these

can be given. Both O2 and P2 bear engravings,but hardly of the kind to interest a thief, nor ofthe quality to stimulate particular devotion.1578/3235 arrived in rather poor condition andthe loss of a gathering may have happened byaccident long before the book was rebound in1982. Leaf P2 has been cut out of the copy at4828.aaa.22 {2), leaving a stub with a rough edge.

5 B.L., 4828.aaa.22 (i).6 B.L-,4827.bbb.i4.7 On the various members of the family see

J. B. van den Bemden, 'De familie Galle\ DeVlaemsche School, vi (i860), pp. 26-8, 34-6,58-60, 106-8, 183, and U. Thieme & F. Becker,Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Kunsller.,xiii^ (1973), PP- 105-6. Fathers, sons, uncles,brothers-in-law contributed to the same series ofillustrations or had their plates combined to makeup a set to be published together, years after theolder generation of engravers had died. It istherefore often difficult to disentangle individualartists, especially in books in which some of theplates have been signed by two or three membersof tbe Galle family and others have been left

unsigned. There is no reference in Van denBemden to the Franciscan saints. On p. 58 hementions Theodoor Galle's engravings for Hetleven van den H. Norbertus., or rather. Vita S.Norberti, by J. C. vander Sterre of 1622 (theDutch edition of 1623 is a different book of 360pages and was not illustrated) which, when oneexamines it, contains work by both Theodoor andCornelis and perhaps even Joannes, Theodoor'sson. An undated Leven van St-Dominicus whichVan den Bemden lists as also by Vander Sterre,with engravings by Theodoor Galle, must be amistake for the book by Nys mentioned above.

8 On Sedulius see D. van Heel, De MinderbroederPater Henricus de Vroom {Henricus Sedulius),1S49-1621 (Den Haag, 1931), especially p. 95 onhis Imagines. The translation by Thielmans is notmentioned there, but with his description ofSedulius, Diva Virgo Mosce-Traiectancs (1609)Van Heel also deals with Thielmans, T'Boeckvan 0ns Lieve Vrouwe van Maestricht . . .overgeset . . . met meer miraeckelen vermeerdert{1612). In his Seraphische historie of 1628,1630 Thielmans himself enumerates his sources;prominently among them is Sedulius, Historiaseraphica (1613). See Van Heel, pp. 79-94-

9 S. Dirks, Histoire litteraire et bibliographique desFrires Mineurs de FObservance de St.-Fran^oisen Belgique et dam les Pays-Bas (Anvers, 1885),pp. 133-4, calls these plates '13 superbes gravuresde Phil. Galle'.

10 E. A. B. J. ten Brink, 'Bossche drukken 1600-

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1629, een bijdrage tot de Noordnederlandschebibliografie IT, Varia historica Brabantica, iii(1969), pp. 147, 148, uses the word 'slordig','slovenly', for both the presswork and the engrav-ings of our book which is surely too harsh. Thereare misprints and other minor faults in the text,but these are no worse than those in the majorityof books produced then or now, and a compari-son of the portraits in both the Sedulius and theThielmans proves the latter to have been donewith admirable care and precision, even if theylack some of the brilliance of the former.

11 For a long list of sources and their discussion seeM, Faloci Pulignani, 'Gli storici della Porziun-cola', Miscellanea Francescana^ x (1906), pp. 65-94, 97-108, 129-48, 161-72. One will, how-ever, search there in vain for the name ofCornelius Thielmans.

12 The best among the few entries on Berwinckelwhich can be found in the reference books arethose in J. Meyer, H, Lucke, H, von Tschudi,Allgemeines Kunstler Lexikon, iii (Leipzig, 1885),p. 736 and F. W. H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemishetchings^ engravings and woodcuts ca. 1450-1700., ii(Amsterdam, n.d.), pp. 36, 37. Both mention thisparticular engraving as 'St. Francis appearing toPope Nicholas V, without quoting a source. B.Kleinschmidt, Sankt Franziskus von Assisi inKunst und Legende (Mlinchen-Gladbach, 1911),pp. 122, 123, states that this legend has beenrepeatedly represented in paintings. The one heillustrates, by L. de la Hyre, bears no resem-blance to Berwinckel's print.

13 See C. Sloots, 'Pater Cornelius ThielmansO.F.M. Leven en geschriften', Bijdragen voor degeschiedenis van de Provincie der Minderbroeders inde Nederlandeny i (1947), pp. 119-22; C. C. V.Verreyt, Het geslacht Schoeffer later Scheffer enScheffers te \-Hertogenbosch van JS4i-ijg6 inbetrekking tot de boekdrukkunst ('s-Gravenhage,1888), pp. 60, 61; idem, 'St. Franciscusboeken inde i6e en i7e eeuw te 's-Hertogenbosch versche-nen', Taxandria^ xxxiv (1927), p. 4; E. ten Brink,op. eit., p. 143 (with a reproduction of thetitle-page on p. 144). An extensive bibliographyon all the editions can be found in C. Sloots, op.eit., p. 128. S. Dirks, op. eit., p. 158, mentions anedition of 1615 which must be due to an error onhis part. Dirks does not give locations and nosuch edition has been seen or found describedelsewhere by any of his successors. This is not theonly instance where Dirks is unreliable.

14 e.g. Een Wonderlijckst Miraeckelgeschietinde Stadtvan Palermen int Jaer 1605, door de Verdiende(sic as quoted) St. Francisci. [Col.:] 'GeprentT'Shertogenbossche by Jan Scheffer', quotedby C. Verreyt, Het geslacht Scheffer., p. 116,and 'St. Franciscusboeken', p. 7, and E. tenBrink, op. eit., p. 200. The book is not dated, butits approbation of 1608 makes it probable that itwas published in that year or not long thereafter.

15 Father De Troeyer not only gave me his time, butalso lent me the part of an as yet unfinished articleon Thielmans to be published in Franciscanadealing with the three editions of the CortVerhael., allowing me to draw freely from it. I amdeeply indebted to him for this generosity.

16 See E. ten Brink, op. eit., p. 147. His collation isnot wholly clear. The leaves he designates as'unsigned^', following the '*^', niay or may notbe part of the same gathering, nor do I quiteunderstand his'( -X)' at the end of the collation.He appears to stipulate a fifty-second leaf. Noneof the known copies have such a leaf, whetherblank or bearing a device. An enquiry at 's-Hertogenbosch has alas not been answered.

17 See C. Verreyt, 'St. Franciscusboeken', p. 5;idem, 'De boekdrukkers Van Turnhout te 's-Hertogenbosch V\ Taxandria, xii (1905), p. 181;E. ten Brink, op. eit., p. 147.

18 Copies of the 1606 and 1620 editions are a littlemore plentiful. The 1610 copy of the CortVerhael onee at Louvain was destroyed in 1914;of the two eopies at 's-Hertogenboseh, one,deseribed by Ten Brink as wanting several—unspeeified—leaves, bears this label; a eopy at theKoninklijke Bibliotheek Albert I, Brussels, eor-responds to Ten Brink's other, 'perfect', copy at's-Hertogenbosch, according to its description inthe literature, but it cannot any longer be foundthere and does not have an entry in that library'scatalogue (was it really ever there?); noneare recorded at the Bibliotheque Nationale,Paris, the Bodleian Library, Oxford, CambridgeUniversity Library, or in the NUC. A copy of1610 which W. P. C. Knuttel, Nederlandschebibliographie van kerkgeschiedenis (Amsterdam,1899), p. 318, noted as offered for sale in M.Nijhoff's Catalogus 118, cannot now be traced.

19 Den Boom des Leuens des ghecruysten "JhesuChristie Met den Lofsanck des Cruyce., ende trac-taetken van de viff Feestdagen des suete gebene-dijde Kint Iesus. . . gheschreuen int Latijn deur denH. Bonauentura . . . In Nederduyts ouergheset deur

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den E. P. B. Cornells Tielemans . . . t'Sherto-genbosch . . . bij mij Jan van Turnhout . . . 1605.See C. Verreyt, 'De boekdrukkers Van Turn-hout', p. 180, where the one copperplate belong-ing to this book is described as showing Christ onthe Cross with the Saints Francis and Bona-ventura. C. Sloots, op. cit., pp. 116, 117, says itrepresents the suffering Christ on the Cross asthe Tree of Life according to St Bonaventura'stext.

20 Father De Troeyer identifies the text of thischapter as a translation of one in the Historiaseraphica of Sedulius, published in 1613 atAntwerp by the Heirs of Martinus Nutius, whichThielmans must in that case have seen in manu-script. The Historia seraphica has an engravedtitle-page by Charles de Mallery, but is otherwiseunillustrated.

21 Verreyt offers two explanations. In the later one,in his 'St. Franciscusboeken' of 1927, p. 6, hepresupposes that Thielmans financed the pro-duction of the book himself, had it printed byScheffer, but later quarrelled with him andthereupon took all unsold copies of the editionacross the road to Jan van Turnhout who thenprinted and attached this label. He had been lessfanciful in his 'De boekdrukkers Van Turnhout'(1905), p. 182, where he suggested that Jan vanTurnhout agreed to sell part of the editionprinted by Scheffer. Booksellers frequently madesuch arrangements to spread the risk, but whatadvantage could be expected when sales wereshared between two booksellers on opposite sidesof the same street? I prefer to see it rather as ajoint enterprise between printer and publishersharing resources and expenses such as the plates.We know already that the Arbor Vitae plate isderived from a book published originally by Van

Turnhout, and it is this plate which was notreprinted in the 1620 edition of the Cort Verhael.

22 See C. Verreyt, Het geslacht Schoeffer, p. 61.Verreyt does not mention the scrolls displayed bythe two figures. Unless the architectural design ofthis title-page has some bearing on another hookfor which it served, the text on these scrollscannot be interpreted as being anything butrather far-fetched puns on the name of the city,'the Duke's Forest': on St John's scroll is aquotation from Matt. 3: 10: 'De Byle is aan dewortel gestelt', which the Revised Version trans-lates as 'the axe is laid unto the root', and David'sscroll reads 'En wilt niet booslyc doen Psal. 47',with the numerals erroneously transposed as isoften the case in both woodcuts and engravings,for which the Revised Version offers in Ps. 75: 4'Deal not foolishly'. A strange phrase to useunless 'booslyc' can be taken by some dreadfulviolence to its meaning and its pronunciation tosuggest the sound of 'bos'. Mind-boggling as thismust be to the linguistic purist, it cannot be ruledout, considering the Renaissance habit of playingwith and on words.

23 See J. and W. Grimm, Deutsches Worterbuch,vi, ed. M. Heyne (Leipzig, 1885), col. 535,where Luther is quoted as mockingly applying'Legende' and its distortion to 'Lugende' inreference to the transubstantiation.

24 The 1575 French edition is in the British Libraryat pressmark io73.a.i9, the 1575 Dutch edition isat io6.a.i6, and the 1609 Dutch edition is at11555^-23.

25 It will be noted that both approbations stress the'Imagines' rather than the lives they illustrate: avalue judgement, or a carefully non-committalploy?

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