noblebeasts

Illustration on page 168 of Mathais Tanner’s Societas Jesu apostolorum imitatrix, depicting Father Petrus Mascarena (c. 1546-1597). In a darkly rendered engraving, Mascarena points heavenward in a curving gesture reminiscent of that of John the Baptist in traditional iconography. High above, an angel holds the victor’s crown of laurels, but the rest of the background is crowded with human bones, some seemingly floating in midair, others arranged in patterns of skulls and femurs suggestive of the assembling of relics in baroque settings such as St. Ursula’s Church in Cologne. Among the bones stands a skeleton holding a scythe, suggesting the inescapable nature of death and the fate that waits Mascarena and his seventeen companions. Unlike other illustrations in the Imitatrix that represent real or imagined events, this engraving presents an allegorical image of the concrete dangers that Jesuits faced.

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(Source: ellamorte, via d-r-o-s-s)