In its twenty-fifth and closing session in 1563, the Council of Trent issued its decree “On the invocation and veneration of saints, on the relics of saints, and on sacred images.” The succinct text, citing the ancient authority of the Second Council of Nicaea (787), reaffirms the appropriate use of religious art for devotional and instructional practice. The decree is typically discussed as a response to Protestant complaints of idolatry or, alternatively, how it was or was not enacted post-Trent. Wietse De Boer's superb book delves into the intense mid-sixteenth-century debates among Catholic scholars, primarily Dominicans, about sacred images. Thomas Aquinas's only remark on the topic (“The same reverence should be shown to an image of Christ as to Christ himself” [9]) shaped many of the subsequent scholastic debates.
De Boer divides his book into two parts—history and documents. In the first part, he explores the basic premises about sacred images including their problem of materiality. This provides an excellent foundation as he addresses the disputes prior to 1563, including the influential St. Germain disputation in late 1561 and 1562 in Paris as well as the contributions of the Diego Laínez, the Superior General of the Jesuits, at Trent. De Boer delves deeply into some of the basic issues, such as the nature of the honor owed to an image, which delegates at Trent debated. He concludes by examining how the Trent decree and also other image-related writings influenced post-Tridentine responses, including those of Gabriele Paleotti, Jéronimo Nadal, and Roberto Bellarmino.
De Boer's analysis is based heavily on the primary texts by the Dominicans Martín Pérez de Ayala, Matthieu Ory (including his exchange with Jean Calvin), Ambrogio Catarino Politi, and Iacopo Nacchianti. He includes their writings in original Latin and, side-by-side, modern English translations. De Boer also provides a previously unknown draft of the Tridentine decree that he compares with the final version.
I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in the early modern image debate. De Boer enriches our understanding of the heterogeneous opinions and intense discussions among leading Catholic theologians before, during, and after 1563.
