MARY. WIERCX (Hieronymus):

Vita Deiparae Virginis Mariae.

      Publisher: [?Rome], Hieronymus Wierx inuentor Henricus van Schoel excudit, c. 1600Small 12mo-size volume, 146 x 100 mms., consisting of title-page and 20 full-page engraved plates, engraved on recto only, the leaves measuring 137 x 91 mms., and the plate area, 94 x 60 mms., including Latin captions underneath the illustration, with three blank leaves before title-age and three after last engraved plate, bound in full contemporary stiff vellum; plate 1 slightly defective with some loss of text under illustration, but repaired with contemporary paper, neat paper repair on verso of plate 14, another paper repair to verso of plate 17, small repair to lower corners of plates 18 and 19, short tears in fore-margins of plates 12 and 15, but a fine copy with very clear impressions of the plates. The plates were engraved by Hieronymus Wierx (or Wierix; 1533 - 1619), one of the greatest Flemish artists of the 16th and early 17th century, who with his brothers Antoine and Johann made a significant contribution to Flemish art history in that period. The printer and publisher Hendrick van Schoel (d. 1624), also Flemish, had a printing shop in Rome, and he is probably best-known for his maps. The plates depict the birth of Mary, the mother of Christ, mentioning her putative mother, Anna, in plate 2. The first five plates cover her life until the visitation of the angel Gabriel in plate 6. The subsequent plates depict the birth of Christ and his life and death, concluding with two plates about Mary's death and assumption into heaven. This pictorial representation of Mary's life possibly derives from the biography by Fancois Coster (1532 - 1619), De vita et laudibus Deiparae Mariae Virginis (1587). No copies traced in any library.