Porträt Matthias Flacius Illyricus (1520-1575)

Portrait of Matthias Flacius Illyricus. The German theologian is presented here as a half-figure to the right. His tired looking gaze passes the viewer to the left. His arms seem intertwined in front of the hull He wears simple clothes and a cap on his head, which does not show if he wears a wig. But a bark is visible. Above the effigy there is a lettering and under the effigy a German saying. The whole is rectangular. The paper is a book page with seven double pages of text. After an educational trip in Venice, Matthias Flacius Illyricus studied at the universities of Basel, Tübingen and Wittenberg. At the latter he received an extraordinary professorship of the Hebrew language, which he practiced from 1545 to 1549. In Magdeburg he was involved in the elaboration of the Magdeburg Centuria. In 1557 he became professor and superintendent at the University of Jena. There he was released a few years later, then went to Regensburg, Antwerp and Strasbourg and finally fled to his death due to his fierce dispute with the clergymen. Stecher or signer are not noted in the sheet. However, the paper was frontispiece of the magazine “Innocent News of Old and New Theological Stuff” by Johann Friedrich Braun (1672-1721), who worked in Leipzig from 1707 to 1721. The earliest sheet that may serve as a template here is a woodcut and type print of 1567/1600, the manufacturer of which is unknown. It is now in the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg. Caption: WARE BILDNVS MATHIE FLACII ILLIIRICI D. D. W. G. A. AE. S. 1571. SEIDR D: LVTHERVS IS GESTORBEN His Majesty WILL BE WILL WILL BE WOLN DOCH GUT EVANGELIAN HIS GOD A PROB SO SAVED MANS FEIN WELCHE IS CALCULATED CHRISTICAL ART O INTERIM DHASTS OFFENBART Aö 47.