Displaying Gift-Giving: Thesis Prints in the Spanish Netherlands

de Mûelenaere, Gwendoline
(2016) “Placing Prints: New Developments in the Study of Print, 1400-1800”. Annual Renaissance Early Modern Postgraduate Symposium — Location: Courtauld Institute of Art, London (12.February.2016)

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Abstract
In the early modern period, public disputations related to the grant of academic degrees led to the publication of engraved broadsheets summarising the thesis conclusions. The disputatio was an important learning practice at institutions of higher education. And it was used as a form of examination concluding a bachelor, master or doctor’s degree in Philosophy, Law, Medicine and Theology. From the early 17th century, this new genre developed into large-sized and abundantly illustrated documents and spread in Catholic countries. This paper will focus on the circulation of thesis prints produced in the Southern Low Countries, and how this influenced their iconography. The broadsides were not intended for the traditional print market, but they were mainly designed and issued to be given to members of social and intellectual elites. The act of gift-giving is expressed in the written dedication to the protector going along the scientific conclusions. But it is also visually staged through a mise en abyme, when the broadside depicts its own presentation to the student’s sponsor. It is worthwhile to study these visual and textual constructions, in order to understand the functioning and intentions of thesis engravings in the sociopolitical context of courtly patronage at university and Jesuit colleges.
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de Mûelenaere, G. (2016). Displaying Gift-Giving: Thesis Prints in the Spanish Netherlands. “Placing Prints: New Developments in the Study of Print, 1400-1800”. Annual Renaissance Early Modern Postgraduate Symposium, Courtauld Institute of Art, London. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/227208