Jerome Nadal's Evangelicae Historiae Imagines and the Birth of Global Imagery

Abstract

This article deals with a set of images which were probably the first in history to be reproduced on four continents: the Jesuit Jerome Nadal's Evangelicae Historiae Imagines (Images of the Gospel Story), first published in Antwerp in 1593. It begins with a brief discussion of what we know about Nadal's life and the production history of his book, as well as its relationship to his Adnotationes et Meditationes in Evangelia quae in sacrosanto missae sacrificio toto anno leguntur (Annotations and Meditations on the Gospel which are to be read throughout the year at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass), which acts as a commentary to the Imagines. Then follows a description of the structure of the two books, and how they narrate and expound the significance of the Gospels. The remaining sections discuss the adaptations of Nadal's imagery. While his work has received much attention from scholars around the world in recent decades, the aim of the present article is to bring together research on the use and re-use of these images in Europe, the Americas, India, China, Japan, Iran and Ethiopia, and to make clear their global impact in a way that has not been attempted before.