Chiselled in rock, printed on paper: Francesco Quaresmio and the epigraphy of the Holy Land

Abstract

The substantial two-volume work Terrae Sanctae Elucidatio (1639) by the Franciscan friar Francesco Quaresmio (b. Lodi, Italy, 1583–1656) is known as a veritable encyclopaedia on the Holy Land. It is also an itinerary of pilgrimage through the sacred sites, taking their monumentality and graphic landscape into account. Quaresmio was especially attentive to the Latin inscriptions made by the Crusaders, here copied by him as autoptic testimonies. This is part of a more general phenomenon. From the fifteenth century through to the seventeenth, in Europe this period is sometimes called the “Age of Inscriptions”, during which epigraphy was recognized as a source of ancient history on a par with philology and archaeology. The overall aim of the present article is to show how Quaresmio, while continuing a medieval tradition of Franciscan scholarship, improved upon epigraphical study by deploying a specific technology, namely the visual rendering of uncial inscriptions in printed form. His rigorous observations, however, would have come to naught without the technical mastery of the Flemish printer-typographer Balthasar Moretus (1574–1641). Following previous developments in pilgrimage literature, where inscriptions – especially the Crusader epitaphs at the foot of Calvary – were commonplace, Quaresmio studied inscriptions not only as texts, but also considered their formal and material aspects. Ultimately, the present study argues that these Latin epigraphic texts played a role in the man’s theological argumentation and in the defence of the loca sancta as Latin possession.

Keywords:

• epigraphy
• Holy Land
• Franciscan Order
• crusades
• typography
• pilgrimage

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I am very grateful to Sundar Henny, Richard Oosterhoff, and the anonymous reviewers for their feedback. This study is part of the GRAPH-EAST project on the inscriptions and graffiti in the Latin alphabet in the eastern Mediterranean during the Middle Ages. This ERC Starting grant project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 948390.

2. Tully and Leahy, Jerusalem Afflicted, chapter 5, “The Preacher in Palestine”; De Sandoli, Quaresmio Francesco, Elucidatio, I–II; and more generally on Biblical criticism, Miert, Nellen, Steenbakkers, and Touber, Scriptural Authority and Biblical Criticism.

3. On the Holy Sepulchre: Corbo, Il Santo Sepolchro di Gerusalemme; Biddle, The Tomb of Christ; Griffith-Jones and Fernie, Tomb and Temple.

4. On the Nativity church: Bagatti, Gli antichi edifici sacri di Betlemme; Kühnel, Wall painting, 1-147; Bacci, The mystic cave; Kühnel, The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

5. De Sandoli, Quaresmio, I–II; Tully and Leahy, Jerusalem Afflicted, 70–3.

6. Heyberger, Les chrétiens du Proche-Orient, 197–200; Ritsema van Eck, The Holy Land in Observant Franciscan Texts, 192–200.

7. Vuilleumier Laurens and Laurens, L’Âge de l’inscription.

8. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 1, XXXI.

9. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 1, XXXII: “sanctorum locorum cognition plurimum conducit, tum ad alia, tum ad sacrae scripturae intelligentiam.”

10. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 1, XXXI.

11. Ibid.: “Scripserunt alii ut viderunt, alii ut audierunt, et alii aliquando non diligenter adverterunt; sed tamquam cursors praetierunt, quare a se ipsis visa, diligenter et fideliter scriptis consignare non potuerunt.”

12. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 2, 672.

13. On the concept of autopsia, see Daston, “Authenticity, Autopsia.”

14. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 2, 640: “primoque aliqua ex aliis relata, deinde a nobis et aliis oculatis testibus diligenter adnotata explicabimus.”

15. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 2, 645: caput XIII De picturis et scripturis quae adhuc cernuntur in Ecclesia Sancta Maria Bethlehem. Saint Mary’s was the former name of the Nativity Church.

16. Gomez-Géraud, Le Crépuscule du grand voyage, 470–2.

17. Re’em, Ingrand-Varenne, and Berkhovitch. “Surviving Three Cycles of Destruction”; Roger, La Terre Sainte, I, 117.

18. Campopiano, Writing the Holy Land, 168–75, 339.

19. For correction on the basis of autopsy, see the case of Falck mentioned in the Introduction to this Special Issue. Miniature replicas of the tombs were also brought home by pilgrims, see Henny and Shalev, “Jerusalem Reformed,” 817 n. 85.

20. Huygens, Peregrinationes tres.

21. Brizay and Sarrazin, Érudition et culture savante, 7–15; Grafton, The Footnote.

22. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 2, 500–1.

23. There is one inscription in Hebrew for the well-known trilingual case of the titulus of the Cross, which was preserved in the Church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome (Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 2, 397). As it was not in the Holy Land, we will leave this complex example aside. For previous studies, see: Georgi, Rüfenacht, and Brinkmann, Archäologie des Heils, 130–7; Schwab, Grafton, The Art of Discovery, 109–61.

24. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 2, 645.

25. Gagoshidze, “Georgian Inscriptions in the Holy Land”; Kühnel, “Neue Feldarbeiten Zur Musivischen,” 512.

26. See now Datchev, “Ciriaco d’Ancona.”

27. Stenhouse, Reading Inscriptions & Writing Ancient History.

28. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 1, XXXVII: “His accedit, quod, cum Mediolano discederem, ut sanctam Ierosolymorum peregrinationem assumerem, reverentiae gratia adierim Reverendiss. Georgium Odelscalcum Viglevani episcopum, tunc Mediolani existentem, qui me coram serio adhortatus fuit, ut opusculum quoddam de locis sanctis conficerem, in quo loca sancta geographice delinearem, et illorum historiam referrem […] Mecum ergo cogitans, quomodo huic tanto praesuli ex parte satisfacerem, cum artis delineatoriae imperitus loca sancta et ipsorum ruinas geographice delineare non possem; existimavi, melius me ei morem gesturum, si loca sancta studiosius enuclearem, et ab aliis praetermissa adderem.”

29. Timm, Der Palästina-Pilgerbericht des Bernhard von Breidenbach.

30. Zuallart, Le très dévot voyage; On Zuallart, see Williams, Pilgrimage and Narrative, 66–77; Gomez-Géraud, Le crépuscule du grand voyage, 199–218; Henny and Shalev, “Jerusalem Reformed,” 806–9.

31. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 2, 369.

32. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 2, 482.

33. Barret-Kriegel, Mabillon.

34. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 1, XXXI.

35. Ibid.: “Sacratissima haec ecclesia olim pulcherimis picturis et scripturis exornabatur, quas pro majori parte edax voravit tempus et infidelium barbaries and injuria consumpsit. De reliquis agemus in praesentia … ” Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 15:234.

36. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 2, 673.

37. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 2, 645; Bacci, Mystic Cave, 88–9.

38. Stenhouse, “Epigraphy and Technology,” 23–44; Stenhouse, The Paper Museum Of Cassiano Dal Pozzo and more generally, see Stenhouse, “Epigraphical Research.”

39. Germain-de-Franceschi, D’encre et de poussière, 170.

40. See, e.g. his recent book: Grafton, Inky Fingers.

41. For the history of the Plantin Press, see Rooses, Catalogue du Musée Plantin-Moretus; Rooses, Le Musée Plantin-Moretus; Voet, Golden Compasses; Bowen and Imhof, Christopher Plantin and Engraved Book Illustrations; Proot, Sordet, and Vellet, ed., Un siècle d’excellence typographique.

42. De Nave, “A Printing Capital,” 93.

43. Rooses, Le Musée Plantin-Moretus, 299–301. On this woodcutter: Myers, “Rubens et les gravures sur bois de Christoffel Jegher.” The term ‘inscription’ in Myers’ article is undoubtedly to be taken in a broad sense, as we have only counted 107 epigraphic texts using specific characters in the second volume of the Elucidatio, and less than a dozen in the first volume.

44. Voet, Golden Compasses, 201.

45. Smetius, Inscriptionum Antiquarum.

46. Tedeschi, “Histoire et préhistoire”; Ingrand-Varenne, “L’écriture en jeu.”

47. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 2, 160; Pringle, The Churches, vol. III, 98–103, no. 292.

48. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 2, 482.

49. For Thurneysen, see the Introduction to this Special Issue, and Bulang, “Die Welterfahrung des Autodidakten.” For Crusius as an antiquarian, see Calis, “Reconstructing the Ottoman Greek World.”

50. See Sawilla, Antiquarianismus, esp. 323.

51. Ibid.

52. On this topic, see Hardy and Levitin, Confessionalisation and Erudition.

53. Heyberger, Les chrétiens du Proche-Orient, 194.

54. Tully and Leahy, Jerusalem Afflicted.

55. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 2, 160: “Ad ejus latus dextrum, id est Aquilonare, erant scripturae, quae modo ex majori parte, sicut et aliae picturae, prae nimia vetustate et humiditate sublatae sunt et abolitae; quae tamen remanserunt, quoniam non exiguam fidem afferre videntur his quae de sancto loco asseruntur, hic adnotare placuit.”

56. Quaresmio, Elucidatio, vol. 1, XXXI: “addeo enim ea mutate novimus, ut nec pristinae formae vestigium, non dico pulchritudinem et candorem, servare videantur; imo plurimum nec reliquiae, imo ne memoria quidem remansit in mentibus hominum.”

57. Lidov, “Hierotopy: The Creation of Sacred Spaces”; Lidov, Hierotopy.

58. Buffon, “Les Franciscains en Terre sainte.”

59. Armstrong, “Jerusalem in the Reinvention of the Catholic Tradition,” 11–12. More generally, see Armstrong, The Holy Land.

60. Heyberger, Les chrétiens du Proche-Orient, 219.

61. For the conflicts between the different ethno-religious Christian entities and Ottoman policy about them, see Peri, Christianity under Islam.

62. Heyberger, Les chrétiens du Proche-Orient, 221–2.

63. Ritsema van Eck, The Holy Land in Observant Franciscan Texts, 201.

64. Ibid., 206 and 209.

65. Hénin, “Ceci est un bœuf,” 76–8 and 86–9.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Research Council [948390].

Notes on contributors

Estelle Ingrand-Varenne

Estelle Ingrand-Varenne is a CNRS researcher at the Centre d’études supérieures de civilisation médiévale in Poitiers, specializing in medieval epigraphy. After having studied the shift of inscriptions from Latin to French, and publishing two volumes of the Corpus des inscriptions de la France médiévale, her research focus turned to the Outremer. She is the principal investigator of the ERC GRAPH-EAST on the inscriptions and graffiti in Latin alphabet in the eastern Mediterranean (seventh–sixteenth centuries), and is currently working on the epigraphy of the holy places in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.