Until Rubens began to design title-pages and book illustrations, this important aspeCt of book decoration was dominated by sixteenth-century maniera concepts. The figures were too tall for their surroundings and their proportions distorted as was the space. The tomb-like Structures or building façades in or upon which the figures and titles were placed were mannered and cluttered with unreal decorative motifs. This vocabulary was set in an unreadable space close to the foreground plane. The maniera Style prevailed in the designs made for books published by the leading Antwerp houses until as late as 16 13, when the Plantin Press published Rubens’s firSt title-page.1 Although the latter, in his design for Aguilon’s Opticorum Libri sex (No. 10; Fig. 55), used the same basic vocabulary as his immediate predecessors, the way it was utilized was totally new and different. Rubens’s architecture, dramatic light effects, angels and figures are rendered with normal proportions that move forward and back ward in dearly legible space. He reduces the earlier over-abundance of detail and asserts a sense of the three-dimensional. However, these innovations were slow to catch on, and Rubens’s impact upon Antwerp book illustrations is not evident until 16 15 in the title-page for C. Scribani’s Amor Divinus, published by Nutius and Van Meurs (Fig. 16). Whereas, in the sixteenth and early seven teenth centuries, the figures enframing the text or title were arranged in separate niches, in a rising compartmentalized landscape or within an elaborate archi tectural decoration (Figs. 7, 9, 1 0 ,1 3 ,1 4 , etc.), in the Scribani frontispiece they are freestanding and rise up encircling the text in the same way as in Rubens’s
Tree of Jesse illustration for the 16 13 Missale (No. 6; Fig. 47). The designer
of the Scribani title does exactly the same thing, but for obvious reasons eliminates the tree. As far as one knows, it was Rubens who firSt arranged his figures in such a way as to give them a real sense of continuous movement sur rounding the printed word, and this innovation was utilized by the designer for Scribani’s book of 1615. However, this dependence upon Rubens in the
1 See e.g. the title-page of P. Opmeer, Opus Chrono graphicum Orbis Universi, H. Ver- dussen, 16 11 (Fig. 13) ; Annales Magistratuum et Provinciarum, Plantin Press, 1609; R. Bellarmine’s Solida Christianae Fidei Demonstratio, M. Nutius, 16 11 (Fig. 14 ); C. Scribani, Het EerSte Deel der Meditatiën, J. Trognesius, 16 13 (Fig. 15).
second decade of the seventeenth century is an isolated case. His impaCt upon Antwerp book illustration does not appear to be of any real significance until the mid 1620’s.
It was not until 1622, in the title-page for Cornelis Cornelisz. van der Steen’s Commentaria in quatuor Prophetas Maiores (Fig. 17 ), that Rubens’s clear-moving space enters the vocabulary of Antwerp title-pages. In 16 17, in his design for the Crux Triumphans (No. 37; Fig. 126), he had given the illusion of the architecture moving forward and backward in space. The same effeft is found in the 1622 title-page cited above, where the bottom projects out of the frame, and as one’s eye moves upward, the other segments of the Struc ture recede and rise in space. IllusioniStic space moves around and behind the Structure as in the Rubens composition. 2
Two years later, in 1624, his compositional concepts were obviously borrowed by the anonymous designer of Emanuel Sueyro’s Anales de Viandes (Fig. 1 3 5 ) .3 In this frontispiece the artist uses the same rounded pedestal for the title that had been introduced by Rubens in his 16 17 Nomismata Imperatorum (No. 39; Fig. 130). Here are found figures below to the right and left. The river gods in the 1624 scene also recall, in their placement, those of Rubens done in 1623 for volume 1-11 of the Annales Ducum Brabantiae by F. Van Haer (No. 51; Fig. 174). Although the personifications Hanking the title in Sueyro's book are somewhat exaggerated in their musculature and poSture, they are now free standing and are not restricted by the architecture.4
This interest in Rubens’s compositional innovations continued in the 1620’s, but, as in the 1624 adaptation (Fig. 135), the figures lack his robuSt quality as well as the illusion of space beyond that delineated by the artist. This type of formal borrowing, but with little understanding of what Rubens was really doing, occurs again in Theodore van Loon’s design for F. de Marselaer’s 1626
Legatus (Fig. 284). The latter is an overly decorative and spaceless mis
interpretation of Rubens's dynamic title-page for C. Scribani's 1624 Politico-
ChriHianus (No. 54; Fig. 185).
2 The same symbols surrounding Christ are found above Moses in the 16 16 Commentaria in Pentateuchum... (No. 36; Fig. 118 ) and are taken from Ezekiel 1 : 4 -10 .
2 Attributed to Rubens in VS., p. 193, No. 4, but rejected by Rooses, v, p. 122.
4 The personification of Flanders surrounded by trophies has no connection with Rubens but is a type found in sixteenth-century title-pages like F. Guicciardini’s D e Oorlogen van Italien, published in Dordrecht in 1599 (Fig. 13 4 ).
It was not until around 1628 that a greater understanding of Rubens’s achievements in the held of title-page design begins to be seen. Although the title-page for M. Van Daelhem’s 1628 Area Honoraria Chriïïi et Santtorum (Fig. 18) used a round Rubens-like pedeStal, the composition ultimately derived from the one that Rubens had introduced in the 16 14 Breviarium (Fig. 7 1) and carried on, with slight changes, in the 1623 Summa Conciliorum (Fig. 172). In the latter, as in the 1628 title-page, the Saints make direft contact with the enthroned figure above by means of gestures. However, the type of Virgin and Child, seated on a round pedeStal and interacting with the Saints below, suggests that the designer was probably also impressed by Rubens’s painting at this time. This is moSt clearly seen in comparing the design with Rubens’s 1628 Madonna and Saints in the church of St. AuguStine, Antwerp (Fig. 19). However, in the former there is a greater accent upon the frontality of the composition, which is more in keeping with title-page design.
By the late 1620’s and early 1630’s, Rubens’s compositional ideas for title- pages seem to have caught on as is evident in the frontispiece by an unknown artiSt for A. Van Teylingen’s Het Paradys der Welluflicheyt, Antwerp, J. Cnob- baert, 1630 (Fig. 2 0 ).5 The layout is similar to Rubens’s 1622 design for D. Mudzaert’s De Kerckelycke HiSlorie (Fig. 166) except for the Standing figure on the pedeStal. The isolated figure of Memorie seated in a landscape may also recall the two hermit Saints in Rubens’s Vitae Patrum (Fig. 193), but in the later work Memorie is placed at the bottom of the Structure. In Het Paradys
der Welluîlicheyt (Fig. 20), the designer introduces trees that enframe and
reinforce the personifications to the right and left as found in Rubens’s 1620
De Contemplatione Divina (Fig. 153).
The change to the freer and more illusioniStic Style of Rubens becomes even Stronger in the 1630’s and there are numerous borrowings from the maSter. In the frontispiece engraved by C. Galle for the 1632 Missale S. Monaîieriensis
Ecclesiae (Fig. 2 1), the title is printed on a piece of drapery held at the top
comers by an angel—an illusioniStic device employed by Rubens as early as 1620 for Thomas a Jesu’s De Contemplatione Divina (No. 45; Fig. 153). The figures encircling the title continue his arrangements of 16 13, 16 14 and 1619 for the illustrations of the Tree of Jesse (No. 6; Fig. 47), the Breviarium design for the A ll Saints scene (No. 28; Fig. 94) and the title-page for the Generale
Legende det Heylighen (No. 44; Fig. 149). However, in the 1632 frontispiece
(Fig. 21) there is more space between the figures and consequently less dynamic overlapping and movement.
By the next year, 1633, Rubens’s idea of imparting a sense of movement to the composition is found in the title-page by an unknown artist for J. Mante- lius’s Dagh van Devotie (Fig. 22). This is a return to the basic idea introduced in Rubens’s 1619 Generale Legende der Heylighen (Fig. 149), where figures are placed in clouds and rise up and around the title. However, in the 1633 scene a landscape is added below and the chalice with the wafer is the upper most image.
In 1634 Marten Nutius published C. Van der Steen’s Commentaria in Eccle-
siaflicum.6 Here, the unknown designer has eliminated the architectural mem
ber and placed monumental, but overly sentimental figures in a clear triangular disposition. This scheme continues the Rubens arrangement beginning in the 16 14 Breviarium title (Fig. 7 1), but the personifications flanking the title have no clear means of support, their poses are exaggerated and their empty ex pressions give the scene a heaviness untypical of Rubens.
In at leaSt one title-page executed in Antwerp in the x630’s, it is clear that the artist knew Rubens’s work but did not follow specific models. The frontis piece for C. Curtius’s 1636 Virorum lllufirium ex Ordine Eremitarum Auguïïini
Elogia..., engraved by C. Galle and published by Cnobbaert (Fig. 23), is entirely
in Rubens’s spirit. The imaginative architectural setting recalls, but with obvious changes, the one used for the 1620 Annales Sacri (Fig. 154) as do the angels perched above. The double head in the top center suggests a coupling of the heads flanking Van Meurs’s printer’s mark (Fig, 204), while the seated personi fications move out into space like those in the 16x7 Crux Triumphans (Fig. 126). One cannot help but think that this is a paStiche of Rubens’s ideas, and that without the latter this title-page would never have come into being. The same can be said of the title-page designed by E. Quellin and engraved by J. Neeffs for C. Neapolis’s Anaptyxis ad Faftos Ovidii, published in 1639 by Moretus (Fig. 2 8 3 ).7 The core of the composition with Caesar on the right and Romulus to the left of the circular pedeStal is obviously based on Rubens’s 1637 design for Goltzius’s leones Imperatorum (No. 83; Fig. 279). The medallion with the
* Attributed to Rubens by V S ., p. 13, No, 16, but rightly rejected by Rooses, v, p. 89.
portrait of Numa Pompilius is placed on the pede&al within a rounded niche and with a peCten shell above and is reminiscent of the 1615 portrait of Philip Rubens for the S. ASterii Romiliae (No. 29; Fig. 100). The double headed buft (Janus?) above recalls the one in volume in of F. Van Haer’s Annales Ducum
Brabantiae of 1623 (No. 52; Fig. 179), and the signs of the zodiac encircling
the heads are present in his portrait of the Infanta Isabella for the 1634 frontis piece of La Peinture de la Sêrénissime Princesse (No. 66; Fig. 222). The She- wolf suckling Romulus and Remus is continuously used by Rubens, for example in the bottom of his frontispiece for J. Lipsius’s Opera Omnia (No. 73; Fig. 246).
A year later, in 1639, an other important follower, Abraham van Diepen- beeck, executed a title-page design which clearly continues the former’s com positional ideas. The frontispiece for Mundi Lapis Lydius (Fig. 24) carries on the sculptured-tomb type introduced by Rubens in his 1614 Breviarium (No. 18; Fig. 71) and continued in 1622 in De Kerckelycke Historie (No. 49; Fig. 166) and later e.g. in de Marselaer’s Legatus (Fig. 286) 8, where the figures are free standing and clouds swirl down behind them. The base with its circular Steps projecting out toward the spectator is firSt present in Rubens’s 16 17 Crux Trium
phans (No. 37; Fig. 126). In this same year of 1639, the design by Rubens’s
collaborator Erasmus Quellin for the title-page of the Terrae Sanftae Elucidatio (Fig. 25) was published.9 Here the artiSt appears to be following a design like Rubens’s 1620 Annales Sacri (No. 46; Fig. 154) for the general arrange ment, with the Saints placed within an imaginative architecture, bordering the title and Standing on projecting pedestals. His God the Father is very similar to Rubens’s Moses in the 1616 Commentaria in Pentateuchum (Fig. 118 ) which was based on the St. Paul in the 16x4 title-page of the Commentaria in D. Pauli
Epiftolas (Fig. 125). Still another title-page designed by Quellin prior to May
25, 16 39 ,10 and published in 1640 contains a number of details that are bor rowed from Rubens. In the frontispiece for F. Goubau’s Pii Quinti Epistolarum
Libri quinque (Fig. 26), the younger draughtsman has used the idea found in Romanae et Graecae Antiquitatis Monumenta (No. 82; Fig. 275) of figures
8 The design for the Legatus was made in 1638 (see below, p. 345, under No. 84).
9 Basan, p. 1 1 7 , No. 25 and VS., p. 197, No. 29, attributed this title-page to Rubens. Rooses, v, pp. 109, n o , rightly gave it to Quellin and published a document dated October 16, 1637, Stating that Quellin was paid 24 guilders for designing the title.
10 For the document see Rooses, v, pp. 8 1, 82. Basan, p. 169, No. 5 and VS., pp. 193, 194, No. 5, attributed the design to Rubens.
ascending and descending around the title. His figures also recall the types used by Rubens in the aforementioned design as well as in the Generale Kerckelycke
Hiïïorie (Fig. 183) . The portrait of the Pope brings to mind the similar heads
in Lipsius’s Opera Omnia (No. 73; Fig. 246) and in the Pompa Introitus Fer
dinand} (No. 81; Fig. 273).
Quellin’s continued dependence upon Rubens’s title-page vocabulary is moSt evident in the frontispiece for S. de Leon’s In Ecclesiasticum ... Expositio &
Illuftratio, published in Antwerp by Pieter Bellerus in 1640 (Fig. 27). God the
Father repeats the type Rubens had used in his 1616 Commentaria in Penta
teuchum (No. 36; Fig. 118 ) for Moses who was also enframed by the archi
tecture. 11 However, the semi-circular architecture enframing God the Father appears to have more in common with that used by Rubens in his 16 13 Opti-
corum Libri sex (No. 10; Fig. 55). The freer and more aCtive turning and
twisting figures flanking the 1640 title suggest a knowledge of Rubens’s 1623
Summa Conciliorum (No. 50; Fig. 172), but they display a greater sense of
movement.
Abraham van Diepenbeeck’s use of Rubens’s innovations continued into the 1640’s. His design for the 1640 title-page for the Afbeeldinghe van d’Eerfle
Eeurn der Societeyt Jesu (Fig. 8), preserves the Rubens arrangement that firSt
appeared in the 16 14 Breviarium (No. 18; Fig. 71) and continued with minor changes in De Kerckelycke Hiftorie of 1622 (No. 49; Fig. 166) and the 1623
Summa Conciliorum (No. 50; Fig. 17 2 ) .1î A year later, in 1641, Van Diepen
beeck’s design for C. Butkens’s Trophées ... de la Duché de Brabant (Fig. 28) was published in Antwerp, and, once again, clearly illustrates his dependence upon Rubens. The composition, with the personification of Brabant (?) enthroned on a cylindrical pedeStal, flanked below by Charlemagne and St. Albert and free of enframing architectural elements, brings to mind the frontis piece for Liutprand’s Opera (No. 78; Fig. 265) designed under Rubens’s direction. The use of the rounded pedeStal and the figure of Charlemagne also
11 In 1639 Quellin had also employed this Rubens figure type in the Terrae Sanfiae Elucidatio (Fig. 25).
12 Also cf. the figure of Heresy in Van Diepenbeeck with those in the above cited Rubens frontispieces of 1622 and 1623.
suggest that Van Diepenbeeck knew the Rubens-Quellin design for Goltzius’s
leones Imperatorum (No. 83; Fig. 279 ).13
Van Diepenbeeck’s 1643 frontispiece for the Afta Sanftorum, I (Fig. 29), published by Jan van Meurs, included a personification in the top center which is a close variation, in reverse, of Rubens’s History in the title-page for Van Haer’s Annales Ducum Brabantiae, I -1I (No. 51; Fig. 174) as well as in that
for Liutprand’s Opera (No. 78; Fig. 265) published in 1640. The turning and twisting figures behind, accompanied by smaller playful cupids, recall those in Rubens’s 1622 title for De Kerckelycke Hiftorie (No. 49; Fig. 166). The in clusion of a hilly landscape with a cave ultimately goes back to the sixteenth- century engraving by Theodore de Bry for H. Bezoni’s America, V (Fig. 198), which Rubens adapted both for his 1628 Vitae Patrum (No. 57; Fig. 193) and for the Arch of the Mint in the Pompa Introitus Ferdinandi.14 This dependence upon Rubens is further demonstrated in Van Diepenbeeck’s title-page for Gre gorius de St. Vincent’s Opus Geometricum Quadraturae Circuli ..., published in 1647 (Fig- 30). However, here the artist does not copy a specific design but uses Rubens’s idea of combining large and realistically rendered figures who conduct a scholarly experiment with cupids as assistants. Rubens did this in the vignettes for his 16 13 Opticorum Libri sex (Figs. 61, 63, 65-68). Van Diepen beeck probably also follows Rubens in placing the title on a Stretched-out animal skin with the head in the top center.
Rubens’s creations became more refined through the efforts of his Antwerp colleagues as the century advanced. For example, in Quellin’s title-page design for the 1643 publication of R. de Arriaga’s Disputationes in Primam Partem
D. Thomae (Fig. 3 1), all the Structural members are omitted except for the base.
The figures, however, are arranged in a triangular relationship that recalls Rubens’s title-pages, beginning with the 16 14 Breviarium (Fig. 7 1). In one of the few designs in which Rubens eliminated the tomb or architectural frame work, the 1634 Opera S. Dionysii (Fig. 217 ), he inscribed the title on a diag onally placed slab of Stone set on a base that projects on either side and recedes to the center. The same configuration is echoed in the bottom zone of this 1643
« The same plate was used again for the 1724 edition of the Trophées de la Duché de Brabant published in The Hague by Christiaan van Lom.
title-page (Fig. 3 1), while Quellin also included an enthroned personification that continued the Moses type used by Rubens in the title for the 1616 Com
mentaria in Pentateuchum (No. 36; Fig. 118 ).
Still in 1643, Quellin’s title-page for B. Cordier’s Expositio Patrum Grae
corum in Psalmos (Fig. 32) was published in Antwerp. It depicts an amply
robed David kneeling on a diagonal within an exotic architectural setting. The interior is invaded by angels in clouds, and the lower right corner is opened up and contains figures reaching and looking up from a fiery underworld. This scene suggests that Quellin was taking inspiration from Rubens’s 1634 design for Boonaert’s In Ecclesiafticum Commentarius (No. 70; Fig. 237). Some two years later, in 1645, an unknown designer seems to have based his frontispiece of M. de Dole’s Den Spighel vanden Berowhebbenden Sondaer (Fig. 33) on a very early Rubens creation, the 16 15 Imperatorum Romanorum Numismata
Aurea (No. 33; Fig. 114 ). In this same year, 1645, the title-page o f L. Nonnius’s Diaeteticon (Fig. 3 4 ) 15 appears to be an expanded and somewhat modified
version of Rubens’s design for the leones Imperatorum (No. 83; Fig. 279), which appeared in the same year but had been designed in 1638.
Quellin’s dependence upon Rubens’s earlier compositions and motifs remains constant into the late 1640’s and 1650’s. Around 1647 his frontispiece for
Vitae D. Aurelii Augultini Libri IV combines several Rubens motifs. Quellin
uses Rubens’s arrangement of 1622 (Fig. 165), where a portrait enframed by a wreath is placed upon an altar containing the title. The latter is flanked by tall personifications Standing on projecting rocks such as one finds in Rubens’s design of the later 1630’s made for de Marselaer’s Legatus (No. 84; Fig. 286).