Seventeenth-Century Bound Engravings

Jacques Honervogt. Solitudo sive vitae foeminarum anachoritarum. Paris: Chez Iollain, 1666. (BRB0232/A)

[bound with:] Trophaeum vitae solitariae. Paris: Chez Iollain, [1654?] (BRB0232/B)

[bound with:] Oraculum anachoreticum. [Paris]:  Chez Iollain, [n.d., but c. 1654]. (BRB0232/C)

[bound with:]  Monumenta Sa[n]ctioris philosophie quam severa Anachoretarum disciplina vitae et religio docuit. [Paris]:  Chez Iollain, [n.d., but c. 1654]. (BRB0232/D)

[bound with:] Solitudo sive vitae patrum eromicolarum per antiquissimum patrem D. Hieronimum eorundem primorium olim conscripta: iam vero primum aeneis lamininis idque. Paris: Chez Iollain, [n.d., but c. 1654]. (BRB0232/E)

The five suites of engravings bound together in this single volume concern hermits and saints.  Engraved and published in Paris in the mid-seventeenth century, the plates follow the works of Marten de Vos (1532–1603) which had been successfully issued half a century earlier by the Munich publishers Jan and Raphael Sadeler. Collectively the images present an encyclopedic vision of solitary spiritual life pursued by men and women.  In Solitudo sive vitae foeminarum anachoritarum, a work devoted solely to women religious figures, is this engraving of Saint Colette (1381–1447), a native of Corbie in Picardy who established seventeen convents in her lifetime and also founded the Colettines, one of the major branches of the Poor Clares.